 Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LPF. I'm right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. I'm DJ Douter 5 and we're recording this on Sunday morning, June 25th, 2023. As usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. I'm the Wombat. I got ants. You got ants. It is what it is. I'm going to clean up. And we also have, as a special guest, a Boudreau from Kentucky. Is that correct? Yep, the fellows. Yep. Digital Freethought Radio Hours to talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. Conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faith, God's holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not a guarantee it. In Knoxville, in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a group of over a thousand of us. We're the Atheist Society of Knoxville, or ASK. And we'll tell you more about us after the mid-show break. Be sure to stick around. Wombat, what's our topic today? Why can't we testify in court and basically the history of religion and atheism when it comes to litigation and serving ourselves in our judicial circles? Before we get into that, I'd like to do a quick little roundup, see how everybody's doing, and then we can go into the meat and potatoes of the show. Boudreau, we start with you. How you been, my friend? I've been good. I've been working hard to rearrange my schedule to make sure I can get on more calls. So, nice. Nice. I'm trying to do that. I've got a orange theory. I can see that, but I used to do that Sunday mornings, but now I've kind of moved it to Sunday at noon. I'm checking in with you, too. How's your enterprise of selling Star Wars toys and disc golf discs going? Man, I don't think I have the patience. I've got to put stuff out there and it's just nothing. I think I still have something on there that's just one of those eBay indefinite just sits there and it gets nothing. So, I'll wait. I don't know. You ever thought of sweetening the pond just making it cheaper so you could just get rid of the stuff? Yeah, I have. But you're just like, nah, at this point, it's not sentimental. I might as well just keep it. Yeah. I know this is a conversation with you and your wife all the time. So, I don't want to cry. I don't want to cry. No, it really isn't a conversation all the time. You and my wife might have a conversation all the time. Okay. I've been doing pretty good. I've been doing some car repair, but more importantly, more interestingly, commercials come out from my company where I'm the star of it. They did a whole filming session at my job. Just used me as a talent and we got to do a bunch of walkthrough, a lot of b-rolls. We got to go to a local school where we do some volunteer work, get some shots of me talking to the kids, and then going out to a disc golf course and doing some shots over there. It was really fun and the final commercial came out felt really good. Maybe feel really special. The end of the fiscal year is this month and in July is when it will be released. So, I'll be happy to share it with everybody once it's out. But so far, I'm really happy to just get some, it feels good to be in a place where you feel recognized and appreciated. That's all I can say. Cool. And yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Larry, what's up with you? Don't just tell me motorcycles and video games or I'll be really jealous. Motorcycles and video games. Oh no. Matter of fact, there's no motorcycles this week. It's been raining all week. In the 15 year old, you could meet the, the, the, the 80 year, how 70, how old are you? 73. 73 year old version. You're just like, what do you do? You're old. It's like, no, video games and motorcycles. Like, oh, I can't wait till I get old. Do I still have to go to school? It's like. You have to work though. I still have to work. You still have to work. Larry, would you mind introducing the topic? Oh, yeah. Well, it, the way I have it down is why, why don't we argue religion in court? Um, you know, we go to courts to determine truth, you know, about matters, legal and otherwise. But we never bring religion into court. I mean, other than maybe swearing on the Bible. Lately people have been swearing on all kinds of books that they have not held that a Bible had to be used. Matter of fact, a lot of times it makes no sense. Why would I go to court and swear in a Bible? Right. So just why don't we go to court with these religious claims and try to determine the truth of them? We, I think we have in some examples, but before we get into more specifics, Eric, do you have ideas of like why. Why there's so much religious pageantry around the legal system, you know, like swearing on Bibles, taking oaths. The idea that, you know, you could be a Hindu and you show up at an American court and you're like, uh, can I get a different book? And it's like, oh, that we don't do that here, sir. Like this is a brand. And God, we trust on the back of like books and, and the way how we refer to like certain judges and stuff like that. Any ideas? I'd have to say the old, the only game in town, you know, we've said the same thing about, you know, even universities and some, some older, you know, academics were rooted in religion because that was the only game in town back then. And many, many years ago. So it's kind of when, you know, reports are set up. I imagine, you know, religion was just such an important part of it that, you know, it had to have a seat. It had to have a relationship. But I'm with Larry, though, I'm kind of scratching my head now thinking, you know, we've got some big debates, big questions. Why can't we put those into the court of law system and, and, and handle it that way, you know, like, have someone make an argument for some religious claim and say, objection. No, your evidence. Got hoping to do it. Yeah. Well, it is a long time ago, a couple hundred years ago, we used to allow. Yeah. What they used to call spectral evidence. Sure it is. And of course that led to witch trials and burnings at the stake, things like that until they finally put, I think it was Governor Higgs, if I remember the name correctly, put an end to it, saying, you know, there's nothing to really back these up anybody can make a claim. Sure. And, you know, unless you can back it up with evidence, then why believe the claim. Especially when somebody's life is at stake. I'm sorry, go ahead. So we know like which trials but like that's going on today, like if you look at honor killings going on in Middle East, like people are using religious grounds to hurt and harm people needlessly, and I find it to be really disgusting. You know, I didn't like it back then I don't like it now. I wish we could just take it to court and be like, Hey, everybody. This is our new standard of evidence. Let's just, you know, this is going to be in benefit for everybody, whereas otherwise we're like stuck to listening to other people's agendas. I like, Bujo, how do you feel about medieval Europe. You remember nights. You're a Star Wars buff, you know, like nights and stuff like that. For medieval Europe, Star Wars, I feel like there's some sort of parallels there. But I, I also find that for medieval Europe, it was heavily early the most powers that would be were, you know, predominantly Christian. And the, and let me know if this is fair I'd love to hear if this is fair interpretation, but it court cases or matters of the truth were not based on science but were handled by the church. And so, in a lot of cases, if you didn't conform to the Christian faith, such as if you were a Jew or Muslim, you might be excluded from testifying in court altogether and your testimony or atheist. Oh, oh, that's that's especially now that's just an immediate death sentence. If you're a Jew, they'll be like we'll go to war with you, but we're on this. We're not as bad as those heathens over there. Anyway, the idea would be like if you're, if you're a Christian you have like an extra advantage in testifying in court because you have a credible you'd be seen as more credible but if you're Jewish or Muslim and you're trying to testify especially in a European stage you'd have a much harder time off. And at times, I find that to be, let me know if that's fair. I find that to be a way to keep people in your faith, particularly if you're in that circle, because if you're not, and someone says, Oh, his land is my land. It's like, that's not true. This has always been my land. It's like, no, this guy is not even a Christian. Look at him. Look at him. He's he's undeserving. God told me that this was hit my land. He's like, Oh, dang, they're doing the God angle. Dang it. How's that evidence? Yeah, God in Israel is the real estate agent. What do you guys think? Is that fair? It's kind of like middle school. It's kind of like the cool kids. It's kind of like, you know, if you get into, there's a group of people that everybody kind of mysteriously, even maybe subconsciously decided that they're all the cool ones. And if you're not, you know, part of their team, part of their, their party and whatever else, yeah, you're, you're, you're one of the outcast. Eric, Eric, we're delving into some personal things now. Who are the cool kids at your school? How are you not the cool kid? Real school, I feel like, I don't know, I was a group in Wisconsin and I was a skateboard punk kid. So you're a punk kid. I was a punk. Yeah. The punk kids were the cool kids. I don't know. We were, we were probably the outcast. Okay. Yeah. There's no such thing as a mainstream punk kid back in like 80s or whatever you had it. That was like, you were the, that's the, it would make cartoons and movies out of you guys. That's everyone aspires to be now. They want, it's like, how can it be an outcast? What do I have, what hair, what color do I have to dye my hair to stand out and be an outcast now? Yeah. And you had long hair. You have, you used to have like a crazy long mullet sort of thing going on too, right? You had the beautiful long hair pulled in the ponytail. Oh yeah. Yeah. This guy's didn't real. So like in my head, there's, you go to school and you either don't find the cool kids, which means you are the cool kid. Or, you know, or you're, you're with the cool kids and you realize, ah, those kids are much cooler. I had the advantage of when I was in high school going to a lot of different schools. And when one school I was misinterpreted as one of the cool kids and all the cool kids did was sit on a bleacher the entire lunch period and that's it. And they barely even had like any meaningful small talk. I'm like, this is boring. I would rather play yo-yos and basketball or Pokemon. You guys wasted my time. I'm going to go hang out with the not so cool kids and I had a lot more fun. And then overall I felt like I was more cool just being myself. You know, like I said, all depends on who you ask. You know, if you're a member of a group that's, you know, 50% of the class, you can just call yourself the cool kids and then cast out other people or judge other people. But I want to pull this back to medieval Europe just real quick because I think it's a racket and I feel like that's how it's set us up for today. And that's essentially you if you're if you're in Muslim controlled territories and go to court and you're Christian, you're at a disadvantage. And that helps people in that area stay Muslim. If you're in a Jewish area and you're not and you're a Muslim, that's going to be a disadvantage. So it helps that that that culture stay Jewish. And the same thing for Christianity so Christianity wins a bunch of wars and just takes over the world. And it helps people who have to conform for another reason to a particular dogmatic system, not because it's true, but just because it's the powers that be. And I feel like that trickles down from Europe trickles down to colonial America trickles down to English common law and all the way to modern society, where you still have this effect of this large group saying, you want to be seen in front of your peers as a moral, upstanding person because we have a monopoly on those things, credibility, loyalty, family values, morality, ethics. You have to be Christian and you have to admit that you're Christian to everybody and you have to swear in a Bible that you're Christian in front of anybody, because the second you say that you don't conform to this religion, or you're not a part of our congregation or you're an outsider. And that's on what the peer judges judging you like a peer, a panel of your peers, judging you that puts you at a, I would say, at a high stakes disadvantage when your welfare could be at stake. And I find that to be really unfortunate. Yeah, especially during the time of the Inquisition. Let's not forget that the Inquisition Inquisition lasted 400 years and only ended in the 1800s. Right, it wasn't a long time ago. And I also say this to I brought up colonial America there. There are instances where only approved denominations of Christianity were allowed to testify. And so you could say, hey, I'm a Christian. Well, so if you ask people in America now, like, I'm a Christian, it's like, what do you mean by that? What that can mean? That can mean so many different things like I'm non-denominational. That's typically maybe sometimes the follow up answer or I'm a third street Baptist, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you know, I take a little bit of this and that and my wife's ex-wife is like, you have back in colonial America, you have to be very specific brands of Christianity or nothing was allowed. And then there was like a very set list. And so it was less bifurcated as it was. And they were divided by regions and really areas, you know, right. Right. And we didn't get to Mary. No, probably not. No, no. And so yeah, in Tennessee, we have a little bit of that now. There's Church of Christ, which sounds like it's just a regular church, but it's actually a straight up, very strict idea of what Christianity is and is not like a non-inconventionist God. There's no Holy Spirit talking to you. You can't do XYZ. You have to marry within the church. It's very interesting. And some of my friends who we've had talks with have come out of that religion and realized how bizarre that there were different versions of Christianity that they were never exposed to. Because for them, you're either in the church or you weren't in the church. In the information bubble, as it were. Right. And there was no such thing as other Christians. Like this was the group who was going to heaven and not. And I'm like, you're, you had the internet. You had so much accessible to you and you didn't even know that. So imagine someone like that going to like get in a car accident or a bumper and they go to the go to court and they're like, do you swear on blah, blah, blah. It's like, which Bible is that? Or we don't swear. Sorry. We don't swear into that's not my Bible. What is this? Who are you guys? This is very bizarre. I've only talked to people who agree with me since I was born. But yeah, up until 19th century, for English common law, that's what we're that's what we're improving upon even today. You have to take an oath before you testify in court. And that was up to the 19th century. Now you don't have to now you can just give a firm right. It's different for every state and some states try to sneak in more God stuff. Let me guess the southern ones. Yes. So you can look at some of the us that are like in California and of course I would say California has probably the best one because it's like, yeah, I will, I will tell the truth. I swear to be blah, blah, blah. But in Tennessee, there's like some it's like a long preamble and there's some stuff they sneak in or and I'll pull it up in the second half to show if anyone's interested in but more than likely you can check it out yourself. Your, your edicts for swearing oaths in court just vary from state to state, even to the point where, even if I had to give that oath, I'd be like, listen, I'm an atheist, I don't want to say that. And they'll be like, aha, you're an atheist, therefore we know you're not telling the truth. I'm just like, well, if it's that's the case, then how do you know I'm an atheist, because you said so, but you know I can't tell the truth. Aha, I'm confused now everyone's confused now so bizarre. Eric, what do you, what do you think about the idea of swearing on a Bible if you had to do that to say you're in a, you go back in time, and you're like hey I'm just there from from the future it's like you got to prove that swear on this Bible what would you do. I wouldn't give it any credit for helping people tell the truth but you have to, you have to picture that you're, if you're on the stand and you put your hand on the Bible and say something, you've got a jury of your peers right that jury of your peers is made up of people seemingly selected, right, and odds are, half of them are or more. Well, let's maybe depending where you live, they're more likely to be, you know, half or more religious, right, especially so. So, even as if you want to. The question is, do you want to make your point and make, make a stand on the stand so to speak, or do you want to have those people believe what you're saying, and if it's a ladder, you're better off just put your hand on a lion and pretending like you believe, right. Yeah, Larry, what do you think Larry, well I was just, I was just going to say depending on how far back in time you're sending him, it could be worth your life, whether or not you put your hand on the Bible and swear on it. Yeah, is that was that what you're saying I was going back in time to like the 1800s. Yeah sure why not. I think I was reading that the first admitted atheist wasn't even until like the mid 1800s. Now of course it, that's just the term I mean, obviously there have been atheists well before that but and then, but but I think like the first like group. I was reading this, the other day so I think that's right like something like 1860s or something which is amazing. So yeah, don't nobody's calling themselves an atheist anytime before that. Right. Yeah, well, I think it was Aristotle was put to death on the charge of atheism, but I really think it was more that he was just the taker and they said that he didn't believe in the gods that they believed in. Right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it goes all the way back over to them. And the weird thing is, is he was tried by people who did believe in that system, including not just his peers but like the authoritarians the judges who hold those beliefs and we have that same disadvantage even today because there are judges who, you know might be very smart very legal practice but from a young age, we're operating under a deep cognitive bias that could be reinforced by the fact that they are smart, and they are capable, but are operating under really poor dogmatic thinking when it regards to religious belief. And so they may harbor bias or by our prejudices against atheists and so when you say that in court, the judge is like, Oh, I don't like that I'm like you're supposed to be impartial come on dude. What's going on, Larry, what do you think? I just wanted to correct myself before all of our listeners corrected me it wasn't Aristotle, it was Socrates. That's what I thought you were talking about, but Aristotle was also great. Socrates. Okay, can I turn the table then and ask either one of you. Hey, you go into the court of law today. And you're asked to swear in a Bible, you've got a jury of your peers over there and you're really trying to convince them of something. Yeah, you risk it and do you say I'm an atheist I don't want to do the Bible thing or you just play along. Yeah, because if I would I would admit it because I have so much media of me out here already admitting that I am that I wouldn't want to set myself up for an easy trap saying oh he's just pretending he's godly, because he's just trying to win your favor over like I can say, you know, it is what it is. But the less I try to hide something on a court stand, you know, the better. And if I can just rely on my defense attorney to just say hey I'm going to be honest. And here's where I'm at and this is the strategy that would come up with I'm not going to try to set myself up to pretend to be someone I'm not. I think that could be easily something to take advantage of by like a prosecution team, particularly with. That was the classic. And here's answer right there. Oh really. Oh yeah, you're still awake. Look at that. You do the same Larry. Yes, absolutely. I mean, you can probably problem this thing up and down and you know make it to where it was, you know, a fringe case to where like the whole jury is very clearly religious and, and you're trying to you're trying to convince them that your best friend didn't murder or whatever and you have very flimsy defense and all that and I think there's you could find a fringe case where I would be like, you know, I'm going to play it safe and I would just say I prefer to just wear on the Constitution doesn't copy of the Constitution. Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's really good. That's great. That's a good way to play it. Larry should be my defense attorney. I always said he should be a lawyer in like a Matlock ask TV show. Well, I went to college in my to become a lawyer but I was disillusioned after a while. Give me the Constitution I love America so much you can say that on the stand that's fine. I think Sarah Silverman as a really neat quote about about swearing on the Bible she's like, you know when I tell the truth I tell the truth. I don't put my hand on a book and make a wish. Yeah. And I don't know if this is fair. I don't want to make the conversation too awkward but it would be the equivalent of me like trying to pretend I'm not black while I'm on the stand. And I don't want to hide who I am. And if some people have a problem with that that's their problem. Right. And I don't want to like go through my life step tiptoeing on eggshells I'm just gonna be like there's pavement right here. I like walking out pavement if you're an actual that's you. That is a you problem sort of thing not a my problem to make you happy sort of thing right and and as true it is is there's nothing wrong being black there's nothing wrong being an atheist fact I find that the movie the most intellectually honest position. Specifically, no stick atheism someone claimed they know that God doesn't exist I might have just as many questions of them, as I would for any of these. Right. But it's like the literal best position to be in and if you just, if anyone's confused about that you can have like a one minute diagram session where you just say no stick agnostic atheist no stick agnostic theists, and they'll be like, that makes sense. One's about belief and one's about knowledge. Right, right. And they'll be like, Oh, I guess I should learn what an atheist is from another atheist rather than just my pastor, which is another whole topic we could cover someday. Oh, where do you get your information about atheism. Yeah. Hey, we'll go into potentially that and some other issues with long quitting custody familial battles, the ownership of morality but we'll do it after this break. Sure. This is the digital free thought radio hour on w o z o radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Hello and welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on w o z o radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's take just a moment to talk about the atheist society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002 we're in our 21st year now and have over 1000 members. We have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening at Knoxville's old city at Barley's taproom in Pete's area. Look for us inside at the high top tables or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. Um, ask we sorry if you'd like to join us email us at ask an atheist at Knoxville atheists.org, or let's chat s e at gmail.com. You can find us online at facebook.com meetup.com or Knoxville atheists.org which is our website, or you can just Google Knoxville atheists is just that simple. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. All right. Right. Where do you want to pick up. So I wanted to talk about how this has affected us in the real world and and by us I mean us like globally right but in modern times so I pulled us some examples of custody and familial law cases. Where family law cases, including like who can raise a child, right? What can that be based off of normally when I see stuff like this I'd like to say like, can the child be raised in a safe environment is the is the parent capable of raising the child in environment where they can afford to give the child access to the things they need to help care, food, shelter. The last thing I want to be a considering factor is the parents atheism, or or religious or non religious belief honestly, and we've had examples even up to the 90s late 90s where cases, oftentimes in the south but sometimes even in New York and stuff like that have ruled against the parent solely based on the fact that they're an atheist and I just want to cover some of those examples with you. This is an example in 1996, from a ninth of a Texas court. When I say 90s, when I say the 90s you guys are like oh the 90s but the kids, some of the kids who watch your show are like wow was it black and white back then I'm like no no no space jam job. First one drop it's like oh the one for Bron James like no no no no let me show you some cool stuff. Anyway, that was a case in Texas, it ruled that a mother couldn't raise her child after a divorce because of her atheism. That was the relevant point to determine the custody and the court considered that the mother's lack of religious belief was the main factor for deciding that the child's upbringing would have been based on a lack of moral and spiritual development quote unquote. And I'm like whoa that's so bizarre but anyway that court's decision was later reversed. Larry what do you think. Yeah I think I would appeal, appealed on the fact that a spiritualism couldn't be proven and ask them to prove it in court. In court. That's right. If they're going to use that to take my child away from me you darn right I'd carry it on up to the Supreme Court. Yeah, proving court that this is an actual thing before you can decide that. You can't have my kid. Right. Thankfully that court's decision was later appealed, reversed and on appeal, and they emphasize that religious beliefs alone should not determine custody arrangements. Can you imagine though being 1996 in the Texas court and being like hey you can't raise your kid because you don't believe in God like. So I don't want to nail my son to a cross like there's not even good examples of fatherhood in the Bible there's a funny little tangent I want to just go on real quick I have a friend who's a Christian. I like hanging out with him he has a daughter I like hanging out with the like the little baby. And one of the things he keeps talking about is like stuff that's in the news. He's talking about some pretty harmful things like murders, just openly murders. I, there was this guy who shot like 40 guys in the school, and I don't know why I really see what killers are coming about. And then there was this weird thing with annual talk about. I don't know if I can say this I need pedophiles. And I'd be like, Oh my gosh that's terrible. And then I'd be like what pedophiles what the hell, and he'd be like hey, don't curse in front of my daughter. And he'd be like, Oh, what did I say the P word he's like no you said hell you can't say hell I'm like, that's a place from your holy book is like yeah but you can't say it from it I was like I'll say next time I'll have an outburst I'll just be like, Oh pedophiles and you'll be like that's much better. It's a strange line to draw. I like hanging out with him either way it's great. I'm hoping he's enjoying this time in Florida I don't know if he watches this show I think I've sent him some weeks before. Anyway, um, this was a quiz that happened in. Oh my gosh. 2002 New York case. Matter of Giler and Giler. So, Mary couple. This is an involved couple going through a divorce in New York. The court considered the mother's atheism and the father's religious beliefs as factors in the custody determination, and the court ultimately granted the custody to the father, citing concerns that the mother's atheism would negatively affect the children's religious upbringing. Well I guess it would. Well said Larry well said Larry. Thankfully, that one was also reversed on appeal due to various procedural errors that were not explicit. Now we're not even explicitly on the issue of atheism so she got the appeal and a technicality on that point but that's 2002. What do you think. That sounds suspiciously like they had to repeal it because they had to overturn it because of her arguments and magic. But they didn't want to say it. They didn't want to say we're we're we're overturning this because she's right that religion shouldn't be a factor so they fall on a technicality or right. I wouldn't be too surprised if that's actually what happened. It turned out the judge was just two kids in a trench coat. That happened again. Okay, okay. We'll reverse that. The kids were like we love God. Dang it. That's why two voices are coming out of the judge anyway. I haven't done the case this is also from 1995 but there's there's several of these I pulled up a list just using Google search and I found that in New York in 1995 matter of Patricia M. The court considered a mother's atheism as the main factor for determining custody. The court expressed concerns about the mother's atheist beliefs suggesting that they could negatively affect the children's moral and spiritual development. However, the decision was eventually overturned on appeal with the appeal of court emphasizing that a parent's religious beliefs should not be the sole basis for custody decisions. So this is something that's been going on for a while. You know, it didn't take me a long time to pull up these examples, and I'm sure it's not just in the area of custody that that this is the only issue. The fact is we have judges who are were okay with this for a period of time. And we have to go to an appellate court to reverse it. You know, we have presidents who would probably be okay we have senators who would probably be okay with these initial decisions. And what is it going to take to change the culture of understanding of re of getting this out. What do you think Larry. Well, I've harped on this many times and you're probably tired of hearing about it but let's hear about it. We don't have to know I was saying they should appeal it on the case of spirituality, but basically they're saying that it's the morals and and the truth of the religion basically, but all of its touted on. It's all built on your soul and where it goes. Right. And there never been any good evidence that there's an actual soul that it that they exist or anything exists after the person's death. I think that should be litigated. We should why don't we'll, the thing is, and I would you tell me if this is true is it Sam Harris who says anything else presented without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. It might be pitch but pitch. Yeah. Okay, it's a classic pitch. I'm just saying like, would that motivate anyone to stop believing that conclusion that souls don't exist we put the matter to court is someone said hey, that's belongs to me because it's my soul. And you stole my soul so you owe me XYZ amount of money, and we prove in court that I can't possibly steal a soul because they don't exist. I'm not guilty of stealing someone's soul. Yeah, it's not so much what verdict the the court would take would give on that but I think it would be the evidence that would be made public throughout the course of the trial, because everybody would follow the trial I mean it would be one of the most public trials most followed trials, and all of the evidence that will be brought forth would be digested by a lot of people. Okay, that would help the case. So we would need to be like a celebrity sort of thing where it's like this guy stole my soul. Tom Cruise. And people will be taking it to court and this is like the court on the soul. And so it's like I didn't I can't steal soul and they would show how little evidence there is out there for a soul. And it was like Dr McDougal's soul experiments but it only had a, like, six people that he experimented on and only had to throw out two of them and, and the weird. The, the entire case for the soul was that the body weighs less after you die. And that was not conclusively proven. And even if it was it doesn't mean it was a soul. People don't realize how much your weight fluctuates in the day just from water right just from drinking water it goes up my body weight goes up seven pounds fluctuation just from drinking water I'll wake up, and I'll be, you know, 245. By the end of the day I'll be like 252. And I go to sleep and I'll just sweat and I will breathe some science whenever you breathe there's moisture in your breath it's not because you have a wet inside it's because you're well yes, you're breaking down fat. When you break down fat, one of the components is CO2 and water, right. And when you breathe out you have CO2 in your in your exhales, but you also have water that moisture comes from breaking down fat. So you're breaking down matter, and you're also letting out water, along with gas, all of those have weight, and you're doing that all day long. And so you think about that if you sleep down and just sleep, you're going to be losing body weight just by the back that you're writing, you're exhale, you're exhaling, you are burning off body heat, there's a bunch of stuff going on so when a person dies, think about that. It's not just like they're dead, their body still goes to systematic functions where they're shutting down completely. And so if you wait like with a dead body that recently died, another four hours or so, like they might weigh, what was it the two grams that they said was less when a body's like. They used like this timber thing and with beams, you know, to weigh an entire body and then determine it was only a couple of bounces on a couple of particular cadavers. Yeah, I wrote on it on my site, digital free thought.com if anybody wants to follow up on it. What's the margin of what's the you were talking about. Bujo you were talking about like systematic errors and just how you obtain data. What's the margin on the test like that that would be something I'd love to check. Yeah, or the precision of the instrument or yeah. And the sample size. In this case is only like 34 people. Yeah. Yeah. Cause of death, you know would be a factor of that's an ostrich. I didn't catch him at the exact moment of death too. I mean, you can't kill him so you have to determine when they actually pass another time. Well, you shouldn't kill Larry. No, you shouldn't. I did put in the chat for the, for the people that might watch this on YouTube and bless us with comments. It was it was hit and said it and it's called Hitchens razor in fact. Okay. Nice started without evidence can be dismissed. Now, here's the other thing that or here's the other shoe I would love to see. I'd love to see people be open to the idea of Christianity or being on trial and like listening to the evidence that's presented and being swayed by maybe a lack of evidence, but also I'd love to just see the stigma of an atheism and atheists just go away. I don't think that happens until we have more outspoken atheism by people who aren't motivated to, to debate and argue, which there is a realm for that, like there should be people having debates and there should be people have an argument. But there should also just be car mechanics who are just atheists, you know, they're an atheist, and it's not a big deal. And you just do what you got to do and bring your car to them and you don't say, can you please pray to God and fix my car is like, can you please use your engineering talents to like fix my car and they fix the car. Hey, thanks, Bill. And it's like, and you don't say bless you afterwards. You just like, Hey, thanks for fixing my car. You're really smart. It's like, Oh, thanks. I appreciate that. And just, you just go on your own life and you should be surrounded by people who you don't immediately codify as Christians because you've never experienced other times in different cultures. You should be aware that in a melting pot society like us, there's just different people from different cultures, different societies. Some have religious beliefs that are very different than yours and are still good people. Some don't have any religious beliefs beliefs at all. And there's still good people. Good people are everywhere. You don't need your religious beliefs to be a good person. Like if you just had that if we just had that and people could have the freedom to express themselves religiously or not, but not associate that with morality or credibility that comes from when you're in court. I think we can come. We can make a lot of standing forward but we don't do that unless we're open about who we are. What do you think? No, I think you're absolutely right. And I know we talked about for about, you know, coming out of as atheist and job world can be tough for some people or risky or, or maybe we even think it's risky. I've gotten a lot better about kind of leading with with my thoughts on on religion when I meet people now and I want more brave about it. It's a weird weird just use that term but I think it's right. Yeah. And I think the key thing that needs to change is getting more secular atheist, non religious people in political spheres. That's, I mean, I mean, do you think from the top down, I mean, Heaven knows the other side is doing it. The Dominionists are trying to populate all these offices with Christian believers of a specific type with intent with intent to do that. That's the goal for them. They know that affects it's like have a lot of kids and get your stuff. Get your kids in office where they have political slayings and certain power circles. That's scary. That's not representation. Yeah. So we've had, we could get rid of a lot of laws. Some laws that we don't follow anymore but we still have them on books are associated with things like blasphemy and so on me and and we recently passed legislation in Tennessee layer I don't know if you saw this in your last voting that made slavery illegal, because we had some like very loose terminology it was like slavery is legal, unless if and it was like there shouldn't be an unless there shouldn't be a factor statement there. It's like, well, what if they did something really bad it's like you should never own a person as property period like, well, I mean it's still going on though in prisons. You frame a person to get them in prison and then you work them for no pay what's the difference. They're owned as property, but we can talk about that a bit more in maybe a different episode but my idea is the the law was stipulated in prison ownerships where prisoners would be. What kind of prison, what kind of prisoners could be subject to what laws we had hired to them but not slavery not slavery like there's no excuse to have slaves period like indentured servants dude. And I agree. Yeah, like that is that's something we should just be against, and then we can talk about everything else afterwards but like no slavery and so there was some but blasphemy laws are still on the books, at least in our state. And I don't know if Kentucky has them but I wouldn't be surprised if they did. I think Kentucky is a little bit more forward on a lot of these aspects, but even in the 20th century we've had a lot of cases where we try to protect free speech for people who make blasphemous, or even offensive statements on religious sensibilities and our courts have ruled for and against a lot of those cases. And I got another list but the idea that should free speech cover blasphemy as probably the best in the best sense, or should we have a bit more consideration and how it makes people feel when you blaspheme against their God and you guys think about that. Are we going to outlaw the speech based on how it makes people feel. I mean that's that's the problem and you know. No, we shouldn't blasphemy should not be illegal. I mean, if you praise one God aren't you blaspheming another. Oh, very good point very good point very good point but what do you think about that. I was just quickly trying to look to see if Kentucky had any and it's, it's a radical I don't want to get, get into on on the call but yeah. I was kind of feel like it's on the level of thought crimes you know I mean it just seems way invisible, you know, invisible harm right. We have a global atheist news review that we do sometimes with john Richards and the idea was is, is, hey, is there a difference between blasphemy and assault, and yet I would say so I would say like one is me saying something and the other one is me harming a person and I think those are different things so like, if you say hey tie I'm going to take your holy book. I'm going to buy 30 copies of it and I'm going to burn it outside in with my friends I'll be like well you. That's your property you can do whatever you want thank you for the money. Right. Like that's me in my head. Feel free to come back you're my best customer for this week. Larry if I want to buy 100 copies of your book and burn them in like my garage. Would you have any umbruns against that, or would you be like. Okay, yeah, because in my mind that is a different thing than me harming somebody. And I understand the sentiment of why I'm burning a book and I don't necessarily like or agree with that maybe sometimes it makes me feel isolated or vulnerable, but as the act of doing whatever you want with your property, I don't care. That's that's why you bought it from me if you stole a book and burn my book that belonged to me, I would have a problem with that you took something from me but if you legally got it, you can do whatever you want with it. And so, in one case I find free speech to be, I have the ability to express myself in a way that doesn't cause any immediate harm to anybody, I should be allowed to do that. It may not make everybody happy. I, and I granted it doesn't mean that I'm free of getting consequences that might come apart from it. But as far as the act itself being illegal. I think that is a stretch particularly when it falls to something that we can't demonstrate to have taken any risks to begin with. Right. Like if I, if I blasting the thunder god and a bolt of lightning strikes my house I'd be like, maybe there's something to this. But if I blast him God and like literally nothing happens and it's like maybe God doesn't have a problem with it so why are you so upset. Like, if I said there's no such thing as a Canadian girlfriend why are there a bunch of high schoolers called me angrily was like no it's true it's true it's true. It's like why are you upset like this could be just be my problem. I know I know there are areas where free speech has its limitations like you know screaming fire enough and cause inciting a riot or causing like people and a state where people can get hurt like we know there are limitations on it, we know that like I can't say with intent that I'm going to harm someone on the show or face to face that's a threat we can we have protections against stuff like that. But if I said, I am going to burn a book or buy a flag and burn it. I that that will come with considerations of man you did a mean or you did a something I really don't approve of, but you have the right to do that. Like that is a right that we are willing to protect as part of this country to do it, even if we don't agree with it which I find makes a lot of the stuff in this country. Some of the things I'm proud about like, like the right to have that process rest to express yourself the right to speak freely on stuff like that against even powers that might be. What about defamation of character. You know, obviously that you know that there should be some protection against somebody you know saying something. Yeah, live. So, and I'm just I'm just trying to stir an argument really, but I mean is there any kind of weasel that into into religious point to like a few spoke so bad about someone's God is that is that, you know, God, God is us we are Jesus is there some definition of character claim I don't know. So I would say have the God send me the court notice. Exactly. Right. And let's have it be a stretch. If there was a cult leader who's like, I am God, and I'd be like, okay, at least this is something that we can directly talk to it I'll be open to that but if I'm making fun of your, you know, your, your holy being, your dead prophet, right. Let the prophet handle it, you know, like, don't, don't take up arms for that person, instead just focus on what you can control in this life. What do you think we drove. I did, I did hear in the past that Isaac Hayes left the show South Park, because South Park's continuously made fun of Scientology son. He was a Scientologist, but I did recently read I don't know if it's true or not that he that that wasn't actually the case. He got he got pretty sick, I think, and had to show that reason so it may have been there were some truth in it, not a whole lot of truth but I mean they're someone who, you know, seemingly got mad about them making fun of Scientology and and maybe in part left left the show kind of right, you know, that's his right. And it can be a scary thing too is particularly when like the violence and media following any acts of blasphemy, right. And we see that from Christians we also seen it from Muslims to more famously, but the idea that I am we may be hesitant to say something due to clashed back from the living bodies who might take advantage, vengeance for that doesn't make that God belief anymore real doesn't make that God anymore offended or accurate or or exist, exist, existential. It's just, I'm afraid of people who have very low critical thinking capabilities coming after me and cause me harm, but I'm not doesn't make me anymore believing in that God, right. And I that's the full list and I think Larry you hit the nail right on the head where it's like when I sing a song saying God is the only God and he range from heaven and earth we sing. I was like, wait a second, you're, you're, you're blaspheming against literally every other pantheon of God's that are out there. When you say that one thing is the God's the only ones like. That makes sense if I can praise my God at the at the by dissing everyone else. Isn't that blasphemy in its own right and why is it that it's only when it's against the God of the nation who has the power that we care about it's because there's a racket. And, and, and it's institutional. And it's only something that we can steadily water down, as we make more people aware that their God doesn't make them these moral pariah or moral pedestals of perfection, you know, like, you can be a good person without your religion. You can be a good person with a different religion, and you can be a good person whether you have your religion or not. And so, the more we understand that the less we can have court cases, deciding whether we transgress against these gods, or if we should have our kids just based on where we're at on our religious spectrum. I think we overstepped one big example, which was this. Is it the Snokes case, the one where evolution was put on trial. Scopes, scopes. Here, it just just out the Knoxville about 60 minutes in a date in Tennessee. Yeah, late or I'm sorry. Larry, would you want to cover that real quick. Well, this is back in 1925 I think it was that they had a evolution was a big deal in Tennessee and they were trying to keep it from being taught in schools. Right. So they made it against the law. And this, this high school teacher, huh, because of God. Yeah, yeah, the many the religious people made it against a lot of teachings, teach it in school. But this teacher wanted to challenge the law. So he made a point, he notified the sheriff that he was going to do it and the powers to be and they had a photographer there and he started teaching evolution and they arrested it. And he eventually lost the trial. Of course, he'd have to here in Tennessee. But he appealed it and never had to pay the fine and was overturned on a technology later. But there's still a museum intent in a date in Tennessee that you can go visit any weekday. I think they close it on Saturday. But about a hundred miles down from the Ark Museum. Blue Joe. Yeah, more like 150. A little Tennessee Kentucky load there. But the courthouse still stands and it's in the basement of the courthouse. Wow. It's I make a like an annual pilgrimage down there on my motorcycle every year. Wow, nice. Okay, guys, we're at the end of the show. We still got a bit. I'm at 51 minutes, 52. Yeah, that's enough time to plug some stuff and say hey everybody have a blue drawing plug for next week, or check out. Well, I don't have anything like that but I did want to point out that I read this recently to Albania is the, the only is that I know of. The first atheist state. Oh, yeah 1967 they were walking in the former socialist government declared Albania the world's first atheist state. Well, good. Have they had a war or anything since then. No. Well, good job, Albanian that's a new thing in my pocket feather in my hat. My thing would be when you solve car problems, you don't, you don't open up a Bible. I hope you don't and if you have an engineer who is get another engineer, but the the idea is like solving problems typically involves understanding what you're working with and looking at it in a very objective in a way are very objective context where you don't assume what the problem is from the start, you just try to gather clues and try to look at it as objectively as possible. And there's something really rewarding with how we do that and lead to having cars that work that we should learn and apply to other things outside of just car repair, because I guarantee you there's probably some academics who are very, very good at being a car repair person, but strongly believe that a piece of text in their Bible is absolutely true, just because a pastor said so, or because their parents raised in that particular way, where that the Bible says so, or that the face. Yeah, but we don't have that standard for when we go to work when we go to work we have a different hat on. And so like my main thing is if if you've ever done car repair if you ever solve if you ever like even opened up a key lock or figured out why a key works or why cars do what they do or how to get stronger in the gym, you're you're oftentimes looking at examples that were based on trial and error, figure out what stuck and then learning from that process and coming up with better iterations to lead to a better process that is science, believe it or not. And so whatever your religious circles may have said to take a light off of that. And that's the scientific method, and we all participate in it every day every single time we try to get closer to the truth. And so you don't need to have dogmatic answer or dogmatic excuse or a different standard to understand what's true or not you don't need that Bible to figure was true, you have all the tools available to you, and you may not get all the answers you want. But sometimes that's good to because weather, and I'll say this as my final point, like my car repair. I found out that I had an oil leak, but and I didn't want to have an oil leak. I didn't want that, but it was the true answer. And now that I know where the oil leak is I know how to fix it. And so sometimes, when you look up something you'll find something uncomfortable, and you'll find something that doesn't make you feel happy or something, find something that make you have to do more work afterwards. But that's a good thing, because that's what science can help you do it can show you where you need to fix. So you can get better off with the rest of your life. And I found like that's such a great thing. So use that method all the time because there's no benefit to having a double standard in your life, particularly for something as important as what you think will happen to you, how you'll interact with other people and stuff like that. So that's my that's my pressing logic. Learn from the methods that you're already using that that's the best standard to address all your questions in life and continue to operate on that single standard. All right, Larry, what do you got? Just the request that if you feel that someone has stolen your soul, be sure to take them to court. There you go. A lot of people would want to know, you know, that's okay if that's a thing because I'm sure they want to take their own case to court. So be sure. You can find my stuff at digital free thought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for radio show archives. I'm trying to find my text here. As Larry finds it out, I want anyone to sue me that I just taken this the soul of the pope and I put it in this container or tick tax. It's in here right now the pope soul is in this toothpacks, the toothpick pack. I should have weighed it first. The soul of the pope and put it in this thing. Feel free to sue me and and we'll see if we can give it back to him or not. But I am in possession of it now and I stole it. You admitted that on the show. Yeah, excellent. Well done. You can find my book atheism what's it all about on Amazon. My YouTube channel handle is at doubter five. If you remember clergy, but have come to see that the claims of religion are not justified and have lost your faith. There's help for you at the clergy project. The link is clergy project.org. And remember, everybody is going to somebody else's hell. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hell's and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life. And we'll see you next Wednesday night at seven o'clock on W O Zio radio. Bye everybody. Bye.