 103.9 FM, WOZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LPF. I'm right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, January 24th, 11 a.m. I'm Douter 5 or Larry Rhodes and as usual we have our co-host Wombat on the phone with us. Hello Wombat. Kick, punch, it's all in the mind. I'll take your word for it. And our guests today are Doubtfire, Boudreau, George, and we have a special guest, Domo Adar. Hello and welcome. Let's see. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free-thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religions, religious faith. God's holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in Knoxville, well, you're just not. There are several atheists, free-thinking and rationalist groups that exist right here in Knoxville and we'll be telling you how you can connect with them right after the mid-show breaks. Also, did you know that there was an atheist calling video show broadcasting from Knoxville and has been for over 10 years? You keep surprising me with this. I thought they canceled it because of COVID, but I'm glad the E3 is coming back. I'm looking forward to those video games. Really? Let's go. Video games? No. Yeah. We'll tell you more about how you can find them after the mid-show break. Wombat, what are we doing today? What's in a name? What's in a name? What's in a name? We're going to be talking about labels today. We have our own guest to lead us on the conversation. If Dreadpire was here, we're going to be doing an invocation, but since he's not here, we're going to do a quick, quick favorite game that we're going to have to call. What you guys have been doing last week? Boudreaux! Sorry for blowing up the mic. You've got a really fancy, nice, shiny piece of equipment in front of you. What's going on over there? I sure did. It's a chair. A bar student chair. It gets me sitting upright. Oh, man. It's right in this area right here. Oh, I love it. No, I'm loving the new mic. Thanks for the recommendation. It's going to make me sound smarter. It's going to definitely put that warm, crisp Chad vibe into everything that you do. It's going to be really nice. George Brown! The second. How have you been doing? The second. How have you been doing? Well, I lost a relative to COVID last week. Oh, no. I'm sorry to hear that. And somebody I never met. He's like the brother-in-law of my cousin. And when I read about him, I thought, boy, I am so sorry that I never knew him. And now, of course, I can't. And the other news is that I got my COVID vaccination. What? Oh, good. On Thursday. Congratulations. Yeah, on Thursday. And it was a pretty bizarre experience. But, you know, one of these days I will... They put it in your butt, right? Like, that's where it works in your body. In my shoulder. Oh, you got the wrong one. That's the microchip. Yeah, that's COVID with the K. You need to get the... Yeah, you got the microchip. Welcome to the system. Welcome to the system. I'm sorry for your loss, but I'm also glad that you're taking the steps to keep yourself here as long as possible, George. Well, I'm planning on going to Walmart in about a month. And... With a mask still, right? Oh, yes. But once somebody passes me who's not wearing a mask, I will lower my mask and cough. Don't do that. That's bio... That's an act of bio-terrorism. No, not even a good practical joke. We do not support that. And FCC radio, we do not support that no-culse action. George, you're in the hot chair. Scott, how have you been? How have you been? What have you been doing last week? Man, I've been... Well, outside of just work, I've been adding to my little studio. Oh, okay. Like I told you last time, so... What do you got? What do you got? What's the coolest newest thing? Oh, he's got it right here. I got it right here. We're doing introduction, or we're doing just how you've been last week. Oh, he's got a mix board. Oh, he's got buttons. It's a no-action circuit. So it's a little groove box synthesizer. And I'm just adding more and more pieces like that to expand the dub shine sound. Is it modular? Can you connect on both sides of it and stuff like that? Yes. Fantastic. Fantastic. I was considering getting one of those things, but I don't know if I could deal with just the button. If I get something with that many buttons, I'm going to just start like a rabbit hole dive into literally living on a bed full of buttons. I don't know what to do with myself. Oh, yeah. Cam radio, because it's all about that. Chad, you're still setting up. But hey, how you been? What's going on with you, Chad? It's good to see you again. I'm all right. Can you hear me OK? Absolutely. Sorry, I didn't have an opportunity to do sound check. We're doing my favorite section. We're just checking in and seeing how you've been since last week. How you been? Pretty good. I did a crazy cool sleep study Friday night all the way through Saturday. OK. Did you pass? I did pass. Nice. I'm OK. It was easy as sleeping. I'm looking for the right someone who's witter than me would have been able to pull that off. So Chad, Chad, was that for CPAP machine? CPAP slash narcolepsy. So yeah, they're thinking that I might be narcoleptic, which is a joy. But hey, a diagnosis is better than not. Absolutely. Absolutely. I've been through that. I've been through that. It's very interesting. Yeah. If you were single, that would be really great on the Tinder profile, too, just saying. Right. That's the thing everybody wants to look for. I'm working my way toward full Darth Vader. I thought Tinder wasn't for single. Oh, I thought it was. I don't know how things work. Help me out, guys. I'm nowhere near knowing what that means anyway. Hey, Chad, I saw that new podcast that you and Boudreau put out. Is that possibly going to be released to the Wild or is it still in the lockdown? I think so. I'm OK to green light it. I really am. We've got a few that we recorded. I think we had a couple that we did with Fanny last year. Nice. They are probably a dive back in time quite a bit. They were the first stages of COVID. Yeah. They were just like, yeah. There's this thing like a flu going around. Yeah. You might want to review the audio. Just make sure it's OK. Yeah. We probably do. We probably do. Especially with Fanny. I'd like to get, I think I said last time, I'd like to get like 10 in the can before we let them loose just so people can have an opportunity to kind of get hooked or have a bench that they can go back to. Sure. But it's not necessary. Yeah. You're right. It's not necessary. I'd just go ahead personally. I'd say go for it. I'd say go for it. Go for it. Learning how to publish its own muscle that you need to keep working on too. So like, yeah, I'd say push it out. The reason that I want to go ahead and do it, and Vudrona or Eric and I, whatever we're doing, we let, what's the thing we keep saying, don't let perfect get in the way of good enough or something like that? Right. Right. Yeah. We need to get it out there so we can start learning. Sure. We need criticism. Yeah. That's how you grow. That's the muscle hip. Right. So we're going to go to our guest of honor, Elmo, just after we cover, my good friend Larry. Larry, how you been? Oh, I'm done fine. I'm getting a little bit of cabin fever. It was pretty the last couple of days. Really nice outside. Cold, but nice. But I'm still inside playing computer games and doing Facebook and videos and stuff. All right. And it makes me want to get out and drive around or something. Yeah. Imagine if we had COVID back in like the industrial age, you'd just be like watching a candlewick burn down. So yeah. Count your blessings. Or the fireplace. Yeah. I'd like to introduce our guest for today. Hold on. His name is Elmo Aider Jr. That's A-D-O-R. He has his own podcast. So would you like to get into that for us a little bit, Elmo? And introduce yourself. Yeah, man. Hi. I'm Elmo. Hello, everyone. I'm from the Philippines. I'm 21 years old. And my podcast is called Elmo's World Podcast. It's on Spotify, iTunes and everywhere else. You can find a podcast. Basically, I interview people about their philosophical and religious worldviews. I guess from all sides of the spectrum, Muslim, atheist, Christian, Hindus, any kind of worldview that you could imagine. I probably interviewed someone of that sort. Yeah, I'm really glad and happy that you guys have invited me here. And it's really awesome to get to know all of you. And just, I guess, a little background on my worldview. I was raised a Christian and I'm still a Christian, specifically Baptist. But I do hold certain views about Christianity that are not part of that specific denomination. And yeah, I guess that's sort of the only thing, I guess, that I can tell you guys. OK. Well, we welcome your questions about atheism because all of us here are atheists. We have one thing in common. One thing all atheists have is just we don't believe in God. After that, everything's open for grabs. We could believe like Buddhists. They don't believe that Buddha was a God. So technically, they're atheists. That's Star Trek's better than Star Wars. But after that, their beliefs go all different directions. So we turn it over to your questions and your interviews. Awesome. OK. OK. I'll pretend that I'm like the interviewer and I'm going to ask you all of you guys. OK. I need to start with one at a time. Why don't you go to Larry? Go to Larry first. OK, Larry. I guess the only thing that I read that when I ask an atheist that comes to a head stop or hard stop is when I ask them about morality, right? If I ask them, like, what is your standard of morality? It either has to be subjective or no standard at all, right? Well, I'm a human. So I use harm as my standard. It's subjective. I don't have any problem with being subjective because if you have an objective, then you have to go to the person or the authority figure that's laying down the objective standard. And the only thing that we can know for sure is humans. There is no proof for God. There's no evidence for God. There's no evidence for our soul or anything supernatural. We have no way of testing it. It's an untestable claim. So when it comes to morality, how can we appeal to something that we've never seen, heard or had any evidence for? I did a whole blog post on digitalfreethought.com, the blog about that. And the thing about it is, Christians claim that morality comes from the Bible. But if you go to the Bible, it has things like slavery, killing non-virgin women on their wedding night, unruly children, homosexuals. And you don't believe those are immoral, do you? Well, I guess I would have to be really specific, right? Well, let's talk about slavery then. You believe slavery is moral. What I'm saying is, if you use a separate moral compass yourself to be able to look at the Bible and say, this is moral, this is not. This is moral, this is not. If you were getting your morals from the Bible, it would all be moral, wouldn't it? Larry, I would also say, give Elmo some time to answer the questions as well. Yeah, you're doing a great job. Elmo, would you mind just so we all know what we're dealing with? What flavor of Christianity we're dealing with? Baptism. Do you think, specifically on Larry's question, do you think slavery is a moral thing? Hmm. If I were a Christian, right, and I were to come to this review, I would say that anything that is sin, that disobeys God's divine command, which is to love your neighbor as yourself and to love God above everything else, right? Then that would be sin. So in any situation that slavery is a sin, then I would say it is immoral. Larry, when it's mandated in the Bible and say Exodus 21 as clear laws for Moses and his group of people, was it not a sin then? I guess I would have to read the Bible first, right? Can I go to the verse? Okay. I can say this. I'm getting a better idea of what kind of Christian we're dealing with, at least for the conversation that we're having. It's not a politically crazy thing to say that it's wrong to own people as property. And I don't need to look into a book to figure that out because there's harm when it comes to subjugating people as non-human. And I don't need a book to tell me that that's wrong. I don't need to look it up. And I think that's the distinction that I think we should look at. When you ask an atheist, is it wrong to own people? They don't need to look it up in a book or a chapter to figure it out. It's an easy assessment to assume that I wouldn't want to be a slave, and therefore I shouldn't treat someone else to be. And all the nations of the world would have come to the same conclusion? Yeah. And it might be a subjective nature of me not wanting to be a slave, but I don't need to look it up in a book to figure that out. It's an issue of just understanding the consequences of my actions and trying to reduce harm. Well, I guess I never said that I condoned any of it. I was just wanting to look at it from a case-to-case basis. I would say that every case is wrong. Every case is immoral. I don't need to look it up. You don't own people as property. They are always treated as a... Never as a means to an end, but as agents with respect and with empathy and with value as a human being. They have those rights. Larry, what do you have? I was just going to ask him... Tyrone, I wish that... Larry, what were you saying? I just was going to ask him to pick somebody and address the question to that person. I've answered or at least attempted morality. You've attempted sin. So, if he comes up with different questions, he can ask different people. Cool. So, Elma, while you ask your next question, Scott, would you mind being cool taking it? You guys had a great comment. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. Elma, go ahead and... Feedback to Scott. I'll put myself in your... Yeah. Yeah, I'm sorry. I actually wanted to respond to Larry and then Tyrone because you guys did say some things. Yeah, but, you know, me and Scott, we could talk later, but yeah. I guess, like, in response to Tyrone, I would, I guess, like, have to ask him about where he is coming from, you know, in how he defines what morality is. I guess same with Larry, right? Because, you know, if you were to ask me what the basis of my morality is, I would have to look at it from... You're lying in bed, Elma. ...claim it from an objective standpoint, but if you... Can I stop my video? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. That will help you, I think. Okay, cool. That's a funny picture. Yeah, so what I was saying was Tyrone and Larry come from a subjective standpoint in morality, right? From what, I guess, standard are you actually criticizing my worldview, right? Because if you were to say that, oh, the Bible is immoral, but you're simply coming from a point or standpoint that is subjective, then what point are you actually coming from then? Because if it's purely subjective, others could be right, and anybody could be right, and anybody could be wrong. So, yeah. Am I still breaking up? No, Scott, why don't we direct that kind of question, Scott? Absolutely. Okay. So, yeah, so morality and ethics are grounded in subjective opinions, right? So, from my view, if it wasn't subjective, then it wouldn't be morality by definition. You would just be following orders. And if you were to follow, like if Hitler was to say, was the objective standard, and his rule, his moral code was to kill Jews, then if you didn't follow his orders, then you would be immoral by definition. But we know that that's not true. That's not necessarily moral. That's his morality. His morals say that. But our morals say something different. And where they're rooted in is in nature. It's rooted in our empathy, in our, in evolution. We evolve to cooperate and to thrive and procreate. And so our empathetic nature is what guides our moral conscience. We kind of spoke about it yesterday, but so that's where I would say we get our morals from. Now they're subjective because they're within each person. So, but anytime you look for an authority for your, for how to behave, that's not morality. That's just following orders. It's obedience. Obedience, right? Okay. Well, I guess you did sort of say, I guess, two things there in, in defense of subjective morality and, I guess, in criticizing objective morality. So if I were to, and you, you claim though, right, that, that we humans, our subjective morality is based on empathy, which is mainly coming from our evolutionary attained attributes, right? So if, because I am evolutionarily brought by naturalistic phenomenon and events to be empathetic, therefore I ought to be empathetic. If that's the case, then I, if I was evolved to be ruthless, if I was evolved to be not empathetic, should I also be not empathetic? If that's the case, then. Right. Yes. That's what I mean. And that's the thing. I don't know if I buy into the is ought fallacy because, you know, is and odds are kind of separate from what's moral from morality, right? So I could, you know, killing my neighbor could be immoral. That's separate from whether I ought to do it or not. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Any of the least. And Elmo just adds to that in a, in a less extreme sense. It's just morality is sort of the process of mentally thinking about whether you should or shouldn't do something based on the consequences, whereas Israel is more of the conclusion of the fact. It's like its own separate outcome, but morality is the process that leads us to the outcome and that's how we think about it. Mm-hmm. And we can base that process on a list of rules that we subjectively value, but once we have that rule set, we can objectively reach our goal or not reach our goal and that's the value of thinking about processes. So, yeah, it's a little more complicated than looking it up in the Bible, I admit. But I would say this, and hopefully the next question goes to the next guy. I can also be objectively wrong. I could write down today is January 1st in a book and that book is objectively incorrect. So just because something's objective doesn't necessarily mean that it's true. Something subjective could also be false. So it's not a question of whether it's objective or subjective that I value. It's a question of whether or not it can reduce harm and whether or not it's an appropriate way to conduct by actions in a society where my actions have consequences and I find that a subjective rule that caters to the values of a group of people can be much more effective at reducing harm than an objective principle which might overlook certain things and may have to actually lead it to academics to figure out whether or not people should be owned as property. I'd love to hear the next question and could you target it to the next person? Yeah, but I would like to respond to that for a minute. Sure. Hey, you can come back on every show. You can come back on every show. But I just like, yeah. You did say a good point, right? So you differentiated what should be and what ought to be, right? So I see no difference really. Like, so I should or shouldn't kill my neighbor and I ought and not ought to kill my neighbor. I see no difference in how those two are defined. Can you be, I guess, like... Oh, great question for Boudreau. Boudreau, believe it or not, these are fairly well-traveled topics for babies. Yeah, yeah. And so I will leave it to Boudreau to even answer for me. I guarantee you will probably say the exact same thing I'd say. Okay. You may be giving me some credit here that I don't have. I guess I've heard this conversation before, but it's not something I retain terribly well. Can you restate his question for him so we can make sure we understand it? Good job. Elmo, can you restate the question? Yeah, yeah. So my friend Tharon here said that in terms of morality, morality is more of a question of whether I should or should not. It's not the case of I ought and ought not, right? As Scott has... Can I clarify? Yeah. The way how I interpreted this statement before is that morality is specifically talking about a process of thought that could lead to an ought or is ought situation. But is or ought and should and shouldn't could be completely different things that someone can do. Absolutely. Yeah. Eric, do you think that's a thing? Do you think what you're morally obligated to do might be different from what you should do? Yeah. No, I think so. Yeah, morality is the process. And we've talked about this before on the show that our brains are having to try to understand these things and create analogies and things that are more familiar. So you have to kind of put it in a scenario where you process a complicated... I mean, if it's a simple decision, it's easier for us to put into words. But if it's something more complicated, we need to come up with a process to try to decide to make a decision. And then, yeah, the conclusion is the ought or ought not. So that would be... I would think those are very different things. I'm confused why you would conflate them. Would you give some time to George Elmo? He raised his hand. Yeah, yeah. George, why don't you take yourself off and go for it? Oh, there you go. Okay, I unmuted myself. I'm noticing the absence of the word ethics in this conversation and I want to bring it in. Because the word... Now, I'm not used to having arguments of this type. It's not where I live. I was raised an atheist. I've never really had to get into conversations about things like this. But so I'm thinking of the word ethics as opposed to morals. And I'm going to go to psychology today and read a little bit from there. Oh, no. Hey, make it quick, George. We got a lot of people. It will be. Okay, okay. Ethics represent the moral code that guides a person's choices and behaviors through their life. The idea of a moral code extends beyond the individual to include what is determined to be right and wrong for a community or a society at large. Ethics is concerned with rights, responsibilities, use of language, what it means to live an ethical life, and how people make moral decisions. We may think of moralizing as an intellectual exercise, but more frequently it's an attempt to make sense of our gut instincts and reactions, et cetera, et cetera. It's a long piece. But in my mind, ethics is concerned with right and wrong as the determination is based upon our own inner sense of what's right and wrong. And morals comes from an external authority of society. Just because we're waiting for... Chad was waiting for so long. Chad, would you like to weigh in on what you think the difference between should and ought is for you? It's hard for me to separate the two, honestly. I think it might be for a lot of people. And the difference between ethics and morals on occasion gets lost on me. I know it's not a semantical argument. I know they are two completely different things. I'm not very well-versed on the resolution, where one falls and where the boundary of one is and the other begins. So I don't know if I'm the right person to describe the difference. Chad, I'll dump that idea off of you. How about this? I'm just going this from my own studies. I had some morality in ethics classes during my collegiate times. And I found that ought implies a moral obligation. Oh, awesome. Yeah, he'll come back. Aught implies a moral obligation. I ought to be kind to you. I ought not to stab you with a knife because I don't want to be stabbed with a knife because I want people to be nice to me. There's a moral obligation for me when I say ought. When I say should, there's no more obligation there. I should eat some pizza. I should get some pepperoni on that pizza. And I should get that roasted garlic sauce they put on the outside. Oh, I should get that barbecue sauce that they put on there. None of those have more obligations to them. They're just things that I can do, maybe things that I could persuade someone to do. But there's no obligation if you should buy a car today. It's like, yeah, I don't want to buy a car today. You ought to buy a car. What is the moral obligation that shows I have to buy a car today? Demonstrate that for me. That's a much more powerful case. That's the distinction, at least classically, between those two words. In common talk or just layman's speech, you can swatch the two between the two. I don't think there's that much of a distinction between the two. It's all just a question of what do you mean when you say it? And it's fair enough to ask someone that. Larry, what's your question? What I just wanted to get back to, he mentioned sin a little bit earlier, and I just wanted to make a point that sin is a trespass against God. It's a disobedience to God's rules, God's order. If there are no gods like all of us, believe that there are no gods. There is no such thing as sin. Sin is taught to you by the church in order for you to do what they tell you to do because the church tells you what God wants you to do and interprets the Bible for you. So sin itself is a concept sold to you by the church. So it's just something that we need to do a revisit before we talk about sin and morality. Scott, what you got for us? Yeah, I was just going to say more to Elmo's point. And this is sort of falling into what they call the presuppositional argument for morality in God. Basically what is kind of overlooked is that we are always the authority. See, the argument is that I'm not the authority, the Bible is the authority. But for you to take the Bible as an authority, you would have to be the authority to make that decision. You would have to read the Bible and then discern whether this is from God and whether this is moral. So at the end of the day, you're the authority anyways. So it's all subjective at the end of the day. Even if you consider the Bible as your standard, you subjectively chose that over, say, the Koran or over, say, something else. Or certain things in the Bible, you subjectively choose which one you go obey. Old Testament versus the New Testament. Elmo, are you still here? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess I did get the gist of what Scott said, right? Like, how do I know then, right? Let's talk about epistemology here. How do I know? Some of us love that word. Yeah, yeah. Exactly. I love that too, right? So how do I know that what I believe or to be good or bad or wrong or evil is actually that which that is that thing that is evil or good? I guess I would have to call upon the disposition that we humans have and which is that we are created with conscience, right? And from that, it would have to rely on my ontological claims. So in order for you to, I guess, say that, oh, man, your conscience is wrong because God is not real. So I guess that it would have to come down to that. I was in following. Could you try one more time to explain that, maybe with easier English? I got a little bit lost. Yeah, I'm sorry. OK, so basically what I said was that I base my subject. I guess it is sort of subjective, but it's simply based on my ontological claims. Anthological being that when I believe that God is real and claim positively that God is real, then that would have to be the foundation or the real reason or the basis of why I claim that my morality is something that is objective. So it's saying like it's true. It's demonstrably true that I have consciousness because I believe in God. Is that what you were saying? No, it's not consciousness. We have conscience. I have a conscience because I believe in God. Is that the epistemology? Because God is real, not because I believe in God. Well, that's just a claim. Yeah, it is a claim. But in terms of that claim, then I get to a metaphysical discussion of whether or not God could or could not exist. Well, let's get back to your ontological claims. You say consciousness is real because God created it. Well, every religion on the planet who believes in a God believes that their God created consciousness and their God created the universe. Can we pause? I think we're mishearing a word here. You're saying conscience. Conscious. Good. Consciousness. Consciousness. Oh, like your ability to tell wrong from good. Yes. Oh, okay. Those two words sound the same. I think it still gets down to the same point. Same thing to Larry. So even if a God existed and it created the universe and consciousness and conscience and all that, it doesn't necessarily have to be your God, does it? I mean, it could be a deist God or a God that we've never heard of before. So it doesn't really point to your God. This is the point that I'm trying to make. I guess that there are a lot of arguments that it entails too for that. That is why we discuss theology, philosophy, and we have to look at the arguments for classical theism. And there are many that point and indicate and actually direct them to, for us to believe in a Christian God. So let's get back to epistemology. Let's not even worry about their different religions. Hey, how about, you got a bullet in the holster that I want to see shot. Yeah, I don't know gun stuff. I don't know tender stuff or gun stuff. I'm sorry guys. I'm a non-gunner. Anyway, how about we do this right after the break? Yeah, yeah. Larry, why don't you fix that? This is the digital free thought radio hour on WZO Radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. 103.9 FM WZO Radio Knoxville. Okay. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on WZO Radio 103.9 LP up here, here right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, January 24th. Now let's talk about the atheists in free thought groups that you can join right here in Knoxville. First, there's the Atheists Society of Knoxville or ASK. It was founded in 2002 and we're in our 19th year now. When we have over a thousand members, you can find us by going to Google and type in Knoxville Atheists and you should be able to find either our Meetup or Facebook page or our web pages. Earlier in the show we said we talked about the atheists, a video show that Knoxville atheists have been putting out. It's called Free Thought Forum Knoxville for the last 10 years and recently it's been called Free Thinkers United Coalition of Knoxville. So look for either one of those in YouTube and you'll be able to find their archives. With us today on the show we have Dot Fire, George, Chad, Malmo, Alder, Ador and our usual fellow who is Tyrone Wells or Wamet. Where did we leave off Wamet? We were talking about the vaccination plan which was non-existing during the Trump administration that, oh my gosh, that's so crazy. Thankfully Fauci was doing a press conference and it was like, hey, we finally have administration that loves science and not impeding it. I can't tell you how great this is and the reporters are all like, are you saying you're a fan of this president? And Fauci was like, a fan? What a fan? What a fan? What a fan? What a mighty good fan. What a mighty, mighty good fan. You guys got to get in on that more. We got one more time. One more time. What a fan? What a fan? What a fan? What a mighty good fan. What a mighty, mighty good fan. That was on mute. That was on mute. Guys, we have listener feedback from our fans. Hey, if you want to leave a feedback, go ahead and put a comment in the YouTube videos that you guys see this on. Whatever podcast service you see this on, we'll go over on the next week's show. Last week's show was but-but-but-but-but free speech where we talked about what does it mean to have free speech and what does it look like when it's actually being taken away from you and what does it look like when people just say that it is? And Christopher Lee said, hey, the right of free speech protects against the government cracking down on your speech as it should, but it doesn't mean anything in regards to what private platforms can do. And I think he was referring to private platforms such as like Instagram, Twitter, and other groups that said, hey, after the Capitol rights, we have to stand up for, you know, what could be easily perceived by people as advice from the chief estate to inflict violence on our government and democracy, which is unacceptable. We don't want to have a part of that. It's against our terms and service to incite such things, which we would equally do to anybody else, which they have. People have been banned on those platforms before. So if anything, there shouldn't be any exceptions, whether you're, you know, a president or a civilian. They ought not allow that. They ought not allow that. And they also should not allow that too. Sometimes they agree. That's the moral standard. So Phillip Pomfret says, thumbs up, smiley face. Thank you, my friend. Thank you, my friend. J.E. Hoyes has umbrage with Eric and I wanted to, yeah, I know, right? So Eric, in his last conversation, he time-stamped it even. He said, Eric made the comment that there was a, um, an ex-Muslim who had gotten some flat from a group of people on, on the internet. And essentially that person took that person to court and won the court case that this was actually like a formal libel and got away with it and successfully showed like, hey, this is not accurate and these people should be punished for that. And it's not a free speech issue. It's like you can punish people for putting you in a public space and saying objectively incorrect things about you. And what Eric had said was, uh, this guy isn't a bigot. He's an ex-Muslim. And someone said, hey, you can be an ex-Muslim and a bigot. But I replied and said, and Eric, I'll give you time to respond to this too. I was like, I don't think Eric was saying like, just because you're ex-Muslim, you're automatically not a bigot. I think the impression was like, hey, here's a guy who cares a lot about critical thinking to the point where he was able to leave a very dogmatic point of view. And that should be a reflection on his character. And so like, and that also implies like, hey, he's probably not, he's not into the rationale of like, certain people are better than other people and we should treat people fairly. And that's why he went through the whole court process in the first place. Eric, do you remember that conversation from last week? Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I finally got mentioned in the comments. So thank you, guy, whoever posted it. J. E. Horries. The other thing is, I specifically said, I know I'm going to get flack for this. What I said was, I actually didn't, I didn't intend to make it sound like he was a bigot and an ex-Muslim. I was just saying, he is an ex-Muslim. I was just describing him. And I even said at the end of the show, I was wrong. I didn't mean to say that. I think I was mixing up him with Sarah Hader. Majnuaz is Muslim. He just went from an extreme Muslim to a normal Muslim. He went from an Islamist. Metropolitan. Metropolitan. He got on the terrorism side of it. He still believes and still practices. And Chad, you probably know more about him than I do. But yeah, your point is exactly right. I wasn't trying to say. I was just saying that he was speaking out against these terrorists and these bad thoughts and bad ideas, regardless of his Muslimicity. Whoa. Talk about new comments that we're going to be waiting for next week. All right. So director comments to the bottom below. His name is Boudreau and you... Gliding for Punishment. So close. You're a one word away. You're a one word away. So close there. Anyway, we're going to leave it up to Elmo to continue on the conversation. Elmo, what would you like to continue? Oh, and Scott had a really good thing that... Yeah, I think. Yes. So... Yes. Go ahead, bro. Yeah. So I wanted to figure out your method for knowing whether there's a God. Like how can we test that? Well, I, for one, you know, I also look at the Kalam cosmological argument and intelligent design argument. You know, we discussed this yesterday, but I guess I would have to also look at simply the, you know, the hard problem of consciousness. And, but, you know, I guess you could arrive at this from something like a natural pantheist, as me and Scott discussed yesterday. But how I would direct it to us to really specific God, I would say it's that it's... If you are looking at something that is a necessary being, right? And if it has to be the necessary cause for everything, then there would have to be some sort of agency by which that being could cause something to exist or actually there would be some sort of movement from outwards, you know, or of making things exist, right? And I guess if you look at the classical theist concept of God, it really fits the bill here. So I think that's the biggest argument that we can look at. So let me just repeat back what you said just for clarity. So basically you're saying that everything that exists must have come about by some sort of agency. And this being has agency. When you say being, I think you're speaking in the philosophical sort of thing, like just something that is, that is. And then you're saying that thing that is has to have volitional agency and free will to create things and stuff of that nature, right? Yeah. Okay. What do you mean by agency? Well, that's what he's saying. It's volitional. We can talk about that later. Yeah. So how did you determine that it must have agency? And not have to have a creator itself. Yeah. So I guess like it, I guess it from the argument that we're looking at here that it's already, I guess, established that in order for it to be logical, that this necessary being thing, right? It must have, I guess, like a sort of a movement from simply just, oh, my internet is unstable, but yeah, a sort of a movement outwards or to a certain direction. If it's simply like something that is and does not have any sort of agency that you would expect from simply a pantheist God, then there wouldn't be anything at all. It would just be nothing. Okay. Is there, can you think of any examples of things that come into existence without agency? Well, I guess if you're looking for an empirical demonstration that then I wouldn't be able to give that. But I guess when even you're looking at metaphysics here, then we have to dive and use instruments like logic and rationality and what makes sense. But the question was just simply, can you think of any example in your mind, anything that you've observed of something that came into existence without agency? Even if you don't know the answer to this, Elmo, you can take your time to think about it. I think it's a good question that Scott asked, just a question of, do you have a frame of reference to know what it would look like of things that are brought into existence without agency? And you don't have to come up with an answer now. I would like to see what Chad thinks about generally the conversation in general. Chad, you don't have as what I would say a black and white point of view on these questions. But you would still consider yourself amenable to the term Atheist. And I think that shows a lot to the spectrum of people who are in this capacity. Would you mind talking about your perspective a little bit and what is your opinion on God and what do you think God exists or doesn't exist, et cetera? I just think God's unnecessary. Even in these conversations about morality or ethics, it doesn't, I don't need God. And so I don't create him like some other people thousands of years ago have. I don't feel the need to. It doesn't matter to me. My morality and ethics come from what I am. It doesn't, I don't need to have an ultimate creator tell me why I'm here or what I should, shouldn't ought do. We don't need that. It seems like a lazy thing to do to give up all of that agency to a God or a book that has destroyed many people's lives. I think I break it down to the individual level. I don't throw myself into very many groups of people. I don't ask what we should do. I ask what I should or not. I'll make the, I guess I'll make the difference now. What I should or ought to do. I don't ask anyone to pay for my mistakes. I pay for my own and I reap my benefits. I learn as I move through this and I am constantly in reflection on the things that I've done, the things I've brought into the world and the things that I may have destroyed, the opportunities that I've missed or opportunities that I've denied other people because of my actions. I just, I think life is a lot of work and I think you should be very busy examining yourself and worry about that and you don't need God to do that. I would never assume that it's okay for me to chastise someone about their, the way they've been created because that don't want anyone to do it to me. My own rule is what keeps me from having to reflect on a book and I've been wrong before and it's not a book that's taught me that. It's been other people, fellowship without a book. So, you know, I know that the fellowship's important for Christians, but it's important for humanity. We're social creatures. We learn from one another and slavery used to be an okay thing to do. Now going back to slavery, now it's not. It's not the Bible that taught us that. It's working with each other and coming to an understanding and listening to one another and having some compassion, which I learned quite a bit about compassion from Buddhism. I used to be a Buddhist. I'm not anymore. I don't guess. I mean, I do some Buddhism, but I wouldn't really necessarily call myself a Buddhist. I don't know why I don't. I just don't like labels. What's a Buddha with you? I don't know. So, I guess I'll just leave it there. Yeah, going on. Alma, I'd love for you to weigh in on that. We're getting closer towards the end of the show. Did you have thoughts on what Chad just brought to the table? Mm-hmm. Yeah, well, I guess like Scott, oh yeah, Chad was, I guess, like someone who's simply having intellectual integrity, I guess, to what he stands for, right? And if you're someone who doesn't see value in being argumentative or militant about beliefs and if you would just want mutual respect, then, and I guess like we need more people like you, bro. Well, that's very flattering. Okay, George, hey, I want to throw a question out at George and then I'd love to have Alma respond to what George is going to say. The idea of subjectivity. Subjectivity means different people coming to different conclusions based on different rules that they may have. I find that humanity is fairly subjective. Like different groups of people will believe different things, but that doesn't mean that the rules that we come up with are perfect because we are inherently valuable and we can learn a lot from each other to improve how we treat each other. And so whatever objective standard that we think we have at the moment in terms of how to treat people on a moral basis could very well improve over time. And we don't typically see that until we have some time. So, George, I'm going to throw this out at you. Are you perfect? Or do you? Yes, dude. I am perfect. I used to be. That's a physicist's question. I followed that. I was just wondering like more in the sense of like, hey, do you think anyone has a perfect? Do you think any society, any creed, any dogma has a perfect standard for how to treat other people? No. And I don't know that objectively. That's very positive. In other words, this is certainly nothing that I have studied. I have a subjective belief in the goodness of most people, but not all people. Some people are narcissists and can do us great damage because of that. Absolutely. And however, I have great hope for the capacity of many people to learn through their lives to be better people. And the standard for that is simply, I think, compassion. And as Chad mentioned, the golden rule. And my feeling about God and religious beliefs is that we are terrified of the thought of dying. And religions all around the world and throughout history have given us answers that soothe our pain upon the thought of our own demise with the promise of eternal life. And that is the fiction. Alma, what do you think? Yeah, but I guess like in terms of religion, even from a Christian perspective, we can clearly see that most religions do have this, that flawed nature and parts. And what we usually say is that humans simply created this religion, but there is only one God. But yeah, I guess like if we are to grow as a society, when it comes to that, I would say that there has to be some sort of agreement with everybody. We can't just say that, oh, I'm right and you're wrong. Therefore, we're going to have to kill ourselves. Well, we will never thrive as a human race if we're like that. So I say we continue the discussions. And most people are just never going to back down from what they believe. And I guess we just have to keep talking, keep debating, but keep it on a level that is civil and has mutual respect. And we can establish this connection and we continue that connection. So because at the end of the day, we're all just one human race. And if we are going to live with each other, we have to settle our differences and agree to disagree sometimes. That's a great point. The thing about it is that there's no problem. We have lots of problems with how do we run society? How do we live and share space with one another? There's nothing about religion and God that solves that problem. None. It couldn't be solved without it. Yes, it can be solved without it. And the way that we're approaching it is by conversation, talking, trying to figure it out, learning, and we're getting better at it. That's why we're evolving as a society all over the world. And very little of that has to do with God at all. God is not necessary, I don't think, for achieving that. By that, we're not targeting your specific God belief. We're saying all God's. So unanimously. God belief itself. No worries, bro. Hey, Elmo, where can we find your stuff at? Yeah, so if you could just Google Elmo's World Podcast. Because my real name is Elmo. Hey! I do use this logo and I'm going to change it someday. But unless I get really big, then it will be a problem for tomorrow. The lawyers will be calling soon. Yeah, they'll be calling. Chad, when you post your podcast, where can we find your stuff at? What have you even called your podcast? You know, Eric calls at Bourbon Street. I'm not really sure why. It has something to do with us being in Kentucky, I think. Yeah. I guess that delivery was so, so deadpan. I couldn't tell for a second. All right, I haven't slept much lately. I'm not quite sure where we're going to put it. I'm going to actually ask you. Sure. Wombat, where we should drop this stuff. Yeah, like what kind of channels so we can put it through? Yeah, maybe we can put it on the radio, Larry. Maybe we can, like it's an hour long show. Yeah, absolutely. Doubtfire, where can we find your music? Where can we find all these new gadgets that you're getting? Oh, yeah. I'll be posting YouTube videos on how to use this stuff. Nice. How to write tracks with it. Very cool. Videos with no talking, just showing you how it's done. But for right now, you can go to my Bandcamp page, dubshine.bandcamp.com. Nice. Support me. Support me, please. Nice. Very cool. George, what's one thing that you would recommend that we check out before next week? I have no ideas at all. He pulls me in and then he cuts me out. And I'll go to Larry and then four seconds later, I'll be like, oh, I got something. I got something. Check out some Bernie Sanders memes. Oh, yeah. Bernie. Yes. There we go. Okay. I don't have a link for you guys, but Woody Allen, there's a beautiful Woody Allen video on YouTube. It's about 20 minutes long. Following him through the neighborhood where he grew up in Brooklyn, pointing out points of interest in the neighborhood. And it's very interesting. It's also about 10 blocks away from where I grew up. Sure. I'm biased. Yeah. Yeah. There's a sweetness to it and I like to recommend it. Nostalgia trips, dude. I'm totally for it. I will go on Google VR and go through my neighborhood that I grew up in in California and it blows my mind that they have like a bus now and there's like street lights. I'm like, I just remember when I used to go to the barbershop and spend five cents on a tootsie roll pop. Like I felt so old saying that. And I'm like, well, I was only born 1985. It's like, that's 2021. I'm so old. And it's just, but I'm not old, but I am old. It just makes you realize how much time has passed. Larry, where can we find your stuff at? And hey, listen, I was, I had this really weird question. I hope you can help me out. I wanted to know what atheism was and what it's all about. What it's all about. Oh, I happen to have a book. What? Yeah. It's called atheism. What's it all about? That's perfect. It's a good segue. And what it's available on Amazon, but most of my content is on digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for many articles on the subject, atheists, music and songs and a Facebook page. If you have any questions for the show, you can email them to askanatheistatnoxvilleatheist.org and we'll answer them on future shows. If you're having any trouble leaving religion and a lot of people are, you can visit recoveringfromreligion.org for help. If you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. Remember, everybody is going to somebody else's hell. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life and we'll see you next week at 7 o'clock on WZO Radio 103.9 LPFM on Wednesday evenings in Knoxville. Say bye, everybody. Whose hell am I going to, Larry? Ah, Buddhist hell. Thank you. Thank you to our guests. Muslim hell. Christian hell. Bye, everyone. Talk soon. And that's it. It's always sad when they leave because they think that means go, but we're just saying what? Oh, it's okay. It's a bad habit of like hanging up the phone, right? It's just like... It's the Internet. That's the new generation. There'll be a generation of people who will be like, okay, bye, see you, but they'll stay on the line because they know. And then there'll be people just before that, slightly before millennials who'll be like, bye, hangs up. It's like, it was a group phone call. What's he doing? I can tell. I can tell him to come back. I'm chatting with him, I mean. No, I won't.