 Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour and WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, September 18th, 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes or Doubter Fives. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. All I wanted to do was put a filter on where my beard went away and I lost all my video feed. Anyway, hey, I'm the Wombat. It's nice to meet you guys. Hello. And from Western Canada, Dread Pirate Higgs. Welcome. And from over in British Way, England. There's John Richard. Welcome. Thank you. And Boudreaux and Buffalo from Kentucky. Kentucky. Right, I forget. Welcome. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, pre-thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faith, God's holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling you're the only non-believer in your town, well, I'll take money on it. I bet you're not. Right. In Knoxville, in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a group of over a thousand of us. The Atheist Society of Knoxville, ASK. We'll tell you more about them after the mid-show break. Wombat, what's our topic today? We're going over a bunch of listener comments. I keep saying we're going to go over them. I intend to. And I want more of them. So we got our chat open. We're ready to talk. We got comments from last week. We're ready to go. Let's do a whole mail back session today. But before we get into those, that steak and the on courses, let's open up with a nice appetizer or noodles. And we'll throw it up to our own Dread Pirate Higgs for a weekly invocation. Guam be me Captain, I shall not want. He maketh me to float in salt waters. He steereth me through glassy seas. He filleth me bowl. He steereth me through the streets of Noodliness, for goodness sake. I, though I sail through the heaving of tempestuous waters, I will fear not sinking, for thou art with me. My master and I rudder they comfort me. Thou preparest a feast before me, in the presence of me meats. Thou quenches my thirst with grog, my goblet runneth over. Truly, pasta and grog shall abide with me all the days of me life, and I shall dwell in the galley of the Guam forever. Guys, I do want to catch up with everyone before we go into some listener comments today. Boudreaux, Buffalo, it's also good to see you guys. We'll start with you. Buffalo, how you been? What's going on with you? I've been fine, not too much. Not too much at all, actually. Getting ready to teach again in the spring and climate change course. Science of climate change course, let's do it. That's fantastic. Also, do you find any, so I'm hoping you're not getting any sort of a backlash or friction when it comes to teaching about climate change in an open and scientific way in the grand old state of Kentucky? Could you mind talking about that a bit? Not anymore. When I started the course 12 years ago, about 60% of the students didn't know whether or not it was real. Wow. That doesn't exist anymore. Good. I'm happy to say. Yeah, near does a healthy climate. Yeah, right. That's about right. Boudreaux, good to see you too. What's up with you, my friend? Well, one of us, I won't tell you who one of us recently turned 79. So, yeah, yeah, yeah, still getting the birthday. But no, I'm most excited to see Wombat here in Kentucky next week. Yeah, I was looking forward to the long drive too. I needed to like wear out my catalytic converter a bit. I put so many additives in it. I just need to burn them out. I'm like, I need a long drive. Where can I go? That's the real thing. Yeah. I'm like, all right, fine. Let's do it. Put some long miles in your car. It's good for it. Looking forward to spending a day in the life of Eric or a weekend in the life of Eric. Also, got to get you on a disc golf course. That's what I'm excited about. I want to show you what that's all about. Congratulations to you on that score. Yeah. Also, congrats on a happy birthday. We'll throw it up to Dred Pirate Higgs and his weekly check in on the on the quest for chaos. Yes, yes, yes. Well, what's going on now that you are now national news? Well, we've certainly had a lot more people join up the Facebook group. So we're hoping to get more Canadians. So I've put it out there to some of the main Pascaferian groups that are international. Cool. And see if we can conscript some for manning the local cannons. So nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tomorrow, as you know, or may not know a reminder that it is talk like a pirate day tomorrow, international. I know in Canada, our Prime Minister declared it ad hoc as the memorial day for the morning of the Queen. Of course, that's just another attempt of government to take over our religious holiday. I'm a little pissed off, but now you can do that. That's fine. That's fine. Tomorrow, tomorrow's the wedding. We're having our first Pascaferian wedding in Canada. I am the officiant because I am a marriage commissioner. But we're going to have it scripted, of course, to conform with Pascaferian beliefs. So that should be a good time. And I'm going to live stream that on my YouTube channel, mine pirate. Nice. 3pm Pacific daylight time. So come check out that channel if you want to see a cool wedding. Nice. You know what? I also say, there is a Pascaferian holiday that is often overlooked by government, which is called Friday. And I find that to be one of the most important holidays of all day. Like everyone's so happy that it's Friday. Got to think of local Pascaferian. That's how you that's how you really, you know, enjoy your Fridays, just fine with a calendar and be like, thank you for this day. It's really great day to be like, I didn't do it, but I appreciate the things. And you don't have to go to a church. All you have to do is eat pasta and regard it as a, you know, a symbolic of the creation of the universe by the great monster. It's got to be, it's got to be the right posture to like, we don't take false believers in this room. All right. Anyway, guys, Joe, we got more people to go over Larry Rhodes, I want to throw you under the bus. How you been hopefully not on the bus you do like your motorcycle writing so I'm going to put the spotlight on you. Yeah, I wrote for about two or three hours yesterday had a good long trip up toward brush your mountain. And beautiful day it was like 80. I did notice that going through the shaded regions with the trees overhanging was cold. Yeah, it's getting there. I mean, you can't write a t-shirt and we'll have to wear a jacket. You got two weeks of good weather before it starts getting impossibly cold to do anything outside. That is life in Kentucky and Tennessee. It is what it is. You enjoy it. It sounds like you got it. Yeah. John Richard throwing up to you one last one last. I'm trying to find a nice. What's top hat top drawer comments from you. Is that is that the proper phrase for it. Top quality is all I'm saying is like quality check in from John. I'll take any of that. Give me give me like all the the dressings that are going on because I know you got a lot of stuff going on. I'm getting more and more into you tubing. So, for example, this morning I did a podcast is not uploaded yet, but it was with some colleagues on the UK, Atheism UK Council on the subject of the transfer of the leadership of our established church from one sadly dead monarch to the next monarch. Right. So she not only rained over the state but she rained over the church of England to and all of that passes to Charles the third. And the question is how he will handle it and what changes might occur and how the Archbishop of Canterbury will react to this and all sorts of things and furthermore, now that the country polled as 51% faith less. Hmm. And his title, not be defender of the faith defender of the favorites. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so my only comment. And I think dread you're really going to love this too. We often talk about quantum entanglement on this show to, you know, we we noted that when the queen dies, the the next Regency in line or become the next person in line immediately, that instant becomes the region. Right. They could be on Mars and Jupiter, but it's still instantaneous. It's like their quantum entangled people. What do you think about that dread. I don't think it works on the macro level it works in the micro level I think it works on the macro level I think we see an instantaneous change of power right there and it's just like you can't track it it's faster than the speed of light and we know that is a thing it's like Yes, but of course, but you're you're talking about a cultural thing not a physical thing. Okay, we can go. Guys, I know the mail bag is bursting at the seams we're going to go through some comments. First one is from our last episode from our, our favorite comment or data's trading room. He does say that he had a story. I'm going to feed into the story just a little bit but he said, you know, based on the Darwin awards which we're talking about how tend to die in very ignorant fashions based on the religious beliefs. He brought up the story of devout believer who was sailing on a boat, the boat started sinking and the guy was about to drown. He was swimming in the ocean and he was looking for someone to rescue him, but he had a boat that came along and he was like no God's going to save me. And then a bigger boat came along and he's like no thank you. You don't need to save me God's going to get me and then a helicopter came along and I was like hey do you need any help and the guy's like no no I still have the power of God. God's going to save me from this water. And so he finally did drown and in heaven, the guy met God and asked him, why didn't you save me and God answered. I like drowning people. I'm all about drowning people. That joke has a different punchline doesn't it. That's mine. That's mine. That's Tyrone original. Just remember that's more accurate. Just remember that's more accurate. Ty twist. There's another comment from that straight room said, regarding our use of Latin phrases saying I do not agree with cognito ergo some. It is some ergo cognito. I am, I am not because I think I think because I am, when I am not, I also think not. Any comment? Yeah, but Latin always ends with the verb final language right. Yeah, verb final language right. All right, we're going to get to some really nice comments today and thank you so much for those really nice comments. We're related to harmful beliefs deserve no respect, even when justified by religion. And that is usually aren't justified. Usually aren't. Yeah, in the secular sense absolutely not but by the religious person absolutely right in their own eyes right and so harmful beliefs deserve no respect even when they're used as an excuse by really or even when religion is used as an excuse. So in case in point, we had a commenter who shameless the seagull. I'm Jewish. So naturally I presume you already know what happened to my body on the eighth day of my life, when it what in the world went through my parents head as the mohel pulled out his sharp tools, what a real thought could justify skinning a non consenting human being alive. And you think about that. I'm also circumcised to I never really thought a lot of thought into it but I do recognize that like, that's the thing that if I wasn't religious or if we didn't have a religious culture, what it happened and causes a lot of, in my opinion, unnecessary surgery or harm there's some people who mess it up there's some people are like, what do you call it they mess up the circumcision and that person's just walking around with a ineffective. Yeah, mutilated penis. Moille. Thank you. Well, pronounce moille. Moille. Thank you. I'm doing my best. You guys are giving me John Richards. What do you think. Well, some of the ways that's done. The operation is done are revolting I mean the moille, having cut the top of the penis the skin around top of the penis. It's been supposed to put it in its mouth and suck the blood. Oh, that's not real. Is that real? Yeah, that's real. That's not real. Oh, no. And one or two people have been infected by germs. Yeah. The mouth is part of your body, honestly. And about six boys every year in the US die as a result of this operation, the needless operation. This is beyond what I was expecting to hear. Yeah, please stop that. And there's no pusher. There's no pusher pressure to outlaw it because people are using religion to support the belief of like, well, it's tradition. It's our belief. We're going to do this anyway. And yet abortions illegal. The odd thing is, female genital mutilation. Everybody throws up their arms in horror about, but male. Everyone. Well, a lot of people. Yeah, not, but male genital mutilation. You can get away with it. It's not a big issue. Just to hear your point of view. Is there, is there, you know, a recipe of this with the Catholic upbringing? Well, yeah, I mean, I don't remember a whole lot of it, you know, from, from growing up. I mean, it's not like something we talked about in the locker room or anything. But I did. We, as a family, we really struggled with this one. When Vincent was born, he, my son's 11. And I wasn't as activisty as I am now in these kind of groups. Certainly still atheist and but I think the way Kristen and I resolved it, well, whether or not to have him have a certain system, we talked to our pediatrician. And we said, is it something we should do? And he said, you know, honestly, if you're circumcised, getting him circumcised, you know, maybe there'd be fewer questions. Not like we're walking around naked or anything, but it, it's stuck. That's what we went with. I've really regretted it since. And I wonder why a doctor would say that it saves questions. Questions are good things. Yeah, exactly. Let him keep asking. Yeah, exactly. I'm more likely that he would pass it on without questioning to his next generation. Why would I ask questions? Questions are good. Questions are good to have. Buffalo. Go ahead, Pujo. You had more. I was just going to say, had I, had I, had I ever make that time machine? I mean, yeah, I'll go along with you. Sure. Yeah, yeah. Like I can definitely, I can definitely think of times when it was inconvenient, like when I was just based on new jeans that you wear. And you're like, dang it wouldn't be great if it was like a sheet of skin. What? Get out of town. Well, what in the world? All right, John Richards, what do you got? The thing is, what's the motivation behind it? Because it's almost never medically necessary. There's about 2% of males who need this operation and don't discover it until they're in their teenage, you know, going through puberty. And so the only reason for it is cosmetic. It's branding. They're saying you're one of ours. Right. Yeah. In the most committal way possible. It's like, give me your, your, your actual junk and scar it. This is back in, you know, Mesopotamian times. Like, did you sanitize that? You know, there's no such thing as germs. It's going to work out. It's like, then you are very committed when you do this. Yeah. But it's almost like the, the shibboleth thing. Yeah. You know, the pronunciation of shibboleth, the Hebrews, that's how they knew the enemies from themselves is pronunciation. Wow. So circumcision is a way of identifying, truly identifying a Hebrew from all the rest of the heathens, right? Not only that, but like, if you get a tattoo of a cross on your face or your chest, it's very hard to get out of Christianity after that point, right? Yeah. So like, it's getting circumcised in that branding where it's like, hey, I'm an atheist, but you still look like a Christian. It's easier for you to pull it back into the fold. It's like, you've already been scarred, you might as well commit to it after that point. It's a really unfortunate system. Yeah. And I think if moving forward, if I do ever have like a son, I would, I would be very, very adamant against that, even to the point where it'd be like, okay, I mean, there's a lot of weird things that I probably let my son do or not do, but I'd be like, okay, if he wants to go to Vanderbilt, I'll let him go to Vanderbilt, but he's not going to get circumcised. He's not going to be a Georgia fan. All right. Larry Rhodes, any more thoughts on this? On the idea? That's about it. Okay, cool. Harmful beliefs don't deserve respect even when justified by religion. We do appreciate that point. Next comment is the world is much more impressive when you realize that God didn't create it. And this one's brought to our own commenter, Victor. When you're taught about, when you are taught about God, you're taught that he's all powerful. He can wish anything to happen and it will. I constantly am told to marvel at how beautiful and incredible his creations are, but I never did. I never really understood why I was meant to be impressed by something and all powerful being made. He's all powerful after all, it shouldn't be so impressive that he made a plant grow or whatever. But after becoming an atheist, I started thinking more about the world and how it came to be, how living things started living, how animals and plants started evolving, how some species of ape evolved into Homo sapiens and practically talk over the world. It's incredible. No God was involved in this. It was purely the beings themselves, which I find much more impressive. The world is much more impressive when you realize that God didn't create it. And I, I hold true to that. I'd love to hear what your guys' thoughts are. Jed, what do you think about that? First, we hold that the flying spady monster was the creator of the universe and the world. And especially, you know, the idea that gravity is not a pull, it's a push by the noodley lord pressing his appendages down on people to keep them on the earth. That's why midgets are the first people because they were smaller and easier to keep to the earth. Okay. So many, so many under comments on that. John Richards, what do you think about the idea of the world being more impressive when you don't have a religious belief. Well, absolutely. It's incredibly wonderful, especially when you realize that we're like ants looking at this amazing, I'm lost for words, amazing size, distance, variation, diversity. And I don't like the way the Christians have stolen that idea and called it all awesome and claim to own it. It's theft. Yes, I agree. Yes. Jed. Oh, I'm sorry. Boudreau, what do you think? There's a really neat meme I see floating around occasionally where it's, you know, if there is no God, then how do you explain this and it's a picture of a beautiful sunset. And the very next frame is, you know, the the ionosphere and the bending of the light and the, you know, the science behind it. Like this is why, you know, this is why we see the colors we see and it's beautiful and it's beautiful because of, you know, just the physics of it. And I know, I know Dawkins has a really neat quote about that I can't pull up in my mind right now that about how really it is just like your, as you said, Victor made the post. Yeah. Victor, but it is a Victor. Okay, I might be able to help you on that, Boudreau. Oh, good. Oh, I was actually going to point to you. You had the quote, but so it's, it's really it's a he wrote a book called the blind watchmaker. And so, of course, you know, the argument against this idea is, you know, look at the trees it must be so that a God created it but it'd be like finding a watch on a beach, and saying well this watch is so intricate and complicated. There's no other way it could be created without there being an intelligence behind it. But if that's the case for all creation, you're walking on a beach made of watches, where watches grow out of the ground and washes go compose the water of the ocean, and the sky is made of watches, like everything is watches. It's watches all the way down. And so that's the argument against this idea that you look at something you can incredible or irreducible complexity. It's just, it's a failed argument on the basis of that blind watchmaker thing. That's, I'm not a fan of the argument of complexity, as far as like an argumentation for design. When we know that simplicity is a hallmark design if you ever spent any time, an actual engineering place, or get paid for it. You will understand very quickly that the less complex something is the more people will be willing to pay for pay for it. And that's, that's the hallmark and beauty of design, not simplicity not complexity. I just got a bunch of comments on this one. Buffalo, do you have any comments on the idea of the world being more beautiful, more awe inspiring when you take God out of the picture. Well, as a as a biologist, of course. Again the complexity of that proliferation of life is awesome and it's just inconceivable that it could have come from one source. Okay, evolution itself I think speaks against it. Yeah, very, very gnarly way of trying to improve things with living bodies but yeah it's, it's a very interesting path of how we got here, far better than any fiction, in my opinion fact always beats out fiction. I want to get Larry a chance to get in and then dread Larry do you have any idea or opinions on the idea that fact is more impressive without fiction, or the world without an explanation fairy tale explanation. There you go. Because, of course, if he's all powerful like, like the commenter was was saying, there's no reason why he couldn't create every kind of complexity that we see in nature. But the thing about it is hallmark of the hallmark of good intelligent design is simplicity, not complexity. Absolutely. And if, if God had really wanted to make us so that we could live in the universe anywhere we wanted to he'd make us out of titanium. That would be one piece that would bend in any direction we want to have a computer for a mind. He doesn't have he didn't have to follow all this evolutionary zig zags going up through the biological ladder. Yeah, ideally make us out of Teflon, you know, That way, at least we wouldn't need umbrellas, even titanium can be exposed to oxygen. What's up, dread. What's up. Well, I was just I was actually listening to a podcast around the topic of Darwin's study of evolution. It would, you know, it occurs to me as a result of that that he started out as a believer, and he he really struggled with his belief in the in the light of evolution. So, having, you know, come up with this, the theory of natural selection and evolution by natural selection. He wrestled with that for a long time. And at the same time did not have a mechanism for it. So he had a theory for which he did not have a good understanding of how it could work. It wasn't until Francis and Chris came up with the discovered the DNA, like almost a century later or more, that it finally had a mechanism but again, he had a theory without a mechanism and that helped him to struggle with his beliefs. Nice. Yeah, he was, he was born to that theory and it was he was probably circumcised. Yeah. A little lone fact is Abraham Lincoln and Darwin were born on the exact same day they have the same birthday. Nice. Yeah, regarding the idea of why would pediatrician want a kid to stop asking questions questions are a good thing. And stealing a version of this for my best man's speech, I'm giving in a few weeks. Well said, mate. You know, I like the quote but I wonder how he's going to fit that into a best man. I really wanted to see. What's his new wife going to make. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Stand us and says I've always felt that complexity of the universe is an argument against God. If he's all powerful he could have created things that didn't need food or water and thereby avoided starvation and dehydration. He could have made beings that don't need oxygen and avoided drownings and suffocations he could have created a world in where light was simply an inherent trait rather than needing it for to come from solar fusion. The complexity of the universe and life's nearly perfect fit into a hospitable environment speak to chance, adaptation, evolution and evolution, not omissions and omnipotence. Larry, what do you think, and he wouldn't have to create a universe where a world where people and other animals had to kill each other. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, like look at that beautiful bird is now food for something else. You know, John riches, what do you think. Well, the whole thing is just a claim, isn't it. There's no connection between this God and the diversity and amazing variation of the cosmos. Very unlike Paley's watch, you know that story that dread told us we know we know how watches are made. We can even show you watchmakers. Yeah, they have no link between their claim and the observations that we can all make about the universe. Even more problematic there's no frame of reference for what something that isn't a creation is or what something isn't a creator is if everything in the world's a creator and you're surrounded by everything that's creation. If you don't have a friend or reference you have no basis to claim that something is a creation when you can't recognize when it's not. It's the most simplest thing in the world. Lack of a reference. Well, you says I'll say it again. Oh, go ahead. Go ahead Larry. We need to take a break. We got five more minutes before the end. We got five more minutes. I think we can fit them in. We can fit these in. All right, so well you says I'll say it again and again once you realize that nothing supernatural exists the world is a much nicer place. And you you are w you you says, similarly, my wife a Christian asked if I thought we were destined to be better when we were dating. She knew I'm an atheist and was then struggling to come together with it. And I said no, and I know upset her pretty hard until I can explain that I found it far more precious that according to my beliefs, our meeting was a culmination of a lifetime of if any single one was made differently, could have meant that we'd never meet. And that improbability is far more beautiful than some sky guy determining that we would end up together, no matter what. I imagine that there's some additional comments on the phrase sky guy spoken by a male right. Well, don't man's blame me my improbability. You know, I do find the probability of us being here even just talking this conversation far more beautiful than it being preordained. Yeah. And it's a difference between. I'll go ahead, John Richards. I would have thought that how they came together was pretty immaterial. What matters is how they're going to go on in future. Very nice. I like that. That's that's the motto for a movie. That's about to happen pretty soon. Guys, I think we're now at the bottom of the break. We're going to go into after we come back, a tell all from a man who's pastor out of them as an atheist to his community group. And then any additional comments that you guys are free to put in. We'll see you back after the break Larry, why don't you take us out. Stay tuned for the second half of the digital free thought radio hour on W O Zio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm Larry Rhodes or doubt or five and we're on W O Zio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's talk just for a moment about the atheist society of Knoxville. ASK is founded in 2002. We're in our 20th year and we have over 1000 members. And we have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening at the Knoxville's old city at Barley's taproom in Pizzeria. Look for us inside at the high top tables or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. If you can't make the meeting in person, we also have a Tuesday evening zoom meetup. If you'd like to join us, email us for the link at ask an atheist at Knoxville atheists.org, or let's chat as see at gmail.com. You can find us on Facebook meetup.com or go to the website at Knoxville atheists.org, or just Google knocks late this just that simple. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and look for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one star. What do we want to pick up some quick comments from last the first half. One true glove says so glad that my mom had the heart and avoided the brutal removal of my penis tip skin like seriously what's going on with that. Jacqueline Marie 11 says it's genital mutilation to do circumcision or are obviously female general mutilation. We attempt to protect women from genital mutilation, but this happens in other culture. I'm sorry, we protect women from genital mutilation that happens in other cultures and conveniently ignore all the mutilation happening to male infants in this country. I'm going to add in that this happens to intersect in this as well after birth. A lot of doctors let the parents choose the sex they want their genitals made to look like if they're ambiguous, and parents have zero rights to make these decisions for their kids. I agree on both of those points. On top of that we got another comment. Oh my gosh you guys. Sorry, sorry, sorry. So I had a different comment that I'm going to try to scroll up to if you guys. Okay, hold on. I'm going to go into messenger so I can pull this up. All right, so we got a comment from person who'd like to remain anonymous. Hello tie I'm writing this out of annoyance then distress and not directed at you or anyone on the show just venting. So the story short, I came from a seventh day Adventist family fourth generation, and in SDA churches, if you want to get baptized you need to complete, you need to complete a guide with your pastor or presbytery. It usually lasts six months. I expressed my wish to be baptized a year ago. However, during that time, I started doubting my faith and after eight months of studying and praying with no responses whatsoever I stopped believing in God. He told me to get baptized as I completed my preparation. And when I told my family that I don't want to join the church they called the pastor over for private meeting. He always seemed like a nice guy so I was honest with them I told them everything about my lack of belief and my experience with religion. We ended up praying together. No response of course. Fast forward four months I stopped going to the church because everything seems so cultish and because I was tired of their ignorance and cognitive dissonance in general. I find out that this evening my pastor outed me to the entire church and to my parents because they didn't even know I was an atheist. I'm disappointed, but I'm not surprised my first mistake was to trust someone from a church slash cult. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. On that subject last week. Some of you were in the show that I do later on today, the Global Atheists who's review where we express our views on the news, and our New York panelist, who is of Jewish extraction. He said that deep baptism is relatively easy what he finds difficult is D circles. I don't know about that. So, anyone have any additional comments on that story from from our own anonymous writer dread or dread. You know, there, there may be in biology there may be the opportunity to once they discover how you know salamanders regrow their tails and whatnot that you know four skins may be able to back somehow. Yeah, yeah, some stem cells around there or something. And then then we'll all be able to regrow. And that means that when we take up drumming we'll all be able to say how much we love beating the four skins. There is, there is a salient point I'd like to go on and Pedro. What, well, if you're on a point I was just going to comment on the, on the person that made the comment but you go ahead first. And like the reason why, why do we have a system where someone tells their secrets to a person who's the authoritarian head of organization like the, the rule of the position of power should be to serve the people that you're working with right, not to be the, the secret keeper the gatekeeper master master whispers of your congregation because it only makes them harder to leave if they want to go somewhere else because now you have all this black man ammunition right. Yeah, and we have an agreement. So that's the general theme of the comments that we're getting is that it's basically a win win for your pastor. Drummer five says this, either you're an example of what not to be like, or you become a notch in the butt of Christianity as an empty found God again, in either case it has to be made public. And in the end he only cares about himself and his soul, not yours. Yeah, so so yeah long that point. It seems to me like there's got to be a little bit of a benefit cost analysis going on with the, with the church where it's like, it's probably not worth their time to try to convince this person let's spend our efforts on convincing these others that will turn quicker or at least keep them in line. There's also the thing about shouting. If he's not going to be in the church, you don't want your church members to have contact with them. And so what better way to do that than out him. Right. Buffalo I'd love to hear what you think about this. You know, again, you got to keep the fuse full right. Right. You got to play to the crowd. Right. And then there's that thing when a person actually genuinely needs help in connecting with a God and you're talking to a whole group of people, the leader of people who have this instantaneous access. Instead of just being like, Oh, I'll Google that for you. Like if I forget my phone and I need to find out how tall astro just ostriches are on average. I can just talk to another guy is like, Hey, do you have connection to the internet. Yeah, of course, let me figure that out for you. I can't talk to God. Can you help me out guy whose job is I talked to God for a living. Well, I'll pray for it for you. And maybe I'll come back in four months. This is like, dude, do you have this connection or not. And you're not giving him any more meaningful ideas about why you should stay in not only when you out him but when you can't help him when he's in this time of need. And what do you why do you talk to somebody who's not merciful, or who has created a not non music merciful world. Yeah. Hot mess express one I love the name says he only did that for you to have your family friends and other church members manipulate and pressure you until you crack under the pressure and return to the church. Yeah, it's it's really unfortunate. I don't. Oh, let's see. Sheamus says rule number one for dealing with cultists. Nice is different than good. And I, I found that to be absolutely true. And there's a big difference in that when you see like a very smiling Mormon, or a happy Jehovah Witness, it's like they're nice, but is that good. There's a big difference between the two, like you can be pleasant with someone but recognize whether someone actually has the faculties to be able to make morally justified bold decisions or not. And nice is not always the best. Good is. Alright. How do you guys feel everyone good. Mm hmm. Okay, cool. I'm going to open up the comment well again. So hot mess express also follows up with, I had this pastor obsessively try to convert me to Christianity for months, and would go on these insane rants in the pulpit indirectly talking about me every Sunday. Long story short, I ended up ghosting him. And I'm sure that sent him into some kind of narcissistic rage, knowing he wasn't going to, I wasn't going to be the center of his attention anymore, or he wasn't going to be the center of my attention anymore. I'm getting tired of Christians and I'm starting to think all of them are bad. Christian ideas and bad people. Hmm. Yeah. But, you know, there's limits, I would say. Well, like I like to say is Christianity is as Christianity does. Right. What they say. Right. Right. Right. I can also say like Christianity puts out so much bad stuff under the under the gift wrappings of good things. Even just quietly pushing it along as a good person just you know, either being completely ignorant to that and just allowing that river to continue to flow, or causing no inhibition or critical thought and just being another one of the faces that are purported that Christianity is a good thing, can be in its own right a bad thing. And like if you you, if you're an adult, you have to know that or not, and you either supported or you don't. And I feel like that's culpability, even in the lack of inaction. Silence is a really, really bad thing in the base of what we're dealing with right now. That's my thought. What do you think, Dredd? You think that's fair? Absolutely. Okay, okay. I want to say it makes you automatically backwards. I'd say like it makes you deeply irresponsible if you decide to continue to push Christian agendas by inaction and not exercise your thought. If you're a thinking person. If you've got a thing. Don't. Yeah, what do you think, Dredd? Well, I was just going to add that it's important for for atheists and pacifarians also to be aware that we're not attacking the people who hold these beliefs, but the beliefs themselves. It's often difficult for people who hold these beliefs to recognize the difference, right, because we're all so very invested in our beliefs. We, we conflate our, our sense of worth with our beliefs. And so when you attack a person's belief, they sometimes take it as an attack on a personal attack. And it's always important to make sure that we're trying to maintain an atmosphere of respect and willingness to even change our minds. Right. To the evidence. So, right, we do, we should portray what we want to, to, you know, what we're trying to encourage, we should act in accordance to that. Yeah. Yeah. John Richards I'd love to hear your thoughts on this follow up from hot mess express the liberal ones allow the liberal Christians allow this kind of behavior to continue by downplaying it, saying that no Christians are aggressive and egotistical. Yeah, all of them might not be like that but most Christians enable the Christian zealots by not calling them out. Yes. Yeah, same with Muslims, right, you know, it doesn't matter which religion you're talking about. It's the ones that hold it, you know, not as not as extremely, but their silence, of course, essentially allows the extremists to get away with it. And it's, it's sort of a reversal of what ground show Marx said, you know, he said I wouldn't join a club that would have me as a member. Well, don't join a club that's got these other fundamentalist members, right, supporting them. Hey, Boudre, we have a question about SDA. And since you expressed some interest in that I wanted to throw this one out to you is SDA by question by fuzzy buzzy is SDA one of the extremist cults. What, what, what is SDA. Do they hold a funeral. Are they one of the cults that hold a funeral for you and have your family treat you like you're deceased when you're when you leave the religion, or is that one of the other cults. Yeah, my interest in this was not because of my knowledge of SDA. It's just, I was interested in that the topic of someone getting outed like that. That was interesting. I don't know a whole lot about SDA. Honestly, it would not surprise me to find out that, you know, they would throw a funeral for someone who leaves. But I don't I don't know actually. Yeah. What is a Sunday, Sunday, or seven day a day. Oh, okay. Yeah, I work with some of them at our job there. Like I said, nice. They're nice people. But I've had, I've had in depth, you know, Socratic examinations with them. And they're like, Yeah, I believe in the Bible and I'm like you believe everything in the Bible. Yes, absolutely. There's no question about it. And even the thing on slavery. Well, let me tell you about slavery. It's like it's never just like a no, it's just like well, it was okay back then because they were okay with it with the slaves okay with it. Probably not. I'm like, Okay, this guy, you know, you're an adult and you still have this equivocation right thought. Yeah, like the slaves had a point of view to and it's very easy to overwrite that but I so hot mess express I'm going to let this one last one. Honestly, thinking about it, dealing with my own religious trauma and reading other atheist stories about Christians trying to force them to convert. This is really dumb and childish this whole thing when I think about it. We have fully grown adults throwing temper tantrums and threatening people in order for them to believe that some ancient book is true. And in my head it's not just about the book it's about the power system that they develop or inherited as a result. And this is entirely a power play. And so when you know your pastor wants you to confide in them, him or her. Or most most of the time him because like I said it's a power play. When they hold those secrets and maybe even use them against you pressure you to go join back into their fold. It's all pressure. It's all power play. And so you got to be able to see that for what it is it's not the ordained Holy God talking to you it's a guy doing whatever he can to keep that paycheck rolling. He's just big for God. claiming God with the book of claims about claims. Hey, what's up. I'd like to bring up again the, the idea of believe in belief genes and the fact that everything's on a Gaussian curve and there are zealots down at the one end of that curve that in fact are what hard wired to have a need or a strong belief toward believe in belief. And all you need is a couple of those that are outspoken situation we live under. I do want to give a shout out to the anonymous posters for for recognizing that the system was a system and like getting out, you know, hopefully he's still out or she's still out but good job on your own part. I think these communities that you can reach out to their people you can talk to, and we'll be happy more, more than the happy to continue conversations with you, if you'd like to if you don't want this one sided podcast sort of system, we even have you on the show if you want to Yeah, it kind of makes me wonder, and I think we've talked about it, maybe in the past, you know how many church leaders are so invested in their career, so to speak, and they, they lost their belief a long time ago. Right. I mean they can't, they can't give it up it's their livelihood. They've got family members I know, I know. That's what the clergy project is all about right. Yeah, yeah, okay, right, right, yep. Yeah, the same thing can happen in families to you know the husband and wife one loses their faith and realizes that you know coming out as an atheist is going to ruin the relationship so they, You know the funny thing is the opposite never happens, like you never have a scientist who stops believing in science and then science stops working. Right. Right. It's always just like, dang it, I don't get nucleases, yet I still have stoichiometry like what's going on here. That's just nonsense about atoms and all that. Yes, it was like, why does it still keep working I have all my doubt put into this whatsoever. Alright, guys we're getting close towards the end of the show thank you guys so much for leaving comments. Feel free to leave more on my channel's let's chat, you can feel free to post a comment and we'll get over into it in future episodes of the show we really appreciate it. Buffalo, let me just say, I didn't feel like it would be a true show unless we brought up Gaussian curves so I do appreciate you bring that up. I'm still waiting for the Sam Harris drop from Boudreaux though so well. Boudreaux, I'll give you the opportunity anything you'd like to plug. I went with Dawkins this time just trying to spread it out a little bit the four horsemen they all need equal. Sure. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, no sweat, no sweat. Buffalo anything you'd like to plug before our customers come back from next week. No, I'll see my time someone else. Fair enough fair enough. So, I'll make the Sam Harris plug he has this great podcast called making sense, in which he interviews amazing array of intellectuals and scientists and thought leaders. An app called waking up, which is an exercise in or an app around mindfulness. So, as opposed to prayer and other kinds of meditation mindfulness is something that has no baggage around it with respect to a diet deity or diminity or whatnot. Should I plug my channel. Absolutely. Okay. My pirate and my and P y R A T E. I broadcast this live stream at 7am Pacific Daylight Time, and then move on to the global Atheist news review at 11am Pacific Daylight Time so check out my channel if you'd like please subscribe love to see you. And also, I'm more than happy to entertain all comments that you might want to leave there so check it out. My pirate. I also throw this out to next month I'm going to be doing a talk at Dalton State College about cheerleading for I don't know, which is some often very rarely cheerleaded for but as a good answer for when you don't know something. There's no better response than I don't know and we got to get in a better habit of saying that. John Richards. Listen, I got a whole notepad rated go tell me all the I have a whole agenda as you would say what tell me tell me what's a what's the plan what should we plug and pay attention to coming up. Well, free thought channel is the place to go where you will see global atheist news and one of the items of news you're like this week is that fewer than half of Americans may be Christian by 2070. Then there's global atheist news review which dread and you tire in dreads just plugged that it happens later on today. I don't put it up live, but because I want to spread my stuff out throughout the week, but you'll be able to see it on free thought channel later on. Then last night we had a fantastic free thought hour, the interview show with a South African professor of paleontology who takes on creationists in his private time. So that was that was that's well worth watching. Then, on top of all that, I've taken to debunking Frank Turek. What if I'm with that. Where I take some of his work and chop it up and insert my comments. I also want to do some two more plug on top of that I'm dread I'm glad you plug the clergy project. Also, I would also recommend recovering from religion, which is a website anyone can access if you are SDA and leaving if you're a job of witness and leaving if you're Christian and you're just doubting you have questions in general. Don't put them away it's good to ask questions questions are good thing as your part would say. Recovering from religion the website. Also, Larry, listen, I still don't know what atheism is and all it's all about we're going to have to just call it what it is. We apologize officially let's just, you know, chalk one up to Christianity and call it the end of the day. I have a book on that. What's it all about. Thank you, there it is. There you go. No, no, no, no dreads is called what's it's all about. Oh, yeah. And it's on it's available on Amazon, but my content can generally be found at digital free thought calm. Be sure to click on the blog button for our radio show archives, atheist songs and articles on the subject. The YouTube channel can be found by searching for a doubt or five or digital free thought radio hour. By the way, if you're clergy member but have come to see that the claims of religion are not justified and start doubting this help for you at the clergy project. Just search for clergy project or go to clergy project.org. Remember, everybody is going to somebody else's hell. What you gotta do 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. Every Wednesday night here in Knoxville. Say bye everybody. Bye.