 Hello and welcome to Digital Freethought Radio Hour and WZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, June 7th, 2020. I'm Larry Rhodes or Doubter 5 and as usual we have our co-host Wombat along with us. Hello Wombat. Oh deep in my heart, I do believe that we shall overcome someday. Right, let's go. Atheist? You're going to overcome? Is that it? Hell yeah. And I guess today are J.W. Kennedy. Say hi. And Dread Pirate Higgs. Hello. Hello. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we also talk about religion, religious faith, God's holy books and superstition. Larry, your arm's gone. Oh, I was worried for a second. Oh my gosh. It's a microphone. There you go. Anyway, if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in Knoxville while you're just not, there are several atheists, free thinking and rationalist groups that exist right here in Knoxville. And you can learn how to join them right after the mid-show breaks. We'll give you more information. Also, did you know that there's been a streaming atheist calling video slash TV show in Knoxville for like 10 years now? Did you know that Wombat? We're going to talk about it today. I didn't even know you knew about this. So yeah, I got invited for a debate. And it was with this really avid Christian and we're going to be talking about it. I'm really glad you follow my stuff. I didn't even know you knew about my YouTube channel. So yeah, I'm really happy. No, it's a separate channel. It's a separate one. It's called The Different Atheist Groups in Knoxville Getting Together. And they're calling it the Freethought United Coalition of Knoxville. So we'll tell you more about how you can watch that after the mid-show break as well. And if you'd like to interact with this show, go to Facebook and search for our digital Freethought Radio Hour page. Use the messaging functions to send us questions or comments. And you can also email us at AskAnAtheist at KnoxvilleAtheist.org. So our topic today, J.W., you want to bring it in? Yeah. Well, I kind of put on the spot here. I didn't know I was going to be the one presenting the talk. You're under the big thumb of authority then on. It's Christian Privilege. We were talking about it a little earlier, but I know you had a migraine. That's right. Anyway, my thoughts on Christian Privilege. Well, I think I've been watching these debates that have been sent to me by a friend of mine who's actually almost about to be an Anglican priest. We have some interesting conversations from time to time. A little heated sometimes, but always civil. He's been sending me these videos of people that are just claiming that there's one, there's one debate or discussion that said, is humanism Christianity light? And LIT, you know, like it, like that. Right. And basically the argument was that our morality as atheist humanists, at least in America, comes from Christianity and we don't attribute Christianity as much as we should. There are no morals on earth before Christianity. That's painful. Yeah. It's just, I think that's kind of right up the alley of Christian Privilege. We think that this thing that we call Christianity is, I mean, at least a lot of Protestants think that it is what it is today and what's taught today was what was taught back then. And there's this truth that just carries throughout the ages. That's always been the same and it never changes. And Christianity can't attribute any of its philosophies to any other religion. It stands on its own. Hallelujah, Jesus. I think that's on my mind when I think about Christian Privilege. I don't think you understand how this works, how philosophy works, how morality works, how biological capacity for optimism works, capacity for the preservation of life. It's just like, my question would be like, well, okay, how do you explain morality existing in the wild before we even had civilization? Like, how do you explain a mother protecting her young or the occasional father standing and staying with his family and the tribes defending themselves and others and two tribes having diplomacy and agreements and deciding not to be violent? These kind of occasions. Just like, well, do we attribute that to Christianity? I was like, oh, no, the Holy Spirit was there showing them the way. They just didn't have writing. You know, I don't know, man. That's my cell box. That's a good answer. Well, like, there's no such thing as human compassion or empathy before Christianity came. Oh, yeah. Holy Ghost, I guess. And Jesus came to America to 400 years before Columbus did. Hey, leave the Mormons alone. Leave the Mormons alone. Gary, what do you think about this? You think there's a privilege for specifically Christians or any other kind of religion? Absolutely. And to, as proof of that, is my most recent submission to the Supreme Court in defense of the Pastor Farion's right to expression. And the battle I've been, I mean, I'm talking the human rights tribunal, saying, well, you guys just mock everyone and we don't care about you, so go away. If I were a Christian and I had some issue with ICBC, I'm almost 99% certain that, you know, they take up the cause. So here I am having to, you know, go through the Supreme Court of Canada to have my rights defended. And just as a background, this is so that you can take a picture with like the religious symbology of Pastor Farion's on your hat. That's correct. On a government ID. And it turns out the case that that ID or that item is just a colander on your head, which isn't like harmful in any way. But if you're a Hindu, you can wear a turban. If you're a Christian, you can wear a cross or another hat. That's correct. But you can't wear the colander as dick turned. Or a tricorn. Yeah. Which is even cooler. But this is interesting because I have a firearms possession license, which is a federal license, and they allowed me to have my tricorn in there because I simply said, this is my fate. This is my expression. And they didn't argue about it. They just said, oh, okay. And then let me do it. I'm also a marriage commissioner here in British Columbia. And that piece of ID also, has me wearing my tricorn as well. Again, no argument, you know, so where, you know, what the policies or whatever their protocols are should be applied evenly and indiscriminately. Right. Absolutely. Absolutely. Later. I'm going to throw this one out at you too before we roll into my thing. What do you think about religious privilege in general? Do you think it's, I'll throw this one out. Here's a modified question. Do you think it's, Christian's privilege specifically or whatever is the most popular religion in that geopolitical area of privilege? Well, I think that that's the case, you know, which if you have a society based on Muslim or Islam, they're going to have the privilege. Hinduism in India, et cetera, et cetera. But in America, it's Christianity and specifically in South America, it's Catholicism. They just have the privilege that's recognized by the government. They have, they recognize and invite their officials to their meetings to solemnize it. And we know from personal experience here in Knoxville and in this area that when we try to send somebody to solemnize a governmental meeting to give us all kinds of problems, and one time they literally walked out on the invocation that we were given. It's, it's discrimination and it's illegal. And we eventually made that case and we're able to do an invocation. But it's not only there. It's in the laws that they write, the blue laws that they enact. You can't buy a tool on Sunday because there's no work on Sunday. You can't buy beer or liquor in many counties in Tennessee and another southern counties, southern states. Simply because of the religious privilege of the religious right wants you to live under their strictures. Yeah. And we're living in a time where we're actually seeing the result of unchecked powers continuing to, you know, hold people down or unfairly unjustly and without any form of accountability whatsoever. And this is the sort of thing that will continue to expand, become a worse problem until we speak up about it. And that's why I thought it was a good idea to bring it up in this show. Well, let's talk about this particular thing that we saw this week. Sure. Trump spraying tear gas and running people off the street, peaceful protesters, just to walk over to a nearby church and hold up a Bible. Can you imagine, can you imagine like a mayor who is Muslim doing that to a peaceful crowd in the name of God, doing that to a peaceful crowd in the name of Islam and walking over to a mosque and holding up a Quran? Right. It would never fly. It would never fly. Yeah. That's Christian privilege right there. Oh, yeah, definitely. There's this viral meme going about with people that stand up holding a book that they've never read. Yes. And building that they've never been to. Mostopharians are doing that too. Mostopharians. Standing in front of a building they've never been. Never go to on a regular basis. Right. And the real thing is it's not even, so like from my perspective, I'm sure a lot of people share my perspective too, but this is not a new thing. But I'm glad that we are, it's a thing that comes in waves as far as like unrest about it. And I'm glad that this is like one of the highest crescendos of unrest because maybe this will help to, to not make it normal anymore because I mean, people to realize like, Hey, we got, you know, people who are representing us that aren't representing us. We have people that have powers over us that maybe should at least be accountable for that. And the powers that are being distributed aren't being distributed fairly. Most is in the case with like, you know, Gary's talking about his, his ability to express himself religiously without causing harm to anybody or, you know, Larry's ability to just have an indication that fairly represents everyone in the community. Like each of us have something to bring to the table where it's, you know, if you're a marginalized group, it's very easy for people in position of power to not give you any, you know, time of day. And that's not fair. And so we're talking about privilege today. I want to talk about an interview that I had last week. I don't know if I guys told, I did tell you about it. I had it on video. The last video that I had, I said, after our talk today, we were going to do, I was going to go do a quasi-debate with Christian. I'm not sure if he was a pastor or anything like that. I'm not, I'm not here to demonize anybody. So the idea is, I want to give just a quick little background story on like what happened. So we met at Nanocon. I'm going to share my screen. This is a person I met at Nanocon. His name was Pedro. Cool dude. He said over Twitter, hey, do you want to do an interview with me? And I was like, oh, yeah, let's do an interview because I did an interview with him and it was fun. This is my, this guy, Pedro, right here. And I'll show you this. Here's an email exchange that we have. This is me getting back to him after Twitter and I was like, hey, yo, yo, yo, let's do the interview. And he's like, hey, thanks for the email. Basically, I want to do a conversation with you. Let's make the topic, does God exist? And I was, and I said, you know, I don't want to talk about God existing because the issue with that is it gives the implication, if you're talking with a Christian, that there's only two sides of an argument, whether or not a Christian God exists, or if atheism is right, which I feel like bias is the conversation because there's so many different genres of Christianity. And atheism is not even an answer to the question on whether or not a God exists. It's just a question of do you believe in this God or not? And so I said, hey, if you are an atheist, it might be cool to have just an atheist versus atheist debate on this topic because that'd be kind of cool. And if any of you guys want to talk about like, does a God exist as an atheist? We might agree on the idea that we don't believe in the God, but we might have some really cool, interesting nuance, things, points of view that we want to throw out. And I don't think that's shared enough on the internet. Whereas I would love to see a Christian debate another Christian on whether or not a God exists, because that will actually show that a lot of things Christians as a group believe they agree on unanimously aren't the fact. And so I was like, hey, Christian Christian or an atheist on atheists, but I'm not really interested in this. I don't think atheism answers whether or not a God exists in the first place. It'd be nice to really dive deep in this topic. If you're an atheist yourself, then we can have atheists versus atheists. Does a God exist? He says, no, I'm actually a follower of Christ. I was like, oh, we're talking about that last show. Spoiler alert. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm like, what does follower of Christ mean? That is like the most. Oh, I didn't want to say that in my head. I like in my head. That's the most generic form of Christian that I can think of at this point, but still still still still. I mean, like that is what the textbook definition of general Christian. So he really didn't want to talk about whether or not a God exists. So I said, hey, listen, if you make the talk strictly about atheism, especially as a former atheist, because he did qualify himself as a former atheist, I think it would be really interesting to have the conversation. Former and current atheists talk about atheism, because I, I don't want to spend time and I say this in the email. I don't want to spend time talking about the capital G God that you really, really are a big fan of. I think, you know, like, I think I say here, I feel like otherwise to start an honest discussion on whether or not a God exists and then focusing the talk on any specific God claim stacks the deck too much in favor of that particular God claim. And I made the example. It's like, it's sort of like being invited to talk about your favorite sports team. So long as it's the 1998 Oakland Raiders. Right. I was like, my issue is even with the roster. I just want to do that worship Desmond Howard. So I've been cheeky here and he's like, no, no, no, that's great. We can do former and current atheists talk about atheism. I love it. P.S. I don't love it. But I was like, okay, great. So we are agreeing that as a former atheist and me as a current atheism, we're going to be talking strictly about atheism. Please don't preach atheism. Please don't preach at me basically. And here's like more of my explanation about like, listen, I just don't, I'm not interested. I'm happy to talk about God's in the future, but I don't want to have an in depth conversation about anyone's capital G God given that each person necessarily is pointing at a different personalized capital G God that they necessarily have a personalized relationship with. Like if you have a personal relationship with God, your personal G God might be different from someone else's. And I'm not here to talk about the God claim conclusion. I want to know about how you arrived at the conclusion. Like that's my whole thing. Like what's the reasoning that used to reach that conclusion? If the reasoning is good, I'll believe whatever the conclusion is. But I'm not here to talk about the God and the chapters and all that stuff. And he's like, okay, we're all good to go. I'm like, sounds like a plan. And I can tell you this was a fun, this was a fun conversation because Larry even warned me and I was like, yeah, yeah, I know what's going to happen too. I'll break the talking to three parts. We're only going to go to the most interesting one, which is at the very end. So talk part one. It was like a lot of flattery. It was really nice. It was like, hey, man, you're really amazing. You really are amazing. I love your channel. So good. I was like, great. Part two. What's atheism? Right. Oh, and the second part was or third part was thank you for telling me about atheism. Yay. Then at the very, very last five minutes, there's a surprise over time. Or it's like, let me tell you about God. Tell you. Yeah. Let me tell you about God. Yeah. My capital G God. Yeah. Like you wouldn't know man being a former Christian. Right. Right. Oh, man, that would have been a big deal. But basically it's like the conversation immediately transfers into let me tell you about my world view. This is about my God. And I'm not preaching at you, but let's start with the book Joe. And then we'll go into the book Ecclesiastes. And I'll go over some of my favorite quotes. It's very interesting. I'd love to share this conversation with you. And here's the premise that I want to make. My whole philosophy, especially with my street epistemology background and all that stuff is, I believe I can talk to anyone about anything. There is a manner of how you have those kinds of conversations. And one of the biggest things about having those conversations is consent. And you'll see a lot of times, when Gary does this, when I do this, when Larry does this, is that when we have a conversation with someone, we settle on a topic and then we ask, is it cool if we talk about this for, you know, five minutes, 10 minutes, whatever? Or like, can we talk about this? Can I record this conversation? Would you mind if I post it? There's always a back and forth exchange. And it's never formatted in the sense of, and now I would like to talk about my world view. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Now we're going to talk about Ecclesiastes, blah, blah, blah. It's like, hold up. There's two people in this conversation and we both need to be on the same page, or at least consenting to have the conversation that's being thrown out. Otherwise... I'm asking him if he's going to pass the plate. That's a surprise, surprise over time. Yeah. So anyway, can you guys see my screen? Is there anything blocking the way? Is there anything blocking the view? Good. All right. So I think this is the part where he does mention that we are going to be talking about atheism. So before we go to the topic today, we're going to be talking about atheism. So before we go to the topic today, which is format and current atheists talk about atheism, I just would like to say... Right, right. We're going to be talking about atheism. I'm skipping all the way. The first, you know, the first three thirds of this are actually really good and I'm going to be posting that on my channel as well as my Patreon, so you're free to check that out. But what I want to get to is the interesting part where I start dying on the inside. So we can all die on the inside? I speak up for myself and this is the part, this is why I'm talking about atheism. This is the part, this is why I want to share it with you, because there's a lot of times where I'm like, no, you agree to talk about this, we're talking about this and I want to know feedback from you guys about being too harsh. Is this fair? Stuff like that. And feel free to say pause anytime. I'm looking for the part where the conversation transitions and I'm looking for when he starts going from smile select. Well, so I'm just... It just puzzles me a little bit. Look at the facts that some people might think that just not knowing that it could be, you know, about things. In fact, and now, Ty, I actually want to talk a little bit about God if you don't mind. Remember, we're talking about atheism and this is like the literally opposite of the thing that we agree to talk on. So like, it was like, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism, atheism. Let's talk about God. He can't save you, man. He can't get messed up on an opportunity to save your soul. That would be... I know, I know, I know. And that's the thing, I know he's coming from like a good place, but it's also a cheater... It's a cheating perspective. Taking advantage of your good will. Yeah. And I also feel like it implies we get to the part where we soon get to the part where it's like, I want to tell you these Bible verses. Like, I don't want to hear these Bible verses. Like, well, we just had a conversation about atheism. You should now listen to my Bible verses. Like, no, you agreed to have a conversation about atheism. Now you're exhibiting like the privilege of, you know, like this Christian idea that now that you say something Christian-related, I have to listen to it. And that's not what I'm about. You're literally talking to the one person, or maybe the one small group of people that don't want to hear that stuff that you want to say. So... We've heard it a thousand times. I know. Believe it or not, I know what the Bible has in it. All right. Just don't preach at me. Yes. I'm not going to. Not at all. All right. So I'm going to talk about my world view. Okay. I'm just going to talk about this just a little bit. Okay. So four... And I think from here, it would have been a lot better if the question was formatted. Would you mind if I talk about my world view rather than I'm going to talk about my world view? Mm-hmm. That's the biggest distinction. And that takes you towards more S.C. versus just let me preach at you or just let me say things at you and deal with it, you know? Yeah. And if you don't like it too bad, you're going to hell, right? What can I say? It's very unprofessional. For a Christian, and I know and I'm very open to hear all that. Yes. Just one thing. If you were a Hindu, if you were a Jehovah Witness, if you believed in Thor, I wouldn't care about the God that you believe in. I'm only interested truly about the manner of how you are able to substantiate the claim through whatever reasoning process you use. I just want to know the reasoning process because if it's a reasonable reasoning process, I'll believe in whatever God is at the end of that tunnel, too. Mm-hmm. But if you tell me, for example, you spend the next 20 minutes telling me about, like, I was raised here, this terrible thing happened to me, and then I had an awakening and this God that you should really show me was like, that's great. What is the reasoning that you used to get to that God claim? Mm-hmm. Because stories from tradition don't really move me. I have documented channels of me having these kinds of conversations. Do you have a... Do you have... It sounds like I'm not convinced and you are convinced. I understand what you're convinced in. How did you become convinced? Okay, so first of all, I can see how you have had many conversations about this and you're just kind of structuring the conversation before it happens because you have had it many times. I've had it many times and we only have, like, five minutes left. Oh, I understand. So let me just tell you about my God belief while we got friends. Like, oh my God. No, actually, Ty. Let's do something. Let's do something because I think that was... And I'm trying to play it light and nicely done. I'm trying to hint like, hey, this isn't cool. Do this at this last stage and I'm also just trying to say like, hey, if you want to format the conversation where you can talk about God belief, at least just tell me what convinced you first and maybe down the road we can get to that, but we have five minutes. If you want to do, like, a quick little chat, SC style, or at least figure out what your epistemology is, just tell me what convinced you about the God belief. And that starts, I feel like, the escalation of, well, you're not letting me talk. It's about what the thing I want. It's like, you don't have my consent to talk about the thing you want. You invited me to talk about this thing that we both wanted. We're on a show together. Salesman has to control the conversation. That's one of the things when I was in sales. Like, well... Oh, really? Really pitching it. You have to control the conversation. You have to control the conversation in order to persuade the person in order to believe that they need to buy what they are selling you. So I began to, once I became not religious anymore, I began to recognize these same tactics in apologists and evangelicals and pastors and just common religious people. Larry, I want to shake up the format real quick before we get into the more heated parts of this talk. Would you mind if we did the break and then the news after this video explanation? No, that's fine. Cool. So, why don't you take us out real quick? And we will be literally right here. Okay. This is WZO Radio 103.9 LPFM live right here in Knoxville, Tennessee this Sunday morning, June 7th. It's about 11.30 a.m. Nice. And we'll be back in just a minute. Pew, pew, pew, pew, digital free thought radio hour, 103.9 FM. Simply the best. Okay. Cool. Let's get back to this video we're about to wrap up. So we're getting to the part where this is an interview that I had with Christian. You're going to finish the video and then I'm going to give the news. Exactly. Yeah. And I think I'll be done maybe about five minutes. Yeah. That is a beautiful question. What I was trying to do before answering your question. Sure. Perhaps we can do this out of the time. Sure. What I wanted to do is not convince you that God exists. I just want you to tell me what convinced you and I'll leave it whether or not it convinces me as my follow-up question. Okay. You can concisely tell me what convinced you of God. Like I said, I have these conversations in five minutes anyway. What convinced you that a God was real? What convinced you that a God was real? Whatever you disappeared to the point. Before going there David, I really want you to make the point about knowing how important that is for me as a follower of informing you and I know that as soon speak to the book I really don't want to go on to talk about his project. By the way, yeah, you'll also hear a lot of times I'm not preaching at you but God would love to have a relationship with you Myriad of questions that come that come. Yeah, I was wondering you're sitting down. You haven't moved anywhere is is Christ not moving either Who are you really following really? There you go. That is yeah That is an analytic perspective about the same and linguistics, but let's let me tell you about why I'm not preaching. I'm just talking about my worldview because you were talking about the not knowing. Yeah, and You want to know the reasoning actually I didn't pursue that I wanted to know also the reasoning why you actually describe best models in order to describe reality and when it comes to reality You don't think that reality might be I don't I don't know if it's fair to say importance. I don't know if you would say that way, but it might be overrated Might be what I'm saying. Okay. So over raises. So yeah, that is kind of a reasoning that would so He got caught up on the idea that I said like reality might be overrated not saying that it's useless It's that science is not about giving you reality It's about coming up with a model to explain how reality works And that and that pursuit is really useful because it allows us to apply it to things that might be objectively true or Things that may not be like, you know video games or Google Maps, which uses a flat Earth model It's just a flat 2d map It doesn't predict the curvature of the earth when you go from here to McDonald's because it's more useful to just say point a It's gonna be about seven miles right and like as long as it's a useful model We can we can get some really useful data out of it and the difference between the usefulness and the and the objective truth of it Could be nominal. So to that point the objective reality could be slightly overrated But we at least have this really useful way to like do stuff and then like interact with people and come up with models The reality he hooked on that and he was like, okay, so if you don't know if you think reality is overrated Let me tell you what isn't overrated God and if you don't know and I know that I don't the thought process of atheist doesn't know what objective reality is therefore Christians do because we have the one true compass, which is God Let me tell you about this other model that you could use and follow and we got caught up on that a little bit I'll get to the point where he introduces the book of Job and and then skip past that because I'm just Politely waiting through him to be done and then when he's done with the book of Job he goes into Ecclesiastes I'm like, we got to stop Okay, so I would like to know that as well because if not if I if I would stay with the definition of your definition of science and how it kind of it kind of leads to thinking that realities over races I wouldn't believe Either the way you talk about yeah And I mean a cheeky way sort of like the pursuit of trying to figure out what your first kiss felt like It's just like yes But if you build a machine like a time machine to figure out what your first kiss is like I'm like way more interested in the time machine than that stupid moment in high school Michelle Andrews who had like braces and you crack teeth because you you forgot about that because of nostalgia But you build a time machine. That's way more interesting. So yeah, you learn your first kiss But like this is overrated compared to the time machine like the pursuit of science is always going to be Something more interested than these facile moments and that we're stringing together and calling Mm-hmm So what I wanted to say is that in my worldview when it comes to not knowing that is actually something that you know What our state of being as it at is is described? Biblically and I know that I'm saying many things that will call which is Bring forth many questions But just hear me what I want to say about the the fact that I think that not knowing is actually our nature Is that two moments? I'm not preaching. I'm just talking about my worldview here There are two moments in the Bible that are beautiful for me and for many people which is first of all We have the book of Joe allegedly the oldest book in the Bible where Joe is asking for 37 chapters the reasoning why something so evil has happened to him He's not up to 38 and when it comes to God as answering this question God actually doesn't answer the quote God does is to to why to widen the perspective of Joe of Joe, right? He says you think about this, but what about this that you know, you need this in order for that to happen You need this and so I'm skipping past this It's it's pretty long and I'm being polite listening through it But his idea is that the book of Job is like an example of a guy who doesn't know But the real answer is because God does exist and he's just testing which in my opinion is like one of the grossest examples of like The behavior of a deity that's supposed to be benevolent right right pick on his own followers You want to follow up on that because I know you got some beef on this And then mock them for questioning like you if you like how dare you even ask the question. That's kind of how he treated Joe Yeah, I think that God killed his family and his children and all that stuff and then gave them back to him And I'm not the same one just more women. That's my point. They gave him a new wife a new family, etc He still lost his original wife and family and property and all that good stuff And it was all due to a bet with Satan so exactly we're just playing with the lives of his followers Especially his true believers. It's a terrible story It's a really really rough story to pull anything beautiful from and it speaks to how Into the Kulaid we're already in I Welcome, it's good to see you and you're muted Welcome just I was I'll go for go for you know, and you guys threw me off when I joined it I saw two ties and I was like Cloning worked finally Finally, there's double me So this is the debate that I had last week with Christian. I didn't want to have a conversation about Christianity He said he was a former atheist So I was like, hey current atheist former atheist Let's talk about atheism and we did for like 55 minutes and then at the last five minutes Like let me tell you about God And I was like, did you ask me if I want to talk about God because I've made it explicitly clear in emails and Twitter I don't want to have a conversation about God. I want to have a conversation about atheism He's like well, you talked about atheism for 55 minutes. Let's talk about God And I was like no you invited me to a conversation about atheism Mmm, you don't have my consent to talk about God if you want to have that conversation At least tell me what convinced you but don't just start preaching at me. He's like, okay fine I won't preach at you But the beautiful book of Job is where I'd like to begin And you can see my face right now. It's like Here we go and he's already lost. He's already lost in it. So let me um skip a wee bit forward I think there's a point where it's like This is a lot longer than I expected. Sorry about this Larry Let's say I'm aware of the story. What does it mean to you? Okay, so this is one point and I'll finish the other one and then there's a beautiful verse in it Gary, you might like that as an approach. Um, I would say it a little more politely because I'm a bit, you know Drawn out but like when someone starts to say like I have this 14 long chapter recital that I want to give you It's like, okay, I understand. But what does that mean to you? What does it speak to your heart depending on what you're talking to? It's a good way to get past Memorization Regurgitation especially and I think you're referring to the chat I had with the two elders Where the story what does it mean to you? Okay, so this is one point and I'll finish the other one and then there's a beautiful verse in Ecclesiastes that goes I believe you but what do you mean to you? So, but let me let me let me say the what the word goes. Do you realize It's not like you're talking to a person who hasn't read the bible It's that I just don't want to sit and and go over bible verses Why don't you just tell me what it means to you because that at least that's the interesting part of the conversation For two people who are talking to each other Does that make sense it doesn't why why doesn't it doesn't Like why doesn't that make sense? Why can't I just tell you bible verses right now? Like aren't you a person that loves bible verse like no like I'm literally Not that person and you invited me to have a conversation about not that How does it not make sense to you anyway? Why why would that make sense for me? There is a multitude of people in the world Billions of people who would love to talk with the bible about you and you have direct access in your mind Yeah, when all powerful being that you believe in who would love to talk to you as much as you want But unlike those conversations, I'm not asking you for 10% of your paycheck and I'm actually listening to you So you're talking to a human being that has a a moral short period of time and You know my time is valuable and I'm and I I think I've made it clearly ahead of time that I don't want to talk about I want to know what they mean to you If you can't get there Maybe we can set this up as a different time, but this isn't the conversation I signed up for So again, I'm opening up the window and I'm still staking my ground because there is that Budo the idea of the show is like Christian privilege Like I'm not just going to sit here and have you recite bible verses at me or preach at me And at the end of his like Job talk he was like and let me tell you how beautiful god is listen It was just the idea that you know, Job didn't understand. It's like that's a terrible story I'm not going to say anything now when he moves into Ecclesiast is like I can't take this anymore Like I have to speak up and so I think it's worthwhile that if you are an atheist Don't don't be passive when you know, Christian privilege is being pushed on you It's okay to speak up and express yourself like hey, I don't have the you don't have consent to push me through this right now but I think that ends this we can talk about this later on Budo, what do you think? So just is anybody else distracted by the need to play the Game of find the different things in the two pictures Ty has a red shirt on that one and a blue shirt on that one The guitar the guitar's still there isn't that what you think oh there's a guitar in the background. Where where where? Oh, no, lately right by your door Oh between you and this version. I thought you meant between like this guy and this guy I was like it's easy because everything's different. Oh That's easy That's that's really interesting this conversation with this guy. Yeah any part Let's wrap up. Let's wrap up and then we can get into news. Oh, I see what you're saying So so you just don't want to talk about we have talks about a little bit about the worldview of atheism Yeah, when it comes to talking about when my my worldview finds a foundation You don't want to talk about these no because you invited me to a talk about atheism for 55 minutes for an hour Really? I was not invited to a talk about your worldview and for you to switch it around in the last step and be like Oh, well, you want to just like If I go out with someone to Taco Bell, right? And and then was like hey you want to go to talk was like sure I go to Taco Bell But I got to go to work tomorrow. It's like, okay, that's cool We go to Taco Bell we come back and it's like he when I'm ready to go to work tomorrow He's in my car. He's like let's go to work. It's like you don't work where I work What are you doing? It's like I'll I get to work. I get half your paycheck now. It's like no no no We're married. I'm gonna sleep in your bed. It's like no We agreed to Taco Bell and that was it. You don't have my consent for any of this We didn't agree on any of that like what part of that more over he wants you to go to his work Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Well, you know, it's it's like the first the whole conversation about the atheism thing is really just his extended segue Right his Is proselytizing, right? But right right and I'm not standing up for it. Also, it's like if you know when people leave their religion It's a very traumatic experience a lot of times, right? So like if I was a soldier with PTSD, right? And I'm on a conversation with someone who was like a former soldier or whatever And he's like, hey, let me tell you about my loudest grenade sound effect noises that I love to make with my mouth And I'm like Please don't do that because that's really gonna stress me out It's like well, I heard you talk about your your stuff all the while now. I want to talk about myself. It's like no, dude That's not cool. Like you don't understand The the the idea of one being a good host to consent and three the trauma that like people who actually leave Christianity or religion And and end up without faith might still be dealing with and that's like a really sensitive topic So for you to say like, hey, I'll agree to talk to you about atheism in 55 minutes But when I preach at you at the end and you don't want to hear it. That's your that's your that's more Christian privilege right there That's more Christian privilege right there. Anyway, uh, let's see. I think that I would I would happily talk about What convinced you that a god was real, but if it wasn't that bible verse Then I don't care about it because that's not what obviously got you to your god Yeah, but we were not we were not talking about that time. We I was I just wanted to make up points how Christians in a state of being where actually we actually don't know and not knowing it's a beautiful thing But you seem not to let me finish what I'm trying to say so Perhaps perhaps we can talk about that maybe another time because we are I'll be honest with you makes me a little bit sad. That's uh Make him sad ty Yeah, I I think his idea is like, hey, you're a guy that talks to anyone about anything yet You won't let me talk about religion I'm like there's a method to the madness of listening to anyone talk about anything And it's not you be quiet and let the other person vent at you It's called street epistemology and the very very first rule in my book of how to do fc is keep it positive You know One keep it positive to make it a conversation and then three make let the other person Try to let the other person think for themselves, right? And when if you're not keeping it positive because the other person is getting uncomfortable You're failing at any attempt to make an actual connection with another human being Second if you're not making a conversation conversations go both ways necessarily It's not just me telling you things like here's my worldview. I'm not preaching But I'm just going to tell you what my worldview is I'm not trying to convince you just listen to me like that's not a conversation And then three you're not letting me think you're just letting me listen to you and that's not cool So like in all three pillars of how to do fc. This is failing and I'm politely telling him on multiple occasions Please don't preach at me too. Let's talk about this later Very this is what we agreed on. Please stop And no, I won't let you finish So deal with that like but and you want to keep this up for five minutes fine But at this certain point our time is going to be up That's uh, you don't you just don't want to hear uh about something because if we if we all approach conversations this way Then we actually We couldn't talk about I certainly wouldn't want to clear the whole conversation But we did agree in text that this would be a conversation between a form and atheists and an atheism Yeah, and you did say at the last minute that you want to talk about god I'm totally fine with that But my interest in god conversations isn't the holy book the verses that you like because If I I really care about what it means to you and you and the door's still open if you want to talk about This is what this verse means to me But I don't want to sit down and talk about the 35 chapters job wrote or this verse that you want to recite Just tell me what it means to you. Yeah, we if that would change if you didn't have that What would change about you if you didn't have that verse? Yeah, that might be a better conversation for the future I think right now might be what you just work on disciplining ourselves on I'm staying focused on what the agreed upon conversation was And if you want to make a conversation about god in the future I'll show up there, but I want to be honest with you My my point even when I'm doing se is not to figure out How much you love your god? It's to figure out how you came to your god conclusion Okay And at my point is not to to challenge your god belief or challenge you personally Only challenging and you have to give it to me like a conversation takes two people to have this You have to give me the reasoning that you used to get through that I believe Elsewise, I'm not interested in having that conversation and then you're just forcing me to listen to you. Yeah Yeah, definitely I'm not forcing you to do anything and at the beginning of this conversation We we before we press the record button button Yeah, I actual we also say that sometimes conversations lead us to talk about things that we go on a tangent That's as you actually Yeah, that's really bad That's like a bad warning. That's like saying hey, man Or like going up to a girl in a bar and be like, hey, I'll buy you a drink and whatever happens happens. Yeah This is the small print Hey, it's not my fault that this conversation led to a place that you specifically said you just want to I feel like there's there's like some somehow your fault. I just can't articulate it at the present time, man There's something poetic about the fact that he used tangent when you think about geometry Oh religion and And atheism are far from tangential, you know, like I mean, he should have said perpendicular that would have Oh, that'd be nice. That'd be nice. Totally separate. Yes. We've got lots of conversations We've got like one minute left. Let's let's finish. Um, you mentioned about yourself when you talked about Video games. So I think that nothing nothing is happening here. That is not fair at all. But cool. I actually wonder If uh, you not wanted to hear that just side about not me because I'm not important Why don't you just have a conversation that way? We'll do it in the future and you can set up the conversation that way And I can show you definitely but not this conversation because we're already out of time. Yeah Well, uh, time To think that's And that was it Listen, I I just want to make the point clear. This isn't the first time I've had this happen to me And in each case I've done exactly this where it's like, you know how my consent to talk about this Either stick to the thing that we agreed on or this conversation is more or less over We're more or less already out of time. Oh, I love everything is great And I'm being cordial. I'm being nice and I'm keeping doors open But I'm not here to listen to your bible verses I'm not here to tell you I'll listen to about why your favorite god's your favorite god I want to know about The things that we talked about or the things that we agree to talk about or at least Your reasoning to arrive at a conclusion not the conclusion itself and it's not an attack on you It's just I want to figure out the most reasonable way to arrive at conclusions and you're not giving it to me So what's this conversation about? That's basically it. He's telling you what he believes instead of why or how he reached it Yeah But yeah, I'm gonna be posting the full interview on my channel. You'll be able to see that I think the very first three parts are still really good the ones about atheism And then it was only in that last five minutes where it's like, well, you won't really talk about christian is like, of course not They're worried to anyone else who wants to have Right to date with me. It's like we're gonna have it on what we agree to talk about and that's it. I don't yeah Anyway, what's news local news. Let's do it. Well, just want to talk about the local Atheist groups free thinking groups here in Knoxville. First, there's the atheist society of Knoxville ASK was founded in 2002 We're in our 18th year with over a thousand members and you can find us online at Knoxville atheists.org We also have weekly zoom meetups if you're interested in becoming A member and getting into the zoom meetups. It's every Tuesday evening around 5 30 Just messages Another large free thinking group here in Knoxville are the rationalists of east Tennessee Go to rationalist.org and click on upcoming events to find out more about them They're an older group than we are More well established. They actually have presentations and discussions where we just get together for dinner But at the same time we have a community As as as well as they do and we many times get together and form coalitions Earlier in the show. We said we talked about Knoxville atheists calling TV show Well, it's called the free thinkers united coalition In Knoxville. It's online at youtube. Just look up rethinkers of united coalition We also have archives of the show under free thought forum Knoxville you want to look that up for our other or older tv shows been on the air for 10 years So if you're interested in becoming involved with the tv or the radio show this show Come to an ask meet up RET meeting email us at askanatheist at Knoxville atheists.org And you could be our next co-host or guest With us on the show. We have wombat JW kennedy Boudreaux dread fired hicks And that pretty much covers our post break news as it were Boudreaux, I'd love for you to weigh in on the idea of christian privilege Do you think it exists? What examples have you had to impact your life and like maybe is there and then maybe As a secondary level is there such a thing as like a secular privilege that we should be concerned about That's boy. I'm bummed. I missed the beginning of this now. That's a neat topic one of the things I've thought a lot about As I get more and more vocal about my atheism is Christian Christians and other other religions, but mostly Christian Christians Are are are allowed like society is very very okay with them Walking around with lowercase t's on their neck And and kind of bragging about that their belief Whereas it's a little taboo uncomfortable for an atheist to do that or um In I guess in some societies it's probably uncomfortable for a muslim to to wear You know like a hijab or something in in certain cultures where it's you know I don't know offends people, but but yeah christians kind of have this this golden ticket to like You know where the Very religious Paraphanelia. Yeah, and and now I know I can I could get a bad religion, you know Cross with the with the line through a tattoo to my forehead and I can do that But I I think I'm gonna have a trouble keeping jobs and and making friends. I mean it would be problematic Yeah, it would be an issue. So If I get your meaning on christian privilege, I think that's one thing I have a I have a darwin Fish on my car. I have a flying spaghetti monster logo, which really just is the f s uh m Just on the you know, so if you don't know what flying spaghetti monster is then, you know, you you're not going to be offended by that Which is kind of a I'm guessing Dread Pirates grabbing grabbing his under the radar type. Yes. Yeah. I've that that on my car. Yep exactly and then So, you know, I I'm I'm proud of those things but you know darwin's kind of a science thing and again If you don't know the flying spaghetti monster, you're not going to offend anyone But I would I would I would feel uncomfortable having a cross with the line through it But the bad religion logo one of my favorite bands Um, I would I would not feel comfortable doing that and I feel like I don't have that same privilege I feel you on that instead of instead of saying i'm proud of this you're saying that is bad And it's an offensive kind of thing when you're talking to members of that group I actually put a american atheist logo on the back of my car and um, I'm good friends with nick fish I'm good friends with the the the the organization But the thing is I was worried the first day I put it on overnight if I was going to have like key marks and stuff Like because I was just like Anyone going to recognize what this is because I don't I this is my only car and I love my car Should I do this should I shouldn't do this and I feel like christians don't have to go through as many apprehensions when they When they promote themselves So publicly, yeah Gary what do you think of the idea of secular privilege? Do you think that's concerning? Secular privilege. Yeah Like I can is there such a thing No, whoa, whoa, I hear I immediately hear the christian in my head the christ the former christian that I was being like Well, you talk about christian privilege, that's right But what about judicial system that says hey listen our constitution american constitution That's like hey, there's no god in this like There's a lot of systems that From a christian point of view would prove if you had more god in it and like at best the biggest the biggest thing that you have In a judicial court is like just the bible that you you quote on but everything else is secular So like don't you think that's more secular privilege than christian privilege? And if we infuse more understanding and and christian morale's in society We wouldn't have to worry about like all these, you know Constitutional amendments that we got and these judicial proceedings that we have that are clearly unbiased look outside Look at you. You're this is the secular world falling apart right outside. That's your secular privilege right there. Check the news Well, I I don't know. I mean Oh, that's that's a tough one. Larry you got a weird I didn't have to think about that. I'm the audience here. I Would like to hear more about that Yeah, I'd like to hear more about secular privilege. I like it tie you got muted The longer, you know, larry the more you'll realize that that's his pose of I want to say something No Not at this point That's this. Oh, I can't wait to say something right now. The thing I'd like to say is that that's our starting point as a society That's our starting point. That's our bedrock. That's where we work from anything above Obvious reality needs to be proven with evidence and religion makes all kinds of claims When they're passing their laws and stuff that you know, it's based on the bible that was full of claims Without any real evidence So we need to start with secular a society and build from that if we're going to do anything So that's the foundation. That's the bedroom and and you know to to speak to that now thinking about it I mean that is essentially one of the objects of pastifarianism is to really bring it to the top of mind here that A lot of the christian privilege or muslim prayer or whatever the privilege is is an addition to the foundation Of secularism, which is the basis for our civilization, right? Right I think think of this Many of the hospitals you see out there like st. Mary's or baptist hospital or something the the religions Don't fund the entire hospital They they pay them a stipend or whatever to be able to put their name on that hospital Now if they stop paying that stipend they would remove their name They would continue being a secular hospital Right, it's the underlying bedrock of the organization just like we have an underlying bedrock of society right And it concerns me a little bit that we have christian hospitals because then what happens if we start having christian police departments You know christian judicial like these are public community services, right? They should already for the entire public And there are churches Alabama now that have their own police department What get out of here. No way. Are you serious? Oh, no, that's really bad. We need to stop that. All right I don't have their own police department, but they have their own police and force That's still bad. Yeah, that's still so bad like There are malls that have their own security, but still that's bad Yeah, I was just going to make one comment here is that just two houses from me is one of the local christian Pastors or preachers and it's interesting that he's currently getting some accolades for organizing Sandbag sandbagging efforts for the local, you know, because we're dealing with the fresh yet um But I just think it's kind of interesting that if a flood is an act of god and you have a preacher organizing people to You know build defenses against an act of god what the heck is really going on here Let's talk about lining rods on top of churches. Yeah. Hi Same thing. This is going to sound really really bad. I am in a cheeky mood So please forgive me and and jw always corrects me on jokes that are too too wild But I think what we've learned from coronavirus is that thoughts and prayers don't really do much in terms of like healing people Or the sick or getting people into better situations It's the food the work of a lot of people Trying to properly educate the community build resources that people can use and then work really hard in terrible environments to keep people well Or is what's keeping this fabric of a community together? We need to be aware of that jw Yo, not if they didn't shut down the churches the thoughts and prayers would work See Like if you you know you closed the churches for two and a half months and look what happened to the world Oh, man, I rolled my eyes all the way the back of my skull Guys, we got like a couple of minutes left in the show. Um, I'm going to post where everyone's links are You can see any of our past videos. This is like a well-known group already Um, larry why don't you let us out and then if we got more to talk about we'll put it in like extended And I'll post that separately. Yeah Okay. Well, this has been the digital free thought radio r and w o zero radio 103.9 l p f m Here in noxville, Tennessee As and if you'd like to listen to our other shows go to digital free thought dot com click on the podcast link You can also find our videos on uh, let's chat dot Well, let's chat What's that on youtube youtube and my channel on youtube? It's just larry rhodes larry s roads Um, we're available our podcasts are available on itunes stitch your luminary podcast dot com My heart as well as digital free thought dot com And I'd like to remind everybody at the end of the show that Everybody is going to somebody else's health the time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hell's and souls Are real until then don't worry about it And enjoy your life. We'll see you next wednesday 7 o'clock on w o zero radio 103.9 l p f m Simply best say bye everybody. Bye. Bye everybody. Stay rational