 103.9 FM, WOZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, April 11th, 2021. I'm Larry Rhodes, our Doubter 5, and as usual, we have our co-host Wombat along with us. Hello Wombat. What's up, everybody? Yay. I'm doing good. I'm doing well. And our guests today are George Brooklyn and Dreadpire Higgs. Hello. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism, and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious thought and atheism. I lost the line there somewhere. Anyway, Wombat, what's our topic today? I'm sorry, Larry, were you talking to me, my body, or were you talking to me as in my mind? Your mind, definitely. On the spiritual plane that will outlive my body. That's right, your mind. Okay, okay. If you're talking to my mind, then I'll say gladly. I don't know if I'll live your body, though. Okay. I'll gladly say either way. We're going to be talking about dualism today. I think it's going to be a fun conversation. But before we get into the meat and potatoes, I'm going to throw it up to our own Dreadpire Higgs for a weekly invocation. Oh, problem be me, Captain. I shall not want. He maketh me to float in salt waters. He stireth me through glassy seas. He filleth my bowl. He stireth me through the straits of noodliness for goodness sake. I, though I sail through the heaving of tempestuous waters, I will fear not sinking or now arch with me. I must, and I rather, they comfort me. I'll preparest a feast before me in the presence of me mates. I'll quenchest my thirst with grog. My goblet runs over. Truly, pasta and grog shall follow me all the days of me life. And I will dwell in the galley of the quab forever. Grog. Guys, I've been having some weird problems because I'm getting back on that whole, this is not true. This is obviously, this is my bit. This is a fair warning. I'm getting back on that eharmymatch.com, Tinder, Grindr, all that stuff. I'm getting myself back out there at springtime. Let me tell you something, though. I have to ask myself, am I into the body or am I into the mind? I feel like those are the two biggest questions. And every single time you sign up on one of these websites, you have to check these boxes and be like, hey, are you a mind person or are you a body person? And I want to make sure I score points good. So I'm always like, yeah, I'm not into the body. I'm into the mind, right? Because that's what's going to give me the points. I've been thinking about this, though. I'm thinking actually that you should actually say body. And the reason why I say body whenever you're asked if you're a mind or a body person is because, in my opinion, the mind seems to be a product of the body. Like, I need muscles. I need proteins. I need salts. I need liquids to keep my mind working. And I feel like very much my mind is an emergent property of my body. So the better I take care of my body, the better I have access to my mind. I don't know if that's necessarily the case, though, because there are people who believe that there are two separate things. And I think that falls into the category of dualism. Like, the mind and the body are very distinct and objectively different things. But I'm not sure if that's what everyone here in this conversation believes. So let's do a round table. Dread pirate, what do you think dualism is? Do you think it's like what? I think it's precisely as you put it. And certainly what René Descartes was alluding to when he said, I think, therefore I am. He was a dualist. And his philosophy is based on the idea that the mind or the spirit or there's two aspects to our existence. One which is encapsulated by our bodies and one which is sort of inhabiting the body as something outside of the body. Yeah, that's what I understand dualism to be. Could you throw this out then? So like, does it stop at just two? No, I mean, you think of even Catholicism, right? You know, there's the Holy Spirit and then there's the soul. So there's different sort of non-corporeal aspects to existence aside from just the body and the spirit. I guess what I was alluding to is like, do you have, we can measure a body and we can be like, hey, that's one body. But like, you know, Scientologists would say there's a collection of souls, for example, that could be inhabiting a body. And that's not just one thing. How do we have any idea of like this soul or at least for René Descartes point of view? Like, yes, it's more than one, but how do we know it's two? Dualism seems to apply to you. Yeah, I think it's arbitrary. It could be a vileism. Oh, that's interesting. Vileism. Yeah, like, or Trinity within myself or something like that. It's a weird thing. Once you get past one, it gets a more murky thing if we can't measure it. Larry, I'd like to get your point of view. Dualism, what do you think it is? I think it's nonexistent. I think. Hey, hey, let's be nice. Let's be nice. What? You don't look that up in the dictionary, like fairies in the dictionary. It's like they don't exist. Next word. It exists in the dictionary. I think that your, your, your eye, the eye of our psychology is affected directly by drugs, surgery, prefrontal, prefrontal lobotomy, injury, anything that you do to the brain, you also affect the mind. So it's inextricably entwined into the physical presence of our brain. It's an emergent property of the brain and without the brain, it would not exist. Your brain dies. That's the end of the mind. That's my take. So I'm going to ask, I'm going to not, I'm just poking this like it doesn't seem, is there any tools that we have that can measure mind activity? Because we can definitely measure brain activity. Sure. How do I, I think we'll do it. Talk, talk to me, talk to me. How do we do it? MRI just what it does is it looks at the brain activity. When, in other words, when you have an activity in a certain area of your brain, like on the right side of your brain, it may be because you're doing something with the left hand. And it physically controls the impulses that make your hand react. So it's going to show more activity and will light up certain areas of the brain in an MRI. So that's the way of showing the mind activity outside of brain activity. I don't think there's any way to evaluate that unless maybe you're just talking about speech. So Brian, I mean, this speech can represent what's going on in the mind. It sounds like you're saying brain activity is just a word that we might, I'm sorry, mind is just a word that we've come up for with for brain activity and that they actually are one and the same thing. And so without brain activity, you're not going to have a mind. Sure. Whoa, powerful, powerful, powerful. So I'm going to fill this out. I'm going to, I'm going to throw out one last challenge in question. Are you saying then like dogs have a mind, dogs have a mind? I'm not sure. What? I've seen dogs poop outside. This is a treat for my dog. And my dog is here asking for the treat. He has an agency and a will. Let me tell you something. Hey, Vinny, come here. I want a treat. Vinny, here. Like cats have minds. Okay. Dogs, not so much. I feel like they're kind of... There you, sir. We can talk about this later. George, I'd like to get your opinion. From our conversation about dualism so far, what do you think it is and what's your opinion on it? Well, from an early age, I have always enjoyed cats. Yeah. Great. It's hard to answer. Both of them. So if I asked the cat, are you dual or are you... What's the word? Unitary. I think that's what George Bush used to say. I am the unitary executive. So if I said to the cat, are you a unitary thing or are you dual? Do you have a mind and a body? What's the cat going to ask me? What's the cat going to answer me? What the hell are you talking about? And to me, as you know, I will say this for anybody who's new to the show that I was raised without God, without God, without religion. So to me, the concept of a soul is kind of strange. So I'm sort of equating that with, okay, the soul is the mind and that is thought by many people to be distinctly separate from the corporeal existence. But at that mind, that soul will continue to live after I die. But I can't relate to it. It's not organic to me. I'm not programmed with this. So you've never had an inclination maybe even when you're working out or if you are doing like a particularly hard task, maybe it's just focusing in class or trying to teach a kid a clarinet or a recorder and he's just not paying attention. And you feel your body getting angry. You're like, come on, kid, just do this thing. But in your head, you're saying, hey, self-George, calm down. We got to walk through these steps. We got to stay awake in this class. We got to make sure we don't cough in this person's face who's not wearing a face mask. Don't you feel like there's a voice in your head that's telling you that you identify with as you command your body to do things or not do things? Don't you feel like sometimes your body wants to do something and your mind says, no, no, no, we're not going to do that. We're going to say. Oh, yeah, of course. Yes. So what is that? I won't go into detail right now because it's not fit for radio. Sure. So what is that if that's not like a dualistic set of forces? Well, it is dualistic. No argument for me. Oh, Larry, you're shaking your head. Why are you shaking your head? Well, because your mind, your brain is producing your mind, which with your brain is part of your body. Okay. These other emotions that you have adrenaline pumping through you in times of danger or sexual arousal when you're not really wanting to be there. Yeah. Massage table or something. And your body is basically not doing what your mind wants. Sure. But it's still your body reacting to outside stimulus. It is not something supernatural, not something physical. Yeah. Not autonomic from the body. So it's different parts of your body reacting different ways. George from Buffalo. Okay. Are you are you connected with us? Fantastic. Yeah. So we're talking about dualism today and the nature of like, is it possible that you might exist outside of your body? Or in a way where it's like you can command your body, what to do? That the you that I'm talking to is not this physical bag of chemistry, but rather something controlling your body. Like what is your opinion on that? Do you have a perspective on dualism? I'm a chemist. Need I say more? Yes. Because I've seen it before. And trust me, I'm a biochemist too. But I have gone to the labs where it's like, you know, you see crystals, you see rabbits foot, like I don't, I, it's a shame to admit this, but like high degrees in like very necessary fields do not necessarily imply a good critical thinking regimen on the supernatural. And so Dreadpile, I'll get to you real quick. I'm just wondering, George, what's your opinion on dualism? What's the opinion, but what do you think dualism is? And do you have like any hot takes on it other than you don't believe in it? Yeah, I guess, I guess maybe, maybe I'll pass on to the next person and give myself a chance to think on it. Cool. I can respect that. Dread, what's your thoughts? I was thinking, you know, about some of the arguments against this whole idea of the spirit or soul. And the fact that it actually violates the second law of thermodynamics, right? All things are, all things are moving towards entropy. So, you know, we, we ingest food in order to power our bodies and our minds, our brains being a part of our body, right? So if there's a spirit that exists beyond us, what is powering it? Right? Because if we stop feeding ourselves, we will die. Okay. So what is the soul as an energetic form in some way being powered? How is it being sustained? Dread, I love the train of thought that you're on, but you also work, you work, you fall into this thing where it's called, what I call digging into the swamp. And I always say, like, whenever you have these conversations, you want to get, you want to skim that top of the surface because when you're dealing with supernatural things, you're effectively working with magic, which means I can make up rules to make sense now that you're playing my game. I can say, oh, well, souls are just special things that sometimes absorb energy from XYZ or God gives you energy. And I don't have to make sense because it's magic. And I try to avoid that as much as possible. I just try to appeal to, you know, reason and sense. I do like the idea of the brain being not a complicated thing. Like a lot of people have the assumption that there's this thing called Occam's razor, which is unfortunately known as the simplest answer, the truest answer, and that's not what Occam's razor says. Occam's razor is the path that makes the least number of assumptions, tends to be the most true, and it's not an absolute law, but sometimes convoluted answers are absolutely true. Sometimes things that are very complex can be totally true. And I think the brain is a very complex thing. And I think you have unfortunate, not unfortunately, but just through our development, we've had primal brains, lizard brains, brains, a part of our brains that are more for higher level functions and then like metal level functions all in the same cranium. Like it's all there still. And so because of that, we may come up with, like as Larry said, the sensation of like, hey, I am hungry. No, I'm not hungry. Like you may have complete competing parts of your brain being like, I want to go outside today. It's like, I want to read a book and they have a little conflict. And you're like, I don't know what to do. Should I get my keys or should I get on the couch? And I can feel someone who's having that sensation being like, what's going on? I don't really understand what's going on. There must be identity crisis. Maybe my body is trying to do something and maybe I exist outside of my body and I'm trying to tell my body to do something else. I can see that. It can be a lot more complicated than that. If you have split personalities, you could have several personalities residing in the same brain. Very true. Very true. That's the actual thing. Dredd, what do you got? Well, you brought up Occam's razor. Sure. And I thought a good corollary to that is Hitchens razor. Are you familiar with that? No. Talk to me. Just for Hitchens. That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Sure. Sure. Good point. Good point. So if you don't have a way to prove a supernatural concept like, I don't have an out of the world mind controlling my body, I can dismiss that just as well. It needs to be shown as an option. It needs to be proved as an option before we can consider it as an option. Right. I have this funny idea. And actually I'm stealing it from Larry, but there's this movie called inside out where it's like a panel of emotions controlling or not controlling but helping a girl get through her, through her life. Right. So the girl has the girl will go through her day and then something will make her angry. And then it zooms into her head where there's like a panel and there's like all the emotions at a table pushing buttons. And there's an anger emotion and a fear emotion and like a happy emotion. And they're all like, we got a, I'm pushing the button harder. I get to control the machine now. And then when the anger takes control, that girl gets angry. The funny thing is though, at the end of that movie, they jump into one of the emotions head. There's another panel of people and I'm thinking, oh man, how many, it's like a Russian doll. How far does this go down? And if, if we have the idea that we are not controlling our body or that we are controlling our body and that we are an agent that's controlling our body, what's controlling that agent? Right. Right. George, have you ever thought about this? Am I blowing your mind? No, I've never thought about it. And you're blowing his mind. Oh man. What's the good thing he's got that cool beanie on? Buffalo, I want to check. This is because it's cold in here. I don't doubt it. I don't doubt it. Here in the sunny South, I'm freezing. Buffalo, check it in. I want to get your feedback. Anything on dualism. What do you think? Who are you talking to? Buffalo, Buffalo. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I have a hard time conceptualizing what the basis of that might be. From a biological perspective. And maybe I'm oversimplifying the biology because we don't understand it. We don't understand the biology of the brain. Really, much less so than the biology of all the other organs. So I have a hard time conceptualizing the soul or some outer influence. I just don't see that there's any evidence for that. I don't understand how it would be possible given our current knowledge of the human brain. I feel like it's just an appealing thing that people want to believe. It's a very, very nice thing to believe that you might exist outside of your body. Because if something bad happens to your body, you might live on past that. I have a quick analogy. I'm not sure if this makes sense. I'm still formalizing it. But it's sort of like a lot of people feel as if they existed before their body existed. Just like a personality or like a spirit of some sort. Or like a concept of some sort. And then the human body was born. And they're like, I'm going to be in this body. And the reason why I say that is because I've often heard people say, man, I could have been anything. Like I look at the world and I'm so lucky to be a human being. I could have been a mosquito. I could have been a bush stuck in the ground all day long. I could have been a Miba and a pond. But no, I get to be a human being. I get to be the number one thing I can walk around. I can sing. I listen to music. I'm like, I'm so lucky. I'm like, why are you saying that? It's almost a hundred percent chance that you are a human being. Because in my head it's the human being that was born first. The human being making some mental synapses, you know, like making some processes. And then formulating the personality that's talking to me right now. Like it didn't happen the other way around. And the analogy that I had was like, it's sort of like imagining that there's a lobby for fires in the world. And there's like a fire that's like, hey, who wants to go to Chicago? And like no one raises their hand except one in the back. It's like, I'll go to Chicago. And then that fire goes to Chicago and burns down half the city. And then people are like, oh man, of all the fires in the world, it was this fire that burned down Chicago. When really it's like, no, the fire happened in Chicago. It was manifested within Chicago. And then after the fact, it's like it had to have been that fire because that was the only place for that fire to come on. Right? Yeah. It's an appealing idea to think that we could outlive our body. And it's an appealing idea to think that we had a choice in who we wanted to be. Though I feel like it leads to a slippery slope where you can start believing in more obscure supernatural concepts like souls. Or karma or reincarnation or our justice that's taken care of by the universe and not by your own responsibility and your own actions. And that can lead to some problems. Yeah. Everyone on the same page. We can't agree. We can't all agree on this. We can't. Absolutely. So I want to, I want to make a quick little point. Scott was supposed to be here in this conversation for dualism because I imagine he would go to the bat for this a little bit more. But I feel like, I feel like, are we all saying like dualism, not a thing that exists? It's a nice thing. It could be a nice thing, but there's no real metric for, for measuring or having it. Is that what we're all on? Is that the same thing? I think a lot of people think of the spirit, you know, human spirit is kind of a soul thing. But I mean, like if your spirit is high, it's a good thing. You know, you need to keep your spirits up. You need to, they talk about their emotions as if they were spirits. Okay. Something we might want to identify. I'm fine with that idea. I think like in the capacity of how far am I willing to go on the dualism plank? I would say, yeah, I have thoughts that sometimes come about without me having any control over. And I can either dissuade them or reinforce them. As someone might say, hey, you can totally do that. And I'd be like, I'm not sure if I can fight that tiger yet. And then I have some of them be like, you can totally run an extra mile. And I'd be like, yeah, I'll do that. Yeah, sure. So there is an agreement or a conversation going on in my head. And I feel like as long as I'm aware that that's me talking to myself. That's my body talking to my body. I'm totally fine with that. I think that's good. You know, you just to rate an interesting point with me is that I used to be big on running long distances when I was young. And I did experience the so-called second breath. And that may be one time I experienced the third breath. And I often wondered, what is that? And I've sort of concluded that it's just a conditioning of your body to the point where your body has a higher capability than what was not in condition. But still, it was sort of like a magical moment. I've often wondered, I'd be interested in other people that may have experiences as to how they think this might come about. Because it's the physical versus the mental maybe. Right. And yeah, anybody got an explanation for that? I got a weird one. And how much time do we got, Larry, before we head out? Five minutes, four minutes. OK, perfect. I think a lot of the time when I'm running, it is a conversation of saying yes when my body says no. And then at a certain point, I don't have to say yes as hard. And it's just more of like, stay engaged in the run. Because my body is saying, I'm bored. And I'm like, yeah, I'm kind of bored too, but we're still going to do this. And then even that goes away. And then it's more of just like a, how long are we going to do this for? Because I'm not tired. And I'm not really bored. I'm just waiting for this thing to be done. So I hear what you're saying. You have a conversation with yourself in different stages. And based on your physical fitness, it changes the dynamic of the conversation a lot of times. And so there is, I would agree with you wholly that there is a relationship between physical and mental, especially as you work out. Larry? Well, I think about the old religious men, the old, I don't know, priests from long ago, you know, to have a religious experience, they would often not eat for 20 days or something and only subsist on water. So depriving your body of certain physical nutrients can actually trigger psychological events and hallucinations, even audio hallucinations. Which you normally would think would be as a product of your mind and thinking, but in senses, but it's actually something produced because of lack of nutrients. Right. And that's actually a good account for an explanation for Jesus, you know, when he went into the desert for 40 days and fasted and then met the devil. I mean, I probably meet the devil. We could probably do that. I'd probably meet the devil, too. Get me out of this desert. This might be a good time to take a break. Sure. This is the Digital Freethought Radio Hour at WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM, right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we'll be right back after this short break. 103.9 FM WOZO Radio, Knoxville. After the second half of the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio, right here in Knoxville, it's 103.9 LP FM. I'm Dr. Five. This is Sunday, April 11th, 2021. Now, let's talk about the atheist society of Knoxville or ASK for a second. Founded in 2002, we're under 19th year. ASK has over a thousand members and we have weekly Zoom meetings during COVID, but we will be starting back with physical meetings probably in May. You can find us online on Facebook, meetup.com, or noxfolatheist.org, or just Google Knoxville Atheist. It's just that simple. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to Meetup and start or search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Start one. Thanks, guys. Start one! Good. Dreads on me. Oh, where do we want to pick that? Sorry. We're not going to do some listener feedback because we got so many fans. What a fan. What a fan. What a fan. What a mighty good fan. What a mighty, mighty good fan. Nice, guys. All right. So here's our first comment. Actually, we had some comments on our Reddit page at r slash street at Pistemology that was talking about what we're talking about right now. But before we go into that, Loma sent a comment on last week's show. Last week's show was something about Skynet, where we were talking about AI. And Loma says, hey, when I was 11, my teacher told me I was going to hell when she didn't like my behavior. This was also the only teacher out of the 25 in the public school who did 15 minutes of reading the Bible as part of class every morning. I believe George would say that I'm an organic atheist, so not very hurtful to myself. I have to say things in just the people I know well like, you're going to hell for that. Or that's karma. I wonder how that would affect others who believe in those things and how it affects the believers saying those types of things. George also mentioned that Glenn Gold, which was a reminder of this teacher as she was also Glenn Gold's cousin. Glenn Gold being the pianist that. Gould Gould Gould that George Birkland George is very fond of. So George, he wants to know basically like, you know, you say things and just sometimes maybe like, hey, you might be going to hell for that. Have you ever considered how someone who might actually believe that would take that? I have no idea because for one thing, nobody has ever told me that I was going to hell. No one's ever told you that? No, not at all. You want to try it out, right? You're going to hell, George. You're going to hell. You're going to hell. You're going to hell. You're going to hell. You want to get on this? You'll be first in line. You're just like, oh, he's Jewish and an atheist. Oh, that's perfect. We got any place to record her. Oh, we got the special table, you know, discount for you. When you say, when you say, uh, hey, you might be going to hell. Have you ever considered how someone who might be absolutely serious about hell would take that? And have you ever been accosted by like, hey, don't say that. I have been when I was growing up. I have actually said I like Powerpuff Girls that has a character that looks like Satan that's, that's named him. And I was like, I love Powerpuff Girls. And then someone stopped me and said, hey, you can't like that show because Satan's on that show. I've had people come up to me and say like, hey, you can't like Dragon Ball Z because there's super Saiyans on it. And for some reason they considered saying and Satan the same thing. I know I'm not talking to the people in this room right now. I'm talking to the internet. But I've had people say you can't like Pokemon because there's psychic Pokemon and that's anti-Christian. I've had all sorts of things like that happen. And I just look at them and I'm like, you guys are have completely missed the zeitgeist on this thing. It's a fun, great thing. Yeah, man. Uh, Dredd, maybe for you, like, have you ever been to like, I don't know what would be your thing, ACDC or like rock lyrics and you're like, what do you mean? I can't like this. What's wrong with you? Well, I mean, I was raised Roman Catholic. So I was in Skonston, all this kind of crap. Um, or pardon my. It's okay. That's acceptable. Uh, yeah. So I mean, again, and like I said, I was actually working towards being a Catholic priest at one point. So I was pretty wrapped up in this stuff for a long time. And, um, and it was, and it took a long time to get out of it. I mean, it's, you know, it's quicksand, you know, unless you've got someone throwing your rope, you're, you're, you're going to sink. I feel it. Yeah. So yeah. So I've been there. Speaking of Roman Catholic, Buffalo George, you said you were from Poland or you had family in Poland. Hungary, Hungary, Hungary. Are they Roman Catholic? Yeah. Okay. Um, did you have a similar notion of like, Hey, there's some things that I say colloquially when I'm in America, but I can't say what I'm in Hungary. Well, I, um, yeah, I don't really know the answer to that because I've only been in Hungary to visit. Ah, okay. Okay. In my Hungarian community, it was very ethnic when I was a, when I was small. Um, yeah, there were things like that that, uh, one wouldn't say because I think it's because it was considered offensive to others. Whether it was because they presumably were believers in that or not, but it was just a very sharp sense of not wanting to disturb other folks. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like a lot of, a lot of the hangups that I still have in religion are still the, the sensation of, but I don't want to make you upset even though I know I'm right about this. I feel like I don't want to, I don't want to trigger you. So I will, I will continue to be quiet or I'll continue to avoid saying these things to keep everybody happy. A nice day is better than. And I certainly do that here where I'm located halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga in the Bible belt. I'm very, very conscious of that. And I'm also very conscious of the fact that I don't seem to understand these people. I'm, you know, in a way it's like I'm in quicksand. I just, I don't understand it. I feel like that is the fun of living though. I feel like you are here. I'm not going to say this in like a destiny sort of way, but I feel like part of the fun of being a human being, even though I am a human being and I'm part with my body is understanding other human beings and how surprisingly we're all different, but it's still worth the work to try to understand each other. You know, I believe that. Absolutely. Yes. Yes. Oh, go for it. I was going to say I read in the newspaper this morning about a recent poll that says that the number of active religious persons that go that actually belong to assign themselves to a religion has decreased yet again. And wow. I'm pretty fast. Nice. Now it's at like 47%. It's finally below 50%. Yeah. Yay. Can we celebrate that? That includes the folks that belong to a church, but don't go, don't participate. And they made a guesstimate of that. And they came down to the final number that only tend to maybe 20% of all religious people run their lives according to their religion. Okay. Really pretty low. So we talk about when we talk about these things, how religion influences your behavior with other people. We're now, you know, practicing these, these nice ways of dealing with folks to a really a minority. I think. Dred, what do you think? Well, I was just going to say that this year is a Canadian census year. And every 10 years, it includes questions on religion and religiosity. So this year is a year where they're going to be asking those questions, you know, like, do you affiliate with a specific religion or are you, do you consider yourself very religious? And over the last few, of course, that the number that, you know, consider themselves a religious has been growing. And it would be nice to see if that is actually turning into kind of like an exponential curve. Yeah. Where, you know, it's building some kind of momentum. It'll be interesting to see what the results of that are this year. I would also say just my pre sense. We tend to move things in history as a cycle. And America did wasn't always as ardently religious from the beginning, from the get go. In fact, a big part of America was like, we don't want to be that religion. We want to be a separate thing. And, and it wasn't until the 1950s where a lot of this religious crux came back into, you know, our system because a group of powerful people decided to make an enemy out of a very specific nebulous group. And everyone glammed onto that because we are very inclined to, you know, be very tribalistic with what we not like and like. And so we, even though we are migrating to what I, what I consider the true equilibrium, the idea of like, I'm not convinced that's true. Give me good reason to believe it. We can very, very easily fall back into the state where we are very religious again. And so I say it's great that we are moving back down, but that's only through hard work of people asking the right questions and raising kids to ask the right questions. And we shouldn't stop doing that. So the, so the concept I think that I hear from you is it's a pendulum goes back and forth. Hmm. Okay. Yeah, pendulum works too. Yeah. I like that. You know, and history seems to work though. It works very slowly. Hmm. Yeah. You know, maybe at 50 year increments and I'm not quite sure where we are. A wrecking ball. Yeah. Yeah. I like that. Climate change isn't going to change all of it. When, when climate change really imposes its hardships on many different people, like it is in, in North Africa, for example, like the Arab spring situation. And tomorrow, really forced Indonesia. Will we shift back? And is it all because our, because religion is really based on hope. You know, people want hope. And if, if the dire nature of climate change effects on the great number of people might bring it all back. So I'm kind of, I'm kind of hoping in my lifetime, I may see that which way, which way it happens or if it happens. So Larry, I'd love to get your weight on this. There is actually sci-fi movies where they have a new religion like Star Trek. While everyone there has a respect for different cultures. Someone's going to correct me on this. I know it. But there's also a religion called scientism, which is not Scientology. It's more of like the idea of like the science and the, and the acts through observation dictate how I see the world and things like climate change are things that I'm very actively trying to reduce my impact on. Cause I believe in science as almost like a dogmatic point of view. And I feel like science is the best method for everything. And, and these are the best and the most appropriate things. It's very, it's like very Vulcan-esque. It's very Vulcan-esque in a way. If you guys know that character, but it's, it's a religion that's like, if we just do this, we can make less harm in the universe. That's actually a good thing. And we can actually improve life at that same time too. Like we figured out this method. Maybe religion might migrate towards that. Maybe we may get rid of like the, hey, I made fish out of a bread basket. Let's worship him and kill all these other people and move towards more of like, hey, let's respect each other based on like these. I think of science is basically the, the true path to the truth and to the facts about a universe and nature and ourselves. The philosophy can fill in whatever gaps that science itself, per se, leaves or may not cover. I dig it. However, I don't, I think when you use the word religion, it conjures up worship. So I don't, I don't even subscribe to that. I don't believe in worship. I don't think we should worship anything. However, we should value things highly that can return value to the society or to people in science as one of those. All right. Dredd. And I agree with, I agree with Larry there that, you know, for some folks to use scientism as, as a term for maybe atheists or whatever, as a replacement of religion, I think is incorrect. And I just brought up, you know, the definition of scientism is the promotion of science as the best or only objective means by which society should determine normative and epistemological values. So it's not really religious because the method, sciences of methodology, right? It's not a, it's not a, it's not a thing. It's not a, it's not like kneeling before a microscope and or sometimes you do that. Sometimes you just need to get that paper out of the way. He's like, please be red. I died. You read, please turn red. Please be red. Oh, right. Thanks. That's science. I can publish and graduate. Yeah, I've been there before. I, so I do like the idea of religion becoming less extreme. And I feel like the, I feel like it is a pendulum, but I think one of the reasons why it's swinging more slowly is because we are becoming more mixed as a culture and we have technology that allows us to travel anywhere in the world, communicate with anyone around the world and very, very easy. Like I'm doing this for free. Like I'm calling all you guys for free. That's crazy. Like this is, this is a nutty video call that back in the nineties, this would have cost, I would have to put in 1-800 call collect and you guys would have put in a quarter and a pay phone. It would take forever. I'm just doing this for free. This is a fun thing. I feel like because of that, the exchange of ideas will eventually increase everyone's standard of evidence. It will take some time, but it's, it's even more inhibited to go backwards now. And I, the thing that makes me more convinced that this is true is when I hear, when I hear really terrible acts against humanity, even if it's by our own, like political administrations, like, oh, there's a guy who's like the postmaster general and he's trying to defund the post office so that mail in ballots don't get counted as much in America. I'm like, ah, I know this now. Like why is this in the news? Like it's suddenly something that like that could have happened 20 years ago and no one would have cared or no one would have noticed. Now it's not only something that we are aware of, that it's something that we're generally upset about, that we're having a discussion about. And I'm like, whoa, this exchange of information is a good thing. People are reacting. Even though it's a bad thing, people are reacting in the right way. I feel like, what do you mean we pale face? What do you mean we? What do you mean we? You're going to have to explain that one, George. I don't understand what you're talking about. I don't know if I can. That's the first time in my life I've ever been called pale face. It's a joke about the Lone Ranger and Tonto. I don't, I don't know the whole joke, except that's Tonto's comeback. It's 11, Larry. It's 11, 2021. I've been called pale face. Yeah. The Lone Ranger and Tonto were out riding and they get attacked by Indians and they circle around them and they pin them down and the Lone Ranger turns to Tonto and says, well, it looks like we've had it this time. Tonto, he says, what do you mean we pale face? Yeah. So my takeaway is I think the way how we are reacting, even to bad things that are existing is a good sign that things are getting better. And I love that. And so, yes, pendulum swinging. Let's be mindful of that. That it can swing in both ways and let's try to do our best to make sure that we move towards a better equilibrium as a group. Guys. Oh, there's someone in the background buffalo. He's watching it. I see you. I see you. Hey, what's up? How are you? What's going on? And she's saying it's almost time to go to our, our kids soccer game and Eric is probably on the way to that game and expects us to be there. So, Larry, what's our time? Is it almost time? I still have about eight minutes. Okay, okay. I have several because we took a long break. That's not really going to play. What's something that you would recommend that we check out before next week? Oh boy. You're on the spot. Any good books, any good exercise tips that you would recommend? I'd like to study further or talk further about this, the trend in terms of religious either gaining as a result of people seeking hope or falling back because I'm not so sure. Okay. Okay. What would make you more convinced that it was going down? Yeah. Okay. See you later. All right. Something to consider. See you, George. George. I'll throw out that question that Buffalo was asking us. Like he is a little doubtful that religiosity is going away, at least as far as America goes. What would it take for you to be convinced that religiosity is actually, you know, leaving in your small, in your neck? Well, it's interesting because I read the same thing that George Buffalo did. I mean, it was, it was in the media. So I read it in The Guardian and what would it convince me? I believe it. I believe it. It's very hard for me in my, quote, soul. Okay. To grok that being here in the middle of the Bible Belt. Sure. Well, what it takes me to be like, oh, Bible Belt's getting a little more woke these days. Like what would that be? You know, I don't know because I'm scared. I'm afraid that that's wrong, you know, or that these people are also going to get guns and go around killing people. So maybe if you got a little less scared, maybe if you found something that made you less scared, like a pride parade that was, you know, more or less well accepted or, hey, you know, whatever. It's very hard for me to, on an emotional level. I see. To buy into it. I mean, I come from a Jewish background. Sure. And so I have very distant relatives who didn't make it through the 1930s. Got it. Or the 19, early 1940s. And I don't think about this very often, but, you know, there were a lot of Jewish people in Nazi Germany who thought, oh yeah, that this will just go away. It'll just blow over. I hear you. I can tell you this. Here's my three thoughts. One quick thought. And then we get to dread as a black person, especially if someone who thinks that my life matters, it's really important for me to have a standard of what it would take for me to be convinced that things are getting better or not, because that keeps my emotions rational. Otherwise, we may be gripped by irrational fears or rational sentiment. And I'm trying to say, okay, if this guy gets convicted or if funding drops this amount, or if less, if the percentage of black people that get sent to jail for nonviolent crimes drops by this much, it will be more convinced that we're getting towards a better path. I have to have those metrics. And I would recommend that you think about those. Dread. Dread. Dread. I was going to say that one thing that would indicate that to me, that America was moving away from religiosity is what I don't hear the president say at the end of the State of the Union address. Ah, okay. Well, it's less America, right? Yeah. Yeah. If the president no longer says that, that's a pretty strong indication. I'll be waiting for that day. I'll be waiting for that day. Yeah. Same here. Larry, what do you think? What would it take for you to be like, oh, okay, we are actually dropping down in religiosity. It's not just a number and a newspaper. Well, the number of representatives that we're having in Congress who self-proclaim as atheist or nonbelievers has gone up quite distinctly this last election. So that's a good metric. That's a really good metric. I wasn't even aware of it. Yeah. That's fantastic. One thing that us atheists and nonbelievers have always lacked is representation. And we're starting to get some of that at least in the House. I don't know so much about the Senate. I think Bernie Sanders is on our level. I think he is. I'm good with God. It deals our problem with me. I don't want to talk about him anymore. It's no good deal. You do that well. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. I would say this. My metric would be the tone of how that news article was. If it was like people aren't going to church anymore. Oh, no. Please run to your nearest church and get indoctrinated. Well, that's a problem. It was a neutral article. I like neutral. I like that as a neutral story. People aren't religious anymore. OK, anyway, so this dog can dance. Look at this dog dance in Mariachi. I'm like, I feel like we're getting on more of the level because if we went back to the 1600s, that would have been front-page news. People would have been tarred and feathered. And now it's just like, eh, we're only religiosity dropping down no big deal. One thing I want to mention about the article is that they made a very important distinction about age ranges so that it's the young people who are coming forward who are the most inclined to simply not have. I'm sorry, I think a lot of that has to do with the kids are online more. And online is where religions go to die. But some of them are accelerating their effect online too. Yeah, there are some toxic mind thinking that does get accelerated on the internet for sure. But old school toxicity is definitely on the dying. So I'd love to see how that evolves over time. George, is there anything that you'd recommend that we check out before? Yes, absolutely. We've been talking about the mind and the body. And I want to recommend the Doctor Who story. OK, go for it. OK, it's from the 1960s. I think it's the story is called the brain of Morbius. And it's a it's a great Frankenstein romp. Nice. So it's Doctor Who. The doctor is played by Tom Baker. And the name of the story is the brain of Morbius. And it's a lot of fun. It includes a brain in a jar. Wow. And what's the name of the doctor? Oh, the doctor. No, the doctor doesn't get the joke. I just love it. The doctor never has a name. But this is the years that were played by Tom Baker. Cool. Is there anything that you'd recommend that we check out? Yeah, I've got my YouTube channel, MinePirate, P-Y-R-A-T-E. And I'm just going to start posting these recordings on here until I get it figured out how to live stream again. Very, very cool. Yeah. On my page, I would say I'm playing Tetris again. It's a beautiful game. Very, very simple. It's the falling blocks. But what I really love about Tetris is there comes a point where the pieces are falling so fast that you start to pen it and you feel it in your body. But you have to tell your brain. If in a weird way you're telling your brain calm down and just look at what the next piece is, figure out where it needs to go and just do the inputs to make sure where it needs to go because we already have another piece on the way. Just stay calm, stay relaxed. So your body is like, oh my gosh. And your brain is like, you've got to chill out. And I do feel that it applies to the dualism talking to yourself sort of mindset. But it is just your body talking to your body. But I do love the conversation that you have as you get into like higher speeds of Tetris. It's always a fun little sensation. Larry, what's your takeaway? Well, my content can be found on digitalfreethought.com and on Facebook, digital freethought radio, our Facebook page. The digitalfreethought.com site is also a blog where we have archives of our Atheist radio shows and podcasts. We have a YouTube channel under doubter five, Larry S. Rhodes. I have a book on Amazon called Atheism, What's It All About? And if you have questions for the show, you can email them to askanatheistatnoxvilleatheist.org and we'll get to them on future shows. If you're having trouble relieving religious beliefs behind, you can get help at recoveringfromreligion.org. And if you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to watch, sorry, like and subscribe. This has been the digital freethought radio hour at WOZL Radio 103.9 LPFM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Remember, everybody is going to somebody else's hell. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your lives and we'll see you next week. Say bye everybody. Bye everybody.