 one. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour and WOZO Radio 103.9 LPFM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, September 11th, 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes, our Douter Five. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello, Wombat. Hey, that's me. Hey, and our guests today are Dred Pirate Higgs. Welcome. And the John Richards. Welcome. So we've got Canada and England represented here. Digital Freethought Radio Hours, a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism, and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faiths, gods, holy books, and superstition. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not, I'm sure. In Knoxville, here in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a group of over a thousand of us, the Atheist Society of Knoxville, or ASK. And we'll tell you more about that after the mid-show break. Wombat, what's our topic today? We're going to be talking about silly ways how people have died, Darwin Awards, Ignoramus Awards, on other sorts as we go into deeper delving on this wonderful topic of death. Anyway, we're going to, before we get into the meat and potatoes, let's have some pasta and throw it up to our own Dreadpire Hicks for a weekly invocation. You betcha. Quab be me, captain, I shall not want. He maketh me to float in salt waters. He steereth me through glassy seas. He filleth me bowl. He steereth me through the streets of Nooliness, for goodness sake. I, though I sail through the heaving of tempestuous waters, I will fear not sinking. For thou art with me, thy master and thy rudder, they comfort me. Thou preparest a feast before me in the presence of me mates. Thou quenches my thirst with grog, my goblets runneth over. Truly past I grog shall abide with thee all the days of me life, and I shall dwell in the galley of the quab forever. from the man. Guys, I'm so glad we were able to meet up today. And it's good to see you again, Dreadpire. It's good to see your friend, Nicolet as well. Nicolet, would you mind introducing yourself? I'm Nicolet Dawn. I'm from left bridge Alberta. And I'm just visiting Grand Forks for a couple days and I'm off on holidays, going to go out to the island and it'll be super fun. It's very nice to meet everybody here. Nice. Wonderful having you on. Oh, tell me about your hat. It's so beautiful. Oh, thank you. I actually got it from the Halloween store. And yes, it was awesome. Not bad, you saw it, you're like a nice one. She, of course, personalized it to her own particular taste. I added some extra feathers and yeah. Very, very cool. Very, very cool. It looks really great. Everyone who has ever listened to the radio, just imagine like a very wonderful pirate hat plus more wonderful stuff put on top of it. So it looks great. Yeah, feathers and bling and all kinds of things. Got some rivers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dred, how you been doing? Pretty awesome, actually. I was it was the last night before the interview. It was the day before. Right. That was the day before, yeah. Yeah. So actually it was, yeah, it was Friday, which it was our past at. I got a call from someone at CTV News, which is a big news network here in Canada. OK. And we did a session for television audiences on my latest exploits with I.C. B.C. and their unwillingness to accommodate my religious expression has already. What's that has already aired? Do you have like a YouTube? Yes, I will. I actually I posted the link to it in the the messenger. OK, OK, OK, I may have to have a chance to check it out. It's a two minute spot, but one of the really good things that came out of it was Bobby Henderson, who is our prophet, the one that introduced the world to Astropharianism, wrote me an email saying how asking how he could help. So we've got we've got back in from the big wing. Wow. That is that is if not anything like imagine imagine doing something really nice as a Christian and then having Jesus give you an email and be like, hey. That's what I can do to help you out. I'm the prophet. I got the book behind me, you know. Yeah, I'm just like, I'm here to help out. I'm just like, yeah, that's that should be the role of prophets in a box like this, right? Yeah, pretty fantastic. So keep up the keep up the cost for chaos and and same in the same capacity. Let me know whatever I can do to help. Let us know whatever we appreciate it. Yeah, thank you. John Richards, always good to see you. I know recent times have been challenging for a lot of English people, but how have you been doing personally? Personally, I've been doing fine. Yeah, I had a very busy day yesterday, but I do want to mention the passing of our monarch, right? Because she was, I mean, let's face it, nobody could have been playing the role of monarch better than she did. She was utterly gracious and noble and very engaging, seemingly, you know, not class conscious or race conscious or anything and and going about the world, making friends, you know, diplomatically shaking hands and not alienating anyone. Now, I mean, try doing that. It's not easy. And she was wonderful at it. She's going to be a hard act to follow. Ninety six years. Yeah, yeah. But the thing is, of course, with her passing, so we also lose the head of our established church, the Anglican church, because, as you know, we're not a secular country and neither is Canada because Canada's shares are queen. We lend her out. And then there are four 14 realms in the Commonwealth. The rest of the other members of the Commonwealth, totaling, I think, 56 countries are not realms. So she's not the head of them. They are republics, just republics within the Commonwealth. But sorry, this is turning into a history lesson. So what's going to happen to the Anglican church? Who is going to? Well, of course, the head, of course, the only thing that travels faster than light is the British sovereignty, because the instant she dies, Charles becomes king. Entangled. Entanglement. Yes, yes, exactly. There is no passage of time between those two events. So he is inherited that not only the crown, but the position of head of the church. Interestingly, though, in the recent past, he expressed a wish not just to be the title defender of the faith, meaning the Anglican faith, but he wants to be or he expressed the wish back then a few years ago to that he wants to be defender of all faiths. Oh, my goodness. So we'll see how that plays out. Well, that's going to be a hard one, because he's not coming into the past. Pastor Barry is the head of our church. No, there you go. And of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury won't be supporting him to dilute his activities without supporting other faiths. And while I know the Queen didn't have political power, like I know England has very much like separated the two. It is good to see the position of influence and power like held by, in my opinion, just like a woman where it's just done so well with such dignity as an example of like, hey, when you have this much authority, when you have this much persuasion, this is how you carry yourself in a public eye to where like everyone can actually hold that to an esteem and set an example for that. I felt like she had a really good impression of that. And if anything, it was a very good contrast for a lot of the bad leaders we've had even in our own state, mostly men was just like, when these two people are shaking hands, you truly have a good example and a bad example in the same room. Why can't we have some of that? Yeah, you know, separating politics from the head of state is such a good idea. And very true. And did you say that right? Separating the head of the church from the church. Well, from the head of state, too, because yeah, she stands above politics. She's not engaged in party issues, you know, she just she's right up there, ignoring all of that. And just she will not reveal her opinions about issues which have been politicized. Oh, we just got a comment on that from Alan Smithy. We're live on Reddit chat. He says everything or why reason why I really hate religion is that it's entirely political and religion is just an excuse. Oh, well said, yeah. The root of all things that we hate is tentatively politics. Larry Rhodes, good to see you and how you been doing just fine. I'm going to have to go choke this bird. My dog just got a bird sitting upstairs. Did not know where this sentence is going. OK, OK, OK. All right. But anyway, haven't had the bike out and playing computer games and working. And that's about it when you're 70. Your activities are kind of restricted, Larry. When you have an accent like that, the southern drawl accent, the low steady beat and you throw out weird antidotes, like I got to go slaughter the chipmunks. This is like that could literally mean anything. It's like, is he working on his carburetor? Is he getting groceries? What does that mean? You've got to be able to hear that bird upstairs. I got a swing the skunks outside. I'm like, OK, I'm going to have to go put it in a room or something. But I'll be the bird. OK, OK, cool. While Larry goes choke the bird, a quick update for me. Hey, listen, things are going really well. I feel like I found a great balance between outdoors with friends and work life and having fun with those guys at my coworkers. We have a good team. We have a lot of good science happening. We got a lot of clearances to buy a lot of new cool toys. The stuff that we had that were broken in our lab is now working again. And I feel like I'm in a good place, which only gives me nothing but confidence. And that's the thing that I'm always worried about, because whenever I have a lot of confidence, I tend to do stupid things. Thankfully, hopefully, thankfully, and both hopefully, they don't lead me to getting into bad situations where I can actually die or kill myself. And I want to highlight why that's important, because there is a lot of times when people are operating on confidence and not doubt. And the main thing I always say is confidence is never on your side. Doubt's always on your side. Confidence is like, you can jump into that pit and fight that tiger. You're awesome. You can do it. Do it right now. I got your back. Whereas doubt is like, oh, my beer. Yeah, exactly. That's why I'm here. Show you this. Exactly. Canadian spin. That's a Canadian spin. Oh, my beer, and then doubt is always like, hey, don't I don't think you should talk to this person. I don't think you can fight that tiger. I don't think you should drive that fast. I think there's cops around that corner. I think you should watch out. Maybe you should lose a little bit more weight. Like doubt may not always tell you what you want to hear, but it's always in support of you in the long term. And so I want to talk about some stories today about people who are operating on confidence, particularly and particularly in a in a in a lethal fashion, but also in a way where it should be aware of the same mistakes can happen analogously to the world of religion. And I wanted to bring up a story that I presented to you guys a while back ago. This is a story that happened in 2009. It's still a shame when anyone does die horribly. Or I just want to make that a point. But I want to see something else to come of it, which is a learning lesson or a meaningless death is one where no one ever learns anything from it. But I want to take this as an example of caution for everybody. But there was a guy named John Edwards Jones grew up in Utah as in Mormon faith and his family had a very interesting hobby of going into cave systems and spelunking down very, very tight corridors, multiple, multiple hundred feet underground with lights on their heads and just exploring cave systems together. And unfortunately, on one of those trips, John Edwards or John Edward Jones got stuck in a hole that was in an uncharted part of the cave system that he was in upside down. He got caught upside down, tried to free himself by going deeper into the hole, got himself pinned and basically was upside down for a period of 28 hours. That's enough time. Your body is not designed to be upside down. Your body and when I say design, don't don't clickbait that. Your body is essentially inherently created by the one true God. What else can I say? That one newly Lord be upright. Your your heart is constantly fighting gravity to push blood up to your brain. It's it's that's the way how the blood system works. When you're upside down, it's it's almost as if you are defeating the purpose of all the the the constant, the blood pressure. Now you have blood draining into your head and you have no way of really forcing it back out because there's no systems in place there. And as a result, he ended up having so much blood drain into his head and away from his other extremities that he essentially died through a strangulation. It's it's in and it's one of the worst ways to go. His family tried to drag him out of the of the pit, but there wasn't any cranes or our systems that can go through the and what is it, the torturous path that he had climbed to get down there. And the entire time he had his family come by and say, listen, we're going to get you out. We're going to pray for you. It's going to be OK. We're going to pray for you. And they sang hymns and they made a lot of prayers. None of it worked. And I can't imagine a more worse way to die than stuck at the bottom of a pit in a hole. But here's my analogy. Here's a here's my learning lesson. I would say that the pit was not chasing him. There's not a pit that like chases people. There's not a hole that chases people. And there's not a it wasn't like the pit suddenly like squeezed him down and trapped him. The pit was always there. He climbed into it. But it was his family and his upbringing that like made him feel OK with that. And in a lot of ways, when we're raised in a religious upbringing, we don't know we're in a pit until it's too late to get out for a lot of people. Like we're trapped in a system based on our environment, based on our upbringing, based on the authority figures that we have around us, that even when we realize we're stuck in a hole, we don't have the mechanics to get out on our own a lot of times. And one of the reasons why I think it's important that we make sure that we we let people know that there's atheists around them and that they're good people and that they're available to talk to if they have any questions is because of guys like this who might get caught in pits, both literally and metaphorically. And I also want to say like, hey, you know, what a dangerous hobby, because if there is like a one in one thousand chance, you'll get stuck in a pit doing that and you do it a thousand times. Probability says you're something that's going to happen. Anyway, in that time could come early in the thousand. Yeah, you have to do a thousand. Exactly down there ever. Exactly, exactly, exactly. So I say, you know, try to find you could have picked up this golf. You could have done a lot of other family activities. But it's the confidence of, listen, I have a guy that loves me who will protect me no matter what. Nothing will ever bad happen to me. Of course, I can jump into this cave system and come back out. And of course, if something bad happens, I can pray my way out of it. I can't imagine a worse safety net than one a face. That'd be my my two cents. Dad or five, what do you got? An online or no. I was reading about this pastor who went fishing. Pastor really has nothing to do with it, but he was a pastor. And he did not swim, didn't wear a life jacket, went fishing, which is not good, not a good combination. But his boat started sinking and it was sinking slow enough that he was able to wave and get help from other boaters. And they came over and helped him to the shore. Now, this is on on the internet, so it's got to be true. And it was actually on the Darwin award site. But it wasn't good enough that he was on dry land and safe. He was worried about his boat. So he got he talked to somebody else into taking him back to his boat. It was foundering in water. It was still upright, but it's foundering. And when he tried to step on it to get to it and tie it up, it turned over with him and he went under water, couldn't get up. Didn't know how to swim and died when you're on dry land. At least get a life preserver or stay there. Don't go back to sinking ship. Very true. I also say if you got to let my sister's in the Navy and I keep telling her, you need to learn how to swim. And she keeps saying, nah, I'm all right. I don't want to get my hair wet. I'm like, you're you spend months and months at a time on a boat. And I don't mean that I hope I didn't come off bad. But that's literally the things she keeps telling me all the time. It's like, I hate getting my hair wet. It's a black people thing. It's not a sexist thing. It's just a black people thing. We our hairs are like sponges. Like when we're when we're done, we can like squeeze it out. It takes forever to get our scalps dry. It just is what it is. But still, you're on a boat in the middle of like nothing. Learn how to swim in my in my help you in a long term, if you're in the Navy. Absolutely. Even the dark. Just learn how to float, you know, like there's a lot of things you could do. OK, so I got another comment from Jack in 31. Christians are known for many things. Common sense is not one of them. And anyway, going that out. You know, if they had that, they wouldn't believe in supernatural stuff, you would think. But it's all about how the power you were raised and concepts you were raised with. Sure, sure, sure. It's all it's it's not in the same way how it was with like the case system or it's it is not so much that religion is bad because it exists and it traps people. It's more of like you're never given an opportunity to realize that there was another option when you're born, if you're in a religious system. And because you never get the experience of knowing that there are other options and you realize you're in a pit and you realize that it's dangerous, you've already grown accustomed to it and you have no way of getting out because you're already kind of stuck in it, that you're like, I might as well just, you know, keep digging down from here. Like you don't really have any other options it. But you do. And that's why we do these shows. And it's why we we speak up. It's why Dred gets on CCTV in Canada and continues to stir the pot at his local driver's license board and be the ire of all the local governments around his area. Dred Pirate, speaking of which, do you have an example of someone potentially making a terrible mistake? Yes. And certainly a winner of the Darwin Award. This happened in 2006. In 35 year old, Pastor was giving a sermon to the congregation and he was getting them so worked up, but they were nevertheless surprised to learn that he was going to demonstrate his faith by walking across the estuary where a fairy carries people from one side of the estuary to the other, a 20 minute ferry ride. Wait, so he's literally going to walk across water? This is his faith is going to carry him walking on water across the estuary. So after the sermon, of course, how he goes to the pier or wherever the the ferry docks. Right. And off he goes. But he does not know how to swim. Oh, no. And he promptly grounds before his congregation, who I'm sure we're praying for him. Right. This is back in 2006 in Libraville. I don't know where Gabon is, but. It's West Africa on the coast. It's not. I thought it might be Africa. I mean, yeah, that's that's my story. Stories like that make me realize, you know, and remind me that it's not always a Khan religion. It's right. It's done by people who genuinely believe that they are doing the right things, that they are talking to the right God, that they are sending the right message. And they partedly have a terrible system of figuring out what is true things from what is false things. And as a gale, the epistemology, as it were. Exactly. And but nothing but confidence. And that's why they jump up. Larry, what do you got? Well, I want to recognize Eric for coming in. Welcome, Eric. How are you? Blue. Also, along the same lines of the preacher who walked on water, there's an article from 2021 about a pastor in Zambia who had himself buried alive. Oh, no, he wanted to be able to. He had faith that he could resurrect like Jesus did. And of course, it didn't work out that way. So did you like put a stone thing in front of him or anything like that? Oh, I don't know. There's a video on it, but I haven't watched the video. But he did not survive the burial. Again, you know, going to John Richards. Well, there's quite a few events of pastors in the U.S. and elsewhere who reckoned they could handle a snake. Oh, no. Why are you teasing us? Yes, I was. Absolutely. It's just down here in this neck of the woods. So if you guys didn't know, like before the post show, John Richards always makes it a habit of like boasting about the prowess of like Mac. And I let him do it because it's an American. Like, you should have an apple. Why are you having so many problems connecting? Just turn on my American company. I'll let it slide. And I the things that are hard to stomach is when he's just when we're already on the ropes and he's just like, you Americans do weird things. I'm not the one doing it, but like America is a weird place. If you haven't been, if you haven't been here, it's kind of weird. But yeah, we do have a lot of active, even in this state, snake handling pastors who have the snakes at home or in the congregation and they'll release them as they do the sermon. And the idea is for anyone who's foreign to this concept, they are so confident that these snakes won't bite them because they have gone on their side that they just let them flow freely. They stick their hands in them. They handle them. They pass them out to each other because they have the shield of faith on their side. I never remember if it's poisonous snakes, but I imagine. Oh, it is. Yeah, that's the real challenge there. And that's the true test of fate. You see, everybody that gets bitten and dies didn't have sufficient faith. Right. Reinforces the congregation. That's what you see. You see, the other thing that Americans do is trample all over your story. I had to claim manifest on it. You know, it just is what it is. It is. Yeah, we're talking about Darwin Awards. Do you have any that stick in your mind about what may have happened to someone? Oh, wow. Yeah. Like like someone I know or no stories. Yeah, someone that dies before they were able to have children. We can get how about we go to break and then we can give you about that time. I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is the digital free thought radio. I'll stay tuned for the second half under WOZO radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Hello and welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm Dr. Five and we're on WOZO radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's take a minute to talk about the atheist society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002. We're in our 20th year, have over a thousand members. And we meet in person every Tuesday down at the Knoxville's down in the old Knoxville's old city, excuse me, at Barley's staff room in Pizzeria, look for us inside at the high top tables or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. We also have a Tuesday evening Zoom meeting and you can join us there. For the link, you'll need to email us, though, at askanatheistatnoxfilatheist.org or you can write that. Let's chat as e at gmail.com. If you can't, I'm sorry, you can find us on Facebook, meetup.com, Knoxvilleatheist.org, which is their website, or just Google Knoxville Atheist is just that simple. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you can still go to meet up and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one star one star one. That's right. Well, I'm at where you will pick up. Hey, we're going to go into some quick listener comments from our first half of the show. We're live on Reddit chat. Mr. Totnam says we're concerning Dr. Wells's spelunking story. My thing is that now many Christians are getting more educated about science and trying to justify Christianity to themselves. So they're saying that even stories like the snake story and Adam and Eve are just a story. That's how Christianity is evolving to survive into this world. But people are so brainwashed that there's no way out, just like they're trapped in a pit. We got more comments on snakes. I love canine. Oh, go for it. Go ahead, John. Richard, I was going to I was going to contribute to that. Yeah, because if if Christians are trying to cuddle up to science, what they need to do is to explain to us how their claims can be investigated. Because that's what science does, right? It investigates claims. It tests them to see if they're forced to viable. And if they can't do that, they're never going to get backed by science. Right. Right. Like the two pillars of science is the two main things that we care about in science are comporting with reality and falsifiability. If you don't have those two things, it's not a realm of science. So to present a model of how to understand how reality works, that is no way concerned with how reality actually operates or is interested in being tested or falsified is inherently a useless a useless methodology. And the fact that I operate on it, it's terrible. It's unscientific. Exactly to its very core. Absolutely. Yeah, what gets me is that if if you find something like a chariot wheel at the bottom of the Red Sea, you know, the believers will point to it and say, look, that proves the Bible is true because, you know, the Red Sea was parted and Egypt's Egyptians came through and it came back. Not like that any particular ship might carry a chariot wheel to sell on the other side or anything like that and go down accidentally. But it also proves that souls are real, heavens are real, you know, Jesus was real, resurrected, everything in the Bible was true. If you find one scientific artifact that may point to a story in the Bible, that that's what gets me. We got a comment respond to Jonathan Richard's comments. So you're best off considering all religious texts as either early philosophy texts of very early humans who had only a very limited understanding of the world compared to us, not as an actual historical retelling of things. But, you know, even that it's it's the same thing where it's like, I am totally fine if we worship Spider-Man as long as we realize that Spider-Man's a work of fiction, right? Like if you want to just really, really, really like something, I'm fine with you really, really liking something if you want to do that. But don't make it the code of how we realize the truth of things and inhibit our capability of understanding things better, other than the thing that you really, really like. Yeah, that's the problem with Christianity or religions in general. John Richard. And as as for early philosophy, well, early philosophers thought that you could solve problems by clever thinking. Later, later philosophers, however, back in the Renaissance time, which spanned, I don't know, about 1400 to about 1700, quite a long period. And more recently in the Enlightenment, they realized that even the careful thinking processes that philosophy goes through comes up with an outcome that needs to be compared against the cosmos to see whether it's congruent or not. Yes, of course. Natural philosophy, they called it. Yep. We call it science. That was before science. Yeah. OK, well, man, you're inspiring a lot of comment. Right. One one last one from Seamus Segal. Nothing. Oh, I'm sorry. It's pronounced Seamus Seamus, the seagull. Thank you. Thank you. That helps out a lot. OK, Seamus, the seagull says nothing in the Bible is supposed to make sense out of context. It is a part of a series of philosophy texts written by humans, whose entire universe was a few square kilometers in the Middle East. Great for studying the history of human thinking like Plato, but ultimately complete nonsense from a practical point of view. Yes, Dredd, what do you think? Well, I would say that the use of the word philosophy in to call those texts any kind of philosophy is not philosophy. It was it was just a, you know, basically it was just an understanding, right? It was a theology, not a philosophy. They weren't trying to investigate the world. They were just trying to tell everybody that God did it, and this is the way you should worship him. It's the book of philosophy, not a philosophy. They're just making declarations and by point of authority for some people to follow. It's not like inviting rules by Fiat, right? He doesn't make you think about things. You're just supposed to do as you're told. That's it. Yeah, I want to know, and this is really a big question. I want to know why Seamus Segal is not Seamus Segal. Now, that's a deep question. That's a good one. That's a philosophy question. Really profound. Larry, Larry, I saw your hand. Now, what was that? I was just going to comment on what John was saying about philosophical thought being flawed. I mean, even even what was it? The guy who said, I think they're Descartes, even he got the one truth, right? But after that, he seemed to go off the rails himself, thinking that supernatural things were real and that spirits were real and God was real. He had no real reason to believe that or to suggest it as truth, but he did anyway. But the only one true philosophical thought that we have, I think is that I think therefore I am nice. I like it. And Seamus has OK, going on, Dredd. Well, I was just going to say that that statement could could Cogito ergo sum was what established dualism, the idea that there was a monkey less inside the head and that it was the thing observing the stuff that the body you know, has senses for input. So it in its own way, a bit of a failed of this ology because it established artesian theater, which many argue is clearly not the case. Am I allowed to throw out my own favorite Latin saying or in philosophy, it's Cuando, Omni, Funcus, Muartai. I don't know if Canadians can appreciate that. It's one of all else fails, play dead from a possible. I just took my bear wear course. So I'm fully cognizant of that one. But but I should just point out Eric Green hasn't had a chance to say anything. Absolutely. Eric Seamus, thank you so much for. Seamus, thank you so much for all the comments. Everyone else, thank you for for texting in. And feel free to leave more comments. We'll go through them during Lolles in the show. Eric Green, people from confidence. You have an example of it. Share with us. I do. But I didn't want to. I don't know. I assume you guys didn't cover this thought I've had about the Darwin Awards for many years is we have a flaw in it in that. Yes, you know, you can't give it to someone if they've had kids. Otherwise, it's honorable mention. What if they've donated to a sperm bank? We have to check that. Ah, that's a good point. A good critical thing. Yeah, I actually just just stumbled upon a very interesting one which ties in the snakes. Yeah. So in 97, a guy in Pennsylvania will reach his hand into his friend's tank to pet, I guess, or touch Cobra, a poisonous cobra snake. Oh, no. And he's, hey, do you want to go to the hospital? It's like, no, I'm a man. I can handle it. So instead, he went to a pub and had a beer and died an hour later. Yeah, well, that proves a beer is bad for you. Yeah, that's right. Machoism is bad. And snake bites don't go together. Yeah, right. Right. And again, when I hear things like that, it's like we have cultivated society where something like that could happen when we didn't have to have that be the case. And so in my head, dying from a cobra bite that you in other any capacity in a more educated environment you would never have been exposed to sort of sets up the argument that this environment is generating needless harm. And my problem with harm is that there are some harm that's needed. Like if I go to the doctor and they make an incision in my body, that's harmful, but it's useful. It could be it could be in a way towards getting, you know, around more significant problems. But when you just walk down the street and punch me in the face with no provocation or anything like that, that's needless punishment. That's needless harm. And I feel like when you take a child and you raise them in an environment where they can't dig themselves down into a cave and get stuck in a hole 200 feet for no reason whatsoever or save themselves from a sinking ship, but then jump back into the water to die anyway or try to walk across a channel because they've been told so many times that people can walk on water if they if they can if they have enough faith or get bit by a snake when they didn't have to, whether they were in America and you're being teased by a person from the UK or a cobra and you're from a great state of Kentucky. Like it just it seems to me like we are generating causes of needless harm by this confidence that we infuse through a religious society and we should probably get rid of it. That's that's my two cents. John Richards, what do you think? Well, on the subject of needless harm, I think you've just got yourselves into trouble with the radio station because putting Cobra and beer together in a sentence, we've got a Cobra beer over here in Indian restaurants. Oh, no. You've been inadvertently advertising. If you ever got if you ever get puns like that, feel free to just interrupt me and get it out like, hey, Ty, I got to just get this out. I was like, I'm told you have pun privilege is what I'll say. Got there you go. Comment from Dostier's. He says the real sin. Oh, so before we were talking about the Garden of Eden and snakes, the real sin didn't come from listening to a snake. The sin is not the act of disobedience or the snakes suppose trickery, but humans becoming educated and educated populace is a danger to rulers. If you want to know whether your leaders or governors are working in your interests or rulers are working in their own, how they treat education is a fairly good guide. It is a hard rule over an educated people, but easier to govern on their behalf when they're uneducated. Absolutely superstitious. I mean, that's why they burned Tinsdale at the stake or translating the Bible. Yeah, translating it into, you know, English that people could actually read. It took it took the power of the clergy to interpret the Bible from their hands and dispersed it amongst the populace. Right. Right. Right. And for a long time after Gutenberg, you could it was illegal to own a copy of the Bible. It was illegal to own a copy of the Bible. Yeah, I had no idea that was. Well, I mean, I'm not surprised by it, but I was I'm kind of shocked by that. I thought it would be like a paywall. But the fact that you would own a Bible and that would be illegal. It was like, what are you going to read that? It's like, what do you think this whole machine was for? Yeah. Yeah. Can we get back to those days? We're going to make an interesting note just quickly on that, is that in Canada, the B.C. or the Humanist Association in Canada has successfully eliminated the practice of schools, passing out Gidgen Bibles. So they're done. Yeah. Very good. Very good. Small bits of progress. And again, if you are, if you're very good, very good. If you are, if you are, if you are an atheist, I say, like, as we make these the substantial steps in progress, the best thing you can do to a Christian isn't necessarily argue and break down their philosophy or even like try to break down their epistemologies and in a straightforward way. It's letting them know that you're an atheist and then letting them realize, oh, my gosh, all these people who are around me, who I always assume are Christian, who thought the same way I think I do, who may believe the same that I think I do, aren't. And I kind of like them. And the next time a Christian tells me, well, people who aren't Christian are going to hell, I'm going to think of my good friend. I'm going to think of my friend, Dredd, or my friend, Larry. I'd be like, wait a second, they're going to hell. Can I talk to them and see if I can get them to Christian? Like, but there's no problem with them. They're, they're totally fine. Why doesn't my God like this completely normal person who doesn't just happen to believe in the God I do? That's in my head. That's the best way to get through it. But Eric, what do you think? March 23rd, March 23rd. I don't know if anyone else has participated in it over the years, but it's it's a day that people are encouraged to come out as an atheist. Yeah. So I usually try to find someone that that I don't think knows. Right. I try to tell them every year. You're staying. Yes. You're right. I think getting that out is as important. It is. And it's the sort of thing that becomes easier the more you do it. Like the first time you're actually kind of like when I first let someone knew I was an atheist, I was nervous. I almost was hiding it like it was a bad thing. But then I realized as soon as I said that at work, other people are like, yeah, I'm atheist, too. I was like, I had no idea that I was surrounded by so many people who also didn't believe in God. I was under the impression that I was the only one. That's a bad impression to have. You want to make sure that you break that mold, too. Dredd. Well, I was just going to say, on September 19th of each year, that's the opportunity for Pastafarians to come out because it happens to be international talk like a pirate day. Nice. Yes. And Dredd, by the way, there are a lot of disc golfers who are Christian. I always wear my noodle hat when I go out and play. I represent that pretty proudly. Just letting you know. Awesome. Thank you. And that hat came from Eric. So thank you, Eric, for that. Yeah, there you go. That's a Christian's gift, yeah. All right, John Richards. Well, I was going to say, do you know how crazy you'd be viewed if you went around here in England telling people that you're an atheist? Yeah, a privileged society there. Yeah, it's not that. Well, you say that now. Let's make sure Charles III doesn't change that, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Also, I'm concerned about Charles because he's been very vocal about his anti-science stand on many, many subjects. Wow. Yeah, he has supported homeopathy. What's it called? Homeopathy. That's the one. Homeopathy. He promotes that as a legitimate. He has in the past, but that is in the past. And in fact, we've recently decided that the NHS has no business paying for homeopathic treatment. So I think he's lost that one. Oh, good. But he does claim that he knows the difference between being a prince and being a monarch. OK. You can't have opinions if you're a monarch. You can't have public opinions. Yeah. One last topic before we close up. I wanted to give Seamus one last chance to have a chance to have a rebuttal on what he was saying. Seamus, the seagull says, I would argue that it is a philosophy. Philosophies are made to answer questions that humans would have. Why do we suffer so much when nobody else does? Why us? Why are we being punished and looking for logical answers? So what else could it be, which leads to the why? Well, we haven't done anything. So it must be our ancestors who messed up, right? And then what could have done? What could that be that our answers are done? Well, as our knowledge and awareness is now a curse, it seems only logical that it's somehow related to the punishment. That must be it. We still knowledge and we're being punished for it ironically. That's that is the story of the Garden of Eden, basically. So the reason I maintain that it's not a philosophy is because philosophy is using reason to examine the workings of the universe. Theology is just just so story is, I think, Eric or John Richards pointed out. Not it has, you know, theology really doesn't have any explanatory power. Right. Just that they're just a bunch of a collection of just those stories that give people a sense of connection to their community, to their culture and to define themselves as outside of any other culture. Yeah, like fairy tales and fables aren't philosophy. They are essentially stories that may have a learning lesson in them and may have a parallel to reality, but they're not there to make you use the same mechanics that you would in philosophy. Eric, what do you think? Can I just go devil's advocate for a little bit? Yeah, go for it. Go for it. I'm fairly sure I agree with this just to get it out there that, you know, we are talking about a time before reason and a lot of these scientific method and all the rest of it. So it could have been it could have been as close as we could have gotten to philosophy before we were kind of given the tools that we know now. So maybe it just it was it was what philosophy would have been, you know, given what they had to deal with. I don't like if you had a caveman being like, I want two rocks and the caveman only brings one rock. He's like, that's not enough rocks. You don't know what math is. Maths, that was like, I can count. Let me show you how this works. It's like, that's math. And I appreciate it now. But like, I could see that. I can see that. Larry, what do you think? I was just going to agree with Dredge in that a book of answers is not philosophy. Right. Book of answers, exactly. Right. And you know, and also in defense of reason and how far back it's gone, like certainly Thales and the early Greeks, right up to, you know, Plato, Socrates, Aristotle. Thales was, of course, a couple of hundred years before that, but it did mark a significant change in the way you think about the world. So applying principles of reason and argument in order to discern one thing from another and try to find sound reasons for the way things work as opposed to the book of answers, as you say. Okay. Dr. Richards. Yeah. I wanted to trip back to the Gutenberg Bible story, you know, about printing, because it's no good having a copy of the Bible if it's the wrong version. I reported last week in the Global Atheist News Show that I do every week about a pastor who had a book burning, you know, he had this very galvanized dustbin with a gas burner pumping flame into it and he got the kids to throw in all the Bibles that weren't KJV, because there's only one. Right. Does he approve of any way? And even that's a translation. Yeah. I do want to truly crystallize Dredd and Eric's point in that I once had a philosophy teacher and I came into that class as a Christian. I was back when I was an undergrad and it took a while for me to realize that the answers in the back of the book, the philosophy book that we had was not philosophy. Philosophy was the process that I was using to get to those answers and like the best way that snapped in my head was I also had a math class and I had the answers in the back of the book for math that I could use for like studying, but I realized that mathematics is not a list of answers. Mathematics is the process of trying to like use these abstract concepts and come out to one correct answer. Like that is math. In the same way, morality is like understanding the consequences of my action and trying to make the best way to generate well-being in a sense, right? Or like understanding different systems of acting and interacting with other people. Do not steal, do not covet your neighbor's wife. That's not morality. So like philosophy and authoritarian story or a fairy tale or a really, really nice fable is a different thing than philosophy in its own, right? And I can really respect that and appreciate it. Even if it's the building blocks up to philosophy, it's not philosophy until you actually start making use those mechanics. This is a case where it's not with a common ancestors, right? It wasn't one thing transitioning into another. It was these two things actually coexisting independent of one another to a certain extent. Because certainly the Greeks were ensconced in their own polytheistic mythology, right? So those things were, I think, kind of separate. It was like an evolution. Yeah. What do you got? I was going to say, as a math teacher would say, show your workings. It's not the result of the matters. Yeah. Yeah. I would also argue that you can win a Darwin award. Even if you had to have kids. Because what Eric said makes a lot of sense. Like you could totally donate sperm. There's a lot of things you could just say, hey, I never had sexual relationships with that woman. Yeah. Guys, we're at the end of the show. I want to do a round table where we can plug things that you should check out. I would say, hey, thank you so much for leaving comments on this Reddit chat. This is actually really cool. Thank you guys so much for leaving comments in the show. Feel free to feel free to also leave comments on our YouTube channel. We'll go over them. I guarantee you we will. And data straighter room. Thank you for always being a little stalwart. We appreciate your comments. Thank you. I just want to show you a little bit of a bit of a shout out to the people who are coming today. I can't remember their words. Your name mixed up, but we appreciate all the feedback that you've had on this show too. Dred pirate Higgs. Anything that you would recommend we check out. I know there's a news clip of you going around. What's going on, man. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to show it out to a Z 28, who's my life. Attending my live stream today. Yes. Not this, not tomorrow, but the following Monday. I'm going to do a live stream. I'm going to do a live stream in Canada, which I will be conducting. Because I am a BC marriage commissioner. And the legal bits are required, of course, but around the legal bits are the trappings. And the trappings can be whatever a couple wishes. And so we're going to do a live stream. Pastafarian wedding first in Canada. Yes, there's a thing floating around on CTV news. You can find it online. Just Google. Pastafarian. Nice. Yeah. You'll see me up there. Talking the merits of pastafarianism and. And how the battle needs to be fought in one. I also stream my stuff on my YouTube channel of mind pirate. Am I indeed P Y R A T E. Live at 7 a.m. Pacific daylight time. On on Sundays. And also I do the global atheist news review at 11 a.m. Yep. I'll be there with you. Also, anything that you recommend we check out before next week. I want to leave everyone with it with a thought to think about. And it is that when are we going to drop the, the 20 when we're referring to a year, you know, we say 2022. When are we going to start saying, you know, 2426, like we do 9798. Oh, when's that flip going to happen where we stopped. Oh, I like that. I like that. There's a good. I'm the pond. 22 was a good year. Yeah. Yeah. I guess we're waiting for all the centurions. Is that the right word for it to like, to go away? Like people are still passing away. Even in the ninth. Oh, yes. I remember the last generation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. John Richards. I know you got a lot of stuff to plug. I'm holding. I'm bracing on. What do you got? Well, I had a very busy day yesterday. I was driven up to Birmingham to attend the national secular societies. Islam and secular community or secular. What was the title of it? Something like that event. And I got to speak. And I spoke for about three minutes and there's a clip of that on free thought channel. Then I got back in time to host free thought hour with an ID. I'm not a proponent, but somebody who's a science. Scientists who wants to. Try and get ideas to look critically up their claims and to apply. Scientific methods. To define. Yeah, right. Yeah. It's such a waste of time. I was thinking I could make Sprite by mixing lemon juice and lime juice together. I'm like, dude, there's more ingredients than that. And the ingredients are on the can itself just like read the cans. Like, I just want to spend my life figuring this out. Poor guy. Anything. How about the debate that you had a while back ago? Anything good with that? Any feedback? Which, which debate was it? The debate that you had with you and tertia with the pastor who wanted you to punish him more. Oh, right. Yes. That was last week or the week before. Yeah, yeah. He wanted to prove to us that Christianity was the thing. Right. And you'll see it is on the free thought channel. And he, I think he failed. Oh, no, it's gone. Oh, geez. That never happens. That never happens. Oh, well. Larry Rhodes shows all yours. Anything. Oh, no, he's on mute. See, this is what happens when you don't know what it is all about. Sometimes it doesn't work. My content can be found at digital free thought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for our radio show archives. Atheist songs and many articles on the subject. My YouTube channel can be found by searching for a doubt or five or digital free thought. I have a book on Amazon called atheism. What's it all about? So if you're looking for specifics on the reasoning behind it, that might be for you. If you have questions for the show. Thank you, Dred. If you have questions for the show, you can send them to ask an atheist at KnoxvilleAtheist.org or let's chat s e at gmail.com. I'll answer them in future shows. You can find this show on podcast everywhere. Just search for digital free thought radio hours. And if you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. Remember, everybody is going to somebody else's hell. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hell and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life and we'll see you next week. Every Wednesday night in Knoxville. Anyway, take care. Say bye everybody. Bye everybody. Man, this is great. Thank you so much, everybody. Thanks.