 Oh, I haven't started. Hello and welcome to the digital free thought radio hour and w o zio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, December 11 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes or doubter five. And as usual, we have a co host one bad on the line with us. Hello on that. Hey, what's up everybody. I'm the one back. Our guests today are the John Richards from England. Welcome. How the devil are you. And we have Joe sky from Texas. Welcome. Good morning. Thank you. Digital free thought 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, God's holy books and superstition. And if you get the feeling you're the only non believer in your town. Well, you're just not here in Knoxville in the middle of the Bible built we have a group of over 1000 of us. The atheist society of Knoxville or ASK. And we'll tell you more about them after the mid show breaks will be sure to stick around one that what's our topic today. Good people are going to hell. That's not just me saying it's the pastors it's the Christians it's the books. Oh yeah, they'll tell you. And, and, and you know what, it's a weird thing because I hear it and I, and I, I am kind of so Christian sees that as a bad news sort of thing it's like did you know good people are going to hell. And in my head it's like, Oh, well that's at least a relief. Because I, the one thing I don't want to do is go to like a place where there's like a tier in this authoritarian God. And if you're telling me all the cool people are in hell and be like okay well then that's not so bad doesn't sound that bad to me actually it sounds pretty awesome. I don't want to go to a place where the grammar Nazis are going I want to go to the place where like the. Nazis for that matter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll go tell me about it. So we will get into that main topic but first I'd love to dip into a nice friendly recap for everybody and see how they're doing. I'll start real quick I had a birthday yesterday, a couple of days ago, and very happy that I'm a little bit older. Funny thing was, I thought I was the age I am now already all of last year, because I don't check up my birthday every day it's like in grade school or you're right at the top of a book for your name age you don't have to do that anymore so I was just like dang it. I feel like I'm older but I don't want to have to get that much older and then look at my birthday put it on the internet I'm like how old am I again. Oh what. Oh that's awesome so I just get to redo this year again. I'm immortal. I love it. Well, can I say that you don't look older than you did last week. Thank you. I'll go that far. I appreciate it. I got a lot of water weight on because I've been eating a lot of cake and like bacon and stuff like that to treat myself and so like I got a lot of water swelled in I'm going to have a lot of fun sweating it out but I'm looking forward to this new year it's going to be really great. So, John Richards you're smelling like you got a glint in your eye with something crazy about to happen. We will get to you. We will get to you. First let's check in with our own friend, Joe sky sky how you been what's going on with you. I've been good I have a birthday coming up on the 20th. Oh, December, children of December. I'm going to have a nice party at a nightclub I got the table reserved and so forth. But mostly I've been doing a lot of a lot of writing as usual. Right. The past couple days I've been working on a essay about project blitz, which I probably don't have time to explain except that it's a coalition of Christian nationalists that have put together a booklet on how to how to introduce legislation that is anti anti gay anti abortion. And then got the Supreme Court in place now to change all that stuff. Yep. Think about Larry on a on a hopefully brighter note what have you been up to. Well, the new expansion for World of Warcraft is out so we've been wearing that out. It's actually a lot more fun to play than the last one. You get to learn direct dragon writing and that's fun. And they put you through a lot of races and stuff. Can you do every VR with that. Is there any. No, there's not a there's not a VR version of World of Warcraft, but there are other sort and sorcery the ours. Skyrim is a good one. And I have played that quite a bit. Very, very cool. Alright, everyone buckle up. John Richards. What's going on. Also, you got a coordination coming up. Congratulations. I heard. Well, to in your neck of the woods to rather famous creationists Ray Comfort and Ken Ham. I've got a scheme to surf on our coronation, because the idea is that the world is going to stop because we haven't had a coronation of the British monarch for 70 years. So this is going to be box office on top of box office. And so these guys reckon that they can get a group of Christians from around the world. And this will be the fundamentalist Christians, the creationist type of Christians to descend on London and proclaim that King Charles the third isn't their genuine King, because he's Jesus. They don't want to, they don't want to bow down to any earthly King. The real thing is in the sky. You know, I, I totally agree. They're being silly creationist will be silly. What there's nothing else I can do about it. But what irks me is that America is multicultural. We've had wars against Spain. We've had wars against Canada. I mean, or what would be Canada French we had wars against France. No one cares about now help me out. But no one cares about the Spanish King's line. No one cares about the French King line. It's always the English line and I'm like why, why, why always them like why is it always them and like when we get a new French King no one cares when we get a new Spanish King no one cares but New English King. That's on every tabloid it's on CNN it's everything what's up Larry. And movies and stuff about the only time you ever see anything depicted from the Middle Ages or that time period it's always English, always English never any other nationality. I would like to say one thing about religion and your coronation religion. It doesn't know the case of religions dividing amongst themselves and warring against themselves, because it's the Protestants of America, who are not recognizing in England, the Church of the Christian Church in England recognizing matter of fact it's that church that coordinates and puts puts the crown on his head and declare them the chosen of God to lead the people. Right. And I just want to make the final point like if the creationist want to take over the English Queen Kings coronation they could have at least practiced with the Spanish or the French Kings, like they're all nearby in the area. And you can like get your coordination logistics in order and then jump on the English Queen don't start with the, you know, most popular one first. Yeah. Can hand me out. Yeah, he's way out there. As for why it's the English crown that is captures all the attention. I suspect it's because English is la lingua franca. Also, it's, I mean, America's has Hollywood and all the TV shows that go out all over the world, and I English people are the ones who seated our country. So we see them as a common past and we've spread the meme of that throughout the world. Okay, well, I'm going to throw something out. We have a lot of good people all around the world. Unfortunately, they're all going to hell. And while why I brought that up as we've been talking about Kings we've been talking about coronations I'm sure there's good people in those crowds unfortunately because they have not accepted God into their hearts. They are going to hell. Listen, you don't have to believe me. I know I'm just a crazy little atheists I have a tiny little channel. No one care I'm not the one who's saying it I'm reporting what the Christians are saying I'm reporting what the Christians are saying, and what they say, common that as a common one of their yearly sermons from their textbooks, the books that they publish best selling books that they have from the websites from the news articles they have there's a common consensus that good people go to hell. And why do I bring that up. Okay, so it's a quick little story. Got an email. Let me see if I can get the name of the guy. Email came from a post I post on Reddit show topic and anyone who loves reply can someone says someone to bet someone to be today, sent me email saying hey, I was helping a lady put away her groceries at a grocery store in Tennessee area. I didn't know the lady I was just helping her put the groceries in the car, and she waited for me to put away her groceries and said thank you and gave me a book, or gave me a small piece of paper that ended up being a manuscript I said no thank you I don't need any money, but she she encouraged me to make it turned out that the book was a pamphlet called good people go to hell, and bad people go to heaven. And it was all about how being nice to people isn't good enough people think they're good with God but that doesn't mean that they're good with God, and, and obviously I don't believe I did I wouldn't like him. So I'm not trying to impress him, but imagine going through life looking for people who are being nice to you, just to make sure you tell them that they're going to hell. And I was like what a great idea for a show topic so what I wanted to do is look up going good good people go to hell bad people go to heaven or bad people go to heaven and is that like a common motif, and absolutely it is. Google's filled with bestselling books from pastors that have the exact same title. I have five star reviews from their Amazon page based on this. People be like, absolutely true so true, but I didn't want to talk about the topic in general before we do a deeper dive into this rabbit hole. The idea that good people go to hell, and bad people can go to heaven. Why do you think that's an alluring topic for Christians I'd love to know Larry what Larry what do you think. So that they could say that sell their one point that they need to sell is that you must accept Jesus Christ as your savior. Now, once you do that doesn't matter whether you're good or not. There are a lot of Christians in like prison. There are a lot of atheists who are less than what I would call perfect people but you know, let's see them here and there the important thing is that in Christianity must believe. And that is a point to me that just points to the fact that it's humans, it's people, it's preachers that put that as the number one thing. Because if you don't believe you won't go to the church and if you don't go to the church you won't get the money etc etc. It's it's not so much anything else is that you must believe first and foremost. Right, so this is interesting because it means that in Christianity there's no incentive to be good. Right, there's no they say you're right. It's a sales point that the Christianity will bring morality, whether it does or not it's what they claim. Now, I mean, can you imagine that that guy that you're corresponded in the email. Can you imagine that next time that woman once helped with a shopping, he'll be there. So, you know, there's always a catch 22 to all of this because they would say, hey, in order for you to accept God in your heart you have to be good. And, and I'm like, okay well then it's good to be good. It's like no being good good isn't good enough, you have to accept God in your heart. So, so there's some sort of super good is there I mean, what do you do to help the woman with a shopping that's more than helping with the shopping. I understand I understand it. Joe, I'd love to hear your thoughts what do you think of the idea that why do Christians love the concept of good people going to hell and bad people going to heaven. It's fair. It's fair. What what I have to say though is that if we take the last word the Bible has on the subject to salvation. I find that it's a totally different in revelation. It's a totally different security ology than in the Gospels and in the epistles. Revelation 2012 and 13 are quite clear that all the dead will be judged by their works. And to me that sounds in line with the idea of a just God, because there were millions of people who lived and died before Jesus came along, never had a chance to be saved. But yet, let's, let's say, you know, Sumerians, there were no doubt Sumerians that did good deeds and were virtuous people. And so, if you go by Revelation, all those people before Jesus, who did good works, right, get a pass. Right. I mean, even the Egyptians had it right. You know, like, it's the easiest concept, if you're good, and I can see everything and I'm all powerful, you go to the good place. If you're bad, and I can see it, and I'm all powerful, I'm going to take you to the bad place. And that is the basic touchstones of karma, justice, we like fairly well understand that. But Christianity is take that and flip down on its head. And it says, Hey, it doesn't matter if you're good or bad, it matters whether or not you subscribe to my channel. And by the way, you know, good people are going to hell. It doesn't matter. Oh, I have the actual quote from the book. This is how crazy this is. I love that analogy. Excuse me, sorry. It's so true though. It doesn't matter even the kindest. This is from the book, even the kindest, most generous, most hopeful person, if they have rejected God as their king has rebelled against God, the creator and sustainer of everyone and refuse the solution he has provided to save us from the mess we created ourselves. That is a hard pill to swallow as it goes against what we feel is right. But that is because we have a limited perspective of who we are and who God is. Well, oh, there's some problem. Pope Francis said that virtuous atheist will go to heaven. April decree. I won't say this, obviously, neither of us actually believe that heaven or hell is an actual place. But if it was, right, if it was. Every day I'm hanging out or I'm seeing like the Ken Ham's and the Ted and the Kevin Hovans. I'm sorry, I get all the names confused of the crazy creationists that are out there. But like, you're on a few, you're on mute my friend John. Going ahead. I get they have similar names. They sure do. They sure do. It's always a bump bump bump. Anyway, Joel bring steam or whatever. The more I see those guys talk, the more I realized wherever they're going, I don't want to go. And the more they point at these guys are going to hell, the rock stars, the scientists, the critical thinkers, the people who make candy on the weekends. I was like, these are all great people. I like spending, spending eternity with a bunch of fundamentalists selling points that they seem to think it is right. And their heaven is my hell. I'd rather go to the, if it was literally those two things and I saw the two lines, I'd be like, oh, I'm obviously going in this line. Sorry guys. No, you're a good person. It's like, no, no, no, no, I want to be in this one. I want to be in this line site Siri guys. John, what's up. Sorry. Well, I haven't looked at the Bible lately, but I bet I can have another look because I bet on the last page it says, like, share, subscribe. Okay, so how about we actually delve with that that comment that I gave. This is from the book. Even the kindest, most generous, most helpful person if they've rejected God as their king has rebelled against God. Here's my thing. Rejection of God as their king. They're one. I have two points. I love to hear what you guys think one. The word rejection is kind of strong because you have to realize that a lot of people are given the proof that God exists only through very tenuous evidence, just declarations of truth by their pastors or authoritarian figures. I remember families who would be punished if they didn't believe in the Bible. I've gone to Bible school where kids would talk about like, yeah, if I, if I questioned this, my mom would spank me or like my, my, my dad will get upset with me. I've had conversations with the adults who want to have kids and I asked them, hey, what would you do if your kid was an atheist, like I'd be really disappointed. That's like that's, you may not realize it, but that's really traumatic for a kid to know that their parents disappointed in them. Just for being intellectually honest, like that's going to cause a lot of problems. So to reject God is only the basis of, well, just give me better evidence to believe in you. Do the same thing you did with Satan where you, you know, brought him up to heaven and bet on people on the welfare of beings with them. Do the thing with Jesus where you show up and be like, hey, I'm God, by the way, I'm a dove on your shoulder. I'm a burning bush. I'm present. I'm an angel. I drop down and talk to you. Can we do that more often because we'd be more open to believing that then. Otherwise, we just have a book and a lot of liars and we know people can lie. What do you think, John? Well, I think the whole concept that you've just outlined reflects the age in which the scriptures were written when the model of governance was dictatorship and the power was in the top. The authoritarianism. Exactly. And sanctions were issued and that's history. You know, we now, most of us, luckily, live in a democracy and the power is in the electorate's hands. So we can choose who is the ruler in quotes and it's an entirely different format from what the Bible structure is based on. They want a hierarchical system. And in fact, what we've got is a collegiate system. Right, right, right. And they frame rejection of that system as being a bad person when it could just simply be, well, one, it's not a good form of governance. And two, I don't have the evidence to support this claim. I couldn't believe it even if I wanted to. So like, we were talking about belief in the previous episode, there's two usages that we use commonly in this show, where it's like I can believe as a stepstone to knowledge, and then I can believe as a function of whether I'm convinced that it's true or not. And I think in both cases, you've not given me enough evidence to know that it exists, that a God exists, and you've not given me enough evidence to be convinced that a God exists, therefore we can't believe in either case. All you have to do is present yourself in a more objective format that we can test that we can believe in, because in a world where people can lie to each other and misinform and and do so for their own agendas. Why should we be compelled to believe you just simply based on a book or the words of an authoritarian or a dictator or a tyrant. We're not going to do that we can't we can follow the orders we can pretend, but we don't actually believe and that's not rejection that's just being intellectually honest. Especially when the book is full of such nonsense. I mean, to take, take the creation story for a start. Allegedly, Adam was created first, and Eve was like an afterthought as a partner for him. And yet, for some unknown reason, when Adam was created, he was fixed up with the penis and testicles. Then he was ordered to find a help meet among the animals. You know, there's two creation stories, right? There's Genesis one and Genesis. Right, there was one where God made Adam like a Barbie doll and he didn't have anything on him and you just like. In Genesis one man and woman are created at the same time. Yes, yes. And also light was created before the sun. I think you walked into the perfect transition because the second problem I have with this quote is God, when we reject God we rebel against God our creator the sustainer of everyone and refuses solution. He provided to us to save us from the mess we created ourselves, the mess we created ourselves as far as I'm aware none of us are responsible for the sins we may have inherited from a supernatural couple that existed. Who knows 10,000 years ago. The way I think about that story is like, I shake someone's hand right someone I never met or someone who's a Christian and I say, Listen, you didn't know this but my thumb is magical, and I hate it when people touch my magical thumb. I couldn't tell you that beforehand because you had to first touch my magical thumb know what the right and wrong was, but now that you've touched it you're now responsible for the sin that I made up that you are now at fault. Don't worry. I actually have a son who I've nailed to a pine tree for you to forgive you for the fact that you touched my magical thumb and broke the rule that I made up. Aren't I amazing now listen here's the deal all you have to do is like me, and you will go to my magical party place. I'm sorry I didn't mean just like you have to actually love me. No I'm sorry I mean you have to worship me, worship me and my magical thumb and the son that I nailed to the pine tree and we'll all have fun for all of eternity, where you will worship me continue with sleep. I was like, What in the world is this. I'd like to address to john. What can I get. Okay, go ahead. Don't you think that Adam and Eve were kind of railroaded because before they ate the magic fruit. I have known that it was wrong. Right, right, right. That's the analogy I'm bringing up that's how crazy it is that you can shake someone's hand and be like by the way by shaking my hand you've agreed to my terms of conditions you're like what terms of conditions. I didn't know. Well you didn't know but now you know. This is what you've agreed to. Right. So why did God create this naughty tree then with naughty fruit and put it in the middle of the garden. Ty, I love the story you've just expounded about your magical thumb. Yeah, I think it should be written up into a pantomime. You don't really have pantomimes in the US do you. Are these these guys is it this guy. We kind of mock them in the United States. I'm gonna have to look up pantomime what is it. It's a wonderful entertainment for kids, but we as parents we all go along and have a good laugh, and it's it's all about the audience participation. So we call out things like behind you. When there's you know some sort of threat and that the person on stage is pretending not to be able to see it. Got it. Got it's blues clues. I get it. That's what we call. Now the perfect scenario, the perfect remit the perfect story. Yeah, the next pantomime. I love it. But honestly, think about it that's that is the conditions of why we have original sin we have basically a God who handshook us and told us one of my fingers was magical you touched it and I don't like that. It's a good rule that if you touch my finger you're going to the bad place and I'm sorry you already touched but I didn't explain the rules to you and you wouldn't understand them anyway but now that you have touched it you understand the rules and now you're going to be punished for it but don't worry I did kill my son for you I did that for you. Thank you, you're welcome. Also, you have to keep worshiping me and my magical thumb and the guy I my son I like nailed to the tree and we're all gonna have fun together. I'd be like, no. Yeah. Yeah, the original sand is not in the Bible. Augustine came up with a regional sin. Before Augustine there was no such thing. Interesting. Interesting. Well we got we got to let these guys know that who wrote this book. Anyway, how about we tackle this in the next half of the show we'll go into some actual reviews of the book. Give some of our own feedback and continue on the idea of good people are going to hell after this break Larry Wayne, take us out. Sure. Stay tuned for the second half of the digital free thought radio hour on W ozio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on W ozio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. ASK was founded in 2002, which is the atheist society of Knoxville. We're in our 20th year and we have over 1000 members. We have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening at Knoxville's old city at Barley's taproom and pizzeria. We can look for us inside at the high top tables or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. We also have Tuesday evening zoom ASK meetings. And if you'd like to join us on zoom email us for details at ask an atheist at Knoxville atheist or where let's chat se gmail.com. You can find ASK online and Facebook, go to meet up.com and search for atheists sub Knoxville, or just Google Knoxville atheists is just that simple. If you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and do for a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one star. All right, one bat where do you want to pick up. Oh, good people are going to hell know maybe only the ones that accept God in their hearts are going to hell. And isn't that a weird condition because as john Richard said in the first half of the show it doesn't sound like we're incentivizing being a good person. And this guy said it sounds like we're inverting the whole concept of just be good and you go to good places be bad and you go to bad places so be good basic universal karma very easily understood. Nope, we put a little catch tail on it. And as Larry says, this doesn't make sense. Make sense if preachers are pushing it forward, right, just to make sure that you believe in penalizing. Is this like a new trend in apologetics here. You know, it's a it's a popular comment. It's a popular sentiment in apologetics, as well as sermon, sermoning in general, that I feel like is one of those things that Christians here for the sake of hearing it, but don't listen to it. Because if you were to just sit down and think about the concept of just because you're good doesn't mean you'll be rewarded for being good you have to be good with the stipulation of accepting God for God to recognize that you're being good. In my head, even that seems counterintuitive because you're only being good. I was how to put this, you're only accepting God, so that you can get the the the carrot and not the reward, right. So like is accepting God under duress, the kind of love that God wants in the first place, or is it the obedience that people empower striving to have in the first place. And there's a difference between, as Larry would say, if you shine a light on a cockroach the cockroach is going to run away. Does that mean the cockroach is being moral. No, the cockroach is just running from a sake of fear like it's just doing it's an instinctual thing so like if I put thought into the idea of, well I want to be good, but I don't necessarily care what a God thinks about that quality of being good. Isn't that better than someone who's just instinctively being good because they're afraid of going to hell. Right, like, who's being that roach of that insect. That's the one God wants apparently, and I always wonder like okay well what kind of how does that color, the kind of heaven that we all go to. So here is the, oh I want to do another one. This is another quote from the book. All we need to do to make right with God is enter into a restored relationship with him and inherit internal life. And I'm sorry, all we have to do is enter into a restored relationship to him and inherit internal life. All we have to do to do that is to accept the free gift of grace that God offers to us. And let him be king of our lives. And I need that 10%. Hey, give me that 10%. Okay, so the going at john going at john. Well, if all you need to get into heaven is to sign up. Yes, like, you know, at the recruiting office, and you don't need and you don't need to be good. In fact, good people do go to hell apparently. Why are they pushing morality. Why are they claiming to have ownership of the morals that dispense downwards to us, and they've got their commandments and everything that we should obey. What's that got to do with anything. All we need is a recruiting office and sign on the dotted line. What does love have to do with anything what I mean what does anything have to do with anything you just need to sign up. Why isn't there just a supernatural sign up sheet that just exists somewhere. You go there you sign up and it's like, that's so evidentially proof that a God exists and all you have to do is sign this and we're done. Okay, we're done we believe in the God, there's this magical piece of paper that's hanging from the sky. We don't know where it goes to but you can sign your name on it and just checks up to the next blank signature space, like, why all this pop and circumstance of being good morality and all this other stuff. I don't. I mean we're bumping right up against it all this time but I think we probably might as well just go ahead and talk about Pascal wager. I mean we're talking about choosing to believe we're talking about not God not knowing that we're just saying that we believe, even when we don't. And then it's all up to which God, you know it is as the English God the American God the Protestant God the Jewish God the Islamic God that you know just on and on and on and on. Pascal wager has built in that it's automatically the God of the person who's bringing the wager. Right. You know, just on and on and on so many fallacies for it. It's a rowvious earlier. And he was talking about the same thing to live a good life to live as if there were gods. And if it turns out that there are gods, then you're in good shape and if it turns out there's no God's wealth you're just dead but you've lived a good moral life. Yeah. Like, like, how do I put it, there is value in my head of living a good life and infecting the world with a degree of positivity that is contagious that in that enhances the environment of other people's lives improves the quality of the lives they live in. It makes generally your environment more pleasant to be around to and to know that you had an impact on that. That could be beyond just a good thing it could be like a purpose statement, like it gives me purpose to go outside and make people's lives better, not for the interest of a God, but for the interest of, it's nice to be in an environment where everyone's also happy so like when I go to work I'm motivated, I'm pumped, I reward success. I talked down people who feel like they're, they're in a state of failure I help them realize that they're in control that they have capability to doing really good stuff. And we work together collaboratively and it's a very rewarding aspect we go outside we play this golf we come back in. We have a fun time. That's great that's kind of work I want to go to that benefits me too. And God cares about that at the end of the day. I care about it because I'm living this life and I want to have a good condition to be in. And if I can impact that that gives me purpose when I wake up in the morning. But it sounds like from the Christian perspective, that's not good enough. And you have to sign down on this list that says hey, God, you have the free gift of my reverence, as well as you being the master of my entire life. The biggest problem that I have with that is that's not free. What do you think Larry? Well, it's in this life on this world, it's not God who has power over you. If you sign that document, it's the clergy. Oh, you're turning your life over to the clergy, your, your purpose and your meaning and your goals for your life and your mental, your direction. Yeah, yeah, right. It's not God who gets all that it's the clergy, the people who stand in for God. And it's not just Christianity to if you go to a culture is it's like it's going to choose who you marry it's going to choose what profession you can have like this is this is a this is dogma controlling people this is the human condition. At its worst, where it's just we are giving up our own personal freedoms to groups of people. John, did you have a comment. Yeah, yeah, well, this throws into question the whole value of goodness, doesn't it. I mean, we've been told that God is good. And yet we don't know whether the goodness is emanating from him, right or whether he's just a messenger of goodness that exists somewhere else. Right. That would be a problem. John, that would imply that there is a power greater than God. Super God. It's super. I call it necessity. When people say if God has to create everything and someone else will then who created God, well then it's obviously super God because there has to be a God to create God. And then there's a super super God that creates super gods. It just makes perfect sense turtles all the way down. It's super God actually. We take offense at the turtle comments are John, you want to finish up that point because it was a good one. Yeah, well, you've made it. You've made the point between you very well. Yeah, it's a case of if there's an all powerful being. Why should it stop there? Is there a ceiling? Can't you buy more powerful than that? You know, the weird thing that bothers me so much is why did we settle on good? Why isn't there just great or like amazing? Like why is like, oh, he's a good God. It's like, well, what about the best God? Like what about the really fantastic God? Like where are those gods because that's that's what I want to hang out with. And I do feel sometimes we've gotten the bargain God in this dimension. I feel like in this universe we got the bargain been God. He's just like, ah, he's good. He's a Toyota Corolla. He's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. He's better than the just okay. It goes after Christmas. He'll be reduced in price. Yeah, there's a just okay God, but we got the good God, but everyone else has like the amazing God, the one that like Wi-Fi gets free Wi-Fi to everybody. I'm just like, ah, how did we get here guys? Anyway, I want to go into a five star review of the book. This is, I don't necessarily want to sell it, but it's called good people go to hell. Bad people go to heaven. The paperback and it's available on Amazon. We've been reading excerpts of it in this show. Here's one of the best reviews on the Amazon page. It's written by Mr. Belisario who says today it seems that everyone thinks they're going to heaven. They think that everyone they know is going to heaven. Everyone except Hitler and Stalin as in they're bad people, right? Well, this is not reality. Everyone assumes that they're going to heaven, but no one wants to put God above the world. This is essentially what this book is about. Putting God above worldly desires. This is a fairly quick read and inspires you to put God as the focal point in your life. I recommend this to all Catholics, but most of those people, but most of those people who just go to Mass on Sunday and do not really practice their faith or learn about it much otherwise. And in my head, I think there's a problem with putting God above worldly desires because some of those worldly desires is maintaining making sure your family safe is making sure that you're healthy. Making sure that you're a good member of society, that you are culpable for your actions, that you pick up your own trash, that you apologize to the people who you have offended. When you put God above all those things, now you have this very great shortcut that says, I don't have to apologize to that guy. I can just ask for forgiveness. I don't have to actually care about voting. I can just do whatever my pastor says and be totally fine with how we slowly transition what should be a political body for all people into the ones that just serve his particular needs. I'm in that fold as well. It's that sort of collected this thinking and lack a responsible thinking in my head that leads to a lot of problems when you put like a supernatural being as a mascot above actual reality tenants that you need to do to be a good standing citizen. So my idea, John Richards, I'll go to you first of putting God above all other worldly desires and and towards being a good person that actually gets to go to heaven. I think that's falling. It's the same sort of thinking that has enabled the leaders of religions to overlook child abuse of their priests and clergy. They claim that they're not susceptible to man's laws, they're only, you know, under the jurisdiction of their higher person. That's evil. Right. And actually do evil in the name of that person look at the crusades and the acquisitions and all that. They actually not only excuse that they perform it. Larry, anything you want to weigh in on. Well, yeah, we've been talking all around through this show about good people going to heaven and bad people are good people going to hell, etc. Ain't nobody going nowhere. No, it only works with the hard hard hitting facts party. What about souls? What about souls? So, you know, I don't believe that anybody going anywhere after they die and I believe most of the present company are included in that. Joe, I'd love to hear about you. What do you think about putting God above all worldly desires and how valid do you think that is? Well, that doesn't quite work for me. I think it's, it's not narcissistic to put yourself first to put your needs first said to make sure that you're healthy, right to make sure that your loved ones are safe to fulfill your responsibilities and follow through on things that you promise to do. I believe in honesty, honor, courage, loyalty, things like that. And in my mind, those that transcends the need for God. I, I genuinely do believe that as you were mentioning, Joe, like it's not narcissistic to put your needs first. It's sort of like the gas mask dropping down an airplane. Yes, you want to help other people around you, but you got to make sure yours is on first so that you can do it calmly for other people and they always say that it on first. When you do your seatbelts, you put yours on first before you go to the back seat and be like, Hey, let me put your seatbelt on for you. Right. It's okay to to make sure that you're okay because if everyone makes sure that they're okay that they're a well body in mind. That's a benefit to everybody that man that manifests to a society that can manage themselves well that can take care of themselves and then turn their attention to taking care of other people. And we should sort of have that kind of society egalitarian society where I would like to share something and I'll make it brief. I had a very unusual encounter last night I was coming back to the store and the sky pushing a shopping cart asked me for a cigarette. I said, sure. And we started talking. And he said, God is telling me that you're a good person God is telling me you have a big heart and are generous. And he kind of, you know, went off on the whole God thing like so many mentally ill people do. But it's just kind of a coincidence that I had that conversation last night and we're having a similar conversation today. Right. I, I had a similar experience I told John about this two weeks ago on the Gann atheist news review where I was helping a lady in a grocery store we had a bad back she needed a chair. And so I said just hold on. She already asked one of the Kroger people that we're at sorry Kroger putting on the spot to help her out and the guy just kept walking past her and I was just like no I'm going to help this lady out. I went to the Starbucks that was inside this grocery store I bought her one of the wooden chairs gave her a place to sit and then helped her get a rolly cart so that she can go away. She's like Jesus bless you you have Jesus points now. She said Jesus points. I was like, Okay, thanks. I'm not in the mind of a lot of people think atheists are like hey how dare you let me give you a whole you know pamphlet on beliefs like I'm not I way past that stage and at best I said thanks for the thanks for the points. And then I gave them away for for free on the atheist news review Esther took them actually, but the whole idea is, you could have accumulated enough to get a cup of coffee. Right, right. I didn't do it for the points. Right. That's the main thing like I did it because I want to be in a society where if there is someone that's sick if I'm sick, someone would be willing to take a time out of their day to help me. And that is inherently somewhat selfish. I agree. But it doesn't necessarily make it immoral because it's good for us to benefit from each other, and to take care of each other, because if we didn't have that we'd have chaos and anarchy. And altruism is really a good thing. And altruism may not necessarily exist if it right everybody and Larry. Absolutely the altruism doesn't exist. Right, but it is good to be nice to people because I want to be in a society where people are nice to each other that benefits me. Yes, yes. Well, what you've just described is a welfare state. I care about a society that is interested in each other's welfare. How about that? I would rather be in that than one that doesn't care about a welfare. But the thing is, I just outlined a codification for a good society that didn't need God whatsoever. Do you see that? Because it's just one in the interests of the people who live in that community and what we can do to make our lives better. Like we can come up with that without having to rely on a God belief. And so when people say you have to have God to be good, it's like you're just throwing in an extra variable that one isn't even needed and two actually makes things worse. Because you're putting it on top of the welfare people, which should be in heart the basis and the core of why we have a society to begin with. And what could a supreme ultimate being possibly need from us? What can we give to God that God already has? It's just a really bizarre thing, right? Well, if he's a perfect, he needs nothing, right? Yeah, and it's not a free thing that we're giving away. If a Christian is listening to this, he just wants you to say you worship him. It's like, that's not free. That's not an easy thing to give up. That's not a thing that you would want to give up. Anyone that's asking you to worship them may not be worth your worship to begin with is what my philosophy is. Again, this harks back to the society that existed at the time the scriptures were written. If you didn't worship your Lord and Master, he beat you to death. Yeah, it's so medieval back then, and it's weird how that color, how this manuscript came to be, isn't it? Yes. But if you like the idea of a welfare state, come to Europe, you know, we have them here. Alright, so I have one last comment I'd love to go through. This is why would we worship a God? Why is it important that we worship God specifically? Okay. I know it's a hard pill to swallow that it may not seem right to have God above all other things. Well, this is what the book says of why it has to be the case. Here's the justification for it. Quote, God created everything. He is the powerful king over the entire universe. He created us to rule his world under him and enjoy all the good things he created for us. He set us in the world with everything enjoyable and beneficial at our fingertips. But we decided we wanted one more thing among many wonderful things that we were not supposed to have. And since we did that, we had to face the consequences of our actions. Sin, death and suffering have been with us since that time. But we have a craving for a piece of cool story. But guys, listen, yet God loves us so much that even before the world began, he had a plan to save us and put things right. He sent his own son Jesus who willingly come down to take our punishment for our wrongdoing so we could be restored and made right with God. That's why this is all okay, guys. Actually, this makes sense. How can anyone else take our punishment? I mean, I was a bit naughty. Ty, are you going to take my punishment for me? No, I'm not a big fan of human sacrifice. Thank you. Take some Jesus points with you. Well, then apparently he knew everything that was going to happen, right? Right. I mean, he knew the original sin was going to happen. He knew that everybody in the world would be sinful. He'd have to kill them all and start all over again. I have so many problems. It's more like that he had all these plans that just failed. Fail after another. This is the story being told by another Christian. And so in my head, it's just, there's just nothing but red flags from the very beginning to the very end. God paying powerful and therefore being right. It's like, Mike doesn't make right. What are you talking about? All these claims that are on basis. He made the entire university created everything. What's your standard of evidence for that? How do you get a frame of reference for what's been created and what's not created if he's literally created everything. And which God exactly in which God, there's so many things here. He did this for you. It was like, I didn't ask him to, he, I sacrificed my son for you. That sounds like a thing you should go to jail for. We would send parents who did that in this world to jail. It doesn't matter how powerful they are. Like that's a bad thing to do. Well, he did so well. God Jesus did so willingly. It was like, when, oh my gosh, did so well. And why do we admire Abraham? He's literally on the cross being like, I don't want to do this. And we still killed him. He still killed him in the book. It was like, this wasn't a thing he wanted probably even like, take this cut for me. It's like, what's going on here? What's going on here? So the fact that this is the story, this is the narrative and Christians believe it and atheists to atheists. It seems so foreign, so bizarre. John Richards are looking at me like, how do Americans all believe it's like hopefully more nuns are coming up each year. But it's, it's a emperor's new clothes situation for me, because I do feel like that kid in the story at the end of the story where all the adults are like, yep, I see, I don't see a naked king. I see, I see a fully dressed king. And I can see the clothes. Can you see the clothes? And I'm like, that guy's naked. The thing about that is of course, that God is also purportedly invisible. So, so there's no clothes and no God. Yeah, they're all just looking at an empty street. It's so great. Anyway, guys, I think we're getting close to the end of the show. I had a wonderful recap with you. If anyone is interested, the book is called again. Good people go to hell, bad people go to heaven. And it is not an uncommon concept for Christians. Maybe a good conversation to have them if you, if you ever meet any of them. And feel free to use the thumb example. I tend to like that. Ty, I want you to send me the skeleton of that story. Maybe we can work it up into a pantomime together. It's easily as good as Aladdin and his magic lab. Right, right, right. I'm going to be a YouTube video out there comprising the elements. My check there first and Larry. Oh, sorry, Joe, anything that you'd recommend we check out any blogs or recent writings that you posted? As a matter of fact. I kind of space last time. When y'all asked me about what alternative news sources I relied on. Oh, I love it. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why. With a guy named. Tyler Cohen, I think. Legal AF is really, really good. It's. The, the hosts are practicing lawyers. And they talk a lot about constitutional law. They talk a lot about right now, of course, they're talking a lot about January 6th. And they're talking a lot about. Being subpoenaed and so forth. Then there's Midas touch. Which is more political news. I'm kind of a political guy. Nice. Dollar more daily is fun. It's only 15 minutes long. And. The guy that does it is really good, really clear and concise about the way he explained things. And I think it's really good. If you want to read, there's pathios. There's box. There's the daily costs and truth out. Or. Because. Cool. Cool. Before we get to the big heavy hitters. My shout out for the show would be. Brittany Griner is back in the US. She was a lady that was essentially taken hostage by the Russian government for a political move. And so it was a little bit of a mess, even though she was at a loss for it. But she wasn't the one. I don't even, I don't even think her. Her, the reason why she was criminalized was worth 10 months. And a Russian gulag to begin with, but she didn't ask for that. She didn't ask for the political prisoner trade. She didn't ask for any, like the bad stuff, the political follow that came out with it. She was simply going there to do her job, which is playing basketball and she's a really good basketball player. She's back in the US now. I'm very happy for her. So. internet but I'm just glad an innocent woman has come back to the US where she can continue to vape legally in the States. That's all I care about so good job for her. John Rich is anything you would recommend that we check out or close out? Yeah well my channel Freethought Channel is active as usual and I'm also I also appear on the Atheism UK channel quite a lot because I'm president of Atheism UK as some of you know and of course that's mostly for a UK audience but feel free to take a look at it. Very cool. Larry take us out how we've been how we've been. Have we been good boys? Yeah I'm sure it was great. My content can be found at digitalfreethought.com. Larry are we going to hell or heaven? I want to know like are we been good? Everybody is going to somebody else's hell. If you think about it the time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then visit my blog digitalfreethought.com and don't sweat it enjoy your life and we'll see you next week. Everybody say bye. Bye everybody.