 103.9 FM, WZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WZO Radio, 103.9 LP FM, right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, August 9th at 11 a.m. 2020, I'm Larry Rhodes or Doubter 5, and as usual we have our co-host, Wombat on the phone with us. Hello Wombat. Ice and thunder. Your voice was very deep for your face. A baby Wombat. And our leaders, our leaders, our guests today are Red Leader, Dred Pirate Higgs, and George. Say hello everybody. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a call and talk radio show about atheism, freethought, irrational 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 Knoxville, well, you're just not. There are several atheist, freethink, and irrationalist groups that exist right here in Knoxville. And we'll be telling you how you can connect with them right after the mid-show break. We said it was a call-in show, but we don't really have a call-in number at this time. If you'd like to comment to us, go to Facebook and look up Digital Freethought Radio Hour and post some questions in the chat area. Also did you know that there's been a streaming atheist call-in TV slash video show here in Knoxville for over 10 years? Yes. Did you know that Wombat? Yes. So Horizon Zero Dawn is an open-world action adventure video game that takes place in the future. Spoiler alert. There's going to be a little bit of spoilers. It was just ported to PC this weekend, and it's free on, not free on Steam, but it's about 50 bucks on Steam. 50 bucks on Epic Games. But it's not our TV show. But it isn't. I don't even know. We're talking about the video game, right? So it's like sci-fi cavemen. You're hunting dinosaurs that are robots. It's a bit of monster hunter. It's a little bit of Batman Arkham Salem. There's detective mode. It's a really, really great game. So here are the computer specs that you, well, here are the computer specs. I was going to give them. They're very important. Our audience wants to know about this. Okay. Oh, okay. You're giving me time? How are we going to say George? Yeah. What is this other call-in program that you're talking about? I want to know. It's called Horizon Zero Dawn. It's a video game. It's really, really good. No, it's not. It's Free Thinkers United Coalition of Knoxville that's on YouTube, and you can find that. Just go there and do a search for those words. But we'll tell you more about it after the mid-show break. Okay. Right now, we want to get to our topic. Dread Pirate Higgs. You want to bring that up as ... Well, should I maybe do the invocation first? Yeah. Let me do the intro, and then I'll hand it over to Dread Pirate. All right. So our topic today is, do Christians really believe what they say they believe, which I think will be a really great topic? But before we delve into it, let's head over to Dread Pirate Higgs with our own invocation. All right. God, his true self did reveal, avoid all false gods with zeal. He made one mistake. All the others are fake, but gave us no hint, which is real. That's very good. Well, he said he's real, but the people who wrote the Bible said he was real. Amen. Amen. Okay. So we're going to be talking about, do Christians really believe what they say they believe? Let's start off with Dread Pirate. What was your ... By the way, this is the topic presented by Dale. Dale, you are dressed in the nines today, can't begin the show without saying, really awesome suit. What's going on there? I am trying to embody ... Oh, it's a hat parade. It's a hat off and I don't have anything. Oh no. Well, how about this? I got a can of jelly. How about that? Yeah. Did you ask me? Very nice. Very, very nice. So what's the occasion? I am trying to embody the 21st century's version of Santa Claus. Ah, okay. Not bad. Everybody needs to hot me, man. I thought it was like the devil in every devil movie where he wants to make a contract with you. I think the devil would come clean shaven, wouldn't you? I feel like this is the cool angel in heaven who's just like, hey, you can totally steal that stuff and give it to the poor. George, how's your recovery going? Have you been in surgery for all that? I am doing fantastically well. Very nice. Yeah. And I'm in love with my occupational therapists. Okay. I mean, I feel that they are my advocates and I'm just so delighted to have them. It's nice to have someone to talk to plus physical contact, particularly in these times, right? Yes. Yeah. Oh yes, yes. Well, they're all coming over to my house. Oh, that's even better. I've had five people come and come get me. Wow. Wow. Just to move your shoulder around and stuff? Oh yeah. There's a woman who came to make sure that I did not fall when I took a shower and she drove 120 miles to do that. Wow. That's nice. That is nice. Hey. I'm out here in the... Did she scrub your back? Yes, she did because I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it myself. Okay. Wow. Geez. There you go. Yeah. Lufas are awesome. Doubter five. How you been? It's been a week since I last talked to you. Oh, I'm fine. Just keep it on. Keep it on. Stay safe. How is the atheist group of Knoxville doing in these times? Oh, good. We're doing our Zoom meetups instead of an in-person meetup, but we do it every Tuesday evening. Yeah. If anyone else wanted to jump in on that, how would they be able to do that? Do you post a link on Facebook? Excuse me, contact any of us and just say that you'd like to be involved. It is for members only. It's a member's meetup. Got it. If you'd like to join, know, however, go to meetup.com and look for Knoxville Atheist or just do a search for it. And go to our Facebook page. Join that. Let us know you'd like to be part of the meetup. It's cool. Wonderful. That's wonderful. I want to say how excited I am to be part of that. Very good. Yeah, you've been there a couple, two, three times now? Five, I think. Nice. Yeah. You know, one of the things that's so exciting to me about being on Zoom for these meetings is that people participate, people drop in from so far away. It's great to have them, I think. Yeah. And I'd say one of the cool things about the Atheist Society in Knoxville is it's very rare to find, when we did the physical meetup, to find two people who look the same sitting next to each other, talking to each other. It was always like, this guy's from Egypt. This lady is like a parent of like six. This guy's just like a young black dude. This guy is an old country dude. This guy is tattooed up. This guy looks like he came out of an Amish farm and we're all sitting and having a grand time. And I'm like, this is the kind of group I want to be a part of for sure. Yes. The collective. I worked for a .com down at the turn of the millennium that was like that and worked for the best supervisor I have ever had in my life. And the guy was from Lebanon. Oh. He was like, no, um, cause of politics, just, I love it, you know, nice, the diversity of people. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So we got to talk about the headgear. Dredpire, why you introduce us to your headgear and then also the topic. Do Christians really believe what they say they do? Also, the headgear, of course, is the holy colander that Paschaferians use to identify themselves in the community, much like Sikhs wear turbines to identify themselves as members in their community that lend and render service to others in need. So this is what we do. So the, the topic there where do Christians believe what they actually believe is actually at the root of a judicial review I'm having with the Supreme Court in Canada with respect to discrimination by the human rights tribunal in saying that we as Paschaferians should not be allowed to wear these in our government issued identification. Right. Um, and again, this, where it gets to the root of it is what is the test of faith because they say that as Paschaferians, we don't hold genuine and sincere beliefs and yet I would argue that are probably Sikhs and members of other religions who do get the concession to wear religious headgear who do so, you know, simply because of the demands of their culture, of their neighborhoods, of their, you know, bosses that their expectations are that, you know, they're hiring a Sikh and come from a Sikh community and married Sikh and all the rest of it. So, um, you know, determining what a true, genuine and sincere belief is and then allowing special concessions to those persons on the basis of that evaluation seems absolutely arbitrary. Yeah. So, of course, then it goes right to the question about whether or not Christians actually believe what they say they believe. It goes to anyone, you know, it goes to any, anyone of any religious faith, do they actually believe what they say they believe and and where do you draw the line as to what is a valid belief and a non valid belief and is that your role in the first place? There are many Christians out there who are also flat earthers who believe in, you know, witchcraft who believe in the big, big foot, you know, all kinds of crazy notions and then there are people who weren't Christians who believe in big foot and other things. So I don't think that the, you know, the serity of belief is enough to judge the value of a person's belief or whether or not they deserve special consideration. That's great points all around. And thank you for sharing that. Larry, what do you have to weigh on that? First I'd like to welcome J.D.B. Kennedy for coming in. Yeah. I'm really upset right now that he's here because I'm no longer, I am no longer the most handsome person on this show and I'm really upset by that. You're the youngest. Am I the youngest still? I think he's, I think he's slightly younger than me, but I'm not looking at that baby face. He comes in here like he's like doing a GQ magazine thing. That's what you get. We're all handsome in our own ways. Oh, it's not fair. Okay. So hold on. All right. So J.D.B., how you been? What's going on? I've been good. I just started a new job, so I was trying to get used to that schedule. So I am now. And so I've worked Monday through Fridays and I'm free on the weekends and I hope to be back every week now. So. That's cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. We'll have to thumbnail your face to get the ladies in. J.W., we're talking today about do Christians really believe what they say they believe? And since you actually gone through the training of being a pastor, with your experience with Christians, do you feel that the, that what is in the Bible is genuinely believed by every single person? And how do you gauge that? That might be also a good follow-up question because we're also talking about how do you gauge belief in another person? Well, it's, I think it's a, it's a little complex because there's just so many different denominations and so many different perspectives on so many different scriptures. In the 25 years, the first 25 years of my life as being a Christian, I came into contact with different levels of faith. And, you know, some people were very, very passionate about what they believe. Some people it was just, you know, something else on the shelf in their life. And some people they were just, it seemed to be like they were there for just a social event and they identified as a Christian culturally. Right. So you have to get, yeah, you kind of have to get to know somebody on an individual level, see what level of, and then, then at the same time, there's certain beliefs that they hold about the Bible that they, they hold above others like in priority, like, you know, like this has to be true absolutely. But I would be, I would be able, I would be open to changing my mind about this particular prophecy kind of thing. So it's, it's, it's just, it's complex. Hmm. Let me go for it. What do you think? No, I was just going to say, and these sincerely held religious beliefs that Judd Pirate Hicks was talking about a second ago, humanism isn't that counted as a religion and they don't have a supernatural beliefs, but shouldn't they be offered the same rights and privileges that any other religion has on their sincerely held secular beliefs? Judd, I saw you so wanted to say something. What was it that you want to weigh on? Yeah, well, we do have a viewer here on our live stream. His name is Min, and he makes a comment. He says it really depends on whether Christians, religiosity is intrinsic or extrinsic. When a person's action is in line with the tenant of their belief, I think they truly believe in their religion. Yeah, I would say the more that it personally benefits someone, the more they're willing to believe it. So they're willing to believe, yeah, I'll go to heaven forever, but they won't care if Jesus actually burned a fig tree to the ground with his mind powers or not. There you go. George, what do you have to throw in on here? I just wanted to follow up on a question that Larry asked. The New York Society for Ethical Culture, which is a humanist organization founded in around 1900, is chartered as a religion under the laws of New York state. Well, look at that. I didn't know that. Yeah, and I had to deal with that when I was fighting off the United States Army during Vietnam, I filed a claim as a conscientious objector on the basis of being part of the ethical culture and having to come up with a convoluted justification for how my belief was the equivalent of a religious person's belief. So I can't remember what I did. I can't remember how I did it right now, but it was a hell of a job to do it. Yeah. I imagine if you were a Christian conscientious objector, there would probably even be, if you think there'd be even less ground, because people would be like, well, I'm a Christian and I'm in the military. So go over here and kill some people. Well, the thing is that Christianity, as J.W. Kennedy just said, Christianity has so many different forks to it, so many different kinds of Christianity. Bifurcations. Bifurcations. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. Yeah. There is going to be one that meets, at least one that meets that criteria. Yeah. Dale, you were the one who brought up this original topic for the show. Do you believe that Christians believe what they say they believe? No. I feel like I'm in the same ballpark. I don't think it's a hard note. I feel like I don't have a way to test that, but I see it in practice. I do. Time and time and time again. Because they keep changing. Did you have anything? Oh, please keep going. They change as the fashion changes. And also you'll have contradictions where the I remember Ned Flanders what said, I believe all parts of the Bible is even the parts that contradict the other parts. Well, no, we're looking at a political organization like JW said, a social organization. So much in fact that on Michael Shermer show, they were talking about the the draw of having the ceremony and the meetings and getting with people and socializing. So much in fact is a part of people's desire that the atheists do it too. They have their Sunday meetings, which is basically a church. But no, they don't believe it. I don't be really nice to my lie detectors or something and ask them about some of this stuff, but especially when you have someone that says, if it's in the Bible, I believe it. I'm just I'm nodding. I'm making black people agreement noises that yet. Just keep going. Okay. Dale's going to wrap his head around that Larry. I've known. Yes, they do. Larry, I've known you for about seven years now. I feel like I know exactly what you're going to say. I should write it down. But is it something to do with you would see if Christians actually believe what they believe you would actually see every Christian behave like the West Barrow Barrow Baptist Church. And it's only the fact before it. Not really, but that's a good point. What I was going to say is they say that they believe in a God that's all knowing and watches every move they make and every action they take. But yet they still we still have a Pettipop priests. We have preachers who steal funds from the church and and have extramarital affairs. They just do whatever they want to, I guess, because the dogma says they can be forgiven for anything that they do. Right. Like the tearful apology given by that preacher. I can't remember his name back from the 80s. Jerry Falwell. Yeah. Okay. But I mean, if they really believe that there was an all powerful judgmental judge watching them all the time, then how could they do any of that stuff? Yeah, I'd also say we went to the support the Pride Walk in Knoxville some years back. You and I, Larry, and it was with the rest of the atheist society in Knoxville. And we were heckled by preachers who were there at the time. And in my head, well, a lot of people were not happy that they were there, but in my head, I was really, really happy that they were there because these guys were accurately reflecting what was in the Bible. They had the citations on the poster. It was not one of those ambiguous things. It's like, we hate you because of this thing, which comes directly from the book. And I was like, I'm so glad you're here for accurately representing what your religious beliefs say, because a lot of people are saying that we have Christians in the march as well who are like, well, we just really believe everyone's God's kids and we love everybody and everyone's equal. It's like, the Bible doesn't say that. Yeah. It's always funny to me why they always go to the Old Testament to tell you what God is angry about you for rather than helping your fellow man like Jesus would have watched you to feeding the poor and giving up your possessions and all the stuff. They never mentioned that. Well, Jesus was real shady from time to time too. Jesus was real shady from time to time. Yeah, I'm throwing that out. I know Larry, I know he did some good things, but there was some like, ooh, when he storms, that's not getting into the weeds, but there are times where Jesus is like, hey, I'm not here to change any laws. Just keep worshiping me or worshiping my dad. It's just like, if you're not here to change laws and there's slavery, don't you think we should change at least one law? Can we change one law please? Yeah, there's some stuff. No, instead of changing it, I'm going to say a parable about slavery and teach you something about life using slavery as an example, but say nothing about its immorality. Yeah, it's pretty messed up. Dred, there was something on your mind. Were you wanting to say something? Nope. Cool. I have a quote that I'm looking at, but it's a quote that he's looking at. Dale, I'm going to throw this at you. You're showing this demon statue on the table. I know it's a bit of a tangent, but why don't we get into it? What is that thing on the table? This is my sculpture that I did of Pat Robertson. Oh, really? Oh, so it is a sculpture of a demon. It looks just like it. Yeah. Can I see a close-up of that again? Yeah, show it up to the camera again. Yeah, it's very good. I can't see it. Can you make it large? We'll show you a picture after the show. But it looks really good. Oh, thank you. Oh, wow. Dale, that's great. So here's the reason why I brought up the topic. He wanted to talk about it in a second. Oh, Dale, go for it. This sculpture represents a lot of the supernatural aspects of the Bible, fantastic creatures, and there would be a really... For most people, it's really a stretch to believe in them. The apple and the snake, that's supposed to be a witch's breast there, he's holding the Bible with money falling out, the dragon's tail at the bottom, and the satyrs. Do you know the satyrs in the Bible? I don't even know what a satyr is. It's like the half-man half-golder, right? Yeah. Is that a real thing? Is that a Bible? Is that real? Is that actually true? Oh, jeez. Everyone knows that. Devil wings. Something satyr. Yes. We... That's the funniest question. Hey, the reason why I brought up that I really wanted to talk about this show is last night I was watching some MMA because I'm a big strong dude and that helps me feel more secure about my masculinity. And there was the most fight interview with a guy who was like, hey, you won the fight, it was a really amazing knockout. Who would you like to thank? And he's like, I don't want to thank my coaches, I don't want to thank my family, I just want to thank God. I want to dedicate my win to a theologian and an apologist, a Christian apologist who recently passed away. And he started getting tearful because he was like, this guy really helped motivate me and keep me on the Christian track and he just passed away. It might be. That's a pretty good name you got on them. Yeah, he just passed away at cancer. Ah, okay, okay. So here's the thing. He's very sad that this guy died but he's a well-known Christian theologian poet and an apologist. So I would expect if anyone was convinced that he was going to hell, I'm going to say, heaven, it would be this guy, right? And I believe we're in agreement, even on a hypothetical level it would be better than the mortal coil that we're living in right now. So I know this is a rude acknowledgement on my part, but still, this is something that's been pestering me a lot. If this guy really believed in the Christian faith, like if he really did believe all the tenets of it, wouldn't he be happy that this guy naturally passed away compared to spending another day on earth when he didn't really have to? It seems counter-intuitive for a person who fully believes to be sad when a well-known Christian who apparently didn't do anything wrong dies from natural causes. Insightful observation. Lair, how do you feel about that? Is that too rude? I'm not going to bring it up. To me, I've kind of wrestled with this for a while and put my Christian hat on when I was a Christian. If somebody asked me why are you sad that there's so and so died, he's in heaven, my answer is I'm going to miss him. It'll be years and years and years before I see him again probably. For an eternity? For a literal eternity? Well, this is when I was a Christian. So I thought, I'm going to die eventually, but it's going to be a long time before I see him again. But as far as somebody like that that you don't know and you know he's a Christian and you should be happy theoretically that they die and go on to their reward as it were. I sort of feel like the morose-ness of his recognition that this person passed away that he probably didn't know on a personal level sort of harkens to the idea that he's still grappling with the concept that death is the end of life. When you're a Christian, you don't really have the opportunity to reconcile that because you're just fed afterlife. And that's the thing that you focus on. When people die, it's the end of this life. It's the end of this life. In Christianity, death is just a change of address. You just want to make sure you move to the correct address afterwards. That's all. More memes. What's interesting is the Bible more communicates that the heaven is coming to earth instead of us going up there yet American Christianity and Catholicism teach that we're going up, but there's more verses that say that heaven's coming here, but anyway. Random fact. It would not be heaven on earth when heaven comes here. It's the destruction and burning it. Yeah. Ragnarok. What do you have? There's a corollary to this about Christians whether or not they believe what they believe or what they profess to believe is if they actually knew some of the stuff that was in the Bible, would they still believe it? Because I think a great deal of Christian belief is really based on the ignorance of the book to which they lay claim as the testament of their God. And I give as an example Luke 1927. I used to be a Freemason. So I have here probably can't see it because it's blue. There it is. Gary, what club are you not a part of? You're Freemason. You're in Mensa. That's good news. Freemasons are a little weird too. Yeah. So Luke 1927 it says this is Jesus talking but those mine enemies which would not that I should reign over them bring hither and slay them before me. Now if Christians I mean believe everything that the Bible says and that it's inherent where's all the killing? You know what I mean? It happened with the Catholics. They definitely seem to have used that verse to support a lot of things like the Spanish Inquisition and the. Oh yes, of course. But I mean, you know, moving into modern times I think a lot of people that is not that is not the topic of any sermon. I'm sure that goes on these days. Right. Maybe some Hellfire and Bramstone Baptist somewhere in the middle of Hictown. You bought up a really good topic that I'd like to touch back in on the second half of the show. But we're at the bottom of a half hour right now. Larry, why don't you take us out? All right. This is digital Freethought Radio hour on WZO Radio 103.9 lp fm right here in Knoxville, Tennessee and we'll be right back after this short break. 103.9 fm WZO radio. I'm doubter five and today is Sunday August 9th, 2020. Let's talk about the Freethought groups that you can join right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. First, there's the Atheist Society of Knoxville founded in 2002. We're in our 18th year. We have over a thousand members and you can find ASK online by searching for Knoxville Atheist or just go to KnoxvilleAtheist.org By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you can still go to meet up and search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Start one. Okay. Another large Freethinking group here in Knoxville are the rationalists of East Tennessee. RET has bi-weekly meetings. They used to down there at Pellissippi State campus near Hardin Valley Road but I'm sure they get together by Zoom or whatever. Go to rationalist.org and click on upcoming events to find out more about them. Those are actually really nice lectures, by the way. If you can go out and see them, they're really nice. They do have formal lectures or ASK pretty much gets together as a social event. RET gets together and does presentations and roundtable discussions. So it's a good group. Very good. Earlier in the show, we said we'd talk about the atheist calling TV show and it's called Freethinkers United Coalition of Knoxville online at YouTube. It has a streaming version. It goes out every Wednesday night. I'm pretty sure. Go to YouTube and search for Freethinkers United Coalition of Knoxville and remember, you can find archives of their shows on YouTube where a fan has been posting them. Also, if you're interested in getting involved with the TV or this radio show, just come to an ASK meetup or ASK Facebook page or RET meeting and you can be our next co-host or guest with us on the show. The day we have a regular co-host Wombat and guest W. Kennedy Dread Pirate Higgs George and Red Leader getting back to our topic. We are going to get into our topic but first we're going to talk. Dread, do you mind giving it back to me? Do you need the love? Yes, I need it. Where is it? Where is it? Where is the love? I think I'm very listening witness. Okay. So we're going to be going over some listener feedback. If you want to be part of this just leave a comment on our YouTube or any other feed that you see just post a comment and will go over. I'm doing mine on my channel which is Let's Chat.com or I'm sorry Let's Chat on YouTube. Maan McHugh says we're talking about the No TRue Scotsman fallacy last whatever drink Kentucky bourbon. And I agree. It's, it's, uh, it's one of those things you have to sip and numb your mouth in order to actually start appreciating. And I'm like, at that point, you're not really tasting anything. And he's like, yeah, that's pretty much the point. Um, Racky says, uh, to say that morality comes from a risk of punishment is a twisted view that directly obscures why morals are important in the first place. It shouldn't be about doing something good or else I'll get punished because there's a better option. And I think better option is he's referring to is just doing things. Uh, it makes it better society. It makes better society benefits you. You're aware that your actions have consequences. It makes you a more adult person rather than just worrying about the stick. Like the carrot biological capacity for empathy is just sometimes doing good. It's it's in its own reward. You just feel good. Yeah, it makes you feel better. It benefits you. That's why you should do good things. It's to your interests, basically. Uh, you don't have to worry about the stick. You should worry. You should try to get that carrot. And the carrot is, Hey, it's actually good for you to do things in your own interest. All right. So crazy praying mantis says, I get my morals from God, you know, the one who drowned every baby on the planet and stands by when children get sexually assaulted and does nothing. It's dark and true. Yeah, it's actually kind of terrifying. Yeah, I know it's kind of terrifying how we see God's morals are our improvement compared to our own when any other person in the world would happily not drain a baby for the most part. I would say like there's extreme examples, but generally, most people will be like drowning babies. Not my kind of thing. Sorry. Uh, George, why are you waiting on this? Unmute. Unmute. Unmute yourself, buddy. Okay. I always get confused as to what morals really means. How is it different from ethics? I don't think so. I don't think there's that much of a difference. I think it's not the same family terms. Yeah, it's the same family terms. I'm not going to get we into semantics, but I would just say like a moral is an idea of like a rule of how you should do things and like or ought to do things that you're obligated to do. And ethics is like a codified set of morals that you can follow. So it's just too bad. One thing I would like to say, obedience is not morality. And you know, the rules that put forward in the Bible, there are 613 commandments in the Bible. And just following and doing what you're told is not morality. Morality is knowing the correct thing to do in a particular situation that would help yourself and other people and the community at large and minimize harm. And that's an active back and forth actions, I guess I should say, evaluations and not just following rules. One of the biggest things that made me become or maybe leave religion is when I was taking an ethics class and I was comparing it to how I did math, right? Math isn't just knowing the answers at the back of the book. It's knowing how to perform any equation that you're given. It's a process and it's a mental process of like weighing what's the right path to take to solve a problem versus the wrong ones and seeing what's the most advantageous stage to you. It's not just knowing the answer. It's about being able to figure out the answer. And morality works in the same way. It's not just saying, hey, I'm just going to do whatever these 10 commandments say. It's more of like, if I behave in a certain way, what are the outcomes? And do I want these outcomes? And what could I do if someone else did those things to me? What's the best way for me to move forward? That's morality. And you don't get morality from a, you know, a 2000 year old book, maybe even older than that. You get it from interacting with people and realizing that people are different, have different needs and their actions have consequences in the society that we all take apart in. Gary, you hit a hammer on a, you hit the nail with a really weird hammer. You know what I'm talking about, right? Basically, like, if someone actually read the Bible and said, hey, I do, I believe what the Bible tells me. And you start going, you maybe give them a multiple choice, you know, quiz, where some of the options are some really weird things that are actually, you know, parts of the Bible. For example, do you believe in, what was that thing that you said, Dale? What is the name of that animal? Saras? Saiters. Saiters, Saiters, Saiters. Are Saiters real? Like you can say, are bats real? Are Saiters real? It's like, based on your religious beliefs, which of these things doesn't exist, mark off more as they apply, which is giants, Saiters. And they'll be like, well, I definitely don't believe in Saiters and witches and giants. It's like, well, those are all in the Bible. What are you going to do about it? But angels, yeah, sure. People with wings, they don't even have wings in the Bible. Like that's just like, uh, like, uh- Boy, eyes they inscribed angels. It's kind of scary looking. Yeah. They're like these giant golden rings. Eyes all over the bodies. Oh, it's terrifying. Yeah. Yeah. There's some weird stuff in there. And I feel like, because pastors typically gloss on the most conventional general, you know, things to help people, you know, keep tithing and stay out of the more weirder aspects that people don't really top, top into, particularly like revelations. Um, I feel like most people don't really know what's in the Bible. They just know what they want to be in the Bible. And that's what they mean when they say, I believe whatever the Bible says, because they believe whatever they want to believe. That's just of it in a sense. And then we haven't read it because it's so big, but most of us who are atheists read the Bible from cover to cover. And that's, yeah, I'm just like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Dale, it looks like you want to, Dale, look like you want to say something real quick. Did you raise your hand? Unbelievable things. Genesis 24 36 is where you'll find the story where, uh, they used, uh, circumcision as a mass weapon of war. And that's in, in my book at chapter one, 12 new adventures in circumcision is a title of that chapter. What's the title of the book? Jesus did it. Is it, is that literally in Jesus did it? How Jesus did it? Oh my gosh. What's the name of the book that circumcision is chapter one and the adventures of circumcision is 24 36 is where this about the center of the story. The book you wrote. What's the name of the book you wrote? The book you wrote. What's the name of the book you wrote? That has chapter one. How Jesus did it.com and the title of the book is actually, uh, 30 pieces of silver plus expenses. George, you want to follow up? I just wanted to mention, uh, to address something that J. W. Kennedy just said, J. W., we don't know each other. We haven't seen each other before, but I want to mention to you that I am a genuine organic atheist. I was raised an atheist. And so I don't have to throw off anything. Yeah, it's a, it's a, I had to come to the martial. Yes, I believe me. I have compassion for you guys, because I know what you've been through and, and I didn't go through that. But I, on the other hand, I, I did have to come to wrestle with the issue of death directly as a child. Okay. So that, but that's a whole other story. George, let me throw something, uh, to you specifically since you were actually raised an atheist, um, being, so here's the, here's two things I want to battle. Uh, one, leaving religion doesn't necessarily make you any smarter than someone who stays in it. And as, as painful as to say that, when you see what religious people do, it's absolutely true because you can just be easily misguided into some other poor police system that's not religious or some weird conspiracy or just this state of ego where it's like, well, I can't be wrong anymore because now I know I'm not religious. So whatever I believe must be true. And that's, that is just as bad. But you can't just necessarily become a good critical thinker without actually doing it in practice. It's not like riding a bike. It's something you have to keep doing to get good at and maintain at a certain level. So you always have to keep questioning. When you were raised an atheist, George, did you have, I mean, was that enough for you to be like, okay, I have the mindset of a good skeptical outlook? Or did you have to develop that separately aside from not being raised to believe in a God? Well, you know, it's, it's a very hard question to answer, um, for me because I don't have even unravel this. Give me a moment here to think about it. I wanted to think about this while we go to other people, but like, how did you walk yourself out of false beliefs or beliefs that you later on believe that weren't true? What was your process? First of all, I tend to be a scientific thinker. How? I'm just because I'm interested in science. Oh, because there's nothing obstructing the level? I mean, I mean, at that level, it's just, I have been interested in science from the earliest age I can think of, you know, and hands on, I'm talking about hands on science and electricity and stuff like that. So I understood electricity at the age of six. Whoa. You have to stop putting the fork in the sock. Gary, you beat me to it. What's that? I missed that. What? It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It was, it was a fork in the socket. Yeah. Yeah, it's true. Yeah. Yeah. But it seems like you had parents that fostered your appreciation of science and maybe that helped you. You know, it was, it was, it was more that they simply did not obstruct me. Yeah. Yeah. Because we had naturally have inquisitive minds as kids, right? Yes. And I want to emphasize one other thing, which is that I was not raised by a militant atheist, you know, like Madeline Murray O'Hare, who really got into people's faces, you know, it's like, it's simply, there was no God in my household. There was no discussion about it. I get it. You know, Larry, this is something I've always wanted to ask you. You, you've been a Christian longer than I've been an atheist and a Christian put together, right? And the weird thing is it wasn't until you found a couple of, like a couple of people and one crystallized moment for you to realize I need to be out as an atheist. The compartmentalization of like, here's my faith. Here is how reality works. And it's fine that these are separate. I mean, would you have any struggles with that before you met the person that helped you? You talked about the compartmentalization. Yeah. Yeah. When I was in high school, you know, I got into reading science fiction and I really enjoyed science and high school classes. But I was raised, I was born in 1950. You can imagine what the world was like back then. No, I can't. Everybody, excuse me, everybody from the postman to the president, was an abode Christian. Yeah. And I never heard of an atheist. I'd never heard of Madeleine Murray, Ohio, any of that time. I did not know it was an option not to believe, you know, and any doubts I had, I just were told to me and I believed it internally that there had to be a God. Now, whether I believed every little thing that was in the Bible, that was something else. Finally, I met somebody when I was in college who was raised a Christian in a Baptist background and didn't believe any of it. And she had really good reasons for not believing it. And we started dating and we went together all the way through college and then eventually got married. But after I met her and I saw that it was an option not to believe in us. And she showed me that there was really no good evidence to believe it. I left my superstition behind me in my supernatural beliefs and just moved on with science and the natural world. That's wonderful. I would also ask you, it sounded like you said that you didn't even know there was an option not to believe. And I think that's the scariest part when you grow up where everyone believes the same thing, because you were born not believing that. Like you weren't born a baby speaking in parables. Someone convinced you that a God existed to the point where you didn't even realize that it was an option for you not to believe them. And when you finally met that, people are born in that situation right now. And it wasn't even so much that she showed you good reasons not to believe because you don't even need a reason to not believe something. She just showed you you didn't have a good reason for your belief. And I was like, smart lady. Thanks. George, what do you got? I have a question which is at what age do the Christians get indoctrinated? Birth. I was raised by my grandmother. And as soon as I could hear and understand stories, the only story she ever told me was from the bottle. Yeah, you were born in St. John Hopkins, Christian Tividad Center. It's just like, yeah, it starts now. And the concept of heaven and hell, where does that come in? I feel like this school. Yeah, basically, I feel like even my parents were like, you know, do this because God's watching you like I even I or got close to stories like that. They'll I feel like I'd love to know where you came on this. I don't know if you were raised explicitly atheist, deistic, if you had Christian beliefs ever. But did you you still had to scrutinize and question things? What was your upbringing like? And did you have to learn how to do that on your own? How'd that go? My parents thought that I needed moral training, and that's an end of the best place to do that. As far as they were as concerned was church. And I went to church quite a while. I never actually got into it. And then later on decided I was a deist. Cool. How did you develop your critical thinking? I mean, you had these moral trainings, but you feel like nothing was connecting. That seems to me like a part of your brain being like something's not adding up here. What did you do to foster that development? I just started asking questions in church and made a pain in the neck. And I realized that by the way they were reacting and not being able to answer questions. I mean, really elementary ones, when I was a kid, you know, where did Adam and Eve's children find their why? Yeah. Yeah, stuff like that. You know what? And it just got, you started asking questions and no one had any good answer for, but I still attended so that I could go roller skating on Thursday night. Very cool. When I was doing the same thing you were, it sounds like we have very similar upbringing as far as like moral training. I realized that there was a difference between an answer that I think I was, that I asked for and an explanation, which was really what I wanted. And I was continually getting answers, but no explanations. So like if I asked, how did this happen? God did it. How did this happen? Well, you know, Jesus asked her and God did it. It's like, well, how did this happen? Well, you just got to believe that God did it. I'm like, oh, explanations, please, please. I'll take a poor explanation over just a straight up answer any day. Man, it was so frustrating. And that was the nagging in my head that didn't like swell up until I realized, wait, God's not even moral. This book isn't even more morality. So let me just push this aside and really start looking at the world as it needs to be. And it wasn't until college that I was able to do that. Dred, I want to know you're bringing upbringing. Was it strictly religious minded? And how did you, how did you foster your skeptical mindset that you have today? Well, I was raised Catholic, you know, quasi-Catholic household. So I was baptized early, did the Catechism, went to lots of, you know, Catholic camps and Catholic camps sounds like one of the most boring places you could be. Oh, that's where the action was, my friend. If you wanted to, yeah, that's where that that's where the stuff really went off. Okay, never mind. Never mind. I take it all back. I take it all back. A bunch of religious kids left their own devices in the middle of the wilderness. So where I started eventually coming off was just the conflict between my interests in science and the scientific method. And it's absolute divorce from any kind of reality as proposed by religious people. Those things just do not work well together. And eventually I am picking one over the other. I went over the one that I could test and that's science. So it took a very long time. Well, did you find, did you find any resistance in your part to accept a scientific worldview based on your residual religious inclinations? Like, did you want to believe that? I wish that wasn't just overcoming wishful thinking, really. Yeah. Yeah. And that's really what it was about, right? Yeah. Could you give me an example? Like, what was something that you wished was true in religion, but science had no demonstration or proof of it. So you had to let it go. You're like, I don't want to let you go. You're so nice. You're like a pillow for me. Well, I mean, it's hard to pick one thing, but, you know, the idea of souls or afterlife for those or, you know, any of that stuff, you know, the idea that there's another realm of existence that we either coexist with in the current universe, or that there's another existence awaiting us afterwards. For me, it was a sense of justice. Hang on, my dog's going to start crying here. That's a weird telling dog. For me, it was a sense of justice. I felt like, okay, so there were definitely people who were like really bad war criminals, people who did absolute atrocities, people who owned other people as property, people who would like hurt women, you name it, and they just die and that's it. You know, like in my head, I'm like, no, I like the idea of like a hell to punish bad people because I feel like I'm a good person. And I feel like people who die before their punishment can really be just like, you know, sought after will get their due rewards in the afterlife. Go for it, Larry. Oh, no. Oh, no, everyone's pausing. What's the time stamp here? Is everyone good? Is everyone frozen? Jesus, he goes to heaven. He's going to see all the people that he killed in heaven, and they're going to see what to do with that. There's too many loopholes in that comforting belief to me. Dredd, looks like you were saying something. Go for it. Well, I would say the Jeffrey Hadamur goes to heaven, but the atheist girl that he killed in eight doesn't. Oh, I think of Hitler. He was a Catholic. He was a Christian. And if he asked for forgiveness before, you know, he did it himself in, then he's going all the Jews that he killed since they don't believe in Jesus are all in hell. And the belief system just doesn't work Yeah. Like, I think we're in agreement there. So like, I realized the sense of justice that I had, even as a Christian coming, coming into becoming an atheist was even really justice in the first place. It was just a skewed idea of I'll be safe as long as I don't think about it too much. And I realized that wasn't good enough. So what would be the better alternative? You said, Larry, you said humanism a while back ago. J.W., what you might know something about humanism. What is humanism? And George, this is a George question. What is humanism, guys? J.W., what do you think of humanism as a better alternative? And what is it in general? To me, like I mentioned in the first half of the show, I believe the biological capacity for empathy, you know, it's just, it's, if you are capable of thinking about what would hurt or harm or offend someone else, you have the capacity for developing your own humanistic principles. It's just simply about well-being and living at peace with each other and figuring that out on a daily basis in your daily life. And anybody with any level of intelligence or any level of capacity to understand someone else or empathize with someone else has the capability of being a humanist. I hope I, I hope I, I hope I, there's actually a really great, there's a great experiment that you might want to find on YouTube about this shared idea of evolutionary empathy, where they have like two parrots, not parrots, like cockatiels, parakeets, there they are. And they have them in a glass cage. And there's a string that pulls a bell in either cage. And if the bird pulls the string in their cage, the other bird gets fed. And so they will ring the parakeet will basically, without hesitation, you put two stranger parakeets in, go up to the bell, ring it, the other bird gets fed. When the other bird is like, Hey, more food, please. And then they, and then what they can actually do is they can move that one string to either side of the room. And the birds will always feed the other person. They know it doesn't feed them and they have their own access to food and water. But when it runs out or when their other friend runs out, they will ring the bell for the other person. This is the same thing with birds. It's the same thing with monkeys. They do the same thing for dogs even. And there's like this social idea of like, if I help you, that is beneficial for both of us because might run in a situation where you could help me and like that and you being good helps me and me being help helps you. So let's work together as a team because we're here in this situation together. And that's like this idea of like empathy, like we're not just these selfish creatures, we have these impact on each other. George, what do you do? Well, I want to address what you just said. And of course, you asked me to something too. First of all, a little story about animals. Go for it. You'll all enjoy. I used to have a friend who played French horn and I stayed in this house once. And they had a dog and a cat. And the dog, the protected the dog in the sense that if another dog came and invaded the dog's territory, the cat would go out and beat up the dog. So talk about it. J.W., I loved your definition. And I want to try to boil it down to one word, which is empathy and compassion. Compassion is good. Yeah. I was taken to humanist lectures at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture. Man, you are the age of Brooklyn. I'm sorry. I'm just sorry. Go for it. The first one is in the purpose building in Manhattan on Central Park West. The second one is in Brooklyn on Prospect Park West in a converted mansion, which is a strange place. But that's where I was taken. I grew up in Brooklyn and I think around the age of four. So this is humanism. The ethical society is about humanism. So I was taken around the age of four. And I'm sure I didn't understand a damn thing about it, but that's a good place to grow up. I guess. I mean, it's so central to me. When I was in Kentucky, I was looking for an atheist group to hang out with because the one in Tennessee is just so fantastic. And I highly recommend that if you're nearby, ask Atheist Society of Knoxville, you check them out. When I was in Kentucky, I was missing that group and I ended up joining up with a bunch of Unitarian Universalists, which had a bunch of different faiths, including atheists in the same building, talking about science. Instead of a pastor preaching about what Jesus did for the 17th time from the same chapter, he's like, let's watch an episode of Carl Sagan's Universal speech and really dissect the idea that all of these matter was here since the beginning of time. So it's not like we'd go away. We've been here since the beginning. We're just in these forms now and we have this wonderful opportunity to appreciate each other now. I'm like, wow, that's so cool. That was like a really uplifting sort of thing. And you had kids dressed up as elements of the Big Bang. I'm just like, what is going on here? This is so cool. I'm just like, wow, it's nice. And then what's next after this? It's like, we're going to do some Native American thing and then we'll follow it up with some other religion. But we always keep ourselves to the idea that this is an inclusive practice. So even if you can't find a humanist group in your area, check out UU's, Unitarian Universalists. They're actually very accepting for atheists. And most of the people I talk to there were atheists. So it's kind of cool. We're actually going to wrap up the show, guys. We're at the bottom of the hour. Dredd, where can we find your stuff at? Well, I can say that we're live streaming right now on YouTube at Mind Pirate. Mind is M-I-N-D-P-Y-R-A-T-E. And we do that on Sunday mornings at 8 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. Nice. If I wanted to get a book about how Jesus did it, where could I go to, Dale? HowJesusDidIt.com, you can read the whole book for free. Very, very nice. J.W., you're speaking your beautiful mind, plus a bunch of other stuff. If I wanted to find out your comedy stuff and your burgeoning, atheist conversation, free thought conversation stuff, where can I go to? Good news. The comedy clubs are opening up slowly, but surely here in the Nashville area. So I'm going to have some comedy content coming up pretty soon, hopefully in the next month or so at J.W. Kennedy YouTube channel. You can also follow me on Twitter at J.W.K. hates the news. That's for my comedy. And for my street epistemology and what Ty does on his channel with his Let's Chat with the conversations that I have a second channel for that called Speak Your Beautiful Mind. And you can follow me on Twitter there for that channel at your beautiful mind. Just look up Speak Your Beautiful Mind on Twitter and you should find, for some reason, I keep forgetting what the tag is for that one. So just Speak Your Beautiful Mind on Twitter and YouTube and J.W. Kennedy on YouTube. Very cool. And you can find my stuff on Let's Chat on YouTube and feel free to stick around if you like this kind of content. When COVID is over, I can't wait to go back out and start doing more interviews. The last place I was at was in D.C. I've been pushing, I've put my nose to the grindstone and then A.C.A. conventions get canceled, NanoCon got canceled, TexasCon got canceled. So I'm looking forward to being able to go back out in parks and talking to strangers again. Until then, I'm having fun talking with you guys. And thank you so much for showing up every week. Larry, take us out. Okay. My book is Atheism What's It All About? It's available on Amazon. Be sure to visit my blog at digitalfreethought.com. If you have questions for the show, you can send them to askanatheistatnoxwellatheist.org and we'll answer them on future shows. You like this podcast, you can listen to it on iTunes, Stitcher, Luminary Podcasts, iHeart, etc, etc, as well as downloading or listening to them from digitalfreethought.com. If you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe and just to be notified for new episodes. And as a resource, I'd like to mention that if you're having trouble relieving religion or the religious beliefs, if you have a problem with that, go to recoveringfromreligion.org. It's a great resource. Remember, everybody's going to somebody else's hell. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Have a good life and see you next week on Wednesday at 7 o'clock. WZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Say goodbye, everybody. Stay rational.