 Hello and welcome to digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee Today is Sunday May 24th 2020. I'm Larry Rhodes or Doubter 5 and as usual we have for the co-host Wombat on the phone with us Hello Wombat You are the light of the world City on a hill can not be here to him Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. Say you're light above old man. They might see you greasing them. Say you're glowy up in heaven That's right. That's Wombat Okay, welcome. With us today. We have Joey Woods, Boudreaux and Dreadtire Pirate Higgs Hello all Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism free thought rational thought humanism and the sciences And conversely we also talk about religion religious faiths God's 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 atheists and free thinking rationalist 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 Also, did you know that there was a streaming atheist calling video show broadcasting right here in Knoxville? Did you know that one back? Yes? And if you have a netflix account, you can watch all of the great movies and animations by myoheiizaki You can check them out. They're all available right now And my favorite personally is the cat returns and my neighbor took it. Oh, it's a great story of two jacks Coming of age story. That's the right show. What are we talking about? No, atheist calling show it's Now on youtube used to be on a local access tv for like 10 years But now it's on youtube and you can we'll tell you more about it after the mid-show breaks to stick around If you'd like to interact with us during the show go to facebook and search for our digital free thought radio hour page And use the messaging function to send us questions or comments Remember if you're listening to this on the radio, it's sunday mornings 11 o'clock eastern time to 12 noon so Use the page call us send us questions and Be part of the the movement too. Yeah, so joey. What's our topic today? well, um I think i've got one that I can get us into into some good discussion um question Can religion be a healthy outlet as long as its members appreciate the pursuit of science? And seek an honest balance Is there such a thing as an honest balance? Oh, I love this question. Isn't that great? So I'll I'll take it off the top. I think so. Yes. And in fact just because you're religious doesn't it There's a difference between being a theist and a and religion and and being religious because you can definitely be spiritual or religious Without having to have the baggage of also believing that a supernatural deity made the universe, right? And if religion to you is just the nature of how you do things or think about How you perform certain rights or acts or how you connect beyond just You know your a to b the c part of the day is like hey emotionally This is a great way to stabilize myself so I can express greater empathy with other people in my community I'm totally fine with that and then if you support that with additional love for science Yeah, I love that a lot. That sounds like a really really good thing. Um, I hopefully i'm interpreting that right? Larry, what do you think? uh-oh Can we hear them? We got I got muted. There you go. Sorry. There you go. Um, there are several religions out there right now that uh That are philosophical religions. They don't have Deities like uh, buddhism, daoism, shintoism. We talk about the eastern religions Uh, and a matter of fact, uh, the dalai lama the tibetan buddhism Has been quoted within the last couple years to saying If whenever buddhism disagrees with the findings of science and buddhism will have to change So I think that that's an existing, uh Standard out there in several of the eastern religions However, they do have elements of superstition that we may or may have not have to address Later on as the show goes on But I think yeah, I think a person can be both scientific and religious as long as the religion is philosophical Yeah, I was more referring to what if they actually did have Supernatural beliefs, but they put them into the realm of possibilities in their mind But they don't assert them as truth But they believe that they exist knowing that there's a chance that they won't but they believe that they exist because they see that it's uh To their perspective, it's a therapeutic outlet for them But at the same time they are 100 behind the pursuit of science Could that still be a healthy outlet? So I'm still a little confused So I'm going to just make a dichotomy here. Do they believe it's it's literally true or do they not believe? It's literally true the supernatural aspect of they um, they have a healthy Just make sure we're staying on the dichotomy. Is it they believe that it's true literally or do they not believe that? It's true literally well, okay I guess I worded that worded that wrong they do They believe that it's possible that it's true So they they carry out the rituals and they do I'm trying I'm trying I'm trying I'm trying The dichotomy is they believe it's literally true or they do not believe that it's literally true Which could include any other gray room that you want, but like do they believe it's literally true or not? That's like the main thing that I want to know Well, that's the question. Is it is it psychologically healthy to believe that it's literally true Is it a psychological threat? if they also believe that That science is important. All right. So like we took a step back and now we're asking a different question Like is there harmful? Is it harmful to believe something's literally true that you may not be able to justify with reasonable amounts of evidence, right? I think Trying to Clarify I guess I'm not doing a really good job of it. No, no, you're doing great. You're doing great Gary, what do you think you actually have a religion and I like it a lot What I don't like beer that's my problem. So that's what's keeping me from putting on the pasta hat I like orange juice a lot like oh actually, you know, whatever you want to call grog is grog Okay. Yeah, yeah me the pirate drinking can be composed of any kind of liquid. Nice. Oh, I love that As long as it pleases your palate and you're a pirate. That's I dig it. I dig it. I dig it But what do you think like, uh, have you got any benefits from your outlook spiritually? Well, not spiritually. No, I I don't really hold to that I mean, I I'm in this for the community That's what uh, that's why That's what I Get out of it. Um, I know there's lots of pasta variants out there that are, you know, spiritual Some are actually even religious or questioning so I think we're just simply a melting pot but You know, I I don't even Engage in Pascal's wager at all. Um, I'm just pretty much a heart atheist. So yeah, um, well, I I don't Go ahead cut to the chase on this. Uh, do you know of any pasta farion who holds that the claims of pasta farionism? Are actually literally true. That's a good question. Um Well, I'm I'm not sure. I mean, okay. No the the no, no, probably not No, I think probably not. Yeah, I think they'd say it's as likely at most as the That's exactly that's exactly where someone might Come as close to just for the audience I wanted to ask that just for the audience who may be confused about pasta farionism and And again, I'm not speaking for all pasta farions because maybe there is a pasta farion out there Who really actually literally believes in a beer volcano and a stripper factory And to go to what Joey's saying that would make me sad because that's just like, uh, you took it too far right But I'm saying is it in a sense the question is is it a is it a threat to society if a group of people Try to balance a dichotomy. That's not necessarily You know, they're not they're not going to you know They're not going to the legislation to put in laws Um, they believe that it's true But they also entertain the possibility of being not true knowing that science hasn't proved it yet And they also are passionate about science Is that is it healthy? And Is it is it good for your society? Is it neutral for society? Is it bad for society? What? So instead of like an open let's direct with that buddhro buddhro. What do you think about that question? Yeah, uh, this is really interesting and I've thought about this before too. Um, I've heard others talk about this um Psychology that's going on where you know on sunday, they'll go to church and they'll do all the things and believe all the things and then Monday morning, they'll go into a research lab and do the most advanced science Out there and they just they have this Compartmentalization in their brain that just lets them do that. I've had it. Yeah. Oh, yeah, okay. So yeah And I work with a lot of a lot of you know, great brilliant people that that are are very religious and and They just they have a way of just kind of splitting those two things. Is it healthy though? I don't know. I could see it I could see it working in some bias You know into into research and uh other things There was a a guy a guy literally dr. Guy I think they try to call him the science guy who came to lexington Kentucky As a response to bill nine the science guy who came and talked talked. Yeah, so bill nine came to the Came to uk guy. That's the doctor guy. You know, I'm talking about and he's like the Scientist for the catholic church. He runs their like Observatory or something something to that effect. That's a very boring job He did a talk and it was so we actually went to chat and I went to it I think george came with and I mean we went almost ironically to it You know, we wanted to hear what this guy it was filled with young Catholic students. It was a catholic newman. There's a newman center And he was up there talking and he was talking literally about this that hey You can believe in a god and still love science And what it sounded to me like Is it was a pitch To young people that hey you you don't have to ignore science and and be religious the two are compatible and I It would have to be catholicism to do that because they do value education and I can see that they would Mostly support evolution and the other findings of science The other the Protestant religions a lot of them don't but Catholicism I can see where they would do that Can I kind of make a quote? Uh, not a quote, but like an example that wasn't Catholicism today is not catholicism 100 years ago. It's not catholicism 100 years before that And if there's any long-term well documented trend of anyone trying to just keep with the times to stay relevant in order to maintain that type money It's catholics like you can look them from Ancient plantagenate dynasty all the way up to today and be like wow these guys were really really They were like following the twitter trends and being like whatever we got to do to just keep the people in the seats Let's do it the exact Pretty violent things as well. Yeah They do have a have some skeletons in their closet. Oh, no, it's all skeletons dude The closet is made out of skeletons the door is a bunch of bones like we already know Right, it's a boning closet And I feel like this is just an appeal to the intelligent design model rather than an actual Compatibilism of science versus religion because you are actually not compatible When you start to critically assess How things came to be and you don't have a good reasonable answer for it The scientific approach is to admit that you don't know something not claim that you know something And put the burden of proof on other people to show that you're wrong Until so that you can change your mind right sciences I'll believe it when I have good reason to believe it And it's this idea to the god of the gaps there you go, you know where people Infill the idea that there's a supernatural world out there um Only because science hasn't yet Filled it out, you know, so that it's the god of the gaps essentially Gary, did you say ute? Are you canadian because that's weird? I am. Yeah. I am definitely canadian never say you never mention that You never mention it. Yeah I am half canadian by the way I I suspected it. I knew it. I knew it all the time. I just my mom's from the sue Oh, you know where that is. Yeah to st. Marie. Yeah to say Marie. Yeah Cool, so welcome to the all-american podcast. This is digital You didn't just have one question for us. You had another one. What's what's that one all about? Joey, what's the second? Oh, I have another question Yeah, your microphone's a little low Oh, my bad. My bad. My bad. My bad. Your microphone's a little low. Here we go. Yeah Nice. Oh, yeah Yeah, I think I heard the question, but I didn't hear my name at the end of the question So that's why I was kind of like a deer in a headlight. Um The second question on the list if that's what you're referring to absolutely If we were to evolve out of religion Would art fade with it? Oh Yeah, I don't think so. No, I don't think so either So I started this show with an amazing rendition of third day's light on a hill That no one appreciated apparently because everyone's trying to talk over and try to move it forward But if you listen to that song that is a jam that I do not believe could come from the mind of Secular mind of human being that song is just too good of a jam. It's so good It has to be divinely inspired It's sort of like this so like the idea of what a church is is a Like when you go to a church the pastor's like, please stand up. Please sit down Please turn to this page. Like there's a there's a choreograph It's a clear choreography behind it all and it's the exact sort of thing where it's like I could go to the grocery store right now and pay A dollar for like a bunch of Reese's pieces cups Or I can go to a vending machine and pay two dollars for one Reese's pieces cup But I still go to the vending machine and do that one Reese's piece of cup because I like putting the money in the machine I like pushing the number combination. I like watching that little Spiral you like working with the machine. Yeah, I like I like seeing the thing fall to the ground My mouth is like salivating as I'm like reaching in the machine and I undo the wrapper Like there's a process before it that makes the food better and it's scientifically demonstrated that when people have a Turkey turkey tastes the same as it always does but it tastes better on Thanksgiving because you think in your head Everyone's eating turkey in Thanksgiving and you have to wait for the special day to eat on this particular time There's a process behind it and I feel like for Christians when they make Christian music They are like What are the true tide? What are the the the surefire? Chord progression that we found fine tuned to an exactee that will make this song be the The get up and jam and give me money This hat around yeah chord progression. Yeah, and I'm just saying it hits you and you're like Oh, it's so good. Where's my one dollar? Give it up. I don't think yeah, I'm getting back to the question. Yeah Well religion go if we're religion goes away. Well, I go away. No, I think some I would Well, that would be but that would be similar to saying that all art is currently done by Part of the brain religion resides in Joey's always Another level. I mean the very fact that he mentioned Christian music and religious music I mean if you take religious music and you exclude all of that from the body of music that we have today everything else is secular Right. Ah, it's true. It's very then we have secular music and it will continue and art and all other forms of art will continue So now if I'm also going to throw this out There's a there's a band called the quiet company that we love on the show. They're in our rotation They were a former christian band The lead singer became an atheist the rest of the band also became atheist and they still make the same kind of music But it's much more secular and they have a much more secular point If you like western music, they're a great band to follow But they have the same brains that they had when they were religious I'm I'm saying I'm just kind of entertaining the possibility of looking forward a few thousand years Like what if we get what if we get to a point where we're so logical We get to a point where we're so scientifically driven that art becomes a little interest to us Is that is that a fees? We still have mathematics and mathematics can be beautiful on. Yeah fractals think about fractals. Yeah fractals that the curves Art deco that's like it's all mathematical angles really beautifully aligned with each other. Yeah Matter of fact, think of music. Uh, what's that one that's so mathematical math rock I know it's that's literally what it's called larry. That's literally what it's called. It's called math rock That's what it's called. I'm not making that up They're just reciting pie to the nth degree But bells can there is actually uh One of my favorite bands tool has a song where the lyrics the the syllables of the lyrics are are sung Using the fibonacci series. All right. It's a mathematical progression Right. Yeah, if you want to talk about truly mathematically perfect songs All star by smash mount is phyllis. You guys laugh is philosophically mathematically and it's in compositionally Perfect and you couldn't make that if you didn't love science. There's no way you could have a metal singer a hot organ and a rock ensemble Groove together so compatibly if you don't have some appreciation both science and art and you don't need religion to do that Yeah, I mentioned a little while ago a pack of bells cannon. How many people are familiar with that? Everybody on the planet. Yes Yeah, it's it's mathematically perfect I mean you have one every eighth bar or every eighth count and then you've got others that are coming in right on the The half and the quarter and it it's very Did you keep off mathematically peckabelle? P a c h a b e l I think oh peckabelle. Okay. Yeah I just also had a thought to correct myself go for you need to access that right part of your brain in order to invent something So in order to invent something new or to build something or even when somebody's you know trying to Improve a spaceship or a car that that is still accessing some of that right part of the brain. So Yeah, maybe so I just thought it was something cool to think about like We don't want to fill this question to you real quick I actually think the inverse is true that you can't have art without math. Would you agree with that? Hmm, I don't know. Yeah. No, I think yeah. I mean because I think colors Uh, I mean really our our brains are doing math when we start looking at different right? Yeah Well, I think of some pieces of art that The artist literally just throws paint on a canvas and then here this is art You know abstract without any mathematical. I'm a physics right the way the paint drips down That's all and we can mathematically prove that it's not random Based on even if he thinks it's random like we know for a fact and if someone actually does something that's truly random We can mathematically hold this is like What about um, yoko ono I did some where she like put a canvas on the ground That would be if you're just throwing shots out on everybody and call that art There's too much hate on the show I consider art something more impressive. So you gotta put something you gotta dedicate a little more time and you gotta get No, we get into defining art though You gotta give me something that that a five year salty dog. You're on the loose. We can't we can't yell you in We're gonna have to go to a break. We've got to calm you down a little bit. Why don't you take us out late in the show? Go for it. Yep. Okay. Hold on. This is digital free thought radio r and w o zero radio 103.9 l p f m Right here in Knoxville, Tennessee We're gonna take a short break with station identification We'll come right back here and get going again. See you in a minute You're listening to 103.9 f m wozo radio Simply the best Welcome back on doubt if I And this is the doubter. Um, let me start again Welcome back. I'm doubt if I notice that it is a free thought radio hour and w o zero radio 103.9 l p f m Right here in Knoxville, Tennessee Today is sunday may 24th 2020 and welcome to the second half of the show Let's talk about the free thought groups that you can join here in Knoxville First, there's the atheist society of Knoxville founded in 2002. We're in our 18th year now ASK has over a thousand members and you can find us online at KnoxvilleAtheist.org or you can go to meetup.com and search for Knoxville atheists sat simple By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you can still go to greet up Meetup and search for an atheist group in your town Don't find one Right Another large free thinking group here in Knoxville are the rationalists of east Tennessee They've been around for longer than the ask. They've been here for 20 something years now Go to her name though. We do Go to rationalist.org and check on upcoming events Of course, the events are kind of squashed right now because of COVID-19 But we'll get back in the groove here for too long. Oh, yeah Earlier in the show. We said we talked about the Knoxville atheists call in tv show It's called free thinkers united coalition of Knoxville online Then you can find the streaming version by going to youtube and search for three words free thinkers united coalition Of Knoxville forward Remember you can find archive of some of their shows on youtube where a fan has been posting them And if you're interested in getting involved in the tv or this radio show Just come to an ask meeting or r.e.t and talk to us about it You can be in our next co-host or guest And with us today on the show. We have the wombat Woods chad the chad's not here with us today. Boudreau and uh dread pirate higgs Are Hey, I think it'd be nice if we did a little bit of uh Response a lot of feedback that we've been getting We've steadily been getting more and more views on these youtube posts for our radio show We're getting in the upwards 200s now. I'm actually really impressed with that. That's really cool And the feedback's been nothing but positive. So this segment is called Where is the love? Where is the love the love the love? Where is the love Nice, I love the energy. So xx mac who commented on our last video says hey, I enjoy the conversation and the format I was never one to discuss religion or the lack of so to avoid conflict. I usually just listen You guys made it interesting and I like larry Yeah, very good job. We love you too larry Uh, let's see. We got a bunch of them actually so uh one of them is from our uh subgroup on Street of Pistemology r slash street of Pistemology if you post a comment in our in the podcast post Uh, we'll be happy to answer them. Uh, this is from Oh my gosh, the art theaters. He says hey ty I was wondering if you've ever done s e with someone way out there with a conspiracy Have you ever talked to conspiracy theorists and I have in fact on c pack I met a guy who believed that he talked to a person who disappeared into a white light And I'd recommend that you check that channel out. It was a really interesting conversation. We got him from Uh, I believe I know for a fact that I saw someone Disappeared to a white light to I realize I'm only believing that to maintain My sobriety like for the most part and so I didn't want to push any further than that But like that recognition on his own part. I think is like very very good Um, again. Yeah, s. He's not about causing harm. It's more of just letting people think for themselves And if they get that conclusion their own right that's totally fine and I won't push past there Um, there's a guy on patreon. If you post on patreon, I'll be happy to talk to you too Jared asks is there a video or conversation That details your thoughts on sam harris He said it yeah, he said it Yeah, I said he just makes me sleepy. I was once listened to an audiobook and I woke up. That's the literal story Um, the last one is from andrew white. Andrew has a bit of a longer text He says hey, I'm happy to provide support to you. Um, I actually came across your asl translation videos But from there I saw your main project being able to carry on a respectful But honest conversation with people who might see the world differently than you is such an important skill And one that unfortunately feels like it's disappearing particularly these days As people are able to retreat into their own bubbles or like-minded opinions I think your focus on engaging with people is laudable and it's a pleasure to provide a small measure support for it Thank you for all your work. Ah, that's so sweet. Thank you guys Again, if you want everyone to leave some feedback you can post a comment You can post in the reddit group You can come to a meetup group in in noxville if you're there Send an email to ask an atheist at noxvilleatheist.org Perfect. All right. Let's get back to it into a meetup group Yeah, you should yeah, you're in the area actually you should be Yeah, cool. Very cool. Very cool. So joey. We got one more question on the docket, right? Yes, I do And it's a juicy one. Nice. Alrighty If our society became like unto a scientific utopia like Star Trek When we found civilizations And on other planets and maybe even in other galaxies if we get to that technology We found civilizations in life on other planets Would they have religion? And next kind of a right up that same malli is a religious brain necessary for the survival of an intelligent species Oh, man, there's some juicy stuff in there, man I would say this my initial idea of where that question was going when I first read it was if would you rather have people as they are today interact with the first intelligent life of another species Or would you want the uh like an evolved purely scientific version of humanity To make that first encounter and I would say the benefits of the scientific pursuit Is that we've seen from our own history whenever you had a group of technologically advanced But religious humans encounter another group of humans that weren't as technologically advanced You would automatically have them be enslaved killed off to have the resources taken or indoctrinated and pulled into their Their belief system to to further promote We must be the ones ordained by our Our our holier god or you'll have religious wars where they just are actually unequal terms And they fight for each other's gods against each other But a scientific approach might actually be the first one where it's like Hey, we know We know what we know and we know what we don't know We're here to try to help you, you know Get over your technological problems And maybe we can see each other on on like even terms without the supernatural component Making first contact with somebody on a planet and then they try to convert us to their religion Yeah, that's gonna be awkward Like oh, we got a lot to tell you about all that let's sit down and have a discussion Actually, so I'm gonna throw this out. Has anyone seen the movie contact? Yeah, okay. I hate that movie So so much because it's it's literally just a girl being or a lady being like Hey, I want to build a teleporter and all the politicians being like, but what about god? And I'm like, why do you care? Carl Sagan, but we can bring that up. We can make a teleporter stop talking about the bible We don't care anymore. Like we're now on we're now on the next chapter Don't you think that's fair. It wasn't her bringing it up. It was her Preacher friend. What was it like Owen Wilson? I forgot who was in that movie It's okay, it's like, oh you switched that one handsome blonde dude with another handsome blonde dude I was like, oh, well he deserves the millions. Of course sure Okay, whatever Well, you know Like do you think that because we we all know we've talked about this before where the the religion part Religion comes out of the part of the of the brain that attributes agents You know, we talk about how Larry mentioned when one podcast about the tiger that may or may not be behind the bush Um, so when I was kind of going down that alley, what if we actually If we get to a scientific utopia, it's kind of like shard tech what if like every single civilization we came up on was religious and You know, and we realized that that part of the brain Like that that was actually necessary for survival, but it was also like a downside to Well, the only real example we have of that are you know on earth and all the other civilizations We have ever come across have had some type of religion And I I don't see any reason to think that it wouldn't it would stop there. I mean if if we evolved, you know trying to explain things Uh, supernaturally because we don't have natural Explanations and I I can't see why some other civilization Would also wouldn't also do that But back to the first part of the the question, uh, do you think that uh extra trex cereals Would be religion. I mean religious when we contact them or they contact us Yeah, I think it depends on the point of their their evolution their societal evolution If you look at us The older we were the more religious we were Currently we're kind of 50 50. We're going More and more towards the secular and in the future we can envision hopefully a world without too much religion Or religion doesn't look at all like what it looks like right now If we hear other civilizations and they're in pretty much in the 1950s of their civilization We may hear a lot of religion because they've discovered radio, but they haven't could Advance so far that they could get away from religion, right, but if they actually came here Then they would have really high technology. They would be far advanced from us And I would think that religion would be an artifact of the past We would hope so that's just me It seems to me that we're Yeah, yeah, so I and I'm kind of just thinking out loud here that You know, so much of our evolution has just been complete chance and luck. I mean I just thinking about the topography of the earth and the temperature and You know, all of these things the the so-called belief in belief gene that I think are the same thing with the tiger where You know, we just the way we came up and and evolution that was that was a piece of it that that made us survive I I don't think it's Fair to say that that isn't necessarily going to happen on a completely different planet with very different gravity and I mean just Just even yeah, there are a lot of factors and I I I suspect it's it's maybe likely that that other species would have something similar But it's also possible that I mean, what if they would have consciousness, you know kicks in Later in in their evolution to where they they pick up consciousness And they already have a little bit of technology So, I mean, you know Beavers build dams and there are, you know, there are things they're like high They're like drones until like they can yeah stuff, but they're not really caretically thinking about yeah You're cool, but there'll be a cool science fiction book to write like the first the first kid that woke up Right. Whoa. I'm a bee I'm an eyed mind I need to get out of here And if they woke up in that and and maybe let's say they already have like, you know decent technology Irrigation and and things like that they may they may be Woke, you know later later and and maybe less likely to to believe in supernatural. I don't know that's that's fascinating I know you want to say something. What's up? me Yeah, yeah, um, so this is something I've kicked around a bit Dolphins Yes, uh, or arguably one of the most intelligent non-human species out there And It's becoming increasingly likely that we may Actually be able to converse with them at some point and some common Some common language what I would like to know Is do dolphins have a god? Dolphins believe in the supernatural It's a fair question. Yeah, I think I think it is a fair question because I mean when we were talking about aliens Aliens could very likely be dolphins. You know what I mean? Like they could come in spaceships and look Yeah, in like little aquatanks basically and be like aquatanks. Yeah, it was them Are we even dolphins? No good? Thank goodness It wasn't but I I think we don't have to go very far to actually Appreciate that there are alien intelligences already present and existent Right now dread. You make matter developing our communication. Right. Yeah We have so many examples of species here that are clearly communicating with each other Maybe we should work on trying to enhance our ability to communicate with them before We just send random radio waves out into space because that's so human-minded when we could be like Hey, you know bees clearly have a language and scientists sort of like have broken it down to like the syntax and the grammar statement To have a bee coming and be like turn 40 degrees here fly towards the sun You'll find a lot more flowers here than what this other bees saying and other bees are like, yeah We're gonna listen to mary and they all fly out with mary and all the work of norm chomsky for instance, you know Remember nim chomsky the the chimp there that uh have this incredible vocabulary. Yeah Sign language. Coco. Coco. Yeah, Coco. Yeah, you learn sign language And was able to construct sentences there are novel And one of the first things he asked for was a kitten. She she she Yeah, yeah, she refused to have a child With another ape because she she said it felt like he was her brother And the theory is that she had spent so much time with humans that she believed She she might have very well believed She was a human and she didn't want to make with other apes because she thought that was bestiality Wow, I don't know if that was that pretty far. That goes pretty far. I would say this though Why didn't anyone ask if cocoa believes in god? I Explain what that was you just to define that concept. Yeah, I don't know If it doesn't come naturally so that's how you sign god, by the way I uh, I heard a cute thing the other day. It says when you get a kitten Or a dog a puppy at home and you're raising them. Do they really think that they're growing up going to grow up to be a human? Right, right, you know, because the only example of the adults that they have are you at this point I'm looking at some theory that if a cat grows up with dogs or if a dog grows up with cats They can have certain behaviors, but I haven't done any much research in that area Yeah, so speaking You think they're disappointed when they do grow up Speaking of cats I have a cat. It's a it's a beautiful black cat. His name is Vinnie. Yeah Um, so I have a so I've come from a deaf family. My mom well the hard of hearing family It's all good But uh, my cat has been taught some signs So he currently knows 17 different signs. He can he can come on command He can fetch a command jump walk walk on a leash roll over anything You just do the sign and he's like I know what that means We're good and he doesn't do it for treats. He only does it because it interests him So like they'll do the first five and then he's just like, okay. I'm bored now. I'm going to be back to a cat It's the best thing ever and I think And I feel like I've seen police dogs, for example Respond to commands from their officer owners in german Because they don't want to have a person screaming out contrary commands at the same time too So at our campus george tech you will find police cops with Dogs and they'll be like ice but whatever they say always because they were german shepherds So funny, but the dog will stop he'll crawl. He'll he'll look to the left. He'll look to the right He'll get it on alert all based on vocal commands So there's clearly a capacity for speech and body language to be interpreted by animals We don't really consider as like the hierarchy top tier smartest animals one last point. There's a chimpanzee on youtube Uh, that will be shown a screen that has numbers descending from 102 One and he will press them in order and then what they do is they randomize the number the order of the numbers And he will go out of his way to do the random order and still go from 100 to zero Each time to get food Not only that but they'll flash the numbers and quickly just make them disappear So that they're only like a hundred numbers are only on screen for like maybe a second And the chimpanzee still knows where all of them were even though it was a random distribution There's so much of a capacity for us to To just say hey, maybe humans are smart because we have a world that's built around us But humans animals can be too if we just give them the opportunity to and forgot some way to work with them We have so many great opportunities here. I'm just saying do you think they're conscious? I have no idea The one thing you can be sure of is your own consciousness. Exactly. Yeah, but but I have a pretty good Feeling that humans around me are conscious, but I have no reason to think animals are Yeah, I think Is an awareness a function of consciousness? I would think so I mean, isn't a nervous system Kind of like a basic level of consciousness. Yeah, it depends on how I think it works more on a spectrum than it does on a light bulb song or the light you guys are talking to eric green right now He's gonna be loosey-goosey and he's just trying to get the free will trust me like I know where this is going Or steps later sneaky I think it really is a light on or off type of thing. I mean, I'm so there is some kind of spectrum But it you either are conscious or you're not there's not I don't think there's any gradient to it Right, and then and then maybe it's defining what conscious actually means. There you go. Yeah, I hear you joey What'd you say? Oh, I just said I don't think we know enough about consciousness to be confident That's probably not heard today Daniel Daniel Dennett's got a couple of really good books. I'm actually reading one now. It's called Intuition pumps and other tools for thinking And he's all about, you know, the theory of consciousness and all that kind of stuff. So Yeah, that's really really good reading. Yeah, I think like the basis is I'll never know what it's like to be a bat So I can't tell you Right, so but I can I beyond that if we just say hey consciousness is a term is overrated What's the next best thing? Can I respond to stimuli? Am I able to communicate functionally? Can I do some critical thought? We can test for that and that's that's a lot more demonstrable And whether they're conscious or not we can work with it with them if they are able to think critically respond to stimuli And computers can do that too, right? And we can have so many great things with computers, man Look around you. Look what we're doing right now. This is awesome. So yeah, we can totally make things work if they follow like demonstrable Yeah, but Subnote back to back to cocoa. We do I think we should learn something from that situation that We we do need to find a balance to where How much we work with an animal and how much they also spend time with their own kind? Like we can't we shouldn't have them too much with humans You know, they need to like an ethical thing have a social life And I think that was one of the issues that they they had with cocoa. Hmm. Yeah keeping a gorilla happy. Yeah, but As a means to an end I I don't think I don't think the life that she had was particularly harmful compared to what she would have in the wild and It would be really and I think we learned a lot about Gorilla conservation through that process to show like hey, these are an endangered species. They can talk with us Oh, okay. They're not as endangered anymore and fantastic like Humans have a really bad tendency to destroy things. They don't appreciate so If we can make them appreciate if we can make them appreciate gorillas and that's all for the better We need to also appreciate that humans are apes. Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yeah Preach larry preach Hey, can we appreciate that? I just got a text that says hey man. Give me a call when you get home from church And they they sent it jokingly, of course. Okay, so I want to take a brief little tangent right now Yesterday we had a face-to-face conversation about covid and it was inspired Typically through like a weekly chat that we have Every saturday We either play games or we just sit down and just hash out some stuff and it's cool because there's a lot of people in the room And it's it's interesting where everyone's coming from because the middle ground is always we care about each other We care about humanity and we're trying to like figure out How we can Crystallize like a common ground between all of us here together And it's something that is possible to do But it's almost near impossible doing over text when you're just texting to like a group of people in a room or even one on one because you're so in your own head and and it's hard to Interpret what's being told to you through the middleman of how you're interpreting someone else's words and how they're expressing themselves through words So face-to-face is important is what I was saying and um Boudreau would you mind giving me your impressions of the talk that we had yesterday and then Maybe why in general it's good to have like as you had mentioned a couple of podcasts ago a chance to just say hey Let's not do this over text. Let's find a good time to talk face-to-face and do it Yeah, um, I think maybe for the audience we should point out you're using face-to-face somewhat figuratively We did it over zoom. Sure. Sure. Sure. We weren't breaking protocol everybody Uh, uh, yeah, we flew people from Canada and Kentucky and Tennessee Uh, I thought it was fantastic. Ty. I really appreciated you putting that together. We got um I think the other thing that kind of helped at least for those that were inclined Had had a beverage or other other whatever, but it kind of loosened you up a little bit I think it makes it easier to kind of speak freely. Uh, um, it would be weird if I was drinking a beer at 11 o'clock Yeah, yeah, so you have it saturday night and it's just that that frees you up a little bit I noticed that kind of helps with our summits Um for people that are a little, you know to to quiet um But no it everyone was Was well, I mean you're talking to se people. So everyone's real polite They're obviously the issues with zoom and trying to take your turn and talking over people Yeah, you made the the comparison that you had the the super talkers the real quiet people And yeah, and I guess the middle Yeah, it's good to recognize who who is in which box I wish zoom would let you organize like these are the these are the people who like to dominate These are the people who like you should let talk more because they'll say what they need to say and move on Yeah, you're the good ones And I think we can all get better at that with with some body language Maybe ty could even teach us a little little sign to where you know, maybe just a signal that you're going a little too long Um, you know or like, yeah Yeah, yeah, I like that too. Yeah, that's a little that's a little bit extreme, but yeah, sure. Yeah You get very good larry That means stretch it out. Yeah, that's the opposite of what you want But like long would be this like keep going. Yeah, or weight weight would be kind of good. We're like That's a little bit too much fanny Walk it back walk it back walk it back. We do have the uh, really interesting to I think I I think uh a lot of religious people should see You know conversations like that where atheists actually have a disagreement on something and that's really great Yeah, you're absolutely talking it out and so because when I was religious It was an us and them kind of thing like they agree on everything we agree on everything and it's just it's war Yeah, it's a great point matured And dread I want you to feed I want your feedback on this I've seen so many christian versus atheist debates But I've never seen a christian on christian debate and I would love to see an atheist on the atheist debate Because these groups don't agree with each other and it'd be nice to see that kind of nuance. What do you think? An atheist on atheist debate. So what would they be debating consciousness free will anything like that? Just like hey, what's morality like it's an atheist in a room. Yeah, it's all on both sides of the political house. So Yeah, you uh, we were gonna have tom shidi on the show. He's from uh, atheists for liberty I met him at cpaq. He's a conservative atheist and He has beliefs that aren't what you would put in the stereotypical atheist house And it would be nice to show like hey if you can have these two guys talk to each other See that they disagree on everything except for Does a god exist which they're like no, of course. Well, you don't believe that we don't believe that that's that's the fans Perfect, it's like you can see like hey atheism is just a position on just one question and it has nothing to do Yeah, any other aspect of your personality I'm sorry, revolutionary christians that um that debate um young earth creationists Oh, I'd love to see that. Yeah. All right. So guys, I really love this. I love this. This is great This is like my weekly church session, but we are getting close to the end of it. So dred What do you got? What do you got? What's your how can we find you and you got some drawings? I want I yeah, I wanted to show you this And tell me if you know what that is It is a uh, well, it's inverse Uh, what do you call it graph mirrored? Yeah, yeah, that's in the negative It's something going down. It's something going up and then something going down. It's my stock It's my 401k It's a giraffe It's a graph Giraffe I don't get humor So you can find me on youtube at mind pirate I do post these now these shows so Yeah, find me on youtube at mind pirate p y r a t nice Boudreau, what is the status of this hidden podcast that you still are editing and refining and tooling and all this stuff What's going on here? I will say that the one thing we are considering is we want to put put five together And then push them out all at the same time. Oh netflix style Ah, yeah, kind of we want to when people log in we want to give them some content So they don't they don't get one and then have to wait a week Just something maybe we're we're saying that because we're procrastinating. I will say chad the impaler It's his birthday today Happy birthday chad Hopefully you'll watch this one, but um, he he's kind of started a venture of uh buying uh Investment property and trying to flip so he just got super busy all of a sudden But I told him i'm gonna hold them to what we're gonna do and we're gonna put off We're gonna get four more recorded and then we're just gonna launch them and have you guys decided on the name yet We haven't uh bourbon street bourbon Yeah, yeah, yeah bourbon street. No, I think we have Yeah, it's right there. It's so good. Yeah Is it there? Okay But anyway, yeah, so yeah speaking of new podcast joey, what you got? Uh, well, we're uh, we're kind of um in the making as well. Um Joey I've been telling for you Not to step in your toes But it would be great to just see you talk in front of a camera about like your ideas because you have a You have a manner of thinking that is Faster than I'm able to form questions for and it would just be nice to see where you start and where you land I I do I've been diagnosed with ADHD so I apologize if I have trouble keeping up with me No, you already went faster than me and that's not what I was referring to I just met you have a very creative thought process that if you documented it would be really interesting to listen to Oh, and it might even change your own mind as you express it and hear the words coming out of your mouth and be like Actually, so here's where I started by the time I'm done. This is where I'm at. Cool. And I feel like I've Made that thought clear. Have you ever just tried that? I'm My content you can um, there's no content yet on the channel. I hope when um, I think slowly open back up I can get my um music and comedy on one channel. You just find me at jwkennedy at youtube Um, and then I'm gonna be doing street epistemology very similar to um, tyron's Ty's ty setup wombats setup his his channel Let's chat mine's gonna be called speak your beautiful mind and um, I have a podcast in the working, but it's still Um, it's still under construction. Um Stay tuned Nice We're gonna do one together right joey. That'd be perfect. We're gonna try that um Yeah, uh, well We can uh, let's talk after the show Yeah, something we join right yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, so you can find me. I'm let's chat on youtube Just type let's chat. It'll be the first thing you pop up now. I've tested this. It works. It's pretty cool So you try it in private rousing. I've tried it in bright. I tried it on work computers I've tried it like on other people's phones. I'm just like I just want to see it real quick Can I have a super happy for you ty? That's cool. Uh Though um, it's not just let's chat If you want to get in touch with us check out our slash street epistemology on reddit and you will have Ability to see everyone's posts. Uh, there are there's more than just me who's posting to sc videos And you'll actually have the opportunity to have feedback with us If you want to try to do sc and you want to workshop better ideas or better questions I think the process of trying to figure out how to talk to people about anything is worthwhile and definitely go for it Doubter five. What do you got? Well, um, I have a youtube channel. I hardly ever mentioned it is larry s roads or doubter five Just I've got a lot of videos on there that I experimented with some animation But they're all pretty much atheist centered There's one series called atheism 101. That's about six or seven years old now But I think it's has some valuable information people who not really Uh, no much about atheism If you come to our website digital free thought dot com be sure to click on the blog button for our radio show archives Atheist songs and many articles on the subject I also have a book digital. It's called Atheism what's it all about? It's all about And it's available on main all major booksellers If you have any questions for the show, you can send them to ask an atheist at KnoxvilleAtheist.org Or go to our facebook page, which is digital free thought radio hour Leave a comment there if you'd like to listen to prior shows they're available on Podcasts like itunes stitch or luminary podcast.com. It's uh, it's hudder up. Yeah Just remember digital free thought radio hour And as a reminder everybody is going to somebody else's hell The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls and sins are real Until then don't sweat it. Enjoy your life and we'll see you next week. The next one is the w o zio radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Say bye everybody