 computer. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZ Radio 103.9 LPFM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, June 12, 2022. I'm Larry Rhodes, or Doubter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host, Pombat, on the line with us. Hello, Pombat. Hello, I'm the Pombat. And our guests today are John Richards from across the pond over there in London Way. And we've got Dred Pirate, Higgs from Western Canada. Welcome. Ahoy there. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism, and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faiths, gods, holy books, and superstition. And if you think you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not. You're in Knoxville, in the middle of the Bible Belt. We have a group of over a thousand of us. And we'll tell you more about that after the mid-show break. Pombat, what are we going to be talking about today? We're going to be talking about putting a certain general warnings on holy books, religions, and even atheist literature. See what we come up with. Before we get into the meat and potatoes, I'd like to fill it up to our own carbohydrate master-in-chief to lead us into our weekly invocation. All right. I'm called to invoke the power of the true creator of the universe, the drunken tolerator of all lesser and more recent gods, and maintainer of gravity here on planet Earth. May the great flying spaghetti monster rouse himself from his stupor and let his noodley appendages ground us in our seats. I think this should be our prayer instead of this. It should be this. It should be like this. Okay, that happens. You can call out the former Christians pretty easy. Okay, so John, I think I saw your hand up. What was it? Did you have anything? Yeah, yeah. Well, I thought maybe a useful warning to be to put on a Bible could be. Oh, you're going straight into the topic. Of course, but I want to know what's having, whatever, having to foreplay. How are you doing? Yeah, I need the foreplay. Okay. John, how you been? Yeah, we should minimize it. Not only am I no good at foreplay, but I'll be all over. Hello, George Brown. Welcome. Hey, George Brown. Welcome to the show. I like the new headphones. We're waiting to see if you can get your audio connected as you come in. But you look like you're straight out of, you know, space odyssey design. We can't hear you, but we're going to wake you up. John Richards, how you been since last... Can you hear me now? Hell yeah. John Richards, how you been? Okay. So how am I doing? Well, okay, I had a birthday yesterday and I'm not turning you how old I am because at the moment I get away with looking 20 years younger than I really am. Okay. No shame in being old. That's survival. Like once you take the dogma out of it, it's like I live longer than you. That's an achievement. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, it's suffice it to say that most people my age are already dead. All the more reason to brag in my head. But anyway, happy birthday. Happy birthday to you. Thank you. So I've had a good time. I've been, because I've missed you for a few weeks, haven't I? I haven't been able to join in for various reasons, but all of them genuine. So we have caught up on global Atheist news and that's what we're going to review, right? That's right. Yes. And that will happen again tonight. And I've already put, I'm confining a list of panelists because as you know, I have a larger list than actually appear. And because of course, some people can't do it every week. But tonight you'll hear that, you'll be pleased to hear that Ty is a confirmed, Tercea is confirmed, Victor is confirmed, David Orestine who joined us for the first time last week, he's confirmed, Dredd is hoping to join us, and Esther is hoping to join us. But unfortunately, I won't be there. David, by the way, President of the American Atheist Society, or what was it? Well, yeah, it's international. Yeah, I promised him I wouldn't talk about that. Maybe I should have warned you about this in the preamble. He's resigned. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. So we've had presidents and former presidents. You were religious. Yes. Yeah. Yes. So he was a president for about two weeks. You know, it's important to go for records. You know, everybody has a speed running competition. I'm sure we can make that somehow. Dredd, I'm so happy to see you, man. How you been? I've been doing all right. Thank you very much. I passed this on to John earlier this morning that I have filed a complaint with the B.C. Ombudsman's office against the Special Programs Division of the Ministry of Justice. And so I thought I'd just read out what I am seeking. Sure. So the freedom of religious expression is guaranteed under 2A and 2B of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Whereas current government identification utilizes facial recognition technology to accurately capture an individual's likeness for the purposes expressed under relevant legislation. Whereas in cases where a head covering is worn, provision is available to those whose religious belief includes the wearing of a distinctive head covering. Insofar as such a head covering does not interfere with facial recognition technology, accommodation is granted to persons who claim the right to accommodation under that provision. Whereas the current accommodation appears only to be provided to persons of recognizable demographic populations by virtue of their skin color, native language, or ethnic presentation. Whereas no government agency is qualified to make any determination whatsoever on a person's claim to religiosity. Whereas a registry of permissible religions by which accommodation is either granted or does not and should not exist. Therefore, we seek the remedy of being able to provide and have accepted photographs of passport quality wherein we are depicted with religious head gear consistent with our religious faith in a similar manner as those who do so being members of other faiths that enjoy the accommodation without question, evaluation, and or discrimination. Right. And the most bizarre thing is it's not a protest in a sense. It's not a, hey, we're trying to make a point here. It's I have an actual religion and you're not letting me do the same thing that other religions that you're letting do. So why who are you to decide that? That's just exactly. Larry, what's that? You just hit nail on the head with the last thing. Who are you to decide that? Governments cannot be in the position of deciding which religion is your way on which ones aren't. Which one they like and which one they give privileges to. Which ones they promote and which ones they discourage. It's all or nothing. Yeah. And this was the thing like when I went to Supreme Court over this with the human rights tribunal, the judge says, well, you know, are there would you agree that there are elements of satire in your your religion? And I said, there may be people who, you know, conduct themselves with satire and whatnot. But I can't speak for anyone. I can't speak for everyone. It's a it's a fallacy of consistency, right? That, you know, just because one person does one thing, it means that everyone's bad at it or doesn't decide who's a true believer and who's not. Exactly. And the point, the further point was, so what? So what if it's satire? Yes. You know, it's all make believe at the end of the day. Have you ever realized this? I'm just saying, but I was also saying like, hey, you know, how many Christians have got a divorce or wear fabric of multiple costs or eat shellfish or, you know, the list goes on. Like you'd be hard pressed to find someone who's Christian that actually adheres to any of the or all of the tenets of Christianity or, you know, praise but then does terrible things when they think no one's watching. Like they get all the privileges of the and you know, privileged having like a major religion on their back. But are you just to get a hat on for your ID photo? It's like, well, how many people in your club take it serious? Like, what are you even talking about? Like, how's that? Sorry. Well, interestingly, I was contacted just last week by a gentleman in Ontario who has his driver's license with his tricorner with his condor on. And a fellow in Nevada just showed us his new license yesterday. So other jurisdictions are allowing this to happen. So it should be right across the board. I bet you'd get a lot of seeks with their turbines on them. Sure. Yeah. Oh, of course. Yeah, that's a given. That's why I referred to that. Yeah. George Brown second and the half. Yeah, I just wanted a point of clarification. So if I understand that's right, you are claiming to be the member of a religion. Is that correct? Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. Okay, so what if you weren't claiming to be the member of religion? How would it play out? Well, they wouldn't allow it because they would just consider it a hat. That's just a hat at that point, which is still a weird condition at the end of the day, where it's like, hey, I want to wear this hat on my ID picture because I always wear this hat. And that's the way to identify it. So no religion. You can't have a make-believe supernatural friend. It's like, oh, okay. Well, yeah, so no religion, no hat. Yes. That's correct. And like I said, with facial recognition technology, this whole point about wearing or not wearing or not allowing people to wear hats is moot. It's completely irrelevant. Yes, that's right. It doesn't consider that because my passport photo doesn't know I've got a beard. Oh, wow. Yeah. My phone still recognizes me. Yeah. And that's the most bizarre thing because anyone can grow a beard. Well, almost more than half the population of earth can grow a beard. Some may not want to, but some totally can. Larry, what's up? And you got the problem with what's a hat? I mean, it's a balaclava, a hat. If it is, it wouldn't help much on an ID. Right. And where are they going to go next with their specifications? Are they going to demand that we have a particular type of hairstyle? Right, right. I mean, truly the line should have just been, hey, don't interfere with the facial recognition, but do whatever you want after that because as long as we can recognize your face, we're fine. It's all good. It's all good. Don't wear a disguise, but like for the most part, if we can use our technology to figure out who you are, you're good. Keep moving. All right. Keep doing the good fight, Dredd. We appreciate it. Eric, just joined in. Looks like you're on vacation. What's up, buddy? Hey, I'm here on vacation and to work. Nice. Nice. I hope you have a good time. It looks like where are you at, if you don't want me asking? Tell me. Greece. Israel? Great. Greece is correct. Very, very cool. Wow. So we do have an international show right now. Where in Greece, if you don't want me asking? Athens. That's the part of the mountain behind me. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Let me know if you see me. I'm closer to John than I'm closer to you guys. Yes. You're also on the beach near Athens. Oh, nice. A coastal beach, but yeah. And let me know if I need to mute my mic because there are some cars downstairs. I'm happy to do so. No, you're totally fine. We appreciate having you here. Thank you for spending some time with us. Let's see. What's your impression of the Greek language, if you don't mind me asking? It is, it is interesting. I have not been able to pick up much of it, except they say, you can say Mersi, which is French for thank you. And that's acceptable. Okay. But other than that, a lot of people, they look at me and they can tell I'm American, so they speak English. Okay. Works for me. Works for me. I do like the Greek accent. I find it's like, they're Spanish, which I like. And then Italian in mind, this is going to sound so American, but Italian is like Spanish plus more syllables, right? It's just like, hey, I need to go with this. And then it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's Italian. But Greek is like that times 10. There's like, we put all the syllables in the language. It's weird. Words are this long. I know we're just backwards. Yes. And it's great that they use math to explain elder books and stuff like that. It's great. The language of math. Let's see, we're going to round up everyone. George Brown, you're, looks like you're busy right now. Larry, how you been? I'm doing pretty well. Just playing games, riding motorcycles, working mostly, eight to five. But I'm spending a lot of time in VR through my Quest 2. I have to say that if you consider yourself a visual person, one who really enjoys the visuals of movies and things more than anything else, get virtual reality. It is just awesome. Yeah, incredible. And it looks like they figured out all the problems in the third iteration. So the Quest 2 is actually the third model that they've come out with. And they came up with the Rift and the Oculus and then the Quest. So I'm glad. Be aware. Yeah, be aware that Quest 2 is a Facebook product. So if you're not on Facebook, you may have trouble getting everything the way you want. But I'm glad you're having fun. You're riding motorcycles, playing video games. You're living the dream of every 12-year-old. If you can't do it at 72, when can you do it? I want you to come and visit me and bring me some coffee from Knoxville. Nice. Yeah, why not? George, how you been? Want to catch up with you before? Well, nothing really special. As you notice, I look like a Martian with these things on. I was going to say cool astronaut, but go for it. Martian. Yeah, what I've been doing is modifying cheap junky headphones to improve the speech comprehension. So I've glued foam rubber to actually decrease the base response of these phones to make everybody clearer to me on Zoom meetings. Got it. You took out the mid-tones with foam. So everybody says you want to get more and more and more base in your sound that I'm getting less and less, which is what I want. You know, it's an interesting thing. I had my mom over here and we did a hearing test just for the fun of it. She's hard of hearing. So it was interesting to see where her hearing was at because we wanted to listen to music together. And so I wanted to know how should I adjust this music EQ so that she can appreciate it closer to how I'm appreciating it with her implants in. So we did a hearing test and it's like her low range is gone more or less, but her high range is even higher than mine. So she hears things really 25 Hertz or no, not 25 Hertz, like 15,000 or something like that, like something really high. And I'm like, so you can like hear if the speakers even have electricity going to them. It's like, yeah, I can hear the headphones are on right now. Like I get the sound interference and I can hear like that's on and I can hear that that's on. I'm like, oh, that's so crazy. That's cool. So yeah, people can hear different things. That's a very unusual kind of hearing loss that she's got. It's hearing loss, but she has these implants in her head that lets her. Oh, I see. Sound and converted to an electrical signal switch you can hear. By the way, clear implant. It's a cochlear implant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She has them now for like about four years and sometimes just turns them off. Guys, there's so much danger though with implants though, I wish someone put like a little hazard label on them, because there should be doctors warnings for things. And I was thinking about this with religion. And a lot of time talking about advocacy, talking about critical thinking, talking about the dangers of religion for what? For what? You know, like what's what's a good analogy to explain that? And why is it so important to us? Well, the way I put it is if I was going to see a friend of mine smoke cigarettes, I would say you have the right to smoke cigarettes. It's totally fine. But you should know that you're actually ingesting a poison. You should know that you're going to increase your health care costs, which is going to affect me. You should know that your life expectancy might drop down, which affects the quality of life. And as me as your friend, I want to spend as much time as I possibly can with you. There are a lot of conditions that make it such that smoking isn't necessarily a good habit to develop if you're already a healthy minded person. And every single religious person I've met is a person that could have not been religious or not been adherent to a dogmatic pattern of thinking. And that's an opportunity lost. And so I wish there was like a surgeon general label similar to how there is on certain boxes on the Bible, on the Quran, on certain religions, but also on atheist textbooks too, because I'd be interested in seeing what they say. Oh, sure. Question everything for sure. The search for truth involves questioning. So question everything. So let's do a round table and figure out what would you put as a label and what would you put that label on? John Richards, I know you're first in line. Go for it. Okay. Well, I put the Bible. We have this sticker on. Yeah, I think we'll hit it. May raise expectations to unrealistic levels. I'm going to write, I'm going to write these down because I think these are actually really good. So what do you mean by that? Would you mind elaborating just a little bit? Well, it provides, it suggests that you might be entitled to things that you're not really entitled to, and after life, you know, and no inconvenience from the satans of this world, and, you know, general protection by a benevolent God, and none of this is realistic. Very, very good. I like it. Okay, okay. May raise your expectation to unreasonable levels. Unrealistic. Unrealistic, unrealistic levels. Okay. I also like unreasonable too, because generally, same boat. Dredd, I'd love to hear what you say. Do you have one for the Bible? For the Bible. Yeah. Putting it on the spot. You mean the Christian Bible? Any of them. Yeah, there's a lot of them. Okay. Because of course, I have my own gospel. Give me the Christian version first, and then you can fill in that one. How about that? Okay. May lead to excessive belief in invisible friends. Oh, may lead to excessive belief in invisible friends. That's great. Well, you know, the thing is, there is a, there is a, you know, if any Christians are watching this show, there is a automatic off-putting feeling that you get when you call God an imaginary person, or an imaginary character. But an invisible friend is very much what God is, even in the most explicit sense, because if someone said, hey, look at God, it's like, well, I'm looking at a tree. It's like, I see the tree, but I'm still looking for God. And you're saying he's your friend, right? Yeah. Well, that's an invisible friend. You have an invisible friend, and you are leading to excessive beliefs in your invisible friends. What's up, Dredd? May also lead to chronic episodes of hypocrisy. Chronic episodes of hypocrisy. I love it. Okay. I've got another one. Okay. John, go ahead, Eric, your next. Get ready. Be sure to use your best cherry picker. I like that. Make sure to use your best cherry picker. All right, Eric, you have a Surgeon General warning for the Bible? Yeah. I like to steal a quote from Dredd. You're going to appreciate it, I think. And I'm probably going to slightly butcher the quote, but I think the spirit of it is here, which is Surgeon General's warning. This gives you a gold-plated reason to stop thinking. And I think in all seriousness, it's the idea that if you ever want to get to the point where you don't want to think about anything anymore, like, oh, how does rain happen? What happens after we die? Or how does gravity work or any of it? And you just want to not think. And instead, just introduce some magical properties, then here you go. Read this book and then you can, oh, I don't have to think about that. I don't have to stress about not knowing. I just know now. Instead of just saying, I don't know, you can go to the book and say, oh, you did it. I like it. What was that rule? One more time? Say it one more time. I believe the quote is, it gives you a gold-plated reason to stop thinking. I'm just kind of like a paraphrasing. I like it. Larry, I'm going to fill this up at you. Oh, wait, can I ask one more question about Greece? I'd love to see. John, I see you too. Eric, what had in your opinion is the religious tenure in Greece? Because you know, you're in the land where there are like, yeah, Apollo and one of them? No, no. Poseidon. Is Christianity like permeant there too? Or is it like old gods? What are we talking about? Well, so it was interesting. I don't want to take too much and I can talk about this in more detail later or another time. But we did a monastery tour and to me, that was so fascinating because our tour guide, I swear she was an atheist because she kept like throwing in these like little interesting like side notes and sarcastic sidebars about things. You know, everything about Greek, about the Greek gods was all mythology. Right. But then anytime she talked about any of the Christian stuff, of course, you know, it was like the Romans coming in or other influences. Yeah, and it was like they said this, but I think it's more plausible that this actually happened and she would break it down very skeptically, which I really appreciate. But I think overall, the gist here is that, you know, all of the Greek stuff is mythology, but we believe in the orthodox, at least the Orthodox, you know, believe in the kind of a Christian way. So it's it's still pretty heavy influenced by the Romans. So the Romans still have some aftertaste in here, but there's some good minds out there as well at the same time. Yes, I mean, and I think they really despise kind of the Turks, obviously for obvious reasons. But then also no offense, John, but you guys came and stole a bunch of the Parthenon and you're keeping it in the museum and you won't give it back. So that on you, give it back. Well, we'll meet to John's apology before we go to the break. John, apologize. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for my forebears 300 years ago. I mean, anyone would think that you can be guilty in the actions of your ancestors. This is like being crucified, but what Eve did, isn't it? Yeah. If anybody's going to apologize, we should turn it over to Dredd. He's Canadian. Actually, I will be in favor of taking a very accurate plaster cast of these artifacts, keeping them in the British Museum and giving the Greeks back the old ones. Nobody would know the difference. Most people don't even know they aren't looking at the copy of the monolith. Different colors, different colors. Guys, how about this? We'll come right back after the break. We'll go to John, Larry, and then George Brown and myself's Surgeon General Warnings for books. What was the question? And then we'll refresh you on the break. No problem. Guys, Larry, why don't you take us out? Okay. Stay tuned for the second half of the Digital Freethought Radio Hour and WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee, because we'll be right back after this short break. Welcome back to the second half of the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. I'm Dr. Five and we're on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's talk for a minute about the Atheist Society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002. That makes us having our 20th year now, and we have over 1,000 members, almost 1100 now. We have weekly in-person meetings in Knoxville's Old City at Barley's Taproom and Pizzeria every Tuesday around 5.30 and go to about 8 o'clock. Look for us inside at the high top tables or outside on the deck if the weather is pretty. We're usually the loudest and happiest group. Tuesday nights also see us having a Zoom meeting for those who don't live in Knoxville or just don't want to get out. If you want to join us, email us. Ask an atheist at KnoxvilleAtheist.org or let's chat SE at gmail.com and we'll send you the link. You can find us on Facebook, Meetup, or KnoxvilleAtheist.org, which is our home page, your home site. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to Meetup and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one, start one. Wombat, where do you want to pick up? Hey, we're talking about putting Surgeon General Warnings on holy books and what we would put as a warning label on those books. That's the topic of the show. I saw John getting really excited about a comment. Let's hear it. Well, I think we shouldn't just restrict it to health warnings. I think we should do like Amazon does, recommendations. Oh, nice. So it would be for the Bible. It would be people who bought this also bought a God's dimension. I like it. Very good. I like that. I like that. I like that. I love that, actually. As soon as we can go with that. Dred, what's up? Well, I just wanted to point out my gospel, the gospel of the flying spaghetti monster. And I would say the Surgeon General's warning should be may cause jocularity. Yes, jocularity. And it may cause one to not take oneself so seriously. Sure. May also increase chances of eating pasta, right? That is honestly the most damning thing anyone can say about the book. May increase carbohydrate intake. Which can still be balanced with the proper nutritious meals, but you still have to be aware. My Surgeon General warning for the Bible is never near as good as your guys is. Mine was pretty simple. It's just is not a cure for death. And I like the idea of you can have these holy books, but just know you're still going to die. There's no way out of it. And if you want to think something else afterwards, that's fine, but like make the point clear is not a cure for death period. Larry, what do you think? Oh, sure. Sounds good to me. Since souls have never been proven to be existent anyway. Anyway, my sticker would say may contain mythical beasts and unproven stories presented as true and may lead to gullibility, self-harm and paranoia. Self-harm and paranoia. Not to mention lots of other things. As a side note, the stickers won't help if your indoctrination begins well before you can read. So here's another recommendation if you if you like, if you're if you're ready for another one. Yeah, there's people who bought this this Bible also bought the audacity of hope. I get the pun. Obama's book. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Again. Yeah. The the the weird thing is so there's a surgeon general warning on cigarettes right now, but there's still cigarette smokers, right? And I think I think what we're trying to take away here is, you know, we weren't going to be able to stop people from smoking by putting a label on it. But I think what we can do is to help to increase honesty for like the next generation or put some sort of inhibition for people who may come into the religion in in Georgia sense without the indoctrination and just being like, oh, what are all these guys doing here? Maybe I'll hang out with these guys every Sunday. It seems nice. And then they read the book and they're like, Oh, what? You guys see this on the book? We don't talk about that label site. Oh, okay, I'm just going to put this book down. See you guys next. See you guys later. Maybe at the disco. But you've got to call on me. Well, I don't have very much to add because I figure I should know what I'm talking about if I say anything. But I don't know what I'm talking about. Because every time I've as I've mentioned before, every time I've tried to read the Bible, I fall asleep. So I really don't know a whole lot about what's in it because I slept through the whole thing. So it's like, you know, did you see this movie? No, I woke up at the end, you know, okay, okay. It goes Somnia. I don't have much more to add. I don't have much more to add. May cause insomnia. Red pirate Higgs. I was going to say that, you know, sometimes warning labels actually let or kind of give a pass to those who promote them. For instance, like cigarette companies can now say, well, the warning label on the thing gets us off the hook for any any harm caused by our products because you were fully warned of the consequences and and took your own risks. So I don't know. Maybe it lets them off a hook a little bit. But, you know, we shouldn't only focus on the on the Bible. I mean, certainly the Quran, you know, Islam means submission. So, you know, the Quran could be the warning could be made lead to total submission of your will to an invisible friend. So I'll throw this out. The Bible banned in Boston. Cool. To the extent that the Bible or that cigarette companies put a label on them and it relieves them of some liability, absolutely of some liability, but they're not going out of their way to find kids and put cigarettes in their mouth. Does that make any sense? Like most people who get cigarettes go out, purchase them, and on their own volition put them in their own mouths to smoke on their own choice. Whereas religion will select specifically if you ever seen a little atheist news review, there are there's plans to go into schools and try to get kids. There's parents who take their kids without a second thought and let them go away to Sunday school where they get told these stories over and over again, as if it was nonfiction, you know, like where they're around their peers and they have to be blessed in front of the church or take holy bread and pretend it's a body and drink grape juice for pretend it's blood. Like it's a cultivated action of non-consensual movements and plans that force people into this religious structure. What's up, John? Well, using your smoking analogy, we've talked before about having an age limit, haven't we? Saying that something to the extent that the Bible should be restricted like movies are with categorization and what they've done in New Zealand is they've set an age limit for purchase of cigarettes, which goes up a year every year. So if you're 14 now, you will never be legally able to buy cigarettes. Really? That's funny. That's brilliant. Hey, that's not a bad thing to do. I mean, honestly, here's everybody out of it. Yeah, what's up, Dred? Well, you know, a lot of TV shows and stuff you see on the TV will be prefaced by viewer discretion as advised, you know, the program contains violence and harsh language and all kinds of violence and all kinds of stuff. So it should be reader discretion as advised. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Parental control switch. Larry, I see you. What's up? Yeah, I was just going to say that warning labels like this are available. I think FFRF has some on their shop. And it's easy to make warning labels. Make a whole sheet of them real quick. Yeah, you know, I wish there was a label that I could make that could just succinctly explain evolution in like maybe like a two by four sticker. And I can go into like the what is the University of Kentucky or I'm sorry, Tennessee, Knoxville, I'm sorry, University of Tennessee, and then University of Kentucky and go into those bookstores where I saw that the the descriptor of the capital C creator in the biology textbooks and just like hard sticker like on the cover like, hey, by the way, this is an accurate read these things or scan this QR code and you'll understand how actual the pillar of biology actually operates. This is second law of biology. I like that. All right. Guys, I'm going to have to pick on atheist textbooks as well, because we can we can sit here and bash on religion all day long, but that gets old fast. So, Eric, I know you've read a number of thoughtful critical books. What kind of surgeon general warning would you put on any of the ones that you consider your favorite? And I'll throw out my own as well. All right, that's a good question. Do not read this book on a plane if religious, or maybe that's the first thing that comes along because I've done that and I've had, you know, sideways looks from people because I'm looking at, you know, I'm reading, you know, God is not great on an airplane and I got people looking at me and I'm just like rolling this boat together. But maybe a warning that warning this book may may change your mind, warning this book may change your doctrination, warning this book may change things that you feel so strongly about and and and don't understand how you could get out of it. Something that somebody can work to cause discomfort in a way that leads you to more comfort. Not just because it's five o'clock and I've had a cocktail already, but it's something that as you read it, as you read it, you may get very uncomfortable, but it also starts to shed some things you never felt comfortable with before. Yeah, if anything, it's like read with either atheist friends or like seek atheist friends. Right. Because that's that keeps you good. Dredd, quick to you and then John, what's up? Yeah, well, I was gonna say, Dada's Trading Room and Loma are both watching live right now. So they say hi. Hey, but Dada's Trading Room said of the Bible that a thorough reading of this book may potentially lead to atheism. Yeah. There you go. There you go. Good one. May cause atheism. That's great. I love that. That's good. Yeah, because honestly, that's how I got out by reading the actual book. I didn't just believe it, but I actually read it. I was like, oh, whoa, what's some intelligence? Like you have to actually like understand how to treat people and then you read the Bible. You're like, you shouldn't drown babies. You shouldn't lie to me. I think this guy killed that dude. And I had one for atheism as well. Go for it. Go for it, Dredd. Then John may cause may may cause better critical thinking skills. If you if you read these critical thinking books, is that what you're saying? Okay, yeah, because atheism books around atheism tend to apply these various philosophical razors to various religious beliefs, and that leads to clear thinking. In a more of a cheeky sense, though, it also causes mental exhaustion because if you're not used to critical thinking, it's a muscle you haven't exercised before, and you are going to be exhausted by the amount of thinking you're going to have to do after reading this book. So mental exhaustion while rewarding and a skill that you should be developing, that is an absolute truth. John, what do you think? Warning, you're reading this book in certain company risks being shunned. Social pressure may cause social shutting may cause trying to get better friends. So you know, it's weird, because I would also throw out not social shunning specifically, but getting asked questions that you may not necessarily feel like you have the the need to answer or privileged answers. We ask about question asking questions, but like whenever I've told people I'm an atheist or I've had a atheist book that I was reading, I have had people randomly come up to me and be like, well, how the universe get created. I'm like, dude, if I was reading, you know, Narnia, you wouldn't come up and just randomly ask me that, like, why can't I just enjoy a good book? Like, why do you have your way to be like, well, explain to me the nature of humanity in a row? It's like trees. I'm just reading a book. Come down guys. Like, why is my hobby mean? I have to now explain the universe to everybody. It's the only hobby, the only position where you have to immediately answer the follow up question of how did the universe get created? It's the only one. No one else asked that. I'm a plumber. Okay, that's well, if you're a member of another religion like Buddhism or exactly Islam or something, they wouldn't ask you that because they would assume you have an answer and it's based on your religion. I worship Thor. Oh, okay, that's fine. I'm an atheist. Well, I got questions for you, son. All right. George Brown, second half, I say it with your hands up. What was up? Go for it. I just, I would, the label I would put on the Bible would be enjoy a pork burger with cheese whilst wearing a mixed fabric shirt. Eat more bacon. Guys, there's a, this isn't so much of a book, but I also think some media outlets could observe certain general warnings. And one of the ones that I really was paying attention to, I haven't really caught up with it in the last couple of years, but the atheist experience, when I was working in Sweden, that was like my playlist from the day into the day out, because I was Christian when I flew out to Sweden. But I think, or at least I would say I was, but I think the pressure that was released off of me from being in a social climate where everyone was Christian and were openly atheists, let me be able to listen to things that I wasn't, that I didn't feel like I could listen to out loud when I was in the States, particularly in Georgia, even Atlanta. And so when I was watching the atheist experience, I was finding myself asking the same questions that the callers were asking, atheist experiences, a call in show where you can talk to a couple of atheists who are very well versed in dealing with apologetics and people who claim that they believe in God for very bad reasoning. And then by the end of the show, the, the callers always get angry and hang up, but they never made a good point. And when you hear the points enough times, you realize that's the same call. That's almost like the same argument that that last guy used. And it's not any better than it was this time. And it's the same argument that I was using. And it's not any better since I've still had it. So, you know, it goes back to what Eric was saying, may cause discomfort, may cause realization that you're wrong. And, and then actually, here's my last surgeon general may actually, may actually make you enjoy the feeling of being wrong. Is there a, is that, is that even a word? Like, when you realize you're wrong, it's a good feeling sometimes. It's a good start for the number of finding the next level of truth, you know what I'm saying? It tells science works. It's not being wrong. I hate it being wrong, but now I'm like, Oh, I kind of like being wrong. Now, now I know it. Now I can get rid of it and check it and get a better idea. So here's one for the, the God delusion then. Warning, could destroy dogma. Good. Yeah. Dred, you. Yeah. So I just wanted to, Dada's training room, he's on a roll here. He said, for atheistic book, warning, this book may leave you with more questions than answers. Oh, Dred. Oh, I'm sorry. The book of questions. May leave you with more questions than answers. Questioning is good. You know, that is the point. That's essentially science in a way. You know, yeah, yeah, always does. Yeah. Yeah. And, and that's never a bad thing to have more questions. You can still get answers is that's a beautiful thing. But honestly, what science is about is not so much answers, but explanations. And the explanations while, while nominal and based off models are so broad in what they answer are comprehensive that you're going to have questions about, okay, well, what's the next step about this part? What hasn't been answered yet? What's kind of ambiguous still? I want to know as much as I can with this system. It's really great. Guys, let's see. I think we did a really good round table. I'm just going to do a quick summary of some of the highlights that we had in the show. And then we can get the plugins. So may certain general right right labels for holy books may cause raised expectations to unrealistic levels may lead to excessive belief and invisible friends may also lead to chronic episodes of hypocrisy. Make sure to use your best cherry picker. And this gives you a gold plated reason to stop thinking also may contain imaginary mythical figures or lead to increased delability and self-harm. And then I think one of the best ones we got from the listener comments for sure is may cause atheism. Love it. I love it. I love it. I love it. That if I was going to get one, we have any listener questions this week. Oh, dang it. Dang it. Dang it. I didn't even set it up though. I would like to give a shout out to free thought channel who said great show guys. Thank you so much. I think that came from you, John. Appreciate it. We got we have listener comments. All of them are unfortunately very long. I don't think we have the time, but we will jump back into them first start next episode. Sound good? Okay, sure. For now, how about this? We'll do a close up session. John Richards, where can we find all of your many channels and antics going on? Well, it's all on free thought channel. I've shortened the name from free thought productions channel to free thought channel. Free thought channel. I like it. Yeah, in a nutshell. So it's been going on and I've now got more assistance. So for example, tonight's global atheist news review featuring Dredd and Ty and other opinionated panelists will actually not be hosted by me for the first time. We have my co-host Tersia Duplessis in the chair. She will be providing you with the items to react to. Very, very nice. Enjoy. I also like how South African names sound like Azuk Asimov characters in sci-fi novels. It's really, really great. I think there's an inspiration there, but anyway, Dredd Pirate Higgs. How do we find your program? How do we find your program? Go to YouTube free thought channel. Cool. Yeah. Make sure you can find my channel at Mind Pirate on YouTube, M-I-N-D-P-Y-R-A-T-E. I live stream this show when I'm on it every Sunday at 7 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time. And I also, when I'm on the Global Atheist News Review, I live stream that at 11 a.m. on Sunday PDT. So if you go there, please like and subscribe. And thank you. Nice. Also, just a super highlight shout out to the show. We got calls from England, Canada, and Greece. Wow. That's for the first time. Let's go. Yeah. Showing some respect. Eric, anything that you'd like to plug before next week? Yeah. Probably need to do this and say, here is my view. Beautiful. Awesome. You guys, we got all this. And then, oh, there's the order. Make sure. Greg, radio. Imagine that was hand built. Imagine that thing was hand built. It's bigger than all the buildings. I know, kidding. And yeah, by volunteers. Yeah. But yeah, thanks for letting me pop on today. I'm sorry if it was a distraction. No, no, no. Good conversation. That's good to have you. Yeah, we're happy to have you anytime. Let's see. George Brown to one slash to th anything you recommend we check up before next week? You did. You're muted. I'm just trying to practice my livery. I said, every time you wear. I'm sorry. I have a cough switch on this microphone. It was pressed every time you asked me that I I forget what I was going to say. So it's okay. There might be a rain down before the show. That's what I remember. He'll remember it just before about the clothes. Okay. That's a great channel. I forgot what I was going to say. There you go. Okay, so you can check out my stuff on let's chat. It's this YouTube channel. If you're watching the video, it's YouTube. Let's chat. And I have these videos, but I'm also just, you know, having a good time, enjoying talking with my friends on a regular basis. This is some of the highlights of my weekend. And so Larry, anytime you want to close up the show, I'm totally good. But please explain to me what atheism is and what it's all about. Because I still a little confused about that. I happen to have written a book about that. What? Yeah. What's your personal general warning on it? Oh, question everything. No, my book is called Atheism. What's it all about? It's available on Amazon. My company's from my website. I mean, my internet content can be found at digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button, because we have all of our radio shows there archived. We have some Atheist songs and many articles on the subject of atheism. On YouTube, you can find me by searching for Douter 5, Larry Rhodes, or Digital Freethought, either one. You can find the show on Apple iTunes, Pocket Cast, Amazon, or Podcasts everywhere. Just search for Digital Freethought Radio Hour. If you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind, go to recoveringfromreligion.org. You can find help there. Thank you for watching and joining us on the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Remember, if you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. Remember, everybody is going to somebody else's hell. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it. Enjoy your life and we'll see you next week. Say bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye, bye. Bye, everybody. Bye, bye.