 Peter. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LPFM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on Sunday morning, April 7th, 2024. I'm Larry Rose or DJ Doubter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello, Wombat. It's the Wombat. Hey, Larry, which episode is this? This is 362. 362? 365. And then maybe call it quits. I think seven years of this is good. We got one episode a day. We got an episode a day. Yeah, for a year. And 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 get the feeling you're the only non-believer in your town, well, you're just not. I would guarantee it. In Knoxville, here in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a group of 1,100 of us. We're the atheist society of Knoxville or ASK. And we'll tell you more about us after the mid-show breaks, so be sure to stick around. Wombat, what's our topic today? There's been a change in plans. And I want to talk about that. What? There's been a change in plans. Also, the universe is ending on Monday. Apparently. Well, it's just the earth. Just the earth. And atheism is just about bashing God. You know, some good classic questions. Or hating God. Or hating God, too. Whatever God-focused, Christian-focused thing you can skew atheism into. Where to begin? You know what? Let's take a step back and just say, hey, I'm always happy to talk to you, my friend. Glad that you're doing well. Did you get the second surgery by the way? On my other knee? Yeah. No. I'm going to put that off as long as I possibly can. We're going to ride our diet. Yeah. Fairly well right now. Nice, nice. I do the same thing with dental work, by the way. I always say, like, oh, this is a massive hole in my mouth. I'm just going to, you know, I'm going to ride it out. I'll just try. I'll shoot on the other side. I'm waiting until I can just take all these teeth and just replace them with, like, a replaceable set. And then I just get new sets every couple months. Oh, yeah. My brother did that, but he was in the 60s, I think, when that happened. Okay. Can't wait for it. Can't wait for these days. Remember these days. Remember these days. Let's see. How have you been, Larry? Let's get the catch up with you. Pretty good. I've been playing Jedi Knight, the original one, Fallen Order. Fallen Order. And then I've been playing Survivor. I finished it and started it again. It's a really good game. I highly recommend it. Oh, it is. It is. Especially if you're into the Jet Ice or the Star Wars movies. I like the Star Wars video games more than the Star Wars movies. I think the latest video game that came out the last two have a better story. Yeah. And like, Yeah. And you get to live them. I mean, you're the protagonist. Right. Right. And you're not trying for an hour and a half where you have to, like, stop the movie to use the bathroom. You can, like, let them sit idle. And just, but I'm going to use the bathroom. Oh, that's pretty cool. I think the spaceship is all over the ship. You're totally fine. It's all good. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's, it's, he's got some really incredible moves for it. Sure does. I also like the voice acting of the villain in the first game, like the performance is very good. There's a Jedi master while I don't want to put too much spoilers, played by a very skilled actor I think her name is Debra Wilson who used to be on Matt TV as like a comedic actor but has done drama has done horror movies since has done some directing she's just so talented she does like she's the face of like now the Suicide Squad lady she's done Jedi work she's done voice acting where she's just everywhere and it's always good to see her because it's always like a mark of caliber talent and they're very talented they're talented and it makes for a great game yes talented makes for a great game you should watch it it's good and the sound and the music sounds sometimes I just watch the cut scenes on YouTube there's like channels they'll just take all the cut scenes compile sure it'll be six hours long but I will watch that in the background and just think to myself this is like this should have been a movie or a special or something and you're telling me I can play that and so yeah I had a lot of fun when I went through that game I was surprised how how active it was because I didn't realize how big the world was I thought it was just going to be set piece set piece but it was like no it's a whole Metroid baby you can come back and I usually don't like third person usually don't like you know seeing myself in the screen I'd rather play first person where I'm you know it's first person but on this one you wouldn't get to see his moves right after you're playing first person he's got some incredible moves no that's true true true it get me really tired uh as speaking of good moves I am I'm getting better at rock climbing it's one of the things that I'm loving to do see are some calluses for you for the radio listeners I'm showing a handful of little brown marks and it's been fun I've been climbing now for about a year and I've finally gotten to the point where I can walk into a gym like my local gym and systematically take off every single route that is on one of the segments it's no longer just well I can only do one of these because I'm only good enough to do the first one and that one and I'll just redo these but now it's like I'll go in and be like I'm gonna do all these and I do them all except for like maybe one or two and I'll try and do it I'll be like I got like 95% of the climbs done and the only reason why I had to go home was because my arms are fried but like if I was fresh I'd probably be able to get that one too sure it changes like do they have like diamond courses and stuff they do like in skiing no they totally do and they're color corded or numbered appropriately they go from zero all the way up to 14 uh for for elite climbing and uh I can go from from zero to 14 I can hit hens on my first time like anywhere 10 below I can do out on my first time but 11s take me some time to work because it's exponentially harder and so when you think about that like Olympic caliber is like 14 I'm not getting close to the Olympic I have no uh goal or or or dream of getting that level but I would like to go into a gym and just say oh I did all the wraps today and that that would make me feel so good if you'll make it I'm sure I appreciate that I appreciate Larry later today I plan on going roller skating I am enjoying the car that I got I got a recently new car yeah the whole thing with the car is it's way more interested in keeping me alive than I realized my old car was so there's a lot of technology they've been putting into these things that I haven't I haven't been privy to but and the thing was it was never sold when I bought the car I bought it online so I didn't really I just wanted to make sure it was like all-wheel drive and had like some core functions but I didn't talk to you it does it does you left your door open that's not it texts me on my watch it's like by the way you left your engine idle for 20 minutes or your doors unlocked we locked it for you I'm like did a human do that or did my car do that I'm like that's weird that's cool I appreciate that every time I'm driving I'm learning something new and I've had this car for about a month and every single time I've been in it I'm learning like some weird new function there's a function called auto hold that will automatically depress or press down on the brake whenever you're in stop and go traffic it'll just make sure you don't drift and I thought oh that's so useful I had no idea I had that button because before I would always have my foot on the pedal and my leg was tired but now the fun thing for me is I was I was taking a friend of mine to go play disc golf this week and we get to the parking spot I open up the car and my my my car freaks out it's like close the door close the door I'm like okay I closed the door and next to you know a car comes oh wow sailing right next to us in the next parking spot and if I had my door out open you would crush the door open and I'm like what did it sound exciting and urgent it was uh it was a pleasant ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding ding I was like oh what okay I'll close the door it's like close close driver's side door I'm like okay I closed it sometimes I leave the sunroof open it's like hey sunroof is open close it I'm like I appreciate that it's really nice how smart it is it's nice to how do I put it have someone else watch you in the event that you had a plan but the car has a different plan for you and this plan is to be safer for you look cool I didn't want to talk about change of plans though change of plans yeah plans what plans everyone's plans it seems to be something that we don't like like we don't like change would you say you like change Larry generally no but I'm a progressive so yes not conservative I don't I don't dislike it that much okay social change your for it social change your for it in certain directions I think that change will make for a better plan and we need to leave some of our baggage behind you know some of the old stuff that serves no purpose anymore I agree I think that's useful I think even beyond change diversities good just to have different perspectives in there including including in my mind even like religious and non-religious perspectives but the the idea the key to that is to have all the different religions or like a lot of different religions in the same room because when it's just one religion in the room and non-religion in the room then it becomes as almost as if it's like two equal standards right where it's like well you use science but I pray to my frog god and everyone else prays to my frog god so therefore these are like two equal measures like no you need to see the people who pray to frogs you need to see the people who do that weird stick thing you see the people who do the weird like and then realize oh all of us are doing slightly different silly things but when it comes to actually figure out stuff we use the non-religious versions and that waters down the the the worst methods when you have them all in the same room and highlights the one good one that's working that's why I say I have like the different religions right and at this point I'd like to recommend a book by Carl Sagan to everybody called a demon haunted world science as a candle in the dark yes it changed my life it's it's the book that one of the books that made me come out about my atheism after 30 years in the atheist closet is it worth shoot well that's important thank you for recommending sure but yeah changing in plans I don't like it either in fact even when our job we might change projects frequently because we are a center that changes priorities very quickly and it can cause a lot of strife it can cause a lot of discontent dress you know people will work on something really hard and then all of a sudden there's a new change plans yeah goes over here now and yeah exactly you're like oh yeah now we're not going to do that we're going to do this you're just like all right fine starting from square one again I do you think one of the problems with change is that you feel like you're losing progress is it like a sunk cost fallacy or is it like what I would think that's a lot of it you know but it sometimes it feels like you've got the rug pulled out from under you that you've been working on a goal and you make plans and then all of a sudden the goal is over here instead of over there and you've got to rethink thinking is hard sometimes it's hard yeah especially if it takes a lot of thought to get to your goal and then you find out that your goal is different now you've got to rethink a whole lot of stuff what I hope though is you change your plan when you have a better target or you have a better goal right so that's one of the begrudging ways that I can always rationalize why it's good to have a change in plans because the new target is worth more worthwhile than the old one in fact if I were to say no I'm not going to change my plan and keep sticking to that old one I would adopt too conservative of a mindset or I might be left behind as progress changes and I might be striving my whole rickety card and as you get closer to your goal you may find out that that goal isn't what isn't worth what you thought it was it maybe you've seen past that goal now and you can see a new goal is much more worthy of your time and energy yes larry it's exactly like in my opinion um I was and this is this is a small this is a small story but I once was that this is when vaping was becoming popular and I thought to myself oh and it doesn't have nicotine maybe I'll try out vaping one day and they had a demo unit at a mall and I was like that looks so cool but in the back of my head I had a little alarm going like you don't want your lungs are meant for air they're not meant for antifreeze that's been aerosolized I'm probably like all you're just breathing in like your lungs are made for air don't do it and I had the biggest regret because I thought man I'm a young guy I can bounce back from it but the idea of habits are not that easily broken right the things that you can crave at the moment may not be the things that you want to crave for our future down the road I'm so glad that I haven't adopted like a terrible you know chemical addiction on something or just some bad habit or put my health at risk just for the sake of looking cooler you know because there's absolutely right I changed my plans in that moment and I went to something else so I wanted God now here's the here's the crux we are a religious show what if God looks at the world looks at earth he is he is planning on destroying the world on Monday but like he looks at the world and he's like you know what this isn't working out as well as I wanted it to and I really do care about the people here I'm going to change my plans a little bit it's time for a change of plan in fact when you think about it Jesus was a change of plans in its own right right like so he has been or a plan change of plans he's made some planned updates to his philosophy or his practice theoretically yeah that's according to the story right so for the better and some would say from the much much worse but the whole idea is if he's willing to change his plans and try something new why not try again and then what would you be looking for if God said hey listen I want to have a heart to heart with you I love you very much I'm God I want to change my plans for how I'm I'm approaching this whole I'm God you're not God immoral immoral situation what what what then this one one what would it take for me to have a better way of reaching out to you and then I can format that it's my plan a better relationship yeah I want to have a better relationship well he could show up that would be you could show up dad hard to have a relationship with someone you can't talk to or see yeah ain't that the truth ain't that the truth no I saw a meme early this morning and it said it's funny that the religious don't trust science and don't think science is true or valid and all this stuff but as soon as they say that there's a there's a eclipse coming oh well that's the end of the world yeah yeah you know and they jump right on and no questions asked you know we're having an eclipse Monday they trust it right it pains me because I see people even who I work out with on a regular basis really really nice people who are fully indoctrinated who will say things like tornadoes are manufactured by humans they'll say things like this like oh I say like oh the weather's looking bad we had a tornado warning at work it's like don't worry tornadoes are made by the government but don't even get them started on vaccines but like it's all rooted on the fact that they have a very poor epistemology in terms of determining what's true from what's not yeah I think I read recently that Tennessee that the house is maybe it was a senate has passed the resolution banning contrails when Tennessee yeah Tennessee I'm pretty sure it was Tennessee now if it I think it passed the house or the sonny whichever one originated it but can you imagine if it came law yeah and then he started shutting down airlines yeah yeah so airspace across Tennessee is like yeah wait until they start shutting down military flights that's what I when I would say yeah you know the through there's two things about that one is it's sad when people who at a young age whenever taught how to tell true things from false things grow up into adults who don't know how to tell true things right you don't just intuitively understand that you have to be trained and and and disciplined to think how to how to think effectively right but then to become an adult whose job is to pass legislation and instead of passing meaningful legislation we are wasting time on on on this low level of argumentation on contrails and conspiracy theories like if I have potholes up and down the roads I'm sure the Knoxville there's some really bad roads and your government bodies are instead of addressing those are thinking well how tall was Bigfoot five and a half feet or five and six inches feet five and six inches how dare you say five and a half feet and that's all they're arguing about you're thinking like you guys aren't even doing your jobs you're literally not doing your jobs which is being in service of the people and making sure that things work that there's water that's what's happening in Washington these days with the republicans in the house because they just lock down everything they don't do anything they their main goal is to what's don't defy the works of the democratic party and the president and try to impeach him why retribution over Trump and it just it locks our country down we cannot do anything can't pass laws that need to be passed right right right right right and I know I know I'll go into this because we do need to change the plans even for like politics right but like the idea of you know if we go back 200 years things were a lot probably a lot more cordial but the quality of life in America was substantially worse for the majority of the people that lived here the majority of different kinds of people what period are you talking about I'm talking about black people for women for a period of time 200 years ago 40 years ago you know like you you go back long it's not pretty much the entire history of the country yeah yeah yeah they always say there's a joke that you probably haven't heard but if a black guy had a time machine they would never go in the past the the movie with the black guy with the time machine is like I'm not using it I don't want to go back to the past you want to go back to the 1960s the next time no no I'm not gonna get out of the time machine no the next time lord is supposed to be black oh really in doctor who okay yeah I'll be interested for it I'll be interested all right all right we'll see the the whole idea is um it's not a fact of how cordial or this cordial the the the the conversations are in Washington the more of it is in my opinion of like how interested are we getting people in understanding how our system works and how it could be beneficial to us because right now there's a lot of fear between administrative roles it's particularly in government and our policing and our politics and how that affects us on a daily basis when these are services that should be in favor and in the interests of people and the more we educate people at the ground level and it takes time but the more we educate people on how these systems are supposed to work for us the more we can get people in those positions to continue to work for it because I'm not saying every police guy's bad or every politician's bad there's definitely people who are who are there who wanted to be there who do the right job uh-huh we need to empower those people and and we can only do that by being well informed and expressing ourselves accurately when people are doing good things and not just oh that's my team member I'm gonna do I'm gonna support that team member it's always bizarre because I have like a neighbor who has a I support the police blue line flag and a don't tread on me flag on either side of his home and I keep driving by and I think I think to myself you know the first people who are going to tread on you are the people who get paid to tread on people and it's that guy it's that flag is going to do the thing that the other flag says you're going to do so like what are you really saying what are you really well yeah what gets me is when I see like Trump on the stage talking about all this racial and stuff and evangelical stuff and and I see police officers behind him I'm not just talking about uniform police officers I'm talking about the higher echelons the the leaders the the chief of police is you know the that type of thing behind him supporting him for that kind of thing yeah and it just it it really worries me yeah no no no it's true too the the main the main thing I would say is like for a change of plans in that regard if our if we were to talk to if I were to say what my change of plan would be for God if you were to come to me isn't so much the idea of like show up it'd be nice if he did it'd be nice if he did but also I would say maybe even more importantly is recognize that we're capable of coming up with these opposite coming up with observations for ourselves and give us some level of autonomy to to work this out because what happens when you come in as a god and say I know everything that's good I know everything in the universe I can do anything and then I disappear is that people will will not apply critical thought to their own actions and just simply say well my ambiguous relationship with this god justifies all the actions that I'm doing as a result and so because it says so in that book because it says so in that book and because even when I'm actually doing something harmful I don't have to evaluate that because I'm doing what's ascribed to me by this God whereas I was saying whereas if God said hey listen I'm leaving this up to you you guys need to make sure that you take your care of yourself well and if you find good systems of behavior and and and law and ethics and morals and you came up with it that's just as good as if I came up with it but I need you to make sure that you're constantly testing them out and thinking about better ways to improve them continuous improvement always all right see you guys later like even if it was that I'd be like well it's not as much feedback because I wanted but he did validate that we can come up with better systems and now we can actually test them and we might find better ways of treating people than what's just given to us in the Bible you know it'd been nice if he had said that the thing about the thing about it is in the book he says pretty much everything that can be said so it turns out to be a Rorschach test yeah I mean if you want to do bad there's stuff to support it if you want to do good there's stuff to support it and it really tells you more about the person reading it than the book itself but there's so much bad stuff in the book you know like God giving plagues to 40 thousand people because this person didn't take a sentence you know that is just wanton evil it's just you know this but so many people just ignore that part right those parts I'll also say one last thing I guess before we get to our break but like progress tends to skew towards progression progressive thinking or or liberal thinking and there's the the counterculture in the US specifically is one where it's just an issue of exposure small towns small rural towns with their own their chief police with few people who all very much look the same have the same ideas have the same thoughts have the same look outlook maybe even professions and then big metropolis cities where different people have to work with each other who all look different maybe have different cultures different religions different languages different looks different body types and those people are populating way faster than the rural people and those people in those bigger cities are slowly looking for cheaper places to live and are infusing themselves the outer outskirts of those cities are growing as well it's like you could you could say the entire east coast and west coast of america are one big metropolis you know because you never really go from city to city go out in the country to before you get to the next city that's just constant city all the way down and that's moving in words as they expand and big cities are growing the university is growing I'm seeing in Tennessee and so I think the only issue we need to fight against is gerrymandering but for the most part we are seeing the culture shift the cultural shift towards more people are realizing oh people are different that's fine what else I got to do well the thing about it is in the big cities you you interact with those people people that are different from you you realize that they're they're good people yeah when you live in a small town out in the middle of podon texas or something you you don't interact with them or if you do you you have so many pre uh pre judgments against those people that you see them as bad even before you get to know exactly it's you know we we in the we in the city are learning to live with each other where it's it's hard to do that like in the countryside yeah I would say grow up in the city retire in the country rather than the other way around yeah yeah leave you driving habits behind okay we're at the bottom okay this this is the digital free thought radio hour and w ozio radio 103.9 lpfm here in noxville Tennessee we'll be right back after the short break welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour i'm doubter five and we're on w ozio radio 103.9 lpfm here in noxville Tennessee let's take just a moment to talk about the atheist society of noxville as k was founded in 2002 we're in our 22nd year now have over 1100 members we have weekly in-person meetings every tuesday evening in noxville's old city at barley's taproom in pizzeria look for us inside at the high top tables or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck you can find us online facebook meetup.com or go to our website at noxvilleatheist.org or just google noxville atheists it's just that simple by the way if you don't live in noxville you should still go to meet up and do a search for an atheist group in your town don't find one start one right one bat what are you gonna pick up you know uh i'd feel remissed if i didn't talk about the end world but just before that i wanted to say we did have an april fools day this last week and isn't it is there any loss of irony on the religious sector that april fools occurs immediately after easter i i don't think they would recognize they're two different things environmentalization just completely different holidays don't worry about them like so they were was like finally jesus has risen from the dead and the next day is gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha this seems so bizarre that those two holidays are like right smack you know they i'm sure they think that uh april first of april fools day is just a man made holiday it has nothing to do with you know the truth of the religion the irony though because everything every holiday is a man made holiday there's no special thing about holidays it's just a planet spiraling through space last for me so speaking of blasphemy uh the end of the world is apparently going to happen on april eighth this is brought in by a number of our viewers and they said ancient starboard jesus was supposedly originally gonna draft a bunch of folks to heaven in his lifetime but he forgot about that so it's been another 2000 years and now he's finally going to do it i can't wait to see him forget about it again this year but don't worry christians got his back though sure to cover up for him and like and act like he never made that promise at all he's gonna do it some days what they all say can't wait to see him fail again tomorrow can't wait for god to find out his son has been lacking he's probably not going to do much about it though since you know it's him yeah he's talking about change god never changed against mine well he changes my big time between the first the first the old testament and the new i mean he can play he he turned his whole personality around from just punishing everybody unless they make sacrifices to him to forgiving everybody and saying it's all good you know just believing my son and then of course if he's in control of everything then he's ultimately responsible for killing his son right and of course there is no such thing as death so he didn't really die right if he didn't really die how could he die for your sins no it's a big game in peekaboo it's just i'm dead no i'm not haha worship me forever now guys like yeah the more you play peekaboo with kids the better a driver they'll be and i say really object permanence is super important because when i if you're at an intersection and a car drives past the view of a car you in your brain you're like that car is going to stay parked because he knows he's about to drive into a road right but when that car leaves and that car's halfway driving to the street you're like don't you realize there's still traffic behind the car just because you didn't see traffic because you had your view blocked didn't mean that there wasn't traffic behind the car what are you doing kids need to play peekaboo more parents need to play peekaboo more with your kids and i think if you did it well enough people will be like wait a second jesus just died to the god who controls life and death isn't that just basically like putting a fixie cup over him and then putting it back over again like i don't understand how important the sacrifice was because it wasn't really a sacrifice it was literally a guy going like i got your ear no i got your nose it's here oh it's back on your face again and we're all like whoa this guy really loves me you know it's just death is just a change of address and it's as far as christianity if you already own the entire universe most most religions for that matter yeah uh you know the problem is is this we extend this christianity but it also extends to islam because then god changed his mind three times right every single time you have a new prophet whether it's mormon you know islam yeah and not only and what about the hadiths that come later you know the books that the new guys write you're in the old you're not getting rid of the problems you're just adding a new layer to the cake of problems right and like if the first layer of a cake is gravel you know it's still a bad cake no matter how many layers you put on top of it true that all right so uh speaking of the world ending um there was another commenter his name is max musimare who said i dropped the h bomb on my insane christian relatives today and he said they were talking about the magic apocalypse warnings for monday including the eclipse this is a heads up uh and then they sec and the eclipse is also a very popular topic uh they then they segwayed into anti-immigrants anti-gay diatribes and i said i said this to them sounds like you're in a deep well of selfishness and hate that's the h bomb it's almost as if the world is moving closer to love while christians are getting left behind capital left behind by the way selfishness that's so true i hadn't heard it put so well yeah yeah yeah uh the thing about leaving people behind though is that the mechanisms that are that exist to leave people behind are how do i put it the the same sort of disinterest how do i put it like it's it's hard to make people want to care about being more empathetic and and being more responsible with how they think and then can can own their actions i know it's definitely hard and we don't want to force everybody to do it but when we say as callously that ah we can leave people behind that's sort of the same attitude that christians have on those who have actually went through the effort to to to learn how to better be or learn the consequences of their actions learn about rationalizing the truth and so you can't have two completely uncaring parties looking at each other just being like ah they're going to hell ah those guys are crazy like somewhere there was needs to be a bridge that can be built and i understand the the impetus on someone who's saying you know i don't think gay people and immigrants are that bad of people i'm just going to not listen to you i understand that but like i feel the the better way of of handling that kind of conversation alongside maybe what you said would be also to demonstrate that there are good examples and like when you see good immigrants in in in leadership or on tv or in sports or as actors put them on a pedestal and recognize them and that way those who always try to dismiss their contributions to society will begin to slowly lose that expectation because uh if this is a this is a tangent i just wanted to say like when when you don't when you put people in a box the best way of getting them out is to put them on a billboard instead like and and show like hey if you think black people only do xyz let me show you other examples of them in actors let me put them in doctor who let me put them in sports let me have them elected as president now you think like oh okay maybe my idea of them was a little view because now they do these all these other things like the power of pop culture is super yeah like like during the since we're all immigrants pretty much yeah except the native Indians we're not but yeah but i mean every time somebody does something like win an olympics you know you can say this is charles smith he's his parents immigrated from germany you know this is so and so he is his parents immigrated from ireland right and on and on and on and just you know we're all the descendants of immigrants so that's at some point it's the power of sports when you do that and i've seen for example very in tennessee i have seen like the most red hat conservative people wearing a mac homes uh jersey and i thought to myself like this guy is sporting the jersey of a black man that he really likes like you would never sports is the only thing capable of getting people to see a whole bunch of different color people from different sizes tall and short play a game together and cheer for like the black people i'm like that's awesome they turn around and cheer the other teams yeah yeah yeah i'm just like it's no longer about color they're just like thinking about the the teams are better on it's it's such a human condition tapping yeah talking about we're all immigrants if we go back if hard enough in time like 15 20 000 years ago even native Indians were immigrants from the asian east where they came across the land bridge they're and immigrated into america so nobody was oh i just want to say like we're not all immigrants some people were brought here against their will and that's not true that's true too we did come from different places but not everybody's immigrant and i just want to highlight that it just means that everyone's different right and like we should be valuing that the fact that hey everybody's different everyone has this different story we don't need to generalize everybody into one group people are different deal with it and learn from different cultures and different what they have to celebrate the the differences exactly yeah just like if you were watching tv and every show was the same story how boring would that be right you know everybody's got a different story you know celebrate the differences yes and change up your plans every now and then it wouldn't hurt either uh you know we had an eclipse or um has the eclipse happened already larry no tomorrow oh it's tomorrow oh man so that's the on the day that ends okay okay now one day left all right so the idea that we wrote a pinpoint timing of that eclipse because i think like we're all fairly confident that's going to happen yeah sort of like makes me feel um proud that science has gotten so good that it can pinpoint accurate like when these events would happen and i just wish that people were able to recognize that you know when the bible gets things wrong and it has gone things wrong as many times and science is always like when science is always like actually uh take this pill it'll make your headache go away or this is the right this is the right button to hit to stop your car or this fabric is going to be good when right let go of a rock hold and you need to come down on the audible a system or if you cut yourself put this chemical on it it's going to disinfect the wound and you'll still have your arm afterwards or if you need to have birth go to this doctor or if there's an eclipse stand in this one spot at this time of day and you'll be there like science is constantly giving out prophecies yeah that are accurate and work why have we never had the book of science why are people like invested in this because the low key advertisement of just i feel like we take it for granted that science is right unless oh yeah it contradicts our religious points of view now it's well even the religious you know planning for an eclipse to happen tomorrow they don't question it's not something to say it's not going to be an eclipse tomorrow you know science is wrong right you know on a certain level they just they do respect science they they do respect what it can do yeah i think at a deep level they want their religious views to be scientific or if they just have a low understanding what scientific oh yeah many times how many times you see a person get on the side the scientists have found it that uh a clue that the ark landed here you know or that the the cave had the cave in the earth is where is it believe i can't remember the name of the country turkey is it hungry the odd the mountains of hungry where jesus lived israel okay israel i was going to say boston yeah it's i'm seven 74 years old i have trouble with names names of countries even but israel they'll say the you know scientists have discovered a cave in israel where jesus was you know they they grab this reputation that the science has and try to bring it into the religion to justify it right so and then they turn right around says just science don't know anything right when they say that something in the bible is wrong right and science is wrong and that's when it's not science anymore that's when you can't claim any of it once you start saying it's only right when it confirms my point of view and it's wrong when it doesn't confirm my points of view now you can't use any of science because that is not science anymore now it's cherry picking and that's not the scientific process in fact science is all about understanding when you're wrong just as much as figuring out how to be right you know and if you're not using it for both those things you're no longer using the scientific method you can't just use science to make yourself feel better it's for you to figure out how to be right and that's all there is to it i do feel like it's scary because when i was a christian i would compartmentalize how i approached my scientific journey because i was a scientist i mean i was a christian all the way until my first or second year of undergrad so like i i was really good in high school good in my first two years of college learning biochemistry like i'm learning about you know how you carry out some dna works in my entire mind i was like god is so amazing oh man i can't wait to tell him how he drove evolution like yeah like where's the creator in this process we should rephrase this book like it's really great and i realized at a certain point like you know started putting two and two together well it was really the the ethics and morals class that hit me because i thought i knew what morality was i knew science like left and right like but i didn't remember what's questioned on my ethics because in my opinion ethics was just what was given to me by god like god's version of science and all the science of my book was just the how of what he did and whereas my bible was the why of what you did and i could just i could literally match those two together but when you took me out of science put me into like the more softer areas of of human reasoning like ethics morality and a lot like oh but i know this too because it's just the how and the why and i actually have the book of the why and if we're just gonna talk about the why i'm just gonna hold my bible and just be like it's these verses it's these verses and then i realize oh man these verses are actually inadequate for how to properly conduct a society or the explanations i'm getting from the bible aren't as satisfying compared to what these philosophers have said and reasoned out and like can even mathematically prove or accurate like it's way better to take a balanced point of view of how to treat people not just uh treat your treat people the way how you want to be treated sometimes it's good to treat people the way how other people or they want to be treated and have a balance of the two and you'll need more complicated rules for more nuanced situations moving on in the future i'm like that makes sense to me i'm looking at the bible i'm like oh no maybe i'll stop reading well let me let me ask you a question i mean the first couple of years of biochemistry and all that yeah you're you're really into science but you're also a believing christian christianity says that uh basically it says that evolution it didn't happen i mean god created man you know from dust yeah but how are you reconciling that with what you are learning in biology without i mean outside of the moral question absolutely it was a series of phases and it was whatever i could do to keep clinging on to the religion because at first i said evolution's not real and i had that point of view like up until middle school until the evidence was just so great and the i think being black was really important for my understanding of science because when people tend to talk about god's point of view and god's religion and like here's the plan and they show pictures it's always like a white guy like my bible had a picture of a white Jesus on it perfectly manicured face and when we talked about his people it was a picture of a bunch of white people in jerusalem and when he's like here are the slaves that escaped from egypt and it's just a bunch of blonde-haired dudes moving from one place to another place i'm like well it doesn't i'm already so not just a focal point from this that's easier for me to just say ah it's not even about me to begin with and i have to like do some gymnastics my head and then i got tired of the gymnastics so when i heard about evolution i'm like that's not true to the point where i'm like ah it's probably true and maybe the bible's wrong just on these certain things because who cares about these smaller details when it's really the bigger picture maybe it's an allergy yeah i bifurcated the bible into levels of importance and i'm saying as long as i still believe in god and that he did these things doesn't really matter about the final details maybe no one's really thought it but then i learned about something called embro uh endosymbiosis theory which is like you have a cell that is originally used to be two different organisms but then they fused and now that's the reason why you have mitochondria and your nucleus that has dna inside of every cell and your mitochondria has its own dna because it used to be its own little animal but then your your body was like we need to evolve these two things together because mitochondria do really useful things and make energy and if we have that as our cell we can have basically a power battery and but it has its own dna and you're like what that's weird and then when you look at plants they have chloroplasts mitochondria and their own nuclei where they have dna so it's three different things fused together they're actually more genetically complicated than we are as people and that's why plants can do this weird thing where like you can take an arm off of apple tree and put it on a pear tree and then that pear tree starts making apple pears fusions together you're like why can't humans do that it's like because they're not as complex as plants and i'm like oh i thought we were special it's like no they have three you have to deal with it and i thought to myself that's so matter of fact that's so true but so so much cooler than anything i've ever learned in the bible that i'm like you know the facts are far more fascinating than the fiction and i started to like it started to peel back and that's part of evolution too you're like yeah germ theory and all this other stuff we're like okay okay okay okay no all right evolution you're super cool you seem to be answering way more cool things than i am getting from the bible and at that point with the morality class it was the last kick i needed to really be like do we have any more listener comments yeah yeah yeah absolutely absolutely okay yeah i would love talking about the journey oh yeah the journey to reason here's the last listener comment it's coming to us by fraisian breed you know christians think atheism is all about bashing god what do you guys think about that he does have some additional comments i feel it's just the whole idea of the supernatural being creating controlling a universe that doesn't resonate with atheists and not necessarily about hating or having a bandetta with god i think atheism is what he says is really about uh a the the amese with the supernatural being creating a controlling universe which doesn't resonate with atheists and it's not necessarily about hating or having a bandetta against any god what do you think about well i think first of all that person needs to realize that 90 of all atheists out there used to be believers i mean it's not like we just we come along we don't believe we hear about god and we reject it that's not the case i want to be fair to this person he isn't he is an atheist he's think he's expressing that as an atheist i feel like my christian friends only think that atheism is about bashing god and and they think that's okay yeah i can't i can't tell you how many times believers tell me that i hate god uh you know and the a lot of times just the opening question in our conversation is what happened to you that made you turn against god like that yeah nothing nothing happened to me and we i was reasoned out of an unreasonable position uh it happened in college in my first year you know what nothing bad happened to me um you know i i asked a lot of questions and got a lot of answers and the answers that i got from religion just didn't stack up up and eventually lost my faith because it wasn't supported and it's funny that you say that your diversion really started with uh moralities class basically there's a there's a guy who has a really good series of how he became a non christian how he lost his christianity a youtube series called why i'm no longer a christian and it's by a guy named evidence three if you spell evidence with the last the last e being a three that's his name so i recommend everybody who wants to to studies these deconversions from from christianity to atheism he he's one of the best i've got a good series of videos out there larry the conversion stories are always interesting but i also want to say that it's never one thing because it's really the environment of being at a university with a lot of different people the the the environment of being on my own living on my own and not having like my mom telling me what to like wear or make food for me like i'm cooking for myself i'm living for myself i'm paying my own rent i'm living without the boundaries that were provided around me and i'm in a different ecosystem where people care about thinking about different people i feel like that university platform is really good and you see a lot a lot of people fade out of their religions islamic uh very strong progressives like very strong conservatives just sort of like ease a little well you're you're learning all this new stuff i mean yeah a lot of it challenges the stuff that you learn growing up yep and and you're being given that information by people who know people who uh have discovered it from themselves done the experiments as it were and have written them papers and or books about these subjects they're very knowledgeable they have the answers that you when your questions bubble up naturally as they will in these classes yeah they can tell you why yeah because they've been doing nothing but answering those same questions year after year right years and christianity sort of like in my opinion having a um a car with three wheels and you can get by with a car with three wheels you know but what college is is sort of like a racetrack and you realize oh man this car with three wheels isn't enough for me to bend and curve and do all these extra moves so you'll need to upgrade your car and for some people it's more of an upgrade than others but what you really end up with is a much more structured car and when you look at your car again that has all four wheels and all these new kind of measures on it you're like that's not christianity anymore where is that it's like that's what your car was before someone took a wheel off and it's like jesus take the wheel wait a second this is way better and though you go back to your family's like what happened to your fancy uh three wheel cars like i put my wheel back on mom that's what happened anyway i had a change of plans no i certainly recommend that anybody who can go to college uh well not only will it make you question your previous knowledge and stuff but it will teach you how to do the research that you need to do go after college yeah the best benefit i ever got from college was learning how to do the research right and once college is over and you have your degree you you still have that skill and it will carry you through the rest of your life yeah here's what the here's a last hot take don't go to a christian college don't go to an online college if you can afford if you can afford otherwise go to even like your local public community college that just has a lot of different people available to you're gonna learn the same stuff you'll get the same degree more or less at the end of the day but you'll have the infusion of working with a lot of different people that's the value of school and scholastics is the networking and the compatibility work that you'll do with many different people who are not like you that's the true education in my opinion right if you get that that that makes the whole journey worth it in my opinion all right that's it for me that's it for 361 i think it is 361 yeah no 362 this is change of plans 362 so we got three three more episodes all right all right looking forward to it it's going to be good we're going to make them a blast guys where can we find your stuff let's chat on youtube.com and you can only find all these other previous shows we can also find some of my uh was it street socratics uh where i sit down and talk to people about stuff about what they believe it's good stuff you might find some music on there too in the future just letting you know i make some music too that sounds good and you can find this show on podcasts everywhere just search for digital free thought radio hour if you're watching this on youtube be sure to like and subscribe my content my content can be found in digital freethought.com be sure to click on the blog button for radio show archives atheist songs and many articles on the subject my book uh atheism what's it all about is available on amazon 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 wednesday night at seven p.m here on w o zero radio say bye ty bye ty let's see you later bye bye