 103.9 FM, WOZO Radio, Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We are recording this on Sunday, August 15th, 2021. I'm Larry Rhodes, our Doubter 5, and as usual we have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Wobobobobobobo! Wanobego. And hello. Our guests today are George Brown, 2.5, the second-ately half. Brooklyn, how are you? I'm OK. And Dread pirate Higgs. And John Richards all the way from England. I forgot to mention that Brett generate Higgs is joining us from Canada. Digital Freethought Radio R 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. What's our topic today there, Wombat? We might actually be going through every single one of those topics you just mentioned, but today we're talking about absolute power corrupts, absolutely, and why monotheism should share the wealth, right? We'll be talking about polyism versus monotheism. It's going to be a great time. But, but let's slow down Tyrone, Tyrone, everybody, we all gotta relax because we can't begin because our own best friend, Dreadpower Higgs, is here, and I'd love for him to lead us in our weekly vacation. It's been so long. Our noodley lord, wart in a colander, how to be thy noodles, thy blood be rum, thy sauce be yum with meat, as it is with vegetables. Give us this day our garlic bread, and forgive us our cussing, as we forgive those who cuss against us. And lead us not into ketoism, but deliver us some carbs, for thine are the noodles, and the sauces, and the grog, whenever and ever, raw. You know, I was playing disc golf with a friend of mine. He's a Christian friend. He's the same friend who believed that God was personally talking to him, and we had some SE conversations about that. But what was interesting was I met him out to play disc golf with us on Saturday, and he's like, you really like this disc golf thing? It's like, yeah, make it like a regular thing, and I have a bunch of other friends with us. We had a couple of other guys who were with us too. But you meet people, you have fun outside, and it's like a regular basis where you can like increase your social circle without having to necessarily have it be related to work. And I was like thinking to myself, it's like this outdoor thing that I'm doing, or this thing that I'm going outside is almost like its own little church. And I was like, it's kind of like, you know, it's own get together without the dogma. And he thought about that for a long time. He was like, yeah, there's a value in there. Like even as a Christian, he was like, I can appreciate the fact of just getting on a regular basis with a group of friends, touching bases, and having some fun outdoors. It was like, yeah, you don't really need the church for it. It's how humans do, we're a social creature. We like to get together and just commune as well. So, so tell me how you've been communing. Oh, mainly on Facebook, I guess. Barley's Taps and Rooms, right? Didn't you go to Barley's Taps and Rooms not too long ago? Well, I don't. Well, I did about a month ago, but I don't usually go because I'm doing the Zoom meeting at the same time at home. So people can join us on the Zoom meeting every Tuesday at six o'clock, where they can go down to Barley's Tap Room in Pizzeria in Knoxville's whole city, join us down there from about 5.30 to 8. Nice. So two ways to get together for the 8th year of society of Knoxville. Very nice. Speaking of get together, Dredd Barley Higgs, it's been a while since we had a chance to get together. I'm glad there's no cinch marks on you. How you been? And you're muted. He's muted. It's all right. We'll figure it out. That was strange. Can't not hear you. Yeah, no, I'm doing good. I was up for a couple weeks at one place where we're having some wildfires, like I mentioned, and I was deployed again to another place. It was 63 kilometers up a forest service road. And during my first shift towards the end of the day, the wind had picked up so quickly that we were told to get out and stay out. So I got off early. I was supposed to be up there for two weeks, but I'm actually being redeployed again on the 19th to go to 100 Milehouse too. And that's where they actually have the major staging for all the wildfires in BC interior. So it'll be quite cool. Do you guys, this is a silly question, but do you guys use dust, water or controlled fires to control the fires, a mixture of all three? Yeah, there's a, yeah, there's the retardant and water. Okay, geez, geez. And prayer. And prayer, no prayer. Surprisingly, no prayer in that list. That's the most effective part of the whole thing. To our noodley Lord. So it is a silly thing. This is the silliest thing that I'm going to bring up, but there is an anime that's out that has a fire department that has a priest on the team and the priests praise to put out fires and that in the anime world, that's just as effective as the water. And it only struck me now that it's like, wait a second, that shouldn't work in real life. Only right now did I start thinking about that. Anyway, no, I have heard and I've learned that Christian science will actually pay priests and insurance money to pray for the recovery of their second infirm. Wow. Wow, I want to be on that list. Okay, John Richards, you're looking a little distracted. I see you're looking down. You're rooting. What's going on? What's going on? What's going on in the world? I'm making notes. No, no, no. Tell me what's going on in the world of sports. What's going on in the world with me? Yeah, sure. Okay. Well, I do zoom, commune, the new thing, of course. Yeah. Yeah. I'm currently keeping tabs on the India versus England cricket match, which is the second of the series of test matches, and it's tightly balanced at the moment. How many touchdowns are we in so far? It's only in the third day. So we're a long way from an outcome. So they played multiple days, I imagine, when you say they're on their third day. And they've just gone to tea. Okay, they've just gone to tea. They both take their tea breaks very seriously. That is true. I was going to pick up on Larry said we're social animals, and we are, indeed. Sometimes this works to our disadvantage. I mean, one of my daughters wanted a pet, so we agreed, her mother and I agreed that she should have a bird, a budgerigar, you know? Okay. And so I went to my mother, the mother organized it, and I went to collect these things. And I discovered that she'd ordered two. So we now have a separate society of two birds who know their birds and have their own little society and humans who know their humans. And we don't socialize very much. So my contention is that if you have a pet, you'd have one pet. It's got to socialize with you. It thinks you're part of its social group. There's some strategy behind that because I'd have been thinking about getting a second cat, but now I'm like, then he won't be my best friend anymore. Right? Right? Yeah. Not that. Funny story. My brother used to have a bird that he learned to say a lot of things, human speech, but then after having him several years, he got another bird, and then the bird just stopped talking humans and just started talking bird. And that was it. He just started talking birds. He was like beep beep. That was it. No more parroting. Oh, that's funny. That's funny. That's a good one. George Brown, how you been? It's good to see you. Well, I've been, I've been two things going on. One is I've been struggling with computers. And you know, I live in the world of Unix, Linux. And Linux is like a Wild West show. Yes. Everything goes. It's the tower of Babel. And you never know if anything's going to work or not. That's the world I live in. I came from the world of Windows, which is some like. You're lucky if it works. And if it doesn't, there's nothing you can do about it basically. Well, it's, but then there's, you see, Windows is like a constitutional monarchy. Okay. Okay. There's a titular boss. And then there's the world of the Macintosh. And it has been said that Mussolini made the trains run on time. So I have more and more friends who are moving to the Macintosh because they're just totally fed up with the inconsistencies of Windows, including. You can totally push the Apple and all work. Just remember that's for the bar tag to be put right here on your neck when you get put into the system. I know you'll love that. Okay. And then the other thing that's going on. That's harsh. Just saying. Am I am I safe going to the grocery store now? Hmm. You know, with the pandemic and the stat with the current status of the pandemic, which almost seems to change every day. Yeah. In terms of recommendations about what we are supposed to do. I would think so as long as you're vaccinated. Yeah. Welcome, Nathan. Well, that's becoming a little bit questionable as well. Well, it definitely hurts to never that's a hurt to wash your hands. It doesn't hurt to be around someone that's coughing in your face. Like avoiding that is also good thing. I think the basic recommendations have been consistent. Maintain good hygiene and stay away from sick people. If you're sick, stay home if you can. And if you if there's a disease up that's killing lots of people, get vaccinated for the disease. If we have it, not many variations on it. If I want to pick up some some groceries at Walmart, pick up some groceries and wash your hands when you get home. I think you'll be all right. And if you can, we're gonna take a shower and sanitize the car. I wouldn't be the one to tell you to take a shower. But if I could smell you, I'd say you smell like roses, George. You look like a bundle of roses. Nathan, how you been? Also, what's going on? I've been good. I've been good. Speaking of vaccines, I've been having conversations with people that I know are vaccine hesitant. Sorry. Sorry. Is it really? No way. Probably. I cut my hair on New Year's. Yeah, that's some time ago. Man, holy crap. It's been eight months since we spoke on video on video, probably on video, maybe. Yeah, because I've called it video. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'm never early. I'm never up this early in the morning on a Sunday. So I figured like it just happened today. So I just figured I'd hop on and give you a call. And I got my street epistemology mug here. Ready to go? Okay. Okay. Is there a survey nearby you? I mean, as it so happens, there is a survey nearby me. I know. I know how much you love and how much you love that survey. Tell me about your first time on our show. No, he's been on the show. No, I've, yeah, though it was during, it was in 2020 around this, about a year ago. Around this time. I think like when the pandemic first happened was my first time on this show when the lockdowns were starting to happen. Maybe it was the dreadlocks that threw me off. Yeah, that could be it. Where are you, Nathan? I haven't seen you before. I'm in Portland, Oregon. And I know Tyrone for anyone that's listening through street epistemology and YouTube. We both have YouTube channels and he helped me in my early days of my YouTube channel so I can figure out how to get started and crank out content and do interviews and stuff like that. Why don't you give that a plug? Give that a plug. Where are you from? What's your channel? Yeah, I forgot to mention what it's called. Abstract Activist is the name of the YouTube channel. I remember. And the name was partly inspired, well, for a lot of different reasons, but one of the reasons was there's a survey that you can use to help people examine their epistemology without the need of bringing up a defensive topic that would make it really difficult. A lot of people cling to the belief and they start to identify with their beliefs. And if we talk about their epistemology, it may have an impact on their belief, even though you're not talking about it directly. And that would be the abstract idea. You examine the method by which they reach their beliefs is what you're talking about, right? It's just 24 statements that are claims about how we form our views, how we form our beliefs. And so if we just make it about that, go ahead. This is a great way to segue into the actual topic of the show because I want to talk about the reasonability of a monotheistic mindset. So people who believe in just one God, Christians are a monotheist. So don't take that as a bad word if you're a Christian listening to this. It's like, oh, I'm not a monotheist. I'm a Christian. It's like, they're the same thing. It's kind of the same thing. You're kind of like, yeah, yeah. There's always wiggle room because there's always going to be wiggle room. It's in there by design. But for the most part, it's a monotheistic God. You've got one God in charge of everything. And you can maybe take different forms or whatever, but it's still him in charge. And so the idea is from a monotheistic point of view is God or whatever that titular God name is has absolute power over its creation, right? And the idea of absolute power is an interesting concept, particularly when you have God or people who are made in the image of God, because we can see in almost every case in human history when a human being has had absolute power, it tends to not end very well for everybody else. And if that's the case, wouldn't we see a similar concept with a supernatural God? And it tends to be the case that that is how it is. Even in the Bible, we have a very callous, sometimes violent and explicitly jealous God that does not want anyone else to be more powerful than him and is willing to throw people into a punishing dimension with hell flames and grinding a teeth for all of eternity just for not worshiping him. Like that's nuts. For not believing him. Just for not believing in him is good though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just being born. Yeah, like the ultimate gaslighting. It's the worst thing. So I was telling that to my friend who is Hindu and we had a Hindu ex Hindu on the show yesterday, Nathan. And he's like, yeah, you know, what's crazy is be when I was a Hindu, that's what she was telling me before. It made no sense that could be real because polytheism makes so much more sense because now you have a structure work format. You have all these people, they take a little bit of the power and deal with it. And if there's fighting, it's typically infighting among all the different gods. And I'm like, I kind of almost like this idea. Larry, what do you think? Well, yeah, it does make more sense because if something goes wrong, you can say, well, it's because this other God interfered. This God's domain that other God over there was jealous of this God over here. So it kind of makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense where if one God is in charge of everything and then things go wrong in the world, then you have to say that's a contradiction. If he's a loving God, how come he allowed plenty of 1000 people to die in this earthquake? Yeah, exactly. Like why does it's not just necessary evil? That's a problem anymore. It's like, you are all powerful, yet you're letting demons and devils purposely hurt people. What is going on here? It looks like you want to add something. What's up? Yeah, well, I was going to say that actually in the Islam and Christianity are built in elements of polytheism because of the angels and Islam, the Jinn and the Jann. So it is, I mean, a lot more, it's top heavy because the weight of the omnipotence is up there on the one guy, but there are elements of polytheism throughout a trait. So even the mother Mary, Virgin Mary is worshiped in some cultures more than even Jesus is. I love to take this idea around the table. Nathan, do you think Christianity has polytheistic components to it? And would you like to speak to that? I think there's many arguments. I'm no expert, though I've talked to people who are experts. Not like that's a great way to form my own views, really, maybe. But yeah, I mean, I would imagine that it has roots from previous religions in the same region of the world that believed in multiple different gods and lots of different ideas have been adopted and gathered and remixed, just like an author writes any book really, you know, to research and read and then the right stuff. I hear it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I also feel like a lot of the idea paganism was just people who aren't Christians, right? And a lot of pagans tend to believe in multiple different gods and that tends to residually carry over to Christianity days of the weeks named after different gods. Kind of weird, like, you know, God made Thursday. Yeah, yeah, Saturday, the Sunday, the moon day. It's kind of crazy. But, you know, you look at even Christmas and there's just so many different influences there from non-Christian belief systems. John, what do you think? Oh, absolutely. Well, the pagans would dig a tree up and then they'd bring it inside. I've got a theory. I've got a theory about how this evolved because the earlier societies, they had lots of gods, each with a specific responsibility, you know, this one for rain, that one for the crops failure, this one for the health and so on. But I've got a theory that suggests that they gradually sort of merged and they would take over bids and so on because it's in the interest of the priests, the earthly representatives to only have one God because look at it from this point of view. If you've got, if you've got to sell a specific power, you know, you're knocking on somebody's store and you like the vacuum cleaner man, you know, and you can say, you can say this will clean your floors, but also with this attachment, it will spray paint. And with this attachment, it will dry your hair, all that sort of thing. So exactly when you get every power under the auspices of a single God, you've got a better product, haven't you? Wouldn't you rather be selling your skills to influence a God that is all powerful rather than one that's just got a little niche of suitability? It's a bigger market. No, I totally hear what you're saying, like why sell the Justice League when you can just have Superman, basically, right? Exactly. It's a bigger market and therefore monotheism is a better business. And yet Superman movies make no money. We've tried this year after year after year, we know for a fact they don't. Everybody wants the Spider-Man. Everyone wants Iron Man because he's only got one weakness. It doesn't make for an interesting plot really. It's actually even not a weakness. It's like he has magic as a weakness. We'll talk about this, Nathan for sure. George Brown, the second and a half, please take yourself off mute. I want to hear what you're thinking about. The idea of, you know, I kind of think of Christianity is like how an organization, a company's ran. And there are a lot of different kinds of companies. There's sometimes companies that have just one guy who's the whole seller of the show. He's the CEO. He makes everything on the assembly line. It's a one-man show. And then you have other companies where you have tiers of organizations, CEOs, you know, staff leaders, managers, HR department, all that stuff. In my head, those tend to be more organized and better ran companies, right? And in my head, that's kind of like what polytheism is. Yeah, it's not as powerful as the one guy who rules them all. But they're a lot more in my head capable because they know how to macro manage what they're good at. What do you think is a personal advantage? Do you think polytheism has advantages over monotheism or the other way around? I'd love to hear what you think. Well, definitely polytheism is simply more fun. There are more characters in this opera. I mean, imagine an opera that had one character who was Donald Trump. Oh my gosh. Okay. That's going to happen soon. But what came to my mind was some of the founding cities of America, and I'm saying the United States here, I'm sorry. We have cities that were founded on a religious basis. And like I see Boston as being sort of a symbiosis of the Pilgrims and the Puritans. The Pilgrims were the Southwest and the Puritans were to the Northeast, and it sort of has this puritanical kind of religious founding. And Philadelphia was the Quakers. Well, New York was not. New York was strictly a business deal. It was, you know, it was a business colony of the Dutch. And the fellow who ran at the Governor Peter Stuyvesant was a middle corporate manager, you know? And so as far as belief systems in New York City was like a free for all. People came and hung out. People with all different kinds of backgrounds and it became a melting pot. And so that's where I grew up. A couple hundred years later, it's still, it still had that patina to it. And it's a lot of fun, a lot of diversity. Diversity. And I really enjoy that diversity. Yeah, everybody. And I think, you know, people today make America great again. Well, America, yeah, America has a greatness, but that greatness is the diversity of our people. All the differences between us. So you're saying even politics doesn't benefit from that, because there's a diversity of perspectives and thoughts and beliefs, even in a pantheon of God's. Oh, yeah. How necessarily you have with a monotheistic point of view. I'm almost being. Yes. Right now, like, obviously, there's problems, right? Like, you know, it's the same issue as believing in one God. It's the same core issues like, Hey, you know, if you're going to let one guy through, you know, why don't why not let them all through, right? And the idea is, how do I put this? If you're going to have a basis to believe in any God, have that first. And then at that point, I don't care what the number is, because once you prove that one God exists, I'll be like, all right, I'm fine. You proved at least that it's feasible and it's an option. It seems more likely in my head than that there would be more. And who knows this first one that you just discovered could just be one of several many. So like, Oh my gosh, Nathan, I'm about to say something that's going to sound crazy to you. And I want to hear it. Like, yeah, can I say it? Yeah. As soon as someone proves that a God exists, my immediate reaction will be like, there has to be more gods. Here's a more interesting epistemological kind of question, which is like, how much should we allow an argument alone with no evidence whatsoever to raise our confidence in anything? So imagine all you have is an argument and you have absolutely no evidence attached at all. You're raising your hand. That would be a big fat zero. There's so many names that I'll accept them even on an argumentation basis. But Dred, what do you think? Well, it hitchens razor that which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence. Yeah, like that's a good one. Numbers, math, like you can just claim something as four and define it very well. And I'll be like, okay, that's four. I'm fine with that four minus four equals zero. I'm fine with that. Larry, what do you got? You got your hand raised in some claims like John was saying, you know, just say, yeah, sure, fine. Who cares? Yeah. Like somebody comes to you with a claim like I have a cat. I just bought a cat. Well, that's a claim. Doesn't have anything supernatural involved with it. It's something that happens every day. We know what a cat is. Doesn't cost us anything to believe it. And which is one of the main things about religion is they, as soon as you start believing their stuff, they start making demands of you, you know, money or time or a commitment or whatever. And my basis is only extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. So like the you have an incredibly mundane claim, I'm willing to believe it even if you just state it like, I am talking to you right now. It's like, yeah, I believe that. Like I have hair on my body. I'm like, okay, probably you're talking to me. You're probably a mammal. I'm willing to believe it. I don't need to work too hard for stuff like that. But if you tell me a God exists, now we have like, how extraordinary is that God the most extraordinary thing ever? Well, now you need the most extraordinary standard of evidence for me to meet it. John, do you think that's fair? I have a cat isn't an argument. It's just an assertion. Yeah, I'll believe it on an assertion basis if someone told me they had a cat, because I don't care. I have a cat too. Unless it's Shrodinger's cat, of course. Sure, sure, sure, sure. If they told me they had a tiger, then I'd be like, that's more of an extraordinary claim. I don't believe you please present some evidence, because I don't believe you have a tiger, even if you show me pictures. But if somebody's making a claim for something that they also claim is immaterial, then there's no argument that's going to be persuasive. Right. And that is the point that I want a lot of Christians to know that like a book that claims that a God exists is not the same thing as a newspaper that said that a guy named Christopher Columbus existed, you know, several hundred years ago, like it's completely different standards of claims that are being made. And you have to measure our ability to believe based on the standard of evidence, based on how extraordinary the claim is. It's nuanced, but it's the most important thing you can do in this lifetime, I think, being able to parse truth things from false things. We're getting close to the end of the half hour. Larry, what do you got? I was just going to say that it made a point that it wasn't that I was just making a claim, not an argument, but a lot of the arguments given by Christians and other religious people are based on unmentioned claims. Like they could make an argument, you know, you better believe, because if you don't believe, you're going to go to hell after you die. Well, the unmentioned claim is that you have a soul and that your soul lives forever, and that it has places to go after you die. You know, things like that. Yeah, yeah. Those are unmentioned claims. Those are unmentioned claims. It's so disgusting. And I'll go ahead and take us to the break. We've got to take the break. Yeah. This is the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. We're on WZO Radio 103.9LP FM, right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we'll be right back after this short break. 103.9 FM, WZO Radio, Maxwell. Hello, and welcome back to the second half of the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. I'm Dr. Five, and we're on WZO Radio 103.9LP FM, here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday morning, August 15th, 2021. Now let's talk about the atheist society of Knox 4, ASK. Founded in 2002, we're in our 19th year. We have over a thousand members, and we have weekly Zoom meetings during COVID. And if you've got vaccinated and you're willing to get out in person, we are having in-person meetings again. They're at the Barley's Taproom Pizzeria in the old city in Knoxville, Tennessee, out on the patio. And they're every Tuesday night, starting at around 5.30, and we go to about 8 o'clock. You can find ASK on Facebook, meetup.com, or just go to KnoxvilleAtheist.org. You can also Google Knoxville Atheist. It's just that simple. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to Meetup and start a group for atheists in your area. Don't find one. You can start one. That's right. What do we want to pick up there one bit? So we just had a really fun conversation on the nature of polytheism versus monotheism. Good points for polytheism today. You still got just as much work to do as the monotheist, though. But I wanted to come back in the second half and talk about a survey that Nathan brought up, especially the one that was dealing with COVID. Nathan, would you mind doing an intro on that? Yeah. So which one do you want me to talk about? The third link, the third link, the third link that you posted, the one that was talking about convincing Americans to get the COVID-19 vaccines based on how they approach their faith and based on what religion and how affiliated they are with that religion, what is their likely hesitancy or degree of refusal based on capita per capita? So just to be perfectly clear, I didn't do a lot of research before I sent that one off. I just happened to think, yeah, right? And honestly, that is kind of a problem in our society. We're all kind of sending articles too soon before we're like, oh, you know, it's time magazine or anything. Let's take a look here. But there's a vaccine hesitancy that you can measure based on religious affiliation. And so essentially, I was sending you just this idea that there seems to be a correlation between your epistemology in one way and your decisions on whether or not you're going to take a vaccine on the other. Correct. And that's pretty much... So what I did like about, so what Nathan was kind enough to do before the show was post an article that he did not read about... I read some of it. What's the degree of COVID hesitancy based on people who are affiliated with churches? And what I found was actually kind of interesting, because if you were to ask me, hey, here's a guy who goes to a church on a regular basis with a giant mass of people, while likely is he to accept a COVID vaccine or be hesitant about it or absolutely refuse it. And I think you're the three points, accept, hesitant, or absolutely refuse. I would say almost just based on the impression I got as a guy here in Tennessee, that it would almost be around 70% people who would not want to get vaccinated if they go to a big church, because I don't know, in my head, I just felt like that was the impression. But what I'm seeing here is that among white Catholics, black Protestants, white evangelical Protestants, Hispanic Catholics, a whole bunch of different margins here, the majority in almost every single case are likely to accept the vaccine or at least are hesitant, but doesn't necessarily mean that they won't get the vaccine. And I would find that to be a very relieving data point, because it seems then that the greater trend would be people are getting vaccinated as a result based on their inclination of going to church. It's like, hey, if I'm going to go to church, I at least want to be vaccinated. I'm happy to hear that. And the people who are absolutely refusing are without a doubt in the minority in all these groups, which isn't fantastic, but at least it's not the majority. And I'm actually happy to see that. Nathan, thoughts? Yeah, so my real reason for wanting to bring this up is because I think that SE is a powerful tool to talk to our friends and family about vaccine hesitancy. If you know somebody who's vaccine hesitant, ask them why. What's their biggest reason for not wanting to take the vaccine? Listen to them and what they have to say. Be sincerely interested in what they have to say about this issue if you care about what they think, if you care about their decisions and their behavior. And I've had several SE talks in the last couple of weeks with people I know who are vaccine hesitant. And they, we hear each other out and we're opening up a dialogue. And I think it's extremely important that we engage with people in this important time about this very important issue. If you're already talking with people, your religious friends and family, you might as well bring this up too, as like another thing to talk about. And that's the real reason why I sent you this article today is I just found that both issues are important and both issues are fun and worth talking about. What have you found if you had this conversation with other people to be the root cause of why people aren't getting vaccines, Nathan? Inconvenience. That's really like the main thing though. Wow. Inconvenience. That's like the number one answer I get, although I get it in a lot more words than that. Yeah. It's usually like a run on sentence for a paragraph. Like I just don't have the time or I'm going to be fine or it doesn't really matter to me or, you know, I'm not worried about it or it's just, you know, it wasn't available. If it was there, I'd take it. That's usually what I hear. Like if it was easy, I'd do it. But since it's hard, I'm not going to, I'm not going to go out of my way to do something that's difficult. There's lots of other reasons. Of course, people will say like, you know, uh, it's, you know, they'll, they'll have the preconceived notion about how vaccines are not natural. Usually it's a naturalistic fallacy that I'm hearing. Like my body is strong enough it can handle it on its own, or they'll give like the George Carlin thing. And they'll say, back in my day, we swam in raw sewage and it made your, you know, immune system stronger because we did that. You know, I'm going to expose myself to all these terms and that's what's going to make my immune system good in the long run. So those types of arguments are things that I often hear, though they're not based on evidence. Right. And that again, is the same issue as before. Yeah. They're often famous last words too. Yeah. Right. Well, there's, you know, the fallacy is, uh, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. No, that's, that's not the way it works. It makes you weaker. Definitely. Definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Yeah. It gives you trauma. It's not good. I would have, it would have been interesting to see, um, a data point for the irreligious. Yes. You know, how that, how that stands up to how that would compare, how it would compare. Exactly. Very good. Very good. I'd be interested in that. Let's go down. No, no. What about age range? Yes. But age range. Yeah. Clearly they didn't do, yeah. I mean, there's such a thing as black Catholics and, uh, but they put in a talk to everybody. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It only looks like they talked to like, you know, one, two, three, four, five different churches, but it was enough for them to make a published article on time. Like this is a hard hitting research. This is Time Magazine. Yes, of course. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. The BBC focused on this earlier this week, having sent their USA correspondent to Louisiana, where he interviewed a, uh, a pastor who claimed he was, he questioned him as to whether why they weren't taking up the vaccines. And the pastor said that he doesn't think they will actually protect people because that's what the politicians say. And he doesn't believe politicians sort of on principle. And he also said, well, well, they look at the hospital information and then unvaccinated and getting hospitalized and dying more. And the pastor said, well, that's, that's come from, you know, financial lies because they want to drum up more business in the hospitals. So you just can't win against these people. And I want to do a plug here and tell you that you can watch that BBC interview on my global Atheist news show on my channel called Free Thought Productions. I'd like to make a point, because John, you have this really interesting history in England where a lot of the scares that happened about vaccines, this is even before COVID, like the whole vaccines cause autism scare that happened, was caused by an Englishman. But here's the interesting thing. An Englishman basically had his own vaccine and there was a popular vaccine that came out and he's like, please don't use that guy's vaccine. Use mine because you can pay me money and I like money. Wouldn't that work? Okay. Well, his vaccine causes autism. It wasn't true. But he said it anyway, just so people will be scared to hopefully go to his. But instead, those people decided no vaccines whatsoever because they were just terrified of it as on the concept. And you're talking about Wakefield, right? Yes. That's right. And Andrew Wakefield, who is now being defrocked, he's no longer. Oh yeah. This story has a happy ending and then a sad ending for America. But basically everyone's afraid of vaccines until a very brave English reporter basically broke the story, did a very detailed analysis and people listened in England. They were like, whoa, this guy's a fraud. Vaccines are good for you. I'm going to get vaccinated. And the amount of people who went vaccinated went from high to low because they were scared to immediately back high once that report went out. And that guy got so defrauded that he went to America to basically spend the same lives. And now we are going through that as a country where there are people are like, I'm afraid of getting vaccinated. I don't know what's going to happen to me. It might cause autism. I heard there's a mercury in there. Jim Carrey was afraid of him. I'm not getting vaccinated. Jim Carrey's not getting vaccinated. It's the same thing, unfortunately. And what's even worse is the guy's still kicking around and going to conspiracy meetings and spending the whole time. Thank you for taking him. We send all our men engaged to you. It started with the pilgrim fathers. We should just lodge them in Roswell. George, what do you got? Don't forget the memory chips. The memory chips that are in the vaccine. Yes, there's memory chips. Yes. I need some of those. You mean Bill Gates location trackers? You mean one of these? Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Like we need anything. Like they need any more to get on us. What I found to be the core fear for vaccines, at least from the conversations I've had, tend to be fear and ignorance. Fear in the aspect of the unknown of what will happen if I take this, but ignorance in the sense of I feel more strong without knowing the repercussions of what would happen if I don't take this vaccine or the rates of people dying. I just feel more confident that I'll survive if I'm oblivious to the facts of the world. And by taking a vaccine, I'm admitting that I am weak and that there are things about me that I can't do. Right. I like that feeling. And so I don't want to, I'll pretend that that's the ostrich. That's the ostrich syndrome, right? Yeah. Poke your head in the same thing with climate change. Yep. George Brown. See ya. What's up? Yeah. And of course what I hear around here a lot is I heard it on Facebook. I heard it on Facebook. Larry, this is why we need you. Larry, you're on mute, my friend. You're on mute. Oh, that I researched it on Facebook or researched it on YouTube. Yeah. Whoever said that ignorance is bliss, he's got a lot to answer for. He's probably dead too. Yeah, that person probably dead. So you run into what I imagine is the real wall, which is an inconvenience wall, right? It's essentially how can I get around my own ego to admit that I'm not as strong as I am, as smart as I want to be or as healthy as I could be in the face of what is obviously an apparent and objective threat to my well-being. And you could ignore it and feel satisfied, but only if that's temporary. And I just lost a family member to COVID. So like I know for a fact that that's not good in the long term. So yes, George Brown, you're right. CDC does change its recommendations, but the overall tenor stays the same. Like they may say, wash your hand three times a day, wash your hand five times a day, wash your hands one time a day, two times a day. Wash your hands, period, right? They may say, hey, you can wear a mask. You can wear a face cover. You can wear a cloth mask. It doesn't have to be an N95. Okay, maybe an N95 is good. K95 is just wear a face mask. Like get vaccinated is the main thing they're saying. Wash your hands, stay away from people who are sick. If you are sick yourself, stay home, take it on yourself. And yes, if you are vaccinated, it does not mean that you won't get sick. It just means that your symptoms will not be severe and your likelihood of being able to stay alive or better, which puts less pressure on hospitals and your family, but you can still be a vector for disease. And if it's any indication, so like in sign language, I know this is bad for radio, but sign language, you do coronavirus like this and then infection as it's spreading out, right? So like the COVID pandemic happens from everybody, vaccinated or not vaccinated. So the whole idea is the more we get vaccinated, the more we'll be resistant to it as a group. We have this cure. We should use it. And I can respect, I can totally respect if you decide not to get vaccinated, right? But I just want to let you know that it's the wrong decision, right? And so I think that matters and I think that should just be her. Can I just say that not only can you still get infected if you've had the vaccine and still infect others by being a host, but when you host a virus, you're giving it an opportunity to mutate. When you host it, unvaccinated especially, yeah? Because then it has all the ample time to mutate and figure out what works, what doesn't work and make new carboxylic groups on stuff. So your decision affects the rest of the planet? Yeah. Yeah. And if you've already been vaccinated and you feel like your job is done, I mean, I would like to ask people around me that if you know anything about critical thinking, you've got some skills, maybe you've watched Tyrone's, let's chat a bunch. And now you know SE or his brand of it. Go out there and talk with people. You know, be a part of your community and help start a discussion about this. Yeah. Because there are so many people that still haven't taken it, even though it's free. I'd also say be willing to speak up to because, you know, it's the ignorant voices that speak the loudest. George Brown, I hear you want to say something. Why take yourself off mute? Yes. For our listeners and viewers, I want to mention that we've been throwing around the term SE without defining it. So it means street epistemology. Yep. Orsocratic examination. Same thing. Okay. Same difference. Just watch some YouTube videos, get your own brand of it. Yeah. Basically. Just ask people how they know what they know. Yeah, basically. Dred Pirate Higgs, I wanted to get your feedback on the idea of vaccination. How is it in Canada? Last time we checked, it was really hard to get vaccinated up there. Have things gone any better? You're on mute, my friend. You're on mute, my friend. Still mute. Holy lunuli, Lord, please give this man a voice. It worked. It worked. It worked. Yeah, brah man. Brah man. Your prayers are answered. I think it's still rather hard. I know my mother, who she hasn't received her second vaccination, and she's 75. So certainly consider a vulnerable adult. Every once in a while they have these little, they have pop-up clinics in various towns that just kinds of moves around. So people who can't find the time off, I guess, you know, they can just take advantage of the opportunity to go get vaccinated. But I think it's a slow and steady. This is how it's going in Canada. I also want to throw out one last thing too. For the people who do get vaccinated, people who do love science or are critical thinkers, but are afraid of the vaccine because they'll make them sick. Like two things. One, it's not guaranteed that you'll feel ill. I've taken vaccines and I'm not feel ill afterwards. But the second thing is the immuno response is what you kind of want out of the experience. Because that's showing your, it's letting your body know, hey, just put something in me that shouldn't be in me. Let me make you have a fever. Let me make you sit down a little bit by making you feel lethargic. And just rest it out while I figure this thing out. And I know that's your body taking over. You're not getting sick from the disease. You're basically, depending on the virus that you take, like the one that's for COVID, gives your body instructions to make the outer shell of the coronavirus without the inner shell. And so it just looks like it's the virus, but it's something your body is making out of its own body parts to make it look like a virus that they can use as target practice. And they'll make you feel sick, but you're not actually sick with the COVID disease. It's putting your body to school. Yeah. You'll never get COVID-19 from a COVID vaccine, basically. Right. You'll just have an immunoresponse. It'll be a short period of time and you'll be good again. You'll have all these antibodies. They'll be able to help you when, if you do get infected. Looks like we'll have to get boosters too, eh? Oh yeah. We're going to be doing this for the long haul. This is not a short-term solution. It's not, yeah, we got to get used to this. And this is another reason why I'm like, we've got to start being less passive, like getting out there, being more engaged with people in a polite way, in a respectful way, and start a dialogue. Larry, what's up? All right. We'll have to get updated shots for COVID for the same reason we have to get updated shots for the flu every year. Yep. Yeah, or tech needs are every six years, whatever. They're just going to get more effective though, I think, too. I think so. They're going to get more effective. They're going to get better. They're going to have more research back behind them, more evidence behind those works. And that's going to make our job a little easier, you know? George, look, it's fine. I have a however. All right. I have a however. Let's hear it. And that is that last week, right here in Tennessee, members of a school board were threatened by people who came to the school meeting if they dared to try to impose a mask mandate on children on the school buses. How do we overcome this kind of mindset that is telling us, for instance, masks are optional? You wear your mask if you want to, which is something like saying that this girl is a little bit pregnant. I would say if you have a private school, do whatever you want. But if you have a federally funded public school, you follow the federally funded mandates. And if you don't like it, take your kid to public school. Well, what do you mean you? What do you mean? There you go. You got a face slammed on. If you don't like it, take your kid to a private school. So how do we do this? Yeah. Period. You know, I mean, there are a lot of people who make the mandate see what you don't like it. Take your kid to private school or home school. You certainly have the right to do that, but you do not have the right to put teachers in public school. We have people at the governmental level, the politicians, who are opposing the mandates. They're opposing it and getting who are legislating against them. Right, right. There's like, hey, I'm going to get vaccinated and then tell other people that they don't have to, which is fine. So seriously, I mean, the mandate just let me have some very substantial opposition. So we're running almost out of time. But the mandate is that if you're a federal employee, that you need to get vaccinated periods. And that is what everyone in Senate has been done. What they say afterwards is free speech. And they can say and sell whatever they want, but they have been vaccinated in order to be in that building. They can make the mandate for federal employees as well as federal organizations. And that includes federally funded public schools. And if you don't like it, take your kid to private school. That's the basic rule behind it. You can't take your kid to school if he's not treated to, was it, tuberculosis, tetanus, a whole bunch of stuff. Like those rules already exist. We're not changing anything with COVID. Guys, we're at the end of the show. Nathan, where can we find your stuff at? My YouTube channel is Abstract Activists on YouTube. And occasionally on a SE podcast as well. So street epistemology podcast. You can find me there sometimes. Yeah, that's it. Very, very cool. Abstract activist on YouTube. Abstract activist. Or on Twitter at abstract underscore SE. And I recommend it because Nathan has some really, he probably has the best video production of any of the people who do SE videos. I got to be honest with you. It's really, really well done. Also very eclectic group over in Oregon. So it's not just, you know, in Texas or Tennessee. It's like you see people who are like into some bizarre things. Good show. I highly recommend it. John Richards, you got so many different places. Where can we find you? Yeah, my channel is called Free Thought Productions. And I've got a confession to make because I set up to have Howard Berman, who is the current president of the Atheist Alliance International on my free thought hour last night. But he wasn't able to turn up because a tree fell down near where he lives in Northern California and deprived him of power and internet connection. Is that a God thing or a karma thing? What's going on here? I don't know. Where's the punch line, John? I need the punch line. What we mustn't do is let the Templeton Foundation discover that we were able to unmute Dredd's microphone with Pratt. Free thought. No, that's what they pay good money for right there. Yeah, exactly. John, the name of your channel one last time for our listeners. Free Thought what? Free Thought Productions. Free Thought Productions. Nice. Dredd Pirate, where can we find your stuff at? Well, I'm on YouTube at Mind Pirate. And that's M-I-N-D-P-Y-R-A-T-E. And I livestream this show when I'm able. Sunday mornings at 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time. And I'm looking to actually do some more content as well. So maybe Ty will give me a hand with that too. Let me know. Let me know. I'm always available. George Brown, let's find playing disc golf. George Brown. I need some coffee, but I heard there was a really good one out there named Pete's Coffee. Pete's Coffee. Is that is that the name of the coffee? What are we talking about? Oh, yes. Pete's Coffee. Pete's Coffee. Pete's certainly the best. Pete said that America, I'm sorry, Alfred Pete said that Americans drink lousy coffee. And he came here from Holland indirectly to prove otherwise. Nice. Very cool. Vacuum sealed. It's very expensive. It's very expensive stuff. Very expensive, yes. But I'm not drinking it today. What do you guys have got? This is called Pilon and it's very affordable. Okay. Not bad. Not bad. Larry, I hope you can see that I am ready to learn everything I can possible about atheism and what it's all about. But I have no manager to help guide me in this process. What can you do to help me out, my friend? Well, I do have a book. I don't know if it has everything in the world that's possible to learn about atheism, but it does have a lot of good information. And it's called Atheism. What's it all about? It's available on Amazon. You mean this book? Oh, you got it. Oh, that book. That's right. That book. That's my daughter on the cover there. It's actually a reader. You'll get through it. I guarantee it. Yeah. My own content is found. A lot of the articles in that book, too, are also found on digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for radio show archives, atheist songs and articles on the subject. My YouTube channel can be found by searching for dollar five. If you have any questions for the show, you can send them to askanatheistatnoxfilatheist.org. If you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind, you can find help at recoveringfromreligion.org. And if you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. This has been the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. 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 and enjoy your life. We'll see you next week. Say bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. Hey. So I heard a voice in my head that told me atheism is true.