 Hello and welcome to the Digital Freethought Radio Hour at WOZO Radio 103.9 LPF. I'm here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We're recording this on March 10th, 2024. I'm Larry Rhodes or DJ Douter 5. And as usual, we have a co-host on the line with us, DJ Wombat. Welcome Wombat. Another weekend to do work and catch up on the corporate lifestyle and catch ahead. No, you know, I'm just going to procrastinate. Yeah, and do it an hour early, by the way. I believe in a work-life separation. Yeah. Daylight savings time is gone. Anyway, welcome to our guest river song. Welcome. Digital Freethought Radio Hour. It's a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religions, religious fates, 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. Here in Knoxville, in the middle of the Bible Belt, we have a group of 1,100 of us. Wow. We're the atheist society of Knoxville or ASK. And we'll tell you more about us after the midshow breaks. So be sure to stick around. Wombat, what's our topic today? Woke, W-O-K-E, the word that we hear, the word that some people jeer, and the word that sometimes means clear in a bad way. At least we talked about it. Got so many different definitions out there floating around. I think so. I think so. I think that's very true. But before we dump into that, how about we just catch up? It's been a couple of weeks since we had a last chat. It's a quick update for me. I have a piece of paperwork I was looking for. I knew where it was, the hour or the night, truly the night before. I needed it, and then I wake up and it's not there. I cleaned up my entire home just searching for it. Ended up not finding it in time. But I didn't have it. Oh, did you not? I hate that. No, my advocate. That's really good at moving things around. And I constantly forget where, you know, I take for granted where I keep things. So I still don't know where that document is. However, I found a good in between to still be able to get my stuff done. So no major foul. But it is frustrating. One of these days, I'm going to be cleaning up or moving out of my place, and then I'll find behind my refrigerator, like that piece of paper. I'll be like, oh, that's where it was. One unsolved mystery that I'll be happy to resolve in my life. Larry, how you been? Oh, been doing fine. I've been playing a new game. Nice. What's up? Metro Exodus. Okay. It again is a first person shooter and takes you to a post war Russia. Yeah. And it's it's very interesting, very good game. I highly recommend it to you, but it's first person shooters in open world. Yeah, exploration. Is it creepy or scary? Like is it is it? Oh, it has its points. It's times that you're in the dark and it's just spiders everywhere and zombies and just a mutants mostly not zombies. But yeah, I like to say recommend it. It's very good. Let it be well known. I quality games. I can't handle scary games. I've just just too many bumps in the night for me, especially here. Riv River song. How you been? Love to catch up with you. Well, you know, to follow on the the gaming trend, I've I've been diving a little bit into the, well, I think I mean, playing the words off the hilldiver too, but yeah, it's been a fun game. Yeah, it's the drama of some devs. You know, that's been fun. I'm waiting for Dragon's Dogma 2 to come out on the 22nd, which is the sequel I've been waiting for for about 10 years. Wow. Very excited for that. I want to tell River it's a trilogy. Yeah, it's it's how there's so much to it I could rant around a lot about, but other than that, just to come with classes and about to go into spring break hoping to catch up on things with my seemingly never ending but goal in sight. Sure. The degree. Well, speaking of Dragon's Dogma, I said, speaking of Dogma, how about we talk about and dump on Christianity for a little bit? I had a question that was brought into us. This was from an email and it kind of put me into a spiral. Let me pull it up again. So we have ways of reaching out to us. You can reach out to us through our email pages as well as on our YouTube pages. We'll give the links at the end of the show. You can just get to there. But we had one question presented by let me see if I can pull this up. Let me see if I can pull this up in time. There it is. Dan Gleeballs who said that the term woke should be used exclusively by religious folk, but they don't because they don't even understand it. And in the in that in that term or in that comment alone, I was thinking, what was the meaning behind this? And then it's something done on me that, yeah, it should make a lot of sense for and we'll define it as we go, but it should make a lot of sense that Christians should have been the first people to present or support woke or the other terms of or conditions that society comes up with every now and then that are all about treating people more civilly, civil rights, Black Lives Matter, hippies like anti-war peace. Like there are so many trends that when they come out, conservative Christianity is always on the opposite end of and try to villainize or look at with suspicion or mock. And I found like woke is just another example of currently where it's sad is that right now is in a really interesting spot because it should have been something that Christians should have been back in for the very beginning and still back now. And as it becomes more gradually accepted as like a compassionate and epithetic way of treating people, I think Christians will go from hating it to mocking it to pretending they came up with it in the very first place and have pictures of Jesus wearing a woke shirt as he's being crucified. Like you see, he loved woke all the very beginning. We were the woke. Yeah, there are probably already churches that are doing that. Yeah, the branding is the liberal churches and they're out there. Oh, and also I see in some cases, families and friends, I'll see things like my religion doesn't discriminate. I'm thinking like, do you know your religion? Yeah, right, right, right. I didn't mean the best, but yeah. How about we do one, how about we do one term at a time and just have a quick definition on what woke means to the three of us? Is that cool? Larry, would you mind? Yeah, well, for me, it's compassion and empathy for your fellow man, no matter who he is, whether he's in group or out group or a different color or whatever, it's caring for the others. And, you know, Christianity to me sells that concept, but doesn't act upon it. Very seldom do they act upon it. I mean, they give it lip service. They do some services, but when they do those services, like feeding the poor, you know, having soup kitchens, they always say, look at us, you know, this is what we're doing. And please bow your head and pray. Yeah. Well, everyone else is hungry, he's still in line, you know, hold everyone hostage so you can put a stamp on it. That really made me upset, by the way. I went to a food bank, sort of bag up a bunch of food, and there was a line of cars getting ready to like pick up the bags of groceries that we prepared. And I'm an atheist, right? So I'm like there on my knees, making assembly lines, trying to make everything more efficient and be able to bag. And then the cars are ready to go. We have all the food lined up and then like three pastors come up and like, let's bow our heads and pray. And then the other guy's like, my name is Pastor blah, blah, blah, feel free to come to our church where we're on the corner of XYZ and XYZ. Let's bow our heads and pray. And I'm like, all right, can we get back to it? And then the third pastor comes up, by the way, I'm the church of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, we're in blah, blah, blah, and we're going to guess what guys bow our heads and pray. And I'm looking at the lines of the families and they're just like, when are we can we can we go and get food? Which brings up another point. They tend to want to sell to the people who are desperate. I mean, out there, you know, clutching at straws, trying to survive, but then comes religion. Oh, we can help. But you have to follow our dogma. You have to come to our church. You have to give, you know, to our mission, etc. etc. Totally a person dying of thirst. And you're like, it's transactional. Hold on, hold on. Say my name. It's like, oh my gosh, what are you doing? Give me a quarter. Yeah, you know, and the whole notion of missionary work. And I have friends and family that, you know, they constantly do missionary work and so on. But it's just an interesting concept of part of it, they're helping out, you know, villages and neighborhoods that are, you know, less supplies and that's good. But that's always bundled in with trying to spread further message to rights. It's just, you know, like priorities, it always, it always gives that man. Yeah, it's clearly not what you call it altruistic. The design and the engineering behind it is to self, or self, what do you call it? Continue whatever dogma in society, it's propaganda at the end of the day. It's you are, you are a vehicle of propaganda when you try to go to in my mind, a Salvation Army or a food bank that's run by Christianity or Alcoholics Phenomas, anything that pretends to be like genuinely caring about helping people, but are really about just advertising a message that is in a lot of ways harmful to people long term. But Riv, that was a bit of a tangent. Wanted to know what's your impression of a woke? What does it mean to you? So it definitely incorporates how Larry has put in it, but also I think what I focus on that more about is kind of keeping up with the zeitgeist of, okay, now we understand these new things, let's adapt to those new things and at the, and at the base of it all treat people well, understand that there are differences, understand we have we have instincts, we have biases, but just take in the best available data we have and incorporate it into, okay, well, let's go with that and treat people well in the process. So something like that. I like that. You know, when you when you say it like that, though, would you say then that you couldn't have woke without an understanding of both your interactions with other people, like is it in your mind possible to be woke? On an island by yourself or like without being engaged with people, like, doesn't it require to an extent some sort of recognition that you're part of a society or like you're interacting with people? Can you be River, I'm going to keep talking because No, I would say no, that would be, I mean, it's, it's a whole bunch of one person on an island, two person island scenarios being woke. I think I definitely I think it depends on at least how I think of it is, you know, usually in the political sense of it's often mocked and everything. But really, I think it's just keeping up with the times. And that is a societal context. But, you know, another way you could be woke on an island, but I tend to think of it as just, you know, accepting what we've what we've learned incorporate into this, yep, incorporate into daily life, and, and then not change or maybe use it to enhance our empathy. And to continuously improve our empathy. I like it. I'm going to shut both of you guys down because it's clearly what woke is is a Bible. It's a Bible thing. It's clearly in the Bible. Well, maybe then some of the New Testament. It is the New Testament. The Old Testament. It is. We don't talk about the Old Testament. This is this is Sunday. We no one talks about the Old Testament on Sunday. You know this. All right. So Matthew 7 12 had it best in my mind. It's in all things due to others as you would have them do unto you or is what Christians would call it the golden rule. Doing to others, what they'd have due to you is sort of just a recognition of the empathetic nature behind being woke or recognizing plight of others, recognizing the consequences of your action, trying to be more thoughtful with the way how you interact with people and try to improve quality of life, right in the essence of just not being a jerk to people and wreck and having a little bit of reason for other people's situations and issues and recognizing like, hey, it's not equal. We're trying to do the best we can for each other. I'm going to try to treat you how I would want to be treated if I was in this situation and try to make the world a little bit better in that place. Christians hate that. So why do Christians not, why do especially conservative Christians not like the concept of being woke and it's so weird because it seemed like Jesus was like one of the billboards of wokeness back in his day. These are words that came out of his mouth purportedly from his followers. But the whole idea is there tends to be a cycle where a movement occurs or starts to begin like woke or hippies or Black Lives Matter or so many other things about like civil rights or treating people in a better way, respecting women, understanding plight to women. It starts slowly and conservative Christians tend to hate it. They look at it with suspicion, same thing happened with hippies and their anti-war movement, same thing happened with Black Lives Matter, same thing is going on right now with woke. But then eventually the movement becomes more popular, right? It becomes part of like a larger zeitgeist and Christians go from hating it to just openly mocking it. Now it goes from, oh, all these woke people or all these, you know, suspicious people talking about like Black Lives, they don't understand XYZ. What about, well, now we just make fun of them. It's like, oh, you're being woke. Look how woke you're being. You're this the W word. You're being silly and I don't have to respect you as much. I understand that you exist, but doesn't mean that I have to recognize you as something as equal as me. I'm going to put you down a little bit by using your own terms against you. Eventually. The woke mind virus. There you go. There you go. Or look at these hippies over there. They're not contributing to society. They're out burning flags and stuff and standing up for their civil rights. And I'm my first amendment for speech and blah, blah, blah. Finally, movement becomes part of the society, like it becomes part of the bedrock and societal norm and well respected, somewhat well understood too. And Christians then go from hating it to mocking it to just taking credit for it. God always loved woke people. God always loved gay people. God is all about Black Lives Matter. Here's a picture of Jesus on a cross with Black Lives Matter t-shirt on. Check out that branding. It's only 10 bucks. Christians will take credit for it when it becomes part of the societal norm. And I find that to be a frustrating, reoccurring cycle that we are always in. In fact, right now, I think we're in the mock phase of woke, but it won't be long before it curves back into something where Christians are like, well, don't you know who the first woke guy was? Abraham. No. That's a sermon waiting to happen. That's a sermon waiting to happen, Larry, and you know it. They'd have to say Jesus because, like I said, the Old Testament has very few woke people in it. It'll be Moses. It'll be Moses. He was like, don't you know how woke Moses was when he was like, listen, I talked to a burning bush and I think slavery is a bad thing. And that's why I'm going to free the slaves. Only because they were slaves according to the Bible, not according to history. Oh, I was just going to say there's something that came to mind about that is a friend of mine. He's a pastor for a long time now. He would say something about the sermon, the sermon of the mount, is that the people left in droves when the hard sayings came and how it starts out nice. But then it starts talking about the fulfillment of the law and then it gets a little bit negative and the people left in droves when the hard sayings came. And so it's that kind of selectiveness that people like to use. I think not everyone, of course, has samples. It's generic, not to broad brush, but it does seem to be a common trend there. It's nice to wear the Jesus combination with pride shirts and all these things. But it's very selective. So I did look up, this is a thing that actually exists. You can get little flags for your front porch and there's even a flag that has Jesus holding an American flag in front of a cross. You know, he came to America like 400 AD. Oh, yeah, absolutely. According to Mormonism. But there's also the same picture of Jesus holding the American flag, but it's a gay flag. It's a black lives matter flag. And in my mind, my brain just slowly begins to boil and pop a little bit because I figured people are buying this. There was a market where a guy was like, no, more SKUs. And somewhere there's some house that has it. I'm not sure if they bought it tongue and cheeky just to annoy their other neighbors or because they genuinely believe these are messages that are touted. But you know how the Bible is set up where your interpretation largely dictates how you can, what the Bible ultimately says to certain people. Yeah, it's a Rorschach test. Right. You can totally pick up the book and be like, God was always woke. God always supported black lives. God always wanted there never to be wars, right? God hates people fighting. God loves families and God loves diversity and things women should be enjoying. Like you can say all that and you can have a flag, you can draw a picture to represent it. But the fact of the matter is, is like we have a historical track record of Christianity always starting out typically on the wrong side, right? And then having to kick and fight and scream like a kid being dragged out of Toys R Us. Yeah, this you can imagine the preachers, excuse me, in the South and pre war, pre civil war days, you know, taking the Bible and preaching that God loves slavery. You know, otherwise you, why would he allow it? Right, right. You have states talking about how much they love slavery when they're explaining why they want to leave the union. They're just like ours. That was the argument back in the, well, you know, before the switch. Yep. When the party switched, that was the argument for, well, look, it's dependent in the Bible. Yep, yep, yep, yep. And now when you think about, when now when slave wars talked about, it comes down to something where it's like, no, God always hated slavery. It was a war about state rights. Yeah. About what? Yeah. That's enough questions. Go to the back. Okay, guys, I think are we, how are we close? Are we close to the bottom? We're only 20 minutes in. Okay, fantastic. I have this idea of do as to others as you would have them do unto you is a woke concept. In my mind, when I hear what is all this woke nonsense, I think it might work well to remind people who might say that. Well, it's the exact same thing from the Bible. If they're biblically inclined and say like, you know, Matthew 712, it says do as others as you'd have them do unto you, that's generally what woke means. And then see if that works. I wonder if that might stick. Yeah, no limitations, though. I mean, there's no limitations for color, skin, gender, gender reassignment or any of that. It's just love your neighbor. Just love your neighbor, dude. And here's my flip side to it. When I stop taking wokeness seriously is when it becomes like Christianity. Now, here's the flip end to it. Like when woke, when people select groups of people and like who go from, hey, you should just like people, you should you should understand people and be more compassionate to you have to be like this or you're a bad person. Or if you don't think like how I think you're clearly inferior to how you don't choose the passages from the Bible that I choose, you're not a real Christian. I've taken on a Milton s like interpretation of this word turned into a dogma and ruined it fun for everybody. And now I'm the bad guy. So now I'm leaving because now you're like Christianity. Did you see did you see the video where Taylor Swift was telling her family that she had to be woke? In other words, she had to care for her fellow man. And one of her reasons for doing that was because she's a Christian and she's identifying now. I don't know if she ever didn't identify with it, but she was identifying with the woke side saying the position of the Christianity these days, according to like MAGA and their ilk is wrong. And I want to be on the right side of history because I'm a Christian and that was her go to this is why she wanted to be woke care for her fellow man and and change society for the better. So, you know, it can be used either way you want to, but Jesus would have wanted us to go that way, you know, according to what he says in the book. I always I don't know for whatever reason I I always still it says a lot about me, but whenever someone brings up Taylor Swift and she says something, I always and I and I hear it and I'm like, I agree with maybe about 80 percent of what she said, but like that concerning 20 percent is going to be a problem. And then I always compare what she says to something Kanye West recently said, who I find like the diametric opposite opposite where it's like I disagree with 80 percent of what he says, but there's a real kernel of truth. 20 percent of that. That's like undeniable that people don't want to like recognize. And so it's the nature of poetry, you know? And so like when Taylor Swift is like, hey, I don't want to be mean and rude to people and judge people because I'm a Christian or racist. I'm almost with you, but like there's some things that I would have like some follows just regard to like the track record of Christianity. I'm glad that you're morphing it like you're on the you're on the top down approach of like Christianity. Yeah. If she if she just went on that extra step and just gave her Christianity all along, she could be as compassionate and empathetic as she wants to be. Right. Right. No limit. And when Kanye West says I'm literally Jesus, I'm like that's 80 percent not true, but you are a black guy. And a lot of people are like, well, I don't want to I'm pretty sure Jesus wasn't like some Italian looking guy. I think we should ask some extra questions here. I'm just saying, plus who would how would you know? How would you know? How would you know? How would you know? Like if Jesus was coming back, how would you actually do that test and figure that out? All right. Wouldn't he be a rapper that would claim he's Jesus? Like that's perfect sense. Like what else was Jesus doing? He wasn't making chairs. He was talking to people and holding concerts. Why is everybody wearing crosses? Yeah, there's a 20 percent there. I'm not saying I'm a hundred percent. I'm just saying 20 percent of me is like, there might be something to this. We should check this guy out. Anyway, how about now? Yeah, we probably need to take a break. Okay, cool. This is the digital free thought radio hour on W O Zio radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on W O Zio radio at 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's take just the moment to talk about the atheist society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002, we're in our 24th year and one of these fourth year, no 22nd year. Yeah. And we have over 1100 members. We have weekly in person meetings every Tuesday evening at Knoxville's whole city at Barley's Taproom and Pizzeria. Look for us inside at the high top table or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. You can find us on Facebook, meetup.com or our website at KnoxvilleAtheist.org or just Google Knoxville Atheist. It's just that simple. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to a meet up and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Start one. Right. Well, I'm bad. Where do we want to pick up? All right. So we had a pretty cool conversation about woke. We went over our definitions found out that it's largely about being compassionate and empathetic, empathetic. Same as like what Matthew 712 would tell you do on toes as you'd have them do on to you. Yeah, Christians hate it because they tend to follow trends and they always end up on the wrong side of the trend because they're disconnected from society as a whole. And I would love for them to transition to a point where they become more and appreciated with how people live and concerns with people's wellness and welfare and quality of life. And that only happens when they further walk away from their dogma. And if it takes Taylor Swift to do that for them, so be it. I will gladly support the charge though I have my concerns past that fact. And if Kanye West wants to say I'm Jesus and a very few people believe him, I'm like, all right, I'm with it because it takes us away from like the worst version of Jesus, which is the biblical version. So at the end of the day, it's all gravy. Riv comments and do you have a follow up topic? Oh, yeah, no, I just it's, you know, at the end of the day, it's the power of narratives throughout society that history is one of the most, you know, stabilizing forces. And so kind of along that along that factor. I came across some days ago, watching a video, and I misunderstood it from the original call to action her, but, but what I thought was the original call I think is more interesting. And that was the reality of the political system in the United States, right, you know, we have, yeah, county by county, it's all mixed and everything. But at the end of the day, when states go to the electoral college and add the vote, it's either red state or blue state, at least for the two party system. And the call I thought was interesting is, because in terms of getting aid much needed overseas and timely people, you know, there's there's there's famine going on around the brink. And there's some people who are being resilient and very opposite with their votes and so on blocking procedures. And so the call, as I thought, an original originally to be was calling you representative, but say you're Christian, and that might make them care more. And I thought, I thought, that's probably true, if you're given the demographics in the Southeast, especially, that's probably true. I'm thinking, how how poignant is that, that you just call them to say, I'm a I'm one of your people, please do it this way. Yeah, it sounds right. But I mean, the demographics of Christianity so often are, yeah, but what kind of Christian are you, right? I mean, like, Baptists won't listen to Catholics, even though they are Christian. And just one sect after another, there's what 30,000 different sects of Christianity. And when they say they're Christian, they might, you know, pick up for a minute. But if he starts spouting things that are opposite their dogma, I think they're going to shut down. It's also you guys got to realize that the appeal to Christian from a religious point of view only works if gerrymandering stays a thing. And if you don't know what gerrymandering is, it's when you bisect a population, geographic population, based on how many people who vote a certain way, let's just group them up and as the opposition in like one big cluster, and then we'll have several smaller clusters that can outweigh that large cluster's vote. So even if there's more people living in Nashville, by a huge margin compared to like other counties surrounding Williamson, Moray County, et cetera, we're going to make sure that they have the smaller counties have just as much sway as Nashville. And when it comes to voting, there's enough smaller rural areas that have an over say of what the big say, even though it's like 7 million people to like 70,000, right? But here's the problem as culture of those small towns begin to blossom as people commute from the large Nashville from smaller rural towns, they start to trend to trickle out not only their ideologies, but their culture. And in a two pack in a two impact system, people who like move to Nashville, who have to move to like a smaller neighboring country, a county, so they can just commute up, they bring their culture with them. And those smaller rural areas get the impact of a cool nice family that might be pretty diverse, or new businesses that are coming into their town that move in and cause more people to come in and change up ideas. And next thing you know, you can see it on a mass, like these weird broadening of blue from these metropolitan metropolitan areas into rural areas. And jerrymandering has can't keep up with it. There's no way they can like configure their system. It's sort of like how Georgia was blue last year. It's sort of like how Nashville, Davidson County is beginning to spread out to all the more rural areas. And when I look at my window right now, there's a lot of new homes being built because we have a new factory and a bunch of new businesses coming to our town. And I'm happy to see it, because it's sort of the effect that happens when people understand the potential of congregation getting and understanding people and and putting money into property taxes so schools can be funded. Like this is progress. It's progress at the very end of at the end of the day. And so I'm happy to see, you know, when culture advances and the the the unmeeted sections begin to like shrivel up and die out. So I'm hoping that will be the case. Anyway, that's my thought process. Well, let me really check on that. I love the progress, but a portion of me is afraid because I'm worried about the backlash of people when you have progress. So that's always in the back of my mind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That though. Yeah, I totally hear you. There should be a pain point because while there's with civil rights wouldn't have as good sticking if there weren't videos of people being blown with whores whores hoses or the signs of the separate but equal on two water fountains that are clearly not built the same way or, you know, buses with the signs being like blacks in the back, whites in the front. Like you need to have the it's good to have that pushback because it ingrains it into society why it matters and why it's fragile. Like everything that we take for granted in terms of peace, in terms of democracy, in terms of like having well like a nice country where like even if I get injured, I know I can go to a hospital. Like all these systems that we have in place, taxes, foundations of our society as a whole are fragile and can change at any moment. So they're worth keeping and you don't remember that until you see the effort that it took to get into it and be reminded that every day. Small example, scientific example, I went to Sweden. There you don't realize this but the idea that Americans landed on the moon is not a popular concept outside of America. You think in America we joke and laugh about it like those people who don't think we land on the moon. When you leave America, that's actually like it goes up from 1% of people to like 30% of people, even in scientific concepts, like in circle talks. So don't believe it? They don't believe it. And I've spoken to people who are from largely India and Pakistan are like, no, that didn't happen. I'm like, whoa, really? I actually think that. And what they present to you is like, look at this thing, look at this picture of this thing. Do you think this is the thing that can go up into space and like right on something and then come back up and you look at what they're showing you and it looks like this weird dixie cup covered in foil with two thick legs. Like the shuttle that landed on the moon didn't look very fancy or impressive, but it was simple by design, right? And only have the parts that it absolutely needed on it. And rudimentary computer. Oh, sure did. Yeah, exactly. They bring up all that stuff. And then it makes me realize, you know, if you don't see the fight, if you don't, or if you aren't reminded of the impact on a near monthly or daily basis, you sort of take it for granted. So if you saw a jumbo jet, if you saw a 747, you're like, that flies, you'd be like, that's way too heavy. And the wings don't even flap. There's no way a machine flies. But if you see enough as you're driving, as you're walking down the street, flying through the air, you just, it becomes part of your, it kills your doubt because you see it so constantly. The same thing needs to happen for the freedoms that we take for granted that are offered to us through our political process. We need to be reminded of the effort that it took to get on to them. And I think through that, we will recognize how fragile our current democracy is and be more engaged in order to protect it moving forward in the future and represent ourselves with the full fervor as it requires. Well, like in Germany, you know, they have all those signs up that show kind of a constant reminder of the past. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Very good. And yeah, it's crazy. Like, because America now has like better Nazis than Germany at this point. Yeah. We had our faves as well. That was, you know, a dark time. Yeah. I always liked it. Go ahead. No, no. Go ahead. I always liked when we're talking about Nazis and stuff, I always like to bring up this quote. We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity. Our movement is Christian. That was Adolf Hitler in 1928 in one of his speeches. Yes. Very true. Not only that, but like if you think of like the Ku Klux Klan, that's also really just they don't burn crosses for nothing. They don't burn crosses because they're like, we don't know what these things represent. We don't know what this is all about. Yeah. It's a burning cross for a reason. You know, I'm going to throw this random story out too. My favorite version of Superman is the radio version of Superman like way back in the, I think I'm going to say 1970s, 1960s where it was just a radio drama show where it wasn't about the fact that Superman was an alien or he had laser vision or he fought people like he was just a good guy. He was a guy that was raised right and he had good values and he inspired other people to be good. And so like this, there's the most classic version of his radio story was a journalist. It's based off a journalist story where a journalist figured out that the Ku Klux Klan who were at the time getting into Congress, you know, being elected as officials and proudly representing their KKK Association and a journalist actually, you know, infiltrated in the group and realized, whoa, this is a very toxic club. They have very incisory ideologies that they're espousing that are actually probably harmful for a majority of a lot of people that are America. It seems like it's beneficial for white people, but it's only white men. Like it's not for the benefit of anybody. Like this is really bad and we should find a way to get Americans to stop liking this group. How can we do that? Since I'm just one guy, I can't just write a newspaper story and expect people to read it. I know I'll make a Superman story about it where Superman is a journalist as well and he'll find out that the KKK is actually a bad club and he'll just be like, well, that's bad, Jimmy. People will be like, yeah, screw the KKK. Superman hates him. He does and he'll and that's basically just the the power of a person that is seen as like a good person. It didn't need, he didn't need to be bulletproof to like present that. He was just like a guy working against with his journalistic integrity and integrity as a gay human being. Like, so yeah, KKK bad, but also one of the examples of myriad examples of Christianity starting out on the completely wrong end of a societal concept and then having to be forced, forced, literally dragged to a point where they're more reasonable and accepted with their point of view in society that can actually function. And then they just turn around and be like, no, but we were always like this. And the followers and the people who support them are like, no, that's true. They were always like that. That's why we need the videos and the recordings and the pictures, the documentation of the speeches that they're used so that we can remind them. No, that's not the case. When they do protests and they're or when we have like a gay or pride walks and stuff like that. And people are like, yeah, pride for people. And their Westboro Baptist Church shows up with their with their signage and they're like, God hates and they'll use the efforts and stuff like that. And the idea is like, oh, those guys shouldn't be here. I'm so happy they're there because they're the only people accurately representing the book that they believe in. And they shouldn't be held as a point of mockery. They should be held as a, this is an accurate representation of what this ideology looks like. And if you look at that with disgust, that should be the proper reaction that we're not, we shouldn't tell them to go home, we should remind ourselves that this is what happens when you don't ingratiate yourself into society well and understand the consequences of your actions, right? My thoughts. Larry, anything add to that? No, just, you know, you're right. We just need to get the word out that compassion and empathy is what what means and what and what we support and Christianity, not so much. I mean, even though they give it lip service. Also, like the idea of doing on to others as you would have them do on to yourself is not a idea that came up originally even in the Bible. Like a lot of different societies have that Confucianism had a version of it called do not impose on others what you do not wish to for yourself. Unless if you believe in a Christian Jesus that also, you know, went to China a couple of hundred years earlier. Yeah, actually, I had a class recently about ancient Chinese philosophy. And we went over Confucius, Lao Tzu, Mo Tzu, you know, went over, you know, in the Delfi chain. And yeah, this is this is nothing new of a concept of just that basic reciprocity. And, you know, treatment of recognizing the circumstances within within your group and within out within out of the group. Yep. And in the mention earlier about, you know, that reminds me of Taylor Swift, right, you know, in some cases, if that's what can become a beacon for some, if that's what it takes for some cases, then hey, then I'm glad for it. Yeah, same thing with Superman, you know, like Taylor Swift for some people to get people to be better, fine, whatever it takes. Yeah, it's going to take a building block or build momentum, hopefully, for them to be able to be like, you know, I actually don't need Christianity to be a good person. That'll be the true chain on breaking. But if it's Taylor Swift before then, I'm totally fine with that. Well, and on top of that, I think it's the major part in this, you know, no time for it. But the major thing about the Christian anchor, I guess, the root of it all is the fear associated with the notion of afterlife and so on and so on. So that's the poison of it, is my opinion. That's the poison of it. If you can raise a situation, some people Christians are raised, I understand it, where fear isn't, it's not really a big thing. It's like, yeah, that's metaphorical. I was raised Southern Baptist. So I was very much fire and brimstone and that's a poison in my mind that constantly offers constant fear and so on and so on. Even though I can logically separate it, it's still rooted and it's, you know, so that's a big element of it. But I'm going to throw something down too. I thought about this, but the idea of there's no, there's a fear of death. But there's also a lack of appreciation for life, if you believe in the afterlife and that's a fedon. So yes, you do fear for whatever reason, hell, because you don't want to go to hell, but because you know that there's an afterlife or at least are convinced that there's one, you don't really treat this life with any inherent value or at least to the optimal level. And so you can get away with being rude to people or saying really unkind things or being judgmental or categorizing people and saying, I'm never just going to, I'm never going to talk to you people. I'm never going to eat these foods. Then we're going to have sex in this particular way. I'm never going to watch this episode of Pokemon. I just have a bag of things I'm never going to do because this life doesn't matter. This is the real afterlife that matters. And then they die and you'll never hear or see from them again. They'll never have that body again. What's really bad is I mean, I've actually heard a Christian preacher, this is online, not in person say that, you know, we shouldn't have to worry about being good to these sinners, you know, the homosexuals and all that because they're God's firewood. You know, just dismissing them as humans. And this is supposed to be the essence of their Christianity. How does that work? Right. I mean, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, I keep on mistiming it. I was just on that moment. I was going to add to it that I've heard a constant apologetic point is that, well, if none of this matters, you know, basically if there isn't an afterlife, Dr. Turek makes this point in hypothetical, well, if there isn't an afterlife, then you know what matters. None of this matters. You can do anything you want. It's kind of the old, you have to have the afterlife Christianity model to make any kind of rationale. I've heard that quite a bit. When in reality, it's just the opposite. It's rare. It's extremely valuable. Thank you. Yes, absolutely. So like, you know, I mean, the story's in the Bible, like the lady who gave up her last three coins for like some sort of like homage compared to a millionaire at the time who who gave up the same amount of value. Like those coins mean more because you have less of it. If you have an infinity of life that you'll experience, then I would agree that this life does not matter whatsoever. If that's in fact, if that was absolutely true, then literally nothing that you do in this life has any meaning or representation of who you'll be in the long term, because you'll be living for infinity somewhere else, right? But if that isn't the case and you have a fixed amount of life, a century at most, you know, that is, in my mind, the most precious as a human being. Are you kidding me? In like in the in this modern era where we can have, I know this sounds crazy, but like cars that drive themselves, I just drove back from Nashville and my car was like, I can do it. And I'm the whole time I'm like, I don't trust you. Oh my gosh, you're okay. Okay. I'm keeping my hands on the steering wheel, but like I don't. Oh, you're doing this too. You're doing the turn. Wow. And you're slowing down. This is better than how I drive. You're like, cars are better driver than me. And so like it's mind blowing the the level of luxury that we have as human beings as the uniquely that we can experience this like birds are still doing the exact same thing. They're sitting on branches in the rain. We are always improving our lives. We're always doing cool things. And we're working on it ourselves. You know, all these tools that we developed are stuff that we made. And that is so cool and that there's so much more. And that that derivation of science and engineering came from a better understanding of a universe that we can test to the point where we're confident enough to put that in cars to improve society and welfare of people on roads, which tend to be the one of the major causes of death, like we're reducing that, making it more safer so that more people can engage with the people, other people all across this beautiful country. Like that's a huge purpose statement that people can get through just with education and better understanding of the world. I just find that to be so purposeful that if someone told me, well, by the way, there's no afternoons like who cares? Like my life right now has so much value. Like so much stuff that I'm doing right now has a purpose that will live on past me. There will be a legacy of it. I love this. This is cool. And if it's only for attention, well, if nothing else, you have the purpose of making the world a better place for the people who follow exactly because that's the only thing people are going to actually have tangibly after you die anyway. They won't know exactly who you were all your jokes or how much purpose. Purpose isn't something that's given to you. Like a preacher gives you a purpose or the Bible does. It's something that you roll your own. You make you make your own purpose and it can change many times during your life. Yeah, let's make that a rule that has you. You have to go ahead, Larry. That's what about that's the Disney princess we need. That's the princess we need. The one who's like, I make my own purpose. That's right. I want that as well. Well, and really quick, even adding to that notion, I always think of legacy and so on is, you know, and we're going, we're possibly looking into a reality of longevity, escape, you know, velocity, but even if just within the premise that, well, you know, I have a finite time, I'm always reminded of this kind of notion of basically I owe to the people of the future in the same way that people of the past owed to me in the cycle. So it's all about, you know, just a long-term reciprocity and paying it forward. Right. Responsible people anyway. And Christianity is so self-centered. You know, it's just, I've got to do what I need to do to get through the next life and, you know, and maybe try to get other people to sacrifice their future to get to the next life as well. Right. And it's just so self-righteous, so self-centered. I kind of find like our lives or existence is sort of like a party, right? And the party is all of us together and we're hanging out and there's music going on and somebody brought chips and somebody brought like, I don't know, fondue and dip and stuff like that. And we're just having a good time. Some people are going to leave the party. In fact, everyone's going to leave the party eventually, but more people will come in. But the alarming thing is even when it's your time to leave, the party's going to keep going. And so there's an ego check that happens when you recognize, oh, what happens when I leave the party? It's like, well, you're done with parties. And you're like, but the party keeps going. It's like, yeah. So don't spend your whole time at the party thinking, oh, this party's going to end. I'm not going to have any fun. This is terrible. In fact, I'm going to make life miserable for other people in this party because eventually we're going to have to leave. That's not a good way to enjoy a party. But likewise, try to find something to bring to the party, you know, whether it's like a mixtape or like some extra food. That way when you leave the party, the party can still keep being better for the next people who come in after you. Like that, that goal is to keep the party going, right? Not so much. And make it better forever and make it better if you can, but at least bring it in any way you can. Yeah, don't just the wallflower in the back and being like, you know, maybe Jesus was making some points. It's like, well, in the words of Bill and Ted, be excellent to each other and party on. Nice. I'm also going to throw this one out too. In the words of Akira Toriyama, who passed away this week, as Vegeta said, go wild until you die. Yeah. I learned about that just recently and it's still kind of settling in. He had so much influence when I was growing up and bonding with friend groups and such an impact. But that's a legacy that I would love to have left behind. So like now we can honor a legacy, right? Because and it's always sad when people do leave the party, but like if they have a positive legacy that they leave behind, that's the stuff that we now are in charge of making sure that we uplift. And what he's given us is an opportunity to introduce a lot of other cool people into the worlds and culture of like Japan and animation. Can you give us that name again? Akira Toriyama. Akira Toriyama. Yeah, I'm saying it with an American accent because I'm trying not to sound pretentious, but Akira Toriyama. Toriyama Akires. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Toriyama Hakase. Yeah. Yeah, that guy. Sensei. I have to look him up. Yeah. And there's even a red. He made not only Dragon Ball, but Dragon Ball Z, but really what also hit me was Chrono Trigger. I remember playing that front, not Super NES blew my mind. And there's, I would argue, has yet to be quality as quality RPGs since that time. There's a lot of them, but very few of them have hit that mark of, wow, this is insanely cool considering the limitations that existed at the time. It's fantastic. Anyway, I want to add a quick thing on there in the in the Milo Pony versus fourth generation specifically. There's this movie. No spoilers. It's like right at the beginning. It's the legend of Everfree. I still, you know, will it be lost by time? We do something great with the time that you have here. We make your mark. We conquer what you fear. And now that's, I love that because it's in context like being at the camp, but without the context, it's like, it just hits everything else like a brick. And but one of the parts in the movie is every year the camp that goes up there, they leave something behind for the next camp to enjoy. And that becomes their, like their whole camp-wide project. So that comes to mind. It's just, yeah. But you zoom in out, I like the message of the song itself is it applies to life. I dig it. Will you conquer what you fear? So important. If anything, that's a purpose statement in its own right. Yeah. I highly recommend the series by itself that everyone gets all, oh, ponies, but no, no, they have, they have a real grown up kind of perspectives that kind of weave the way into it. Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. It's masked in the artwork of ponies, but just like Jenny Carvacowski and Powerpuff Grills and Dexter's Lab, Johnny Bravo, Cow and Chicken. He sent some more adult themes to them. Oh, yeah. They're just not just cartoons, but yeah. All right, guys. Great show. Let's start closing out. Anything that you'd recommend that we check out, Rush? River? I had it. The NMA free run is coming to an end. It's been fantastic so far. Nice. There's a lot more, but that's one of the ones that come to mind. If we're just, if we're geeking out on things from Japan, I would say in terms of a new ending, or an ending versus a new beginning, the next season of Sentai or Tokusatsu, which is Power Rangers in America, but Japan's like maybe 15 seasons ahead of us. It's called Bakuage Bun Bunjir or basically So Explosive Race Cards. Just so it is so back to having a good time. The characters seem really fun. The first episode was really, really fun and fun to watch. The last season was based on Game of Thrones, so it was basically King Oger, which everyone was royalty in those political dealings and everything was very dour and very serious and the stakes were super high. This is just cars, cars. Even the best thing about the show is when they're racing down the road trying to like shoot each other, the bad guys and the good guys stop and follow traffic laws so like old people can cross the streets and then when they finish crossing the streets, then they go right back to chasing each other. I love how camp it is. I think it's going to be a good season. I'm looking forward to this year. Larry, anything that you'd recommend or check out? There's a series on Netflix called Resident Alien. It's really good. Also, there's another series called Midnight Cafe. We were talking about Japanese and Japanese culture. It's a Japanese drama, but it's a little more lighthearted than calling it a drama, but it's really cool. We really enjoyed the series Midnight Cafe. Cool. Why don't you close on how much you love souls, Larry? It's hard to love things that don't exist. Oh, no. Use your imagination. Reminder that everybody can find our shows on podcasts everywhere. Just search for Digital Freethought Radio Hour, and if you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. My content can be found on digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for radio show archives, atheist songs, and many articles on the subject. My book, Atheism What's It All About, is 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 7 o'clock here on WOZO Radio. Say bye, everybody. Bye, everybody. And be well, and be well, and do good, and think critically. And be excellent to each other. And be excellent to each other. How about that? Okay. It works well if bye, everyone. See you.