 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. Today is Sunday, December 6th, 2020. I'm Larry Rhodes or Dowder 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the phone with us. Hello Wombat. I'm actually writing a musical for 2020. It's called Conspiracy. And the first song is Conspiracy. I'm working on the rest of the lyrics. Yeah, okay. I need some work. Anyway, welcome to the show. We have Dot Fire or Scott. Welcome. We have usual George with us today. Hello George. And we also have the Publications Director from the Atheist Alliance International. John Richards, welcome to the show. You're a special guest today. We're going to be asking you a lot of questions about the Atheist Alliance. Digital Freethought Radio Hour is a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faiths, gods, holy books and superstitions. And if you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in Knoxville, well you're just not. There are several Atheist free thinking and rationalist groups that exist right here in Knoxville. And we'll show you how you can connect with them right after the mid-show break. Also, did you know that there's a streaming Atheist call-in video show broadcasting here in Knoxville? Been on TV for like 10 years now. Yeah. Did you know that Wombat? I mean, it's crazy because they always play it on mute when I'm in the gym. And I don't understand why they do that, but I guess Alex Trebek isn't on the show anymore. And they have like old contestants doing the hosting now. So I'm looking forward to seeing who they're going to get as new hosts and cross my fingers. Yeah, that would be nice too. Let's go, Wayne Brady. You got to answer our formal question. Come on. We like questions. Let's go. Four years you haven't seen the show yet. Anyway, we'll tell you how you can watch it and maybe even Wombat can watch it later after the mid-show break. What do we have today? Wombat interviews. Hey, you brought a friend. You brought a friend. You got things to talk about today. What do you have today, Dr. Frantz? Well, I'd like to welcome John Richards from the Atheist Alliance International. Would you like to tell us a little bit about yourself and your organization? Yeah. Why don't you tell us your story in like 30 seconds? Yeah. Go. I was born at a very early age. Well, thanks for inviting me, guys. It's a pleasure to be here. And to tell you about Atheist Alliance International. Cool. First of all, I'll give you a brief rundown on myself. I'm a retired science teacher. Oh, nice. And I was lucky enough to be born in Britain where religion is not so rabid as it is in America. And I chose my parents very well because they were not religious. We only went to church. If there was a wedding, they went to a funeral. I didn't get taken as a small boy to the funerals. But apart from that, I didn't meet religion until I went to school when, as you may know, it's compulsory in this country. We're not a secular nation, oddly. Secondly, it's compulsory to have an assembly in the morning, which is Anglican, that variety of Christianity. And that involved a hymn, a reading, and the Lord's Prayer before the lotuses. Now, that was back then when I was at school. Since then, most schools have dropped that activity. It's illegal, but they flout the law. So we don't, if you go to school now, you don't have a morning assembly, a religious morning assembly, fasted on you as upon to me. Anyway, it didn't make any impression. And when I went to secondary school, I fell in love with science. I became a science teacher. And here I am, at the end of my life, retired and able to devote all my time to my mission of, I regarded it as teaching science, rationalism, critical thinking, which of course is contrary to religious beliefs. Now, that's wonderful. Mind if I chip in real quick? I think that was an excellent introduction. I feel remissed if we didn't take a moment to introduce ourselves, too. And that way, we all know ourselves around the room. I'll do mine real quick, then I'll go to Scott and then George and then Larry. You can follow up and show you guys are friends already. But I'm Ty. I'm Dr. Wells. I got my degree in biochemistry and I work in filtration science. And I've done science for my entire life and my career. I love it, too. And we're currently making face mask material for all of Tennessee because of the current COVID that's been hitting us has caused a huge demand for these kinds of materials. And we're issuing them out for free for local medical sectors. And it's just a really wonderful opportunity for us. But yeah, love science never had compulsory school religion. That's that sucks. I would fall asleep twice. I could tell you some stories about that, man. But I did. I was I was religious all the way until college. So it took me a while before I realized this is going to work and I'm sure we'll get into it more. Scott, why don't you give us a little intro on you? Yeah, so I was born in Florida and Tallahassee, Florida on that side of Florida. I didn't grow up in a really super religious home, but I discovered religion, probably around 1920, 21 years old and became heavily involved in Jehovah's Witnesses and moved up in the ranks with that particular religion. Had a lot of responsibilities at that congregation learned a lot about it became very zealous into that religion. And then found my way out of it, probably around my mid to late 20s. And I've been went into atheism. And ever since I've just been looking back have just looked back ever since then. So now, yes, what I do professionally, I'm in the IT IT world and nice doing that kind of stuff. But yeah, as far as philosophy, I'm probably more described as an agnostic atheist right now. Yeah. Same here. I will also say one cool thing. It's nice that you jumped from Jehovah Witness directly to atheism rather than the peg. What do you what's the right word for it? Plinko. Plinkoing your way to atheism where it's like, well, I did some spiritual Hinduism, then I tried deep state meditation, then crystal theory and then finally, get rid of it all. You forgot Buddhism. Sometimes it sneaks in, right? George, why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself? Well, I won't take much time except to start by saying that I was, I'm an organic atheist. What I mean by that is that I was born into an atheist family. And my parents were humanists, I would say. And my father has attended humanist lectures at various places all his life. And yet he was not a militant atheist. My mother was militant about stuff. She was not militant about her atheism. So for me, the whole experience has just been pretty nonchalant, you know. I have not had a religion to throw off. I have not had to fight with the demons in my head that were placed there from an early age. I just haven't had that. But now you've moved from that state where you were organic atheist to like the Christian belt of America? Boy, yes. And listen, I grew up in New York City. I got my degrees in the state of Connecticut in New England. And then we moved to California where I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 40 years. Wow. And here I am halfway between Chattanooga and Knoxville, you know, in a very strange city that is in a little way, it's quite progressive. But for the most part, it baffles the hell out of me. And it's taken me five years to finally get to understand what I'm facing. Which is, quote, you're not from around here, are you? Well, it's also the religion part of it. Well, that comes along with the territory. Larry, why introduce yourself just to the audience again? Well, I'm the founder and past president of the Atheist Society of Knoxville. Well, I've been an atheist for 50 years in the closet as an atheist for 30 and then finally came out after 9-11. 9-11 was a pivotal issue for me. I mean, here we're religious people attacking our country. And the response generally was from a religious standpoint. John, one thing, I mean, John Anti, one thing you may not eat, both of you remember, but I'm old enough to remember the prayers in school when I was a kid. I was born in 1950 and we had assemblies. And every time we had assemblies, as a matter of fact, home room, we had prayers. Wow. That was eventually outlawed, I believe, was in the 60s. Murray, Madeline Murray O'Hare took it to the Supreme Court and got it thrown out. So no more prayers in school. From the authority figure, you can't have state sponsors prayer. Of course, you can have assemblies with prayer. You can meet at the flagpole and have prayer. There's an old saying that says, as long as there are tests in school, there will be prayer. That's good. That's good. It's also true. You can't take prayer out of school. Oh, man, when did I stop praying before tests? They even took me a while. That was the hardest thing for me to give up. But yeah, yeah, it's solely true. John, getting back to you, can you tell us a little bit about the Atheist Alliance? What the heck is that? And what do they do? Sure, sure. Yeah. Well, it's Atheist Alliance International is an organization that's registered charity, registered in California. And that was 30 years ago. Coming up this next October, that will be our 30th anniversary. And we're planning a big bash. Nice. I can tell you a bit about that. I think my seat's just collapsed. Later on. I hate it when that happens. It happens. Yeah. Right. OK, I got it. Yeah, don't move. So one of the things I could do, which might be the easiest way to talk you through it, is just screen share the website. Can I do that? Sure, absolutely. Yeah. OK. And while he's doing that, I can describe it for our podcast listeners. So what we're being taken to right now is website Atheist Alliance International. And at the front of the page, it's a really, really nice looking website, black and white, I'm sorry, red and white themes all across and show some of the latest talkers that are speaking at the various events around the world. John, why don't you walk us through it? Sure. Yeah. Well, as you can see, those of you who are not just on radio, we have a banner, which is about ending blasphemy laws because in northern Nigeria, there's sharia law, which is technically unconstitutional since the Constitution of Nigeria, Constitution item number 10, I think it is, says that no state, the country, neither the country nor any state within it should have any religious connection. Never mind. We have sharia law in Cano State and other parts of northern Nigeria. And you may remember there was a big outcry in the news a couple of years ago when Muslims captured a school of girls laid off with them. Remember that? Yep. Well, the current conflict that we're engaged in is about some victims of blasphemy laws. And those of you who can see, we have Yahya Sharif Aminu, who is a singer-songwriter, and he spouted some lyrics that Muslims took exception to. So he is now in jail sentenced to death. We also have a young boy who's 13. He had an argument in the playground when he was younger, when he was 10, I think, but they couldn't prosecute him then. And he said some nasty things about Muhammad or whatever. And he's been sentenced to 10 years in prison with labour. Wow. Then we have Mubarak Bala, who was arrested, I think it was on the 28th of April this year. He's the president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria. And up until quite recently, he hadn't even been charged, just detained. And the law in Nigeria is based on British law, because it was a colony many years ago. The law says he should be charged or released within $48. That hasn't happened. It's what is it, coming up to 200 days now that he's been imprisoned. His wife had just recently given birth, and she has been deprived of his support all the time that she's been raising this very young baby. We've been, Atheist Alliance International has been supporting the family financially in his absence and campaigning to get him released. So we have lawyers in Nigeria who are working on behalf of all these three individuals. But the problem is bigger than that, because Nigeria is corrupt. So there is no access to proper justice. We've taken them to court several times. And because the judiciary do not wish to be tarred with the brush of atheism, they don't turn up. So a date is set for hearing, the judge doesn't turn up. Another date is set months ahead, and the defence doesn't turn up. Postponement after postponement goes on. And that's not the only thing that's happening in Nigeria, because in southern Nigeria, we have a governor, devout Christian, who says that he is the Christian representative of his state. And he has spent public money building, well he hasn't gone to the building stage yet, but commissioning an international worship centre, a huge extravagant building. I might be able to find a picture of it on this website, if you give me a chance. And he spent public money, unconstitutionally, buying the land, clearing the land and having the building designed. He's done a publicity event where he dug the first spade full of dirt. And all of this is completely unconstitutional. No public money should be spent on activities like that. So we're very active in Nigeria combating that. But that's not the only sort of thing we do. You can see, lower down the website, we've supported the introduction of Internet Cafe in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where they've been pretty much deprived of access to the internet, which of course, as you know, it's a double-edged sword, isn't it? You can access rational information on the internet, but you can also be radicalised too. And I'm sure there's a brick-butter aspect where there's monitoring of which websites you go to or which ISPs are checked over there. Would you say that's accurate? Well, I'm not fully OK with what's going on, fully brought up to speed with what's going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo. So I know that we've funded it. And I'm in communication with the people there who are running it. And the first question I should ask them is, do they have filters on their internet to prevent that sort of radicalised material getting through? I'd like to play you this little video. Oh, OK. Listener is going to click a YouTube link. And I guess we're going to watch the video. We'll try to describe it the best we can after the fact. There's an audio to it. This means we'll be able to hear. OK. I mean, thank you so much for giving us the interview today. Can you tell me what happened to Mubarak on April 28th? On the 28th of April, 2020, I actually talked to my husband Mubarak that morning. I got a call from his friend that Mubarak had been arrested and taken to the Kadena police station. I was surprised. I was like, why? Maybe he'll come back home. Everything's going to be fine. But then since then, have you been able to speak to him or meet him or speak to him on the phone? No. Since that day on the 28th of April, I've never talked to him. Never have I spoken to him on phone or seen him. No. I tried. I tried even reaching out to anyone who has seen him since that day. And nobody has told me anything that had not seen him until that time. Have you been in touch with the police? The kind of state police, the PRO, he said that Mubarak is no longer in the custody. I was like, OK, where is he? I want to talk to him. He was like, he didn't give me a specific answer. He said that for security reasons, he can't tell me where he is. I pleaded that, OK, I have a son. My son was actually six weeks old when he was taken away. So I said, please, because of my son, let me just speak to him. Even if it's a phone call, even if they want to remind him there, let me just talk to him. Let me know that he's fine. He said he had an interview with Mubarak, that Mubarak is fine, that he's going to send the interview to me, that he will call me back. And until now he has not called me, and I've not had anything from him again. So you had a new baby just a few weeks old when Mubarak was taken away. How have you been coping then since then? It has not been easy. It has not been easy for me. It's depressing. I've been through psychological and emotional trauma since Mubarak was taken away. But I don't even know where he is. I don't know whether he's dead or alive. So for me, as a nursing mother, it's a hell for me. I am confused. I don't even know what to do. I don't know. So the police haven't allowed Mubarak's lawyers to see him, and they've not charged him with any offence which, by law, they're required to do within 48 hours. Mubarak's lawyers have asked the courts to intervene to force the police to comply with the law, but the courts seem to be intentionally dragging things out. What do you say to these people now? Well, all I want is for me to talk to my husband. That's all I ask for. Let the Nigerian government and the Nigerian police get me a proof of life that my husband is alive. That's all I ask for. That's all. It's not too much to ask. Police, I'm appealing, and I'm begging. Let me be sure, because I'm worried here. I'm worried. Well, obviously, as you can see, the lady didn't want to reveal her face. The male voice you heard there was our vice president, Bill Flevel. So we made that video way back in, I think, about June. But unfortunately, the situation is still the same. Although I think she has been allowed to talk to her husband since then. So not a happy situation. No, overall, it sounds like there's a stark lack of the right to be a critical thinker in Nigeria. And there's political, administrative, even police state-esque pressure to keep people from thinking on their own and staying subscribed to the local dogma. It is the world's most religious country. 98% of the people there say that religion is important in their lives. Wow. So we're going to go to a break pretty soon. I just want to give a quick update. We're talking with John Richards, representative of Atheist Alliance International. And we will have a bunch of fun stuff to talk about later on, hopefully. Talk some about the triumphs and things that we did as part of this group. And Larry, go ahead and take us out. Sure. This is the Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. 103.9 FM. WOZO Radio Knoxville. Hello, and welcome back to the second half of the Digital Freethought Radio Hour. I'm Douter Five, and we're on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today, again, is Sunday, December 6, 2020. And let's talk about the Atheist and Freethought groups that you can join here right in Knoxville. First, there's the Atheist Society of Knoxville, founded in 2002. We're in our 18th year. We have over a thousand members. And you can find us online at KnoxvilleAtheist.org. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to meet up and search for an Atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Start one! Right. Another large Freethinking group here in Knoxville are the rationalists of East Tennessee. Go to rationalist.org if you'd like to find out more about them and click on the upcoming events. Earlier in the show, we said we'd talk about Knoxville Atheist Call in TV show. Well, it's called Freethinkers United Coalition of Knoxville, and it's on YouTube. Now, it used to be on the local access community TV station, but they switched over to video, and you can find it now from anywhere in the world. So, if you don't want to search, well, if you want to see some of the archives that they have online, you can search for Freethinkers United Coalition of Knoxville, but the older stuff is under Freethought Forum Knoxville. So, all of that's available to you. Also, if you're interested in getting involved with the TV or this radio show, just come to our ASK page or rationalist page on Facebook and leave us a note. With us today on the show, we have Dot Fire, George and John Richards from the Atheist Alliance, which we'll be talking about more. How can people find you if they're not on Facebook? Hey, that's a great question. Well, they can go to KnoxvilleAtheist.org and send us emails that way. You can send an email to AskAnAtheist at KnoxvilleAtheist.org. You can find us that way. Several ways. You can go to YouTube and look for our stuff there. Just leave us a comment. Speaking of comments, I wanted to go around and sing our favorite written pop standards because we were doing that from the beginning of the show. My favorite English song is London Bridge, which goes, London Bridge is going down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is falling down. Where is the love? Where is the love? Where is the love? Where is the listener love? Guys, we're going to go over some comments from last week's episode. Feel free to leave a comment and we'll go over them on the next week's show. Ecocentric, oh, by the way, last week's episode was called Jesus Hates Figs, which was all about us ranting about biblical stories that we may have believed or may have just found absurd when we applied just a little bit of critical thought. Such to the point where even if we were to take the story as a literal truth, it just makes all the characters in the story look bad. And I don't think there's any better example of that than just Jesus walking down the street being like, I hate this tree. I hate this tree. And using his magic mental power to destroy the trees. I'm like, Jesus, that's people's property. They need food. We're in Mesopotamia, like Bronze Age. Like, we need to eat. Like, that's not a good thing to do. It's like, I don't care. I need figs now. Yeah, we just learned irrigation, you know? Yeah. It's like, we could just knock on his door. You'd probably give us some figs. You're the son of God. It's like, I want that fig from that tree now. It's like, OK. So anyway, eco-centric Homestead says, hey, you know, the thing about people of faith is that they only have faith in their religion. They have no faith in authority telling them that there's a pandemic. They have no faith in medical science. They have no faith in any naturalistic explanations to any phenomenon. So it's selective faith bias towards their own worldview. And I think that's very, very good point. It is essentially just confirmation bias and cherry-picking when people say I'm a person of faith. It's like, well, you only have faith in your God. It's like, that's true. I'm a believer, but I only believe in things I like. That's cherry-picking, not fake-picking, of course. It's big-picking. Thank you. Or it's cherry-picking. You're right. You're right. But I think we all do this. I think we all do this anyway. True. But I do it under the idea of, like, I'm aware that there's multiple things out here and I'm not going to invest my entire dogma on one cherry. Like, I'm aware that there's other cherries. And atheists draw the line generally as supernatural things. Yeah. We're not going to have faith in stuff that we have no evidence for at all. Right. Right. Save me your supernatural cherries. I'll have delicious normal ones, please. Crazy Praying Mantis says, figs are delicious. And I agree. Have you guys ever tried the natural fig? They're amazing. They're good. Fig Newton. You like fig Newton. If you like fig Newtons, you like figs. You've eaten figs before. Faith in Matthew's long-time commenter on the show says, Using Socratic Examination. We are big fan of Socratic Examination on this channel. Using Socratic Examination, you can realize that there isn't evidence to support biblical claims. But for me, the first major step away from religion was after scrutinizing Bible studies or stories. It was easy to see that these morals and role models of the Bible aren't worth following. There's better out there. Jesus, lay up the wine and leave my fig tree alone. I think that was good. We have a guest, John Richards. He's back with us all the way from England. How can I ask a digner in American question? How is Brexit going? Are you guys still a part of Europe? Is it free to call you guys European? Is that not allowed anymore? Is it gray subject? What's going on? Oh, he's covering his face, guys. Because I wanted to say all the way from Europe. But then I was like, he might not be Europe. I was like, I hope that's OK. I don't know how it goes. I don't know what happens. It's a chronic mess. The whole thing. Still nobody knows what the Brexiteers want. I'm not one of them. OK. But the negotiations are going to come to a conclusion soon. However they do it, whether it's a no deal or a deal that we don't like, just watch. OK. This is going to collapse. Trust me. We are all caught up on political messes that have been going on, at least state side. But we're doing a good job clearing them up on our side. So there's going to be a point where like three years from now, we're just going to go back to our arrogant selves and be like, why aren't you fixing these problems? We don't have a problem anymore. What's your problem anymore? Yeah, well, I wish we could. But at the moment, we've got 55% of the population who doesn't want to leave. 45% still does. Wow. That doesn't count because we had a referendum in 2016. Although the referendum was not one that the government had to follow. It wasn't, what's the word, mandated. Thank you. That's the very word. Yeah, it was just an indication of feeling. It was something that we had to act on to form a law about. But they did. So the whole thing is a crazy, never have a referendum. George, you want to weigh in? I want to ask a question, John. Go for it. Go for it. Love questions. The whole thing has been looking so crazy to me from over here that I have to ask you this question. What's the motivation for Brexit? And more than that, who is going to make money off it? Follow the money. OK. Those are good questions. How about? Sorry. How about we make it just like a quick answer and then we can talk about more after the show? Because I do want to hear more about the atheist alliance that's going on. OK. We can always talk. Sure. Very, very quickly. The motivation was grievance, dissatisfaction in parts of the country which feel they've been left behind by the South East and London forge ahead. And they thought that we'll give the government a slapping by voting to leave the EU. So it wasn't specifically targeted at in a wonderful life in the future. It was a case of let's hit the Tories where it'll hurt them. And as for who's going to benefit? Well, it's a few rich Tories who actually, although they're supporting Brexit because they don't want to be de-selected or de-elected, they don't live in this country. They live in some tax haven somewhere. And they've already made a lot of money out of Brexit by hedging their funds. Wow. OK. It reminds me of here, right here in the US, the equivalent of our political revolution that happened in 2016. But I won't belabor that, you know? No. I'll tell you what. I'll tell you what I do want to delve into. And I'm actually going to get to Scott's feedback section because I know Scott's got a lot of questions going on. But Atheist Alliance International, why don't you tell us some success stories that have gone on, John? Because I'd be really interested in some positive. Sure. Can I just do a little bit of screen share before I go on to that? You know you can totally share that screen. You go for it. This destiny, it's already yours. OK. So there we go. Mm-hmm. I'm bringing up the world picture of where we have presence, our affiliates. We have your chat on there, too, by the way. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. Are you on this chat? Yeah. I'm surprised he has Apple in England. That's shocking to me. All right. I like Apple. Apple everything. Here we are in Africa. That's our African affiliates. This is our Asian affiliates. There's another list here. So it's not just Nigeria that you guys have a presence? Oh, no. Australia. We've got representatives there. Europe. Look, these are all our affiliates. Well, they're not all of them because I'm not, I'm scooting around it. I'm not showing you everybody. Look, we have a worldwide presence. So I just wanted to show you that, but now you want me to say something successful. Sure. Yeah. Let's get a positive story in. Yeah. Okay. Well, it's Nigeria related because the governor of the Kano State where the blasphemers are imprisoned and threatened with death. This particular governor. He's a lovely name. Abdullah. He has expressed an opinion that he's, he can't wait to sign the death warrant of the singer, songwriter who offended the Muslims. And guess what? East Carolina University. Offered to honor him by making him a professor, a visiting professor and some other title that he was about to have bestowed upon him. So what did we do? We wrote to the university and we spilled the beans. We told them what sort of a guy he is. And the success is they've withdrawn their offer to the governor. Okay. Shame. And you know, I wanted to say some, some cool things about Nigeria only cause there are some family relations that I have there too. It's on the west side of Africa. It's just below the big hang, but it's like I'm at west side. There's two main sections, the northern and southern section, some of the section, very, very, very, very Christian, northern side, very, very, very Muslim or Islamic. And what's really interesting is if you go there, if you go to any place in Africa, it's not just black people, like there's ethnic groups that are distinct among everyone. And you can recognize who's who. I've never been there, but like if I've had people tell me you don't look African, I was like, yeah, cause I got all this mixed up stuff from America. Like that's how that's what happened here. It's like I got white people, Indians, all that stuff in me. It's like, but you can tell when you look at a person like, oh, that guy's Sudanese, that guy's Iwi tribe, that guy's Yoruba. You can see the different ethnic groups there. Those groups have gone through a number of turmoil over, over just even like the last two centuries, like you had the slave trade taken away like half the men and you've had a migration that's happened around the 1950s to like 1960s. You've had political upheavals, MM introduction and indoctrination of religion in two different polarizing points of view in one more or less like country. And now it's just this constant conflict between if you're here and you're not a Muslim, you're not safe versus if you're here and you're not Christian, you're not safe versus if you're here and you're Yoruba, you're not safe versus if you're here and you migrated here 20 years ago, you're not safe. It's constant, constant conflict. And what that indoctrines is an us versus them mentality where it's like, hey, if you're not most, if you're not following the textbook list of traits that you need to have to be safe in this country, you're in danger. And because we're on this team of we follow all the rules on this paper and we do that for own security. And so the question might be like, why are, why are these, why are these Muslims acting so, you know, militantly in like a state police? It's like, that isn't, it's not just them. It's like, if you go to the south, you're going to have the same thing too. It's so wrapped into the idea of what does it take to be safe if I live here and there's no options anywhere else. The GDP for like Nigeria is like in the trillions. Like they, they're, they're like in the top 20 of GDP per capita, the per capita is like one of the lowest in the world, very, very poor people that as a country make a lot of money because the money doesn't go to the people. And so it's this very interesting dichotomy of like poverty, poverty, poverty, but someone's making a profit and it's the people who are like causing people to fight against each other that are continuing to just churn this really terrible conflict between people. It's a really unfortunate multi-tiered level of, of mess that's going on there. And what sucks is there's no room for critical. Well, it's hard to take a stance against that as an atheist. It's hard to say, listen, I'm not subscribing to these arbitrary list of rules of thought and these dogmas. This is clearly not benefiting any of us. Let's try to be independent and think for ourselves and, you know, come up with their own rights. We can do this as a system. In the north, if you come out as a normal believe you're likely to be stoned to death. Yeah, it's very stark. Of the situation in Nigeria. It is the mess of all messes. Yeah, it's, it's a big fiasco. And it's not a simple thing as just, hey man, just give them episodes to the atheist experience on YouTube and they'll solve everything. Like that's not going to solve it. Like we're talking about political, cultural, on a personal, a personal level, like indoctrinated into the system. I once, I once, you had experiences with Nigerians and when they found out that I was an atheist it was like this really bizarre concept for them. Like the idea of not having religion is like a new thing that a lot of, that a lot of them are primitive because it's just not a safe position to be in. How do you, how, how would you even possibly bridge that kind of gap? And before I drop that all on John, I'm going to, I'm going to throw out, I'd like to see if anyone want to take a piece of it. We'll try it. Scott first, Scott, I gave you a big problem to solve, but I haven't heard you talk for a while, but it looks like you're getting geared up and ready to answer. Uh-oh. It's a complicated mess that's going on in Nigeria right now. Let's say you had all the money in the world, all the leverage and power. How would you even go about fixing it? Oh wow. Um, you know, it's, it's so easy and it's so cliche to say, oh, they just need education. Oh, they just need exposure. You know, I think in today's world, there's a lot of exposure, but that's not the problem. It's, we kind of spoke about this before about feelings and, you know, safety. You know, like you were saying, it's heavily indoctrinated. Not sure what the money is going to do to help that situation other than, um, you know, somehow you could pay to replace leadership. You know, maybe that would be something to do, but I'm not sure how that would even work. Um, maybe bribe the officials to become more, um, secular minded. Maybe that, maybe that's what makes them tick. But they understand bribing, certainly. Yeah, that's, that's what I'm thinking. Um, my wife is from Kenya. And so she lets me know all the time. That's, that's pretty much the rule of law throughout Kenya and really a lot of countries in Africa is, um, bribing people to do whatever is effective. But I don't really know if that's realistic in this case of what we're talking about. I just don't know enough about it, but, uh, it's, it's so complicated. Yeah. There's a lot of hurt there to, to recover, but I do like the idea of education and exposure. I think if that can help, if that can help even someone that's just not even trying to get rid of their atheist or the religion, and it's just like, whoa, you just turned on a light that I can't shut off. That could do an amazing thing. And like, let's, let's reinvest some of that money that's going away from the people and put it back into schools, build some new infrastructure, get some new years there, introduce, huh? But how? I mean, if, if you have no control over where the money is going, uh, and, and being held, to me, Nigeria is kind of like the end game of capitalism. Fewer and fewer people have control of more and more of the money until it's just out of circulation for everybody else. Right. Uh, and the only thing that you can do if the government is complicit with that is have a revolution. Yeah. I'm not saying they need to have a violent revolution, but they need to. He's not doing a call to action. No, not, not at all. But I'm just saying, uh, the rest of the world, the capitalist countries of the world may very well be heading in that direction. Yeah. Um, that, you know, the resources are leaving the people and going and being pooled to fewer and fewer people all over the world. Right. I was thinking maybe like government sanctions of some sort to say like, hey, listen, if there's not a distribution ratio of XYZ, if like literally all this money is going right up here and when we check one level below that and there's like no money, what's going on? You have a per capita of $5,000 per hundred people. Like that's nuts. If you're like a trillion dollar producing country, we can, we aren't supporting this. What do you think, John? Just going to tell you what we've been doing. And incidentally, there was some unrest in Nigeria recently and the police shot a few people. So that's the problem. Yeah. When the government is complicit, there's very few resources that you have. Yeah. And if you try to rise up, you're going to face violence in return and what's the answer? I don't know. I can tell you as a black person, even in America, that is a common narrative that you will face, that there will always be conflict against the status quo, especially if it's a group of people benefiting from the status quo. Right. And so the thing is, tends to be the case that violent actions are not the measured intention for people who are trying to highlight problems in a status quo culture. It tends to be the response of when a group gets marginalized to the point where they are hurt can no longer be contained within that group and that it's expressed out loud. And so what's unfortunate is... And have no representation. And have no representation. And what's unfortunate is like, you know, that only furthers to muddy the narrative. There have been peaceful means of like showing like we're distressed, but a lot of people will ignore that and that's just the reality that we live in. So... So what we've been doing... Go for it, John. Tackling it from two directions. Yeah. We've lawyered up and we're challenging the behavior of the governors in these two states that I mentioned earlier, the Christian and the Muslim states. So we're trying to use their own constitution as one way of getting them to behave. And the other angle is we're trying to set up more and more atheists. They don't like the word. Humanist or free-thinking groups from the ground up amongst the population. And we have several now. We have... I can think of three cities in Nigeria where we have an established little atheist group. But also, on the internet, we're trying to get... We're trying to give Nigerians an opportunity to express themselves freely. So I'd like to show you another video that's only 1.23 minutes long. Now that's not one point. The answer is 1 minute and 23 seconds. Okay. Go for it. It'll only take them five minutes to start the screen share, everybody. Hello. Good. Here we go. There we go. Yeah. Nice. Do you think should happen to those who are imprisoned in northern Nigeria on charges of blasphemy? Each time I think of Mubarak, each time I think of blasphemy laws, each time I think of people being sentenced to death on ridiculous charges, it's painful. It reminds me of Afghanistan. We can see what we can do with lawyers to defend them in court and see if we can get an acquittal. This is inhumane, and we have to come out in full defence, in full force in any way we can. It's very important that we all over the world, it doesn't matter which region you are, come out to fight for the freedom, for the freedom to ask questions, vital questions that are important for the development of human society. Personally, I think they should be freed immediately. I mean, who exactly are they offended? Those who have been arrested or detained like Mubarak, Bala, Yahya Sharif, or Uba Fagruk should be set free immediately, unconditionally. And yeah, I agree. We shouldn't be imprisoning the rapes. I would also say this. The reason why I like educating schools is it doesn't change things overnight, but what it does do is foster a hunger for critical thought. And one of the coolest things that I've seen even when I was at Georgia Tech was we would have students from Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran come over to Atlanta, and Atlanta is a giant melting pot in Georgia. It's no way representative of what life is like in the South. It's like basically New York, but hotter, believe it or not, with more humidity. And you will see people who are like, oh, man, there's not a lot of other Muslims. There's not a lot of other Pakis. But everyone, even if they're black or gay or whatever are all hanging out with each other, I'm going to just hang out with this group. I'm going to know these names, and I still communicate with a lot of these people from various different countries as if we're like brothers and sisters. We're family members. It's really great to know these people because they inform me on their cultures, but it also informs them of other people's cultures such that when they get, when those cultures get demonized when they go back home, they'll know, oh, but it's not like that because I have a friend who's black. I have a friend who's atheist, and he makes good points. And if it wasn't for the fact that I have to live here, I'd probably actually ask more to this guy's point of view. And it just helps to not only modernize their points of view, but also de-radicalize the points of view. And those are people who are ingrained in their culture, who are trusted by their members, who might even be officials, who might be educated and looked up to by the next generation. And these are the figures that are going to help to curb the culture away from this attitude, where if you're different from me, you're a problem and you need to go away. It'll be like, you're different from me, and that's not as bad because I know what different people are like. Now, sorry, I just wanted to pick up on what Scott mentioned. He said his wife's from Kenya. We have presidents in Kenya. We support a Kenyan free thinking group. And we also have a school in Uganda, accompanied by the country north of Kenya, which we support financially, and it's a humanist school. So we determine the curriculum. Cool. Very good. I was just going to say that I had a conversation with a Nigerian a few months ago, and we were discussing multiculturalism in America. And he was telling me how in Nigeria, the economy's bad, there's a lot of division, a lot of problems among people of different things, whether it's the issue of homosexuality or religion, whatever it is, politics, there's so much tribalism and things of that nature as well. And he was asking me, how is it in America? How do you overcome these type of things in America that Nigeria could learn from? And the answer that I gave, and we kind of discussed it, was that everybody benefits in America from diversity. It's our strength. Mutual benefit. Yeah. So there's a lot of talented, gay business owners and people like that. And it would behoove everyone to support these people because it gives people jobs. It gives people good services that they need. And the same with religious people. We've got talented people from all walks of life. We all depend on each other. So we have a more symbiotic relationship, and it helps us to be inclusive and want to support each other. So, you know, and maybe that's part of the reason there's so much poverty and division and everything in Nigeria is probably because you're not giving anyone a chance to do anything to help the economy, to help the country. Well said. Well said. Yeah. The power of mutual benefit is what drives not only just functioning societies, but morality in my opinion as well. Like, this benefits everyone if we do this, not just you, not just that person, but everyone. And that's a great thing to build a society on. It's a great fuel. What do you think, George? I don't, you know, from where I live, from the focus where I live, I think that this aspect of what's great about America, the diversity of our people. And believe me, I think this is the greatness of America. You know, when somebody says, make America great again, hey, that's what they're talking about. But this is mainly focused, I think, in the cities and out in the boonies like where I live, I'm afraid to be different. Yeah. Let me tell you something. Boonies, watch out. The cities are coming for you. It's just going to trickle in everywhere. You can't hide for long. I think the boonies are the last bastion of like, the last bastion for ignorance, the last tree leaders for I don't need to know that. It's like where you will, you will eventually. So we're coming for you. Indeed. And the children, the children get it, you know. Yeah. Absolutely. Especially with the internet. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I think, I think I have a lot of faith in young people. And I think that generations before us, free thinkers, let's say, also had a lot of faith in young people. And we are the young people there. They were having faith. Right. So it keeps, it keeps progressing. And it's always too slow for us. Yeah. The other note I like is when something terrible happens that what used to be a thing that only I would notice is now a thing that everyone's upset about as a country and are vocalizing at the same time too. And that makes me feel like, yes, we are aware that bad things are happening. It's not like they're going away. But now everyone's upset about that. And that's a good thing. And that's a very good thing. And so thank you for continuing to vocalize this thing, even that's going on, even in Nigeria, John, because that's so far away from our daily operations. It's easy thing to ignore or even forget about. But you're constantly reminding us like, no, this is a big deal. It's happening now. And you have some power to change it by making people know. And that's really, that's a wonderful thing. So can I do a promo? Yeah, go for it. Go for it. Why don't you promote and then we can all do a shout out as we head out to the end of the show. Go for it. Great. New Year's Eve. 2020 has been what the Queen would call an annus or abilis. And we want to say goodbye to it with a bang and welcome 2021. So we're putting on a show. An online telethon. Do you remember Live Aid? Yeah. Yes. We're doing live stream aid. Oh, cool. We've got entertainers from pretty much, well, three continents to the moment, but more coming in. Nice. And they're going to give their video performances free and come online and chat with me and our co-host. And we have an appeal or several appeals being made at the same time. So it's like Live Aid. It's a mixture. You know, it's entertainment and appeal melded together. And it ends in fireworks on midnight London time. Wow. How do we find it? It's going out. I will send you a link, but it's going out. This is something else that's exciting on a new service. You know how we've been complaining about Facebook running people for offending. No-flake religious. And so we're setting up an alternative. Whoa. Whoa. Interesting. It's called Back of Head Book. John, what I need from you, if you're a central person in this service, is assurance that I will not be surveilled if I participate. That is a major concern of mine. And I do not participate in Facebook at all. Because the government wants to know how many plaid jackets George owns. And he refuses to tell anybody. That's his own information. Every single time George is on this channel, he's telling us about his neighbors, his history, his family, the clubs he used to go to. The internet figures that out on its own. No-go whatsoever. So what does the service be called? We respect the data protection laws, which are stronger in this country than they are elsewhere. But of course, we're registered in the U.S. So we'll have to go by then. So, yes, we have, I can show you, for example, we're running out of time, but can I come back? And I'll show you some more things. You're welcome on the show. You can come back anytime. John, how can we find out more about your organization before next week? What can we do to... I will put the web address in the chat. Oh, yeah, and you can also say it out loud, too. Yeah, because this is radio. Okay. It's Atheist Alliance. Larry with the very... Yeah. Atheist Alliance. It's Atheist Alliance. Dot O-R-G. Dot org. That's A-T-H-E-I-S-T-A-W-L-I-A-N-C-E dot org. Scott, I'm putting you under the fire. What's something that you would recommend we check out this week before next week? Wow, you know, you're always asking this question, and I always have nothing to say. Anything. Literally anything. I don't know. Just check me out on my Facebook, man. Ooh, okay, yeah. Scott Williamson on Facebook? Scott Williamson at Facebook, man. That's where it's all going down. That's nice. Hey, my thing... My thing I would recommend... How do we tell you from all the other Scott Williamson? He's the only handsome one. He's the most handsome one. Handsome guy, you know? He's the most handsome one. Well, I should have known. I would recommend you guys check out different accents of Africa, because they are very, very different. And I think even in that video, I was getting like, ooh, I know where that guy's from. That guy's not from there. That guy, hell, interesting last name accent combination. The funny moniker to start off with, just to start off with it, is if they're Kenyan, it's a very happy accent. But as you get to like Ethiopia, it gets more tired. It's like, hey, how you doing? I'm from Kenya. It's nice. And Ethiopia was like, what? I don't have time to talk to you right now. It's very different. That's your starting lesson. The altitude. Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah, there it is. How much tea leaves I've noticed has grown per capita? Well, Swahili is beautiful. Yes. Larry, why don't you take us out? We're at the bottom of the tower. Excuse me. If you have any questions for the show, as we said earlier, you can send them by email to askanatheist at Knoxvilleatheists.org and we'll answer all our future shows. If you're having trouble with screw velocity or leaving religion and having some emotional or psychological problems from that, I recommend you discover recoveringfromreligion.org. They can help you there. If you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe to be notified for new episodes posted and be sure to visit our home site, it's digitalfreethought.com for our radio show archives, atheist songs and many articles on the subject. My book is called Atheism What's It All About. It's available on Amazon and 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, enjoy your life and we'll see you next Wednesday. Take care, everybody. Say bye-bye. Bye-bye. How easy we are to accept stories when we're told them at a very young age that with just a minimal critical thought, not only does a story not make any sense, but even if you were to take it as a little true thing, it just makes Jesus look like a jerk and not like this really nice messiah guy because he's just going around killing plants that aren't making food for him. It's not even a season for figs. Jesus is like, I don't care. You don't have figs and you don't have figs. Stop, that's someone's food. Somebody's property. Someone needs that tree.