 Hello and welcome to Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee Today is Sunday June 21st 2020. I'm Larry Rhodes or Doubter 5 and as usual We have our co-host Wombat on the line with us. Hello Wombat. Oh God is an awesome God he reigns over heaven and earth and things With power love. Oh God is an awesome God Here is maybe Not mine And our guest today are jw kennedy dread pirate higgs budro red leader and george. Hello Digital freethought radio hour is a talk radio show about atheism free thought rational thought humanism and the sciences And conversely we also talk about religion religious faiths. God's holy books hands superstition And if you get the feeling you're the only non-believer in Knoxville while you're just not There are several atheist free thinking and rationalist groups that exist right here in Knoxville And we'll be telling you how you can connect with them right after the mid show break And did you know that there's a streaming atheist calling tv slash video show broadcasting here in Knoxville? Did you know that one back? Yeah, I took notes the entire time and I feel good for you I kind of feel one that it was very brutal But I I don't know if I was really ready for another You know, like I like video games and stuff like that But it's a little dark when you have to play a game where everyone's dying from a virus in a time where like people are Actually buying from viruses. So it's just like I loved ellie. I love joe. I'm not going to do any spoilers But man that is a dark game and it gets really brutal sometimes Check it out violent though. I am excited to play him on the PlayStation 5 I think it's mostly got off on some other platform But this is a call-in talk rate uh tv show that we also have broadcasting every Wednesday night And it goes out on youtube as well go to youtube and look for the free thought coalition Free thought united coalition of Knoxville and you'll be able to See their videos there If you'd like to interact with us during this radio show go to facebook and do a search for digital free thought radio hour And use a messaging function to send us questions or comments Nice, what's our topic today there wombat? Hey, we're gonna be talking about a lot of stuff free will but before we begin I leave it open to our dread pirate Higgs for invocation This is our quabs. This is our quabs prayer Our noodley lord who art in a colander I'll Dante be thy noodles Thy sauce be rum Thy sauce be yum With meat as it is with vegetables Give us this day our garlic bread And forgive us our cussing as we put up with those who cuss against us Nice and lead us not to do ketoism But deliver us some carbs For thine are the noodles and the sauces and the grog whenever and ever Rahman Okay, hey, I love when we have new guests. I figured this is probably a nice time to open up some time and talk about them George slash Richard tell us your life story in 30 seconds go Well, this is a new experience for me. I was a radio announcer 50 years ago And um trying to get it back So please put up with me Uh, I was raised as an atheist in new york city so, um I have never been to an atheists meeting before They're happening all over the place now true meetup groups are a lot of atheists meetup groups out there Yeah, I guess when you are raised one you don't really need to feel like you need to seek out ones But because you always have your family at home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Yeah, I think um My mother was I mean she wasn't out to convert everybody. She just Didn't do religion And my father just didn't care at all. Nice It's it's a wonderful thing to hear that. Yeah good now in um in new york city There is an organization called the ethical society the new york society for ethical culture So I was raised in that a little bit here and there They've been around for a long time And they have a presence on the web So in my case I grew up in brooklyn and I went to the brooklyn society for ethical culture Nice, which is on prospect park west in brooklyn and um It was so it was started around the turn of the 20th century. I understand And they incorporated themselves as a religion Ironically so they're chartered as a religion in new york state So they're an ethical society don't have a god of belief, but they consider themselves a religion So it's an atheist religion more or less. They they don't consider themselves in a religion really they're just chartered as one officially Yeah, there are there are oh, how do I put it? Just because your religious doesn't mean you believe in a god, right? Like you could have like Atheists based, you know spiritual practices. That's just about community and Eastern religions a lot of eastern religions are like that. Yeah, that was in buddhism Sintoism and my and personally my issue isn't even theism. It's just nosticism without any support backing it Like you can believe in a god that actually exists. I'm totally fine with that But do you how do you know if that god exists or not? That's that's what i'm really concerned about But that's great. That's great richard. That's great. Yeah, I mean, it's um, you know here. I am in tennessee now and uh surrounded by More religion than I ever have been in my whole life. Oh you drove through kentucky. You hold your breath You know, I don't I don't understand it The man who cuts my hair is a minister and um He's a fellow on the left Yeah, I think everybody here is either a pastor or a minister Like I think when I go to mcdonald's like the people who give me the food are like, you know Bishops and priests and stuff like this. It's like you feel like they are. Yeah, they feel like they are That's probably the best thing And people say to me have a blessed day and I no idea what to say back to them J. W. Kennedy. Here's a good question for you. What would you say to someone who at who told you hey have a blessed day? I I just say thank you. Yeah, I don't really um I don't There's some some non-religious people some a to see that as an opportunity as a window or a doorway to interest into a Yeah, it's street epistemology like conversation for me. It's it's more. Thank you I just let it go unless I know them personally. Yeah, exactly for me. That's just a sense of even then that that's not something that would I would draw the line if they gave me like a business card and invite me to their church or something But I would just like There is a there is a corollary question and that is um Oh May I pray for you or shall I pray for you? I've had that a couple of times I like that question. No, they're asking for consent though, and I like that. That's good I'd say I'd rather you praying On your own Like in in private. I'd appreciate it, but not not with me here I write down a short list of gods that I have to pray to so it's like hulu the volcano guy It's seram to the god of the 16th dimension. He has things Make sure you don't mix that up and then the god of God of mustaches is like one of the best gods very cool I'm going to open this up to Collar slash dale newman dale newman tells you my story in 30 seconds go for it Uh, um, no pressure 27 seconds Okay, right You have you been on the show before you were here last week Yes, okay. Okay. Okay. So you already been on we know you. Okay. That's good. Good to see you back And then everyone here's or most there's a lot of Tennessee representation here Yeah, but I don't think I don't think they'll have the chance to tell us who he was Or did it did you get into that last week? Who I am hey now that we can see you why don't you just reintroduce yourself? How about that? Yeah My name's dale. Uh, I'd like to go by red leader or really good-looking Neither of which really catches on I was I was uh searching for god for a long time discovered, uh Darwin's origin of theses when I was in elementary school and was Telling the kids about it. Hey, this is really neat book about how things came about And a few days later three cartel loads of kids showed up at my house to take me to a revival And that was fun. I'm ignorant. What is the revival? Oh a revival. It's where you convert people And They revived the fire The fire in your soul to fork christianity during do they need like parental permission or can they just straight up come into bus? And take you and stuff like that like us We didn't get in permission, but my parents knew where I was going So I gave my life to christ and I think that lasted maybe 18 hours And I reverted back to my old ways and now I'm a deist and and I live in Tennessee Trying to deal with all of the religiosity That uh previously described Well, maybe a lot of people that were listening to us, uh Might not know exactly what a deist is. Would you go into that a second? That's a great question It's just an irritating point of view to most people. Uh, they're it leaves open the idea that there is a god And as a matter of fact, we know pretty well which direction There is a god if there is one and uh, I I just choose to believe in Something else out there. Maybe it's the influence of star trek and and all the other things but uh Before no one would have any idea that god would probably have to be in the neighborhood of the big bang and now we can Speculate maybe there's something beyond the big bang. Who knows? But he's going to take a particular interest in us and he doesn't have a book. Yeah Uh, it's like do you have to be a deist to believe the statements that you just stated? Oh, that's a great question. No, I don't think so. I don't pragmatically. I don't I'm no different from an atheist or I don't uh pray a whole lot Or do any of this sort of I don't try to get the votes when I run for public office by screaming I'm a deist or anything like that But it's just it's just a comfortable position for me. Now. I understand that the Signers of our declaration of independence that most of them were deists Because if they're atheists, they wouldn't be our founding fathers anymore And they'd get some other white guys You guys are out. We're who's next in line you okay great. We need male land owners I'm in here and sign this document. You're our new founding fathers I'm wondering what they'd be deist if they knew what we knew today about how much we've learned about science I may they'd be surprised if black people aren't property. They'd be like what? Oh, okay. Well, yeah That's true. Yeah, what's this coronavirus thing you're saying I have to cover my mouth when I cough Whoa, that's bizarre people live past 30. Wow Oh Okay That time they they believe they they often expressed The natural god and which would be a reference to the nature as being god And that's a pretty defensible position when you consider that that nature has created us And mindlessly but and we are it's And that's where the word create becomes problematic because it has its own baggage And so to say nature created us is an agency Implication Dale what were you saying again, could you could you we can also say that an earthquake quake Created real foot lake But the earthquake has no intention. Yeah intention Then wouldn't it be better to use the term cause to them? I like that too I think I don't want to get too caught up on the words I would worry about not worry, but it sounds more like he's he's using god as a label for natural things And then my question would be Is there a justification for calling something? Like an elephant if the label may not necessarily apply and why don't we just call it what it is rather than What it is plus here's my god label on top of it. Yeah, like that would be my more fundamental approach for that but what we're talking about is more of like how to Assess things in an s.c. Kind of idea and maybe we should talk about s.c. Since we have two new you guys here s.c. Is a very very complicated term Oh I get it wrong half the time it's all a big deal think of it as like socratic examination s.c. It's more just a way Street epistemology. It's a way of asking First what is s.c. And how do you spell it man? That's great. So Hey guys, I'll handle that question s.c. Is basically talking to people without sounding like a jerk and trying to get to the bottom of why they believe things And it stands for it. Is this a word? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. E It's s.c. for nothing. Yeah, uh, it stands for street epistemology, but you can also look up socratic examination You'll get the same thing or look up. Let's chat on youtube and you'll find Plenty of examples of it also mine pirate with a y Well, let me just say Gotta get stuff on your channel, burby Yeah, uh Epistemology is the study of how we learn things or how we know things right and taking it to the streets and talking to individuals on the street Is street epistemology And what you're trying to do is you're home you're homing in on their reasons their logic their approach Their methods for gaining knowledge and that's fantastic because instead of saying the conclusions that they reach Instead of saying you're a deist that's silly because you're making fun of deism And that might make someone more defensive or saying I can't believe your deist That's attacking them as a person you asked like how did you come to the conclusion that deism is true? And then they give you their reasonings like I just like star trek it makes me comfortable Or maybe you know, I just chose to believe it and you ask Is that a reliable way to come to a true conclusion or not? And if they say well, you know, really I'm just more like an atheist is everything's like that's cool I'm not here to push you. I just want to know if there's a regional path to get from point A to point B And is it a valid path? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and if it is I'll believe it too. I don't care what it is, but I just You know, something can still be true and only true once I'm totally fine with something Not many people though. I would love for something to be repeatable It doesn't necessarily have to be repeatable to be true. This is one of those things All right, man, we got nerdy for a while and guess who who guess who jumped out there He's the devil himself. All right. So I was just about to mention the the wordy-dirty on free will So here's the thing. We're gonna be breaking uh in like about 10 minutes I figure before we delve into free will it might be a good idea to just get everyone's definitions on free will That way we make sure we're talking about the same thing Because whenever I talk to this guy down here and I'm saying down here because on my channel Two screens down there's where Boudreau is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah Boudreau has very very impassioned beliefs on what free will is and what it isn't but we have very different definitions of what free will is So I agree with his perspective on what he calls free will But I think it'd be good to just make sure all on the same page in my in my opinion real quick free will is the difference between Walking out of a restaurant and being pulled out of a restaurant, right? So like if I'm choosing to leave On my own free will that's my free will if I'm dragged out against my free will That's the violation of free will and between those two is the difference between those two is what I would call free will Uh, how about this? Dread pirate Higgs. What do you think free will is? Wow, I think free will is really about whether or not we make The choices that we believe we do um, so it's not a matter of just being Walking out of a restaurant being pulled out. It's whether Whether that is ever a choice in my own mind. Okay Um, uh, George slash Richard. What do you think free will is? Well, I think in essence, it's what you said Tyron The difference between being dragged out of a restaurant or walking out of a restaurant. Cool for me Mr. Good-looking Or did you want to say really good-looking uh red leader? Uh, what do you think free will is? Independent thought Independent thought what do you mean by that? well thought You're being able to think things That maybe you have not thought of before or not being introduced into your brain by some Commercial or other outside source. Oh, I love this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm making yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and Eric's not in this hat He's like, yeah, I like that J. W. What do you think free will is just making sure we're all on the same page I'm making like two different camps in my head. Go for it. I am a spectator to this conversation because it is It's deep stuff. I could not give you a coherent definition Okay, to be honest because I think All of our choices are influenced to some degree by our environment by our memories by our biases by our Our language the languages that you know By how hungry we are It's it's deep So I'm I'm just I'm gonna pop some imaginary popcorn and listen And that's and that's the kind of definition that's closer to what I'm suggesting Okay, that or five you're up on the bat or you're on the base home plate I pretty much agree with j. W. I would throw one other thing in their heredity a lot of our future decisions based on where we came from Biologically with our dna or family or upbringing But I getting to your example I think free will is more like Walking out of their deciding to walk out of the restaurant or deciding to stay You know, it's it's not whether somebody else is forcing me to do something It's it's my own personal choice to do one thing versus doing another thing Okay, yeah and being able to freely choose between those two and I would say someone dragging me out It's a violation of what my free will is if I decide to eat food. Sure Boudreau I'm buckled up. I'm ready to go. All right. Look, look I'm not gonna interrupt. You got the floor Go for it. I have to I have to kind of riff for just a second I think we're I think we're going down an interesting road here to try to To try to have everyone have their own definition about this if if we're talking about your free will Which I think is a free will you talk about like you're doing something or someone is doing something for you How could I don't I'm not sure we'd have a podcast about that That's not a very interesting topic except for if we're talking about, you know The crime or punishment or something like that, but I thought what we were trying to talk about is whatever you want to define it as Is what what JW is saying and what others are saying? Can you make a decision like can you pick a number between one and a hundred? Is that are you able to do that freely? Or is it biology and I think when my Matt In and what I heard JW say everything he listed off heredity being hungry How much of any of those do you have control over and I think zero And my my stance is that we think we have free will We think we can freely choose and I think random number is is or pick your favorite movie or anything like that Is a good example because if you think that you are the author of that choice I think you are in that delusion of Having free will cool And I love I love that statement because you're recognizing like some people call Two different things free will and so one of them is a more interesting conversation than the other So what we're going to do is put aside the idea of hey, if someone does something I don't want that's against my consent. Okay, we agree That's violation of what we can call free will in this case But let's talk about this is it possible to make a truly independent choice Without influence from anything and we'll get into that in the second half of the show Larry why don't you take us out? Hey, sure. This is digital free thought radio hour would come out every week on wednesday 7 o'clock and w o zio radio 103.9 lp fm In harrier and Knoxville, Tennessee simply the best You're listening to 103.9 fm wozo radio simply the best Welcome back. I'm doubter five and this is the digital free thought radio hour second half of the show On wozio radio 103.9 lp fm right here in Knoxville, Tennessee today is sunday june And let's talk about the free thought groups that you can join right here in Knoxville, Tennessee 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 Knoxville atheists dot org Or you can just go to google and type in Knoxville atheists and it'll should bring it up for you By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you can still go to meet up and search for an atheist group in your town Don't find one start one Another large free thinking group here in Knoxville are the rationalists of east, Tennessee or ret Go to rationalist.org and click on upcoming events to find out when they get together Earlier in the show we said we talked about Knoxville atheists call in tv show. Well, it's now online on youtube It broadcasts live I should be broadcasting live on wednesdays 7 30 p.m. I believe 7 7 30 it's called free thinkers united coalition And uh, you just go to youtube and search for that and you can find them and their archives there If you're interested in getting involved with the tv or this radio show Just come to an ask meet up or ret meeting and talk to us about it. You could be our next co-host or guest Be sure to visit digital freethought.com and click on the blog button to find out more about our topics and How to listen to our or download our radio shows our topic today is uh free will free will and We need to get into the repercussions of whether we have free will or not And if we don't how can we hold anybody accountable for what they do? Yeah, absolutely also Guys, I can't find it. Do you guys know where it is? Where's the love? Where is the love? Where is the love the love the love? Where is the love? Guys, we have uh, a lot of great feedback I made a black lives matter post on our street epistemology page and got a lot of support for it And i'm really thankful for that also Um, I think what was cool was a conversation on Uh, what how can se be really helpful for this particular? Point of view and se I think is just a really great way to have people talk with each other Without trying to make each other defensive without trying to start an argument or a debate But like truly try to get to the bottom of things and maybe de-escalate, you know Like our primal reactions that are based on our own, please Please define se for the listeners. We did in the first half Do it again do it again people need reminders again street epistemology is a way not to have an argument or debate with Someone but get to the bottom of why they believe something and it's a really good de-escalation means of talking with people And I the way how I think about it in three rules is keep that conversation positive Help them think and make it a conversation and we think that if this is taught in schools Kids who grew up to be police officers will have a really great tool and are about to help keep, you know Conversations cordial calm and actually get past misunderstandings that maybe people have right now Also, I think it would be nice to have like an se class For officers and I'd be willing to fund that I'd be willing to have my tax money Go into that kind of funding But I had a comment that went by boss 1000 He said this post is a breath of fresh air compared to the other conversations I'm having regarding Black Lives Matter and the se space right now. Thank you I think we need to learn about the escalation in policing to learn how se could fit in The goals of law enforcement aren't the same as an seer So idea the overlap and having a few specific targeted suggestions might be great Maybe a basic principle of officers not always assuming they're in the right or at least acting that they project authority would go a long way For example, and that's true. Whenever I do se I try not to be an authority on anything I go in there with an open mind trying to learn as much as I can So yeah, thank you for the comment boss 1000. Let's get into Free will I'll have I'll we'll lead it back to Boudreaux Boudreaux. Where do you want to begin? I like the idea of what you said talking about how If we have no free will then how can we prepare ourselves to deal with that and how can we Educate people to understand, you know, how we still need to be held accountable um And and I thought I thought about this a lot and and I think Sam Harris and Dan Dennett kind of Boom bingo on this, right? Oh, yeah, we haven't said Sam Harris yet Um, but but yeah, they kind of the run into some trouble here where Uh, you know, there is a worry that yeah, if we you know Teach in class that we don't have free will I mean people going to start grabbing guns and going shooting people and just say who cares I can't control it. Anyway, and you know, it's one of those things where it's like I think we need to continue operating as if we have it because Uh, go ahead and try to to to pretend like you don't have free will It's such an illusion that I think it's really hard to do like, you know, stop breathing for instance Just just try to stop breathing. You know, what do you say we'll stop reading? Well, what do you say to those people who say obviously I have free will I admit I can choose whether I think you have a hot dog or a hamburger for lunch, you know, that's a choice Um, what do you say to those? I usually go with the favorite movie or the random number Ideal and and I I asked them to pick a random number Uh between one and a hundred and and when they give a number I asked them like how did they come up with that number? If they say randomly, then what right? Well, then then you say then you ask them, you know, okay If you were and if anyone's familiar with computer programming if you were to write a program to generate a random number How would you do it? I have Yeah But how do you generate a random number with a computer program? You tell the computer to generate a random number And the computer just a call Yeah, okay How does the library come up with it? There's a specific not randomly It's not random. Yeah, it's something called a seed right use a seed That seed is a starting point and it could be the temperature of the cpu the time of day something That's different. So even the limits that you give it could be the seed. Yeah Yeah, exactly as long as the seed is the same and the random number always comes up to be the same It will yeah, and that's what and then and then you ask, okay If I could roll back time would could have you given me a different random number? And if the answer say say yes, they say why why would have you if nothing else changed and we just replayed it again So I'm just open the floor a little bit for everyone else. So what eric is basically saying is Um despite the fact that you may not be capable of making a unique random choice on your own You're still couple bull of your actions. You're still responsible for what you choose Well, he's not saying you're free of that society has to treat you like you have free will has to right You can say now if I if I stuck my hand in a snake pit Then the snake bit me Would you say that the snake was operating on free will or that he was pro pre-programmed to bite me? You know that type of thing Or all pre-programmed to do things because of the way we were raised the school We went through and all the environments. Yeah to an extent. We're a function of our background environment But we don't let snakes go roaming around our house So if we if we come across somebody who's chosen Chooses or has the free will to kill somebody and does We we assume that he can do that in the future He may choose that choice in the future and maybe chosen for him Even if he's got no free will and we have to lock him away from the populace So the you know, we have to treat him like he has a free will and has chosen to do something But even if he has no free will we still need to separate him from the population Right and um del i'm going to throw this question out to you. Do you think we're responsible for our actions? In which cases are we not? To me yeah Uh, we are certainly responsible for actions if nothing more than what larry says to protect the population in this You know civilization, but we do know that they're like larry said There are certain creatures that have no free will at all that i can see and that would be like a spider that has There's already programmed to do his web. He doesn't do it creatively. Oh, I love it. What okay Keep going keep going keep going keep going. I'm sorry. So, uh, I I believe we've have a certain amount of free will Or at least we have to be treated as we have but we do not larry's right if we're uh Uh programmed Uh into christianity and to trust someone who says they're a christian Then we're going to vote republican or whatever one that says he loves jesus more than his atheist or or demon worshiping democrat opponent, right I want to say something about spider is a law in certain states where you you have to believe in some god to run for office Well, I hope that's what I heard there used to be there were nine states that got that in their constitution Tennessee is one of them Article two section nine. I think it's not there anymore than right? Well, there have been amendments Okay, but we can't change the constitution because it's a founding document. We have to leave it the way it is But it would amend it Yeah, it's like the u.s constitution and allows for slavery We don't have the slavery anymore because we amended it but the constitution still says that Cool. Cool. Hey, I will say this in Tennessee You were not allowed to run for office if you were a minister or any one of the of the cloth True. Faith is our minister, which is spider spiders make thousands and thousands of babies almost each time and the spiders who Make the classic spider web That very optimal function for catching bugs the ones that make you know faces and smiley faces or charlotte webs messages Like hey, that's a great pig. Those die Because they get those aren't designed to catch bugs So only the ones that make those spider webs as we're aware of it live and the creative spiders die But that's an evolution practice. So there might have been creative spiders, but they just die. So So there's my shout out to them. Hey, uh dread pirate. Uh, actually, would you mind if I asked george? Uh, george, what do you think are we what is a case when we're not responsible for our actions? Who's george? Well tyrone that is a very tricky question because I've looked into this and There's no short answer people are programmed I think In a very complex way In other words, um We view the world through a color filter And then we react to that filtered vision that we see So our actions are a reflection of of the distorted vision that we have of reality And that people form a protective filter Based upon the two crazy parents that we had And their delusional systems So to put it very quickly um Our free will comes within that context And we do we do have choice We do have free we do have free will and we do have choice in that We have free will within that context and that's You know, so we're all going to bumble. We're we are all going to make mistakes We're all going to see through our delusional system And we have Delusions and we have unique delusions Yeah, and we and the scary thing is to an to a reasonable degree everyone's delusional So it's just do you have the healthy delusions For society or not and how can you reduce the number of delusions that you're actually operating under So that you can like use the best means of My delusion is better than your delusion Yeah, it's always rushed and I think that's that's the pursuit of se in a sense is like just trying to figure out What's the best way to figure out if something's true or if something's false? Dredd, I'm going to throw this out at you When would be a time when we're not responsible for our actions if free will is as we're defining it in the second half of the show It's I mean that that's a really tough question Because I think it there's a bit of a sliding scale on that I I was going to refer to a show I like it's called the carbon arrow effect and it's You know street mid a street magician And one of the tricks he does is and he explains it after the fact Is to a guess someone's favorite actor Okay, and so in the preamble in the conversation that he's having with the person he's Going to do this trick on He inserts All these suggestions, you know different names of tom hank movies Yeah All you know numbers associated with the movies and all that kind of stuff and and then the he says, okay Right down your favorite actor on a on a card Yeah, and then he or he writes it down and then he flips it up and they go Oh, I can't believe that you got it right. Yeah, and he had just essentially manipulated Yeah, you know covertly their Free will he led him to the answer what he had already predetermined was going to be the answer Now that's that's a pretty clear Uh In an obvious way of of doing it from a skilled magician's point of view But I think um, you know, we're kind of tossed to and fro by all the influences that we Are subject to in a day or throughout our lives um And so in in essence, we are just responding to Um More or less the This subtle the subtle influences that we don't you know pay attention to on a on a very conscious level Sure, like, uh, you know the question is often asked or suggested. I think matt dillahunty says, uh, you know, we uh Thoughts or I mean beliefs inform actions and actions have consequences, but we don't get to choose what we believe Right what I mean. So I think you know put in a parallel Sort of form to the question of whether or not we have free will It's all those influences that we're not really paying attention to every day that actually inform us of our you know inform our actions and And uh, so that's why I don't think we really have free will I think that's beautifully said I also think there's like the idea and this jw Let me know if this is funny or not because you're the the the president comedian But I feel like the olympics are becoming less of an athletic showcase and more of a bad parenting convention when I When I see kids who are like six years old and training day and night to become like the world's best ping pong player Or like yes the best. I don't know whatever random sport there is in the olympics right now Uh, there's documentaries that are heartbreaking of kids just At 3 a.m. In the morning because they have to get perfect days But they also have to be the best person in the world and their parents being like do this Strike harders make your serves better. Come on do this. Come on. I think a good case can be made that it's abusive Uh, well see if you ask the kid the kid says well, I love ping pong and I this is what I'm choosing I would tell you I love jesus when I was at age two. Here we go So the root cause to what dread pirate was saying is like you can have influences influencing your free will Yeah, I'd like the entertainment industry too. They do that a lot. Oh, definitely. Don't make me sad. What what industry was that doubted? The entertainment industry singers television shows all kinds of Beauty pageants. Yeah You gave me the next amazon prime binge watch that I'll be doing. So yeah, I think definitely Who you are as a person today is absolutely influenced by the parents you have the environment you go in the socioeconomic bracket that you're in Your geography, you know India you'd probably be a muslim or Your hindu or whatever, right? Yeah, so so I'll ask this go ahead budra, so it doesn't seem like there is a way to come up with a Uh, a truly unique thought if you're always influenced by the environment so what So I think I think admitting that this is why I fall asleep in chapter two of stem harris's bugs. Yeah, okay So what I'm sleeping now. Wait, I never finished the book. I don't know No, no, I think that and this is where I think you tread carefully because I mean I've pissed people off before talking about free will and they've They've left the room because it just makes them so mad to think they don't have it But if we know if we if we know enough about the science we know enough about how our brain works And we know this exists. We can avoid things like the charles wittman shooting in texas where he left a note after killing himself That hey study my brain. There's something wrong with me Um, I I I didn't want to do this, but I was compelled to do it. He was basically telling us I don't have the free will to not do this and and Now knowing what we know about the brain now pulling that tumor out from the brain very likely would have saved his life saved Uh Potentially potentially potentially right right but but understanding that and moving that forward and at least having that as an option I think is a much better way to kind of proceed with How we how we treat Dredd, what do you got? Yeah Yeah, I was you know, that's and that's a a good physiological example of how, you know, something going wrong in your brain can You know affect your behavior but I I think And I didn't mean to sound doom and gloom to say that we don't have free will because of all those other things But I think tools like critical thinking Our means to enhance our ability to actually make choices That we decide on evaluating evaluating evidence and uh having a reliable means to Justify beliefs, right? Yeah, George. What do you got? Well, you know There's an emotional component to this uh You brought back some memories And um, I used to have a friend who was a follower of jim jones Oh, that's kool-aid dude, right? Yeah. What's that? Yeah. Yes. That's so people know. It's the kool-aid guy I know that's terrible I was living it's I was living in san francisco When jim jones became all the rage of san francisco This is the part that people don't know about they don't talk about But jim jones pretty much Took over The psyche of the entire city of san francisco. He was basically crystals in portland basically He was like the human version of crystals in portland I don't if nathan was here. He would love that joke. Anyway, I'm sorry for the creature. Keep going. Um, It's like, uh Jim jones was in the it was in the newspaper every day. He was influential. Yeah everything the city The city um border supervisors were listening to his ideas about this that and the other thing and um Next thing I know is this whole thing is blowing up in uh, guiana And It turned out that jim jones had a huge brain tumor Oh What is this true? I didn't know this. Yes. Look it up And um, you know, this was just of course found out after the fact So we had all these people following him like lemmings Drink this kool-aid, right I will say this Just so people are watching the show because we got a lot of people watching just because you have a brain tumor Or we'll have one or had one doesn't make you a maniacal Right psycho killer person Um, what I think is now, but if you're if you're the leader of a country, I think you need to get checked out mr. Trump One thing at a time And one thing at a time and I would also say like if what we're saying here is your thought process seems to be controlled by your brain Obviously, right and if things are influencing your brain your your thought processes your behavior persona would Possibly be changed to maybe your empathy all that stuff My friend who was a follower of jim jones was left behind Because not all of jim jones's followers were in guiana He had a whole bunch of people left in the united states My friend stayed here and when all that thing blew up in guiana He was bewildered Because his father figure had vanished My friend had a father who left him at an early age and he spent almost the rest of his life looking for daddy Another way the religions hijack family. They hijack it so many things, but they hijack family like that Yeah, I I love to have jw. Listenings. You've heard more or less everyone on this idea. What do you think of the idea of uh Can free will if it's all mechanical absolve someone from their responsibility as a person And what case would that be acceptable if you don't think that's that's feasible Like when am I not responsible for My actions is if there's ever a case That's very very deep And and challenging question. What's going on in my mind right now is when we're talking about the brain tumors and we're talking about Free will and we're talking about what the guy said before, you know, he did the shooting and he shot himself I'm wondering it's just like So we have a self that Controls things in the brain that can recognize when it's losing control So Maybe when we're talking about free will maybe we're just talking about control But then that goes down a hole of the rabbit trail of like who is or what is the controller? And what was that guy losing control to? And so it opens this whole other arena of dialogue and scientific study in psychology and neurology I I really wouldn't I don't have an answer to that question that I feel confident to assert And in the question in my mind is Who's cult? Is the dominant one, you know On a different topic At least in the western That and and the idea that news media entertainment is actual news But guys, I'm going to leave it up to bujo for one final thought. What do you think about this? Did your mind change about anything? Do we have like a good talk? What's like the most interesting you heard bujo? No, I think I think it was interesting Although I'd like to talk to jw more maybe offline a little bit because I I heard some smuggling in of Of control and things like that that gas I don't see any evidence for like like with the self having control The self is just a witness. We're just we're just watching all this movie play out So I I think we're I think we made a really clear definition of free will but then our our our passion and our Other things have kind of the illusion is sneaking back in that we still have control and I don't know I I'm super interested in this topic But but I think we covered it nicely. I think you a nice job How about with this and this I'll open up the floor for like just two more minutes I'll take out my plugs at the end But it sounds like what jw was saying that also falls back into what george was saying is that We have the ability so we are influenced by our environment and they give us maybe like say 10 options that are all non random But we can use critical thinking to assess which of these 10 options given to us by our environment Is the most optimal to move forward And if we use that as a vehicle to determine which of our best choices are our actual best choices We might coincide with everyone else's best choices and have what is essentially a optimal way to conduct the society Tyrone we we live in a democracy You know and that's what's coming to my mind is that Every one of us in this democracy is subject to our own delusions How are we gonna do it? You know and critical thinking could be the way out. What do you think about that boudreau? Do you think that that's acceptable? And I think that's beautiful Yeah, that's that's a beautiful way of putting it because it kind of fits into punishing someone if they do something bad You know other people see if they people see someone going to jail for killing someone Well now their influence not to kill someone hopefully But if if people are making better decisions using critical thinking And other people are looking at it saying wow those those critical thinking tools Really help that person get a job or make better decisions or do good science Maybe that'll influence them to kind of get on board that that that's a beautiful way of looking at it. Cool Well, you mentioned the thing just a little while ago. I'd like to address this a win When should we not be held accountable for actions? Well, the law allows for that under uh coercion Like if you find a contract that's an action But if somebody's holding a gun to your head to make you sign that contract that even the law will allow that you you Dress To sign it. Yeah, I just wanted to throw that in other other definition of free will again, right? Yeah, I also wonder if like every gold medal is a gold medal of the rest I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Give it to the parents. Give it to the oh my god. Don't give it. Don't reward those people. All right, so uh Dread pirates, where can we find your stuff at as we close out? Well, uh, we're live streaming right now on mind pirate MIND p y r a t e on youtube and that's where you'll find my videos and the live stream Sweet and hey, uh, budro. What is going on with this podcast situation? What's going on? We got we got an update The reason I was late today is I was on the on the water with chad on kayaks It's a wow We're gonna start, you know, you're gonna just do that. We are gonna bring go pros We are gonna record a conversation on the water. Nice We don't know bring your own by oc bring your own best friends or the best friends These guys such best friends. Nice. Uh, jw kennedy. You are about to you got all hooked up You you look in a higher fidelity. We can hear you more clearly. What's going on with you? Well, uh, the comedy clubs are opening back up here near Nashville slowly, but surely so I'm hoping to get out there sometime in the next Sometime this season this summer before the fall and record a few videos and post them on the youtube channel jw kennedy Um, also my street of pitch and model channel is going to be Speak your beautiful mind on youtube and um, you can follow me both both of those Channels both of those contents on twitter as well. Um, it would you can follow the jw kennedy one on twitter at jwk hates the news and um, I believe on twitter is your beautiful mind spelled you are or speak Yeah, I think speak your beautiful mind I think i'm not sure it is that let's just say good speak your beautiful mind spelled you are And so you're um or just you know google speak your beautiful mind on twitter cool Dale slash good-looking man, uh, what is a way that we can find you or learn more about dism? I can't help you there. Yep fair enough. I don't think god can either What do you think what's where's the way that we can find you if you have any media you said you were radio show announcer in the back in the in the past, uh What was your old station and you talking to me? Yeah, i'm talking to you. What were you talking about? Yeah What's the situation over here? Hey, what's going on? What happened? I was well 50 years ago. I was on w crx in springfield, massachusetts Which was a 50 000 watt uh classical music station Okay, very cool. It has not existed for about 45 years Oh, jeez. But do you have anything that you'd like to point our listeners to now? Do you have any online content a presence online that you'd like to check out? I do not I do not Uh, i'm a book. I'm in a state of confusion about social media Uh, the social the the state of confusion has to do with the fact that I do not want to be surveilled Ah Hey, I'll tell you what you are still reaching out to new atheists group This is like a new concept to you. I would say for his on george richards part Reach out to a community. You can look up on meetup.com and see if there's one nearby you to join If you can't find an atheist community to join start one Nice That or five what do you got? Okay, uh, my my stuff as it were is on digital freethought.com Uh, be sure to click on the blog of button Uh, we have radio our radio this radio show is archived on that Website as well as atheist songs and articles on the subject If you have any questions for the show, you can send them to ask an atheist at noxvilleatheist.org and we'll answer them on future shows Our podcasts are available through itunes stitch your luminary podcast. I heart etc etc all over the place And to close the show I usually like to Remind everybody that 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. See you next week on wednesday night 7 o'clock and w o zio radio 103.9 lpfm Say bye everybody. Bye everybody. All right