 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 LPF. I'm right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, March 7th, 2021. I'm Larry Rhodes, or down to five. And as usual, we have our co-host on the line with us. Hello, Wombat. Hello. That's all I got. And our guests today are Dread Pirate Eggs and Boudreaux. Hello, all. Hello. 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, God's holy books, and superstition. And if you get the feeling you're the only non-believer in Knoxville, well, you're just not. There are several atheist, free-think, interactionist 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. Also, did you know that there's a streaming call in atheist TV slash video show broadcasting here in Knoxville? It has been for over 10 years. Did you know that, Wombat? Yeah. And there's a big prize pool on all the events. But it's basically just army shooting game simulations. But if you like that, go for it. A lot of people like it, though. I think they make them every year. And they're like the biggest selling video games ever. But not for me. But I'm glad people like them. I'm glad people like them. Go for it. Nope. But we'll tell you how you can find the show after the mid-show break. Give you a little more information about it. If you'd like to interact with us during the show, go to Facebook and search for our digital free-thought radio hour page and use the messaging function to send us questions or comments. Wombat, what do we have going today for this topic? I'd like to talk about deism for a little bit. In fact, I think you were the one that recommended the topic. And when I first saw it, it looked like diism. Like, you want to talk about the science of death? Did I misspelling? No, I didn't know. Sorry, so dying? Oh, OK, OK. Diism. Yeah, diism. The study of dying was just like, well, it seems like a pretty easy topic. At least they're both going to try it at least once. Everybody's got an opinion on it. It's going to actually be a more light-hearted discussion on the topic of diism. Before we get into it, throw in it to our own Dredpire Higgs for our weekly invocation. Our noodly lord who art in a colander, I'll dente be thy noodles, thy blood be run, 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. Yes. And lead us not into keemtuism. But deliver us some carbs for our meat or the noodles, and the sauces, and the gorg. We'll never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever come again. Oh, man. Oh, man. I have to get some carbs in. What about? I want to do a quick overview of how everyone's been over the last week. Dredpire, how you been since the last couple of weeks, actually? OK, well, we had the judicial review. I think the last time we talked it had happened and the judge had not yet come down with this written decision. So he decided to dismiss the petition. And this whole thing seems to hinge around this idea of skepticism, not skepticism, sorry, satire as a means to dismiss people with claims like mine. So essentially he was saying because I see you as engaged in satire, anything you have to say is we don't have to pay attention to it. It's not a violation of any kind of rights to a religious expression or freedom. So I have an appointment with a lawyer this afternoon. I know it's Sunday, but he's a good friend of mine. And we're going to discuss next steps. And potentially the way it's going to go is we're working on our objects for becoming a religious terrible organization nationally. And so if we get it, we're good. If we don't, then we take it to Supreme Court of Canada. Yeah, it seems like the judge made a hard line rule of I can decide what's a religion and what's not a religion. Exactly. And that's not what the government's role should be. Inherently just like the basic focus of like, it's not your job to say what is a religion, what isn't? And at the bottom line, I'm just asking to wear my hat on an ID card. Exactly. Religious card. Like why are you making this a big deal? I'm clearly going through efforts to face the discrimination that you're putting on me. I've had a few interviews on the radio and for articles and papers. I'll be in the Toronto Star, for instance. This should be up there today, actually. Blow it up. So getting some profile out there and maybe finding a lawyer that's actually willing to take something on pro bono to defend constitutional rights, right? Yeah, absolutely. This is a constitutional issue. I also think like in the much smaller, in the more wider picture, your organization has done weddings, community service, you guys have helped people in a number of capacities. Like particularly if they're, you know, secular in a, I don't know how to, I don't know whether their options are available for me. Even your chats for coffee is like, Hey, I'll sit down with you and we'll can just talk, have some coffee. I can pick your mind on stuff. I'm not here to sell you any ideas, but just like a nice place where we can think critically, even if you are religious or not, here's a good place to just have community with one another and talk over a table. That's a fantastic service that you don't get from even like religious groups because there's always the sell. It was like, Hey, and now while you come to my potluck and you can come on Sunday church and I can take care of your kids, it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Back down, Wendy. It's all good. But yeah, I think for the most part, it's a silly thing, but I'm glad it's documented silliness because this is, these are the steps that need to be done. I think you're seeing a lot of the stuff that like civil rights people had faced early sixties where it's just like, really? Are you in writing being this evil? It's like, this is normal. It's like, ooh, this is going to look bad in history. But I'm glad someone went through the trouble of documented it. I'm glad someone was there with the photograph, seeing people getting hosed down, people getting recorded. It's like, you can't sit on the front of the bus. People take pictures of those signs, like the printing out sign people had to like, are you sure we should make a sign that says color? Is this okay for everybody? It's like, yeah, it's probably, you know what I mean? That's not good for anybody. So you're making the effort for history. I appreciate it. I've also been in contact with the B.C. Humanist Association. So they've thanked me for my activism and are engaging me to participate in some of their activities. So I think that's really good. Boudreau, you got any ideas on this? He's been going through this court battle for a while. Yeah, no, man, I applaud you for going through it. And that's got to be tough. And I, yeah, I really, really questioned this judge and his ability to just decide that he can choose. Because I always thought that was the one thing almost kind of poetic about what the church clients getting monster does is it's, it's almost in that argument is infallible unless you agree that any religion can be judged that way. And I think a really good example of that was the satanic temple. Yeah, right. And similar where they were using your book. Huh? Where you, the satanists were like, we're using your book. Like what do you mean? Like we're crazy. Like we're using the book that you guys use. In this example, the characters exist in your religion too. They went after the Westboro Baptist church, which all of you I'm sure are familiar with this group. And they went to like the founder of it. I think it was the either the grandmother or the grandfather of the leaders. And they went to her grave and they performed what's called a pink mass. And what they basically did is turned their soul gay. And so like they had this whole legal issue with it. And basically they pushed them in the corner where the only way they could, they could sue them or take issue with what they did is if they admit admit it worked. Oh, that's so good. That's wonderful. That's great. You get super damages if there's no damages, right? All right, exactly. Oh, it's good. I love it. What a stupid system we've had. Man, litigation is so dumb. Oh, but that's so perfect. I love it. Yep. Yeah. I will also say this too. On the flip side, so like, Dredd, I like what you're doing because it's it's the right form of activism on the right side of history. Westboro Baptist church is on the wrong side of history, but is likewise doing the same useful sort of documentation that I appreciate. Because when we have, for example, like a gay pride rally in or like our Black Lives Matter rally or whatever, I don't know why Westboro churches would be anti BLM, but there probably are. Let's let's let's not give them that. But if we were if we have a march, they're always on the sides with their with their signs and picketing and being like, God hates gay people. God hates, you know, unions that are outside the Bible and all that stuff. And they have citations on their posters. So it's not like it's like a dubious or nebulous or ambiguous statement that they're making. They're like, no, the Bible says this. And meanwhile, when we're walking down the parades, there's Christians with us or like, no, God loves everybody. Yeah, like, you know, God loves gay people, too. Yeah, I respect gender labels and stuff. It's like, yeah, but these guys are citing the Bible. I think you guys are stepping away from it and are are thankfully with us on this. But you're not you are so desperately far apart from what your doctrine is telling you, that it's a good to have the reminder of where it's coming from, because it can't just be the impression that you have of your book. It has to be, is this book relevant or not? And these guys are citing the book. These guys are right there with the signs in black and white. And you're here with us saying that that isn't representing what you believe. So maybe you should be further apart from your strict dogma, then you think you can't have it. Eric, you just articulated something that I've been thinking for years, and I've never really been able to kind of put it into words. So that I want to I want to point out that what you just said is really, really important piece that that a lot of my like somewhat religious friends and family just don't get. It's like you can't have your cake and eat it too. You know, either you either believe just little pieces of the, you know, all the good bits or I mean, yeah, so well said, well said. Thank you. I do want to know where the phrase you can't have your cake and eat it too. Because I think that's the whole point of cake, right? Because I said that I said that I'm like, why does that even make sense? English doesn't make sense. There's a, there's a bunch of Chinese guys in our lab, and I will say stuff like that. And it's like frog in your throat. What does that mean? It's like, yeah, I don't know what that means. It's just a thing that I said. It's a thing that a lot of Americans say, but we don't know why we say it's like, yeah, that doesn't make any sense. It's like, yeah, it's like frogs can't live in your throat. It's like, I know, I know, like, I know, let's move on. Anyway, birthday card once that had two really attractive ladies on it. Yeah. And they opened it up and it said, you can't have your Kate and Edith too. Oh no, that, that took a right turn right at the right moment. I'm glad the name finished because I did not know where I was going. We're still at CC. Larry, how you been since last week? Just want to check in on you. I'm doing fine. Excuse me. Got a frog in my throat. You can't do that. That's illegal. They can't live in there. Yeah. No, I've been playing computer games and just hanging out at the house, not getting out very much. I have my second COVID shot coming up next week, so I'm looking forward to that. I've been playing this new computer game, Eve Online. Oh, no, we'll never see you again. We'll never see Larry again. I died my first time this morning and I don't mean my ship blew up. I mean, they blew up my ship and then blew up my pod, which is inside the ship and where I died. So that wasn't very good, but it didn't cost me anything. It actually saved me some time. I was traveling at the time and I just showed up at my destination, which is cool. So what game was that? Eve, EVE online. Now look it up. It's, it's, it's old. It's like 17 years old still going. It's a massive multiplayer game. It's all takes place in space on your ship. It's all about ship battles and stuff, but it's really cool. It is, I would consider it like Dungeons and Dragons, but in space, but also if you really, really like spreadsheets. Every single time someone says, there's this really cool thing going on Eve Online and they're explaining this brilliant story of like plot and intrigue and spies and, and people backstabbing each other. I want to see a video of the gameplay and it's just people with spreadsheets going like, you see how sell five CX. Well, if you're on the bridge of your ship, on the bridge of your ship, you're not actually turning a steering wheel or firing. Items on the screen, you know, a different thing. And that's what you're doing in the game. And flying is like charting a course. You're not like piloting anything. You're just, it's very, it's realistic to the point where it's like, this feels like a government job. You should get paid to do this. Yeah, but watch some videos. It's pretty cool. It really is. I have a lot of fun. Cool. Boudreau, I wanted to check out on you as well. How have you been since last week? Good, good. I'm back from vacation now trying to get in reality. My son is back in school. He's in fourth grade. He's in person. That was crazy last week. And my daughter goes back. She's in seventh grade and she goes back next week. So she's got one more week of in person, which means I'm probably going to go back on campus and work a little bit. I want to have kids at the house. So sure. And, you know, I'm fully vaccinated, but, you know, still mask up and do what I can. But we might want to talk about masks just real quick. I think if I'm, is it accurate that Kentucky has resolved their mask ordinances? Are they one of the states that have relinquished the mandate to be masked? Because I know a lot of GOP-led states have the opinion that masks aren't needed anymore. Texas, Mississippi, Alabama thankfully still kept it. That was unexpected. But we have a Democratic governor and he's been Andy Beshears. I suspect you guys are going to hear about him at the national level in a few years. He really, really took this to heart. And the things that he's done in Kentucky have been, he's getting all kinds of junk for it, you know, but I think he did a really good job. And I hope, I know, I think we're still, we're still masking and all that. So, but I'll be interested to see how things change. Yeah, I have some cousins in Texas and they're saying people weren't wearing masks already, but the few that really were are more encouraged than not wearing them at all. Like the people who were around the fence about it. And there's only 8% of people in Texas that have been vaccinated all together. Only 8%. And so it is, it is a insanely frustrating, even sickening to his stomach and to mine as well to have leadership get vaccinated, right? And then tell other people, you don't have to wear a mask. And I was like, are you literally trying to kill us? The answer is yes. And so I put it, I put into, I put into the, the good old Google. And this is, this is a bit biased. And I'm sure it's bad, but like, it's, it's so plainly bad. And it goes back to what I was saying about the drive. But I was like, I Googled Republicans are trying to kill us, right? Just for fun. I put that in and hit enter. I just want to see what came out. And there were like 40,000 articles that had the exact same label, but they're all back to like 1996, 2017. I'm like, this isn't new. People knew this for a while. And it's just like one case of the other. And it started to press me. I was just like, okay, let's just close this for now. I think the main thing is, I think the main takeaway is, even though governors are removing it, they're doing it to maintain popularity with the people who weren't doing it already, right? It's not like people are on the phone waiting to hear what the governor said so that they can start being more unsafe. Like those people aren't who are watching the news for direction. They're doing what they want and looking for justification after the fact. And so in this country, at least in America, we have never had a very good track record for the security and welfare of the individual. Like we don't do that very well. And as a result, things like this happen where outbreaks happen and the leadership have no capacity to be able to control or maintain what the what the public does, especially on an individual basis. And so it's up to you as an individual until we figure that out, until we make this this union more perfect is to take care of yourself. And the easiest thing you can do is wear a mask and to help to reduce the spread of an infection that is real and is rampant and still exists. And as as unfortunate as it might sound, it's going to be around for a lot longer still to. And so it's an easy thing to wear a shirt. It's not a form of oppression, oppression to be clothed outside. Same mask procedure helps you from not only not having to like shave, because I know a lot of people know about shaving all the time, but also protects you from viruses. Also take care of your mask to like make sure you you you wash it, you don't throw it out on the ground. There's it's a PPE, it's it's contaminated and you need to treat it as such. So just take care of it. My my quick little update for for last week is I got my second vaccination shot. I had very little symptoms, even that or I slept through it. And I feel healthy and I feel great. And so if you're still on the fence of terms of getting a vaccination, you have the opportunity to get vaccinated. Conceal yourself incredibly fortunate, because if I wasn't running a lab where, you know, like we had to get vaccinated because we're working with filtration, I probably wouldn't have had this opportunity. And I would say there are people at my job who passed on it just because they were worried that they didn't want to be the first ones in line. And I'm like, you're not the first one in line. You're not even number 100,000. You're like so behind and you have the opportunity to get this get it. I feel great. I'm really looking forward to swimming again in a public pool with people like brushing elbows against them. I went skating at a park yesterday with friends. And the first thing I did when we met each other, they were vaccinated to was we shook hands. They're like, Hey, it's nice to see you. This is hard. It felt so weird. I was like, Oh my God, human contact. When I meet someone, this is bizarre. It felt good. It felt good. All right. Speaking of things that feel good, Dism and Larry's soon to be rants. I want to get, I want to get through all of them. Larry, what do you got? So much a rant. Just talking about it. And a shout out to Dale, our old co-host. We're talking about Dism. And I'm sure if I get something wrong, he'll let me know. He's been a DS. He's been the only DS I've known for a long time. But what this really comes back to is the arguments that Christian apologists put in, most apologists of all religions put forward. The argument from the first cause, the argument from design, complexity, morality, whatever, all of these arguments just point to a God. But they all think that it points to their God, but it doesn't get you there. All it does is get you to a God, even if they are true. And they don't have any evidence to show that the argument from the first cause actually means that it was a God who did it. It could have been anything. It could be pixies or fairies for that matter. Pointing doesn't show proof, right? Right. But just for the argument, argument's sake, we could say that, okay, it does. It points to a God. But how do you get from that God to your God, not some other God that's been worshipped by humans for the last 10,000 years or even some God we've never heard of, or a God that died in the Big Bang or just lost interest and went away and has no interest in us whatsoever? The nice thing and good thing about deism to me is there's no dogma. There's no preachers telling you what God wants you to do. And there's no holy book. There's no omniscient judge watching your every thought and ready to cast you into some health for a wrong thought. There's no thought police. I think it's a good way to go if you have to have a God belief. That's a good, that'd be a good one. Also, you can make up your own heaven and you can disregard the concept of hell if you want to. It's all up to you because nobody has answers. If there were real answers out there, there wouldn't be 10,000 different religions all over the world all saying and all absolutely sure that their answers are correct and they're contradictory to the others. So that's my thoughts on the matter. What are yours? I'll condense my point real quick and then we can go out to Boudreaux and then Dredd. But I consider like the main religions to be delusional and I find deism to be just delusion light. Like if it was a brand item in a store, it's like all the great taste of delusion with a half the calories, right? And it seems to me like you don't need delusion. Yeah, it's great that you don't have any, you know, central dogma, but you're still falling into a really bad reasoning loop that's making you believe things that you have no evidence to support or trust or test or in any way give you a credible or tangible excuse to convince yourself that something is actually the case, which is a dangerous, which is a very dangerous mindset because you can easily transition that into believing anything with no evidence that you can't test and verify. It's the bedrock for other beliefs that you can build on. Yeah, it's the hook that pulls you into a bunch of much more insane or inane, I would say. I don't even know if that's nicer inane fallacies. But Eric, I'd like to get your opinion on this. Deism, what's all about? So, yeah, I like your point that this is kind of like, you know, religion light. And it kind of gets back to what you're saying earlier. If you strip away all kind of the dogma and the bad bits of religion that really have good reasons to have come this far, I mean, there were reasons to not have gay children when you had a farm and you needed your kids to make babies. So, a lot of that makes sense how it came about. And now we've grown and learned a lot more so we can kind of move that away. So if someone's, I guess I'm less thinking like you guys are, that it's a gateway to more bad thinking. It kind of feels like, I forget who said it, but it kind of gives you that gold-plated reason to stop thinking. Maybe it was Hitch, but it could have been Sam Harris, I don't know, Sam Harris. Sam Harris, bingo. Bingo all the way. All right. Thirty minutes. I made it 30. So, yeah, it makes me feel a little better. Almost feels more like progress, I guess. If you have someone who just believes in the origin of the universe is godly in nature, but then there's, yeah, there's nothing else to it. But yeah, you're right. It's just pointing and not really proof. So, I don't know. I guess I'm less worried about it and more thinking it's a better direction. Maybe in 100 years we'll even shed that, but I don't know. I don't know. I haven't thought a lot about this. I thought it was really interesting that in your mindset, and a little bit of mine too, like the idea why Christians rationalize why you shouldn't be gay is because you need more farm hands. You need more people that like 10-year caps. It's like, I need someone to watch this pig, but he better not like other men because there's a lot of pigs here. That makes sense. I'll get the connection. Can't have gay farmers? What's the problem? We'll come back to that. Dred, I want to get your point of view. What do you think on deism? Well, you know, it's kind of like the difference of telling people about your delusion and having a delusion. They're not telling people about it. Hmm. Hmm. Right? Yeah. Yeah. For a certain perspective. Like the core is still the same. Yeah. The core is the same. Exactly. Right. And I always go back to Matt Dilla-Hunty when he says, you know, that faith is belief without evidence. Belief informs our actions and actions have consequences. Right. So there is a real issue in holding a delusion as true regardless of whether you put a name to it or not. I got, I want to add to that. I think it's like, I'm building on Dred's analogy, but like it's either a cockroach or a chocolate covered cockroach. Right? I know one seems more appetizing because it has, you know, this really nice cover on it, but that core is still the same. It's still a cockroach, man. You don't want anything to do with that. Why are you doing it? And I want to, Larry, I'm going to, I'm going to suggest something. Let me know if this seems reasonable, but a lot of people appeal to deism for the sake of trying to find connection with something spiritual or, or make sense of all these things that do point to a God. And like I said, it doesn't have to point to any specific God. And if that's the case, why pick this God that you can't test, see, you know, reason? Well, it's just a simple, that's a simple answer to why are we here? Why is the universe here? Why are we designed? I mean, it could be a computer programmer in some other universe that has created the simulation. I mean, deism can point to anything that, that you give the ability to create a universe. And I could, like I said, it could be a fairy. You know, if you decide the fairies can create universes. And so I always, what I hear from Diaz Salat is, yeah, I believe in a God and he can be anybody. It's like, oh, it could be he, like in their head, their initial impression was he, because they're typically a dudes as well. And it's like, no, I mean, it could be a force or anything like that. Okay. So it's a force we can measure. Like forces are things we can measure. It's like, well, it's an unmeasurable thing. That's like, okay, so it has matter. It's a, it's a thing. It's like, no, it's like it literally wiggles and squeezes its way through every form of like questioning. It's frustrating because they believe it. And they may have some sort of sensation of like, if you can't prove that this is not real, then I win. And that's their fun argument. But it's, it's a waste of their time to put effort into something that I can't test. What should be better, what should be better instead of chasing the deus shadow should be, do you have a good reason to believe this? This is true. And can we talk about that reasoning that you use to come to this, this point of conviction that you have? And if that path isn't reasonable, I won't be convinced, but I at least want to highlight what my problems are with that methodology that you're using. Because if you're interested in this and you want this belief to be true as well, shouldn't you care about why you believe these things as well? And like, let's talk about the path. So like, we can put these on a shelf. We can put you on a shelf. Let's just talk about that reasoning that you're using to get to that true conclusion. That seems to be a bunch more productive route for people who want to have the conversation. That's, that's always an issue. I do, I do have this thing though. It seems to be the case that we are psychologically programmed to seek forms of authority or leadership when we don't know something. And I think that's a human condition. Has Sam Harris ever talked about any of that, Boudreau? Not that I know. No, because that's an exciting topic and he's a boring, boring man. And we all know this. We all know this. But I think it's, I think it's a biological programming for us to be like, Hey, I don't know this. I'm just going to trust whatever this loud convincing calm dude is saying or, or person is saying. And that's a problem only in the sense of if that person is diluting themselves as well, that delusion trickles down and delusion tends to trickle down. And I feel like deism was an idea that someone came up with. Didn't really think it out, but seemed really captivating to a lot of people who are also scared. Well, let's not forget that many of the forefathers, American forefathers, founding fathers, were deists. And that's the least of their problems. Let's, let's be real about this. Like that was the least of the reasons why these guys were all jerks. Let's, let's be, I'll call them out. I'll call them out all day long. Tom Payne was definitely a deist. Okay. We need to take a mid-show break at this point. This is the digital free thought radio hour on W.O.Z.O. Radio 103.9 L.P.F.M. here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we'll be right back after this short break. 103.9 FM W.O.Z.O. Radio Knoxville. Welcome to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour. I'm doubter five and we're on W.O.Z.O. Radio 103.9 L.P.F.M. right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is March 7th, 2020. Let's talk about the atheist slash free thought groups that you can join here in Knoxville. First, there's the Atheist Society of Knoxville or ASK founded in 2002. We're going in our 19th year now. We have over a thousand members and we have weekly zoom meetings that allow the atheists to get together and chat as a community. You can find us online or on Facebook or go to KnoxvilleAtheist.org to find their website. You can also just do a search on Google for Knoxville Atheist and it'll show up there. 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. Another large free thinking group here in Knoxville, the rationalists of East Tennessee are E.T. Just go to Facebook and look for a rationalist of East Tennessee or go to rationalist.org and click on upcoming events. Earlier in the show, we said we'd talk about the Knoxville Atheist video show. Well, it used to be a TV show here on local programming of community TV, but now it's moved online to YouTube. So just go to YouTube and look for Knoxville free thinkers, Knoxville free thought, that type of thing and you'll find our archives in our current shows. With us today on the show, we have Wombat as usual, Boudreaux and Dread Pirate Higgs. Welcome all. Wombat, where do you want to pick up? I had a really serious problem, guys. I bought a boat. I bought a boat. Oh, you know what a boat is. A what? What are you talking about? I know what a boat is. I know what a boat is. Yeah, it's a hole in the water where you put your money. Yeah, because the engine broke and it was suck. So I was like, what do I do? This whole engine thing broke and I went down and put on my scooter gear and I looked out at the bottom of the boat. I had this tiny little thing that spun around and I'm like, ah, that's the thing that went wrong. And so I called home Depot and here's the problem with home Depot. I don't know the names for tools. So I go to the guy, I don't know the names for any of the tools. And I'm like, Javier, this is Javier. How can I help you? I'm like, Javier, I need some help. I need some tools to fix my boat. And he's like, okay, so what do you need? It's like, I need the thing that's like, you know, like it's a nail and it's got the little rails on them. It's like, oh, you need a screw. It's like, I know what a screw is. Okay, finding a screw. I was like, oh, is it with the pointy screw or the flat screw? It's like, do you need a bolt? Do you need a bolt? So it's like, fine, fine. It's a bolt. Okay. I need a bolt. It's like, wait, do you need a bolt or do you need a thing that goes on the bolt? It's like, I need both. So you need a bolt and a nut. It's like, why are the names for everything? I just need to put them in a hole. What's the whole call? It's like, the holes are just holes, sir. I'm like, Javier, stop playing with me. And it's like, what do I need to fix this, you know, propeller parts? Like you need a fan. Oh, a fan. What a fan. What a fan. What am I a good fan? Guys, we are going to go over some listener comments around the barn. I love it. I love it. I could do my home Depot stand up. It's been a while. So, uh, we got some good videos going out. I recently posted a really nice video from the Daily Moth. They are a deaf news agency on YouTube. And they made a post that I think really highlights the different ways of how people sign. So they have like correspondence in different parts of the world. And they all have a very distinct accent sign language wise, even though they're all using ASL. And I made a video highlighting the difference between that. I got a comment that the audio was low. And I think that I think it won't matter as much because it's a whole lot of signing in it. But I will turn up the audio in the future next time. You can't hear the people. They're not talking. They're not talking. I hear that or it's a really good joke. I'm going to have to catch up on that. But, uh, yes, uh, data straight room didn't make a comment says, Hey, do you think there's a market for sign to voice interpreters? Sign to voice interpreter? Absolutely. And there is a market for it. That's actually a profession. It's called interpreters. And they're, they're all over the place. Strontium 76 made a really, really great scientific, uh, comment on the, the nature of music and how it actually can motivate us. And this is based off the last video that we made, which was called wonders of science versus wonders of religion, where I think one of our points was like, Hey, we're really thankful for the impact to an extent that religion had on music because it really helped to support it, fund it. And, and, and that drove the science behind finding out what works in terms of moving people and what doesn't work. And so you can read strong team 76 comment right here. There's math equations in it. I won't get into it in that detail. Math equations. I haven't checked for veracity yet though. Uh, let's see. Dottice trading room, though. Good friend of the show. He says, based on our show from last week, which was again, wonders of science versus wonders of religion. He says, first, I want to mention that I really wanted to comment on the previous episode. You guys made so many SE worthy statements that I was planning to re-listen and comment on each issue. You Wombat, that's me, actually should have conducted a long SE intervention, not on the show though. Then life happened and all of a sudden a new episode appeared. Anyway, I want to talk about Ramadan. Now I don't know, but from what I've heard, they can't eat when Allah can see. If you hide somewhere in the night, they do eat because Allah can't see. Obviously Allah lacks the wonders of science. Hmm. So I will say this. I don't, I think that's a, it's a cute, it's a cute interpretation of Ramadan, but I feel like for Ramadan, it's more of like we have set periods of time where we can eat during the day because we can't obviously starve ourselves for, you know, the entire length of Ramadan. And when I, when I talk to my Muslim family, the whole point of it is to put yourself in a position where you can be in a similar mindset of those who are less fortunate than you and the rich celebrate Ramadan, the athletic celebrate Ramadan, people in space celebrate Ramadan. It's sort of like just this whole community wide understanding of like people don't always have food. And I feel like just from the American perspective of like, what's a holiday in America? Like Christmas is like, we get free stuff. We get like, you know, we have expectations, entitlements. We eat all day long. We eat all day long. Thanksgiving comes in. We just eat Halloween. We can just knock on people's door and they don't, don't give us stuff. We can pull pranks on them. But I feel like Ramadan is like one of the best core holidays of like, hey, be good to people, like, and understand where they're coming from. Like not everybody has a home and everybody can put food on their plate. There's some good stuff behind it. And I will say one last thing before I throw onto Boudreaux for comments on Ramadan. But I, I feel like, and let me know what you think about this, Eric, I feel like I sort of give Muslims a free pass that I would not give otherwise to Christians, only because my Christian background is so much more stronger than my Islam background, such that when I hear things from a Christian perspective, I'm way more knee jerk ready to dismiss it because I came from there. Like, I think most, most American atheists are that way. Right. Right. But we also get a lot of criticism for not pounding on Islam as much as we do Christianity. A lot of, a lot of people say we give them a pass, but it's just that we're, we were raised in a Christian environment generally, even if it wasn't Christianity per se. Right. The country is oriented in that direction. I mean, think of all the Christian Christmas specials we have every year. Yeah, I'm so tired of all those. I also feel like a lot of the rhetoric that comes from anti Muslims come from Christians. And I'm just trying to so put myself away from all of that and just be like, listen, you guys do what you guys celebrate how you want to celebrate. Obviously, you know that I don't believe it, but I respect that you're not fighting for a team, the home team, not a fan of the home team. But what do you think? What do you think? Well, that actually, that's a really, really good, interesting topic, maybe worthy of its own show. But and here I will purposely go go the Sam Harris route. I think that's one of the things he did early on in his career when he wrote the the end of faith, which he wrote right after the 9 11. And I think he was trying to take himself out of the, you know, the Christian kind of the American point of view and just and just try to criticize all religion. And then he really tries to point out some of the real real dangers of Islam and some of the things that, yes, we do give passes to, you know, as as American atheists or Christians. And I think I think it gets conflated with xenophobia or racism, Islamophobia, you know, Sam had that episode of Bill Marshall where Ben Affleck went crazy against him, called him a bigot and a racist and all this. But I mean, he's really just criticizing Islam, just like he's criticizing religion. Right. But you're right. There is almost something. Yeah, you saw that reaction. I saw that reaction. I remember the video you're talking about. Yeah. So so no, it's a good point. And actually, we should maybe step back and say, well, I mean, should we should we criticize everything equally? Or is it worth giving, you know, Islam a free pass just to look like better people? I mean, I think that kind of part of it is, I think, I think where I'm coming from is I have a standard of critique that obviously, if I apply it to Christianity also applies to Islam, but I'm just exhausted from constantly using it on Christianity, that even if it's a different flavor of nonsense, it's at least strawberry flavored nonsense. You're like, oh my gosh, thank goodness. Okay. Yeah, it's like, I'll handle this later. At least put it on the shelf for now. Dredd, what do you think? I'd like to get your opinion on this. Specifically, specifically. Do you hear me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, I can hear you. Well, I guess what I can say, maybe summed up in a paragraph of the argument I wrote for the judgment, a person does not have to look far past one's own nose to appreciate that all religions are mutually incompatible to varying degrees. And that members of each regularly mock, saturate and criticize the beliefs of others. Consider the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. While all three have a common origin and worship the same God, a non Jew is a Gentile, a non Christian is a heathen, and a non Muslim is an infidel. When one considers the millions of Gentiles, heathens and infidels, who met with a gruesome end for not believing in the right religion, it may be considered high time that a religion that values humor, self deprecation and silliness is the vessel sailing to commerce seas. And should it be positive that Pastifarians are simply atheists rocking the boat of religiosity, we would counter that the diversity of belief is far greater than anyone might realistically account for. Ultimately, we are atheistic to all gods other than the one we believe in. Ramen. I also thought this out too, being an atheist doesn't mean you can't have a religion either. So like, even if someone says, well, you're just an atheist, like, yeah, but there are atheist religions. So most of the Eastern religions are Buddhism, for instance, yeah. Yeah. And so, and while deism is a form of theism, it's like such a weak form of theism that it can, you could basically hang out with the atheists and have a good time as long as you support science. We have members in ASK who are deists. Right, right, right. So the spectrum is so broad to come down with a strict criterion like that. I want to go right back to that Muslim analogy real quick. So if you have delusion, which is like the brand vanilla delusion, and you have delusion light, which is like the deism, I feel like there is like new crystal delusion, which has its own Cosby commercials and stuff like that. You're like zero calorie. Yeah, it's a new formula. Come on, we're trying it out new. And I'm like, it's still delusion, but at least they're trying something different. Yeah, I'm happy to see that it's something different. I'm not going to try it. I know it's in that bottle, but I'm glad that there's different brands of it. But I don't want to have more vanilla delusion. I think we should try to work our way towards getting people off of that and let them know that there's better things out there for them to try. Or at least question why they're so adherent on that particular brand. I'm going to open this up a little bit. Eric, we were talking about deism today. Is there any sort of like, how do I put this? Is there a form of religious expression that irks you in a minor way that maybe just comes from a lack of understanding on your part? Or from a, I've dealt with these people before, and it's just, it's never very a productive conversation. I don't really understand what they believe. I'm not sure if they understand it either. They're just using the label to stay away from atheism. Have you seen stuff like that before? Yeah, yeah. I actually had summit, which we've talked about before happens right behind me when we're allowed to be in person. We had a lot of people to come in, and I've mentioned this before, but I think it's a really good point to reiterate. They hang on this agnostic term. Yeah. They're like, no, no, they're afraid of the fundamental religious person. That's crazy to them. And they don't really like getting up early on Sunday, so they haven't subscribed to a religion, but they're so scared of atheism as a term that they want something in the middle, and they invent the space between theism and atheism that's like kind of in the middle. And it's binary term, so there's no space there. So then they pretend that the word agnostic means right in between, and then you get into the issue of knowledge versus belief, and it's a whole other conversation. But yeah, it's exactly what you're saying. You get people that just don't want, they're scared of the term atheism, for good reason, because I mean, atheists are, well, I put in the chat, there are several states that, it's at least my understanding, that don't allow atheists in public office. And I don't know if that's true in Tennessee, but it was on the list. I mean, when you're in court, you swear on the Bible to be president, you swear on religious holy books that you may not even represent? Larry, what do you got? Well, I was going to address that about atheism not being allowed in public office in Tennessee. It's in the constitution that the state constitution that atheists cannot serve in public office. However, that's a founding document. It's not going to change. We have amendments to that document that allow people of any faith and no faith to serve in any public office in Tennessee. But it's like the original U.S. Constitution, it still allows the original documents as we have slaves, and they're worth three-fifths of a person and all that stuff. It's in there, but we would later change that so that it's not effective. And it's the same with Tennessee Constitution. Wow. That makes sense. Matt, that's what we miss out when we read a Facebook headline and it's a meme and it's to get your attention and not be true. I think most people are just afraid that atheists are going to eat babies in public. I wanted to know like a bit of a term. Dredd, I wanted to know, and that was a funny thing, but we've done the baby joke many, many times on the show. I've never heard it. I had to bring it in. It's the baby thing again. So I'm here to say something about that. I hate that I have to eat them in private. Dredd, in Canada, is there as much of a connotation on agnosticism as sort of like the pseudo atheism? I'm not comfortable with the atheism term or like I'm kind of spiritual. I don't really know where I'm at, but I don't like those atheist people. I don't know what to really read. Yeah. And I think for the most part, the people who say they're agnostic don't really know what that means. Yeah. And they don't know what atheism is to distinguish from it. So, and that's just my personal experience, not that I'm speaking for Canada in general, but yeah. I would say, I mean, you know, in Canada, there is a de facto state religion, of course, and that's the Church of England because the Queen is our sovereign, right? Right. So, you know. Undying Queen. Yeah. The Undying Queen. The Undying Queen. She's never going away. The confusion that comes about when people who are atheists or people who are questioning say that they're agnostic, I feel like religious people gather onto that almost intentionally because when I have a conversation with Christians who are cool to have these kinds of conversations with and I explain to them, oh, I'm an atheist. I don't believe in a God. It's like, well, aren't you really agnostic? I was like, why, one, why do you know that word? And two, why do you not know why that word means? And then when I say I am both agnostic and atheist, like, I don't understand what that means. I'm like, where did you hear that word from? And they must have heard it from their leadership who just said, those guys are agnostic. No definition. They just know the term is them. Yeah. And I feel that's really unfortunate. Yeah, I like to ask them if somebody tells me they're an agnostic, but they're not an atheist. I say, well, what does agnostic mean? Yeah. It means I don't know. I said, okay, you told me what you know or don't know. Tell me what you believe. And that kind of throws. So it comes right down on that. You know, they'll come back with, I don't know if I believe or not. It's right back up in the air. And I found the question of knowledge is a much better conversation to have than on theism or atheism. Like just let's focus on this on knowledge. Like, what do we know? And how do we know it? Right? And a lot of the times at the end of those conversations, you can get a diehard theist to at least admit that they're an agnostic theist, which in my head is like, why, why believe it? If you do, if you don't know if it's true, that seems like the most reasonable thing. And oftentimes has nothing to do with the belief. It's just social pressure. It's like, if I stop believing their personal preference, I know deus who want, who believe in God, just because they want to. But what does your personal preference have on impact of whether or not it's true or not? Right? Right. Right. So like, and why does the effect of, well, my wife will not like me as much if I, you know, don't believe this, or my job opportunities might go down if I don't believe in this, or I won't have as many friends or it might be harder to make more friends in the future. My pragmatism there. All of those things might be true, but it doesn't have any impact on whether or not it's actually a real thing or not. And that's, I feel is the admission that they're believing it because they have to believe it, not because they actually are convinced that it's true. And there's this decision of like, next level of like, I can't believe something, even if I really want to, if I'd not convinced that it's true. So I'm just saying that I am religious, just to keep my life easy, even though I both know, and I'm unwilling to admit that this in fact is not actually accurate, that there was in fact not a guy who walked on water and stuff. That's a lot of the Pascal's wage or two. It's, it's not so much that they want you to change your belief is just say that you believe when you don't. But they, a lot of those guys just need a, how do I put this? They need a path that's not as scary. They need people on the other side who are open about it to say like, ah, but you are on this side and we're friends. Maybe it's worth all to just have friends that actually care about who you are as a person, not who you pretend to be or pretend to be in public. And that might be less stressful. Maybe it'd be better to have spouses or significant others that respect me for who I am rather than who I, you know, you know, lie that I am once a week. And maybe I can save time for some of my paycheck. All these are great things. Eric, that was a great point. I, like I have a lot of umbrage against the way how agnostic is misused. I, I'll throw out one other last thing. I think we have like maybe five more minutes before the end of the show or before we start closing. I hate how scientific terms get misused by the general public at all cases. And I feel like, I feel like when things get political, um, the quality of scientific terms that already have an established meaning are diluted. I feel like the same things happen to theory. Like theory used to mean something. Now everyone's got theories and you're just like, oh, but these don't count. And so, uh, I think for at least 2020, 21, 21, I'm going to throw a rest in peace little sign for personal research, personal research, right? Cause that used to mean something at least when I was in grad school. And Eric, you might be able to support me on this too. You're a scholastic got your scholastic nerd as well. I'm saying like, when I said, Hey, I did some research and I found out that I was wrong about XYZ. That would have been good enough for people to be like, Oh good. Then you probably had a good reason for being wrong. But now it's like, well, I thought the government wasn't eating babies, but I did some personal research. Guess what I found out. There's this guy I'm hearing it named XYZ. He's, he's the son of Q. And I'm like, you're right. We need to store in the capital again. I'm like, hold on guys, personal research doesn't mean what you think it is anymore. All right. That's my three cents. Dredd, where can we find your stuff? Where you're going to be out in the future? I am still on my YouTube channel, MinePirate, M-I-N-D-P-Y-R-A-T-E. I'm still trying to figure out how to get it set up so because I'm I've shifted computers. So I want to try and get this set up so it can live stream on Sundays. I saw you broadcasting. I saw you broadcasting this morning when I was making it. Yeah. And I just couldn't get my microphone, which has always been the hanging point for me on this silly thing. But I'll tell you what I've done. I can't sometimes I have trouble getting my second camera to work this one that I'm pointing at too. So I just have two cameras. One of them will work. Maybe you just need an extra mic. You got one headset possibly. Maybe you can. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that's what I should do. Yeah. Just like one of these is going to work. Yeah. All right. And we're also going to see on the Toronto Star. It seems like that's that's a thing. Yeah. I actually, if I've got a sec here, I just want to read the last paragraph of the judges, the judges thing. It says, the tribunal, the human rights tribunal determined that accepting the petitioners complaint, my complaint, or filing, quote, would not further the purposes of the code, unquote, one of which is to promote a climate of understanding and mutual respect where all people are equal in dignity and respect. Unless you're a pastor. Fair and clear. Right. The judge goes on to say, in my view, the tribunal's decision was neither neither clearly irrational nor so flawed that no amount of curial difference can justify letting it stand. Accordingly, it cannot be said to have been patently unreasonable. So we'll see him in church. I argue that. Yeah, we'll see him in church on next Sunday. You'll meet him there. The illusions, guys, it doesn't, it doesn't go away when you get letters at the end of your name or we'll put on a black coat. Right. Terminated through society. Eric, you got new music down the pipe. What's going on with you? I got nothing digitally going on to your really, but my buddy Chad's show is actually has his house on that he was working on for sale. So I'm hoping he gets that thing sold. Okay. Okay. Cracking on our show. So I've got a huge list of ideas for some topics. So we might be able to hit the ground running with some shows, keep them kind of short or something and, and then just put out a bunch. So yeah, actually, that's not a bad idea. What if you just made the shows like 10 minutes each and you just did several in one session and just be like, what do you think about this? Boom. Yeah. But I'm talking about bud budding buds or whatever you want to talk about it. Yeah. I'll get you guys get you guys early, early reviews of it. So very, very cool. Yeah. I'm down. Just let me know. And you can find my stuff on let's chat. I'm going to do some more sign language breakdowns from the Daily Moth, this deaf news broadcast show. It's towards my interest of trying to help people better communicate with each other. You can find that on my channel, let's chat. And if you're watching this YouTube channel, you're probably there already. And I'll turn up my volume, but I guarantee you they are not talking. It won't matter much. And I'm signing too. So like, you know, maybe you might want to get to the point where you just steadily turn it down. Maybe that's what I'm doing. Like maybe I'm just getting quieter and quieter so that you have to learn how to sign to appreciate the show. Anyway, that are five. I have this big burning question in my heart. I have all this atheism around me and I don't know what any of it's all about. And there's cockroaches and chocolate covered cockroaches too. I don't know what should I think? I don't know about the cockroaches, but I have a book out. It's called atheism. What's it all about? It's available on Amazon. You can find it there. And it's not audio, but it is Kindle. So you can buy an e-book if you like. Or you can go to digitalfreethought.com and read an awful lot of my content there. Be sure to click on the blog button for our radio show archives, atheist songs, many articles. If you have questions for the show, please send them to AskAnAtheist at KnoxvilleAtheists.org. We'll answer my future shows. If you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind, maybe emotion or problems with that, you can also go to recoveringfromreligion.org to have people there to help you with that. If you're watching this on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe. My YouTube channel can be found under Larry S. Rhodes. 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 week. Say bye everybody. Bye everybody. Bye everybody. Good show. Yeah, good show. I like the idea that you could hold a post-death ceremony to make a soul day and then when you get suitoring, it's like, well, you have to admit that we actually did something. Right. And you have to prove the soul exists at that point. Otherwise, we're free to go, right? It's like, yeah, I guess so.