 103.9 FM, WZO Radio Knoxville. Ladies and gentlemen, Digital Freethought Radio Hour. Hello, and welcome to Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WZO Radio 103.9 LP FM, right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Today is Sunday, August 16, 2020. I'm Larry Rhodes, or Doubter 5. And as usual, we have our co-host Wombat on the phone with us. Hello Wombat. You got the touch! That's all I know about this song, but it's okay. I don't know that song. Oh, it's a good song. It's a good song. It's a good song. It's a polychism song. And today's guests are Dreadfire Diggs, Wave, when... Yeah, there you go. George and Red Leader. Why don't we get drunk? Oh, okay. Also a good song. Good. Digital Freethought Radio Hour. It's a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism, and the sciences. And conversely, we'll also talk about religion, religious faith. It's got a total books and superstition. By the way, this is our 190th show. Wow. So we're closing on 200 shows now, a couple more months. If you get the feeling that you're the only non-believer in Knoxville, well, you're just not. There are several atheist, free-thinking, and rationalist groups that exist right here in Knoxville. And we'll tell you how you can connect with them right after the mid-show breaks. Also, did you know that there was a streaming atheist calling video slash TV show broadcasting here in Knoxville? That's correct. It hasn't been for 10 years. Did you know that one bit? Yes. So the fight was the Heavyweight Women's MMA Championship. It was Linda the Slicer. Stopping. Stopping. Amanda the Punch Metal Fist Ladies, Branson. And they were fighting for a long time until an Ipoc happened, unfortunately, in the 17th round. And the belt went back to the reigning champion. I think it'll be a really great competition if they did it over again. After 200 shows, he still does it. He still hasn't found the TV show yet. I'm just saying, pay-per-view is expensive. That's all. So you just take what you can get. It is. But it's not on pay-per-view. Anyway, we'll tell you more about how you can connect with it. And maybe one bit will really pay attention when we tell them. But that'll be after the mid-show break as well. If you'd like to interact with us during the show, go to Facebook and search for our digital free thought radio or our page. And you can use the messaging function to send us questions or comments. What do you have for us today, or one bit? Today, we're going to be talking about the more things change, the more things stay the same, specifically with science versus religion. And we're going to see which things change the most and which things stay the same the most. But before we go into it, I throw it up to our own Dread Pirate Higgs for our weekly invocation. All right. To the few that I knew in the pew who aren't too much enthused with this view, I agree on the odds against all other gods, but conclude there's one fewer than you. Right. Hey, before we go into the topic today, Dread, how you been? How's Canada life? Canada life in Canada is good. You know, we've got this corona thing under control. Nice. And, you know, we count in the hundreds, you know, people that have died as opposed to thousands and in BC here. So, yeah, no, we're doing pretty good. Good job. Good job. And that's a community effort too. So that's definitely not something that should just be glossed over. That's a good. And as you can see, my ship is still afloat. Yeah, but it seems to be going in circles. I don't know what's going on here. Right. I missed my mortgage payment. It can't go short. Yeah, yeah, yeah. George, you got a nice pack on what's going on there. I thought surgery, your recovery was going pretty well. It is going pretty well. I just got carried away this morning with my exercises. I'm doing range of motion exercises after surgery. And I confess I am in love with my occupational therapists. Oh, here's drama here. Which one? You have five of them. Well, believe it or not, halfway, where I am halfway between Knoxville and Chattanooga. Yeah. Out here in the Booney land. I have an occupational therapy assistant who lives in the next village. And she reads the New York Times every day. Now, that is really super. That's great. That's great. Love is blooming. Keep us updated. Dale, you got this weird statue. You know, we're going to have to go over it. What's going on? Also, you're holding your cup, but you're not holding it with the part where you're supposed to hold the cup. Now I'm confused. All right, two things. First statue. What's going on here? Well, as you said, the more things change, the more they remain the same. This is a statue I did to commemorate an incident that happened in Intenis. Uh-oh. It's okay. It's warned that there might be some kind of an issue. It's fine. It's a haunted statue. So that's what's going on here. I think what we're basically saying is it has the power to freeze time. The statue has the power to freeze time whenever anyone tries to talk about it. Dale, your image and sound have frozen. That's true. Uh, we'll throw it up to Larry, though. Hey, Larry. How you been? What's left like in the booth slash not really in the booth, but slash kind of in the booth? I'm doing fine. It's just, yeah, staying in, staying safe. I saw a funny meme on the internet yesterday. It says, uh... Meantime with Larry, let's go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, we can't go outside. We can't do anything. We have to stay home, stay safe. And then the bottom part has a person who just got off home arrest and he's looking at the camera going, like, he's still under house arrest no matter whether he's off it or not. I can feel it. Yeah, you're back with us now, Dale. Yeah, Dale. Dale just joined the conversation. No, you're fine. It's not you. We lost you. We lost you at commemorate. Yeah. What's the statue about? Did you hear the part about Crump? No. Here's the... Okay. Trump dump. Let's go. No, not Trump. Crump. This is... Oh, interesting. The more things change, the more they say the same. Right. So, you know, there was a machine headed by a man named Crump. Okay. And what he did was he stole the elections because he would take the ballot boxes, take all the ballots out of them and put other ballots in. You know, and consequently, the townspeople got tired of it one year. And then after the sheriff stole all of the ballot boxes, the ballot boxes, they stole them back. And then they broke the ballot boxes apart in the middle of the street and counted them by the light of cars. When was this done? Where? This was... This was called the Battle of Athens and it happened in Athens, Tennessee. There was an actual battle, too, shooting and all that. Wow. Was this... 1949, did this happen? Six. 1946, the Battle of Athens. Wow. Wow. It was broadcast nationwide because WLAR was operating at that time. And the battle raged for 12 hours before the ballot boxes were finally retrieved. And what were the results of the vote? Did Crump's candidate win? Well, the Crump people did not win. Yay. That's a happy ending, at least. That makes me feel pretty good. But who's the statue of? Is that Crump or is it someone who helped to defeat Crump? Well, no. When the call came out, you know, we're going to do something about this. All the citizens took up... Some of them took up arms. Somebody left the National Guard Armory unlocked and it was... That was how the battle happened. This was this representative farmer who was tired of his vote not getting counted. Got it. Got it. So, yeah, we are coming up into a voting season. I think it's absolutely important that everyone does vote. Very, very important that they show up. And don't forget the date. Make sure you're registered. And absentee voting is available, too. It's the deadline, at least in Tennessee, is October. Del, what do you got? My post-person came by. My mail carrier came by, young lady. And I made a point of going out and meeting her and telling her how much I appreciated what she was doing during this time of COVID and how much we needed her during the next election. And she said, write your congressman. And I said, well, what should I write? And she said, well, that the mail system should not be slowed down. It's very true. Yeah. Yeah. And there's a lot of people out there. I can possibly think otherwise. That's what it gets to be unless they're colluding with the Republican Party and making this election website illegal. Yeah. So, I would say if you can, make sure that you are at least aware of your deadlines in the state that you're listening this in. We have a lot of listeners in Kentucky and Tennessee. We know our absentee voting deadlines in October. Registration to vote is not up yet. So, get yourself out there. Dred, what do you have? Well, you had made the comment that how important it is to vote. I would amend that to say it's important to know what you're voting for before you vote. Don't just vote for the sake of voting because if you don't know the issues, you pay no attention to it. You're essentially wasting the opportunity to choose your future through ignorance. Right. Well, I don't want to take voting advice from a pirate from Canada. I think you might. How many people are dying of COVID over there? You said it was in the hundreds. I think tomorrow I want to take a little bit of advice from this guy. I have a democracy. We have a democracy, yes. Yeah. All right. So we're going to get into the main topic of the show. I'm glad everyone's doing well. So I was playing the game since the last week. That's basically what if humanity had a catastrophic event that made them go back to cavemen slash hunter-gathering times. And so you're playing as a character who's just raised up in this culture where there's a bunch of like dilapidated buildings, robots, computers, people just ignore it so they can gather berries and hunt and basically live as we used to when we were still nomadic tribes and stuff. The interesting thing is she has a lot of questions. She wants to know what's going on without this world. And she's not satisfied with the answers that people are giving her because everyone in different tribes have different gods. The tribe that she's raised in worships a mountain. They call the mountain all mother because the mountain provides all the food for them. It protects them from the elements, protects them from neighboring villages that try to take stuff from. It's like the mountain has a agency that's designed with them as the number one people and they are the chosen people in this sacred land. And then across the mountain, there's a tribe that worships the sun. And I'm like, hey, we had people in our past that worship the sun. There's people who worship the sun even today. We've had people who worship mountains in our past. There's probably, you know, Amazonian tribes that worship the land that they're from their ancestors land and stuff like that. People who fight over sacred land even today. And so it was interesting that you're playing this game that has a lot of illusions and messages for what it's like essentially to live with a understanding that everyone's believing something different, but they can't all be right. Right. And there's a lot of conflict that comes about from it. But what's also interesting is she has a lot of questions about science. She wants to know how things work. What are these machines? What are these rope? How do these metal buildings come about in the first place? And as she tries to figure out the mechanics of science, she does so exactly the same way how we did. Like we understand how electricity works. She figures out exactly the way how mechanics work, how physics works. Like it's all, she's following the same parallels that we're doing and coming to the exact same conclusions we have today. But the religious claims are all spiraling in different directions and breaking down to different fractions. And there's the eclipse people who are like, we like the sun, but we don't like the sun that much. We like the sun a certain days and we do. We like the night. We like the night. The moon is our goddess. There's a moon tribe too. There's a moon tribe too. And they're just like, oh, the sun people are a bunch of jerks. We're just going to worship the night because there's less enemies out in the day and we have the cover of night. And we're the best people. And then there's a shadow group and then it's just like so many fractured groups that all think they're right. But everyone who cares about science or like mining or like making metal, all are doing the exact same way we're doing. So I would ask this as a round table. Do you think there's validity in the statement? I'm going to start with Dred Pirate. Do you think there's validity in the statement that religions tend to, as you look around different cultures, be very different and point in different directions? But science always seems to point in the same direction, almost the same point. Dred, what do you think? Yeah, I'd absolutely agree with that because, you know, science is based on empirical evidence, not whatever you fancy is going on in your own imagination. So it's about what's true as opposed to what you want to be true. True versus what you want to be true. Objective. In an objective sense, right? Would you say there's a lot of unfortunate truths in science then that you have to face no matter what? Yeah, I would say so. Fire is hot. That can be a good thing or a bad thing. It's a good thing or a bad thing, depending on the situation you're in. Sure. Larry, what do you have? I'd like to head off some of the criticism. I know we're going to get into comments about, yeah, but there are a lot of scientists who disagree with each other about different things. And we have to say that, to address that, we have to say, yeah, but that's on the frontier of science. Those are the breaking edges, the ice breakers of science, discovering new things and then disagreeing on how the models work as it were. But on the fundamentals of science, on the basics, how gravity affects moving bodies, how electrons move, things like that, they're all on agreement. And 99.9% of them agree on evolution. And the ones that don't are not doing science, they're doing religion. They're just taking the word of their holy book over the results of verifiable and testing science. Cool. Dale, I'll throw this out at you. Do you think there's parallels between religion differentiating or bifurcating versus science always being the same? What's your opinion or generally what we've talked about? Could you repeat that question again? Sure. Bifurcation is like when one thing breaks up. No, I know what bifurcation is. What was it? Could you repeat the question? Sure. Do you think there's a parallel or a valid statement behind someone saying religion tends to bifurcate into conflicting points of view, whereas science tends to congregate to a single point of view? Yes. Next topic. You want to elaborate on that? Actually, Larry, I liked what you were saying about how scientists do argue. It doesn't mean that science is different things. There's a difference between a scientist and science, right? And I think part of science is having people who are skilled in their craft converse and debate with each other to try to figure out where the truth lies. So when you see two scientists arguing with each other, that's science happening. They're not arguing for arguments' sake. They're arguing to reach progress or to progress on the subject. They learn from each other. Right. They're fine-tuning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And meanwhile, where are we with nuclear fusion? Pretty good. If we know what it is... I think that's still... We've been doing it for the last 14 billion years if you want to claim it on our part, but yeah, we understand it very well. We've understood it for quite a while. We've understood it for quite a while, and it's been happening for quite a while too. Our labs is hard. Doing it in our labs is of course hard, but hey, here's something that's fun. When I was in high school, we had globes that had USSR instead of like Russia on it. And we had periodic tables that only went up to about 88. And in my head, I'm like, these things are going to fill out and these lines that are creffing borders are going to change. And my friends are like, no, this is how it's always going to be. What are you talking about? This is how it always is. And lo and behold, by the time I got out of college, borders for a lot of stuff, Tehran, Taiwan, all this stuff started to manipulate and change. And so you have outdated maps. If you log into Google under different IPs or VPNs or whatever, or basically tell Google you're from China, the outlines for a lot of stuff looks different on China compared to what it does when you're in USA. And so Google has like walked that line. Also, periodic table now we have over 100 elements and we're able to have like stable enough elements where we can do like really cool assessments on like these new components of the universe. And I think that's just a really interesting thing. So I would say yes, we're pretty good at nuclear fission. It's just the nature of nuclear fission is in itself unstable. George, what's your comment? I forgot what the question was. Do you think religion splits apart? And do you think science, regardless of where you're from in the world, comes together? Oh, absolutely. I mean, my word, where I'm living, where I live right now. I mean, bifurcating Christianity is bifurcated all over the place here in Athens, Tennessee. Oh, there's just so many churches that have split off from other churches. You know, it's walking in front of me, you know, and I about the issue. I have been walking at the intersection of art and science for almost my entire life. Interesting. You know, in the sense that I'm a musician by training and I have worked on musical instruments for a living. I started at the age of six. I took piano lessons and I had a lousy piano that I kept breaking. So I kept having to fix the piano. And this led me into the science that's behind musical instruments. And I can't refute it. I can simply look at it and say, well, the way we tune a piano doesn't make sense. Scientifically, the way we have to tune a piano is to make it a little bit out of tune, but yet in a way that nobody will notice. So in the terms of physics, what's that? In terms of physics, we throw the physics out. We throw the physics out of kilter to tune the piano properly. And this is the way it's been done since Johann Sebastian Bach. So I have to, what I'm getting at is that I have to live with paradox in my mind. Or things that are counterintuitive. Like counterintuitive concepts. Exactly. Who was it? Was it Feynman said that physics has no obligation to make sense to you? That's good. Who said that, Larry? I think it was Feynman, Feynman, but I'm not sure. Who was that? It was Feynman. Yeah. We'll talk about it. But I do like the idea of like, there are things that may not necessarily make sense to you, but they are still true. And science is very good at finding like those things. Very, very good at finding things that are true that don't necessarily make sense to you. And religion is very good at finding things that just make sense to you. And it's not interested in the things that are unpalatable in the large sense. And they may not necessarily be true. And so because of that, I just find them wholly underwhelming as things that I want to have in my life. Dred, I think I saw you raising your hand. What's up? It's disappearing in the blue screen behind you, but I see it. Yeah. Just to reflect on George's comment there, I don't know how to tune a piano, but I can tune a fish. Well, he is a dad. He can get away with some dad plays. So actually I thought, because bifurcation has come up as a term over the last two or three shows, but it doesn't really bifurcate. Doesn't it proliferate? Yeah. But this is what I'm seeing is like you have the first street Baptist church and then the pastor comes in with a blue Cadillac and people are like, I can't believe he has a blue Cadillac. Yeah. I don't have a blue Cadillac. I'm going to start my own church because this pastor has a blue Cadillac. Next thing you know, you have the second street Baptist church where the pastor comes in with a four truck and he's just like four trucks. Come on. Everyone knows Chevy has the best trucks. I'm going to start my own Baptist church and you have the third street Baptist church for the pastor and it's so on and so on. And so I'm thinking it's like one main one and then it just keeps splitting, splitting, splitting to the point where even the main one doesn't even fit. Of course they split up and go crazy, but typically it's like it's just new and start just out of the blue. Yeah. Look at the Scientology and while there's several, but Scientology is a good example of it. Sure. Go for it. George. One thing I'd like to get back to is one thing you mentioned in the chat before we started was if society was to collapse, societal collapse into nothing and all of these science books and all the holy books were destroyed. Right. Some catastrophic event. Right. We would have all new religions within a thousand years. Yes. But then we would have all the same science. Exactly. At the same time. So the science would be demonstrably, demonstrably consistent and refindable as it were. I think that's exactly what I was trying to make the point of. Like the video game that I was playing Horizon Zero Dawn by the way is basically if you wipe out all of human society, everyone's going to have a religion, but the science stays exactly the same. And that way when I'm like playing the game and I'm like, how do I connect these two things? How does this power work with this power? How can I like make this temper temperature like lower or hotter and stuff like that? It's all the same processes. And the girl who's my main character is using the exact same understanding that I have of science and applying it the exact same way that I would and coming out to the exact same conclusions. But on a religious point of view, I have no idea what to expect when I go to a village and everyone's dressed around with feathers on their hair. They're like, how dare you wear feathers? Only slaves wear feathers. You're like, what? I don't understand that. One of our viewers here, men makes this comment. He says religion is about metaphysics, duality and poetry. Science explores the natural world through material facts. These two disciplines are apples and oranges. They should never cross each other. So and just to comment on that, I think he's right in the sense that when you ask the question about bifurcation and emergence, it's because they explore things so differently. They're exploring. They don't necessarily do that. I mean, science answers the questions like, where did the sun come from? Where did the earth come from? What's the heavens likes? Where are the stars? The Bible does the same thing. They say, God created the sun, created the earth, created the heavens. So they have different answers for the same physical phenomenon. They do. Not only that, but why live through life with a double standard? Why have two different standards to explain things when you could have one standard to explain everything? And instead of moving to different standards based on what's convenient for you, you have one great method to figure out what's true from what's not true. And I love the idea that science is not about, hey, I'm done. This is perfect. Don't challenge me. It's an authority given to you. And you don't have to modify it whatsoever. Science is an evolving process that if we have examples of metaphysical or supernatural entities, the first thing we should do is apply the scientific method to them to figure out, OK, now that these things are real, let's figure out how we can assess them so that way we know what's supernatural and what's not supernatural. What's like the most supernatural thing. What's the least supernatural? What kind of sacrifices work best? Yeah. Yeah. What are these guys like? 14 goats? Seven goats? We got to figure this out. Yeah. And things that are not lend themselves to scientific review. I mean, we have philosophy, which doesn't require metaphysics. Right. We have math. We can still have philosophical debates without resort to magic or supernatural being. Exactly. And science is not barred off from working with abstract concepts. Like we can try to apply objective measurements to things that are subjective. We can come up with hypothetical models to figure out what the best way is to live. Ethics, mathematics, these are all examples where we rely on empirical data to come out with abstract concepts. And it's really, or abstract conclusions. And it's very, very interesting. All we need is a well-defined variables. Larry, I think we're at the bottom of the half hour though. OK. We're at WZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. And we'll be back right after this. No, it's a good thing when I see bumps on my neck. You know, I try to stop thinking, yeah. It's a good thing when I'm thinking. No, I'm going to see what's just through it. Yeah. It's a good thing. Back to the second half of the digital free thought group. We're at WZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. I'm Dr. Five. Today is Sunday, August 16, 2020. Let's talk about the free thought groups that you can join right here in Knoxville. First, there's the Atheist Society of Knoxville founded in 2002. We're in our 18th year. ASK has over 1,000 members. And you can find us online at KnoxvilleAtheist.org. Or you can just Google Knoxville Atheist. It should come up. You can also go to meetup.com and search for Knoxville Atheist. By the way, if you live in, if you don't live in Knoxville, excuse me, you can still go to meet up and search for an Atheist group in your town. Don't find one. Start one. Start one! Everybody is behind me on that one. There's a little bit of lag. I guess. Another large free thinking group in Knoxville, the Rationalists of East Tennessee. You can find R-E-T at therationalists.org. And click on upcoming events to see what they're all about right now. Earlier in the show we said we talked about Knoxville's Atheist call in TV or video show. It was TV show for 10 years. And now we've gone to streaming online YouTube video. So go to YouTube and search for four words. Free Thinkers United Coalition of Knoxville. And remember, you can find archives of their past shows on YouTube by searching for Free Thought Forum, Knoxville. And if you're involved or like to get involved in this TV or the radio show, come to the Digital Free Thought Radio or our Facebook page and request more information. Or you can go to R-E-T and ask them about being on the TV show. With us today, we have the wombat. Hey! We have Joy, we don't have Joy. We have Dread Pirate Higgs and George and Red Leader. And we were talking about science versus religion. Yes. Before we go into that, I want to tell you guys a story. It's kind of dear to my heart. I had a dog and I was walking it at Murray County Park, which is like the park nearby where I like to do my walking with my dogs or so have you. And unfortunately I lost my dog. So I put up a sign and I was saying because I named my dog this, where is the love? The love. Where is the love? The love. The love. One day I'll find my button. The one day I'll find my dog. Okay, where is the love? All right. You floss that love and feel it. Oh, that love and dog. Yeah. All right. So we have the comments. Feel free to leave a comment on the YouTube channel and we'll go over it. Thank you so much for the love that you guys are sharing. Tracy Reed had a response to our last video, which was about do Christians really believe what they say they do? Tracy says, I find that very hard to believe. I mean, I find myself invoking pose law quite often under these circumstances. By the way, anyone who's on internet savvy pose law basically means if it's not a winky, if there's not a winky face behind it, it's almost impossible for not someone to take that seriously. So if someone says, hey, recognizing sarcasm or satire or what it is. Yeah, it's hard to tell what satire is if there's not like a winky face behind it because someone is going to take it seriously. Someone from that group is going to take it seriously. So someone said, hey, you know, flat earth exists. And that's what that's a common understanding of Christianity. I think there's even a Bible verse of like a guy standing on top of the hill and singing the entire world or something like that. Jesus and the devil standing up and the devil showing him the entire earth from the top. Right. Right. And so a Christian could say that in a comment and even mean it sarcastically. It's like, I can't believe everyone thinks Christians all think they're flat earth or like believe in a flat earth, but a flat earth would read and be like, oh, I believe that. What are you talking about? So it's like, it's hard to tell. It's hard to tell what Christians believe because there's so many different kinds. And it's if you're explicit about the sarcasm that you're employing, it's going to be hard for not someone to take that as a serious offense. Right. Crazy praying mantis says, I really hope they don't. Recently the amount of Christians I've spoken to say that drowning babies is good and outstanding by a powerful deity. Because they were all evil. Oh, well, that's unfortunate. Of course they have to say it's good. Otherwise they'd be admitting that their God isn't good. And that's a good point too. A lot of people are so, they're so dependent on what someone else does as the basis for their morality that even if that person objectively does something terrible, they can't recognize that. They have to. They by authority have to say it's a good thing. And that's cognitive dissonance. It's a lack of intellectual honesty too. Yeah. But yeah, yeah. And it's not mutually beneficial for us to be like, hey, you know, if this authoritarian is doing this terrible thing, it must be good. And we see that even in politics. So like something to be mindful of. Thank you guys so much for the love that you guys have sent. We will feel free to leave a comment if you want to have your comment discussed in this show. Anyway, we're back to the main topic, which is more things change, the more things stay the same. Science versus religion. And we're talking about like if a cataclysmic world event happened that completely reset us back to like caveman times like how it did in Horizon Zero Dawn. The video game I'm playing right now, it's a really good game. We would actually see a lot of different religions spring up. Brand new religions. No, no, I don't think it would be as Christian it would be nearly as popular as it is today as it would be after a world post-apocalyptic turnaround. And the interesting thing is science, like as far as meteorology, chemistry, physics, it would all be the same thing. And we have different variables. We might have different ways of representing these concepts and we might name them after different people, but they would all be generally the same thing. And this gives me a lot of hope because we've been around as just a planet or at least as space-time is concerned for like 14 billion years. There has to be other, I think it's very likely that there's other life in the universe that would be, I see you Larry. I see life in the universe would have to be, some life would have to be more advanced than us. I would imagine that would be likely. And I would imagine a common thread that we can talk about is science. Not our religions, but just the concept of like, hey, this is combustion. This is heat. This is how things grow. Larry, what do you think? Well, I was just going to say, we don't have any examples, you know, concrete physical examples of anything supernatural like ghosts or gods or angels or demons or any of that stuff. But we do have one concrete example of life in the universe. Okay. And if we can arise on this planet over the course of, well, let's say four and a half billion years that this planet's been around. And no life on this planet at all for three and a half billion years. Well, a billion and a half, three billion years of just single cell life. But life did arise and we know about it. And if it could happen here, why couldn't it happen somewhere else? I mean, that's the basis of scientific research right now, just looking into the universe for the possibility of other life, because we know it happens. Yeah. And what if we're extremely late to the party, like 14 billion years in, like you guys are a little bit late. Yeah. The whole universe was around for 10 billion before the sun. Yeah. It's just like, you figured this out billions of years ago and you guys are still doing plastic? Wow. Okay. Well, have fun destroying your planet. It does take quite a few generations of stars to get the heavy elements that we need to make our bodies and make living things. So, you know, the first five or six, seven billion years were necessary to get through the engine going. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that the idea that other life doesn't exist. Yeah. What do you got? Uh-oh. Is that forbidden statue freezing him up again? He's frozen in time. He's frozen in space. But hey, you know, that's a good excuse if the aliens come by their life. Well, it took you so long. It's like we were all on zoom and we were waiting because a lag. Sorry about that. Yeah. Aliens froze Dale. Dredd Pirate, do you think it's likely that aliens exist in Georgia? I'm going to ask you the same question too. But like, do you think aliens are more advanced than human life in the stars as possible? And what would be a good conversation topic if that did happen to be the case? Well, I certainly think it's likely it's plausible. Whether or not they're more advanced than us is, you know, I think more debatable. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The short answer. Do you think it would be better to have a conversation with them about our religious points of view or science or at least our understanding of science? Well, I think the more practical conversation would be, you know, through the language of science and mathematics, you know, they could believe in a kind of poppy cop is a pocket pocket cock as we do. And it essentially results in the same sort of meaningless delusions that people on Earth embrace. George, I'm going to throw this out at you. Do you think that it's likely that there's more advanced life in terms of like engineering, science, et cetera, in the universe than what we have here right now? And then if that was- I believe that we are not alone in the universe as intelligent creatures, and I can't believe that there isn't anybody out there who is a hell of a lot smarter than we are. Okay. If that was true and they contacted us out of a lark, would it be good to bring up religion like in the first couple of conversations or should we like stick to like science or like what? Well, I guess I have to go off on a limb here and say- Go for it. Just because they're smarter than we are doesn't mean that they're wise, you know. They may have religion too and it may be worse than ours. I mean, I'm taught here in the land of the Christians, I'm taught that Jesus' love and I'm surrounded by Christians who hate everybody who's not like them. So what can I say? I'm used to this. I grew up with this. Yeah. Okay. What were you going to say before the aliens froze you up? I was going to say that I believed that you hold the belief that after hydrogen and helium were first created in the universe that life was destined or rather intelligent life was destined. I'm glad you made that distinction. We may not be the only life in the universe, but we could be the only intelligent or at least the first intelligent race. We don't know. We don't know. But it's all conjecture at this point. And since we did come around, I would say that it was inevitable. It's like we have all the pieces and we know the process. And it's like no one started the process. So like if that's the case, then anywhere these pieces exist, no one started the process. I could see that as a fair thing. Look at it this way. I have models that don't require a person. Here's the big bang. Yeah. Here's the big bang. Here's hydrogen. Okay. And at this point, Larry says that intelligent life is destined. And I consider a spider to be intelligent life. Okay. As far as doing something. But Larry says that it was destined from this point. Well, I said inevitable, which I guess we could say is the same. Mm hmm. I wouldn't. Those are different terms for very good reasons. All right. Well, I'd say inevitable because the laws of nature in the matter that we have, well, gave us as an outcome. Yeah. And if it gave us, could it really have changed? I'm not really much of a believer in free will. So I'm because of the laws of the universe and the actions of particles upon particles, et cetera, et cetera. So I'm saying that, yes, humans were inevitable. And if we can be created by the laws of nature and the actions on those particles, why not other life? Maybe in an intelligent life. And just to extend on Larry's comment, just to extend on Larry's comment, the idea of like, how do I know that this doesn't take intelligent agents intervention? Because we have these things called telescopes that let us see states of development across the universe that aren't always at the same place. We can see red giants. We can see white dwarfs. We can see our sun. We can see suns that are older. If we see a star that's a billion light years away, we're looking at a stage of development a billion years ago. Right. We're looking at a stage of development a billion years all the way back to like 13 billion years. And each of these things that we're observing that take place, don't have a person physically pushing atoms together and making new heavier elements. We can see that it's not necessary. So there can be a very reasonable conclusion that there's not an agent involved in making heavier atoms. This just is a natural process. And we can see, oh, if that's the case, and this is the same subjects of nature that we came about from, then extend that to a different part of the universe. And it was like, there's possibility that life could have originated from there in the exact same way that we did here. I would recommend people look up the Drake equation. What's the Drake equation? I'm asking that before George gets in. Because I want to know, too. It's an equation that a physicist named Drake came up with a scientist saying, if you take these particular variables, like the rate of star formation, the rate of stars of this particular class being formed from that, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, and you plug in numbers for all of those variables, which we are getting pretty good at defining those numbers, then it will give you the number of intelligent races that are currently existing in the universe. Oh, that's very interesting. That's interesting. The Drake equation. Look it up. I'm going to throw one last, wait, actually, Del, did you have something you would like to say? Oh, I was just saying it seems like all of you folks are agreeing with the deist clockwork God. Once you have the hydrogen and you have the oxidative hydrogen and helium, then nothing else needs to be done in order for life to form. I mean, after all, life formed on the Earth almost the instant that it was able to survive. Yeah, I wouldn't say I'm not coming to the clockwork argument, but I am saying that you have a process that doesn't need a God to make it. Right. And why would you need a God to make a clock? It's not necessary. Occam's razor said, you know, cut off any unnecessary entity. Assumptions, or assumptions, yeah. He used the word entity, but that's pretty mad assumptions. Yeah. Well, I would say from this point, God isn't necessary. And I would say like, no, I would say why is the God necessary? That's my point. No, no, no. George, George. From that point, God is not necessary. I think you would agree with that. I wouldn't put that line there. I'd say why are God's necessary period? George, what's your point? Did God change the statue next to Dale? Yes. It makes sense. It makes sense. Dred, did you have anything you wanted to throw in in this as well? Well, just like I say, you know, the difference between the terms inevitable and destiny, because destiny is a very charged word. And a lot of people associate destiny with some sort of deistic, you know, like fate or that kind of thing. And so that's why I prefer not using destiny in any context that is outside of a religious one. So you would agree that life was inevitable? Yeah. Like given the situation and our understanding of the universe, life clearly was inevitable because we're here. And again, I still wouldn't say he's inferring that a God existed in order for that to happen. Not at all. Yeah. You can make that claim independent of whether or not a God exists, which is what our points are. Wow. I've heard it all of you guys. Wow. It's like he's not listening to us whatsoever. That's why we bring Dale to all the cool parties. Larry, I have this weird idea that if we were contacted by an intelligent life form, whether they were more smarter than us or less smarter than us, or if they just had the ability to do that, I would think that's like substantially impressive. I would be one happy that I could talk to them, but too terrified that they have the ability to talk to us because every single example of human to human interaction has been whoever is the more technologically advanced group of people will end up taking over the inferior group. And we've we've seen that with us every single time to the point where I'd be terrified to start a relationship with anybody. The most extreme long distance versions. So I would hope that if this if this if this show wavelength goes out into space that they would figure out a way how to approach, you know, as terrified species as us to to demonstratively prove that there's no harm in their intent and that they are really just doing like Star Trek. Just like, hey, man, we're just we're just going out. We're just trying to figure out what's going on here. We're letting you know there's a greater collective relationship that's available to you. Just that's it. That's it. I just hope the first aliens that contact us are Vulcans. I thought they're the bad guys. Aren't they the bad guys? Vulcans are good. And they're they're motionless. They try to raise themselves without him without emotion. I was going to get a clean original according to Star Trek Enterprise to be able to give us steps, stepping stones to get into space and to be able to use the warp drive well and to communicate with other species. OK, so they had our best interests at heart, which is for everyone that might be Star Trek in press. Would you say that's the best example of how to reach out to other organizations in the universe and be like, hey, listen, here's who we are. Don't be worried about us. I'm going to go out to Dredd. You look up to me like a person who's seen an episode of Star Trek, at least by that hat and facial hair. Would you say that's a good example of how to reach out to people? I would. I would think so. OK, yeah, I mean, you want you want to. Yeah, I mean, if you've got a clearly advanced civilization that's come to your your planet, you'd want to be there hat in hand to say, hey, look, thanks for coming. You know. Yeah, let's get some space Canadians on this. That's directive. Yeah, George, what do you think? What if they what if they just want to come come here to sell us Pickle ice cream? Yeah, like what if it's a District 9 situation where it's just like, hey, we're refugees are our planet and our solar systems. What if they're Galactic JWs? Oh, no. Well, hey, I would love to do SC on them, too. Yeah, I'd love I'd love. And by the way, SC women, you guys are throwing around terms that I don't understand. Socratic examinations street epistemology. Yeah, yeah. Oh, JW is Jehovah Witnesses. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I would love to have a conversation with them. I was just thinking, too. I got a bit of a joke. Go for it. Go for it. What if you if you get an email from a JW that says are if you like room the joke. If you get an email with an arc joke, it's a JW working from home. Oh, what? The way I heard it was if you get an email from a JW on opening because they're working from home. Yeah. But it didn't say anything about not not. Okay, better than the tuna fish. Yeah. I would tell what do you think is the best example in sci-fi literature of two different interplanetary groups coming together amicably. Science fiction teaches us anything. If any alien lands on our planet, you should accept this. They are your God. Oh, no. Yeah, I would think God is too loaded a word. That's what Star Trek teaches. If you have any alien that has that kind of ability they will impersonate themselves as Apollo or Osiris or some other past God that's been played out in science fiction literature and movies and TV over and over again. If they're that far advanced that science teaches us, they are indistinguishable from magic or supernatural powers. So I'm going to throw out one thing. It alludes to what Dale is saying, but also shows a positive side to it as well. And it's the most classic example that we have. And that's Clark Kent as Superman, right? He came from another planet. He was raised as an old fashioned Southern boy with all the good examples. But he is looked up to as like this guy who can walk on water, can fly through air, has laser vision. He can do so many great things, but deep down he has the personhood of America or like the personhood of just a good upbringing. And so his good values trump his powers. He's still seen as like a good, idealic human being despite the fact that he can do all these super things. He's still a superman. What do you think, Dale? First of all, Superman is not. Ah, man, again? That's what it gets for talking bad about Superman. You never start a sentence with Superman is not. It doesn't work. Superman is anything he wants to be. That's how his powers work. Dale doesn't know what happened. Dale, you locked up again. You're frozen. We got go for it again. Superman is fantasy, not science fiction. There's a movie that just came out recently that what happens if Superman comes to the earth and he's all bad? Yeah. Does anybody know the title of that movie? Red Sun or the Red Sun. I mean, there's a lot of variations of that Superman. There's metal Superman. There's apocalypse Superman. No, there was a movie about where the guy, the guy lands on earth from another planet. He has powers, but he's bad. And you're going to have to worship him. But that's fantasy. But science fiction most often is delves into fantasy, too. But if somebody comes from another planet that far away, they're going to have technology that's indistinguishable from supernatural powers. They actually come here. Yeah, they've covered incredible distances and should be able to share that knowledge. Or if they can as a baby we should talk about in an ejection pod. It's as science fiction as it is fantasy at that point. Like, well, it classically might have been more go for it. Go for it. Yeah. All of you atheists are going to convert to theism whenever the aliens come because they will be able to do supernatural miracles. And you won't be able to die that they have it. They will make people grow legs or fly. Yeah, I would still doubt it. In the world where I know I can be confused and I can still be mistaken, I would still need more proof of something being supernatural. Or at least What would it take for you to believe in a god that's a beauty or a power? That's not my problem. That's the person who's trying to promote supernatural things all over out. Can I answer that? I'm going to quote Matt Dilla-Honey from the Atheist Experience in Austin, Dilla-Honey. What would it take for me to be convinced that a god exists? But the god would know if he knows everything he knows exactly what it would take to convince me. So that's now God's problem. And it's not your problem to try to figure out. We are at the bottom of the show, guys. Thank you, Matt Dilla-Honey. All right. Dred, where can we find your stuff at? Well, we are streaming right now. It's Sunday morning at 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time or Pacific Daylight Time. And so you can find the live stream at Mind Pirate on YouTube. M-I-N-D-P-Y-R-A-T-E. Cool. George, good luck with the romance terse that's about to happen. I hope everyone stays safe and well and happy. And go. HowJesusDidIt.com, what's that all about? Oh, that's, that's old news. Let me tell you about this guy here. All right. This is Harry Byrne and this year is the 100th anniversary of women having the federal right to vote in America. And this man from Niota, Tennessee, cast that deciding vote. I did still try and did several years ago. That's very good. Niota, right next to me. Yeah. Okay, cool. Athens is pretty close to you too. And then- I'm in Athens. I'm in Athens. And then Larry, before we close out, you can find me at Let's Chat on YouTube. Just search Let's Chat. You'll find all my videos where I do a hobby called street cosmology or Socratic Examination. Ask people what they believe and why they believe it and have a really nice fun conversations about topics that are normally thought to be hard to talk about, even with strangers with friends, et cetera. Check it out. It's actually kind of interesting. Larry, take us out. Oh, no. And be sure to visit my blog at digitalfreethought.com. No. Good. You're good. Our Radio Show Archives, Atheist songs and many articles on the Atheist subjects. My book is called Atheism, What's It All About? It's available on Amazon. If you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind, check out Recovering from religion.org. And if you'd like to listen to our prior shows, of course, they're available on podcasts everywhere, iTunes, Stitcher, Luminary, et cetera, et cetera. If you have any questions for the show, leave them below in the comments, or you can send emails to AskAnAtheist at KnoxvilleAtheist.org. If you're watching the show on YouTube, be sure to like and subscribe and be notified when new episodes are posted. And remember, everybody's going to somebody else's hell. The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real. Until then, don't sweat it and enjoy your life. And we'll see you next Wednesday at 7 o'clock on the radio, 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Say goodbye, everybody. Goodbye, man.