 make this super super quick are you an atheist yes why are you an atheist because my wife it's all her fault let's just be honest by the way i'm tying nice to meet you jeff so what is by the way i'm tying nice to meet you jeff so what's what is your actual uh capacity in the american atheist i am the national fuel when i organize with american atheists and i co-found that the local choice day freezing for sure okay why do you think it's important for atheists to be more i guess open because we had a lot of open atheists here to normalize atheism and what i love about the shirt that was quoted by lauren was when a quality is under attack we must show up that changes the way people view atheism when we're protecting lgbt rights women's reproductive rights science sex act let's be honest religion is attacking all those things so we must be in that space we must organize and that's my job is to organize directors and local affiliates around the country to fight for equal rights for other people and by doing so we normalize atheism and put religion back in its place and back in the church where it belongs how are you defining atheism if you really ask just what makes an atheist doesn't believe in god there's no evidence right so there's there's a lot of different kinds of atheists maybe they have different beliefs aside from the lack of a lieutenant got yes are those all represented in like the american atheists or like in other groups like do you see equal representation of a variety of different ideas or does it tend to be a very specific section well what you can stereotype like here's the majority of us like well the majority of atheists are yeah they like marvel like they should uh they should they they're skeptical they're critical thinkers but that doesn't mean just because you're an atheist you're all those things right some people like dc we're still friends not not around this table you can go both ways yeah who we're fine but so so while a lot of the people have a lot of these things that by just being an atheist doesn't mean and define that you are automatically those things but i guess what i'm wondering is because they can be potentially so different how do you send out a message that you know speaks to so many different people and what is american atheists doing atheism like what should we be involved with so i set three criteria that defines an atheist issue for us okay and the first one is if we're looking at an issue question one who's behind the issue okay is it religion like or who's behind this issue number two is this an equal rights issue is somebody being discriminated against and the third is is religion being offered as the answer like when i became with american atheist i did not think that i would be in the gun business or weather business but when kids are getting shot and your solution is to offer thoughts and prayers and to put up in god we trust in schools yeah damn it you just made that an atheist issue so now we want and our stance on when it comes guns is we want science and facts i'm not saying what it should be but we want it to be evidence-based you know if you're blaming hurricanes on the gays and abortion now i'm a weatherman like you're forcing me into these issues but that defines and like i already said before like on Planned Parenthood women's reproductive rights abortion it's religion attacking it if you took religion out of that argument hmm let's be honest we're not having a reproductive rights issue or a sex ed while there's a few can i throw something on you yes there are atheistic religions am i am i right by that like there are religions that don't have a centralized god figure that they believe right buddhism for example uh serrasex ability that's true that's true uh janism yeah so is really the religion the the antagonist here or is it theism that's the antagonist people use religion as their excuse to discriminate against people and to do their agenda and mainly it is a christian far right well we can look at other religions and in other countries religion their own religion whether it be muslim hindu has all sorts of problems sure that need to be fought anytime dogma i mean it's a problem and those are all tends to be fierce right but here it's it's the christian right i mean that that is our problem in our backyard and so that is what we fight daily and by doing that criteria that i set out it makes it very clear on what issues and what space we should be in and what we should the other thing is there's a lot of intersectionality when it comes to transgender rights when it comes to racial issues we're fighting the same fight a lot of times we're fighting the same people hmm you know when you look at race issues another they're up the christian right is on the wrong side of a lot of issues and so by just showing up well it may not be my issue i may not be able to wrink it link it to religion these are my partners these are my friends i may not lead those causes but it's important that we show up and support them are you open to religious people joining the effort and supporting atheists if we agree on an issue absolutely okay like i trained a pastor how to do comprehensive sex ed in the local public school absolutely i i marched with a a nun on the capital to defend to eliminate the death penalty if we agree on an issue i will put all of our differences aside and focus on that issue okay if you want to argue with me about another issue i'm happy to do that the next day even like semantics or anything semantics you want to talk about god hell you might you might be on the opposite end to protest signs on abortion but if you agree with me on the death penalty in today's death penalty day i'm gonna go hand in hand with you that day ask one last line of question do you think your position do you think your position in not believing in our god is more reasonable than believing in god currently with the amount of evidence that we have yes why do you think that there's no facts or evidence and this is what we want all of our legislators to do we want people base your decisions on facts and evidence not dogma or belief i'm not saying i have it but if you had evidence would you change your mind on that absolutely okay that's all i want that's great thank you jim thank you i don't want to look at it five minutes awesome get to my word baby i still got to my did i talk to you about after