Faith, Freedom, and Facts: Atheists on Leaving Religion and Finding Community

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:02):
And now, making their way to the studio, the
reason there's now a no-hecklingsign at St.
Patrick's Cathedral, it's theUnholy Roundtable!

SPEAKER_07 (00:21):
Welcome to Atheistville.
My name is Mike, and tonight isa special kind of show.
This is the Unholy Roundtable.
We bring people together,various atheists from various
walks of life and backgrounds,and address your question.
So right now, if you have anyquestions, get them loaded into
YouTube, and we will try to getto all of them.

(00:42):
We also have some questions thatpeople gave us earlier that
we're going to address, and Icollected these people, kind of
a a rogue band of misfits andmiscreants to address them from
different perspectives.
As I've said from the beginningof this show, I want people from
different backgrounds because Ionly have my own experience.
I don't know their experience.
So their perspectives may be thesame, maybe completely

(01:03):
different.
We can disagree.
We're all friends.
That's fine if we disagree.
Nobody cares.
Just disagree.
So those of you who are on thecall, Mike, Scott, Annette,
Larry, feel free to say, youknow, it's not what I think and
go a different direction on it.
So with that, real quick, I'llgive each of you like a five or
10 seconds just to say hello andyour name and anything else.

(01:24):
But just real brief to letpeople know.
I'll start with Mike justbecause he's the first one on my
screen.

UNKNOWN (01:32):
Hey, everybody.
How you doing?

SPEAKER_07 (01:34):
Thanks for having me on again, Mike.
It's a real pleasure to be here.
It's going to be nice to be ableto talk with Scott and Annette
and Larry and, again, you.
So looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_06 (01:44):
Welcome.
Hi, I'm Scott.
I'm really glad to be back onhere.
It's great to talk aboutlike-minded people and to get
points of view that we may notunderstand because of our
gender, sexuality, genderidentity, background in church,
or even different religions.
So it's really cool that we'regetting heathens from different
walks of life all here toheathenize together.

(02:08):
It's a thing.
I'm claiming it.

UNKNOWN (02:13):
All right.

SPEAKER_07 (02:14):
Larry or Annette, whichever one.
Ladies first.

SPEAKER_08 (02:18):
Oh, thank you, Larry.
Annette, and I'm a recoveringChristian.
Maybe I should say that Iidentify that way.
And I'm happy to be here.
Apparently, I'm representing allof the female race here.

SPEAKER_07 (02:34):
All of the

SPEAKER_08 (02:36):
female.

SPEAKER_07 (02:36):
Four billion women in the world, and that's all
you.

SPEAKER_08 (02:40):
Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_07 (02:42):
Sure.
Larry, we'll wrap up.
The thing that I appreciateabout what you're doing here,
Mike, is we're creating arecord.
It's another little small bit ofinformation for the internet.
People can come by here at anytime in the future and perhaps

(03:03):
get a perspective of what

SPEAKER_01 (03:05):
atheists really are and the genuine thoughts that we
have and how we live muchhappier and less stressed lives
than most religious people.
Also, I think we identify as nota rogue group, but

SPEAKER_07 (03:24):
more of a, I don't know.
A motley crew?
Motley crew, maybe that's it.
A motley crew, I love it.
But you just said something.
It's a good point, Larry, and Idid want to kind of add that on.
And that was another thoughtwhen I first came up with the
idea of these shows in generalwas that we're all out there we
live next door to you we worknext to you we ride the bus or

(03:47):
the train or we're kids soccercoach or any of these other
things and um people have a anidea scott and i specifically we
both grew up in the south andthere's very strong opinions i'm
sure there's strong opinionseverywhere but in the south it's
very guns and jesus kind of aplace and if you say you're an
atheist you know there's abaggage that goes along with it
it's not true but it's therenonetheless.

(04:09):
And we have to battle that.
So the idea was I'll bringpeople like you guys on and
other guests that I've had onthat we'll bring on in future
shows, just to give an idea thatwe're just like everybody else.
Like we got kids, we gotparents, we got jobs, everything
else.
We're just trying to get throughlife.
You know, we just have a littledifferent perspective on it, but
we're still all want the samebasic things in life, which is
just to get to the finish lineas relatively unscathed as

(04:32):
possible.
Right.
So with that, let's go with ahot take right out of the gate.
This came up, you've probablyall seen this on the news, and
this is going to be a videoclip, but this rise of Christian
nationalism that we've seen,I've actually done a future
video that I've already got sortof in the can, where, and I

(04:53):
think you probably have allheard this, over the last
several years, church attendancehas gone down.
The nuns, meaning thenon-affiliation, which is
atheists, agnostics, and peoplewho just don't say, I'm part of
any religion, has been thefastest growing group of
Americans.
At the same time, Christiannationalism is rampant, right?

(05:15):
So it's a very strange sort ofworld we're living in right now.
But I'm going to go ahead andthrow this video up from the
other day.
This is a CNN video of a guynamed Doug Wilson.
And let's just watch that andwe'll comment on the other side.

SPEAKER_04 (05:27):
You suck.
as a parent

SPEAKER_07 (05:28):
who lost.
Probably help if I do the rightvideo.

SPEAKER_02 (05:33):
Doug Wilson makes no apologies for his beliefs on God
and country.

SPEAKER_01 (05:38):
I'd like to see the town be a Christian town, like
to see this state be a Christianstate, like to see the nation.
be a Christian nation.
I like to see the world be aChristian world.

SPEAKER_02 (05:49):
And now Wilson's controversial views as a
Christian nationalist aregaining sway in the nation's
center of power with the recentopening of his new church and
high-profile parishioners likeDefense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Is planting a church in D.C.
part of your mission to try toturn this into a Christian
nation?

SPEAKER_01 (06:08):
Yes.
So every society is theocratic.
The only question is who's Theoin a secular democracy it would
be Demos, the people.
In a Christian republic, it'd beChrist.

SPEAKER_07 (06:23):
So there we go.
I've got my thoughts, but let'sstart with...
Any of you want to jump out onthis one?
This is an open question for theentire group because it's a
little crazy.
But the first thing that struckme when I

SPEAKER_01 (06:36):
saw that earlier was that he said he'd like to see it
be a Christian nation, which iscounter to the A lot

SPEAKER_07 (06:48):
of the people I've heard before, all the Christian
nationalists saying, we are aChristian nation.
True.
They're wrong, but he'sessentially admitting that they
know that we aren't.
That's a good point, actually,because you're right.
The average Christiannationalist would say, we are.
We're founded as a Christian,which is always bullshit, but
that's what they say.
You're right.
Anybody else?

(07:09):
If you consider that the countrywas originally founded because,
or one of the driving factors,or something that I should say
that was very important, wasthat all religions had an
opportunity.
There wasn't anything that was,there weren't any, you weren't
demanded by the king to be anyparticular religion.

(07:33):
Right.
That was our point.

SPEAKER_06 (07:36):
Right?

SPEAKER_07 (07:38):
The

SPEAKER_06 (07:39):
other side to that is, though, that there have been
laws like in some states youcouldn't hold public office
without being a Christian.
And that's, you know, sincesince the Constitution was even
formed.
And of course, you know, theFirst Amendment was what they
used to to bat those laws downeventually.

SPEAKER_08 (07:59):
It was controversial when JFK ran for president
because he was Catholic.

(08:29):
is this kind of lean towardnationalism and more extremism.
We're seeing this across theglobe.
And so my worldview kind ofcomes from this perspective that
it's, you know, religion is allpart of this machine that's tied
to, you know, patriarchy andtied to white supremacy and tied

(08:53):
to trying to control otherpeople.
And so when I hear people saylike, I want this to be a
Christian nation, I also hearkind of behind that, this desire
to want to, sort of likelegislate people's morality and
their behavior.

(09:14):
It's an attempt to controlpeople and determine what the
norms and the expectationsacross society are.
I believe that the lean towardnationalism is also like this
rebound.
This is our punishment forObama, right?
It's like the punishment for

SPEAKER_06 (09:35):
this-

SPEAKER_08 (09:35):
like marriage equality and, you know, like all
of these trends that have beentrending more in that, you know,
kind of leaning more liberal.
And, and now we're seeing like arebound from that.

SPEAKER_07 (09:47):
It's the pendulum swinging back.
The pendulum swinging back.
Does it worry you about how farit's going to go?
Or do you think we're towardsthe end of that pendulum?
Where, where are you guys inLarry, since you were starting,
I cut you off.
We'll start with you.
Where, where do you think aboutwhere we're at in that, in that
phase?
i'm i'm more concerned now thani was before the overturn of roe

(10:13):
good good um because i believe imentioned in my episode before
you see them chipping away andchipping away um you know school
vouchers is another littleinsidious way to accomplish the
overall goal

SPEAKER_01 (10:28):
that is becoming more and more apparent in my
view.
One other thing, I believe theother Mike mentioned about the
founding of the country.
I kind of take the idea that thecountry was founded by various
sects and religions.
Each colony kind of had theirown religious, uh start in other

(10:55):
words you know the protestantsof one flavor were in one colony
and a different colony hadprimarily something else and i
think

SPEAKER_07 (11:09):
there was an i there's an idea that we were
taught in school especiallybecause i believe i'm about the
oldest here in grade school wewere taught that um uh the
people on mayflower came over toescape religious persecution
which is a good story andsomewhat true.
But I think more precisely,perhaps they and the other

(11:30):
colonials came over to not justescape religious persecution,
but to be able to persecuteothers.
To rape and pillage.
In their own religious way.
I see exactly what you'resaying.
That makes perfect sense.
Yeah, they kind of wanted to seethat table, and they didn't have

(11:52):
one there.
So they came over here wherethey could take over.
The freedom to worship, as Ibelieve, means that I can't
abide by some of the things thatthese other sects do.

SPEAKER_06 (12:04):
Yeah.
And interestingly enough, Ithink when people talk about,
oh, the pilgrims on theMayflower, they left England and
came to the United States toescape religious persecution.

UNKNOWN (12:16):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 (12:16):
What people don't realize is there was a gap of
over 10 years, I think, whenthey were in the Netherlands.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_03 (12:23):
because they

SPEAKER_06 (12:24):
were away from religious persecution.
And not only was thatpersecution creeping back up on
them, but their own kids werebecoming less Christian and more
secular.
And the reason that they did endup coming to the United States
was not for religious purposes.
It was because they had anopportunity to work for a

(12:44):
company and be paid to go to thenew world.
It was about leaving England.
Yes, that was about religiouspersecution.
But coming to the coming to herewas it wasn't as much about
religious persecution as peoplelike to pretend it is.

SPEAKER_07 (12:57):
I just fairly recently with us a few years
heard that whole 10 year thing.
And you're right.
It was the Netherlands.
I'm pretty sure it was theNetherlands.
just like you think.
And I, as a kid and Larry and I,you and I are a little off on
it.
We're probably the two oldestand we're not too terribly far
off from each other.
I definitely never heard that.
I mean, well, again, I onlyheard this a few years ago, so I
definitely was never, that isnot the story we tell from

(13:20):
Americans.

SPEAKER_01 (13:21):
Yeah.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (13:24):
Yeah, we just fled the church and we fled the king
and so we could set up a shophere and do what we want, but
not really.
As everything we do in America,there's always a little extra
story that we kind of leave out,right?
Kind of like the Bible.
We don't tell all the booksright away.

SPEAKER_06 (13:41):
There's a lot of stories.
I just want to note in that lastvideo, I don't know if you can
replay it, but did my eyesdeceive me or was he wearing
mixed fabrics?
And this is the problem thatI've got is it's People are
throwing around Christiannationalism.
It's like, which version ofChristianity?
Wow.
There's over 10,000 differentthings, different denominations.

(14:04):
So which way would you goanyway?
I mean, they tried to narrow itdown in Arkansas.
It was Arkansas or Oklahomawhere they had to have Bibles in
the classroom.
And when they finally got itnarrowed down exactly what they
had to have out of those Bibles,it was the Trump Bible.
The Trump Bible.
The Trump Bible was the onlyone.
Literally.

SPEAKER_07 (14:24):
That was the freaking plan.
The Trump Bible.
And it also didn't have theDeclaration of Independence at
the beginning.

SPEAKER_06 (14:30):
Declaration of Independence, which isn't even a
legal, that's not even a legalframework of the United States.
The Declaration of Independencehas nothing to do with our legal
system.

SPEAKER_07 (14:41):
No.
It's just mind-numbing.
That's not the Bill of Rights.
It's a whole different, I mean,it's an important document for
our history, our shared history,but it's not, and again, it's
not religious.
It's just insane.
But yes, it was Oklahoma.
And I don't have that clip.
Incidentally, that's the guy whojust, I think I did a mic drop
on the Atheist channel.

(15:02):
They just got in trouble forwatching porn during the school
board thing.
That's the same guy.
The Oklahoma guy.
He's in his office.
He calls him back to the office.
He's two people, alsoRepublicans.
He called them back to theiroffice to talk about-
Educational

SPEAKER_01 (15:14):
board members.

SPEAKER_07 (15:15):
Educational board members.
He wanted to discuss a pointthat they didn't want out as far
as their normal quorum.
And while they're sitting there,his TV behind him is hooked up
to his computer.
It's got porn on it.
And the man and the woman,again, Republicans are like, are
those nipples?
Am I seeing nipples?
Scott or whatever the hell hisname was like, Jesus.

SPEAKER_08 (15:34):
Well, if you see like, um, and they show maps of
like the highest, uh, rates ofporn usage are also overlap with
the parts of the country thatare purportedly the highest, you
know, rates of religious peopleto

SPEAKER_06 (15:50):
grinder too.
Yes.

SPEAKER_07 (15:52):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 (15:53):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (15:54):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Grindr crashed how many timesduring the Republican National
Convention?
And that was right here inMilwaukee.
That was insane.
All right.
Let's move on to this one.
So, Nat, I'm going to give youthis one.
As you said, you're representingevery woman from every walk of
life in the entire world.
So no pressure, though.

(16:16):
This is a question from Redditor Facebook.
I kind of got questions fromeverywhere, but this is a good
question, I thought.
I'm actually, I'm going to readthese out loud because when we
do the podcast, they won't seethem.
So this is for Annette.
The woman asked, I'm assuming awoman, why should I as a woman
keep trying to reframe myselfinto a religion that was never
built for me?

(16:36):
It's a legitimate question.

SPEAKER_08 (16:39):
It absolutely is.
And, you know, I mean, I guess Iwould say my, just my personal
story.
I grew up Christian and I, Istarted my journey to atheism in
college, I would say.

(16:59):
I

SPEAKER_05 (16:59):
took

SPEAKER_08 (17:00):
many philosophy classes, and it kind of led me
down this wormhole of justreally teaching me how to
critically think, honestly,which ironically happened at a
Catholic university.
But I just kept following thingsto their logical end, and I'm

(17:21):
like, it doesn't make sense.
It doesn't make sense.
So I'll just give you oneexample, which was, you know,
the question posed by myprofessor at the time was, how
can the end of the world bedetermined already?
Right.
Like God has already said thatthis is how the world will end.

(17:44):
It's spelled out in Revelation.
And if that is how it will end,if it's already determined, then
how do we also have free will?
How can both be true at the sametime?
And so that was the first realsignificant kind of crack in my

(18:04):
Christian belief.
And so it continued from there.
And when I started to realizethat like, oh, I do really have
a choice.
I don't have to be the religionthat I was born into.
I can decide for myself, what doI think happened?

(18:27):
And when you start to reflect onthat, and as I was also learning
more just about feminism ingeneral, I realized that I could
find like whatever needs that Igot met in Christianity, which
for many people like me is, youknow, a sense of belonging and

(18:48):
community and friends.
And, you know, it helps withcoping at times when you feel
like you have like somebody totalk to all the time.
You're like, oh, I'll just pray,you know, and ask God for advice
or what does he think I shoulddo?
Right.
And so when I realized that Icould get all of my needs met

(19:10):
better in other places or withother tools, then I started to
realize that I didn't need itanymore.
So not only did, you know, likefirst step was to, you know, the
craft to stop maybe believing orto, you know, start questioning
my actual faith.
And then it's like this other,you know, like the logical part

(19:32):
of it is not also the emotionalpart of it, right?
Like those are separate.
And so like the emotional partof like, how do I get my needs
met then elsewhere?
And I realized like, oh, youknow, like I can go to yoga and
I can join this group and I canactually like have this group of
friends.
And, you know, I don't have tohave like my entire community
just centralized in this.

(19:54):
So And then when I realized thatit's, yeah, it's not made for
women.
It's a power structure made formen.
It was much easier to leave itbehind.

SPEAKER_07 (20:09):
Did you...
And this is kind of a groupquestion and the handful of us
are here in Chicago and we havea regular meetup, regular, it's
not as regular as it used to be.
But we try to get together andyou hit something Annette that
I've always, that I did notrealize when we first started
doing those meetups 10 yearsago, Annette and Larry both were

(20:32):
at the very first one that wedid 10 years ago.
I didn't appreciate how muchpeople missed that community.
of going to church.
So when we first started these,and even now, I thought of them
as a social club that happens tobe atheist, right?
And I thought, okay, we'll justget together.
It's not an agenda.
We're not having a meeting.
There are no notes to take.

(20:53):
It's not a speaker.
We're just getting together.
We're hanging out at a bar,restaurant, whatever.
What I didn't realize, peoplewould come to the group and they
just wanted to get it off theirchest and say, I just don't
understand what I had to gothrough.
And I finally have broken free.
And I can't believe I've met allyou people that are like-minded
because they used to go tochurch and that was a social

(21:13):
thing.
And they don't have that now.
They've been waiting to talk toanybody and be able to speak
freely.
And like you said, it might notbe any different between men and
women or anything else, but Ididn't fully appreciate that
because I didn't grow up in thatlevel of socializing within the
church.
But I thought it was really veryinteresting once I started to

(21:34):
clue in on that, how much peoplereally stay in church very often
as much for the social aspect asthey do the belief.
And Mike, you probably knowabout that because as involved
as you were on theadministrative side of it, if
you will, for lack of a betterterm.
Yeah, absolutely.
It was very difficult to losethat connection with everyone

(21:57):
else.
There was always someone there.
There was always something goingon where you were interacting
with people that's really justwhat it comes down to and when I
stopped attending those things Inever went to and when I stopped

(22:17):
going to Sunday school or when Istopped going to church period
well then choir was really theonly thing that I had left you
know and I was still goingthrough some things so that
whole process was it left a voidthere was definitely a void I
had to relearn that hey I'm justa mammal running around doing

(22:39):
mammal things and i can do itwith all my other mammal buddies
you know i don't have to have myblinders on

SPEAKER_03 (22:46):
yeah

SPEAKER_07 (22:47):
now it's yeah i i really i try now when we have
these meetings to to to broachthe subject to a level that
allows them to know that heyit's okay if you want to talk
about it it's okay if you don'tif you just want to have a beer
and talk about the last movie wesaw that's fine that's why we're
here But if they start to godown a road of like, this is
what I experienced or whatever,it doesn't matter.

(23:11):
I'm here to listen to people.
I just let them talk.
I don't try to dissuade themfrom it.
But again, it was important forme to learn that.
I wish I could say I learnedthat on the first meeting.
I didn't, but nonetheless.
All right, let's move on to thenext one.
Let's see here.
Larry, I got a question for you.
Oh, I

SPEAKER_08 (23:30):
think Scott's trying to talk, but we

SPEAKER_06 (23:31):
can.
Oh, I'm sorry.
Yeah, I wanted to give a verysuccinct answer to that last
question.
Why should I?
reframe myself to fit into areligion that doesn't fit XYZ
version of myself,

SPEAKER_08 (23:45):
you shouldn't.

SPEAKER_06 (23:48):
Period.
That's point blank and period.
You should not.
Unless you're going to change an8,000 year old God, it's not
going to work out for you.
I wrote that down.
You shouldn't.
It's a good point.

SPEAKER_07 (24:00):
It's a

SPEAKER_08 (24:01):
good point, and you're absolutely right.
We have to unwire ourselves thatway, right?
Because when we're raised inreligion, we're taught to do
that, right?
We have to conform to thoseexpectations and whatever.
They become these culturalnorms.
And I think that it is verycommon.

(24:23):
That's why we see the pray thegay away.
And people are more willing totry to twist themselves into
something that they're notrather than to lose the
community that they have.
That's what's at

SPEAKER_06 (24:36):
risk.
Even the flip side of that iswhat I call cafeteria Christians
who are like, I applaud peoplefor trying to be very LGBTQIA
friendly.
Read Leviticus 20.
The God you are worshipingspecifically says queer people
should be put to death.
You cannot square that circle.

(24:59):
Women are property.
In the 10 commandments, when itgives a list of property that
you are not to covet, yourneighbor's wife is on that list
because women are property.
You can't square that circlewith as many yet, but Jesus
came.
I'll

SPEAKER_08 (25:21):
add to that question that you just had to like, why
should I reframe myself?
Like, why do, why should I workhard to fit into a structure
that is like, I have to justifymy own existence in my own
dignity, right?
Like I have to, like the factthat I'm fully human isn't,
that's not part of, you know,the, the building blocks of it.

(25:45):
Yeah.
I'm not a cattle.

SPEAKER_01 (25:47):
You have to understand.
It was built that way for areason.
I remember learning about theCouncil of Nicaea when they put
together the Bible.
Absolutely.
There was the book of Lilith.
Now, nobody knows about Lilithbecause Lilith was created the

(26:08):
same way Adam was created.

SPEAKER_03 (26:10):
And

SPEAKER_01 (26:10):
the Council said,

SPEAKER_07 (26:12):
wait a minute.
That would make her as acreation equal to man.
We can't have that.
No.
It was Adam's wife.
Pure chaos.
That's not what we want.
We don't want women to be all...
She's probably mouthy andeverything.

SPEAKER_06 (26:26):
Lilith was definitely mouthy.
Read more about

SPEAKER_07 (26:32):
Lilith.
That book is out.
Be more like

SPEAKER_08 (26:35):
Lilith.

SPEAKER_07 (26:36):
We'll bury that.
We don't want to talk aboutthat.
Let's get that Eve in here.
She's all compliant.
Very submissive.

SPEAKER_03 (26:45):
She did go eat that fruit, though.

SPEAKER_07 (26:48):
She's a part of Adam.
She came from Adam, so she'slesser.

SPEAKER_08 (26:52):
We have the eternal punishment because of that.
I feel like I gave birth.
I paid my dues.

SPEAKER_07 (26:59):
This is the longest sentence ever.
i mean you know i could stealall kinds of stuff i don't you
know i'm out in six months butthis thing is ridiculous it's
such a silly story but it's

SPEAKER_06 (27:13):
forever indebted and there's no ac

SPEAKER_07 (27:16):
yeah all right that's good uh this one's a
layer i mean again i'm gonnaread these just again for the
podcast later when i dorebroadcast these What if I'm
wrong about deconstructing fromChristianity, thinking that
whatever reasons I have forleaving are facts, but in
reality, it's just the deviltrying to trick me into

(27:38):
abandoning God, which isactually, it's not a bad
question because I'm sure anyone of us could say, yeah,
someone told me that.
We're being tricked.
We're being pulled.
We actually just mentioned thewhole eat thing.
I mean, you're being tricked,but eat the apple.
It's this age-old story, right?
What if you're wrong?
Yeah.

(28:01):
There's a lot in that question.
Boy.
What if I'm wrong?
What if you're wrong?
You know, the old Pascal'swager.
Same question.

SPEAKER_01 (28:10):
Yes.

SPEAKER_07 (28:10):
Pascal's

SPEAKER_01 (28:10):
wager.
You know,

SPEAKER_07 (28:12):
as a quote I remember I think I told earlier
was Hitchens

SPEAKER_01 (28:17):
said that all religions, they can't all be
correct.
They can't all be right.
But they can all be wrong.

SPEAKER_07 (28:26):
So, I mean, that's the first part of that question.
If I'm wrong, but I've arrivedat these facts that I have
through genuine research andthinking and sussing out

(28:52):
evidence,

SPEAKER_01 (28:54):
And it turns out that it's really the devil
trying to trick me intoabandoning God.
And I appear at the pearlygates.
And they go, well,

SPEAKER_07 (29:04):
the devil tricked you.
I said, well, why did you letthe devil survive?
Aren't you all powerful?
Couldn't you have just defeatedhim and removed that influence
from me?
And I arrived in my non-beliefgenuinely and sincerely.
Right.
Whereas someone who is faking ituntil they make it because

(29:25):
they're they have all thesocietal pressure to be a
Christian or religious orwhatever Saying well, you know,
just keep just keep pretendingand eventually you'll you'll
believe it or Believe it in yourheart and and you know, it'll
come true Well, that seems kindof disingenuous and wouldn't it
all knowing God know that youwere faking it.

UNKNOWN (29:47):
I

SPEAKER_07 (29:49):
Good point.
I'd rather be genuine and lookfor a basis for the facts that I
have and the truth that I'mliving.
When I started asking my pastorhard questions, he said, well,

(30:10):
Mike, that's the devil workingin you right now.
That's why you're asking thesequestions.
So I took that.
sat on it, chewed on it for aminute, and I thought to myself,
well, this is a little absurd.
If all I have ever been doing isdoing absolutely everything I
possibly can to stay as one withGod as possible, then why?

(30:36):
There's absurdity there.
And it was slowly but surely, anumber of different absurdities
started coming up.
And all of a sudden, thefoundation started to crumble.
And thankfully for myself, I wasable to make it through.
There's others that haven't.
So a person, and I think I eventalked about this when I was a

(31:01):
guest last time, a person hasto, at some point, get to the
point in their mind where theyrealize that although they are
going through the phase ofalthough they are going through
deconstruction there has to be amoment where you say god does
not exist the devil does notexist it's not the devil isn't

(31:22):
tempting you

SPEAKER_03 (31:23):
right

SPEAKER_07 (31:24):
it's all of these thoughts and feelings that have
been pushed on you and you'vebeen educated in a particular
way and there's traditions andthere's a number of other things
going on there, but like weexpressed before, until we have
someone like ourselves, thisgroup here, an unholy round

(31:48):
table, a lot of times peopledon't understand that and they
have a more difficult timegetting to the point where they
realize it's not God and it'snot the devil.

SPEAKER_01 (32:02):
Yeah.
I think if the devil did notexist in their lore, if they had
not invented the devil, then wewould all see their God as the
baddie because it's there.

SPEAKER_07 (32:15):
The evidence is there.
It's just covered up by the factthat all that bad stuff,

SPEAKER_01 (32:20):
that's the devil.
That's

SPEAKER_07 (32:20):
this

SPEAKER_01 (32:21):
other entity that we have no hope of defeating

SPEAKER_07 (32:23):
for some weird reason.
For no reason, yeah.
I mean,

SPEAKER_08 (32:26):
you were basically being told not to think.

SPEAKER_07 (32:30):
Ah.
Yeah.
Lean not on your own knowledge.

SPEAKER_08 (32:33):
Just don't think the thoughts that you're thinking.

SPEAKER_07 (32:36):
Stop trying to be critically

SPEAKER_08 (32:37):
thinking.
Stop trying to be one of thosethinkers.

SPEAKER_07 (32:40):
Something you must have learned in school.
My dad actually told me that.
He says, the Bible says, don'tlean on your own understanding.
I said, well, who else's would Iuse?

SPEAKER_06 (32:53):
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, that's a very good point,because it tells you to think
like a child.
It tells you not to lean on yourown understanding.
And part of that thinking like achild is because children They
have to look to authorityfigures because they don't know
anything.
And children's reasoning centersof the brains have not fully

(33:14):
functioned yet.
So like the book literally says,hey, for you, in order for you
to do this, you have to pretendlike you don't know anything.
Listen, blindly followauthoritarian figures and
pretend like you can't followreason and logic.
Those are the instructions inthe book.

SPEAKER_01 (33:33):
And the same

SPEAKER_06 (33:34):
authoritarian

SPEAKER_07 (33:34):
figures that are saying that will then say, well,
we can't understand the mind ofGod.
Right after they've told youwhat God wants, thinks, does,
and how he acts and why he doesthings.
I actually have a video thatI've made and it's not dropped
yet because I saw someone made avery good point, which is what
you guys have just said, is thatI'm not rejecting God.

(33:55):
I'm rejecting you because yousupposedly say what God's
telling me.
If God hasn't told me anything,I've not seen God from the day I
was born.
I've seen you and I've seen youand I've seen you.
I'm rejecting you.
God wants to come down there andshow himself or themselves to
me.
I'm more than willing to take iton, but

SPEAKER_03 (34:12):
I'm

SPEAKER_07 (34:12):
just rejecting a human being, a man more than
likely who has an agenda.
Might be a good intentionagenda, but it's an agenda
nonetheless.
I'm rejecting that person.
So that's, I always find that avery interesting, when I heard
that, I was like, that's exactlythe point.
And most of us have agreed onthe different interviews where
I've done it with each of you.
I'm open to the idea there couldbe a God.

(34:32):
I do not believe there is, butokay.
One presents itself, fine.
But in the meantime, FatherJones, I'm not buying it, right?
Because you're the one tellingme that.

SPEAKER_06 (34:43):
Yeah.
Not only that, but the questionthen becomes...
a a subset of a any god like agod's creation has to have the
same evidentiary warrant as thegod itself does so the question
then becomes okay you thinkyou're being fooled now when you
were believing think back tothen did you have evidentiary

(35:06):
warrants to believe that satanexisted and if that satan is
powerful enough to have thepowers of the god so you
couldn't figure it out then yourquestion is dumb because you
wouldn't be able to figure itout.
Otherwise, your God is limitedby your ability to beat his
non-figureoutable person.

(35:27):
It creates a logical loop.

SPEAKER_07 (35:31):
It creates a void that the human pastors and
leaders can step into andmanipulate.

SPEAKER_06 (35:37):
Right.
With fallacies.
Yeah, typically with fallacies.
It all goes back to fallacies.

SPEAKER_07 (35:42):
And the more I looked at it, and I think the
more anyone looks at it, thatvoid is filled with absurdities.
And I can't abide that.
I

SPEAKER_00 (35:53):
cannot abide that.

SPEAKER_07 (35:55):
And I know that that might sound very offensive to
some listeners, but there arecertain things that all of us
find absurd.
And really think about it.
They're so close.
Those absurdities are so close.
It just takes one tiny littlemove on one side of the line,

(36:16):
and it truly is absurdity.
yeah the problem you know myfavorite

SPEAKER_08 (36:22):
absurdity i just want to say this really quick
was like the most absurd to meis like really and one of the
more popular stories is noah'sark and i'm like like okay two
of every animal so how did noahknow which flies were male and
which ones were female and alsoHow did he get two of every...

(36:48):
How many insects are there onEarth?
There's millions of insects.
There has to be thousands andhundreds of thousands at least,

SPEAKER_07 (36:56):
right?
If just the species of ants...
We're no longer on the planet.
Our speed through space wouldchange.

SPEAKER_06 (37:08):
I just want to know which of the eight humans on
that boat got the privilege ofcarrying the STDs.
Did they separate them out?
I love that!

SPEAKER_03 (37:19):
You're right.
The

SPEAKER_08 (37:23):
antelope survived because none of the lions ate
them.
Nobody needed to eat.

SPEAKER_07 (37:29):
It's so funny.
Scott, when we were just talkingabout it, I was thinking not
only the animals and the mammalsand the birds and the insects, I
was thinking, well, what aboutthe amoebas and the germs?
These are living organisms.
You, Scott, made my point.
I went there.
I went there.
The reason I pointed that out isbecause...

SPEAKER_06 (37:50):
I'm not going to be like the other Mike.
I'm not going to worry aboutoffending people because I want
people to know this.
If you can be convinced ofabsurdities, you can be
convinced to commit atrocities.
Voltaire said that centuriesago.
If you can believe all of thesethings, this is, you know, if

(38:11):
you can be if you can be.
Taught to believe absurdities,you can be convinced to commit
atrocities.
So I don't care who gets madthat I call them absurdities.
You have to figure that out.

SPEAKER_07 (38:21):
The biggest absurdity with Noah's Ark is
where did all the poo go?
That's where

SPEAKER_08 (38:29):
the STDs were,

SPEAKER_07 (38:30):
maybe.
You know, if anybody's curiousfrom the religious perspective,
the answer about Noah's Ark isGod made a...
God performed a miracle...
So that it was a natural, it wasa magnification.
This is how it goes.
There is a magnification ofnatural situations so that all

(38:56):
of the different, what do youcall it?
All the natural instincts werejust sort of turned off and
everything was able to cometogether.
And God specifically said, chosea male and a female and you know
compelled them to go and therewere of the unclean animals

(39:20):
there were um two of each therewere two pairs i believe of the
unclean and i think it was it'sa number more of the clean
animals in pairs seven becauseyou know you have to eat the
clean animals and uh yeah sothat's just like the plagues uh
miraculous magnification ofnatural events.

(39:43):
So there you go.
Now we know.
Now we know.
We got some absurdity.
Magic.
That's the answer.
Yes, magical thinking.
Yeah, you left that part.
All right, let's move on to thenext one.
So this is for you, Mike.
um again why are christians thisis such a good question why are
christians so firm onhomosexuality but not premarital

(40:04):
sex or to scott's point earliermixed cloths or any of the other
sins why is homosexuality thismassive the worst sin you could
ever create worse than killingpeople in terms of the way we
view it in this society yeah i iand I've looked into this, and
it says in the Bible that if a–well, obviously, we have the

(40:29):
horror of what's told to us inLeviticus.
If two men sleep together, theyshould be put to death.
But they also talk about a manand a woman– if a man and a
woman are married and theycommit adultery– they should
also be put to death.
So there's a differentiationthere between, or I should say,

(40:50):
there in that moment isestablished what is an offense
that you could be executed for.
Later, it talks about premaritalsex.
Yeah, it talks about, especiallyin the New Testament, and I
think it's in Romans, it talksabout where Jesus said to a

(41:15):
woman who was a prostitute, goforward and sin no more.
Those are the only words aboutit.
So when religious scholars startto break things down, they've
got, you're going to get put todeath or you can bring something
to the foot of the cross, right?

SPEAKER_03 (41:36):
You

SPEAKER_07 (41:36):
see where there's a, there's a difference.
And when you bring something tothe foot of the, you're able to
bring something to the foot ofthe cross and say, I repent and
Jesus is, and the Holy spiritare going to work in my life.
Well then, you know, that's your11th hour, get out a free card,
but there's no 11th hour, getout a free card.
That's established in the, inthe scripture for, um, uh,

(42:02):
homosexuality or, um, what's theother one?
Adultery.
Those two explicitly say youtake them outside the city gates
and stone him to death.
So then we end up with, um, onthe premarital sex side, Hey,
the reality is sex feels good.

(42:22):
And as human beings, we have awindow of opportunity where And
all of our genes, they expressor they don't express during
certain periods of ourdevelopment.
And what we end up with is justa regular standard mammalian
response.

(42:44):
And that's something thateverybody experiences all the
time.
They don't necessarilyexperience homosexuality.
So it's easy to go after aminority.
The other thing is, ishomosexuality was very common in

(43:05):
and it still is in us indifferent cultures.
But particularly at that time,you know, the homosexuality
among the Greeks was completelycommonplace.

UNKNOWN (43:19):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (43:20):
In fact, it actually helped to define a lot of what
we have from the Greeks, all theinformation that has come to us
from them.
So when the proto-Jews, youknow, the pre-Jewish people in
the early Old Testament weregoing around, they needed to

(43:40):
differentiate themselves fromthe other tribes that they were
present with.
So they pick and they choose andthey I think that's what we end
up with.
Do you think, because you saidsomething that I've always
heard, and we know it to betrue, that various
homosexuality, I'm searching forthe right word, not lifestyle is

(44:04):
not the word I'm looking for,but you'll see where I'm going.
It was more accepted indifferent cultures in the
ancient past very often.
But I think you said it was verycommon.
I wonder if it was more or lesscommon or just accepted.
to therefore out.
We're now, even in Americatoday...
That's a great way to say that.
I think people are naturallyborn however they're born, but

(44:29):
we choose to act on what wechoose to act upon.
I know that butter tastesamazing, but I'm not going to
have it in my life because Ijust got my cholesterol checked
and it's just not somethingthat's for me right now.
We can make these decisions,but...
No, I think that– oh, maybe.

(44:51):
Maybe it's possible that therewere more or less homosexuals in
– in other times, but I know forsure we can look at the writing.
We can look at what Josephus haswritten about other cultures.
Josephus being an incrediblehistorian and his descriptions
of other cultures.

(45:11):
And we can clearly see thatthings were more accepted.
To your point, yes, things weremore accepted.
If we go to Afghanistan rightnow, it's a terrible
documentary.
I should say it's a well-donedocumentary, but it's terrible.
to have to experience and watch,but it's called The Dancing Boys
of Afghanistan.

(45:33):
And it's just, it's reallysomething.
Could I add something thatperhaps...
Yeah, go ahead, Larry.
Perhaps you aren't all aware of,I know I wasn't until this past
week,

SPEAKER_01 (45:52):
there is a documentary called

SPEAKER_07 (45:55):
that came out, I believe, in January.
I just found out about this lastweek.
I have not watched it yet.
It's called the 1946mistranslation, where in 1946,
the RSV version of the Biblemistranslated a word

SPEAKER_06 (46:15):
that changed it

SPEAKER_07 (46:16):
from abusive relationships to homosexual,
LGBTQ type relationships.
so before 1946 no bible saidanything about homosexuality in
that context

SPEAKER_06 (46:35):
well

SPEAKER_07 (46:35):
the i don't know if any of you have seen that
documentary

SPEAKER_06 (46:37):
yeah what was what was changed in the 1940s was
specifically the word arsenalkoitai exactly which was a greek
word that was it was more alongthe original version of the word
pederasty which was adult manpubescent or prepubescent boy.
And it happened a lot in thechurches.
It also happened a lot withfighting forces like the 300

(47:03):
Spartans and stuff like that.
There were specific groups thatwas literally men and their boys
that would go out.
And the interesting thing aboutthat in parallel with what Mike
said earlier talking about, thatwas in John 8.
It was the last sentence in Johnchapter 7 and most of chapter 8
was Pericope Adulteri, which wasthe adulterous woman that they

(47:26):
were going to stone.
And that's when Jesus apparentlysaid, go and sin no more.
But that also added later thatwas not seen in any translation
in any of the books and stuffthat we have until the fifth
century.
I mean, it wasn't in it was oneof like over three dozen
passages that were added thatwere not in the earliest copies

(47:50):
we have, which is Kodak CodexSinaitis and Codex Vaticanus.
That's not in there.
It is like the Book of Mark.
It does not have it doesn't showa risen Jesus.
The Book of Mark stopped afterthe women ran from the empty
tomb.
So there's a lot of changingabout this based on this

(48:12):
specific topic.
Cafeteria Christians picking theparts that they don't care about
and virtue signaling the partsthat do not affect them.
And I think that's what it is.
That's why they, that's whythey, they get, Oh, you know,
you've had multiple sexpartners.
You're some umbrella of queercommunity, you know, whatever,

(48:33):
whatever it is.
We don't like that because itdoesn't affect us.
Now the stuff that we do andeven some of the stuff they say
not to do, they still do.
You know, there's a bighypocrisy there, but yeah, I
think it has a lot to do withjust picking and choosing the
parts that you want to be thatyou want to ignore.

SPEAKER_08 (48:54):
I think it's picking and choosing the parts that make
them uncomfortable.
If they feel discomfort, theywant to just do away with it and
shame people out of portrayingthat publicly.

SPEAKER_07 (49:10):
Christianity has a huge problem with genitalia.
If they were honest withthemselves, I put this to my
uncle once.
He was ranting and raving abouthomosexuals and transsexuals and
everything.
And I said, what harm has cometo you because a certain person
loves the same sex?

(49:33):
Personally, what harm have youbeen inflicted

SPEAKER_01 (49:36):
with?
That's when he unfriended me,which I was happy to be
unfriended.

SPEAKER_08 (49:41):
Bye, Felicia.

SPEAKER_07 (49:43):
And the twist is his...
transition from a female.
Oh, wow.
Which he still loves, and I seethem, you know, celebrating
birthdays and everything.
So, hypocrisy once again.
Yeah, you know, it's funny whenwe have several relatives that

(50:05):
are super dyed-in-the-woolChristian, you know, hardcore
kind of people, and then,surprise, your daughter's gay.
Okay, now what are you going todo?
You know, I...
There's two sides of me.
There's the good and the badside of me.
And the evil side of me is like,yeah, Serge, you're right.
Because now you see what allthese other people have had to
put up with, and you're nowliving with a person who you

(50:27):
love, and you're now having towrestle with that.

SPEAKER_01 (50:29):
Not necessarily, Mike.

SPEAKER_07 (50:30):
Well, and that's the other side of me.
It's like at the same time, thispoor child is having to deal
with all that.
So I understand why I can seewhere I come from on both of
these sides.
So in the long run, I'd ratherthey didn't have to deal with
that.
But it is sometimes just like...
These people don't understandany of these issues until all of
a sudden it lands on their frontdoorstep, right?

SPEAKER_01 (50:53):
And then

SPEAKER_07 (50:54):
they've got to wrestle with the reality that
Scott and Mike have dealt withand all of our other LGBTQ
friends have dealt with.
Or nowadays, I just saw anarticle today about this guy who
had four Trump burgerrestaurants in Texas, in
Houston, and he's being deportedbecause he overstayed his visa
from Lebanon.
You open a place called theTrump Burger.

(51:15):
You open four of them and you'rehere illegally.
The hell is wrong with you?
But now all of a sudden he'slike, well, wait, I'm one of the
good ones.
Like, no, you're not.
It's

SPEAKER_06 (51:25):
the cougar eating your face party.

SPEAKER_07 (51:27):
Right.

SPEAKER_06 (51:29):
Yeah.
Cougars eating your face.
I didn't know the cougars wouldeat my face if I voted for the
cougars eating your face party.
It drives me crazy.
All right,

SPEAKER_07 (51:38):
let's move on.
I'm going to get off on thatone.
This is Scott.
So Scott, here we are.
I think this is a LawrenceKrauss question.
So just someone had reposted it.
I thought it was a goodquestion.
So you're choking.
I have two options.
One, I perform the Heimlichmaneuver.
Two, I pray.
Which one do you want me to do?
It goes to prayer and how peoplesay, oh, prayer will solve

(52:00):
everything.
Okay.
Good luck with that chunk ofsteak in your throat.
So Scott, what do you thinkabout this?

SPEAKER_06 (52:07):
man this this one really hits close to home i had
a friend of mine one of my bestfriends in high school and he
was uh had a lot of healthissues he was morbidly obese uh
he was always involved in thechurch he had his own church he
literally helped build schoolsand stuff in africa as a
missionary and things like thatbut his health issues got where
he was up to 700 pounds spent alot of time in hospitals but he

(52:31):
was always praying he was alwaystalking about how good the gods
was and A year ago right now, hewas just getting out of the
hospital after a seven week staybecause he had to have a heart
thing, but they couldn't do theheart thing because it would
mess up his triglycerides.
But fixing that would mess uphis hydration, which would throw
off his sugars and stuff likethat.
Always talking about prayer,pray for me because God is going

(52:52):
to see me through this.
And he even after he got out, hesaid, my doctor said I was going
to be on this oxygen tank forthe rest of my life.
But I got up on Sunday morningand I prayed and I didn't need
that oxygen tank.
And God is good and God ishealing me and this is a person
that i i was an accountabilitypartner for for a very long time
and i had to stop being anaccountability partner because

(53:13):
he was taking off health stuffbut adding like prayer group
stuff to his to-do list hisaccountability list

SPEAKER_03 (53:19):
yeah

SPEAKER_06 (53:20):
and uh six days after he put the post about you
know not using the the um oxygenand stuff anymore uh his dad did
a wellness check on him andfound him dead so

SPEAKER_07 (53:33):
i know that i We were

SPEAKER_06 (53:35):
in a different group.
No, this was like from highschool.
He never traveled out.

SPEAKER_07 (53:41):
No, no.
You and I are in a differentgroup, the food group, and there
was a guy that used to be inthat.
Yes, yes, Tiny.
Tiny.
Okay.
Well, that's not his real nameunless, unless it is, which is
Alabama.
It could be as God.
Yeah.
Um, but

SPEAKER_06 (53:54):
no, he, uh, yeah, I remember that

SPEAKER_07 (53:56):
guy.
He was very big and I've nevermet him, but I just, his
pictures on Facebook at thetime, just like 10 years ago, a
long time ago that I rememberseeing him on, but I hadn't seen
him since.
Okay.

SPEAKER_06 (54:06):
Yeah.
He passed away August 28th oflast year, like three weeks, two
and a half weeks from today.
And this, this is right afterthat.
I, man, I, I have a specialplace in my cold, dark heart for
people who lean into religiosityrather than taking personal
responsibility for things likethat.

(54:26):
Yeah.
Yeah.
For people who deny theirchildren medical care.
That's my

SPEAKER_07 (54:31):
Christian scientists.

SPEAKER_06 (54:33):
There is one.
There is one option.
There is one option.
You're choking to death.
You perform the Heimlichmaneuver.
The other option is they die.
You can put prayer on there ifyou want.
You can pray over them as theydie.
But that's going to be theresult.
I

SPEAKER_08 (54:52):
love that God has a plan and he's perfect and his
plan is perfect.
And somehow us praying, it'slike trying to convince God to
change his all-perfect plan.

SPEAKER_07 (55:04):
Perfect plan.
How are we to impose on thisrelationship?
Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 (55:09):
And to go deeper into the question, there's more
that was involved in thisquestion about medical
professionals and how medicalprofessionals have to deal with
spending 16 hours without a peebreak on somebody's surgery only
to come out and have the familygo, well, thank God.
Yes.
We'll take him to the churchnext time.

(55:30):
But the thing is, if everysuccess is...
a little up to God, doesn't thatmean that every failure is a
failure of that God?
Because when you start doingthe, if it doesn't work, it's
the Lord working in strange andmysterious ways.

(55:50):
That's just you doubling down onBS.

SPEAKER_08 (55:53):
You get to take credit.
You also have to takeaccountability.

SPEAKER_07 (55:56):
The other feature of that thanking God for all these
big things is they also begin tothank God for the little things.
It becomes just...
it becomes meaningless.
I remember once I had to printsome labels at work and the lady
that was running the productionline

SPEAKER_01 (56:15):
had come in just as I had finished the

SPEAKER_07 (56:17):
labels looking

SPEAKER_01 (56:19):
for them.

SPEAKER_07 (56:20):
And if she didn't have the labels, the line was
going to stop and she didn'twant that.
So she came in and I said, ohyeah, they're finished.
Let me take them off themachine.
She goes, oh, thank God.
I said, no, this was me.
Right.
It's pronounced Larry.
I do the mundane things.
And it occurred to me after Iwas thinking about that later, I

(56:40):
said, well, if they're thankingGod for these trivial, tiny
little things and the great bigthings, doesn't that dilute
everything?
Doesn't that minimize?
Yeah.
I do wonder about that becauseyou're right.
And I thank God, of course, thestatement that we all kind of
just say because we grew up inthe United States.
But I think you're right,though, because how many times

(57:00):
we saw it?
You know, I've seen it onFacebook.
You know, someone I've gone toschool with.
Oh, I got to thank God I got theapartment.
What?
You had a good credit score,enough money.
That's how you got an apartment.
There's not much to it.
But you're right.
It's like if saving a child frombone cancer and getting your
apartment are on the same scalewith this guy.

UNKNOWN (57:20):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (57:21):
you're right it's diluting it and it it seems it
does trivialize whatever awesomepower that a god should have or
be concerned about why and iknow some again sometimes it's
just said but sometimes theytruly i mean i i remember in one
person i and that was a specificexample she did say thank god i
got the apartment and she shewas a hardcore christian not

(57:42):
necessarily a bad way just avery sweet girl but that's what
she said i remember it's just anapartment it's He's not looking
out for you, or he would havemaybe not put you in a position
where you had to be so desperateto get an apartment.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Why didn't God get me a house?
Why do we have to even be here?
You know, like that woman in thevery beginning, she says, you

(58:03):
know, your kid is, or I'm sorry,we only saw it for a second.
I'll go ahead and wait on that.
Yeah, I'll go ahead and wait onthat until it actually comes up.
But the one thing I did want toadd here is that You know, we
can really prove that it's thatthe difference between the
Heimlich maneuver and praying.

(58:24):
I mean, even our government willgo ahead and send parents to
prison for praying.
Yeah.
Because if you do not take your

SPEAKER_05 (58:34):
child.

SPEAKER_07 (58:36):
Yeah.
Yeah.
You do not take your child wheninto, you know, into the
hospital when they need it.
You know, the federal and stategovernment will go ahead and
prosecute and you'll do a lot

SPEAKER_06 (58:46):
of time in prison.
No, there are some states.
There are some states that havelaws that protect parents from
making religious based medicaldecisions and their child dying
from it.
I think Utah is one.
Right.
Idaho is another one.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (59:02):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (59:03):
And even in the Mormon community, there have
been parents who have beenjailed because of child neglect.
They actually have.
Even though they fall underthose protections.

SPEAKER_08 (59:18):
They

SPEAKER_07 (59:18):
like going up to the Jehovah's Witnesses too.
The Jehovah's Witnesses.
Yeah, because they're the bloodtransfusion and everything else.

SPEAKER_01 (59:25):
The Mormons are real big with kicking their kids out
for non-belief as well.

SPEAKER_07 (59:30):
Yeah, that's a whole other kettle fish.
The Jehovah's Witness and theblood transfusion.
And this is where I'm not at allon their side.
And I'm going to try to say thisso it doesn't come off the wrong
way.
How do you wrestle with I'mtheir parent.
I know what's best for them.
And because that's a broadstatement.

(59:51):
And then but someone say upuntil this point.
And what is that point?
Because if I say, well, no, no,no, my kids who's 11 and Scott,
you and I know someone who has ayoung child that's a trans
child, a young child.
How do I say my kid says they'retrans and they're eight years
old and I'm going to allow thatbecause I believe that's fine

(01:00:15):
and I believe all that.
Another parent across town says,no, that's absolutely wrong.
Where does the government, whatline do you find where the
government can say, okay, butyou're raising them wrong and
you're raising them right.
And you say blood transfusion,and maybe that's not a
guaranteed cure, but you'reallowed to believe that, or you
shouldn't believe that.
And therefore we as doctorsshould agree with it or not

(01:00:36):
agree.
There's a line.
I don't have an answer.
I'm really throwing it outbecause I see where the wrestle
is.
And I don't know how you wouldquantify that from a law.

SPEAKER_06 (01:00:45):
This gets into a very deep conversation about
where where I feel that secularhumanism is a better moral
system because it's based in thewell-being of the people
involved and that well-being, nomatter who well-being would have
specific markers.

(01:01:05):
When you talk about rates ofsuicide for transgender children
plummeting when they have oneaffirming person in their
household, that is a definitivemarker that shows
gender-affirming care is workingin the best interests of that
child, especially when it'sbacked by every medical,

(01:01:26):
psychological, biological, andlexicographical organization on
the planet almost.
Whereas if the child dies, youhave a very valid metric that if
a child does not get blood thatthe child needs, it's going to
die, which is against itswell-being.

SPEAKER_03 (01:01:47):
Yes.

SPEAKER_06 (01:01:48):
So that's and that's where I think secular.
This is a why I think thegovernment should stay out of
decisions like that when itcomes to religious based things.
The well-being of the childshould always be first and
foremost.
And that decision of well-being,A, should involve the child as
much as possible.
And B, be backed up byevidence-based data.

(01:02:13):
Because when you talk aboutprayer, prayer has been tested.
There was a blind study of oneof the religious groups.
They had three subsets.
They had almost all the samesurgeries, groups that were
being prayed for.
groups that wasn't being prayedfor and a group that was being
prayed for and were told theywere being prayed for.
The group that was being prayedfor without being told and the

(01:02:35):
group that wasn't being prayedfor had about the same risk of
the same numbers ofcomplications and stuff like
that.
The group that knew they werebeing prayed for actually had
slightly worse outcomes.
because just like anything else,if you think you got it on easy
street, you're going to be lax.
You know, that specific one wasa small sample study.

(01:02:56):
I was thinking it was like 700or something like that, but
there's no evidence.
It gets back to evidence-basedstuff.
There's absolutely no evidencethat prayer works in any
evidentiary fashion.

SPEAKER_05 (01:03:09):
You know, I think, Do the Heimlich.
Or watch

SPEAKER_06 (01:03:14):
them die.
Pray while you're doing theHeimlich.
That's

SPEAKER_03 (01:03:19):
fine.
I hope I do this right.
If I'm in a car

SPEAKER_06 (01:03:22):
accident and I'm giving someone CPR, I'm an
atheist and I might still bepraying if I really...
Why not?
Throw it out to the universe.

SPEAKER_07 (01:03:34):
It becomes a little more crowded, Scott, when you
look at an issue likehomeschooling.
or school vouchers where theparents say, well, I know what's
best for my child despite allthe evidence that most of them
don't.
Some of them do.
Some of them are capable ofpreparing their children for

(01:03:55):
higher education or whatever.
I believe the vast majority arenot.
And

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:01):
the vast

SPEAKER_07 (01:04:01):
majority of homeschool is religious-based.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:05):
They get their

SPEAKER_07 (01:04:06):
curricula from religious organizations, which
are demonstrably inaccurate andjust bad.
And then they try to go intocollege and immediately
struggle.
So I think that kind of cloudsthe situation.

(01:04:30):
the people who want tohomeschool or have this
so-called parental choice willpoint to bad schools or bad
teachers or situations withpublic funding of schools, which
ironically they're making worseby pushing for school vouchers
for private schools.
Yeah, it's going to get worse.

(01:04:52):
And say, well, see how terribleit is.
I can do better myself and Ishould have the decision on what
to do.
Yeah, that's the same type ofquestion.
And that's exactly what you're,Larry, is exactly the point.
It's like, okay, there's a line.
I don't know necessarily whereit's at, but I've never been a
big fan of homeschooling becauseI've known too many kids that

(01:05:13):
were homeschooled by morons andthey grew up to be morons.
And now they've got their ownkids that will be morons.
And it's sad.
I mean, I'm making, I'm jokingabout it, but it's a sarcastic
and bitter joke because itpisses me off.
And I've got close people lookto me.
because there's no reason thatthat child should have ever been
schooled by you.
You're an idiot.
You're just not a good, smartperson.

(01:05:37):
Why do you think you have anycredibility teaching this other
person what you don't know?
And I know you didn't reallyteach them because you don't
know it anyway.
And the more it goes on, themore it harms society as a
whole.
As a whole, right.

SPEAKER_08 (01:05:50):
Take on the role of being a teacher without any
training.
Same thing pastors do that too.
They take my work of being atherapist and they're like, oh,
I'm a counselor.
And it's like, you have noqualifications for that
whatsoever.
So yeah, it's like me trying tobe a doctor and I'm not.

SPEAKER_07 (01:06:07):
Purely biased education.
They're a counselor from aChristian perspective.
which doesn't help if you're notChristian.
I was talking to my mom onetime.
I think I told one of you guyson a call.
She lives in Florida, and shelives in a small town, and she
was saying her pastor, who isthe pastor of the biggest church
in this town, Callahan, Scott,he's a counselor, a grief

(01:06:32):
counselor.
She's like, if the case waseverything going on at the
school, brother or whatever hisname is, he can go in and Yeah,
that sounds real good.
But what about Muhammad, whomight be a grief counselor at
the mosque?
Like your little town would losetheir collective fucking mind if
mosque guy comes in there,right?
But he's just equally qualifiedbecause he went through training

(01:06:52):
too.
He just didn't go throughChristian training because he's
Muslim, you know?
So it's like, you're not acounselor.
I mean, anything's probably,well, no, that's not even a good
thing.
I'm about to say anything'sbetter than nothing, but that's
probably not true at all.

UNKNOWN (01:07:04):
No.

SPEAKER_07 (01:07:04):
be way wrong, right?
Right.
Nothing is better than a badthing.
You're a Christian.
You're telling him to pray toJesus.
That's not going to help, right?
Right.
Yeah, move on.
Try to keep us rolling.
Now, this is actually a questionI really wanted to get you guys
as a group because this probablycomes up.
We've all experienced it.

(01:07:25):
And this person says, anacquaintance of mine is dying of
cancer.
She has young kids and is in theprocess of moving to another
state to be close to her familyfor the last days.
What do you say to someone, andthis person was an atheist,
that's dying?
And there's a good questionthere because it's really easy
for a Christian to say, andwe're going to get to this other
segue later, but it's easy tosay, you're going to go home to

(01:07:47):
Jesus.
You're going to see yourgrandparents, blah, blah, blah,
blah, blah, blah, blah.
We don't say that.
We can't say that.
what do you say to these peoplethat you've met and they're
dying as a that you feel iscomforting or how do you do it
i'm curious i i think the firstthing comes to my mind is i
would simply say i'll rememberyou there you go yeah i like

(01:08:11):
that actually

SPEAKER_06 (01:08:12):
that's all i can do i see the situation we're going
to die there's nothing we can doand i'm i'm going to echo
exactly what he just said It'sgoing to be about our memories.
It's going to be about sharedexperiences.
It's going to be about we westill if we are able to, we
should still be creating someshared experiences now that we
know that that time is coming.

(01:08:33):
I think.
Anything, anything involvingafterlife living sweet in the
bosom of Jesus is just it.
I can't tell you how vehementlyI hate that, like.
Live, live.
Those future things that thisthis whole earth is just dirty

(01:08:57):
rags for the next life is justso limiting.
And, you know, there's nothere's no reason to even look.
We don't know what's out there.
So why bother with it?
We comfort.
We be there for them.
We let them know that we arethere for them.
We let them know that we're notalone anymore.
We keep creating memories.

(01:09:17):
We keep it creating experiences.
But there is absolutely nothingthat a religion that you haven't
already been indoctrinated intois going to help with that.
No matter how much of atherapist the priest thinks he
is.

SPEAKER_07 (01:09:36):
Right.
Yeah.
I've been in a situation wheremy father-in-law and my mother
were both dying.
and my mother knew full wellthat i was atheist and i thought
to myself how am i going to talkto mom about all of this and i
said you know what my goal hereis to do no harm but my goal is

(01:10:00):
also to not deny myself the waythat i feel so i say to the
person who's on their deathbedyou have your particular belief
so as you're going through thistransition focus on the
important parts of your beliefbecause it's not going to
matter.

SPEAKER_06 (01:10:20):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:10:22):
It's not going to

SPEAKER_06 (01:10:22):
matter.
I'll agree with that.
Yeah.
I'll agree with that.
But at the same

SPEAKER_07 (01:10:26):
time, it absolutely sickens me to the core.
I'm very, very much in the sameboat as you.
It's just, I have, I guess I'velearned in my old age that, um,
People are always going to letme down.
Or I should say human beings arecapable of letting me down in
one way or another or causing megrief in one way or another.

(01:10:49):
And how I perceive everythingmakes the makes the difference.
You know, so what I'm going todo is I'm going to see if I can
do no harm and I'm not going tobe shocked.
when I'm in a situation whereeither I've been let down or
someone, or I should say, andthen at that point, when someone

(01:11:11):
does something, I'm notnecessarily let down or hurt or
whatever.
It's just part of what humans,the way humans act, the things
that humans do.

SPEAKER_03 (01:11:20):
And

SPEAKER_07 (01:11:21):
then I'll gravitate toward folks like y'all, you
know?
But when I see someone in aposition where, Where, so like
my mother was dying, I justsaid, hey, mom, you know, all
this is going to be over withsoon.
You know, you're going to bewith Jesus.
And she says, how can you saythat?

(01:11:42):
You don't believe it.
And I said, well, it's reallysimple.
There's no reason for me to tellyou anything else.
I understand where the originis.
I was part of that.
You're the one who taught meeverything.
My mother was the one who taughtme everything about religion

(01:12:02):
before I started going toschool.
I went to...
kindergarten already knowing theLord's Prayer the Nicene Creed
the Apostles Creed the list goeson and it was because of her so
when I'm faced with hermortality right then and there I
just thought to myself I guessI'll just I'll just do no harm

(01:12:24):
but it bothered me so muchinside that I had to that I
wasn't able to say anythingagainst it.
But then the other part of mesays, what good would it do?
What good would it do?
Yeah, I'm the same way.
When it comes to grief, it'slike talking to a child.

(01:12:44):
It's kind of both ways.
If you talk to a little kid andyou want to just boost their
esteem by saying whatever.
That was your grandmother.
That's the best picture of ahorse I've ever seen.
He's got five legs and he'sperfect, but it's the best
picture of a horse I've everseen.
It's not the best horse.
It's not the best anythingyou've ever seen.
But to that child, it'simportant.

(01:13:04):
Or to an older person, sayyou're talking to your
90-year-old grandmother, youknow, and you look beautiful.
No, she looks like a 90-year-oldold lady.
But does she want to hear that?
No, she doesn't want to hearthat.
So you're right.
It's the same thing.
Like, that's not true.
But we say these things becauseit's comforting.
And if saying or letting themsay and not disputing it, that

(01:13:27):
you're going to go and be in thearms of Jesus.
if I get some through that lastday or month or whatever, I will
live to fight the argument.
All these things we talkedabout, I'll fight those battles
when they're due, but thatindividual, if it makes them
feel better, fine.
But yeah, they're foreshadowingMike brought up earlier.
We are going to have a videohere a little bit where that is

(01:13:49):
not necessarily a good answer,but it's a common answer, right?

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:53):
Here's the dichotomy though, is if it was an atheist
that was dying,

SPEAKER_07 (01:13:58):
A

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:58):
religious person would come in and try to get you
to believe in Jesus.
Yeah.
Actually, my father

SPEAKER_08 (01:14:05):
did that on his own deathbed to me.
I lost my father to cancer about14 years ago.
And I had the privilege oftaking care of him when he was
dying.
He was on hospice for a goodwhile.
And there was this particular, Iwas still working at the time,
but I was taking some FMLA time,you know, intermittently to care

(01:14:28):
for him.
So we had home health coming.
And, you know, this one week inparticular was really important.
to me at work and I had a bigmeeting and I was like getting
ready to go into this meetingand I had a call and I had told
the front desk person like holdmy calls this until this meeting
is over and they poked theirhead in and I was like I told
you to hold it and they're likeyou're gonna want to take this

(01:14:50):
one and I just my heart sunk fora second because I thought this
was the call right and it was insome sense but it wasn't the
call I thought I was gettinganyways I pick up the phone and
it was my stepmom and she's likehe just won't take no for an
answer and that like you have toget here He's like demanding
that you be here right now.
And I, I mean, I had to likecancel the meeting.

(01:15:10):
I'm dry, you know, took me anhour to drive to their house.
I get there and I'm like, hidad, I'm here.
Like, what is it that you neededto stop heaven and earth to like
get me here today for?
And he said, I was worried.
He thought he was dying.
He said he was worried that hewas going to die, uh, without,
uh, talking to me about myeternal soul.

(01:15:34):
Basically.
He was like, I, you know, heknew that I was an atheist.

SPEAKER_03 (01:15:37):
Um,

SPEAKER_08 (01:15:38):
and you know, he was, he was respectful about it
for the most part for being asreligious as he was.
Um, but on his death, like whenwhen he really thought that
moment was coming, that he wasgoing to go, he thought like he
just had a panic and was like,get her here.
And I have to just, he wanted touse his dying breath to try to
save my damnation.

SPEAKER_01 (01:15:58):
One of the last things my father said to me
before he passed was he hopedthat my brother and I would be
born again so that he would see

SPEAKER_07 (01:16:06):
us.

SPEAKER_08 (01:16:07):
So I guess I would just answer the question quickly
by saying, what do I say to adying person?
It really depends on who theyare and what they believe.
I'm not going to lie to them andpretend like I believe something
that I don't.
But I think I would try to saythings that are comforting
without lying.
And I think I would...
listen more and talk less.

(01:16:29):
That's what I

SPEAKER_07 (01:16:30):
think.
Yeah.
No, it's probably a good, good,um, you know, listen more and
talk less.
That's probably, and really, youknow, that's probably what they
want.
They just want to get this offtheir chest.
And both of you guys is asituation.
This person's there was herdying wish.
Okay.
You know, it could be worse,right?
I

SPEAKER_08 (01:16:47):
just said, dad, I, I don't know what will happen in
the future, but I appreciatethat you care enough for me to,
to want that for me.

SPEAKER_07 (01:16:57):
I agree.
Randy, I put Randy's questionup.
I said, but I was like, I don'tknow what that means, Randy.
But then you corrected.
He said, yeah, sorry.
Fat fingered it.
Yeah.
I'm hoping none of them guysknow that answer because I don't
know what it means.
Like, all right.
No problem, Randy.
Thanks for checking it.
But Randy did say, yeah,religion only has is on the gas.

(01:17:20):
No brakes.
And that's exactly

SPEAKER_05 (01:17:22):
it.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_07 (01:17:22):
it's totally true on that one.
I'm going to jump to anotherone.
Go ahead, Mike.
With what Randy said withreligion having all gas, no
brakes, I think on the flip sideof that, we should, as
secularists, as humanists, asatheists, we should try to live

(01:17:44):
by just these two little things.
Do no harm, but take no shit.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
In a lot of cases, this isexactly.
We know that they're going tohave, that they're always going
to be on the gas pedal.
So I don't know.
Maybe I'll add lead by example.

(01:18:06):
Yeah.
We do need to push back, whichis, it's fine.
I have no problem pushing back.
I don't really go out and startfights, but come on.
There's a point.
No, no, no, no.
Yeah.

UNKNOWN (01:18:15):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:18:16):
Let's jump to another one.
This is for you, Annette.
This is another representativeof all womankind.
We talked about this before.
I think you and I have justtalked about it.
Why do conservative Christiansbash only the women in porn?
Why do they not bash the men?
The women aren't having sex withthemselves, right?
Which is legitimately a goodpoint.
I think it even goes back to theloathe kind of thing, right?

(01:18:39):
Yeah.
Why is it only women?
When it comes to sexual things,women...
are always treated far worse theharlot sort of mentality right
all the other four of us wecould go out and screw
everything we want and like ohthat's just boys being boys you
know a little wildlife you do itin that we're like you know what
i mean it's like instantly it'snot even you know i'm in gray

(01:19:01):
area for a lot of people rightit's a weird thing but what are
your thoughts on that

SPEAKER_08 (01:19:06):
yeah i think you're absolutely right like at the it
it you know singles out women asthese like moral corruptors,
while men, we have to ignore, weget to ignore, you know,
minimize their participation in,you know, in that, their role in
it.
I think that that imbalancereally reflects like these

(01:19:31):
broader patterns that we see inreligious spaces about, you
know, sexual morality is thatlike women are held to different
standards than men.
You know, like that is right offthe bat.
And like our moral misgivings inthis way are, you know, we are

(01:19:53):
we are seen as.
less forgivable maybe in thatway that men are it's just like
it's expected that they'll betempted it's expected and that
we are the temptresses right andthat goes back to I mean that's
why ultimately it boils down towhy women even in other

(01:20:14):
religions like Islam they'reexpected to wear a hijab right
the hair in orthodox Jewishreligions too like I live in a
community here in Chicago wherethere's There's many, many
Orthodox Jews that live in thisarea.
And you can kind of tell becausethe women wear wigs, right?

(01:20:35):
And the same thing, like they'recovering their hair because
their hair is, you know, somehowsome sort of like part of their
sexual strength and that they,you know, are using it as a tool
to tempt men and they'reexpected

SPEAKER_06 (01:20:47):
not to do that.
The married

SPEAKER_08 (01:20:49):
women.
Oh, right, right.
Oh, good.
Yeah, that's a good distinction.
But still, like...
We are expected to use ouragency in that regard where men
are kind of let off the hook forthat.

SPEAKER_07 (01:21:13):
No one's ever questioned me about that.
I mean, no, my entire life.
No one's ever looked down on mefor having sex with girls and
women throughout my teens andthen early 20s or whatever.
No one's ever said anythingabout that.
No one ever thought anythingabout that.
Plus, they knew me.
Like, okay, that's what Mikedoes.
Whatever.
You know, a little bit of a wildpast.
But it was wild in a almostadmirable way in the sense that,

(01:21:37):
you know, not the same girl thatwould be doing the same things I
was doing would have a 100%different reaction,

SPEAKER_06 (01:21:46):
right?
That's because you're...
you're defiling her father'sproperty.

SPEAKER_07 (01:21:50):
Oh, brother.

SPEAKER_06 (01:21:51):
And that's why Islam, Judaism, all of the
Abrahamic religions that haveroots in the Old Testament, I
said it before, women wereproperty.
Property, yeah.
When a young woman is raped, youdon't send him to prison.
You pay her father for takingher virginity.

(01:22:13):
He has to marry her.
And

SPEAKER_07 (01:22:14):
then marry her.

SPEAKER_06 (01:22:15):
She has to marry him.
It's always an ownership type ofa thing, even in slavery.
Jewish men were released inslavery after seven years.
Women were not released.
It's an ownership thing.
When a woman is cheating, shehas defiled her husband's

(01:22:38):
property, so she should die.
To me, that's what it all comesdown to, is it's just about this
property and sexual purity isabout the sex should be
specifically for the man you'regoing to be bought from or for.

SPEAKER_07 (01:22:52):
Even in the way we say things, maybe not as much as
we've done, but there's stillthe idea, I'm going to ask her
father to marry her.
The hell do you have to do?
Right.
I mean, I don't I don't knowthat that's a common thing with,
say, a younger generation.
I got nieces and nephews intheir 20s.
I should ask them that.
But that's you know, we all knowthat's a thing.
Right.
Yeah.

(01:23:13):
What the hell?
I mean, how old is that leftover from that literal thing
where I am her father andtherefore property?
You know, I'm sure that stillgoes on very common.
I just it's not in a world Ilive in.
But there's a lot of

SPEAKER_08 (01:23:26):
traditions around weddings, like even just the
bride wearing white and, youknow, just like the veil and the
giving father gives her away andlike all of that.

SPEAKER_06 (01:23:36):
Yeah.
And the white is not purity.
The white, the white is notpurity.
Let's go ahead and make sure wenix that one.
The white was never aboutpurity.
It was about affording a dressthat you can wear once and not
get anything on.
I think it was Queen Victoria.
It was a Victorian thing.
She wore a white dress becausemost women wore regular, you

(01:23:56):
know, whatever.
So white became the weddingthing as a symbol of affluence.
You wear a white dress becauseit's something you can't wear
for housework or yard work orfield work.

SPEAKER_07 (01:24:07):
There you go.
Oh, wow.
That's what I acknowledge.
Randy is jamming.
Thanks, Randy, for jumping in.
putting some comments and we doappreciate it.

SPEAKER_08 (01:24:14):
So overall, I guess I just want to say like, I'm not
at all anti-porn.
Like I'm actually like pro, I'mpro-porn.
I'm sex positive, right?
Watch all the porn you want.
I don't give a shit.
But honestly, like where, Imean, there are lines that I
draw just like any other mediathat I consume is that like, I

(01:24:35):
like to draw the line at likeviolence against women.
And I also want to plug for, youknow, I'm very,
anti-strangulation and chokingin porn and sex in general
because it really is that placewhere it crosses the line
into...

(01:24:56):
That is life-ending.
There's a lot of research toshow that there's an overlap
between men who strangle theiropposite sex partners.
There's a very high correlationwith cop-killers terrorist
activity and murder.

(01:25:17):
Period.
Like if you choke your partner,you might as well raise your
hand and say, hi, I'm amurderer.

SPEAKER_05 (01:25:23):
But other than that, domestic violence.

SPEAKER_08 (01:25:26):
Exactly.
Yeah.
And killing animals, too.
That's another thing.
Yeah, it's a big one.
That aside like that.
I mean, and I know that's awhole side conversation, but
just, you know, I'm I'm I'm sexpositive and watch all the porn
you want.
But yeah, there are a lot of theway just like any other topic,
you know, the onus is always onon women to We are expected to

(01:25:51):
be obedient and silent.
And if we step out of line, weget the punishment.

SPEAKER_07 (01:26:00):
Right.
Right.
No, I'm going to go on.
I was just thinking, I'm now, Imean, I've talked to your
husband, like, you know, I, whatdoes she want for Christmas?
Not joking, not snuff films.
You said very clearly, no snufffilms.

(01:26:21):
All right.
Whatever.
Hilarious.
This is, again, this comes upall the time, and we kind of hit
on these in different things.
I hate when people say, God keptme alive during a natural
disaster.
Does that mean that people thatdidn't, that didn't make it
deserve to, am I reading thisright?
So does that mean that thepeople that didn't make it
didn't deserve to live?

(01:26:42):
It really irks me when peoplesay that.
That's always bothered me aswell.
God kept your house, destroyedyour entire neighborhood, but
kept your house because youprayed harder?
What the hell?

SPEAKER_03 (01:26:54):
yeah

SPEAKER_07 (01:26:55):
um yeah but there's once again you give me a lot in
every question mike thanks umyou're welcome so uh one of the
things that i thought about wasuh several years ago maybe 10
years ago or so there were sometornadoes that went through
washington illinois destroyedthe destroyed the majority of
the town and i remember at thetime i got to work and the news

(01:27:16):
was on the tv in the break roomand i was watching it before i
went to work

SPEAKER_01 (01:27:20):
and the uh the chicago media was down there and
this guy says

SPEAKER_07 (01:27:26):
oh yes and one final note before we go back to the
studio uh of the six churches intown none of them were damaged
that's news right now my thoughtwas if there's a god and he
knows which which church isdoing it correctly he had a

(01:27:47):
chance to destroy the other five

SPEAKER_03 (01:27:50):
right and he didn't do

SPEAKER_07 (01:27:52):
it um so so yeah um uh the other thing is i

SPEAKER_01 (01:28:01):
don't know if we should get into a

SPEAKER_07 (01:28:02):
story i'll try to make it quick um my dad as you
know was a very evangelical uhbelieved in demons possessing
inanimate objects um you knowvery Way out

SPEAKER_01 (01:28:18):
there.
He was also a bailiff at a jailin southwest Missouri for a
while.
And he told me a story one day.
And he said, yeah, we had a guythat was in the jail because he
was going to be going on trialfor murder.
He killed some people and it wasa big case and everything.
And my dad being the jailerthere would talk to him and he

(01:28:41):
was trying to bring him toJesus.
He was evangelizing.
and he said the guy acceptedjesus and we were so uh

SPEAKER_07 (01:28:53):
overcome by this and everything he says and and the
reason that he was a murdererwas because when he was a little
younger he had played dungeonsand dragons he'd done and he'd
done the evil moves oh my god somy question to him i had to be
careful because i was driving atthe

SPEAKER_01 (01:29:11):
time um Started to question me says no, that's the
way it is.
It's a fact and there's noarguing act Yeah, that's how
strong he believed this and Isimply wanted to ask him

SPEAKER_07 (01:29:24):
What about all the other hundreds of thousands of
people that played Dungeons andDragons and didn't kill anybody?
Yeah So it goes back tocherry-picking goes back to you
know Well, I prayed so Isurvived the problem is is Some
of those people that died alsoprayed, but we don't know about

(01:29:48):
it because they're dead and theycan't tell us that they prayed
and lived.
That's the situation nobodysees.
You can't ask them.
My wife shouted to me from theother room when the floods were
happening in Tennessee and NorthCarolina.

(01:30:09):
She shouted to me from the otherroom.
She said, uh-oh.
Some people in Tennessee andNorth Carolina really effed up.
Yeah.
Exactly what she meant.
They're being smited.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 (01:30:24):
Right.
Or hard enough.

SPEAKER_07 (01:30:26):
It's so annoying.
Just on a human level.
It's like the questions we justsaid, you know, we ask, it's
like, what does that mean forthe people who tried to pray and
tried to do everything that theythought was the best and they
still didn't work.
And how do you justify that?
I, I, And I guess that's wherepeople come up with the idea of
a survivor's guilt.

(01:30:51):
Yeah.
My brother was killed in thesame car accident that I was,
and you feel very bad.
I can see.
I mean, it's a human thing.
My brother was hit by a car whenwe were little.
He was five or something.
And my stepfather, he lived.
So, um, but my stepfather hadjust been talking to him and he
left my stepfather's house andwas going to run down the street
to where we were living.
We weren't married at the timeand ran right on the street and

(01:31:13):
got hit.
So my dad, stepfather felt badfor years because like, had I
just said one more thing to him,I would have talked to, I would
have stopped that one second.
The car would have gone and Alanwouldn't have got hit by a car.
Like I, you human wants to say Icould have done this, but you
can't, it's just life.
Chaos goes on.
You can say, oh, I prayed, andthat's why he didn't get hit.

SPEAKER_08 (01:31:35):
Correlation is not always causation.

SPEAKER_07 (01:31:38):
I have a friend who...
I was dying to say it.
Yeah.
Correlation does not equalcausation.
You're right.
I have a friend whose son is ateenager or just an older
teenager, 17, 18, 19.
And they lived in the northsuburbs.
And one night he was hit by acar.

(01:31:58):
He was kind of sideswiped.
So he went to the hospital.
He had mostly just bruises andcontusions.
And, you know, they had to checkhim out and everything.
And she said she was so gratefulbecause she knew that her
recently deceased

SPEAKER_01 (01:32:12):
mother was his guardian angel.
And I couldn't say this to herbecause she's such a nice
person, you know, and we'refriends.

SPEAKER_07 (01:32:21):
I would have, but...
He has a terrible...
terrible guardian angel becausehe got hit by a car yeah she's a
little slow you know push himout of the way a little bit
sooner you know right hewouldn't have got hit by a car
but he got hit by a car rightyeah He's like Clarence.

(01:32:41):
He hasn't earned his wings yet.
He's obviously a terribleguardian angel.
God kept me alive, but he got myattention

SPEAKER_06 (01:32:48):
with a Volvo.
If you think a human becomes anangel when angels were in heaven
before humans were created basedon that really horrible book,
even the Goat Herder's Guide tothe Galaxy does not say that

(01:33:08):
people become angels.
Nothing about that does.
And if I'm not mistaken, mostChristian sects, sects, cults,
whatever you want to call them,most Christian denominations, I
think they believe the soulrests until the rapture.
Well, Catholics won't get toguardian

SPEAKER_07 (01:33:27):
angels.
When asked about it, in theHebrew, there's a bunch of
different words that they usefor the same thing.
Or I should say, there's anumber of different words that
they will, or spellings thatthey will use for the word
death.
There's one way you would, well,you're dead in Christ, so you
were a believer, and you died,and now you're waiting for the

(01:33:49):
second coming.
You're dead, you're a dead soul,you're lost, you're...
You're not going to be able toobtain the kingdom of heaven.
And then just to experiencephysical death, just as a matter
of, you know, pragmatic, secularsort of that person is no longer
alive.
And it clearly says in the Biblethat the dead know nothing.

(01:34:13):
So the idea that we would beable to come back in any kind of
form.
That's completely inaccurate.
There's no evidence for thatbeing said in the Bible at all.
I believe it is Jesus that saysthe dead know nothing.
Really?
I just want to do a real quickshout out to Brian.
Yeah, I was going to say,

SPEAKER_08 (01:34:35):
Mike, we got an OT in the house.
Brian

SPEAKER_07 (01:34:38):
Bueno.
There's another person here inChicago.
At least I say still Chicago.
Brian, I haven't talked to youin so long.
I don't know if you still livehere.
But yeah, surrendering allcritical faculties and God will
love you.
That's exactly it.
And then Cynthia, jumping onyour point, Mike, humans and
angels are different categoriesaccording to the Bible.
Yeah.
I mean, you know, and again,which is always kind of funny

(01:34:59):
regardless, like, okay, it'sstill the Bible we don't believe
in, but at least the people thatdo believe it, you're not even
reading it correctly.
You know, it's just ridiculous.
Right.
Another example of atheistshaving a lot more, or I should
say, it's another example of, inmy experience, that atheists
have a lot more understanding ofwhat's really stated in the
Bible than a lot of Christiansdo.

(01:35:20):
And it's probably goes back to,you know, there's only so many,
things that you hear every timeyou go to church.
It's the same thing.
It's regurgitated.

SPEAKER_08 (01:35:32):
If I end up in a conversation with Christians, I
often ask them, and I try to askthem respectfully, can I ask you
if you've ever read the Biblebefore?
You know, and if they're beinghonest, you know, usually they
say no.
And I think that goes to, thisis just kind of like, you know,

(01:35:53):
what they're born into, whatthey're taught growing up.
It becomes part of the culture.
But, you know, they don't, I'mlike, I don't understand how you
can subscribe, you know, withwhat's at stake, which is your
eternal damnation, you know, toa book that you've never read.
Yeah.
It

SPEAKER_07 (01:36:13):
seems kind

SPEAKER_08 (01:36:18):
of silly

SPEAKER_01 (01:36:24):
to me.

SPEAKER_07 (01:36:41):
Cynthia, also, read the Bible from Genesis to
Revelation.
Exactly, Cynthia.

SPEAKER_06 (01:36:51):
It's a horrible book.
Zero out of ten.

SPEAKER_07 (01:36:54):
Horrible main character.
One star on Amazon.

SPEAKER_06 (01:36:57):
You've got part one, the Old Testament, part two, the
New Testament, part three, theBook of Mormon.
Part 1.5, the Quran, all four ofthem, horrible, horrible main
character that everybody thinksis the good guy.
Just zero out of 10, do not

SPEAKER_07 (01:37:16):
recommend.
Trump's favorite book is TwoCorinthians.
So yeah, it's a bad

SPEAKER_06 (01:37:20):
joke.
Two Corinthians

SPEAKER_07 (01:37:21):
walk into a bar.

SPEAKER_06 (01:37:23):
The funny thing about that, he was actually
asked one time what his favoriteBible verse was.
And he said, I don't know,probably the one about an eye
for an eye, which is literallythe only, Mosaic law that Jesus
directly contradicted.

SPEAKER_03 (01:37:43):
It's so ridiculous.

SPEAKER_06 (01:37:48):
It's written in the book that the character of Jesus
supposedly said that.
Let me be very clear about mybelief in whether that was
actually uttered by a person.

SPEAKER_07 (01:38:03):
So let me put one more point on this question.
One quick and then we're goingto jump.
Yeah.
So the ones that prayed, saidGod kept me alive, they would
also have to explain all thosethat survived without praying.

SPEAKER_03 (01:38:17):
Say that again.
I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_07 (01:38:18):
They would also have to explain all those people who
survived the same naturaldisaster without praying or
proceeding to a God.
Did prayer really work or didn'tneed it?
Well, yeah.
There's no blind study when theycome to that, right?
They just, yeah.
No control group.
Yeah.
All

SPEAKER_03 (01:38:40):
right.

SPEAKER_07 (01:38:42):
We're going to wrap up here in a bit because I want
to ask one more question.
I'm going to ask Mike thisquestion just because it's on my
mind.
And then we're going to go tothe video that we had earlier.
Where's this question?
Mike and Scott both kind ofanswer this question before the
rest of us.
I think this is it.
Yeah.
So this lady claimed that Godcured her gayness.

(01:39:03):
She preached about how Jesus isthe way and how she
detransitioned and no longerdates women and how her husband
was also turned straight, whichI just love that.
Like, okay, you were both gay,which is, I actually know a
couple of couples like that forsure.
They were both gay.
They got married because of theera that they grew up in.
It was easier to get marriedthan it was to both come out,

(01:39:24):
you know?
Did they turn straight?
No, they absolutely did not.
But in this case, this personsaid, yeah, I used to date
women, but I'm over that.
And so is my husband.
He no longer goes to the manholeor whatever gay bar he was going
to before.
Scott and Mike, but Mike, I'llstart with you.
And Scott, jump in.
What do you guys think aboutthis cured gay, pray the gay

(01:39:47):
away?
Yeah, the pray the gay awaymakes me want to gag.
But I can say that this reallydoes speak to the wonderfulness
of humanity.
We are so widely, so ourexperiences are so wide and so
diverse that we we have such acool brain in us that we can

(01:40:11):
experience a desire in one way,or we could experience a desire
in another way.
We can feel comfortable inmultiple different ways.
And if a person feels, genuinelyfeels, because everybody's
perception is their reality,that they felt a particular way,

(01:40:35):
and now they feel a particularway after a period of time,
good.
Great, good on you.
But when you start to...
But what is just sickening isthe idea that you can call upon

(01:40:57):
some Bronze Age text...
from written by people whodidn't know where the sun went
at night.
And I know that I've said thisbefore, but to call on some
bronze age text from someilliterate shepherds from a
mixed bag of tribes and use thatas the reason and your way that

(01:41:23):
you're going to think about howyou feel inside, the way that
you're born.
I mean, come on.
And I kind of got to get offthat one.
And I'm going to hand it over toScott because I get so hot about
it.
Yeah, I can feel it.
I don't do well with theabsurdity, but I love the
question.

(01:41:43):
I love the question.
And it has to be looked atbecause this is happening.
And people are posting it onTikTok.
You know, they're saying thingslike this.
Oh, yeah.
That's why I had to start outfocusing on the positive.
We have wonderful options andopportunities for ourselves.
But yeah, Scott, what do youhave to add to it?

SPEAKER_06 (01:42:06):
Yeah, I'm actually going to go a little different
direction with this because Thiswas talking about how she did
transition.
She was transgender.
She was a lesbian.
The husband was she went throughthis and that.
And I know as part of part ofwhat I've had to deal with with
my upbringing and a lot ofreligious trauma based in my

(01:42:27):
sexuality is I have apersonality disorder that one of
the key characteristics is anidentity disorder.
There's so many parts of myselfthat I don't have a solid grasp
on as far as who I am.
And churches are predatory topeople like that.

SPEAKER_03 (01:42:46):
Religion

SPEAKER_06 (01:42:47):
is absolutely predatory to people like that.
And like this person trying tofind out who they are, just
never finding a way to fit intoa world that in those with those
particular proclivities, partsof who they are, it's the world

(01:43:07):
shunning them and them justdesperately trying to find that
spot a lot of times.
My heart goes out to them, butjust that's another little dark
space I have in my heart forreligions and churches that just
really are so predatory onpeople like this, that you have
the pray the gay away and justconvince you to do that they're

(01:43:30):
trying to fix a problem theystarted by making the problem
worse.

SPEAKER_08 (01:43:37):
Yeah, I

SPEAKER_06 (01:43:39):
just think that religion

SPEAKER_08 (01:43:41):
can be really harmful.
And that's something that a lotof Christians, they don't like
to hear.
that religion can harm.
They just like to live in theworld where religion is so
wonderful and it helpseverybody.
But what they don't acknowledgeis that when they purport things
like somehow being gay is achoice, that's really what

(01:44:05):
they're saying.
Like, hey, being gay is achoice.
And so I like to ask them, whendid you choose to be straight?
When did you make that choice?

SPEAKER_03 (01:44:14):
That's a good question.
Legitimate question.

SPEAKER_08 (01:44:17):
Yeah.
And what it ignores is that notonly does gay conversion not
work, but that it is so harmfulthat people who have gone
through gay conversion actuallyhave much, much higher rates of
suicide.
They have higher rates of drugand alcohol addiction.
And, you know, it really causeslong term damage in people's

(01:44:42):
lives.
And that has a rippling effectoutside of, you know, just that
person as well.
But it really doesn't it doesn'ttake the church doesn't like to
take accountability for the factthat they cause real harm to
people by doing this.
It's really upsetting.

SPEAKER_06 (01:45:01):
It's very upsetting.
I did want to bring up one thingi think uh a post had come
across earlier that said youknow all of the homosexual
activities were specific to meni did want to put a qualifier on
that in paul's letter to theromans i think it was romans 125
or 126 he did talk about eventhe women gave over in their
natural desires the way the mendid and how they were fire and

(01:45:26):
brimstone or whatever after thatbut no that was that was the one
place i think the only placewhere women giving over to
unnatural desires for each otherthe same way men do was was
mentioned in the bible becauseagain throughout the rest of the
thing they were property

SPEAKER_07 (01:45:41):
yeah i think you had made that point that um that uh
the bible had never had issueswith lesbians so if you say it
happened once but you're right

SPEAKER_06 (01:45:49):
and simply romans romans 125 i think

SPEAKER_07 (01:45:52):
but again ask anybody they've ever heard that
no it's man shall not lie with aman and and Christians and
religious people will couch thatall as, we meant all
homosexuals, but you didn't saythat.
Specifically, and we all knowthe ick factor is reserved for
the men, right?

SPEAKER_06 (01:46:10):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:46:11):
Woman-on-woman porn is going to run rampant all
through everywhere, but men islike, oh, it's the scourge of
the earth, right?
We all know

SPEAKER_06 (01:46:18):
that.
And even...
Even going further than that,and it's a societal thing, too,
or just like the religiosity andthe patriarchy crossover is when
you hear about all of theseissues with the transgender
community.
It's always about protectingpeople from transgender women.
You never hear about trans men.

(01:46:39):
You never hear anything aboutsomeone born female at birth.
It's when you get down to it,it's just like because because
they still think of a transwoman as a man because they just
can't let that go.
That's where that all comes.
And it's all patriarchal.
It's just a lot of the Abraham,all of the Abrahamic religions,

(01:47:00):
even Jainism and stuff at theircore are patriarchal in that
way.

UNKNOWN (01:47:06):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (01:47:06):
Yeah, you know, in fact, I saw a video yesterday
where they had a guy, a militaryguy, and he was, you know,
typical sort of almost pro-typemilitary, very buff and just
hairy and just, I mean, reallystrong looking.
He was holding his gun.
He'd been in the military, inthe Army or Marines, I can't
remember, but that sort ofinfantry-looking kind of guy.

(01:47:26):
Sergeant, I can't remember hisrole, but not a low-level guy,
like 17 years.
And then he showed a picture ofhis wife, and she's also in the
same branch, And then the pointof that was that both of these
people are trans.
The guy is a trans man.
I'm sure I didn't say thatcorrect, right?
And the woman is a trans woman.

(01:47:47):
They're married, and they're 17years in the military.
At least the guy was military 17years.
And now, because of a head set,they're being kicked out without
pensions.
That's a new thing.
They've just said.
17 years.
This guy's been in the militaryfor 17 years.
And all of a sudden, he's notgood enough, and he can't even
get retirement.
Because...
because it's the Bible.
I mean, you know, come on.

(01:48:08):
It serves no other purpose.
We know it's the Bible.
We know it's, and again, this isHegseth that we saw in the verse
video in the very first part ofthis call.
He's going to that church, thatChristian nationalism church is
driving so much ridiculousness.
It's pissing me off.
I'm pissing me off just talkingabout it.
One quick, Brian, yeah, he diedfor 37 hours.

(01:48:28):
I always say that same thing,you know.
Jesus gave up a long weekend forour souls.
Okay, good.
Thanks, man.
All right.
I've worked a long weekend, soit's not a big deal, really.
Let's jump to our last question.
It's really not a question perse, but I'm going to do this.
We talked about this earlierwhen we were talking about what
to say when someone dies.

(01:48:48):
And this came up actually a fewweeks ago during the floods in
Texas, the one with Camp Mystic.
And I saw this woman on TikTokand I thought I was floored by
it.
And you'll see here in a second.
But this is when Jesus is notcomforting.
And I'm just going to set it upbecause I kind of shortened hers

(01:49:09):
up a little bit.
She's a Christian.
She was a Christian, you know,Jesus person, the whole deal.
This isn't coming from anatheist.
This is coming from a person whobelieves in Jesus today and
believed in Jesus before thissituation happened.
So keep that in the back of yourmind.
This is where her perspectiveis.
So here we go.

SPEAKER_04 (01:49:28):
Child in an accident.
Why

SPEAKER_07 (01:49:31):
does

SPEAKER_04 (01:49:31):
this picture suck?
As a parent who lost a youngchild in an accident.
Actually, hold on just onesecond.

SPEAKER_07 (01:49:37):
Just for the podcast, this is the picture of
Jesus holding a little girl inhis arm, and two little girls
are running up to him.
This is in heaven, and they'vegot Camp Mystic t-shirts on.
Camp Mystic was the Christiancamp that killed 30-something
little kids during the floods.

SPEAKER_06 (01:49:55):
Oh, my God, and he's standing in water.
I just realized he's standing inwater.
I didn't

SPEAKER_07 (01:50:01):
even notice that.
Oh, what

SPEAKER_06 (01:50:04):
kind of horrible.

SPEAKER_07 (01:50:05):
This was very popular.
What was that?
A month or so ago.
I saw this picture dozens oftimes on Facebook and others.
This is an AI picture.
But again, these little campmystic t-shirt little girls are
running and jumping in Jesus'sarms.
And this woman is responding tothat.
I'm sorry.
I should have set that upearlier.
So I'm going to restart hervideo just to give the people at
home that are not watching it onpodcast.

(01:50:26):
They'll have a perspective ofit.
So here's what she says.
about that picture.

SPEAKER_04 (01:50:29):
Why does this picture suck?
As a parent who lost a youngchild in an accident, who
received, in a very kind-heartedway, many images like this.
After my child died, I'm gonnatell you why this sucks.
There were hundreds of people inour corner on the day that our
son drowned.
They were praying for us.
They were petitioning God on ourbehalf.

(01:50:49):
My own children, the siblings ofGarrett, spent hours on their
knees that day, ferventlypraying to God for a miracle.
And it didn't happen.
Garrett still died.
After Garrett died, people cameout of the woodwork to tell us,
Garrett's in a better place.
Garrett's with Jesus.
Garrett is so happy to be withJesus.
And he would want you to behappy that he's with Jesus too.

(01:51:10):
So let me tell you what thissaid to my mother heart.
It said to me, Your pain'sreally not that bad.
What happened isn't really thatbig of a deal because look,
Jesus! Jesus didn't heal Garrettbecause Jesus wanted Garrett
back.
And Garrett wanted to be withJesus.
Look at how happy they are.
When a grieving parent hearsover and over again, your son is

(01:51:31):
in a better place, your child isin a better place, what it says
to them is that you are notenough.
Your arms were not enough.
Your love, your nurturing, yoursupport, your protection, it
wasn't enough.
He's in a better place withsomething better doing better
things at the time and still tothis day i cannot imagine a
better place for garrett to bethan in my arms or in the arms

(01:51:52):
of his father or in the arms ofhis siblings playing with his
siblings laughing with usspending time with us as a
family it's been 11 years and itstill doesn't make any sense to
me why it happened why goddidn't grant us our miracle i'm
not speaking for all parents buti'm telling you exactly what
this did to me in the earlystages of my own bereavement
more than anything i felt likeit invalidated my pain like i

(01:52:13):
really didn't have the right tofeel that insurmountable pain
and that kind of likesoul-crushing grief because
Jesus, even with my devotednessto Christianity, even with my
faith and belief in Jesus, itdid not take away the pain of
losing him.
And so when I saw stuff likethis over and over again, it
said to me, it's really not thatbad.

SPEAKER_07 (01:52:35):
Dude.
It's terrible.
When I saw it, I was like, okay,I'm going to stop watching.
I'm going to cry.
Cause it was like, geez, that's,and how many people probably do
that?
And they're not thinking, andyou can forgive people for not
thinking, but her, her, herperspective on that is so right.
I mean, as a, you know, severalof us have kids, maybe all of

(01:52:57):
us, I don't know.
We know all of us without adoubt, can't imagine losing our
children.
And for someone to come say thatand her perspective of like,
you're saying that that person,that my child is better off
without me.
Well, fuck you.
they're not

SPEAKER_01 (01:53:12):
and and and if she

SPEAKER_07 (01:53:13):
called them out at the time if jesus said

SPEAKER_06 (01:53:17):
that

SPEAKER_07 (01:53:17):
yeah and if she called them out at the time with
how hurtful that is she wouldhave been looked at as oh well
she's she's just emotional orshe's she doesn't really mean
that yeah he's bad yeah or youknow she's she's uh she doesn't
she's against jesus or whateverit's a no-win situation The

SPEAKER_06 (01:53:36):
problem I have with this, everybody tries to put
Jesus up on this pedestal.
Jesus was a horrible person.
When the Gentile, when the, youknow, all of this free miracles
and stuff for the Jews, when theGentile woman came to him
begging for him to heal herchild.
First of all, his apostle said,master, make her go away.
Jesus' response to her as aGentile woman was about healing

(01:54:00):
her Gentile child was that hecame for the lost sheep of
Israel.
So healing her child would betaking food from the mouths of
children and throwing it todogs.
Jesus was a garbage person.
And this woman, if she is stilla believer, I'm sorry.
I know I'm going to speakvicariously through you.

(01:54:20):
I feel for your pain.
This might be why you want togive this shit up because your
Jesus said about this exact samesituation, let the dead bury
their dead.
You are not supposed to grievefor those children.
The book you are adhering to,the Jesus that you are
complaining about, those werethe red letter words in the book

(01:54:43):
that you're following.
If you don't like it, you mightwant to take that up with your
God.
I mean, I hate to be like thatabout it, but if you follow
religious tenets and thencomplain because people are
doing exactly what thosereligious tenets said to do,
That's your chosen path.

SPEAKER_03 (01:55:07):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_08 (01:55:08):
My day job, I teach sexual violence prevention to
college students.
And so I have a workshop calledwhat you say matters.
And I, one of the premises thatI teach is that well-intentioned
people can still say harmfulthings.

SPEAKER_06 (01:55:28):
Yeah, absolutely.
You can hurt people on

SPEAKER_08 (01:55:30):
accident, even when you mean well.
And so here's a whole list ofthings that you should never
say.
And so it reminds me of this,you know, of the same thing when
I'm teaching people, you know,about how to respond when
somebody shares that they're ina domestic violence situation,
you know, You don't say, well,why don't you just leave?

(01:55:52):
Why don't you say that?
Because it doesn't take intoaccount the fact that leaving is
a...
easy for everyone to do for aplethora of reasons what if
you're undocumented what if youdon't have any financial support
what if what if what if and alsoit's the most lethal time for
people in a domestic violencesituation to try to leave and

(01:56:14):
also it's assumes that theydidn't think about that right
like right it's kind ofinsulting

SPEAKER_07 (01:56:19):
your first thought i'm sure like oh

SPEAKER_08 (01:56:21):
sorry i didn't think about that maybe i'll you know
yeah you thank you for saving meum but the same thing like when
people religious people saythings like oh you know this is
he's in a better place or thisis you know part of god's plan
and you know like oh it justdoesn't take into account you

(01:56:41):
know reality and then that orthe fact that you know your
specific situation is this isn'tabout logic this is about my
feelings this is about mydevastation yeah right this is
about my safety my well-beingand and focus on that instead of
just trying to either like fixit or make it make you like

(01:57:05):
trying to convince the personthat their situation isn't that
bad when the worst possiblething that ever could have
happened to them happened

SPEAKER_07 (01:57:12):
right let's consider let's consider the perspective
of her other children as wellthey're sitting there people are
coming in and says oh yourdeceased sibling they're in a
better place and they're goingWait a minute.
Why can't I go to a betterplace?
I'm here.
This must be a terrible place.

SPEAKER_01 (01:57:31):
Why is he

SPEAKER_07 (01:57:31):
chosen and not us?

SPEAKER_01 (01:57:32):
I didn't get to go to Jesus.
That's got to mess with yourmind.

SPEAKER_07 (01:57:38):
Why doesn't God dispense with all the bullshit
and instead of creating us,having us have an earthly
existence and then finally getthe prize, why just dispense
with the bullshit?
you know yeah it makes no sensewhy put us here for a brief

(01:57:59):
period of time and compared toall eternity anyways like what's
the whole point of this Ifyou're just going to snatch us
away at various times, at themost inconvenient time, and
inconvenience is holding a lotof weight there, because it's
inconvenient for me to lose achild.
It's inconvenient for me to dieat 95.
It's all inconvenient.
I don't want to die.
I don't want to lose people.
But what was the whole point?

(01:58:19):
You know, disturb you?
That's ridiculous.
I'm still fucked up with thedamn video.
I just felt...
I just was like, oh, I just wantto kill her.
I was like, this is terrible.
But people will say, and again,I'm going to give them a little
bit of grace because they're notthinking it through.
But that's the problem.
You're not thinking it through.
You're immediately jumping.
Well, Jesus solves everything.
No, don't.

(01:58:40):
It's another example of howreligion poisons everything.
Yeah, that's a Hitchens thing.
And to what Larry was saying,you know, those poor children,
those poor survivors leftbehind.
You know, really, Larry reallytouched on something important.

(01:59:03):
Those kids must be so damnconfused because now they're
learning that this is not theplace to be.
Well, then why the hell am Ihere?
Right.
And it just proves if you gothrough the process, the one,
two, three process, it provesthat God's a sicko.

(01:59:24):
You want to know how I can provethat?
It's because he says that we'regoing to have to deal with this
section where we're all rightnow.
And that includes the people whoare going to be savagely abused.
They have to endure that.
I don't have to go into any kindof detail, but just imagine all

(01:59:45):
the different ways that humanbeings are savagely abused.
And then those little girls inthat drawing.
God.
I noticed right away, too,Scott, that they had put that
they had them running throughwater.
I had not.
Yeah, maybe even more.
Drowning is considered one ofthe worst types of deaths.

(02:00:06):
Just drowning, period.
Your lungs filling with water.
And those little girls werestruggling to get out of a
structure that was crumblingaround them.
And then they were pulled alongin the flood.

UNKNOWN (02:00:21):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (02:00:21):
So they fought against it.
In the dark.
I'm not going to go on and onanymore about that, but just
what kind of sick savage saysthat, I love you, I love you, I
love you, but I want you to gothrough that first.
And now you can come and see me.

SPEAKER_03 (02:00:40):
Yeah.
Let's get that out of the way,because that's

SPEAKER_07 (02:00:43):
exactly what Christianity is telling us that
we're supposed to endure.
And it makes me sick.
It makes me sick.
The bottom line is theseplatitudes and prayer as well

SPEAKER_01 (02:00:55):
are things that religious can do and say to make
themselves

SPEAKER_07 (02:01:01):
feel

SPEAKER_03 (02:01:01):
better.

SPEAKER_07 (02:01:02):
And in their minds, they think they're doing
something for someone else.

SPEAKER_03 (02:01:07):
The

SPEAKER_07 (02:01:07):
only result of it all is, oh, I feel better
because I told them that Jesusloves them or whatever the case
may be.
It's making themselves feelbetter.

SPEAKER_06 (02:01:17):
Yeah.

UNKNOWN (02:01:17):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 (02:01:18):
It's self-soothing and it's virtue signaling
because that also makes themlook good for the people around
them.
And it blends in with theircommunity of thoughts and
prayers.
And we see how well that's beenworking.

SPEAKER_07 (02:01:32):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 (02:01:33):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (02:01:35):
Well, I end on a happy note.
Well, that was fun.
I should have hit that oneearlier if we had time to calm
down because I'm kind of annoyedright now.
but uh thanks you guys for alljoining into this call this was
actually so much fun becausethis is exactly what i was
hoping it would be we gotthrough a bunch of questions and
uh we had a lot of goodinteraction with uh our viewers

(02:01:58):
but this is exactly what it wasyou know we all have different
perspectives we came fromdifferent walks of life and we
have you know a differentdifferent way that we see things
and this is exactly what iwanted to show people at home
this to see that we're not amonolith we have one thing in
common which is why i always sayour meetups here locally the

(02:02:18):
only thing you should expect tobe in common is that we're we
don't believe but if you like adifferent baseball team or you
have a different way of raisingyour kids or you have any other
thing we're 100 different that'sfine we only can't share that
one common thing right and thisgives us all that chance and
even that we don't have the sameexact perspective But it was
interesting.
I really appreciate you guys alljoining in on this.

(02:02:40):
This was a lot of fun.
I hope we can do it again in thefuture.
You guys have any last partingwords before we go?
We'll continue it at the beachin a couple of weeks.
That's right.
We do have a beach.
For those of you in Chicago orif you want to drive down from
Milwaukee, please do.
We are having a beachget-together coming up the 23rd,

(02:03:00):
I think it is.
It's not this weekend, but next.
Not this coming, but the nextone.
Again, it's our annualend-of-summer sort of beach
party that we do, which has beena lot of fun.
And again, we talked about thisearlier.
It kind of gives us a socialthing because we don't go to
church and we don't have thepancake breakfast and all that
kind of stuff.
So this is a good way to gettogether, you know?

UNKNOWN (02:03:21):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_07 (02:03:22):
Again, anything else you guys want to say before we
go or should we wrap up?

SPEAKER_06 (02:03:27):
I think this is a great group you got.
Shall we bow our heads?
We

SPEAKER_08 (02:03:31):
should.
Should we

SPEAKER_06 (02:03:33):
pray?
No, we should not pray becausewhen you pray, do not be like
the hypocrites that love to prayin the synagogues in the corner
of the streets.
You should go into a room andpray in private.

SPEAKER_01 (02:03:43):
I

SPEAKER_07 (02:03:44):
can't bow my head because the glare would blind
everyone.
All right.
All right, guys.
Well, thanks again a lot.
Thanks for everybody for joiningin.
And for those of you watching orlistening, we try to do these as
frequently as we can.
Make sure you check out theYouTube channel, which is

(02:04:04):
Atheistville.
And we also have a podcast,which is also atheistville.
And our Facebook is atheist.
I think it's atheistpodcast.com.
It'll be all in the.com.
Whatever.
It's a Facebook thing.
It's a group.
It'll all be in the show notes.
So check those out.
We'd love to interact with you.
If you guys have any questionsfor any one of us.
Oh, and by the way, I'm going toput you guys as any of you tell

(02:04:27):
me later.
I know, Scott, you mentioned it.
I think Annette.
If you guys don't mind peopleasking you questions, I'll be
happy to put your contact in theshow notes if it's like
Instagram or wherever you wantto be reached.
If someone has a specificquestion for you, I'll put that
in the show notes.
So for those of you watching orlistening at home, you're
welcome to reach out to theseindividuals.
They obviously don't mindtalking.

(02:04:47):
We've been doing it for twohours.
So anyways.
All right, guys.
Thanks a lot.
And I will talk to you alllater.
Take care.

SPEAKER_08 (02:04:56):
Thanks for having us on, Mike.
Bye.
Thank you, Mike.

SPEAKER_07 (02:05:00):
Thanks for tuning in to today's show.
I really hope you enjoyed it.
Do me a favor and like andsubscribe to the show and tell a
friend.
That helps us grow and it letsus keep bringing you more voices
from the other side of belief.
Until we talk again, be kind toone another and remember that
reason and compassion go a longway.

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