October 19, 2025 • 66 mins
Mike Smithgall, the unelected mayor of Atheistville, sits down with coffee to answer your questions about atheism, belief, and honesty. From telling your Christian mom you’re an atheist to why arguing with believers never works, this Sunday Q&A takes on faith, comfort, family, and finding peace without religion. No sermon, no shouting, no salvation required.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:05):
Hey, I'm Mike Smithgall, the unelected mayor
of Atheistville.
And go ahead and pour yourself acup of coffee, pull up a chair,
because this is Breakfast with aHeathen.
I wanted to start this showbecause I there's a lot of
questions.
I've had the show Atheistvilleon YouTube and as a podcast.
We also have a website,atheistville.com.
Nice little plug there.
(00:26):
But uh as a result of that, Iget a lot of questions that
people ask me, and sometimesthey're very legitimate
questions, and sometimes they'rejust people wanting to fight
with me or troll.
And I really don't do that.
A lot of people have made thecomment that um, you know,
people like that.
The uh there's uh um enragementequals engagement.
(00:47):
There's a comment that that uhthat that's true, but I I'm
really just not uh the kind ofguy who wants to get into a
battle.
I don't mind pushing back, butI'm not really here to battle.
But again, people do make somegood questions.
Sometimes they're again verylegitimate questions, sometimes
they're trolling questions, butthey're questions that I
thought, well, that's it's alegitimate question in the sense
(01:09):
that yes, I would like to answerthat, even if the person is
being a bit snarky sometimes.
But that's okay.
We all have our little role toplay in life.
But I thought what I would do onthis series, again, this is
Breakfast with a Heathen, uh, isgive you something to maybe chew
on on a Sunday morning whenyou're not going to church, or
maybe you did go to church andyou're listening to this later.
(01:30):
Maybe you're listening onto youron your drive-in from work, but
that's okay.
We're gonna go through a handfulof questions that I've received
and just gonna give you myopinion on them and how I come
down as an atheist.
And I'm gonna give you a realquick commercial about who I am,
but we won't spend any more timeon that.
Again, I started Atheistvilleactually a number of years ago.
(01:50):
I kind of let it sit for a whileand I re- I just picked it back
up again.
And I do a lot of live streams,a lot of interviews with people.
We also do the unholy roundtable where we have, you know,
four or five different atheistsuh come together and we talk
about uh our perspective on someof these same questions, and we
all have different walks oflife.
But I am an atheist.
I would classify myself as an uhagnostic atheist in the sense
(02:14):
that I don't know if there's aGod, I have no idea.
But thus far, nothing has beenproven to me.
Uh something else I say a lot oftimes, I don't reject God.
I reject you.
If you're the one trying toassert that there is a God,
you're trying to convince methat there's a God, I'm
rejecting you because you're notdoing a very good job at proving
it to me.
(02:35):
If there is a God, that personor that deity or that man, that
woman, whatever you want todescribe God as, uh, they've not
come to me and proventhemselves.
So if you're their uh if you'retheir last hope here on earth to
prove their existence, uh you'refailing miserably at it because
at 55 years old, uh, I don't seethe evidence of it.
(02:55):
But so that's me.
That's me in that shell.
If you have any questions aboutthis, make sure you send me a
message.
I'll be happy to answer them.
I'm very transparent that way.
And make sure you go to ourdifferent channels again,
YouTube.
It's Atheistville on YouTube.
Uh, we also haveatheistville.com where we we
have all of our videos and theaudio podcast and our blog.
We also have a sub stack.
So I'm kind of hitting all thedifferent corners of the world.
(03:17):
But here we go.
Let's talk, let's talk aboutsome of the questions I've got
pulled up.
Some of these questions arethey're actually from all the
different places we reach outto.
So let's see here.
I'm gonna start with this firstone because this kind of goes
with what I've just said.
Uh, the person says that arguingwith Christians is pointless.
Um, yes, to a degree.
(03:38):
And and I'm gonna take exceptionwith the word arguing.
Um, yeah, arguing with uhanybody, it ultimately ends up
being pointless.
If it is a very strongly andpassionate hell belief, it can
very often wind up as pointless,right?
Because the person, when you'retalking about religion and
(03:59):
politics, and unfortunatelynowadays, those two are uh
really can't separate the two,they they go hand in hand.
Uh, we can get into that later.
I think I've actually got aquestion about that, but we can
get into why politics andreligion are so hand in hand.
But if that's something that'ssuper passionate, the person's
worldview is based on theirbelief and their identity as a
(04:20):
Christian.
And I'm gonna use Christian alot because I'm an American.
I grew up in America.
Uh, I know people that are ofdifferent religions, but by and
large, America is mostlyChristians.
I'm not gonna say it's aChristian nation because we're
not by definition, but if youwant to look at the sheer
numbers, we have we're aChristian nation by sheer
(04:41):
numbers.
So, getting back to thisquestion, arguing with
Christians is pointless.
I do find it somewhat pointlessto argue and try to persuade
them.
And I guess they could say thesame thing about me.
They're trying to persuade methat there's a God, and they're
very often using the same tiredarguments that they've been
using for 2,000 years, um,they're not going to get very
(05:05):
far.
Me trying to persuade them theother way, is probably equally
fruitless, right?
Telling them that there's not aGod and that, and calling it
skydaddie and um trying tocondescend to them is really not
very helpful.
It doesn't, that doesn't pushthe conversation forward.
(05:27):
And then what it doesn't do, andwhich is something I'm trying to
figure out, and I don't know,I'm doing a good job at it, but
something I think that I wouldlike to do more of is find
middle ground.
Most of us are good,hardworking, warm-hearted
people.
We we have parents that we loveor they're getting older and we
(05:47):
want to take care of them.
If we have children, we havechildren that we'll we'll defend
to our last breath if we haveto.
Um, you know, we treat normal,everyday people with a level of
respect and dignity.
That's that's everybody in theworld.
That's not just Christians,that's not just atheists, it's
not just Buddhists and yada,yada, yada, name your you know,
(06:10):
pick your poison, so to speak.
So we have a lot more in commonthan we have that is not in
common.
So trying to persuade someoneand point out these things that
I disbelieve versus what theybelieve is it doesn't generally
get us anywhere.
I prefer to take more of a um,there's a good word for that.
(06:33):
I don't know if academics is theright word.
It makes me sound like I'm I'msaying I'm very smart, but I'd
like to point out things that,okay, this logically doesn't
make sense to me.
You're telling me that I'm gonnause this as a silly example, but
for the people that take theBible literally, you're telling
me that a guy lived in the bellyof a whale for three days.
Let's both recognize that'sillogical.
(06:56):
It's illogical based on the factthat this was a human being.
This is a human being who needsfood and water and air.
So living in the belly of awhale is impossible.
Now, if you're not the kind ofperson who takes that literal
and you you think that it meansit's like a metaphor for
something, okay, we can talkabout that.
But for the people that say, no,no, that actually happened,
(07:17):
you're suspending disbelief,right?
It's like watching a play.
I used to do a lot of theater.
You go to a play and you have tosuspend disbelief.
You have to suspend the factthat you see lights and you see
people and you see, you know,you're in an audience and you
see an orchestra or all theseother things.
You forget all that and try toput yourself in the play and you
really believe it's happening.
You've suspended disbelief.
(07:38):
It's the same thing sometimeswhen you talk about Christians
and some of the stories thatthey have, you have to suspend
that disbelief.
To me, that's illogical.
And I'd rather point, you know,that's an illogical statement.
You may believe it and you havefaith in that.
And if your faith carries youthrough the day, then that's
fine.
But for me, it's just soillogical.
(07:59):
I'm not going to argue thatyou're wrong, but I am going to
just let you know that I don'tsee the logic in that.
And thus far, as I've said,nobody has been able to convince
me that a human being can livefor three days in the belly of a
whale.
And that's just one example, butyou know, the talking snakes and
the burning bush, and there's alot of these kind of things in
(08:21):
the Bible that just seem veryillogical to me.
So, so this person's questionabout arguing with Christians is
pointless.
I think it's pointless from thatperspective.
Not because they're not smart,not because they can't grasp
things, not because they can'tbe logical.
It's just we're coming from suchopposite ends, especially with a
passionate person on both sides,that we're probably not going to
find a lot of middle ground.
(08:42):
So, sort of my point on thatone.
Here this is I this is aquestion.
I'm gonna be careful how I saythis because I've got family uh
that may be watching, butprobably not because they're
mostly Christians.
Uh, but this person's questionis do Christians ever stop
talking to you once they findout you're an atheist?
(09:04):
And I would say yes.
Unfortunately, two of my best,if and also worst, examples are
two family members.
Um, and again, I'm gonna kind ofbe evasive on who they are, um,
but I've grown up with boththose people.
And they're not my brother.
So I have two brothers, uh,natural brothers, I should say,
(09:27):
you know, biological brothers ofthe same mom and dad.
Um, it's not those two, butthese are other people I've
grown up with that I was aroundfor a very young, um, I'm 55, so
a long time ago.
And both of these people umdefinitely stopped talking to me
once that became known.
In fact, one of them sent me amessage on Facebook um and said,
(09:51):
I'm trying to remember exactlythe words because I still have
it as a uh as a screenshot.
The person said, atheist, likebig bold letters and exclamation
point, atheist.
That explains a lot, deleted.
And and that person was uhthat's what they did.
They deleted me.
And I had known that personsince uh that person was a
(10:13):
teenager.
And again, I'm 55 and they're55, 53 in that range, give or
take.
So I've known them 30 plusyears, um, been to many, many
family functions.
And you know, I'm still familywith the rest of the family.
Again, I'm being invasive, and Iknow that's a little maddening,
(10:34):
maybe, but uh I'm trying not topoint this person out so
specifically.
But the person stopped talkingto me, and then we haven't
talked since.
This was uh gosh, 10, 10, 10years ago, give or take.
Haven't talked to him since.
Um that's upsetting.
Um you know, I wouldn't havestopped talking to them because
they were a Christian because Iknow they're a Christian.
(10:55):
I I tell people all the time themajority of people I have ever
known, the majority of peopleI've ever loved, the majority of
people I will ever love areChristians.
Um, I have no problem with that.
I may disagree with theChristian lifestyle, but I don't
have a problem with them beingChristian.
Now, they may do things in thename of their Christianity that
(11:18):
I absolutely just can't abideby, but that's not the same as
saying, oh, you believe inJesus?
Well, we're never going to talkagain.
That I don't care.
As an atheist who is veryproudly atheist, I have a
channel about atheism.
So it's not like I'm trying tohide this.
I don't care what you believe.
(11:38):
If you're a Christian, you'reJewish, you're Buddhist, Muslim,
Scientologist, uh Mormon, uh, Idon't know, you again pick your
poison.
Some of them seem nuttier thanothers, but really, I don't
know.
Belly of a whale, is that anyworse than Scientology?
Give Scientology 2,000 years andit'll sound just as plausible as
(11:59):
Christianity.
I don't stop talking to thosepeople because they're
Christians.
Again, I may stop talking to youbecause of the things you do.
And if you're going to be theperson who holds up the King
James Bible and you flip throughit and you say, ah, because it
says right here in this book, Ican't talk to someone because
they're gay.
Well, you're an asshole.
(12:21):
That is that blunt enough?
You know, if you're stoppedtalking to someone because your
book says that they're doingsomething that you don't want to
do or you are not supposed todo, and you just stop talking to
them, that doesn't seem veryChristian-like as I understand
it, but unfortunately ithappens.
And unfortunately, there are alot of people, younger people, I
(12:44):
think I've got a question aboutthis as well, that put them,
they find themselves in a verydifficult position dealing with
family members and familymembers they may rely on, such
as parents, when they start togo through this deconstruction
journey and going from a levelof Christianity down back to,
and I say back to because wewere born as atheists, back to
(13:06):
atheism.
Sometimes that does not sit verywell with family, and it can be
very, very stressful.
Uh again, this person dropped mewhen I was in my 40s.
So is it gonna ruin my day?
Not really.
It was upsetting, but not thattraumatic.
Another person that we werenever super close, but we were
family members and closefamilies in the sense that we
(13:27):
saw each other a lot.
We just weren't particularlygreat, you know, buddies, so to
speak.
But that person also haven'tspoken to me in gosh, more than
that, 10, 15 years, probably.
And I think largely it's therewas a result of that.
Um, they've gotten actually muchmore radicalized uh as Christian
as they've gotten older, whichyou know that happens, and it's
(13:48):
unfortunate.
But uh, you know, what are yougonna do, right?
Let's see.
Here's another question.
I kind of alluded to thisearlier.
Um, do you guys hide the factthat you're an atheist?
And my answer is not today, butthat does not mean I haven't in
the past.
And there are times when I keepit somewhat quiet.
(14:10):
Meaning, um, I've got a goodfriend of mine that uh works
with me.
And um she's a she's a wonderfulwoman, and we're friends outside
of work.
We actually used to live withina mile or so of each other.
So we so we're friends.
My wife and she are friends, I'mfriends.
She's a great, great person.
Super Christian, superChristian.
She knows I'm an atheist.
We don't discuss it, but it'sreally because it's not a big
deal.
(14:30):
Does anybody else at work knowI'm an atheist?
No, no, it doesn't come up.
It has no reason to come up, butI also don't bring it up.
When someone says, hey, I'mgonna go to church on Sunday, or
they mention church, or they'reon a you know, Zoom call and
they're wearing a cross.
I don't point out that I don'tbelieve in that.
That'd be silly.
Why would I bring it up?
But I also don't, I mean, youcan see right here, I have
(14:52):
Atheistville as a poster in theback of my room because this is
the set that I use for thesevideos.
My other computer is right overthere, about four feet, and it
faces the opposite direction.
So the people on my Zoom callsor Teams calls, they don't see
that that sign.
They don't see that Atheistvillesign in my background.
Um, but let me take you back.
(15:14):
I first started becoming anatheist in the sense that you
know, I stopped believing thatthere is a God, again, based on
I saw no evidence, and I startedfeeling comfortable with that
fact, probably in my early 30s.
But I had two children.
My first child was born when Iwas 19.
My second child was born when wewere 27, same mother, same
(15:36):
woman.
I've been married to for 31years.
Um I and we grew up in theSouth.
I grew up in Florida, northernFlorida, very conservative, red.
Um, and I'm gonna say this,you'll think that I'm lying.
Uh, the highway from my house,from my front door to the
highway that I took every day togo to work was about a mile and
(15:58):
a half.
I passed four churches in thatmile and a half.
So this is the south.
Throw a rock, you're gonna hit achurch.
Throw two rocks and you're gonnahit two churches.
It's just the way it is downthere.
So I literally had to pass fourchurches on the way from my
front door just to get to thehighway, an umptain number of
them on the way to work, right?
(16:19):
So when you're in an environmentlike that, people are very judgy
about it.
I, you know, I hate to say itthat way, but unfortunately it's
reality.
Where do you go to church is aquestion that is often asked
very early on in anyget-to-know-you type of
conversation.
It's just gonna come up.
(16:39):
And I don't have a problem withthe question, but it's kind of
intrusive because, first of all,you're assuming, because you ask
about church, that I'm notJewish.
You're assuming that I am notBuddhist or I'm not Muslim.
I can guarantee you they areabsolutely assuming that I'm not
atheist, because that is notsomething that they would be
comfortable with.
(16:59):
So I had to make that decision.
Do I do I say, well, I'm anatheist, and then deal with that
to the random mom and dad thatis at the baseball park when my
son's you know in t-ball?
Uh do I do I handle thatconversation when you know my
(17:22):
daughter was in uh playingbasketball uh with those
parents?
Do I talk about that at theblock party?
I lived on a cul-de-sac, a verynice, friendly neighborhood and
friendly neighbors.
But do they know I was anatheist?
No, they do not.
Because I don't want, and andagain, I'm it's unfortunately I
have to say this, I don't wantthem to not let their kids play
(17:44):
with my kids or not be allowedto come to my house to swim in
our pool for the birthdayparties because their parents,
you know, meaning me, um, hisparent or her parent is a um is
an atheist.
And unfortunately, too manypeople make this silly
assumption.
If you're an atheist, you're adevil worshiper, which couldn't
(18:07):
be more illogical.
I I don't believe in God.
Why would I believe in hisex-bf, the devil?
But that's a very common trope,if you will, of misunderstanding
and uh just frankly ridiculous.
But again, I'm talking about mylittle babies, right?
They're little kids.
And do I want thesenarrow-minded parents to say,
(18:27):
you know, I'm not gonna let youcome over and play with um that
child because his dad's anatheist, he's a devil worshiper.
You can't go into a house likethat.
And you might think that's beinga little hyperbolic, but I used
to sit next to a woman at anoffice, this is gosh,
20-something years ago.
Um, and we moved from one nextsection of the office to a
different floor or a differentsection.
(18:49):
And her extension on her phone,back when we all had phones on
our desk, was something 666.
She she refused to use thatdesk.
They had to change the phoneline and change the phone.
So this is the kind of people wedeal with sometimes in the
South.
I mean, she would not sit in adesk because the extension of
four digits was six digits,which you know, every thousand
(19:12):
numbers, that's gonna happenagain.
So uh, you know, whatever.
But so I did hide that for avery long time.
And it really wasn't until mykids were my youngest was in his
teens.
He's the youngest one.
He was in his teens, he was oldenough to deal with any sort of
ramification.
He had his own friends, he hadhis own car.
You know, I wasn't worried aboutpeople not coming over to the
(19:34):
house because I am an atheist.
Um, so at that point, I started,you know, when hell with it.
I'm just gonna tell people whatI tell them.
But even then, again, I don'tbring it up just randomly
because it's just it's not thatimportant.
And people are gonna think,well, Mike, you have a show
about atheism.
I do, but I can guarantee you,after this thing is done, this
video that I'm doing right now,and this audio uh podcast I'm
(19:56):
doing right now, once I'm doneand I maybe spend some time
editing it, I won't think aboutatheism at all until I do my
next one.
I I just don't, it's notsomething that defines me, but
it is a trait and it's part ofmy personality, I guess.
So hope they answered that one.
Uh, let's see here.
(20:17):
Oh, this one is from YouTube.
So this is at Adam Marshall.
I'm gonna read these namesbecause this is these are public
names.
These other ones, um, theyweren't necessarily public, but
this is public on my YouTubechannel.
So if it's someone who made acomment publicly on my YouTube
channel, I'm assuming theywanted their information out
there.
They put it publicly.
So this is Adam Marshall uh P1D.
(20:40):
Um, that's a weird name, but atAdam Marshall P1D, uh, he says,
you know, you're going to hell,right?
Thanks, Adam.
Thanks for checking in, man.
Uh, I guess I'm going to hell.
Um, Adam might be surprised whenhe sees me there, quite frankly.
So if I've been told that once,I've been told that a thousand
(21:04):
times.
Anyways, thanks, Adam, forchecking in.
So, next question (21:08):
how do you tell your Christian mother that,
or this person, how do I tell myChristian mother that I'm an
atheist?
So, I'm gonna address that thesame way I told my mother, who
is also a Christian.
Now, my mother is odd.
Um, and mom, if you'relistening, this isn't anything.
I still love you, but my motherwas raised episcopal, and I was
raised episcopal.
(21:29):
Episcopal is what I would callcasual Christian, right?
Very casual.
As a little boy, um, you know,we would go to church on Sundays
and we go to Sunday school, andthen I would sit through the
sermon.
And we always talk aboutEpiscopal, it's the smells and
the bells, right?
If you've been episcopal oryou're Catholic, you know what
smells and bells are, right?
But after that, we would comehome on Sunday afternoon or you
(21:52):
know, whatever, and I go out andplay with my friends or ride my
bikes and you know, run aroundthe woods because we lived up in
Pennsylvania, and I wouldn'tthink about church until next
Sunday.
Um, maybe when I was a littleboy, I would pray, like I'm
talking about four or five, butat some point I didn't do that.
And then if we had big eventslike Easter or, you know,
Thanksgiving or something, thenall the family came.
(22:12):
Then we would pray beforedinner.
But we didn't, we really justdidn't do much of that.
But then we moved back toFlorida and my mom remarried.
And the man that she's beenmarried to now for Josh, since I
was 15.
So when is that 40 years now?
He's very Southern Baptist.
And subsequently, she's becomevery Southern Baptist.
(22:34):
And now they're the type thatpray at McDonald's, and she
works at the church part-time,and you know, everything
revolves around the church.
Now, she's also 75 years old,and you get to that point, and
you know, you're trying to findthe last bit of your friends
because they keep dying it off,dying off, quite frankly.
And church is a good place tointeract and it's very social,
and I understand all that, butshe's also very Christian now,
(22:58):
and it bothers her that I'm anatheist, and I'm sure she's
fearing for my soul.
But I had to let her know, youknow, I'm a grown man, and I
understand you don't agree withit, and I understand that you
are genuinely concerned, andbecause you're genuinely
concerned for me, maybe not likeAdam was, where you're just
(23:18):
gonna say, Hey, you're going tohell, she's genuinely concerned.
Okay, I can appreciate that, andI know that she is sincere about
that, but there's a point whereyou just have to say, This is
the life I'm living, and youdon't have to like it.
Um, when my son was uh ateenager, and and um I had
(23:40):
already gone through this withmy daughter, who's seven years
older, um, I would tell otherfriends of mine that your kids
are about to leave the house.
If they're 13 or they're 18, theday they leave the house is
coming really fast, right?
And you, as their parent, are nolonger in charge of their life.
You want to be and you want tosteer them in the right
(24:02):
direction, but you're not.
And the further they get awayfrom those days at your house,
the more those decisions aremaybe not in any way aligned
with what you want them to be,because that's what we do.
We raise them up and we let themgo.
And we hope that they've giventhem enough information that
they can make good decisions andthey don't hurt themselves in
some way.
(24:23):
But they have to make theirdecisions.
And my mom does not like thefact that I'm an atheist.
She does not like the fact thatmy daughter is basically
non-religious.
I don't know if she'd say she'san atheist, but she just doesn't
care one way or the other.
That probably bothers my mom.
But you usually gotta you justgotta tell them at some point.
(24:43):
Now, I go back to my otherpoint.
I don't just tell people thisrandomly.
So if your mom doesn't ask, whocares?
Don't tell her.
What's the point?
There's really I who cares?
I it's just not a big deal.
If your mom asks, or if your momis insisting on you do
something, you gotta come tochurch with me on Sunday.
No, I really don't.
It's not my thing.
You have to do it.
(25:03):
At some point, you're like, no,I don't want to because I'm an
atheist, and this is not uhsomething I'm really comfortable
doing anymore, and I know thatyou like it.
Now, I say all that and say thatwhen my niece was baptized, I
went.
Um, and she got baptized older,I don't even know what she was
now, um, 11, 12, 13, somethingalong that line, because she was
(25:26):
baptist and you get baptizedlater in life.
I went because that's a big dealto her.
Wasn't a big deal to me.
I wasn't uncomfortable sittingthere, but I'm not gonna go for
the sermon.
I'm gonna go for her, right?
I've been to uh um uh is it abot mitzvah, right?
Uh for uh for a Jewish girl.
My daughter had a friend who uhhad a bot mitzvah, and I went to
(25:49):
the service.
I had never been to a Jewishservice, so that was actually
quite interesting to me.
Am I gonna go every Saturday?
Uh no, but it was interesting.
If a if someone dies, I'm goingto a wedding in January, you
know, and I go to that weddingat a church.
Um, is that gonna bother me?
Not at all.
Again, if someone dies, is itgonna bother me going to a
church?
Not at all.
(26:09):
But I'm not gonna go for fun forfun, you know, to hear the
sermon and really absorb theword of Jesus.
I'm not doing that.
So it's kind of a long way tosay at some point, if they're
insisting on you telling them orinsisting on you sort of
exposing that side of you, yougotta do it.
And unfortunately, as I kind ofalluded to, that may cause
(26:33):
tension.
But here's my thought on that.
That tension's coming from them,it's not coming from you.
You simply said, This is theperson that I am.
You're not saying you hate them,you're not saying you don't want
to be friends with them or tolove them or interact with them
in any way.
You're not the one saying that.
If they have a tension and theyhave a problem with you being an
(26:54):
atheist, realize the problem ison them and it is not your job
to make them satisfied or toappease them in some way.
I that's where I have to drawthe line.
Like, no, no, we don't have totalk about it, we don't have to
get in deep conversations aboutit.
But don't guilt trip me into umplaying by your rules and
(27:18):
pretending and cosplaying as ifI'm a believer, simply so you
feel better, so you sleep betterat night.
So that's sort of my two centson that.
You know what?
I'm gonna give one more fairlybrief thing.
I think this comes up later, butin case it doesn't, the caveat
to that would be if you're 15,you're 16, 18 years old, or
(27:40):
whatever the case is, you'reliving at home and you know your
parents will flip the F out,maybe keep it to yourself.
And I know that goes againsteverything I, as a 55-year-old
man, wants to say, but thereality is if you're 16 years
old, you can't live on your own,right?
(28:01):
You have to sort of hide thingsto get along until you can be on
your own.
And that is again, that's aterrible truth to have to deal
with, but unfortunately, it'sreal.
And I'm gonna make a segue tothat.
When my daughter came out as alesbian when she was about
17-ish or so, she was still inhigh school, 11th grade, do or
(28:24):
take.
Um, she came out to the rightpeople.
My wife and I are very like,okay, whatever, past the
potatoes.
We don't care.
Sort of knew this was, anyways.
And I also was doing a lot oftheater.
So when I say a lot of thepeople I knew, it sounds like
one of those black things, likeone of my best friends is black.
Well, when I say most of myfriends were gay, I I'm not even
joking.
Most of my friends were in thetheater, and trust me, the
(28:47):
theater, that's one industrywhere gay people have it fairly
locked up.
If you're not comfortable withgay people, the theater is not
for you.
But because of that, we knew somany gay people of all stripes.
It didn't phase us when she cameout.
She also realized she was in asafe space.
So after she came out, I wouldwake up and there'd be a kid
(29:09):
sleeping on my couch.
And I'm like, who's the kid onthe couch?
She's like, Well, that's X my,you know, XYZ.
Um, he goes to school and hisparents found out he was gay and
they kicked him out, which wouldinfuriate me and want me to make
me want to protect that kid.
It would infuriate me becausethis kid's 16, 17, whatever he
was, he was in high school andthey kicked him out because they
(29:31):
found out he was gay.
That's it.
Not that he killed a guy, youknow, not that he out there and
you know attacking nuns.
He simply uh has feelings forthe same sex, or she had
feelings for the same sex,whatever the case may be.
Yeah, that's that is notcomfortable.
So unfortunately, those werealmost those were 100%.
(29:53):
You're gonna disagree with me,maybe those were 100% decisions
based on religion and the sametype of The person who would
kick their child out for beinggay is the same person who'd
also stop talking to you if itcame out that you're an atheist.
So if you're in that positionand you don't have a safe place
to go, keep it to yourself.
And I and again, I don't want tosay that, but being pragmatic,
(30:17):
as I often am, um, keep that toyourself until you're able to
move out and live on your own,and then do that as quickly as
possible and move to a big town,a city, someplace where you're
not the only one where you canfind other people that uh will
make up your tribe.
(30:39):
Let's see, what's another goodconstruction uh question here?
Um this is a good question, butis religion a necessary form of
comfort?
Um, but I understand why peoplemight think that.
Um again, I would take exceptionwith the word necessary.
(31:02):
It is absolutely not necessaryas a form of comfort.
Can it be a form of comfort?
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
If you are religious and youhave a family member die, then
you are comforted by the factthat you will see them again.
That's incredibly comforting.
(31:23):
I can't imagine losing, say, achild and thinking, well, that's
it.
That if that's going to happen,no my God, I hope that doesn't
happen to me.
But that happens to people, andthose people, if they're an
atheist, they don't believethey'll see that child again.
So however they left it withthat child or that time that
(31:43):
they had with that child, it'sover.
That's not particularlycomforting.
It's reality, and reality isn'tcomforting.
Would it be better to believethat I'm gonna see my
grandparents again who werelovely people?
Yes.
My dad died two, three yearsago, I guess, at this point.
Would it be good to see himagain?
Of course it would be.
(32:04):
It's not gonna happen though.
So for me as an atheist, once Icame to that conclusion that
there is no God, therefore thereis no heaven, I'm not gonna see
these people anymore.
It um it does sort of make youfeel bad at first until you sort
of work this through your brainand you realize, okay, but I had
(32:25):
X amount of years with them.
You know, I those people were inmy life, and I can think back
about that.
Um I I can I can deal with that.
Another side of this, outside ofdeath, you know, when something
bad happens to you, um, it'svery comforting, I'm sure, to
say, well, God has a plan, andthis is part of a plan.
And and the implication there isthat there's a reason for this,
(32:48):
and that reason is going to berevealed to me, and it's and
likely again, it's going to getbetter.
That's probably very comforting.
I can't think that.
In fact, and this is where Ithink sometimes not being
religious makes me a bitstronger, and and I'm and I know
that's gonna come across wrong,and I don't mean it to sound
(33:09):
arrogant, but not thinking thatthere's a master plan, thinking
specifically that whatever'shappening to me right now is a
result of a lot of decisions Imade or unfortunate decisions
that other people made that havenow affected me in some way.
The reality is tomorrow when Iwake up, that decision or that
(33:32):
circumstance will still bethere.
And it's up to me to get myselfout of it.
Now, getting myself out of itmight mean I need to lean on
other people or I need to reachout to groups of people or
whatever the case may be, butnonetheless, I can't just wait
around for it to get better onits own or trust that it's all
gonna work out because there's amaster plan.
That master plan is always in myfavor.
(33:54):
No, I have to dig deeper andsay, okay, I don't like this
situation.
What can I do to change it?
And then set about doing that.
So again, that's um, yeah,that's that's that's tough
sometimes, but I don't thinkthat religion is necessary.
I I think it is comforting whenyou want it, and I give people a
(34:16):
great amount of leeway.
If they are going through someseveral some level of grief, and
they say that the um that theLord helped them get through
that, more power to you.
If that's what helped you getthrough it and helped you get up
on the next day and go on aboutyour life, I'm fine with that.
It doesn't bother me at all.
(34:37):
I find atheists that point thattake opportunities to point out,
you know, there is no God.
When someone says, um, you know,that that God healed me.
I don't like that statement, butI don't point that out because
it's kind of an asshole thing tosay.
Like, right, what you know,we're not having that discussion
right now.
The person's glad my wife wentthrough cancer four or five
(34:58):
years ago.
People came out of the woodwork,all of our old friends and our
family, people that aren't theatheists, like, oh, God is so
great.
I'm so thankful.
I prayed for you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it because I knowyou're being sincere.
I don't believe God had anythingto do with it, but I understand
you do, and that's a very nicething.
It would be an asshole thing ofme to do, would be to point out
and say, Well, God didn't haveanything to do it.
(35:19):
It was the doctor.
Did I feel like saying thatsometimes when it's the
umpteenth time I've heard it andI'm getting a little frustrated
and we're going through all thestress of having cancer?
Yes.
Time and place.
Pick your battles.
That's not the place.
Uh, let's see here.
What do we got?
Um, this is a little bit of alonger question here.
(35:42):
I'm gonna try to read this.
So I did a mic drop, which isagain something else I do.
Look on um the YouTube channeland here on this podcast channel
for something I call the micdrop.
Uh, cleverly named because I'mMike, right?
I usually do those onWednesdays.
And I did one about a um about alawsuit or um a case, I should
(36:05):
say, I guess, that the SupremeCourt has heard.
They heard it on October 7th, Iwant to believe.
Um, there's a woman in Colorado,she's a therapist, she's a
Christian therapist, and she'sarguing that therapy is uh
protected speech.
So when she's trying to convertgay kids to being straight
through conversion therapy, thatshe should be allowed to do that
(36:28):
because that's truly a freedomof speech issue and a religious
issue.
So I made a whole mic drop aboutthat.
Go back and check that out.
I'll see if I can drop a link tothat in the show notes.
But um, I obviously woulddisagree with that because
therapy, the speech in therapyis not speech like me standing
on the street corner.
(36:49):
That's not the same thing.
I'm actively trying to healsomeone with my words.
And uh that there's moreresponsibility than just to say,
oh, I can say anything you want.
Not to mention that conversiontherapy is fraud.
Flat out, full stop, it's fraud.
It does not work, and it'sactually quite harmful.
And the kids that are putthrough that uh suffer greatly,
(37:12):
and it doesn't work.
But this person, uh, what's hername?
Dale Hammer4425.
He says, please explain.
I hate to read this, but here wego.
He says, If I'm so backwards,now we had an exchange back and
forth, and I said his thoughtswere a little backwards.
He says, if I'm so backwards,then please explain to me how
trans kids, especially, are sucha massively small, uh, small
(37:35):
minority, yet you are findingfamilies with every child being
trans.
Okay, that's point one.
Why are liberal cities andliberal city schools and states
have so much higher rates ofnon- I'm gonna read that again.
Uh his language here.
Why are liberal city schools andstates having much higher rates
(37:56):
of it than non-liberal areas?
So higher rates of trans go toliberal schools in liberal
cities?
Why are the areas with the mostliberal teaching have the most
trans kids?
Why are the numbers of LGBTrising at an astronomical number
compared to the past?
(38:16):
I hope you can his language is alittle funky there, but
essentially, let me boil thisdown.
How come you find more transkids and more gay kids and gay
people in general in liberalareas?
Because we don't beat them up.
That's it.
That is that's uh I rememberwhen Trump then we were going
(38:39):
through COVID, and Trump said,you know, if we didn't test as
much, we wouldn't find as muchuh COVID.
Yeah, yeah, duh.
Uh, you know, if I didn't walkoutside, I'd never know if
there's sun out there.
I mean, you know, I yeah,there's more gay people and
trans people in liberal areasbecause they feel comfortable
coming out.
(39:00):
Not that they're not gay peoplein red conservative areas,
they're there.
If you live in Mississippi rightnow, there are gay people in
your neighborhood, but they'renot coming out because you drive
around in a big Bubba truck anda rebel flag hanging off the
back and you say you hate gaypeople.
Why on earth would that gay manor that gay woman or that trans
(39:22):
kid, why would they come out?
They can come here to Chicagoand they can be out all day
long.
Nobody cares.
I just went down to get my watchrepaired about uh, I don't know,
two blocks from where I live.
I live in an area called BoysTown.
It's called Lakeview, but it'straditionally been called Boys
Town.
It's a traditional gayneighborhood.
I went down there to get a watchbattery, and I, you know, if
(39:46):
everybody there was gay, I don'tknow.
I mean, some people were gay,some people maybe not, but it's
called Boys Town.
It's a very gay neighborhood.
Nobody cares.
Nobody cares.
Let two men walk down the streetholding hands and kiss each
other goodbye in Mississippi orLouisiana or Georgia.
Yeah, that's not gonna happen.
In Chicago, nobody cares.
(40:08):
So it's not that there are moregay people in liberal areas,
they just feel comfortable andthey don't fear for their
safety.
That was a silly question, butuh, what was your name again?
Dale Hammer.
Uh, you know, it gave me a goodopportunity to address uh some
kind of truly ridiculousthoughts there.
(40:29):
That one still makes me justchuckle because it's so dumb.
Uh, let's see.
What's another one?
Oh, here we go.
Another YouTube uh person,Frankly Farcicle.
Kind of like that name, FranklyFarcicle.
I pray that you find Jesus, myfriend.
God bless you.
Well, thank you, FranklyFarcicle.
I I I don't have a problem withthat.
(40:51):
Thanks for praying for me, man.
Uh, you know, again, you'repraying to a God I don't believe
in, but I think you're sincere.
I think you truly think thatwill help me.
And I don't have a problem withthat at all.
So no problem with that one.
Uh, let's see here.
This this was uh this is gonnabe maybe harder to explain, but
those of you that are atheists,uh, you'll you'll understand
(41:11):
this.
And I read two or three commentstoday, in fact, on my YouTube
channel, and they're all in thissort of thing.
Um, the person says, one thingthat always astounds me is the
utmost confidence with whichsome Christians will tell an
atheist what atheists believe.
That happens all the time.
I have had so many people tellme, atheists believe this.
(41:32):
Like, that's not even true.
Um, atheists don't believe halfthe things you say.
First of all, uh, yeah, we don'tall believe that the Big Bang
started everything.
Most of us probably do becauseit's a pretty well
scientifically uh understoodfact, but I'm not a cosmologist.
I have no idea.
(41:52):
Um if if that's what uh a lot ofvery, very smart people who've
studied this for decadesbelieve.
I'm gonna take their word forit.
I don't know if I believe it ornot, but okay.
Um, do atheists believe that uhthe devil is somehow worth
worshiping?
Uh no, we absolutely do not.
Um, do atheists believe, I'mtrying to think what else the
person was saying this morning,that uh do atheists have no
(42:15):
morality because we believe thatwe can uh just kill and maim and
rape people at will, and nobodycares.
No, we absolutely do not believethat.
Uh that that's ridiculous.
But I've been told that I'm toldthat almost every day, in some
form or fashion, that uh we haveno morals, atheists have no
(42:35):
morals, so we can feel free todo all those horrible things.
Penn Gillette says, I do do allthose horrible things as much as
I want, and the amount that Iwant is zero.
It's it's a whole ridiculousstatement, but um a lot of
people believe that.
It's in it's insane to me.
This one, I almost didn't put itin here because Charlie Kirk is
(42:58):
still, you know, the fervor overCharlie Kirk has somewhat died
down, but he's obviously notgone anywhere in terms of the
public consciousness.
Um, but this person made a verygood point, and I thought it was
worth bringing up.
Uh he says the Charlie Kirkworship has made me realize how
quickly someone's memory can bealtered by a sudden, perceived
(43:19):
anyway, tragedy and how we maynever know what the real Jesus
was like.
And I thought that was actuallya really good point.
I was vaguely aware of CharlieKirk.
I actually made a video or twoon Charlie Kirk.
We talked about it in the UnholyRoundtable.
Um, and when he died, we weactually made a very quick uh
live about that live streamabout that.
(43:42):
But I was only vaguely aware ofhim.
I knew who he was, and I knewwhat side of the fence he was
on, I knew he was a provocateur,but I really just I didn't dig
deep in because I kind of knewenough to like, okay, I this
isn't a guy I nearly need tofollow or get too deep into.
Since then, of course, I've seena lot of things that are
disturbing, um, let's say theleast.
(44:02):
But what I did find is as soonas he was killed, and I'm gonna
go ahead and state this just forthe people so they don't flip
the fuck out.
As soon as he was killed, um, hehe should not have been killed.
He was simply speaking, andspeech, whether you dislike it
or not, is protected.
I made a whole video on hatespeech, and a lot of people on
(44:24):
my side of the aisle, veryliberal people, would say that,
you know, hate speech againstgay people or this, that, and
the other should be protected.
I disagree.
You can argue with me.
If you're a liberal, you canargue with me, but I disagree.
Hate speech is speech.
I I it's basically full stop.
There's very few exceptions tothe hate speech.
And if I don't like your speech,my option is to push back on
(44:47):
your speech with better ideas orto cancel you in any way that I
feel is good.
Murdering you is not one ofthose.
I cannot buy your book, I cannotwatch your TV show, I cannot go
listen to your speeches orwhatever the case may be.
I cannot be friends with you.
I can ignore the fact that youlive next door.
I can do all of that, but itshouldn't harm you because your
(45:11):
speech, because your speech isas protected as my speech.
And if we start limiting yourspeech, you're gonna limit my
speech, and I don't want that.
So I'm a very free speech kindof guy.
But getting back to thisperson's question, as soon as
Charlie Kirk was murdered, thedeification of him was unreal.
(45:32):
I had never seen that level.
This man went from, again,provocateur who made a lot of
really terrible comments, tobasically sitting at the right
hand of God, maybe at the lefthand, because I'm assuming Jesus
on the right hand, and now wegot Charlie Kirk on the left
hand.
I that's that was veryfascinating to me.
(45:55):
Um the whitewashing of thethings he has said that were
terrible, that's that's this hasbeen two months, I guess, since
he's been killed.
That's been whitewashed as muchas possible.
Um oddly enough, and I'm gonnasay this the bad things he says
or has have said have been triedto be downplayed by the right
(46:18):
and people that love him.
Although I do not see a lot ofgood things he said.
Usually when someone dies, thatbecomes a martyr-like type of
figure.
You're you're inundated with allthese great quotes.
You know, you can read thesequotes.
I can read um the the quotes uhfrom Martin Luther King.
I I can read these good quotes.
(46:40):
I don't see these for CharlieKirk.
In fact, there was a famous uhuh service for him recently, I
can't remember what it was, andthey had an AI um speech that
was supposed, you know, in hisvoice, in his style.
Dude, if you have to go to AI tocreate a speech that sounds like
him because you don't havespeeches that are him, that's a
(47:04):
problem.
Okay.
But the person's second pointhere, it made them suddenly
realize how we may never knowwhat the real Jesus was like.
Charlie Kirk's image has beenchanged in a month, two-month
period.
2,000 years?
If there was a real Jesus, andI'm not 100% convinced, I'm not
(47:24):
a scholar of that sort of thing,but let's assume, let's assume
there was a real guy namedJesus, whatever he was actually
called.
But there's a real guy who fitthat role.
Was he the Jesus that we know?
Was he walking on water andturning things into fish and
making wine out of water?
No, he wasn't doing any of that.
(47:46):
But 2,000 years later, thatseems very plausible, right?
Those are good stories to tell.
If Charlie Kirk, I hope thisdoesn't happen, but if Charlie
Kirk's memory gets sowhitewashed that he is literally
held up as a saint a year fromnow and five years from now, and
10 years from now, what is goingto be attributed to him that
(48:06):
never happened?
Probably a lot.
Um, and that's unfortunatebecause I don't expect people to
be perfect.
I'm not perfect, nobody'sperfect.
You can be a very, very goodperson on one hand and do some
very bad things and make somevery bad comments in the other.
But at some point, those thingsdo swap when your bad comments
(48:28):
and bad thoughts become you knowthe thing that you kind of
looked at and you're like,that's that's who this person
was.
They do tend to outweigh thegood things you may have done,
or they belie your your internalum thoughts.
That's not good, and that's kindof where I put Charlie Kirk
right now.
But I don't know, ask me againin 20 years what Charlie Kirk's
(48:48):
uh Charlie Kirk's memory islike, and I bet I I don't know.
We'll see what I say then,right?
This is a good question.
This is a this is a funnyquestion.
It really is, and it's a cute,just they try to make a little
cute point.
What are Christian nationalists,and I rail on Christian
nationalists all the time, butwhat are Christian nationalists
going to do with the enormousnumber of foreigners in heaven?
(49:11):
Uh I like that question.
I like that question a lotbecause presumably
Christianity's got, I don'tknow, two billion people in the
world of all over the world.
Christians have been very goodat colonizing chunks of the
world and making them intoChristians, sometimes at the end
of a whip, but they've done it.
Well, those people are alsogoing to go to heaven.
And all these Christiannationalists that live here in
(49:33):
the United States who just cheerwith just pure glee that ICE
agents are trying to throw outthe foreigners out of freaking
Nebraska.
They they round them up at theirjob site.
So they go to the court wherethey're doing things legally and
trying to become citizens, andthey round them up and they
chuck them out of the country.
What are these people gonna dowhen they get to heaven?
(49:55):
And the first person they meetis Jose Vasquez.
And Jose is like, hey man,thanks for coming.
I was the guy you deported.
Um, a lot of confused people inheaven.
A lot of shocked and confused.
It's worth me believing in Godjust to go to heaven and see
that play out.
Oh my goodness.
(50:17):
Oh, goodness.
Let's talk about a seriousquestion.
What do you say to someone who'sdying?
Um this is a tough one.
This is a tough one, and I lie.
I lie.
It depends on who it is, I guessI should say.
If this person is a we talkedabout my mom earlier, if my mom
(50:37):
is dying and I have to fly downto Florida and be with her on
her last days, and if it makesher feel better to say she's
gonna be with Jesus, I'm all in.
I will cosplay that to the lastbreath she takes.
What does it hurt me to do that?
It's not betraying who I am, sheknows who I am.
(50:58):
It's like telling yourgrandmother that she looks old
and wrinkly.
Who would do that?
You don't say that.
You say, no, grandma, you lookbeautiful.
You look so young.
You know, you're 85 years young.
People say this kind of stuff,right?
Maybe it's a bit condescending,but you know, um, but but people
get it.
You're not gonna tell an85-year-old woman that she looks
(51:18):
old and wrinkly, and her, youknow, she looks bent over and
saggy.
You know, you're not gonna tella guy in a wheelchair, oh, your
legs don't work.
He freaking knows that, right?
There are some things, there'sno point in saying it, right?
So if someone's dying andthey're a believer, and this is
where they came from, I don'tmind cosplaying that.
I don't mind it.
(51:39):
If they know that I fully don'tbelieve it, if they make a
comment, it's like, you know, Idon't believe, but I know you
do, and that's enough.
And if you believe you're gonnabe there, then I I wish you
every good thing.
And the other part I would tellpeople, and my friend Larry
Warren brought this up, uh, isthat I will remember you.
I will, and I will repeat yourname occasionally.
(52:01):
I'll try not to let your memoryslip from my memory, right?
In fact, my wife and I weretalking about a woman the other
day, a woman that I worked withwho died quite young.
She was probably in her 30s.
She died of cancer, and we werejust just she popped in my
memory the other day.
And I thought every once in awhile she'll pop up on Facebook.
Someone must wish her a happybirthday.
I mean, they know she's died,but and her Facebook profile
(52:23):
pops up.
And it's a way for me to to toremember, like, yeah, Kelly, I I
do remember you.
You were a nice woman, and wewere friends, we were peers, we
worked together.
You were a nice woman.
I always liked you.
So I'll I'll do that.
And you know, it maybe that'scomforting, maybe it's not.
I don't know.
But I sincerely do, I I will, Iwill try to remember your name,
(52:43):
and I'll remember you, and I'llremember the good times we had
together.
And that's the legacy you canleave.
You know, you can you can createa legacy where people fondly
look back at you, and even if itwas just a you know a brief time
they knew you, they think, yeah,but that guy was a really good
guy, or he was funny, or youknow, she was a just a barrel of
laughs, and then we always had agood time when we got together,
(53:03):
or she always made me feel good.
You know, that that's fine.
If that's what people say to mewhen I'm dying, I'll be I'll be
happy as a clam, as they say.
I don't know why clams arehappy, but that's what they say.
Uh let's see, what are we gonnado?
I think I saw that question.
Um, so here's a uh I'm gonna lettwo questions and then I'm gonna
(53:29):
run.
I'm gonna wrap this up.
Um, this is actually there's aspecific question, at least that
I saw it, and I thought, oh,this is very, very specifically
me.
The person said, Why don'thumanist humanist or secular
meetups or atheist meetups, whydon't they seem to last?
Um and I would say there is abit of herding cats kind of
(53:50):
concept there.
Atheists, um, I and I'm and letme preface this.
I have a group here in Chicago,uh, then I'm an admin with a
couple other people, my wife andsome friends of ours, we're an
admin of a local atheist group.
Now, just saying that has sentsome atheists running for the
hills.
They heard that my brother wouldbe one of them.
(54:10):
Like, why do I want to gettogether with atheists?
You don't have to.
Nobody's asking to do that.
But a lot of people, when theyleft church, and I say
Christianity again, that's whereI'm familiar with, when they
lost that and they gave it upbecause they became an atheist,
they also lost their socialnetworks.
They lost their friends, theylost the families, they lost
(54:31):
that Sunday afternoon, you know,the potluck that happened after
church.
They lost that pancake breakfastthat happened every you know
quarter.
They lost the men's group or thewomen's group or the prayer
group or the choir prayer, allthese things that were very
social in nature.
If you're a social person likeme, then those are very
important because that's how youget out and you get out amongst
(54:52):
people that have a similarmentality.
But once you start to switch andonce you realize I don't believe
any of this anymore, you startto feel like a fraud, right?
You start to say, I can't go toBible class, even though I like
John a lot, and Mary and Lisaare great women, and and brother
Johnson is a fantastic guy, andhe'd give you the shirt off his
(55:13):
back.
I like all those people.
I just can't spend an hour and ahalf reading a book that I just
don't believe in anymore.
So there are groups out therelike ours here in Chicago.
The the um the atheist, uh, wehave we call it the uh atheist
republic, the atheist republicof Chicago.
We are a group.
(55:34):
We encourage people to come.
We do meetups.
In fact, uh, what is today, the18th?
So on the 25th, and it dependson when you're watching this,
may not have any or listening tothis, may not matter to you, but
here at the end of the month,let me just put it that way, I'm
having a party at my house.
Now we have about 20 peoplealready scheduled to come, all
from that group.
And that's 20 without their plusones.
(55:55):
That so we'll get another, youknow, five or 10 people.
We'll have 30-something peoplehere at our apartment because
they are the social people andthey want that social
interaction and they know theycan come here.
And because atheists tend tohave very overlapping things, we
all have a very, all is not theright word, but a lot of us have
(56:15):
a very similar politicalperspective.
Um, we have difference of uh wehave um similar views on on just
interacting with other people inthe world, how we raise our
children.
We're obviously atheists, sothat colors a lot of things.
If you're a social person like Iam, it's nice to find a group
where you're like, ah, I canrelax.
(56:36):
I don't have to pretend thatthere's a Jesus.
Um, calling back to one of thefirst questions I answered on
this, I don't have to pretend orkeep it quiet that I'm an
atheist.
I can just say, yeah, I'm notgonna go to Sunday school
tomorrow.
I'm not gonna go to churchtomorrow.
I'm gonna watch TV all morninglong because I can, because I
don't believe.
You don't have to hide that.
So we do those groups.
But again, my group here is 600and something people large.
(57:00):
Again, I'll get 30 people.
So um, but if I had a churchthat had 600 members, I'd get
500 members, right?
Because the passion of atheismis not the same as the passion
of Christianity or the passionof being a Christian.
Um, at the same time, to bequite frankly, there's no threat
if I if you don't come to anatheist meetup, you're not gonna
(57:22):
go to hell.
You're not gonna spend eternitysuffering because you didn't
come to our atheist meetup atthe bar.
You know, you just it's not.
So I don't have a big stick towield and say you got to come to
our atheist meetup.
I don't have that.
So um I wish more people wouldcome.
I love it when we go.
We try to do these, we try to doit monthly, usually turns into
(57:42):
every month or two.
I love those.
They're so much fun.
I enjoy meeting new people.
And it's fun to meet new peoplethat are newly converted to
being atheism, uh, to be anatheist.
I love it.
But if you want to start one inyour area, I urge people to go
to like something like Reddit orMeetup or Facebook and find
other atheists in your area.
(58:03):
Um, Reddit has a bunch ofsubreddits for atheism.
Go in there and put in your townor the next biggest town.
You know, if you're in in Texasand you live anywhere near
Dallas, put in Dallas Atheist orgo to an atheist group and put
in the word Dallas.
Find those people and say, youknow, I'm thinking about doing a
little bit of a meetup, youknow, with with two of you or
(58:23):
three of you or four of you,whatever.
Would you guys want to meet atthe Denny's, you know, on Sunday
morning since we're all notgoing to church?
If you get two people that showup, and it's just three of you,
that's fine.
And our meetings are very, verysocial.
They're not agenda-driven.
We're not like bringing the uhthe book of Dawkins and reading
through it and like, but Dawkinssays this, or let's all sit down
(58:44):
and watch a Christopher Hitchensvideo together.
Ours are just social.
We just know that we we havethis shared interest.
So that's why we do it.
I always tell people when theyfirst time coming to our
meetings, don't expect us toagree on anything else that you
agree with.
Um, and don't expect us to talkabout atheism the all time.
Because if you just saw a coolmovie, tell me about that.
(59:06):
You know, if your kid justgraduated, tell me about that.
If you just got a brand new cat,I want to hear about it because
my cat is, what is she?
Can you see it?
She's right there.
Damn it.
However, I do this.
There he is.
That's the top of her rightthere.
Um, that's my cat.
I love my cat.
Um, tell me about your cat.
I'm I'm thrilled to talk aboutit.
If you want to talk aboutatheism or your deconstruction,
(59:28):
we'll talk about that too.
That's fine.
But I would encourage people tohave to get together with other
atheists and talk aboutwhatever.
Some people don't want to go toan agenda.
They don't want to go to ameeting, they just want to chill
and hang out with some peoplethat they know aren't going to
bite their head off or or uhbrowbeat them for not going to
church.
And this is especially true ifyou're in a small southern town
(59:50):
or some rural part of America.
Try to find the nearest largertown.
You're gonna find more of us.
Kind of goes back to my otherquestion you're gonna find more
of us that are willing to beout.
We're all there.
There's atheists in every town,but you're gonna be more likely
to find the ones that are outand willing to say they're
atheists in a um in a biggercity.
And my final question.
(01:00:14):
This is this is I get this alot, actually.
You're trying to force peopleinto your atheism and what was
the other antinatalism.
Lock that one up.
Antinatalism.
Oh, okay.
I hate when I see a word I don'tknow.
Uh antinatalism.
I don't know what they'resaying.
(01:00:35):
Is that a real word?
Anyways, obviously caught me onthat one.
I don't know.
But uh, am I trying to forcepeople into my atheism?
No, I absolutely do not care ifyou become an atheist.
I do not care.
I am not trying to persuade you.
I got plenty of friends that areatheism.
I don't atheist.
I don't need to create anotherone out of whole cloth.
Um, no, so I'm not trying toconvert anybody to atheism.
(01:00:57):
Again, if I if I say anything, Ijust like hey, well, here's my
perspective on it.
I think this is illogical, or Idon't understand why you think
prayer works because so often itjust didn't.
But that's fine.
If you still believe it, knockyourself out.
If you believe that Reggie, themagic penguin, uh, controls this
world, okay.
(01:01:18):
Okay, fine.
If you think, hey, I was in thewoods and I heard a heard a
strange sound, obviously it wasBigfoot.
All right, man, knock yourselfout.
I don't care, but I'm not tryingto convert anybody to atheism.
Now, I say that with a bit of asmile, a bit of a smirk, because
I'm sitting talking to you on anatheist channel.
Um, I have an atheist YouTubechannel, I have an atheist
(01:01:39):
podcast, I have an atheistwebsite.
Um, my hat is as an atheistsymbol.
That picture right there is anatheist symbol.
You'd think that this is a24-hour day thing, but it's not.
I do this for the show, so tospeak.
Um, that's when I talk about it,but I don't live my life as an
atheist.
(01:01:59):
I live my life as a husband, asa father, as a friend, as a uh a
guy that works in the fintechenvironment or industry.
Um as a guy who travels.
I'm going to Japan and Thailandand Vietnam and Philippines in a
month.
I'm gonna go there for I'll bespending a month in these four
different countries.
I'm a traveler.
Atheism is not at all my mainfunction.
(01:02:21):
But people that watch thisassume that it is and assume I'm
trying to convert them.
Really, what I'm trying to do ismake atheism normalized.
That is literally my mission.
I want anybody to say, oh, I'm aI'm a Catholic.
And then that person they'retalking to say, Oh, okay, that's
fantastic.
I'm an atheist.
Great.
What do you think about theCubs?
(01:02:41):
You know?
Oh, did you see uh, you know,what'd you think about that
episode, the very final episode,that show that we were talking
about the other day?
What'd you think about thatseries ending?
That was terrible.
Yes.
Doesn't matter if he's anatheist and that person's a
Catholic.
Doesn't matter.
I'd like to normalize that sopeople don't fear bringing that
out.
They don't have to worry about,hey, you won't bring your kids
(01:03:02):
to my house for my son'sbirthday party because you think
that I'm an atheist and thatsomehow makes me a bad person,
you know, an evil in some way.
My job is to help normalize thatin the little tiny way that I
can.
I'm just one man, I'm not gonnahave that big of an impact uh on
the world, but maybe I can helpone person see it a little
(01:03:27):
differently.
And again, if that doesn'tconvert them to being the
atheist, I don't care.
But if it makes them realize,you know, that guy Mike, I've
watched on his videos or I'velistened to his podcast, he
doesn't seem so bad.
Maybe atheists really aren'ttrying to eat children and
worship the devil.
Maybe they're just normalpeople.
We just disagree, and I'll neveragree with their life, and they
(01:03:48):
won't agree with mine, butthat's okay.
We can still be buddies, we canstill be friends, we can still
go watch a movie together, wecan still go look at cars
together or any of a millionother topics.
That's fine.
That's all I'm really after.
So, uh, so again, even though Ihave an atheist channel, that is
not the goal.
So I'm gonna take a little sipof my uh morning coffee here.
(01:04:12):
In the meantime, I hope youenjoyed this.
Um, tune in to our shows again.
We have them on YouTube, uh,here on this podcast as well,
wherever you get your podcast, Iguess is what people say.
Um, I do mic drops on Wednesday.
We do the Unholy Roundtable.
We've got one of those comingup, but again, depends on when
you see that.
But that's gonna be October26th.
(01:04:34):
We've got a live stream.
I encourage people, that's gonnabe on YouTube.
I encourage people to go inthere, ask us questions live.
We will take that.
We also have the um the heathenhotline that I'm gonna have to
pull up very quickly herebecause I wasn't prepared for
this.
Hold on just one second.
We have the heathen hotline thatI created.
If you want to leave me amessage, um, a phone voicemail,
(01:04:55):
it's 224-307-5435.
Again, that's 224-307-5435.
That's the Heathen Hotline.
If you want to leave a voicemailthat I'll either play back on
this show or play back on one ofour uh live streams, I'm I'm
happy to have you do that.
Obviously, don't say somethingthat's uh you know
inappropriate, but if you have alegitimate question and you just
(01:05:18):
feel like it'd be better toexplain it, knock yourself out.
I'm happy to take those callsand we're happy to do those.
Unfortunately, I can't takethose live, so you have to leave
a message just because of atechnology thing.
And I need that seven-seconddelay button because people do
say crazy things.
I can't delay it on a livestream, but leave a message,
I'll get back to you.
In the meantime, uh, have agreat rest of your morning, your
Sunday, your afternoon, or goinginto the week, however, you uh
(01:05:41):
are listening to this.
And until we talk again, takecare of
Hey, I'm Mike Smithgall, the unelected mayor
of Atheistville.
And go ahead and pour yourself acup of coffee, pull up a chair,
because this is Breakfast with aHeathen.
I wanted to start this showbecause I there's a lot of
questions.
I've had the show Atheistvilleon YouTube and as a podcast.
We also have a website,atheistville.com.
Nice little plug there.
(00:26):
But uh as a result of that, Iget a lot of questions that
people ask me, and sometimesthey're very legitimate
questions, and sometimes they'rejust people wanting to fight
with me or troll.
And I really don't do that.
A lot of people have made thecomment that um, you know,
people like that.
The uh there's uh um enragementequals engagement.
(00:47):
There's a comment that that uhthat that's true, but I I'm
really just not uh the kind ofguy who wants to get into a
battle.
I don't mind pushing back, butI'm not really here to battle.
But again, people do make somegood questions.
Sometimes they're again verylegitimate questions, sometimes
they're trolling questions, butthey're questions that I
thought, well, that's it's alegitimate question in the sense
(01:09):
that yes, I would like to answerthat, even if the person is
being a bit snarky sometimes.
But that's okay.
We all have our little role toplay in life.
But I thought what I would do onthis series, again, this is
Breakfast with a Heathen, uh, isgive you something to maybe chew
on on a Sunday morning whenyou're not going to church, or
maybe you did go to church andyou're listening to this later.
(01:30):
Maybe you're listening onto youron your drive-in from work, but
that's okay.
We're gonna go through a handfulof questions that I've received
and just gonna give you myopinion on them and how I come
down as an atheist.
And I'm gonna give you a realquick commercial about who I am,
but we won't spend any more timeon that.
Again, I started Atheistvilleactually a number of years ago.
(01:50):
I kind of let it sit for a whileand I re- I just picked it back
up again.
And I do a lot of live streams,a lot of interviews with people.
We also do the unholy roundtable where we have, you know,
four or five different atheistsuh come together and we talk
about uh our perspective on someof these same questions, and we
all have different walks oflife.
But I am an atheist.
I would classify myself as an uhagnostic atheist in the sense
(02:14):
that I don't know if there's aGod, I have no idea.
But thus far, nothing has beenproven to me.
Uh something else I say a lot oftimes, I don't reject God.
I reject you.
If you're the one trying toassert that there is a God,
you're trying to convince methat there's a God, I'm
rejecting you because you're notdoing a very good job at proving
it to me.
(02:35):
If there is a God, that personor that deity or that man, that
woman, whatever you want todescribe God as, uh, they've not
come to me and proventhemselves.
So if you're their uh if you'retheir last hope here on earth to
prove their existence, uh you'refailing miserably at it because
at 55 years old, uh, I don't seethe evidence of it.
(02:55):
But so that's me.
That's me in that shell.
If you have any questions aboutthis, make sure you send me a
message.
I'll be happy to answer them.
I'm very transparent that way.
And make sure you go to ourdifferent channels again,
YouTube.
It's Atheistville on YouTube.
Uh, we also haveatheistville.com where we we
have all of our videos and theaudio podcast and our blog.
We also have a sub stack.
So I'm kind of hitting all thedifferent corners of the world.
(03:17):
But here we go.
Let's talk, let's talk aboutsome of the questions I've got
pulled up.
Some of these questions arethey're actually from all the
different places we reach outto.
So let's see here.
I'm gonna start with this firstone because this kind of goes
with what I've just said.
Uh, the person says that arguingwith Christians is pointless.
Um, yes, to a degree.
(03:38):
And and I'm gonna take exceptionwith the word arguing.
Um, yeah, arguing with uhanybody, it ultimately ends up
being pointless.
If it is a very strongly andpassionate hell belief, it can
very often wind up as pointless,right?
Because the person, when you'retalking about religion and
(03:59):
politics, and unfortunatelynowadays, those two are uh
really can't separate the two,they they go hand in hand.
Uh, we can get into that later.
I think I've actually got aquestion about that, but we can
get into why politics andreligion are so hand in hand.
But if that's something that'ssuper passionate, the person's
worldview is based on theirbelief and their identity as a
(04:20):
Christian.
And I'm gonna use Christian alot because I'm an American.
I grew up in America.
Uh, I know people that are ofdifferent religions, but by and
large, America is mostlyChristians.
I'm not gonna say it's aChristian nation because we're
not by definition, but if youwant to look at the sheer
numbers, we have we're aChristian nation by sheer
(04:41):
numbers.
So, getting back to thisquestion, arguing with
Christians is pointless.
I do find it somewhat pointlessto argue and try to persuade
them.
And I guess they could say thesame thing about me.
They're trying to persuade methat there's a God, and they're
very often using the same tiredarguments that they've been
using for 2,000 years, um,they're not going to get very
(05:05):
far.
Me trying to persuade them theother way, is probably equally
fruitless, right?
Telling them that there's not aGod and that, and calling it
skydaddie and um trying tocondescend to them is really not
very helpful.
It doesn't, that doesn't pushthe conversation forward.
(05:27):
And then what it doesn't do, andwhich is something I'm trying to
figure out, and I don't know,I'm doing a good job at it, but
something I think that I wouldlike to do more of is find
middle ground.
Most of us are good,hardworking, warm-hearted
people.
We we have parents that we loveor they're getting older and we
(05:47):
want to take care of them.
If we have children, we havechildren that we'll we'll defend
to our last breath if we haveto.
Um, you know, we treat normal,everyday people with a level of
respect and dignity.
That's that's everybody in theworld.
That's not just Christians,that's not just atheists, it's
not just Buddhists and yada,yada, yada, name your you know,
(06:10):
pick your poison, so to speak.
So we have a lot more in commonthan we have that is not in
common.
So trying to persuade someoneand point out these things that
I disbelieve versus what theybelieve is it doesn't generally
get us anywhere.
I prefer to take more of a um,there's a good word for that.
(06:33):
I don't know if academics is theright word.
It makes me sound like I'm I'msaying I'm very smart, but I'd
like to point out things that,okay, this logically doesn't
make sense to me.
You're telling me that I'm gonnause this as a silly example, but
for the people that take theBible literally, you're telling
me that a guy lived in the bellyof a whale for three days.
Let's both recognize that'sillogical.
(06:56):
It's illogical based on the factthat this was a human being.
This is a human being who needsfood and water and air.
So living in the belly of awhale is impossible.
Now, if you're not the kind ofperson who takes that literal
and you you think that it meansit's like a metaphor for
something, okay, we can talkabout that.
But for the people that say, no,no, that actually happened,
(07:17):
you're suspending disbelief,right?
It's like watching a play.
I used to do a lot of theater.
You go to a play and you have tosuspend disbelief.
You have to suspend the factthat you see lights and you see
people and you see, you know,you're in an audience and you
see an orchestra or all theseother things.
You forget all that and try toput yourself in the play and you
really believe it's happening.
You've suspended disbelief.
(07:38):
It's the same thing sometimeswhen you talk about Christians
and some of the stories thatthey have, you have to suspend
that disbelief.
To me, that's illogical.
And I'd rather point, you know,that's an illogical statement.
You may believe it and you havefaith in that.
And if your faith carries youthrough the day, then that's
fine.
But for me, it's just soillogical.
(07:59):
I'm not going to argue thatyou're wrong, but I am going to
just let you know that I don'tsee the logic in that.
And thus far, as I've said,nobody has been able to convince
me that a human being can livefor three days in the belly of a
whale.
And that's just one example, butyou know, the talking snakes and
the burning bush, and there's alot of these kind of things in
(08:21):
the Bible that just seem veryillogical to me.
So, so this person's questionabout arguing with Christians is
pointless.
I think it's pointless from thatperspective.
Not because they're not smart,not because they can't grasp
things, not because they can'tbe logical.
It's just we're coming from suchopposite ends, especially with a
passionate person on both sides,that we're probably not going to
find a lot of middle ground.
(08:42):
So, sort of my point on thatone.
Here this is I this is aquestion.
I'm gonna be careful how I saythis because I've got family uh
that may be watching, butprobably not because they're
mostly Christians.
Uh, but this person's questionis do Christians ever stop
talking to you once they findout you're an atheist?
(09:04):
And I would say yes.
Unfortunately, two of my best,if and also worst, examples are
two family members.
Um, and again, I'm gonna kind ofbe evasive on who they are, um,
but I've grown up with boththose people.
And they're not my brother.
So I have two brothers, uh,natural brothers, I should say,
(09:27):
you know, biological brothers ofthe same mom and dad.
Um, it's not those two, butthese are other people I've
grown up with that I was aroundfor a very young, um, I'm 55, so
a long time ago.
And both of these people umdefinitely stopped talking to me
once that became known.
In fact, one of them sent me amessage on Facebook um and said,
(09:51):
I'm trying to remember exactlythe words because I still have
it as a uh as a screenshot.
The person said, atheist, likebig bold letters and exclamation
point, atheist.
That explains a lot, deleted.
And and that person was uhthat's what they did.
They deleted me.
And I had known that personsince uh that person was a
(10:13):
teenager.
And again, I'm 55 and they're55, 53 in that range, give or
take.
So I've known them 30 plusyears, um, been to many, many
family functions.
And you know, I'm still familywith the rest of the family.
Again, I'm being invasive, and Iknow that's a little maddening,
(10:34):
maybe, but uh I'm trying not topoint this person out so
specifically.
But the person stopped talkingto me, and then we haven't
talked since.
This was uh gosh, 10, 10, 10years ago, give or take.
Haven't talked to him since.
Um that's upsetting.
Um you know, I wouldn't havestopped talking to them because
they were a Christian because Iknow they're a Christian.
(10:55):
I I tell people all the time themajority of people I have ever
known, the majority of peopleI've ever loved, the majority of
people I will ever love areChristians.
Um, I have no problem with that.
I may disagree with theChristian lifestyle, but I don't
have a problem with them beingChristian.
Now, they may do things in thename of their Christianity that
(11:18):
I absolutely just can't abideby, but that's not the same as
saying, oh, you believe inJesus?
Well, we're never going to talkagain.
That I don't care.
As an atheist who is veryproudly atheist, I have a
channel about atheism.
So it's not like I'm trying tohide this.
I don't care what you believe.
(11:38):
If you're a Christian, you'reJewish, you're Buddhist, Muslim,
Scientologist, uh Mormon, uh, Idon't know, you again pick your
poison.
Some of them seem nuttier thanothers, but really, I don't
know.
Belly of a whale, is that anyworse than Scientology?
Give Scientology 2,000 years andit'll sound just as plausible as
(11:59):
Christianity.
I don't stop talking to thosepeople because they're
Christians.
Again, I may stop talking to youbecause of the things you do.
And if you're going to be theperson who holds up the King
James Bible and you flip throughit and you say, ah, because it
says right here in this book, Ican't talk to someone because
they're gay.
Well, you're an asshole.
(12:21):
That is that blunt enough?
You know, if you're stoppedtalking to someone because your
book says that they're doingsomething that you don't want to
do or you are not supposed todo, and you just stop talking to
them, that doesn't seem veryChristian-like as I understand
it, but unfortunately ithappens.
And unfortunately, there are alot of people, younger people, I
(12:44):
think I've got a question aboutthis as well, that put them,
they find themselves in a verydifficult position dealing with
family members and familymembers they may rely on, such
as parents, when they start togo through this deconstruction
journey and going from a levelof Christianity down back to,
and I say back to because wewere born as atheists, back to
(13:06):
atheism.
Sometimes that does not sit verywell with family, and it can be
very, very stressful.
Uh again, this person dropped mewhen I was in my 40s.
So is it gonna ruin my day?
Not really.
It was upsetting, but not thattraumatic.
Another person that we werenever super close, but we were
family members and closefamilies in the sense that we
(13:27):
saw each other a lot.
We just weren't particularlygreat, you know, buddies, so to
speak.
But that person also haven'tspoken to me in gosh, more than
that, 10, 15 years, probably.
And I think largely it's therewas a result of that.
Um, they've gotten actually muchmore radicalized uh as Christian
as they've gotten older, whichyou know that happens, and it's
(13:48):
unfortunate.
But uh, you know, what are yougonna do, right?
Let's see.
Here's another question.
I kind of alluded to thisearlier.
Um, do you guys hide the factthat you're an atheist?
And my answer is not today, butthat does not mean I haven't in
the past.
And there are times when I keepit somewhat quiet.
(14:10):
Meaning, um, I've got a goodfriend of mine that uh works
with me.
And um she's a she's a wonderfulwoman, and we're friends outside
of work.
We actually used to live withina mile or so of each other.
So we so we're friends.
My wife and she are friends, I'mfriends.
She's a great, great person.
Super Christian, superChristian.
She knows I'm an atheist.
We don't discuss it, but it'sreally because it's not a big
deal.
(14:30):
Does anybody else at work knowI'm an atheist?
No, no, it doesn't come up.
It has no reason to come up, butI also don't bring it up.
When someone says, hey, I'mgonna go to church on Sunday, or
they mention church, or they'reon a you know, Zoom call and
they're wearing a cross.
I don't point out that I don'tbelieve in that.
That'd be silly.
Why would I bring it up?
But I also don't, I mean, youcan see right here, I have
(14:52):
Atheistville as a poster in theback of my room because this is
the set that I use for thesevideos.
My other computer is right overthere, about four feet, and it
faces the opposite direction.
So the people on my Zoom callsor Teams calls, they don't see
that that sign.
They don't see that Atheistvillesign in my background.
Um, but let me take you back.
(15:14):
I first started becoming anatheist in the sense that you
know, I stopped believing thatthere is a God, again, based on
I saw no evidence, and I startedfeeling comfortable with that
fact, probably in my early 30s.
But I had two children.
My first child was born when Iwas 19.
My second child was born when wewere 27, same mother, same
(15:36):
woman.
I've been married to for 31years.
Um I and we grew up in theSouth.
I grew up in Florida, northernFlorida, very conservative, red.
Um, and I'm gonna say this,you'll think that I'm lying.
Uh, the highway from my house,from my front door to the
highway that I took every day togo to work was about a mile and
(15:58):
a half.
I passed four churches in thatmile and a half.
So this is the south.
Throw a rock, you're gonna hit achurch.
Throw two rocks and you're gonnahit two churches.
It's just the way it is downthere.
So I literally had to pass fourchurches on the way from my
front door just to get to thehighway, an umptain number of
them on the way to work, right?
(16:19):
So when you're in an environmentlike that, people are very judgy
about it.
I, you know, I hate to say itthat way, but unfortunately it's
reality.
Where do you go to church is aquestion that is often asked
very early on in anyget-to-know-you type of
conversation.
It's just gonna come up.
(16:39):
And I don't have a problem withthe question, but it's kind of
intrusive because, first of all,you're assuming, because you ask
about church, that I'm notJewish.
You're assuming that I am notBuddhist or I'm not Muslim.
I can guarantee you they areabsolutely assuming that I'm not
atheist, because that is notsomething that they would be
comfortable with.
(16:59):
So I had to make that decision.
Do I do I say, well, I'm anatheist, and then deal with that
to the random mom and dad thatis at the baseball park when my
son's you know in t-ball?
Uh do I do I handle thatconversation when you know my
(17:22):
daughter was in uh playingbasketball uh with those
parents?
Do I talk about that at theblock party?
I lived on a cul-de-sac, a verynice, friendly neighborhood and
friendly neighbors.
But do they know I was anatheist?
No, they do not.
Because I don't want, and andagain, I'm it's unfortunately I
have to say this, I don't wantthem to not let their kids play
(17:44):
with my kids or not be allowedto come to my house to swim in
our pool for the birthdayparties because their parents,
you know, meaning me, um, hisparent or her parent is a um is
an atheist.
And unfortunately, too manypeople make this silly
assumption.
If you're an atheist, you're adevil worshiper, which couldn't
(18:07):
be more illogical.
I I don't believe in God.
Why would I believe in hisex-bf, the devil?
But that's a very common trope,if you will, of misunderstanding
and uh just frankly ridiculous.
But again, I'm talking about mylittle babies, right?
They're little kids.
And do I want thesenarrow-minded parents to say,
(18:27):
you know, I'm not gonna let youcome over and play with um that
child because his dad's anatheist, he's a devil worshiper.
You can't go into a house likethat.
And you might think that's beinga little hyperbolic, but I used
to sit next to a woman at anoffice, this is gosh,
20-something years ago.
Um, and we moved from one nextsection of the office to a
different floor or a differentsection.
(18:49):
And her extension on her phone,back when we all had phones on
our desk, was something 666.
She she refused to use thatdesk.
They had to change the phoneline and change the phone.
So this is the kind of people wedeal with sometimes in the
South.
I mean, she would not sit in adesk because the extension of
four digits was six digits,which you know, every thousand
(19:12):
numbers, that's gonna happenagain.
So uh, you know, whatever.
But so I did hide that for avery long time.
And it really wasn't until mykids were my youngest was in his
teens.
He's the youngest one.
He was in his teens, he was oldenough to deal with any sort of
ramification.
He had his own friends, he hadhis own car.
You know, I wasn't worried aboutpeople not coming over to the
(19:34):
house because I am an atheist.
Um, so at that point, I started,you know, when hell with it.
I'm just gonna tell people whatI tell them.
But even then, again, I don'tbring it up just randomly
because it's just it's not thatimportant.
And people are gonna think,well, Mike, you have a show
about atheism.
I do, but I can guarantee you,after this thing is done, this
video that I'm doing right now,and this audio uh podcast I'm
(19:56):
doing right now, once I'm doneand I maybe spend some time
editing it, I won't think aboutatheism at all until I do my
next one.
I I just don't, it's notsomething that defines me, but
it is a trait and it's part ofmy personality, I guess.
So hope they answered that one.
Uh, let's see here.
(20:17):
Oh, this one is from YouTube.
So this is at Adam Marshall.
I'm gonna read these namesbecause this is these are public
names.
These other ones, um, theyweren't necessarily public, but
this is public on my YouTubechannel.
So if it's someone who made acomment publicly on my YouTube
channel, I'm assuming theywanted their information out
there.
They put it publicly.
So this is Adam Marshall uh P1D.
(20:40):
Um, that's a weird name, but atAdam Marshall P1D, uh, he says,
you know, you're going to hell,right?
Thanks, Adam.
Thanks for checking in, man.
Uh, I guess I'm going to hell.
Um, Adam might be surprised whenhe sees me there, quite frankly.
So if I've been told that once,I've been told that a thousand
(21:04):
times.
Anyways, thanks, Adam, forchecking in.
So, next question (21:08):
how do you tell your Christian mother that,
or this person, how do I tell myChristian mother that I'm an
atheist?
So, I'm gonna address that thesame way I told my mother, who
is also a Christian.
Now, my mother is odd.
Um, and mom, if you'relistening, this isn't anything.
I still love you, but my motherwas raised episcopal, and I was
raised episcopal.
(21:29):
Episcopal is what I would callcasual Christian, right?
Very casual.
As a little boy, um, you know,we would go to church on Sundays
and we go to Sunday school, andthen I would sit through the
sermon.
And we always talk aboutEpiscopal, it's the smells and
the bells, right?
If you've been episcopal oryou're Catholic, you know what
smells and bells are, right?
But after that, we would comehome on Sunday afternoon or you
(21:52):
know, whatever, and I go out andplay with my friends or ride my
bikes and you know, run aroundthe woods because we lived up in
Pennsylvania, and I wouldn'tthink about church until next
Sunday.
Um, maybe when I was a littleboy, I would pray, like I'm
talking about four or five, butat some point I didn't do that.
And then if we had big eventslike Easter or, you know,
Thanksgiving or something, thenall the family came.
(22:12):
Then we would pray beforedinner.
But we didn't, we really justdidn't do much of that.
But then we moved back toFlorida and my mom remarried.
And the man that she's beenmarried to now for Josh, since I
was 15.
So when is that 40 years now?
He's very Southern Baptist.
And subsequently, she's becomevery Southern Baptist.
(22:34):
And now they're the type thatpray at McDonald's, and she
works at the church part-time,and you know, everything
revolves around the church.
Now, she's also 75 years old,and you get to that point, and
you know, you're trying to findthe last bit of your friends
because they keep dying it off,dying off, quite frankly.
And church is a good place tointeract and it's very social,
and I understand all that, butshe's also very Christian now,
(22:58):
and it bothers her that I'm anatheist, and I'm sure she's
fearing for my soul.
But I had to let her know, youknow, I'm a grown man, and I
understand you don't agree withit, and I understand that you
are genuinely concerned, andbecause you're genuinely
concerned for me, maybe not likeAdam was, where you're just
(23:18):
gonna say, Hey, you're going tohell, she's genuinely concerned.
Okay, I can appreciate that, andI know that she is sincere about
that, but there's a point whereyou just have to say, This is
the life I'm living, and youdon't have to like it.
Um, when my son was uh ateenager, and and um I had
(23:40):
already gone through this withmy daughter, who's seven years
older, um, I would tell otherfriends of mine that your kids
are about to leave the house.
If they're 13 or they're 18, theday they leave the house is
coming really fast, right?
And you, as their parent, are nolonger in charge of their life.
You want to be and you want tosteer them in the right
(24:02):
direction, but you're not.
And the further they get awayfrom those days at your house,
the more those decisions aremaybe not in any way aligned
with what you want them to be,because that's what we do.
We raise them up and we let themgo.
And we hope that they've giventhem enough information that
they can make good decisions andthey don't hurt themselves in
some way.
(24:23):
But they have to make theirdecisions.
And my mom does not like thefact that I'm an atheist.
She does not like the fact thatmy daughter is basically
non-religious.
I don't know if she'd say she'san atheist, but she just doesn't
care one way or the other.
That probably bothers my mom.
But you usually gotta you justgotta tell them at some point.
(24:43):
Now, I go back to my otherpoint.
I don't just tell people thisrandomly.
So if your mom doesn't ask, whocares?
Don't tell her.
What's the point?
There's really I who cares?
I it's just not a big deal.
If your mom asks, or if your momis insisting on you do
something, you gotta come tochurch with me on Sunday.
No, I really don't.
It's not my thing.
You have to do it.
(25:03):
At some point, you're like, no,I don't want to because I'm an
atheist, and this is not uhsomething I'm really comfortable
doing anymore, and I know thatyou like it.
Now, I say all that and say thatwhen my niece was baptized, I
went.
Um, and she got baptized older,I don't even know what she was
now, um, 11, 12, 13, somethingalong that line, because she was
(25:26):
baptist and you get baptizedlater in life.
I went because that's a big dealto her.
Wasn't a big deal to me.
I wasn't uncomfortable sittingthere, but I'm not gonna go for
the sermon.
I'm gonna go for her, right?
I've been to uh um uh is it abot mitzvah, right?
Uh for uh for a Jewish girl.
My daughter had a friend who uhhad a bot mitzvah, and I went to
(25:49):
the service.
I had never been to a Jewishservice, so that was actually
quite interesting to me.
Am I gonna go every Saturday?
Uh no, but it was interesting.
If a if someone dies, I'm goingto a wedding in January, you
know, and I go to that weddingat a church.
Um, is that gonna bother me?
Not at all.
Again, if someone dies, is itgonna bother me going to a
church?
Not at all.
(26:09):
But I'm not gonna go for fun forfun, you know, to hear the
sermon and really absorb theword of Jesus.
I'm not doing that.
So it's kind of a long way tosay at some point, if they're
insisting on you telling them orinsisting on you sort of
exposing that side of you, yougotta do it.
And unfortunately, as I kind ofalluded to, that may cause
(26:33):
tension.
But here's my thought on that.
That tension's coming from them,it's not coming from you.
You simply said, This is theperson that I am.
You're not saying you hate them,you're not saying you don't want
to be friends with them or tolove them or interact with them
in any way.
You're not the one saying that.
If they have a tension and theyhave a problem with you being an
(26:54):
atheist, realize the problem ison them and it is not your job
to make them satisfied or toappease them in some way.
I that's where I have to drawthe line.
Like, no, no, we don't have totalk about it, we don't have to
get in deep conversations aboutit.
But don't guilt trip me into umplaying by your rules and
(27:18):
pretending and cosplaying as ifI'm a believer, simply so you
feel better, so you sleep betterat night.
So that's sort of my two centson that.
You know what?
I'm gonna give one more fairlybrief thing.
I think this comes up later, butin case it doesn't, the caveat
to that would be if you're 15,you're 16, 18 years old, or
(27:40):
whatever the case is, you'reliving at home and you know your
parents will flip the F out,maybe keep it to yourself.
And I know that goes againsteverything I, as a 55-year-old
man, wants to say, but thereality is if you're 16 years
old, you can't live on your own,right?
(28:01):
You have to sort of hide thingsto get along until you can be on
your own.
And that is again, that's aterrible truth to have to deal
with, but unfortunately, it'sreal.
And I'm gonna make a segue tothat.
When my daughter came out as alesbian when she was about
17-ish or so, she was still inhigh school, 11th grade, do or
(28:24):
take.
Um, she came out to the rightpeople.
My wife and I are very like,okay, whatever, past the
potatoes.
We don't care.
Sort of knew this was, anyways.
And I also was doing a lot oftheater.
So when I say a lot of thepeople I knew, it sounds like
one of those black things, likeone of my best friends is black.
Well, when I say most of myfriends were gay, I I'm not even
joking.
Most of my friends were in thetheater, and trust me, the
(28:47):
theater, that's one industrywhere gay people have it fairly
locked up.
If you're not comfortable withgay people, the theater is not
for you.
But because of that, we knew somany gay people of all stripes.
It didn't phase us when she cameout.
She also realized she was in asafe space.
So after she came out, I wouldwake up and there'd be a kid
(29:09):
sleeping on my couch.
And I'm like, who's the kid onthe couch?
She's like, Well, that's X my,you know, XYZ.
Um, he goes to school and hisparents found out he was gay and
they kicked him out, which wouldinfuriate me and want me to make
me want to protect that kid.
It would infuriate me becausethis kid's 16, 17, whatever he
was, he was in high school andthey kicked him out because they
(29:31):
found out he was gay.
That's it.
Not that he killed a guy, youknow, not that he out there and
you know attacking nuns.
He simply uh has feelings forthe same sex, or she had
feelings for the same sex,whatever the case may be.
Yeah, that's that is notcomfortable.
So unfortunately, those werealmost those were 100%.
(29:53):
You're gonna disagree with me,maybe those were 100% decisions
based on religion and the sametype of The person who would
kick their child out for beinggay is the same person who'd
also stop talking to you if itcame out that you're an atheist.
So if you're in that positionand you don't have a safe place
to go, keep it to yourself.
And I and again, I don't want tosay that, but being pragmatic,
(30:17):
as I often am, um, keep that toyourself until you're able to
move out and live on your own,and then do that as quickly as
possible and move to a big town,a city, someplace where you're
not the only one where you canfind other people that uh will
make up your tribe.
(30:39):
Let's see, what's another goodconstruction uh question here?
Um this is a good question, butis religion a necessary form of
comfort?
Um, but I understand why peoplemight think that.
Um again, I would take exceptionwith the word necessary.
(31:02):
It is absolutely not necessaryas a form of comfort.
Can it be a form of comfort?
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
If you are religious and youhave a family member die, then
you are comforted by the factthat you will see them again.
That's incredibly comforting.
(31:23):
I can't imagine losing, say, achild and thinking, well, that's
it.
That if that's going to happen,no my God, I hope that doesn't
happen to me.
But that happens to people, andthose people, if they're an
atheist, they don't believethey'll see that child again.
So however they left it withthat child or that time that
(31:43):
they had with that child, it'sover.
That's not particularlycomforting.
It's reality, and reality isn'tcomforting.
Would it be better to believethat I'm gonna see my
grandparents again who werelovely people?
Yes.
My dad died two, three yearsago, I guess, at this point.
Would it be good to see himagain?
Of course it would be.
(32:04):
It's not gonna happen though.
So for me as an atheist, once Icame to that conclusion that
there is no God, therefore thereis no heaven, I'm not gonna see
these people anymore.
It um it does sort of make youfeel bad at first until you sort
of work this through your brainand you realize, okay, but I had
(32:25):
X amount of years with them.
You know, I those people were inmy life, and I can think back
about that.
Um I I can I can deal with that.
Another side of this, outside ofdeath, you know, when something
bad happens to you, um, it'svery comforting, I'm sure, to
say, well, God has a plan, andthis is part of a plan.
And and the implication there isthat there's a reason for this,
(32:48):
and that reason is going to berevealed to me, and it's and
likely again, it's going to getbetter.
That's probably very comforting.
I can't think that.
In fact, and this is where Ithink sometimes not being
religious makes me a bitstronger, and and I'm and I know
that's gonna come across wrong,and I don't mean it to sound
(33:09):
arrogant, but not thinking thatthere's a master plan, thinking
specifically that whatever'shappening to me right now is a
result of a lot of decisions Imade or unfortunate decisions
that other people made that havenow affected me in some way.
The reality is tomorrow when Iwake up, that decision or that
(33:32):
circumstance will still bethere.
And it's up to me to get myselfout of it.
Now, getting myself out of itmight mean I need to lean on
other people or I need to reachout to groups of people or
whatever the case may be, butnonetheless, I can't just wait
around for it to get better onits own or trust that it's all
gonna work out because there's amaster plan.
That master plan is always in myfavor.
(33:54):
No, I have to dig deeper andsay, okay, I don't like this
situation.
What can I do to change it?
And then set about doing that.
So again, that's um, yeah,that's that's that's tough
sometimes, but I don't thinkthat religion is necessary.
I I think it is comforting whenyou want it, and I give people a
(34:16):
great amount of leeway.
If they are going through someseveral some level of grief, and
they say that the um that theLord helped them get through
that, more power to you.
If that's what helped you getthrough it and helped you get up
on the next day and go on aboutyour life, I'm fine with that.
It doesn't bother me at all.
(34:37):
I find atheists that point thattake opportunities to point out,
you know, there is no God.
When someone says, um, you know,that that God healed me.
I don't like that statement, butI don't point that out because
it's kind of an asshole thing tosay.
Like, right, what you know,we're not having that discussion
right now.
The person's glad my wife wentthrough cancer four or five
(34:58):
years ago.
People came out of the woodwork,all of our old friends and our
family, people that aren't theatheists, like, oh, God is so
great.
I'm so thankful.
I prayed for you.
Thank you so much.
I appreciate it because I knowyou're being sincere.
I don't believe God had anythingto do with it, but I understand
you do, and that's a very nicething.
It would be an asshole thing ofme to do, would be to point out
and say, Well, God didn't haveanything to do it.
(35:19):
It was the doctor.
Did I feel like saying thatsometimes when it's the
umpteenth time I've heard it andI'm getting a little frustrated
and we're going through all thestress of having cancer?
Yes.
Time and place.
Pick your battles.
That's not the place.
Uh, let's see here.
What do we got?
Um, this is a little bit of alonger question here.
(35:42):
I'm gonna try to read this.
So I did a mic drop, which isagain something else I do.
Look on um the YouTube channeland here on this podcast channel
for something I call the micdrop.
Uh, cleverly named because I'mMike, right?
I usually do those onWednesdays.
And I did one about a um about alawsuit or um a case, I should
(36:05):
say, I guess, that the SupremeCourt has heard.
They heard it on October 7th, Iwant to believe.
Um, there's a woman in Colorado,she's a therapist, she's a
Christian therapist, and she'sarguing that therapy is uh
protected speech.
So when she's trying to convertgay kids to being straight
through conversion therapy, thatshe should be allowed to do that
(36:28):
because that's truly a freedomof speech issue and a religious
issue.
So I made a whole mic drop aboutthat.
Go back and check that out.
I'll see if I can drop a link tothat in the show notes.
But um, I obviously woulddisagree with that because
therapy, the speech in therapyis not speech like me standing
on the street corner.
(36:49):
That's not the same thing.
I'm actively trying to healsomeone with my words.
And uh that there's moreresponsibility than just to say,
oh, I can say anything you want.
Not to mention that conversiontherapy is fraud.
Flat out, full stop, it's fraud.
It does not work, and it'sactually quite harmful.
And the kids that are putthrough that uh suffer greatly,
(37:12):
and it doesn't work.
But this person, uh, what's hername?
Dale Hammer4425.
He says, please explain.
I hate to read this, but here wego.
He says, If I'm so backwards,now we had an exchange back and
forth, and I said his thoughtswere a little backwards.
He says, if I'm so backwards,then please explain to me how
trans kids, especially, are sucha massively small, uh, small
(37:35):
minority, yet you are findingfamilies with every child being
trans.
Okay, that's point one.
Why are liberal cities andliberal city schools and states
have so much higher rates ofnon- I'm gonna read that again.
Uh his language here.
Why are liberal city schools andstates having much higher rates
(37:56):
of it than non-liberal areas?
So higher rates of trans go toliberal schools in liberal
cities?
Why are the areas with the mostliberal teaching have the most
trans kids?
Why are the numbers of LGBTrising at an astronomical number
compared to the past?
(38:16):
I hope you can his language is alittle funky there, but
essentially, let me boil thisdown.
How come you find more transkids and more gay kids and gay
people in general in liberalareas?
Because we don't beat them up.
That's it.
That is that's uh I rememberwhen Trump then we were going
(38:39):
through COVID, and Trump said,you know, if we didn't test as
much, we wouldn't find as muchuh COVID.
Yeah, yeah, duh.
Uh, you know, if I didn't walkoutside, I'd never know if
there's sun out there.
I mean, you know, I yeah,there's more gay people and
trans people in liberal areasbecause they feel comfortable
coming out.
(39:00):
Not that they're not gay peoplein red conservative areas,
they're there.
If you live in Mississippi rightnow, there are gay people in
your neighborhood, but they'renot coming out because you drive
around in a big Bubba truck anda rebel flag hanging off the
back and you say you hate gaypeople.
Why on earth would that gay manor that gay woman or that trans
(39:22):
kid, why would they come out?
They can come here to Chicagoand they can be out all day
long.
Nobody cares.
I just went down to get my watchrepaired about uh, I don't know,
two blocks from where I live.
I live in an area called BoysTown.
It's called Lakeview, but it'straditionally been called Boys
Town.
It's a traditional gayneighborhood.
I went down there to get a watchbattery, and I, you know, if
(39:46):
everybody there was gay, I don'tknow.
I mean, some people were gay,some people maybe not, but it's
called Boys Town.
It's a very gay neighborhood.
Nobody cares.
Nobody cares.
Let two men walk down the streetholding hands and kiss each
other goodbye in Mississippi orLouisiana or Georgia.
Yeah, that's not gonna happen.
In Chicago, nobody cares.
(40:08):
So it's not that there are moregay people in liberal areas,
they just feel comfortable andthey don't fear for their
safety.
That was a silly question, butuh, what was your name again?
Dale Hammer.
Uh, you know, it gave me a goodopportunity to address uh some
kind of truly ridiculousthoughts there.
(40:29):
That one still makes me justchuckle because it's so dumb.
Uh, let's see.
What's another one?
Oh, here we go.
Another YouTube uh person,Frankly Farcicle.
Kind of like that name, FranklyFarcicle.
I pray that you find Jesus, myfriend.
God bless you.
Well, thank you, FranklyFarcicle.
I I I don't have a problem withthat.
(40:51):
Thanks for praying for me, man.
Uh, you know, again, you'repraying to a God I don't believe
in, but I think you're sincere.
I think you truly think thatwill help me.
And I don't have a problem withthat at all.
So no problem with that one.
Uh, let's see here.
This this was uh this is gonnabe maybe harder to explain, but
those of you that are atheists,uh, you'll you'll understand
(41:11):
this.
And I read two or three commentstoday, in fact, on my YouTube
channel, and they're all in thissort of thing.
Um, the person says, one thingthat always astounds me is the
utmost confidence with whichsome Christians will tell an
atheist what atheists believe.
That happens all the time.
I have had so many people tellme, atheists believe this.
(41:32):
Like, that's not even true.
Um, atheists don't believe halfthe things you say.
First of all, uh, yeah, we don'tall believe that the Big Bang
started everything.
Most of us probably do becauseit's a pretty well
scientifically uh understoodfact, but I'm not a cosmologist.
I have no idea.
(41:52):
Um if if that's what uh a lot ofvery, very smart people who've
studied this for decadesbelieve.
I'm gonna take their word forit.
I don't know if I believe it ornot, but okay.
Um, do atheists believe that uhthe devil is somehow worth
worshiping?
Uh no, we absolutely do not.
Um, do atheists believe, I'mtrying to think what else the
person was saying this morning,that uh do atheists have no
(42:15):
morality because we believe thatwe can uh just kill and maim and
rape people at will, and nobodycares.
No, we absolutely do not believethat.
Uh that that's ridiculous.
But I've been told that I'm toldthat almost every day, in some
form or fashion, that uh we haveno morals, atheists have no
(42:35):
morals, so we can feel free todo all those horrible things.
Penn Gillette says, I do do allthose horrible things as much as
I want, and the amount that Iwant is zero.
It's it's a whole ridiculousstatement, but um a lot of
people believe that.
It's in it's insane to me.
This one, I almost didn't put itin here because Charlie Kirk is
(42:58):
still, you know, the fervor overCharlie Kirk has somewhat died
down, but he's obviously notgone anywhere in terms of the
public consciousness.
Um, but this person made a verygood point, and I thought it was
worth bringing up.
Uh he says the Charlie Kirkworship has made me realize how
quickly someone's memory can bealtered by a sudden, perceived
(43:19):
anyway, tragedy and how we maynever know what the real Jesus
was like.
And I thought that was actuallya really good point.
I was vaguely aware of CharlieKirk.
I actually made a video or twoon Charlie Kirk.
We talked about it in the UnholyRoundtable.
Um, and when he died, we weactually made a very quick uh
live about that live streamabout that.
(43:42):
But I was only vaguely aware ofhim.
I knew who he was, and I knewwhat side of the fence he was
on, I knew he was a provocateur,but I really just I didn't dig
deep in because I kind of knewenough to like, okay, I this
isn't a guy I nearly need tofollow or get too deep into.
Since then, of course, I've seena lot of things that are
disturbing, um, let's say theleast.
(44:02):
But what I did find is as soonas he was killed, and I'm gonna
go ahead and state this just forthe people so they don't flip
the fuck out.
As soon as he was killed, um, hehe should not have been killed.
He was simply speaking, andspeech, whether you dislike it
or not, is protected.
I made a whole video on hatespeech, and a lot of people on
(44:24):
my side of the aisle, veryliberal people, would say that,
you know, hate speech againstgay people or this, that, and
the other should be protected.
I disagree.
You can argue with me.
If you're a liberal, you canargue with me, but I disagree.
Hate speech is speech.
I I it's basically full stop.
There's very few exceptions tothe hate speech.
And if I don't like your speech,my option is to push back on
(44:47):
your speech with better ideas orto cancel you in any way that I
feel is good.
Murdering you is not one ofthose.
I cannot buy your book, I cannotwatch your TV show, I cannot go
listen to your speeches orwhatever the case may be.
I cannot be friends with you.
I can ignore the fact that youlive next door.
I can do all of that, but itshouldn't harm you because your
(45:11):
speech, because your speech isas protected as my speech.
And if we start limiting yourspeech, you're gonna limit my
speech, and I don't want that.
So I'm a very free speech kindof guy.
But getting back to thisperson's question, as soon as
Charlie Kirk was murdered, thedeification of him was unreal.
(45:32):
I had never seen that level.
This man went from, again,provocateur who made a lot of
really terrible comments, tobasically sitting at the right
hand of God, maybe at the lefthand, because I'm assuming Jesus
on the right hand, and now wegot Charlie Kirk on the left
hand.
I that's that was veryfascinating to me.
(45:55):
Um the whitewashing of thethings he has said that were
terrible, that's that's this hasbeen two months, I guess, since
he's been killed.
That's been whitewashed as muchas possible.
Um oddly enough, and I'm gonnasay this the bad things he says
or has have said have been triedto be downplayed by the right
(46:18):
and people that love him.
Although I do not see a lot ofgood things he said.
Usually when someone dies, thatbecomes a martyr-like type of
figure.
You're you're inundated with allthese great quotes.
You know, you can read thesequotes.
I can read um the the quotes uhfrom Martin Luther King.
I I can read these good quotes.
(46:40):
I don't see these for CharlieKirk.
In fact, there was a famous uhuh service for him recently, I
can't remember what it was, andthey had an AI um speech that
was supposed, you know, in hisvoice, in his style.
Dude, if you have to go to AI tocreate a speech that sounds like
him because you don't havespeeches that are him, that's a
(47:04):
problem.
Okay.
But the person's second pointhere, it made them suddenly
realize how we may never knowwhat the real Jesus was like.
Charlie Kirk's image has beenchanged in a month, two-month
period.
2,000 years?
If there was a real Jesus, andI'm not 100% convinced, I'm not
(47:24):
a scholar of that sort of thing,but let's assume, let's assume
there was a real guy namedJesus, whatever he was actually
called.
But there's a real guy who fitthat role.
Was he the Jesus that we know?
Was he walking on water andturning things into fish and
making wine out of water?
No, he wasn't doing any of that.
(47:46):
But 2,000 years later, thatseems very plausible, right?
Those are good stories to tell.
If Charlie Kirk, I hope thisdoesn't happen, but if Charlie
Kirk's memory gets sowhitewashed that he is literally
held up as a saint a year fromnow and five years from now, and
10 years from now, what is goingto be attributed to him that
(48:06):
never happened?
Probably a lot.
Um, and that's unfortunatebecause I don't expect people to
be perfect.
I'm not perfect, nobody'sperfect.
You can be a very, very goodperson on one hand and do some
very bad things and make somevery bad comments in the other.
But at some point, those thingsdo swap when your bad comments
(48:28):
and bad thoughts become you knowthe thing that you kind of
looked at and you're like,that's that's who this person
was.
They do tend to outweigh thegood things you may have done,
or they belie your your internalum thoughts.
That's not good, and that's kindof where I put Charlie Kirk
right now.
But I don't know, ask me againin 20 years what Charlie Kirk's
(48:48):
uh Charlie Kirk's memory islike, and I bet I I don't know.
We'll see what I say then,right?
This is a good question.
This is a this is a funnyquestion.
It really is, and it's a cute,just they try to make a little
cute point.
What are Christian nationalists,and I rail on Christian
nationalists all the time, butwhat are Christian nationalists
going to do with the enormousnumber of foreigners in heaven?
(49:11):
Uh I like that question.
I like that question a lotbecause presumably
Christianity's got, I don'tknow, two billion people in the
world of all over the world.
Christians have been very goodat colonizing chunks of the
world and making them intoChristians, sometimes at the end
of a whip, but they've done it.
Well, those people are alsogoing to go to heaven.
And all these Christiannationalists that live here in
(49:33):
the United States who just cheerwith just pure glee that ICE
agents are trying to throw outthe foreigners out of freaking
Nebraska.
They they round them up at theirjob site.
So they go to the court wherethey're doing things legally and
trying to become citizens, andthey round them up and they
chuck them out of the country.
What are these people gonna dowhen they get to heaven?
(49:55):
And the first person they meetis Jose Vasquez.
And Jose is like, hey man,thanks for coming.
I was the guy you deported.
Um, a lot of confused people inheaven.
A lot of shocked and confused.
It's worth me believing in Godjust to go to heaven and see
that play out.
Oh my goodness.
(50:17):
Oh, goodness.
Let's talk about a seriousquestion.
What do you say to someone who'sdying?
Um this is a tough one.
This is a tough one, and I lie.
I lie.
It depends on who it is, I guessI should say.
If this person is a we talkedabout my mom earlier, if my mom
(50:37):
is dying and I have to fly downto Florida and be with her on
her last days, and if it makesher feel better to say she's
gonna be with Jesus, I'm all in.
I will cosplay that to the lastbreath she takes.
What does it hurt me to do that?
It's not betraying who I am, sheknows who I am.
(50:58):
It's like telling yourgrandmother that she looks old
and wrinkly.
Who would do that?
You don't say that.
You say, no, grandma, you lookbeautiful.
You look so young.
You know, you're 85 years young.
People say this kind of stuff,right?
Maybe it's a bit condescending,but you know, um, but but people
get it.
You're not gonna tell an85-year-old woman that she looks
(51:18):
old and wrinkly, and her, youknow, she looks bent over and
saggy.
You know, you're not gonna tella guy in a wheelchair, oh, your
legs don't work.
He freaking knows that, right?
There are some things, there'sno point in saying it, right?
So if someone's dying andthey're a believer, and this is
where they came from, I don'tmind cosplaying that.
I don't mind it.
(51:39):
If they know that I fully don'tbelieve it, if they make a
comment, it's like, you know, Idon't believe, but I know you
do, and that's enough.
And if you believe you're gonnabe there, then I I wish you
every good thing.
And the other part I would tellpeople, and my friend Larry
Warren brought this up, uh, isthat I will remember you.
I will, and I will repeat yourname occasionally.
(52:01):
I'll try not to let your memoryslip from my memory, right?
In fact, my wife and I weretalking about a woman the other
day, a woman that I worked withwho died quite young.
She was probably in her 30s.
She died of cancer, and we werejust just she popped in my
memory the other day.
And I thought every once in awhile she'll pop up on Facebook.
Someone must wish her a happybirthday.
I mean, they know she's died,but and her Facebook profile
(52:23):
pops up.
And it's a way for me to to toremember, like, yeah, Kelly, I I
do remember you.
You were a nice woman, and wewere friends, we were peers, we
worked together.
You were a nice woman.
I always liked you.
So I'll I'll do that.
And you know, it maybe that'scomforting, maybe it's not.
I don't know.
But I sincerely do, I I will, Iwill try to remember your name,
(52:43):
and I'll remember you, and I'llremember the good times we had
together.
And that's the legacy you canleave.
You know, you can you can createa legacy where people fondly
look back at you, and even if itwas just a you know a brief time
they knew you, they think, yeah,but that guy was a really good
guy, or he was funny, or youknow, she was a just a barrel of
laughs, and then we always had agood time when we got together,
(53:03):
or she always made me feel good.
You know, that that's fine.
If that's what people say to mewhen I'm dying, I'll be I'll be
happy as a clam, as they say.
I don't know why clams arehappy, but that's what they say.
Uh let's see, what are we gonnado?
I think I saw that question.
Um, so here's a uh I'm gonna lettwo questions and then I'm gonna
(53:29):
run.
I'm gonna wrap this up.
Um, this is actually there's aspecific question, at least that
I saw it, and I thought, oh,this is very, very specifically
me.
The person said, Why don'thumanist humanist or secular
meetups or atheist meetups, whydon't they seem to last?
Um and I would say there is abit of herding cats kind of
(53:50):
concept there.
Atheists, um, I and I'm and letme preface this.
I have a group here in Chicago,uh, then I'm an admin with a
couple other people, my wife andsome friends of ours, we're an
admin of a local atheist group.
Now, just saying that has sentsome atheists running for the
hills.
They heard that my brother wouldbe one of them.
(54:10):
Like, why do I want to gettogether with atheists?
You don't have to.
Nobody's asking to do that.
But a lot of people, when theyleft church, and I say
Christianity again, that's whereI'm familiar with, when they
lost that and they gave it upbecause they became an atheist,
they also lost their socialnetworks.
They lost their friends, theylost the families, they lost
(54:31):
that Sunday afternoon, you know,the potluck that happened after
church.
They lost that pancake breakfastthat happened every you know
quarter.
They lost the men's group or thewomen's group or the prayer
group or the choir prayer, allthese things that were very
social in nature.
If you're a social person likeme, then those are very
important because that's how youget out and you get out amongst
(54:52):
people that have a similarmentality.
But once you start to switch andonce you realize I don't believe
any of this anymore, you startto feel like a fraud, right?
You start to say, I can't go toBible class, even though I like
John a lot, and Mary and Lisaare great women, and and brother
Johnson is a fantastic guy, andhe'd give you the shirt off his
(55:13):
back.
I like all those people.
I just can't spend an hour and ahalf reading a book that I just
don't believe in anymore.
So there are groups out therelike ours here in Chicago.
The the um the atheist, uh, wehave we call it the uh atheist
republic, the atheist republicof Chicago.
We are a group.
(55:34):
We encourage people to come.
We do meetups.
In fact, uh, what is today, the18th?
So on the 25th, and it dependson when you're watching this,
may not have any or listening tothis, may not matter to you, but
here at the end of the month,let me just put it that way, I'm
having a party at my house.
Now we have about 20 peoplealready scheduled to come, all
from that group.
And that's 20 without their plusones.
(55:55):
That so we'll get another, youknow, five or 10 people.
We'll have 30-something peoplehere at our apartment because
they are the social people andthey want that social
interaction and they know theycan come here.
And because atheists tend tohave very overlapping things, we
all have a very, all is not theright word, but a lot of us have
(56:15):
a very similar politicalperspective.
Um, we have difference of uh wehave um similar views on on just
interacting with other people inthe world, how we raise our
children.
We're obviously atheists, sothat colors a lot of things.
If you're a social person like Iam, it's nice to find a group
where you're like, ah, I canrelax.
(56:36):
I don't have to pretend thatthere's a Jesus.
Um, calling back to one of thefirst questions I answered on
this, I don't have to pretend orkeep it quiet that I'm an
atheist.
I can just say, yeah, I'm notgonna go to Sunday school
tomorrow.
I'm not gonna go to churchtomorrow.
I'm gonna watch TV all morninglong because I can, because I
don't believe.
You don't have to hide that.
So we do those groups.
But again, my group here is 600and something people large.
(57:00):
Again, I'll get 30 people.
So um, but if I had a churchthat had 600 members, I'd get
500 members, right?
Because the passion of atheismis not the same as the passion
of Christianity or the passionof being a Christian.
Um, at the same time, to bequite frankly, there's no threat
if I if you don't come to anatheist meetup, you're not gonna
(57:22):
go to hell.
You're not gonna spend eternitysuffering because you didn't
come to our atheist meetup atthe bar.
You know, you just it's not.
So I don't have a big stick towield and say you got to come to
our atheist meetup.
I don't have that.
So um I wish more people wouldcome.
I love it when we go.
We try to do these, we try to doit monthly, usually turns into
(57:42):
every month or two.
I love those.
They're so much fun.
I enjoy meeting new people.
And it's fun to meet new peoplethat are newly converted to
being atheism, uh, to be anatheist.
I love it.
But if you want to start one inyour area, I urge people to go
to like something like Reddit orMeetup or Facebook and find
other atheists in your area.
(58:03):
Um, Reddit has a bunch ofsubreddits for atheism.
Go in there and put in your townor the next biggest town.
You know, if you're in in Texasand you live anywhere near
Dallas, put in Dallas Atheist orgo to an atheist group and put
in the word Dallas.
Find those people and say, youknow, I'm thinking about doing a
little bit of a meetup, youknow, with with two of you or
(58:23):
three of you or four of you,whatever.
Would you guys want to meet atthe Denny's, you know, on Sunday
morning since we're all notgoing to church?
If you get two people that showup, and it's just three of you,
that's fine.
And our meetings are very, verysocial.
They're not agenda-driven.
We're not like bringing the uhthe book of Dawkins and reading
through it and like, but Dawkinssays this, or let's all sit down
(58:44):
and watch a Christopher Hitchensvideo together.
Ours are just social.
We just know that we we havethis shared interest.
So that's why we do it.
I always tell people when theyfirst time coming to our
meetings, don't expect us toagree on anything else that you
agree with.
Um, and don't expect us to talkabout atheism the all time.
Because if you just saw a coolmovie, tell me about that.
(59:06):
You know, if your kid justgraduated, tell me about that.
If you just got a brand new cat,I want to hear about it because
my cat is, what is she?
Can you see it?
She's right there.
Damn it.
However, I do this.
There he is.
That's the top of her rightthere.
Um, that's my cat.
I love my cat.
Um, tell me about your cat.
I'm I'm thrilled to talk aboutit.
If you want to talk aboutatheism or your deconstruction,
(59:28):
we'll talk about that too.
That's fine.
But I would encourage people tohave to get together with other
atheists and talk aboutwhatever.
Some people don't want to go toan agenda.
They don't want to go to ameeting, they just want to chill
and hang out with some peoplethat they know aren't going to
bite their head off or or uhbrowbeat them for not going to
church.
And this is especially true ifyou're in a small southern town
(59:50):
or some rural part of America.
Try to find the nearest largertown.
You're gonna find more of us.
Kind of goes back to my otherquestion you're gonna find more
of us that are willing to beout.
We're all there.
There's atheists in every town,but you're gonna be more likely
to find the ones that are outand willing to say they're
atheists in a um in a biggercity.
And my final question.
(01:00:14):
This is this is I get this alot, actually.
You're trying to force peopleinto your atheism and what was
the other antinatalism.
Lock that one up.
Antinatalism.
Oh, okay.
I hate when I see a word I don'tknow.
Uh antinatalism.
I don't know what they'resaying.
(01:00:35):
Is that a real word?
Anyways, obviously caught me onthat one.
I don't know.
But uh, am I trying to forcepeople into my atheism?
No, I absolutely do not care ifyou become an atheist.
I do not care.
I am not trying to persuade you.
I got plenty of friends that areatheism.
I don't atheist.
I don't need to create anotherone out of whole cloth.
Um, no, so I'm not trying toconvert anybody to atheism.
(01:00:57):
Again, if I if I say anything, Ijust like hey, well, here's my
perspective on it.
I think this is illogical, or Idon't understand why you think
prayer works because so often itjust didn't.
But that's fine.
If you still believe it, knockyourself out.
If you believe that Reggie, themagic penguin, uh, controls this
world, okay.
(01:01:18):
Okay, fine.
If you think, hey, I was in thewoods and I heard a heard a
strange sound, obviously it wasBigfoot.
All right, man, knock yourselfout.
I don't care, but I'm not tryingto convert anybody to atheism.
Now, I say that with a bit of asmile, a bit of a smirk, because
I'm sitting talking to you on anatheist channel.
Um, I have an atheist YouTubechannel, I have an atheist
(01:01:39):
podcast, I have an atheistwebsite.
Um, my hat is as an atheistsymbol.
That picture right there is anatheist symbol.
You'd think that this is a24-hour day thing, but it's not.
I do this for the show, so tospeak.
Um, that's when I talk about it,but I don't live my life as an
atheist.
(01:01:59):
I live my life as a husband, asa father, as a friend, as a uh a
guy that works in the fintechenvironment or industry.
Um as a guy who travels.
I'm going to Japan and Thailandand Vietnam and Philippines in a
month.
I'm gonna go there for I'll bespending a month in these four
different countries.
I'm a traveler.
Atheism is not at all my mainfunction.
(01:02:21):
But people that watch thisassume that it is and assume I'm
trying to convert them.
Really, what I'm trying to do ismake atheism normalized.
That is literally my mission.
I want anybody to say, oh, I'm aI'm a Catholic.
And then that person they'retalking to say, Oh, okay, that's
fantastic.
I'm an atheist.
Great.
What do you think about theCubs?
(01:02:41):
You know?
Oh, did you see uh, you know,what'd you think about that
episode, the very final episode,that show that we were talking
about the other day?
What'd you think about thatseries ending?
That was terrible.
Yes.
Doesn't matter if he's anatheist and that person's a
Catholic.
Doesn't matter.
I'd like to normalize that sopeople don't fear bringing that
out.
They don't have to worry about,hey, you won't bring your kids
(01:03:02):
to my house for my son'sbirthday party because you think
that I'm an atheist and thatsomehow makes me a bad person,
you know, an evil in some way.
My job is to help normalize thatin the little tiny way that I
can.
I'm just one man, I'm not gonnahave that big of an impact uh on
the world, but maybe I can helpone person see it a little
(01:03:27):
differently.
And again, if that doesn'tconvert them to being the
atheist, I don't care.
But if it makes them realize,you know, that guy Mike, I've
watched on his videos or I'velistened to his podcast, he
doesn't seem so bad.
Maybe atheists really aren'ttrying to eat children and
worship the devil.
Maybe they're just normalpeople.
We just disagree, and I'll neveragree with their life, and they
(01:03:48):
won't agree with mine, butthat's okay.
We can still be buddies, we canstill be friends, we can still
go watch a movie together, wecan still go look at cars
together or any of a millionother topics.
That's fine.
That's all I'm really after.
So, uh, so again, even though Ihave an atheist channel, that is
not the goal.
So I'm gonna take a little sipof my uh morning coffee here.
(01:04:12):
In the meantime, I hope youenjoyed this.
Um, tune in to our shows again.
We have them on YouTube, uh,here on this podcast as well,
wherever you get your podcast, Iguess is what people say.
Um, I do mic drops on Wednesday.
We do the Unholy Roundtable.
We've got one of those comingup, but again, depends on when
you see that.
But that's gonna be October26th.
(01:04:34):
We've got a live stream.
I encourage people, that's gonnabe on YouTube.
I encourage people to go inthere, ask us questions live.
We will take that.
We also have the um the heathenhotline that I'm gonna have to
pull up very quickly herebecause I wasn't prepared for
this.
Hold on just one second.
We have the heathen hotline thatI created.
If you want to leave me amessage, um, a phone voicemail,
(01:04:55):
it's 224-307-5435.
Again, that's 224-307-5435.
That's the Heathen Hotline.
If you want to leave a voicemailthat I'll either play back on
this show or play back on one ofour uh live streams, I'm I'm
happy to have you do that.
Obviously, don't say somethingthat's uh you know
inappropriate, but if you have alegitimate question and you just
(01:05:18):
feel like it'd be better toexplain it, knock yourself out.
I'm happy to take those callsand we're happy to do those.
Unfortunately, I can't takethose live, so you have to leave
a message just because of atechnology thing.
And I need that seven-seconddelay button because people do
say crazy things.
I can't delay it on a livestream, but leave a message,
I'll get back to you.
In the meantime, uh, have agreat rest of your morning, your
Sunday, your afternoon, or goinginto the week, however, you uh
(01:05:41):
are listening to this.
And until we talk again, takecare of
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The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!