November 16, 2025 • 44 mins
This week, we dive into the deep and often hypocritical intersections of faith, social welfare, and personal ethics. The discussion opens with the shocking findings from the viral TikTok experiment where churches denied basic aid like baby formula to the needy, contrasting this with the impending government shutdown and asking: Where is the promised Christian charity when the most vulnerable are suffering? The episode also explores the data showing a massive drop in religion's importance in America.
We pivot to the evolving moral landscape of sex and consent. Is the traditional religious argument against premarital sex fundamentally flawed? We explore the secular, pragmatic case for physical intimacy outside of marriage, focusing on mutual respect, consent, and well-being over outdated contractual concepts. Finally, the conversation tackles a foundational philosophical problem: The cost of faith and the question of consent—from mandatory school activities and Bibles in public spaces to the ethics of infant baptism and the profound, unconsenting nature of existence under a supposedly loving God.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:09):
Good morning.
It is a Sunday morning.
It's already the middle of themonth.
You know, is there a point inthe time is there a point in the
month, and then certainly in theyear where it doesn't make sense
to say it's already because it'sNovember 16th.
But to say it's already November16th, I mean it's taken, you
know, a 10 and a half months toget there.
At this point, it come on, theyear's closer to being over than
(00:31):
it is to starting.
So it's it's not really already.
It's it's been almost a year,right?
Uh but here we are, it'sNovember 16th.
Uh winter is set in in Chicago.
It snowed this past Monday,although today, this weekend,
has been beautiful, but it didsnow at the beginning of the
week.
So that is typical weather forChicago, early part of the year,
or early part of the winter, Ishould say, where you have snow
(00:52):
one day and then it's60-something degrees.
Which for those of you that arein the south, like I grew up in
Florida, 60-something degreessounds like it's absolutely
freezing.
But if you live in Chicago,60-something degrees is like
when it warms up and it'sbeautiful out.
So take that for what it'sworth.
But if you are first time tuninginto the show, thank you and
welcome.
(01:12):
But the show is Breakfast with aHeathen, and I am the Heathen.
So welcome.
Um, but if you've not tuned tothis show, this is a very chill
Sunday morning show where I justgo through a series of
questions.
And these are questions thatpeople have asked me.
Uh, they've sent in, they'veresponded to a video that I made
on our Atheistville channel, onTikTok or on YouTube, and or
(01:37):
maybe it's a question I found onFacebook or Reddit where someone
asked an atheist or they asked askeptic, or they just had a
general question, and I thought,well, that's a good question.
I'd like to answer that throughthe lens of an atheist.
So that's the uh that's theperspective that I take.
Whether you're an atheist ornot, this channel and this show
is for you to listen to.
(01:58):
I I'm more than happy.
I you'll find I am not fiery inthat sense.
This isn't gonna, well, I I hopeit doesn't rile you up because
it's Sunday morning, right?
Or again, maybe you're listeningto this on the car on the
drive-in early in the week.
That's fine too.
But um, I'm not here to to fightwith anybody.
I'm just trying to give myperspective and to help
normalize what I like to thinkof as just another perspective
(02:20):
in life.
Meaning, the atheist that I amis probably no different than
the young woman who lives acrossthe hall from me in my building.
I don't know what she is, butlet's assume she's not an
atheist because most people Imeet are not.
I I talked to her.
She seems like a lovely youngwoman.
She looks like she's mid to late20s.
She seems like a lovely woman.
We get along fine as we passeach other on the hall, or we're
(02:42):
getting each other, you know,getting the mail, or sometimes I
bring her packages up.
If I'm walking up the stairswith mine, I might as well grab
hers as well, right?
Um, she has no idea I'm anatheist, right?
Because I'm just a normalperson.
And that's the whole point ofthis show.
It's just to normalize that.
My perspective is a littledifferent, but it's a little
different, but so is yours.
Whoever you are listening tothis show, your perspective is
(03:04):
different from mine.
Even if you agree with me interms of atheism, your
perspective is different.
So that's the whole point of theshow.
That's kind of a long way to go,but here we are, nonetheless.
So go ahead and get yourselfsome coffee.
I've got some coffee and I'vegot a donut from Stan's Donut.
And Stan is not um notsponsoring the show.
Although Stan freaked out, man.
I love Stan's donuts.
(03:25):
I like the old-fashioned donuts.
Even though I grew up in theSouth where Krispy Kreme is
king, I would rather take anold-fashioned donut.
So don't tell anybody at KrispyKreme.
So whatever you grab, go aheadand settle back, get yourself
some coffee, and let's go.
So there's no way I could do theshow today without addressing
the biggest story that's comeout over the last week or two or
(03:46):
whatever it has been on TikTok.
So here's the premise.
This woman, and her name is, I'mgonna say, I think it's Nikali,
N I K A L I E.
Nikali, she's on TikTok.
I think she's from the southsomeplace, um, just judging from
her accent, maybe wrong.
So, what she's been doing, a bitof a social experiment.
(04:07):
She's been calling churchesthroughout the land, and she's
been asking them.
She set this premise.
She said, Look, I've I've got atwo-month-old baby, and I ran
out of formula last night, andI'm a single mother, and I don't
have the money.
Um, is there any way you couldhelp me?
That's the basic premise, right?
Uh, and I listened to a handfulof her videos, and they stick
(04:28):
pretty close to that generalscript.
Um, unfortunately, when I lookedat the last one where she gave
sort of a stat, and this wasfrom five days ago, she had at
the time 41 churches she hadcalled.
Nine said yes, they would helpher.
32 said no, which was um, let'ssay surprising.
(04:54):
Maybe not as surprising as somepeople might think, but it is
surprising because I think weare all under the impression,
because this is what churchesput out, is that churches are
there to help you.
I mean, they are a charity.
People give their hard-earneddollars to these churches, and
for the most part, at least theimage and the and the way that
(05:16):
churches present themselves isthat money goes back to the
community.
Now, the cynic in me says itdoes, but not until that$100,000
light and sound system is paidoff.
Not until that basketballstadium building is paid, you
know, not until the preacher'sRolls Royce, we've seen this in
(05:38):
the last couple of weeks, ispaid.
So that's the cynical part ofme, but this is a Sunday morning
show.
We're gonna keep it civil andcalm.
But again, I think most peoplewill be forgiven for thinking,
oh, of course, if a woman thatneeded food for her baby calls
up, that the first thing thechurch is gonna do is how can I
help you?
That's the first thing they'regonna do.
And unfortunately, on the callsthat I listened to, that often
(06:02):
was not the case.
They would usually ask ask aseries of questions.
These are legitimate questions,and I'll get to why people have
pushed back on this premise.
But they um some people wouldsay, Well, have you checked with
you know this organization orthat department or this, that,
and the other, in terms of likelocal um, you know, the food
bank or the uh some sort ofwomen's shelter or whatever the
(06:25):
case may be.
I'm making these things off thetop of my head, but you know,
various organizations that mightbe inclined to help you.
The problem, of course, was sheis calling a charity who says
they do help people.
It's you, it's you, FirstBaptist Church of XYZ.
You are who she's calling.
Now, in in the defense of thechurch, and I'm gonna I'm gonna
(06:48):
be sort of straddling the linewith, you know, maybe to a
degree.
Um some of the pushback came andthey said, well, the person who
answered the phone was givingthem legitimate resources,
resources that were betterequipped to handle a request
like that.
Okay, all right, I'll go withthat.
The problem was that that's ashe called you, you know, and if
(07:15):
your only answer is to say,well, maybe call somebody else,
it's not really the answer youwould expect from a church.
The answer you would expect was,you know, oh honey, we don't
have a formula.
Um, you know, how much is aformula?
It's one I saw.
They asked her how much, and shesaid, I don't know, it's like
$20.
And she's and the person said,you know, um, boy, we just
(07:35):
really can't help you.
You don't have$20?
Not the lady, not the person whoanswered the phone.
I'm saying the church.
You don't have a gift card?
You don't have a Target giftcard, a Walmart gift card, uh,
something like that.
Or you don't say, you know what,um, maybe come in on Sunday and
I bet we can get you somebodybecause we're gonna have you
know 200 people here, and I betwe can we can help help you out.
(07:59):
Or, you know what, we give allof our money and our extra, we
give it to this, that, and theother organizations who are set
up for that.
We have a food bank that wecontribute to, and I know that
they're open tomorrow from 6 to12 or whatever the case may be.
That's unfortunately not whathappened.
So that was the premise.
(08:20):
And this has taken TikTok andyou know, the world, if you
will, the online world by storm,because you can see the problem
right there, depending on whichside you want to look at it as.
The basic bottom line was awoman said, I need food for my
baby.
And 32 out of 41 churches saidno.
unknown (08:42):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (08:44):
Now, in what has to be a masterclass on how to screw
up your PR, a handful of pastorsfrom these churches that said no
got very butthurt, and they wenton TikTok scorched earth,
Sherman through the South style,to make it to just deflect and
(09:07):
justify this.
There's not a lot ofjustification, but I I alluded
to one of them.
The person who answered thephone didn't know how to handle
it.
Okay, maybe you should trainpeople better, but this isn't
IBM, this is a small church.
But a lot of people were like,that's not what we do.
Well, stop.
Stop right there.
You know, if you find yourselfin a hole, stop digging.
(09:29):
Don't go further with thatstatement.
That's not what we do.
Almost anything that comes outof your mouth next is a problem.
Because again, the promise thatchurches make with society is
that we are here to help.
In fact, if you listen to sortof the more politically minded
Christians, they will say, Well,we don't need this in school, or
(09:51):
we don't need this by thegovernment, we don't need this,
because if people need help,they should just go to the
church.
Well, this person did go to thechurch and they were told no.
The other real common complaintfrom these sort of fiery pastors
was this woman was faking it.
She didn't have a baby.
I don't even know why that's apoint.
Again, stop digging.
You're already in a hole.
(10:11):
To say that this was a socialexperiment and not true, what is
that?
Who cares?
No social experiments are true.
That's what they're called,they're an experiment.
They're false by nature.
The point is, the woman or theman that answered the phone did
not know whether this was trueor false.
Their first inclination shouldbe that, okay, this woman has a
(10:32):
baby and that baby needs food.
What can we, as this church, doto help?
And they often failed that.
So I'm gonna give them somebenefit of the doubt.
Some, but unfortunately, not alot.
And as these people came backand really just lost their minds
trying to justify that.
(10:52):
Oh, the other one that I thoughtwas almost ridiculous, but I'm
gonna have to say it againbecause I hate to repeat it, but
it's so stupid, was that wedon't have formula here.
She never asked for formula inthe sense that she didn't say,
Do you have a can of formula?
Of course you don't.
You're a church.
She knows that.
She's asking if you could helpwith that.
Help is a very broad term.
If you have formula, she'd behappy to take it.
(11:13):
If you have a gift card toWalmart, she'd be happy to take
it.
If you have$20 in your pocket orin the church slush fund or
whatever the case may be, she'dbe happy to take it.
She was asking for help for thebaby, not for you to give her a
can of formula.
There's a it's a huge differencein the two.
When I walk down the street herein Chicago and a homeless person
says, you know, I'm just reallyhungry.
(11:34):
Can you help me out?
Do they want money or do theywant food?
I have had them tell me both,two different ways.
And I've I very often, my wifeand I do this all the time.
We'll ask them, Well, are youare you hungry or do you need
money?
And honestly, I don't reallycare either way.
But if they say, Well, I'mhungry, like, okay, well, let's
go.
And I will walk into arestaurant, the nearest, you
know, restaurant.
(11:54):
There's a restaurant every damnblock here in Chicago, usually
multiple ones.
I've gone into plenty of thesefast food places that were
because I usually eat at fastfood places.
I mean, like a burger joint or adiner or whatever.
Order what you want, man.
Yeah, get yeah, you can have thedouble cheeseburger.
Yeah, get the fries, whatever.
But what is it gonna cost me?
10 bucks?
I'm not gonna go broke by$10,but that guy might eat, right?
(12:15):
There's a huge difference.
But for me to say, oh boy, Ireally just don't have that
money.
Um, have you tried calling this,that, and the other?
They probably have the money.
I could do that.
I might be forgiven for doingthat because I am just one guy,
and I haven't had 300 peopleshow up on the weekend and hand
me cash for free, right?
So I know I'm a little bit of mycynicism is coming through.
(12:38):
I don't necessarily mean for itto do that, but uh you can see
where we're going with it.
So again, this was a massivestory, and I've seen about a
hundred different videos, eitherher doing it, preachers
responding to it, or justgeneral people, uh, pro and con.
So again, the woman's name is uhNikoli, uh Nikali, I think she
says her name, Nikali.
(12:59):
So go ahead and check her out.
I I didn't have the actual nameof her channel.
I think it's actually I say I dothat.
I do have the link, NikaliMonroe.
So she's on TikTok at NikaliMonroe.
Go ahead and check her out.
I'm curious what your thoughtsare on this.
All right, let's move to thenext one.
All right.
Um, let's see.
What's a good question here?
(13:20):
All right, so here we haveanother interesting story.
So there has been a 17-pointdrop in uh US adults who say
religion is an important part oftheir daily life.
From 66%, this is people thatsaid that religion is very
important to them and part oftheir daily life.
66% of the people said this intwo fifth in 2015.
(13:42):
49% say that today.
That is from Gallup.
That is a massively uh that isit's huge.
That is a really, really bigdifference um in a very short
period of time.
The US is dropping quitedrastically.
Uh, again, that's a 10-yearperiod.
Um, says such large declines inreligiosity are rare since since
2017.
(14:03):
Only 14 of more than 160countries in the world have
experienced drops of over 15percent.
Wow.
Wow.
I can't tell you what toattribute that, but that is a
very interesting thing.
Now, there's a lot of differentguesses for it, and it's not
it's not 100% clear because it'snot there's not one answer, but
(14:24):
wow, we have dropped by 17points in 10 years.
I'm curious what you think thereason for that is.
You know, part of me, part ofwhat I think is a lot of young
people just don't have the needto join things like their
parents, which would be me, myage, and our parents, my boomer
(14:45):
age parents.
Uh, I've read this before, andfollow me if you will.
When I was a little kid, myparents belonged to a lot of
things.
There was a bowling league, andmy dad was, mom and dad, I
guess, were in the JCs.
I guess that's the juniorchamber of commerce.
Um there was the um, what's theuh I always think of carpenters.
My grandfather was part of it.
(15:05):
Um, oh, the name is escaping me.
Um, it's always that secret sortof organization.
It's gonna come to me in aminute, but you're not maybe if
you if you guys know what I'mtalking about, I always think of
carpenters because something'smaking me think that when I when
it pops in my head, I'll blurtit out.
Um, but there's always variousorganizations, the elks, the
moose lodge, uh Masons.
That's the word I'm thinking of,the Masons.
(15:26):
Um, there's all these sort oforganizations that people belong
to, certainly in our boomer ageparents.
When it got to the Gen X, whichis what I am, um, a lot less of
that to my kids' age.
When I I have one who's uh Iwould think she's a millennial,
she's 35, 36, I guess, actually.
And my son, who's 28.
(15:47):
I don't know if he's stillmillennial or if he's in Gen Z.
Can't remember what the cutoffis.
Um, I think they join things alot less.
So the joining aspect ofanything is probably a lot rarer
than it was.
That means they don't joinchurches either.
They don't join thatorganization.
They may believe to some degree,but they don't join.
(16:08):
And the lack of constantreinforcement and the fact that
they're not going on Sunday andthey're not going to a Sunday
school, and they're not going toa sermon, and they're not
joining or yeah, to a service,and they're not joining the
choir, and they're not going tothe pancake breakfast, and
they're not going to this andthat and the other, means it
doesn't really affect them on adaily basis.
Again, they may believe.
This didn't say they didn'tbelieve, they just didn't think
(16:29):
it was part of their daily life.
I think that is a big deal.
I always found it fascinatingthat both my kids put off
getting a driver's license.
I could not wait.
I mean, I, you know, the minuteI woke up on the day I turned uh
15, so I could get my learner'spermit, I wanted my license that
day.
I can't remember if I got itthat day, but I got it as soon
(16:50):
as I possibly could get to therewith my mom's car, right?
I wanted that license.
And as soon as I turned 16, Iwanted that permit license so I
could leave the house.
When my kids came along, theyreally weren't that way.
When my son turned 16, he didn'tbother, he didn't care.
He he just didn't bother.
He got around to it eventually,but he saw all of his friends
online.
All my friends were at the mall.
(17:11):
I had to get in a car and drive15 minutes or whatever to get to
the mall.
So the joining things is areally big deal.
Just getting out and being amongpeople is a little different.
I think that's kind of part ofit.
Also, I think religion intoday's world, the current sort
of US American sort ofperspective, Christian
(17:32):
nationalism and the fightbetween Christians and Muslims
for the last 20-something years,and just the rhetoric is so
toxic, if you will.
Why would you want to join that?
Even if you are a believer, youbelieve in a God, but do you
want to join one side of thisfight?
I I just I don't see why you'dwant to.
(17:53):
But 17-point drop, that istremendous.
Now, of course, the question iswhere does it go from there?
Is it gonna go further down?
Is it gonna get higher?
Uh, I mean, well, I guess that'sthe same thing.
Is the percentage going to gethigher?
Meaning there's gonna be fewerand fewer people.
Is that going to turn at somepoint?
(18:13):
I just don't know.
I find it absolutelyfascinating.
All right, what else we gotgoing on here today?
This is another good question.
The person says, I don'tunderstand, uh, I don't
understand how in 2025 there areschools that force students to
practice religion.
Now, I'm not sure where thisperson thinks there's schools
that force them to practice perse, but I did do a video on this
(18:37):
a couple of weeks ago onLouisiana putting uh and trying
to hold, I think it wasLouisiana, no, Oklahoma, excuse
me, from Oklahoma trying tomaintain this law that has been
struck down and they're goingback to fight it and we'll
probably end up in front of theSupreme Court to put the Ten
Commandments in the classrooms.
So I I see that as somewhat of apractice.
(18:59):
But again, in 2025, it isinteresting that we've sort of
reversed course on that.
For years, we've been gettingaway from putting religion, and
when I say religion in thiscase, I am 100% meaning
Christianity into the classroom.
And now we have reversedcourses.
And at least under the Trumpadministration, when more things
(19:21):
have, well, he would say uh morethings are going back to the
state, and you really just haveto pick and choose which one of
these things are a state issueversus a confederal issue.
He has no problem sending in theNational Guard into a state, but
then when it comes to sort ofreligious sort of things, and
it's up to the state.
So he's back and forth, he's awishy-washy one of that kind of
stuff.
But nonetheless, we have more ofthese things going back to the
(19:43):
state, and the states, the redstates, and these are more
southern states in general, aredefinitely trying to put more
religion, Christian religion,into the classroom.
So this person's question aboutI don't understand how in 2025
that that could be the case.
Yeah, that is actually quitesurprising.
When I was uh in fifth grade, sowhat am I, 11 years old?
(20:04):
Yeah, 11 years old, we movedfrom Pennsylvania to Florida,
where my mom is from.
And we weren't particularlyreligious.
I've mentioned that.
Uh I was a casual Christian.
I was Episcopal, you know, wewent to school, uh Sunday
school, and then we didn't thinkabout church until next Sunday.
I went to a uh a church, andnon-church, I sorry, I went to
an elementary school inJacksonville, Florida, right
(20:27):
near our house, normalneighborhood school.
And my first day, first day, uma lot of different things
happened that first day.
But that first day, my fifthgrade teacher, I want to say his
name is Mr.
O'Brien, if I'm rememberingcorrectly, read to us from the
Bible.
I was I was taken aback at 11.
(20:49):
I'm shocked at 55.
Now this was 81, but 81 though.
That's not normal in 81, but Ihadn't lived in the South
before.
So maybe that was very common,but I didn't ever experience
this.
I I mean, I I had never seen aBible outside of church or
maybe, you know, in sayinglaying in someone's house, but I
had never seen anybody in apublic forum read from the
(21:11):
Bible.
It was very odd to me.
I don't know if it had a deepermeaning or deeper sort of
impression of it, but I justremember thinking, well, this is
really weird.
It's like we're going to church.
And at the time, I probablycouldn't have told you much of a
difference between Baptist andEpiscopal, and I knew we weren't
Catholic, and certainly I knewwe weren't Jewish, but Catholic,
Jewish, and then everybody elsewas kind of the same.
(21:34):
I, as I look back now, again, at55, like, what the hell was
going on?
Why was that guy reading fromthe Bible?
I never liked that guy, anyways,but not because he didn't read
the Bible, he just seemed, Idon't know.
He wasn't my favorite teacher.
But yeah, how weird is that?
And that was in '81.
I thought we had gotten awayfrom that, and here we are,
we're going back to it.
(21:54):
Should we be?
I don't know, man.
I I don't think so.
But uh I I imagine some peoplewill disagree with me on that.
What else we got here?
Oh, I thought that was this wasactually an interesting
interesting question.
I feel like I may have addressedthis before.
Sometimes I have questions thatI I uh I set up for this call,
(22:17):
and then you know, at some pointI just I think, well, uh the
calls run long enough, so Idon't get to them.
But I know I looked at thisquestion before.
This person said, uh, have youever thought about how messed up
infant baptism is?
Yeah, that is odd, isn't it?
It's very I was baptized as achild.
My son and my my two childrenwere baptized as a as a child
(22:38):
because I was episcopal, my wifewas Catholic.
It's just what you did, justjust part of the routine, right?
It didn't really give it muchthought, quite frankly.
Now, my mom, who was episcopalall her life until her 50s or
so, and then became SouthernBaptist, she got rebaptized as
an adult, as did my niece on thesame day, who was I I always
(23:00):
mess up.
I have to look up to see whenTori did this, how old she was.
I feel like she was a youngteen, but I might be off on
that.
But my mom was definitely in her50s or 60s, probably, I guess
60s at the time, when she didthis.
And she got re-baptized.
And to be honest, I think that'sactually the better way.
When you're baptizing a baby,what are you doing?
(23:24):
It's a baby.
What sins does a baby commit?
They're a baby.
I remember when my wife waspregnant.
Now we were kids, we literallywere kids, we're 19 years old.
My my uh my wife was pregnant,my girlfriend at the time,
because I'm a heathen.
Um, so I knocked up mygirlfriend, and we've been
together ever since.
But I knocked up my girlfriend,and she was pregnant at 19 years
(23:46):
old, and we were quiteresponsible for 19.
I will give us credit and patmyself on the back.
We went to Lama's and we alsoattempted to go to um the the uh
church because again, she wasCatholic, and I can't think of
the name of that process.
But basically, you go and youlearn about the baptism in
preparation for the baptism.
Now, funny side story, realquick.
(24:07):
The priest apparently did notknow that we weren't married.
So he he handled all that and weweren't married.
He wasn't supposed to,apparently.
That's what I understand.
Um, but my mother-in-law, whowent to that church, apparently
didn't tell him.
So I guess my uh my uh daughter,Elisa, was baptized under false
pretenses, which means I guessshe's going straight to hell.
I don't know.
But nonetheless, I digress.
(24:28):
But uh so, anyways, so we wentthrough the baptism.
And I remember sitting in thatclass, and it was a class at the
church, and I'm 19, I'm alreadyreally not a believer, but I'm
not really an atheist yet,because I just haven't
formalized my sort ofperspective.
I've just realized that I don'tthink this is really true, but
you know, I'm going through themotions.
(24:48):
And my girlfriend was, you know,Catholic, and everyone expected
our children to be baptized.
So, okay, fine, no big deal.
But I remember watching a video.
So they had a video of variouspeople talking about their uh be
their children being baptized.
And I and I remember this very,very clearly.
Another chink in the armor hereof Christianity.
(25:09):
The woman was had a little tearin her eye because apparently
the baby was born very ill ofsome sort.
And she said she she remembereduh basically just being
desperate to get the priestthere because um the priest
needed to come baptize the babybecause if something were to
happen and the baby didn't makeit, then the baby might not go
(25:29):
to heaven.
And I remember being floored,floored.
Because again, you know, I I wasraised episcopal.
My youngest brother was bornwhen I was six, so I didn't
really remember the baptism,really.
I was aware of what baptism was,but I didn't know it in any
great detail.
And I didn't realize that wasthe case.
(25:50):
I mean, I'm 19 years old, Idon't know anything about
anything.
I didn't realize, though, thatthat's what people believe that
if your child wasn't baptizedand they die, they would go they
I guess they wouldn't go toheaven, which I guess the only
alternative is you go to hell.
Not a Catholic, I guess you gopurgatory.
I don't even know what thatmeans in terms of who goes
there, who doesn't.
But you aren't going to heaven.
(26:11):
That was the impression I got.
And if this is wrong, someonecorrect me, but this is exactly
what I remember it being.
But I was floored by that idea.
And it was one of those, like,yeah, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta
leave.
I can't sit here for this.
This is bullshit.
Are you telling me that a babywho is in this case days or
hours old because they're notsure the baby's gonna make it
(26:32):
out of the hospital, that thisbaby will go to not go to heaven
unless a priest, some dude whoworks in a building across town
can get there fast enough.
We're depending on traffic andred lights for this baby to go
to heaven or not.
That's what you're telling me.
Yeah, no, I'm not buying that.
(26:52):
I'm not buying that for asecond.
I I don't know that I believe aGod or not at 19 years old, but
I'm gonna go with if there is aGod, that God's gonna say, Yeah,
the guy couldn't get therebecause his transmission broke
down and the baby can still comeup to heaven.
Come on.
So I again I didn't realize thatwas a thing.
So to baptize them as childrenis also strange because I get
(27:14):
the impression, and correct meif I'm wrong, please let me
know.
If you're being baptized andyou're washing away the sins,
well, baby hasn't reallycommitted any sins yet, and
they're being baptized sort ofagainst her will, but let's put
that aside.
What is there to forgive?
They've not done anything.
Now, my mom at 60 somethingyears old, when she got
(27:35):
baptized, okay, now she's got 60something years of sins.
My mom, the sinner at 63 orwhatever she was.
Okay, but she's at least got60-something years of what she
thinks has sins, and for her toget baptized and uh accept
Jesus, okay, well, that makesperfect sense.
That's a legitimately logicalthing to do if you're a
believer.
My uh, again, teenage niece,okay, she's had fewer sins, but
(27:59):
she's still making a consciouseffort to get rid of sins and
accept Jesus as her savior.
That's all well and good.
I disagree with it, obviously,but that's fine.
Those are conscious decisionsmade by rational thinking
people.
A baby, a baby has no ideawhat's going on.
I mean, it is brand freakingnew, right?
(28:21):
It just needs to be warm and befed.
Pretty much it, right?
They're babies.
So, yeah, the idea of a baptismas a baby does seem odd.
And I know those of you thatagain, as episcopals or
Catholic, um, if that's how youdo it, what are your thoughts on
that?
How is that different?
Or how is it better?
(28:42):
I guess is the way of askingthat.
How is that better than say, youknow, the sort of stereotype of,
you know, they they walk intothe lake and they dunk the guy
backwards and you know, he praysJesus as they stand up and the
the people clap, they're on theside of the river.
Um, yeah, I mean, that I I Ikind of like that idea.
Again, I'm not gonna do it, butit likes I I get it.
(29:04):
It makes sense to me.
What else do we got here?
Here's another question.
Uh, this person says, uh, doesanyone else think that the
Christian God is cruel?
Sometimes I don't feel like Godloves me, at least not in the
way that people say he does.
They speak of his God or hislove as unconditional, infinite,
perfect.
But how can love feel so heavy,so forced?
(29:25):
And when I never got a chance, achoice in any of this, I was
born into a world without beingasked.
And they go on and on aboutthat.
Um, yes.
Yes.
I'm gonna say yes.
You see me kind of hedging therefor a second.
Yeah, I mean, if you look at Godof the Bible, the only person
(29:45):
who thinks that the Christian,this person says, Am I the only
person who thinks that theChristian God is cruel?
Well, it depends.
I guess it depends on what yourdefinition of cruelty is.
But if I am in a town and Idon't know Noah and I've done
nothing Particularly wrong, andall of a sudden a flood comes,
and that flood was put there byGod.
(30:06):
Isn't that a bit cruel?
Seems cruel to me.
Why would it not be cruel?
Yeah, seems pretty cruel.
If I pray and God does not stopthe tornado from destroying my
house and killing my spouse, butGod could have done so.
Is that not cruel?
(30:28):
You'd be cruel if if I stoodthere and watched you die, and I
could have helped you.
Me, Mike, you would say I wasbeing quite cruel.
You wouldn't thank me for that.
And you'd thank me cruel for noteven trying.
If I stood there arms crossedand said, Yeah, you're on your
own.
When I could have stopped you, Icould have prevented your death,
you'd think that was cruel.
(30:49):
But with God, we give that apass.
Yeah, that seems a bit, thatseems a bit cruel to me.
Again, I don't know whatdefinition you're using for
cruel, but yeah, I I uh I'mgonna have to go with uh the
person when they said that.
It makes perfect sense to methat they uh Yeah, yeah, I'm
gonna go.
I am gonna go with that.
(31:10):
Okay, so I got two or three morequestions, then we're gonna wrap
it up here.
So this one, in fact, I know I'mgonna ask this tonight on the uh
unholy roundtable.
This person says, Is thereanything objectively harmful
about premarital sex in a lovingrelationship?
Well, boy, that's a loadedquestion, isn't it?
Um, well, since I've alreadyadmitted that um that my wife
(31:31):
and I were unmarried at 19 yearsold, you can probably guess my
answer on that.
In fact, one time when mydaughter was in middle school,
uh, she had a she had a teacher,it was um it was her film
teacher, if I'm not correct, ifI'm not uh mistaken, um, real
nice lady, uh Jen, um, that Ialso uh knew sort of outside of
(31:51):
thing because I was involved intheater and film as well.
Um, so I was making uh just sortof taunting my teenage daughter
as fathers are wanting to do,and I said something about, oh,
I can't think of Jen's last nameoff the top of my head.
But I was like basically, oh,you know, I saw Jen and her
boyfriend, they live together,she's living in sin.
(32:13):
You know, I'm just kind of againbeing a dad and annoying my 14,
15 year old daughter, whatevershe was saying.
And as teenage daughters arealso wont to do, she put me in
my place very quickly.
She said, Dad, I attended yourwedding with mom.
All right, well, nice talk,Brittany.
Thanks a lot.
No, off you go.
So, yeah.
(32:34):
So, do I have a problem withpremarital sex?
Uh no, I do not.
Is that the worst thing in theworld?
Uh no, it is not.
If you take religion away frompremarital sex, and I'm saying
premarital, not teenage, not acertain age, I'm saying just the
fact that you weren't married,is there a problem with having
sex before that?
(32:56):
No, come on.
First of all, we're humananimals, and the institution of
marriage is uh is way youngerthan we are as procreating
animals, right?
So, right there, off the bat,no, because if that were not the
case, we'd have no religionbecause religion would have
never come about had we not hadpopulations of humans that got
(33:17):
there because somebody had sexwith somebody.
So, right there, you have torealize that most of the history
of man has happened without amarriage certificate.
Right?
Okay, let's let's keep that inour pocket, okay?
But the other thing is what isthe actual harm?
Okay, what's the actual harm?
(33:39):
You've committed yourself tothis other person, and don't
give me a bunch of crazynonsense.
Let's assume that on Monday I amcommitted to this person, on
Tuesday I get I get married, andWednesday I can finally have sex
with them.
What changed between Wednesdayand Monday in terms of our
relationship, our commitment,our our desire to to have and to
(34:04):
hold and blah blah blah.
Yeah, there was a ceremony, andyeah, there was a something at
the courthouse was signed, butMonday and Wednesday, nothing
different.
Nothing different.
There's just not, right?
If I had sex on Monday and Ihave sex on Wednesday, nothing
is different.
It it means nothing more, itmeans nothing less than it did
(34:27):
two days earlier, right?
So how does premarital sexreally have any how is being
married have any real bearing onit?
Now, I can hear the answersbeing riled up and ginned up all
across the land.
Well, what about this?
What about that?
And what about yes?
If you're gonna give me, well,there's no commitment there,
well, that's wrong.
There's a lot of commitment.
(34:48):
You can be committed without amarriage, you can be committed
to one another.
Well, that just means you'llhave sex with anybody.
Well, you can have sex withanybody whether you're married
or not.
That's not stopping you fromdoing that.
You can be non-monogamous.
There are plenty of couples thatare non-monogamous.
We can get into a wholedifferent conversation there,
but that's not the same.
What I'm saying is having sex onMonday, getting married on
(35:10):
Tuesday, having sex onWednesday, the difference
between those two days isnothing.
So I do not see, and again, theperson's question was is there
anything objectively harmfulabout premarital sex in a loving
relationship?
No, I don't know how you canreally make that argument.
Now, if you say purely from areligious Christian point of
(35:33):
view, okay, that's fine.
That's your thought on how youneed to handle yourself for your
God and your path.
But in terms of the word harm,there's no harm there.
Maybe against your rules, that'sfine.
But that's not a harm.
There just really isn't, right?
There's just no harm there.
(35:53):
So this question is says optionsfor after my child's school,
distributed Bibles.
Whoa, where is this school?
Says my child's school, and theysay middle school, had a table
of Gideon Bibles in the lobbyfor the last three days.
On the first day, anadministrator and a teacher
manned the table, saying, justtake one, only take one.
(36:15):
It's my understanding that sincethe school opened themselves up
to distributing tracts, thatthey must accept other books,
materials, or tracks from anygroup.
Maybe this isn't the right groupto ask, but does anyone think
that I might be able to provideother materials on the table to
be manned by staff?
So they're asking kind of,they're making a point and
they're asking a question here.
Second part of that question,whether they should be able to
(36:36):
man the man a table ordistribute uh other materials.
Yeah, they should.
And I would love to see themtry.
That is something the satanictemple would love to do.
Um, and the satanic temple, ifyou're not familiar with them,
has almost nothing to do withSatan.
They have a lot to do withmaking a point.
So if you have a school, in thiscase, I'm assuming this is a
(36:57):
public school, because if it'sprivate, there wouldn't be an
issue.
But a public school that issaying, you know, we're gonna
allow Bibles to be distributedhere at the school, at the
publicly funded school, thesatanic temple will go in and
say, okay, great, that'sawesome.
We're gonna go ahead and set upanother table right beside you,
and we're gonna offer a book ofSatan or the Satanic Bible or
whatever they have.
(37:17):
Because you've just said you'regoing to allow religious
materials to be distributed.
Every city council that pullsthis kind of stunt always has to
make it a broad term so theydon't get in trouble.
They'll say, no, no, no, we'rewe're just allowing um various
communities throughout the, youknow, various groups throughout
the community to distributetheir information.
(37:38):
Great.
Well, the satanic temple willsay, We're a community, we're an
organization within yourcommunity.
So we're gonna put a Satan'sBible or whatever they call it,
uh satanic Bible, right next tothe Christian Bible.
There's nothing wrong with that,right?
You said you're allowingeverything, right?
So, um, so this person'swondering if they can do that.
Uh, knock yourself out.
(37:59):
That is not really the sort ofatheism that I practice in terms
of I'm not really that activistkind of guy, but I understand it
and I support the pushbackbecause come on, man.
Come on.
Is there no safe spaces forpeople that just to go to school
and just learn how to add,subtract, and not dangle the
participles or everything elsethey need to learn?
Why do they have to have areligious aspect of it?
(38:20):
It's a it's a school, man.
Come on.
There's no lack of Jesus in thiscommunity, I'm sure.
If that's if that's happening,you know there is no lack of
Jesus in that community.
Do they need to have a Bible atthe school?
They do not.
This is exactly the sort ofthing my sister-in-law lives
for.
She lives in a small, littletiny Christian town, and I think
(38:42):
she's the only liberal personthere.
Uh, this would outrage her to noend.
She would want to drive to thiscommunity just to make the
point.
I love her, but that's what shedoes.
She's uh very good at that sortof thing because it's an
outrage.
It really is ridiculous.
And people will say, Well, it'sjust Bibles.
Okay, well, it's just the Quran,it's just the satanic Bible,
it's just a book, right?
(39:04):
What do you have a problem withit?
Okay, and our final question forthe day.
This is, I had no, uh, this wasnot done intentionally, but I'm
gonna go uh completely a full360 here because we're going
back to kind of where westarted.
We talked about the woman thatwas calling churches and uh
asking if they would help withher two-month-old baby.
So this person's question isWill churches back up their
(39:25):
political rhetoric now?
And this happened, uh, thisquestion came up before the
government went back to work.
So they were still shut down.
Says the federal government isset to make a significant
portion of the country gowithout food and health care.
So obviously they were trying toshut down the SNAP benefits and
health care, everything else.
Um, the shutdowns allowing theTrump administration to further
their efforts to strip poorAmericans of any assistance, and
(39:48):
they've managed to scrapetogether, is now poised to
ensure SNAP uh subsidies arepulled away from the country's
most needy.
Will churches who have continuedto promote and support the
latest Christian president thathas been elected, will they step
up and feed the needy?
That's a good question.
And unfortunately, again, make afull 360 here, they said no.
(40:12):
The needy called, the womancalled and said, I have a
two-month old who needs formula.
The needy called, and when thatcall is answered, the church
said no.
So, no, unfortunately, I don'tthink they did that.
Maybe I'm wrong.
If your church stepped up andthey said, you know what,
(40:34):
they're about to cut off snapbenefits for millions of people.
We need to make sure we have asoup kitchen, which is probably
not the case.
And if we do, we need to ramp itup and man it because we're
gonna have a lot of people andwe need to promote that and say,
Come on in.
If your church did that, let meknow.
(40:54):
I'll promote that.
If your church didn't do that,ask yourself why.
Why didn't they do that?
What else did they what else didthey do?
Again, at its basic premise, thechurch is supposed to be there
to help people.
Your hundred thousand dollarlight system and sound system,
that's not it.
That makes it fun.
(41:15):
It makes people want to come.
But that's not really helpinganybody.
If you sent five people toUganda to build a church for the
people in Uganda and you raisemoney to do that, that's great
for the people of Uganda.
But you got people right in yourneighborhood that maybe need
that money.
I'm not faulting you for sendingpeople to Uganda.
I might fault you for what youdid there, because building a
(41:36):
church is probably not the bestuse of your resources.
But that ten thousand dollars orwhatever it costs to send X
amount of people over there, themoney you raised, how much
formula could you have bought?
So think about that.
Okay, and with that happy note,we are gonna uh wrap it up for
(41:58):
the day.
Um, again, this is Mike.
Uh, I am Breakfast with aHeathen.
That was today's show.
Make sure you go ahead and likethe show and subscribe to the
show so you don't miss the nextepisode.
And also check us out on ourvarious different platforms.
Atheistville.com is our mainwebsite.
From there, you can see uh linksout to the various different uh
(42:20):
things that we do on YouTube.
For example, we have a channelcalled Atheistville, so at
atheistville on YouTube.
And from there, I have a coupledifferent shows.
We do an unholy round table,which is a panel show where we
have various atheists gettogether and we talk about uh
all kinds of different subjectsthat apply to life and how we
see things and our perspectiveas atheists, could be how to
(42:41):
raise your children or orfinding a partner to spend your
life with or just justnavigating your way through the
daily uh daily life in Americawhen you are an atheist and
everybody else seems to bereligious.
I also do a weekly mic drop thatI do here on the podcast as
well.
But if you want to watch thevideo version of that, that's on
YouTube.
(43:02):
I do a TikTok channel here andthere, and I also have a uh
Substack that I send out.
And again, I put a blog out onatheistbuild.com.
So check out any of thoseplatforms.
I really appreciate it.
And always, always, always feelfree to send me a message on any
one of those and I will respondto you.
It's really one of the mainreasons I do this show, is I
(43:23):
like interacting with peoplejust like you, and I want to
hear your thoughts on things.
And even if we disagree, Ireally still enjoy feeling and
understanding where you'recoming from.
I just think that makes us abetter world.
The more we can understand eachother, the better off we all
are.
So, in the meantime, thanksagain and take care of
Good morning.
It is a Sunday morning.
It's already the middle of themonth.
You know, is there a point inthe time is there a point in the
month, and then certainly in theyear where it doesn't make sense
to say it's already because it'sNovember 16th.
But to say it's already November16th, I mean it's taken, you
know, a 10 and a half months toget there.
At this point, it come on, theyear's closer to being over than
(00:31):
it is to starting.
So it's it's not really already.
It's it's been almost a year,right?
Uh but here we are, it'sNovember 16th.
Uh winter is set in in Chicago.
It snowed this past Monday,although today, this weekend,
has been beautiful, but it didsnow at the beginning of the
week.
So that is typical weather forChicago, early part of the year,
or early part of the winter, Ishould say, where you have snow
(00:52):
one day and then it's60-something degrees.
Which for those of you that arein the south, like I grew up in
Florida, 60-something degreessounds like it's absolutely
freezing.
But if you live in Chicago,60-something degrees is like
when it warms up and it'sbeautiful out.
So take that for what it'sworth.
But if you are first time tuninginto the show, thank you and
welcome.
(01:12):
But the show is Breakfast with aHeathen, and I am the Heathen.
So welcome.
Um, but if you've not tuned tothis show, this is a very chill
Sunday morning show where I justgo through a series of
questions.
And these are questions thatpeople have asked me.
Uh, they've sent in, they'veresponded to a video that I made
on our Atheistville channel, onTikTok or on YouTube, and or
(01:37):
maybe it's a question I found onFacebook or Reddit where someone
asked an atheist or they asked askeptic, or they just had a
general question, and I thought,well, that's a good question.
I'd like to answer that throughthe lens of an atheist.
So that's the uh that's theperspective that I take.
Whether you're an atheist ornot, this channel and this show
is for you to listen to.
(01:58):
I I'm more than happy.
I you'll find I am not fiery inthat sense.
This isn't gonna, well, I I hopeit doesn't rile you up because
it's Sunday morning, right?
Or again, maybe you're listeningto this on the car on the
drive-in early in the week.
That's fine too.
But um, I'm not here to to fightwith anybody.
I'm just trying to give myperspective and to help
normalize what I like to thinkof as just another perspective
(02:20):
in life.
Meaning, the atheist that I amis probably no different than
the young woman who lives acrossthe hall from me in my building.
I don't know what she is, butlet's assume she's not an
atheist because most people Imeet are not.
I I talked to her.
She seems like a lovely youngwoman.
She looks like she's mid to late20s.
She seems like a lovely woman.
We get along fine as we passeach other on the hall, or we're
(02:42):
getting each other, you know,getting the mail, or sometimes I
bring her packages up.
If I'm walking up the stairswith mine, I might as well grab
hers as well, right?
Um, she has no idea I'm anatheist, right?
Because I'm just a normalperson.
And that's the whole point ofthis show.
It's just to normalize that.
My perspective is a littledifferent, but it's a little
different, but so is yours.
Whoever you are listening tothis show, your perspective is
(03:04):
different from mine.
Even if you agree with me interms of atheism, your
perspective is different.
So that's the whole point of theshow.
That's kind of a long way to go,but here we are, nonetheless.
So go ahead and get yourselfsome coffee.
I've got some coffee and I'vegot a donut from Stan's Donut.
And Stan is not um notsponsoring the show.
Although Stan freaked out, man.
I love Stan's donuts.
(03:25):
I like the old-fashioned donuts.
Even though I grew up in theSouth where Krispy Kreme is
king, I would rather take anold-fashioned donut.
So don't tell anybody at KrispyKreme.
So whatever you grab, go aheadand settle back, get yourself
some coffee, and let's go.
So there's no way I could do theshow today without addressing
the biggest story that's comeout over the last week or two or
(03:46):
whatever it has been on TikTok.
So here's the premise.
This woman, and her name is, I'mgonna say, I think it's Nikali,
N I K A L I E.
Nikali, she's on TikTok.
I think she's from the southsomeplace, um, just judging from
her accent, maybe wrong.
So, what she's been doing, a bitof a social experiment.
(04:07):
She's been calling churchesthroughout the land, and she's
been asking them.
She set this premise.
She said, Look, I've I've got atwo-month-old baby, and I ran
out of formula last night, andI'm a single mother, and I don't
have the money.
Um, is there any way you couldhelp me?
That's the basic premise, right?
Uh, and I listened to a handfulof her videos, and they stick
(04:28):
pretty close to that generalscript.
Um, unfortunately, when I lookedat the last one where she gave
sort of a stat, and this wasfrom five days ago, she had at
the time 41 churches she hadcalled.
Nine said yes, they would helpher.
32 said no, which was um, let'ssay surprising.
(04:54):
Maybe not as surprising as somepeople might think, but it is
surprising because I think weare all under the impression,
because this is what churchesput out, is that churches are
there to help you.
I mean, they are a charity.
People give their hard-earneddollars to these churches, and
for the most part, at least theimage and the and the way that
(05:16):
churches present themselves isthat money goes back to the
community.
Now, the cynic in me says itdoes, but not until that$100,000
light and sound system is paidoff.
Not until that basketballstadium building is paid, you
know, not until the preacher'sRolls Royce, we've seen this in
(05:38):
the last couple of weeks, ispaid.
So that's the cynical part ofme, but this is a Sunday morning
show.
We're gonna keep it civil andcalm.
But again, I think most peoplewill be forgiven for thinking,
oh, of course, if a woman thatneeded food for her baby calls
up, that the first thing thechurch is gonna do is how can I
help you?
That's the first thing they'regonna do.
And unfortunately, on the callsthat I listened to, that often
(06:02):
was not the case.
They would usually ask ask aseries of questions.
These are legitimate questions,and I'll get to why people have
pushed back on this premise.
But they um some people wouldsay, Well, have you checked with
you know this organization orthat department or this, that,
and the other, in terms of likelocal um, you know, the food
bank or the uh some sort ofwomen's shelter or whatever the
(06:25):
case may be.
I'm making these things off thetop of my head, but you know,
various organizations that mightbe inclined to help you.
The problem, of course, was sheis calling a charity who says
they do help people.
It's you, it's you, FirstBaptist Church of XYZ.
You are who she's calling.
Now, in in the defense of thechurch, and I'm gonna I'm gonna
(06:48):
be sort of straddling the linewith, you know, maybe to a
degree.
Um some of the pushback came andthey said, well, the person who
answered the phone was givingthem legitimate resources,
resources that were betterequipped to handle a request
like that.
Okay, all right, I'll go withthat.
The problem was that that's ashe called you, you know, and if
(07:15):
your only answer is to say,well, maybe call somebody else,
it's not really the answer youwould expect from a church.
The answer you would expect was,you know, oh honey, we don't
have a formula.
Um, you know, how much is aformula?
It's one I saw.
They asked her how much, and shesaid, I don't know, it's like
$20.
And she's and the person said,you know, um, boy, we just
(07:35):
really can't help you.
You don't have$20?
Not the lady, not the person whoanswered the phone.
I'm saying the church.
You don't have a gift card?
You don't have a Target giftcard, a Walmart gift card, uh,
something like that.
Or you don't say, you know what,um, maybe come in on Sunday and
I bet we can get you somebodybecause we're gonna have you
know 200 people here, and I betwe can we can help help you out.
(07:59):
Or, you know what, we give allof our money and our extra, we
give it to this, that, and theother organizations who are set
up for that.
We have a food bank that wecontribute to, and I know that
they're open tomorrow from 6 to12 or whatever the case may be.
That's unfortunately not whathappened.
So that was the premise.
(08:20):
And this has taken TikTok andyou know, the world, if you
will, the online world by storm,because you can see the problem
right there, depending on whichside you want to look at it as.
The basic bottom line was awoman said, I need food for my
baby.
And 32 out of 41 churches saidno.
unknown (08:42):
Okay.
SPEAKER_00 (08:44):
Now, in what has to be a masterclass on how to screw
up your PR, a handful of pastorsfrom these churches that said no
got very butthurt, and they wenton TikTok scorched earth,
Sherman through the South style,to make it to just deflect and
(09:07):
justify this.
There's not a lot ofjustification, but I I alluded
to one of them.
The person who answered thephone didn't know how to handle
it.
Okay, maybe you should trainpeople better, but this isn't
IBM, this is a small church.
But a lot of people were like,that's not what we do.
Well, stop.
Stop right there.
You know, if you find yourselfin a hole, stop digging.
(09:29):
Don't go further with thatstatement.
That's not what we do.
Almost anything that comes outof your mouth next is a problem.
Because again, the promise thatchurches make with society is
that we are here to help.
In fact, if you listen to sortof the more politically minded
Christians, they will say, Well,we don't need this in school, or
(09:51):
we don't need this by thegovernment, we don't need this,
because if people need help,they should just go to the
church.
Well, this person did go to thechurch and they were told no.
The other real common complaintfrom these sort of fiery pastors
was this woman was faking it.
She didn't have a baby.
I don't even know why that's apoint.
Again, stop digging.
You're already in a hole.
(10:11):
To say that this was a socialexperiment and not true, what is
that?
Who cares?
No social experiments are true.
That's what they're called,they're an experiment.
They're false by nature.
The point is, the woman or theman that answered the phone did
not know whether this was trueor false.
Their first inclination shouldbe that, okay, this woman has a
(10:32):
baby and that baby needs food.
What can we, as this church, doto help?
And they often failed that.
So I'm gonna give them somebenefit of the doubt.
Some, but unfortunately, not alot.
And as these people came backand really just lost their minds
trying to justify that.
(10:52):
Oh, the other one that I thoughtwas almost ridiculous, but I'm
gonna have to say it againbecause I hate to repeat it, but
it's so stupid, was that wedon't have formula here.
She never asked for formula inthe sense that she didn't say,
Do you have a can of formula?
Of course you don't.
You're a church.
She knows that.
She's asking if you could helpwith that.
Help is a very broad term.
If you have formula, she'd behappy to take it.
(11:13):
If you have a gift card toWalmart, she'd be happy to take
it.
If you have$20 in your pocket orin the church slush fund or
whatever the case may be, she'dbe happy to take it.
She was asking for help for thebaby, not for you to give her a
can of formula.
There's a it's a huge differencein the two.
When I walk down the street herein Chicago and a homeless person
says, you know, I'm just reallyhungry.
(11:34):
Can you help me out?
Do they want money or do theywant food?
I have had them tell me both,two different ways.
And I've I very often, my wifeand I do this all the time.
We'll ask them, Well, are youare you hungry or do you need
money?
And honestly, I don't reallycare either way.
But if they say, Well, I'mhungry, like, okay, well, let's
go.
And I will walk into arestaurant, the nearest, you
know, restaurant.
(11:54):
There's a restaurant every damnblock here in Chicago, usually
multiple ones.
I've gone into plenty of thesefast food places that were
because I usually eat at fastfood places.
I mean, like a burger joint or adiner or whatever.
Order what you want, man.
Yeah, get yeah, you can have thedouble cheeseburger.
Yeah, get the fries, whatever.
But what is it gonna cost me?
10 bucks?
I'm not gonna go broke by$10,but that guy might eat, right?
(12:15):
There's a huge difference.
But for me to say, oh boy, Ireally just don't have that
money.
Um, have you tried calling this,that, and the other?
They probably have the money.
I could do that.
I might be forgiven for doingthat because I am just one guy,
and I haven't had 300 peopleshow up on the weekend and hand
me cash for free, right?
So I know I'm a little bit of mycynicism is coming through.
(12:38):
I don't necessarily mean for itto do that, but uh you can see
where we're going with it.
So again, this was a massivestory, and I've seen about a
hundred different videos, eitherher doing it, preachers
responding to it, or justgeneral people, uh, pro and con.
So again, the woman's name is uhNikoli, uh Nikali, I think she
says her name, Nikali.
(12:59):
So go ahead and check her out.
I I didn't have the actual nameof her channel.
I think it's actually I say I dothat.
I do have the link, NikaliMonroe.
So she's on TikTok at NikaliMonroe.
Go ahead and check her out.
I'm curious what your thoughtsare on this.
All right, let's move to thenext one.
All right.
Um, let's see.
What's a good question here?
(13:20):
All right, so here we haveanother interesting story.
So there has been a 17-pointdrop in uh US adults who say
religion is an important part oftheir daily life.
From 66%, this is people thatsaid that religion is very
important to them and part oftheir daily life.
66% of the people said this intwo fifth in 2015.
(13:42):
49% say that today.
That is from Gallup.
That is a massively uh that isit's huge.
That is a really, really bigdifference um in a very short
period of time.
The US is dropping quitedrastically.
Uh, again, that's a 10-yearperiod.
Um, says such large declines inreligiosity are rare since since
2017.
(14:03):
Only 14 of more than 160countries in the world have
experienced drops of over 15percent.
Wow.
Wow.
I can't tell you what toattribute that, but that is a
very interesting thing.
Now, there's a lot of differentguesses for it, and it's not
it's not 100% clear because it'snot there's not one answer, but
(14:24):
wow, we have dropped by 17points in 10 years.
I'm curious what you think thereason for that is.
You know, part of me, part ofwhat I think is a lot of young
people just don't have the needto join things like their
parents, which would be me, myage, and our parents, my boomer
(14:45):
age parents.
Uh, I've read this before, andfollow me if you will.
When I was a little kid, myparents belonged to a lot of
things.
There was a bowling league, andmy dad was, mom and dad, I
guess, were in the JCs.
I guess that's the juniorchamber of commerce.
Um there was the um, what's theuh I always think of carpenters.
My grandfather was part of it.
(15:05):
Um, oh, the name is escaping me.
Um, it's always that secret sortof organization.
It's gonna come to me in aminute, but you're not maybe if
you if you guys know what I'mtalking about, I always think of
carpenters because something'smaking me think that when I when
it pops in my head, I'll blurtit out.
Um, but there's always variousorganizations, the elks, the
moose lodge, uh Masons.
That's the word I'm thinking of,the Masons.
(15:26):
Um, there's all these sort oforganizations that people belong
to, certainly in our boomer ageparents.
When it got to the Gen X, whichis what I am, um, a lot less of
that to my kids' age.
When I I have one who's uh Iwould think she's a millennial,
she's 35, 36, I guess, actually.
And my son, who's 28.
(15:47):
I don't know if he's stillmillennial or if he's in Gen Z.
Can't remember what the cutoffis.
Um, I think they join things alot less.
So the joining aspect ofanything is probably a lot rarer
than it was.
That means they don't joinchurches either.
They don't join thatorganization.
They may believe to some degree,but they don't join.
(16:08):
And the lack of constantreinforcement and the fact that
they're not going on Sunday andthey're not going to a Sunday
school, and they're not going toa sermon, and they're not
joining or yeah, to a service,and they're not joining the
choir, and they're not going tothe pancake breakfast, and
they're not going to this andthat and the other, means it
doesn't really affect them on adaily basis.
Again, they may believe.
This didn't say they didn'tbelieve, they just didn't think
(16:29):
it was part of their daily life.
I think that is a big deal.
I always found it fascinatingthat both my kids put off
getting a driver's license.
I could not wait.
I mean, I, you know, the minuteI woke up on the day I turned uh
15, so I could get my learner'spermit, I wanted my license that
day.
I can't remember if I got itthat day, but I got it as soon
(16:50):
as I possibly could get to therewith my mom's car, right?
I wanted that license.
And as soon as I turned 16, Iwanted that permit license so I
could leave the house.
When my kids came along, theyreally weren't that way.
When my son turned 16, he didn'tbother, he didn't care.
He he just didn't bother.
He got around to it eventually,but he saw all of his friends
online.
All my friends were at the mall.
(17:11):
I had to get in a car and drive15 minutes or whatever to get to
the mall.
So the joining things is areally big deal.
Just getting out and being amongpeople is a little different.
I think that's kind of part ofit.
Also, I think religion intoday's world, the current sort
of US American sort ofperspective, Christian
(17:32):
nationalism and the fightbetween Christians and Muslims
for the last 20-something years,and just the rhetoric is so
toxic, if you will.
Why would you want to join that?
Even if you are a believer, youbelieve in a God, but do you
want to join one side of thisfight?
I I just I don't see why you'dwant to.
(17:53):
But 17-point drop, that istremendous.
Now, of course, the question iswhere does it go from there?
Is it gonna go further down?
Is it gonna get higher?
Uh, I mean, well, I guess that'sthe same thing.
Is the percentage going to gethigher?
Meaning there's gonna be fewerand fewer people.
Is that going to turn at somepoint?
(18:13):
I just don't know.
I find it absolutelyfascinating.
All right, what else we gotgoing on here today?
This is another good question.
The person says, I don'tunderstand, uh, I don't
understand how in 2025 there areschools that force students to
practice religion.
Now, I'm not sure where thisperson thinks there's schools
that force them to practice perse, but I did do a video on this
(18:37):
a couple of weeks ago onLouisiana putting uh and trying
to hold, I think it wasLouisiana, no, Oklahoma, excuse
me, from Oklahoma trying tomaintain this law that has been
struck down and they're goingback to fight it and we'll
probably end up in front of theSupreme Court to put the Ten
Commandments in the classrooms.
So I I see that as somewhat of apractice.
(18:59):
But again, in 2025, it isinteresting that we've sort of
reversed course on that.
For years, we've been gettingaway from putting religion, and
when I say religion in thiscase, I am 100% meaning
Christianity into the classroom.
And now we have reversedcourses.
And at least under the Trumpadministration, when more things
(19:21):
have, well, he would say uh morethings are going back to the
state, and you really just haveto pick and choose which one of
these things are a state issueversus a confederal issue.
He has no problem sending in theNational Guard into a state, but
then when it comes to sort ofreligious sort of things, and
it's up to the state.
So he's back and forth, he's awishy-washy one of that kind of
stuff.
But nonetheless, we have more ofthese things going back to the
(19:43):
state, and the states, the redstates, and these are more
southern states in general, aredefinitely trying to put more
religion, Christian religion,into the classroom.
So this person's question aboutI don't understand how in 2025
that that could be the case.
Yeah, that is actually quitesurprising.
When I was uh in fifth grade, sowhat am I, 11 years old?
(20:04):
Yeah, 11 years old, we movedfrom Pennsylvania to Florida,
where my mom is from.
And we weren't particularlyreligious.
I've mentioned that.
Uh I was a casual Christian.
I was Episcopal, you know, wewent to school, uh Sunday
school, and then we didn't thinkabout church until next Sunday.
I went to a uh a church, andnon-church, I sorry, I went to
an elementary school inJacksonville, Florida, right
(20:27):
near our house, normalneighborhood school.
And my first day, first day, uma lot of different things
happened that first day.
But that first day, my fifthgrade teacher, I want to say his
name is Mr.
O'Brien, if I'm rememberingcorrectly, read to us from the
Bible.
I was I was taken aback at 11.
(20:49):
I'm shocked at 55.
Now this was 81, but 81 though.
That's not normal in 81, but Ihadn't lived in the South
before.
So maybe that was very common,but I didn't ever experience
this.
I I mean, I I had never seen aBible outside of church or
maybe, you know, in sayinglaying in someone's house, but I
had never seen anybody in apublic forum read from the
(21:11):
Bible.
It was very odd to me.
I don't know if it had a deepermeaning or deeper sort of
impression of it, but I justremember thinking, well, this is
really weird.
It's like we're going to church.
And at the time, I probablycouldn't have told you much of a
difference between Baptist andEpiscopal, and I knew we weren't
Catholic, and certainly I knewwe weren't Jewish, but Catholic,
Jewish, and then everybody elsewas kind of the same.
(21:34):
I, as I look back now, again, at55, like, what the hell was
going on?
Why was that guy reading fromthe Bible?
I never liked that guy, anyways,but not because he didn't read
the Bible, he just seemed, Idon't know.
He wasn't my favorite teacher.
But yeah, how weird is that?
And that was in '81.
I thought we had gotten awayfrom that, and here we are,
we're going back to it.
(21:54):
Should we be?
I don't know, man.
I I don't think so.
But uh I I imagine some peoplewill disagree with me on that.
What else we got here?
Oh, I thought that was this wasactually an interesting
interesting question.
I feel like I may have addressedthis before.
Sometimes I have questions thatI I uh I set up for this call,
(22:17):
and then you know, at some pointI just I think, well, uh the
calls run long enough, so Idon't get to them.
But I know I looked at thisquestion before.
This person said, uh, have youever thought about how messed up
infant baptism is?
Yeah, that is odd, isn't it?
It's very I was baptized as achild.
My son and my my two childrenwere baptized as a as a child
(22:38):
because I was episcopal, my wifewas Catholic.
It's just what you did, justjust part of the routine, right?
It didn't really give it muchthought, quite frankly.
Now, my mom, who was episcopalall her life until her 50s or
so, and then became SouthernBaptist, she got rebaptized as
an adult, as did my niece on thesame day, who was I I always
(23:00):
mess up.
I have to look up to see whenTori did this, how old she was.
I feel like she was a youngteen, but I might be off on
that.
But my mom was definitely in her50s or 60s, probably, I guess
60s at the time, when she didthis.
And she got re-baptized.
And to be honest, I think that'sactually the better way.
When you're baptizing a baby,what are you doing?
(23:24):
It's a baby.
What sins does a baby commit?
They're a baby.
I remember when my wife waspregnant.
Now we were kids, we literallywere kids, we're 19 years old.
My my uh my wife was pregnant,my girlfriend at the time,
because I'm a heathen.
Um, so I knocked up mygirlfriend, and we've been
together ever since.
But I knocked up my girlfriend,and she was pregnant at 19 years
(23:46):
old, and we were quiteresponsible for 19.
I will give us credit and patmyself on the back.
We went to Lama's and we alsoattempted to go to um the the uh
church because again, she wasCatholic, and I can't think of
the name of that process.
But basically, you go and youlearn about the baptism in
preparation for the baptism.
Now, funny side story, realquick.
(24:07):
The priest apparently did notknow that we weren't married.
So he he handled all that and weweren't married.
He wasn't supposed to,apparently.
That's what I understand.
Um, but my mother-in-law, whowent to that church, apparently
didn't tell him.
So I guess my uh my uh daughter,Elisa, was baptized under false
pretenses, which means I guessshe's going straight to hell.
I don't know.
But nonetheless, I digress.
(24:28):
But uh so, anyways, so we wentthrough the baptism.
And I remember sitting in thatclass, and it was a class at the
church, and I'm 19, I'm alreadyreally not a believer, but I'm
not really an atheist yet,because I just haven't
formalized my sort ofperspective.
I've just realized that I don'tthink this is really true, but
you know, I'm going through themotions.
(24:48):
And my girlfriend was, you know,Catholic, and everyone expected
our children to be baptized.
So, okay, fine, no big deal.
But I remember watching a video.
So they had a video of variouspeople talking about their uh be
their children being baptized.
And I and I remember this very,very clearly.
Another chink in the armor hereof Christianity.
(25:09):
The woman was had a little tearin her eye because apparently
the baby was born very ill ofsome sort.
And she said she she remembereduh basically just being
desperate to get the priestthere because um the priest
needed to come baptize the babybecause if something were to
happen and the baby didn't makeit, then the baby might not go
(25:29):
to heaven.
And I remember being floored,floored.
Because again, you know, I I wasraised episcopal.
My youngest brother was bornwhen I was six, so I didn't
really remember the baptism,really.
I was aware of what baptism was,but I didn't know it in any
great detail.
And I didn't realize that wasthe case.
(25:50):
I mean, I'm 19 years old, Idon't know anything about
anything.
I didn't realize, though, thatthat's what people believe that
if your child wasn't baptizedand they die, they would go they
I guess they wouldn't go toheaven, which I guess the only
alternative is you go to hell.
Not a Catholic, I guess you gopurgatory.
I don't even know what thatmeans in terms of who goes
there, who doesn't.
But you aren't going to heaven.
(26:11):
That was the impression I got.
And if this is wrong, someonecorrect me, but this is exactly
what I remember it being.
But I was floored by that idea.
And it was one of those, like,yeah, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta
leave.
I can't sit here for this.
This is bullshit.
Are you telling me that a babywho is in this case days or
hours old because they're notsure the baby's gonna make it
(26:32):
out of the hospital, that thisbaby will go to not go to heaven
unless a priest, some dude whoworks in a building across town
can get there fast enough.
We're depending on traffic andred lights for this baby to go
to heaven or not.
That's what you're telling me.
Yeah, no, I'm not buying that.
(26:52):
I'm not buying that for asecond.
I I don't know that I believe aGod or not at 19 years old, but
I'm gonna go with if there is aGod, that God's gonna say, Yeah,
the guy couldn't get therebecause his transmission broke
down and the baby can still comeup to heaven.
Come on.
So I again I didn't realize thatwas a thing.
So to baptize them as childrenis also strange because I get
(27:14):
the impression, and correct meif I'm wrong, please let me
know.
If you're being baptized andyou're washing away the sins,
well, baby hasn't reallycommitted any sins yet, and
they're being baptized sort ofagainst her will, but let's put
that aside.
What is there to forgive?
They've not done anything.
Now, my mom at 60 somethingyears old, when she got
(27:35):
baptized, okay, now she's got 60something years of sins.
My mom, the sinner at 63 orwhatever she was.
Okay, but she's at least got60-something years of what she
thinks has sins, and for her toget baptized and uh accept
Jesus, okay, well, that makesperfect sense.
That's a legitimately logicalthing to do if you're a
believer.
My uh, again, teenage niece,okay, she's had fewer sins, but
(27:59):
she's still making a consciouseffort to get rid of sins and
accept Jesus as her savior.
That's all well and good.
I disagree with it, obviously,but that's fine.
Those are conscious decisionsmade by rational thinking
people.
A baby, a baby has no ideawhat's going on.
I mean, it is brand freakingnew, right?
(28:21):
It just needs to be warm and befed.
Pretty much it, right?
They're babies.
So, yeah, the idea of a baptismas a baby does seem odd.
And I know those of you thatagain, as episcopals or
Catholic, um, if that's how youdo it, what are your thoughts on
that?
How is that different?
Or how is it better?
(28:42):
I guess is the way of askingthat.
How is that better than say, youknow, the sort of stereotype of,
you know, they they walk intothe lake and they dunk the guy
backwards and you know, he praysJesus as they stand up and the
the people clap, they're on theside of the river.
Um, yeah, I mean, that I I Ikind of like that idea.
Again, I'm not gonna do it, butit likes I I get it.
(29:04):
It makes sense to me.
What else do we got here?
Here's another question.
Uh, this person says, uh, doesanyone else think that the
Christian God is cruel?
Sometimes I don't feel like Godloves me, at least not in the
way that people say he does.
They speak of his God or hislove as unconditional, infinite,
perfect.
But how can love feel so heavy,so forced?
(29:25):
And when I never got a chance, achoice in any of this, I was
born into a world without beingasked.
And they go on and on aboutthat.
Um, yes.
Yes.
I'm gonna say yes.
You see me kind of hedging therefor a second.
Yeah, I mean, if you look at Godof the Bible, the only person
(29:45):
who thinks that the Christian,this person says, Am I the only
person who thinks that theChristian God is cruel?
Well, it depends.
I guess it depends on what yourdefinition of cruelty is.
But if I am in a town and Idon't know Noah and I've done
nothing Particularly wrong, andall of a sudden a flood comes,
and that flood was put there byGod.
(30:06):
Isn't that a bit cruel?
Seems cruel to me.
Why would it not be cruel?
Yeah, seems pretty cruel.
If I pray and God does not stopthe tornado from destroying my
house and killing my spouse, butGod could have done so.
Is that not cruel?
(30:28):
You'd be cruel if if I stoodthere and watched you die, and I
could have helped you.
Me, Mike, you would say I wasbeing quite cruel.
You wouldn't thank me for that.
And you'd thank me cruel for noteven trying.
If I stood there arms crossedand said, Yeah, you're on your
own.
When I could have stopped you, Icould have prevented your death,
you'd think that was cruel.
(30:49):
But with God, we give that apass.
Yeah, that seems a bit, thatseems a bit cruel to me.
Again, I don't know whatdefinition you're using for
cruel, but yeah, I I uh I'mgonna have to go with uh the
person when they said that.
It makes perfect sense to methat they uh Yeah, yeah, I'm
gonna go.
I am gonna go with that.
(31:10):
Okay, so I got two or three morequestions, then we're gonna wrap
it up here.
So this one, in fact, I know I'mgonna ask this tonight on the uh
unholy roundtable.
This person says, Is thereanything objectively harmful
about premarital sex in a lovingrelationship?
Well, boy, that's a loadedquestion, isn't it?
Um, well, since I've alreadyadmitted that um that my wife
(31:31):
and I were unmarried at 19 yearsold, you can probably guess my
answer on that.
In fact, one time when mydaughter was in middle school,
uh, she had a she had a teacher,it was um it was her film
teacher, if I'm not correct, ifI'm not uh mistaken, um, real
nice lady, uh Jen, um, that Ialso uh knew sort of outside of
(31:51):
thing because I was involved intheater and film as well.
Um, so I was making uh just sortof taunting my teenage daughter
as fathers are wanting to do,and I said something about, oh,
I can't think of Jen's last nameoff the top of my head.
But I was like basically, oh,you know, I saw Jen and her
boyfriend, they live together,she's living in sin.
(32:13):
You know, I'm just kind of againbeing a dad and annoying my 14,
15 year old daughter, whatevershe was saying.
And as teenage daughters arealso wont to do, she put me in
my place very quickly.
She said, Dad, I attended yourwedding with mom.
All right, well, nice talk,Brittany.
Thanks a lot.
No, off you go.
So, yeah.
(32:34):
So, do I have a problem withpremarital sex?
Uh no, I do not.
Is that the worst thing in theworld?
Uh no, it is not.
If you take religion away frompremarital sex, and I'm saying
premarital, not teenage, not acertain age, I'm saying just the
fact that you weren't married,is there a problem with having
sex before that?
(32:56):
No, come on.
First of all, we're humananimals, and the institution of
marriage is uh is way youngerthan we are as procreating
animals, right?
So, right there, off the bat,no, because if that were not the
case, we'd have no religionbecause religion would have
never come about had we not hadpopulations of humans that got
(33:17):
there because somebody had sexwith somebody.
So, right there, you have torealize that most of the history
of man has happened without amarriage certificate.
Right?
Okay, let's let's keep that inour pocket, okay?
But the other thing is what isthe actual harm?
Okay, what's the actual harm?
(33:39):
You've committed yourself tothis other person, and don't
give me a bunch of crazynonsense.
Let's assume that on Monday I amcommitted to this person, on
Tuesday I get I get married, andWednesday I can finally have sex
with them.
What changed between Wednesdayand Monday in terms of our
relationship, our commitment,our our desire to to have and to
(34:04):
hold and blah blah blah.
Yeah, there was a ceremony, andyeah, there was a something at
the courthouse was signed, butMonday and Wednesday, nothing
different.
Nothing different.
There's just not, right?
If I had sex on Monday and Ihave sex on Wednesday, nothing
is different.
It it means nothing more, itmeans nothing less than it did
(34:27):
two days earlier, right?
So how does premarital sexreally have any how is being
married have any real bearing onit?
Now, I can hear the answersbeing riled up and ginned up all
across the land.
Well, what about this?
What about that?
And what about yes?
If you're gonna give me, well,there's no commitment there,
well, that's wrong.
There's a lot of commitment.
(34:48):
You can be committed without amarriage, you can be committed
to one another.
Well, that just means you'llhave sex with anybody.
Well, you can have sex withanybody whether you're married
or not.
That's not stopping you fromdoing that.
You can be non-monogamous.
There are plenty of couples thatare non-monogamous.
We can get into a wholedifferent conversation there,
but that's not the same.
What I'm saying is having sex onMonday, getting married on
(35:10):
Tuesday, having sex onWednesday, the difference
between those two days isnothing.
So I do not see, and again, theperson's question was is there
anything objectively harmfulabout premarital sex in a loving
relationship?
No, I don't know how you canreally make that argument.
Now, if you say purely from areligious Christian point of
(35:33):
view, okay, that's fine.
That's your thought on how youneed to handle yourself for your
God and your path.
But in terms of the word harm,there's no harm there.
Maybe against your rules, that'sfine.
But that's not a harm.
There just really isn't, right?
There's just no harm there.
(35:53):
So this question is says optionsfor after my child's school,
distributed Bibles.
Whoa, where is this school?
Says my child's school, and theysay middle school, had a table
of Gideon Bibles in the lobbyfor the last three days.
On the first day, anadministrator and a teacher
manned the table, saying, justtake one, only take one.
(36:15):
It's my understanding that sincethe school opened themselves up
to distributing tracts, thatthey must accept other books,
materials, or tracks from anygroup.
Maybe this isn't the right groupto ask, but does anyone think
that I might be able to provideother materials on the table to
be manned by staff?
So they're asking kind of,they're making a point and
they're asking a question here.
Second part of that question,whether they should be able to
(36:36):
man the man a table ordistribute uh other materials.
Yeah, they should.
And I would love to see themtry.
That is something the satanictemple would love to do.
Um, and the satanic temple, ifyou're not familiar with them,
has almost nothing to do withSatan.
They have a lot to do withmaking a point.
So if you have a school, in thiscase, I'm assuming this is a
(36:57):
public school, because if it'sprivate, there wouldn't be an
issue.
But a public school that issaying, you know, we're gonna
allow Bibles to be distributedhere at the school, at the
publicly funded school, thesatanic temple will go in and
say, okay, great, that'sawesome.
We're gonna go ahead and set upanother table right beside you,
and we're gonna offer a book ofSatan or the Satanic Bible or
whatever they have.
(37:17):
Because you've just said you'regoing to allow religious
materials to be distributed.
Every city council that pullsthis kind of stunt always has to
make it a broad term so theydon't get in trouble.
They'll say, no, no, no, we'rewe're just allowing um various
communities throughout the, youknow, various groups throughout
the community to distributetheir information.
(37:38):
Great.
Well, the satanic temple willsay, We're a community, we're an
organization within yourcommunity.
So we're gonna put a Satan'sBible or whatever they call it,
uh satanic Bible, right next tothe Christian Bible.
There's nothing wrong with that,right?
You said you're allowingeverything, right?
So, um, so this person'swondering if they can do that.
Uh, knock yourself out.
(37:59):
That is not really the sort ofatheism that I practice in terms
of I'm not really that activistkind of guy, but I understand it
and I support the pushbackbecause come on, man.
Come on.
Is there no safe spaces forpeople that just to go to school
and just learn how to add,subtract, and not dangle the
participles or everything elsethey need to learn?
Why do they have to have areligious aspect of it?
(38:20):
It's a it's a school, man.
Come on.
There's no lack of Jesus in thiscommunity, I'm sure.
If that's if that's happening,you know there is no lack of
Jesus in that community.
Do they need to have a Bible atthe school?
They do not.
This is exactly the sort ofthing my sister-in-law lives
for.
She lives in a small, littletiny Christian town, and I think
(38:42):
she's the only liberal personthere.
Uh, this would outrage her to noend.
She would want to drive to thiscommunity just to make the
point.
I love her, but that's what shedoes.
She's uh very good at that sortof thing because it's an
outrage.
It really is ridiculous.
And people will say, Well, it'sjust Bibles.
Okay, well, it's just the Quran,it's just the satanic Bible,
it's just a book, right?
(39:04):
What do you have a problem withit?
Okay, and our final question forthe day.
This is, I had no, uh, this wasnot done intentionally, but I'm
gonna go uh completely a full360 here because we're going
back to kind of where westarted.
We talked about the woman thatwas calling churches and uh
asking if they would help withher two-month-old baby.
So this person's question isWill churches back up their
(39:25):
political rhetoric now?
And this happened, uh, thisquestion came up before the
government went back to work.
So they were still shut down.
Says the federal government isset to make a significant
portion of the country gowithout food and health care.
So obviously they were trying toshut down the SNAP benefits and
health care, everything else.
Um, the shutdowns allowing theTrump administration to further
their efforts to strip poorAmericans of any assistance, and
(39:48):
they've managed to scrapetogether, is now poised to
ensure SNAP uh subsidies arepulled away from the country's
most needy.
Will churches who have continuedto promote and support the
latest Christian president thathas been elected, will they step
up and feed the needy?
That's a good question.
And unfortunately, again, make afull 360 here, they said no.
(40:12):
The needy called, the womancalled and said, I have a
two-month old who needs formula.
The needy called, and when thatcall is answered, the church
said no.
So, no, unfortunately, I don'tthink they did that.
Maybe I'm wrong.
If your church stepped up andthey said, you know what,
(40:34):
they're about to cut off snapbenefits for millions of people.
We need to make sure we have asoup kitchen, which is probably
not the case.
And if we do, we need to ramp itup and man it because we're
gonna have a lot of people andwe need to promote that and say,
Come on in.
If your church did that, let meknow.
(40:54):
I'll promote that.
If your church didn't do that,ask yourself why.
Why didn't they do that?
What else did they what else didthey do?
Again, at its basic premise, thechurch is supposed to be there
to help people.
Your hundred thousand dollarlight system and sound system,
that's not it.
That makes it fun.
(41:15):
It makes people want to come.
But that's not really helpinganybody.
If you sent five people toUganda to build a church for the
people in Uganda and you raisemoney to do that, that's great
for the people of Uganda.
But you got people right in yourneighborhood that maybe need
that money.
I'm not faulting you for sendingpeople to Uganda.
I might fault you for what youdid there, because building a
(41:36):
church is probably not the bestuse of your resources.
But that ten thousand dollars orwhatever it costs to send X
amount of people over there, themoney you raised, how much
formula could you have bought?
So think about that.
Okay, and with that happy note,we are gonna uh wrap it up for
(41:58):
the day.
Um, again, this is Mike.
Uh, I am Breakfast with aHeathen.
That was today's show.
Make sure you go ahead and likethe show and subscribe to the
show so you don't miss the nextepisode.
And also check us out on ourvarious different platforms.
Atheistville.com is our mainwebsite.
From there, you can see uh linksout to the various different uh
(42:20):
things that we do on YouTube.
For example, we have a channelcalled Atheistville, so at
atheistville on YouTube.
And from there, I have a coupledifferent shows.
We do an unholy round table,which is a panel show where we
have various atheists gettogether and we talk about uh
all kinds of different subjectsthat apply to life and how we
see things and our perspectiveas atheists, could be how to
(42:41):
raise your children or orfinding a partner to spend your
life with or just justnavigating your way through the
daily uh daily life in Americawhen you are an atheist and
everybody else seems to bereligious.
I also do a weekly mic drop thatI do here on the podcast as
well.
But if you want to watch thevideo version of that, that's on
YouTube.
(43:02):
I do a TikTok channel here andthere, and I also have a uh
Substack that I send out.
And again, I put a blog out onatheistbuild.com.
So check out any of thoseplatforms.
I really appreciate it.
And always, always, always feelfree to send me a message on any
one of those and I will respondto you.
It's really one of the mainreasons I do this show, is I
(43:23):
like interacting with peoplejust like you, and I want to
hear your thoughts on things.
And even if we disagree, Ireally still enjoy feeling and
understanding where you'recoming from.
I just think that makes us abetter world.
The more we can understand eachother, the better off we all
are.
So, in the meantime, thanksagain and take care of
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