Featuring Guest Host Secular Rarity! | Skeptic Generation | Episode 5 Season 3 - Skeptic Generation

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Oh shit, we lost the intro. I'm gonna try that again.

Speaker 2 (00:15):
That was quick.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
See that's what I get for dialing things in. Let's
do that one more time because I like it. I
added you to the intro and I know, right ready,
let's do it you well.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Yeah, see there we go.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
That was awesome.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Yeah we're able to hear it. Yeah, absolutely, man, very cool,
very cool. Hey everybody, welcome to a special episode of
Skeptic Generation. Today is March third, twenty twenty four. I
am Eric murtwur Free. This is a Skeptic Generation and
we need to talk. Joining me today is Secular Rarety.
Do you do? You still go by sr online?

Speaker 2 (01:13):
Oh yeah, you can also call me Elliott. Both are acceptable.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Okay, I didn't want a doc to you just but yes, okay, cool, No.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
No, no, no, it's it's already out there already. So
there's probably some inappropriate pictures of me too, but we
won't talk about that.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
That's for another time. Oh dude, it is so good
having you on. I can't believe that. Like it feels
like we've been ships passing in the night. You've been
so good as like just a volunteer for skep Gen
and also becoming a host and a whole bunch of
other shows and becoming kind of an in front of
camera personality yourself. And we've never actually done a show before, so.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
I know, it's it's so it's so odd because like
we have interacted so much, you know, over the last
couple of years, and and we've both been in this space,
you know, in various capacities, and like, I mean, I
I've watched you for years, right, Like I've I've you know,
listened to you and v for so long and and
loved so much of your stuff. And yeah, it was

(02:15):
I was thrilled, man, this whole, this whole last week.
I was just super excited and giddy, and you know,
it was. It was odd because not a lot of
the people that you know, I interact with on a
daily basis, like at my work, know about this. And
It's not that I'm private or anything, it's just that
it just doesn't come up in conversation, you know. So
they'd be like, hey, man, you got anything fun on

(02:36):
the schedule that I'm like, yeah, actually something this weekend
is really cool, you know, but it didn't register with them.
They it just it was something that just didn't exactly
they didn't understand. But yeah, I'm excited, man.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
I totally get it. I totally get it. I I've
I've definitely been in places where it work people you
know here that I've got, you know, some kind of
some kind of podcast YouTube thing, and they go, oh,
that's that's cute, that's nice, you know with that, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And then you're interacting in the community itself, people are like,
oh my gosh, it's you. It's just it's such a
weird like niche niche niche space. I totally get it.

(03:12):
I totally get it. Before we talk about anything else, though,
I do want to put out the phone number that
way we can get calls today. So here is the
number four one two skep gen. That's four one two
seven five three seven four three six, or you can
go to tiny dot cc slash skep gen to call online.
Either way, it is free for callers, and we'd love

(03:33):
to talk to people. So if you want to talk
about what you believe in why, if you have a
niche philosophical topic, or if you just want to to
talk to us, we would very very much want to
talk to you. So again one more time, be cuz
I can't do it enough. Four one two skep gen
that's four one two seven five three seven four three
six or tiny dot cc slash s k E P

(03:56):
g E N. And while we get that, I see
that we have somebody calling in, but we're happy to
take more callers. So today's the day, s R. How
have you been?

Speaker 2 (04:10):
Pretty good?

Speaker 4 (04:11):
Man?

Speaker 2 (04:12):
Pretty good? So one of the one of the really
cool things that I've been lucky enough to do in
the time that you know, I've I've been in this
space is I get to participate in a lot of
in person conversations as well. So a group of local

(04:32):
atheists here in the Middle Tennessee area and a group
of Christians, uh, we we got together, you know, middle
of last year, and we decided that we wanted to
have these you know, difficult and nuanced conversations in public, uh,
in a really cordial, uh you know way, in in

(04:53):
a way where we're actually engaging with each other and
trying to learn from each other. And so we we
just put on our February event a couple of days ago,
had a great crowd. It was a really really fun time,
and I think one of the coolest things about this
has been, you know, when when the you know, seven
or eight of us got together, Initially only a couple

(05:15):
of us were really friends. Only a couple of us
really knew each other. And now we're at this point where,
even though we know for a fact how hardcore we
disagree on some really important topics, we are absolutely friends,
and we we hang out outside of the events, and
we we want to know about each other's lives, you know,
and we like tease each other. And you know, you know,

(05:38):
one of the guys, one of the guys, you know,
the Christians totally believes in Noah's flood, you know, some
of us atheists, you know, we're we're we're total you know, depravity,
you know, loving whatever, you know, and we we play
with each other on that. We have fun and we
grow as people. It's it's truly truly awesome.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
Man.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
So the online space is great, and I love it,
and there's so much you can do, but being face
to face with people and cordially, respectfully disagreeing is an
amazing experience. So I'm great. I love that that's going on.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
So that's really really cool.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
I I.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
It's a lot harder to scream at somebody and you
can't hang up on them. I'm in person. And yeah,
like there was something in Texas that was called the
Bible and Beer Consortium where a whole bunch of atheists
and believers would get together and you know, at least
once a month they would you know, have that kind
of event. And it was not happening anymore when I

(06:42):
was in Texas. So it's really really sad to not
have that. But the fact that, like you're creating that
and we have to we have to keep that kind
of stuff going. And I love hearing that the kind
of spirit of that is happening somewhere, So that is
really really cool. I love it. Yeah, I love it. Yeah,
So let's see here. I think we should probably take

(07:03):
our first call. What do you think?

Speaker 2 (07:04):
Well, let's do it. Let's talk to some people.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
All right, let me make sure I've got this all
dialed in. We're going to start off by talking to
Sarah in Washington. Sarah, You're like, I remember me, Hey,
list Yes, Oh my gosh, hey Sarah, Hey, how's it going.

(07:29):
What do you want to talk about today?

Speaker 5 (07:32):
I have a question about religion, and like the good
ideas that some religions have, and if it's okay to
adopt ideals taught by religion so long as it aligns
with my own morality.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
Could you give us an example.

Speaker 5 (07:51):
Jesus says love thy neighbors stuff like that, or the
Buddha says you know, to you know, try and focus
in on you know, your own emotions and stuff, and
try to achieve nirvana if you will, or perhaps wish
good karma on people.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
Okay, Well, so I think that being kind to each
other is definitely something that has been co opted by
religion and has been like, I think a lot of
religions have kind of claimed that that's where it comes from,
is the religious space. But I think that to give
them credit would be to I don't know. I like

(08:38):
the more important thing to me is that we're being
kind to each other. So like, absolutely I think you
should do that, but I don't think we should be
giving them credit. What do you think of it?

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, so I've heard this a lot, Sarah, And I mean,
first off, I want to say, don't don't put such
restrictions on yourself, and don't be so worried if you
find something you know, some small ideal that exists in Christianity.
That's like, hey, that's actually good, you know, because you,

(09:12):
as you kind of already said, you're using a separate system.
You're using an outside morality other than just the Bible,
you know, to to to make these determinations as to
whether or not these you know, conclusions or ideas are good. Right,
you know, love thy neighbor is a good ideal, not
because Jesus said it or because there's some afterlife or whatever.

(09:35):
It's because of the demonstration of of you know, harm
or or suffering or the reduction of that right. And
and that's awesome that you see that. So definitely, don't
don't be don't be bummed out, like, oh man, this
thing's from Hinduism. Like, I don't know if I should.
I don't know if I should take it. It's like no,
of course if it's a good ideal, but yeah, I would.

(09:57):
I would just totally second what Eric said and say
that what I have found more often than not, and
maybe every single time. That's that's a bit of a
that's a bit of an intense statement, but seriously, it
feels like pretty much every time I go looking into
a religion, for good stuff. That good stuff is actually

(10:20):
found outside of the religions, right, and the religion ends
up bringing this extra baggage that isn't necessary because again,
the love thy neighbor thing on its face is great, Yeah,
be kind of people. But if you're being kind to
people because there's some god that forces you to do it,

(10:42):
otherwise he's going to torture you. You see, it's like, oh,
that's bad, right, that's the baggage that comes with this
belief from the religion.

Speaker 5 (10:51):
And then I was also kind of curious about Buddhism
specifically because it is like an atheistic religion. The only
thing I couldn't get behind is that all emotions are pain.
I'm not sure what that means exactly, but things, you know,
in attempts to as I go through my own psychological therapy,

(11:11):
as I'm coming out of these things and traumas in life,
and I'm finding if I take upon some of these
practices like meditation or way to achieve nirvana if you will,
I don't think that there is going to be a
life after this one that sort of stuff. But I
just wonder you know about what your take is on
that one. Also, because they don't really have a deity either.

Speaker 2 (11:35):
Yeah, I have friends who you know, for years have
participated in various Buddhist themed or you know, at least
you know these rituals have the origins in Buddhism of
some kind, right, but they aren't expressly talking about anything
supernatural or anything. But they some of my friends participate

(11:59):
in the these you know, Buddhist blessing ceremonies And am
using air quotes here because they would tell me, hey, man,
I don't think anything's happening to this food. Like, I
don't think anything magical is going into it, or anything
about the food is changing or anything. But what it
does is it gives me a few seconds right before

(12:20):
I eat my meal to just be conscious of where
I am and how I got here, and it just
it gives you that just deep breath in, deep breath
out kind of moment and like there's nothing wrong with
that stuff. Don't ever feel like, oh my gosh, man,
I'm meditating. Does that mean I'm religious?

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (12:39):
No, like no, no. The rituals, oftentimes, for me, are
not the biggest thing that I push back on, you know,
the gathering together in community and singing songs and you know,
greeting each other and having a snack. That's great. That's
all good stuff, you know. So it's when it's when

(13:02):
they start adding the unsubstantiated claims on top of it,
right of the supernatural and stuff. That's where I really
get the problem. And so if you're saying, hey, look
sitting around focusing on my breath, trying to clear my
head for a while once a day or once a
week or whatever, is just really beneficial for me in
all these ways. And I don't really think I'm gonna

(13:24):
like be born again as a snake or some I
don't know, eagle or something. I don't know how it works,
But if that's where you're coming from, ye, I don't
see any problems with it. For sure. It sounds like
it's helping you.

Speaker 5 (13:39):
Yeah, it definitely does. I just kind of like trying
to make sense between that, the scientific and the metaphysical stuff,
the hokey stuff, if you will. To be a bit
more point, like, I'm the only person that would go
to a rock show because I like the rock. I

(14:00):
believe that heaveny human powers any trust.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
Me, Sarah, I'd be right there with you. I have
I have more rocks than I know what to do with.
If rocks had powers, I have ingested so much rock
dust at this point, I should be Superman.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
Is so, is this just like a thing? Yeah? And
I had a rock collection growing up. I was the
exact same. I is that just like a thing?

Speaker 2 (14:23):
I don't know, rocks are cool, man Like, I don't
know why anybody disagrees with that. They're amazing.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
I'm sorry, I have high ride and business.

Speaker 5 (14:33):
Yeah, literal, But do I think it's gonna cure.

Speaker 1 (14:36):
Kids or no news?

Speaker 2 (14:38):
Right?

Speaker 5 (14:39):
It's something that like calms me down when I look
at the rainbow colors and the even patterns, and I'm
like that there's something rooted in science where I think
where some of this WU comes from. There's like some
intuition behind the humanity of it. You know, they're like
they create a woo around the science and they need
to get back to the science.

Speaker 1 (15:00):
I especially with bismuth, I think like it's just so
beautifully like square, the geometric figures that it makes us.
I'm we're going out face, but I I know all good.
I I do kind of want to push back, though,
just a little bit, because when you say it's an
atheistic religion. Do you need to have a god to

(15:23):
have a theism? You know, the the the idea of
of like deifying. Can you hear me, Hello, Sarah, can
you hear me?

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yeah, okay, you said no worries. So I was saying
the kind of deification of of somebody who's achieved nirvana
or some some state of of of perfection. I would consider,
you know that, and and and raising them up, you know,
as some kind of superhuman would definitely count as a

(15:59):
as a really as standpoint. Also, the view that there
is life after death, that there is a a world
where you know, you get to come back again, like
that whole cycle, I think is a religious viewpoint, and
so onto logically, I think that while you may find
use in it, I would definitely draw a line there

(16:22):
and say I've found use in this thing, But that
doesn't lend any credibility to the supernatural claims, because it
still does make supernatural claims, you know what I mean?

Speaker 5 (16:33):
Yeah, yeah, I get it.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
Yeah, it's it's interesting. I I I kind of have
to put up with that when I when I go
to like guided yoga classes and yeah, and and and
people want you to align your chakras or or are
super you know, just really really wooy with your relationship

(16:58):
to the earth and and you flowing into and out
of things. It's it's just, I don't know, it's it
feels really icky, especially when everyone there is just white
at driven snow, which I'm learning in Portland is just
the thing.

Speaker 5 (17:17):
But yeah, yeah, I've been to Portland once. It's a
mess right now. But yeah, anyway, so you talk about
the chakras and dissolving into the ears. When I go
through that in like those kinds of things, my ADHD
brain goes, Okay, let's imagine we actually are for a second,
and then it shuts off a minute.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
Well, and I mean, it's it's fun to pretend, but
the thing is they're not pretending, you know. Yeah, yeah,
it's so weird.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
And I because because there is so much of that mix, right,
because there is so much of that overlap a lot
of places where this vendagram looks a hell of a
lot more like a circle. That that's why oftentimes you'll
find me kind of staying away from some of those

(18:10):
things and just really trying to go a route of
a more secular concept for it. Again, like you know,
sitting sitting around, taking taking stock of your breath and
you know where you are in the moment and stuff
that is one hundred percent secular. You don't need any
religious mumbo jumbo whatsoever, right, you can totally just do

(18:32):
that just being a person, No problem there. I love
it when we start going into the chakras and the
past live regression things and all that, It's like, oh man,
this is not only is this not well founded, right,
but it actually has a much greater potential of causing

(18:53):
harm to people. And so that's why I get really
wary of it, because again, the meditation itself not really
gonna be the thing that that leads to the harm.
What's going to lead to the harm are these these
ideals that make people, you know, think things are real
when when we don't have good reason to, or just
you know, helps them develop an epistemology that isn't isn't

(19:17):
sound right, because we know the more the more that
we accept conclusions for bad reasons, the more likely we
are to do that in other scenarios too. And so
if it was my perfect world, we we just get
rid of all of those all of those bad methodologies
and just focus on the stuff that is demonstrable, you know,

(19:39):
which again meditation is we we do have good, good
evidence to support the fact that meditating can be really
beneficial for people. It just you know, keep all the
keep all the woo woo out of it.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Yeah, no, absolutely, Sarah. It's really good to hear from you.
I know, it's been a really long time. Yeah, but yeah,
being here after a year off and then getting kind
of my feet under me, I I'm just blown away
by the amount of kindness and support that is that

(20:13):
has come this way. So thank you for sticking around
and thank you for coming back.

Speaker 5 (20:18):
Yeah, and maybe I can't come back on a Dean's
List anymore, but you know, I'm still coming back and
patron in some reform, some forms of I just want
to say, congratulations. So I'm coming back. He made it,
and congratulations. I'm moving to West Coast, West Coast.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
East Coast, East Coast. Baby, calm down.

Speaker 5 (20:37):
Now, Okay, Well, I'm from East Coast.

Speaker 6 (20:40):
I understand.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
I'm just choking with Yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:43):
Like, I'm from West Virginia and I'm probably like, oh,
nice leftist to come out of West Virginia, but nice
you so so yeah, I'm really glad that you guys
are you know, on this journey here and and everybody's
stilling good. So maybe come up to Seattle sometimes, you know,
absolutely attelaiteis Church, come and come up and see us

(21:06):
or whatever. But uh, yeah, I just wanted to say
thank you so much for continuing this on. You guys
are a eric. I have apology since literally the beginning
of your going online.

Speaker 7 (21:19):
I'm not kidding.

Speaker 5 (21:21):
You guys have you have been a really positive example
of what it means to be, you know, an atheist
talking to theists instead of foaming at the mouth militant stuff,
which is slightly entertaining, but it gets a little tiresome
after a while and the ultimately goes nowhere. So I
really want to see good things come from this show

(21:43):
because I believe in you guys.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Well, thank you so much. Yeah, that means the world
to me. And I'm really glad. I'm really glad that
you know, we can get the ball rolling on modeling,
you know, the kind of conversations that we want to see,
and I am happy to see it happening in other
places because you know, I see Elliott doing it in
other shows and it's just it just it feels good.

(22:06):
You know, let's let's keep that rolling. Thank you for
yelling in.

Speaker 5 (22:12):
Yeah, absolutely, all right, take care you too.

Speaker 1 (22:15):
See.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Yeah, I definitely, I definitely have used you and Ethan
Michael and and folks like y'all just to you know,
help guide the way that I have these difficult conversations
because I do I do believe that compassion in these

(22:37):
tough conversations is what actually makes progress, what actually gets
people on the other side to stop seeing you as
an outsider, as an other and instead see you as
a human being. And once you establish really establish that,
it's it's amazing how some of the most hot button

(23:01):
difficult conversations can be some of the most productive and
and you know, learned conversations you have. So it's it's
the it's my favorite way to do it.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
So I'm glad and and and not to mention the way. Also,
what you were saying before is just unlikely friendships. People
you find that you are calling to say happy birthday
and the birthday to them, and you never would have
imagined you'd have done that with somebody, you know, with
So I'm really really happy to see it. I saw
in the comments before we get into the next caller,

(23:31):
somebody had asked if you had defected from the ACA shows,
as if it's we're both as if it's verboten to
talk about it. I'm really really happy that you're representing,
you know, these conversations in this way on those shows.
And I'm sad that I wasn't on talk Ethan to
welcome you on, but I definitely you definitely, you know,

(23:54):
for whatever it's worth, it's worth anything at all, you
have my blessing, you know, and I'm glad that you're
doing it. And I'm glad that I think that the
idea that one person can own an approach, you know,
if somebody like it might be my face, it might
be my voice, you know, it like find those people
that resonate with you, and the fact that you're also

(24:17):
bringing that to the table is just fantastic. Plus you
have like a really sweet sense of humor, and like
there's a lot too that is just not in me
that I absolutely dore saying. So I'm glad you're man.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
Yeah, I really I really do appreciate that. And you know,
I have had this view for for a while, which
is just you know, I really believe there is so
much space, you know, out there for so many people
right now, we have such an intense fight on our side,

(24:51):
you know, as as non believers, as skeptics, as you know,
secular minded folks, science minded folks. And so with that,
I am just thrilled to see, you know, more and
more super awesome people inhabiting this space. And again we
are seeing a lot more of that compassionate conversation, and

(25:15):
I definitely think you are a big part of that.

Speaker 5 (25:17):
Man.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
I think you helped push a lot of people into
seeing that you can have this conversation in a different way.
And it just means that I just keep meeting these really,
really cool people. I met this guy the other day.
I'm just gonna shout him out real quick, Deronte Lamar.
He was a megachurch pastor for years. He's now an atheist.

(25:37):
He has a super cool story, and he's just this
super nice guy. And like, I'm just thrilled because even
three years ago, you know, when I first started helping
out places and whatever, you know, there wasn't as many people.
And that number keeps growing. I mean, we guys, we

(25:59):
are taken over the world.

Speaker 7 (26:01):
Here.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Us atheists are gonna be running this show here shortly
like getting on board. We are coming.

Speaker 1 (26:09):
I I that I hope so, I hope so and
and it's it's not it's not even so much. Uh,
we are coming. It's we're bringing it our side. We're
you know, right for for good reasons. We're you know,
and through through good conversations. And uh, I'm right there
with you, all right? Are you ready to hop onto

(26:31):
the next call?

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Before we do one last thing, because I do want
to get some other callers, uh, before we take this
four one two skepchen that's four one two seven five
three seven four three six or tiny dot cc slash
skep gen. If you use that link tiny dot c
c slash s k e p g e N. It
usually is a nicer uh link or it is. It's

(26:54):
a cleaner audio feed as well, and it's free. So
if you want to talk to us, that's how you
do it. Let's move on and talk to Nick in Utah.

Speaker 6 (27:04):
Nick, Hey, guys, how's are going?

Speaker 8 (27:07):
Hey?

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Doing well?

Speaker 1 (27:09):
I'm waiting for the caffeine to kick in and just
happy to be here with a guest and and and
and and getting other you know, just that that that
back and forth is just so nice.

Speaker 6 (27:20):
How about you, I'm doing great. Thanks for asking. Yeah,
I just want to call. I had actually called before
your hiatus, uh, with basically the same topic, but I'm
not sure that I presented it well. Basically, I frequently

(27:45):
fined with, you know, with any public figure that sometimes
they're just gonna have views that you disagree with. Sometimes
that means you support them, sometimes that means that you stop. Specifically,
I am a huge fan of the author Brandon Sanderson.
Oh yeah, yeah, he's He's pretty great, at least I

(28:07):
think so. But and he does tend to have, you know,
pretty pretty liberal or progressive views on on things like
on things like you know, LGBTQ rights and stuff like that.
But he is also still a devout tithes paying Mormon.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
Is which isn't Isn't he a professor at Brigham Young University.

Speaker 6 (28:35):
Yeah, he does teach one class a year at BUYU,
And that's you know, a whole other controversy in and
of itself. But you know, although Brandon himself has, like
I said, these progressive views, you know, he does pay
ten percent of his substantial income to an organization that

(29:00):
does not support those views, and that actively campaign against
them in case of like Prop A in you know, California,
where the church was doing like call centers and stuff
to you know, prevent the legalization of gay marriage. So
I find myself in this weird place where I'm not

(29:21):
quite sure what I should think about it, because, you know,
as an ex Mormon, I do have a perspective of
that tithing is not is requisite in the Mormon Church.
It's like they're holding your salvation hostage if you don't.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
If you're tithings, Yeah, if you're not in good standing,
you can't get married in the church.

Speaker 9 (29:44):
In the temple.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (29:47):
So I was I was just kind of curious about
your your guy's perspective on that kind of situation, just
because both of you have given me quite a bit
of insight before in your different call shows and stuff.
So I was just interested to hear what you guys
thought about that.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
Sure, elliot, what do you think?

Speaker 2 (30:05):
I don't think you will ever find a perfect other
individual to represent your views, right, And that sucks a little.
There's never going to be a person running for office.
There's never going to be a friend or a colleague
or a family member that you literally see eye to

(30:27):
eye on absolutely everything. And this is why when it
comes to the conversation with religious folks who want this
super hardcore, strict, absolute, always the case principle of morality,
I push back. This is why I don't think that

(30:48):
the best way to live your life when it comes
to determining what's good and bad is just these bullet
points that have to be followed constantly because of this
exact situation that you find yourself in. There's this dude
out there who like rights, all this really good stuff,
and nine out of ten times is just fricking crushing it.

(31:12):
Great arguments, super duper compassionate, really on the right side
of history, all of that. But in this one area, yeah,
there's actually something that's not so great. Now, is this
guy going out there and you know, slaughtering puppies. No,
it doesn't seem like that's what he's doing. Right, So
the behavior that he's engaging in, while it's something that

(31:35):
you disagree with, and while it's even something that you
know may demonstrably lead to harm, right, this is where
the pragmatism comes in. This is where we as individuals
who say what matters to me is well being both
on an individualistic level and a societal level, and when
we look at that, when we look at that picture, unfortunately,

(31:59):
we just got to do the math sometimes and if
the math works out where hey, yeah, there's this Mormon
and it it's not really great that the whole Mormonism thing,
it's that's not Yeah, I really wish that wasn't the case.
But look at all this other incredible stuff that this

(32:19):
person does. It's just that's just a straight scale right
there for me, Nick, And again that that means that
it's not always going to work out perfectly, you know,
But that's okay because I don't think there is a
system where it does work out perfectly. And if you've
got one, please call me. I love to talk about moralities,
so like, let us know what that perfect system is.

(32:42):
But yeah, I think it. I think it's okay to
support somebody like that man.

Speaker 6 (32:48):
All right, Yeah, yeah, sure, that that makes sense. Sorry, Eric,
were you going to say something?

Speaker 1 (32:53):
Oh yeah, I was just going to add in it. It.
It's an interesting kind of thought because it's it's a
it's a guilt by association and whether or not somebody
should be canceled type of thing, And how do we
decide whether or not somebody has done something so awful
that it bothers us when we consume their material. You know,
when you bring up the fact that the Mormon Church

(33:13):
has done really awful things, and you know, yeah, sure,
and I will not ever support the Mormon Church. But
I also don't support the Catholic Church. And there are
plenty of content creators and things like that who are Catholic,
and I still consume their stuff. You know, I don't
support Chick fil A, but I'm not going to refuse
to talk to somebody who does eat at Chick fil At.

(33:33):
I'm just going to disagree with that choice, right, I haven't.
I love the Cosmere. I saw a TikTok the other
day of somebody who said of somebody who's just you know,
it was a skit. They're talking to a friend and
you know, hey, how are you doing. Oh I've just
been catching up on Brandon Sanderson.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
And it just gets cool.

Speaker 6 (33:52):
Yeah, yeah, the dramatic.

Speaker 1 (33:54):
Music comes in. You've been what. I haven't seen my
family in months. You know, it's just so much do it.
And I haven't really seen awfully problematic shit. And because
of that, like, I don't think that we should be
canceling somebody because they subscribe to something and that thing
itself is the problem. You know. It's this guilt by

(34:16):
association by degrees and canceling. And I don't think that
we should, yeah, because then we lose the opportunity to
gain that person later. You And so, as somebody who
absolutely loves Brandon Sanderson books, I could not imagine canceling them.
And I don't think that. Yeah, just like Elliott said,

(34:41):
not only is it it totally understandable because we can't
have everything in common with somebody else. I just I
don't see any bad in it. I really don't. So you, Yeah,
as far as that's concerned, have fun with it. You know,
if the day comes the brand Sanderson said says some

(35:01):
really problematic shit, that's the day I'll probably place books
down and stop.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
But until absolutely yeah, but until then, oh no, no,
please finish your thought. Oh no, it's well, just or
or if we if it comes out that he's engaging
in certain egregious behaviors, right, like if if we find
out that the the class that he's teaching at BYU

(35:26):
is actually focused on like you know, conversion torture, right,
and it's trying to tell gay people that they're not
actually attracted to the people that they're attracted to and stuff.
Well yeah, well then it's like dude causing harm, Like
fuck yeah that at that point. Yeah, hell yeah, I
want to I want to hear you saying calling in,
going like oh man, Buck Brandon, you know, like totally, man,

(35:49):
I'm with it. But uh yeah, if that's not the case,
then yeah, I mean it's I think it's okay.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
And and and that is how I justify having been
an early kickstarter of so many of Brandon's projects. So like,
you better believe I've got like the early edition copy
of when he released Miss Born as a tabletop RPG,
and the board game with a special sleeve and and
and and and and figure and all of that.

Speaker 6 (36:20):
Oh come on, don't even get me started on all that.

Speaker 1 (36:25):
But Nick, thank you for calling in, and thank you
for following for so long. We appreciate it. Thanks man,
take care. That was nice.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Yeah, And it's it is tough to figure out what
the right thing to do is a lot of times
because of this difficult calculation. And that's why this this
like simple utilitarianism doesn't work. It has to be more nuanced.
It has to take an account so many different factors
of life and what a person is. Yes, I'm an atheist,

(37:04):
but that is not the only frickin thing about me, right.
I am a huge rock hound. That's the term for
those of us that really love rocks, and we go
digging for rocks and stuff. I literally have rock digging
tools just in the other room. But like, yeah, it's
like there is so much to every single person and
every single viewpoint and to just say, oh, man, yeah,

(37:27):
but like this, this guy's still a moremon you know,
or like man, this this guy's great, but like they
do believe in chakras. It's like, well, yeah, okay, and
that's wrong, and I agree that's that's not right. But
they're also, doubt at the local soup kitchen literally every weekend,
they're actively on the front lines supporting trans rights and

(37:48):
the right to vote, in freedom of speech. It's like,
I don't know, man, you believe in your fucking chakras?

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Like yeah, or or just you know. I so from
what I've seen of Brandon Sanderson stuff, in part, it's
just I haven't seen him necessarily at soup kitchens. He
might be, but he's just also like not doing bad stuff.
It's just yeah, he's just he's just writing like a madman.
And and yeah, so I don't know, I don't know

(38:17):
if ever in my lifetime I'm gonna fully catch up.
I stopped a couple of years ago, and I've seen
that like a dozen books have come out since then,
and I don't even know where to start. But all right,
are you ready to move on to the next call?
Oh yeah, all right, let's do it. We have read
in Texas. Red is absolutely a name that I remember.
You're live on the show. How's it going?

Speaker 7 (38:39):
Hi?

Speaker 2 (38:40):
Doing good?

Speaker 1 (38:42):
Thank you for calling in. It has been a long time.

Speaker 7 (38:48):
I wanted to call in last week, but I had
to deal with some life stuff unfortunately, But I'm here
this week totally understood.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, glad you made it. What do you want to
talk about?

Speaker 7 (39:01):
So, kind of going off of the last discussion I
had with you about paganism, I went to the community
that you mentioned before. It's it's a really great pagan community.
They're really accepting the kinds of people, including Athiopagan. But
through the week weeks i've been there, I've kind of

(39:22):
been thinking, like we kind of give give the gods
their own power basically because us as human we created
the gods basically inventing them, and we give them perceived
power over us as they let influence our lives. So
I kind of wanted to discuss a little bit about that.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Okay, I am interested in finding out more about what
you think of it, because using that language can be weird,
and so like before I make assumptions to me, what
what what what? What are your thoughts on it, I'm.

Speaker 7 (40:05):
Still kind of form out completely my thoughts on it
because I'm still like going through the ato pagan stuff
with my experiences. I think it's it's been really helpful
having because when I do the little pagan prayers, I
write them down. It kind of feels like I'm writing

(40:26):
to a friend when I do these prayers, and they're
really really just simple casual conversations basically to myself what
I'm writing it to as if I'm writing to another person,
to a god, basically saying, hey, I'm having this trouble.
I wish I had help with this. And I guess

(40:48):
that that makes me think I'm kind of having a
conversation with like a perceived like an imaginary friend almost
about how I see the Norday gods. I don't know
if they're actually there, and I don't have a reasona
believe they're there, but it's extremely helpful to have somebody

(41:09):
to have a perceived conversation with when I'm writing these
things down kind of like a journal. And I was thinking, like,
I'm kind of giving them power over kind of an
influenced way over my life, because like i feel like
I'm talking to a friend even though I'm not getting
an answer back. I was thinking how in the same thing,

(41:30):
other religions have this, like Christianity, they give God perceived
power that they think that they're going to send them help,
and they let that influence over their lives, and I
was kind of thinking about that all across their religions.
Kind of sorry, I'm all over the place. I'm trying
to collect my thoughts as I think here, No.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
That's okay, I'm getting my thoughts together as you're talking,
so like.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, if I could just ask quick read it almost
sounds like you're saying to me and please like correct
me if I'm way off base here. It almost sounds
like you're kind of questioning, like, hey, is this practice
that I've been engaged in am I maybe taking it
too far? Like am I am I? Maybe verging on

(42:18):
the edge of it not being okay anymore? Is is
that kind of what you're going for?

Speaker 7 (42:25):
Kind of kind of not? I think it's healthy for
me to be able to write out my thoughts and stuff,
to have it right out to what I I kind
of like what I said before, I kind of perceive
these gods as being like kind of like imaginary friends
that I talked to and I was I've been having

(42:45):
thoughts like do I really get to call myself an atheist?
Or do I get to call myself a take in pagan?
A pagan? Sorry? Sorry? Or am I since sitting here?

Speaker 10 (42:57):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (42:58):
But I really definitely, I definitely don't think you need
to worry so much about the label, right, Like, if
you feel comfortable with the label athopagan and you feel
like when somebody asks you, hey, Red, you know what
are you? What do you believe? And you go, well,
I'm an athopagan and they go, well, gosh, I just

(43:20):
don't know what the heck caut is. If you feel
comfortable in terms of being able to describe that to people, right,
not even defend it, because that's silly. You don't need
to defend you know, you don't need to defend who
you are or what you think right to anybody.

Speaker 9 (43:34):
Right.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
But if you feel comfortable with that term, and you
feel comfortable being able to explain to people what that means,
and you know at least a basic concept, I say
take the label. Hell yeah. Like I love the label
theological non cognitivist, but I don't always say that right
away to people because it involves a bit of unpacking

(43:56):
there as to what the heck I mean, right, But like,
I also don't feel bad with taking the label atheist
because I kind of am. Both they are kind of similar.
You know, if somebody wants to say, hey, you're not
actually an atheist, man, you're an agnostic. It's like, I
don't care whatever you call me. Whatever you want, man,
do we understand at least my position, right, And so yeah,

(44:21):
if you if you want to take the label atheist
and somebody says, hey, what does that mean to you,
and you go, well, I don't really believe any of
the big gods, you know, like the Shiva and the
Alah thing. I don't think those are real. But I'm
not super positive on maybe some of these others. You know,
I do these rituals and YadA YadA, and they really

(44:41):
help me and so forth. Fuck yeah, you're an atheist,
like you know, you don't have to fight harder for it.
Like absolutely you you take take that label that makes
you feel comfortable.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Absolutely yes.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (44:56):
I don't know how much I want to how much
I can add to that the it like just as
just like addressing the example that you gave. Being able
to externalize your issues so that you can see it
from an outside point of view can be an incredibly
useful tool. When when you when you talk about giving
power to a thing, you know that there's a lot

(45:19):
of language in there that makes me bring back my
Christian you know background, and so you know, are you
giving it authority in your life? You know, and that
kind of stuff.

Speaker 7 (45:30):
That's what I was feeling like too. That's why I
was kind of like, I'm giving power to these things
that may or may not be there. It kind of
feels Christianity. But this writing these things down really helped
me to have like a perceived being listening to me
as I write to them.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
I honestly think that that's part of the indoctrination still talking,
you know I and and that's something that you have
no just just the same way that Elliot said, don't
you don't owe it anything and there's nothing that that
is is what goes on, What went on in my
head what I remembered as a pastor who would say

(46:12):
that there are principalities in the world. You know, there
are there are realms that are that belong to certain
you know, good and evil figures, and are you giving
power to those principalities? And whether or not I believed it,
it is definitely a style of thinking that I took

(46:33):
with me that I learned that I have to let
go of. And you are not giving power to principalities.
You are not you know, you were not boosting the
actual like spiritual magic of some being. You are finding
a culture that you're engaging with, that you're enjoying, and

(46:58):
you are you know, useful tools. And however you want
to frame that for yourself, it sounds like you got to.
You know, you have a good head on your shoulders.
You are able to recognize the difference between reality and fiction,
and you have been working on your epistemic grounding such
that if something does come along and make you feel weird,
you address it. You don't just you don't just suppress it.
And that is a huge piece of indoctrination that it

(47:20):
sounds like you've you, you've absolutely kicked ass in finding
your way out of that, and just keep that, you know,
be proud of that tool as well, and just moving forward,
you know, listen to your gut. If something feels weird,
explore it, don't don't repress it, and apply that that framework,
those those epistemic tools that you've worked so hard to

(47:42):
build as you go along, and then where you go
from there what brings your joy. That kind of feels
like the theme of the episode right between this and
the last collar is if it brings you joy, go
for it, Like we're we're We're not We're not going
to gate keep you. There are enough people that are
going to be gatekeeping everywhere else.

Speaker 7 (48:03):
Oh yeah, I've had the unfortunate uh experience with gatekeepers before.
Uh thank you that the kind of this really kind
of helps me collect my thoughts a little bit on it.
I do, I do absolutely agree with you along the
indoctrination part. I'm still trying to take a lot of

(48:26):
indoctrination out from when I was a kid in Church
of Christ stuff growing up in that I've been learning
trying not to suppress it as much. I've been working
through it with the with the therapist, and she encouraged
me that if if this, if you opagan stuff is
helping me, I should absolutely be exploring it.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
Yeah, And I liked that both you and Eric brought
some of this Christianese in because I do think that
is definitely some of it that's that's playing on you.
Like I know with a lot of my Christian friends,
you know, they talk to me about worshiping science or
you know, giving giving authority to you know, all these

(49:12):
other things in my life, you know, and whatever. And
it it's just interesting because truly, that's just not at
all the way that I see that stuff, right, and
it and it because of the way that they view
the world when it comes to how they should behave
with God, how they should think about God, how God

(49:35):
interacts in their life, and so forth. It is so
all encompassing in such a way that they really have
trouble seeing it on the outside where somebody's like, oh no, no, man,
I don't. I don't like worship the Renaissance Festival. I
just really enjoy going. It's just a fun time. And

(49:57):
they're like, well, you're giving authority to the the Renaissance
Festival in your life and that's the guide he bit.
It's like, no, it's not. I just enjoy hanging out
on the weekends. Man Like, I don't give it that much,
you know, power over my life. But for a lot
of the religious people, that's the only way they can
see it, because again, that's the way they were trained

(50:18):
to see stuff, because that's what God supposedly is.

Speaker 11 (50:21):
Right.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
So yeah, we're all working through the years and years
worth of getting pounded into our heads all this nonsense
and absolutely don't worry if if it takes long time.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
So I have to wonder how much of it is
satanic panic?

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Oh yeah, well that festered it and it got its
way into the weirdest little nooks and crannies of our
psychology as a society. And now, yeah, absolutely, every so
often I just hear somebody talk about blah blah, evil
and the devil and whatever, and it's like, man, I
just don't think these things are real entities. Just think

(51:00):
they're descriptions. Good and evil is a good and evil
is a label we place on something. It's not like
evil justice some magical force existing in the world, you know,
But some people disagree with you all that, so you
know whatever.

Speaker 7 (51:15):
I also think good and evil as people think black
and white. With that, I think there's a lot of
three areas. But that's a totally different conversation that might
be a topic of another day I might holding about. Yeah,
but yeah, I mostly see like the Norse gods, like
I said, imaginary friends, or like some of them are
gods of things like Sinior he is the god of

(51:37):
I wouldn't know. I don't I wouldn't say like revenge,
but like in war he broke his change and to me,
that means something to me symbolically. So I take the
gods that I connect with symbolically and I guess kind
of like pretend to have conversations with them if I think,
even if I think they're not there or not, if they.

Speaker 5 (51:59):
Are there, than cool.

Speaker 7 (52:01):
If they're not, then it's still benefitting me.

Speaker 1 (52:04):
Yeah, and I I I would love to pick the
brain of like a true believing pagan and see kind
of what their take on it is. But from where
I'm sitting, You're right, You're kicking ass. Yeah, and please

(52:25):
please try to please do call in about the good
versus evil thing, because man, what a conversation that is.
It is a lot of fun.

Speaker 7 (52:33):
I might have to like write something out for that,
because man, I have ADHD and I can't stay on
one topic.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
For long, no worries. I is everyone in this call?
Do we all have ADHD? Elliott?

Speaker 8 (52:45):
Do you?

Speaker 2 (52:45):
I don't. I do not have a I've never been
diagnosed with ADHD. I just think I haven't been diagnosed.

Speaker 7 (52:51):
But I'm pretty sure I have it.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
I took I've been screens many.

Speaker 7 (52:56):
Times for it, and I came up saying HI positive.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
It has definitely helped me, for sure.

Speaker 9 (53:04):
Man.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
But Red, thank you for calling in. I look forward
to the next time we talk.

Speaker 9 (53:10):
You.

Speaker 8 (53:10):
Thank you for having METE.

Speaker 6 (53:14):
Have good day you too.

Speaker 2 (53:16):
So just real quick, because I thought this was a
thing and I wanted to I wanted to find it,
so I double checked and looked it up just because
at the end there Red was was talking about different
gods and like their their control and like what they do,
and that has always been one of my favorite things
about religions where it's like, we have a god that

(53:38):
just takes care of the goats, you know, or we've
got a saint that only cares about oak trees, you know.
So my favorite of all the saints ever is Saint
Bibiana because Saint Bibiana is the patron saint of headaches
and hangovers. So next time you wake up in the morning,

(53:58):
folks and you're feeling a little ish, give a give
a quick shout out to apparently, apparently there's a Catholic
saint that takes care of your hangovers.

Speaker 9 (54:10):
Guys.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
I can dig that, I can dig.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
That totally seems legit. This religion totally seems legit.

Speaker 1 (54:16):
So one book that it's funny thinking about it. It
sprung to mind with this call. Have you read Small
Gods by Tom Pratchett?

Speaker 2 (54:28):
Huh huh?

Speaker 1 (54:28):
No, have you have you read anything by Terry Pratchett?

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Huh huh. I know who Terry Pratchett is. I've definitely
heard some stuff, but never like read a full book.

Speaker 1 (54:38):
You absolutely should. Discworld is an incredible universe to get into,
and Small Gods has to do with gods who their
believers and their you know, their their their faith congregations
you know, under them have kind of gone away, and
so they've lost their power and they're they're much much
smaller and uh and less less influential, And it's just

(54:59):
it's fun. I feel like it looks at that exact,
you know, viewpoint in a very sick way and kind
of contextualize it in the way that you can go, oh,
that's fiction. Right, Yeah, that's cool. I like that.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
I like that concept.

Speaker 9 (55:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Just if if all the believers in yahweh stopped believe,
it's like Santa, It's like Santa and the Tooth Fairy.
If we all stop believing in Santa and the Tooth Fairy,
they go away.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
Now you need to read Terry Pratchett, because like, there's
there's there's a trilogy that follows death and the third
one is called Hogfather and it absolutely talks about Santa.
And yes, oh yes, yes, okay, okay. So we have
another caller who has an interesting topic. But it sounds
in the notes it says that their audio isn't great.
So let's see if we can talk to them. Jesse

(55:47):
in Washington, Hello, bring hi. Oh it sounds like you're
coming out a little loud.

Speaker 4 (55:57):
Oh Okay, testing one.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Too sounds good. Yeah, it sounded like that was maybe
a speaker that was playing the show that was getting
picked up by the phone. There was some feedback, but
it sounds like the feedback is gone.

Speaker 4 (56:11):
Yeah, how are you guys?

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Did it?

Speaker 1 (56:14):
We're so good? What did you want to talk about?

Speaker 8 (56:18):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (56:18):
I just quickly I wanted to say, I'm glad to
be on the line with you guys, two my favorite hosts.

Speaker 8 (56:23):
Hey, I was just watching.

Speaker 4 (56:27):
This Sunday and got you guys talking about something news
mildly interesting and just had to do with labels. It
could be called rather nitpicky. Okay, It's just something I
hear from a lot of Internet atheists who I often
agree with about a lot of stuff. But then it
just seems nitpicky when you're it's just talking about.

Speaker 8 (56:48):
Oh I'm a.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
This is that label.

Speaker 4 (56:51):
It's not that important as I'm a secular noncognitivist. I
believe you said they're a.

Speaker 1 (56:55):
Secular, well theological non cognitivist.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
Yeah, it's a big.

Speaker 4 (57:00):
Word, which is basically you just came down like it's
one of these labels. You can tell somebody on this
or that and they still have no clue what you
are or what you think about this or that. It's
just I don't know. It doesn't move the conversation any
This is just a friendly criticism you guys, I love you.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
No worries. Yeah, so it can I can. I try
and sum the statement up back to you. It sounds
like you have a bit of above depend when people
use labels that don't necessarily help explain what they are.

Speaker 4 (57:33):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I would.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
I would agree, to be honest, I don't think that.
And I think if you go back and listen to
what one of the things I said, I was really
focusing on the ability to expand on that term, right,
I think that's where the labels actually are valuable. It's
not so much that somebody comes out and says I'm

(57:58):
an agnostic theist. Right. That doesn't help us. What what
helps us is, here's what those words actually mean. Here's
here's the here's the meat of this sandwich here, Right,
if I just if I just give you the the
top bun, it's like, well, that's great, man, that's delicious bread.

(58:18):
It's really good brioche or whatever the hell it is.
But it's not the whole rest of the sandwich. So yeah,
And on that sense, Jesse like, I'd agree if if
I just walked up to somebody and they were like, hey,
I'm a Christian and I was like, hey, I'm a
theological non cognitivist, like that'd be it, and that that
would suck, that would be stupid, that that would be nothing.

Speaker 9 (58:38):
Man.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
I if, however, they come up and they say hey,
I'm a Christian and I go, huh, what do you
what do you mean by that? And they go, well,
I'm a follower of Jesus Christ's teachings as presented you
know in the Gospels, you know, but I don't really
focus so much on the Old Testament. It's like, oh, okay,
now I have a better understanding, right, Just like if

(59:02):
I say hey, I'm a theological noncognitivist and somebody goes,
oh god, what what does that mean?

Speaker 8 (59:07):
S are?

Speaker 2 (59:07):
And I go, well it. It kind of is getting
at this idea that really, when we're talking about these
concepts of gods and so forth, nobody seems to have
a good enough understanding to make a lot of progress.

Speaker 10 (59:20):
You know.

Speaker 2 (59:21):
From there, then it's like, oh, oh cool, now we
can have a conversation. But Yeah, you just throw out
the label and like walk away as if that's a checkmate. Yeah,
that's never gonna work, man.

Speaker 8 (59:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:33):
It's kind of like that with everything, isn't it With say,
like I'm a secular atheist or some ort or different
different flavors of atheists or this or that I'm different
flavors of a rather absolute statement. It's just kind of
stun to me.

Speaker 1 (59:54):
Yeah. So, and I think there are two uses for it.
One of them, I think is what we tell people,
which is, you know, we better, we best want to
describe ourselves. But the other is I find myself shying
away from using the really really big language unless someone

(01:00:16):
is trying to flex their brain power. You know, if
somebody wants to use the big words and and and
sound like they are more knowledgeable, then I kind of
bring that up back to kind of go, you know,
calm down.

Speaker 4 (01:00:30):
But yeah, but I appreciate about you, Eric, I always, Yeah,
the thing.

Speaker 9 (01:00:37):
That's all.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
I've been a fan of yours for years many.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Yeah. The the thing is personally, I feel like, if
you know the topic well enough, you don't need to
hide behind big language. If I whenever I hear stuff
by Jordan Peterson, he uses such flowery language that it
definitely feels like he's trying to hide in obscurity. And yes,
a lot of people who use those kind of big

(01:01:05):
titles are trying to hide in obscurity and and try
and confuse people into going, oh, maybe it's not smart
enough to understand it. But if you are using it
to either a you know, explain yourself to somebody who
understands what that is, and you're trying to you know,
get to better labels, fantastic. If you're trying to say, hey,

(01:01:26):
calm the fuck down, I can use big words too,
let's just focus on the topic. Cool.

Speaker 8 (01:01:32):
But yeah, but what's the stors away George?

Speaker 9 (01:01:38):
With you, Matt?

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
Yeah, but those are all the uses I can think
of other than just.

Speaker 4 (01:01:45):
With you agnostic epist. That's what I was trying to remember.
That's that's why I hear all the time, since you know,
for decades now, since way back one hundred years ago,
talk about this or that agnosticates. It's just such a
nonsense term to me. It's just I'm an up and
a down. I'm a black white.

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
So that that that is, if you have a very
specific definition of agnosticism. When when you're using the kind
of Dowkins scale, kind of the way that they talk
about gnosticism and agnosticism, it just means whether you know
or don't know, or or or you know could be wrong,
or or you know all of that stuff. But yeah,

(01:02:27):
that's that's why. It just it helps to ask them,
you know, find out where they are first, and then
meet them there. But I'm right there with you. It
can be because.

Speaker 2 (01:02:35):
We can have a conversation where we use two different
definitions of a word right and still actually make progress
in the conversation. We can have the conversation where I say, hey,
when I mean atheist, I really just mean it in
this broad, very simple understanding of believe in a god,

(01:02:59):
do not believe in a god? Right. But then somebody
else could say, hey, man, I understand that that's the
definition you're using in this conversation, but when I use atheists,
I mean it as strictly saying gods do not exist.
In the philosophical literature, that's pretty much how it's used,

(01:03:20):
you know, And that's okay that that's the case. Because
Eric and I currently aren't writing a philosophy paper. We're
having conversations with human beings, you know. And so we
get to go, hey, man, we're not going to use
that strict definition. We're going to use this definition over
here or vice versa. And again, just as long as
we all know where we're coming from, we can actually

(01:03:42):
still have the conversation because now we just go when
Eric says atheist, this is what he's meaning. So here's
how I can push back on this point or whatever.
So yeah, I mean, it really is, it really is
more valuable just to be like, what do you mean
by that? Explain it to me like I'm five, because
you know what, I feel like I'm five about half

(01:04:03):
the time.

Speaker 1 (01:04:03):
So but but Jesse, if it makes you feel better,
I'm going to challenge a theological noncognitives after we have
this call.

Speaker 4 (01:04:11):
Oh no, oh no, you guys up all day. You know,
I respect your right to have your own personal definitions
for all the words. If you respect my right to
roll my eyes a little bit, it's okay.

Speaker 9 (01:04:22):
I love you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:22):
Guys seriously being an atheist, and in this community, I
feel like rolling your eyes is part part and parcel
with it. No, you're super good. You're super good, and
and and and don't ever think that. I don't look
back when I'm editing and go, oh god, it look
like and sound like a smarmy son of a bitch

(01:04:43):
like I do. You know, I'm trying my best to
be better, but.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
I know you are doing great. I just wanted to
compliment you've gone so far since the talk to even days.

Speaker 7 (01:04:54):
Good job, everybody, you'd love to be everybody for me.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
We will do take care. Thank you, Jesse.

Speaker 8 (01:05:03):
Yeah that was good.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
That was a good call. Yeah. V is upstairs right now,
sleeping in and I'm very very happy for them.

Speaker 2 (01:05:15):
That's the best. Honestly, they got the best out of
this deal between the three of us, right like they're
chilling and yeah, here we are.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
I mean, you know what, this fills me up in
a way that I haven't gotten in a year, and
so I'm definitely not not not taking that for granted.
Before we move on to the next caller, though it
feels like Athiopagan weekend, it's amazing, we've got another call.
But but before we move on, theological non cognitivist.

Speaker 2 (01:05:41):
Mm hmmmm hmm. That soviscerate me, Eric, take take my
whole worldview apart.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
No, No, that sounds like my definition of agnostic.

Speaker 2 (01:05:51):
Yeah, and I get that, and I don't think. Yeah,
so this is this is the thing about I think
both theological non cognitivism and agnosticism or igtheism, all of
those terms inhabit a really similar space, and the differences

(01:06:11):
between them are really really nuanced. It's really more about
like whether or not a belief can actually be formed
in the brain on one side of it, and the
other side of it is more about the semantics of
it and whether or not we truly have good enough
definitions to make any progress. I understand. I totally understand
when somebody says, hey, that kind of sounds like the

(01:06:33):
way I use agnosticism. And I don't really push back
on that because I think there is a great bit
of overlap with all of these terms.

Speaker 1 (01:06:41):
But I'm giving you the floor. I want to know
what's the nuance.

Speaker 2 (01:06:45):
Well, I would say so, at least for me, when
I'm using agnosticism, I really am thinking more in that
sense about how we construct knowledge, and like that that
whole conversation, which isn't perfect either, right, justified true belief
is is a you know, it's it's a good little
kind of guide post. But in and of itself isn't perfect.

(01:07:07):
There's all the gettier problems. Of course, there's so much
philosophical literature on this.

Speaker 1 (01:07:14):
I'm right there with you. By the way, JTV is broken.
I definitely it is.

Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
But it but but it is. It is kind of
a decent way to at least begin your your understanding
of it, right, And so for me when I say agnosticism,
I'm specifically thinking about it in that sense do we
have this ability to know? Whereas theological noncognitivism or ignosticism

(01:07:39):
isn't really talking about whether we have the ability to
under It's not about whether we can get the knowledge necessarily.
It's more talking about the current state of existence and
trying to say more in the sense of at this
point in time, when we use the word God, when

(01:07:59):
we say the term supernatural, because of the fact that
it is so ambiguous for so many people, that when
we are having these conversations, we're not actually even conceptualizing
the same thing at all. And so before we can
move forward into this conversation of is it real is

(01:08:21):
it not real? Is there value in following these you know,
guide dictates and guidelines that this thing created and whatnot.
We actually have to nail down a much better understanding.
Like when we use the word cup, it doesn't exactly
give us this one hundred percent. We know everything that

(01:08:43):
is it is not a but we have a much
better grasp of cup and wheel and table than we
do when it comes to soul or magic, and that
ambiguity in soul and magic is so much that we
really don't even know what we're talking about. Does that
at least make a distinction for you between the way

(01:09:04):
that I'm seeing the terms.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
Yeah, Oh absolutely it does. I just to put on
the hat and challenge it, even though I'm not necessarily great. Yeah,
if I were to ask someone you went to high
school with to describe Elliot, and I asked your parents
to describe Elliott, and ask your neighbors to describe Elliott,
the people that they would describe would be very different

(01:09:27):
from each other. Even though they're just They're still describing
you and asking them to describe you as a person
is a more complex and nuanced thing than describing a cup,
you know, or a jacket or whatever. And because of that,
I don't know, I feel like when people say, oh,
everybody has their own definition of a god. This is true,

(01:09:49):
but if you're all going to the same church, there
are enough similarities there that I can get the general idea,
and I don't feel bad about addressing those larger brushstrokes
to come completely go that God doesn't exist, you know
what I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
Yes, totally, and I agree with you. And there are
certain conceptions that absolutely are defined enough or at least
have enough characteristics ascribed to them for this conception of
a deity that I think it is fair to say
the idea that we're super ambiguous on this version isn't

(01:10:26):
really the case. Right Oftentimes, whenever I'm discussing, you know,
these particular understandings as opposed to just saying, you know, atheist,
because I am actually a more hard atheist than a
lot of individuals, you know, I do take the stance
that like every God I've ever come across, does not exist.

(01:10:48):
I think there's a flaw in some area of it.
But oftentimes somebody will say, a religious person in that
moment will say, hey, but couldn't there be couldn't there
be a verse out there that you just haven't come
across yet that doesn't have those problems? You know that
doesn't have the inconsistencies or the lack of evidence, and

(01:11:09):
I say, yeah, you know, maybe it could be the case.
But that's where I say, I feel that that description
for that version of a deity, I have no idea
what the fuck people are talking about there. And it's like, man,
we really got to make some more progress on defining
it before we can move forward. But the majority of them,

(01:11:31):
I mean, the the kronic God, the Old Testament God,
the New Testament God bs all fake, all not real.
I feel comfortable with that. I have enough understanding there.
It really is something that's this very small sliver of
this conversation. I feel like, you know, like when somebody

(01:11:51):
just wants to push you as far as they can
to say, like, well, couldn't there be something man like
a force?

Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
Like you know, absolutely, I don't know. I think. Let
me chew on that for a bit. Yeah, yeah, we
might have more of this conversation the more. Yeah, yeah,
but I know that we're probably going far afield. Let's
let's go ahead and talk to our next caller.

Speaker 2 (01:12:15):
This.

Speaker 1 (01:12:16):
I'm surprised we have another Athiopagan calling in. Yeah, yeah,
let's talk to Chaz in Arizona is it chas Or
chaz chev Chaz, welcome to the show. Thank you for
calling in.

Speaker 8 (01:12:32):
Oh, thank you for having me number one. Number two,
I'm going to mention something that I didn't mention Debri
and I apologize for.

Speaker 9 (01:12:40):
That, But.

Speaker 8 (01:12:43):
Eric was I owe you a big DETI gratitude. About
a year and a half ago, maybe two years ago,
I reached out to you on Twitter. Okay, I had
a very low point in my life, and you sent
me some words back that helped me from doing something stupid.

(01:13:09):
And I really appreciate you for that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
That being said, I'm glad I'm not your hair.

Speaker 8 (01:13:19):
Yeah, I'm glad that you're back on the air. I
appreciate you. I've been watching you and the and all
the ATA people for years, and then when you left,
I talked a little hole and then I found you again,
and then you left again and then you can back.
And I also want to say I appreciate the fact

(01:13:40):
that you have special guests because I've never seen a
secular rarity before today. And now I'm going to follow them.
Oh yeah, it's such a sweethearts.

Speaker 4 (01:13:59):
Thanks.

Speaker 2 (01:13:59):
Thanks.

Speaker 8 (01:14:00):
I agreed, agreed, But you guys have a way of
talking intelligently about things. Do you know what I mean?
Without I mean, I've heard arguments and conversations where it
can get a little what's the word I'm looking for, uncharitable? Yeah,
there you go. That's a great word.

Speaker 9 (01:14:21):
I was.

Speaker 8 (01:14:22):
But yeah, you said something earlier about sounding swarming, and yeah,
sometimes it gets there. But by the most part, I
think you guys talked very intelligently and very empathetically than
to most of your guests. I wanted to comment. The

(01:14:43):
reason why I called because Red was on and I
saw her and I was listening, and I really wanted
to talk about the idea of a field pagan. So
when somebody pushes me on how I classify myself, I
will always say pagan, okay, because it saves me from

(01:15:03):
a conversation that I don't really want to have. You
know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
Yes? And yeah, Chaz, I yes, And I am tuning
in because I have put my foot in my mouth
when it comes to atheopaganism before, particularly when I was
talking about Ocean Keltoy and I issued an apology because
I said Ocean Kelto was an Athiopagan and I was wrong.

(01:15:28):
I don't want to make that mistake again, so I'm
I'm very dialed in. Uh hit me, what do you got.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
So for me?

Speaker 8 (01:15:37):
When I say achi opagan, I mean oh.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
And also just really quickly because it's getting shouted out
in the chat. It sounds like you were saying that
red red uses day then pronounce but other than that, okay,
now correct, Okay, yeah, okay, okay, what do you go?

Speaker 8 (01:15:54):
Thank you so for me? When I say ach opagan,
I'm saying is that I see the the deities that
pagan people tend to worship more as aspects of myself.

Speaker 9 (01:16:12):
Right.

Speaker 8 (01:16:13):
For me, it's Pan. It's always been Pan, always will
be Pan, and that's because there's a wildness to him
to identify within myself. There is a aspect of unharnessed
sexuality that I kind of identify within myself. So for me,

(01:16:36):
the gods are just more aspects of who I am
rather than something out there that I'm reaching for help to.
Now in my rituals, when I'm writing on a piece
of parchment and giving it off to the universe to
do whatever with right and basically giving myself permission to

(01:16:59):
let got go. When I'm asking for something or when
I'm trying to manifest something, I'm giving myself permission to
manifest that within my life. Do I put a name
such as Pan or Hecatae or Aphrodite, whatever the case
might be, on that, Sure, but it's just a label

(01:17:24):
that I'm putting on that when addressing an aspect of myself.
Do I believe? Okay? So I was raised Roman Catholic
and then God for sure I was going to be
a priest all of my life. And then I realized
that my personal sexuality wasn't going to drive yeah with

(01:17:53):
the whole uh priesthood. So I went more toward a
h reconciliation type of church, and it was it was
very non denomination blah blah blah blah blah. And I
even became a pastor for a little while. I was

(01:18:14):
a pastor for five years, and then my partner got
ran over coming home from church by a drunk by
by a drug driver, and that really set me off, right, Yeah,

(01:18:35):
put a big division between me and what I thought
was appropriate. Not appropriate, that's not not the word I'm
looking for me and what I thought God was supposed
to be right. I mean literally, Rick, which was my
partner's name, was coming home from church after helping some kids.

(01:19:00):
He was a deacon for the church that I was
a pastor of, and this happens to him. Yeah, And
much like in many of the US conversations that I hear,
we talk about how a good, loving, righteous God can

(01:19:22):
allow here evil to exist, for instance, children with cancer.
How does that benefit anybody? So that's how I became
an atheist to begin with, the idea of the paganism

(01:19:44):
came in when I realized there were aspects of myself
I didn't know how to address. I didn't know how
to come to terms with. And by putting a statue
right outside of me and being able to address that
statue and being able to address that part of me

(01:20:05):
which I may not be able to confront. And now
I'm very comfortable with those aspects of myself. Though I
still put names on them Pam and Heckitay and so forth,
there's still a genuine part of me. I don't see
them as outside of myself.

Speaker 1 (01:20:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:20:27):
So I.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
Would love, Yeah, I'd love to jump in here. So
there are some people in the chat who are are
religious and have views that are different. I invite them
to call in when it comes to your specific beliefs,
chas I want to ask I, just I'm imagining someone

(01:20:50):
approaching Christianity the way that you know Christianity that I
grew up with and saying, oh, well, I am ascribing
my this part of myself to the apostle, you know,
Paul or Paul wasn't an apostle, sorry Peter, or or
or or or just and any of the apostles, and

(01:21:12):
treating them that way. I wouldn't view that person as
a Christian, but as somebody who is kind of appropriating
the the the language and characters of the the religion
that I came that you know that I came from.

(01:21:32):
How does it come across when you're interacting with non
atheist pagans, how do they how do they interact with
atheo pagans? And and you know, is it more like,
you know, do you come across a lot of gatekeeping
there or is it more like the Jewish community who goes, yeah,
there are Jewish people who believe they are Jeish people
who don't believe. That's fine, let's all have some good food,

(01:21:53):
you know, like what's what what? What is the state
of things from what you've seen?

Speaker 8 (01:22:00):
Okay, so I've so this is a whole different interesting topic.
So gatekeeping in the pagan community used to be extremely high. Right,
either you're a Gardnerian, or you were Alexandrian, or you
were uh, some other tram whatever the case might be.

(01:22:22):
You had to act a certain way, you had to
do a certain thing, you had to write. I find
that much more these days. I'll give you a prime
example of this. In the Gardenerian tra tradition, you cannot
be practicing, so most groups tend to pair off so

(01:22:47):
that you can do rituals and things like that. In
the Gardenerian tradition you cannot pair off with somebody of
the same sex, which really really yeah, they they won't
let you do it.

Speaker 2 (01:23:04):
That's weird. I wouldn't have expected that.

Speaker 8 (01:23:07):
And you can't even become higher than second degree priest
if you are dear lesbian. In other words, you can't
hold the title of high priest or high priestess if
you are getar lesbian. Now that's old school traditional Gardenarianism.
I don't know how it is today. I haven't really

(01:23:28):
uh probably touched base with Gardenarianism in the last five
or six years, but that that that was the case
when I was in it. So yeah, there was a
lot of gatekeeping. Now I find that Paganism is so
much more free spirited and eclectic and open minded.

Speaker 10 (01:23:49):
And I think interesting when when when I have those
conversations that I feel free to allow myself to identify
as apopagan, people understand what I'm saying that because well,
one I'll typically address it, and that I am addressing
a part of myself when I am doing.

Speaker 8 (01:24:09):
These rituals, and most people can accept that. I don't
really find that I have a lot of issues in
that area. I find the biggest issue, as in any
religious context, is is the differences between traditions, just like

(01:24:30):
there are differences within denominations, right, yeah, but that's really
whether you're ap opagan or just pagan, or Nordic pagan
or Celtic pagan or whatever the taste might be.

Speaker 1 (01:24:45):
From the outside, really the like, I haven't seen too
much discourse. The only thing that from the outside I
see that makes me really happy as it feels like
there's a lot of camaraderie in trying to stamp out
white supremacy, which makes me really happy to see. Yeah, yeah,

(01:25:06):
I I I don't know too much else, you know,
from that, and so I'm I'm kind of sitting in
ignorance here on it. But uh, if if anything, what
I have seen has has been really really cool. So
I'm I'm, I'm glad you are where you are. M. Yeah,

(01:25:28):
I don't know, and yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
It well, just it sounds like again, Chaz, you know,
you're very similar to a lot of our callers today,
where ultimately you it seems like you have separated, you know,
these unfounded ideas from these practices that that bring you
comfort and and allow you to you know, work through

(01:25:52):
some of these difficult moments or emotions. And I am,
I am just so super on board with that, Like
I truly believe that is the way to go with
so many religious concepts. Right again, it's not the the
bad parts of Christianity is not the getting together eating

(01:26:13):
some crackers and talking to each other. That's not the bad.
That's the beautiful human stuff. The bad part is all
the beliefs about the you're gonna be tortured if you're.

Speaker 11 (01:26:26):
Gay, or you're gonna you're gonna, you know, invite demons
into your body if you drink alcohol once or or
have a lustful thought.

Speaker 2 (01:26:37):
You know, that type of shit That's where I have
the problem. If somebody came up to me and was like, hey, man,
you know I'm a you know, I'm an atheo Christian, right,
And I was like, oh man, what does that mean?
And it's like, well, I get together with some boddies
and we do the communion thing like once a month.
But we don't think it actually turns into the body
or anything. And we don't think we're like praising any

(01:26:57):
any real entity. We're just we're just getting together and
have in community. I'm like, I'm all for it, man.
So yeah, that's kind of what it sounds like to me.
The boat you're in, Chaz, and I I just think
that's great, man, Keep keep doing this stuff that is
bringing you comfort and giving you a cool community to
hang out with.

Speaker 8 (01:27:15):
Thank you. I also just want to say, number one,
that whole transubstantiation thing is just so beyond my my
limit of understanding. Right yeah, flips all turn into cannibals anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:27:30):
Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 (01:27:31):
Well, the funny thing there is the story itself, you know,
of Jesus, you know, saying take this, it is it
is my body, it is my blood. Like who does Well,
here's the thing, like if if you were to put
yourself into it. Right, So so let's let's for a moment,

(01:27:53):
you know, treat this as a fiction that we you know,
can okay. You know, you have this character of Jesus
who knows that he's going to be trade by by Judas, right,
and if I really wanted to fuck with them and
get in his head, that is that will be some
weird ship that I would do, you know, like in
in the context of somebody who's trying to allude to

(01:28:14):
the fact that one of you is going to get
me killed, you know, and and and and and the
same with the washing of the feet, right, like, there
there are things Jesus did that like if you were
to see it in its own, you know, in universe
kind of kind of kind of context, it's some Liam Neeson,
I'm gonna find you now type of type of you know,

(01:28:36):
shit like that's not too bad. It's when we it's
when we externalize it and all of a sudden people
find you know this, Oh yes, no, we must continue
doing it because Jesus told us to, you know that
that's when it gets real weird. And I'm right there
with you. But I don't know if if you view
it in in that other context, it's kind of cool.

(01:28:58):
I guess it's weird, but maybe it's intentionally weird.

Speaker 2 (01:29:02):
From here on, Eric, I am telling you, for the
rest of my life, I will forever now see the
Last Supper as Jesus fucking with Judas. That is that
is what, that is the best, that is the best
law ever like all of this like we there's there
we find some gospel, you know, and and it just
says like and then before Jesus brought the disciples together,

(01:29:25):
he pulled Peter and Paul. He pulled Peter and and
Marc aside, and he said, Hey, guys, wat's this. I'm
gonna totally mess with Judas. We're all gonna like wash
each other's feet and ship It'll mean.

Speaker 12 (01:29:35):
Right, okay, But like seriously, though, even as a Christian,
there are so many passages of Jesus big dicking his
way around, you know, the Holy Land, you know, I mean,
the guy who's gonna turn the money changers out of
the temple fashion a whip and whip them is absolutely
going to do that.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
Huh.

Speaker 1 (01:29:55):
Go ahead, I will say this.

Speaker 8 (01:30:00):
So I'm a businessman. I work for the for the
state of Arizona, And for me, there is something to
be said for servant leadership. Now I take the religious
out of that, but to honor and to respect your

(01:30:24):
fellow man, especially if that fellow man is somebody that
you have some authority over, is a concept that I
will live and die by. So there are some things
that as a teacher, I think the New Testament really

(01:30:47):
does a good job with right, with loving your neighbors,
all of the all of those things that we hear about.
I think that you can read the New Testament and
really gain some good little nuggets from there. Is it
something to to build your life up of. I don't.
I don't know that it is. Some people do, and

(01:31:10):
more power to them that do that. But as far
as the whole washing their feet and being true to
your fellow man and all of that, I used to
identify myself as what what I what I termed as
a red letter Christian, as Jesus spoke it that I

(01:31:32):
was going to do it. Now I've come way way
far from that at this point in my life, to where, yes,
there are some good ideas within the within the New Testament,
I can throw away the Old Testament because but there
are some really great nuggets within the New Testament, but

(01:31:55):
other than a book that might help me to be
a better person, that's all I give it credit for.
And I don't see it as divinely inspired or the
book of everything. Right, So anyway, I just went on

(01:32:18):
in Canton.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
No, that's okay, I totally agree with you. And hold
on just a second. I lost my audio, so if
I'm speaking over you, I apologize. But what I was
going to say is, you know, it gets me back
to that whole cherry picking piece because Jesus also said
I'm here to turn you know, turn you against your family.

(01:32:41):
He said sell your cloak and and and buy a sword.
He had some pretty radical ship too, So yes and no,
I don't know. It's interesting having non believers talking about
what benefits there are to the New Testament. And I
really hope that there are believers watching this going like
what the fuck are they doing because it's so so interesting.

(01:33:03):
But if I could summarize what you said, chas it,
it kind of is wrapped up in the notion of stewardship,
and stewardship is something that I took with me in
my indoctrination that in a lot of ways I still
hold on to is to be you know, responsible for
those things that you have power over, and to see
yourself as as someone who needs to take care of

(01:33:25):
those kinds of things. And that's that's something I'm I'm
definitely behind. But yeah, where where are you going with
the Ethiopagan stuff? There are so many people who have
had who had so much stuff in the comments to say,
I just want to shout out Rose Red who was
who said, you know, when it comes to rooting out

(01:33:49):
white supremacists in the pagan communities, they said to if
you come across an organization called AFA, to stay away
from them. And does that sound right to you? Chaz, Yeah,
I have no idea what that means. Is that something

(01:34:10):
you know about? Elliott?

Speaker 2 (01:34:13):
No, I have only heard just the whispers of hey,
there apparently seems to be a lot of white supremacists
that are also in the pagan community. And I was like, WHOA,
what I feel?

Speaker 1 (01:34:29):
Well now, I so there were a lot of white
supremacists that I interacted with when I was a believer,
and like pagan you know type runs and all of
that as tattoos was common enough that I definitely did
make that appreciation early on.

Speaker 2 (01:34:51):
Very interesting. Yeah, I know, right, I just because I
guess normally when I feel That's why I was surprised
about the thing about like you can't move up as
being like a higher level in paganism unless if you're gay,
you know, like, because that just feels so counter to
what I normally. Normally, when I think of pagans, I

(01:35:11):
think of fairly welcoming individuals. But maybe that's just my
personal experience, and I need to meet some more bad pagans.
I know, I don't want to.

Speaker 1 (01:35:20):
It's kind of wonderful, you know, the fact that you're
exposed to the punk rock let's stomp out some some
white supremacists like that's badass.

Speaker 2 (01:35:29):
Yeah, it's way better.

Speaker 8 (01:35:30):
Let me let me kind of date myself, because I'm
talking about seventies early eighties when paganism was really coming
into its own in this country, right, And so, like
I said, a lot of that has changed. It's not
I know that a lot of Gardenerian and Alexandrian traditions

(01:35:53):
have really opened up, but it is not as prevalent
as it used to be. Yes to our are still
some group out there that still holds those ways and
that's fine. You know, I'm not going to tell them
how to do. I wouldn't tell anybody how to do
what is right for them, So but I don't want

(01:36:13):
to take up any more of your time.

Speaker 1 (01:36:15):
Yeah, we've wanted likes at Chaz. You are a sweetheart,
and they're so glad that you're here. And I'm so
glad that I just want to say.

Speaker 8 (01:36:25):
I just want to say, Eric, thank you for doing
what you do. And Elliott, I'm sure you do a
fantastic job yourself. I wish you Eric and v and Elliott,
I wish you all the best and I will keep watching.
And again, Eric, I owe you such a great debt
of gratitude and I thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (01:36:48):
Thank you. Take care of brother.

Speaker 8 (01:36:51):
All.

Speaker 2 (01:36:53):
I gotta say those those are the types of people
and calls I am just on a daily basis, thrilled
that that come through.

Speaker 9 (01:37:02):
You know, it like it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:04):
It can be so overwhelming and so difficult sometimes, you know,
hearing all of the bad stuff that happens, you know,
looking into the world around us, and just I mean
just seeing the shit hit the fan on a regular basis, right,
and then to get that opportunity to speak with somebody

(01:37:26):
who's just like you know, I have found so much
comfort and I have found so much help, and and
this community has meant so much to me. Is just
it really does it. Like you said, it gives you
that energy. Man, It just it just recharges you in
a way that you just don't get other places.

Speaker 1 (01:37:44):
So entirely agreed, entirely agreed. It blows my mind, and
I'm really happy to see it. We've got so many
more calls than we can take every time that we
have left. But just because it feels brand I kind
of like we will do this this week. I cannot

(01:38:05):
say that we are going to do this every week,
you guys, but it feels like it has been the
Athiopagan like the episode Elliott. I don't know if it's
you or if this just happens to be the case,
but I kind of want to take Steve. This will
be our last Athiopagan caller for the day. If you
are an Athiopagan in the in the uh in the queue,

(01:38:29):
we will not take other Athiopagans after this. Steve in
New York, you are live with Eric and Elliott.

Speaker 9 (01:38:37):
I just think that at this point you guys should
pay me because I'm the one that started all this.

Speaker 1 (01:38:43):
It's your.

Speaker 9 (01:38:46):
I'm the first one ever call about this.

Speaker 10 (01:38:48):
Ah, and.

Speaker 9 (01:38:50):
You remember we had me and the ganged up on
you about this.

Speaker 1 (01:38:56):
That sounds about right two seasons ago.

Speaker 9 (01:39:00):
Whatever it was, But yeah, I started this. This is me.
Everybody can take.

Speaker 2 (01:39:05):
Well, damn it, Steve, what the ship?

Speaker 1 (01:39:11):
Now?

Speaker 9 (01:39:11):
It's soon athpagans will outnumber the atheists.

Speaker 1 (01:39:15):
And you know what, so there are so many people
who just you know, when when you don't have uh,
let me, I'm tripping over my words, and let me
slow down for a second. When you leave a faith tradition,
there are so many things that you leave behind, and
finding things that you have in common with others and

(01:39:37):
creating community is a really important thing. And where you
build that and how you build it is really really important.
And what's interesting is I find that you know, atheopagans
and atheist witches and and you know, you know, these
these communities find their way to this channel, which is
really really cool. But I also just want to shout
out that I find board game communities, you know, where

(01:40:01):
people create these kinds of really really powerful, wonderful relationships
with each other and and and and gather together and
do fun stuff that that that brings them joy. Just
the board game community has not found this channel, but y'all.

Speaker 9 (01:40:15):
Have so be fair. Yeah fair Yet.

Speaker 2 (01:40:23):
I was gonna say, yeah, yeah, that's a huge overlap there,
that's for sure.

Speaker 7 (01:40:27):
That's for sure.

Speaker 1 (01:40:29):
That's fair. I also have not met any Polly people
who don't play board games.

Speaker 2 (01:40:34):
That's also true. I've also yeah, that's.

Speaker 9 (01:40:37):
Just my experience.

Speaker 1 (01:40:38):
Yeah, oh my god, is everyone in this called Polly?

Speaker 2 (01:40:42):
I am, and I am constantly asking my friends to play.
I am that dude. That's like, we're gonna finish every
fucking bit of this game of risk. Like I don't
care that we have been playing for four hours and
it is just this one country left. We will finish
this game.

Speaker 9 (01:41:02):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (01:41:02):
Elliott, we need to talk Yeah yeah yeah, but.

Speaker 2 (01:41:07):
Steve, sorry, yeah, talk to me.

Speaker 1 (01:41:11):
What's going on? So?

Speaker 9 (01:41:13):
I actually wanted to talk to you about a couple
of things. So I've been listening. Unfortunately I wasn't able
to call during your first return, so I wanted to
congratulate you on returning. We already talked in discord about it,
but I've just wanted to thank you for coming back
and putting your work back into this. Secondly, I wanted

(01:41:34):
to talk about two things. The first thing was I
wanted to call about anti feism versus pluralism, was a
conversation you had in the last episode. But I don't
think we delve as deep as we could have, because
I thought originally and I think this is a dramatic

(01:41:56):
shift that you've had over the past few years. If
I'm not mistaken. Uh, you used to be, as far
as I'm aware, a pretty hardcore antitheist, and so was I.
But that has gradually shifted to pluralism, of which I
think is a more useful.

Speaker 7 (01:42:15):
And a more.

Speaker 9 (01:42:18):
A more pragmatic way of engaging with the world around us.
Because when I started my political journey and my religious journey,
I started as a Christian communist back in the day.

Speaker 4 (01:42:35):
And yeah, you were.

Speaker 1 (01:42:36):
You were light years away from my church man. You
would have gotten burned at the day.

Speaker 9 (01:42:41):
Yeah, well I believe that, you know, I would. I
took the quote that a rich man has a lower
chance of going to Heaven than that you can the
eye of the needles. So I was like, well, so
I was like, this the society that Jesus seems to
have wanted was a more equal society where everyone owned everything.

(01:43:02):
But yeah, I think pluralism very much. I think that
if you work from an anti theist position in your
aspects of life and trying to work for work for
the greater good of things, you're going to have to
ally with people that may not necessarily agree with you
on a metaphysical level, but definitely on a political level.

(01:43:24):
Some of the earliest communists and socialists of the day
were hardcore Christians back in the eighteen and early nineteen
hundreds who believed that, you know, we needed to make
a more equitable society. And I can't imagine not working
with those people to make a more just society just
because they are Christians.

Speaker 1 (01:43:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:43:45):
So, yeah, that's where I wanted to go with that
first conversation. What are your thoughts are on that?

Speaker 1 (01:43:50):
Absolutely? Okay, So I draw an interesting line that I
do really quickly want to point out. There's a book
called The Story of God. I think it's by Chris Mathieson.
It's been a long time since I read it, but
he kind of talks about there being different versions of Jesus,
and one of them is barefoot Jesus, and the type

(01:44:11):
of of way that you describe Jesus. There is definitely
barefoot Jesus, not sword mouthed Jesus. Like definitely a book
worth checking out it to laugh, but really on topic, yes,
and this is going to be really really not satisfactory,
But I do consider myself an anti theist, just very pragmatically.

(01:44:36):
I like the way. I like the way you put
that word because when I was at the ACA, I
had the benefit of being surrounded by other atheists, right,
other non believers, and from there you kind of get
into the weeds on things when it comes to supporting
a religion. I think that there are different levels of conversation.

(01:44:59):
If you're just trying to find community and camaraderie and
not having to agree with each other on things, then
the benefit of what Elliott's doing with, you know, meeting
with believers and and and just talking to each other.
What's what's the name of the group? By the way,
is there like.

Speaker 2 (01:45:13):
The Conversation Coalition. You can find us on Facebook and
YouTube and all the stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:45:18):
So I love it. Yeah, the Conversation Coalition, I think
is incredibly useful. But there is a place for the real,
real deep navel gazing, you know, if somebody wants to
get into what they believe and why and really dive
into the why part and talk about their epistemology, I
will take a much more hard line view simply because

(01:45:40):
I think that once we get away from the you know,
the really pragmatic, you know, are we not going to
kill each other type stuff, it is interesting and I
don't think that there is good reason to to support
those bigger those those those theologies, and so I don't know,
You're you're still gonna find me taking antiest positions, but

(01:46:00):
it's only when I think that the person I'm talking
to can handle it, you know.

Speaker 9 (01:46:05):
So my position on that is that I think that
there are religions we should be against, and those are
specifically religions that have the supremacist linkage to them. Unfortunately,
a lot of Abrahamic religions have this where it's we
have the only truth. The truth is only us, and

(01:46:26):
we are the only ones that are able to continue, thankfully,
in in in the pagan community, if we're going to
go along the same rounte we've been going down. That
doesn't seem to exist in the ones that I'm involved with.
Of Course, you guys did mention the AFA.

Speaker 1 (01:46:45):
I just I just read it in the comments. I
have no idea what it is, and I would love
to get context so that if somebody clips like, yeah,
it's not.

Speaker 9 (01:46:53):
True foc assembly. Anytime you hear see the word folk
in or volc in community, you gotta be a little
bit uh leary about the AFA is specific was specifically
created by a white supremacist who unfortunately shares a name
with me, who he uh basically created Basically, the idea

(01:47:19):
is that only white people have a genetic linkage to
the Heathen gods. All other people cannot have that because
they do not have the white skin and genetics that
link you to set gods, and therefore they must be
kept out. They at this point are creating.

Speaker 10 (01:47:40):
Uh.

Speaker 9 (01:47:41):
The last big piece of news that I heard from
them was that they were trying to create their own
homeschooling program. Yeah, and the create So if you look
at the I'm not gonna tell anyone to go look,
I'm just going to tell you how crazy they are.
So they basically when I went on that website to

(01:48:02):
check out what they were trying to teach, one of
the most horrid things that they were trying to push
was this idea that all the female gods of the
Heathen belief we're basically just good old housewives who stayed
at home and you know, didn't do anything other than

(01:48:23):
supporting their male counterparts. They also almost fully removed Loki
from the entire plature.

Speaker 1 (01:48:34):
Is a by icon you can't get rid of.

Speaker 9 (01:48:36):
Lady, Well that's yeah, Well that's why they do it
because no one of the things do or that they
have an issue with is what is called Clayton Christianity.
They take a lot of like the the laws and
traditions of what is thought to be or what is

(01:48:57):
heteronormative sis a patriarchal system and imbue it into the
pagan belief system. So Loki is removed if he's not
basically just turned into the devil of the of the
religion itself. Even Freya, who was known to be quite

(01:49:19):
promiscuous and was not ashamed to use her body as
she wished get what she wanted, is completely removed from
those stories.

Speaker 1 (01:49:31):
So, yeah, Steve, do me a favor. You come across
any of them, tell them to call the show.

Speaker 9 (01:49:36):
Yeah, I doubt I will. I do not do not
get into communities that have these type of people in
them right now be more in the more progressive spaces.
The big fight is about allowing, not allowing gods to

(01:49:58):
be worshiped that aren't approved by a lot of people. So,
for example, I try to join an organization in my
area to become a certified priest of keathen Ring okay,
and I was told because I venerate a certain group
of gods, I am not allowed to do so. Loki

(01:50:21):
had been going through that up until about a year
or two ago. They were not allowing any Loki veneration
whatsoever at their communities, and that caused a huge fight
that just ended like a year or two ago, where
they finally bent over and went, Okay, maybe we should
allow this because it's causing a lot more trouble than
it's worth. But yeah, I was barred completely from that

(01:50:43):
organization because of who I venerate.

Speaker 1 (01:50:46):
Interesting from the outside, it is so interesting seeing that
kind of stuff because like, I don't have a dog
in the race remotely, and watching people exclude each other
is so I I I appreciate the context because without
it I have absolutely no idea. But I do think

(01:51:06):
this episode is probably going to get passed around idiopagans.
So I I would love to put out the bat signal.
It would be an interesting call if some of those
bigots called the show, because I would love to to
figure out how they justify that in that in that
faith tradition, Because Mike, God is fucking weird.

Speaker 2 (01:51:28):
Bigotry is this weird twisting of reason and logic to
just get to hate. It's it and it shows all
the time. When somebody says, oh, you know, you can't
actually be connected to these gods because your skin is
too dark, It's like wow, Wow, man, that's fucking crazy. Yeah,
that's just crazy.

Speaker 8 (01:51:48):
I mean, is it?

Speaker 1 (01:51:49):
Is it that hard?

Speaker 8 (01:51:50):
Though?

Speaker 2 (01:51:51):
Like I've had people stuff Hinduism has a colorism thing.
They specifically say in some ancient texts that the wider
you are, the closer you are to Brahma.

Speaker 1 (01:52:01):
So I've seen that ship in atheist spaces when it
comes to like the bell curve and oh that's weird, but.

Speaker 9 (01:52:14):
Oh say that. They couldn't. They didn't allow. Uh, like
black people were some cursed tribe or something.

Speaker 2 (01:52:20):
Yeah they're black because they were cursed, yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:52:23):
Cursed with a skin of blackness. They are actually stories
that they would tell each other of because there are
a lot of of Pacific Islanders who are Mormon. They
really really hit the Pacific Islands hard. And there are
stories of people preaching to a congregation of Pacific Islanders
and them saying that, oh you could see over the
course of the sermon their skin getting whiter.

Speaker 2 (01:52:45):
Oh my god, holy crap.

Speaker 1 (01:52:51):
So creepy.

Speaker 2 (01:52:52):
I know, I feel like I need to shower, But
I don't know if.

Speaker 1 (01:52:57):
We're on topic or far afield.

Speaker 2 (01:53:00):
Well, if I could steve real quick, if I could
go back to the anti theism real quick. So I think,
for me, whenever I whenever I talk about anti theism,
I always have to take a step back and give
my definition of religion first. Because I do take such
a strict stance of religion. I hold two different viewpoints.

(01:53:25):
I hold one that is the most strict viewpoint, and
then I hold one that is a bit more inclusive
in terms of engaging in society. So, for instance, a
religion in the strictest of standpoints that I use, is
a you know, a doctrine of some kind, like an
actual codified doctrine. It must have that, it must have

(01:53:47):
a belief in the supernatural, a deity of some kind,
you know, something in that vein, and it must have
traditions and practices. So that definition, for instance, would exclude food,
things like secular humanism or the Satanic Temple because they
don't actually believe in the supernatural stuff, right, And they

(01:54:09):
don't even necessarily have a set of rituals, right, especially
like secular humanists right tst. More So, but then there's
the legal definition that does include the Satanic Temple and
secular humanism and atheism as well, honestly, because a non
religion or a lack of religion is something that still

(01:54:31):
needs to be you know, cared for in a government
and a society and so forth. We still need to
make sure that people aren't being discriminated against because of
their lack of this understanding. So whenever I use anti
theist and I'm saying I'm just against the religion stuff,
what I'm really against is that codified doctrine and the

(01:54:52):
belief in the supernatural stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:54:54):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:54:55):
The rituals aren't really the issue for me. It's it's
the deity stuff. And really I don't like the word
anti theist. I prefer the term anti theism because I'm
not against Christians. I'm against Christianity, right, I may be
against the behaviors of certain Christians, but again, the people

(01:55:17):
aren't my focus. It's not it's it's really not Muslims
I have a problem with. It's Allah. It's it's it's
the understanding in the Koran of how to behavior life
that I say that's atrocious. But again, most religious people
are better than their religion, and that's why I try

(01:55:39):
to separate those two things. So again, in that hardcore
definition of religion, yeah, I'm so far totally anti theism,
totally against it one hundred percent. In that more loose
definition for legal purposes and so forth, no, obviously I'm
not against all of those things because I do like

(01:56:01):
the Satanic Temple and secular humanism and stuff. So does
that distinction make make sense to you, Steve, Like, do
you see how I'm separating that stuff?

Speaker 9 (01:56:11):
I guess my main question with that would be engaging
with would you believe that athiopaganism religion?

Speaker 2 (01:56:20):
I'm not positive, And I would say I think one
of the reasons I'm not positive is due to my
own ignorance on atheopaganism, and I would just need to
look a little bit further into it to understand, I
don't think all. I don't think everybody that has taken
the label Athiopagan or all of the people involved in

(01:56:40):
that community do have beliefs in the supernatural, but I
think some do. So it just kind of depends. It
just kind of depends if it has that codified doctrine
belief in the supernatural and rituals, then I would say, yeah,
it's that hardcore version of religion, and I would be
against it mainly because of the belief in the supernatural.

(01:57:03):
That's really where I have the problem, because I focus
so much on epistemology, because I care so much about
how do we know what we know and is it true?
And if we don't have that, then I'm always going
to be at least kind of against some ideology. Right
if if your ideology has something like that in it,

(01:57:24):
I'm always going to be pushing.

Speaker 9 (01:57:25):
Back on it. So so my so I I what
I would say is that most I'm not gonna say all,
but most Atheopagans believe in some sort of Youngian idea
of like the the the gods having a a sorry
my dog's barking for some reason. Since so that's my

(01:57:47):
train of thought, whether they're young and tropes of like
you know, the warrior, the wizard, the.

Speaker 2 (01:57:53):
But not actual entities that exist and engage in the
world around them, just concepts that are that are standardized
characteristics of various you know, attributes of people or whatever.

Speaker 9 (01:58:06):
Right, Plus the idea as well as that rituals, even
if they don't have a supernatural effect, they might have
a material effect on the body and the mind when
you engage with the community and the ritual itself.

Speaker 2 (01:58:19):
So I guess I'd say that that sounds to me
like it would be in that category of that softer
religion that for me at least, because again, it doesn't
have the supernatural element to it and doesn't even necessarily
have this codified doctrine or or set of rituals, so
that that would be in that vein of things where

(01:58:39):
I'd be like, yeah, it legally is a religion. It
doesn't meet my hard criteria, and it wouldn't be one
of the things that I would be like, I'm against this, you.

Speaker 9 (01:58:49):
Know, right, I guess. I guess My main point is
that I think that if we take the there are
plenty of religions that we can like theorize about that
wouldn't have any of the issues that you and I
would have with religion, whether they are a religion that

(01:59:12):
only works with material things that exist in the universe
as we can perceive them, yeah, or or maybe assigning
some you know, levels of importance to those things to
the point of actually like saying, somebody who believes that
in the Big Bang and everything that is actually scientifically proven,
but worships the idea of you know, the mysteries of

(01:59:37):
the universe and the beauty of the universe, these are
This is not a religion that I would be in
any way against whatsoever, and I don't think would have
a real issue engaging with society as it is today.
I think that the only religions that we have to
be anti are this, as I said before this, the
supremacist religions, the one ones that you know are saying

(02:00:01):
that all of the rest of you are wrong, and
any other thought be size ours cannot be tolerated. I
don't think that religions without that, I don't think we
should be really working against in any material way.

Speaker 1 (02:00:15):
Well, so, I yes, I know I'm repeating myself here,
but it totally depends on what your goal is, right,
Like I I think that you're when you're saying that,
you're saying that in the context of a secular humanist
wanting to build a better world, right, And that's collaborating,
and that's fantastic, But that's not always the point of

(02:00:39):
my conversations. Sometimes it's about epistemology and just do you
have good reasons for coming to the conclusions that you
came to And for that I am a lot more bullish. Yeah,
but and I think that, But that's but a right.
I'll myself go ahead, no worries. But that's simply in

(02:01:00):
the context of two people, who are, you know, agreeing
to engage in that conversation on that level, because yeah, no,
if I were to meet somebody who was at that
place with me and we wanted to hash it out
about whether or not they're justified and there they're they're
whatever weird beliefs that they have, then yeah, no, I'm
going to dive into a pistemology. But I guess that's

(02:01:23):
why I would still consider myself an anti theist, because
it does still matter to me that you have good
reason for believing the things that you believe. That's just
after we stop killing each other.

Speaker 2 (02:01:36):
So and and I think that focus on epistemology, that
that justifying you know, the conclusions that you've come to,
that is so deeply important for me. And if if
somebody really put my feet to the fire, gun to
the head type thing and said, hey, s R, which
one are you more focused on getting rid of religion

(02:01:58):
or making sure people have good justification for their beliefs,
I'd be like, oh, the second one, the justification one,
because I think, and this is this is totally a
belief of mine, y'all. I really do think proper methodology
for coming to true, accurate conclusions will lead to people

(02:02:20):
not being religious because they'll recognize that they don't have
good justification for those conclusions. So really, the anti theism
stuff for me is kind of just a byproduct of
the thing that I'm really focused on, which is just
making sure we're all like good when it comes to
evaluating stuff, just critical thinking. It's skepticism in general, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:02:44):
So maybe maybe we're redefining pluralism though, because maybe yeah,
because I I don't know. I appreciate it, And Steve,
I appreciate that You're glad to see the shift in approach,
but it's not over. It's never over. The conversations are

(02:03:04):
too good, too good to not have.

Speaker 9 (02:03:08):
So okay, so I guess I guess my last point
would be this. Yeah, so let's say hypothetically that we
are able to stop any theological idea of the supremacy arguments.

Speaker 1 (02:03:21):
Well, and we're not. We're not leading Holy wars or
anything like that.

Speaker 9 (02:03:25):
Right, Okay, cool, we got rid of it. We're at
that point in our existence. Do we still Would you
still consider yourself an antipist?

Speaker 1 (02:03:35):
Absolutely? Yeah? Okay, And and and really that's where my
only on an epistemic level, I don't think you're a
bad person because you have a different epistemic tool set
from me. I do think that it would be relegated
to the same thing as like me liking woodworking, me

(02:03:58):
wanting to me getting into blacksmithing or any other hobby.
That's just because you know, having those epistemic conversations. It's
just my jans. It's just what I enjoy doing. But
it wouldn't mean something more intense than that.

Speaker 2 (02:04:16):
Yeah, yeah, And I'd probably say I'm in the same
boat because again there, yes, we have cut down so
much of the tangible harm that these religions cause abs
so freaking lutely. But I will always stand on the
point that poor epistemology, a bad system to get to conclusions,

(02:04:43):
will always lead to harm because we have a less
good chance of knowing what is and is not true
about the world around us, and the more that we
know about the world around us, the better conclusions we
can make. So if we have a system that ultimately
has flaws in the reasoning to get to certain conclusions,

(02:05:04):
that will always be a harmful thing, and it will
always be something that I fight against. So again, yeah,
I agree. I wouldn't come out and say, oh, you're
a jackass, you're a piece of shit for believe in
this Christian god or anything you know. No, absolutely not.
I'd stand shoulder to shoulder with that person as we
champion the rights of the LGBT community, as we champion

(02:05:25):
the rights of free education for people, public housing, access
to all these things. Abs so fucking lutely. We will
stand shoulder to shoulder fighting those fights. But when they say, hey,
this is correct, I will absolutely say no, oh man,
you got you got flaws in your methodology, and we'll
push back against that but we'll still go have a

(02:05:46):
burger later. You know, well, Stee, we can still be friends.

Speaker 1 (02:05:49):
I mean those conversations are best had over a beer anyway.

Speaker 9 (02:05:52):
Absolutely, absolutely, And when you come up to New York, Eric,
we definitely got to get it here, Steve. Actually I
drink a lot of whish. You can have the beer.

Speaker 1 (02:06:01):
W V will absolutely join you on the whiskey. I've
never been to New York and so that would be
a blast. And you better believe that when we do go,
I will announce it. So that sounds like a good time, Steve.
Is there anything else you wanted to add before we go.

Speaker 9 (02:06:20):
This time?

Speaker 2 (02:06:20):
So you do have a sexy voice, Steve? If that?
If that helps you?

Speaker 9 (02:06:28):
Now, I feel like this call is complete. I'm good,
all right. At least I got a little.

Speaker 1 (02:06:34):
Take care buddy. Thank you for coming.

Speaker 9 (02:06:37):
Talk to you later.

Speaker 2 (02:06:39):
M hm. You know, men don't tell other men enough
that they are attractive or or you know, charismatic or anything.
We need to push back on that, guys, All all
of those out there, all of the men out there,
go tell one of your close male friends they are

(02:07:00):
good looking, or they are a sweet guy or something.
We don't get enough of that and we need it,
damn straight.

Speaker 1 (02:07:08):
Yeah, true. I I don't know. I'm not particularly flirtatious today.
I don't think that's okay, man.

Speaker 2 (02:07:16):
I mean some days you're horny, some days you're not.

Speaker 1 (02:07:19):
I appreciate you, and and I'm very glad that you
called in. I do want to apologize. There is another
Steve actually, Anna, Michael and Evan and if you that
we just did not have time to get to today.
So for all of you who called in, thank you
so much. I know a lot of you waited on
the line for a while, but we just ran out
of time today, so please call back. I would love

(02:07:41):
to have those conversations. There are a few callers who
wanted to talk about how reading fiction kind of helped
get them out of hardcore religion. Somebody in particular wanted
to talk about Terry Pratchett, which I absolutely love. So
that means SR. Before before we have you on again,
you got to check out to your Pratchett.

Speaker 2 (02:08:02):
Yeah, yeah, I do. I got homework.

Speaker 1 (02:08:04):
I'm assuming you want to come on again at some point.

Speaker 2 (02:08:07):
Oh yes, yeah, please dude. Yeah, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (02:08:10):
Good, good good. Before we go, though, I do want
to read out super chats because it's sincerely appreciated. Sean Isherwood,
Thank you, Shawn actually sent twice first time, says hating
algebras are too in institutionalism. I think what bully and
algebra are to classical logic, the law of excluded middle

(02:08:33):
doesn't hold in most Oh, intuitional intuitionism. Sorry, I totally
mispronounced that, but I think upon reading it, I will
get it later. I think it's uh they're specifically talking
about when we were talking about justified true belief. Yeah,

(02:08:55):
I misspelled intuitionism twice.

Speaker 9 (02:08:56):
I got it.

Speaker 1 (02:08:58):
Terrible liar, says Eric and I s are two of
the just guys out on the internet. This episode may
need a warning for diabetic For diabetics, best of good
fortune for both of you. Thank you, terrible liar, You
terrible liar. A meet Matthew, thank you, says Does anybody
have a good, clear definition of paganism?

Speaker 8 (02:09:17):
Oh damn it.

Speaker 1 (02:09:17):
Why didn't I read that when we had Steven on
if religions like Greek or Norse are considered pagan would
certain sects of Hinduism not fall into that category. I
would love to have somebody who is part of that
community respond to it. But my understanding of it is
that pagan was an epithet that was used towards a
very specific group of people by by, you know, colonizing forces,

(02:09:46):
you know, and because of that, I don't know how
useful the term is in that respect outside of its context.
But that doesn't mean that it hasn't become something new
that people have built for themselves. And I'd love to
say that actually in the comments for the video, I
want to do an after show, Elliot, do you want

(02:10:06):
to join me in the discord for the after show?

Speaker 2 (02:10:08):
Heck, yeah, dude, let's do it nice.

Speaker 1 (02:10:10):
For those of you who want to join in. The
link is in the description for the video, and I
know that they're popping the link in tiny dot, cc
slash SG discord. Join us for the after show where
we can just talk to each other and hang out
for a little while. I think that'd be a lot
of fun, Elliott, Where can people find you?

Speaker 2 (02:10:29):
Oh? Yeah, if you if you go on the twitters
or or the Facebook, you know, just secularity, you can
find me. I do kind of have a YouTube channel
where if you go look up secularity, all you'll see
is just a playlist of all the wonderful places that
that I hang out. So I'm over on Atheist Experience,

(02:10:52):
I'm over on Atheist Republic. I hang out at Skeptic
Haven and just literally a bunch a bunch of other
shows I am. I am here pretty much every week
helping behind the scenes, and I'm always having a good
time here. But yeah, if you just if you just
go type in Secularity somewhere, you'll you'll probably find me.
I did see though, real quick. I can't let this go,

(02:11:14):
and I know some some folks who have seen me
other places would be very disappointed if I let this go.
Jamie Gallier, I think to say the last name. Yeah,
sent four ninety nine and said love seeing Secularity always
a sweet treat, dance monkey, And you know what, because

(02:11:35):
you sent five dollars Jamie wa Yeah, I was on
Skeptic Generation. Oh my gosh, oh my god. That should
probably keep you guys happy for a week or two.

Speaker 1 (02:11:46):
So that was adorable and I loved that. I don't
understand it, but thank you, all right. I didn't plug
the Patreon. If you like the show and you want
to that supporting us, I put out ad free versions
of things with all of the hectic stuff going on

(02:12:07):
in my life. I'm a little behind on it, but
I do ultimately put out AD free versions of the
podcast of this video. Thank people. Once I roll the credits,
you'll see the names of people on Patreon who are
supporting the show. If you would like to see your
name in the credits, that is a Patreon level, But
go to patreon dot com slash Skeptic Generation or tiny
dot cc slash donate to SG. I believe that link

(02:12:30):
still works. I hope it still works. If not, let
me do it right now.

Speaker 2 (02:12:34):
Check it right now for us and tell us in
the after show.

Speaker 1 (02:12:37):
All right, sounds good, well, Elliott, thank you so much
for joining me. I really appreciate it. Thank you, and
thank you. This was truly wonderful.

Speaker 8 (02:12:46):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (02:12:49):
Until next time. I'm Eric Murphy and I'm glad we
had this talk.

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Featuring Guest Host Secular Rarity! | Skeptic Generation | Episode 5 Season 3

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Featuring Guest Host Secular Rarity! | Skeptic Generation | Episode 5 Season 3