Talk Heathen 09.22 with Christy Powell and ObjectivelyDan

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and on this first day of Pride Month, welcome
to Talk ethen, the show where we value good ideas
over old traditions in ancient poetry, and where beliefs are
expected to have a good reason. I'm Christy Powell, and
today I am desperately looking for any reasonably good reason
to explain a bill on its way to Governor Abbott's desk.
Senate Bill ten, recently passed by the Texas Senate, would

(00:23):
require the Ten Commandments to be displayed prominently in every
public school classroom across the state. Not suggested required, not
a well rounded history of the people of the state,
not a collection of quotes from influential lawmakers and founders,
but a list of rules about how to protect God's
feelings and how to feel about your neighbor's possessions, including

(00:45):
his wife. Let's not get ourselves. This is not about history.
It's about control. It's about whose worldview gets to be
centered and whose gets pushed aside. Because when the government
mandates one religious text in a public classroom, it's not
just promoting values, it's promoting a religion. And when that happens,
our Muslim neighbors, our Jewish students, our secular families, and

(01:06):
of course everyone who believes in real religious freedom are
left standing outside the circle. So let me say it plainly.
The government doesn't get to pick your god or any
god for you. That's not freedom, that's coercion in a
gold leaf, red letter edition. So today, I'd love to
hear from you, especially if you grew up in a

(01:28):
school where religion crept into the classroom. How did it
shape you? How did it silence you? And what does
it mean for a child to be told by the
state which believes are worthy of a poster on the wall.
This conversation matters because neutrality isn't oppression, and inclusion doesn't
mean erasure. It means every student, every family has the

(01:50):
right to belong without an altar in their classroom. You're
watching Talk Heathen. Let's think critically, let's talk honestly, and
let's get into it because the show it's coming right now. Okay,
welcome everyone. Today is June one, twenty twenty five. I

(02:13):
am your host, Christy Powell, and with me today is
my friend objectively Dan excited to be doing this with you.

Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yes, that's right. You need a straight cis white guy
token straight Cis White Guy as your co host for
this first day of Pride of course, just.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Jumping into Pride. I mean, we've got big topics. You
and I grew up in this area. You and I
grew up around these, you know, kind of evangelical incursions
into the public school system.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
I think there's a lot for us to talk about. Yes,
it's true. We were talking a little bit before the
show because I did go to public school, but I
went to public school in Waco, Texas. So I think
my credibility is still there, you.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Know, like this, Yeah, the secularness of.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
That, you know this, Yes, this was a little bit off,
a little bit, and somehow I survived. David Oliveria has
a great joke about Waco. He used to run a
church there. He said that in Waco there's more Christians
than people, which is a really good, a really good joke.
So yeah, yeah, I definitely seen some violations in my time,
as you might have as well. Although you went to

(03:20):
a Christian school, so yeah, I did.

Speaker 1 (03:23):
I did, And so that definitely shapes some of my
thinking on all of this because for me, it was
very normalized. It was even pushed and pressured, but not
to the benefit of anybody I went to school with.
If you saw the like college acceptance rate of my
college preparatory religious schooling, you'd see that there are a

(03:45):
lot of lies being told and a lot of messy
ideas being preached from the classroom. And I don't think
anybody should have to go through that if they didn't
choose it, And I definitely don't want our tax dollars
paying for it and for the government to be pushing
it in the ways that it is. So it's it's
getting messy, and I think we have a lot to
get into.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Yeah, definitely, definitely, especially when it comes to stuff like evolution.
Like again, I went to a good public school that
actually taught evolution. That was not the norm for most
of my friends that went to like other schools. And
even if they taught it like they still definitely was
a hint of like, oh, this is actually not real,
you know, just based on what I've heard from other people. Right,

(04:26):
I mean that's just one example. There's a lot of
these kinds of issues. Nowadays, they're like, oh, we got
to put the Ten Commandments in schools. I mean they've
been doing that for a while, but now it's like,
I don't know, it feels like it's happening again, these
sorts of waves of legislation to just do anything but
actually fixed the material conditions that schools.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
Right. Yeah, and you know, this is at a moment
where teachers have been begging for raises for a long time.
We've had a number of like walkouts and protests and
mess I mean, it is a messy situation and this
does not feel like the right solution. Yeah, we're definitely
going to spend some time on these ideas. We definitely
want to hear from our audience. Of course, talk Heathen.

(05:05):
We are open to all of your questions about religion,
secular humanism, atheistic morality, cosmology, philosophy, science, history, life, the universe,
and everything. Uh. That said, Dan, is there anybody in
particular you're hoping to talk to today?

Speaker 3 (05:19):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (05:19):
Man, you're asking me, you know, I'm always I'm always
picking his calls. I feel like you should have the
first go at it. There's a lot of different ones.
I see, Jesse looks interesting to me. I think they're
still in the screening room though. So yeah, so we've.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Got we've got some good calls on the line. We've
got a few lines open, and before we jump into
all of that, I just want to remind people that
Talk Heathen is a production of the Atheist Community of Austin,
a five oh one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to
the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and of course,
the separation of religion and government. We are a live

(05:56):
call in show with open lines, so get your calls
in at five one two four two or from your
computer at tiny dot c c slash call t H.
While those calls are loading. While you guys are getting
in here, let's go ahead and bring our friend Aaron
in for the question of the week, our Talk Heathen
to Me segment. Aaron, what you got for us this week?

(06:18):
You are muted? My friend knew that.

Speaker 4 (06:20):
Was gonna happen to you warn me. There we go,
all right, uh, all right, well, today it's time for
our Talk Heathen to Me segment where we get to
into our question of the week. And last week we
asked everybody name an inappropriate time and or place to
suggest a prayer circle, and here are our top three answers.
Number three from Stephen Kahn. Inappropriate time to suggest a

(06:43):
prayer circle? Right, before the climax of a bookcocky session.

Speaker 2 (06:48):
It's visceral. It's a little, honestly a little bit. Who's
picking the who's picking the Yeah, got a wake you up?
That'll wake you up? Okay.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
Number two from Daniel Aaron, Let's form a prayer circle
around this tornado and ask God to stop the storm.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yeah, yeah, don't do we apply these beliefs I hosted
to talk to either the lights reminds you not to
try or attempt.

Speaker 4 (07:17):
Yeah, that's gonna work about as well as rolling the
dice and saying on a one the tornado will dissipate.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
That's just not not going to work.

Speaker 4 (07:24):
And number one from Colin Mattz in an appropriate moment
for a prayer circle during a square dance.

Speaker 3 (07:33):
Some fun.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah wow, Yeah, so we're our answers are really all
over the place today.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
Really all over the place. Yeah. We went from dad
jokes to very sexually explicit humor in the course of
about thirty seconds. And I don't know how I feel
about that, but.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
It's the Christy Powell talk, you can guarantee. Yeah, it
really is.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
It's June, right, It's June. It's a new month. I'm
not trying to yuck somebody's yum. I'm just saying that,
like you said, it's a little it's a little early,
it's a little literally.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
All right.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
Well, the prompt for next week is what would Jesus'
rap name be? Damn?

Speaker 1 (08:07):
What would you jan?

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (08:08):
I hope you have something for this.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
I feel so for some reason, what came to mind
to me was MC A D you know, because it's
like b C A D. Right, I don't know that
that's the only thing I could think of it. It's
not even.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
So not good and it's like better than mine, which
was just MC JD JC.

Speaker 2 (08:29):
So you know, yeah, all right, we came.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
Up with the same bad joke.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
We gotta we gotta fix this in the future.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Get the pretres in on it.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
You know what. That's okay because our convents will have
better answers than we will.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
So yeah, please please rescue us on this question. Give
us your best this week in the comments to this episode,
and uh and we'll be future will be featuring you
next week. All right, thanks guys, thank you Aron. Okay, well,
with all of that pre m all of that fun,
let's go ahead and jump on the lines and uh yeah,

(09:04):
you said Jesse in Michigan. Seems like a great conversation
to start off with, Jesse, what's.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
On your mind today? Hello, Hello, Patty, what can we
do for you?

Speaker 5 (09:15):
I don't know. You know, my name is Jesse, and
I understand, and I wanted to talk to you. I'm
especially grateful to talk to you, uh, Christy, because I
know you're a mental health professional, and well, my problem
is dealing with mental health.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
And the atheist community.

Speaker 5 (09:31):
Sure, actually kind of funny, funny, but one of the
reasons why I became an atheist was sort of called
my education and the arts kind of help. But also
I had mental health problems as a teenager, and I
started receiving cognitive behavioral therapy, which are trying to be
very helpful, and uh, you know, like it sort of
helped deconstruct the way that I was thinking as I

(09:54):
grew up as a Catholic and it, you know, being
Catholic kind of insinuates that you're worthless and you start
to believe that.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Ever while, and yeah, I hear that.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
Directly contributed to my vesic.

Speaker 5 (10:04):
But the problem I'm really having now is that I
identify as well. I would say that let me be clear,
I am under the Latino umbrella as far as American
political way of describing the census is concerned.

Speaker 3 (10:17):
But yeah, let the.

Speaker 5 (10:18):
Audience know that I reject that label because Latino favors Latina,
favors the colonial powers of the Spanish, and also favors
the Catholic Church.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
So I forget that, rejects that.

Speaker 5 (10:30):
So yeah, and as a person from Texas, the Texas
that peppered with ancient sort of a well not really ancient,
but old missions like the Alamo, which my ancestors were
converted to either coerce or against their will or using
force or other means.

Speaker 1 (10:46):
Yeah, I hear that, and I hope that that is
history that we are still willing to teach in our
public high schools, which is something I definitely worry about. Like,
you know, San Antonio has a missions baseball team. We're
definitely aware of their existence, but how do we talk
about them? What is the story that we are telling people?
And how are we educating people about the oppressive nature

(11:07):
of those institutions. They're not just cool old buildings, they're
they're places of incredible oppression.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
But yeah, with all of.

Speaker 1 (11:15):
That in mind, Jesse, tell me about your call for today,
Tell me about your experiences of mental health and the
atheism community, or what it is that you're struggling with here.

Speaker 5 (11:25):
I guess I'm trying to put it into words. So
it's really helpful to speak, you know, because I don't
really have any other resources to talk to other people.
I mean, for example, like I said, I'm in the
arts and I deal with people who are under the
atheist umbrella all the time, but I don't know any
other skeptic and I don't feel at home or safe
within then my own arts community, because I might have
someone I said, yeah, I'm idiots, but then they'll believe

(11:46):
some like some nonset at all, alternative medicine, or I mean,
in my personal encounters, I encounter a lot of people
who don't understand what it's like to not be white
in the arts, and it kind of has it. It
has it hacks on my mental health and it starts
to feel like I don't belong And yeah.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
I hear that.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
I mean, we're here promoting atheism, but we also like
to bring to the table critical thinking, secular humanism, like
some of these other notions. Atheism absent those things can
create a vacuum where a lot of completely irrational wooy
type beliefs can come in fill some space.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
Yeah, and it makes me feel.

Speaker 5 (12:25):
Like an apple because I talk to people like, you know,
like in the arts or the hard world. I had
an exhibition or something, and they'll say something that I
really just vehemently disagree with that might fall in line
with a certain RFK. You know, that's all well and good.
But it's like they can say that stuff and be accepted,
but I can't. The moment you say I don't believe that,

(12:45):
I feel like I'm an apple or like I have
to sort of challenge it, and I.

Speaker 3 (12:48):
Don't want to do that.

Speaker 5 (12:49):
I just want to be accepted in my own space.
And when I brought up to hont On my culture
my identity is because I don't feel like I'm at
home in Texas either, especially with all of the laws
that are changing and sort of oppress I mean, what
it comes down to, it's depressing me in my own
country and it doesn't feel good to be the target
of this administration. And I find a lot of allyship

(13:09):
with the trans community that I have a lot of
respect for because it's sort of this quest of finding
the space that you belong in. And I would say
I align this that tremendously, but I guess on I
guess it's really hard to put this into words. I'm
trying to find a place where I belong, but the
atheist community that I know of isn't sufficient. And you know,
I don't fit into my own community either, because uh,

(13:31):
you know, I'm an artist. And so if I get
asked all the time to do a.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
Painting of our Lady at Guadalupe, do you know that image?

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Yes, yeah, I get asked to do that.

Speaker 5 (13:39):
A lot, I'm like, I don't believe this and that
to me, Catholicism is the sword in which was used
to oppress my ancestors, and I strongly rejected. And I
know that you'll receive a lot of costs from other
Latino people.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
I can hear it in the accent, and it breaks my.

Speaker 5 (13:54):
Heart to hear people loving that oppression. These people literally
killed and committed Jen Bates violence against my ancestors two
hundred years ago, and it's you know, and this sort
of mass deportation is a continuation of that, and it
makes me feel it's like not good for my mental health.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
Yeah, No, the lack of inclusion here is breathtaking, and
I can absolutely appreciate why it's challenging to find a
community where you feel like you fit in. You know,
I did not go looking for the atheist community of Austin.
I really stumbled backwards into it. And now I'm so
grateful years later to have so many wonderful friends and

(14:31):
so many ties to this community where I'm surrounded by
people who don't just reject the idea of a god,
but who have a interest in skepticism, who have an
interest in promoting the separation of religion and government, who
are concerned about and keeping an eye on the ways
that religion mixed up with government can lead to all

(14:53):
forms of bigotry and oppression, and certainly what we are
seeing in the mass deportation movement and some of these
other like very real issues. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly
where to point you beyond saying building your own community
is always going.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
To be a part of the process.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
But Dan, is there any particular organization anything that comes
to mind, or any advice that you might have on
how to connect with people who Jesse maybe be able
to better relate to.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Well, it's really tough because not everybody views atheism the
same way that we necessarily do. So, like there's this
there was this idea put out. It was twenty twelve.
A person named Jay mcwright wrote this thing is called
atheism plus, and it was in a response to sort
of some sexual scandals that were happening in atheist conferences
and stuff, and all was basically saying was, hey, we

(15:43):
should also be like atheists and feminists, right, which is
something that like, I feel like most people we talk
today is like, yeah, obviously that was like a big
deal to a lot of people. Then this idea that
atheism could also encompass these other values or even should
have any value judgments on other issues, for some people,
that's a novel thing, and some people still struggle with that.

(16:04):
And to incorporate these other values of humanism and these
other values of recognizing oppression and histories of violence and
things like that and finding against that. So like that's
a difficulty in itself, right one is finding atheists that
also align yourselves in those values. That's definitely different. Now
I think more people are open to that, but there's

(16:25):
still some multiple people that don't even incorporate that. So
you have that, but also, you know, atheists in general
organizing atheist organizations, the saying has been said many times
it's like organizing a herd of cats, just because you
have so many people who value themselves as free thinkers
and skeptics that they tend to fight a lot. There
tends to be a lot of miscommunication, and you know,

(16:47):
sometimes skills are misappropriated in places. So you know, when
Christy is saying, yeah, you should start your own I
understand that there's a huge challenge there and that's not
something that everybody can really do. But honestly, the biggest
fruits of organizations I've seen have come from people who
really do this stuff out of a labor of love
and who really want to like see the change that

(17:08):
they want to put out, the change that they want
to see like in the world. So if you're feeling
these feelings of man, I really want to talk to
other people about this. I want to make stuff happen.
I'm actually with Christian saying, like, hey, starting your own
group and getting stuff started is is maybe the better
way than trying to find a group where you might
not even fit in or want to make the things
different anyway, yeah, can I one.

Speaker 5 (17:30):
One to think, of course.

Speaker 6 (17:31):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (17:32):
I wanted to say one thing to the audience about
like what it means to be a person like in
your own because I reject all a tata label. I
thought more under the mestizeo category, which is, you know,
the a you know, the old term for the Spanish
mixing with indigenous blood and m favor of the indigenous
culture more because that's frankly, you know, I've been to

(17:52):
Spain and I don't look like a Spanish person at all.
I've been to Mexico and I don't really been in
there either. I'm a Tehano, and I wanted to show
this with yours, who are listeners who also might be
that under that category, I say, claim your native identity,
because that's what I am and my ancestors are. Will
also be known as the Clilticon, which is basically all
of South Texas, and that's my home and I've missed.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
It, you know.

Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
Yeah, it's because I wanted to sort of distill the
foreignness of the Latino term, because I mean, like I said,
I'm Tohano, but I haven't you know, I'm not really
any I don't have anything in common with somebody from Mudawai,
you know, or I don't have anything in common from
somebody from Cuba. There's a difference that really.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Matters, absolutely, absolutely, especially in Texas, right. Uh, you know,
Latino being the highest minority group in Texas, right, so
many people having their own individual communities and cultures here
that's different from the rest of the world. We're asking
ourselves a lot these days, what terms like race mean
to us, these sorts of social constructs that people tie

(18:57):
their identities to. What is the importance of that, How
that representation may not reflect the individual experiences of people broadly.
And yeah, of the opinion that you should take whatever
label you feel comfortable for yourself and take the labels
that if you think share certain particular values to you,
that you try to uphold those values, I'm all for it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
So many people in the skeptic community get very uncomfortable
with the notion of like self identification, and we start
hearing these references to like identifying as attack helicopters in
some of that bullshit language. And I think this is
a very clear cut description of what these ideas really
mean and why we have to sort of wrestle with

(19:42):
our own identity and then connect to and identify with
the aspects of our own history, the aspects of our
own birth and genetics and whatever else that are important
to us and that we value and not just take
a oppressive label that is slapped on us by a
government census or a birth certificate or whatever else. So

(20:04):
I don't mean to overly conflate these things here, but Jesse,
I really appreciate you talking to your feelings about that
Latino label and why it doesn't feel appropriate to you,
and why there is so much religious oppression mixed up
even in that you know, government census data.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
Yeah, and the fact.

Speaker 5 (20:22):
I'm in a mestizo was simply put there by the
Catholic Church, and people just take it for granted because
I'm like, no, the problem is is that again, Texas.

Speaker 3 (20:32):
Is my home. It's our home.

Speaker 5 (20:33):
It's it would be evil to be deported from my
own land like that.

Speaker 2 (20:37):
Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, I'm sort.

Speaker 5 (20:40):
Of like really vehement, And I do think that the
massive blocks that voted for Trump, that under the Latino umbrella,
I think voted by uh it was It's a mistake.
It's I think the Catholic Church is the reason for that,
because there's a lot of conservativism that's inserted in the
church because I used to be Catholic and I strongly
reject that, and I think that's that might be why

(21:01):
a lot of looking voted for trauma.

Speaker 1 (21:03):
No question, there's a lot to be said about voting
against your own self interest because of these religious affiliations
and sort of a block voting that comes along with
our two party system. Thank you so much for reaching
out and for sharing all of this. We definitely hope
that you find a community that better suits you, and Lord,
I know that Dan and I are here, at least

(21:26):
in part to try and advocate for a government for
a world that is less interested than the one we
currently have in othering ostracizing, escape voting minority communities.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Definitely, yeah, I mean to me.

Speaker 5 (21:41):
Also, one last thing is that I feel like the
atheist community online that I can do connect with are
the closest people I really find sort of a home
with because I mean my community. I mean I mentioned
atheism amongst the Chicano Tohano community. Man, that's a good
way to get kicked out of a house Gore.

Speaker 2 (21:57):
But you know what, though, you as an individual are
going to be a better advocate for that in those
spaces than Christy and I ever will. Right, So you
know there is an advantage of your connections to those
spaces that I think, you know, could be seen as
something to again like take advantage of. I'm not telling
you what to do, right, but maybe there are people
in those communies who are also just as isolated as

(22:20):
you are because they don't have those kinds of connections
or resources, or think of atheism as a white thing,
because a lot of people think of atheism as a
white thing. So you know there's something to that too,
just to keep in mind.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
Yeah, and I'll just point out that the incredible crew
that helps Dan and I put this show on. Like
Dan and I are both local to the Austin area
and both grew up around here, but our crew is
made up from folks all over the place. I mean,
we were telling jokes about Canada earlier today, Like we
are from everywhere, And if you don't have a community,

(22:53):
maybe the atheist community of Austin can be a part
of that solution. Wherever it is that you're located. We
always have volunteer opportunities, We have all kinds of different
meetups and opportunities to participate in this community. We hope
that you'll join us and that you can find something
of value there.

Speaker 5 (23:10):
Thank you very much, I super Gooper appreciate it and
I hope to.

Speaker 1 (23:13):
Talk to you all against so hey stame here. Thank
you so much for giving us call. You have a
great day.

Speaker 6 (23:17):
Well.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
In reference to the folks who.

Speaker 1 (23:21):
Helped us put all of this together, I have once
again neglected to say a big thank you to our crew.
I'd love to get them up on the screen, folks
who are from all over the place. Thank you so
much for everything that you guys do to make us
look good and to make all of this work.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yes, yes, we can't have a show without the crew.
It can't just be us two guys just talking into
the void. That's what it would be. Otherwise, Yeah, that's
the thing. It's like, it would just be a void.

Speaker 1 (23:47):
It would just be you and I not out in
front of an audience, and definitely not lit so well
or sounding so smoothly.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
That's true, that's true. I just I really appreciate that
call because you and I are I know, are of
the same mind about this. But I've talked to other
skeptics who are so baffled when we talk about grace
as a social construct, where it's like, yeah, of course
it is, of course it is. How could it not
be right? And yeah, that's that should be treated with

(24:14):
the same amount of skepticism as we do with all
the other kinds of topics that we talk about here,
with the all the nuances and things that come with that.
But yeah, that kind of identity is sort of self
defined and always has been. And when people kind of
realize that there's a power there, there's a liberation that
comes with that that people don't realize and sometimes they
feel like they have to keep up with the status

(24:36):
quo because well, there's a lot of reasons why, but
you know, just an interesting conversation.

Speaker 1 (24:41):
Yeah, Well, whether you are looking to volunteer or honestly
just looking to be a part of our extended digital community,
or even if you're local to the Austin area, we
want you to be a part of this community. Www.
Dot Atheist Hyphencommunity dot org is a great place to
start where you can learn more about this organization, it's
policies and different ways to get involved. So with that,

(25:05):
what do you say, we talked to Tom in Mississippi.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, that sounds good. Let's do it all.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
Right, Tom, you have some thoughts about comparative religion and
religion in schools. What's on your mind?

Speaker 7 (25:15):
Oh? Yeah, First, I'd like to endorse share, thanks for
everybody who makes possible. But as to teaching comparative religion,
I think that the actual syllabus taught might be fraught
with tension. Sure, I believe it should only be taught
as elective, which kind of implies that it's not going
to be taught at the elementary school level, only at

(25:38):
secondary levels, possibly at the high school level, but certainly
no sooner than that. And the reason I say it
should be elective is closely tied to that. For instance,
if you're pursuing a major which has nothing to do
in any articulable way with religion, you can go ahead
and take comparative religion, but it wouldn't be really required.

(26:00):
On the other hand, the fine point is you might
have a declared major where the people in charge of
that school feel that comparative religion is required for the major,
in which case it's required, not only. And the Bacond
issue I had was about it not. I don't. I
failed to see how this is even a debate. It

(26:20):
seems to me that the plane reading of the constitutional laws,
they are historical documents. I mean, one of the most
notable being the Treaty of Tripling, if I got that
name right. The government should just be ponderously unaware that
such a thing is religion even exists. I think that's
the only way to keep thing wee in a legal sense.
So religious behavior as a special category in law should

(26:44):
not exist. I think all that should exist is what
current the web exists as acceptable social behavior.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yeah, no, I hear you.

Speaker 1 (26:53):
And let's I suppose take those points kind of one
at a time, Like the notion of teaching comparative really
religion in high school. You know, I'm not a educator.
I don't necessarily know how to best break that down,
but I do feel like it's important to acknowledge that
it would be impossible, in my mind, to get a

(27:14):
well rounded education at the high school level without ever
having been introduced to religion and the role that it
is played in our history, in the role that it
has played in you know, really shaping science and philosophy
and all of these other things. So I don't feel
like I would be in support of some sort of

(27:35):
blanket band where like high schools can't even acknowledge the
existence of these belief systems. But that's not the same
as singling out a particular one and raising it up
to something that we have to like honor as an
important part of our history, when it's certainly like the
Christianity is not all of our shared history or the

(27:57):
shared history of everybody who goes to these schools, Dan,
what do you want to say on that idea before
we talk about, you know, the constitutionality.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
Of this law. Now I agree with you. How can
you possibly talk about history and the history of ideas
without talking about religion. I mean, that just seems so
silly to me to be like, wow, we can't talk
about this aspect of human society and human culture even
though it's one of the most influential forces on the
planet for what we've done, right, Like, I completely disagree

(28:30):
it should be it should be available to be taught,
Whether it should be a mandatory elective, that's another conversation.
But I'll tell you this, Christy. When I was in college,
I took a course on Islamic studies taught by a
Muslim professor, and I learned about Islam and its history,
particularly in Arabic society, and you know what, that was
invaluable to me. I have no stock in Islam. I

(28:52):
have no stock in it. I don't think any of
it's at least the core tenets of it are true
in any capacity. But I have a better understanding of
the history of the those ideas and have influences in
the world. And you know what, I if I ever
do talk to a Muslim, I have a better context
in which to approach that conversation than I ever would
have without taking that course. So it's absolutely vital, I think,

(29:14):
and important, especially if you're in a humanities study. But honestly,
anybody that has a major in school these days, in
most universities, has to have some sort of humanities So
even if you're doing like engineering, so like that, that's
always going to be a thing people are going to take,
whether they are particularly interested in themselves or not. So yeah,

(29:34):
I mean it should be available for people to teach.
I don't know. I'm in the same campus you though,
I'm not a professional in this regard. I don't know,
like am I going to put a tier list as
to teaching this over that. I don't know. That's a
little outside of my skille. But is it valuable, should
it be taught, should it be available to be taught? Absolutely?

Speaker 7 (29:52):
Yeah, I think I think maybe I was a bit misunderstood.

Speaker 2 (29:56):
Sure, help us out.

Speaker 7 (29:58):
I did not mean to imply that at below high
school level, or even at high school level, that any
mention of religion was for botten. There's a difference between
saying that historically the Roman Catholic Church did this and
the Church of England did that, as opposed to discussing
the theology of the Roman Catholic Church of the Anglican Church.

(30:19):
That's the difference.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
I still disagree with you because theology. I gotta stop
you right there, Tom, because that distinction is still not
good enough for me. Yes, we should talk about the history,
and yes, I do think we should talk about the theology,
because you know why, the theology also influenced the history.

Speaker 6 (30:35):
Right.

Speaker 2 (30:36):
History doesn't happen in evacue. It comes through a zeitgeist
of ideas, and theology has informed philosophy, and philosophy has
informed the world. I mean, I don't have to agree
with it Obviously I don't write I'm on the hello,
I want to talk Evean. Okay, we're on the same
page there. But it's still important to know these things
and have be able to be informed about it. So yeah,

(30:58):
I still think that that's just as important.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Yeah, you can't teach world cultures, you can't teach world
history without at least acknowledging what much of the world believes.
And I think that there is value in diving somewhat
at an age appropriate level, from a neutral point of view,
into what some of those beliefs are. I mean, is
that fair, Tom, Like we're whether or not there's like

(31:21):
a dedicated course to comparative religion at the high school
level is a very specific question that I don't feel
qualified to answer. But I do believe that, you know,
even in the third grade, when we're learning about world
history and world cultures, that we can acknowledge some of
the world's varying belief systems.

Speaker 7 (31:39):
Again, I don't believe that I stated that religion could
not be mentioned. Yeah, I will acknowledge that this question
of at what point is it appropriate to go to
different depth into religion in terms of at what point

(31:59):
many at what age or under what curriculum is a
difficult question. There is not a bright line answer, I
don't think at all. However, that being said, for instance,
in the third grade, it would be entirely possible to
mention that, following my earlier analogy, that Henryet and his
advisors decided to split off from the Roman Catholic Church

(32:25):
without getting into theological discussions behind it, because that can
be addressed. I mean, you can mention the dore theological differences,
and you might even mention baldly what a couple are.
But what should not happen is a debate over the merits.
On the other hand, I can have a debate over

(32:45):
the merits of the political situation there. But I think
the other important thing to say is that it's very
context sensitive in terms of age and curriculum. But the
reason why I hesitate at lower level is is very pragmatic.
In many places, I'm not sure of all, but in
many places, the curriculum at elementary or junior high school

(33:08):
level is settled very much by a local or relatively
local school board. Now when you get to a college level,
it's completely different. You're not going to your local public
school or to a public school that the local area
will allow you to attend. If there is a public school.

(33:29):
Choice college now is entirely choice based pache financial considerations. Obviously,
the college that you go to, given your qualified to
go to, that college, is much more of a choice. Hence,
I don't really care about who's setting the syllabus as

(33:49):
long as you observe separation of church and state. If
you're a college that exists general funding or state funding,
there needs to be oversight over well how balanced the syllabus.

Speaker 2 (34:06):
Tom, I got great news for you, because there's no
third grader in the in anywhere in this entire country
that's learning about Henry the eighth and his theological inclinations
or political inclinations. That's not a thing. It's it's I
and I'm saying this is someone who's former careers in
private education. Okay, the standards are set. Yes, you're right

(34:28):
in that courses are selected by local school boards, but
standards of instruction are still set by the state. Right
and so uh that's you know, nobody in elementary school
is getting a deep cut on Thomas Aquinas and then
their theology and stuff, right, I don't think, Uh, that's
it's just not happening, right. I think we're talking about
maybe high school electives here and how appropriate that might be.

(34:51):
And even then, uh yeah, maybe having a you know,
a deep cut theology class may not be the most
important thing when compared to other stuff. But I mean,
if it's an elective, it's an elective.

Speaker 3 (35:02):
Right.

Speaker 2 (35:04):
They're certainly not doing that in most public schools. In fact,
I don't know if any public schools, certainly not in Texas,
that are requiring Christian stuff, although Oklahoma's trying to change that.
But the point is, you know, it's you know.

Speaker 1 (35:15):
It's understanding some of the core principles or precepts of
all of this is not the same thing as debating
their merit. So you know, I don't want to get
too much further into the weeds of us sort of
pontificating on what.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Schools should be teaching.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
But I, you know, just broadly want to acknowledge that
I think at any age it is appropriate to acknowledge
religion exists and this is what some people believe, and
this is what other people believe. But to your other
point about the constitutionality of this law that is being
considered here in Texas and that is very likely to

(35:52):
be signed by the governor soon. I do worry about
the constitutionality. You know, a very similar, if not almost
identical law, as I understand it was struck down in
Louisiana by the Supreme Court, and that there is cause
to believe that this will almost immediately be challenged. And

(36:12):
as a non lawyer, that makes good goddamn sense, because
it's hard for me to wrap my head around how
this could possibly line up with the constitution.

Speaker 7 (36:21):
Yep, yeah, I think we're I think we're in agreement there.
I take a probably a reasonably extreme vital with it
when I say the government should be ponderously unaware in
the law. But yeah, And the only thing I was
trying to get at is that I think that getting

(36:43):
back to you know, what's taught. I think that at
the college level is pretty clear cut that the government
should be out of it. I think that in grade
school is pretty clear that you don't want to dive
into the merits. And it gets funny when you talk
about high school. That's all I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
Yeah, fair enough, No, I mean debating over the merits
of a particular belief system. You know that can get
certainly very messy. I like the idea of teenagers learning
critical thinking skills. I like the idea of them being
able to criticize a set of beliefs or a particular philosophy,
even if they're thirteen and wrong, even if their conclusions

(37:23):
aren't necessarily what I would hope for from them. I
think that part of any well rounded education is a
willingness to question things, to challenge things, and being taught
maybe how to do that in a reasonable, well reasoned,
intellectual way. So you know, we're on the same page here,
and it sounds like Tom, we're all just kind of

(37:45):
crossing our fingers that we are headed in the right
direction politically, and that our governance is going to honor
the rule of law and that we can actually hold
strong to the Constitution.

Speaker 7 (37:56):
Yep. Just one final thing I'd say is that I
want to adorse your belief in the importance of the
humanities or what used to be called liberal arts, even
among people who are taking a strongly technical major. I'm
with you there too, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Yeah, we need to prevent stem lords from ruining our society.
So yeah, I'm always going to promote demands there.

Speaker 7 (38:22):
Yeah, Okay, that'll do it. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Well, Yeah, thank you, Tom. We really appreciate it talking
to you. Yeah, Dan, is it?

Speaker 2 (38:28):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
I don't want to be too squeamish, like I recognize
that talking than the atheist community of Boston. We've been
having conversations like this for a long time. I don't
necessarily know that we're a watchdog organization, but this is
certainly not the first time that two hosts like you
and I have sat down and wrung our hands about
the erosion of the wall of separation of church and state.

(38:51):
That being said, does this feel like just another tug
back and forth in the tug of war? Or for you,
does it to feel like we are, you know, taking
another meaningful step in an increasingly worrying direction.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Oh, oh, increasingly worrying direction, there, Christy, I mean.

Speaker 1 (39:11):
Yeah, okay, so not just being alarmist right now, listen.

Speaker 2 (39:14):
In my lifetime, this has been the greatest threat of
that separation, I would say, for sure, because of the
political situation, because of our Supreme Court situation. In my
personal opinion, yes, it is absolutely, absolutely the most worrying
and our work as activists has never been more important

(39:37):
in that regard, I would say, not that it hasn't
been important before, but we are at a what I
would consider to be a major, major, potential turning point,
which is why I think we should raise the alarm bells.
So you know, yeah, yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
I have mentioned it on this show before, and I
don't mean to repeat myself, and I hate thinking to
myself as any kind of alarmist. But when I became
a gender and sexuality therapist here in Texas, I and
I started my own business, you know, I was worried about,
like my expenses and how do I advertise and getting referrals,

(40:12):
and how do I have clients coming in and how
do I make money? Like all of the things that
you worry about when you're running a business. I did
not have anywhere in my top ten things to be
concerned about all of my clients turning into political refugees
and fleeing the state because of their increasing very legitimate
worries of the oppressive nature of our governance. And that

(40:34):
is becoming like a major I hate to put it
in business terms, but as that one metric, it's a
major concern for like the long term viability of the
work I'm trying to do here.

Speaker 2 (40:44):
Absolutely in many, many, many different facets. That's true in immigration,
in social and political identity, and in schools as well.
I mean we're talking, we're at like Scopes monkey trial
level of importance right now, Supreme Court cases in my
opinion when it comes to this stuff. And it's alarming

(41:05):
because we are both private citizens and you and I
don't know any governors or you know, anything like that. Donors, yeah,
our millionaire donors. Our influence only goes so far as
to the people that listen to us. But I still
try my best. I don't know, and I know you
try to. So we're trying.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
All right, Well, let's let's keep trying. And on that note,
let's talk again to d in Iowa, who has some
concerns about Catholicism's role in our society. D what's on
your mind?

Speaker 8 (41:37):
Christ I talk to you guys. So, yeah, kind of
piggybacking on Jimmy Junior's intro today, honestly, the and I
want to pivot slightly to kind of support Jesse's call
because he makes my point that cuts policism Tholicism as

(42:01):
a cult, and it's actually a predatory cult because it appropriates,
and then destroys certain cultural beliefs, practices, religions. It's based
on UH. It's its dogma, and its doctrines have come
from appropriating pagan beliefs and celebrations and incorporating that into

(42:29):
their into their belief and then proceeding to destroy them.
And as they progressed through the world, as they progressed
by by I think it wasn't it Constantine that converted
and then started using the sword to spread They then

(42:50):
turned to UH funding through different kings and queens and.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Kingdom just dragon hoarding in a lot of ways.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:03):
Yeah, Well, so you'll definitely find no defense of Catholicism
or the Roman Catholic Church here. But when you make
it a point to refer to Catholicism as a cult,
I'm really curious what that word means to you. You know,
I really appreciate Amanda Montell's perspective on all of this,
when she writes about how the only difference between a

(43:23):
cult and a religion is the point of view, and
how pejorative you want to be about it. You know,
working in religious trauma, I don't necessarily find like the
bite model or any of these other distinctions between cult
and religion particularly useful. I find that cult is really
just a pejorative term for religion. And I'm, you know,

(43:46):
fine with that in the extent that I want to
be like rude about somebody else's belief systems. Obviously, I'm
here promoting atheism and the critical thinking that I think
would tear down religious thought. But why use that particular term?
Why is that important to make that distinction here?

Speaker 8 (44:04):
To me, a cult has it has many uh definitions, however,
and U and characteristics. My view of what a cult
is is number one, the cult has bizarre belief system

(44:24):
based on things that are by themselves would be maybe
socially unacceptable, such as cannibalism and human sacrifice. And then
the degree of control that it exerts over not only
its members but its environment. And I you know, I

(44:47):
wasn't going to go into a whole thing about you know,
what cults are, how you can define them, how you
can move up. But I find two definitions because I
knew you would ask me that.

Speaker 1 (45:00):
Sure, we find, you know, truly bizarre beliefs in other
forms of Christianity, in Buddhism, in Islam, and a lot
of religions that frankly don't have as many adherents as
the Roman Catholic Church. Again, I am not trying to
come in in defense of the Roman Catholic Church. I've

(45:21):
spoken on this show recently about the pope election and
how my concerns and feelings about that organization are definitely
already on the record. And I don't mean to pick
on you for your language, but it seemed like such
an important crux of what it was that you came
here to share. And I'm interested in what makes you

(45:41):
maybe want to single out the Roman Catholic Church versus
railing against Islam, versus railing against Buddhism or any of
these other also very popular world religions or belief system.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
She might think those are cults too. I don't know.
Maybe it feels that way.

Speaker 8 (45:58):
I single out Catholicism because I am more knowledgeable about
Catholicism than I am about Islam or Buddhism or any other,
you know, established religion or belief system.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
I'll tell you, you get deep enough into Buddhism and
you start hearing some really weird stories, ye some things
too true.

Speaker 8 (46:24):
And but you know, like I said, I don't. I
don't know Islam, and while I have investigated Buddhism, I
found recently that I really don't know as much as
I thought I did, and the Catholicism is responsible. They
piggyback themselves on the age of exploration and discovery with

(46:47):
you know, the Spanish and English colonization. As Jesse said,
his ancestors were brutally exploited, convert by force. We know
that in the United States and in Canada, hundreds, if
not thousands of young Native Americans and Native Canadians were

(47:12):
flaughtered at Catholic schools, abused at Catholic schools. So I
believe that the definitions of the cult that I laid
out earlier are very much so fulfilled by Catholic Church.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, I guess my thing I would take with that
is just because an organization abuses and exploits and colonializes
does it that itself doesn't make it a cult. We
would call the US a cult, although maybe the US
is a call I don't know, but like a lot
of colonial powers would be called under that idea, I
don't think. I don't think something has to be exploitative

(47:51):
to be a cult either, you know, I just think
you just had you know, what Catholicism really does. Though,
what I do share your criticisms with is when you
define fin orthodoxy, you also define heterodoxy, right. In other words,
when you define what's okay and what's what's not. When
when you find what's okay, you're also defining what's not okay.
And the Catholic Church has been uh, you know, sort

(48:14):
of historical and their judgments on other cultures, other beliefs, systems,
other you know, ways of life that have been antithetical
to the powers that be for the Catholic Church, and
therefore they've sought their destruction, which is unfortunate and obviously terrible.
So I think we both take coverage with that.

Speaker 8 (48:33):
I'm well aware that my language is harsh and controversial,
and I appreciate you guys's counterpoints, but I am unapologetic
at this time, and until such time as this pope
causes a major shift in the general attitude of Catholicism,

(48:55):
I will continue to refer to it as a culture.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
No, No, that that's fairness doing that to be I'm not.

Speaker 8 (49:01):
I'm not doing that too. I'm not doing that for
shock value. I'm not doing it for you know, sensationalism's sake.
It's it's what I truly believe based on the history.
And I just wanted to do say one other thing
for Jesse while he was speaking, I did some googling
for Latino artists and I dropped some links in the

(49:27):
chat for him to check out. I really appreciate his
journey in claiming his ancestry and his identity. It really
touched me deeply, and I hope that he continues to
find a place where he feels he belongs.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Yeah, so say we all.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
I definitely want to be on the favor of creating community.
It was a religious trauma therapist, Yes, of course.

Speaker 2 (49:55):
I spent a lot of.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
Time helping people work through the the like I guess
we'll call positive traumas, or the experiences of bad things
happening to you, you know, having these beliefs shove down
your throats, being criticized and hurt in these very specific ways.
But there's also the trauma of being removed from your community,
being isolated from your community, and so many of the

(50:19):
things that you lose when you walk away from religion.
And I think that there is remarkable value in recognizing
that loss walking away from religion may be additioned by subtraction,
but it's still going to hurt, because you're losing a
lot of valuable aspects of your day to day life.

Speaker 2 (50:36):
And I hope.

Speaker 1 (50:37):
That the atheism community recognizes that, or just really recognizes
how important it is to have a community, whether it's
centered around atheism the way that this particular community is,
or whether it's centered around you know, RuPaul's drag Race
or dungeons and Dragons or whatever the hell else. You
need friends in your life. Every good study on health

(51:00):
and well being in humans says that over and over
and over. So do we wish you the best? Jesse Again,
We certainly wish you the best. And we hope that
everybody listening feels like they have important people in their
lives that they can share the mundane and the you know, deep,
heady philosophical and.

Speaker 8 (51:17):
I appreciate that you're there for those of us who
have lost community and friends and you know everything. It's
just awesome. And hopefully the clients of yours that have
felt so unsafe that they had to leave the state,

(51:38):
I hope that they can that you can continue to
counsel them, possibly through you know, online and stuff like that,
because you are really providing an invaluable service. So thank
you Christian. With that, I will jump off. I know
it takes a lot of time, so thank you.

Speaker 1 (51:58):
No, I appreciate you saying so, thank you so much
for your call, and have a great Sunday afternoon. All right, Dan,
I want to take a moment to thank our top
five patrons. I'm going to give you a second maybe
to get some of our super chats pulled up as
we have more of those coming in. But first and
foremost our top five patrons this week number one Oops

(52:19):
All Singularity, number two Dingleberry Jackson, three Coleevi Helvetti for
Brian Zouopke, and in the fifth spot is Ja cal
Carlton and our honorable mention this week, Diane Kerns. Thank
thanks to each of you. Thanks to all of you
who are part of supporting us on Patreon. If you're
interested in joining, that's a tiny dot cc slash Patreon

(52:43):
t H. And on that note, we have been recording
the TALKI than Discord after shows for all level of
paid patrons, and so if you're looking for even more content,
even more conversations like this.

Speaker 2 (52:57):
Please give that a try. Yeah, and we do have
super chats that these came quite earlier. I'm glad you
brought up because we should go ahead and read these.
One from Miranda Ronsberger, a member of one year, gave
ten dollars and said, Happy Pride Month, all you heathens.
Don't let people get away with using their religion as
an excuse to hate or discriminate.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
That's not what religious freedom means.

Speaker 2 (53:19):
That's right, that's right. I co signed on that, Miranda,
and I don't know what this was in reference to,
but blind Blimey, a member of two years, gave five
dollars and said, Dan's right. I'm going to start my
own ACA with blackjack and redacted. That's not the reacting things.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
Right, Yeah, No, you know, we're talking about forming community
and whatever you want to form that community around.

Speaker 2 (53:44):
Right, Okay, Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, blackjack and atheism. Yeah,
I don't know. It could be a thing I guess
you wanted to be.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
You know, Well, we've got some other interesting callers on
the line.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Who do you want to roll the dice with? Ohtally,
I want to roll the dice with, uh maybe gosh,
I don't know. What what do you want? Who do
you want to talk to this? I know you literally
just asked you that, but either one I could go
with that. I see here? Okay, Nick or Michelle?

Speaker 6 (54:15):
You know?

Speaker 1 (54:15):
Yeah, all right, well let's do Nick in Massachusetts and
see what is on his mind today, Nick, Determination, predetermination,
non determination? What you got for us?

Speaker 6 (54:26):
Hi?

Speaker 9 (54:27):
So I kind of wanted to get your guys's sort
of thoughts on what uh predetermined like a like a
predetermined reality or not non determined non predetermined reality, or
like the combination of the two, like what do you
think we're living in? And what if like that has

(54:50):
any bearing or if it makes any claims, like like
if it is a consequence of like making a statement
on whether there's a Sang sing god or not, or
maybe like a prime non sen Sien intelligence Like.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
I sure, well, let me just jump in and say yeah,
I'll go ahead and start by saying that, you know,
whether this is all just causality that is, repercussions of
the Big Bang and everything is predetermined, or whether there
is an actual random chance that's possible through quantum mechanics
and our growing understanding of those things. I will admit

(55:29):
it's hard for me to find any room for free
will in either of those situations, and I definitely don't
see any evidence for God in either perspective. Dan, what
does any of this mean to you?

Speaker 2 (55:42):
I'm in the same boat as you, Chrisive. I think
people get confused because I do believe we live in
a deterministic universe, but that doesn't necessarily mean that everything
is predetermined. I mean, if it is, then we certainly
as humans don't know about it, right. We don't have
all the information or variables to predict the things that

(56:03):
we'd want to know exactly in our lives. So it's
almost a point in a way. I think people kind
of overemphasize this, especially Christians who criticize our points. They're like, well,
you just think everything like nothing matters because we don't
have free will. And it's like, that doesn't mean that
like we can't like interact with the world. It just
means that there's determinists to play. It's it's a little
bit more complicated.

Speaker 1 (56:24):
I guess if it feels like I'm making a decision,
then as far as I'm concerned at the level of experience,
I'm making a decision and make some good ones.

Speaker 2 (56:33):
Exactly and I and that's not me necessarily like promoting
compatibilism in a way. I'm just saying it's it's a
little bit more nuanced than what people give it credit
for when we talk about this. But yeah, is a
universe deterministic or does it? Is it made of determinist systems? Yeah?
I think so. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (56:49):
Like, So the reason why I asked that because like
I feel like there's a comment like it's both things
that are happening. Like there's a like, let's say there's
one hundred percent will because that by definition just like will,
like like in terms of like there's like agentic will,
and then there's non agentic like predetermined just big bang

(57:12):
force will. So like I feel like, you know, genetics
is more like there's a significant aspect of like molecular
dynamics that is more on the side of like big
bang force. And then you know, there's our experiential like
day to day side of things where we're conscious of

(57:34):
our experience and like having that feedback loop into our
like like continuous decision making process. And I see in
the fact that like when I dream, like when I'm dreaming,
maybe you guys might relate to this my sense like
I feel like an objective change in my ability to

(57:57):
control my environment and myself, so like I can't when
I'm dreaming. I can observe and feel like more creative
control and like environmental control, but I lose the ability
to like be feeling my body and being like one
with my whole physical experience in the dream. So like

(58:20):
there's like a change.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
I think we have to acknowledge that that experience is
a subjective one, that there is no objective increase in control.
If anything, Dreams are just an important reminder to me
that we shape our own realities. But I'm struggling with
how any of this gets us closer to or further
away from free will and or the existence of a god.

Speaker 9 (58:44):
Okay, So I think that it's like I don't for
one thing, for like on the free will side, I
don't think that anything has like total will. I think
we have like partial will that doesn't necessarily like control
any system completely.

Speaker 2 (59:05):
But uh yeah, I'd say about ten percent luck, twenty
percent skill, fifteen percent concentrated power of will. Right, That's
what I would say. Sorry, that's a bad joke.

Speaker 9 (59:16):
If no, no, I get it. Yeah, so and then
so like what that has to say about like a
god or like yeah, I mean I'm not sure because
I feel like if you know, like what like if
we're there's like extra physical uh creator version of a
god or there's like the pan theist uh just like

(59:38):
latent energy space of like definition of a god. I
mean if like I'm sort of like in the camp
where you know, if I just go with with from
what I'm seeing, like that is the universe. I think
that there's like some cyclical aspect and like, but I

(01:00:00):
can't really explain like why anything exists besides like the
necessity for like structural coherence, Like I feel like I
can't really It's like it's like it's almost like the
universe is.

Speaker 2 (01:00:14):
Saying, uh, you don't.

Speaker 9 (01:00:16):
You can't have anything without an uncontrollable uh like a
completely uncontrollable force to drive the medium, like to drive
continuity forward for the non deterministic, nondetermined aspects of reality
like for life.

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
I mean, I mean, Nick, I recognize that these concepts
are incredibly challenging and confusing in a lot of ways.
And I don't mean to pick on you, but when
you say that you don't know how to explain. I
do find myself this deep into the call really unclear
on what it is that you were even attempting to explain.
Can you help us a little bit, because I know

(01:00:59):
one aspect of this type of philosophy is just how
tempting it is to get overwhelmed by it and to
maybe feel this like existential dread and then just kind
of start grabbing things and shoving them together and putting
the word quantum in front of it and like trying
to use it to justify some sort of worldview without

(01:01:20):
having wrapped our head around each of the individual concepts.
Can you break it down for me a little bit,
or maybe even just bottom line it too. What does
any of this mean?

Speaker 6 (01:01:30):
Well?

Speaker 9 (01:01:30):
So, I think that if there's anything that like is
pretty like like.

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
If anything is going to say.

Speaker 9 (01:01:40):
Anything about whether or not like a god exists, I
think that like the fact that there's a like dead
at like like non agentic aspects of reality and then
agentic ones. I feel like that if anything would give
up what's a clue about like the origins of the

(01:02:04):
universe in life?

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
Yeah, if we could ever separate them out though, yea, right, Like,
how how do we know that we are being agentic
in any meaningful way, or how that isn't just again
another sequence of predetermined things like did I take a
sip of water because I wanted to or did I
take a sip of water because my throat was dry?
What the hell is the difference? And where does any

(01:02:29):
of that Like if we could somehow separate these things
out too, am I truly making a choice? Or is
the choice just predetermined by all of the other things
that led up to that choice? Perhaps there could be
some insight there into the choices that led to this
universe existing. But I'm really struggling with like that idea

(01:02:54):
that we could ever get there.

Speaker 9 (01:02:55):
Right, So do you think that we could there's like
a mechanistic way to differentiate between like an agent and
a non agent, not that I.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Can understand or not that I'm aware of.

Speaker 2 (01:03:10):
Yeah, I don't think so.

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
You know, Like the thing with these is we have
to ask ourselves could we have done different?

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:03:17):
And I don't know how answerable of a question that
even is. And when you bring gotten to the equation,
if you ask could God have done different? If the
answer to that is no, then that seems to be
just as deterministic as anything else, right, So yeah, I
don't know. This is this is one of the problems
of our times that's even more situated with the rise
of AI and whatnot. So yeah, I'm not gonna I'm

(01:03:39):
not gonna be that guy that's gonna have all the
answers for you.

Speaker 7 (01:03:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:03:43):
Uh yeah.

Speaker 9 (01:03:43):
I think like if we if we can, like the
way that I know, we haven't like explained about a
genesis yet, like we haven't like come together completely in
the scientific community to like fully like mechanistically explain biogenesis.
But I think, like if I go on like my

(01:04:04):
hunch about like what it's gonna involve, like in the explanation,
if when we get there, it's like whatever, the initial
conditions are, like whatever it led up to, the initial
conditions for like the formation event is whatever. But like
the formation event sort of would necessitate like like weightless

(01:04:25):
a weightless environment or like a near weightless environment inside
an encapsulation like an encapsulated barrier. I feel like the
weightlessness is sort of like homeostatic in and for me,
what that like It's like an environment that like reduces
the styles uh like of scope of like of locality

(01:04:50):
for non deterministic events to happen. So it's just like,
I don't know there's some power in weightlessness that I
can't really fully COMPREHENDI.

Speaker 1 (01:05:03):
I don't know if weightlessness is necessary for a biogenesis.
I don't know that we know what is necessary for
a biogenesis. And I definitely don't know that I am
following where you get your hunch from or why that's
necessarily compelling. I think the last thing I would really
say about any of this, nick is just from the

(01:05:25):
perspective of the very applied philosophy of clinical counseling, is
I would say that, yeah, it's probably likely true that
we aren't making these choices, except that we are just
following a series of choices that have already been made.
Or maybe they're not even choices, maybe they are just

(01:05:45):
things that happen. And part of that still empowers us
to be introspective about who we are as people and
what we want out of life and what we want
to do about any of it. None of it gives
us the ability to forecasts or or understand things that
we simply don't understand, and it doesn't make the existential

(01:06:08):
void of is there a God, or why are we
here or why do we exist? Any different?

Speaker 8 (01:06:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 9 (01:06:14):
Yeah, with regards of the like determinism thing like, for example,
I can't transform into a dragon right now. I can,
you know, feel like I really want to, and I
can maybe try to change how much harder I feel
that I want to change into a dragon, But like

(01:06:35):
the mechanistic scope of like possibility isn't there, Like it's
not physically possible, But then there's like physically possible, there's
like the physically possible scope of things that can happen
from whatever the now is. And if we have like
a coherent understanding of like those option like options, different

(01:07:00):
options in that scope, and we're aware of that, I
feel like that's the indicative of like will.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
I'm not I.

Speaker 9 (01:07:09):
Wouldn't say that it's like evidentiary of like like free
reign type of will, but I would.

Speaker 6 (01:07:19):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
You're still assuming that it is impossible for you to
transform into a dragon, but it is possible to do
all of these other things. And I guess I'm just
not there yet. I'm not convinced that just because we
haven't seen something doesn't mean that it can't theoretically be possible,
but I'm not sure how much further we can get

(01:07:40):
in all of this, and so much of it is conjecture, Dan,
or are you comfortable with leaving it there? I think
I'm good leave it there.

Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
I mean, look, at this point in the process, you
want to refer to the people who have written whole
books about this stuff that have way to define terms,
have way better concise explanations about the things that we're
going into here, because ultimately you and I are layman's
on this subject, and we can give our perspectives, and
I think that's about as far as we can go,
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
Yeah, to that end, I personally enjoyed Determined by Robert Sapalski. Dan,
I don't know if you co signed that one, but yeah,
keep reading and Nick, we really appreciate you giving it
a try with us, and give it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:19):
Us a call all ready? Thank you have it right day?
All right?

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
Yeah, let's sneak in one more quick call before we
start to wrap up today and hear from Michelle. I
know that Michelle has been waiting for a good long while.
So what's on your mind today, Michelle?

Speaker 6 (01:08:35):
Well, I was thinking throughout the calls, and I thought
that I would rephrase my question. The way I had
it phrased was does gepticism presuppose belief or end or faith? However,
I thought that that would put me in a rock
and a hard space to prove, because the way I

(01:08:56):
have it understood that presupposition will argue men's work. Is
that the thing like, if I would say, well, does
does does skepticism pretty supposed to believe? That would mean
I was saying that you start with belief, and that's
the ground that would be the ground for the skepticism. However,
I want to change that around and say does skepticism?

(01:09:19):
Must there be a sense of a sense of belief
with our skepticism? Must we always be mixing our skepticism
with the question of like, hey, does God exist?

Speaker 7 (01:09:30):
Maybe?

Speaker 6 (01:09:31):
Does do pixie do? Pixie?

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Parting?

Speaker 6 (01:09:34):
Universe?

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
Arting pixies is good?

Speaker 6 (01:09:37):
Anything like supernatural spirit goes after life, anything of the sort, aliens, exterterrestrials.
Can we say that anything of the sort exists? Should we?
Should we at least dare to say maybe? Or gee?

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Kind of like that?

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
Go I'm not sure I follow the question?

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
How about you? Yeah, Well, you started off with an
interesting question which was does skepticism presupposed beliefs? That's a
that's a very interesting question. But then you said you
want to change your question, and I'm not sure what
the changed question was. Can you give us, like one
sentence version of what the change question is?

Speaker 6 (01:10:14):
Yeah, tell me, Dan, maybe you could tell me?

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
Do I like?

Speaker 6 (01:10:18):
Am I wrong when I say that if my question
is does pre does skepticism presupposed belief? Am I wrong
to say that? By saying that, I mean that we
must believe first in something supernatural let's say, for example,
and then we must be doubtful. Or can we just

(01:10:39):
say we take a belief in skepticism at the same
time and we're all the better for it, You know
what I mean? You know I'm getting that now.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
I think skepticism is just the degree of maybe humility
with which we hold a belief.

Speaker 2 (01:10:53):
Yeah, there's different perspectives, because philosophy is a wide ranging field,
and they have different ideas and diferent perspectives on what
skepticism is. Interestingly, though, there is a line of thought
that says skepticism is a materialist perspective, right, And what
I mean by that is the suspension of this belief right,
or the suspension of belief in particular claims. Generally, generally,

(01:11:17):
the trend is it comes from some line of observation,
whether it's through logical reasoning or in more recent years,
through scientific observation. That's very interesting, right, because there is
a trust there that's inherent to the scientific method in
understanding whether things are true or not. So in one sense,
you could say there's a presupposition there, but that's only

(01:11:39):
if you hold the scientific method to be a reliable
arbiter of what's true. Maybe you have skepticism, but you're
from a maybe you're a psychic or a believer, and
you're skeptical of people who say that being psychic stuff
isn't real. You know, it kind of cuts both ways
in that sense. So there's very specific context in which
we use the word skeptics, or which skepticism has used

(01:12:01):
in philosophy there. So I guess, like many answers, it
kind of depends. But I don't think you'd necessarily be
wrong in saying it could presuppose belief. It just again,
really depends on how you're defining that.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
I guess.

Speaker 6 (01:12:14):
I guess right now, can we move into maybe really
quickly defining belief and faith and maybe and then move
it back to skepticism because for me, I can believe,
for example, like for me, belief involves a certain amount
of certainty about something. For me, I can believe that

(01:12:34):
if I go to my refriger right now, refrigerator right now,
that there might be a soda pop in there waiting
for me. You know, maybe I put one in there
the other day and I forgot about it, and maybe like, oh,
it's in there. Maybe it's not to someone drank it
on me. Or I can have faith that it's in there.
I have no evidence whatsoever. I didn't put it in there.
I don't remember putting in there. Maybe I'm going on

(01:12:56):
faith that maybe someone put one in there for me
and it's cold, just waiting for me. But I have
no evidence whatsoever. But I can hope. That's faith when
you have no evidence to promote or give you any
or to give you anything to bounce back to belief on,
you know what I mean. Yeah, So, and then and
then we move back to skepticism and we judge our beliefs.

(01:13:18):
We move back into skepticism, and then we say, well,
here's here's where I'm skeptical about this phase part of
the thing, and when I'm believing, and then here's my
skepticism about my belief.

Speaker 2 (01:13:30):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's no necessarily wrong answers here,
because belief has been defined in various capacities. If you notice,
when Christy and I talked to particularly theists, we are
usually going to be the first ones to ask, what
do you mean by faith? What do you mean by
a belief right? Because that's always going to be rooted
in individual perspectives. I mean, Christian and I may have

(01:13:53):
much more define, more rigorous ideas of that, but on
the man on the street kind of person, maybe right,
and it may take a bit to tease that out.
So like belief to me is more like an attitude
about something right. So I acknowledge the subjective, inherent perspectivism
that comes with a belief. I might define knowledge as

(01:14:14):
a justified true belief, but even then there's problems with
how you consider something to be a justified true belief,
very very famously gettier problems and whatnot that come with
that kind of philosophy. So I'm not going to say
you're wrong on your definition there, Michelle. In fact, I
think that's a pretty well thought out answer, because I
don't think there is going to be one answer to

(01:14:35):
this question. I think it's going to be based on
the individual. But what do you think, Christy?

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
Well, and it really is, like you said, more of
a question of linguistics than philosophy at this stage in
the game, Like how do we define belief absence of
skepticism or vice versa. I, you know, I'm fine with
some of the definitions that we've come up with. I
don't know how functional all of this is when we

(01:14:59):
act start to talk to people about what it is that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:02):
They believe and why.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
And I, you know, I'm not necessarily somebody who holds
up skepticism as a incredible virtue. I know that that's
a common talking point in this community. And I think
that I'll stick with my sort of earlier definition of humility.
You know, it's just about holding the beliefs that we
hold with a certain amount of hesitation or a certain

(01:15:25):
amount of humility about their certainty and their assuredness.

Speaker 6 (01:15:30):
Yeah, if I may give an example, a brief example,
I kind of like to think about it. Well, I'm
certain and I am a gnostic about the fact that
if I jump out of a plane at thirty thousand
feet in the air without a parachute on either a
I'm going to break every bone in my body and
somehow contradictor to ely survive that accident, or I'm going

(01:15:52):
to die. I'm a gnostic about those facts. Those are facts,
but the true fact I am, not, however, confident or
have the conviction enough to say or an astic enough
to say that I know that God exists, that I'm
going to live internally in a sola the kingdom that
I don't want to forever.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
Yeah, this is.

Speaker 6 (01:16:12):
How is that for an example?

Speaker 2 (01:16:14):
Well, this is the this is the problem of atheist
uh atheist activism as a whole. We're always going to
be on the back foot when it comes to this,
right because there's a million God beliefs and there's only
one of us. And and the way that we even
define our our atheism is contentious. There's different ideas about this.

(01:16:35):
Should we define it as a positive claim or should
we define it as a lack of belief. There's there's
all kinds of different conversations about this, and and I
think that that nuance gets lost on a lot of
people because it's it's just not it doesn't come up
in carmon conversation. I certainly wasn't taught about the nuances
of the atheist position when I was a Christian, Okay,
So you know, there's there's always going to be different

(01:16:58):
ideas to this. But you know how I like to
look at it is I have a lot of different
ideas that I've encountered about God in particular, and I
do reject openly some of these ideas. I'm not conclusive
about some ideas, like a God that is completely outside
of the known material universe. Sure, how can I know

(01:17:20):
about the existence of one or not? I can be
agnostic about that. But you know, as far as the
Yahweh of the Bible, of the semic tribes, you know, yeah,
I don't think that that one's going to be it chief,
I don't think that one's real. So, you know, like
that's my take on a lot of this, But I
can only say that in so many words, right, And

(01:17:41):
it's hard to sort of give that kind of nuance
when talking to people about this, which is why many
people are confused about the atheist position, what it actually
means or what it means to most people, right right.

Speaker 6 (01:17:52):
Dan, if I may ask really quickly before we end
in the call, I think and this is a great
suggestion because I one thing that I've watched a lot
of the shows on this line and some others on
the ACA and some other abist call and shows. ACA
is the best, of course on on on TV. But

(01:18:12):
I think you guys should have someone on that believes
lightly at least in a creator being an interview them
and take calls with them, and they actually have them
answer calls with you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
I mean I do do that untruth wanted from time
to time. Yeah, my last Christian guest was on a
couple of months.

Speaker 1 (01:18:31):
Ago, things along those lines. But yeah, yeah, So if
you have somebody in mind, if there's a particular person
you want to recommend, we're always taking those recommendations. I mean,
shoot us an email TV at Atheist hipeencommunity dot org
there's somebody who's interested in talking to us. You know,
I'm not going to guarantee an interview to anybody, but
I know our producers would be interested to speak to them.

Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
Yeah. I'm proud to say that I host the only
Atheist Community of Austin show that has had openly theist
people on as as guests, not just as callers.

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
Only currently running shows, only currently running, only currently Well again, yeah,
that's true, that's true.

Speaker 2 (01:19:09):
I should Yeah, you're right, I should clarify on that.
But you know it has I'll be honest. It's hard
to find people, Michelle that can still vibe with us
enough that we can make it an hour and a
half without it turning into a ship show. Right, So
there's a give and take with that, and some people
don't even like it when we do it, by the way,
but I think those end up being some of the

(01:19:31):
most interesting content that we produce. But that's my take, Dan.

Speaker 6 (01:19:34):
I think I could. I think I could body with
you guys if you would just have beyond.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
Oh come on, Michelle, you can't, you can't. You can't
do this. You can't. Don't. Don't beg for the spot process.
It's a thing, a show.

Speaker 1 (01:19:48):
You appreciate your phone call.

Speaker 6 (01:19:51):
I'm getting people in chat. You know, I'm not watching
the live stream, but I know't get people in chats.

Speaker 2 (01:19:56):
They have or on have her on, Michelle.

Speaker 1 (01:20:00):
Well, we'll see if there's a groundswell of movement. Thank
you so much for your call. And for your time,
and we hope you have a great Sunday afternoon.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
Yeah. On that note, any inqueries that you that go
to the show should go to TV at Atheist typeencommunity
dot org. Okay, we're not going to negotiate terms about
potential guests live on the air. Okay, that's just not
a thing, not going to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:20:24):
So not how these interviews work. Yeah, yeah, there is
a little bit of a process. Somehow Dan and I
got through it. But there is a process that exists.
But no, Dan, it's it's been a fun show. We've
had a good time. Let's get Aeron back up and
we can talk about it and wrap start the wrap
things up.

Speaker 2 (01:20:41):
Yes, today, let's do it.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
Aaron, how did we do? Were we worthy of being
hosts on this network? Have we gone through the process?

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
Have we done it?

Speaker 4 (01:20:51):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:20:51):
Ten out of ten would recommend yes.

Speaker 4 (01:20:53):
Yes, great, fabulous, fabulous show, great calls.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):
Uh, you would never see otherwise, right, Aaron? You always
tell us, you always tell us the truth.

Speaker 4 (01:21:02):
Sure, sure, yeah, you'd always tell me the truth, right right,
it's mutual.

Speaker 2 (01:21:08):
Yeah. Yeah, anyway, called, I.

Speaker 4 (01:21:13):
Really like Tom's phrase. I'm not sure where he got
it from. But ponderously unaware of religion. I kind of
kind of sure that the government ship ponderously unaware of religion.
I think that would help a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
If it was actually like that. And D's you guys
talked about.

Speaker 4 (01:21:30):
The cult of cult versus religion, and I heard that
defined once as the difference between a cult and a
religion is how hard it.

Speaker 6 (01:21:37):
Is to leave.

Speaker 4 (01:21:38):
The harder it is to leave, the more cultish it is.

Speaker 2 (01:21:41):
Oh. I like that. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:21:44):
And then as far as beliefs are concerned with Michelle's
last call, I I like Steve jobs adage where you
held strong opinions loosely held strong opinions, where you're you're
easily convinced. You believe what you believe strongly, but you
can always all your beliefs are subject to change at anytime,
given new evidence, given new persuasive arguments.

Speaker 2 (01:22:05):
Whatever. That is?

Speaker 1 (01:22:05):
That nothing that a lack of pride, a lack of
preciousness around some of these things, humbleness and willingness to
you know, embrace change. I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
Yep, so beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:22:15):
Well so for folks who still want to weigh in
in the comments for the video, what was our our
question of the week this week.

Speaker 4 (01:22:22):
Oh, our question of the week this week was what
is what would Jesus as a rapper name be?

Speaker 3 (01:22:27):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
Please? Oh my god. We did not deliver today, folks, but.

Speaker 4 (01:22:34):
I'd probably go with King Cross or something like that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
Crosses King Cross. All right, actually place, no, that was?
That was much better? Yeah, yeah, all right? Today?

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
Well, anybody all are sending out loverings to today are
certainly our crew and everybody who helped us get this going,
especially since I so often forget to bring ups up
to that camera shot and to let us let us
see their beautiful faces. Who else y'all got?

Speaker 4 (01:23:01):
You're talking to me?

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:23:02):
Who you talking?

Speaker 1 (01:23:03):
Anybody else? Y'all send it out lover rings to oh
oh oh gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:23:06):
Everybody everyone out there sending it to the Happy Pride Month,
say it to the Friology Et plus community.

Speaker 4 (01:23:13):
You know, anybody who needs a community, is looking for
to belong somewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:23:17):
This is your community, right.

Speaker 1 (01:23:18):
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely so.

Speaker 2 (01:23:21):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:23:21):
If you don't believe this is your community, we appreciate
you being here. If you do believe, we definitely don't
hate you.

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
We're just noting, not convinced we did it. We want

(01:23:49):
the truth. So watch Truth Wanted live Fridays at seven
pm Central Call five one two nine nine two four two,
or visit tiny dot cc forward slash call tw yeah

Speaker 5 (01:24:04):
Can lea