Talk Heathen 09.37 with Dr. Ben and Scott Dickie 2025-09-14

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Misinformation about abortion and pregnancy termination is dangerous. At its core,
anti abortion arguments cry out against baby murder, while the
medical definition only addresses the ending of a pregnancy, not
necessarily implying fetal demise. This equivocation is used to downplay
the inherent risks of pregnancy while convincing pregnant people that

(00:20):
it's their duty to sacrifice their safety for a fetus.
If you believe that abortion is immoral, give us a
call because the show is starting now. Welcome everyone. Today
is September fourteenth, twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Doctor Ben,

(00:42):
and with me today is the one, the only Scott Dickie.
How are you doing, Scott?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Google says that there's dozens of me, but we'll go
with that. Introy.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
I like that.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
I'm doing great today, Doctor Ben. Looking forward to a
fun show today.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
See.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
I don't know what Google says, but my probability calculate
is that you actually are the only one. And I
did my research so.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Can't argue with that. Right, you said a math word,
so it must be true.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
Definitely. Talk Heathen is a live call in show and
we have open lines available, so get your calls in
at five one two nine nine two four to two,
or you can use your computer browser at tiny dot
cc slash call thh. We're here to have discussion with
you about a variety of topics. We'll take your questions

(01:34):
on religion, secular humanism, atheistic, morality. We have morality. What's
that about cosmology, philosophy, science. We have someone who knows
math on here, So bring your argument easy, easy, Yeah.
Even if you are an atheist and want to talk
about your ideas of probability of the universe. If you

(01:56):
want to talk about abortion, which is our big topic
of the day, give us your call. We're here. We're
not mean, I promise. We just want to have a
nice discussion or even a little bit of a disagreement
if that's what you'd like to talk about.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Good man, yep.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Talking then is a product 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 the
separation of religion and government. And with that, we do
also have some really cool people behind the scenes that
I want to shout out real quick before we get

(02:34):
into all of the fun. Let's go to the crew
cam there. We want to shout out especially a crew member, Tim,
who is responsible for the video. He works on all
of the ACA shows, helps make all of this possible.
And not only is he here with us for taki Than,
but he's also going to be here for the Atheist

(02:56):
Experience after this show. So don't forget to tune in
thirty pm Central for more of that. Thank you to
the crew, and thank you Tim for all of the
hard work that you do.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Thank you Tim, Thank you crew. We couldn't do the
show without you literally for sure.

Speaker 4 (03:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
And with that, I'm going to bring up Kelly to
have a little discussion with us about today's topic.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Kelly, Kelly, Kelly, Kelly. There, we were just talking so
great about the crew, right right.

Speaker 5 (03:29):
I wasn't that was the problem, Kelly. I just got
to say though, because you pointed out Tim. Tim was
with us on the back cruise just a couple of
weeks ago, and he went out doing karaoke with me
and he's got a set of pipes.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Man, Tim, Tim can sing. Have him sing like Weird
Al or something like that. Boy, he was nailing it.
That was an excellent performance.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
There. Tim.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Absolutely, it's so good. We had a great time at
the back Crews weekend. I know all three of us
were there. So if you missed it this year, definitely
try to go next year. It was an absolute blast
and you can meet cool people like Tim and watch
him singing karaoke hopefully hopefully next year as well, and it.

Speaker 5 (04:12):
Will be even funner next year because you'll be there.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Yeah, Yeah, definitely definitely don't miss out. I highly recommend
making it and something else that I wanted to highlight
because I know Scott's wearing some talkithan merch and Kelly's
got some mugs and stuff and some hats. Do y'all
want to tell us more about where people can get

(04:36):
this super fun stuff. I'm kind of out of the
club at the moment. I promised everyone at some point
I am going to wear a crop top. I'm gonna
get the TALKI than crop top. But I just have
to I have to actually get on that. So while
I'm an odd man out today, I'll let you both
kind of share.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
Yeah, you can just go out go to tiny dot
cc slash merch Aca and you can find all you
can get talky than merch. You can get, nonprofits, you
can get. I even think they have a few things
for atheist experience as well, and for truth wanted. And
so go there and get all of your ACA swag.

Speaker 5 (05:10):
I got all kinds of stuff to you, hats obviously,
T shirts, obviously, what ease, notebooks, all kinds of great stuff.
Phone covers I think is one of the things they have, So.

Speaker 3 (05:21):
I think so, yeah, I think that's I think they
got some of those.

Speaker 5 (05:24):
Check it out, lots of cool stuff. I got my
apin that I usually wear on my jacket from there
many years ago.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
So awesome.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Been branded with your Scarlett letter self branding Haglet Letter.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yes, so we do have a little discussion topic, well,
a couple of little discussion topics that we wanted to
share with y'all in the audience. And this one, oh
An Johnson sends five dollars saying that we are the
best atheist channel on YouTube. I love that, especially since
the ACA has different channels for each show. That's and
saying that we're the best out of all of them.

(05:58):
At least that's how I'm going to take it.

Speaker 3 (06:00):
Yeah, I think that's a legit interpretation there. We're going
to go with that, that's the official supported interpretation of
Talk Heathen.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
Yes, I greatly appreciate your endorsement. And but our first
discussion topic, of course, with the poll question is about abortion,
and this being definitely a big topic, not only in
terms of you know, medical science and misinformation and all that,
but this is very important because at the end of

(06:30):
the day, this is a human rights issue and there's
a lot of disagreement. And it's not even just the
religious people taking one side and the atheist taking another side.
There's a lot of people on either sides of the
God question taking up either a positive or negative stance
on the issue of pregnancy termination in general. So I

(06:52):
did want to kind of talk about that today and
see number one, like, what are kind of the like
points of contention in this discussion, How can we engage
better on this topic with people who might have differing
opinions from us, And then kind of what is the
role of everybody in making sure, you know, we're perpetuating

(07:14):
correct information, and how can we amplify voices of people
who may you know, have a particular experience with with
this topic. So do y'all have anything to kind of
open with on this issue.

Speaker 3 (07:29):
Sure, yeah, I mean for me from from my perspective,
and granted I have a rather limited perspective here, but
to me, it boils down to two kind of main issues.
One is the idea of bodily autonomy. Can somebody who's
pregnant do they have the right to make decisions for
their own body and so forth? And then a secondary

(07:50):
issue is whether or not the pregnancy, the fetus, the
embryo of the whatever, is a person, whether we should
consider it a person. And the reason that I think
that that's a secondary issue, I don't think that's unimportant.
By the way, I think it is important to distinguish
between something that's considered to be human but not necessarily

(08:12):
a person, versus considering them to be a person. Is
that if the if the pregnancy is not a person,
then that shouldn't be an issue. If the pregnant person
wants to have an abortion, that shouldn't be an issue
if it's not a person. And if it is a person,
well when does a person have a right to inhabit
somebody else's body against their will? And that to me

(08:34):
that seems like an obvious answer should be never. So
if it's not a person, then it's not a problem.
And if it is a person, then also not a problem.
And so you know, I think there are those two
main issues, and I think they get clouded when people
are talking about it. But I think it's it's you know,
if you sit and look at it clearly, I think
it's fairly obvious the conclusion that one should come to.

(08:56):
But that's, like I said, that's just my perspective and
the way you think thoughts.

Speaker 5 (09:00):
I think you're really right about the obfuscation thing there.
That's definitely a problem. It's it's it seems to me
too that there's like a purposeful oppruscation about some of
the facts about it and maybe like stretching some of
the truth a little bit. And obviously we all know
it's to support mostly a religious narrative. I mean, I
hate to say it, but it is mostly a religious narrative.

(09:21):
So I mean that's one of the reasons I think
it's important that we are doing what we're doing, is
to stop that kind of narrative from controlling our society.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
So right, And I also think that that ties into
with the point that Ben that you brought up in
the cold open there about when my mind just shut
off on me, just blanked there, it's gone. I lost it,
So maybe it'll come back to me if I jump
in and interrupt you. It's because I want to quick
get that out before I forget it again. But I

(09:51):
apologize for that.

Speaker 1 (09:53):
Well, this with this particular issue, it's it's very interesting
to evaluate the arguments used people who oppose the position
that abortion is immoral, which it's number one very confusing,
because are you considering all abortions or especially all pregnancy
terminations to be immoral? If so, like, how do you

(10:16):
draw the line between a spontaneous abortion, which is a miscarriage,
and something that was elective. There are a lot of
cases where medical indications kind of overlap for an elective
abortion versus an emergency abortion. There's debate along with this

(10:36):
about is contraception abortion, which if we clearly define our terms, no,
it is not. And the main medical organization that I
kind of take guidance from is a COG or the
American College of Cetrics and Gynecology. They're kind of the
governing body in defining these terms and especially defining them

(11:00):
for medical utility. Like, it's important that we get our
language correct when we speak about this, because if you're
going to use a medical term and you're going to
make an argument to imply that some action needs to
be taken or should not be taken, we need to
be consistent about our definitions. And I know a lot

(11:20):
of the language used is very, very inflammatory, such as
terms like late term abortion, which is not a thing.
Things like dismemberment bands are intentionally using inflammatory language to
not let you think about what the actual procedure is,
and not let you think about what the indications for

(11:42):
said procedure are. It just says it gives you this
gut reaction of this is icky. I don't want to
be involved in this. Why would you support this? Memberment well,
that's not a medical term that is used, that doesn't
refer to anything meaningful within this space. Additionally, like partial
birth abortion is not a thing. Post birth abortion definitely

(12:04):
does not even is not even coherent, because I.

Speaker 5 (12:07):
Want to mention that yes, there was the whole define
in California had passed the law for post birth abortions
and it and it would it spread like wildfire throughout
the right wing bloggisphere. And it's just so ridiculous because
obviously it wouldn't be an abortion at that point to
be murder.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
So yeah, yeah, I remember the thing Ben that I
wanted to say, and and what you mentioned in the
cold open is that medical definition only addresses the ending
of a pregnancy, not necessarily implying fetal demise. And so
I think equating those two is a false equivalent or
not necessarily a false equivalency. There they are related to
each other, but they're not the same thing. Ending in

(12:45):
pregnancy does as you've just mentioned. I mean, you know,
a late late term abortion quote unquote abortion is a delivery,
is a premature delivery, and so and so it's not
you know, abortion doesn't equate to death of a person
or debt, or even death of tissue for that matter.
It's uh, sometimes they overlap, but not necessarily. And so

(13:08):
I think equating I think the the the equivocation I
think can be intentional. As Kelly was pointing out, there's
there's a you know, miscommunications that are intended to trigger
that emotional response, intended to you know, bypass any reasoning
or thoughtful discussion by going straight for the gut on

(13:29):
that one. And it's it's it's very frustrating to try
to have a discussion with somebody like that when they're
just trying to trigger people left and right rather than
trying to put together a reasonable argument in their favor.
It's it's uh, it's it's very telling, if you ask me,
it's very telling.

Speaker 4 (13:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
And that's where like one of my favorite things to
do is even just hammer out what these definitions are
for people, and so like if an abortion, abortion itself
as a term doesn't even imply that there was intent
in the matter, Like abortion is the ending of a
pregnancy out or before twenty weeks gestational age, which that

(14:09):
could be spontaneous like I said, or it could be
non spontaneous, but both of them would be considered abortion.
The term I like to use the term termination when
talking to talking about ending of pregnancy because that, I
think is what people are more concerned about, is the
non spontaneous ending of pregnancy. But that term termination is

(14:30):
used at any gestational age. You can use that term.
But you get into some interesting points here because before
twenty weeks, if there's an ending of a pregnancy non spontaneously,
that is an abortion. If it is after twenty weeks,
a termination after that point is a delivery like Scott
was saying, So where do we draw the line is

(14:51):
it wrong to induce a delivery, like at any point?
And if so, like what when is it considered wrong?
And I've like on pediatrics rotations, like I've taken care
of babies who were born at twenty three twenty four weeks.
They have oftentimes have a lot of complications, But it

(15:11):
is possible to give perinatal palliative care to very very
young babies that were delivered. So even if you were
to terminate a pregnancy early, it's not something necessarily that
would be recommended to do for safety reasons. But that
does not mean that the fetus is not going to survive.

(15:32):
So that's very important that we kind of iron that
stuff out. But just asking people like when is it wrong?
Is it wrong all the time or is it only
wrong part of the time. We got a question in
a super chat here from someone who can't call in,
But yeah, I want people to call in if you
have good discussion points, like if you think we're missing

(15:52):
something on this discussion, please call in. Give us your
input on ways that you've handled discussions like this and
how we can do better to communicate. But Matt Levon,
Eric says can't phone in as a disability rights campaigner.
What are people's views on disability as a reason for abortion?
Is that saying we shouldn't exist? Do either of you

(16:13):
have thoughts on this particular question.

Speaker 3 (16:16):
Do you mean disability of the person who's pregnant or
disability of the impending child?

Speaker 1 (16:24):
I'm guessing they mean if you find out that there's
a high likelihood of disability in the fetus itself, is
that a reason to terminate the pregnancy?

Speaker 3 (16:37):
As I said before, I think bodily autonomy is the
is the top card here. And so if the if
the person who's pregnant doesn't want to be pregnant, you know,
to me, it doesn't matter why, you know, if they
don't want to be pregnant anymore, they don't have to
be pregnant anymore.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
And so.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Now I could if the if the reason they're doing
that is because maybe the born will be some with
with some sort of disability or some sort of issue.
You know, that's up to them. That you know, that's
part of their decision making process, and I might so
is it would it be wrong? Boy? That It would
really depend on whether or not you know, we're then

(17:15):
that personhood argument comes into play. I think that a
person can have an abortion for whatever reason they want,
or even for no reason if they don't have a reason.
But I think the status of the the embryo or
fetus or baby or whatever stage and development we are
the stat the way that you treat that, that's when

(17:36):
when that personhood comes into play. For example, we have
the you know, there's like the violinist analogy or something
like that, where you wake up and you're attached to
a violinist or something. I don't know, maybe I'm mixing
up my metaphors here, but the way that the abortion
happens matters based off of whether or not that's a

(17:58):
person in there or not. For example, if you know
we talked about after a certain time after viability, then
we call it a delivery. You know, we wouldn't we
wouldn't consider necessarily taking more drastic measures if it is
a viable fetus. Just like if you woke up and
you were attached to somebody, Yes, you have a right
to pull the the you know, the blood draw out

(18:19):
of your arm. That's fine. You don't have a right
necessarily to shoot the other person to stop them from
drawing your blood. And so it's up to it's up
to the pregnant person whether or not they want to
stay pregnant. How they go about doing that though, does
depend on you know, the status of the of any
other parts of them or parts of other people that

(18:40):
we're talking about. I don't know if that does that
answer your question Ben at all.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Yeah, I think I think that's a great answer. I
also I want to weigh in, Like, again, this isn't
when we say abortion, it is not about like ending
the like the life of a fetus or the life
of a of a future baby, like that's not the
argus argument is should you be allowed to terminate a pregnancy?
So whatever reason, if somebody is making that decision purely

(19:08):
based on a certain medical condition, there are certain medical
conditions you know, I wouldn't. I wouldn't say is like
the most beneficial action. There are certain actions that I
would not personally take because I find that to be
kind of icky to do. I don't think necessarily that
you should like terminate a pregnancy purely because of certain disabilities.

(19:31):
There are some that will make a fetus not viable,
and that's a case where really abortion is considered a
lot earlier saying like, hey, this fetus does not have
a brain that's incompatible with life. That's something that is
going to cause medical distress throughout the pregnancy cause that

(19:53):
those inherent risks of being pregnant inherent risks to that
fetus that already is not viable. That is one conversation.
Another conversation, like really is just does this person want
to carry the pregnancy? So I think it's important that
we don't conflate fetal demise and the ending of a pregnancy,
because even if they choose to termineate the pregnancy, that

(20:15):
that gestation could undergo a palliative care to whatever extent
is available at that stage of development, and it's a
that's just a more complex medical decision that the person
would have to make with their provider.

Speaker 5 (20:29):
So you know, I do have a problem with the
boarding of fetus for that reason. Like to me, I
have a problem with that, And I know maybe that
might not be everybody's opinion, but both of my children
were healthy, normal children, but they were both still a
struggle and that struggle was to me, was totally worth it.

(20:49):
And if I have to struggle a little bit more
for a special child. I'm willing to do that, so I,
at least me on a moral sense, I think it
would probably be wrong for boarding a fetus just for
that reason alone. However, I know a lot of people
wouldn't have the same idea. And I kind of had

(21:10):
a problem with the question. It was like, if somebody
aboards a fetus for a physical problem, does that mean
we don't have a right to You're already existing and
you have that right to exist. I don't have a
problem with that, And I don't know how somebody aboarding
a fetus for that reason is going to bother your
is going to mess with your existence, right, And maybe
that's not a good way to look at it. But

(21:32):
I totally can see where you're coming from, totally monthly.
So I just want to know. I want you to
know that I hear you. I totally agree with you
in some sense, in most senses.

Speaker 3 (21:44):
So yeah, you know, and Kelly, when you were just
talking there, I feel the need to clarify a little
bit here. I'm not saying that I think a disabled
fetus is a good reason to have an abortion. And
if a friend of mine or somebody that that you know,
that I care about was was considering that, I would

(22:04):
probably try to talk them out of it. But what
I'm saying is that they still have the right to
make that decision for bad reasons, although I think doing
it for that reason is in general probably not not
a I wouldn't call that a good thing. If we're
talking about the morality of making that decision, you know,
I would say that that's not a good reason, or
that's a bad reason to make that decision. However, knowing

(22:26):
that you know that I have knows you know, it
depends on how much I know about that person's life experience,
how much I know about them personally, and so you know,
they still have the right to make the decision based
off of whatever information that they want. You know, if
you're asking my opinion, then that's that's what it is.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
So for what it's worth, I think this goes back
to the question of bodily autonomy as well. It's like
the idea that you cannot force somebody to make an
ethical decision. You can't force somebody to make a moral
decision in the way that like if you had a
child with leukemia or some other like blood cancer, and

(23:05):
they needed like bone marrow transplant, and you were, as
a family member, are the like the best candidate to
give them that, You're still not obligated to do that.
Even if your child is in a situation where they
could die from not receiving that treatment. No one can
force you to be that donor. Nobody can force you

(23:26):
to use your body for that purpose. And so even
though I would say that is like I would say
that it is immoral and not beneficial for the parent
to make that decision, they still have every right to
do that. And that's like when we talk about rights
of and this is where it might get a little sticky,
talking about rights of Jehovah's witnesses to deny their children

(23:49):
blood transfusions. That's where it gets a little bit more sticky,
because that's a question of you're not using, You're not
you're not using your own body to like save your child.
You're using, you're denying using a therapy that was already
available to use based on your religious opinion. And that's

(24:11):
something that can avail more sticky. Yeah, yeah, involuntarily avail
that's a good more sticky.

Speaker 3 (24:16):
Right in case we can also sorry, go ahead, ben, no, no,
you're good. I was just going to say, we can
also say in this case, in the in the case
of like a Jehovah's witness or something, they have religious
reasons for withholding that treatment. And you know, I think
I speak for all of us on the panel here
that I would say that that's not a rational reason

(24:37):
to to make that kind of decision, to base that
kind of decision on it. So when we're talking about
somebody exercising their their rights, I'm sorry, they're exercising their
rights to pursue their own chosen religion. That's one thing,
But I think that would also fall into that category
of you know, they still have the right to do that,

(24:58):
but I think that's a bad way to come to
that decision.

Speaker 5 (25:00):
Yeah, I wanted to bring up I wanted to point
out something else to you. I wrote down some numbers.
What did I do with them? I just had them
right here in front of me. Oh, here we go.
I hit them on myself. I hey, when I do that.
I was looking at the percentage of people who men
and women who are pro choice and anti choice, and
the percentage of men and women who actually vote in

(25:23):
this country, and the percentage of both men and women.
So there are fifty four percent women in this country,
just a slight majority. And they also have a majority
of voters. Sixty six point nine percent of women vote
as opposed to sixty three point seven percent of men.
So we have more women and more women voting. Now

(25:44):
sixty four percent, according to the Pure Research, believe of
women believe that that laws should be more pro choice.
There is a majority of women who believe in pro
choice ideals, and yet they keep losing elections, and that's
a problem. And there is forty six percent of men
voters who are voting against the against pro choice. There's

(26:06):
also thirty per six cent of men who are voting
who are not voting at all. And what we need,
what women need, is for more men like Scott and
I to stand up and start saying, I mean, we're
going to get a doctor stand up anyway. So that's
why I excluded Ben. But we need more men out
there who are standing up and saying that this is

(26:27):
a problem and women should have more rights and they
do have the right to have control over their own body,
because like these misogynous men who are passing these laws,
they don't respect women. They're not going to listen to them,
and it's going to take other people standing up and
telling them, no, you're wrong, the people who are just
like them telling them, no, you're wrong. You need to

(26:50):
re examine this issue and look at the facts. So sorry,
I went off on a little rant.

Speaker 3 (26:55):
And you know, I think part of that. I think, Kelly,
the stats that you just brought up, I think shows
that a majority of people support reproductive rights in this respect.
But I think that the uh, the anti choice or
the pro life crowd will more likely choose and choose
a candidate based off of that issue than somebody on

(27:19):
the other side. They might have. There will be other issues,
I think involved in making that decision, and I'm worried
that we might be bumping up against electioneering. So I'm
not going to pursue that line of reasoning anymore. But
you know, it's it's a matter of where those numbers
pan out as far as do they affect, you know,
elections and things like that.

Speaker 5 (27:35):
I think it shows that there's a lot of control
because of jerrymandering, religion, obfuscation of the facts, as Ben
mentioned earlier, like controlling the language, and honestly just plain
apathy on a lot of people's uh, and a lot
of you know, a lot of people's case. So I mean,
if we need to change those things, and we're not

(27:56):
going to just do it overnight, so it's something that's
going to take work, and you know that, I don't
know who's going to stand up and do it, but
it looks like somebody has to at some point, I guess.
And I got to watch out for electioneering too, So yeah,
I did.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Want to kind of bring it this point because we
talked about it before the show, and I'm of course
a transman, so I am in the population of people
who directly could be affected by this, but I know
there's concern of a lot of men or other people
who are not able to get pregnant, and so therefore
they feel like this conversation is not relevant to them,

(28:32):
or that they are not they are not in a
position where they are able to speak about this issue.
And I think your points are very important, that you know,
we do need more people in general speaking up about this,
and I think as long as like the voices of
people who are not affected by this are using their

(28:54):
platform and using their privilege to amplify women's voices and
people who can get pregnant all of their voices, that's okay.
I think the issue is when, like the reason why
people get angry about men making decisions about abortion rights
is because it is when those voices are saying, no,

(29:17):
your rights don't matter, your say doesn't matter. I'm going
to say, I'm going to oppose your right to body
the autonomy and your right to reproductive autonomy. So I
think if as long as your positive position amplifies the
position of those minorities, then I think it's okay to
use your platform. I think it's okay to speak out

(29:37):
about this. And granted, I'm not the authority of what
people are allowed to think about other people talking about issues,
so there might be people out there who disagree with
my perspective. And if that's the case, if you think
that men shouldn't talk about this issue, call in and
we can have a chat about that, because I'd be
very serious. But in my perspective, we need more people

(30:00):
on this. It's the same thing with trans rights and
with other LGBTQ rights. There aren't enough people listening to
trans people. We need people who are not trans to
amplify the voices of trans people and to like help us, Like, yeah,
you want the affected community to have the opportunity to

(30:20):
pick up the spear and to kind of going along
with that metaphor spearhead that effort. But we need we
need people behind us.

Speaker 3 (30:29):
So right, yeah, I think that's important when we're if
I'm having an argument with somebody who is pro life,
they are making a position, They're they're holding a position
or making an argument that somebody that a pregnant person's
decision making should be taken out of the out of
the equation. You know, whether or not they want to
be pregnant is not a determining factor on whether or

(30:52):
not they're allowed to continue. And so I think that
that's that's kind of a key thing there, is that
want we're not just too equal sides just talking about
an opinion on something. We have one side that's wanting
to take away the rights of a group of people
to make decisions about themselves. And so so I think

(31:13):
that's a key distinction there. And so when like, if
I'm arguing in favor of reproductive rights or abortion rights,
what I'm saying is that we should listen to the
people that are pregnant and listen to what they want
and listen to what they think because it's their bodies,
you know, it's not And I think, Ben, I think
you've mentioned this in relation to cisgendered people talking about

(31:37):
the trans experience. Don't talk about the experience. Okay, you
don't know the experience. You haven't lived it. It's difficult,
it's a foreign thing to your experience, and so don't
try to argue and face you know, for a particular experience.
You can argue though, in support of allowing them to
be part of the discussion and allowing them to be

(31:58):
part of what's heard. Okay, what's heard? And so yeah,
so I agree with what you said, Ben, and I
appreciate the unique perspective that you bring to this issue.
So thank you for that.

Speaker 5 (32:08):
Just I like to speak to all those men out
there that aren't voting for stuff like this, just for
one second. You know, you might think that this doesn't
affect you, that this doesn't have any influence on your
life at all. But most of you, most of you
have a woman in your life that's important and you
should be able to stand up for that woman.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Right, So right, yeah, and this and this is like
we were talking about, this is an issue of autonomy,
like if if you are willing to let go of
this one specific example of where autonomy applies, you are
at risk for people asking questions about your rights, like
are we going to say that men can't have access

(32:46):
to this ectomies? I Actually, this is an interesting conversation
because I've had I've worked with other physicians who are
from religious beliefs where they will not prescribe contraception, but
they will still provide vasectomies. And so it seems like
there's a bit of inequality in that and a little
bit of bias in that that you think men should

(33:08):
have the right but women shouldn't. And we do have
someone calling in with questions specifically about this topic, So
let's bring on in She here from California. You are
live on Talk Heathen. It sounds like you want to
talk about the the arguments of the pro life movement.

(33:29):
What what is your kind of summary of your question here?

Speaker 6 (33:33):
Hello, doctor Ben and Scott and.

Speaker 7 (33:38):
Kelly.

Speaker 3 (33:39):
How are you all doing great? And doing great?

Speaker 5 (33:42):
How are you I'm doing pretty good.

Speaker 6 (33:45):
Yes, my question is about the arguments of the pro
life movement because the claim is that you know they're
saving babies, they're saving children. And then there's always, you know,
the argument, and it's a very very valid argument, but
you know, it comes up a lot. It's, you know, well,
they don't care about you after you're born. No, you know,

(34:08):
food assistance or affordable housing or anything that would help
a child survive in the environment it's born into. And
I hear people say that a lot, and I usually
like to add that they don't care about you before
you're born either, because they don't care if a pregnant
person has any access to quality, affordable or free prenatal

(34:33):
care that would ensure a healthier baby is born.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Yeah, I agree. I think that if you're going to
be part of a movement that you call pro life,
then you should support life. I mean, it seems like
a very narrow subset of life that they're talking about here,
and it's it's it's it's like they're in favor of
this process and uh, but if you think about it

(34:59):
in turn of you know, we've talked about I also
host on the nonprofits on occasion as well. In one
of our topics that we frequently the flagship show, by
the way, one of the subjects that we frequently talk
about on there is the idea that boy, I am
just on fire today. My brain is just shutting down

(35:20):
here we talk about the idea of it's gone, and
it's gone. All right, let's switch over. I'm gonna have
to rethink this one here, so pro Oh nope, gone again, Boy.

Speaker 5 (35:34):
There's too many numbers in your I should.

Speaker 8 (35:36):
Have breakfast and I should have breakfast in the morning.
For these things, I often do wonder, you know. I mean,
they claim to be pro life, but they don't. You know,
they favorite death penalty, they don't want to support children
after they're born, so I really question the whole That's
why I don't use the word pro life. I like
to say anti choice again, because they demonstrate continuously that

(35:59):
they are not pro life.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Right or anti abortion. Yeah, so if you're gonna, if
you're going to argue that you're going to be pro life,
you should support life in more than just this narrow case.
And uh oh. The thing that we talk about on
the nonprofits is the idea that a religious mindset is
very often very closely linked to an authoritarian mindset as well.

(36:21):
And so if you think about it from from in
terms of authoritarianism, then it's very it makes sense. You know,
you have to be this way. The dictate is coming
down from above. Here's how you act, regardless of of
you know what other kinds of arguments you're talking about here,
follow the rules, damn it or else, or else you're out.
And so if you think about it in those terms,

(36:42):
not necessarily that it's reasonable, I think, but at least
you can understand how one might come to that conclusion.
Where where when when it's about when we're talking about
specifically about abortion rights, we're talking about control and control,
and authoritarianism is all about control. It's not about the
life that that matters. It's about the behavior of that individual.

(37:05):
And so it has to do with dictating or directing
a person to act a specific way, rather than taking
all things into consideration the life as you mentioned and
the uh, it's it's setting aside that what's the quality
of life that that that that baby will be coming
into They are they able to have healthcare both before

(37:27):
and after the birth, all those kinds of things. Is
the family economically ready to support that child after it's born,
And there's all these different things to consider. But if
the pro life movement and there are variations in the
pro life movement movement. I agree, but the most extreme
view is no exceptions, right, And so clearly, since the

(37:51):
extreme view of that movement is no abortions, no exceptions,
clearly it's not about the life, because it's very easy
to make an argument in some cases that going through
with the pregnancy does not necessarily promote life. It doesn't
necessarily promote life of the pregnant person, it doesn't necessarily

(38:11):
promote the well being of the of the child, and
in that kind of thing, and so it does make
a difference if you want, if you if your if
your name of your movement is pro life, live up
to it, Okay, follow through on that. There's life both
before and after and also other lives during pregnancy as well.

(38:31):
And so pro life is very is a very broad
name with a very narrow mission, it seems, and it's
very uh, it's very frustrating and very it is it
does kind of obfuscate I think motivations a little bit,
which is you know again that is also a very
telling situation. What are your thoughts on that?

Speaker 6 (38:50):
Ann Yeah, I've never heard it put that way before,
but you're yeah, you are so right. It's a very
broad term for a very narrow said said Now, I'm
also now that I think about it, kind of wondering
if there's Gosh, this is going to be tough to ask,
but is there any element of maybe white supremacy involved.

Speaker 4 (39:13):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (39:13):
Absolutely, there absolutely is. And that's like within the history
of pregnancy care. So we know for a fact that
black women experience the highest maternal mortality rates and the
highest rates of like perinatal complications. So with that being said,
like these are communities that are are denied access to

(39:36):
proper health care, there's also a lot related to kind
of the history of healthcare, specifically related to people of
color and how they would have been mistreated by the
medical system. So there's also a layer of mistrust that
is well warranted in this situation. But a lot of

(39:56):
like medicine is is full of racism, absolutely full of it,
And there are definitely motivations to force people from certain
backgrounds to carry pregnancy is because it will keep them,
it will keep them population controlled if you will, it
will keep their mortality rates high, it will keep their

(40:17):
poverty rates high, and so a lot of this kind
of goes back to the gerrymandering conversation as well is like,
how can we utilize our power and our privilege to
make sure that we keep our power in privilege. And
one of the ways in doing that is controlling what
certain populations are and are not allowed to do with
our bodies. So right, you're absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (40:40):
Yeah, we're dipping into eugenics there, right, So we're like
genetic manipulation of the population. It's very frustrating, Kelly. I
know you had something you wanted to say about this
thing that your little comment you just put in the
side chat here.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
Oh no, I was just telling you you mentioned eugenics,
and it's kind of a rough subject with me because
my grade on my father's uncle, my great uncle was
Harry Laughlin, who is probably the most prominent huge genesis
in American history. So it's it's a rough topic for me, honestly.

Speaker 3 (41:10):
So yeah, so you were saying that you're your uncle
would advocate for the sterilization of minorities. I think we
see if we if we acknowledge that that bit of control,
that bit of authoritarianism, it you know, white supremacy and
this kind of thing are very natural, you know, bedfellows,
I suppose and you know, we canaturally go together, and

(41:34):
it's all about that control, that manipulation.

Speaker 5 (41:36):
Yeah, and let's face it another and maybe I'm taking
a step too far here, but authoritarian regimes tend to
be very nationalistic and jingoistic as well. So you know,
you got to keep the the pool of soldiers pretty
high so we can go after those bad guys too.

Speaker 6 (41:53):
So yeah, yeah, that's a good point too, because you know,
I keep hearing all that time about how the birth
rate is falling, and they're founding the alarms about birth
rates falling and not being able to maintain a population
to cover all of its needs. And then you know,
but if you bring up immigration, it's like, no, no, no, no,

(42:16):
people here need to be having more babies.

Speaker 3 (42:19):
Yeah, exactly, And because it's not about maintaining, it's not
about taking care of our basic needs. It's about it
And it's not that we're short on people. We have
plenty of people on the planet. We have more than
enough people. But if somebody's making that argument, what they're
saying is there's not enough of X type of people,
And that's really what they're getting at. That's the that's

(42:40):
the you know, the manipulation, that's the the whiff of
eugenics we're getting from this discussion, and it all comes
from that. It's not just a matter of who gets born,
or it's not just a matter of that people are
being born. It's a matter of who's getting born, and
so we need to maintain you know, we need to
maintain control in that regard. And that's a very very

(43:01):
authoritarian approach to things, and not surprisingly also a very
religious and a very conservative approach to things.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
I was going to say, like, that's how the quiver
Full movement even came about, Like that's that's their whole
selling points like that, Yeah, exactly, anything any other comments
or questions.

Speaker 6 (43:20):
And well, I just I just want to mention a
couple of months ago, I was talking to Christy and
Sophia about my own personal experiences because I was pregnant
three times and I made a just different decision each time.
And then I know, doctor Ben, I talked to you
and Sophia a few weeks ago about Satanic panic and

(43:43):
blaming women for all evil in the world.

Speaker 7 (43:46):
I don't hope you remember, but I do.

Speaker 6 (43:49):
Yeah, Yeah, that was a great conversation. But I think
I think another thing that bothers me about this anti
abortion movement is their casual attitude towards adoption. We'll just
give it up for adoption. They have no idea you know,
what someone goes through when they're going through that process.

Speaker 7 (44:12):
It is like one of.

Speaker 6 (44:13):
The hardest, most heartbreaking things to go through. And I
know there's a lot of reasons why babies. You know,
sometimes they're voluntarily given up, sometimes they're taken away for
whatever reason, or you know, they end up in foster care.
So I know there's a lot of you know, different
ways that a child can be relinquished. But again, if

(44:36):
they want to be, if they want to be pro adoption,
then maybe we need to improve the adoption system and
the foster care system and make sure that all these
babies that are being born have somewhere to go some
kind of like that. They don't really seem to care
about those situations either, right.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Right, And in another aspect of this is not caring
as much about medical science and like what could we
do to improve natal viability at earlier gestational periods, Like
if the issue is you don't want people terminating their
pregnancy early, what about looking into ways that we can

(45:14):
better support a gestation that is no longer in the womb, Like,
how can we support them outside of the womb. How
can we improve, like reduce risk factors for like pregnancy
complications so that people don't have to make as many
of those decisions. But it seems like cutting research funding

(45:35):
is something that's that they're thinking is an appropriate option.
But that's not going to help the situation. If we
improve the healthcare situation and we improve the socioeconomic factors,
it would be there'll be a lot fewer elective abortions.
So I think you're spot on with with your perspective there.

Speaker 3 (45:55):
Yeah, I agree too. It's really it's a matter of consistency, right.
If you're going to say you can't have an abortion
for this reason because life is precious or whatever your
your argument is, then follow through with that. Follow through
with that, make health care available for the for the
kids and the families, you know, make our you know,
set up an economic system that people aren't going to

(46:18):
struggle so much, and you know, make it so that
people can be successful parents. That's part of it too.
It's not The pregnancy is just you know, one of
the early steps of many of many to come. And
so if you want to support one particular step and
then bail on the on the next and following steps,
then you're not really pro life. Just come on, people,

(46:40):
be consistent. Be consistent. If your pro life, you know,
be pro life until death right, life lasts a long time,
support it all the way along along the path there.
Otherwise you know, you're just you know, flinging bullshit and
it's just, uh, it doesn't really lead us to a
healthy society, I don't think said And.

Speaker 6 (47:01):
They support in words only the first part of just
making sure the baby is born, but they don't really
support it in practice.

Speaker 3 (47:09):
Excellent point, Yes, I agree resolutely.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Yeah. Also, reduce healthcare costs. Reduce the cost of having
a delivery. I think it was a long time ago
on the nonprofits where I brought in actual numbers of
how much it costs to have a baby in a
hospital in the United States as an uncomplicated pregnancy, like
just the birth itself can be around twenty and that's

(47:34):
not including all of the prenatal care that leads up
to that point. And then you throw in a complication
on top of it, and you're going into like forty
k at least, and you're going to have additional aftercare
as well that you're going to need to do if
you have preeclampsia or something and then something else. I

(47:54):
actually have a real world example of like one of
those babies I was talking about that was born like
around twenty three weeks, the healthcare costs of being in
the NICKU and then being admitted to the Peds floor
for several months at the beginning of her life, like
just for the time I was. I think she was

(48:15):
still admitted after I left that rotation, but her medical
bills were in the like the realm of two point
six million dollars. And this was a single mother and
it is her first baby. So this is the costs
are astronomical. It would be more cost effective and not
just saying that for like profit line reasons, Like we're

(48:36):
talking about money being people's livelihood and people's ability to
be exauists in our society, Like you have somebody who's
a single parent, first time parent, who probably doesn't have
a two point six million dollar income, it's definitely going
to be more feasible to terminate early. Like, so we

(48:57):
have to consider all of these things like reduce health
care costs for sure, yes.

Speaker 6 (49:01):
And then also, doctor Ben, back to your point about
like improving medical research so that there is more fetal viability.
I was thinking about that before I called in that. Yeah,
we we can improve medical science so that, you know,
it's it's easier to you know, develop healthier fetuses and babies.

(49:22):
But also I'm thinking about climate change too, because they
don't care about climate change.

Speaker 3 (49:29):
That's something that affects all life, and and you know
that's definitely a risk factor for all life on the planet.
If you're going to be pro life, you think you'd
start there. But you know, obviously I'm being misled or
something anything else about.

Speaker 6 (49:47):
Sense Yeah right, yeah, well I'm just I did I
did have a question why is medical care so expensive here?

Speaker 3 (50:00):
Greed?

Speaker 1 (50:01):
Yep, absolutely, yep, that that exactly is greed.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
Because the people making the decisions about the way that
health cost is managed and legislated are the people are
the same people that are reaping the benefits from this
lopsided system. It's it's just a it's a money grab
plane and simple.

Speaker 6 (50:22):
So that's why it's so hard to get like medicare
or medicaid for all here.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
Oh yeah, yeah, that's that's my thoughts on that, Yes,
I agree.

Speaker 6 (50:30):
Yeah, so yeah, so yeah, there's people that probably invest
in stock.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
You know that insurance companies. Yeah, insurance companies make so
much money and they're effectively making most of the decisions
right now because if you don't have insurance, you're not
going to be able to pay to deliver at the hospital.

Speaker 5 (50:51):
So we have here in this country than anywhere in
the world, and the vast majority of our population can't
afford it.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
Right, And if we're talking about morality there, I mean,
I think morality definitely comes into play here. I think
that a system where a person is in a position
of having to decide between they're patting their own pockets
making money or giving somebody healthcare, I think that's an
immoral system. I think that health care for pay, health

(51:20):
care for profit, in my opinion, is immoral because it
puts it It puts a person's personal gain up against
the public good, which I think is I think is
destructive because maybe not all the time, but often enough
that it makes a difference. They're going to make decisions
that to sacrifice the people that are coming to them
for that health care for the help to make a

(51:42):
few dollars, and to me that's that's clearly, clearly an
immoral structure, an immoral way to set it up, and
it's it's unfortunately, you know, and again we're kind of
bumping up against topics we're supposed to be careful on
talking about here, but yeah, it's maybe I'll just stop
there then.

Speaker 6 (52:02):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not sure what topics you can steer
clear of. And I don't want to, you know, bring
up the kid that shot the health insurance exactly because
I thought that was not you know, that was wrong.
You don't do that correct around people. But there was
a part of me it's like, well, okay, but you

(52:22):
know this health I like, I couldn't really be sad
for the health insurance guy who died either, So I
don't know if there's something wrong with me or what's
going on there.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
I mean, that could be like a Shoden fret, a
kind of situation. I would say that that's wrong to
be happy that that happened. I think murder is wrong.
I think killing that person was a wrong thing to do.
I think idolizing the murderer, I think is an immoral position.
Having said that, people do immoral things on occasion, and

(53:01):
I'm not saying that that's okay. I'm saying that as
somebody trying to understand why what happens actually happens. And
so people aren't always motivated. Are aren't always motivated purely
by morality. Very often they're often motivated by, you know,
things like like I said, schadenfreude, like seeing seeing things
happen uh to people that they think deserve it. That

(53:25):
can also motivate that feeling as well. Again clarifying not acceptable.
It's not acceptable to murder somebody like that, and that's,
of course my opinion, but we can still examine what
might motivate somebody to do that and address those motivations
and maybe deal with those motivations. And of course, having

(53:47):
lacking I should say lacking affordable healthcare for the majority
of Americans is frustrating for not only for people in
that situation, but also people who care about the people
that are in that situation as well. And so so yeah,
that might have been the long way around explaining that,
but I think that you know, that type of violence

(54:08):
is not justified. I understand why somebody might want to
go down that road, but that is an immoral path
and I think it's unjustified, and that's just you know,
my two cents on that.

Speaker 6 (54:18):
Yeah, now I might be switching gears here a bit,
but you know, we talk about the violence and the shooting,
and then there's another thing that the pro life movement
doesn't seem to care about, and that's all of the
guns and all of the shootings and the mass shootings.
They just say false with prayers.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
Yep, yep.

Speaker 4 (54:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Violent violence is absolutely unacceptable, and it's it's a thing
where if people are going to use arguments against like
if they're going to use false arguments against a real
medical procedure, like they're going to use language invoking violence
such as dismemberment like I mentioned, or baby murder and

(54:58):
all that, like they have no problem using that language
to get your gut response to say, oh no, I'm
not in support of baby murder, because I'm not. But
they're not actually talking about baby murder. They're talking about
discontinuing a pregnancy, and that's not at all the same thing. However,
it's like we need to be consistent, like Sky is saying,

(55:19):
we need to be consistent in our viewpoints of I
oppose all violence, I oppose violence towards babies, Like when
we like, it would absolutely be wrong for somebody to
birth a baby and then kill that baby. That's absolutely
one hundred percent wrong. That is murder. That's not what
we're talking about with abortion. It's not what we're talking

(55:41):
about with pregnancy termination. But yeah, along those same lines,
we need them to be consistent in if they're going
to rely on that gut reaction, where's their gut reaction to,
Let's stop using violence against other humans. Let's oppose the
violence that is done to queer people, Let's oppose the
violence that is done to women. Let's let's oppose all violence. Then,

(56:05):
if you're going to bring that into the equation.

Speaker 3 (56:07):
Yeah, it's just I mean just touching on that consistency again.
And you know, and it's not just one side of
the argument that's going to be inconsistent. Human beings are
inconsistent all the time. We have you know, we're conditioned
to hold our beliefs and we're we're we're we've evolved
to hold on to those beliefs even in the face
of opposition. And and you know, there are reasons that

(56:30):
that we that we believe that you know, that might
be a discussion for another day, but it does happen,
And so understanding what motivates a person to behave a
certain way doesn't necessarily mean you're understanding their reasoning. And
I think if we look at the reasoning alone, it
tells one story. If we look at the actual behavior,
it tells a different story. And you know, like we
like we've said, it's really a matter of being consistent.

(56:53):
And also, I think that that whole pro life label
that in itself, just using those two words pro life,
that's a tug on the emotional heartstrings as well. That's saying.
What you're saying then is that our side is in
favor of the living. We're all living, right, it's supposed
to be helping all of us, and the other side
must be anti life then, and really it's not. I

(57:15):
mean that the adoption of that label very often can
be misleading and overstepping, and so I think the discussion
is much more nuanced than a pro life anti life label.
I personally think the pro choice anti choice labels a
little bit more descriptive of the actual argument. But you know,

(57:38):
we don't get to choose what people call themselves, and
I'm fine with that. But as long as we keep
in mind the reason that those types of labels are
decided is because perhaps because they don't have a strong
rational argument and need that little extra emotional tug to
draw people to their side. Certainly, religion is a a

(58:00):
big part of that, is a big part of that,
and you know, in that respect, we can see that
religion is being used as a tool of control as well.
It's all about that authoritarian mindset, which again I'm not
just making it up. We talk about this on the
nonprofits all the time. Study after study after study show
a strong correlation between conservative thought and authoritarian thought, and

(58:24):
so it's very easy to show that theo and you
can see it happening, We can see it playing out.
And this is one of the one of the areas
where it is very clear. It is very clear that
we're not talking about pro life here, we're talking about
pro control. But of course being in the pro control
movement doesn't have quite then you know, quite the ring
to it as being pro life, and so it's I

(58:44):
think there's lots of manipulation going on here on many levels,
and I think understanding that can help you when you're
talking to people that have different beliefs if you understand
their motivations and what's driving what they say, what's all
what's behind their those opinions, I think that can make
a big, a big difference in how you approach your

(59:06):
discussion with them and how you should couch your different
arguments and setting up that discussion. I don't know, what
do you do? Do you think do you think that would
be helpful? And have you had talks with people that
were from the other side do you have any success
stories or failure stories on that?

Speaker 6 (59:24):
Not really, I mean, because I know my mom and
I are on opposite sides, and I just kind of like,
you know, and she usually starts these discussions and she's
very partisan about it and she's she's maga, and I
just kind of like, I can't even know because it's
it's hard. I'm not very well educated. I don't know

(59:45):
that I have the communication skills, you know. I just
try to listen to people. But I know, sometimes you know,
no matter how many times you present them with facts
or you know, they just don't either. I don't know
if they're not getting it or they just don't want
to get it, or if there's something you know, is
it me? Is there an approach I'm not seeing and

(01:00:06):
so yeah, I just I don't even know how to
communicate that way.

Speaker 3 (01:00:12):
But I think that perspective is very healthy, by the way,
and I think that acknowledging your own limits of understanding
and knowing and understanding uh which you know, directions that
you need to go to grow in your understanding of
other people. I think that's very healthy and so and
commendable too.

Speaker 6 (01:00:27):
That's why I listened to shows like yours.

Speaker 7 (01:00:29):
Yeah, so awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
Thank you so much for calling in. This has been
a really great discussion. We do have other calls to
move on to, but I'd love to hear your other
thoughts on this, you know, if you want to call
back next week, if you think about things more and
have some other ideas, We'd love to love talk with
you again. I know this A side chat loves seeing
you on here too. There's a lot of a lot

(01:00:51):
of love for you. And the side chat for.

Speaker 6 (01:00:53):
Sure is oh I love all them too.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
I love all of you. Yeah, yeah, thank you so
much for calling in. I hope you have some great
us your Sunday. Thanks a lot.

Speaker 5 (01:01:01):
I have a great days and I Ben, I want
to thank you for letting me stick around for that
call because it was associated with the discussion we were having.
But for the next call, I think I'm just going
to duck out and go back to the green room
and hang out and wait for you to really need me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
So thanks, thanks, very help, Kelly.

Speaker 5 (01:01:18):
Thanks, I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:20):
Nice tie by the way, Kelly, nice tie.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
Cool uh Scott, would you like to shout out the
patrons for this week?

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
Absolutely absolutely so. Each week we read off our top
five patrons for that week, and here they are for
this week. At number one, we have Oops All Singularity.
At number two we have dingle Berry Jackson. Number three
is Kleevi Helvetti, number four is Ja Carlton, number five
is Moldred D Malcontent, and coming in at number six

(01:01:52):
honorable mention Jessica Kopish. So thank you all for donating
to us on Patreon. If you want to have your
name read on the you're gonna have to fight with
some of these juggernauts that are currently in the top five,
that have kind of set up home in the top five.
So let's see if we can maybe challenge them for
this next week. So, if you want to have your

(01:02:12):
name right on the air. Please consider supporting us at
tiny dot cc slash patreon th So thank you patreons.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
You make all of this possible exactly. We love our patrons.
And next on in the key, we have a theist
well familiar to us, Benji. He him from Alabama. Benji,
you are live on Talky. Then what would you like
to talk about?

Speaker 7 (01:02:36):
Yeah, I was gonna go into I was thinking of
what to talk about, and I thought I might just
discuss this. And the reason why I kind of went
to that subject is a few days ago my livers
messing up on me, so kind of one anot of time,

(01:02:57):
so I've figured i'd just talked about this and be
something interesting to talk about. Also, the guy that I
talked to, I think last week, he was the guy
that was kind of in the background, and I don't
know if he likes to talk to me anymore or not.
But also I'll see if he has a good tire
about when I watched the video. But yeah, I was

(01:03:19):
going to talk about this. So if that's whatever Doll's
take on that is.

Speaker 1 (01:03:24):
In your particular, do you have any particular thoughts on
death or anything you want us to answer for you
about our perspective the main.

Speaker 7 (01:03:32):
Well, the man saying, I know, Donalds, just say littleal
you know, once you're gone, you're gone, kind of saying.
And then I was going to do both perspectives.

Speaker 4 (01:03:45):
Actually, I was going.

Speaker 7 (01:03:46):
To do the one where it's over and kind of
go into what my plans are, you know, and do
plea burial and all that kind of stuff, which I'm
already working on. And then also I was not going
to the religious side of it, you know, and kind
of the the mysticist stuff with everyone. You want me

(01:04:06):
to do first, it doesn't matter to me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:08):
Yeah, Just what are what are your thoughts on it?
Sounds like you've been processing a lot of things. Where
do you stand on the spiritual aspect of death? I
understand you're a theist, yeah, and like what is your
your position on it? And how do you think that
affects you?

Speaker 7 (01:04:27):
Well, I died once and was surrounded by darkness, and uh,
and I could and I was handing over my body
at one point and I was surrounded in darkness, and
so it kind of I kind of thought about it.
I'm like, well, if I die, I go to Tartarus
or something. That's fine too. I guess at least it's

(01:04:48):
not a fiery hell, it'll just be dark, you know.
And then the other side of it, if I die
and that's it, then at least before I die, before
my time wins out, I can try to make the
way meant to uh fit every time before I go,
you know. Uh So, my family that I do have
left doesn't have, you know, nothing to worry about, so

(01:05:10):
it's time I'm getting the large amount of life insurance
at the moment time too. I got to call them
Monday tomorrow and I'm gonna I'm gonna try their WANs
every time to where if something does happen to me,
there wouldn't be anything that they would have to worry about,
you know. And as far as my house, I put
a lot of money into my house three hundred and
fifty thousand into it in the past two years fixing

(01:05:32):
it up, and if something happened to me, then I
guess the house would just still on the market at
the current value or something which I'm probably gonna get
an appraisal on my property done just to see what
the market value actually is, because I did a compared
market analysis for the will to one time and he

(01:05:53):
said one hundred thousand, and that was before I put
three hundred and something thousand into it, So I don't
know how much it would be works now.

Speaker 3 (01:06:02):
So, Benji, I'm sorry to interrupt you. Here are you?

Speaker 4 (01:06:05):
So?

Speaker 7 (01:06:06):
Are you?

Speaker 4 (01:06:06):
Your? Your?

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
Your comment here in the call screening notes was why
we shouldn't fear death. So if you're you're so, you're
in a position where you're kind of looking, you know,
looking at the at the end of your life coming
up possibly and uh is that does that make you afraid?

Speaker 4 (01:06:22):
Well? Not really.

Speaker 7 (01:06:24):
I mean I part of me wants to just you know,
live as long as I can, and you know, if
my if my kidney screws up on me or something,
you know, maybe get a replacement one, use technology to
live longer.

Speaker 4 (01:06:37):
That kind of thing.

Speaker 7 (01:06:39):
If if if I can't do that, and and I
do end up dying, and at the least I want
to make it where my family and and people don't
have nothing to worry about. And then the house, as
far as my house goes, you know, I'll be dead,
but I would still want somebody I trust to live here.
If that makes sense. That's that's about it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:02):
Do you think people should fear death?

Speaker 4 (01:07:04):
Not really.

Speaker 7 (01:07:05):
I mean it's on one hand, the religious side. If
you die and you think you're going to go to
hell or something or whatever, or go to heaven or whatever.
I mean, I'll be honest with you, I thought I
was thrown to heaven and I was surrounded in darkness,
so you never know. But the I mean, I don't
think to DeLisi interfear it. I think that death is

(01:07:25):
inevitable no matter what, even like for me, for example,
I look a lot younger than I am. I'm over
fifty already. Actually I'm probably over sixty at this point.
I don't really keep up with my age, to be
honest with you. And I've had heart attack, stroke, Parkinson's
brain damage. I have a bunch of stuff that's wrong
with me that's slowly killed me. Some of it's killing me,

(01:07:47):
some of it's this house problem.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
So so you had at the end of the day.

Speaker 7 (01:07:53):
Yeah, so at the end of the day, I mean,
I can do whatever I can to kind of slow
the process down. So my aging process down will place
any damage parts or you know whatever, use senetics to
replace cells and use you know technology to fit damage
parts of my body. If that's where.

Speaker 4 (01:08:12):
They comes to but at the end of the day.

Speaker 7 (01:08:15):
I mean, it's just a tempt way to fit anyway,
because some of that stuff can screw up too, So
I can my liver, for example, if my liver messes
up and I get an let's say I get an
artificial liver, I get a liver transplanter. You know, they
used the graft in cells to you know, we drow
liver enzymes or whatever. Now that that could work, but

(01:08:37):
it's just temporary and it could still screw up later
down the line. So it would proloane death, but it
wouldn't cancel, and I've seen it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:46):
So.

Speaker 3 (01:08:48):
I think we would be remiss if we didn't mention that.
You said before, you've died already, so obviously you meant
near death, right, you didn't actually die, you're because you're
not dead, right, You're alive. So you almost died, right,
You were in the dye, in the process of dying,
and then that process was reversed before it reached an
irreversible point, and so and so. But you mentioned that

(01:09:10):
when you were going through this near death experience, you
saw darkness which was different than what you were expecting.
So did that change the way that you live? Your
life at all. If you are are a religious believer
and it said here and I know that you're a theist.
If you're a religious believer that believes in an afterlife,
does that worry you that you might be on the
wrong track.

Speaker 7 (01:09:30):
I thought about it, and when that was happening, it
kind of taunts my mind. You know, I'm standing there
in just a dark abyss or whatever, and it did
crossed my mind. I mean I was expecting to be,
you know, at the pearly gates, so to speak.

Speaker 4 (01:09:47):
See.

Speaker 1 (01:09:48):
I have a question though. I have a question, though, Benji,
about the fact that you seem like you're about to
say that you were pronounced dead. Were you actually pronounced
or did you just go into cardiac arrest? Because those
are different things.

Speaker 7 (01:10:01):
I was, I was, I was, I was pronounced. Well, see,
they was going, don't pronounce that dead. And then there
was one guy that kept trying to, uh, you know,
just didn't stop trying to re bind me.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
I mean they did, see that's not that's not that's
not pronounced. Do you know what has to happen in
order to be like pronounced dead?

Speaker 7 (01:10:20):
Well, yeah, you have to be dead for some amount
of time.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
That's not the like, how do you define death speaking.

Speaker 7 (01:10:27):
No heartbeat, no, no breathing, no movements, basically like brain
dead essentially no no buying activity.

Speaker 1 (01:10:36):
Yea, So how do you determine how do you determine
brain death? What's the criteria?

Speaker 7 (01:10:41):
Well, I know that there has to be no buying activity.
That's the man saying and then no yes.

Speaker 1 (01:10:46):
So when you actually pronounce somebody, you have to actually
document that these things were no longer working. And the
way that you can confirm absence brain activity includes like
a thorough assessment of their neurological function to include brain reflexes,

(01:11:07):
brainstem reflexes, all of that jazz. So if you're in
the middle of a CPR situation, nobody is doing that,
that does not happen, Like that part of the assessment
does not happen at that point. To actually pronounce somebody,
you have to do. You have a high burden to
make sure that you weren't doing this wrong. So what
may have happened is that they have maybe decided that

(01:11:28):
they are going to stop CPR, which is not the
same as pronouncing somebody dead. Right, So in that timeframe,
if they had you know, if they had this. If
they had a decision to cease resuscitation efforts, that does
not mean enough time had passed from ceasing resuscitation efforts
to then allow things to kind of naturally take their course.
Or are you suggesting that they stopped resuscitation efforts and

(01:11:53):
then allowed nature to take its course and then you
spontaneously like came back, in which case you were not
dead in that period. What it sounds like, Benji, What
it sounds like it was a faulty. No, it sounds
like they incorrect. If they did pronounce you, it was
incorrect that something went wrong within that assessment process and

(01:12:13):
they did not correct. You did not meet criteria to
be pronounced. So I don't think you actually were correctly pronounced.

Speaker 7 (01:12:21):
I've been pronounced a few times, that's but.

Speaker 1 (01:12:24):
I don't believe you. I don't believe you, Benji.

Speaker 7 (01:12:28):
CPR they went straight to the pads.

Speaker 4 (01:12:31):
They didn't, well, they.

Speaker 1 (01:12:33):
Did the pads. The pads are part of CP the
CPR algorithm. The pads do more than like his chess,
compressions are there to kind of hold things off until
we can like shock, if you have shockable rhythm, we're
going to shock. But I think we're kind of going
around in circles. We have other calls on the line,
and I don't think we want to rehash your uh

(01:12:54):
ND again, So I think I think.

Speaker 4 (01:12:57):
We're gonna GI.

Speaker 1 (01:13:01):
Yeah, but no, I think and I think we had
some good discussion on that. I do want to get
to some other callers, So feel free, like call back
at the beginning of the show next time. Like, and
this is for the people in the queue, Like, we're
going to get to both callers in the queue right now,
call earlier on in the show so that we can
have some more time to chat. But thanks for your call, Benji,

(01:13:23):
and we'll talk to you next time.

Speaker 3 (01:13:25):
Thank you, Benji.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
All right, don't go anywhere, callers in the queue. We
do have a theist ready to go. Let's talk to Fireman.
He him from Texas, wants to talk about the contradictions
in atheism. Fireman, you are live on talk. Hey, then,
what specifically do you mean?

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
Did you add him to the did you answers? Yeah,
hear me, there you go, Yeah, we got you.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
What do you mean by contradictions and atheism?

Speaker 4 (01:13:55):
No? No, you know, first I come into a room
and I you know, I'll just try to be gentlemen
doing today.

Speaker 3 (01:14:01):
Great, great, great, great great.

Speaker 4 (01:14:04):
I'm all right, man, now, so we can get to
the topic at hand. What I mean is it seems
that even though you don't believe in God, is atheists,
you still uphold the same values as a lot of
the same values, maybe not everything, but a lot of
the same values as uh as Christian doctrine. So I'm

(01:14:24):
trying to understand. I've found this discrepancy within atheism.

Speaker 2 (01:14:29):
Belief and I'm trying to get.

Speaker 4 (01:14:30):
An understanding of why you're still holding on to what
most Christians would call sin. Why are you still those values?

Speaker 1 (01:14:39):
Do you do you think that Christianity was the first
belief system to come up with those, uh, those views?

Speaker 3 (01:14:46):
No, No, I just know what's the contradiction. What's the contradiction?

Speaker 4 (01:14:50):
I knew, Listen, I've been talking to enough of you atheists.
I knew you was gonna run I know all the
talking points you're gonna run to.

Speaker 3 (01:14:56):
Oh good, I'm glad that you don't have answers for
us then.

Speaker 4 (01:14:59):
Yeah, yeah, I'm just that good. I knew you was
gonna run to that in the book. Well, sir, guess
what all that would mean is that those books are
right too, and you're still wrong. Yeah. You can say, oh,
it's in the Koran or the Book of the Dead,
you can say whatever book you want to bring out.
But the fact of the matter is you're still upholding
that value.

Speaker 1 (01:15:19):
And why not just because you fireman just agreeing on something.
Does agreeing on something disprove anything?

Speaker 4 (01:15:27):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:15:28):
It doesn't agree on moral values disprove anything? How how
does it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:35):
Do what? Atheists consider themselves a religion? No? Right, now,
let me ask you this.

Speaker 2 (01:15:41):
Do you still have a belief?

Speaker 4 (01:15:43):
Do you believe in something?

Speaker 1 (01:15:44):
Everyone has beliefs, not all of those beliefs are religious states.

Speaker 4 (01:15:49):
Belief now, right, so you would say that belief now
everyone that everyone doesn't have a belief, And I can
prove you is a group that doesn't have a belief.

Speaker 1 (01:15:57):
Find define a belief to find.

Speaker 3 (01:16:00):
What do Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:16:00):
What do you mean?

Speaker 3 (01:16:02):
Because if you believe, if you mean the same thing
that I mean when I say belief, What you just
said is utterly ridiculous. So what do you mean when
when you say other people don't have beliefs? What do
you mean by belief?

Speaker 4 (01:16:14):
Well, when I believed, that means that you believe in something.
That's something as a purpose.

Speaker 3 (01:16:18):
No, that's not you. That's not a definition. You use
the same word to define itself. When you define a word,
you can't use that word again. So when you say
somebody has a belief without using the word belief or
believe or believing or believer, what does that mean? To
have a belief?

Speaker 4 (01:16:35):
That mean that you think things are a certain way
should be a certain way.

Speaker 3 (01:16:39):
Okay, So you accept things that are true. Do you
think there's anybody who ever existed who doesn't accept some
things are true?

Speaker 4 (01:16:46):
But to me, accept things a belief doesn't mean that
only means that you think.

Speaker 3 (01:16:50):
That's what you said. That's what your definition of belief was.
So you said, I'll give you.

Speaker 4 (01:16:56):
A definition again, believes me, you think something is true,
and we'll go from there.

Speaker 3 (01:17:00):
Okay, So that's what I said. And so if you're
saying that there are people and you're going to prove it,
you're going to prove that there are people that don't
have any beliefs. So what you're saying is there are
people that do not accept things that are true or
accept things to be true.

Speaker 4 (01:17:16):
No, that's your definition of belief. Something that's true, I
say it is something that you think is true. That's
what my definition of.

Speaker 3 (01:17:23):
Belief is, not meaning that Scott thinks is true.

Speaker 4 (01:17:26):
You think that's true? Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:17:28):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:17:29):
Are you saying there are people that don't I don't know.
I'm having trouble following you. Are you saying that belief
is what Scott thinks is true?

Speaker 4 (01:17:37):
Don't have a belief? Sir?

Speaker 3 (01:17:38):
Okay, all right? Who are they?

Speaker 4 (01:17:43):
Nihilists believe that nothing matters. They believe that nothing matters.
There's no good or bad or right or wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:17:48):
And I'm right hold on. So so, fireman, how can
someone you're saying that people who are you saying that
nihilists don't have a belief?

Speaker 4 (01:17:56):
Well, technically you said everybody has. Technically you can say that.
But at the end of the day, they believe that
nothing matters. But the difference between them in the eighties
is the eighties believe the belief and he believed that
things matter.

Speaker 1 (01:18:11):
The point I was just leading the environment is you
said that you said that there are people, You said
that there are people who do not have beliefs, mentioned
nihilists and then said that nihilists believe something. Yes, so
you're contradicting yourselves you.

Speaker 3 (01:18:26):
Can't even get eight legend of the sentence.

Speaker 4 (01:18:28):
You said, listen, sir, I agree when you said I'm listening.

Speaker 3 (01:18:32):
That's the problem with what you're saying is I'm listening.

Speaker 4 (01:18:34):
Because because no matter who you are, I don't care.
If you have a brain that can walk around, you
believe something. So that's the conundrum about it, sir. So
I would agree with you on it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:45):
So you're saying that nihilists have no beliefs, and you
know this because they believe that nothing matters. That's what
doctor Ben was talking about.

Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
I'll tell you this could be big sense.

Speaker 4 (01:18:54):
They believe that there's no beliefs.

Speaker 3 (01:18:56):
Okay, so they're wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:18:57):
That's a contradiction.

Speaker 3 (01:18:59):
That's a contradictioniction, it is, but we do not we
do not accept.

Speaker 2 (01:19:03):
That it is a contradiction.

Speaker 4 (01:19:06):
But they believe that nothing matters. So you have to
use the.

Speaker 1 (01:19:08):
Word that's not firemen, firemen. That's not us. Not firemen, fireman,
that's not us. We do not accept that position. That
is a contradiction. Do you want to talk to us
about our beliefs or are you just going to try
to talk in circles and talk about contradictions?

Speaker 3 (01:19:27):
Right when we said, we want to know this when
we ask you, what's the contradiction we're talking about the
contradiction that you're saying is in atheism, not about a
contradiction that might be for some kind There are other
kinds of nihilism, by the way, but for some kinds
of nihilism, there are contradictory positions. You're saying, there's a
contradictory position in atheism. Atheism just means we don't believe

(01:19:49):
that there's a god. We have other beliefs in other things.

Speaker 1 (01:19:53):
They're also firemen. They're also atheists who are spiritual who
don't believe in a god, but also but do believe
in ghosts. They may believe in spirits, they may believe
in other like beings like cryptids, et cetera. Like they're
That's not our position necessarily, but to say that atheists
don't have beliefs is inaccurate. And even if we can't

(01:20:17):
even limit atheism to people who don't have a supernatural
belief because there are some there are some people out
there like that, but they're still atheists.

Speaker 3 (01:20:25):
Are you with us, fireman?

Speaker 4 (01:20:27):
Yeah, I'm still with So what is.

Speaker 3 (01:20:29):
The contradiction in atheism? That's what I want. I still this,
We're still on step one of your call. You claim
that there's contradictions found in atheism. What is the contradiction
and by contradiction, I mean a and not a what's
the contradiction from that comes up stems from atheism.

Speaker 4 (01:20:49):
I think that we got caught up in the word believe,
so I'll use the word think. I'll say that nihilists
think that nothing nothing matter. And what I'm saying is
that would seem more proken because the atheist is saying, hey,
we don't believe in God, but hey, we do believe
feeling is wrong. We believe that unlocked.

Speaker 3 (01:21:09):
Contradition.

Speaker 1 (01:21:10):
Those are not the same position either, because because you're
talking about nihilism, which is a position about significance of things, Ultimately,
that's not at all related to the position of is
there a God or is there not a god? You
can be both an atheist and a nihilist. You could
be an atheist and not a nihilist. But what you're

(01:21:32):
mentioning is not a view of like a god belief,
Like we can have beliefs of whether or not there's significance,
and that's still not related at all. To the God question.

Speaker 3 (01:21:44):
Fireman, I want to hold your feet to the fire
here to mix my puns here a little bit. I
want to hold your feet to the fire. You said
there's an contradiction in atheism. I don't want to hear
about nihilism. Some atheists are nihilists and some are not.
I'm not. I'm an atheist. You're saying that there's a
contradiction found in atheism, and I want you to be

(01:22:04):
very specific, and I want you to say it first,
and then I'll give you time to explain it afterwards.
But I want to know. And a contradiction is a
position where you're holding something to be true and false simultaneously.
That's a contradiction. Okay, So I want you to tell
me what is the contradiction found in atheism?

Speaker 4 (01:22:25):
Do you believe somebody can do it at that's evil?

Speaker 3 (01:22:28):
That's a question. That's a question. I want you to
tell me what is the contradiction found in atheism that
you're claiming exists.

Speaker 4 (01:22:37):
I'm trying to show you the contradiction by asking you questions. Okay,
all right, I think that somebody that's evil?

Speaker 3 (01:22:44):
Say that again, please?

Speaker 4 (01:22:45):
You would do you think somebody can commit an act
and you would say that was evil.

Speaker 3 (01:22:50):
That when I say something is evil, Yes, there are
things that I would call evil.

Speaker 4 (01:22:55):
So therefore, all I'm telling you is that the Bible
says that thing.

Speaker 3 (01:22:59):
Th old, no, no. But before we get to the Bible,
you asked me, all right, fireman, you're changing the subject here.
I said, I believe that there are things people can
make an action that I would call evil. I want
to know, how is that a contradiction?

Speaker 4 (01:23:16):
Because you say you don't agree with the Bible, you
don't believe in God. We get that.

Speaker 3 (01:23:20):
I never said that I don't agree with the Bible.
I never said I don't agree with the Bible on everything.

Speaker 4 (01:23:26):
Oh so you don't agree eight, You just prove my point.
You have a lot in common with Christians.

Speaker 3 (01:23:31):
So are you saying that I can agree with some
of the things you say and not some of the
things you say. Is that what you're saying we can
kind of agree on some things and disagree on other things,
because that's the same relationship I have with the Bible.
There are some things that are in the Bible that
I'm fine with and that I also agree with. I
don't agree with them because they're in the Bible, but
I also agree with them. There are also things in

(01:23:52):
the Bible that I disagree with, and there are things
in the Bible that I don't think have are justified
to accept as truth, namely that there is a God.
Me saying that I think that there's something evil does
not conflict with my lack of belief in a god,
unless you can show that evil only can happen in

(01:24:13):
cases where there's a God.

Speaker 4 (01:24:15):
Actually, what I'm saying is you agree with and my
chance is that atheists believe a lot more than not
and agree.

Speaker 3 (01:24:23):
With a fireman with firemen with Christ fireman not you agree?

Speaker 1 (01:24:29):
Do you agree? Fireman? Do you agree that New York
City is a place, a real place?

Speaker 4 (01:24:36):
Yeah? Place?

Speaker 1 (01:24:37):
Okay, so you believe Spider Man is real?

Speaker 4 (01:24:39):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:24:40):
Right, So there's a contradiction and theism right there. Doctor
bens to uncover the contradiction in theism.

Speaker 1 (01:24:46):
So would you agree that you can agree with something
in a book, but that doesn't mean the book is true?

Speaker 4 (01:24:51):
I think No, I don't. I think if you agree
with that book, then it must mean that book got
some volidity. That's what I agree. If you agree that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:58):
This Spider so you so you prove that Spider Man
is real.

Speaker 4 (01:25:02):
You agree with yours, you agree with you yourself admitted
that you agree with a lot of these.

Speaker 3 (01:25:08):
I don't think you know what a contradiction is, fireman.
I'm going to say that I don't think you understand
what a contradiction is. I think that you think that
there's some entailments that come from being an atheist that
are false. Okay, me, not believing in a god doesn't
mean that I don't believe people can do things that
I would call evil. Those are not in contradiction with

(01:25:31):
each other.

Speaker 4 (01:25:31):
Now what all right?

Speaker 3 (01:25:32):
Okay you still I still want to see where is
the contradiction. I want you to show me where I
believe a and not a where Okay?

Speaker 4 (01:25:41):
The athies believe that we come here and we die.

Speaker 3 (01:25:43):
Turn it does, right, That's not an atheist belief. Some
atheists believe that. Some don't. Atheism is not believing in
a god. That's it.

Speaker 4 (01:25:54):
So some atheists believe in.

Speaker 1 (01:25:58):
Yes, like I told you, some atheists still believe in spiritualism. Wow,
this is not us specifically, but there are some that do.

Speaker 4 (01:26:07):
Right. This is why I never draw conclusions like most
people do. And I talk to everybody one on one
because I never know what your people exact beliefs are,
so I don't dupe the conclusions. But this is the
very first I can actually say that I heard that
an atheists believes in after life of some sort.

Speaker 3 (01:26:24):
That's irrelevant. Even if we didn't, that doesn't matter. That
doesn't matter. That's not a contradiction. Believing in a God
or not believing in a God and believing in the
afterlife and not believing in the afterlife, while they are
often related to each other, are not necessarily tied. You
can have one. There are theists that believe in gods
that don't believe in the afterlife, and there are seists

(01:26:47):
that do believe in the afterlife. There are atheists that
don't believe in the afterlife, and there are atheists that
do believe in the afterlife. One does not determine in
the other.

Speaker 4 (01:26:57):
Well, for the sake of this argument, we're going to
talk about what you believe is an atheists. Is that fine?

Speaker 1 (01:27:02):
We should have started with that, though, instead of you
coming in and saying that you knew our position and
that our position had contradictions.

Speaker 4 (01:27:10):
Well, well, I never said I knew your position. I'm
just saying, most of the atheists I talked to.

Speaker 1 (01:27:15):
You made assumptions about our position and didn't and didn't
ask us about that.

Speaker 3 (01:27:19):
So you're saying some atheists have contradictions in their beliefs.
Are you saying? Is that what you're you're modifying your
statement to some atheists have contradictory beliefs, because if that's
what you're saying, I would agree.

Speaker 4 (01:27:32):
I'll tell you what I'm telling you. What I'm saying.
I'm saying, if you if you are an atheist and
you are upholding a lot of the same value as Christianity,
I would call that contradiction in hypocrisy. If you're not well,
let me ask you this. If let's say I do
something wrong which you consider up all right, and I

(01:27:52):
never get caught with what? What? What the what's the consequence.

Speaker 3 (01:27:55):
You should never get caught, then there's probably no consequence
other than if you have a conscience, then other than
the person the victim of your crime.

Speaker 4 (01:28:05):
People don't got a cut and they don't give a
damn what they do wrong to you? How about that?

Speaker 1 (01:28:08):
Yeah they do, Yeah, they do, they do. I feel
I feel bad if I do something wrong to somebody.

Speaker 4 (01:28:13):
Yeah, so you admit you do wrong stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:28:15):
To people, right, Yeah, sure, we're human.

Speaker 4 (01:28:17):
Yeah, right, exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:28:19):
Okay, it doesn't mean I believe in That doesn't mean
I believe that sin is a thing. That doesn't mean
that I believe that there are eternal consequences for doing things.

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
Why not?

Speaker 4 (01:28:30):
Why not just go out and fulfill your lesson do
what you want to do. This is the reason why
I'm about it. Brought up nihilism.

Speaker 1 (01:28:35):
Because I do because they do those things, there are
other people that have harm from that. I ask the
way that I do because I know that other people
exist and that if I do something harmful to them,
then they get hurt from it.

Speaker 2 (01:28:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:28:54):
I'm gonna tell you what, man, I would talk to
enough of you.

Speaker 2 (01:28:57):
To know that every time.

Speaker 4 (01:28:58):
I talk about doing wrong and right, you always want
to with benefit society. I'm gonna tell you what you're
gonna say before you.

Speaker 3 (01:29:05):
Say, neither of us, neither of us said that, fireman,
you're lying, fireman talking point.

Speaker 1 (01:29:13):
Do you only do firemen? Do you only do good
things because your God tells you to?

Speaker 4 (01:29:19):
No, we do good things because they have a reward
in the end. But being a good person.

Speaker 1 (01:29:23):
Not the only reason is that the only reason you
do good things is because you get you get a
gold starter for.

Speaker 4 (01:29:29):
It that makes you something? That makes you something? Do
you do you do that makes you something? Do you
get up and go to work every day?

Speaker 1 (01:29:36):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:29:36):
All right?

Speaker 4 (01:29:37):
Which you do for what? What? What? Which are reward?
Which you get paid? Right? So I could say I
could say I.

Speaker 1 (01:29:43):
Go to retirement. I did not have to. I did
not have to become a I did not become a
doctor for for a gold star points. You know I'm
gonna I'm gonna hang up on you and that I'm
gonna finish answering this question. But but I did not
go to medical school. I did not torture myself for
over a decade. I don't continue to go through the

(01:30:04):
abusive medical education system for a gold fucking star physicians.
Suicides are through the roof because people enter the field
with the hope of healing people, the hope of making
society better, and a lot of them can't do that
because the system is so broken, and so they end

(01:30:25):
their lives over that. We're not most people are not
going to work for a good star. Most people are
getting up and going to work because they are supporting
their families, they're supporting their communities, they're reducing harm, reducing suffering.
There are people out there who want better things for others,
And I think that if your only motivation for doing

(01:30:48):
good things is because you think that some God is
going to give you a gold star in the afterlife
for it, then I don't think you're that moral of
a person.

Speaker 3 (01:30:56):
Definitely, Definitely. And if you're going to call in to
a show, and I know the fireman is not on
the line right now, but if you're listening, fireman, if
you're going to call in to some atheists and tell
them that they only do their job because of the money,
don't call when a doctor and a teacher are hosting.
Just throwing that out there.

Speaker 1 (01:31:15):
Yeah, teachers especially are some of the most overworked and
underpaid professionals out there, and they continue to do this
for their love of teaching and for their desire to
make a difference in people's lives. So, like, I want
to shout out everyone out there who gets up and
goes to work for the betterment of humanity, like, good

(01:31:36):
for you keep doing that. Like I know we're saying
you don't do it for the gold star. But here's
a gold star from an atheist, right. Thank you for
your contribution to society. Thank you for doing all of
that work. Thank you for being part of this community
and for doing things for good reasons.

Speaker 3 (01:31:55):
I'm almost offended by that. If I was worried more
out what Fireman would say I had to say, I
would probably be offended. As things stand, I was like, Okay,
well that's just that's just an ignorant position to take.
And I still want to point out not one contradiction
was mentioned that entire conversation. It was all just smoking mirrors.

Speaker 1 (01:32:16):
Yep, yep. And with that, that is the end of
the show. Let's bring Kelly back on. I know we
brought you on for a good a good part of
the show. Thank you for uh for hanging out with us.
Do you have any any comments on that.

Speaker 5 (01:32:31):
That's what I was just the host of one of
the regular hosts of the show today. It was awesome.
Thank you so much. I've been interacting with Fireman for
about three weeks now in the touch chat online. That's
basically his mo o. He'll bring something up, he has
nothing to back it up, and then when you call
him on it and show him that he's wrong. He

(01:32:51):
will just up skate and then start another topic. So
I don't think there's And then what got me too
was like everything he brought up in this call was
a conversation he and I had already had three times.
Every question he asked had already been answered to him
by me at least three times. And I've seen other
people answer the same questions for him. So he's not

(01:33:13):
here to answer those questions and get answers. He's here
to start trouble. I really honestly believe that that being said,
he damn he is damn sure entertaining.

Speaker 3 (01:33:23):
So I would love to have a longer conversation with
Fireman in the future. So Fireman, I would consider this
to be an invitation next time I'm on the show,
if you want to call in and talk, if you
want to call him a little bit earlier too, we
can let again a little bit longer, a little bit
longer conversation. But I think there's worthy conversation to be
had there, Fireman. I know that some people, not necessarily Kelly,

(01:33:46):
and I'm not talking about Kelly here, but I mean
I know that there is there are some comments in
the chat. We should just move on from Fireman, and
that's that's fine. That's not the way I like to
do things. At least, I like to have a conversation
with you. I want to figure out why you're thinking
the way you're thinking before I, you know, before we
move on. So I love to have an additional conversation
with you, Fireman. So please, next time I'm on the show,

(01:34:08):
consider this a personal invitation to call in and chat
with me.

Speaker 5 (01:34:11):
In Fireman if you are still watch, And I have
one question for you. If you really are a fireman,
did you become a fireman for the paycheck?

Speaker 3 (01:34:19):
Probably not. Yeah, that's another little Kelly zinger at the
end there.

Speaker 1 (01:34:27):
And with that along the topic of you know, I
was already giving the shout out to the people out
there in the community, but you all deserve some lover
rings as well. Let's definitely send out some lover.

Speaker 3 (01:34:37):
Rings bread the love. Everybody deserves a little bit of love,
so let's throw some out there.

Speaker 1 (01:34:41):
It brings for all of you here in the side
chat lover rings for the callers who called in. Even
if you disagree with us, We're not here to hate
on anybody. We're here to have discussions, and if we disagree,
we can talk about it, we can talk about why
we disagree, and it's important keep having conversations like this.

(01:35:02):
We we don't want to go hide in an echo
chamber where we don't address these kinds of issues. So
thank you to the side chat, to the callers, to
the call screener, to all of the crew making all
this happens, Scott and Kelly Yeah, and Tim Tim are
vip of Denique. Yes, And thank you the Scott and

(01:35:25):
Kelly for hanging out with me on this this wild
ride today. And again, if you believe, we don't hate you,
We're just not convinced.

Speaker 4 (01:35:53):
We want the truth.

Speaker 1 (01:35:54):
So watch Truth Wanted live Fridays at seven pm Central
Call five one two one nine two four two or
visit tiny dot CC forward slash call tw