The Atheist Experience 29.31 with Secular Rarity and Jim Barrows

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody. Nanocon just ended last week, the largest gathering
of non religious people in the state of Tennessee. At
the end of this week is Baja Con up in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada,
and they are bringing in an absolutely stellar lineup of
speakers and presenters. And then in two weeks we will
be down in Austin, Texas for the ACA's annual bat Crews.

(00:21):
So there are some absolutely awesome opportunities to connect with
your people happening all over and you gotta check these out.
If you think a growing more connected secular community is
a bad thing, you're wrong. But hey, call us anyway,
because the show's starting right now. That's right, everybody. Today

(00:45):
is August third, twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Secularity,
and joining me today is the always wonderful Jim Barrows.
What's up, brother, Ah, not much, just.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Kind of enjoying the warm, humid weather here and Southern Swastika.

Speaker 1 (01:00):
Right right, has it has it been? Has it been gross?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Where you are?

Speaker 1 (01:04):
It has been overly hot and uncomfortable.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Here, so yeah, yeah, it is definitely hot and humid. Okay,
look forward to days that arrange when it drops up
the heat doesn't bother me because I used to.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
Live in Phoenix, is honest, So that's freaking you know.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
One hundred and ten, one hundred and fifteen not really
a problem. I mean that's hot, don't get me wrong,
but ninety degrees it's you know, one hundred percent humidity
or ninety five percent humidity is just awful. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, honestly, it is like that here so much. And
it's like I don't know, you know, you look at
the I've got the little weather app thing, you know,
on my phone of course, right which I've heard something.
I don't know if this is going to be the case,
but like like apparently like the government data isn't going
to be like free anymore public. I don't know about that.
It's just anyway. But this little weather app is like

(01:52):
it's like, oh yeah, it's like ninety two degrees you
know in Nashville, and I'm like, oh, no way, But
then I look underneath it and then it's like right,
but like the real feel like heat index is actually
like one twelve, And I'm like, well, why tell me
ninety Why tell me that if it's really right, you know,
that much hot, Like why not just say like it's
one hundred and twenty degrees outside, you know, because that's

(02:12):
what it feels like.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
So I don't know, well, because you know, when you're
in Phoenix and it's one hundred and fifteen, the only
way you know you were hot once you come back
inside is to look at all the salt stains where
you sweat.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
It, because you don't get wet, right, you don't get
that that sweaty claiminginess that you get when it's humid
out because your sweat is doing what it's supposed to
do and that the salt residue is a result of that.
But you never get that here. And so yeah, you
can say it's like being in one hundred and fifteen
degree heat, right, Really it's not.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Right, right, right.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
It may put your body under the same stress level,
but sweat wise, I mean, yeah, it's just it's horrible.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, yeah, it is, it is.

Speaker 2 (02:56):
It is.

Speaker 1 (02:57):
But you know, there there are some good things about
the out you know, we're not going to list them
right now, but they they are out there. What I
am going to do is tell you that the atheist
experience is a product of the atheist community of Austin
A five O one C. Three nonprofit organization dedicated to
the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the

(03:17):
separation of religion and government. And I love that, man,
I am a big, big fan of that. But while
we've got while, we've got some of these calls coming in,
and we do have open lines, folks. So the number
is right there on the screen, I know, it is
in the chats and the descriptions below. Give us a call.
If you've heard us say something in the past that's wrong,
you know, Jim and I, Jim and I do not

(03:38):
believe in in God's We don't. We think they don't exist.
We think, you know, there's never been good proof, whether
that is scientific or philosophic. There's just no reason out
there to be going to church on a regular basis.
You know what else, what else don't we believe in? Jim,
I know, we were talking about like yeah, yeah, like.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Shocks, supernatural Yeah so ghosts, fairies, spirits, chakras key powers,
all that kind of good stuff.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Yeah know, yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker 4 (04:11):
You know.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
So there's this So I I love talking about this
just because it's an interesting little fact. There's this this
this like kind of what do you want to call
it like a ballet, I guess that travels around the
world and a lot of the United States called Chin
Yun and it's it's actually the performance arm of of
a of a religious you know, cult called Phalan Gong

(04:33):
and one of the things that Phalan Gong believe. And
they don't like that being out there. By the way,
they're not super big fans of you talking about that.
If you if you approach one of these ore people.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
Oh so we should never talk about how they're they're
part of a religious call.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
Huh right, right, that that that the specific the specific
play that they do is actually just propaganda for for
their religious cult. Yeah, they do not like that information
being being out and they're not super fans of the
fact that the the Epoch Times you know, e p
o h some people say epic. I don't care how
you pronounce it, but that is that is their media,

(05:08):
that is their media arm. Yeah, they do not like
that information being out there. Yeah yeah, yeah, but but
anyway it is. It's the case. And one of the
things that they can do, apparently is they have the
ability to control their their key, you know, enough in
their body that they can actually make like balls of
energy and then shoot them at people apparently, but they're

(05:30):
not all.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Isn't there a song something like great balls?

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Oh my god, we start singing it, but we would
get so struck so fast that we're just gonna let
you at home have fun with that one.

Speaker 2 (05:47):
I don't know about us R, but if I started singing,
enter is no algorithm out there that will tell you.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
That will wick it up right right right. It will
have no clue. So you're like, oh my god, we're yeah,
we don't know. I don't know what this noise is,
but it's something so.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
Goodness gracious, they shoot great balls of key.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
Yes, but they're not allowed to demonstrate it in front
of non believers, you know, so uh right, I see
see see see. Yeah, Smart's that you do.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Honestly, that's how you do with Yeah. Yeah, don't demonstrate
your powers in front of anybody who can debunk them, right,
That's always a good way to prove that you have powers.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Yeah, it's kind of like those It's kind of like
those uh like martial art guys you know that are
like somehow able to like defy the laws of physics.
But then like the moment there's cameras around them for
some reason, none of it works, you know.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Uh, Or they go toe to toe with a MMA
fighter and they get, you know, knocked out in the
first ten seconds. I just can't block a thing.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, it's you know,
we're joking about this stuff, you know, but it is
serious because if you're if you're tens of thousands of
dollars to go to a supposed martial arts expert and
they are actually making you more likely to get injured
in a in an encounter like that out in public

(07:11):
like that is dangerous on every level. Not only is
it fraud on the financial side of it, but just
on the like like the personal health side of it.
Like you're going to walk into a situation thinking you're
freaking confident as hell, and somebody's just going to just
kill you. I mean, that's that's what's going to happen,
you know. So yeah, we're making fun of this, we're joking,
we're we're having a good time, but this stuff is serious.

(07:32):
And again, if any of those things, you know, you
disagree with, if you think Jim and I are just
completely wrong on all of this and we really should
be reading our astrology charts more or I don't know,
paying homage to the pagan gods. You know, give us
call because we do have open lines. So I am.
Let's just let's just go ahead and grab a call.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
Man.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Let's just let's see what people want to talk about today.
We've got I think I'm pronouncing that right. Shock He
him up in New York wants to talk about the
commonality of religion and the concept of God. Well, we
like to talk about the concept of God here, shock.
So you were on the atheist experience with Jim Barrow's
and secularity. What you got You're coming in just a

(08:18):
little bit funky right there, afternoon?

Speaker 2 (08:21):
There we go, Oh right, we can't know.

Speaker 1 (08:24):
Yep, you're sounding a lot better whatever you did. If
just smash your face up against that microphone. What's you
got for us?

Speaker 5 (08:29):
Awesome?

Speaker 6 (08:30):
All right, all right, good to see you, Jim and Sor.
I mean, I've been watching your show for a very
long time, and you know, I grew up with Hinduism
as a religion, and the fust time that I kind
of started to question my religion or the belief in
God was back in twenty eighteen. Man Unfortunately we had

(08:53):
a you know, we had a loss of just a
conceived child, and so that kind of question me at
things and why would God allow that, and why would
that be? Why would that happen in my life? And
so I've been kind of on the fence since then,
But lately I've been questioning a lot reading through online

(09:14):
and just understanding of the legion, to see that a
lot of commonality in the concept of God amongst the religions.
You talk about Christianity and Judaism and Hinduism and uh
and Islam, and then all the legions the roots of
them when they were originated, they had no communication with
each other.

Speaker 5 (09:35):
I'm just trying.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
To rec Well, no, that's not necessarily true. I mean,
you've got the Great Silk Road that traded from Europe
all the way into China. I mean, you had to
trade all over the Eurasian continent. The Americas were a
little you know, we're a little bit more isolated with
not a lot of trade, but you had trade down

(09:56):
into Africa as well as Africa, Europe, the Middle East, Russia.
There's all and stories, you know, get told and retold
through trade. Information gets passed through trade, So I wouldn't
say they were isolated from each other. I would say that,
you know, the stories got passed on from from from trade,

(10:18):
international trade, all all the way across. So I forget
when the Great Silk Road got started, but that's been
around for a really, really long time. It's not one
trader going from one end to the other. It's a
you know, trader goes to a place, trades his stuff,
and that stuff gets traded on. You had vikings who
had Chinese coins in some of their hordes that we've found,

(10:40):
and some other stuff from China. We know that they
didn't go to China, or at least were relatively confident
they didn't go to China. There may have been one
or two. But yeah, so I wouldn't say they're isolated
at all. I would say that anywhere along that big
stretch of land we call Europe the Middle East, and
then it's super easy to get down into Africa at
that point. So yeah, trade, trade spread the stories.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
Yeah what do you think about that?

Speaker 2 (11:03):
Shock?

Speaker 6 (11:04):
So yeah, So I mean just just again, that's a
that's a good that's a good thought for sure, you know,
not something that I really thought of them through the trade,
but you know the language griers, I guess the first
point of contact, so.

Speaker 5 (11:20):
To speak with the God.

Speaker 6 (11:21):
You know, there's some commonalities there as well. And the
other thing that I kind of just context myself with
and just just.

Speaker 5 (11:28):
When I'm questioning. But you know, again, I'm just I'm
not sure.

Speaker 6 (11:31):
There's a part of fear for sure on if I
questioned what could be the consequences that I would need to.

Speaker 5 (11:37):
Faith beyond whatever?

Speaker 6 (11:39):
All that your face, you know, seven years ago, and
that made me question my my faith. But there's also
back then there were a lot of there was a
lot of good will around at that time, so people
got what.

Speaker 5 (11:52):
They deserve, so to speak.

Speaker 6 (11:54):
Is it fair to say that right now, where the
whole world is, where the things are going, that there's
a lot of bad.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
And even there, let me let me jump in. Let
me jump in for a second shock, hang on, just
second for me, man, Let me let me jump in
just real quick, just because I feel like, broadly speaking,
I kind of get where you're going. But I'm always
really wary whenever we want to make those really broad
statements about like yeah, like a long time ago, like

(12:22):
people were nicer or something. I'm not really sure that
that we have that data to begin with, right, I'm
not positive we have a perfect accounting of the way
that people were behaving, especially in a non public manner,
in a non recorded manner. The further we go back
in human history, the harder it is to find reliable information.

Speaker 7 (12:43):
Right.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
But I will say, just kind of off the rip,
just off the top of my head. I think the
further we go back in human history, the more likelier
we're to find, as some people describe it, that brutish
state of nature.

Speaker 8 (12:57):
You know.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
I think as we have gotten closer and clo closer
to today, we have developed a lot of different things,
a lot of different safeguards, a lot of different checks
and balances, and all those good things that have made
us a little bit more I guess, amicable on the
broad sense. If you think about it, there's probably like hundreds,

(13:18):
if not thousands of people you see on a daily
basis that you've never murdered.

Speaker 4 (13:22):
You know.

Speaker 1 (13:22):
That's pretty good, that's a pretty good number. Shock You're
doing great? You know most of us are in that camp. Right,
Real quick, though, I just want to come back to
the thing you were talking about earlier, when it came
to the commonalities that you see in these stories. I
don't disagree that there's commonalities, but I think what is
the common thread amongst them all is a lot simpler

(13:44):
and a lot easier, which is it's all people telling stories.
It's all humans that are coming up with these things,
and because we're all people, we all come up with
similar kinds of stories. But I know I shouted a
bunch at to their shock. So so what do you
got for us?

Speaker 6 (14:02):
Yeah, I mean, I'm a I'm a very analytical guy.
I like to be be you know, to go buy
data and not not be driven by emotions. And so
when I say that, you know, when I look back
and see the stories, it's kind of similar to you know,
you're sitting in Texas, I'm sitting in New York. You say,
you know, I saw a you know, a blue tiger, right,

(14:23):
And I said, I.

Speaker 5 (14:24):
Saw a blue tiger in New York. You saw a
blue tiger in Texas.

Speaker 6 (14:27):
And you both are not talking to each other at all,
but no connections, nothing. The likelihood of there being a
blue tiger is highly likely, wouldn't you say? Is it
compared to you know saying I mean.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
But so again, you're saying that there's no communication between
New York and Texas, and I would say, again, you're
missing the fact that people trade. You're missing the fact
that people wander around, you're you know, all this stuff
that happens there is really if it's really hard to
find societies that are in isolation. Australia would definitely be one,

(15:05):
same with New Zealand, although they you know, they were
in isolation together. You could say Japan's a little bit isolated.
The America is north and south. We're definitely isolated from Europe,
and so you see different things. But wherever you have
a trade, you're going to get stories to spread, and
you just can't really ignore that. The other thing you

(15:27):
can't ignore it is that we're all human and so
there's certain things that we're going to want to have
some sort to at least feel like we have some
sort of control over war and pestilence and drought, whether
you know, all these things we want to have control over.
And so if you see similarities in gods, it's probably
because fundamentally we're all still human and have been for

(15:49):
you know, ten thousand years on hundred thousand years. Our
long Homo sapiens have been around, and you can't discount
any of that when you're looking at Oh, look, China
has a god of war and the Romans have a
god of war. War is a common thing, and if
you want to win, you want some way to influence it.

(16:10):
Coming up with a god is as good a way
as any same thing with rain gods and fertility gods.
And then you also have the storytelling happening along trade routes.
So I would say it's very difficult to find societies
that are isolated, and even when you do, if you
look at their gods and being the same, I don't
think they really are. Australia and Japan I think are

(16:34):
more spirit same with at least the Northern American Indian
tribes I think are more spirit oriented than they are
god oriented. But they all control the same types of things.
Because we're human beings and we want to have more
control over our lives than we think we do for
that kind of stuff. So when you say that two
societies are isolated, they have the same gods, Okay, you

(16:56):
need to go a little bit further than that. You
need to figure out how they developed those things, and
then look at at that. But even so, even if
two societies are isolated then come up with the same God,
you haven't proven that God actually exists. And that's the
key thing is you then need to go that extra
step and go, okay, so why do these two different

(17:17):
societies propose the same God? And are they actually the
same God? Even if we assume that your your proposition
is true, that two isolated people came up with the
same thing, they need to go prove prove that it exists.
You can't say, well, they came up with the same thing,
therefore it exists. That doesn't make any sense. That's just
basically an argument from popularity. And then that question, the

(17:41):
question with any question of you know, an argument for
popularity is how many people do I need to get
to believe that I have a million dollars in the
bank for that to be true? That makes sense?

Speaker 6 (17:51):
Yeah, yeah, no, I got some thinking to do there,
for sure. You know that that makes sense of just
thinking I putated from in a way that you know,
it can be a coincidence with everyone having a concept
of God and there being a lot of similarities there.

Speaker 5 (18:08):
But you know what you just said there, Gym, it
makes sense. I got to put more part into it.

Speaker 6 (18:13):
But at the same time, you know, I kind of
feel a little bit I wouldn't say fear or care,
but I feel like a little bit of a hesitancy.

Speaker 5 (18:21):
In doing so.

Speaker 4 (18:22):
Sure, mainly you know, understand that, you know, the big
belief in God could have consequences, but the belief in
God could not have any negative consequences.

Speaker 5 (18:33):
There's always positive.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Hang on, hang on right there, hang on right there, shot,
hang on right there. I know, I know, I know
we've got some more cool stuff probably, but hang on
right there, because I think that's a really really good thing,
you know. So that is often termed something called Pascal's wager.
This guy really really smart mathematician, by the way, super
super influential in a lot of things. But he sat

(18:57):
down one day and he did out this whole super
cool math problem, put some logic to it. Was like, hey, look,
believing in God honestly at the end of the day, like,
if you're wrong, no big deal, likesh, But you know,
I mean, you know, you gotta be right because if
you aren't, ooh ooh. You know here's the thing. Look,

(19:19):
the way that he runs that equation is incorrect because
he's not calculating all of the other things that come
into play. So, for instance, sure he's not calculating all
the different types of gods and all the different types
of heavens and hells, but he's also not calculating all
of the things that you, as a believer, are giving
up or purposefully doing when you wouldn't do so if

(19:42):
you didn't believe in that. For instance, a grandmother who's
eighty seven years old right with barely any money in
her bank account only gives all of that money away
to a church and goes destitute and broke and homeless
because she believes in that God. Now you can't say that, hey,

(20:03):
if you just believe in the God like you're not
risking anything. Yes you are. You are absolutely not only
giving up on things, right. There are many many people
who have lived their whole lives as believers and on
their deathbeds stop believing and turn around and go damn,
I would have done so many things differently if I
didn't believe in this God. So sure, I guess technically,

(20:26):
if it's real, there's like this heaven thing. Sure that's
a big that's a big, nice cake in a present
with a bow on it. But you are risking things,
you are losing things, you are giving things up and
potentially putting yourself at risk of extreme harm simply by
believing in the God. Does that make sense?

Speaker 2 (20:46):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (20:47):
You have in my my my just origin of my
questioning itself came from just having seen it unborn, right,
just just not having a chance at life itself made
me question, on, okay, that could be things that I
might have done, my wife might have done, but you know,
what did that unborn child do to you know, to.

Speaker 2 (21:08):
Not get through?

Speaker 6 (21:09):
If there was a god, right, and and so that
kind of made me question that as a as a
binary point on if there is a god then and
he's all powerful and all knowing, why would he let
something like this happen?

Speaker 2 (21:22):
He or she?

Speaker 6 (21:23):
I'm sorry, I'm not trying.

Speaker 1 (21:24):
To No, no, no, you're good, you're good. We understand she.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Would let that happen.

Speaker 6 (21:29):
And if there is no god, then it's just science.
It's just you know, it just happened, right, the things
that didn't work out and you know, just just happened. So,
which which is a little bit more comforting, I must say,
versus saying that is a god?

Speaker 5 (21:44):
But then why why did the god let that happen?

Speaker 6 (21:46):
So, but but I'm kind of stuck in between those two, right,
and trying to, you know, kind of find a safe
pathway to the acceptance of their not being a god,
right and moving on.

Speaker 2 (21:58):
I mean, you just look at our Coham's razor. What
has done more to increase or to decrease the pregnancy risks?
Certainly not religion, right, But science has science has reduced
the risk? Have they reduced the risk to zero? No?
They haven't. Is that even possible? We don't know. But

(22:18):
you know, one hundred years ago it was very different.
Two hundred years ago. The further back in time you go,
the pregnancy risk goes up. You know. That's why people
had large families, was so that at least one child
would survive to carry on the family name. And so
we can look at infant mortality rates, we can look
at human life span, we can look at all this

(22:39):
stuff and go, it wasn't religion, because we've had a
religion for two thousand years, but it was definitely science.
When science gets better every year, but it's still not.
It still has not created a zero risk world when
it comes to our health. So you know you look
at it that way. Science has done more, it's not perfect,
hasn't done everything. And tomorrow is going you know, tomorrow

(23:01):
they're going to learn something new and it'll make our
lives better. And that it'll happen. I won't say every day,
but you know at least once a month something something
will come along to help out with it. You know,
an understanding medicine. And the biggest opponent to science research
right now is religion, hands down. It doesn't matter which
religion you are. If the if the gods exist, and

(23:24):
you should be praying to the gods for healing, and
that doesn't work, So where are you right? I mean,
it just makes more sense to go yeah, I mean,
bad things happen to good people because the world is
governed somewhat semi randomly, but because there is no god
directing it. You didn't do anything, your wife didn't do anything.

(23:46):
That just one of those things that happens. And having
gods around makes it worse, not better, makes it harder
to understand, not easier, and makes it less likely that
you know, if you decide to try again, that the
same thing will happen because the science, the science will
get better we'll understand more.

Speaker 1 (24:02):
What do you think?

Speaker 6 (24:03):
Yeah, and then yeah, and in a way that kind
of debunks my eldier statement that you know, because you know,
overall the goodwill and the morality in humans. You know,
we have seen just the modernization of things, and you know,
and and and the more communications amongst humans across there's
there's you know, and of course economical uh, turmoil grew

(24:27):
and deeper people a little bit away from their core morality.
And so if if if previously ancient times there were
much better higher level of morality, and now there isn't
a dead level. And so you know, like to to
my point that I say that maybe the consequences are
faced more now than in the past, But then to
your counterpoint that you just made it regards to the

(24:48):
science advancement in medical that actually debunks that debunks my
own statement. So I appreciate you kind of debunking my
own statement because I think with that logic, uh, there
be a thing left that in kids, the pregnant women,
in in people overall the diseases. And you know, if
if gone what God wanted that to happen, either way,

(25:10):
it would have still happened either way. You respect you,
the advancement in the science and medical Yeah, if if your.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
I would say, even your statements that were we were
more moral in the past than we are today, I
would say, even that's wrong, because in the past, we
believe that slavery was okay. In the past, we believe
that Debtor's prisons were a good idea. We believed that
in all kinds of things that we just know aren't
true anymore, aren't moral anymore, And we're becoming more empathetic,

(25:41):
not less. In most cases, I would say that, you know,
somehow that we got as politics anyway, I would just
say that that for the most part, we are more
moral today than we were one hundred years ago or
two hundred years ago, just getting rid of slavery, just
recognizing the horrors of war. You know, countries used to
go to war because leaders wanted more land, or wanted

(26:01):
to or thought they had to claim to the land
they may or may not have. Rather than fight that
claim out in the courts, they went to war over it.
So we have less war today than we did one
hundred years ago, five hundred years ago, or a thousand
years ago. So I would say that we're you know,
our morals continue to improve as we get to understand
more and more about you know, the effects of things.

(26:24):
So I'm not sure that even the case, I'm not
sure you can make the case we're more moral one
hundred years ago than we are today.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Well shock, I think I think we had a good
little back and forth. Yeah, hopefully, hopefully we answered some
stuff for you. But yeah, give us a call back
in the future if you've got any other questions or
if you go back, you rewatch us and you go like, ah,
you guys miss something. So we always love that man.
But thank you so much, and we're gonna we're gonna
drop you in. We're gonna go on to some other calls. Which,

(26:54):
by the way, just as a reminder folks, we do
in fact have open lines. So if you've got thoughts,
if you've got questions, just you know, mean comments you
want to make to us, just to our faces, like
I could go for it. I mean, I don't know,
I probably shouldn't invite that, right, Like this is on
the internet. So let's see, I've got a couple of
col got a couple of announcements I'm gonna read to

(27:16):
you real quick before we grab some other calls. Folks,
Bat Cruz twenty twenty five is coming up fast. I
want to say, it's like like twelve thirteen days away.
You also not even two weeks, less than two weeks.
August sixteenth is the date at seven pm. Tickets are
selling quickly, so you gotta get yours today and you
can join people like Henry K, Matthew T and Joel

(27:39):
H who already got their tickets. So Henry, Matthew, Joel,
thank you so much, and we are excited to have
you there. Come up, say hi to us when you
get there. If you are not able to attend, that
is okay. You can still help out by donating underneath
the live chat to purchase a ticket for one of
our hosts or crew. That will go a long way

(27:59):
for some real great people that have been donating quite
a lot of time and are and are just having
trouble just making ends meet and getting out. So if
you want to help out, you can do so in
that chat underneath the live chat right there with your donation,
and you can visit tiny dot cc slash bat Crews
get you tickets and all the information and we will

(28:20):
see you there.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
Guys.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
That is gonna be so freaking awesome. I was there
last year, and I know it is gonna be so
Last year, if I remember correctly, there was a problem
and the boat was not able to actually actually take
us out. We did, We did still see bats. Bats
were seeing folks. Yeah, a good time was had we

(28:42):
were on the river, but technically we just didn't get
to actually do you know underneath it and stuff. But look,
let me just say something to you, guys. Just think
about this for five seconds. Okay, there's like a million
and a half bats that are flying over your head.
How directly underneath them? Do you want to be right?
I mean, just for a second there, Like, what's the
logic there?

Speaker 2 (29:02):
Right?

Speaker 1 (29:02):
What happens? What's gonna be right? You see what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (29:05):
Like they were sleeping and they're just not waking up,
so they probably don't have full bellies at that point.

Speaker 1 (29:12):
I don't know, man, I don't know. I know a
lot of people one of their first things in the
morning anyway, So we've got other announcements and other calls, folks.
If you want to get your calls in, get her
in right now, and before you do anything else, just
go ahead and like the video, Subscribe to the channel,
enable notifications, and comment below on your favorite or least

(29:32):
favorite caller or favorite or least favorite hosts.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (29:35):
I'm probably not supposed to say that either, so don't
do that. But I guess it's better than talking about that.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
Right, So, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (29:45):
As long as we don't sing, As long as we
don't sing anything, no no, no, no, no no no canceled, canceled,
we're done. We're done or done?

Speaker 2 (29:55):
All right?

Speaker 1 (29:55):
All right, Well, hopefully somebody else is having a great time,
but I know we are, so we like we have
some other calls, Like I said, we're gonna go right
to them. But again, if you have if you have
questions for us, if you think we're just missing something,
we're just destroying the fabric of society by you know,
being heathens and atheists. Uh, let us know. We love

(30:16):
to we love to hear that. But right now we
are going to go out to Florida. We've got Patrick
as an agnostic and any and all pronouns. And I'm
just real quick, Patrick, because I know you can hear me.
I'm not one hundred percent positive what you're calling in
about today. So Uh, we are just gonna have you
on and we're just gonna see what you got. So, hey, Patrick,

(30:36):
you're on with secularity in Jim Barrows.

Speaker 9 (30:38):
Hey, just out off the rip. Some of this may
be satirical, but you know, I'm serious to.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
Okay, it's a little confusing.

Speaker 9 (30:50):
For evidential agnostic. Can you hear me? I mean they said,
don't think.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
We can hear you. We're trying to figure out what
anovid agnosticus.

Speaker 1 (31:01):
Yeah, go for that. I mean, I'm still on the
satirical but serious.

Speaker 9 (31:04):
But yeah, see, well, can I read this out? I
wrote this for y'all specifically today, one minute or less,
I could right through this thing.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
I will tell you this, Patrick, I have the ability
to put a sixty second timer on the screen, and
Jim and I will be quiet for that whole sixty seconds.
But the moment, the moment that clock expires, we will
jump right ends. That sound good for.

Speaker 9 (31:31):
You, okay, Okay, back to the evidential agnostics later. Okay,
hit it?

Speaker 2 (31:37):
You're good, Go did you hit it?

Speaker 6 (31:39):
Okay?

Speaker 9 (31:39):
The pronown Pandemonium Primer a god to the utterly confused,
Like Jim Barrows's Secular Rarity, Greetings, Jim and SR. I'm
thrilled to introduce you to the world of pronoun pandemonium,
where language is a playground and pronouns are the swing.
As an interrationalist, I'm about racing absurdity in my pronoun preferences.

(32:02):
Are the epitome is the ridiculousness the pronoun dance. When
I'm feeling like a coding genius like Jim Barrows, who's
actually the plus plus expert for the experience anyway, I
profoundlyclaim he him. In that case, I'm gonna just get
ahead a little bit. But when I'm feeling like a
mystical being channeling the essence of secular rities, cool name

(32:25):
s R. You're a genius by the way I effortly shifts,
effortlessly shift today them. It's a recognition.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
I'm not sure. I'm not sure is the thing. I
look Let me real quick, Patrick, thank you for the
for the very kind words for for both of us.
We greatly appreciate it. It almost sounds to me a
little bit like what you're saying is that you feel
fluid in maybe your gender presentation or your gender experience

(32:56):
or uh, your your the preferred pronoun that that you
use depending on the day or time or how you feel.
I just want to say, like, yeah, man, I'm all
in favor of that. I appreciate anybody that wants to
wants to kind of navigate that squishy space and wants
to wants to kind of, you know, change as as
they see fit. I want people to feel comfortable in

(33:17):
that capacity. I don't think it's a particularly onerous task
for anybody to say something like, hey, these are my pronouns, right,
or hey I would I would prefer you use these pronouns,
and then everybody just kind.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Of follow along.

Speaker 1 (33:30):
So I think if that's where you're going, I think
we kind of we kind of are all on the
same page and we can wrap that up and if
there was anything else you wanted to talk about, we
could we could touch that.

Speaker 9 (33:39):
Okay, I appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
Yeah, I mean I'm serious.

Speaker 9 (33:42):
It's kind of satirical, but I'm serious.

Speaker 10 (33:44):
That's the same.

Speaker 9 (33:45):
No, you know, technically, I guess I'm a member of group,
but like its a little militant for myself. But I'm
an evidential agnostic and what that means to me, I
just follow the science and you know, but like you know,
I like somebody like it's legitimate philosophy, like pan protopsychism

(34:08):
that that's very possible, oracle our theory on consciousness that's
a legitimate scientific theory, and so many things that are
unknown that atheists appear to just dismiss like ridiculous, absurd. Einstein,
you're absurd with the pantheism, just like you know that that.

(34:28):
I think he was an expert on his god the universe.
So if you're an expert, he was the and still
is the authority.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
Are you let me, let me try, and let me
try and help, just get us, get us somewhere as
efficient as possible and as clear for everybody as possible.
Are you saying that you think there are reasons to
believe in a god? Or do you think? Are you
saying there are reasons that we shouldn't categorically rule out
the possibility of a god?

Speaker 9 (34:57):
Yeah, I wouldn't.

Speaker 6 (34:58):
I'd say I think.

Speaker 9 (34:59):
Like from me personally, what I see, I think is
basic psychology one on one Like Matt Dilla Hunting, for example,
he was more in like a cult Christianity group. Seems
like then he turned hardcore atheists because of that.

Speaker 11 (35:14):
It's like a again, that's that's complete. That's a complete mischaracterization.
He wasn't he wasn't in a cult. He was a
mainstream Baptist or one of the mainstream Protestant legends. I
don't remember at the top of my ad. Just a
complete mischaracterization.

Speaker 9 (35:30):
Well, hey, from my perspective, in a Christianity as a.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Cult, yes, okay, Well that's if you.

Speaker 9 (35:37):
Believe honestly that a guy was made out of play
and his wife was made out of his rib Yes,
that's a cult.

Speaker 1 (35:45):
I don't care how many people are hang on, hang on,
patrick Patrick Patrick Patrick Patrick. First off, we're going a
little bit. We're going a little scattered right now, and
I love to I love to focus on as is
it all possible? Hang on, It's okay, it's okay, it's okay,
it's okay, it's okay, patrick Patrick Patrick Patrick Patrick Patrick
Patrick Patrick Patrick patrick Patrick. You see how many times
I can say that, I don't have to say that

(36:05):
I'm trying to be kind. Okay, I can just fucking
mute you. I can just mute you, I can just
drop you. It takes two seconds on my end. I'm
just trying to be kind and have a conversation with
another adult human being. Okay, so let's do that for
a second. I'm gonna take a breath. Ah, it'd be
great if you did the same. So here, here's what
I want to do. I want to try to focus
as much as possible, and I don't want to try

(36:26):
to go over you know, twelve different topics all at once. Right,
I'd love to just stick onto one thing, and specifically
I love to stick on the things in these types
of shows where we disagree so that we can kind
of hash them out for each other in the audience. Right,
I just want to say real quick, and then we'll
go to the thing that I think is most important.

(36:46):
Just because somebody has beliefs that you disagree with doesn't
mean they're in a cult, just plain and simple. There
are some really really good data and some really good
experts and research papers that are out there about what
does define a group as a cult or high control? Right,

(37:07):
And I think I think that's really important generally speaking.
The b I TE, the byte model, behavior, information thought,
and emotional control, those are the those are the methods
that are used. So not not all people that you
know just go to a church on a on a
Sunday or are in a cult. But let's go to this,
the evidential agnostic stuff. It sounds to me like that

(37:29):
might be where Patrick, hang on, just Patrick, look, I
can click this button. It takes all of five seconds
for me. You know you're muted. There's nothing you can
say right now. Let's not do this, okay, Let's just
we'll go back and forth. I'll say a quick thing,
you'll say a quick thing. Easy, peasy, Okay. So I'm
gonna unmute you. It's going to be a beat and
we'll talk. So the evidential agnostic thing seems to be

(37:50):
the place where we might have some disagreement, and I'd
love to try and figure that out as much as possible. Okay,
So are you saying that there is good reason to
believe that a god exists? Or are you saying more, hey,
we just can't categorically rule it out. Where do you

(38:10):
sit on that.

Speaker 9 (38:12):
Kind of probably in between the two? Okay, you know,
you know, I mean I was an agnostics about a day,
so I lean towards agnostic as the base. Sure in
default position here.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
Let me let me try, let me try it like this,
Let me try it like this. Yeah, so let me
try it like this. If somebody said, like, hey, a
god exists. That is actually this water bottle right here,
and if you pray to this water bottle, it'll do
absolutely everything that you ever ask of it. It's real,

(38:48):
it's a god. This is what I believe in. I mean,
you probably believe that this water bottle exists, but the
rest of the statements you probably don't agree with.

Speaker 9 (38:56):
Right what I What I would say in that case
is that the finite thing. It's obviously a creation of humanity.
We know that as a fact. Next, now, does it
cover all other things in existence? No, there's only one
thing that covers all other things in existence.

Speaker 5 (39:13):
I wonder what the other?

Speaker 1 (39:14):
What's what's that?

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (39:16):
So what's that? What's that one thing that covers all
things that I'd love to what?

Speaker 9 (39:20):
What?

Speaker 2 (39:21):
What?

Speaker 9 (39:22):
What do we call that?

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Quantum mechanics?

Speaker 1 (39:24):
Yeah, the universe reality existence?

Speaker 2 (39:27):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (39:28):
Man helped me out, genuinely. Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, okay,
univer all right, I mean I'm not, I'm not.

Speaker 9 (39:36):
It covers all things. It's not a water bottle. It's
the source of in origin of everything else m l e.
Matter like and enters everything else that exists. I don't
take a water bottle.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Qualified Okay, I'm not sure that the analogy was really
taken in, but here's what I will say, Patrick, it
does kind of sound like in general, it does kind
of sound like in general you you were on a
similar page as as where we are in the sense
of specifically like the Christian God that doesn't seem to

(40:14):
have any good reason whatsoever to believe in it. That
seems kind of Although I'm just going to be real
honest here, I'm not positive what you were getting at
with the call, but either way, I have the power
and I just click the button. So I'm just going
to move on. Thank you so much for calling as Patrick, Jim,
any any thoughts you want to wrap up with that caller.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
You were far more generous within than I would have been,
because I have no idea what he was talking about.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
I was very confused for most of it. Yes, yes,
I will probably go back and watch that call, uh
and very much understand what I was thinking looking at
my face the whole time. So good news is, folks, again,
we'll have open lines and you can get your calls

(41:02):
in because we are taking and we got call screeners.
We got a wonderful crew hanging out in the back.
They are always doing something. I'm not thanking you yet. Crew,
don't go to the crew cam. Don't do it. I'm
not thanking you just yet. I really shouldn't yelled at them,
but I knew if I said anything more about the
crew without like telling them that they would get ready
and they would go to it. So but yeah, I'm
gonna be Yeah, I'm gonna get yelled. That's so hard already.

(41:25):
But anyway, folks, we have a channel that houses all
of the shows of the ACA and audio podcast form.
Visit tiny dot cc slash a e in podcasts and
you can listen to all the latest shows from the
Atheist Experience, Talk He Then, Truth Wanted, and the nonprofits
all on one channel. And in fact, I have heard rumors,

(41:46):
I have heard rumors that on that channel you can
even find some older shows that have some really really
cool stuff on it too. So I've gone back and
watched watch some old Secular Sexuality before and that has
some good stuff in there. So if you guys got
time hit hit that now, I guess we can we

(42:07):
can thank that amazing incredible, Oh my gosh, they put
up with me for some fucking reason. Nobody knows why.
But we have a phenomenal crew behind the scenes that
is always working very hard. Just just face palming repeatedly
when I'm on and just desperate for me to finally
shut up. But we've got video operators, audio operators, note takers,

(42:28):
call screeners, chat moderators, people answering your emails. We have
people at the Free Thought Library that are taking care
of that, making sure that that is in good condition.
And yeah, all volunteers, guys. We've got a bunch of
volunteers here, given a lot of their time, a lot
of their efforts. So give me, give me a shout out,
you know, just say thank you too, or just send

(42:49):
five dollars, like you know, that's a great way, you know,
like that's an awesome thing you could do. Yeah, you
could just you could just send a donation real quickly.
When was the last time you sent a donation? You know,
That's what we're here for. So we have we have
some other calls here, folks, but again, we do still
have open lines. So if you want to get your
calls in, man, do it earlier in the show. Because

(43:11):
you were going to get more chance for us to
like talk with you and break stuff down. As we
get closer to the end of the show, we got
to be a little quicker. So we have a theist
Mike no pronouns given, is from South Carolina and wants
to talk about how atheists purposefully or purposely do not
want to understand the Bible. Well, hey, Mike, we are
going to bring you on the atheist experience with Jim

(43:32):
Barrows and secularity. What you got for us?

Speaker 5 (43:35):
Hey, how are you guys doing today?

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Were doing good?

Speaker 1 (43:37):
And you all hear me?

Speaker 5 (43:39):
Sure, ka good?

Speaker 7 (43:40):
I was still staying here me but hey, I am
I'm following up with Jim. Jim we spoke a few
weeks ago. I think it was the last time you're on.
I'm not sure, but it was about It was really
simple what we were talking about, and it turned it
into a half hour. Forrest was until you know, there's
going to be commentary, but nothing was resolved. And then

(44:02):
we were trying to figure out what one word in
the Bible was, you know, it's love is patient, love
is kind to We got the proud and then Jim
and Forrest were both like, we have no way of
knowing what they mean.

Speaker 5 (44:12):
By proud proud.

Speaker 7 (44:14):
It could be good pride like you're you're proud of
your kids. There's nothing, could be bad pride like you're
both just there's no way to know. And I was like, well, yeah,
sure there is, and you're like, Nope, there's.

Speaker 6 (44:23):
No way to know.

Speaker 7 (44:24):
And then that little bit got taken as Forrest is
on the little thumbnail it says clear's mud the Bible,
and it was like, yeah, well you know you can.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Yeah, it's such a general statement that from from that,
from that statement, you can't get you can't get any
definite meaning, you know. So yeah, I vaguely remember that conversation.

Speaker 1 (44:42):
I don't and I'm not positive by it because I
wasn't I I wasn't there and I and I don't
remember the call. But I would just say I don't
think what what Jim and Forrest were saying is that
in all cases there's no way to know. But from
this specific statement, oh, it doesn't seem like there's much
more information there. I would say, there are, There are

(45:04):
definitely ways that we can get more information about what
whoever the authors of various books of the Bible are.
But I don't know that we'll ever get perfect information, right,
I mean that's not unreasonable.

Speaker 7 (45:17):
Well, I don't mean by perfect information, I mean an
understanding of what actually was was being said. And yet
sometimes it's like I don't know, like revelations.

Speaker 5 (45:26):
I don't know what's going on.

Speaker 7 (45:27):
I don't know sure, But this one was like really clear,
like you know, love is patient. It was saying things
that love isn't.

Speaker 2 (45:33):
It was.

Speaker 7 (45:34):
It was listening, you know, things like love is patient,
that's good, it's kind, and it was. It was things
love isn't. It doesn't envy, it doesn't boast, and it
said it is not proud. And they're like, I mean,
just for the it made me think what Jim and
Forrest said.

Speaker 5 (45:46):
I was like, well, how do you know? I mean,
you've got to go back to context.

Speaker 7 (45:49):
You should look at different versions, you know King James.
Jim didn't like King James. But you look at different
versions of still and then you should look at the
actual go back to the in this case of the Greek.

Speaker 5 (45:58):
Yeah, go ahead, Jim, what no.

Speaker 2 (46:00):
I was just agreeing with you. I still don't to me,
the King James Bible is the worst translated Bible of
all of them. And again you can look at just
simple little things like wherever says servant, you actually need
to translate that as slave. They do some other things.
Their point wasn't to be accurate. Their point was to
make it more readable. And of course it was written

(46:22):
so long ago that we have a better understanding of
the Greek of the time. It's just it's horrible, and
I know and everybody swears by it, but really they
should be swearing at it. So yeah, but anyway, what what? Yeah?
And the love is love is patient, love is kind.
That is so general as to absolutely be useless. What

(46:43):
do you mean by love is patient? And are there
times for the most lovely thing you can do is
to not be patient.

Speaker 7 (46:52):
I prefer to stick just to this one word proud,
instead of branching off in other words, because we can't
get this one word right.

Speaker 5 (46:57):
There's no for any of us.

Speaker 7 (46:59):
But I mean, the proud the Greek is to puff up,
in flate, to be proud. And then then Forres said,
well what if my hand's puffed up?

Speaker 5 (47:06):
And I was like, oh, come on, guys.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
It's just like your sure.

Speaker 7 (47:09):
I want to understand so you can say it's not
clear as mud or is clear as mud. You don't
have to do anything now, you don't have to respond
to it, because it's like it's all a mess.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
And if I can, if I can, Mike, because I
think there's a I think there's a deeper conversation that's
trying to be had here, And I think that deeper
conversation is actually more important than the specific definition of
the Greek word for proud, right, And I think that's
more important that we have that conversation, right, because I
think I think what you're getting at here is that

(47:37):
there are times when hey, it feels like y'all are
bending over backwards, not to give a point to the
religious side, you know, and look, hang on just going
to take a big step back and say, yeah, fair, Yeah,
probably there's some times that things like that happen, right,
But overall, overall, I would argue that if you if

(47:58):
you look at the two sides, those that claim religious belief,
those that follow the teachings of the Bible whatever that means,
and believe in its truth, those people largely seem to
be the ones that don't really want to understand, is
what I find. And if you disagree with that, let's
let's talk about that. Let's let's try to hash that out,

(48:19):
because I don't think the definition of this one word
pride is going to do as much in the conversation.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
So the conversation SR was that it's so vague as
to be meaningless sure, and I believe Mike was attempting
to say, yes, it does have a meaning, and then
kept agreeing with it could mean either a good type
of pride or a bad type of pride. And I
would say that even with the Greek definition of puffed up,

(48:45):
that that doesn't solve the problem of that entire phrase
being so vague as to be useless, because I think
it's okay if you do something that for you is
really really rare, that doesn't happen very often, whatever it
might be, you should feel puffed up about that, You
should feel really good about that, you should take some
pride in that. So it doesn't help at all the

(49:08):
definition because you don't have anything else to go off
of from that, from even the same author on something
so vague as to be useless. So I don't think
you've you've done yourself any favors by saying it means
puffed up.

Speaker 7 (49:24):
And I don't know where to go with this, because
it's you go.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
Where of the you go, wherever the fuck you want,
Mike take us, take us on a journey man.

Speaker 7 (49:30):
And you're trying to slip in the good.

Speaker 5 (49:34):
I give up on, Jim, the one I give up.

Speaker 7 (49:38):
If you go to the Greek and it says that
you're like, well, you know what, that's the good pride, like,
that's not what it's saying.

Speaker 5 (49:42):
Is puffed up means bad? And then forced said, well,
what if your hand is puffed up? Does it mean that?

Speaker 2 (49:47):
No? So how do you how do you get too
puffed up as bad? The earlier point is, how do
you get to pride is meaning puffed up is bad?
How do you get there?

Speaker 7 (49:58):
Okay, puffed up usually means you're full of yourself, And
then I don't know anybody that takes that and like, hey.

Speaker 5 (50:05):
That guy is so puffed up, it's so rocking, you
know nobody.

Speaker 7 (50:08):
Does it means you're arrogant?

Speaker 5 (50:09):
You know their equivalent, it's a it's a business.

Speaker 2 (50:12):
No, I I just gave you. I agree with you
that it can mean that, but it could also mean
that I am all puffed up about something that it
took me, you know, six months of work on and
I finally finish it. I also feel puffed up about that.
I would also use that phrase puffed up for something
that I have done that was really good, at least
for me.

Speaker 7 (50:31):
I don't recall anybody in my lifetime ever saying they
were puffed up meaning a good thing that they meant
they were. They did an accomplishment, and that's a different
kind of pride, And I thought it looks to me
like it's crystal clear. I don't know what to say here,
stick with it, I.

Speaker 2 (50:45):
Guess yeah, And I'm not saying you're wrong in your
in your assumptions. You can certainly interpret it that way,
but my point is that it's so vague as to
be useless because it can go either way.

Speaker 7 (50:57):
Pardon, that's not a good there's I don't see any
way to back that up with you bringing in the
definition of a good pride, But good pride is never
puffed up.

Speaker 5 (51:06):
Anybody else want to comment on this?

Speaker 1 (51:07):
I would love to Mike, And what I would love
is is if y'all two would just basically go cool
and then just move the fuck on from this worthless conversation.
In my opinion, because I think the more interesting conversation
is not about this particular word and how the fuck
it's being used in this one fucking instance, Right, I
think there is a broader conversation that needs to be had,

(51:30):
and I think that is actually the crux of what
you're trying to get at, which is, Hey, there is
actually some times where people don't seem to be willing
to give points to the other side when they're pretty
fucking clear. Right, So let's talk about that. Where do
you think that occurs? Please don't bring this one instance

(51:50):
up again, Let's talk about something else, for God's sake.
So where do you think that occurs where you're seeing
non religious people actively attempting to distort the information and
the evidence about the Bible.

Speaker 7 (52:04):
There's another one that's much more important than Forrest has
a clip on it where he talks it's Isaiah forty
five to seven, and I formed the light to create
the darkness. I bring prosperity and create disaster. I've learned
to all these things. But the yeah, yeah, there's a
couple versions where they say I bring prosperity and create
I bring good and create evil, and then he's like, oh,
there it is God created evil.

Speaker 5 (52:24):
That's why this is important.

Speaker 7 (52:26):
Is because you can take I mean, if God creates evil,
I don't want to follow them, that's sure.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Do you feel like do you feel like that is
more of an issue? Because I understand I know that
specific point that you're talking about, Mike, and I also
I'll just let you know it gets under my skin
too because I know the interpretation. I understand why that
passage is in Isaiah. I've listened to the ancient Eary
scholars that have talked about that and the way that

(52:52):
it uses the word evil there or chaos or destruction, disaster,
whatever the fucking it doesn't matter, right, get where you're
coming from on that particular point. Right, Here's here's what
I want to ask, though, do you feel like that
issue is really something that's a problem with the non
religious side or something that's more of a problem with

(53:13):
the religious side.

Speaker 7 (53:15):
I guess the religious side is like, wait a minute,
our God's not evil, But then the other people, a
lot of people just don't care about the Bible or
think about it.

Speaker 5 (53:23):
But then Forrest was using it. He's weaponizing it as.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Hey, man, now, but Forrest doesn't fucking here man, Forrest
is a great guy. He's very smart, he's got a
lot of shit. Everybody loves him. Don't talk about him.
Jim's here, I'm here. Let's the three of us talk, Mike.
We're all adults, we're all smart people. Come on, we
got this man. If you got a problem with Forrest
called Forest, you know, he's always, always down, never had
a bad day. So look, it seems to me that
when we try to do this textual criticism, when we

(53:48):
try to break down the history, we try to understand
the author's intent. More often than not, it seems that
the information that is pretty damn clear is stuff that
doesn't hold up the religious side of the argument more
so than not holding up the non religious side. And
between the two camps. My experience, and please tell me

(54:10):
if you're experiencing different, Mike, My experience has been the
religious people are more unlikely to be interested in that material.
Do you think I'm wrong there?

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Wow?

Speaker 7 (54:22):
I guess I can't speak for other people. It got
me going because when I first heard that, you know,
God deevil, I was like, I better research this because
this is this is a big deal. And then the
proud thing with Jim and you know, And I was like, well,
if we can't agree on Proud, then we can't agree
on anything. And you know Jim saying there's servant and
slave in the Bible. It's like that we can't agree
on proud. How do you know it's servant. I mean

(54:43):
he loses credibility if he.

Speaker 5 (54:44):
Can't do that.

Speaker 7 (54:45):
I mean, there's there's just nothing to talk about in
the Bible because the key phrases are like, nah, it vague.
It's like, really you can't figure out which pride it is?
The good pridit that you just can't figure it out.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
Yeah, so you're misrepresenting my point. My point is is
that phrase is or that whole piece of poetry is
so vague as to be useless. I'm not saying the
entire Bible is, and you're saying I'm saying that. That's
putting words in my mouth and misrepresenting my position. I
don't appreciate that. So when you need to make you know,
and then we go and we show you this forty

(55:18):
five to seven where he says I create I make
peace and create evil. I don't know, you know, that
means he's not omni benevolent. So how do you what
translation could you put to being to God not being
evil when he admits that he creates it.

Speaker 7 (55:33):
Yeah, there's a couple versions that they create evil, and
then most of them say he creates you know, calamity
and you know calamity? Is is what kind of you
know calamity?

Speaker 2 (55:44):
We'll go with that one. I was creating calamity in
line with being omni benevolent. I don't know.

Speaker 7 (55:50):
I can create calamity too, so I guess a lot
of people can do it.

Speaker 5 (55:53):
I don't know what you're asking.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
Are you omni benevolent?

Speaker 2 (55:55):
So do you know what the word is? So? Do
you do you believe that your God is omni benevolent?
All good?

Speaker 5 (56:00):
Yeah? Yeah? I would say yeah, he is all good?

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Yeah? Is creating calamity a good thing or a bad?

Speaker 7 (56:05):
God can't do anything that's even a little bit irritating.

Speaker 2 (56:08):
So is creating a calamity a good thing or a
bad thing?

Speaker 5 (56:11):
Not the best in somebody?

Speaker 2 (56:12):
Yeah? But doesn't does it creating a calamity automatically mean
that bad things are happening to people? But isn't creating
a calamity meaning that bad things are happening to people?
Doesn't it mean that if you create a calamity, bad
things are happening to people.

Speaker 7 (56:26):
Now, uncomfortable thing? I think bad is a poor choice
of words.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
Okay, what choice of words would you like?

Speaker 5 (56:34):
Uncomfortable?

Speaker 2 (56:36):
Okay? So the common usage of the word is an
event causing great and often sudden damage or distress. So
how does creating damage or distress a good thing? If
you're creating them to people?

Speaker 7 (56:49):
That's what happens on a football field, you create damage
and distress the other team to find out who's better.

Speaker 1 (56:54):
It's how you measure character is I don't think that's
I don't think that's a fair response, my king.

Speaker 2 (56:59):
Yeah, I would say it's not fair either, because it's
an event.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
Right right, as opposed to the literal like fabric of
space time being created by a being. Also, this is
the route you're going down, by the way, Okay, I
just want to I want to help flag this for
you so you don't fall into this trap in a
few seconds. Okay, But if you go down this route,
what you're saying is that when you watch a child
get murdered in front of you, you have to accept

(57:25):
that is a good thing, because it means that it
is part of God's ultimate destiny and plan to bring
out the best in humanity and all of that. And
if what you're saying is that your God has to
cause deep amounts of suffering and pain and shit constantly,
that's a really shitty God and it's not omni benevolence.
So I'm just trying to help you out before you

(57:46):
fall into that pitthole five seconds from now.

Speaker 7 (57:49):
So okay, well, that pit hole that the big precursor
is has to God doesn't have to do it.

Speaker 1 (57:53):
We're actually yes he does. If it happens, yes he does.
If he sanctions it, yes he does. All the craft
that goes on it has to happen because God's sanctioned.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
Yeah, And just to use your analogy just because we
use and I don't agree with any of this, but
just we'll go with your analogy just because we use
footballs to increase character and at foot playing football create
some sort of damage and distress on the human body.
That's because we're limited beings. Your God is also omnipotent,

(58:24):
is he not?

Speaker 5 (58:24):
He is aware of everything. That's my understanding yet.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Okay, so he has an option other than football to
test people's character does he not.

Speaker 5 (58:33):
He's got your whole lifetime.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
So the answer is yes. So this is the problem
you have with the omnib benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent God is
that you cannot square those three things with the way
the world is today. You can't. You cannot have an
omnib benevolent God because bad things happen to people. However
you want to define bad, and I will leave that

(58:55):
up to you. If you think bad things exist in
the world, then that does not square with an omnibanovol
in God who knows about it because he's omniscient and
has the power to change it. Because he's omnipotent, you
can't square those things. Your God cannot logically exist.

Speaker 5 (59:12):
Okay, I disagree. I'll tell you why.

Speaker 7 (59:15):
In heaven, none of this crap is going to go on.
But here is where you're deciding if you want to
be with God or not.

Speaker 5 (59:21):
Be with God.

Speaker 7 (59:22):
And our free will is what brings a lot of
the crap into the world. And God doesn't have to
do much of anything that people do it.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
So your God is only limited to doing things that
affect free will.

Speaker 1 (59:33):
So he's not omnipotent, and he's not omni benevolent because
he could have made heaven here, but chows not to.

Speaker 7 (59:39):
Pull back and let us use free will.

Speaker 2 (59:41):
So again you are saying that your God is not
omnive omnipotent because the only option he has is to
affect human beings free will.

Speaker 5 (59:50):
He is omnipotent.

Speaker 7 (59:52):
It's like an adult letting a child stand up and
fall down, and stand up and fall down.

Speaker 5 (59:56):
Even though you could save that kid.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
Everyone don't.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
I don't have the ability. Yeah, I don't have the
ability to do anything else. I don't have the ability
to do anything else. I am a fallible, mortal being. Also,
if your God makes heaven and all of these problems
don't exist there, then what you're saying is your God
is not on the benevolent. And what you're agreeing to
is what I said just a second ago. The trap
you fell right into, which is children being murdered in

(01:00:21):
front of you. You have to celebrate that now by
this line of logic, because it is the only way
that God could give us an opportunity to choose to
be with him with our free will, under your understanding,
and then get into heaven. It makes your God look
like a real schmuck, dude, And I don't think that's
the God you believe in.

Speaker 7 (01:00:40):
No, you're mischaracterizing it. You don't have to celebrate.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Things of pain because we're not in ns you do.
Doesn't make any sense what you do in your understanding.
You have to celebrate the pain and the suffering you
do in your understanding because without the pain and suffering
as small or as great, you never get to the
good things only in your view? Is that the case?
If you slightly adjust your view, you don't have to

(01:01:05):
deal with that. Most believers in God, most believers in
the Christian God, do not have to worry about this.
But from the statements you have made today, Mike, you
do you have to celebrate the suffering. And I don't
think you agree with that.

Speaker 7 (01:01:19):
I don't agree with the suffering, but well, I mean,
you're verry mischaracterized.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
Again.

Speaker 1 (01:01:25):
You don't go back and watch Well that waid it
out for you.

Speaker 5 (01:01:29):
Suffer at all.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
You're arguing for God that is omnipotent, because you say
he can't do anything that will affect free will, and
so you're limiting him to things that only affect free will,
which is really really bad and not good argument. And
then you're saying that in heaven none of this happens,
except that the only way that could happen in heaven,
according to you, is that God removes free will. Well,

(01:01:51):
that doesn't make any sense because Satan made a choice
to rebel against God, so free will exists in heaven.
So no matter how you argue this, you get hung
up on these three traits that you're trying to reconcile
that cannot be reconciled, and you're arguing for a God
that is less than the Omnigod.

Speaker 5 (01:02:08):
We explain, go for it, answer your question. Go for
it in heaven.

Speaker 7 (01:02:12):
It looks like there isn't going to be free will.
Everybody's just going to do the right thing because we
made our choice now and I've made my choice.

Speaker 2 (01:02:19):
So how did Satan rebel against God?

Speaker 5 (01:02:22):
Something away from God's will?

Speaker 2 (01:02:23):
How did Satan rebel against God? If we have free
will and everyone's going to make a choice to stay
with God, because that doesn't square now all of a sudden.

Speaker 7 (01:02:32):
Okay, this is you maybe know this, maybe don't, But
Satan and.

Speaker 5 (01:02:36):
These angels and all this, there are different people.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
People.

Speaker 7 (01:02:39):
Actually we actually have a part of God. We're we're
like family, whereas the other ones are like magnificent created
creatures and.

Speaker 5 (01:02:45):
Then they made a choice. They don't get redeemed. We do.

Speaker 7 (01:02:48):
I don't quite understand that. But we are different from
them that we're actually like part of God in heaven,
whereas they're creatures there.

Speaker 5 (01:02:56):
They're magnificent, they're amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
Really, But I don't really feel like that help.

Speaker 1 (01:03:01):
It's just a claim, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
Well we're done now. Yeah, I'm trying to say.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
I get that you're saying that. That's just basically special
pleading is what you're getting to like. So it doesn't matter.
It's still a logical fallacy. It still doesn't address all
of the numerous problems again that I explicitly tried to
warn you about and said, hey man, this is a problem.
You then just brought up the possibility. So you said
two things back to back, and I just want to
point them out to you because they are in fact contradictory.

(01:03:28):
The first thing that you said was it seems like
there is no free will in heaven. Well, if that's
the case, that's a bigger problem for you. But then
the next thing that you said, Mike was we just
all choose to do the right thing. So what you're
saying is that there is actually free will, contradicting the
first thing you said at the beginning of the statement.
But then if there is free will and we just

(01:03:49):
all choose to do the right thing, then your God's
not omni benevolent because he could have made a world
like that from the beginning. And once again, the only
way to accept the bad things in this universe, in
your view that you've committed to, is to celebrate the
bad things because without them we couldn't be better. That's
the view you have expressed on this call multiple times.

Speaker 5 (01:04:12):
So just saying, can I answer that as well?

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Absolutely absolutely, Mike, waiting for you.

Speaker 2 (01:04:19):
To do I said, yes, all right.

Speaker 7 (01:04:23):
By the way, these are these are the good questions.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
I uh, yeah, this is deep ship.

Speaker 7 (01:04:28):
I'm not yeah, this is really good, And I'm not
saying I have all the answers me either. Yeah, No,
this is I've thought about this up a lot. What
you're just saying is like, why did he just do
it from the beginning, And the reason is that we're
he didn't want robots who just automatically chose free will.
He so so that we'd have a time period where
we get to choose, do you want to be with
God or not be with God?

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
Let me ask you this question and then you know,
how do you reconcile us having free will in heaven
angel and not having and having free will here and
heaven we're going to be making the right choices? What what what
is the difference between making right choices now versus heaven?
Why do we need pain and suffering and all the
negative stuff happening now and not in heaven to make

(01:05:10):
good choices?

Speaker 5 (01:05:11):
But we don't need pain to make good choice. We
got off on a topic on that.

Speaker 7 (01:05:15):
But in heaven, yeah, it's like you're not going to
have free will. You're just gonna You're just gonna want
to do the right thing. But where you're choosing, we
have free will. Now do you want to do the
good things? Do you want to do God's will or
you want.

Speaker 5 (01:05:25):
To do your will? That's what it really is. Who
do you want to be in charge of you?

Speaker 2 (01:05:28):
Or God?

Speaker 7 (01:05:28):
And if you choose God, then he will feel you
so that you don't sin anymore. And if not, then
He's going to put you in a place where he
doesn't have to see you anymore. And it's not going
to be Apparently it's not fun. People say it's a party.
Other people say not. I would say not for help,
But it's where God does have to deal with you anymore.

Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
You don't deal with him. I mean a lot of people.
I hate God.

Speaker 2 (01:05:45):
So why can't he do that now?

Speaker 5 (01:05:47):
There will?

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
Why can't he just go? Everybody make a choice. You
can go with me or you go that you take
the door on the left, door on the right. Why
can't you just do that now? Well?

Speaker 5 (01:05:55):
I think he is.

Speaker 7 (01:05:56):
We're living our lifetimes, we're deciding, we're doing it right now.

Speaker 2 (01:05:58):
Okay, so but now you running back into the exact
same question I asked earlier. Why is he doing it now?
And we don't have to do it when we're in
heaven And saying that we've already made the choice doesn't
get you anywhere because we could unchoose the choice in
heaven just as easily as we do now. The free
will still exists, right except in heaven, we don't have
any pain to teach us. And apparently, according to you,

(01:06:20):
because God creating calamity is a good thing, that's how
he teaches envy.

Speaker 5 (01:06:25):
Yeah, it's not always a good thing.

Speaker 7 (01:06:26):
I mean, Gee, you don't need bad things all the time,
you get good things.

Speaker 5 (01:06:29):
You're like, I'm going to do more of that. That
makes sense.

Speaker 7 (01:06:31):
You don't need calamity all the time. But he gets
your attention with calamity. But then we can plament each
other too, and it's just meaningless too. Some pain is like,
oh that was worthless, you know, somebody shoots somebody that
was stupid.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
Again, we are not omnipotent, omnibou one, omniscient beings, so
anything we do is just what we expect because we're
not any of those three things. So the question isn't
whether we do it. The question is is why it
is one God allow it or two. As we've seen
in the Bible from the the Isaiah passage, he does it,

(01:07:02):
and he created.

Speaker 5 (01:07:03):
It, creat all calamities. That what you're saying, he creates
some you'll.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Do it, well, that's what Isaiah says.

Speaker 7 (01:07:09):
Yeah, that's allowed to get your attention. Sometimes sometimes you
need to get the bottom before you start thinking. When
life's great, I don't self analyze very much.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
Sure, can I just just ask just a direct question, Mike,
because I just want to say this first off, I
do I think you and I have spoken before. I
think all three of us have had conversation before. And
I got to say, I've really enjoyed the conversation at parts,
and I think I think you are thinking about stuff.
You are actively interested in digging these digging into all

(01:07:39):
the different interpretations and all the different history. I love
the philosophy, love it all, man, But truly, I want
to ask, has anything in this conversation? Was anything in
this conversation what actually led you to believe in the
first place? Be is any of this stuff that you
went through before believing in God?

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
What made me?

Speaker 7 (01:08:00):
If you're talking about like calamity, I didn't really have
a calamity. I just was getting ready to graduate from college,
and you know, I spent my whole life I got
to focus, I gotta study, I gotta do this. And
I was there and I was like, now what, I'm
just going to get a job and then retire, And.

Speaker 5 (01:08:14):
That was right.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
So right. So what I'm when I'm asking, when I'm
asking real quick to clarify, Mike, when I'm what I'm
getting at is did you have a period of time
in your life where without believing in a God, without
accepting the Bible is true, not thinking that Jesus rose
all that shit and sat down and went, man, you
know what, let me think about this for a second.

(01:08:35):
We got to have free will here because otherwise, like,
how are we ever going to get better? And the
fact that there's free will in heaven doesn't matter because
maybe there's not free will and God is omni benevolent
and all the did you do any of that? Was
any of this part of the process of you actually
coming to this belief? Yeah? What what was that thing?

Speaker 6 (01:08:54):
Man?

Speaker 1 (01:08:54):
What was that thing that made you start believing?

Speaker 7 (01:08:57):
Yeah, we're we're in I just felt like life is meaningless. Okay,
I could do everything right, it just wasn't satisfying.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
I was sure, sure, fine, fine, that's I get that feeling. Man,
I've had that feeling. Other people have had that feeling
as human beings. Apparently, at least from the period of
time that we've been recording shit, apparently we've all kind
of had that feeling at least once or twice. Is
having that feeling alone a good reason to accept that

(01:09:25):
a god exists?

Speaker 5 (01:09:26):
I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:09:27):
Yeah, me only your.

Speaker 7 (01:09:30):
I think life is empty or whatever? Yeah, what what
got me was when I is not going to like this.
But when I started looking at the design of like
the human body and resiratorial system and everything.

Speaker 5 (01:09:40):
You know, like all your.

Speaker 7 (01:09:41):
Arteries are actually tubes and if they were just off
and the tube was closed, you'd be dead. And I
was like, oh man, this is you know, I was
an engineer, so this is all this. Somebody had designed this.

Speaker 5 (01:09:50):
You knew what there is.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Is it a complexity?

Speaker 5 (01:09:51):
Because I didn't want to believe in a god. I
was like, this is crap.

Speaker 2 (01:09:54):
I don't believe.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
Yeah. Is it the complexity of the design that you're saying,
because because of how intricate it is, it has to
be designed.

Speaker 5 (01:10:01):
What least thee engineering?

Speaker 1 (01:10:03):
Well, no, hang on, that's a totally different hang on, Mike, Mike, Mike,
listen to exactly what I'm saying. I know we're having
a little bit of a delay and it's kind of hard,
so I'm just gonna keep rambling for a second. I
think we're probably caught up now. So here's what I'm asking,
very explicitly. Is it because of the complex nature of
the things you're looking at? You mentioned the human body.

(01:10:25):
Is it the complexity that you see that makes you
say it's designed, because I have a follow up, So
just a real quick yes or no would be great.

Speaker 7 (01:10:33):
Yeah, I mean things could be complex, but but like
how you can breathe automatically and then you can take
the breath, and then.

Speaker 1 (01:10:40):
We can't breathe automatically because there's fluid in your lungs.
So hang on, Mike, I'm gonna mute you. I'm so sorry.
I have tried desperately not to do that this whole time,
but I don't want to have to wait because here's
my follow up, because I'm gonna run through this again
real quick. It seems to me like what you're saying
is yeah, kind of the intricate and complex nature of
the things that I'm looking at, like, for example, the

(01:11:01):
human body, trees, snowflakes, all that shit, the complexity makes
me get to the conclusion it must be designed. So
here's my question. Look at this, there's a hairtie that
I use, pretty fucking simple. Is that designed? Are simple
things designed? I'm going to unmute you. Are simple things designed?

Speaker 7 (01:11:19):
Yeah, it depends on what it is. Like a snowflake
is really complex, but it's not designed. So you can
go both ways on that.

Speaker 12 (01:11:26):
Well, okay, question, Yeah, go ahead, go Ahea's kind of
my question is is a Rube Goldberg design a good
design or bad design?

Speaker 2 (01:11:37):
If it's a Rube Goldberg machine.

Speaker 5 (01:11:39):
Goldberg, if it works, I guess it's a good design.

Speaker 7 (01:11:43):
But they always look so crappy. So that's a funny example.

Speaker 2 (01:11:46):
Right, because because what's going what's going on with them
that makes them look like.

Speaker 5 (01:11:49):
That, it's the mouse trap.

Speaker 2 (01:11:53):
They're overly complex, right there are entirely too complex, needlessly right, Okay,
So complexity is not necessarily a sign of design or
even good design. What is I mean? But there is
one thing that is almost always the sign of good
engineering or good design, and that is is it as

(01:12:13):
simple as it possibly can? And no simpler? And I
don't think there's a single part of the human body
where you can go that's the case. You just look
at the human eyeball. We have much simpler, better designs
than the human eyeball. We've made them. So why has
the human eyeball got this aqueous solution? It has low resolution,
it has a tendency to see things that aren't really there.

(01:12:37):
Why is it such an overly complex design compared to
what we've met.

Speaker 7 (01:12:41):
You understand, there's like millions, there is billions of nerve
endings on the.

Speaker 5 (01:12:44):
Back of the eye.

Speaker 7 (01:12:45):
They're all lined up and they all receive it and
they don't cross.

Speaker 2 (01:12:48):
Each other, and it's still bad engineering.

Speaker 5 (01:12:50):
I don't do it.

Speaker 2 (01:12:52):
It's still bad engineering.

Speaker 4 (01:12:53):
Ya.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
Literally both of us. Both of us have shitty vision.
He's wearing glasses, I'm wearing con like. We both have bad.

Speaker 2 (01:13:01):
Eyes because the way the eye focuses is overly complex.
The way the eye does everything is overly complex, right,
all the chemical reactions. What's simpler a camera or the
camera on my iPhone or the human eyeball? What's simpler?

Speaker 7 (01:13:18):
I would say that your camera can't repair itself, so
the human eyeball is more complex.

Speaker 2 (01:13:23):
The human eyeball repairs itself. Really, it repairs itself.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
Not super well.

Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
I'm something funny.

Speaker 1 (01:13:33):
Look, I think, Look.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
Does the retina detach? Yes, it does? Does it ever
heal itself in some cases? Yest that doesn't. But that
doesn't answer the question what is simpler the human eyeball
or the camera on my iPhone?

Speaker 7 (01:13:48):
The camera on your iPhone can't repair itself, so you
can't do the same things as the human eyeball.

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
That's not an answer to the question. Yeah, I'm asking
what's simpler. I'm not asking about self repair capabilities, asking
about what is simpler.

Speaker 7 (01:14:02):
As far as less molecules, because they don't do the
same thing I hang on hang on hangers.

Speaker 2 (01:14:06):
As they do. They both receive light and interpret it.

Speaker 1 (01:14:08):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, Let's let's look, we've been going at
this for almost forty minutes, Mike. Let's put this on
pause and we'll pick it up another time when you
call back in. Cause again, I think this has been
a I think this has been a largely good call,
and I think there's a lot more stuff that we've
already been going for about forty minutes. I don't want
us to get to a place where, you know, we're

(01:14:29):
just kind of rambling about about silliness here. There's a
lot of good stuff. There's a lot of stuff to
go back. I will tell you this, man, I do this, okay,
especially in calls where I get off of them and
I'm like, man, don't they weren't they weren't fucking listening
to me. You know, I'll go back and I'll rewatch it,
and I'll listen to everything that everybody says and try

(01:14:49):
to go Okay, wait, I did say that thing wrong,
you know, because I do. I say stuff wrong all
the time. I think I said something wrong in the
last call. I just mixed up a word or two.
You know, most people probably knew what the fuck I
was talking about, but technically I said something wrong. So
any who, I suggest take a second, give it a
couple of days, go back watch it, give us a
call next time you see us on because yeah, I
think this is a pretty good call. I think you're

(01:15:10):
pretty good interlocker to Mike. So I'm going to drop
you real fast, and I'm so sorry. It's going to
be rude and abrupt, and you probably will cut you
off and I'm very very sorry about that. But again,
we were going pretty good there.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
We had.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
We had about forty minutes. I thought we I thought
we had. I thought we had a good kind of
back and forth and we were kind of able to
make some progress. I am always I.

Speaker 2 (01:15:29):
Just think it's really I always think it's kind of
funny that every time an atheist and a any omnium
benevolent you know, tri omni god believer get into a conversation,
we always end up arguing for the omni good right,
and they end up arguing for the left an omnigod.
It's just it's funny the way that always works out.

Speaker 1 (01:15:48):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
I've heard.

Speaker 1 (01:15:50):
I've heard people say atheists are more fundamental than most
of the believers, you know, because we're like, we're so like, no,
this is what the Koran says, like this is you know. Yeah,
but yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, man, I get it.
In fairness though again, honestly, time after time after time, y'all,
when we do when we do polls, we find the

(01:16:11):
believers of a religion and the critics of the religion.
Between the two, the second group is the one that's
actually read most of the documentation for the religion. So
you know, that's just an interesting statistic. I don't know
if there's causation, but they're sure is correlation.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
So it's cooling.

Speaker 1 (01:16:28):
We are gonna go we are gonna go out to
Massachusetts an We're gonna talk to Casey. He him is
an atheist, wants to talk to us. Says that they're
a bit of a new atheist. So hey, we are
gonna bring you on. Casey. You are chatting with secularity
and Jim Barrows, what's up?

Speaker 10 (01:16:45):
Oh, glad, glad, how are you guys doing? So I
have a question.

Speaker 8 (01:16:49):
It's a little bit complicated, but I'm gonna try to
make it quick so you guys could understand a little background.

Speaker 10 (01:16:54):
Twenty six years.

Speaker 8 (01:16:55):
So, being Muslim, joined the army and then couldn't go
to the most So I went to the rabbi and
he converted me to atheists, believe it or not, just
because he said that maybe Islam copyed from Judaism.

Speaker 5 (01:17:09):
So that me and.

Speaker 8 (01:17:11):
Long short, a long story short, I became Muslim, became
my atheist. But my issue is that at when I
was fourteen years old and one of my best friends
became blind. So there is a Hadas from Mohammed saying
that anyone that is blind, it becomes blind and suffers
through it through his life. He's Garante paradised. So I

(01:17:34):
had a friend who was asist but blind that I
turned him Muslim by this, so he got he wanted
to commit suicide. So giving him this give him hope
at fourteen nothing more I could give. So so now
when I tell him that I'm an atheist and I

(01:17:54):
give him proof and stuff, what I did. I did
all my homework. He seems that I'm trying to steal
paradise from him, so it's hard to get communicated. Just trying,
even trying to cut me off.

Speaker 10 (01:18:05):
Because of this, So it's hard to I.

Speaker 8 (01:18:09):
Don't want to see anything from me.

Speaker 10 (01:18:10):
Might just reach out.

Speaker 1 (01:18:12):
Yeah, yeah, totally totally understand. And first off, casey, I
shant to say this real quick.

Speaker 2 (01:18:16):
Yes, sorry, you are on mute by the way.

Speaker 1 (01:18:18):
Am I are you sure? I don't think so? Can
you hear me?

Speaker 2 (01:18:21):
You're still on mute? I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
I don't think so. Can you hear?

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
Yeah? We have no idea what's going on? That's hard,
but anyway, just hear So. Yeah, I would say, do
you think that if you were to to de convert
him back to atheism that he would be suicidal?

Speaker 8 (01:18:39):
Again, I'm not I'm not even trying to to make
him amazius. I'm just giving him my.

Speaker 10 (01:18:45):
Motif, like why I became atheist.

Speaker 8 (01:18:48):
But it looks like because Islam. I don't know if
you guys have much knowledge, give you this that you
cannot doubt, Like if you doubt, then you you're a
kaf here. So he doesn't even want to entertain that thought.

Speaker 1 (01:19:02):
So yeah, so let me let me just say this.
First off, Casey, So super easy, super easy, hang on,
hang on, Jim, you will, Jim, it's on your end.
Just pause for five seconds. It's okay, just pause for
five seconds. So, Casey, first off, I just want to
say this, I appreciate that in your friend's time of
need that you were there for them. Okay, you should

(01:19:25):
not in any way, shape or form feel bad about that, right,
That is a very good thing. Okay. Second off from that,
I will then just say there are also a lot
of secular options and a lot of non religious things
for any future times if you happen to find yourself
in that situation, there are a lot of non religious

(01:19:47):
things that you can do that could help that individual,
right so that you don't have to give them that religion. Okay,
just for for future sake. Now, real quick, man, I
know this ain't going to fill that hole or anything,
but let me tell you this, brother, You're not at fault.
Like you don't need to be. You don't need to
be beating yourself up or the fact that that you're
you turned your buddy a believer when you were a

(01:20:09):
believer dude, We've all done that, every single one of
us that was a believer. We all turned shit to do.
You know how many people seth Andrew's fucking convinced when
he was on Christian radio for a decade and a half.
A lot, you know, So that happens, don't worry about
all that. Give yourself a little bit of grace on
all that. Okay, at the very least, give yourself a

(01:20:30):
little bit of grace on all that. You were there
for a friend in a meaningful time, and that is
the most important.

Speaker 8 (01:20:35):
So what hurts me the most is because I lost
the friends with He was a diagnosed cancer and he
cut me off when he knew that I was atheist,
and it was hard to watch him die and I
couldn't talk or meet him for him the last few months.
So this is kind of like a deja vu but
different situation, but kind of similar. So losing a friend

(01:20:58):
more like, I'm not trying to convert. I just feel
like I lost him, you know, like I lost my
other friend.

Speaker 1 (01:21:03):
Yeah no, I completely understand that. Yeah, yeah, I totally
understand that. And what I would say when it comes
to trying to continue these conversations, right, one of the
biggest things. A close buddy of mine, you know, he
said this when he first came out as non religious.
He was hot, he was hot and heavy, and he
was going after fucking anybody man, and he wasn't pulling punches,

(01:21:26):
I mean, he was swinging.

Speaker 3 (01:21:27):
Man.

Speaker 1 (01:21:28):
That resulted, obviously in some very difficult and tense conversations
with some people that he really really cares about, and
he had to at one point take a big step
back and go, hang on, wait a second, what is
the most important thing to me in this moment? Is
the most important thing to me in this moment being
fucking right and dominating this stupid weak minded like is

(01:21:52):
that what's the most important thing to me? Or is
the most important thing to me my friend in front
of me right, my coworker, my neighbor, my mother, my partner.
Is that what's more important to me? And if it
is the first one, well, then, honestly, Casey, I don't
think you really need any help in that. I think
you know exactly what to do. Like, if you want
to dominate, motherfucker, go out there, read the books, listen

(01:22:14):
to the philosophy, and listen to the experts, and you know, hell, yeah,
you can go out there and be an asshole all
the time. Of course, you know, if what you care
about is the connection that you're having with with that person,
that's harder, so right right.

Speaker 8 (01:22:30):
Yeah, the connection one. But also like the way I
see it now is him being blind and bing in
his head five times a day and spending most of
his time in most for something that like, I know,
he's blind, but he can enjoy life in different ways,
absolutely being blind and get your stuck in the most
So that's it hurts me and cutting me off, you.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
Know, like h And that's that's the hard part. And anyway,
you know, that's probably the part of the relationship you
need to work on repairing. Because again, if the most
important thing about you is your relationship with your friend
than your atheism, to ask to take a back seat,
and no, religious people don't do that, and we as

(01:23:12):
atheists have to do that probably more often if we
want to keep our relationships. But this is the problem
with dealing with religious folks, is you you know, and
yeah it's probably worse and you know with Muslims than
it is most Christians. A lot a lot of Christians
tend to be more liberal along those lines, but there
are those that are not, and so that becomes a question.

(01:23:35):
I mean, we know fairly famous atheists who have had
to cut their parents off and have no contact with
their parents because they can't go there, and that's unfortunate
for their parents. We know other atheists whose parents have
cut them off and cut their own child off. So
you know, that's kind of where you're at. I think
is you need to go figure out how to repair

(01:23:56):
the relationship and just let him do what he going
to do and you know, enjoy being his front and
it sucks.

Speaker 10 (01:24:06):
It sucks. I appreciate it. Yes, just as I said,
that sounds.

Speaker 8 (01:24:11):
The feeling guilty for something that I thought was right
at the time, but now that I see from this
as being blind and get this stuck wasting in my opinion,
his life, his moments.

Speaker 2 (01:24:23):
But sure, yeah, and it's his wife. Ultimately, your opinion
of what he's doing with it doesn't matter.

Speaker 1 (01:24:28):
Yeah, right, he gets to he gets to make his decisions,
and honestly, just like just like you know, look, Casey,
there may be a time in the future from now,
we don't know. There may be a time in the
future you you convert, you know, you convert back to Islam,
you you join Hinduism, you whatever, Man, I mean, it's
possible that you'll regret some of the actions that that
you've done. Now in terms of leading people away from

(01:24:50):
the faith, all you can do is the best you
can with the knowledge that you have. And just like
Maya Angelou says, when you know better, you do better,
you know, And until then, all we can do is
try to do the best that we fricking can right now.
And I think it sounds to me like I think
you're on that right, that right track. I'll offer this

(01:25:12):
as as a potential for for maybe something else to
dig into the future, if you'd like. There's this really
cool book by this guy named David McCraney. It's called
How Minds Change, and it's about the way that we
engage with people and and what methods are effective and
what methods aren't. So maybe that's something you guys could

(01:25:32):
read together, you know. So Yeah, anyway, thank you so much,
Casey for for calling in to us. We uh, we
greatly appreciate you. And I'm just gonna drop you like
a hot rock. I'm so sorry if I cut you off. Yeah, YouTube, man,
thank you so much. I always end up cutting people
off at the end. I never mean to do it purposefully, folks,
It's totally accidental. But we we are, we are near

(01:25:54):
the end. And so before we wrap up, you know,
Jim and I gotta we gotta have a little What
do you think was it all? What was your favorite
part we had?

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Oh? We had some good conversations. Our conversation with a
pronoun dude.

Speaker 1 (01:26:09):
Yeah, yeah, I'm not I'm not sure what happened there. Honestly,
I feel like something was said by by at least somebody,
But what exactly that was, I don't know. But the
good news is, Jim, is that you and I are
not here alone. In fact, every week there is a
wonderful volunteer that will hang out and make sure just

(01:26:30):
in case the ship hits the fan that they can
hop on. And today's wonderful backup host is none other
than the man himself, mister Kelly Laughlin. And Kelly, thank
you so much that you are. You are our resident
Patrick interpreters today. Can you help us out? What were you?

(01:26:52):
I know you take extensive notes.

Speaker 13 (01:26:54):
But I you know what my My big problem with
with him was that it seemed like every time you
guys came up with an answer to his problems, he
kept you just they either ignored you or would just
change the topic.

Speaker 11 (01:27:09):
Right.

Speaker 14 (01:27:09):
Yeah, it was like just getting nowhere with him. I
felt like you were just banging your heads against the walls.
So I do want to say something to Casey though,
if I could take out a minute, Casey, don't dwell
on the past. It's not about what whether or not
what you did was right or wrong. What it's really
about is if you can do better every single day,

(01:27:30):
and that's what really counts. And I think by the
way you were talking when you called here, I think
you're already on that path. So you're doing the right thing.

Speaker 1 (01:27:38):
Keep it up, greed, agreed, And I think that is
a phenomenal sentiment for us to head out on. Folks.
It is it is Sunday. It is getting into the
evening my time. So if it's that time for you,
go relax, go have fun. If you're ready to start
your day, go do that. But whatever you're doing, remember
that Jesus did die on the cross for your sins,

(01:27:58):
so make sure you do a few of them for us.
But thank you so much, Kelly for hanging out in
the back with us. You're always great, Jim. It is
always so much freaking fun to be hanging out and
chatting with you. We're all going to be at the
back cruise here, right is that is yes? That's okay, man,
that's okay.

Speaker 2 (01:28:16):
You were there.

Speaker 1 (01:28:17):
You weren't there long ago.

Speaker 2 (01:28:18):
We saw years ago at least.

Speaker 14 (01:28:21):
Well, I am the party king, So if you want
to come and party with the King beyond the back cruise,
that's right, folks.

Speaker 1 (01:28:28):
It's very very very easy tiny dot CC slash a
C a bat Cruise. There are still tickets available. You
don't have much time left, but you got to get
the fuck out of here because we're leaving next Sunday
at four thirty pm. We'll be right here until then.

Speaker 2 (01:28:41):
Do you.

Speaker 5 (01:28:46):
Stop?

Speaker 1 (01:28:49):
Stop? I think we got through like at least six
minutes before we talked about bat Pope, right, okay, five
fifty three, that's not seven seconds. That's not bad okay,
card six minutes. Okay, next time, don't bring on bad

(01:29:09):
food until six minutes into the broadcast.

Speaker 2 (01:29:13):
You got it.

Speaker 1 (01:29:26):
Watch Talk Ethan live Sundays at one pm Central. Visit
tiny dot c c slash y T T H and
call into the show at five one two nine nine
one nine two four two, or connect to the show
online at tiny dot c c slash call THH