The Atheist Experience 29.43 with Secular Rarity and Godless Engineer

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Christian nationalism isn't just rhetoric. It's being weaponized right now
to erode our democracy. A task force to eradicate anti
Christian bias has been established, despite Christianity being the dominant
religion with Christians holding overwhelming governmental power. Texas just mandated
daily prayer time and Bible reading in public schools, with

(00:23):
lawmakers explicitly saying that they want to combat declining church
attendants through government policy. States are passing broad religious exemption
laws that create licenses to discriminate against LGBTQ plus Americans
in adoption, health care, and public services. Christian nationalists supporters
overwhelmingly embrace fascistic authoritarian control. Christian nationalism correlates strongly with

(00:47):
anti black racism, anti immigrant hatred, anti semitism, anti Muslim bigotry,
and patriarchal gender ideology. Those who adhere to it support
you violence to save the country and believe immigrants aren't
poisoning the blood of America. Reminiscent of the slogan of

(01:08):
the Nazi slogans that we've all become familiar with. This
isn't about faith, It's about power, control and exclusion disguised
as religious liberty. If you disagree with the fact that
Christian nationalism is a plague on America, then please call
in because the show starts now.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
All right, welcome everybody. Today is October twenty sixth, twenty
twenty five. I am Secularity, and joining me today is
the wonderful Godless Engineer. What's up, man? What's up?

Speaker 3 (01:46):
Heathen's how y'all doing?

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Man? I love hearing that is? It is a tougher
than other ever to be a heathen in the South,
isn't it. We are having a really fun time of it,
aren't we.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
Uh Oh yeah, totally, especially here in North Alabama.

Speaker 3 (02:03):
Like it.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
It can be rather crazy, like as far as especially
with like that anti Christian task force, the task force
I got set up, like you know, I can't tell
you the number of times and emails I've seen, like
you know, Bible versus. But it's like I can't have
like a secular sort of thing in there at all

(02:26):
because I'll get pegged and then you know, Steven Miller's
at my door like why why aren't you Christian? And
you know he appears like Nusfaratu and stuff.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
It seems to me like even at Jeopardy is just
like the very gentle casual like, oh hey, please don't
be yelling about your religious beliefs in the in the workplace,
Like even that is something that feels like is not
okay right now, which is pretty wild to think about.
You know, I'll just say it. I think Christian nationalism

(02:58):
is on American I just think that ideology does not
actually fit with the values of the United States Constitution.
And I'm sure there are people out there who can
call in and change our minds, you know, I'm sure
they're out there. I just don't I don't know if
they're brave enough to call. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

(03:19):
So hopefully they will, they'll show up today.

Speaker 1 (03:22):
Yeah, And you know, I think that there's a lot
of different ways that Christian nationalism and Christianity in general
is rather bad for our society in general. Like Christianity
basically sets the stage for like the misogynistic nature that
you know are that has plagued American society for the

(03:42):
longest time. It's you know, made excuses for keeping slaves,
It's made excuses for persecuting minorities in the United States.
So like there's there's a lot of different reasons that
Christianity on just basic Christianity is bad. But when you
add the nationalism on top of that, that's using the

(04:04):
government in order to push those bad ideas that are
ingrained in Christianity. And I just I see it as
as just a bad thing, you.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
Know, all the way around.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, yeah, now I've got I've got a question real
real quick on that. But before I asked that, let
me tell you all that the atheist experience is a
product of the Atheist Community of Austin, a five to
one c three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism,
critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government.
And we have lines open, we've got some calls coming in.

(04:37):
But if you are out there and you are just
like GEESR, you guys don't know jack all about Christianity.
You don't know anything about about Christian nationalism. You know,
if you think it is right that our government takes
a religious bent and legislates based on that, give us

(04:59):
a call, because I know we disagree. But you're saying
something there. You're saying something there, man, And I feel
like I've said stuff like that before to believers, and
I get told that I can't judge the religion based
on some bad actions of some bad people, you know, Like, look, maybe, okay,

(05:21):
I'm not even totally sure, but maybe there were some
Catholic priests doing some bad things for a while. Okay.
Maybe we don't know for sure whether the Southern Baptist
Church actually had to sell its headquarters in Nashville, Tennessee
recently to help pay for the legal funds for all
of the defense attorneys for all of their pastors that

(05:43):
were credibly accused and found guilty of sexual assault. We
don't know for sure that that's what happened. And even
if we did, those bad people they don't represent Christianity.
But what I'm hearing you say is that there's something
at the core of Christianity, You're saying, and there's something
wrong with the idea itself. Is that? Am I right? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (06:05):
No, I totally think so. And uh, I've actually I've
had this idea and I really want to, you know,
spread it out a little bit into a developed further
into something a bit more extensive. But uh, you know,
if we if we take Christianity, like what it's taught
and how it was understood for the vast majority of

(06:25):
its history. We can easily pluck out all of these different,
like negative things that have negatively affected, you know, our society,
and especially looking at you know, the United States of America,
how that developed, and how that's been affected by Christianity
and Christian teachings, Like the systemic racism that we are

(06:45):
played with today, the systemic misogyny that's experienced by by
women all across the United States, Like, all of that
is ingrained in Christian teaching and Christian thought and Christian
moral philosophy. It's I would say that it's actually a
rather new or recent development that Christians have reinterpreted things

(07:07):
about their own religion in order to make it more progressive,
because that's how society was going. Like, you had so
many people that were using their secular humanist sort of
ideals in order to like fight for women's suffrage, or
to fight for equal voting rights for Black Americans. All
of those things are driven by this secular humanist need

(07:28):
for equality and equity, and the fact that Christians, more
progressive Christians had to redefine and re understand, like reinterpret
their scriptures in order to be able to survive in
this new progressing society. I think that speaks volumes to
like how the religion has been understood, you know, throughout

(07:52):
its history, and I think that it's just ingrained in it,
like a lot of different aspects. And typically I I,
you know, whenever somebody tries to push back against me, like, oh,
well we're under a new covenant, it's like, well, yeah, sure,
you're under a new covenant, but that covenant is supposed
to include the Laws of Moses, so all of the

(08:12):
bad stuff from the Old Testament until Jesus comes again
and you know, wipes away this earth and wipes away
the current heaven and establishes a new earth and a
new heaven. So if that hasn't happened yet, then they
still have to abide by the Old Testament laws.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
And so and so.

Speaker 1 (08:32):
With that in mind, I think it's really easy to
argue with Christians and not allow them to specially plead
their particular faith away because one, the history of Christianity
and how that's more established that the actual trend is,
the misogyny, the racism, the you know, all of that

(08:54):
is more so established, and and then you can't get
allow them to especially plead that and not let them
get away from the atrocities that their gods, their god
did commit in the Old Testament. So uh yeah, as
a Christian, you really can't get away from that because
what what would you consider a sin if not what's

(09:16):
contained in the Laws of Moses, at the very least
the Ten Commandments, right, which have a lot of problems
in it. Sorry, I've been talking a lot of no, no, you.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
Know, it was, it was all great, and I think,
you know, honestly, even if let's just let's just give
some give them the toys, you know, even if we
do away with the Old Testament, there's a lot of
really bad crap in the New Testament too, you know,
take out you know, basically half of the letters attributed

(09:46):
to Paul were pretty confident our forgeries, and from what
I've been hearing, there's some inklings of a couple of
different scholars really digging into those like six or seven
and even trying to start pushing back on the legitimacy
of those too. Fascinating, right, you know, But throughout this
book is so so much crap. And I don't take

(10:10):
the argument from believers, you know, where they say like, yeah,
but look at all of this good stuff in there too,
Like I get it. There's some weird stuff, you know,
like way back when there was slavery, and you know,
honestly it just people misinterpreted it. But all this other
really nice stuff about be kind to your neighbor or

(10:30):
you know, take care of the down trodden or whatever.
I think that makes this stuff worse. I think that
makes these ideologies that much more poisonous. And a really
good friend of mine once gave this example, and I
love it. I get why it can be felt as
kind of harsh to some believers, but just as a reminder,

(10:52):
if you get all kinds of funny feels when you
hear this, just call us. We're here, we got open lines,
we'll talk to you. But the way he was saying
it was, it's it's like a bunch of puppies running
up to a puddle of anti freeze, because the anti
freeze is like sweet, and like the puppies run up
to it excited, you know, and they're lapping it up.
And I know full and well that it's poison. I

(11:15):
know that it's killing them from the inside out, you know,
And yet you know, the whole time, they're just just
heavy as all hell, just you know, going about this
and it's just like, oh my gosh, this is terrible,
you know, and it does. It makes a huge difference
in the way that people orient themselves in their lives.

(11:35):
You know. I have friends that completely avoid certain things
simply because they believe demons are flying around constantly and
that they might like, I don't know, get inside them
or something. But I have had this confirmed to me,
by the way, from multiple different people that have cast
out demons before and whatnot. You only get them if

(11:58):
you're a belief, So I mean, go figure on that one, right, Like,
demons don't attack the non believers, like it's just that simple.
You're just like, I don't believe in you.

Speaker 1 (12:09):
Oh well, so I've I've been told that if you're
a non believer, and uh, you know, you've already you've
just already been in fact, especially if you were a believer, and.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
That's why they leave you alone, is because you're already
infected with the demon, you know.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Yeah, they're just like, oh, you know, he's already claimed
by you know whatever, you know, whatever demon. I can't
even think of a good demon. I'm not creative in
that way. But you know, Oh, he's Jezebel's already up
inside him. So man, we're just gonna let We're just
gonna let that Jezebel, you know, wreck his life.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
And I get it. I look because obviously you can't
have two demons inside you. I mean that's just math
right there. That's physics, you know, that's that's basic biology.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Yeah, nobody wants to get dped by by two demons.

Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yes, I mean, that's just man. I haven't been on
and like, I haven't been on in like a month
or two, and like I know, they are already wringing
their hands, like maybe it's gonna be another month or two.
We have some great, great calls lining up, folks, but
we have other open lines. So if you've got thoughts,
if we've said something that you think is stupid, or

(13:16):
we're just completely wrong, or you know what, honestly, maybe
you just want to preach to us, like I'm here
for it today. I will open it up to you
if you want to give us your little preacher spiel
and try to win our souls for the magical, magical
graceland that you enjoy. If you want to. If not,

(13:39):
that's fine, we'll just continue sinning and we will bring
down all of God's kingdom into the fiery depths of
Hell with us. And if you like that, By the way,
if that sounds enjoyable to you, you should consider supporting
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(14:02):
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I could make SR say something really stupid, this is

(14:26):
your opportunity. You will never have this opportunity again. It's
a once in a lifetime. Look, ten dollars are higher,
and I'll basically do anything. I'm I'm I'm kind of
a slut anyway. God Sinner five dollars, God Sinners five dollars.
It says on behalf of at the Big Nick. Take
his book, read it, but don't interpret it unless you're Christian.

(14:50):
From Kara Kel, Well, thank you very much, God Sinner
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loving the punished venom secular rarity looks all he needs

(15:10):
is an eye patch and a horn. Well, I will
tell you I do, in fact have horns, but no
eye patches. But my eyes are pretty shitty. I just
like I've been wearing contacts for a really long time.
It's not like anything in particular. I just figured just
throw that information out there for anybody that would We
would like to know. If you stand just like five

(15:30):
feet away from me, I pretty much just see a blob.
So if I'm ever looking at you weird from a distance,
it's probably because I can't see you. We've got a
couple of calls, folks. We are gonna grab some here
in just a second. But remember you can get your
calls in and yell at us. You can tell us
how stupid we are. It is there is Christian nationalism

(15:52):
is a favorite topic. Is there any other topic you
would wanna you would want to touch on?

Speaker 1 (15:57):
Oh, you know, just Christian nationalism was one thing that
uh you know, has been on my mind a lot.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
But you know I'm.

Speaker 1 (16:04):
Good for any kind of atheist discussion or or mythsist
you know, I'm here mythsist people love, even atheists love
to argue with me about the mythicism topic.

Speaker 3 (16:14):
So yeah, all right.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
If you think if you think Jesus was a real person,
if you think Jesus was out there, and we've got
good reason to believe it, then you should get your
call in. But we are going to go out to
North Carolina. Uh, it looks like we've got an update
from somebody that called in not super long ago. Let's
see if we can get Mary up here. Hey Mary, Uh,

(16:41):
you are on atheist experience with s R and Godless Engineer?

Speaker 4 (16:44):
What is up?

Speaker 2 (16:45):
I can't hear you. I don't know ge are you
hearing anything?

Speaker 3 (16:48):
I'm not hearing her either.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Okay, let me get you back into the Q, Mary,
and we are gonna grab Robert, coming in from Wisconsin
is an agnostic and wants to know why would intellectual
inquiry lead to god? Well, that's an interesting question, Robert. Well, hey, Robert,
you were on atheist experience with secularity and Godless Engineer?

(17:11):
What is up? All right. Well, that one is also quiet.
So I don't know about you, but I'm not hearing anything,
which means we're gonna put you back in the queue
for just a second. Our wonderful crew is going to
get that all figured out, and we will give you
a holler here in just a second, y'all. Don't go anywhere,

(17:33):
Robert or Mary. But mythicism, man, mythicism. I have heard
people say you take it too far. Mythicism as an
idea is making a claim that can't be supported. Is
how do you feel about that? Do you feel like
there is good Evan, there is really solid enough evidence

(17:56):
to say this guy didn't exist?

Speaker 3 (17:58):
Oh? Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 (18:00):
I mean I try to apply the same kind of
skepticism to Jesus' existence as I do to God's existence.
And so it's kind of like the way I think
about it is, if there's not enough, you know, evidence
to actually convince me that God exists, then you know,
if that similarly, if there's not enough evidence to prove
to me that Jesus exists, then you know, I'm not

(18:22):
going to believe that he did exist. And so currently
the evidence seems to point away from a historical Jesus
and points more towards a mythical Jesus. And I think that,
you know, the real, the real conversations can only take
place between two atheists that are really wanting to gig
out about Christian history and how in Christian origins and

(18:42):
everything like that, because any kind of conversation with a
theist is going to result in, you know, just them
trying to support the magical Jesus, which I would think
that even the atheists would be like, yeah, that Jesus
didn't exist kind of thing. So I think that conversations
between atheists, or at least people that are only wanting
to argue for a minimal historical Jesus and not the

(19:04):
magical gospel Jesus, Right, that's where your most fruitful conversations
are going to go.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
Okay, we're going to come in. I totally see that. Yeah,
because I think if we're if we're you know, if
we're trying to bring in the magic and stuff. Yeah,
I mean that that's just totally silly. You know, Julius
Caesar didn't rise to the heavens, you know, none of this,
none of this nonsense. So does does your position say
that there wasn't even just some dude, yes, you will,

(19:30):
walking around gathering a couple of crowds, like talking to people,
or is it like there wasn't there wasn't even anybody
they were basing this ship on.

Speaker 5 (19:39):
No.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Well, so as far as the gospels go, I think
that there were some people, like there was a Jesus,
been an Oonyus.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Uh and Anius.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
I think maybe that Uh was actually killed, like in
the Siege of Jerusalem or whatnot. And I think that
that the Gospel of Mark, the passion narrative is kind
of based on that one. And so I think that
there was no like historical person that like the like

(20:11):
Paul's Jesus is based on, because Paul's Jesus is only
a revelatory being. And so considering that it was only
a revelatory being, there's just no reason to think that
there was anybody there. Plus, if you consider that Christianity
was a mystery cult initially, the fact that that it
was a mystery cult, it seems to lend credence to

(20:32):
this idea that there was no historical savior or historical
person like whatsoever. It was only ever a mythological figure
that they venerated, and because that's how all the other
mystery cults were. They venerated a mythological character that they
then worshiped, and that character had a passion, they provided

(20:52):
eternal salvation to the followers and all this sudden stuff.
So when you look at Christianity in that light, it's
kind of hard to say, well, no, Christianity was one
super special religion at that time, right, it had a
historical person, right.

Speaker 2 (21:06):
All the other ones that it's kind of following the
pattern of you're saying, we get to this conclusion, and
because it's falling into that same kind of kind of
you know, playbook, it's like, well, come on, I mean,
every other one of them basically fell into the you know,
that mythical category. Okay, I can see that, I can see.
I don't know. I've never I've never looked through you know,

(21:28):
the documents as much. I've never really, I've just heard
some just kind of periphery chatter about it over the years,
and you know, it doesn't You're right, I think it's
mostly I think it's mostly a conversation for the non believers,
because you know, if you try to go into a
conversation with a Young Earth creationist that you're telling them
that you know, Jesus wasn't even real and evolution is

(21:50):
you know, I mean, you don't go anywhere. That's that's
the that's the you know, you're you're right there the
whole fricking time. But it looks like we have our
phones back up, so I am gonna come to you, Robert.
Let's see if we can get you on this time.
Calling in from Wisconsin. It looks like, hey, Robert, you're
on atheist experience with GE and s R. What you got, Well,

(22:12):
it sounds still quiet to me. Are you still quiet?

Speaker 6 (22:16):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (22:16):
I can't hear Robert.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
Okay, yep. I'm putting you back in the queue and
then we can we can have some more methicist chatter.
Maybe we'll piss somebody off with Do you think atheists
get more pissed off about methicism or uh, religious?

Speaker 1 (22:31):
I mean, oddly enough, Yeah, I mean I think I
think so, because you know, religious people, it feels like
they get immediately, they kind of get they get angry
when you just say that Jesus wasn't the son of
God and he was in some cosmic wizard that you know,
could do anything that he wanted to, but atheist. It's

(22:52):
really surprising that atheists get mad about it because then
they go to apologetics in order to either defend Jesus
or to like insult you. And that's what I get
a lot, is I get a lot of insulting things
like oh, well, you know, just so that you know,
you're denying all of history at that point, And this
is like coming from atheists, It's like, no, no, not denying history.

(23:13):
I'm just saying that if we apply the same historical
method that we do for other historical figures, Jesus doesn't
exactly come out supported by anything. And a lot of
people they just don't understand how bad the evidence is,
and they'll say really dumb things like, oh, Jesus is
the most attested to historical figure in history, And it's like,

(23:34):
are you sure right, I don't think that you understand
what you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (23:38):
Yeah. I literally just had a similar conversation with a
believer in my area not too super long ago, because
they did that whole you know, there's fifteen documents that
attest to Julius Caesar. You know, there's two hundred documents
that attest to Socrates or twenty five thousand documents that
attest to Jesus. You know, it's like, well hong on,

(24:01):
like they're just they're just fucking copies. Like if you know,
if I just hand you a book of poetry and
tell you to write it down word for word forty
thousand types, that doesn't make any of those poems real.
You know, it's not it's not anything more than just
me just being good at you know, copying shit.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah uh, and a lot of people, I feel like
the main misunderstanding there is concerned with like source criticism.
They don't know how to do source criticism, and so
like during source criticism, you would basically want to identify
whether or not your source is independent of outside influence
and is also like some kind of first hand eyewitness

(24:43):
account or it doesn't necessarily have to be that, like
it can be a second hand count, but then it
depends on like who they're referencing for that information if
they weren't first hand eyewitnesses. So like for the twenty
five thousand copies or whatever, like you were saying, that's
just people co things down. So are any of them
independent of Christian like any kind of Christian influence? Like

(25:06):
the gospel influence or Paul's influence or anything like that.
And what we find is that there are no references
whatsoever to Jesus outside of Paul that are not like
affected by Paul. They're not influenced by Paul. Paul seems
to be the start of it, at least our documented

(25:27):
start of it. And not to say that Christianity didn't
exist before him, obviously it did. But as far as
the evidence that we have goes, it starts with Paul,
and everything else after that's been affected by Paul in
one way or another.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Okay, and help me out. I don't know if you
have these dates, you know, memorized off top of your
head or anything, but like Paul's letters about like fifty
sixty CE.

Speaker 1 (25:51):
Is, yeah, between fifty five and about sixty five, I think,
or maybe it's between fifty and sixty five, Okay.

Speaker 2 (25:58):
And then and then Mark is is like ten fifteen
years after that, right, okay, okay, Mark?

Speaker 3 (26:05):
Yeah, Well so Mark would be in seventy.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
In seventy okay, yeah, okay, So so potentially potentially between
like five and fifteen years about after that, depending on
where exactly we put we put And then okay, and
then you go all the way and then then Matthew,
of course is is again like maybe ten twenty ish
years after that.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah, Matthew was in eighty, right around eighty or so,
and then Luke was at least after ninety three.

Speaker 2 (26:34):
And that's because we're getting we're getting to the century.
That's what I thought. I thought Luke was really fucking
close to that.

Speaker 3 (26:40):
Yeah, and then John was written in the second century.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Definitely in the second century, just just guaranteed, definitely, And
that actually is the is the p. Fifty three fragment, right,
it's some tiny little fucking corner of John and John
is like the latest gospel anyway.

Speaker 3 (26:56):
Okay, Yeah, I'm like, no, no, You're fine.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
And that's from later I believe, either in the late
second or early third century, is when that particular piece
of scrap comes from.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (27:08):
But a lot of people think that John's gospel is
like some kind of independent gospel, and that's not accurate because, Uh,
there's obvious indications in John's gospel that seemed to indicate
that he had access to all three of the previous gospels,
and he specifically crafted his gospel to be like a

(27:33):
counter argument to the previous ones.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Right to tell a different story. I mean, it's where
it's where Jesus becomes the alpha omega. He's like at
the beginning of the universe and all that bullshit. He's
that's that's where we get the like you know before
before you know, the universe or whatever I am, or
some bullshit like that. Jesus is the word and and
and nonsense. But speaking of words, I think we've got

(27:57):
to fix And I am just going to pull you
up right away, Robert. Let's see if you're there. Hey, Robert,
are you there with us?

Speaker 4 (28:07):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (28:07):
I am.

Speaker 4 (28:07):
Thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 2 (28:08):
Hey, thanks so much, man. We are glad to have
you on you or talking with godless Engineer and secularity.
What what you got for us today?

Speaker 4 (28:17):
Yeah, So, I just wanted to talk about how I
don't think that intellectualism, intellectual inquiry really makes sense as
a path to God, whether proving or disproving. We think
about kind of how individuals rationalize themselves into the beliefs
or out of belief, you know, the laws of rationality,
the laws of logic, sound of sistemology. We have not

(28:41):
had most people in existence historically and even today don't
really have access to these sources of things. These are
not things that are getting really taught in normal education,
even in wealthy countries. So determining what's true, what we
ought to know, and how we ought to know what
is true, it's not something that is available to the
vast majorities.

Speaker 2 (29:01):
Can I can jump in for a second, Robert, because
I think there's already a bunch of really good stuff here.
We can kind of kind of poke at a little bit.
So it sounds like to me, you're saying, hey, look,
intellectual inquiry really is not going to help you answer
this question about whether or not God's real. And I
guess one thing that comes up to me immediately is
is there anything else in life that you would say

(29:22):
let's not have intellectual inquiry about to get to the answer.
Is there any other question or category in life that
you say this also applies to, or is this the
only one?

Speaker 4 (29:31):
I mean, tell you, like what your favorite song is
or what your favorite piece of art.

Speaker 2 (29:36):
Is, or I don't know, I think it probably could.
Like I could think of an example off the top
of my head, Like if I, let's just say John
and I still had iPods, right, Well, your iPod kept
a record of how many times you've played a song
and how long you played it. It lets you know
whether you listen to the song halfway through five hundred
times or whether you listen to it in full ten

(29:58):
thousand times. I think if we looked at those numbers,
we could probably say, hey, look, based on this, it
seems to be the case that you like this song
more than the others.

Speaker 4 (30:09):
Sure, but that doesn't tell you why you like it's total.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
We didn't ask that. Hold up, that's a totally different question.
We can get to that in a second. Right, We
can get to why God is what God is? Right,
But if we're asking about the question does God exist,
yes or no, why would an intellectual inquiry lead us
to that question? Seems to everywhere else not.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
An accessible way. No, because it's not really like. Intellectual
inquiry is not what's like your belief system. What you
believe is not a matter of choice, and it's not
a matter of intellectual inquiry. Now, intellectual inquiry can obviously
affect what you believe over time, but very few people
and some knowledge might knowedge nobody says this makes sense.
I'm going to believe it. This makes sense I'm not

(30:50):
going to believe it. It's usually a very gradual process.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
I definitely, I definitely know a few people like that.
But that really isn't the point, right Robert. We're not
asking about whether or not you believe it. We're asking
about whether or not God is real. That's what That's
what matters. And that's where I'm confused as to how
in the world else will we get to that question.
How would we get to an answer there without intellectual inquiry.
I genuinely can't think of anything in life. And that's

(31:16):
not to say there isn't something. I'm just saying I
can't think of a single opportunity in life where a
question like this would be posed where intellectual inquiry doesn't
get us to the answer. Whether or not, again, myself
or John believes in it, that's a different story. And
we might be hypocrites, you know, we might we might
be out outright dishonest actors. Right, We could see the

(31:38):
information and still say fuck that. But what we're talking
about is just does this water bottle exist? Why does
an intellectual inquiry get us there?

Speaker 4 (31:47):
So I think one of one or few things that's happening.
Either I didn't make myself clear, or you're pressing understanding
my point, so let me try me clear. Yeah, so,
I don't think intellectualism is a path to God. It's
not a past to believe, and therefore it's kind of
useless to utilize it as much so when you ask
to see us why they believe in something, there is
their access to God is not not a rational And

(32:11):
this is not to sound degrading or anything, but it's
very typically not a rational process to get to the
supernatural or figure.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
Well, so, Robert, is your point that God, if God
were to exist, he should be like intellectual inquiry should
be able to get us to God if he actually
did exist, Or are you saying that you know that
that belief in God is shown through some other kind
of mechanism.

Speaker 4 (32:39):
Kind of I'm kind of saying both. So I don't
think that I think, you know, I hate to operate
under presumptions, but I think it demonstrates the point at
this at this time, but under the attempting that God
does exist, I don't think God. It wouldn't make sense
that God forgot to utilize like intellectual inquiry as the
means to approach him, because, as I said, not something

(33:00):
most people want.

Speaker 1 (33:01):
Well, yeah, so, Robert, but what do you mean. I'm
wondering if if when we talk about intellectual inquiry, are
we talking about the same thing, Because I'm wondering. I'm
wondering if you can tell me what you mean by
intellectual inquiry, because what I mean when I say intellectual inquiry,
I mean looking at the evidence and then coming to
a conclusion. And you know, with that conclusion, that's sort

(33:24):
of a statement of what's convinced me is true.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
Right, And so that's what I.

Speaker 7 (33:29):
Would mean when I say, like an intellectual inquiry. What
do you mean by it?

Speaker 4 (33:34):
Yeah, I mean I think we're largely talking about the
same thing. But I do think you snuck a premise
in there that again that you seem to imply that
belief is on some level of choice, and I just
reject that proposition.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
No, no, no, no, I don't think I didn't speak anything. No, no,
I didn't sneak that in there. I would say that
my conclusion would be a statement of what I've been
convinced of, not that I chose to like believe that,
just that I've investigated the evidence and this, this is
what I've concluded this is what I've become convinced of.

Speaker 3 (34:03):
So I agree with you that it's.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
Intellectualism isn't a way to choose your beliefs, Because I
agree with you, I don't think that we choose our beliefs,
but the conclusion that we come to after the intellectual
investigation into some kind of claim, that would be what
we're convinced of. And through that path, I think intellectual
inquiry does play a factor into like belief in God.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
Yeah, I guess I would just disagree. I think belief
in God is primarily an emotional response, and that is
something that humans can share without having any education whatsoever.
That's a universal human experience.

Speaker 3 (34:39):
Well, so I don't know.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
I hate to play Devil's advocate on this, Robert, because
I generally, I really I know, I personally really hate
it whenever theists come to me and try to state
something about why I believe what I believe or something
like that, and I just have to push back against
this idea that you know, there are theists out there

(35:03):
that are purely emotional in their belief in God?

Speaker 3 (35:05):
Are there?

Speaker 5 (35:06):
Some?

Speaker 7 (35:06):
Sure?

Speaker 1 (35:07):
But there are also at least in my dealings with
multiple different theists and all the call in shows that
I'm on is that they feel like they have an
intellectual reason. They feel like they've investigated the evidence and
they've come away being convinced of God, not because of
an emotional, faith based reason, but because of this investigation

(35:27):
into the evidence. Now, do I think that they're wrong, Sure,
I think that they're misinterpreting information. I think that they're
coming to wrong conclusions about things. But I think that
that's the problem with their critical thinking skills, and not
necessarily just because they emotionally want to believe in God.
But again, I want to stress that this isn't like
me saying that there are no people that are playing
into that emotional game of believing God. There definitely are.

(35:50):
But to say that none of them use an intellectual
inquiry in order to get to their belief I think
is a bit like a broad generalization.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, there's a difference between improper conclusions, right, There's a
difference between people using logic or rational you know, thought
processes incorrectly versus just not using them at all, you know,
And that I think that's a fair distinction, like ge
was trying to point out there, and.

Speaker 4 (36:20):
That's that's not what I'm saying, so, I do know
plenty of theists who are incredibly intelligent. They use very
clever and interesting arguments just to find the belief. But
I don't believe that that is what got them to
that belief.

Speaker 2 (36:31):
So well, but that's that's just unfair a little bit there, Robert, like,
that's that's unfair, honestly, Like I'm not again, just like
with just like Ge was just saying, dude, I know
for a fact that there are people out there that
did not use any type of logical argumentation. Right, they
proudly will display that, right. But when somebody comes up

(36:51):
to me, when a Young Earth creationist comes up to
me and says, look, dude, I looked at the evidence
for carbon dating, I looked at the evidence for evolution
by natural selection, and it is not true. That is
the belief that I came to. Again, just like just
like Ge was saying, I think they're incorrect. I mean,
flat fucking out. I think there is more information out

(37:14):
there to convince us that these are absolutely one hundred
percent real things. They're just using they're just using it improperly,
you know. But I take them at their word. I
trust them when they tell me, Hey, I looked into this.
You know, if I can show that they're being dishonest
later on, sure, no problem. We can get to that.
We can have that conversation. But if somebody comes up

(37:36):
to you and tells you, Robert, man, I looked at
the fucking evidence. I mean, definitely, man, take them at
their word. Don't don't be you know, don't be unfair
to them. You want them to be charitable to you too.

Speaker 4 (37:46):
It's not so, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not
saying that they're being dishonest. I'm not saying that they're
really just trying to play snaky game. That's not what
I'm saying at all. Saying what generally happens is primarily
emotional creatures use certain we use logic and rationality to
kind of justify our position. So I think I think,

(38:07):
you know, primarily, like people will have a belief in God,
and then they'll look into like the column cosmological argument,
they'll look into Aquinas's arguments, They'll look into you know, however,
many multitudes of apologetics arguments there are to GM that
solidifies it for them, right, and they could be wrong.
I think there are plenty of clever utic arguments. I

(38:28):
think most of them are unconvincing personally, but I don't
I don't believe that they use this is not that
is not a means to God, and it wouldn't make
sense that it would be on the now.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
That's that's the part. That's the part I want to
I want to dig in on because again, honestly, I
think all three of us here, including our backup Scott Dickie,
I think all of us would agree that, like, hey,
there's a lot of people out there that come come
to their beliefs for like shit reasons, like absolutely, and
there's a lot of people, including ourselves. Let's not take

(38:59):
ourselves out of this, right, we also will have a
belief formed in our head for irrational reasons and then
we'll find supporting information to justify it. We're all on board.
I think with that thought, right, that some of that
exists out there. It's when you take that hard stance
of being like, yeah, it's just never going to work, right,

(39:21):
like it just doesn't lead to God. That's the thing
that I don't understand, and I want to dig in on.
What what do you mean by that? And why do
you think that that wouldn't be the way that we
get to this understanding of whether or not God is real,
what the characteristics of God are, whether or not that
was recorded accurately in the Bible. Like, help me understand

(39:42):
that part of it, Robert.

Speaker 4 (39:44):
So, I've spoken to plentietheists, for example, who I'll go
through many different like let's say atheistic arguments. Let's say
like the problem of divine hiddenness, and I'll explain the
entire thing, and I see it, Well, say, that makes
absolutely perfect sent However, that is not what's going to
talk to them out of their faith. They're not going

(40:05):
to run into a rational argument and destroy their their actual.

Speaker 2 (40:10):
Do you think? So, why do you why do you
say that just so blanket like that? Why not why
not take the stance you were taking just a second ago,
that's just slightly softer and really loses no ground for you,
Just say, generally, or in my experience or a large
proportion of why why not take that stance instead of
just saying no, it's never gonna work.

Speaker 4 (40:32):
Yeah. So, I mean I shouldn't speak in absolutely and
I don't know the enormity of human experience, of course,
but I think what happens.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Is a cut out for me, Robert, I did cut
out for you, Ge, Yeah, it cut out for me too,
A damn it. Okay, well, hang on, Robert, if you
can hear us, I'm gonna put you back in the queue.
We're not gonna We're not gonna drop you. We're just
gonna put you in the queue, and if you're still there,
we are gonna try and bring you back up if
if we can. If not, that is okay. Let's just

(41:01):
try to jump right into it because Mary's been waiting
for a minute. We got Mary, she her from North Carolina.
Oh give me just a minute here. We are just
having it restart. Yeah, so okay, what what what do
you think on that? Ge? You do you think that? Yeah?
You you were about to have something. It sounded like
you're about to go into something. Did you have some
thoughts on on this?

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Well?

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Yeah I did. Which it seems like it's back up.
Do you want to see if we can get here?

Speaker 2 (41:26):
I think Robert has dropped unfortunately, so let's.

Speaker 3 (41:31):
Wait hold on.

Speaker 1 (41:33):
Sorry, I accidentally pulled somebody up accidentally.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
That's okay, that's all right, We'll we'll give it a
second here. Yeah, do you want to finish your thoughts
and then we'll go into one of these others.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
Yeah, yeah, I definitely will. Uh So, all I was
going to point out was was kind of an analogy,
and I use this analogy, uh, you know, in a
couple of different ways. But it's like it felt kind
of like Robert was saying, oh, well, this one argument
not going to cause them to you know, leave their faith.
It's like, yeah, it's not meant to, Like an honest

(42:06):
intellectual inquiry is not just gonna hear one argument and
then automatically, you know, believe such a radically different, you know, idea.

Speaker 3 (42:13):
Right.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
But I was going to ask Robert, like, if you
take one swing at a tree with an axe, and
it's like I'm talking about like a thick oak tree,
you know, you take a swing at a at a
thick oak tree with an axe, is it going to
cut down immediately? I mean, of course, Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter,
he learns how to you know, cut him down.

Speaker 3 (42:34):
With one swing.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
That's historically accurate, right exactly.

Speaker 1 (42:39):
And so my point was just going to be that, like, look, true,
you're not going to cut down their tree of faith
with one axe swing but through multiple different you know,
cuts and strategic ways in which you bring down that
tree of faith. I think that that, you know, every
single swing is important. So every single time you can

(43:01):
actually cut down a little bit more of that tree,
I think is going to be like the way that you.

Speaker 7 (43:09):
Convince somebody away from some some position.

Speaker 2 (43:12):
Like yeah, yeah, I totally totally agree with that. And
I think again, you know, part of the thing that
I was thinking was, you know, is there any other
place in life that this is the case, And I
don't think it is. I think every other conclusion, you know,
intellectual inquiry is the thing that gets us there. Right,
whether we recognize it or not doesn't matter. It's us

(43:34):
investigating these things one way or the other. You know,
we all forgot what it was like when you were
just brand new and you grabbed everything and put it
into your face because you're a little scientist crawling around
on the rug trying to find out if this shits
food or not. You know, like, this is what we
do as people constantly. Every step that you take, you

(43:56):
are testing the ground underneath you and getting that sensory
feedback from the world around you. And so you might
not be consciously going through this process of going, ah, yes,
if my foot lands on this platform, then I can
step up. That's fine. But that's what's happening everywhere. And
I don't see why there would be anything in life

(44:17):
that doesn't get us to that. You know, for some
people they then tell me that, oh, that just takes
the magic out of love, and I'm like, no, it's
so much better, Like love and beauty and art are
so much better because that's what it's it's come from,
as opposed to just some like snap of the fingers.
And now it's like, oh, I've got love. Like if
Cupid could just shoot a fucking arrow into somebody right,

(44:40):
then all the planning and effort, you know, we've all
put into relationships over the years, it's like fucking garbage.
Now it's like, why the hell are we doing all
of that? Cupid with your little fucking wings and you know,
come on, man, shoot an arrow. But we have some
other calls. We did lose Robert unfortunately, but Robert, hey,
if you're out real quick, just call back in, man.

(45:01):
We have some other open lines, so call back in
and we will put you back on. Because I think
there was some other really cool stuff to get through.
We have some other really cool calls. But I'm gonna
tell you real quick. You can become a channel member
for as little as ninety nine cents a month or
there is no maximum. As far as I understand, I
think you can just give a shit ton of money.

(45:22):
If you want to give one thousand dollars a month,
it is possible for you to do that. And if
you are not finding a way to send those oodles
and oodles of cash, please call me directly and I
will make sure it gets to exactly the right place.
Put it to po box. Sorry, no, it's very easy.

(45:42):
Click the join button below the video. This will give
you access to all the super cool special chat emojis
and early access to all of the really cool YouTube
shorts and clips. So definitely definitely check that Outlet's let's
grab Mary. She has been hanging for a minute. Let's
bring her on. Hey Mary, you are chatting with slit

(46:04):
and Godless Engineer. What is up?

Speaker 5 (46:07):
Oh? I just I've called in the past two weeks
and I was nice. I've been deconstructing since two thousand
and eight, and I've gone back and forth on it
because I was raised in a fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian hall
and had a lot of a doctrination. I was feeling
guilty about, like dishonoring my parents' faith and like I
just felt guilty for abandoning God. And I forget who

(46:30):
the host were, but they suggest that I joined a
secular community, and I did that. I've had three meetings
with them now and I'm going to painting classes and
I'm you know, I'm sure of what I believe and
why I believe it, and I've come out to a
few people and it's just been really freeing. I've been
in a really good place.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
Good.

Speaker 3 (46:50):
That's great.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
That's so awesome. I feel that's so freaking awesome of
all that baggage. Yeah, yeah, And I love that. I
love that you said. I love that you said painting.
I'm sure you guys do a bunch of other really
cool stuff too, Mary, but I love that you said that.
And here's why, Because I think secular community, non religious community,
atheist community is the fucking hot thing right now. I

(47:14):
think that is what everybody is wanting. We are trying
to figure out how the hell do we do this
and do it well? And I think a lot of
people aren't realizing that stuff like painting classes is what's
going to do it. You know, we need comedy nights,
we need we need to we need to go bowling,
we need to we need to get out in the woods.

(47:35):
You know. I love I love that we sit around,
you know, and I love that we talk about how
the Bible's dumb. I love it. It's it's super fun.
I really enjoy doing it. But I'm telling you that
type of stuff, Mary, that's going to be the stuff
that keeps people coming back. That's going to be the
stuff that keeps people, you know, telling their friends donating money.

(47:55):
That is what is going to change some shit, you know.
So I am super super glad you are getting such
positive feedback here.

Speaker 5 (48:02):
We have book clubs and you know, hiking, painting, discussion groups,
food drive you know, it's this whole community and we
don't just sit around and talk about secular stuff all
the time. We just do things together.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
And it's right, that's important. That's there's something really really
valuable about that. And there's a lot of us, unfortunately
in this non religious space that have a bit of
an aversion to those types of gatherings and stuff. You know,
when we when we hear somebody's doing a pot look
at their house, you know, or when we all start
singing the same song together around the bonfire, you know.

(48:36):
And so a couple of people get a little weirded
out for a second. They're like, whoa wait a second,
that's real churchy, and it's like, no, fuck that they
do not have an exclusive claim on being a human.
They don't have that man. Community is a human thing,
and this is something for all of us. And I
think I think the secular people do it a little
bit better. That's that's my bias.

Speaker 5 (48:58):
So yeah, because that's one thing I missed, was the community.
But it doesn't come with the guilt and the hell
and the indoctrination and the shame and right all of that, right.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's really nice. It's really nice
to be a part of a group that doesn't constantly
tell you you're a piece of shit. Right, that's really cool.

Speaker 5 (49:18):
It is, it is so and this show. You know,
what did it for me, What finally clinched when I
started deconstructing it was I realized that, you know, the
creation story, especially Adam and Eve, was an allegory or
a myth, and if that's not true, then there's no
reason for Jesus to die. And you know, I didn't
have to get the on genesis to go all. This

(49:39):
is all just a bunch of crop mm hmm.

Speaker 2 (49:41):
Yeah, And I and I think, I think Mary that
that's a phenomenal that's a phenomenal story too, especially with
our last caller. You know, the idea that yeah, you
know what, maybe you never did look into a lot
of this shit when you started believing, but when you
did finally start going down there that path of skepticism,
when you really started inquiring and asking yourself to be

(50:06):
intellectually honest about the information in front of you and
the conclusions you reach, you changed your fucking mind and
you changed your whole life, you know. So like, hell yeah,
rational conversation, intellectual inquiry, evidence, reason logic, Hell yeah, these
things changed people's minds. I mean, don't get me wrong.

(50:27):
Emotional shit can can also change people's minds. But like, yeah,
it says here, we have a note that it says
it took you like seventeen years to deconstruct. That's fucking incredible.
That is amazing, you know, and that was through intellectual inquiry.

Speaker 5 (50:42):
It was it was And I have some people in
my life that are secular, and they introduced me to
different authors, and you know, one of them was able
to convince me that there wasn't a hell, There wasn't
someone in my head, you know, reading all my thoughts.
It's like I could have my own space that was mine.
I could think what I wanted. There was no thought crime.
And then that led me down the road of you know,

(51:04):
intellectual inquiry and thinking. You know, it's it's very safe
to know that I don't have anybody in my head
judging my thoughts.

Speaker 2 (51:10):
Yeah that is nice. Yeah, that is a lot nicer,
you know. And and tell me this, did you uh
did you suddenly start robbing all of your friends and family?
Did you uh start very casually kick kicking puppies and kittens?
Did you uh? Did you just suddenly turn into uh
an outright nightmare piece of shit? Uh to everybody in

(51:32):
your life? Or about to.

Speaker 5 (51:34):
Say, my relationship's got a whole lot better. I started
loving people for who they were, you know, being able
to respect their beliefs and being able to speak mine.
You know, I made some new friends. We're very close.
We talk every day. You know, I'm less stressed at work.
You know, I don't feel responsible for other people's souls

(51:56):
or the decisions that they're making. I can just let
them be themselves and as they are. My relationships have
gotten closer, you know, especially with my daughter and my grandchildren.
I don't worry about their souls. I just love them
for who they are and awesome to think critically. You know,
my daughter's not a believer either, so they're raising I'm
so glad because she started deconstructing when I. She probably

(52:18):
deconstructed before I did. And you know, raising the kids
in a secular environment with critical thinking skills, I get
to read Harry Potter, which I love.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
That's awesome. That's awesome. Yeah, that's a big and that's
a big thing too. You know, the numbers that we
see growing in the various religious communities that we see them,
it is it is really not due to people converting
later in life. It is really not due to people
becoming convinced as as they investigate the claims. It is

(52:51):
the fact that they are having babies.

Speaker 4 (52:53):
Right.

Speaker 2 (52:54):
You have seven, you know, or seventeen kids, and you
raise raise them all to be good Christian soldiers. I mean, yeah,
you're going to see some numbers go up. But here's
the coolest number is that we are deconverting people every
single fucking year, and those numbers are rising. The amount
of people that are stepping away from faith entirely is

(53:14):
growing more and more and more, and I just think
that's an awesome trend. So further that we can get
away from these ideas, the better our society will be.
And genuinely, guys, I just think that evidence is so
fucking demonstrable you can't argue it. You know, it is
just out there. We have decades worth of data from
all around the world, and yet there are some in

(53:37):
our country that really really think the best time in
our history was like two thousand years ago with all
the laws and none of the medicine. And it's like, wow, guys,
fuck it, wow, Ge. You got any thoughts on this, man?

Speaker 1 (53:53):
No, I mean I think that it makes total sense
that your relationships would would get better. They're accepting people
for who they are and everything like that, because one
of those things that I feel like is ingrained and like,
you know, Christian teaching and how Christianity has been understood
for a majority of its history is this very anti
pluralistic sort of idea, this idea that only the Christian

(54:17):
way or only the Christian God and what the Christian
God wants being the paramount thing is the only way
to live life and the only way to accept people
in your life, and all this other stuff. I think
that that's one of like people often will try to,
I guess, sanitize the idea a little bit, but I
actually think that it's probably one of the more toxic

(54:38):
traits of Christianity. So I'm not surprised that it major
relationships better. And I'm so glad that you were able to,
you know, to get yourself out of out of that
kind of belief system intellectually.

Speaker 5 (54:50):
Yeah, you know, I was born into it. You know
when they say train up a child of the way
you should go, and doctrination is really powerful. It's really powerful.
And I would say to parents, Stone and doctor, ain't
your children, because they're going to resent you for it later.
I dealt with that for a while and I was
able to, you know, we were able to overcome that
before they passed.

Speaker 2 (55:08):
But yeah, and I will I'll say this, Mary, you know,
one of the things out there I believe that that
is really lacking in the in the non religious space,
is some really good information about child raising, raising a child,
you know, there is not a lot of content from

(55:28):
from what I've seen about how to be a secular parent,
how to be a non religious you know mother or father.
Those I think those things are super super duper valuable.
And so yeah, you know, obviously I'm not giving you advice.
I'm not directing you to do anything. Mary. I would
never I would never tell you to go out of

(55:50):
your way to do anything, because that's not what we
do on this show. But yeah, maybe you and your
newfound friends in your new secular community could could talk
about do and some atheistd parent the stuff. I don't know,
it does look like we we lost Mary, unfortunately, But
I do hope you heard that at the very least.

(56:11):
What do you think about that? Man? Do you do?
Do you feel like I'm reading that right? Like there's
not a shit done of content out there for non
religious parents, Like it's like how do you raise your
kid as an atheist?

Speaker 4 (56:23):
You know?

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Yeah, And I think that that there's there's not too
much out there for like how to navigate a lot
of like critical conversations that you can have with your child,
you know, how to deal with depression and how to
deal with all of those those kinds of things. I mean,
I think that there are several organizations out there that

(56:44):
have resources available that you know, can help you navigate
those kinds of conversations, but I don't think that a
lot of people know about those resources. And I think
that a lot of parents kind of find themselves if
they come from a very religious background, they can find
them kind of in the deep end of it, you know,
not really knowing how to address things or how what

(57:05):
they should say, what they shouldn't say.

Speaker 3 (57:07):
And everything.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
And I think that it's it's, you know, that's just
kind of part of being a parent, not exactly knowing
what to do, what to say, but you know, trying
to find good resources to educate yourself on it. And
it's it's always going to be a constantly evolving thing.
I know as a parent myself, I've got a fifteen
year old. Every time he you know, every time he

(57:29):
gains a year, I have to like try to think, Okay, well,
what do I need to do different now that he's
like fifteen, or you know, as soon as he starts driving,
It's like, Okay.

Speaker 7 (57:39):
What do I need to do anything different now kind
of thing.

Speaker 1 (57:41):
I'm always kind of trying to check myself and like,
you know, try to think about what's the what's the
best way to address this with you know, with him.

Speaker 2 (57:49):
So yeah, yeah, I do not have children. I know
that there was at least a half dozen people watching
that just side a real heavy sigh of relief. Yeah,
there are no many srs running out there, But yeah,
I think that is something that is, you know, it's
challenging enough on its own, you know, just just raising

(58:11):
a kid at all. Right, to attempt to try to
navigate through that space, especially when you've had a massive
shift in your ideology, or you've lost all of you know,
your friends and family due to this, or you know,
anything like that is definitely definitely a very very difficult space.

(58:33):
But we, uh, we still have open lines. We still
got time. If if you think me and ge are
just fucking idiots, we will let you call in and
say that, because, you know, honestly, like I feel like
we can handle it, you know, I just feel like,
you know, we're we're strong enough. You know, we're big,
big alpha males. Is that, right, Is that cool?

Speaker 7 (58:55):
Still?

Speaker 2 (58:56):
Is that still okay to say? I don't know, I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (58:59):
I would I would feel incredibly like like cringey.

Speaker 3 (59:03):
Like I said, I'm an.

Speaker 2 (59:04):
Alpha right right right. It's like everybody that tells you
they're super cool or like really great and bad, it's like, yeah,
probably not.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
You know the people that often will be like, I'm
an alpha male. You're like if you're if if you
actually are quote unquote an alpha male, you don't have
to tell.

Speaker 2 (59:22):
They tell people right right, yeah right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think it would be kind of fun though, if
we did, if we had like a whole show where
the hosts were just like macho man Randy Savage the
whole time, you know, was just like you know, let
me tell you something, brother, every time, like you know,
it's like Jesus is real, the Trinity is real. It

(59:43):
makes logical sense. Well let me tell you what.

Speaker 1 (59:46):
Oh yeah, speaking of that, we did have one caller
that was calling in to like talk about the Trinity,
I guess as a defend defending it, and I was
really sad to see them drop. But it's because I
I really want somebody to explain the Trinity to me,
I do not understand the trinity whatsoever, and I've not

(01:00:07):
been able to make heads or tails of it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:09):
I don't think there is I don't think there is
really a good understanding of it in all honesty. I
just don't think there is a way for you to
genuinely accept that they are both somehow the same and separate, right,
Like it just it just literally is paradoxical. Like I've

(01:00:29):
heard all kinds of ways to fucking try and make
it make sense. You know. The one that gets the closest,
I guess is the water analogy, where they're like it's steam,
it's liquid, and it's like right, but it's all still
H two O molecules, so it's literally the exact literally
the exact same molecule freezes, you know. It's just like whatever, man,

(01:00:53):
I have not figured out a really good answer for
that one. We do have a super chat to read,
but I'm going to keep people on the edge of
their seats for just a second because I actually have
this really cool comment that was posted on one of
the videos here on the Atheist Experience Network, and it's

(01:01:15):
about you, and I want to get I want to
get some thoughts. I think this is This is an
interesting question. I know that it's been answered at least
once or twice, Okay, but I still think it is
always worth worth throwing out there. So it starts off. Wow,
an atheist talking about religion? Ugh, shocker. Sure do spend

(01:01:39):
a lot of time on something you don't believe in?
I guess when you have nothing to offer, that's all
you can do. I mean, do you think that's fair?
Do you think that's fair?

Speaker 5 (01:01:50):
John?

Speaker 2 (01:01:51):
Do you think you have nothing to offer and that
you just go out of your way to talk about
garbage that you don't believe in for no reason? And
help me understand this? Why do you put yourself through this?

Speaker 1 (01:02:04):
Yeah? I mean I do get this sentiment a lot online,
and for me at least, I went through my life
and I never questioned what I was told to believe,
and I never really knew why I believe certain things.

Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
And so.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
When I started looking into what I believed and why
I believed it, I really wanted to be a good
model for other people to critically think about their positions
and you know, believe in things because they truly have
investigated it and they.

Speaker 7 (01:02:36):
Truly believe it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
And so I feel like the number of years I've
been doing this, which I've been doing atheist activism online
since twenty twelve or so, and you know, I've been
doing this a long time, and I feel like I
do have a lot of good insights on things, like
there are a lot of things that religious people take

(01:02:59):
for granted as far as their religion goes, and this
is outside of the Abrahamic pace, just all religious people
as far as critical thinking goes, like I've I've had
to learn, you know, I've had to merge. I won't
say learn, because I already knew how to do critical thinking,
but I had to merge, you know, that religious sort
of side of my brain with my more analytical side.
And once that happened, it's like the analytical side just

(01:03:21):
sort of took over and just devoured my religious belief
because it, you know, once you actually apply critical thinking
to these religions, it just doesn't make sense knowing the
things that we currently know.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
And so yeah, yeah, no, and I get that, and
I think, you know, my number one answer to this
type of sentiment from believers is, of course, you know,
if everybody would just shut the hell up about it,
like I wouldn't it wouldn't matter to me. So so,
just in case anybody is unaware of this, there is

(01:03:54):
actually a group of people out there that are fully
convinced that the second movie in the Lord of the
Rings trilogy is the best, okay, and they can believe that, right.
The difference between them and the Christian nationalists, right is
those people as wrong as they are in their conclusions
about these three movies, Like, they're not out there fucking

(01:04:16):
over people and trying to pass laws and force people
to only watch you know, the Two Towers. Right again,
they are wrong, And if you're in that camp, thank
you for keeping that incorrect opinion to yourself. But again,
if they were out there parading in the streets and
you know, you know, beating up trans people, I would

(01:04:36):
also have a problem, you know, again, not just for
the fact that they clearly seemingly just kind of misunderstood
the whole storyline of Lord of the Rings. If they're
thinking that the second way, it doesn't matter, It doesn't matter.
I'm hoping somebody gets pissed off and we can end
this show with somebody calling in bitch it about Lord
of the Rings. But oh, anyway, real quick, I wanted

(01:04:57):
to I wanted to throw this this comment up here too,
because this one was about me. Apparently I made the
claim at one point that faith is really just wishful thinking,
and somebody decided, in fact I was wrong because their
defense is that faith is believing when common sense tells

(01:05:19):
you not to. So I kind of feel like that's worse.
In all honesty, I just kind of feel like what
I said was less bad. What you said was was worse.
And I'm not gonna say that you're incorrect there. I
will say that, Yeah, I don't use the word faith
in a context that is equivalent to trust. I don't

(01:05:41):
use I don't use that word in that capacity. That
doesn't make any sense to me. And the reason is,
if you actually parse out the definitions of these types
of these types of similar words, there's only one space
that faith can occupy because we don't have a single
other word to talk about. What that sentiment is is,
what do you do when somebody has every fucking reason

(01:06:04):
to not accept something and they still accept it? What
do you call that? I think the answer is faith.
That's the word, you know, That's what you say. But again,
if if if we've upset you, if if you're if
you're mad at us, we still have open lines. We've
still got time, folks. You can make us look like
fucking idiots live on stream for thousands and thousands of

(01:06:26):
people forever. Historians can talk about how much you've fucking
owned us, or you know, maybe you're just gowards. I
don't know. I would never put that on. I would
never put that on the people. Anyway, we've got they're
never gonna let me back on this show man. It's
gonna be like three more months, like think him back on.
Oh way, we have we have super chats. Hey, go

(01:06:47):
let me let me read the super chats. I'll actually
do my job correctly. We have from Salad von Baco.
That's a great, big bet ten dollars saying something really stupid.
Ha made you say it? You did? I mean that
was really good. Actually you called my bluff entirely, you know,
And I'm just I'm happy that that I was here
to actually deliver and you held me accountable. Salad, so

(01:07:10):
I appreciate that. I really should have a salad. I
feel like I haven't had a salad in a while.
It's not like about you either way. The username that
just gave ten dollars. I'm just saying like I kind
of would enjoy like a you know, like a Caesar
salad or something like Crispy Chicken. And I'm way hungrier
than I thought I was. I really should have eaten
before I got on here. Anyway, we've got another one,

(01:07:31):
another super chat for six sixty six from Mark Mark Compols,
Mark Mark, Mark Coompliz, Mark complas well. There's no message,
so thank you Mark or mister Komplus. I'm not sure
which which you go by or Missus. Actually I don't know.
I don't know at all, but thank you either way,
because by donating six dollars and sixty six cents to

(01:07:53):
this show or any of the shows at the Atheist
Experience Network, you have, in fact opened up a wormhole
to the nether world, and demons will fly into somebody's butt,
not necessarily Yours terms and conditions apply before we grab
So I saw your face there for a second and
you were like, what terms and conditions with you?

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
We gotta we got, Yeah, I was, I was just
gonna say, like, every time you donate six sixty six
to the show, a demon gets.

Speaker 7 (01:08:24):
A body like a demon inhabits a body.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
Right right, That's exactly what happens. That's exactly what happens. Yes, Yes,
if you are a good skeptic and you want to
test that out, why not donate six sixty six right now.
Just see what happened. You know, go stand around waiting
for like your least favorite coworker or a family member
and just see if they get inhabited and then calls.
You know, that'd be great. But we have to send

(01:08:48):
a massive thank you to the people who deal with
our shit way too much and sigh profusely and face
palm regularly. The wonderful, incredible crew. Every every single week.
We've got video operators, audio operators, no takers, call screeners,
chat moderators, people that are there in person at the

(01:09:08):
library fixing it up, keeping it going, people that are
responding to your emails and planning incredible, awesome events for
the future. All of those people, they're not mad at us,
they're just disappointed, but they are amazing and we greatly
greatly appreciate them. We are gonna go out to North Carolina.

(01:09:28):
We're going to talk with Gigi is an atheist. She
her pronouns, Hey, Gigi, you are on the atheist experience
with godless engineer and secularity. What is happening?

Speaker 5 (01:09:38):
Hi?

Speaker 6 (01:09:39):
How are you guys doing good?

Speaker 3 (01:09:40):
How are you good?

Speaker 6 (01:09:42):
We're I'm here with my kiddies and oh my theist
husband who's driving me crazy. But otherwise, what I called
I called. I thought it was you guys, but it
was the line that I called, and I made a
fool of myself, and Matt doesn't we have a lot
of patience with fools, And I wanted to clarify. I

(01:10:04):
wanted to know. The way I worded it was, how
why do preachers not know? Why do they not tell
about the bad things in the Bible? Yeah, of course though,
I mean we all know that. So what I really
wanted to know is are they just surely they're not ignorant,
they read the Bible. They yeah, they know of those things.

(01:10:25):
But the only way I found out was from listening
to you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:10:30):
Sure, sure, And yeah, I will say, Gigi, you know,
this isn't a blanket statement. This definitely isn't every single
one of them. But I think a lot of us
would be surprised how many pastors, preachers, or just individuals
that are in a position of authority in a religious environment,

(01:10:52):
we would be surprised to find out how many of
them know very little. And I think that is a
bit more common than people realize. I can tell you,
for instance, like in Tennessee where I'm at. You know,
there are a lot of churches around me that I
know for a fact, for a fact that the pastor
that is there went to eight years of Divinity school

(01:11:16):
and three years after that doing whatever and wrote this
book and reads Hebrew and blah blah blah. But I
can find just as many that that have never done
any of that shit. They've never done any of that
shit whatsoever. They literally woke up one day and were like,
I'm gonna be a preacher and started preaching at a church,

(01:11:38):
and ten years later that's where they are. So I
would say, you're you're actually not that far off, Gigi, Like,
there are a lot of people out there in religious
environments of authority that they really don't know their theology.

Speaker 6 (01:11:54):
Yeah. I think if you know, if they would just
be straightforward and when they're reading, you know, doing their
mess and the pulpit and you know, they just kind
of they might read the lines, but they don't explain it,
like they wouldn't you know the other the good things
supposedly my husband's right to talk with him. He gets upset.

(01:12:15):
I don't know, I don't know, asked the preacher, asked
the preacher. So I did one day and his name
is Adam, and I askedaid Adam. I said, I know
you didn't go to seminary school, but and he jumped
in there really quick, and he wanted directify it. He
said he had taken a lot of seminary courses, which
is fine, I don't you know. And he's an intelligent man,

(01:12:39):
but he was driving, he said, and he couldn't look
up these things, right, you know. He said, I'll have
to get back with you. And that's meant been over
a month, and I have a you know, I think
deep down in his heart he knows there's no good
explanation for these things, but he just he doesn't want

(01:12:59):
to confront it. I may be completely all, you know, but.

Speaker 1 (01:13:04):
I totally get what you're saying there. And and I
think that a lot of preachers, you know, they they
don't they don't know the Bible, like a New Testament
scholar or even an Old Testament sort of scholar. Just
a biblical scholar in general would know the Old Testament
primarily because they're there to just preach this one particular

(01:13:28):
narrative driven message about Jesus and not like teach anything
about anything else in the Bible. And it's when you
throw them off their script that you can you can
tell that they're not really prepared to do anything else
but this very surface level sort of apologetics that you get,

(01:13:48):
and like I would if I were still like going
to church and everything like that. I regularly ask believers
about the very difficult passages, like numbers already one is
a particularly difficult passage, and I've found that either people
have a disgusting opinion about it, like divine command theory, Oh,

(01:14:09):
that was the best thing that could have happened at
that point in time and everything like that, oh shit,
we lost.

Speaker 7 (01:14:15):
Gigi all right.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
Like that was the best thing that could have happened,
or they just simply don't know which I would actually
prefer the I don't know how to rectify that kind
of situation where I don't know how to explain that
kind of thing. I'd prefer that as opposed to them
just saying, well, God can do whatever God wants. To
do he's God, because that's the scarier answer.

Speaker 2 (01:14:39):
Yeah, I totally totally agree. Yeah, and I agree with
you too. There's a lot of times that And I
didn't see this either, you know, when I was a
believer and I was playing in the church band and stuff.
You know, I thought the pastor knew everything that was
going on in Judges. I thought the pastor had a
great understanding of Jericho and Joshua's army and all this shit,

(01:15:05):
you know. And you know why because in part they
even mentioned the fact that, hey, guys, good news, archaeology
came through this time for us. We actually found the
walls of Jericho. How cool is that? It's undeniable proof
Praise Jesus. Well, they didn't fucking know that. There's been

(01:15:26):
an intense scholarship on the fact that like no, at
the time of like Joshua's supposed army, like this would
have been abandoned for a very long time. Like they
definitely did not conquer this city, right, that is not
how that occurred. Right, there is a city, it does exist.
You know, Alexandria in Egypt was a place way back

(01:15:47):
when you know, there was a library. But yeah, again,
like not not the way the story goes. And yeah, unfortunately,
I do say that even those in positions of authority,
unfortunately in the Christian faith and others, they do not
have as much knowledge on their belief systems and the

(01:16:09):
documents as you would hope, you know. But that's all right,
you know, because I will say this, It gives us
an opportunity to try and correct some of those mistakes
and shed some light on some things and push back
on the harmful garbage that people people lispows every day
in the name of these religions. But you know what, guys, look,

(01:16:31):
I think we need we need another opinion. Maybe we're wrong, Okay,
we could be incorrect here, and good good news is
that we've got a third opinion, a regular somebody you know,
you love, you're excited to have. We have our wonderful
backup host with us, Scott Dicky. Let's get him up

(01:16:53):
here and get his thoughts.

Speaker 5 (01:16:55):
What is up?

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
Man?

Speaker 8 (01:16:57):
You know I've crunched the numbers and you're both I'm sorry,
you know, bitch.

Speaker 2 (01:17:02):
Did we this whole time? It's like it's like been
an hour and a half. We've been fucking wrong this
whole time.

Speaker 8 (01:17:07):
I'll show you the memory dump later.

Speaker 2 (01:17:09):
But you know, facts is fact. But well, I mean, look,
we always say if the evidence is presented, we'll change
our minds. So I guess here we are.

Speaker 8 (01:17:16):
But you guys had a great show. We had some
good calls. Uh for Mary Kate's call. I only wrote
down one word in my notes here, authenticity.

Speaker 4 (01:17:27):
Right.

Speaker 8 (01:17:27):
So it's just such a wonderful thing about having an
authentic identity and authentic community and authentic way to interact
with people. And and you know, you don't have to
worry about all of the you know, the ruffles and
the add ons and everything, just deal.

Speaker 2 (01:17:42):
Face to face. That kind of thing awesome.

Speaker 8 (01:17:44):
But I had one question I wish we could have
asked Robert, and he kept talking about an intellectual inquiry,
and I was just curious, Well, what does non intellectual
inquiry look like? He said something about emotional and you know,
is really his emotions? Really what you want to base
your belief fun? In fact, is emotion what you want
to base your most important beliefs on.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
I don't know.

Speaker 8 (01:18:04):
I mean, I don't know about you, but I can
wake up in the morning someday and just be crabby
for no reason at all just for and so I
think we all have experience with the ineffectiveness of our
of our emotions being a guide to truth. So I
don't know, I'd be curious to see where that would
have gone. But yes, but you know, I know we

(01:18:25):
had some technical difficulties, but great job handling those, and
now it is a pleasure to watch.

Speaker 2 (01:18:30):
Yeah, well, good man, good It is always fun to
get to hang out with both you wonderful gentlemen. I
think you have some great thoughts, and you know, I
just I'm still not convinced. Guys. I just don't think
there's a fucking god out there, and I think there's
really good reason to keep believing that. Good news. Good

(01:18:53):
news is you know this show will be back next
Sunday at four thirty pm Central Time. You got Talk
Heathen at one pm Central time right before it. You
got Truth Wanted on Fridays at seven pm Central. And
I'll be honest, at this point, I am desperately trying
to figure out how to close out these shows because
I would like to come back in the future, but

(01:19:15):
it's been a while and so I'm just kind of
scrambling and seeing if I can look through any of
these notes in front of me here to help.

Speaker 3 (01:19:21):
Get Bed.

Speaker 2 (01:19:25):
To start already. Stop passing the bullshit emry around you.
You know that feeling when you're away for a while
and you wonder do they still like me? It's nice
to just have solid confirmation one way or the other.

Speaker 5 (01:19:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
Watch talk Ee Than 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 th
H

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