Truth Wanted 08.38 09-19-2025 with ObjectivelyDan and Jimmy Jr

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Objectively Dan here, and let me ask you something.
How many people from history have claimed to be the Messiah?
Do you know? Because there's dozens and dozens of people
that are listed on Wikipedia, like Cyrus Ted and Ezra
Miller and that's just the notable ones. Also, you ever
notice how they always figure out they're the Messiah in secret?

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Hey?

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Why not like do that in live TV or in
front of the stadium or something. Have you ever met
somebody that's tad to in Mesiah or do you think
that you're the Messiah? If so, you should call into
the show because we are starting right now. Hey, folks,
welcome back to another episode of Truth Wanted. I'm Objectively

(00:40):
Dan these This is the live calling show that happens
every single week Fridays at seven pm Central Time where
we talk to people about what they believe and why
and if you'd like to call us, you can do that.
The number is five to one two nine nine one
nine two four to two, or you can call it
through your computer at tiny dot cc slash call tw
Truth Wanted is, of course a product of the atheist

(01:01):
community of Austin. If I have a one C three
nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking,
secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government. And
every single week I always have a special guest with me.
This week is no different. It's Jimmithy Junior. Jimmie Junior.
Welcome to the program.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
Hey, what is up. Good to be back with you,
my old friend Dan. How the hell are you. I'm
doing good.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
I'm doing good. I'm trying to think of the last
time you were on Truth Wanted, and it has been
a minute.

Speaker 3 (01:31):
Well, it's been a minute with you. I was on
not too long ago with Kelly. That's right, our wise
old Kelly.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Uh why Kelly? Yeah? Who is who is not on
the show today? But instead we actually have somebody else
who is coming in as our backup host today. We'll
introduce in just a second. But before we do that,
you know, we were talking about Messiah's a little bit
at least I was talking about the size just to
the camera. Not really good to you, but I know

(01:58):
us a little bit before the show and stuff. And
I like that Wikipedia keeps track of like the list
of the most notable ones, because like imagine, like you're
out there on that messiah grind trying to get recognized
and like what you know, what could do?

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Like, what's the criteria? What do you got to do
to get wikied? Right? To to be a messiah?

Speaker 1 (02:21):
I guess just be in the news, right, Like you
have to have an article or two written about you.
That's not just like from a zine. You know, you've
got to have a few.

Speaker 3 (02:30):
Followers at least yeah, I mean, I don't know, twelve, right,
maybe it's at least twelve?

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Yeah, can you do? Can you do it without having
any followers and still be on there?

Speaker 2 (02:40):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (02:41):
I mean what if what if the same way that
most messiahs are told that they're the Messiah? What if
somebody tells you you're gonna be the Messiah, but you
won't have any followers and everybody's gonna hate you that
I mean, can that be legitimate? Because we were looking
up cyrus ted earlier. Yeah, and Cyrus was told that
his legion would have ten million followers. So what if

(03:02):
it's just like the way different approach, Like they were like, look,
not you, not this time, no followers for you.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, they're always in that. They're like in the early
stages of a startup that's going to be a scam
where it's like, here's our projected revenue, and this is
why you need to buy in, because you're going to
make like a million dollars in this case, you're going
to go to heaven or whatever you're going to have
hold on.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
You're not calling cults a scam, are you?

Speaker 1 (03:27):
Oh well, I mean, it wouldn't be a good enough
cult if it wasn't scam, because how else do you
get your money? Right? I think that's part of it.
This is what I'm saying earlier, because I think like
running a cult would be kind of a fun thing
to do because you got a bunch of people that
will probably do stuff for you, like for free, which
I think is cool, and you probably have access to again,
like financial assets, maybe some land. Right you make somebody,

(03:52):
you make some poor grandmother give up there you're you know,
their famili's plot for you just so you can like
do your cult business.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
You're you're guy, Dan, You're a good guy. Because my
mind is going to other places. Some of the ways
that these cult leaders take advantage of people is absolutely horrible,
and that's that I want to be one. I'm just
saying what if that?

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Okay, okay, let me pitch this to you. Then this
is me pitching playing called to Jimmy because it all right,
because okay, what's the one thing that every cult has
a problem with? Okay, sex? Right, It's always about sex.
There's always have weird sexual stuff. Either some of them
say they're free love or whatever, or they're just like
super not kill about it, right, And it's like it's

(04:36):
it's either one of those two extremes. What if ours
is just like, uh, just whatever, man, just whatever, And
like in the purest sense of that word, like we
don't have a policy, you know what I mean. They
always have a policy. We don't even have one. That's
how free we are about it. What do you think
of this?

Speaker 3 (04:53):
Well, what do I think of it? I think you
and I are creating probably the shittiest cult that's ever listed.

Speaker 1 (04:58):
Oh okay, because listen, for you, it's about the sex,
Like that's why you joined the cult.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
It's not because we've already listed that the cult could
maybe not have any followers. And now there's no sexual policy.
I mean, we've got no credibility. We've got absolutely no
credibility as a cult.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
You know.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
Okay, so you're saying because there's a lack of protections,
you know, without the policy there exact current.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, if you know there's we're not
in the in crowd. You know, we're just the guys
showing up being like, hey, we don't need to sleep
with your entire village as women. You know, we're just
saying we don't need to sleep with anybody. They're like,
what the fuck is wrong with you? Yeah, we're disrupting
the market.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
We're disrupting the cult market, right, you know, you need
to be.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
Sick and twisted like us if you're going to be
in Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
Oh man, uh well that's great. Well, you know, leave
a common blow and tell us how we should run
our own cult. I guess, because I guess I don't
know what I'm doing when it comes to that. But uh,
you know, talking about cults, we you know, we could
sometimes talk about heaven and that's what our question last
week was asking me about. So I'm going to bring
up our backup host, a Flabbergasted who has made appearance

(06:05):
before it is appearing again Flabbergasted, How are you?

Speaker 4 (06:08):
I'm doing great? Thank you so much for having.

Speaker 1 (06:10):
Me and flabbergasted. What was last week's question are we
want the truth segment?

Speaker 3 (06:15):
Hold on, hold on, hold on, We're not breezing past this. Flabbergasted.
Flabbergasted is rocking traditional Renaissance garb completely completely dressed for
this occasion and he looks fantastic, that's true.

Speaker 1 (06:29):
A feathered hat or something and like, recite me some poetry.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
I was told this is the appropriate attire for for
Dan's cold, so I was for your cold.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
Yeah, we're fresh at this cause we're doing We're addressed
like we're in a Shakespeare play. I didn't realize that,
all right, that's what we're.

Speaker 3 (06:50):
Not getting laid? You know, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (06:54):
I don't know if you're aware of this, but but
there is a lot of getting laid that happens at
Renaissance fair.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
So you know what I heard?

Speaker 1 (07:00):
Yeah, you know that's probably true. Yeah, you know, I've
never been to one, but I'm nerds.

Speaker 4 (07:05):
Nerds are the furthest thing from celibate.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
Right, yeah, bad band kids kids. Yeah yeah, anyway, what
was our question for our problem last week?

Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (07:16):
So last week we asked you what is a job
that you could get in heaven? And here are our
favorite answers. Number three from Chuck Geos Chuck Gatos Socrates
so that newcomers who.

Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yes, very good answer, that's making me wonder Gatos MVP. Yeah,
like almost always on the top three. Love them for that.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
The number two is Anastasia. Anastasia, their job in heaven
would be a dry cleaner, because someone has to keep
all those robes white and starch.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Okay, yeah, yeah, that would be kind of distracting if
you spilled something on there and everybody else is like
wearing white and stuff, and it's like, what, you.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
Got to keep that cold. You got to keep that
cold attire pristine.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
What are they stilling? Do you think they're spilling on
their white robes in heaven? Are they're still drinking Jesus' blood?

Speaker 1 (08:04):
Maybe? Yeah, I guess Is it wine? At that point,
I was thinking wine? Is it? But is it just
pure blood? Because you don't even need the wine. It
doesn't need to transubstantiate because you're there, right.

Speaker 4 (08:14):
I was thinking. I was thinking, you don't even need
the blood anymore because you're already there. So now you
just actually get to enjoy the wine as wine instead
of making it creepy.

Speaker 1 (08:23):
Okay, or you just don't need anything because you're in heaven,
because why would you need to drink or eat anything?
You know, there's two I don't know, it's a weird hypothetical.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
H no barbecue sauce for the robes.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
No barbecue saw us. I don't think so, probably not.

Speaker 4 (08:37):
And our number one answer familiar name Chuck Gatos again
and the question is uh. The question is I can't read.
His answer was a job you can get in heaven
is writing, I told you so, greeting cards on flame
resistant cardboard. Apparently nice?

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Nice?

Speaker 3 (08:54):
Hell nice?

Speaker 1 (08:55):
Yeah, yeah, Chuck is creative. That would be Chuck. Chuck's
always creative and stuff. Thank you so much, Chuck, and
thank you flabbergasted for reading our answers this week. What
is the prompt for next week?

Speaker 4 (09:08):
The prompt for next week is why are the Aliens aiming?
Comment three? I slash atlas at us.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
We were talking about this on truth Wanted a little
while ago about this comment supposedly coming towards Earth and
the aliens are doing it. So flabergastid I heard you
have an answer?

Speaker 4 (09:25):
I do, and I think it's because they read the Bible.
They read the Bible, and they said, yeah, no, we
don't want these.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Classic atheists sort of. It's an R slash atheist top
comment right there. It is.

Speaker 4 (09:37):
That's why, that's why it's pristine, right like.

Speaker 1 (09:39):
Okay, yeah, okay, Jimmie, you got one.

Speaker 3 (09:42):
Well, I think it's I'm going to go with some
of the scientists who have the hypothesis that this is
actually an alien mothership coming straight at us. They're coming
at us on accident. They made a wrong turn, their
navigation system is down. They're headed straight for the universe's
bad neighborhood, and when they get here, we're gonna kidnap them,
we're gonna take their wallets, we're gonna do all types

(10:03):
of shit. And that's why aliens don't typically come here.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Okay, yeah, all right, that makes sense. My answer was
that they actually read three Body Problem and we're likeing,
these guys are crazy. We need to stop them first
before they get to us. So, you know, maybe not
as cool as your guys's answers, but hey, maybe the
commenters can give even better answers to us. So leave
a common below and we will pick the top three

(10:30):
for next week. Unless our internet goes out, we'll see
you at the end of the show. Here, Flabbergastid and
you know, enjoy being our backup for today.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys talk about.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Thanks so much, and now back to the program, folks.
I have to remind you this is a call in show,
which means we want to talk to you folks at home. Again.
The number for that it's gonna flash on screen in
a second, or be in the description of the video,
or you can call it through your computer. We do
have open line right now and we would love to
talk to you because otherwise it's just gonna be the

(11:04):
Jimmy and Dan Show, which isn't a bad idea for
a show, but you know, just saying it's not the
I don't think that's what the ACA would want. I
think that they would want us to talk to some
of you guys at home.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Just it's not what the people want, and we need
to give the people what they want. So get your
friends to give us a call if they believe in
something weird, that would be great. I have to say,
you know, I need to take back my comment because
Flabbergasted did a great job wearing and rock in that
garb and for me to suggest that people who rock
garb the way that he does not get laid that
was just outlandish and completely you know.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
In Yeah, I'm pretty sure like William Shatner did wear
like that exact outfit, like in an episode of Star
Trek or maybe it was the other good Guy. I
don't remember that. Wasn't there one where they go back
in time and they do Shakespeare's stuff. I'm not a
Star Trek guy.

Speaker 3 (11:53):
I don't know. I'm not sure, but would they do
Shakespeare in the Star Trek universe? I think William Shatner
that on like some kind of commercial or something. Probably
I'm channeling that vision now and I think I can
see it.

Speaker 1 (12:05):
What we're saying is when you're a famous actor, what
you can wear anything and pretty much get away with it. Right.
But yeah, I mean they had to have gotten on
it the Renaissance times, right, because now now we're here,
so there has to be some sort of appeal either way.
I think that's true. Anyway, we were talking about messiahs
and stuff. Cyrus T was a guy I was reading

(12:27):
about who I I you know, I've talked about the
Deep dives and stuff before. This is a guy that
definitely deserves his own deep dive because his whole religion
is called Kureshianity, which makes you think it sounds like
David Koresh. Then you realize David Koresh was just like
taking stuff from like other people, because Koresh is just

(12:48):
like another word for Messiah basically, And so this guy
was just like, this is my you know, sort of
messiah ideology. And he was all about hallow earth and
alchemy and just like you know, doing typical cult stuff
like have a bunch of people on the compound and stuff,
so you know, good to good old fashioned cult stuff
there and none of this new fangled cults.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
This guy cyrus Ted, you know, mixed reviews. I'm seeing
a couple of sources. One one that said an ex
gendered alien, half male, half female came to him and
told him he would be the Messiah. Then there's another one. Well,
actually I should mention to all the all the viewers
that cyrus Ted electrocuted himself and blacked out and then

(13:29):
had a visit from a half man, half one, right,
which is awesome.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Yeah, that's a cool one. As far as Angel visiting you.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Stories, the best way to find out you're Messiah. Yeah, electricity, electrocution,
electrocuting yourself, waking up and now you're now you're a You.

Speaker 1 (13:46):
Know, it's not electrocution because this is me doing fake
nerd glasses. You know it's not electrocution because you're not
dying from it. Ah, Okay, Yeah, that's okay. Somebody will
leave a comment and finally say it.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yeah, well, I appreciate you setting on the right track, right,
It's really important. Another source says that the the the
Angel was his bride and also his mother, which I
find weird.

Speaker 1 (14:11):
Okay, got some Chris chan energy going on.

Speaker 3 (14:14):
With Yeah, maybe maybe maybe freud maybe maybe a Freudian
perspective on that, right, But yeah, cyrus Ted definitely one
of the one of the weirder ones.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
Yeah, one of the ones.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
I love the I love the chat that we have.
You know, folks, if you don't know here on the show,
We've got a little chat that we talked to each
other back and forth, and I pulled it up earlier
and it just says Slo Molco in it, which I
find hilarious because we were talking back and forth and
Dan shared that with us. But yeah, the other one
is is Solomon Molcho Shomoco.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Yes, I was. I was, specifically, we were looking at
the wikipedias. This is a real article, Wikipedia's list of Messiahs,
and one of them is named I enkid you not
Shlomo Molcho, which just sound it just sounds racist. Say,
I just don't feel comfortable saying it out loud. But
it's it's Shlomo Mulcho. I guess it sounds like Mojo Jojo.

(15:07):
I guess is also why that's funny. But yeah, he
was another one that was out there doing the cult thing,
which was cool. I guess good for him.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
It wasn't really good for him. I mean he went
to the Roman Emperor and tried to urge the creation
of a Jewish army and was instead turned over to
the Inquisition and burned at the stake.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
So yeah, not good for him.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
Yeah, I guess, you know, he just should have like
just chilled out and maybe told some other people and
not the Roman Emperor. Holy Roman Emperor, a Catholic. You
just don't show up and say it's time for a
Jewish army.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
Yeah, I guess not. Yeah, I guess it's not the
time to do that. I think a lot of people
don't understand it's good to point out that a lot
of the Messiah claims because there's some modern ones. I've
seen someone's on here that there's one guy that, wait,
is he on here? I'm trying to think of that
recent guy that got arrested in New York. But you know,
like because you know, it's a Jewish religion, right, Judaism,

(16:06):
and they're the ones that came up with the whole
Messiah thing. Like a lot of Messiah claims are from
Jewish people, just like certain somebody from Nazareth that a
lot of people are you know, kind of interested in
have heard a lot about. So I don't know, it
kind of makes more sense for a Jewish guy to
be the Messiah than like, I don't know, freaking Joseph
Smith or whatever. I guess Joseph Smith never said he

(16:29):
was Messiah. But you know, like definitely, you know, you
no prophit.

Speaker 3 (16:33):
Right in the case of Shlomo, if he were to
go to the Holy Roman Emperor and say that he
was the Messiah, it's game over for the emperor, right,
I mean, I mean, no more, no more emperor. So
conflict of interest there, right.

Speaker 1 (16:48):
Yeah, you gotta I guess, I guess you do kind
of have to raise your secret Jewish army, like in secret.
You know, we were sort of critical of the fact
that Messiahs were very secretive about it. But maybe that's
that's how you have to do it if you want
to have it. Opper uprising small.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
You know, it worked for Mohammed.

Speaker 1 (17:04):
You know, grassroots movement.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
Yeah, right there, you know, going by himself, just hanging out,
gonna raise an army take over Africa or the Middle East,
you know, just do my thing.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
That's kind of a crazy story, huh, because, like, you know,
I'm not an expert at all on Muslim studies, but
like he was, by all accounts, like just a guy, right,
Like he wasn't like royalty or anything. He wasn't like influential,
particularly before all this stuff happened. He was like a
guy and the thing happened to him, and like a

(17:35):
lot of people believed him. So I don't know, you know,
people are like, oh, why would so many people believe
in Jesus, you know if he wasn't real, because he
would just be a guy. Was like you could say
the same thing for Muhammad, like in a lot of ways.
So I don't know if that works.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
The crazy thing, the crazy thing about Mohammed, Like I
never really thought about this, but dude had an army,
Like had an army. I don't Yeah, I don't know
in his own life lifetime. From what I understand, I
couldn't read and write. Yeah, like that's that's that's pretty awesome.
Must have got a great orator, you know. But I

(18:09):
think when you walk around maybe promising and I'm hey, look,
I'm paraphrasing. I don't know if this existed back then,
but I'm just being fun. If you walk around promising
a bunch of poor people, they'll get seventy two virgins.
Maybe they'll fight for you. I don't know. Yeah, maybe
maybe you'll have better chance of raising an army. But yeah, yeah,
he was by.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
That's something I gotta see because, like, you know, I
know some of that stuff is like that comes kind
of later, right, like some of that theology and what
happens after. I don't know, Like I'm not an expert
on what he said versus what other people have compiled
and said and stuff, but you do have to wonder,
like what was this guy telling people? Yeah, they get
him on board that's it is pretty interesting to say

(18:50):
the least.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
Yeah, and why like like this is definitely the like
maybe the maybe the ex gender angel was the same
one went to Muhammad and was so successful and then
was like, look this guy Cyrus ted I can do
it again. But a right complete failure. You know, so
like the ten million people never happened.

Speaker 1 (19:10):
He's trying to He's trying to like get it, get
to his glory days of Mohmed and so he this
angel goes around that's a TV show, right there, goes
around to different people, trying to make them the next
big thing, and every season we go through each person
and see how it works out.

Speaker 3 (19:26):
He had a good run in like the six forties
right right, and just just never the sixth las popping dude,
forties were it?

Speaker 2 (19:34):
Man?

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Yeah, that was the That was like our Roaring twenties,
you know, it was the roaring sixth forties. Yeah, and
he was just making messiahs and uh yeah, that dude.
Trademark right, is that if you yell trademark viar us
do you if you yell trademarked?

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (19:51):
Is it true that it works?

Speaker 1 (19:52):
Copyright copyright trademark copyright to twenty twenty fifteen, Sorry, twenty
twenty five Why to say twenty fift team. I don't know, dude,
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
But we're on to something.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
I don't know. I think we are onto something. Yeah,
I don't know. I just think it's because it's like
you see somebody on the street today that says they're
a messiah, and you're just like, oh, well, this person
like is probably struggling with something or they're a super
rich billionaire, and then they say that they're messiah and
then they have more credibility that way, I guess. But
you know, back in the day, like you didn't you could,

(20:25):
it was really equal opportunity for messiahs. You know, that's
not That's something that we're not focusing on enough is
how can we make people? How can we make messiah
ship more accessible for people? That's the conversation I think
we should be having, and that and that, and my
new cult is going to address this. We're going to
figure out how we can make the common man a Messiah.

(20:46):
And all you have to do is come to this
presentation and you know, buy some land in another part
of the country, and.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
You have to listen to a pitch about potentially owning
a timeshare right right, And we.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
Don't call them timeshares. We called them messiah shares. Its
Messiah times I don't know, something new. We'll figure it out.

Speaker 3 (21:06):
Messiah throne. But yeah, you know, you listen to your pitch,
you get in and then maybe maybe maybe this is
this angel comes back and scores big again I don't know, right.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
And then you get an NFT and then you have
to pass on that. You get a couple of them,
so you give them to other people, and it's the
whole thing. Anyway, I don't know this joke isching this baby,
look at it. I got to listen. Uh, that's what
you guys do sometimes. But hey, I think we do
have at least uh some folks in the queue, so
we can start talking to some people. But we definitely

(21:39):
do have open lines tonight, folks, so please call in
if you like to do that. Before we get to
our first call, though, Jimothy, we have to talk to,
not talk to excuse me, talk about our patron of
the week, because every single week we're always giving a
shout out to the folks who donate on the patreon.
I want to thank everybody that donates to the Truth
Wanted Patreon, but I special thanks is going out to

(22:02):
this week's Patron of the Week, who is Jerry Dupuy.
Thank you so much, Jerry. I don't know if I
said your last name right, but I'm going with that
one until I'm corrected otherwise. So thank you so much,
and thank you to everybody that donates. You guys rock.
And I've said this for years, but I think, you know,
Patreon needs to have a box for a pronunciation guide

(22:23):
for your names. I don't know why they don't do that. Right,
Unless they do do that, and I haven't seen it,
we should.

Speaker 3 (22:28):
Contact them and be like, hey, we're gonna say your name.
But then again, you know, it kind of takes away
the mystique of you know, us just create Like I
don't call him Jerry Dupoy. I've got my own character
made up, like it's Jerry Dupuy. You know, he's a
French aristocrat. You know, he smokes a cigarette out of
that big long thing. He kind of looks like mister Peanut,

(22:51):
but he's like an atheist instead.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
Okay, but one day he's visited by an angel and
the Messiah.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
And then he has to donate to Truthwan, we can
join the cult where we wear Renaissance clothes. We don't
have sex with all the villagers, right, and.

Speaker 1 (23:06):
Essentially we have no followers, you know, so followers. Yeah,
that's that's another pitch. Have you ever wanted to join
a religion with no followers? Come join ours? I guess. Yeah.
This angel character is now sort of turning into sort
of an Avengers sort of Samuel L. Jackson thing where
it's like, I hear, hey, I hear, you're crazy. I've

(23:28):
got I've got a proposition for you. I want you
to join the Messiah initi you know. So that's a
fun angle that could be explored as well. We'll keep
workshopping this. But as we're doing that, let's go ahead
and take our first caller for this Friday evening, and
we have Joseph who's calling in from Texas. Joseph, you
are live, untruth wanted. What's going on doing? Great? You

(23:51):
want to join a cult?

Speaker 5 (23:53):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Okay, on, yeah, I guess I guess by being on
the call that you you want to do on the
same cult. That was a joke anyway, but well it
doesn't matter. I was trying to be bad. No, it's
my bad, because Joseph, I was trying to be funny
and the problem is I'm not. So, you know, just
just ignore that whole thing. Let's talk about what you

(24:14):
want to talk about, Joseph.

Speaker 5 (24:15):
Go ahead, Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. So what I'm
palling about today is, well, I'm in a family where
we all grew up Christian. You know, we have a
separated family though, where I have a different father than
my siblings do. And they grew up in a very
Mormon kind of back with the town area and they

(24:37):
came back and forth, so they never ever really big
on the Mormonism stuff. And I was raised Roman Catholic,
kind of didn't believe it when I was a kid.
Be constructed. And now I'm twenty seven. My brother's thirteen
years older than me, my sister's ten years older, and
I feel like I'm the only one that's had my
eyes opened, and I feel that there's a bunch of

(24:57):
barriers that are allowing me to are not allowing me
to get through to them and talk to them and
open up their eyes as well, so they can be
free from this dogmatic lifestyle they've been trying to fill
into because I can see all the things that it
was negatively affecting me, but now I can see how
it's negatively affecting them and how it's taxing all of
our relationships in the family, and it's just really sad.

(25:18):
So I'd like to know how to talk to them
more effectively so it doesn't turn into a contentious argument
every time of just shit throwing. You know.

Speaker 1 (25:26):
Yeah, that's a great, great, great, great question to talk
about here. So first off, let me ask you, is
it a subject that comes up a lot when you're
around your family or is this something that you want
to bring up to them, Because I have different answers
depending on what that might be.

Speaker 5 (25:42):
So the reason I call today is because usually I've
been always just kind of to myself about it because
I know they weren't very religious, Like they were all
kind of like iffy about it, you know, they weren't
really getting into it. So I was like, oh, maybe
they'll kind of figure out on their own path that
it's you know, not really true, but it's kind of
gone in the other direction and now. And my brother
actually reached out to me two days ago and sent

(26:05):
a really nasty DM about how I was bashing Christianity
and how I shouldn't be bashing something I don't understand,
and how I'm pushing something that's manipulative and all this
other stuff, right, And so I just frankly asked him.
I was like, Okay, well, what about what I'm doing
is manipulative? And what am I not understanding about what
I'm bashing, you know? And then he just tried to

(26:26):
blame it on you smoke too much wheat, you know,
because he's never been able to really have those conversations
of you know, the hard conversations, because he's been so
trapped in this mindset from how his father raised him
in it and how his father really manipulated him when
he was younger. And it really hurts because it's come
to the point of when I tried to live with

(26:46):
him before and help him with his business when I
was about five years younger, it almost came to blows
and I told him, listen, you can punch me in
the face. I'm gonna lay here on the floor, but
I'm not gonna fight my brother, okay, And he almost
we came to tears and hugged it out and pologized
a year later, but now you know, I'm not around
and his dad's the only one around him, and you know,
this stuff's getting back into it and he's feeling like

(27:08):
he's all righteous.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
And better than me.

Speaker 5 (27:10):
And my cousin is religious and says the Cristiques were good,
and he's like agreeing with him, and I'm like, what
are you talking about, man, And then you know, just
getting combatate towards me because he knows that I'm secular.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
Yeah, this is the pressure that secular people have to
deal with, right, And it's this like crazy idea that
Christianity has brought on, which is like, oh, we're a
secular nation and there's all these secular influences around us,
and Christians are really the victims, right, Like Christians can't
speak their mind and can't do these things. Meanwhile, how

(27:42):
many churches are in this country, how many organized places
of worship, how many you know Christian media is out there. Yeah,
there's a lot of secular media too. But it's like, yeah, no,
Christians by and large are doing fine, you know. It's
it's the secular people who are having the rights threatened
to be taken away and having to deal with like

(28:03):
these really awkward social situations where it's a damned if
you do, damned if you don't. Right, if you stand
up for yourself and say your mind about something, then
you're going to look like an atheist asshole, right. But
if you don't, then they're just going to keep doing
the shit that they're talking about. Right. So I think
you know, if somebody's accusing you of something like that

(28:23):
or they're talking their shit, you absolutely have every right
to stand up for yourself and your beliefs because they're
going to do it anyway, right that nothing is stopping them.
Why shouldn't you be stopped in that? But if you
want to bring that conversation to them and have them
try to change their mind on stuff, that's a whole
tricky can of worms. And I can talk more about that,

(28:44):
but I want to hear Jimmy's thoughts on that too.

Speaker 3 (28:46):
Well, yeah, I want to reflect, but hold on, crew,
don't make me big yet, don't make don't make don't
give me the big screen. Okay, actually I appreciate that,
but I actually want to hear what Joseph has to
say because I think I'm about the flip the script, Okay, Okay, So.

Speaker 2 (29:04):
I would say no.

Speaker 5 (29:05):
I don't. I have never really brought it up to
him because I knew that he was still kind of
exploring it. It is not it's literally in the last
two days that he sent me like in the DMS.
That's fine. I understand like he was maybe he was
taking that first step to maybe like extend that olive branch,
so maybe we could start talking about it, right, But
then he got very preachy and like I know better
than you and I'm your older brother, and I'll tell you, like, well,

(29:26):
how it is right. And he's always kind of been
like that. But the thing is, I don't. I don't
want him to feel like he has to do that
just to you know, feel righteous. I feel like he
needs to open his eyes, like kind of how I
opened mind, so he can be free of like all
the things we grew up with. And I see in
him now you know, it's not even that, Like I

(29:48):
don't care if he becomes secular at all. It just don't,
you know, buy all the crap and then say, oh, yes,
it's so true, just because it makes you feel good.
Because I feel that's the path that he's going down
because right now he's kind of lost.

Speaker 3 (29:59):
So I'm so glad that you like said a few
things there because I wanted to make sure. I had
a couple of questions I wanted to ask you, and
one of them was why did the brother text you
to tell you that you are, you know, being disrespectful
to him? But you you insist that you don't really
bring it up to them or him that often. Right,

(30:21):
But then again, no, no, you know you're saying like
you just want them to open your eye, open their
eyes the same way you did. And my question to
you is why and a just humor me, right, I
know I seem like I'm going on the attack here,
but why do you think it's your job to convince
them that they need to open their eyes? Maybe you

(30:41):
can just not say anything to them. And I'm kind
of just questioning that whole dynamic about how these conversations
are starting. And then, you know, Joseph, forgive me, but
I'm going to encourage you to take a step back
from your own bias, of your own side of the
story and really ask yourself, are you one hundred percent innocent?
And then is your brother just texting you and being

(31:02):
forceful with you or are you also instigating this beef?

Speaker 1 (31:06):
With him.

Speaker 5 (31:06):
No, no, no, So I wasn't. He messaged me because
I have a cousin, Like I said, that's very sorry.
A very loud card just went by. I have a
cousin who's very religious, and he posts a bunch of
things on Instagram, Right, but I also go on Instagram
and I'll debate back and forth my bio and Instagram
has if we disagree, let's talk. People will learn something, right,

(31:28):
So he just has seen me interacting with other Christians
and saying, well, no, that's not actually true, you know,
and you sharing a lot of the things that I've
learned from y'all show, you know, especially from I think
his name is justin the Bible scholar. He has great
stuff and I just shared those things and he sees
it as me bashing when really I'm just trying to
give a different perspective because I felt like, once I

(31:50):
was deconstructed, that it would be helpful for me to
be another voice out there, just to be like, hey,
you know, this is something to think about. And he
literally just saw those other posts and then said, hey,
I've seen you commenting on these things and you know
all that other stuff that I told you at the beginning.
So it wasn't even that I reached out to him
and I was like, hey, you should be secular, like
Christianity's bad, you know. I didn't even I left him

(32:11):
alone with it and was letting him kind of figure
it out. It wasn't until he came back at me
and like kind of attacked me for it, and I
was like, hey, man, like what are you talking about? Like,
if you want to talk about it, talk about it.
But then he kind of came back and just was
an emotional response rather than actually being like, well, this
is manipulative, this is this, and this is that. You know.

Speaker 3 (32:28):
Yeah, So I mean on your topic of like how
to talk to religious family members, you know, unfortunately, I
think the family members, the people that were closest with,
take the most offense to our defection.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
You know.

Speaker 3 (32:43):
So I have had people that were in my wedding
just stop talking to me. But I've got strangers that
I can have easy conversations with and get along with,
and there's really no there's no ownership of that relationship
with the stranger as there is, you know with the
family member who gets offended when you kind of turn
your back on the cult. If you will, So I

(33:05):
think there's a lot to really dissect there. There's a
little bit of like identity tribalism that's involved, you know,
especially if you come from the same place, right, if
you come from the same place and then you go
off in your same path, you know, it's really hard
to come up to accept this idea that you know,
I was born into this family, like I love them
and I know them, and nobody knows each other like

(33:28):
a sibling, right, But I might have to cut ties
and maybe this relationship just doesn't stay the same as
it used to. I have a lot of family members
I don't talk to, not because I'm an atheist and
they are not and they are religious. It's because their
behaviors toward me and toward my children are are disrespectful.

(33:48):
And I've realized, like, all right, these have been my family.
I've been spending holidays with them, but you know.

Speaker 1 (33:53):
What, my own.

Speaker 3 (33:57):
Dignity and respect is worth nothing to them. And so
they're where I have to sever that tie. It just
isn't my job to try and get them to see
things my way. It's just never gonna happen. And so unfortunately,
like I don't have like great advice if you wanted
to mend the relationship with your brother, you know, perhaps
just saying, hey, look I love you, dude, you my brother,

(34:18):
and we're not going to agree on everything, but I
don't want to lose you. Otherwise, Dude, you might have
to go in a direction that you never really contemplated before.
And you know, maybe it's just not your job to
have gone in their eyes.

Speaker 5 (34:29):
Yeah, I was gonna say I've gone no contact before
with them over other things. But the thing I was
trying to say is, like with my brother, he's not
an asshole. Like, he's a really good guy. He has
the biggest heart and a guy you would ever meet, right,
He's just a lost guy that wants a direction to
go in. And instead of you know, you know, looking

(34:50):
for secular reason I mean secular things like psychology and
stuff to look in to learn about your brain, why
am I like this? Why do I react in this
certain kind of way? He wants an easier answer of
like all his pubs do this, and that I'll solve
my problems and not another die, you know, So that
seems like the path that he's going down.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
And here here's what I say to this, though, Joseph like,
I sorry to cut you off, but I'm hearing a
lot of language of he's this way, he's that way,
like kind of this labeling, right, And I'm not saying
you're wrong. I don't know your brother. You know your
brother better than I'll ever know him. Right, But even
in just describing it to me, if that's the way
that you're going to talk about him and talk to

(35:29):
him about, oh, this is why you're doing it, he's
not going to be open to that, probably, right, because
that's going to be attack on him. And maybe that's
not how you're talking to him, but people can sense
that as well, right. No, I my advice is always
just to be the most consistent person that you can
be in yourself and your own business.

Speaker 5 (35:46):
Right.

Speaker 1 (35:47):
As Jimmy mentioned, I have my own relationship with my
family that's kind of tough to navigate because you know,
we kind of do this stuff and they don't like
the stuff that I do. But I've always trying to
be consistent in the reasons why I do it it
and the message and which I say because I'm the
same way that you are, Joseph. I think that this
atheism stuff is a type of liberation. I think it

(36:08):
really is better for people to live the way that
I do, at least something close to it, than whatever
I had in Christianity, right because Christianity was definitely trying
to fill some holes in me that we're never going
to be filled right with the way that Christianity says it,
it can So you know, there's there's that sort of
impulse there to want to spread that to everybody. But

(36:29):
just like how you had to make that own choice
for yourself, your brother has to make his own choice
for himself. I think that's what Jimmy's saying too, right, Like,
you can lead a horse to water, can't make him
drink it, So always always be giving him that water
if he wants it. But at the end of the day,
you can only be responsible for yourself, right, Okay, So.

Speaker 5 (36:48):
Yeah, you're saying basically, just drop some nuggets where you can,
and you know, pick and choose your battles because the
relationship is more important, right.

Speaker 1 (36:57):
Well, whether the relationship is more important, that's up to you.
Some people they decide it's not more important, right like,
And I think that's a big deal because as Christians, right,
we're kind of taught you need to love everybody kind
of no matter what. Sometimes like family is important no
matter what, and that may work for some people, but
it doesn't work for others. In fact, I think it
makes some people's lives words. I still happen to have

(37:19):
a pretty good relationship with my family, but there's a
lot of people in my community that don't, and they
had to make that change for themselves because it wasn't
healthy for them. So, you know, you're just a little
bit younger than me, right, you're twenty seven. You know,
you're definitely at that age just like I am, where
it's like, okay, you're becoming your own person, if you're
not already, which I'm sure you are, where it's like
you gottle to establish these relationships as an adult. You

(37:41):
don't have to have a good relationship with your brother anymore.
It's not a requirement, you know. But if it can be,
that's great. But if this is going to be a problem,
you know, then then that's something that he's got to
figure out with you. It's what it sounds like if
he has that problem with you, but you know you
can't make him. That's the thing at the end of
the day.

Speaker 5 (38:00):
Sound like the healthiest route. Yeah, it does.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
If if I could, I could.

Speaker 5 (38:04):
I wanted to thank y'all as well for one thing.
If I have a little extra time.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
To put another point I want to make too. Go ahead, Jimmy, Joseph,
did you want to get that off your chest now?
Or you want me to you want me to continue it?

Speaker 2 (38:19):
Go ahead?

Speaker 3 (38:19):
Okay, So listen. I think it's funny because Dan was saying,
I think the best route is for you to just
be consistent with who you are, and you heard, Okay,
So what you're saying is I drop some nuggets when
I can. No, No, nobody is telling you that you
have to drop any nuggets. Like, Like, the thing is,
you just be who you are, and you be successful,

(38:42):
and you be kind and you be happy, right and
and your perception and your lifestyle will sort itself out
with your family. Right. So for example, I probably have
a lot of family members that thought and I hope not,
but maybe hoped that when I lost my faith my

(39:03):
life would go downhill. But it's actually gotten so much better,
way better. And I almost said orders of magnitude, but
I don't really do math, so I don't even know
what that really means. But you know, my life has
improved so much, and you know what would be weird,
Like if something terrible would were to happen to me,
some of those people would be like, well, see what

(39:25):
happens when you lose your faith. I don't get caught
up in all that, you know. I just do me, man,
I do me. I don't drop the nuggets unless it's
given to me. Like if somebody's like, oh, well that's
why you need to go to church, then we can
have a discussion. Otherwise, hey, look look at me, Look
at my family, Look at how well I'm doing. Like,
I feel good. I'm a nice guy. I get along

(39:47):
with people. And if that's not good enough for you,
I don't know what is. But I'm not going to
drop nuggets on them. Does that make sense? And I
think you know, I'm worried that you're kind of mishearing
it and you're a little just caught up on the
fact that like you do need to open their eyes.

Speaker 5 (40:01):
Yeah, there, you're one hundred percent correct. I do feel
the responsibility because, like you said, when you get your
eyes open, do you feel like you need to share it?
Kind of just like when a religious person, you know,
becomes religious, they want to share it with everybody. It's
kind of it was exactly the same feeling, but by nuggets,
I kind of meant like, if he reaches out and
like tries to poke at something like recently and one

(40:22):
of those recent messages, he tried to say that the
morality system from Christianity is so good. So I just
dropped some nuggets of like a couple of quotes in
there that I was like, just these don't seem very moral,
you know, they're not really the greatest. And so that's
that's more of what I meant, not like reaching out
and like giving like a daily nugget or anything like that.
You know, just when he reaches out, drop one on
them and leave.

Speaker 3 (40:42):
It at that. Good enough, Just one more thing on that,
like fair, right, what you're saying valid. But sometimes man
like you don't even need to respond, you know, I'll
tell you what. I have a funny story. Okay, this,
this is this really happened the other day. Good friend
of mine, a guy that i'm I'm in the military

(41:03):
and but earlier in my years, and we got a
guy that I deployed with and we you know, we
worked well together. We were workout partners. I went visited
him a few times, uh, and we had a good relationship. Well,
he like went way off, like super religious, and I
knew he was religious back then, and I was an
atheist back then. But you know, we got along great
and it wasn't an issue. I haven't talked to this

(41:25):
guy in two years. Okay, after we had an issue
where he was saying things on Facebook and stuff to
me and I'm like, hey, dude, you know I'm just
gonna I'm just gonna gonna bounce, and I cut him out.
I didn't talk to him. And he got back to
me and he said, hey, look, I want to apologize
for being a bad friend. And I say, hey, look,
you're look, you're not a bad friend.

Speaker 1 (41:42):
Man.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
You just like we're not we're not mixing well, man
Like when we interact, it's it's not a happy interaction anymore.
And so he said, you know, you're right, I'm sorry,
blah blah blah. All right, So that all happened, and
it happened again, right like, you know, posts and things
that I didn't like him, like, I can't do this.
So he messaged me two weeks ago, two weeks ago

(42:03):
and said and sent me a clip of Jordan Peterson,
which I sent a laughing emoji at because the first
the first video, the first five seconds of the video
was this is how I take down an atheistic argument,
which there is no atheistic argument. It's not such thing.
It doesn't make sense. So I just put a laughing

(42:23):
emoji and he goes. My friend says, hey, man, don't
hate us, bro, We're just humans, and I'm like, hey,
does it? Is it this ass backwards? Like I was
living my life, minding my own business. I haven't talked
to you in two years. You drop a video on
me and then tell me not to hate you. I'm
a good man. What hateful things have I done?

Speaker 1 (42:39):
What?

Speaker 3 (42:40):
How do I hate people? Please explain to me. And
he's like again, you know what, You're right, man, I
just miss you and I haven't said anything. I'm like, look,
I can't keep going through the cycle where you reminisce
on the old days when we liked each other, but
then you constantly trying to proselytize me. So anyway, I
just wanted to give you that, and I'm sorry for

(43:00):
taking all the time, Dan, but you know this is like,
this is convenient for me to share because you know,
this really happened. I haven't talked to anybody about it.
So Joseph, thank you for listening. Yeah, but you know,
I think you can relate.

Speaker 5 (43:13):
Really, Yeah, I really enjoyed that. And yeah, that they
give me a little clarity. So thanks for sharing, and
thank you for your service as well.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
Oh you're you're welcome. You know, I always feel so uh,
I don't know, thank you for your.

Speaker 1 (43:29):
Make it less awkward for you, Jimmy.

Speaker 3 (43:31):
Okay, never mind, I appreciate it, Joseph anyway.

Speaker 5 (43:36):
But the thing I wanted to thank y'all about was
I was recently listening to an atheist the like literally today,
I was listening to an atheist Experience episode and since
I deconstructed the you know, there's obstacles that you're going
to go through. You know, one big one is the
trans one, you know, and the gender versus sex thing.
And I've always been a person that's like, if I

(43:58):
don't understand something, I'm gonna defer to the experts, but
I really have to try to read what they write
so I can understand what the hecka says. And if
I can understand what the hecka says, I need to
find someone that can explain what the hecka says. So
I've been listening to y'all, and it wasn't till today
that it really clicked for me that the whole thing
of why it got taken off is a disorder and

(44:19):
everything from all that is not because people just want
them to feel good or anything like that. It's because
it's quite literally not a disorder because the only time
they have trauma is when society is being a dickhead
to them and not affirming it. And it made super
a lot of sense when y'all started talking about tribes
and other countries that have, you know, medicinemen or something

(44:40):
like that, that they it's more of a gender fluid thing,
you know, And I was like, holy crap. If society
just wasn't a dickhead and could understand that right and
could see that what we see as male role and
female role is outdated and just a traditionalist thing in
the West, then yes, we could, you know, have everyone
be fluid and you wouldn't have to affirm that person

(45:02):
being like a female, yes you are a man, You
just be like, yes, there is no male or female
but right now, the best thing to do is to
affirm it rather than to fight them on that, because
you don't want them getting all sad or anything like that,
because that's stupid and it's the point that you shouldn't
be arguing on anyway. If I think I understand that.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Yeah, yeah, that's really great. I'm glad that the ACA
has been helpful for you on that, Joseph, because you know,
like ten years ago, twenty years ago, the skeptic community
at large date, especially YouTubers and stuff like, there's still
a lot of them that pushed back against that, and
some of them that still do right. But I'm happy
to say that the community's overall is very different than

(45:38):
it was ten twenty years ago, and you know, it's
still changing and it's still evolving. And that's something that
we'll always have the advantage of compared to religious believers,
is that, yeah, we can change, and we can't admit
that when we're wrong in stuff, and when we realize, hey,
some of these ideas that we had, maybe we're phobic
towards trans people and towards gay people and towards other communities, right,

(45:59):
we like admit that and learn from our mistakes and
move on. So good for you for you know, having
that realization for yourself and.

Speaker 5 (46:07):
The other thing I wanted to thank you, But the
other thing I wanted to say too is I know
there's a lot of people out there to see it
as a dysphoria or is something that just as like
you're lying right and you're like going along with the lie.
But it's really nice. It's just you're affirming like, yes, dude,
you could. You can be a dude and wear heels
and address and you should be able to hell, this

(46:27):
is America, Dudell, Who the hell are you to dress
this person. We should be celebrating, like, do whatever the
hell you want, man, and if someone talks about them
doing shit as a fellow American, you should be like,
screw you, malon. And that just made sense to me
because I had a gay uncle, uncle George, who was
the coolest guy ever, but he was always misunderstood by
the family and I could see that as growing up,

(46:49):
and he would, you know, dress up as a girl
sometimes and go out and my dad and the older
generation would kind of talk shit about it, and I
always thought it was really crappy because I was like
uncle George is like the night this person in this family,
and all he wants to do is go out and
have fun and express himself how he is, you know.
And then I found out that they used to, uh,
the homophote or homosexuality used to be also a dysphoria

(47:13):
or a disorder, until they got that off the books,
and then society started accepting that. And then once I
realized that, I was like, oh, so this is going
to take time for society to stop being ignorant about
something and actually try to learn about it.

Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely, And I can tell you know, like,
really you want to be an evangelist. You want to
convert to other people to these great ideas because you're
more enlightened now, and and and and and look, that's
an impulse that literally all of us as activists have, right,
especially when a lot of this stuff is still new
to us, and it's it's a great thing to keep inside, right,

(47:47):
keep that fire burning, because having conversations with people is
really fun and it's so great and satisfying when I
get to talk to people like yourself, Joseph, who have
who have like made those changes for themselves. So you
can definitely be from other people. And you know what,
if your brother is still having issues, maybe he can
be you can be a safe space for him to
explore some of those ideas because you do have that

(48:09):
trust with him and stuff, right, if he ever decides
he wants to go there with you, you know, but
I would say, you know, like Jimmy sand hey man,
it's not your responsibility. At the end of the day.
You're an adult. He's an adult, I think, right, uh,
based on what you're telling me here, and so he's
gonna have to figure some stuff out. But you can
at least be there for him when he's ready to
figure that out. Right, So on that note, we I

(48:33):
think we do have to let you go. But I
want to thank you so much for calling in. I
would love to hear any updates that happen with your story.
Please call in and talk to me about it because
I would love to hear it. But for now, I
will let you go. Joseph, thanks so much for calling in,
and hope you have a great rest of your weekend.

Speaker 5 (48:48):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
What a great call.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
Yeah, excellent, excellent. That was very beautifully put by you
there at the end, Dan, I can't remember.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
Did I say something cool, I don't know. Well, listen, man,
I'll tell you this. Like one of my best friends,
my best man at my wedding's a Christian. Right, that
might surprise you because I do stuff at the ACA.
I've known this guy before I did stuff at the ACA.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
You know.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
I used to work with this guy when I worked
at a Christian camp. And when I first came out
as an atheist, a lot of my friends left me.
I did I had. There was one girl straight up
told me I was going to go to hell. I've
sold this story before on the show. But this dude
did was still my friend through all of this, right,
And I definitely disagree with him on a lot of things.
But you know what he's never been bad of is
being a bad friend to me. And he's still a

(49:36):
good friend to me today. And So one thing that's
great about being an atheist is that we can judge
other people by their actions. Right, That's what's more important
than their adherence to an ideology.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Right.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
I don't care if somebody believes in God or doesn't
believe in God. I care if they're going to be
a good person or not. That's truly what's most important
to me. At the end of the day. Yes, I
would like them to see the light of reason and
all these other things, right, And that's that's cool too,
But like, if you're going to be a dick about it,
what's the point? What the hell is the point?

Speaker 2 (50:05):
Right?

Speaker 1 (50:06):
So you know, it's kind of interesting that we had
this back and forth here with Judge because see you
were I'm glad that you held firm in your sort
of pushback a little bit to make sure that like, hey,
we got to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves, right, Yeah,
you know, we.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
Want to tell stories and give accounts, and I think
especially in the angry atheist phase that Joseph might be in,
you know, he might might still be holding onto a
little of that. We tend to give the account as
if we're the we're the good guy, we're the hero
and the story, right, and we really do need to

(50:42):
step back and uh and wargame ourselves, as we say
in my community. But you know, when you come up
with a course of action that you're going to take,
when you come up when you have a plan, you
really need to step back and say, all right, now,
where are all the holes and and and be the
other person. Sometimes we contribute to the problem, you know.

(51:02):
And yeah, I do believe that my life has gotten
better since I've gotten rid of my dogma. I do
believe that I'm in a better place because I accept
more people, I'm loving of more people, less judgmental. It
still doesn't mean that I don't have my own biases
and you know, other kind of these kind of cognitive
holdups that we just we need to take time to

(51:24):
go through.

Speaker 1 (51:25):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I do think that, like
you know, I said, we're being consistent. You know, he's
like posting on his Instagram and stuff. Maybe he's getting spicy, right,
Maybe he did post a meme but they went too far.
I don't know. But but like people will remember that
if you decided to go that route. I'm not saying
that's not a legitimate route, because some of our most

(51:45):
viral clips are when some of our hosts are angry
and are speaking to their minds. I think there's a
there's room for speaking truth to power, but there's also
room for other kinds of ways of convincing people, right,
because yeah, playing to civility politics every time isn't great either, right,
because you'll always be on the you won't. You'll never

(52:06):
have the upper hand if you're the minority in that situation,
which atheists pretty much are when it comes to this
kind of conversation. But at the same time, when you
have a personal relationship with somebody that also has a
different dimension to a different aspect to it, and sometimes
we can conflate these these different strategies that we have
for different contexts in thinking that one strategy is going

(52:28):
to be effective because it works in a different context.
And so it's important, like you said, wargaming it making
sure that we're making sense here. So yeah, good stuff,
good stuff all around. I'm liking it, Jimmie, I'm liking it.
By the way, Thank you for your service, Jimmy.

Speaker 3 (52:43):
Come on, come on, hey, look, you know, I just
want to take some time since we're talking about it,
you know, Okay, Okay, let me just say I joined
the military for what I believe, for all the right reasons. Okay.
I don't think that the mility terry is perfect by
any means, but I hate like the political division and

(53:04):
people people pick you to be on their side, you know,
like when you wear a uniform, it's so easy for
people to be like, oh, you must believe X, Y,
and Z, or you're one of us. And it's like, hey,
look like I joined. I wanted medical benefits, like I
wanted to travel. I wanted to serve my country because
I am a believer in the idea of some other

(53:28):
nation coming here and doing bad things to us. And yeah,
I have no problem stepping up and doing something about that.
But I hate the preconceived notions about military people that
are out there. You know, people hear the word military
and they will ascribe to you whatever it is that
they've already got ascribed. And it's kind of like being

(53:49):
an atheist in a way, because they got you already
figured out. They know what your beliefs are, they know
what kind of person you are, and honestly, there's so
much more in here, you know. There's like, I'm not
a representative of all of the things that happens in
the military all of the time. I don't make those decisions.
I just try to do the best thing, be a
good citizen, do right by my family, and be like

(54:12):
a good steward of the government, and I hope for
the best, you know, And so I think that that
has been consistent with how I've just tried to live
as a person. So thank you for letting me get
on my soapbox, because I get a lot of comments
when people say thank you for your service, or like
people talk about my military service. I get comments like

(54:33):
on the shows that I'm like, you know, kind of
how how shitty it is, how shitty it is, and
I just don't think it's that shitty, you know, you.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
Know, I so okay, Now I feel I was just
making a shitty joke, and I'm glad that you got
to get your soapbox for that. So I appreciate you
having your perspective because I know what you mean. I
feel the same way in the sense that when I
first became a stargo and vegan, suddenly like everybody in
my life could make vegan jokes and have all these

(55:00):
Suddenly they have all these opinions about vegans that they
want to share with me and stuff and how all
these other vegans are terrible and crazy, and it's like, Okay,
that's fine, you can think those things about those people.
But I'm still my own like individual. I have my
own release, my own values, and my own reasons for
doing why I do it I do, and it's you know,
you're still thinking in stereotypes. Even if you have a
friend that is a certain way and you think you

(55:21):
can joke with them like, you can still be a
victim of that. So it is frustrating and uncomfortable. So
I can relate with you on that point.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
Oh, thank you, Thank you, Dan. You're a good friend.
You know you're a good friend. Man. You and I
we got something special happening. We got something special today.
We're joining cults. We're making we're making cults.

Speaker 1 (55:39):
We're making cults. We're joining cults. We're writing fan fiction
about historical figures. I love it. I think it's great.
But maybe we should move on to some other callers. Yeah,
in just a second, we have another person who wants
to talk to us. This is Mikhail MIKEL. Ravey, who

(56:01):
is talking to us. Hello, can you hear us?

Speaker 2 (56:04):
Yes, it's okay, okay, great.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
For some reason, my calling studio thing froze on me,
and I wasn't sure if you actually connected to us,
So that's why I hesitated there. But thank you, welcome
to truth. Wanted what can we do for you?

Speaker 2 (56:16):
So I found out about you?

Speaker 1 (56:18):
Oh hello, are you still there? Let's try that again,
I think it went back to the queue. Okay, you
should be able to hear you, now, go ahead.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
All right, awesome. So I lead a Bible study at
my school and with that I get a lot of
questions about apologetics, right proving what I believe in. But
at the same time, I still have people send me things.
And that's actually how I found out about this, this
calling studio, because they thought you should call in and.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
Hell, yeah, I love that for it. By the way,
thanks for calling. I appreciate it. You don't have to
do that, but you did, and that's awesome for us,
So thank you.

Speaker 2 (56:51):
Yeah. I think it's good to investigate other world views,
and even if people don't believe in it, I think
it's still important to figure out what other people are thinking,
you know. So my sort of argument that I want
to start with is that the Bible is true and reliable,
which makes the likelihood of there being a God, a
higher power, which I believe is the God of the Bible,
to be true. That's the argument that i'd like to present, respectfully.

Speaker 1 (57:14):
Okay, So I think if your premises are true, that
then your argument is sound, right that, like, if the
Bible was reliable, and what it says to be in there,
the claims it makes are true, then there should be
a higher probability of like the Christian God being a thing.
I would agree with you there, I think, and I
think Jimmy would think the same way. We just don't

(57:35):
think the Bible is a reliable source, right, So tell
me why you think the Bible is a reliable source. Hello?
You still there? Oh man? Okay, we're having a little
bit of issues. Looks like cauled God terminated. Michael. If
you're still watching the program and you know, want to
talk to us, you definitely still can. You can get
back in the quebe and we'll talk to you. Not

(57:56):
sure what's going on. I think it's something on our end,
possibly because I've seen some weird stuff there. But right
now our lines are open, so I guess I'm going
back to you, Jimmy on just random messiahs.

Speaker 3 (58:11):
I wanna I want to I want to pick that apart.
I mean, what's his name? Mikhail got us going here?
So you know, is the Bible true and reliable?

Speaker 2 (58:22):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (58:22):
So the Bible is what you think?

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Do you think his argument is sound that if the
Bible like is true, then like we should believe in God,
like you know thinks.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
It's such a it's such a sweeping statement, like because
there are true things in the Bible, and could you
reliably or could you rely on the Bible for certain things?
I'm not sure what, but uh, if we're connecting reliability
to truth, uh, there's got to be some things in
the Bible that I can rely on, for example, geography

(58:53):
right now, certain types of history, certain concepts that I
can reliably open the Bible and expect to see and
maybe get a better understanding of, you know, if I
are if I were to take some of the cultures,
some of the characteristics of the people and the villages
and the towns, might I get a better understanding of

(59:14):
Middle Eastern culture, of the Bronze Age, of Like, there
are things that I can find in there that I
can I can rely upon it. And you know, knowing
when these chapters were written, maybe who wrote them, we
we although that's largely kind of impossible to determine, but
but maybe where they might have come from, or what

(59:36):
kind of person, what kind of time frame it came from.
You know, we could reliably make some assumptions about the
world in which the Bible existed when it was created.
But but Yahweh, Okay, Yahweh is really like therefore Yahweh
is true. There's a lot of baggage that comes with
Yahweh that I don't I don't think people really understand.

(59:59):
Like people will dedicate their lives and often they say
they do, but they don't ever really read the Bible.
But they'll say they dedicate their lives. They've read the Bible.
I understand the Bible, But did you read the other
things that came before the Bible that the Bible borrowed from.
Do you understand where Yahweh might have come from? That
there was a dichotomy between the god Yahweh and some

(01:00:20):
of the other you know, another god that was almost
exactly like Yahweh. There are some conflicts there that you
really have to get through. And I think our guy
is back. Yeah, so maybe he can, maybe he can
expand on how the Bible is true and reliable.

Speaker 1 (01:00:32):
Okay, yeah, let's let's get back to Michale. Can you
hear us?

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (01:00:37):
Okay, great, I'm not sure what happened there, but we
got you back on on stream here, so go ahead. Yeah,
we want to know about the Bible being reliable. Why
do we think that the Bible is reliable?

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Yeah, So my argument that the Bible is true? Right,
we first have to define our terms. Right, So when
I talk about the Bible, I'm talking about the sixty
six books written by forty four different people over fifteen
hundred years.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
Right, Yeah, appreciate that because there are different Bibles. Appreciate that, yes, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
And then with that, we also need to find what
we're talking about when we say truth. So the definition
of truth that I'd like to use is it's in
accordance with reality. Can we agree on that?

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
Yeah, I'm totally fine with that. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:01:18):
So if we want to look at the Bible and
we want to say, okay, is this in accordance with reality?
We need to look at a lot of different things
we need to look at. Okay, does it fit the
time of the day, does it match up geographically? Does
it match up with other sources? Can we compare it
to other things and see, Okay, is this matching up?
And if we take certain if we take the Bible,

(01:01:40):
it does that for any passage at any time. Are
you familiar with the Gospel of Luke?

Speaker 1 (01:01:45):
Yes, I am familiar with the Gospel of Luke.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Yeah, so the Gospel of Luke in chapter three. You
don't mind if I read it real it's a small
snippet here, real.

Speaker 1 (01:01:54):
Quick, if you feel it's relevant.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Yeah, yeah, all right, So this is to sound like
it drags on by. I promise this is this is
this is essential. So sos in the fifteenth year of
the reign of Tiberius Caesar Pontius Pilot being governor of Judea,
and Harrod being Tetrak of Galilee and his brother Philip
Tetrach of the region of the Tura and Track and
Manas and Lycenus Tetrack of Albaline during the high priesthood

(01:02:20):
priesthood of Anus and Topias, the Word of God came
to John the son of Zachari in the wilderness. So
that seems like a bunch of jumble, right, But at
the same time, are you aware who Lucian is?

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Yes, I'm aware of Lucian and you know so. And
I think this is an argument that gets brought up
when talking about uh specifically the Gospel of Luke. Right,
there's some other stuff that comes in there is the
sort of dating of some of these people that lived
in these historical time frames. One, you know, an issue
that kind of comes into conflict is the Gospel of

(01:02:54):
Matthew and the Gospel of Luke sort of defer in
some of the dates there. But large larger problem than that,
even I would say, is that none of the Gospels
are written in the timeframe in which they are writing about.
There is a forty year minimum at least between the
Gospel of Mark, which is often cited as the earliest

(01:03:16):
gospel written, and the time in which it tooks place. Right,
It's like seventy a d. Is like the earliest date
the biblical scholars will give to Mark, and Mark is
the earliest one. Luke comes a little bit later, around
like eighty a D. I think, tied up with Matthew,
and then Gospel Giant starts at like ninety to like
one hundred. So you know, it can give some facts

(01:03:37):
about some historical figures, but everything else that it talks
about is like eyewitness events, right, eyewitness events that don't
seem to be written by the eyewitness. So that's one
of the biggest problems I have with the Gospels is
that they claim to sort of be these eyewitness accounts
that don't seem to match up with each other. And also,
you know, aren't eyewitnesses according to people who have studied

(01:03:59):
this for way longer than I have.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
Yeah, so that first part that you mentioned there, can
you repeat that? What was the first? Was it the sorry?
Can you repeat that first part? I heard your second point.
I was thinking about the first point. What you saw was. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:04:15):
I have a tendency to talk a lot, so you know,
I may have made a couple of different points in there,
but I guess you know, the gospel accounts themselves seem
to differ in some of the time for frames and
stories that they talk about. Right, So the Gospel of
Matthew has this whole narrative about escaping from Egypt and
who's ruling at this time and what's happening with the

(01:04:35):
birth of Christ, and you know, there's also sort of
this virgin story that gets added in later in John
and stuff. Right, So already in the first couple of
chapters in all of the gospels there there really are
accounting for different events, sometimes using the same people, but
sometimes talking about different people as well.

Speaker 2 (01:04:56):
Yeah, so with any kind of writing, we have to
be aware of what are they trying to accomplish. Right,
So we look at the Gospel of Matthew compared to
the Gospel of Luke, right, or even the Gospel of Mark,
and they have different purposes and differentiations in detail don't amount,
I believe to contradictions. So you talked about, uh, the idea, right,

(01:05:20):
the story of how Jesus had to escape from Herod
to go to Egypt, or if he had to escape
from Herod by going to Egypt. That's that's not a
differentiation in detail, that amounts to like a like, oh,
this isn't true. Right if if you're if you're looking
at the gospels, and if they matched up perfectly, you
could accuse them of corroborating, and then it would lose

(01:05:41):
its reliability. So I think that the fact that they're
different in slight flight manners differentiations, I think that proves
really the reliability of them.

Speaker 3 (01:05:50):
Right.

Speaker 2 (01:05:50):
It's the idea of well, okay, test.

Speaker 1 (01:05:54):
Right, yeah, can I throw this at you because you
also know that these aren't the only Gospels of Jesus
that exists, right, there's other gospels that have been written,
and you're right, they all have different purposes, right, they
all have different evangelical sort of ideas that they want
to get out, sort of describing the theology of Jesus,

(01:06:15):
what he's about, Well, you know what he said to
accomplish what we should take from it, right. But my
argument is that's separate from talking about truth. Right, I
think that these gospels do have similarities. In fact, there
is evidence that Matthew and Luke do take from each
other in some respects. They do have similarities because they

(01:06:36):
are taking these ideas and also transforming them to push
them on their own narratives. And we know this to
be a fact, right. We know this to be a
fact because there are other Gospels of Jesus, right, Gospel
of Thomas, and all kinds of other early gnostic tests
and stuff that do accomplish that. And most people Christians
today don't take these as fact, don't take these as

(01:06:56):
describing anything true about reality or anything true out what
Jesus has said or done. I just go one step
further and say, I think that's true for the commonly
accepted gospels as well, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Does
that make sense?

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
Yeah, So, sort of going into the fact that there
are other gospels out there, just because of their gospel. Like,
just because they're written doesn't mean that they're true. Right,
they haven't been. They're not part of the yeah. Right,
So you can look at you can look at you
can look at the Gospel of Thomas, and it has
huge contradictions with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John whereas right

(01:07:30):
or even right, you can look at the end of
the Gospel of Thomas, right, and it says basically, every
woman who makes yourself male answers the Kingdom of Heaven. Right,
that's not at all what Jesus preached. And if you
actually go and you look at the texts, right, you
go and you investigate them, it turns out that the
Gospel of Thomas is a known forgery. Right, So now
you have to ask yourself, Okay, you know this isn't reliable.

(01:07:53):
So what makes these four reliable? Right? It's it's not
just because I'm not going to make the argument, well,
I believe it that God.

Speaker 1 (01:08:01):
Cal It's interesting you say that, man, And I'm sorry
I'm interrupting again, and please forgive my rudeness, but I'm
just eager to talk about this because, like I think,
the gospels do contradict each other in quite significant details
and do have significant narratives. The example I'll give is
the Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John are
functionally extremely different gospels of Jesus. Mark doesn't even talk

(01:08:24):
about the resurrection, right. Mark, every time Jesus is doing
his miracles and talking to people, he's saying, Hey, don't
tell anybody about this, don't say anything about me being
the messiah. Right, I'm just kind of here for you
guys and to kind of live my truth. Whereas John's like, yes,
I am the son of God, and like I'm out
here doing stuff and nobody can get to Heaven except

(01:08:44):
through me, right, And these are like very different sort
of theological narratives that are happening. So, you know, Thomas,
you point out correctly that is a known forgery, But
you know, I would go as further as to say
that the supposed eyewitness accounts of Matthew, Mark, Lue John
are also not written by eyewitnesses. And I also think
that gospel scholars agree with me on this, that there's

(01:09:07):
no way that these could have been written by eyewitsiness
accounts maybe originally stories from eyewitnesses. You could make that argument,
But as far as what's written pen to paper not
the same thing. They're written like a posthumously katay, forty
years after the events of what's going on here, or
if not posthumously, at least when people would not have
the recollection to talk about things in such a detail

(01:09:30):
that the Gospels tend to make. So, but I'm talking
a lot here. I don't want to take up the
whole conversation.

Speaker 3 (01:09:37):
Cal are you here?

Speaker 4 (01:09:38):
Yep?

Speaker 2 (01:09:38):
Sorry, so you mind? Sorry, I hope I didn't interrupt either,
But you said the Gospel of Mark doesn't even talk
about the resurrection.

Speaker 1 (01:09:47):
Yeah, the resurrection stories, the post resurrection stories aren't really
a thing in Mark.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
So yeah, so the stories of what he did after
the resurrection might not be included. But when we look history, right,
are what does Lucian say is important when you're writing history? Right?
He says, include the important things, cut out the fluff.
So we have to look at Okay, what was Mark
trying to accomplish with his gospel? Why didn't he include

(01:10:13):
these things? That doesn't amount to a contradiction, and it
doesn't amount to the fact that the Bible, like the Gospels,
are different. Right, was Mark trying to accomplish the same
things as Matthew was. No, Matthew was trying to show
that the Jesus was going to be a new David
and a new Moses. Right. That's why the genealogies look
different as well, because in order to understand the Bible,

(01:10:34):
you also have to understand the language. And when we
look at the language and we look at the fact
that Matthew was trying to display Jesus as a new David.
So every Hebrew name has a number associated with it,
and David's number was fourteen. And when you line up
and you look at the text of the genealogies in Matthew,
they line up to three rows of fourteen. So if
you were Hebrew reading that at the time, he would

(01:10:56):
be like, oh, he's a Stavid, right, they would be
associated with one another. Matt Matthew would have been trying
to show, Okay, Jesus is the new David, and Hebrew
would have understood that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
Would they have called him Jesus? I mean, his name
was not his name you're saying Jesus, are you? Are
you talking about like the original translation of Jesus's name,
which and would that have lined up with David or
is it just so happened that the the europeanization of
the name of Jesus had, you know, ends up winding

(01:11:26):
up with David Well, I.

Speaker 1 (01:11:27):
Mean, he's talking about the genealogies, right, he's so there's
there's a genealogies in both that that have different lines
of succession Jesus David, Yeah, so so. But it's interesting
that this is brought up because, like, you know, you're
making this point sort of without me having to make it,
which is that these genealogies are different in both of

(01:11:48):
the Gospels, which I think is another example of why
these stories are just that that their stories, because you
can make some argument that these are serving some sort
of literary purpose that oh, if we do this numerologically,
then you know there's some sort of significance there in
a meaning there, But that doesn't change the fact that

(01:12:09):
the factual truth of that genealogy like is wrong, right,
Like the actual state of affairs that the genealogies claim
are are different, right, And so they are they are
not compatible.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
With each other. Yeah, just because they're different, like I
said earlier, just because there's a differentiat in differentiation in detail,
doesn't mean that they're contradicting. Just because Matthew isn't taking
Matthew's not saying, okay, they gave birth to this person.
He's not saying okay, that's completely different in somebody. He's
what he's actually doing.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
I think this is a Christian narrative. I'm gonna be honest,
this is a Christian idea that isn't historical. I don't
think I like this idea that we can just come
up with genealogies and say, hey, actually, I know this
says that I'm related to William Shakespeare, but I'm just
trying to make the point that like I'm the next

(01:13:01):
great poet, like you know, maybe that work for the
Jewish people at the time. That still doesn't mean that
it's right, right. That's still just a narrative that's being
given out there, right, And that's what seems to be
done when linking Jesus to David in this way, and
why I'm extremely skeptical of it. I mean, and at
the end of the day, if I present you two
different genealogies of where I come from, they can't both

(01:13:22):
be right, right. That's just not how genealogies work. They
either come from one person or I don't, and you know,
the text is very clear on the narrative that it's
trying to make here. I think you're right. I think
those authors are trying to make a sort of literary
connection there. But that also means we can't trust it
as a reality, right.

Speaker 2 (01:13:42):
I wouldn't. I wouldn't be so quick to say that,
because if you if you study Hebrew and you study
the culture of the day, you'll know that that was
pretty common and it was pretty common on other cultures
at that time as well. To not they're not playing
loose in sass with the data. But what they're doing
is they're and they're not They're not completely contradicting each other.
Like I said, Matthew is he's mushing together lines of people.

(01:14:04):
He's not taking them out, he's not putting different ones in.
But what he's doing is he's he might be cutting
something out that's not important if he's trying to trying
to make a detail. If you study Hebrew, you study
that culture, you'll know that that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:14:16):
So the fact that so I'm sorry, let me let
me step in before before I get a little too lost,
because I'm a little I'm and I admit, I'm not
quite sure what's going on here. So I thought before
you were trying to make like some kind of literary connection,
but on, but it was a it was some kind
of chronological connection. But what is it about the Hebrew

(01:14:37):
culture that makes uh? So we're getting off, like I
feel like we've deviated quite a bit because you said
the Bible is true and reliable. Yeah, I agree, and
and you're and now you're you're kind of cherry picking
the idea of the gospels, right uh and saying that
the Hebrew culture, understanding the Hebrew culture of around uh

(01:14:59):
the turn of the millennium, would lead you to believe
that the Bible is true. And you know, forgive me,
I'm not a Bible so clarification before I believe you.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
I'll play defense here, Jimmy, because this is a this
is a Christian apologetic that gets brought up when we
talk about contradictions in the Bible.

Speaker 2 (01:15:19):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:15:20):
He was preemptively bringing up the idea that genealogies are different,
because that's a common criticism that gets brought up, and
he's he's defending that these facts and genealogy being different
are not necessarily an indication of the Bible not being reliable.
So I think that's what Michael was trying to do
here and preemptively bringing up that fact. He wasn't necessarily

(01:15:41):
hinging his entire belief in the Gospels. Yeah, go ahead, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:45):
I could point to I could point to other things
like you mentioned.

Speaker 4 (01:15:48):
I think it was this.

Speaker 3 (01:15:49):
This doesn't include that. So this does give me an
opening to talk about the Hebrew culture though, right, And
you know, if we look at the Hebrew culture, uh,
throughout the documentation, if you will, in the Bible, a
lot of what they write is actually propaganda versus their oppressor.
So in the Old Testament you have a lot of

(01:16:11):
propaganda that that really bolsters the prominence of the Jewish
people and kind of suppresses the prominence of the Egyptians.
And then the various civilizations that exist in Mesopotamia, whether
it be the Babylonians or like the Assyrians. The New
Testament is really not that different in that regard. This

(01:16:35):
is a time period and where the Romans had just
defeated the pre eminent power of the Middle East and
the Mediterranean, which was Egypt, and the Romans were the
big kids on the block, and they were the oppressors
of the Jewish state of Israel back then. And so
you start to see this progression of supernatural detail as
you go from Mark, which was written first, to John,

(01:16:57):
which is completely different and higherly supernatural. It's almost as if,
as you go as through a progression in time that
the more traditional writing style wasn't doing enough to make
the Romans look as bad as they truly were viewed
by the Jewish people, or make the Jewish people seem

(01:17:20):
as significant as they wanted to be depicted. And so
they started adding these things, and all of a sudden,
you've got a man born of a virgin who comes
back from the dead, is going to come back. By
that point, the Jewish people don't even accept it, you know.
So there's a level of understanding international relations and the
clashing of cultures around this time period where we have

(01:17:42):
to say, well, were the Jewish people that were writing this,
were they really being truthful or did they have an
agenda that aggrandized themselves and suppressed their oppressor. And I
would have to go with the latter, knowing what I
know about Jewish culture and knowing what I know about
the dynamics of the Middle East and the Mediterranean, back

(01:18:02):
in the Bronze and Iron ages. Yeah, so what are
your thoughts on a narrative that is that is nothing
but propaganda.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
Against the Roman Jews? Yeah? So Paul actually wrote a
letter to the Romans and what did he say? And
do you know what he said? In Romans Chapter three,
verse nine, he said it was.

Speaker 3 (01:18:23):
So I actually don't know, but I'm not really sure
how that like how like there are other books that
were written And this is a classic atheist response. I
get it, but there's so many other books that are
written that I would ask you, like, why is your
book that there's only one source for? Why is that
the thing that you're hinging your bets on? And it's

(01:18:44):
not the fact that the Hebrew people have been oppressed
from both sides for as long as you they've they've
documented for the fifteen hundred years that they've been writing
the Bible. They were oppressed by the Egyptians, oppressed by
the Babylonians, oppressed by the Romans, and they wrote stuff
to oppose all of them.

Speaker 2 (01:19:01):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (01:19:02):
Isn't that a more comprehensive approach to look at the
culture and the history instead of saying I've got this
one letter that was written, or this several letters that
were written by people with an agenda, agenda that changes.

Speaker 2 (01:19:13):
You could make that argument, but that argument, that argument
directly conflicts with what Romans says, because Romans says that
Jews aren't any better off and that we're all equally guilty.
So Paul was actually writing to the Jewish people in
Rome saying, Okay, this Gospel isn't for you, it's for everyone.
So I would disagree with that and say that you're

(01:19:35):
still turning the Gospels weren't written. No, I'm just turning to.

Speaker 3 (01:19:40):
A single to a single source that has its own agenda.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
Right, It's not I would. I would. I'm trying to
be charitable to Michael here, because I wouldn't say it's
a single source. Right. The Gospels are a different source
from from Paul for sure.

Speaker 3 (01:19:53):
Okay, No, No, I'm what I'm saying is the Bible,
the Bible, the Bible itself, while while these sources are compiled.

Speaker 1 (01:20:01):
Yeah, but I don't think I don't think it's fair
to say the Bible is a single source.

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
Oh it's not. It's not. I said it's a compilation. Yeah,
but but in what way are they verified, right, And
in what way are they more likely to be a
response to Roman oppression? A response to the oppression that
the Jewish people felt? You know, why is that not
the more likely scenario? Why are we not cherry picking?

(01:20:25):
Why are we now cherry picking these stories whose authors
can't be verified and that don't have any corroborating sources.

Speaker 1 (01:20:32):
Can I refine your argument? Because I think I could.
I think you can carry you here. Here's what I
would say. Here's what I would say that I think
might be a refined version of this argument, because I think,
like the Gospels each individually as a source, and the
Letters of Paul are different sources that also have their
own agendas, right, And you've already made that clear in

(01:20:52):
your arguments, And I think that's true, right. They have
their own sort of narratives, their own sort of theological
ideas that they want to put out there, et cetera.
And so like, I get this idea, Yeah, they're talking
about different things. They want to put their own ideas.
That still doesn't make me know that it's true, right
at the end of the day, because you know, there
already are other Gospels, other books, you know, books that

(01:21:13):
people would call biblical, or at least are about Jesus
that didn't make it to the Bible for one reason
or another. I'm not more convinced that the Gospels or
the Letters Paul are something that we should take any
more seriously than any other writings about any other Messiah
at any other given point in time.

Speaker 2 (01:21:29):
Right, I would disagree with that, because I would say
that the Bible isn't just it's not just a book,
and it's not just like like you can't compare the
Bible to Harry Potter and cross references. The Bible is
sixty six thousand cross.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
Sure, well I don't, I don't. I don't think it's
completely fiction in the sense that like Harry Potter is
completely fiction. Right, So that makes sense to me, right,
But like that doesn't mean that it's all true. Like
we were talking about Cyrus Teed earlier, who has his
own followers who believed that he was the Messiah and
had his own sort of messiah story, and the other
people talked about it and believe it. I just think

(01:22:03):
the Gospels are just that there's somebody that followed a
guy named Jesus a long time ago and wrote about
him in the same way that call people today would
write about their leader. Right, So I have a hard
time disinbiguating the Bible is different in that sense from
any other sort of follower to cult leader narrative.

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
Right. Yeah, so the Bible isn't, especially with the Gospels.
The Gospels weren't just written by like you can't just
look at those and say, okay, they were written forty
years after. But if you compare the strategies that they
were using in their writing to historians of the day,
it's clear that they're making it reliable. They're proving it.
They're saying, here are the sources. Here, go talk to

(01:22:44):
these people. This is who was alive at the time.
This is how long they ruled, it was during this
time period in these places. If you look at the
details of the Gospel, then it's pretty clear that they
ligne up with reality. And that's what we went back to,
right with the idea of okay, what is true in
accordance with reality. You can take any part of the Bible,
take it out of okay, next, okay it doesn't make sense,

(01:23:06):
put it in context, and it turns out that it's true.
And you can look at it and it's historically reliable.

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
Well, you're saying, Michael, that if we found another contemporary
source with that of the Gospels that said, hey, here's
another guy in Australia, for example, that wrote in the
same way that people that the that the Aborigine people
would write about history at the time, about a guy
who rose from the dead and who performed these miracles. Right,

(01:23:31):
because it's concurrent with the methods used by other historians
at the time. That must mean we have to believe
the stories of this person being the Messiah are true.

Speaker 2 (01:23:41):
That's a that's an interesting argument. But the problem is
you could say that about Julius Caesar, right, you could say, okay,
or we to believe Julius Caesar was true, but there
are statutes of them.

Speaker 1 (01:23:51):
But the problem is, though, the problem is, I don't
have issues with the claims of Julius Caesar existing in
the same way I don't have claims about Jesus existing.
It's about the things that he did, right, that's the
bigger thing. And the fact that we have coins of
Julius Caesar means that we know that he did at
least something for their history, right, like that it was
at least important enough in that way. The problem is

(01:24:13):
we don't have the same sort of evidence that we
do for Jesus or the various things that he accomplished.

Speaker 2 (01:24:18):
Really because yes, we're Gospels, and we have a New
Testament written all about him and what he did and
what it means.

Speaker 1 (01:24:25):
Okay, do you know how many books there are in
the Kuran? Like, do you know how many chapters there
are speaking of the prophet Mohammad? Like It's very comparable.
In fact, it's even greater than what the Four Gospels have.
I'll tell you that. Like you know, other people have
religious writings about their leaders.

Speaker 3 (01:24:42):
Yeah, Joseph, I mean not Joseph. Excuse me, excuse me, Michael,
I'm sorry I called you the name of the like
pre dating Jesus for thousands of years, we have still
we are still uncovering pillars, walls, monuments with the names
of gods that existed for twice the time that Jesus

(01:25:04):
has been around, and you know they've been corroborated over
many millennia in different parts of the world. So why
is that not more feasible to you than four Gospels?
Why why don't you Why don't you give credibility to
the existence of the moon god, Sin of the City
of Earth, Like, why is that less credible? There they

(01:25:27):
were worshiping Sin. Yeah, for two thousand years.

Speaker 2 (01:25:30):
So Christianity is completely unique in that regard because every
religion at the time and the time before that, and
you could even say the time after that of what
or sorry, let me get back on, Drager. You can
look at the religions, right, I've studied world religions. I'm
sure you have as well. Every world religion aside from
Christianity is a do this mentality, a think this mentality

(01:25:55):
or feel this way right in order to achieve salvation
or whatever is that they're arguing that they can give you.

Speaker 1 (01:26:02):
Correct. But but Michail, that has nothing to do with
the value if it's truth. Right, Like, just because in
Ethos in the religion may be unique amongst like its
other surrounding cultures, that doesn't make it more true. Right.

Speaker 2 (01:26:16):
Well, that goes into what a truth claim is, right,
because if you say two plus two Ekles four and
I say two plus two Ekals five, one of us
is right and one of us is wrong.

Speaker 1 (01:26:24):
Yeah, the ones that can demonstr Yeah, but yeah, it
has nothing to do with history. You know, like, just
because Jesus had good things to say and told and
told people to act in a certain way, that doesn't
make his his his life and the things he allegedly
did more true.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
I would disagree because okay, you look at the sorry
can you repeat that?

Speaker 1 (01:26:45):
Well, okay, so the argument that you're making right now,
and by the way, we're getting close to the end
of the show, so just as a warning for you,
because we got to wrap things up pretty soon here.
So you know you're saying, well, the teachings of Christianity
are different from other cultures and other religions that have
existed prior, because you know, it teaches people to do
things and act in a different way. And my counter

(01:27:07):
to this is that has nothing to do with its
truth value. In fact, it could be great advice, and
all the advice could be really awesome, but that has
nothing to do with the historical facts of Jesus' life.

Speaker 2 (01:27:17):
What do you disagree with the facts of Jesus's life?
Because I'm like, are you.

Speaker 1 (01:27:21):
Just I don't think he rose from the dead, right,
I don't think he come for form miracles. I don't
think he was born in a virgin I don't think
he's the son of God.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
Okay, do you believe in a probably not? No, Okay,
so how do you sorry, how much time do we
have left?

Speaker 1 (01:27:37):
Let's call it at like five minutes here, just because yeah,
I think that's good enough time.

Speaker 2 (01:27:42):
So no worries. I mean that goes back in my
argument for the Bible, that it's true doesn't just hang
on the fact of its historical reliability, but its applications
still apply to us today in a very real sense,
to the point where it's like, Okay, we are going
to die, that's for sure, right, agree, We're going to die. Yeah,
I do agree.

Speaker 1 (01:28:02):
But I think that's what I think that's the weakness
of your argument, right, because I think somebody who is
a devout believer in in in the Taoist faith would
find the touch in books to be, you know, incredibly
enlightening and should be great for other people. Right. And
this isn't trying to dismiss your your deeply held beliefs
here in the sense that you don't think that this

(01:28:22):
has been, you know, a great teaching. It's more to
the point that just because a great teaching exists doesn't
make it the facts surrounding it more true. Right, Like
some of the worst people from history can make a
great point every once in a while. Right, that doesn't
mean we should we should believe everything else that they say,
you know, especially when it comes to historical facts. And
I think that's the problem because in order for me

(01:28:44):
to be a Christian, I think in order to be
a Christian, and maybe you disagree, is that you have
to understand who Jesus was and the things that he
literally did, like in this world. And if we can't
accept that to be true, if all we have are
just take teachings and sayings, then all we have our
teachings and sayings, we don't have uh grounds to believe
in anything more than that.

Speaker 2 (01:29:03):
I would disagree. Well, so we have accounts that match
up with history. It's not just the fact that his
teachings were true and good. It was the fact that
they pointed too reliable sources they used, like writing strategies
at that time that were right they looked at. That's
like saying, right, wait, do you believe do you believe
the Napoleon? Well, this goes back to kind of our

(01:29:25):
argument Julius Caesar.

Speaker 1 (01:29:26):
Yeah, I mean again, you can use there's pseudo there's
like ghost hunters that write in like pseudo like scientific
writing styles, right, that will will we'll post in like
journals and stuff, right that sort of emulate the way
that real scientists do work. Right, And that exists, and
that's the thing, But that doesn't mean that their work
is like more reliable just because it copies the same

(01:29:49):
strategies that real scientists use. Right, we have to examine
the contents of it, right, And the fact is, we
don't have any other historical sources that ever say that
there was a guy named Jesus and he definitely rose
from the dead and did a bunch of miracles. The
only thing that we have is from Christians that have
said this, right, people who were invested in the narrative

(01:30:09):
and put that out there. We don't have secular sources
that account for that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:12):
Do you think that if a man living at the
time where Jews were running, the governor were running the
religious system, and a man running around saying things contradictory
to their belief do you think that if he died
and rose again, that they'd want to write about it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:28):
Well, first of all, after that everywhere, No, First of all, five.

Speaker 2 (01:30:32):
Hundred eyewitnesses who witnessed Christ after his resurrection, and they
were into the Bible through other Greek manuscripts.

Speaker 1 (01:30:39):
According to a non eyewitness o Scripts according to one
gospel that says there's five hundred witnesses and we will
never be able to name a single one of them
because we don't have a list of it. And that
characterization of the system is very interesting because we're talking
about a Roman occupied Jerusalem, so it's not Jewish people.
I don't know what you mean by Jewish people running

(01:30:59):
the system. I mean there's definitely obviously Jewish prominence.

Speaker 2 (01:31:01):
That's why they talk about like religious system.

Speaker 1 (01:31:03):
Yes, yes, they talk about the sad season. Yeah, I
get I get that part of the narrative. But like
there are there are people that I mean, you could
say the same thing about Mormonism, like, oh my gosh, wow,
Joseph Smith. Why would Joseph Smith go against the mainstream
Christian America. Doesn't that mean that his stuff is more true?
Because wouldn't it be embarrassing to be a Mormon and
to follow this guy out west into Utah? I mean,

(01:31:26):
like you could make that same case, but it doesn't
make Mormonism anymore true.

Speaker 2 (01:31:29):
You can find way greater contradictions within Mormonism, as you
can't find any in the Gospels. You've named a few,
but if you really look into them, and you look
into the detail, and you look at the culture of that,
and you look at Okay, what were people expecting at
that time, you can tell that they're historically reliable. And
it's the same thing with them. Do you know the
city of Jericho, right, Yes, the city of Jericho wasn't

(01:31:51):
mentioned anywhere else. It was only mentioned in the Bible.
And they went out. Archaeologists went out and they found
the city. And usually when you would see this siegeous
city in ancient times, right, the walls would fall it
any word, But at Jericho, the walls fell outward. You
can go there today.

Speaker 3 (01:32:06):
I'm going to look that up.

Speaker 2 (01:32:07):
The Bible come to life when you're.

Speaker 3 (01:32:09):
So, I'm going to look that up. You've said a
lot of things that are just you know, they're they're
sweeping generalizations, you know, and they fit your narrative. You
know the thing that you said about all other religions
before Christianity. And forgive me if I'm putting words in
your mouth, but you said something to the effect of
they had an ineffective way of teaching people how to

(01:32:32):
achieve salvation or or or the methods by which we
were h you know, not as unique as that of Christianity.
But Christianity borrows from its contemporary uh borrows characteristics of
the afterlife from many of its contemporary other religions. But
also most of the religions back then didn't even teach

(01:32:53):
you how to get to the afterlife. Uh, there was
no progression with most of these things, with most of
the religions, and you know, leading up to Christianity, Uh,
in Judaism as well, you know, there was no there's
no you're going to go to the afterlife in Judaism,
and and uh you know there's going to be like
a heaven like state. So uh, your sweeping claim about

(01:33:13):
the character of all religions is just is factually incorrect.
But I don't know that Janko was never mentioned in
anywhere other than the Bible. I don't I don't know
that that's true. I'm going to look that up in
any case. You know, I just wanted to say that,
you know that you might want some things to be true,
Like I appreciate you wanting Christianity to be more unique

(01:33:36):
than the other things. But the fact of the matter
is Christianity developed as a religion just like all other
religions developed. There were some people who had some good ideas.
They were convincing. They promised people some stuff, and they
got more powerful because they promised that stuff to people
who needed salvation, who needed a better way, who found community.
That's the way religion works.

Speaker 2 (01:33:59):
That is incredibly no, that's incredibly false. But they weren't
spreading Christianity in order to benefit themselves.

Speaker 3 (01:34:06):
Christianity offered in afterlife, unlike the religions that came before it.
Christianity offered and asked for their life and it didn't
even take deeds to do. All you had to do
was the easiest way. It was the easiest way for
a poor person or a sick person, or someone who
had been a slave or a gladiator to get a
better life. It was to believe that some guy that

(01:34:28):
rose from the dead did so for you, and all
you need to do is believe it and you can
get paradise. No other religion offered that, and that's why
Christianity was so unique. And that's why the poor or
the ones what.

Speaker 2 (01:34:43):
Did Galatians two twenties say I have been no and
I don't care.

Speaker 3 (01:34:46):
I don't know. I don't know, Michael, I don't know
what you're what you're what you're doc Your Dogmas says
I just you talking.

Speaker 1 (01:34:54):
About soteriology all day. It's we have we have to
we have to have things. We're out of time now, Michael,
I'll give you thirty seconds here to give your last
points of view. And I greatly appreciated the conversation today.
Thank you so much for calling. This is to thank you,
but I'll give you thirty seconds here and then we'll
wrap it up.

Speaker 5 (01:35:13):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:35:14):
Yeah, so Christianity wasn't to benefit you, it was the idea. Okay,
you have to recognize that you're messed up. You have
to recognize that you're a sinner. That's not an easy
thing to do. And then what is Paul saying Galatians
two twenty He says, He says, He says four, I
have been crucified with Christ. That doesn't sound like an
easy thing. What Paul saying is you have to die
to your sin. You have to recognize that you're a

(01:35:35):
horrible person. You can't do anything to outweigh the bad
that you've done, and in order to achieve salvation right,
in order to be with God, what's the standard, he says,
it's perfection. We can't achieve perfection. The idea that Christianity
is easy and that Christianity is just a gateway out
of eternal death is false. It's because God loved us,

(01:35:56):
God all right sent his son to die.

Speaker 1 (01:35:58):
We got it, Michael, Thank you so much it. I
would love to talk to you again. But this was
a great in depth conversation. I think the next time
I talk to you, definitely want to talk to you
more about these contradictions that you don't see in the Gospel,
specifically in the resurrection account, because I think that's where
it's most egregious between the four And I would love
to hear a coherent narrative about what actually happens in

(01:36:20):
the resurrection account because I can't get that as somebody
who has read all four Gospels and it is trying
to track this stuff out. So maybe that's something we
can explore at a different time. But until then, great
talking to you. I hope we can do it again.
And things are calling to the show. Wow, we're way
over time, but I do want to talk about that, Jimmie.
But you what do you think of that conversation?

Speaker 3 (01:36:39):
Well, you know, I had a feeling that it was
going to end up the way that it did. And
Miguil Michael, if you're listening to this, if you're watching this,
I mean this in all due respect, the message that
you ended that call with is a horrible, horrible message
to message to raise your children with and to try
and convince people of I am not horrible, I am

(01:36:59):
not sinner. I am not a bad person. I am
a very good person, and there's nothing horrible about me.
You know, I'm not gonna and this idea that God
loved us. I mean, look, Dan, I don't need to
pick apart all the ways that God is not loving,
and I don't think we have time for that. But
the argument devolved into preaching, which is where I thought

(01:37:21):
it was going to go. Factually incorrect things said about
the cultures. I think a misunderstanding about the cultures of
that time and the power dynamics that took place in
that region. But loved, loved the call, and I appreciate
that I was able to follow along for the most part,
even though I'm no Bible scholar, and that was impressive

(01:37:42):
to watch you and him talk about.

Speaker 1 (01:37:43):
Well, I think that's my regret about the call. I
don't want to get too deep in the leads with
these kinds of things. Unfortunately, Michael is obviously somebody who
has at least studied the arguments, the apologetic arguments, and
so I want to try to meet them where they
were at. But unfortunately it can lead to the effect
of if you're not already familiar with some of this stuff,
it can be kind of hard to follow with it.
So maybe in a different time we can kind of

(01:38:04):
like take a slower pace with it, you know, and
like try to just focus on one thing at a time,
because we did kind of dart around on a few
different subjects there. But overall, I appreciate the call. I
enjoyed it. Of course, you know, Michael being a Christian,
he's going to give his Christian message at the end,
so that's kind of part of the course for me.
But at any rate, flabberg Acid is is here with us,

(01:38:25):
and it was making some comments in between. Sorry flabberg Acid,
because yeah, I saw I didn't see your message until
just a few minutes ago, saying that you wanted to
jump in on that you're muted right now, My friend,
he'll figure it out there, you goes.

Speaker 4 (01:38:37):
Yeah, I wish I could have been like like, I'm
I'm a historian. I was a history teacher for a decade.
Like it's so amusing to me how you get people
who are these armchair historians who think they understand the
nuances of the issues that they are making the crux
of these arguments, And it just it blows my mind

(01:38:58):
because he ended up making three effect actively three arguments
that I heard right, which is when the Bible's wrong,
sometimes it proves that it's right when I want it
to be. That some of the stuff is reliable. Therefore
the parts that I want to be reliable are also reliable.
But won't apply any of these things, I guaranteed any
other text due to insert special pleading reason here. And
then the third one is effectively conspiratorial thinking, right, it's

(01:39:20):
true because of lack of evidence. If Jewish people run
the system, why would they want stories about Messiah? And
that proves my point. That's all I heard in that
whole conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:39:29):
Prom we should let you talk instead of me. Just
blever and on for god knows how long. So you
know that's a mistake I'll have to make and change
for next time. Until next time, though, Flabbergas should remind
us what is our prompt again this week so people
can leave their comment below.

Speaker 4 (01:39:44):
Our prompt again is why are the aliens aiming? Comment
or comment comment three? I slash atlas at us? Why
are we the target of aliens? And what have we done?

Speaker 1 (01:39:54):
Leave your best comment below, folks. I need to thank
the awesome, amazing, spectacular her crew that helped make this
show happen every single week. They are awesome for that
and are super cool. And uh yeah, we're we're out
of time. We're over the limit here, so I gotta
wrap things up, Flabbergasted. I'm gonna ask you you have

(01:40:15):
any words of wisdom for us before we close out
tonight's episode of truth wanted?

Speaker 4 (01:40:20):
Oh, words of wisdom? We want the truth? I think
that's that's the that's a word of wisdom. You know,
check your check your arguments for using them, make sure
they actually uh they actually work.

Speaker 1 (01:40:31):
How about this, check yourself, check yourself before you wreck yourself.
That's that's the model for tonight, folks. Good Night, everybody,
thanks for watching Truth wanted to remember to always keep
one the truth and I'll see you next time.

Speaker 3 (01:41:04):
Watch the non profits and join the hosts in the
live chart.

Speaker 1 (01:41:09):
Visit tiny dot c c slash yt np

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