i'll need you let me see how about right now there you go recording in progress okay interesting okay uh john are you recording i will be but i won't tell you the countdown okay good six five four three two one hello and welcome to the digital free thought radio hour and woz radio 103.9 lp fm right here in noxville tennessee we're recording this on sunday morning february the 13th 2022 i'm larry rhodes or a doubter five and as usual we have our co-host wombat on the line with us hello wombat hello that must be me i'm the wombat that's right and we also have george brown the two and a half from east tennessee hello we have john richards from england across the pond with the parliament in the background hello and jeb pirate higgs hello the piratey voice of jeb pirate higgs digital free thought radio hour is a talk radio show about atheism free thought rational thought humanism and the sciences and conversely we'll also talk about religion religious faith god's holy books and superstition and if you think you're the only non-believer in town well you're just not here in noxville in the bible belt we have a group of over a thousand of us so you're bound to have several of them in your town we'll tell you more about the the atheist society of noxville i'll get it out here in a minute after the mid-show break so be sure to hang around wombat what are we going to be talking about today should you become a christian and what would it take for that to finally happen we're going to do some good salesman door-to-door style to get you on the path of christ as soon as we possibly can time is running out time's running out the time's running out every day you never know anyway guys i've been waiting for this for a long time i want to do a weekly invocation with our own dread pirate higgs and then catch up with everybody our newtley lord who are tenor colander how don't they be thy noodles thy blood be run thy sauce be young with meat as it is with vegetables give us this day our garlic bread and forgive us our cussing as we forgive those who cuss against us and lead us not into key tourism but deliver us some carbs for thine are the meatballs and the sauces and the grog whenever and ever well and i've been waiting for a while to hear that from you dread dread how you been uh good working lots uh if i'm on day shift of course i run six to six so that puts me outside of being able to record or stream the show sure sure sure but i'm here this week i will be gone for the next two um wow okay okay my invocation will last a good long time for you wonderful the the noodles stretch onwards through time that's right so i will ask you this your beard looks a little different i thought last time i saw you're going like a little uh braid on it no longer the case or is it just free hanging today well it's uh yeah it's free hanging today usually i sometimes i i put a bead in it and so what i do is i i just put a piece of dental cloths and i take the thing and i wrap it around my beard i throw a bead on okay pull the dental floss out and it's a free hanging willy there you know all right all right all right hang loose hang loose my friend hang loose exactly john richard's i got a question for you so there was a thing called google glass and everybody hated it because they had a camera pointed at people whoever you're looking at and then that dropped because people understood that they hate cameras then apple does the exact same thing they put three cameras on their phone and now everyone carries around a camera in their breast pocket and it's just recording everything they're looking at too and no one has a problem with that and i'm wondering is it google pioneering the the the that the whole you know the stain against cameras and making it okay or is it just apple that is that cool of a company and people don't care about them anymore so like what's going on there why are you recording me i feel very uncomfortable i'm not recording you it's not it's not there's cameras on both sides nice try yeah it looks looks as i sneakly am recording you doesn't it but i honestly not but you've got to catch the public mood when it when it's right you know because take for example the last two years many many of us have got comfortable with zooming and even with youtubeing lots of us and youtube channel owners now we do live streaming all the time the public mood is changing and we're now ready for a mic and cam social media site and i'm working on it very cool very cool you know what i'm glad because things are constantly changing we need to keep up with them if we're going to stay on top of things but we also need to support the clubs and and organizations that may need our assistance in keeping up with times and i think a good way of doing that is making sure that we spread virtual awareness for causes that are coming up in the future and i think you have to know one that's coming up would you mind talking to us about it uh you do mean my free thought city i think there's a fundraiser coming up sir that oh sorry me my fundraiser yeah i do so much scheming i lose so much easy and everything i lose track of what i'm doing but yes this coming saturday there's a fundraiser relay so so it starts in the uk with i'm hosting it i've got a co-host who's going to join me and people will come on for 10 minutes or so i've got some entertainment items as well and clips of to involve the audience in guessing what things are and that sort of stuff and who's that pokemon i love it or or that who's that atheist exactly that sort of thing and and it's all in aid of recovering from religion organization which is does sterling work as you know and then i hand over the baton after three and a half hours to the uk sorry the usa leg of this relay and that's a ethan michael who's carrying on with the show for another four hours and hopefully and i'm working on this he will then hand over to the australian leg of this marathon fundraiser which is going to be hosted by some friends of mine in australia and japan so there you go has it ever been done before no well that's interesting i've never heard of such a thing i can't wait to be a part of it and i hope you know it's successful um i guess we'll have more details about where we can find it uh i think where can we keep track of that i will post you in our messenger where where we uh are we chat okay three times and and we will we will put it up on the details underneath this video and just for a heads up it's planned for release on the 19th of february so it'll be before our next gathering or our next show right it'll be on a saturday correct all right uh so we got a new guy coming in here hey when you get your audio is hooked up feel free to to take part of the chat but larry and perhaps you know him uh who who's our new guest right now this is a new lady it's a lady she's got a kind of a toboggan hat on toboggan hat yeah we her online name is christin t martin and i'm glad she joined us today but she's looks like she's going to be a little bit getting the audio and video synced up sure she should be in she's just a long time brand api yeah what else is zoom without technical issues though speaking about very how you've been how have you been over the last couple of days are you wearing suspenders too what's going on here i'm wearing suspenders i have freed my waist nice yeah i'm coming up on my 70 so 72nd birthday and uh i'm getting a little more pear shaped and if i lose my belt my pants seem to fall down so i'm getting to that age yeah i'm dealing with it and it's kind of cool i can walk around like a southern lawyer now yeah yeah you would make a great southern lawyer man you would make a great southern lawyer it's like i think this guy is innocent it's like yeah i like this guy i like this guy all right uh george brown the second and a half how you been since last week my friend well i've been i've been just fine and apropos of today's topic a neighbor had made an attempt to convert me to christianity and i've been thinking about it a lot okay mostly really really angry at the assumption that i'm right for the plucking now why aren't you like what tell me what the problem we should get into that when we get into the topic of the show okay indeed indeed i need to lose candy never know what he's going sometimes you have to ride the wave and just like try to like control it but yeah i thought i'd put it out as a teaser let's introduce them welcome our new guest that christin you're muted if you can unmute your mic i think she kind of froze up there yeah she might be having some technical issues yeah christin whenever you're able whenever you have those results feel free to jump back in but uh how about we go into the actual topic so george brown i wonder if he's can you hear me push uh your audio is dragon well good yeah you're coming through hi christin hey christin we appreciate anyway you feel free to we're happy that you're on the show feel free to jump into the topic as we go into it and if you know sign language is more than better than i can help you translate so okay okay okay peace let's go all right so george brown someone said you should become a christian i think that's a good topic that everybody should be talking about today why well i know we aren't christians but i don't know if it's a conscious decision on our parts or if it's just you know the default i know for example john richards you were never really born into the flock and now that you are president of atheism in the uk is it just the money that's keeping you away from going into the church because i can guarantee you there's probably a lot more money it's a very lucrative position for you as the president of atheism to jump into christianity now why aren't you taking the money why aren't you becoming a christian john well that would be hypocritical i think oh that would be perfect for christianity yes absolutely incidentally i get nothing for my pains for being president of a uk so it wouldn't be difficult to earn more anyway the question why should why should i become a christian well why should i become a believer of any god until they've been demonstrated to actually exist okay and if i was to choose to join a religion it probably wouldn't be christianity because the christian god certainly the old testament version of the christian god he's not a very nice fellow he's not a very nice fellow not the pop nice fellows in fact i'll be honest with you uh and this is the part where i get clipped and and thrown up in debates but i have found satan to be substantially more polite in asking for consent and informing naked people about proper dietary you know it provides and much less much less of a murderer too much less oh yeah christian christians stripping it looks like hey christian uh on radio she's just taking up her jacket okay it's okay so if i was to join a religion it would it would possibly be i don't know buddhism you know one of the pastafarianism yeah definitely yes i go with pastafarianism they definitely have the better potluck so i'll tell you that yes yes i like i like pasta uh christian approves dred gonna ask you this question why aren't you becoming a christian i listen you love pacifarians and you know christians hate that pacifarian thing but listen you know you like wearing religious garbs you'd be able to wear all the religious garb if you were a christian think about that you'd be able to spot yourself out with the christian necklaces the christian things and people would love to take your pictures and put them on government IDs no one will give you any trouble whatsoever isn't that right i'm a bit of a contrarian so uh that's why i've uh you know uh sticking with the pastafarianism and i just wanted to it probably won't show up here but get it in focus this week this has been a long time coming so it's fine so you're finally showing us the tricorn on your driver's license yeah yeah uh that's that's actually my uh private investigator license so i am now a p.i oh really thank you thank you and after a long fight they finally uh put my allowed me to have my tricorn in my picture as you can see there so one day you're gonna be cool about all your job strat because this is very yes when's the series coming out yeah well i'm actually uh in yellowstone north i don't know you've seen the series yellowstone on prime tv oh really check that out yes uh this is i'm living the real thing in canada and it's actually i but yeah i go up uh for every 10 days for 10 days wow very cool thread what's your what's your p.i number is it 3.142 yeah no i know that's a reference to something yeah pognum yeah i get it yeah yeah oh no no five the number five it's a number thing okay okay all right all right nerds we are going on to larry larry let me tell you something you've been you i'm going to be honest with you've been wasting a lot of time with this whole atheist thing wouldn't you feel nice to relax in your retirement years you'd be able to relax sit down and just enjoy and bask in the glory of god right what would it take for you to become a christian my friend come on you're already wearing suspenders well it would take changing on about 37 different beliefs in my whole world for you the first of which is the belief in a soul i mean why would i want to become a christian since i don't believe in a soul or an afterlife never mind a god or jesus or sin or hell and all that good stuff you know it would be a major shift in my world outlook and um each one would have to be supported with evidence and reason so um yeah they're not gonna just get me by coming and knocking on my door and showing me the bible saying it's god's word that won't do it they have to do a little better than that yeah i think once you've once you've had the blue pill you can't do the red pill anymore or the other way around you know i heard that though there are just things as born again christians right and a lot of them do come from a supposedly or allegedly atheist backgrounds they'll be like well i was an atheist for a month and i realized that i didn't hate god enough so therefore i went back to being christian and the problem go for it dread thank you well i was just gonna say if you remember that uh one time we had that uh guest on who who was the the born again but it was it was pretty clear that he had not fully divorced himself from his prior beliefs and was essentially a latent christian yeah he was an angry christian he wasn't he was an angry christian so calling himself an atheist of course um which of course sort of illegitimizes the whole word or term on on behalf of us all because uh you know it muddies the water essentially muddies the terminology absolutely absolutely john richards i'm wondering about the need for anybody to worship anything i mean hey what is this is it some sort of endemic subservience or something right i mean yeah you know don't you think god deserves the credit though like if you made a pie and it was a delicious pie and you're like hey can i get a compliment for the pie you're like why do i have to compliment you as the baker shouldn't you just be making pies it's like i feel i mean i worked really hard on that pie don't you feel like god worked really hard on spacetime and reality as we know it well i i've had a little debate today on facebook on one of our my favorite sites which is called unbelievable question mark where i argue with people and this this particular christian said look around you you know the trees the trees evidence for god so i said oh and so beauty in harmony is evidence for uncle uncle who is it cool he's my favorite uncle uncle who uncle uncle okay larry don't know him no i was just wondering what's his purpose what why would he create a space time the universe because he loves you larry it's in the book no no no no apparently apparently he's creating that you know the universe and and worlds and gravity and physics and all this other good stuff just so that it would support a bunch of people to praise him yeah you know just just to create a choir to sing his praises praises that's why you exist it's why you have souls like you know that's the whole system come on play with the system larry dread what's up yes well you know i i've thought about this uh you know if god had created the universe and all things in it why why atoms like why why you know do we have quarks why not just magic you know what i mean oh like backing you know back in early christian times of course it was just magic because there was no real explanation there was no science there was no examination of the details of things it was it was because it was and there was no need to explain so um you know it if god can is all powerful then he doesn't need atoms and quarks to constitute the universe he doesn't need the constants finely tuned to accommodate life in the universe it's just magic it just doesn't need to be a code that we're slowly on reviewing exactly there doesn't need to be yeah we don't need genes we don't need proteins we don't need biology we don't need anything it's just magical a table should just be a table though i will throw this out i you're worried about and confused about atoms i'm always confused about nipples there seems to be twice as many nipples in existence there actually needs to be yes i i would we lost half of them no one would care no you're like oh i'm lighter everything's great i want to give a chance for george to jump in because george this is originally your topic now listen what's what's this whole idea of you being addressed or propositioned with the idea of becoming a christian would you mind giving the back store there any oh good mute technique look at that well i i i mean i i don't think we've got enough time for me to get into this very much but i have a neighbor who came around and handed me this thick pamphlet i don't think you can see what it says it looks oh it's peace it says peace i give to you nice and what this is this is the gospel of saint john now uh to recap here a little bit i am an organic jewish atheist meaning that jewish culturally but not raised in any religion that's right not raised in any religion and not raised with god in the house whatsoever it's you know um i i never had to negate any kind of religious indoctrination because i didn't have well it sounds like you're right for the picking not a part of my become a christian you should become a christian why aren't you a christian right now tell me well i'll tell you um the first thing is that in in parting with this woman i said i mean i allowed that i had a jewish background to her and she asked me if i hated jesus she said do you hate jesus i said what you know is that of course not that's ridiculous um i realized that we were on different planets this person and me i mean i know that she attends the mothership of all the baptist churches in my county now to give you an idea of the um the nature of the evangelicalism where i live we have a couple of counties here uh a larger one and a smaller one and there is a so-called daily newspaper which comes out four days a week and on friday they publish a list of all the houses of worship in the two counties and one day i got out my pen and i counted all of them that were listed so i know what i know there are so anyway this woman attends the mothership of all the baptist churches believe it or not it's hard for me to get my head around this number but there are 167 official baptist churches in these two counties sure yeah i mean even that is staggering that is just so overwhelming to me my town has less of a population of 5 000 and there's 67 different churches here oh my goodness and they're all christian but i'm just okay listen here's the funny thing too i can i can tell you directions by the street or by the church name and so i could say just take black's yz road here or i can be like go past the passion of the christ take a left at the new belief turn right at the the god sakes of all sheep and then turn right at the new truth and then you'll be so all the christian landmarks are the way to get around town this way you know what's up well let's try to get to everybody dread pirate what's up well i was just going to say that our churches have another success the church of the flying spaghetti monster we've successfully applied to the adopt a highway program wonderful and so they are posting a church of the flying spaghetti monster and crew as a adopt a highway sponsor for a two kilometer section here and there's on either side of the town you know you have the rotary and the lions club entry signs well they have one for all the christian churches in town and they're on private property and nobody maintains them so i talked to the owner of the extra foods this grocery store here on whose property one of those signs is and i have his permission to add the church of the flying spaghetti monster to that sign so well done very good thank you dread and your mission of chaos dude i tell you if i lived in british columbia we would have so much fun together oh yeah what are we doing today you can always come visit i've got a room for you oh man that's fantastic okay we'll see about this this sounds awesome okay john richards uh well i would like to close on one other idea i think i saw your hand raised and if not let me well yeah i just wanted to pick up pick up on a couple of things because dred mentioned that um we're all atoms and you know physical material phenomena and then and then george talked about him and his neighbor being on different planets and it made me wonder since we know that god is immaterial i'm wondering sorry well we we're told we're told that another christian's always tell us that especially when they when we push them to give us evidence and they say oh we can't we can't do that because he's immaterial that's their get out but um it makes me wonder why why this immaterial god wants these material things are we his lego do you think wow i am just blown away by the level of grammatical accuracy that you have john richards it is pronounced lego anyone who says lego's is wrong so that i'm just blown away by that yeah but also the concept of the playground it seems bizarre yeah anyway guys i think we're near the end of the half hour we'll come back and check up on christian's audio and then see if she can join in the conversation larry why don't you take us out sir this is the digital free thought radio hour and w o z o radio 103.9 l p f m here in noxville tennessee we'll be right back after this short break four three two hello and welcome back to the second half of the digital free thought radio hour i'm doubter five and we're on w o z o radio 103.9 l p f m right here in noxville tennessee now let's just take a moment to talk about the atheist society of noxville ask was founded in 2002 we're now in our 20th year ask has over a thousand members and we have weekly in-person meetings in the noxville's old city barley's taproom and pizzeria look for us inside at the high top tables usually the loudest and happiest group if you'd like to join our Tuesday evening virtual zoom meeting email us at askanatheist at noxvilleatheist.org or let's chat s e at gmail.com you can also find ask on facebook meetup.com or just go to their website at noxvilleatheist.org or you can google noxville atheist it's just that simple by the way if you don't live in noxville you should still go to meet up and search for us atheist group in your town don't find one star one and one bet where do you want to pick up got a quick comment i cry three thousand has said a comment to dred dred i took some action to get you to a hundred subscribers thank you subscribe to your channel congratulations thank you yes i and i uh so i've changed or customized the name to mine pirate nice and i will be uh making my first um studio produced uh talk on the higgs boson oh i love that that will be my introduction to the youtube all the boson that was named after you yeah that's the one that's the heads up i cry 3000 was 99 daughter was 100 sweet nice well thank you very much both of you you're welcome oh i'm not saying you're welcome and christin i hope you're here would you mind giving us your life story in 30 seconds go oh christin introduce yourself there you go all right can you hear me i uh okay i'm here in the bible belt uh in the south and the united states i know larry um my parents did not and they went to great pains to not indoctrinate me into any philosophy and so hats off to all of us because we're really the outliers in our society here just totally so that's it in a nutshell uh you know we're all facing the same things in our society with uh people trying to make religion and god part of a government separation of church and state is huge let me ask this question christin did you ever feel tempted to go into uh uh christianity like you see the people celebrating christmas you see how happy they are maybe with hanukkah whatever they got going on did you ever want to be a part of that didn't anyone ever make a compelling argument for you to join the fold um well i mean my parents made sure that we had uh christmas and everything it just wasn't with god or any kind of indoctrination it was with santa claus yeah so but yeah i did have friends growing up who always wanted to invite me to their churches and everything and it just would always just be so mind blowing that i knew all of these people and all around us even still today as you all very well know yeah who are are genia flexing to this unknown unseen thing that is like he was saying from uk is just not in this realm well if he's not i can make the assertion of the flying spaghetti monster or the tea pot or anything so um i just yes i did try to pray to god once uh he didn't answer and that was really the end of it christian you actually bring up a really good point i like the dresses dread dread is there a rival teapot religion that the pacifarians can like group up with and fight against because you're not a religion absolutely absolutely yeah russell's teapot i love that um yeah we have people and the thing is the belief in the flying spaghetti monster is not exclusive so uh and that's why we have the god back guarantee try yourself for 30 days and if you don't if you don't like us your god will likely take you back so yeah i love it people can hold multiple beliefs about the uh nature of the universe and conflict yeah we love them all we'll take them all uh john what's up well i've been thinking about this should i become a christian idealist theme and it's a question of what does becoming a christian actually mean it means following some humans doesn't it and then interesting of course then then we've got to fight we've got to choose which humans to follow and because christian is in the the southern stinks at the moment i want to mention a couple of news items that's happened this week in oklahoma senator rob standard has introduced a bill that would allow people to sue teachers if they offer opposing view towards religious beliefs held by students wow so you can is that in america is that america yeah okay all right don't want to get on too much of a tirade here but yes americas can sue anybody for any reason because we have uh a law system that's based on okay we have a law system that's based on what happens in court here it's not a law system that's like first made in parliament and then those are the rules that goes on i forgot what the the premises but it throws a lot of people it's not a great system let me tell you but it is a flexible system that only changes when you litigate and so because of that anybody can sue anybody i can sue you for saying that right now it might get dismissed in court but then the premise or the precedent becomes anybody who sues another person in zoom just gets dismissed because that person did it yeah founded on practice yeah so like you can as a politician make legal to sue i don't know cupcake people because if you want to make points against the anti cupcake people but it's not really doing anything it's just useless posturing and it's unfortunate but yeah let's not litigious society yes litigious society yeah and and they're actually passing laws now that allow people to sue over just about anything that they don't like yeah like we've always had that it's just a question it gets dismissed in court or it gets passed through in court then it becomes an issue yeah but i mean they're passing laws like in arkansas or something and they if somebody try if a teacher tries to introduce a certain anti religious topic uh then they they passed a law to allow people to sue that teacher and she cannot appeal i mean and if it is fine the teacher has their own pocket can't be covered by the the school or any other organization so and i want to mention another issue in the same sort of part of the world where this is a Texan senator famous Ted Cruz and he's mentioning dred will like this because he's taking fame he's a he's agreeing with canadian qa non-truckers right and he's suggesting that what they should do is let the people of Vancouver starve as a punishment for the government's COVID-19 vaccine mandates i'm not gonna let you take us on this tangent that's enough global atheist news for right now you got your own channel don richards let's get back to live talking about if you should become a christian let me tell you something well if for me it's a case of which would you want to follow yeah but for me what it would take for me to become not a christian well for me to take me believe if all a christian is is someone who believes that the christian god is real if that's all it took then i would just need a demonstration that that god was actually real and if it was revealed to everybody i don't know what the standard would be but like if it was if that god knew the standard it would take for for convincing everybody and i was part of that system i would have no choice but to believe in that god at that point whether or not i worship after the fact is a completely different issue and so i may not even be a christian even if i know there is a christian god but if i knew the god was real and i'm going to throw this question out to everybody too uh dread pirate feel free to give me your comment but also answer the question if you were able to have a revelation of that christian god then would you start believing in the god and would you then start worshiping after the fact go for it dread absolutely if the if the evidence uh you know was uh stronger that there was actually a god and a christian god uh yeah well yeah sure um but uh we have to remember Hebrews 11 which says that faith is the assurance of things hope for and things not seen so exactly so i can't use faith so there is no evidence there is no evidence that needs to be provided because faith is the basis for a belief in god yeah so you wouldn't have faith anymore if god actually did reveal himself that's right see you would be believing on evidence and not on faith it's a catch 22 situation it's a catch 22 because even if you become a christian because god revealed himself to you you can't use faith to get to the god anymore because you can now have the revelation so it's just like what are you doing what are you doing you're it's an impossible circle anyway oh i'm so frustrated a tautology it's a it's a it's a not tautology okay dread oh i'm sorry george brown love for you love for you to weigh in let's see i'm gonna get you on units there you are go for it hopefully christian can you hear me yeah well um you know to return to the person who's trying to convert me to christianity my first order of business is if you want me to convert me to christianity the first thing you have to do is gain my respect interesting okay okay and then we can talk so the first thing is i think you guys are hypocrites right off the bed because you say tell me that jesus's love or god is love and then you're beating on everybody who is different than you i can't respect that what kind of love is that so you know what's funny and i i look at this pamphlet that she gave me and i come from a jewish background and it's bad mouthing the jews for you know en masse for betraying jesus to the romans she's bad mouthing me i hear it i hear it larry and this has been used for centuries to murder and slaughter people just like me i hear how can i respect that how can you respect that larry yeah christians all you know they will all the time tell you that jesus told you to love your enemies you know so what george is saying is uh you know they say love your enemies but then they don't that's just hypocrisy though and and the first and i'm putting on my christian hat here okay they'll come back and and say uh you know jesus obviously told you to love your enemies but then what they don't realize is in look 1426 he tells you to hate your family as if any man come to me and hate not his father and mother or wife or children or brethren or sister yeah even his own life he cannot be my disciple so love your enemies and hate your family is the message that comes across here not not to make john uncomfortable because we do have a person from uk in the group but the crusades are quickly forgotten and a lot of people forget that that actually happened on multiple instances and to turn around and say love your enemy right after those series of campaigns is very bizarre and the inquisitions only ended at the beginning of the 1800s right so that wasn't that long ago john richards what's that well before i joined any religion you know i i want to fact check consumer advice so there's pros and cons to everything isn't there so what does pacifarianism offer i i think i know a bit about what christianity offers it's um you know you go to heaven if you're good and you go to hell if you're naughty i'm not sure i like that but does pacifarian offer a better deal yes so we have a beer volcano and we have a stripper factory that is the pacifarian heaven and it's all gender accepted stripper factories absolutely yes well paid very well maintained everything and it's not about the exploitation of people it's the celebration of the human body will it celebration of the human body thank you yes find me up they got little two circles and everything it's like it's pretty classy for a stripper place it's very free or something like that yeah well i was just going to say that um you know if you've got uh if you've got to use faith to believe in your religion and every religion uses faith to you know believe that their religion is true why would you pick something with such a you know such a terrible hell i mean i would choose something like pacifarianism that has a good heaven and a good hell or not not the great hell well the beer the beer is stale the beer is stale in the in the pacifarian hell so yeah but why would somebody pick a religion that burns you forever if you don't do what it says i know why not pick one though it's a nicer version of hell i'll tell you this if the people who believe that there is a heaven if those are the kinds of people that go to heaven i'd rather not spend my time with them because yeah particularly that is one of the worst people in the world but i also say this larry you're touching something really great if uh buddhists i'm sorry if many various different people believers and they're different gods all are using faith to get there it's not so much a question of why believe in a bad hell by choice or whatever it's more of like what does that say about faith as a reliable way to come to a accurate conclusion and if anything we should walk away with the idea that faith is not a reliable way to come to a conclusion and any being that the man's faith from you is demanding an unreliable test to establish that they are in fact there it's basically asking you to stop asking the questions this is just take what i tell you on faith take what i say is truth you know whether it um warrants it or not you know whether or not i give you every red flag in your brain you're you're not working hard enough if you're not cleaning up the red flags you're not working hard enough you're not thinking about it dread it sound like you got something on your mind real quick no no i'm in total agreement i've just had a thought he had a thought then we go to christin what's up well if we could find out where christopher hitchens went that's the place i'd like to go i'd like to spend time with him yes that would be that would be awesome and i'm sure he's hanging out at the beer volcano as we speak okay so we had um uh dula who's in who's just uh uh spectating for now just let you guys know christin if you can hear me i uh give me a beep are you still walking your dots he is she's still got her mic muted there we go christin you can hear us yes can you hear me yeah so you said you had christmas growing up i'm wondering did you ever use faith at all even in oh absolutely zero no i mean as i was saying we were in no way shape or form you know and indoctrinated period did you ever have did you ever have a belief in something that you couldn't demonstrate actually existed absolutely not no never i just was never uh no invisible friends yeah like not even santa claus not even visible friends or anything like that or like what is string theory yeah well maybe as a child i like my raggedy and all okay okay at least you can hold it it was there yeah that's true that's true well that's very learned but yeah i think george would have a point there is a very much as versus the mentality that comes with christianity that i find to be toxic and and harmful to a lot of different groups if not history has demonstrated that to be the case even black people have a problem i don't want to get on that sure george what's up get us back on to our next topic well i mean i i feel an affinity with christin and and respect because uh you know i hear christin's southern accent which i don't have you know you can hear yes you do george you totally got one now well i think it was probably easier for me to be an atheist in new york city than for christian to be an atheist in the bible belt is what i'm projecting on to her huh she agrees oh i agree totally where did you grow up christ and i'm very curious so could you hear me christin she was on mute there for a second the sal oh okay i was just wondering where in the south george would you mind telling me your social security number while while i'm fascinated clearly the person who doesn't want to show their face doesn't want to also give their address oh okay even you have given us that conversation multiple times so i look at this um you know if you were you are always worried about not necessarily worried but you have clear reason to be concerned with the degree of surveillance that's going on by large corporate interests right what if you had a god that essentially knows everything about you and as long as all and completely secure completely you know no one's breaking into god's account right because we can't even find god right here's a being that you can trust with all your information now you finally have a big brother that you can believe in isn't that better yeah basically yeah but it's just way bigger and also all powerful and knows everything you're about to do to even when you're living or dead and listen we'll hold all your secrets completely unless we need to tell them to a pastor and then at that point then the pastor knows too but isn't that great why aren't you a christian now you can respect that system can't you no he hasn't he hasn't earned my respect at all okay okay and i can imagine that's a long way running all right all right that's fair they can't reinsert my body to the matrix so i i'm just i'm out i can't go back i've got a you got a precondition to earning your respect he doesn't show up you can't earn your respect if he doesn't show up as i feel like i feel like we got the topic all the way done how about we go into some listener comments let's go poison frog says hey i love the conversation you guys are having from last week's episode please keep up the good work and i appreciate you having a canadian on here from time to time bc represent so some love from there all right now it's from poison frog thank you very much for the comment thank you also quality dh says hey there's a where's the audience for all this content solid production and you guys are interesting people is it predominantly engaged with somewhere outside of youtube feels like i'd really enjoy having a drink with you folks and so we are simultaneously broadcasting on i guess our individual channels will do plugs for them but we also have a podcast that we we plug in between each half and you can find it on digital free thought radio on stitchy.com thank you guys so much for the comments let's try to pick a i'm going to i'm going to take a gamble here and pick a long one see if it doesn't give us oh no isn't it a waste of time to discuss whether or not god exists and that is from Lazarus Jones and that's from last last week's episode so the idea that you know we come together and it sounds like we're chastising god to an extent we are but like we don't really have a valid target to target anyway but is it a waste of our time to do this guys dred pyre what's up i just wanted to give a acknowledge uh the watchers here on the live stream youtube lo ma and god us trading room are both on so hello guys so what does Lazarus think then what does he think it's a waste of time is he certain that god exists or is he certain that god doesn't exist i he's certain that it's a waste of our time okay let's go on but larry what's up if it's a way we're all gonna run in hell okay larry go for it larry if it's a waste of my time then i'm wasting an awful lot of my time hey that's what i started with imagine how much time you would save no no the thing that is it's not so much the belief in god itself is bad or uh requires our attention it's what the actions of the believers who believe in god you know they do an awful lot of harm in the world and they have for thousands of years all right and invite people to go to my blog and read what's so wrong with religion anyway blog blog article it goes into all the different things that the religion uh troubles and and harm that religion has done to the world over time um and particularly that uh listener or commenter is welcome to go to my blog and read that article so it's i was on a long drive from national last night and every single time i'm on the road especially at night i'm always concerned because there's always going to be one driver from national back to my home that's just crazy and that starts telling me some weird cutting off and in the same aspect that it's not like i care about uh complaining about religion every day it's more of like i'm trying to advocate for higher levels of critical thinking in the same way that i would advocate for driving safety or road safety because i'm not so much complaining about oh you gotta stick to the speed limit it's more of like i'm trying to educate the people who aren't following the rules that there's consequences for their action and it could be harmful to me dramatically if if they were to do something that could ultimately to a devastating consequence for both of us both on the road or with how they think and how they vote or how they raise their children or how they act and behave or what they support in society it all has impacts on everybody right so i'm do these kinds of shows just to broadcast that there's a there's a interested uh disinterested party in your religious views and in as much respectful way as possible i'm simply asking that you apply some critical thought to what you well so i believe i'm duela you came in what's up you went from a spectator to actual joining on the show duela it's always good to have you on we're nearing the end of the show uh we're talking today about the idea of why you should become a christian and i feel like uh i don't know i feel like we're ready for our final points and some final floods so john richards what's your final points why should you become a christian what what do you feel about that well i don't think a very strong case has been made and i'm leaning towards the bf volcano we'll make room we'll make sure fire it jared fire it final words uh well i i i like passivarianism there i just find no compelling reason to switch uh switch horses at this point um can i plug my channel absolutely all right so you can find me on youtube i live stream this at eight a.m pacific standard time my channel is mind pirate m-i-n-d-p-y-r-a-t-e and we'd love to see you on thanks and leave a comment and tell me also about the six posts on channel yes yeah so uh that will be coming up soon i'm going to be doing my first show to commemorate 100 subscribers to my channel and i will be discussing in layman's terms the uh the import of the higgs boson and what it means to us very cool now import in canadian terms mean the importance yeah that too very cool very british i love it very rich what's the boson we'll talk about it when we have more time george iphone christin do you have any last word that's a given or pause okay well we appreciate having you on the show christin thank you so much for coming by uh duela you're going to join us in the after party i'm super excited being able to talk to you again uh my last words is hey god you can come out i'm totally fine with it i mean you don't have to stop hiding it's it's totally cool if you do i won't be able to use faith to get to you anymore but i don't value faith as a reliable way to come to conclusions anyway and you shouldn't demand that from people to believe in someone who is allegedly as great as you so deal with it otherwise because i'm not gonna i'm not gonna lower my standard of evidence just to appease you meet me at least on my level if you created right first place show up larry best hide-and-seek champion of the world though i'll get a trophy one day larry what's up oh not a lot um those who are interested in my blog i mentioned earlier can find it at digital free thought dot com be sure to click on the blog a button for a radio show archives atheists songs and many articles on the subject of atheism i have a book out um it's called atheism what's it all about it's available on amazon and my youtube channel can be found by searching for larry roads or doubt or five if you're having trouble leaving religious beliefs behind you can get help at recovering from religion dot org if you have any questions for the show you can send them to ask an atheist at noxvilleatheist.org or let's chat s e at gmail.com thank you for joining us on the digital free thought radio hour remember you can find this show on apple itunes pocketcast amazon and podcasts everywhere just search for digital free thought radio hour if you're watching this on youtube be sure to like and subscribe remember everybody is going to somebody else's hell the time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real until then don't sweat it enjoy your life and we'll see you next week say bye everybody


Welcome to this Pre-Registration Challenge video. In this video, we will focus on how to navigate the Pre-Reg Challenge process by starting a draft, navigating through the form, replying to feedback from reviewers, and checking all of the boxes in your final manuscript. If you are looking for other information about the challenge, the additional videos and materials are available from the COS.IO-pre-reg website. The Pre-Registration, or Pre-Reg Challenge, is a structured and supported process for exploring pre-registration in your research. It includes a template for drafting your pre-registration, feedback from one of our review team to help you work through and improve that draft, and a $1,000 cash prize once your research is published. To be eligible for the Pre-Registration Challenge, your pre-registration needs to have a minimum of one inferential hypothesis, specified variables related to that hypothesis, and a specific analysis you will be using to test the hypothesis. You can find the full eligibility rules at osf.io-4uxbj. That's osf.io-4uxbj. The easiest way to start putting together your pre-registration is to visit osf.io-pre-reg. That's pre-reg-p-r-e-r-e-g. From there, click the Pre-Register button. That will prompt you for a title and then move you directly to a web form where you can begin entering information about your research plan. In the background, this form will also create a project on the OSF, a free online tool for research management. So that you have a place where you can store your research materials alongside your pre-registration. You do not have to use this OSF project to participate in the Pre-Reg Challenge. We just make the option available because the OSF is a free service. If you are already an OSF user, once you log in, you will have additional options, including the ability to connect an existing project to a new pre-registration from the same osf.io-pre-reg site. Both options bring you to the same pre-reg challenge form. This pre-registration challenge web form is broken up into multiple sections to cover different aspects of your study design. These include basic study information, variables to be collected, and the analysis plan. All of the sections are listed in the upper left-hand corner of the form, and you can click on any of them there to jump between sections. As you fill out each section, there is also a Next button at the bottom of each screen to move you through the form. In order to make sure all your work is saved as you move through the form, we automatically save your input periodically. A little note at the bottom of the page will tell you when we most recently auto-saved things for you. If you need to stop for a while and come back to the form later, be sure to hit the Save Draft button at the bottom of the page to make sure everything you have written since the last auto-save is appropriately filed away for you. When you want to get back to your draft and start working on it again, just go back to osf.io-pre-reg and click on the Continue Working on an Existing Draft Pre-Registration button. Each question on the form has a Show Example button right above the text box where you enter your answer. Just click on the Show Example button to see one example of a well-written answer, as well as more details about what kind of information we are looking for. We also have a list of ten complete pre-registrations you can look at to see how other researchers have answered these questions. These are actual submissions from researchers in different disciplines who all use this form to put together great pre-registrations. You can find them all at osf.io-h9k8n. That's osf.io-h9k8n. Once you have finished filling everything in and are ready to make your first submission, head to the last page of the form, the one for Other Information. When you load the other page, one of two things will happen. If any sections of the form still need required information, those section names will turn red, so you know where to go to fill in the missing information. If everything is filled out completely, then instead you will be able to click the Preview for Submission button at the bottom of the page. That will give you a preview of everything you have entered so you can review it for any errors or omissions. When you are happy with everything in the preview, hit the green Submit for Review button to send your materials to one of our review team. At this point, you have an important decision to make about when your pre-registration will become public. When you hit Submit for Review, you will be able to choose whether your registration should be made public immediately after the comment and revision process or whether to enter it into an embargo period of up to four years. Whatever you choose, just know that we will work with you during the review process to ensure that this registration is the best possible representation of your research plan. Once your draft is submitted, one of our team members will review it for completeness, detail, and clarity. Most likely, they will have questions or suggestions on how to improve the pre-registration. When that happens, they will add comments to your draft, and you will receive an email notifying you of the comments and giving you a link to the commented version. Comments can appear at the bottom of each page in the web form, so be sure to look through each section to make sure you have seen everything. The comment system is a way for you to discuss the details of your pre-registration with our review team. So feel free to reply and use the comments to work through any questions that come up. The comments on your submission are just between you and the review team. They will not be included in the final pre-registration and will not be publicly available. Once you have finished the discussion, make any changes you need in the relevant pre-registration answer sections and resubmit it for review. When everything looks good to the reviewer, they will approve the final draft and you will receive an email asking for final confirmation.  Depending on what you entered when submitting your draft, your pre-registration will either become public now or after whatever embargo period you set. At this point, you will get an email from the system with links to additional resources that may be helpful to you as you carry out your research program. Now comes the actual research. As you follow the research plan, there are a couple of things to keep in mind. If something happens that was not covered in your pre-registration, don't panic. The unexpected happens and the goal of a pre-registration is to make your design and decision-making process transparent, not to trap or shackle you. Take a look at our plan, not a prison, blog post for some information on how to handle unexpected twists in your pre-registered research. A link to that blog post was included in your email of additional resources and that email will also be re-sent to you periodically while you conduct your research. As you begin drafting your manuscript, take a look through the pre-registration challenges manuscript checklist available at osf.io-zwkqj that's osf.io-zwkqj and that link is also included in your resources email. That will ensure you include all the elements needed to qualify for the final cash prize. If you are unsure or just want to confirm that everything is in order, the Center for Open Science is happy to review your manuscript once it has been accepted by a publisher. Just be sure to send us a copy to preredgeatcos.io before you reach the final copy editing stage so that any changes we suggest can still make it into the published version. Once your article is published, just send an email to preredgeatcos.io with a link to the online version for final review. If all the elements in the manuscript checklist are there, then you are all done and we will be in contact about the payment schedule. That's the Preregistration Challenge.


hatever it is that um it really works this is a real thing that we all need to get vaccinated to protect each other so i'm really excited because shonis is signing up for the um uh a big ride in august and some little rides in between and he's so excited about it that he's back he's got his mojo back and it was just because of this shot so this is a message to go out to our residents that we shouldn't be afraid of this we should just do it and protect everybody so thank you thank you councilor peck and uh just my comment for the night is i have my first shot scheduled for monday so um i will follow your advice and all my council members examples so thank you council member martin uh thank you mayor bagley um first of all i am happy um for for council member peck and and her son so that is a great local proof that that what we've been reading in the national news is accurate and i'm just delighted to hear it um um i can't help looking back um to all of the times that we have uh interviewed people for the various city boards and commissions and i remember when we interviewed people for planning and zoning um the question always was asked will you apply the code exactly as written and that seems now to be inconsistent with um with us with the staff's uh eager promotion of the new codes that they were intended to be flexible so um i wonder if we don't need to fix some disconnect because i think we have just um you know reversed what would have been a good project and a good project for the neighborhood um and i am i am sorry that it had to happen that's all all right so i do not see anybody's hands up because i'm just going to try to get the first call by the final call taken care of and then we'll get our screen back is there anybody here don anybody in the queue may or sorry uh there is not i mean i was trying to get back to my other screen there that's right so let's go ahead and close the okay i'll call public invited to be heard and get me my screen back anyone else have their hand up anxious to say something perfect that is that look look at that i'm just look at that we're just using time left and right the fact efficiently all right so let's go ahead then city manager do you have any remarks no comments mayor council okay and then Eugene made do you have any comments no comments mayor all right great then do we have a motion to adjourn move a move second a move second in let's go home no let's get out of here all right it was i'll say the motion was made by councilor christensen the second right seconded by council member waters all in favor say hi hi hi i'm sorry was that an eye councilor christensen or do you have a comment i just hold my hand up to okay anybody opposed all right the motion carries unanimously we're we are concluded for tonight we're adjourned we'll see everybody next week and then i'll stop by and sign things in the morning all right thanks guys good night


to be here this evening and I want to share out of Second Kings this evening, Second Kings chapter 1. But as you guys are turning to the passage, the title of this is the Fruit of Disobedience. We want to keep our pastor and Marian prayer as they're resting and just keep them in prayer and God willing, Pastor David will be back on Wednesday to resume our marriage and family series. I want to welcome those who are joining us online and those who may be in the patio. Let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for your mercy, your grace, and your love. So, Lord, as we look at this passage this evening, may your name be glorified, may our hearts be opened in Jesus' name. Amen. What I like to do is read verses 1 through 4 and then get into our study. But you notice today in our life around us is that disobedience has kind of lost its sting. I remember when I was growing up, the challenge between obedience and disobedience was a real war. But it seems like today, even in Christianity, that disobedience has taken over obedience in the name of Christianity. A lot of times we will see that there are disobedient Christians that are living a life thinking that they're fruitful when in reality the fruit of disobedience is God's judgment. And I want to share a little bit about this, reflecting on this from a king in 2 Kings chapter 1 named King Asahaya. And what I want to do is share a little bit about what he has done and kind of use that as an application for our lives this evening. How does this apply to us? I remember in my life that there was a time where I walked this line of disobedience thinking that I would be able to still call myself a Christian, but later on I realized that the two do not mix and that there is a cost to pay in disobedience. And this evening I want to take some time to look at that and then at the end I want to wrap it up. I want to wrap it up with a more positive note because my question to you is at the end is going to be how are you recognized?  Why are you guys laughing? There's characteristic traits that we have that we are recognizable by people. But how are we recognized as Christians? And that's the point I want to get to at the end here. But first let's take a look at the first four verses. I'd like to read 2 Kings chapter 1 beginning with verse 1. It says, Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. Now as Ahaya fell through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria and was injured. So he sent messengers and said to them, Go inquire of Ba'al Zabab, the God of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury. But the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite arise. Go up to meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and say to him, is it because there's no God in Israel that you are going to inquire of Ba'al Zabab, the God of Ekron? Now therefore thus says the Lord, you shall not come down from the bed for which you have gone up, but you shall surely die. So Elijah departed. You know faith and obedience goes hand in hand and at one point all of us have probably experienced disobedience in our lives. We may be even struggling with some sense of disobedience this evening. Even as we go through seasons of our lives, there can be times where we feel that we're disobedient. But as followers of Jesus Christ, it is our daily commitment to live and act more like Jesus than the day before. So the question is, how do we submit to Jesus's authority completely rather than just most of the time? The writer for Hebrews talks about the people of Israel while they wandered in the desert because of disobedience. In Hebrews chapter three verses 18 and 19 it says, and to whom God, excuse me, and to whom did God swear that they would not enter his rest if not for those who disobeyed. So we see that we are not able to enter because of their unbelief. We see that the Israelites continue to disobey God's commandments throughout the book of Exodus. Scripture is very clear and later confirmed in the New Testament that the reason for their rebellion was their lack of trust and belief in God. They didn't believe God was their source. They didn't believe that God was their best way and they suffered for it. And so throughout Scripture, we see the fruit of disobedience is God's wrath and his judgment. Colossians chapter three verses five through seven says, therefore put to death the members, your members, which are on earth fornication, uncleanliness, passion, evil desires, covetousness, which is idolatry. Because of these things, the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience in which you yourself once walked when you lived in them. Deuteronomy chapter 28 verse 15 says, but it shall come about that if you do not obey the Lord your God to assert all his commandments and his statutes with which I charge you today that these curses will come upon you and overtake you. The fruit of disobedience, the fruit of disobedience will always bring about God's wrath and God's judgment in our lives. And this is the ultimate choice that we have on a daily basis. Whom do will you obey today? A lot of times we have the draw to follow and obey the ways of the world or our hearts lead us in certain situations that brings disobedience to God. And then there's times where we want to be obedient to the Lord and we're striving to be obedient to the Lord. And then we feel the pull of disobedience. And so every day it's a daily struggle between obedience and disobedience. And as we draw closer to Jesus Christ, our lives are to be more obedient today than they were yesterday. And so we see in verse one immediately that the king of Israel is facing a crisis. And I like what the writer's doing here because he's right away showing the result of disobedience because of the king of Israel is wicked. And so we see here right off the bat in verse one that it says Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab. Just a little bit of a history here. Ahab was the king of Israel. So the nation of Israel was divided. The king of the north was Ahab around this time. The kingdom was divided initially by a prophet who came to Jeroboam and said, Jeroboam, if you walk in all the ways of the Lord, walk in all of his statutes and do as I command you, my name will be on your dynasty. And so this prophet is wearing this robe and he comes up to Jeroboam and he rips it off and it's ripped into 10 pieces, 11 pieces. 10 he gives to Jeroboam and one he says is for the king of Judah, Rehoboam, which is the son of Solomon. And so the Jeroboam is given the northern kingdom, which is referenced the nation of Israel. And the south was reigned by Rehoboam at that time, which is considered Judah. So now here in the Old Testament, when you see that there is the king of Israel, it's referencing the northern tribes. And what happens is as Jeroboam became king, it's the king that the people wanted. But what happened was he started listening to his own heart. And I don't know about you guys, but when we begin to listen to our hearts rather than God's word, we will find ourselves in trouble. Because what happens is it tells us in First Kings that Jeroboam began to say in this art that if the people in the north start going down to the true place of worship in Judah, King Rehoboam is going to send people up to kill me. And so therefore I'm going to set up altars here in the north in Dan. And I'm going to set up an altar in Bethel. And I'm going to set up these golden calves and people, instead of leaving the northern tribes, they can go here as a convenience place to worship. It was a house of worship. They had priests. They were sacrificing. They were doing all the things that looked like Christianity, but they were actually worshiping idols. And so as Jeroboam began to listen to his own heart, he began to introduce more idolatry. And from First Kings chapter 15 all the way to First Kings chapter 22, the writer takes us through this journey of these wicked kings of the north that continue to worship idolatry. And so here as Ahab dies, he's the most wicked king of the north. And he has a wife named Jezebel, which I would recommend that to ever name your daughters Jezebel, not even your dog or not even your fish. But Jezebel was a wicked queen. So Ahab dies. And his son as a hyac comes into the kingdom in the north. And at first thing that it tells us about his reign is that Moab rebels against Israel. We see that the immediate crisis of the result of king as Ahaya's disobedience is a rebellion. Anytime that we are walking in disobedience against the Lord, we are in rebellion against God's word, against his spirit and against him himself. So the first thing that the writer points out to us here is that there is a consequence, there is a fruit of as Ahaya's disobedience that came from his father Ahab. For context purposes, if you look at chapter, excuse me, First Kings chapter 22, the last couple of verses, gives us a little bit of context. Look what it says here. He, he's talking about as Ahaya, did evil in the side of the Lord. And he walked in the ways of his father in the way of his mother and in the way of Jeroboam, the son of Nabat, who made Israel sin. For he served Baal and worshiped him and provoked the Lord God of Israel to anger according to all that his father has done. So the result of as Ahaya's disobedience right away, there's rebellion. And there's a little bit of an application here that we can see right off the bat. See, there were three main things in verses 52 and 53 that led to as Ahaya's disobedience. The first thing that it says that he walked in the ways of Jeroboam, that Jeroboam entered, was maintaining and introduced calf worship to the nation of the northern tribes, to Israel. Then he's walking in the ways of his father as Ahaya who was neglecting to worship the true God. And then it tells us that here in verse 52 that he walked in the ways of his mother who introduced Baal, the Canaanite storm God. But what's the application here right off the bat? How many parents do we have in here? How many grandparents? For the rest of you guys, you guys are living the vidaloka, right? You don't have any kids. But an application right off the bat. We see King as Ahaya here following the ways of his mother, following the ways of our father, parents. Always know what we're doing is set an example for our children. And what you do, they will follow. Grandparents who are being influenced to your children and to your grandchildren, always know the way that you do things and the way you respond to crisis and the way that you respond when you're upset and the way you come to church. Read your Bible. Don't read your Bible. Pray. Don't pray. You're set an example for your children. And here we see in verses 52 and 53 of 1 Kings chapter 22 that Ahaya is following in the footsteps of his parents. So we see here that God's judgment now is on Ahaya. Moab rebels. Now we're going to keep Moab there for a moment and if you go on to read 2 Kings chapter 3, Moab will come back up this nation, will come back up and will have a pretty significant role in 2 Kings chapter 3. But for the most part, the writer just leaves it here because he's telling us that rebellions already started. But in verse 2, we see another fruit of disobedience. We see that as Ahaya fell through a lattice of his upper room in Samaria and he was injured. So he fell. Now what's interesting about this is that I'm jumping ahead of myself, you guys here. Let me back up a second, you guys. Going back to the first verse, Moab rebelled. Moab has been under the rule of Israel since the time of King David. 2 Samuel chapter 8 verse 2 tells us that he, David, defeated Moab, forcing them down to the ground. He measured them off with the line. With two lines, he measured off to be put to death and with the one full line to those kept alive. So the Moab acts became David's servant and bought tribute. So the death of Ahab and the succession of Ahaya was immediate cause for the Moabites to rebel. And so they were paying tributary to the king of Israel. When you look in 2 Kings chapter 3, you'll see that they brought 1,000, 100,000 lambs and 100,000 wool of goats and they would pay tributary to the king of Israel. But now that Ahab died and as Ahayas become king, they rebelled. And no longer are they paying tribute to the king of Israel. But the word rebelled here speaks of, it's an interesting word. It speaks of breaking away from. One commentator says that to behave as a criminal. And I think about the many times in my life, you guys, that I've broken away from God in an act of rebellion by listening to my own heart. By taking my eyes off of the Lord, by taking my time away from God's word and praying to the Lord, my heart began to turn in disobedience. And now my heart was in rebellion, which is a criminal activity towards the Lord. It was a breaking away from God. But what was Moab, this city of Moab, what were they breaking from? What were they rebelling against? Well, when you look at 2 Kings chapter 3, verse 4, it says, Now Misha the king of Moab was a sheep reader and he regularly paid the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. So this revolt of Moab was great loss to Israel. The fruit of disobedience will bring great loss to our lives. The joy that we once had in walking in the presence of the Lord, the joy that we once had having communion with the Holy Spirit is now broken away when we are in disobedience. And instead of pursuing that, we see that Ahab's as a high as affairs are not focused on what he's lost. Sounds like rebellion. And this is how disobedience works. See, when he rebelled against God and he revolted from his allegiance from him, Moab rebelled against Israel and revolted from the persecution that had long paid the king of Israel. Disobedience and sin often weakens and undermines us as Christians. And we see God's to continue judgment and crisis in verse 2. Now I like the transition words. I'm one of these guys in the Bible that when I read scripture, I like looking at the words that are that transition. And here it says now. So right after the first crisis is mentioned, there is another crisis mentioned saying now, now as Ahaya fell through the lattice of the upper room. And what's interesting about this is that this transitional word is also introducing us to more of the fruit of disobedience of King as Ahaya. But don't we know this, you guys? I don't know how many of you guys have ever experienced an emergency? Probably not, right? You know, emergencies are the real test of what we have learned. Whether it's medically or spiritually, when crisis comes, where do you turn for help? This answer is important because how much help you actually get depends entirely on whom you ask. And we're going to see this here. Because what you turn to in crisis or in difficult times is what you serve. Think about a crisis you just recently went through. It could be a huge, a big crisis, could have been a small crisis. But think about it. And who did you turn to? Was it Oprah? Dr. Phil? Your friends? Because who you turn to in crisis or what you turn to in crisis will determine what you are serving or whom you are serving. And we see here that this crisis comes that as Ahaya fell through the lattice and has this unexpected crisis. But we know that unexpected crisis comes to the good and to the evil. Such accidents happen to both kings and to us peasants. Matthew chapter 5 verse 45 says, For he makes the sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and unjust. But he fell. Now if we're to look at this from a spiritual perspective, we can see that this is something that we all need to be aware of. We need to be aware that disobedience will often take us to a place that we will fall. We will fall spiritually.  And if we're walking in disobedience, it will just be a matter of time until we fall spiritually. We see that his fall is a physical result of his disobedience to the Lord, but it also can be a spiritual result of disobedience from the Lord. The fall of any man is a result of disobedience. So when Azahaya here is severely injured by falling through the lattice, look who he turns to. Because remember again, whatever you turn to in a time of crisis is what you serve or who you serve. And we see here that Azahaya falls through this lattice from this upper room. There's not a whole lot of commentators that say how high this was, but the fact is he fell and he fell hard. And when he falls, he turns to guidance. He now wants to inquire what's going to happen to me from this fall. But instead of turning to the Lord, look who he turns to in the second part of verse 2. He says, so he sent his messengers and said, go inquire of Ba'al Zabab, the God of Ekron, whether I should recover from this injury.  He was raised since he was five years old in the ways of the Torah. Any Jewish boy at the age of five years old will start beginning to memorize their first five books of the Old Testament. So he's seen how God worked in Genesis and he sees the great hand of God in Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy. He sees the power and the deliverance of God, but yet he turns to a false God to inquire whether he will survive this fall. That blows me away, but yet it doesn't. Because there's many times in my life I've done the same thing. God has delivered me from addictions. God has delivered me from this and slavery and that. He's delivered me from this and he's delivered me from that, but why do I go and inquire of other things other than the Lord? That is the fruit of disobedience. Because what we turn to in the time of crisis is what or who we are, that who are we are serving. What's interesting here that this word Ba'al Zabab, this name here, simply Ba'al means Lord. Ba'al Zabal means Ba'al as Prince. But what the writer here has done in 2 Kings has made a little bit of a ridicule of this name by referencing him Ba'al Zabab which means the Lord of Dung. I don't know if you need the Hebrew or Greek for Dung, right? Dung is Dung. Also known as the Lord of the Flies. But what's interesting here is that this same name Ba'al Zabab is one of the names that Jesus's enemies used to insult him in Matthew chapter 10. But it tells us that Ba'al Zabab, he's the God of Ekron. He is the God of the Philistines. And they believe that this God would be able to deliver people from pestilences and diseases but not injury. So it's possible that as a high as injury resulted in some type of disease or infection because the inquiring of Ba'al Zabab usually would mean that they are inquiring for somebody who has a pestilence or disease in regards to idols. And it's not, I didn't give it to the guys for notes, but listen what it says to idols in Psalm chapter 135. The idols of nations are silverling and gold, the work of men's hands. They have mouths but they do not speak, eyes but they do not see. They have ears but they do not hear. Nor is there any breath in their mouths. Those who make them are like them and so everyone who trusts in them. When we read about it, it seems pretty disgusting that this Jewish Israeli king would now turn to a false God. But we often do the same thing because we're pursuing money. We're pursuing recognition. We're pursuing titles. We're pursuing relationships. We're pursuing the things of the world and the things that have been set before us to follow the Lord have now we are inquiring of these different gods. And we have to be careful for that because we know that the enemy is walking around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. And when he sees a Christian that is in disobedience, that is lunch for him. And so what's interesting here is that as Ahaya now sends these messengers and it says at the end of verse two, to go inquire of Ba'al Zabab. Now the word inquire here is an interesting word. It means that go and worship Ba'al Zabab and bring some consultation to me of what he says. Divination. Cultic practices. The word inquire here speaks of a divination practice that is forbidden by God's people. It would be like going to a tarot card reader or a poem reader or something like that where they are wanting to hear what they want to hear. Leviticus chapter 19 verse 31 says, give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits. Do not seek after them to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God. So this was a common practice at this time where consultation regarding an outcome of an injury or sickness was often sought out. And the result was usually given in a medical prognosis such as he shall surely die or he shall surely live. Those were the two main answers that they would receive when they would inquire regarding their life due from an injury. They won't say, oh you're probably going to make it. They're going to say you shall surely live or you shall surely die. Remember what we worship will determine what we turn to which determines what we serve. And so we see here in verse three, but the angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, arise go up and meet the messengers of the king of Samaria and say to him it is because there is no God in Israel that you're going to inquire of Ba'alzebub the God of Ekron. Notice with me here that the Lord sends his messengers to Elijah as Ahaya sends his messengers to Ba'alzebub. And we see right off the bat here that the Lord, that God, Jehovah God here sends the angel of the Lord. Now if you look in your Bible it doesn't say unangel of the Lord it says the angel of the Lord. And there's two different types of school of thought regarding the angel of the Lord. Who is this angel of the Lord? Who is he truly? Some say that he is a superior angel and others say that is an appearance of Christ pre-incarnate also known as a Christophany. But we're not here this evening to study whether this was Christ pre-incarnate. What's important here is the message and instructions given to Elijah. Look what it says here but look what the message of this angel of the Lord says. Arise and go and meet the messengers and the king of Samaria.  And he says to him is there not a God in Israel that you're going to inquire but also above the king of Ekron? The message here that is asked is there's no God in Israel? When God is removed from the equation and replaced with idol worshiping there's big trouble and judgment coming. When God is removed people will turn to other things. When Jesus is removed people will turn to other things. Jesus has been removed from our nation that was once founded as a nation under God and look at the condition of our nation. God has been removed from our schools and our colleges and our universities. God is being removed from the institution of marriages and from the institution of the family and families and marriages are now turning to Baal. Parents, God has been taken out of parenting. God has been taken out of the church. And when Elijah in verse four intercepts this convoy of messengers he will give them a message that would both rebuke and sober the king. So why did Azahaya want to consult the dead God of Ekron when the living God is available to tell him what would happen? That he would surely die. Instead of being a spokesman for Baal the messengers became messengers to the true king of Israel, the Lord God our king. In verse four he tells him this he's telling the messengers Elijah's now intercepted these messengers. And remember these messengers have been sent by a king. They're sent out to do one job to inquire whether I'm going to live or I'm going to die.  And so we see in verse five and when the messengers returned to him he said to them why have you come back?  Then he said to him what kind of man was it who came up to meet you and told you of these words? And he answered him a hairy man wearing a leather belt around his waist and he said it is Elijah the Tishbite. So the messengers are intercepted by Elijah.   God's judgment against disobedience is always swift. This trip from Samaria to Ekron was about 83 miles so it would take about a 21 hour walk to get from Samaria to Ekron which shows on the Philistine Judea border which is modern Gaza. So it's a little bit of a trip and they say to the king a man came up to meet us. They were sent to seek a word from a pagan priest of Baal Zabab but the word from Elijah persuaded them so much that they didn't even follow through with their original orders. I want to stop and take a look at this for a second. These men were sent out on a mission from a king. They were fulfilling king's orders. When you did not fulfill the order of a king it usually meant off with your head or some type of execution where you lost your life. These men were ordered to go and inquire of Baal Zabab but yet they meet this hairy man as the Bible describes with a leather belt and there must have been something about him that turned away these men who were instructed to bring news to the king and inquire to these priests of Baal Zabab. What was it about Elijah that persuaded these men to turn away and possibly face death? What was it about this man that made them turn back and not complete their mission from the king? The messengers according to verse six were sent back with the word of the Lord and they gave it as a hyah. So my question is why didn't that as a hyah didn't inquire of the Lord? Well I think about my own life when the times where I didn't want to inquire of the Lord because I didn't want to hear the answer that the Lord wanted to give me or wanted to give me instead. I wanted to hear what I wanted to hear which would give me an excuse to go continue to do what I wanted to do and so I would inquire of the Lord. I would rather inquire of the things that would give me the answers that I wanted to hear and this is what as a hyah did. He knew he was in disobedience but he wanted to go somewhere where he would be told kind of scratching and itching his ears the things that he wanted to hear. He didn't want to seek counsel from the Lord. He already knew what the answer would be but in seeking of Ba'al's above for an answer as a hyah wanted to find a God that would tell him what he wanted to hear and this is what has crept into Christianity today. Tell me what I want to hear and don't convict me. Don't you dare talk to me about my sin. I was born this way and we see that the cross has been taken out of the equation. I want my walk with the Lord to always feel good. I don't want to talk about sin because it's not sin. It's illness. It's because I have daddy issues. It was because my cat died when I was four years old and we hear the list goes on and on and on and because of this I want to seek out what I want to hear but how is this working out for King as a hyah? Second Timothy chapter 3 verse 5 says having a form of godliness but denying its power thereof. So in verse 7 we see that as a hyah starts to suspect who this person is because he says to him to the he said to these messengers what kind of man was it who came up meet you and told you these things notice he didn't ask who who was the man rather he says what kind of man he was already suspicious and they answered him and said a hairy man wearing a leather belt around his waist and he said it is Elijah the Tishbite.  One commentator says that it was more likely that the skin of animal hair that he was wearing and he would wear a belt around his waist but identifying Elijah by his clothes he was recognized as a prophet of the Lord. John the Baptist dressed in a similar way as hairy skins from an animal is seen in Matthew chapter 3 verse 4 it says now John himself clothes himself in camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist and his food was locust and wild honey. Couple of points that I want to use to wrap up here there's always a price to disobedience it will always produce fruit in our lives but the main fruit that it will produce is the spiritual falling of one's life you show me a man that has fallen you will show you can also see the life being fulfilled of disobedience because what we worship is what we turn to to serve. The last thing I want to cover here and I want to tie this up here in a moment is that Elijah is recognized by the description that is given to Azahaya. These men came back and said King Azahaya this man is hairy this man wore leather belt around his waist and right away Azahaya knew who he was speaking about can we be recognized as men and women of God can we be recognized as men and women of God by the way we speak can we be recognized as men and women of God by the way we act or the way we conduct ourselves or when we go through crisis do our children recognize that we are godly parents do our grandchildren recognize that we are godly parents do those at work around you recognize you as a man or woman of God because if they don't that means that you have enough mixture of the world to identify yourself as someone who lives in the world what our wives and our friends and our children say that we are men and women of God if I were to ask my wife I paid her 50 bucks before we got her answer yes hopefully she would say yes or do they seek elsewhere because there is no god of Israel around one time you guys I was at another church years and years ago and I thought it was time for me that this walk that I was doing with the Lord this Christian walk I needed to spice it up a little bit I was going to church I was coming home I was going to work coming to going to church coming home going to work and I thought you know what I'm missing a little bit of something here so I decided that at I heard that at my job there was going to be a party and I had been sober and clean for a number of years and so I could decide to go to this party and I start partaking in the things that they're offering at this party and the next thing you know I'm like well this feels good I've missed this I've deserved this and and kept indulging in things at this party making a ultimate complete fool of myself and so the next day as I put on my Christian mask and carried my big black Bible and began to speak Christianese again we were going to go door to door inviting people to come join our church for Easter Sunday and I was teamed up with the pastor so I was trying to keep my distance because I reeked of alcohol I was sweating I had the whole nine yards but yet I was smiling and God bless you and I remember going to a house and and I wanted to impress this pastor by letting him know how spiritual I really am and went to the door and knocked and it was one of those screen doors that you can't see in but you can see out and I knock on this door and I hear this lady answer the door and says how can I help you and I said we're from such and such church my name is John and this is the pastor and we would like to invite you to our Easter Sunday service here's a flyer and can I pray with you and then I hear these footsteps walking in the background mom who is that and I can't even see in and I hear oh it's you and I'm thinking oh I'm done she says you were the one at the party last night you were the one that was acting stupid saying all kinds of things drinking and going on and and if you're what a Christian is I want nothing to do with Christianity I often think about that young lady how she now views Christianity because of my witness and often wonder will she ever give her heart to the Lord we know that the Holy Spirit can break through any hardened heart but I was the vehicle to show her the hypocrisy that many Christians play today because they think they can walk in disobedience friends we have to remember that Jesus died on the cross for us not to live in the lives of disobedience he forgave us of all of our sins not so we can walk in disobedience he has given us power in the Holy Spirit and he's given us a new life but not to walk in disobedience he has given his us his spirit that we may walk in his power and that our lives will always reflect Jesus and that we may be recognized as men and women of God may we always walk in obedience friends there's nothing over there for us anymore it's about walking in Jesus you know you guys I'm gonna close with this I keep saying I'm gonna close we'll be here another hour you know this this Sunday is Father's Day and Father's Day is pretty significant for me and it kind of tying this up there was a time as you guys know I've shared this many times that my life was full of addictions and and this was way years before I became a father and and I was caught up in this lifestyle for a very long time and because of this lifestyle my my relationship with my parents and my sister were practically severed it is because I was the biggest thief around it was because that I would steal and I would anything I can do to support my habit that was me and it was and this is why Father's Day is very significant to me there was a time in my life where I was walking in disobedience with the Lord but there was a time where I felt the tugging of the Holy Spirit drawing me in and I would fight it and I would push it off it yet I would feel the spirit of God drawing me in and and I would start thinking about my parents I thought thinking about my sister I start thinking about my family I start thinking about the Lord and and little by little these things that I was caught up in were becoming less and less interesting to me I had been kicked out of the house I had been severed and separated from my family and and and and there was this tugging in my heart that if I go to my grandma's house I can get help because my grandma would be the buffer between me and my parents because I have did them very very wrong I betrayed them and miss and and misused their trust I was that son that know that he did that my parents didn't want me around and I remember going to a house where we were going to use drugs and I remember going in there and sitting in this room thinking what am I doing here and I thought the spirit of the Lord drawn me because as a drug addict you never leave a drug house if there's drugs there you don't leave but I found myself getting up and walking out then I remember getting in the vehicle that was in and I find myself heading to my grandmother's house and I was weeping broken and I remember pulling up to my father's my grandma's house it was father's day and I pull up and I see my mom and dad's car there and my heart sank I haven't seen them for a couple of years they didn't want me around and I sat in that car and I wept and I said you know what I have to go in and so when I walked in I remember that they were having a father's day lunch my grandma my my my parents my family members they were there celebrating father's day and I was thinking to myself how can my dad be sitting here celebrating father's day when his own very son is out there destroying his life and destroyed their lives and it hit me and I was weeping and weeping and weeping and I was like the shame that I brought my parents and I remember opening the door and sticking my head in there and I see my dad's back was facing me and my mom was giving me that glare the chunk leg layer right and I said dad and his back stiffens up and my uncles around the table they they have a nickname for me watch I won't share they said hey nickname I said dad can I speak to you outside his back stiffs up dad can I please talk to you and I'm crying and I'm crying he comes out and he comes outside the first thing I do is I fall to my knees and I'm right my arms around him and said dad I'm sorry I'm tired of this lifestyle I need help and this is why father's day is so significant for me because the love of Jesus Christ that was demonstrated through my dad he didn't push me away he put his arms around me and says I love you I said what kind of dad does that a man who was recognized as a man of God and I remember from that point forward that my dad continued to love me and that was a demonstration a true life demonstration to me for the very first time in all of my life that I felt the presence and love of Jesus Christ are we those people because there's people around us that are hurting but yet we're so caught up in the church politics that he looked at me different or he said this at me knowing that there's somebody next to us this evening who is broken are we being recognized as men and women of God well when my mom came out she wasn't as gracious why why why right but I seen for the first time a true demonstration of God's love through my dad are we recognized as men and women of God and for us men as we're going to celebrate us fathers that would be celebrating Father's Day coming up may we be encouraged and challenged to be recognized as men of God as fathers of God amen let's pray amen am I fired you guys