Hello and welcome to the digital free thought radio Alvarenda OZO radio 103.90 if I'm here in Knoxville, Tennessee. I'm wearing roads or a DJ down to five and these usually have recovers. I'm the one that I am the one that comes over on video very well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we have a great part of Higgs from Western Canada. Well, I'm Richard from England, South of Walton digital free thought radio. There's a talk radio show about atheism, free thought, rational thought, humanism, Satanism, Busta Farianism, et al. Also recover the science and religion and religious faith. God's holy books and superstition. If you think you're the only non-believer in your time, well, you're just not. You're in Knoxville, middle of the Bible belt. We have a group of over a thousand people. We're the atheist society of Knoxville or ASK. We'll tell you more about that after the show break. So be sure to stick around. Well, that was our topic today. Today we are going to talk about charity. And I think it's an interesting topic because I just went through a charity experience extravaganza that I love to go into. But before we go into that main course for today's show, let's throw up to some pasta and noodles with our own weekly invocation brought to you by our own Dread Pirate Hicks. All right. Our newly lord, who art in the colander, I'll don't say be thy noodles, thy blood be rum, thy sauce be yum, 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 ketoism, but deliver us some carbs. For thine are the meatballs and the sauces and the grog whenever and ever. All right. So here's the weird thing. I did go to a charity thing. It was a food drive.  I was bagging 480 bags of grocery foods and we were giving them to these trucks. It was a whole event, but it was largely run by three main churches that are fairly large churches in our immediate area. But I had no problem going as an atheist to be able to volunteer and help out. I looked at the website and they said, we're here to help hungry families and souls. And I was like, I'm here for the hungry families, but it's all good either way. It's all good either way. And I was thinking there was a really interesting event that happened when we're done bagging up the groceries. We are ready to give them out to the homeless people who are waiting in line. And then the pastor is like, okay, everybody gather around. We're all going to listen to me now because we're going to do a prayer first. And I'm like, they're still hungry in line. Are we really going to do this? I didn't do it. I abstained. I walked on the outside, but he's doing his whole prayer of, I just want to thank everybody for being out here. Listen, there's a lot of different people out here. If you look around, there's a lot of different demographics. And I think that's so great that we all value community first. I just want to make that front and clear regardless of whoever you are or wherever you come from, we all came here together because we all have one fundamental understanding. And that is Jesus paid a price for our sins. And he went off the rails. Can I get an amen? And I was like, you were so close to something where I was like, oh, my head was turning around. They're like, oh, maybe this is like actually pretty good. It was like, no, it was just that. And then it was the most rote.  But you said something right at the beginning of this little piece where I was puzzled because you said you were giving out food. I don't know whether it was a food bank or what, but we have them in this country now, thanks to the incompetence of our government. But you were giving out food to hungry people and souls. So can you tell me, what does souls eat? True, true. There was a lot of food and there was a couple of succulents.  So maybe that was for the souls. They were giving out pot of plants as well with the food. And it was good food too. It was like regular grocery food. We're backing it up and just distributing it out to everybody. But the main thing for me on this weekend was charity. And I wanted to think about how do we contribute? Because obviously there's a marketing that's very strong with Christianity and charity, but they don't own the concept. And I wanted to have a roundtable discussion on that. Before we do that, though, maybe it would be good to check in on everybody else's weekends. Because, Dred, you're looking outfitted for a really awesome thing. What's going on with you? Well, I'm about 1,500 kilometers north of my residence in Fort St. John, which is oil country. I'm working in the oil and gas industry right now as an industrial medic. Oh, awesome. Very cool. Yeah.  So we've been I'm shadowing another fella right now. Weird question.  No, not in this particular case, but one of the big things that we have to watch out for is hydrogen sulfide. So we do, we wear gas alarms and SCBA and all that kind of stuff has to be available for to provide that air in the event that there's some kind of a leak. But generally, it's not like the old days where it was a bunch of rough necks on a rake. With a little curd on the inside. It's safety first. And the guys always say, there's nothing so important that you can't stop for a minute and think about what you're doing. So that's what we're there to support. So for our radio listeners, I just wanted to say that this is, I think the first show that dreads ever done on this with a clean shave in face. So it was a magnificent beard, moment of silence for dreads beard. Indeed. Remembrance of the beard. There's going to be a little PowerPoint presentation in memory and then go right back to it. My rotations are actually quite long. They may be one to two months at a time. So maybe I'm not here as often as I would certainly like to be, but you know, it is what it is. You'll be missing as often as I possibly can. And I'll always have my prayers in your hand. You don't have any of my thoughts for you. Thank you. And listen, if the pastor started out his food bank prayer with an indication to the past flying spaghetti monster, not only would that be apropos, but it would actually incorporate everybody in on the on the festival rather than immediately singling out everybody who didn't immediately follow his particular. I can't think of why nobody would not like pastor. So exactly. Yes. And never listen. If you are a Christian and you're watching this and you have a potluck and everyone else brings food to your place and you want to stop everyone from eating so you can pray to your God, don't do that. If you are in a food bank and you want to stop a line of people who are hungry to get the food that we, the other people help to prepare food for you, don't do that. Just let them get the food. And when everyone's gone, have all the prayers you want afterwards. After you fade people, then you pray not beforehand. Don't hold this hostage to this conversation that you're having. It's such a terrible practice. John Richards, what do you think? And how's your weekend? I wanted to ask Dredg whether he's got any souls to medic where he is now? No, no souls. No, rough things, no souls. Not a five. Well, one of the things that I hate is not so much a charity, but just that funerals. I mean, I've had two brothers, I've gone to both parents and two brothers, funerals and other people, of course, in laws and stuff, but the preacher will take like 10 or 15 minutes to talk about the person who has deceased and then he'll go on with his sermon, which will last anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. They take advantage of the people who are there to sell their message and that really makes me angry. That's insane. So one, I've never really been to a funeral. I've maybe been one when I was wet Christian and it was our pastor's funeral, but I wasn't really paying attention because I was like eight years old at the time, but I did not know that funerals were, what's the right word? Preaching events. Preaching events. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I thought it was more just the respect to the person who died not to think about like how my funeral is going to look. That's... Well, I recently went to Joe Barnhart's funeral. It was at a UU church, which is not nearly as religious as most churches out there. As a matter of fact, it's got a secular arm or part of it. Right. And they spent the entire time, various people coming up and talking about the relationship with the deceased and what a great person he was and the experiences they had with him. It was more like a wake than a traditional funeral. And I really liked that. I mean, I think it's a good idea. John and Dredd, I don't know if you know about the universal universal, was it United Universalists, but it's like an offshoot of the Methodists and then our solely focus on inclusivity. And so a lot of their sermons are like Carl Sagan presentations, PowerPoint presentations, something like that. And if they do a Christian event, there's a Hindu event immediately afterwards. There's a secular event immediately afterwards. They make sure to make a point that everybody is represented and how they present. However, it's still very, very, very church-like in both like the songs and stand up, sit down and the tithing. So it's not like Sunday Assembly where it's a bit more free for all based on wherever you go and it's only once a month. It's still very much a weekly thing. There's still very much like a leader, pastor type figure, but it's the best version of a church that I think people could go to. And if you are Christian, I would recommend visiting one in your local area if you can get to it. John Richard. Okay, so I'm taught up with you. Doubter five. How you been since last week? Oh, I've been fine. Just keeping on keeping on working and playing computer games. Yeah, the struggle just working and playing video games and running your motorcycle. We got dread and fire gear being on oil rigs and he's just like, yeah, I also have a hard time. Sometimes I'm playing Star Citizen. My download rate drops below 200 megabytes per millisecond. The struggle is real this weekend because they dropped a major update. Wiped all your progress. Got rid of any ships that you didn't pay actual money for. Wow. It is so buggy. It's unplayable. I mean, at the current time, I can't even get in the game. The struggle is real. I'm not putting out forest fires, but I am 70. We're all out here. We're all out here. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Larry. That wasn't a real struggle. That was a virtual struggle. But the reality is still a struggle. I would like to say something about charities, though. Whenever I'm talking to believers in the field, and I do some tables where I talk about atheism and religion and people always say, yeah, but you guys don't do any charities.  And no, they're not. I'd like to mention some of the non-religious charities that are out there. Amnity International is a secular charity. Friends of the Earth, Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF. Even Red Cross is not that kind of cross. It's a secular charity. So any charity. Peace Corps as well, I'll suppose, right. Any charity that is not explicitly religious is a secular charity, or what you might call it an atheist charity because they're not religious based. It's over here, of course. We don't have that many religious charities. I subscribe to two charities and I have done so every month for I don't know how long, 20 years probably. One is a cancer charity named after, what's the name, the female or who I can't remember. But the other one is the United Nations Kids Charity, you know. So and neither of them. In fact, in this country, if you nail your charity to a faith, you won't earn so much. And coming up this very week, we have something called Red Nose Day. Is it Red Nose Day this week? Or it's a television, a telethon, and all the comedians and singers get together and they put on a show that goes for about four hours. And they keep putting up pleas and saying that this is for those starving children in that part of the world, so on and so forth. And they raise 20 millions, 30 millions in a night.  I'm glad that there's that culture, like that's the stuff that needs to permeate through the rest of the world. I'd say this too, while there are definitely non-religious charities, I think one of the scary things is those charities or the people who participate in those charities wouldn't have any issues to support a Christian based charity if they needed volunteers or if they needed help. So like me as an atheist, I have no problem going to an event to feed the homeless, even if the event's run by a church because I want to feed the homeless. But I wonder how many Christians would be willing to do the other way around and go out of their way to leave their denomination to support an atheist charity event. And I'm not saying they won't, but I'm just saying it's clear that when you are a Christian organization for a church and you're helping people at your church and you're only letting people through your church newsways get out to people who are maybe helping other people who are other parts of church networks nearby, you're only helping yourself at that point. And is that truly a charity anymore? Is it charitable if you're just helping yourself, patting yourself? Well, there are liberal churches. I'll give them credit. They have preachers and pastors. They wouldn't mind visiting a charitable event run by an atheist, matter of fact. I'm saying this for sure, especially. But we've had some preachers that have actually come to our meetups and enjoyed the conversation and camaraderie. They're not atheists, but all are welcome, long as you're there for the discussion and friendly. I'm not to preach. I have to take up for a few of them. Okay, go for it. Go for it. Yeah, what do you mean? The reason that you have a different culture in the US is because after World War II, you didn't do what we did, which was we set up a welfare state in 1945. And that's the whole state being charitable. We are looking after poor, jobless, sick, starving, homeless. We're not doing it as well as I'd like at the moment, because we've had 13 years of right-wing rule and they are mean beggars. So, at the moment, they're letting the churches sneak in. And that's a terrible mistake, because it's the responsibility of the entire population to look after the feeble, vulnerable ones. It still is, but only the churches are taking credit. And the thing about it is the right-wing, same as here in America, are generally made up of evangelicals and Christians. Why are the Christians standing in the way of such a charitable enterprise of trying to take care of the lowest people and the people who cannot take care of themselves? That's, to me, the oxymoron of all of Christianity.  Well, I mean, it's tribalism at its best. Also, it's a good power play too, right, to say, hey, we are the good guys. That's the branding of Christianity. Don't worry about the fine thing. Virtue signaling, yeah. Virtue signal. We are good. Don't fear your charitable. We have a good positive impact in society. Don't worry about all this underlayer of terrible misogyny, bigotry, and what is it? What's the totem?  What's it called the bigger bird pecking order? Pecking order in Christianity. Is this like, this is your father now? That's mother blah, blah, blah. And these are your brothers and sisters. And I decide your family, and I decide what you believe in, what your values are, and how you raise your children and what they're going to, how they do in their next science test. Dred, what's up? Well, you know, it's typical of the sort of tautologies that religions establish in order to justify themselves. They define good by the things that they do, and that by virtue of the things that they do, they are good. So if you're not fitting into that definition, then that in itself is how they establish the sort of in-group and out-group. Right. Of course, that ignores the fact that they're overlooking the things that they don't do. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you didn't, when you were going around at the beginning, Ty, you didn't ask me how my week was. Oh, I thought I did, I thought I did. I heard something from you and then I went on to John. Okay, John Richards, how is your week? We always just assume your week is great. Yeah, yeah. John Richards, I feel remiss if I don't ask you how your week has been. Well, I wanted to tell you that last night, Tersia and I had a chat with an ex-armish woman. Oh, that's good. Wow. The armish, the armish misfit. Unfortunately, Tersia poked her microphone into the wrong port and it ruined the equi, the balance of her voice. Well, equi something of her voice. If you ever needed a good lip reader, let me know. I can help you out. Yeah, that's a good idea actually. Yeah. So anyway, this woman, the ex, the misfit armish woman explained what you have just been describing, how you have to be respected in your tribe in order to qualify for privileges such as healthcare and so on. And that's not the way it should be. It should be the other way around. But in the armish religion, they don't go out for medical help unless you're somebody who has risen up the status level in that locality and they think you're worth releasing to the proper doctors. It's absolutely criminal. It's terrible. That's why I don't support out of societies. And when they have soap or apple pies or whatever, it's like, people are like, yeah, they're really good apple pies. I'm like, you can get them at Walmart. Come down, come down.  I can't imagine a worse place to be a woman in America than in an armish society. You can scream and nobody hears you. Sort of situation. I'm glad she got out. That's not an easy accomplishment. One of the things that religions use mostly to keep their followers in line is a bubble, information bubble. And without any technology, the bubble is almost 100% complete in an armish community. They have no way of finding out any kind of truth outside of the village. Just to add to that, there are people who are outside of the armish communities who are also in a bubble. And you think to yourself, what's your excuse? You have the internet. You have all these other things. It's because from a formative age, while they're still understanding how basic physics work, like if I drop something, it's going to fall off the table. They were being fed this indoctrinated or this indoctrination of Jesus Christ and the story of the Bible. And here's your authority figures that you always follow. And they'll accept the truths of the world along with the lies of their dogma, hand in hand with each other until they become part and one and part of the same thing to the point where they're an adult and they can't parse their reality from their religion. They feel like one and two the same. That's a really dangerous situation that anyone can fall into. And I think Dred, you hit the nail on the head by saying Christianity basically offers a simplified version of morality where it says, hey, you're virtuous by the actions that you do. And that feels like it makes sense. It feels intuitive that if I do good things, I'm a good person and all I have to do is just keep doing good things. But the idea of a morality system is not based on what you do. It's in fact the criteria that chooses what you do and what you don't do. That is ethics in a nutshell. And when you sell people, it's only based on what you do. It's like, great, well, I can buy you a chocolate cake. That's a good thing. Well, if I know you're allergic to chocolate, that's a bad thing. And if I keep doing it, that's an even worse thing. If I keep trying to sell you something that I know is going to hurt you, that's a bad thing even if the action seems like it's good. There's a context for all of my actions. And so it's more of the criteria of my actions and not the actions themselves that determine whether or not I'm doing a good thing. But that is a nuanced concept. What do you think, Dred? Absolutely, yeah. I'm just finishing up on Kant and the critique of practical reason or pure reason. And so he's talking about morality or happiness as the motivation for virtue and morality. And of course, he couldn't square that against this idea that morality is transcendent, that it is in fact something beyond ourselves that we aspire to because he believed in God, right? So he was trying to justify the sense that morality is, I guess, absolute. And if it's absolute, then happiness can't be a motivation towards it, because that would contradict it, of course, right? So again, it's just religion, when religion gets into morality, it really screws it up. It messes it up. And Dred, I wanted to make a clarification from two weeks ago. I said that negative responsibility was a Kant mention. Kant did have a position on it, but I had it completely flipped around. It was the David Hume position. So thank you for correcting that. John Richard, what's up? Well, you guys have just reminded me, talking about morality, of something else that happened to me this week, which is an old sparring partner of mine. Somebody, a Christian, who I first met almost 10 years ago on a radio show where we were pitted against each other in the debate. It was a premier Christian radio show hosted by Justin Brealy. He's a great guy, but we've kept in touch that old sparring partner and I over the years. And he has gone on. He's finished his master's. He's got himself a PhD, and he's now a, well, he calls himself an assistant professor. I would say he's a, you know, lecturer grade one, but that's the designation that he has at this new university, which is a Christian university just set up outside Boston. Anyway, he is now teaching Christianity to students, one of whom he referred to me. He said, this student, I don't want him to be raised in an echo chamber. So I want him to experience an alternative world view. Will you talk to him? And I did. And we had this fantastic conversation, which I was able to, with his permission, I recorded because he was trying to take notes. And I said, well, if I record this, I'll send you the file, and you can view it anytime you like and take the notes as slowly as you wish. And subsequently, I asked him if I could use it for my channel. And he said, no. And of course, I'm sensitive to that because in his community, coming out as somebody questioning like he was, right, could really, could really upset some Apple cars. It's possible that he will become shandy, his marriage might break up, he could lose his children. So of course, I don't want to do that to him. So what I've done is I've invited Dred, where is he? Which side are you Dred? It's okay. It's okay. It's all right. It's different for everybody. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, anyway, Dred as an actor has kindly agreed to play him so that we can have, he will be completely anonymized, no name, no face, no voice, no background. And thanks to Dred, we can use this material and it's fantastic. Sounds great. Okay, guys, we've got to get ready for a break though. I didn't want to make a point before we head out. It's the idea that Christian charities and secular charities were all helping the same person. So like the more we pit ourselves against each other, the more we all lose because we're not helping the people that should be our own safety blanket and the people in our community. If we can help everybody, the rising tide lifts all boats boats basically. So like, we got to be willing to be charitable without the labels, in my opinion. And what better label to get rid of or to not focus so much on ends is, I want to help you for my God. So everybody stop being charitable and let me pray for a bit. It's like, no, let's just be charitable. Let's be charitable. Let's make charities charitable period. Larry, feel free to take us out. We'll come right back in. I want to get into information bubbles when we get back though. Larry's on mute. This is the digital free thought radio hour and WZO radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. We'll be right back after this short break. Hello and welcome back to the digital second half of the digital free thought radio hour and WZO radio 103.9 LP FM here in Knoxville, Tennessee. Let's take just a moment to talk about the atheist society of Knoxville. ASK was founded in 2002. We're in our 21st year and have over a thousand members. We have weekly in-person meetings every Tuesday evening in Knoxville's Old City at Barley's Taproom in Pizzeria. Look for us inside at the high top tables or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck. We also have a Tuesday evening Zoom Ask a meeting. And if you'd like to join us, email us for details at askanatheistat Knoxvilleatheist.org or let's chat SE at gmail.com. You'll find us online at facebook meetup.com or Knoxvilleatheist.org. By the way, if you don't live in Knoxville, you should still go to a meetup and do a search for an atheist group in your town. Don't find one. All right. Well, I'm about where do you will pick up? I want to talk about information bubbles real quick before we head out on this show. I had an interesting conversation when I was out to play disc golf earlier this week or earlier last week. And I have a friend named Joel. Joel's very Christian. This is what it is. You meet a lot of them when you meet people in Tennessee. But he's very evangelical with his approach because no matter what conversation you start with, he will always turn it into a conversation about why God is amazing and cool and the best God. And so I was telling him, hey, I'm learning sign language. I'm actually like invested in these live classes on the weekend where I, you know, talk with, I go out with a couple of deaf people and we go and eat some food and we can only sign. There's no talking. And it's really good way to just work on conversation. And he's like, I have a favorite language and it's ancient Hebrew and I'm learning ancient Hebrew because it really makes me realize that the Bible is translated perfectly from ancient Hebrew to English. And if you look at every letter in ancient Hebrew language, you can see that each one means something related to God.  And if you look at a bull's head, you realize that means father. And what is ancient Hebrew? It means Abba and Abba's father. And he's just going off and on and on. I'm like, you know, if we're talking about like languages that we're learning, I'm glad you're learning a language. That's cool. Let's talk maybe some other languages. Like, no, no, no, I really want to focus on this ancient Hebrew, why it's so good with God. And I'm like, is there any reason why as like, is ancient Hebrew your favorite language? And he says, yes, absolutely. And I said, isn't it weird that like it's, if it wasn't so tied to Christianity, maybe it wouldn't be your favorite language? Because I know for a fact this guy doesn't speak ancient Hebrew. He says, why does the sun is bright? Like there's no bad way. But like, it just is what it is. And he said, well, Tyrone, isn't that a little biased for you to say, or actually, there's no bias for you to say that because, as you can see, I'm talking about a language that has transcended what human knowledge was able to know about during that period of time. And before he could start his preaching, I just want to remind them, one, Joel, you have a Christian name, you have Christian parents who named you a Christian name. You are a guy in the South in America, which is predominantly Christian, particularly in this area. If we're talking about bias, you have to at least be aware that you have some, you have to at least be aware, but where are that? And he said, no, there's no way I'm biased. That's not what I'm talking about at all. I'm like, listen, there's nothing wrong with bias. This is the last part of the story. I'm sorry. There's nothing wrong with bias. Like my clock is biased to telling me the right time. You can be biased and still be right. But at least you should recognize what the bias is. Like you should at least recognize you have a tool to at least know what if you're being biased or not being biased, he's like, I'm not biased. And that was the end of the conversation. We just went back to playing disc golf. But it still bothers me in my head that anyway, John Richards, do you have comments on stories like that? Because people are in information bubbles. And I want I'm worried for them. I want to take your Joel's story. I assume it's not Joel Osteen, your friend. No, of course not. You didn't fly us in his private jet to the disc golf course. But because we have that daily here, we have a little slot on radio four, which is called Thought for the Day. And it's always how a priest can take an item of news and begin in your sort of interested because it's just happened. And then he gradually morph it into Jesus, in the case of course, five minutes. So the other thing I wanted you to tell to Joel is ancient Hebrew is a Jewish language. In fact, it's called Aramaic. It's not ancient. Yeah, they didn't call it ancient Hebrew. It's so cool. And of course, Greek was also a prominent language that many of the texts were written. None of the atheists know that, but they don't. It's true. I did bring up like, hey, I love Greek numerals if we're talking about old languages. And he was like, I don't I don't know anything about that. But I do know ancient Hebrew. I was just like, you know, the numerals like no, no, no, I don't know anything. Let's go back to ancient Hebrew. There's a point I want to make on this like, OK, this is a weird conversation. But it is it is typical. It is the typical Joel conversation. If Christianity had a language, it would be Roman, you would think. This is where it was created. Yeah, absolutely. And I the thing is, I also brought that up, too. I was like, how the Roman numerals make sense where you have one for one, two for two, three for three. That's very clear. Like you can look at that and easily understand it. Chinese has the same thing, too, where it's one stroke for one, two for two, three for two. Like aren't those better structured languages in the terms of in if we're to build a criteria based on what's the best language based on just ease of understanding and like simplicity, doesn't that like get on your criteria? He's like, that criteria doesn't count because it doesn't have anything to do with my God belief. And I and I in my mind, it was it was just such a by statement to make. And I told him about the bias and he's like, well, you see, Ty. I'm a presuppositionalist. How does that make your argument any stronger if you're just assuming you're right from the beginning? Like, don't you know that that's the red flag to let you use that against you? Yeah. Can you imagine any physicist or scientist saying I'm a presuppositionalist? You know, I'm right. You're wrong. There's no way you can change my mind. The Arabic numbers are also the same in that they're easy to count because a one is one stroke, a two is two strokes, a three is three strokes. Exactly. And we all and we just anglicanized them over a period of time. Believe it. I love it. So in my mind, I wanted to.  And that's the scary thing. Like we can point out bias. We can point out information bubbles, but there are some people who who who who see that as a good thing. And I feel like that wagging the dog, tail wagging the dog, sort of like backwards understanding of the universe makes it very, very difficult to get through to certain people. Or they see it as a no thing.  Oh, that's interesting. Could you elaborate on that? Well, if everybody's different except for me, then I'm okay. Is that what you're saying? No, I'm saying that everybody has an accent. Right. You would say that I speak with an English accent. Correct. And where I'm coming from, I speak without an accent. And you guys all got accents. You speak with an American accent. Right, right, right, right, right, right. Very true. Yeah, I mean, if anything, it just the the the salve of Christianity is to like reduce uncertainty in your life.  You have understanding what good and not good or evil is. You know how to judge people accurately because you're best friends the creator of the entire universe. And the things that you love are the things that that being loves and the things that you hate are the things that that being hates. And it gives you a lot of comfort. But it also in my mind improperly sets you up for interacting with people who have any sort of different cultural aspects or or any sort of different philosophy to the point where you can't even talk on the same level. And when it's as clear as maybe you don't know this thing as well as you think you do. It's it just starts to cause the the the brains to start smoking and being like, well, there's just something wrong. Something's wrong, but it can't be me. It has to be you. It has to always be you. And I can see that going off in Joel's mind sometimes. But I don't like pushing at it because I don't I'm not in the career of making people feel uncomfortable or upset anymore or anything like that. But I do I appreciate his friendship. But I also worry for him as just like another person being charitable in the mindset of other people that there are a lot of people in his same condition that don't have access to information or have access to information but are unwilling to educate themselves on these certain aspects. But yet they have a power to to keep me from being able to freely express myself or control what school systems learn or what politicians get into office. And I just feel like that imbalance is very concerning for me. Larry, I'd like to get your feedback on something.  Do you ever feel like he was her? Do you ever feel like it was genuinely concern or interest in any of the points that you're making? And do you feel like one that's something that more people should be doing? Or do you feel like no, I think she was a very open minded person. I think she she took our points very well. She had she still relied on faith to keep her her beliefs where they were. But she used those in a very liberal manner. She runs a kind of a liberal church on I think it's Broadway. But I respect her highly and she she's never abusive. She never condescending a very nice person. Very happy to know her and I wish her well. I hope that she learns more about the religion and I'm sure she will and eventually makes a way to atheism. But I'm not holding my breath.  And I have another friend who I was playing disc golf with along with Joel named Aaron, who's also Christian. This guy is homeschooled, lives out in the middle of the country. Whole family is Christian. They have a church set up in their home. Yet knows I'm an atheist knows I'm asexual. Totally cool with me. Never forces a religion on me. Is willing to like like laugh about a lot of the stuff that I bring up with supports the fact that I'm on this radio call. I I've nearly babysitted as kid. I've been over to his farm. We've like fixed what do you call it fixed and and docked and and lamb sheep together. Like we we have a really good bond. And so I'm not saying that if you're a Christian, you're in entirely incapable of interacting with atheists. But I do feel like there's no excuse if you can't. Because there's definitely people who can. So it's more of like a personable issue that I probably have an issue with more than the dogmatic point of view. Dred Pirate, when you have people over at your post parents, are they always post-a fairings? Or is there any curious Christians that come over to that are just interested in seeing what you're up to? We call the past a curious. So yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, people come to see what it's all about. And there's never any pressure. You know, they do, you know, usually when like, if we're having a meal, I'll give the benediction. But we do it. We repeat, you know, short lines of it. So the crew would repeat it after me. But that's just a matter of choice, whether or not you want to or not.  You know what I mean? So sure, I get you. I get you. John Richards, what can we do as Americans to get our side of our information bubble? Travel. I like it. Easy as that. This person, this misfit Amish, we were speaking to you last night, joined the military. I think she was in the Navy and she went to see the world. And of course, in fact, that's the last, what happened to the last two of our guests on Free Thought Hour? They were both in the military. And when you do that, you get to see that other countries have other gods. It isn't just mine. And that's correct. It's the only true one. There's more people in the world that believe in other gods than the people who believe in yours. And that's a wonderful mind opening experience. It is the worst. The worst thing I could tell you about when I was in, I visited Chicago about, what, 15 years ago, no more, about 20 years ago. And during that visit, we went to see somebody who lived in a little town to the south of Chicago. And we said, we were on the way to St. Louis, I think it was. And she said, I've never been there.  And that was it. No experience, very parochial, very narrow-minded, no encountering other people. And that's what gives you this tendency to think you're right and the rest are wrong. And it's otherness, it's tribalism. It's horrible. Yeah. I was going to say that, you know, with respect to Pasifari, like I told you, I'm shadowing a fella who hasn't been really forthcoming about being a Christian. But just the conversation leads me to believe that he is. So yesterday, I introduced him to the whole idea of Pasifarianism as sort of one of those outsider tests of faith. Like if you can look at my belief system and say, well, that's absolutely absurd. There's no way you can possibly believe in that. Right. I simply turn it around and say, well, you know, consider the other belief systems out there.  Right. How many of those have you seen? How many talking snakes have you seen? How many, how many virgin births have you seen? Jesus just flew up to heaven. I mean, bodily like Superman. Well, he's still on the way to heaven right now. He's got maybe... Yeah, apparently. Yeah, it's the skyhook. He was lifted by the skyhook, right? Everybody's on bootstraps. I did want to bring out the outsider test of faith, very good mechanism to understand what your criteria is to disregard certain religions. But it's a lost opportunity. If you don't understand what that criteria is and apply it to every other religion that's out there or even the ones that you currently believe in. So it's not just, oh, they believe in pasta, that's silly. So it's like, oh, so you're saying it's weird to believe in inanimate objects? Or no, no, no, just like talking things that don't normally talk that don't exist in nature. That's silly. Like snakes and donkeys. Okay, okay. So like if that's your criteria, let's look at Christianity. It's like, are you using the same rule or are you using a double standard? And that's it, right? It's a chance to see where your standard for your own beliefs sits in relation to the standard you apply to. Others, right? Yeah. And if they're uneven, well, then right there, you've clearly demonstrated to yourself. They need to learn about the outsider test for faith. Yeah, right. And the sad thing is I have, I work with a bunch of scientists. Some of them are religious as well. And while they're well-meaning, they are more than open to tell you that they operate on a double standard. And I'll say like, hey, it sounds like you're operating on a double standard. They're like, of course, because there's a standard for science and then there's a standard for the spirit and spiritual, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, why are you operating on a double standard? And I'll say double standard over and over again. They'll be like, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's two different standards, Ty. It's not double standard. They're pushing Steve and Jake Wolves down over the Magic Magisteria. Yeah, yeah. Can I have a pound of that spirit they're talking about, please? Right, right, right. You know, I can't, I can't, it hurts me because I guess I take this a little personally because I was in that same position, maybe about 14 years back. Like Larry before I went over to Knoxville and we met each other, I would say like five years before that I was a Christian going through my transition to like realize, oh, maybe I'm not as Christian. Maybe I'm just not religious. Maybe, well, I'm not an atheist. I'm not the A word, but I'm just. Okay, I understand what atheists are. Dang it, am I one too? Dang it, I am. No. Okay, well, let me figure this out. What's the wrong? Do I like eating babies as baby blood? Oh, I guess it's not that bad. Actually, this is a really good, I need to tell everybody I'm an atheist. Why not you an atheist too? Okay, I'm calming down. I'm calming down. I'm learning how to talk to people. Everything's good. And then I met Larry's group and I went through that whole thing and that was just as pleasant like atheist guy that like everyone liked talking to. Because I went through that. I went through it. Yeah. But I feel like everyone, I don't feel like everyone because John Richards, you never had to go through that.   Exactly. They're sangering. Yeah. Yeah.  You've been telling me about the real world every day. Like, you're not ready for the real world. And then you tell me, you're not ready for the real world.  And now I'm in the real world until me half these people believe in imaginary friends still. Like that's so upsetting anyway. Yeah.  Thankfully, less than one. And all the babies that you wanted to eat. Right, right, right, right. I did some thumbs up my baby sister's cheeks. That's not talking about being angry. Have you ever read Greta? Oh, what's her last name? Not Thurberg. No, not her. This is a different Greta. But she wrote an article called 50 Reasons Why Atheists Are Angry and Have Every Right to Be. Right. It's a very good article if you can find it. She's actually expanded it into a book. 99 Reasons. But I'll have to look up her name and give it to you in a minute here. I'd also say this too. John, you made the point where you have a guy who's a Christian who's afraid to even say that he's questioning because out of fear of losing his job, losing his social group, losing his wife, maybe losing his kids. That is, there are some considerable hooks that come with believing this dogma to the point where, and I'm going to make this clear because John, you would agree with me on this definition. There's a point where you know that you don't believe in a God, yet you can't express it out of fear of losing these things that you're holding onto. Yeah, you've got to go about pretending in the closet. I've had friends who are worth me, scientists at work who are Muslim, who are not Muslim, who are very much atheist. And when I had a conversation with them, it was like, I don't believe in this either.  And I'm so glad to not be in those countries anymore. And I just can't imagine going back and then they had to go back and it broke my heart because that was the job opportunity for the family. But they can't express that unless it's behind closed doors with other people who are like mine. Very sad. A lot of atheists are that way. I mean, if you were raising a Christian family, if you were raising a Christian community and you're not a Christian anymore, it's not easy to come out. A lot of times people hide it. I hid my atheism for 30 years. I can identify. By the way, that Greta is Greta Christina. So check out her article. I'll post the link here locally.  Why are you so angry at every right to be? And it's also good to have some ownership of your anger because that's the way how you can address it, grow past it and move forward because there are a lot of bitter atheists for sure and still are. Honestly, indeed. It's the ex-Christians or the ex-Muslims who are the most militant. I'm not very militant because I've never haven't got anything to be cross about. You know? Right. I was never inducted. I didn't have to think about it. Besides the hijacking of your country. Interestingly, on that subject, we are undergoing a self-consultation at the moment. We've got people who are questioning whether we should be, we should have an established church even the Archbishop of Canterbury himself has is questioning the establishment of Anglicanism. So it's all happening. And I want to tell you, perhaps when we come around to, you know, the end of the show, what's going on here? Okay, sounds good. Hey, how about that? We are getting close to the end of the show. Let's do some round up so you can find my stuff on last chat. Guys, I enjoy talking to you every week. Dred Pirate, feel free to come in whenever you can. Hope you have a safe outing on your oil rigs. Where can we find your stuff at, my friend? Well, you can find me on YouTube at Mine Pirate, M-I-N-D-P-Y-R-A-T-E. I live stream this when I'm on at 7 a.m. Pacific Daylight Time, I guess is what it is now on Sundays. And then when I'm able to join John Richards on the view of the news so I do that at 11 a.m. on Sunday mornings. I won't be there John, sorry this morning, but once I get my own unit, I should be able to you know, have my own set up because I'll be assigned a field medic truck and so it'll be mine sort of thing. So I can set it up in my own way and should be available for more shows once I get settled in. Great, excellent. Cool, John Richards working to find your stuff at. Free Thought Channel, that's where most of my stuff is available. But I want to tell you about the forthcoming atheist convention, which is on June the 4th, it's a Sunday, and it's in London, an venue in London. And what we're going to do, we have some star celebrities who are speaking, including Lawrence Krauss. And what we're going to do is have an event followed by a dinner. And I will be auctioning the painting of Christopher Hitchens and we might make a presentation an honour to Richard Dawkins and so on and so forth. It's going to be great. Nice. Awesome, sounds fun. Very cool. Uh, feel free to take us out. Well, what about you? Where can we find your stuff? Oh, I said myself was that last chat and there's my cat. He's just waiting. Oh, is that it? My content can be found at digitalfreethought.com. Be sure to click on the blog button for a radio show archives, atheist songs and other articles on the subject of atheism. You can find my book, Atheism What's It All About on Amazon and my YouTube channel Handle is at Doubt or Five.  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 Wednesday night at seven o'clock. Say bye everybody. Bye. Bye. Bye.


OC, OC, OC. Open them up. Fly! What we do here is we teach them OC, taser, mock techniques, riot control, and civil disobedience control also. The biggest takeaway that the Marines take from this is, A, that they need to read their SOPs and understand what their procedures are set in place for their units. Training a Marine and the capabilities and tactics that we teach in the Marine Corps, and then being able to go back to their units and putting that word in their commander's ear or their senior staff and COs ear. That way, if there's a Marine on a BCP or ECP or something like that, they're able to say, hey, I know something that'll make me safer, or that'll make this safer. So the biggest thing is overcoming the fears. A lot of the things that we do here in the non-lethal course, it does. It does breach fear. Everybody has to work as a team because if somebody doesn't work as a team, then it's going to affect the person to the left and right.