Welcome to Talk Ethan. Despite not being convinced of the existence of any God, we hold on to the hope that somebody out there has the proof that we have been searching for. So who knows, maybe they just might call into the show today. So put on your Sunday best because the show is coming on right now. Hello, Hello everybody, and welcome to Talk Heathen. I am your host today, objectively Dan and I am live in the atheist community of Auston Studio with a great live audience here. If we could
get that audience gam on, Yeah, listen to that crowd. Shout outs to everybody that came in today. I believe we have some special guests. The Secular Student Alliance from San Antonio is visiting us along with a whole bunch of people. It is crowded in there, right, big crowd. Yeah. And if you've noticed, we have a new host joining me today,
you may have heard his voice before. Actually, buddy, those of you who've been watching the show, you guys know that we did some auditions a couple of months ago and it was great and Jamie here was also one of our auditions. So Jamie aka the Blind Limie is making his debut with the ACA here on Talkie than Jamie, welcome to the show. Thank you. Well, there aren't really words to say enough. Thank you for having me. Yeah. Yeah, And so if you recognize this voice, Jamie,
you've been a freaking caller for a couple of our shows. And some people may have had an objection to that. Yeah, but about six months ago, actually it was me and Jamie Boone hosting talk Ethan and you said you were in the Austin area and I was like, why don't you just come down to the studio, and then like thirty minutes later you did. You were here, And since then you've been showing up kind of in the crowd and helping out in some different ways, and now you get to be a
host today. So congratulations on that, Jamie. How do you feel. I'm actually really kind of grouvy with you. Yeah. I thought i'd be more nervous. I thought i'd be more jitter ray, but I'm kind of like, yeah, where in it now? Yeah? Yeah, that's right. So why did you pick the name blind Limie, Jamie? Because I think that's an interesting when I could give you a actual reference, but it's not a lie. I am legally blind. I can't see at all for
the people actually watching at home. If I need to read something, I have to bring it up to my face to so about this level. Yeah, so it's great. I can't see any of the funny looks people give me when I'm walking down the street, just like being myself. It's cool. But you could have been like the blind prophet or something. Maybe lime is just because I'm extremely British. Yeah, and me and Richard Gilliver and the Skeptic are going to have to have a three way sort of battle royal.
We do need a British It's like a British bakeoff, but a British standoffs sort of like well, Last Man Standing. It's kind of like a Mexican standoff, only way more awkward. Yeah yeah, a lot more tea involved than guns maybe, but yeah. Well, I'm so glad that you're here with the in folks. We are here to talk to you. This is a live callin show, of course, but we do have the audience
to day, so we might take some audience questions as well. So audience, if you do have questions for us, we might get to you in just a bit before we get started, though, I want to let you know. Talk to You Than is a product of the Atheist Community of Austin, which is a five h one c three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government. To Talk Heathen is a live calling show and we have open lines,
so you should get your calls in right now. The number is five to one two nine nine one nine two four two, or you can call from your computer at tiny dot cc slash call THH and we'd love to do that. And before we get to the calls as well, we've been doing this thing in case you guys haven't been watching in a while. We are taking answers from you guys from our questions for the comments section the question of the week. We're calling a Talk Heathen to me. So before we get
started, we're going to give you the answers for last week's question. Last week we ask you complete the sentence. I know we aren't intelligently designed because and now we're gonna show you our top three answers. So number three from less than Lucid says we know the human body isn't intelligently designed because humans are chalk full of anxiety. And that's true. We're like anxious about a lot of stuff. Basically a clear plastic bag full of vanilla putting in anxieties.
Vanilla putting in anxiety. That that yeah, that's a good way to sum it up. So yeah, that's that's one reason that we can consider, but we also have two other ones. We got our number two answer from Craig Thompson, who says we are not intelligently designed because we have to cut the tip of our pens off. So you know, that's that's true. I'm get do we I mean, I yes, I don't know. To be honest, it's been a while since I do a lot of stuff in
the computer. I don't really, I don't really do that. So that's that's that's you know, I don't. I don't talk about pens anyway. That's a joke. But uh yeah, so that's that's another way to think about this. But our number one answer comes from cen Al two says we know the human body is not intelligently designed because hang on, I'll finish this post after I clean my glass. So yeah, there is that. Yeah,
I'm sure that does. I'm sure that does. I'm like having contact issues right now too, so I might join you in the in the blind department today, at least for one of my eyes, because I also have very terrible vision, not quite as bad as yours. But so some of the think about So, yeah, obviously there's lots of reasons to talk about. You know, why intelligent design doesn't really work for at least the human body. Yeah, the fact that the thing that gives us life also kills
us stop big incandescent baller nuclear fire. Yeah, there is that. There is that. But we would literally be here all day if we would all the reasons why. So we're gonna move on now. So thank you to everybody who gave your answers for last week's question. And here is this week's question. If you haven't answered for it, comment below. It is what is a little known reason God sends people to hell? So go ahead and answer well in the comment section, not the live chat comment section, and
we will reveal the top three answers. But before we do that, what do you think is a lie? No reason? I don't claim to be a gnostic in many ways, but I know this one thing is a special place in hell for people who say the words I could care less when they mean that they couldn't care less. Yeah, you know that That is, you know, a grammatical trope that I often fall into as well. But there aren't enough German suplexes in the world for these people. Well, I
mean, I don't I don't know. If you want to suplex me. If I do that today, you're more than welcome to. But I'm not so far to r I'm a blida. Yeah, yeah, I get you. I don't know. When I'm thinking of this, I'm thinking of people who like, uh, you know, don't wash out, or people who don't put recycling in the recycling and then put it in the trash instead. And to be fair again, that's something that sometimes as all, but it's
like, oh, that's such a little thing. I think, you know, if there's enough of people like you, then the whole system doesn't work. I don't know it doesn't work. But um, that is going to be it for our Question of the Week, our talk Heathen tob segment. So let's see what happens with those answers. I'm looking forward to that.
But now I think it's time that we take some calls. You're ready to take your first call on a live show, Jamie, I'm terrified beyond the capacity of rustall thought, let's get it on, all right, that's a good that's a good way to start. So let's go here. We're going to talk to start with Janet. Janet, who is calling in from Florida? Janet, what's going on? You're a live on talk Ethan, Hi,
thanks for taking my call. It's my first time too. So I'm a big ball of anxiety, like you guys said, Well, we are happy to assuade you of your anxiety as much as possible. But there, we are alive, and there are several hundreds of thousand people watching, So no pressure. No very nice here though. Yeah, it's pretty nice. You don't have to see them. That's the good thing, right, So
anyway, what's going on, Janet? That's a good thing. Well, I was telling your call screener that I'm a little bit different than probably good person that Christian that you typically get calling, and that I don't. I'm
a Christian who believes that we actually don't have evidence. And I have been listening and to a lot of these discussions with the atheists over the past months, and I have to tell you, I've probably learned more from the atheists than I have from a lot of Christians, which I know sounds really ironic, but um, they have you know, y'all have really forced me to examine my beliefs and to really look into why I believe what I believe.
You know, most Christians are just like because the Bible said so sure, and that's what we've been that's what we've been taught to say, basically, and that we really can't back up our position. And so I love these opportunities because there's questions that I have, you know, personally, for me, I believe in Christianity because there has not been something that has convinced me not too okay, yeah, if that makes sense, sure, Okay, a lot of it is, so well, go ahead, keep going ahead.
Well, well, let's explore this a bit because well, first of all, I should say I want to I want to give you props Forum saying what you did, because I am a former Christian myself, and I agree with you one hundred percent. When I first really started looking into what atheists had to say about Christianity, I was blown away. By some of the stuff there, Like I grew up in my whole life in the church, and I was hearing some stuff for the first time and wondered, why
aren't these discussions happening? Because a lot of these topics are hard, and a lot of them lead to uncomfortable conclusions. And I actually came to a similar conclusion than you did, which is that I don't think there's a lot
of great evidence for God. In fact, in the last days of my Christianity, I identified with the label of Christian mystic, which sort of goes with this thought that there may not be physical evidence, or there may not be historical evidence, but it's my personal experiences that justify my belief in Christianity. Now, eventually I deconstructed some of those beliefs too, and obviously I don't identify as a Christian anymore. But I do think it's it's very noble
of you to call us and talk to us about it. That's a that's a very big deal, So props to you for that. I do have to echo that sentiment. But yeah, introspection is hard, and that you having engaged in that already is fanta wonderful. And I am so fascinated in what you said about you have seen no evidence not to believe. Right, let's talk about that, and so what does that mean exactly? Could you
break that down for us? I'll do my best. Yeah. There are so many people that I have listened to on different um podcast lives and when they go into the science that I'm really fascinated about the science of it. But I'm going to tell you I am just I was a preschool director. Okay. So when you start talking about the origin of the universe, okay, like I like to get to the bottom of things. And it's so over my head that when I hear some of the atheists disgust, you know,
because they're very smart. I need somebody that done it down for me. Okay. I guess it's the best way, okay, because my brain goes to Okay, there has to be a beginning of something, and with with you know, when you're a Christian, there's a very clear or beginning. It's as this one one right, and it's beginning. God made the heavens and the earth, and um. You know, my I have three grown daughters and they're all on their own journey. And I have one daughter
who's very interested in the science aspect of it. She hasn't been able to dum it down enough for me either, But we have a lot of discussions about this. So I'm how do you, how do you help me understand what an atheist position would be on where everything started? Core? Sure, So I think I have a problem that something started on its own with nothing without divine Yeah, that's the best thing to do. No, that totally makes sense, And I think that's a very intuitive sort of conclusion that a
lot of people come to. It's this kind of idea like, well, you know, everything comes from something else, so the universe has to come from something right, and maybe that thing is God right like that, that's a very intuitive argument to some people. And we are inquisitive creatures by night show. We want to know there's there's But there's a couple of problems with that. So first of all, you know, talking about cosmology, right,
I'm not a physicist. I'm not a cosmologist. Everything I understand is completely in layman's terms. I mean, like, I've read popular science books, right, that's my expertise in the subject. So I can give you a very limited understanding of what most common and by the way, atheists don't necessarily have to believe in like the Big Bang theory for example, like you know that could all atheism really addresses is whether or not a god exists or
not. And in some cases an atheism it doesn't even address that. It just means do you believe? Then there is one which is different from claiming the existence of something. You know, the belief kind of adds a psychological element. But but but you know that aside going back to this idea of the origins of things, right, when we talk about matter changing from other states of matter, right, we understand that as we understand our physical systems,
energy and matter all still exist within the same system. Right, matter doesn't actually get destroyed. There is no energy. So some people will take that and they say, well, it has to come from somewhere, And the thing is, we don't actually know if it actually does. Now, there's a lot that we kind of understand about the origins of the universe,
but there's actually a lot that we don't. The funny thing about the Big Bang is that the actual bang part of it, like the very beginning, we really have no idea to even measure or understand that beyond what's called the Plank time length, which is the shortest amount of time we've been able to actually physically measure. We really don't know anything. We can tell you about the expansion of the universe, but we don't know its origins, so there
is a big question mark there. So as far as how did that happen? How did the universe come to be? To be completely honest with the Janet, I have no stinken idea, and people smarter than me, I think would agree with that. Now that being said, does the Christian answer to this idea actually make any more sense? And I would argue it does not. What does the Christian narratives say? It says everything that we know of today started in seven days. Does that match up with anything that we've
come to understand in science. Not really. We understand the Earth being several billion years old, the universe being billions years longer than that might on the Genesis one one, yeah, yeah, you don't have to be very well learned in cosmology to know that that light came before the Earth. Yeah, sure, it's a pretty well known thing. Yeah, we're very sure of that. But the Bible says otherwise, and I'm like, well, you have a first herbal are chief, so can you give me a better explanation?
Sure, And like our understanding of how stars are formed, how other planets are formed, I mean, it's it's out of order with what that's talking about. Now, some Christians will say, well, you know, Genesis one one doesn't talk about a literal seven days, right, it's more of a metaphor for the description of the origins of the universe. But even that really falls apart when you look at it, even if you say it
is a metaphor. It again it gets some stuff out of order, right, Like, first of all, what does it mean to have a day or even a conferiential that when like the Earth isn't there or the Sun isn't there to go around it? Um, you know, and and and life on Earth as well obviously evolved from millions of years, right, And the Bible doesn't give any a counter description of that, so like it doesn't really
match any scientific findings, you know. And one last thing I'd say, and I'd love to hear of what you have the same, right turn, is as a skeptic, my atheism comes from skepticism, like wanting to know what's true to the best of my ability. Yeah, and a skeptic you have to get real comfortable with three words. I don't know exactly exactly, just to put a bow on this, right, is that we can't tell you how the universe came to be, and there's a lot of Sparta people
than us that also can't. But that doesn't mean that we should come to the Christian conclusion, right that that's really where we stand at. It doesn't make any more sense to me to follow the Christian line of thinking than it does for any other world religion, especially since, at least with what I know about the universe, it comes from people who have made observations, whereas a Bible story is exactly that, it's just a Bible story, right.
There's nothing that suggests that the writers of Genesis had any particular knowledge or forethought about the universe's origins than I do. You know. So anyway, that's our long answer to that. Um, so we'll love to hear your thoughts. Well. Um, yeah, that's that's super interesting and helpful. And I have learned so much, like I said, just about the observable universe.
And um, you know when you said that Christians just kind of you know, I know that Christians some of them just take a hard line and go, nope, it just happened in seven days and the story. But you're right, there's things we observe that do not jibe with that necessarily. So we have to admit as Christians that there's a huge area of science that we don't know about that you know, points to evolution and things like that.
So, um, I'm kind of in that middle ground, you know of yeah, don't stop questioning, right, but don't feel that you have to force yourself and also don't lose hope because just because we don't know now doesn't mean we won't ever know. That's true, that's and that's true. Yeah, somebody brought it up the other day when I was listening in on something. They're like, you know, in one hundred years we've made Look how much more we know now than we knew one hundred years ago, just
about the universe. I mean, it's absolutely mind blowing, right, right. So I also think it's important to point out to Janet, and sorry to erupt you on that is that these observations that we made, the more we know about the universe, it didn't come from studying the Bible more, you know, it came from doing the hard work and writing papers and making observations and and you know, for some people that's that's troublesome because it goes
against our preconceived narratives about what we already believe. I know it was troublesome for me to kind of deconstruct a lot of that. But it has huge implications theologically, right, Like if you are Jesus and you say, hey, I'm here to save you from your sins because Adam messed up, Well, that implies that there's a literal atom figure that existed maybe a thousand or a couple thousand years ago, and and you know, how does that make
sense with everything else in this story? Right? So, like you know, to me, the most likely explanation is that it's exactly that these are stories, These are ideas. These are popular ideas, sure that have given comfort to people and have given people a sense of you know, purpose and a framework to work on. But it's not one that I think I can adopt because it just contradicts against everything else I know about the world. Right,
So that's why I'm not a Christian. And then and I'm not saying you shouldn't be one either, you know, I know you're on your journey. But if you want to know why I'm not, that's why. And I think that's pretty convincing. At least it's convincing for me. So you know, well, it's really lightening. I'm sorry, go ahead, Oh
please continue. Oh, I just think it's really enlightening. Like I said, I have learned so much from Babetist community, quite honestly, and I really like caring, you know, especially from people who were in Christianity, because I think they exposed a lot of holes that we have a lot of
gaps, a lot of weaknesses. And you know, it's either are going to force you to really look into what you believe and you may be convinced even more strongly than you believe what you believe, or it's going to force you to be uncomfortable and addressing things that are issues. And yeah, I am really comfortable addressing those things. And I think anymore talking probably for me, I'm going to be out of my debt. Well that is okay.
We really appreciate we got other callers and stuff. We do have some other callers, but Janet you know, we love having conversations with folks like you because if we're honest, at least in my opinion, if more Christians were like yourself, shows like this probably wouldn't need to exist. Absolutely right. I'd like to thank you personally for making my first goal ul kepn Yes,
extremely joy Well, yeah, now, this is a great discussion. I really appreciate it, honestly, And just you know, I'm just going to keep I'm just going to keep searching, yeah, looking, keep watching, keep keep you know, hearing what we have to say. And we love to check in with you see how you are on your journey in the future. But for now, I am going to go ahead and let you go because we do have some other folks that want to talk to us. But
thank you, Janet for a great conversation. Jabie, what a nice way to start at the show. I am starting to suspect that you set that one up for him because that was a nice nice nor talk to Janet before. As far as all right, but here's the big secret. We're out of our depth two on a lot of things. Sure, I mean, the problem with doing a show like this, right is when you talk about
Christianity and what it actually addresses. It's a lot of fields. Yeah, you know, we're talking about biology, we're talking cosmology, we're talking history, I mean like pretty much everything. Y's the nature of the nature of reality, which right, right, right, But but you brought up an excellent point, Jamie, which is like, we have to be comfortable with this idea of I don't know. And that's the thing Christianity, at least my version of it was something that said, yes, we do know,
and this is the truth, but why how do we know that? Well that was kind of the problem, you know. Um, well, great, so you're feeling you're feeling good. Now you're feeling good, getting the show and brand new garden here. All right. Well, I am glad you're here with this, Jamie, because I am enjoying my time with you. But before we move on to more callers, I have to tell you guys a couple of different ways you can support the ACA. So, first
of all, we do have merch that you can check out. We've got T shirts, hoodies, mugs, the whole nine yards, and of course we have our limited edition T shirts. This month's shirt is the official Taco Heathen Shirt, which is a fantastic shirt. He should definitely check that out in Today's the last day to get that shirt because we are doing one special shirt a month. So if you like the Taco Heathen shirt, now's your
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support the channel as well is by becoming a member. You can do that for as little as ninety nine cents per month. All you have to do is hit that joint button below the video, You get cussed chat emotes, and you helped perpetuate the mission of Talk Heathen and the atheist community of Austin. So something that pretty much a lot of people can do. Ninnine cents is not a lot, you know, I get it. The economy's not great, but I manage it. Yeah, just about it. It's not
a lot, But anyway, something to think about. One last thing as well. We are reading super chants, So if you have a super chant with a question or a comment, we would love to read as many as we can, so please send in your super chats and they'll send it to us here and we'll get to them as we as we go along here. So yeah, that's all the announcements I've got right now, and we're gonna go ahead and move on to our next caller. Let's see. Let's see,
um, let's talk to Let's talk to Lisa. Lisa, who's calling in from Canada? Oh, Canada, Lisa, you are live on Talk Heathen. What's going on him? I'm an atheist first of all, but I have kind of a question, um, just to I guess give some context. Um. My question is, well, why why does when something
like kind of like unbelievable happen, Like, why is it? Why is it sometimes tempting to think that there was some sort of like I don't know, special involvement, something we don't like I want to just like I was really, really sick a few months ago. I was in the hospital for three weeks and I tried like everything, I tried everything to get better, and then I just tried this one treatment, and I like it was like a new person the next day, and I was like, there's really temptings.
We're not really tempting. It was a little tempting for me to kind of think like, oh, maybe maybe there is something out there. I don't believe it, Yeah, Like why why is it? Sometimes? Like, um, why does that? Why does our mind like sometimes go there when something that we can't really explain or understanding. Great question I want to address first. I mean, I want to hear your thoughts. I mean, this is a great research question that a lot of people have tried to
answer. So, like a lot of people make this argument, right that Look, if you look across cultures, there are lots of people that have religions or at least are superstitious in one way or another. And some people say, well, that's points to evidence that there must be something beyond us, right, something higher. I actually think it points to that we are
all evolved and have evolved similar mechanisms. Right. So, like sociologists and and folks who work in anthropology have really kind of looked at this question, and there's a couple of different hypothesis. I don't know if there's like a
single answer that is talked about in the field. But you know, the simple answer is this, when you are in the African savannah and you think that there is something moving in the bushes, right, you want to assume that it's a predator in order for you to make it safe for yourself rather than anything else, because having that assumption kind of helps you survive, right
if you know and you don't actually know, oh what's there. It could be something that's safe, but it's there to be safe than sorry in that sense. And so like that kind of sense that we have is kind of like the progenitor of this idea of higher beings. We seem to want to appeal to some of these figher forces to protect ourselves in some ways. So it's almost like this this evolutionary we are pattern matching machine, right exactly, that's a better way to put it. Yeah, which is why you get
a phenomenal paradolia. I see I see a face in the cloud, or I see Jesus in my toast or something like that. Yeah, we are deeply fallible, flawed machines that are that were brought up by the forces of evolution to essentially do the best we can with what we have, and unfortunately, in the modern world, with our higher thoughts and higher aspirations to knowledge, that can kind of can trick ourselves. Yeah, yeah, So I
think I think it's a combination. I think it's it's that sort of sense that we have of self preservation and also just the hierarchies that we've developed through religious institutions, right, Like we seem to have the sense that if we make certain kinds of appeals to the church or to you know, the God of this religion, that it's going to help us in some way. Right,
I think it influenced that sort of self preservation. And some of that has to be culturally influenced too, right, because when I thought I was doing bad, I thought I would pray to God. Right, Somebody who grew up as like an aborigine is not going to have that sense, right, They don't care about the Christian God. If if probably right, They're probably they're going to care about whatever other kinds of forces are culturally influenced there.
So, and you know, and correct me if I'm wrong, Lisa, But I'm hearing a little bit in your voice, a little bit of hesitancy being susceptible to thoughts of superstition doesn't make you a bad skeptic or a bad atheist or a bad person. It's perfectly fine to have those thoughts as long as you can rationalize them away and even still act on some of them. I won't let people roll my d and d dice for me. There's no reason for me to not let them, but I still don't. It's
irrational. Yeah, it's irrational, Thomas. Yeah, so there you go. That's that's I mean, our thoughts on it. What do you think. I think I think that's pretty accurate. Like, um, like, it wasn't enough to like actually make me start believing in God or anything like that. It was just kind of like because like I almost died like so to experience that. It was like, I just I don't know. I also like, I just I don't know part of the reason why I thought
that because I was in the different I was in a different mindframe. Maybe it's a stressful time to be that sick, and I'm very glad that you got better. Hopefully you're on the mend. Yeah, for sure, I think I think part of the reason why, And it's like I hope you know, no judgment or anything. But do think that I was sick with is like I was, I have like a mental illness, and um, it was getting so bad that I just didn't want to be here anymore.
And yeah, and so like for when you're in like that kind of dystopian world, like everything feels dystopian to you, Like it's really it's easy to feel susceptible that on maybe there's something out there that like, you know, cured this or whatever. Absolutely, I mean, it wasn't enough. It wasn't enough for me to like, actually, you know, believe that there's like I don't, like I grew up in the Catholic Church. I don't believe in any of that stuff anymore. Yeah, but you don't, see,
you don't. You don't have to apologize for anything. I mean, like, look, if I got you know, I don't want to put a put a curse on myself here or anything. But if I got like cancer tomorrow for example, right, and I found that like traditional methods of treatment work working, I might go out there and look at some of the other stuff, you know what I mean, Like, I think that's a
very natural sense that people have. Again, it's you. It's your self preservation, right, Like, if you are in a desperate state of mind, Yeah, you want to look for whatever's going to help you, even if that means a higher power that you've previously been skeptical of. I don't think there's anything anything wrong with that. I think that's perfectly natural. I'm
glad that you're finding the help now. At least it sounds like you're finding the help now and don't have to rely on that because for some people that becomes their whole identity, right, that becomes that. I mean, that's what convinces them for things. And thank you for sharing that. Yeah, it can be tough to do that, and you didn't have to. We
appreciate the clarification. Yeah, I just want to see that anyone who's listening, if you're really struggling and you feel like you're ready to just completely give up and not be there, like, please go get help for yourselves like that. We do have the science to be able to help people. And I just want to relay that message to anyone who's watching that Yeah, okay, to ask for helps when you need it. That's a great message and
I think that's a great way to leave on this topic at least. Thank you so much for sharing that and being so open about what you went through and that circumstance. And yeah, absolutely like that. That totally makes sense, especially you know a couple of years ago. If I found myself in that spot, I would definitely turn to Christianity. Yeah, you know, I've got stories I could tell of myself and family members that have gone to
superstition because of desperation. Yeah. And again, in the darkest times, it is easy to fall to it. And in my day job, I interact with people who are ill and looking to get help, and a lot of them are seeking those alternative, unproven things out of that survival instinct or care for their family like Judy family saying we want my mom is sick can help them. Yeah, and these are the issues that give should give us pause as folks who talk about this, because like to completely say, oh,
everything you believe is bullshit and you should switch to something else. I mean, like, yeah, you could be right, but are you going to be convincing to somebody in that moment, you know what I mean? Like, there is a delicate sort of balance there. You have to really interweave in your social interactions for people. I don't know. I don't have a hard, good answer for every single case. I think it has to be a case by case thing on how you address that with friends and family.
But it's certainly difficult. And on the flip side of it, there are so many organizations religious and non religious, and people who are absolutely willing to capitalize on that way. Yes, absolutely, and that is that is terrible. I will I will speak out against that. Oh yeah, every day. So no no questions there. But before we move on real quickly,
some more announcements here. There is the latest episode of the flagship show of the ACA the nonprofits that's going to be premiering right after the show live at three pm Central. You can go to tanyat cc slash White n P or just check out you know this stream here afterwards. I believe it's going to be playing there, but link to that is in the description either way. And of course, the ACA wants to know what's you do now excuse
me, wants a you don know what's going on in the community. I mean they want you to know, but they want you to know what's going on on and for that there is an updated website so head to www dot Atheist hyphen Community dot org and you can learn about what the organization is up to and how you can get involved and when we're doing stuff like today when we're in studios. So check out check out the website. If you haven't
m one other thing, we love hearing from you. We like to know what you like, which you didn't like, and most importantly, what you think we could do better. So you can email the show it's TV at Atheist hyphen Community dot org and let us know. We'd love to hear it and send your praises to Jamie today for you know, being an awesome host.
I do have a tiny bonepick with the nonprofits in that. Oh yeah, I watched them and m I saw lots of very very insightful, very entertaining chat with very intelligent people, but didn't see any flags or ships. Why are you lying to me? Damn? Well, listen, Jamie's coming in hot it's his first day and he's talking shit about other shows on the network. So I heard you, all of you go watch the nonprofits see just pay attentional Well, this is Jamie's last day today, so good good
to have you here, Bud. But we're gonna have to escort. Yeah, no, no, definitely go check out the nonprofits. Give it a shot if you have it already. It's a it's a pretty cool show in my opinion. But we got some other folks here who want to talk to us. I think this is an interesting one. We have Arlando, who is calling in from the UK. Orlando, you are live on Talk Heathen. What's up? Oh hi Dan and lie Me? How's it going? All right? Well, bro hey, look at that. We look at
that Lime to lie Me interaction. That's that's great, great, glad we're here to start that dialogue. What's going on? Arlando? Yeah, basically I'm here to address the very quickly the higher intelligence question. Okay, And I think, yeah, there is someone I can talk to that I need to be more intelligent. I don't know if i'd say, you know, if higher is the right word. But I suppose, you know, she would score high on on intelligence. Maybe that's not to say that she would
remain more intelligent than me forever. You know, I could improve on my intelligence, but you know my wife, for example. Is that a good answer? An answer? And while it's always a good idea to defer to people who you find whys um I mean, I don't mean yeah, yeah, I'm not sure. Wait where are we going with this? Exactly what's happening? I know, I know it's tongue in cheek. Is tongue in cheek? Essentially, anyone that's more intelligent than me at present would be higher
in intelligence, higher intelligence. So I'm talking to yeah, I meant you know, yeah, yeah, go for it. No, that's that's a thing, right When people talk about higher intelligence. Intelligence is such a broad word. It can really mean like like I can play a chess spot right now that will absolutely kick my ass, but it doesn't know how to do the dishes, you know what I mean? So like, what is it really that intelligent? Like I don't know, Like like that's such a variable
word. I feel like kind of to segue from this question, well, the sort of obviously, the idea of the higher intelligence question was about you know, higher powers and God, right, we do defer to those with more knowledge than us as part of our arguments for and against certain things. And one of the finances we know obvious you know, argument from authority.
Yeah, they're they're more important, therefore they must know more and so just to kind of hijack the topic a little bit, thanks for talking about people who you see as more intelligent. Yeah, I don't think about the person, think about what they're saying. Sure, yeah, yeah, I mean that's something I think we try to plash, right, Like, we definitely don't like arguments from authority. And of course I've talked about arguments from scientists
and stuff like, I've already brought that. But the reason why I can cite what they've talked about is because they've done the homework. Are a lot of this stuff, right, Like, there is a proved to be shown there, there's there's work to be done. As far as I know, Jesus hasn't talked to me himself, or nobody has shown me Jesus. Nobody has shown me any higher powers or anything. So I can't really speak to that, you know, I can speak to what anthropology have said, what
biologists have said, what cosmologists have said. So you know, that's that's what I want to stick to until shown otherwise. Right, what do you think? Yeah, it sounds brilliant. I was going to say, Um, I don't really consider chat GPT four to be intelligent. Oh no, I think it sounds it can sound intelligent, but it's just an algorithm, right, it's not really People say it's all efficial intelligence, but is it
really intelligent? I mean, what's your opinion? It's a language model, right, So as a language model, it's taking what other people have written, and it's going to be rewarded and and subsequently punished based on what the people who have programmed it to say, right, So like like that's how they kind of I mean, if you go to open AI's website, that's what they say. It's like, hey, we assigned a point value to whatever answers they give, so it's trying to strive to get more points.
So, um, you know, it's just it's just a model. Um, it doesn't actually have an insal technically know anything. Yeah, it's kind of constructing things that we recognize as ideas in our heads. And they call it generative, but it's more like regenerative. It only can pull from the data it's been trained on, right and again to sort of pull it back to a more superstitious and supernatural bent. Some people, so, well, what if you create an intelligence so high out of technology will create our own
gods and I'm like, I don't know about that, Jeef. Yeah, I mean, well, it is an interesting question to ask, like where is the limit between what's artificial and what's us? You know, like obviously we're not there yet, but like that is going to be a question. Like I totally believe as long as human civilization continues to be a thing we are going to have to address. But we count as sentient versus SI. Yeah, because already there are people who are like, no, chap GPT
is like a live like is a thing. No, Seriously, there's people that do say that it's going to get worse, you know what I mean, like that number of people is going to go up. So um, anyway, something to think about there. So that's that's my take on that, Orlando, What do you think? Yeah, No, I think that's right. And I don't think even think you can use it for research really because although it sounds like a very intelligent agent and it might give the illusion
that's conscious for anyone who doesn't know. Yeah, still, it's still it can't be relied upon, you know, you can't ask specific questions about people's lives. It might get things wrong with might Yeah. I tried looking I shouldn't say this. I tried looking at myself. Actually, somebody showed me
myself on there, and like it just got things wrong about me. First of all, it was weird that it kind of knew me, but like it was like close enough to where if somebody wrote like an essay, like they would have passed, but like it was like there was mixed true things
and false things in there. It was very weird, sou But if again, my mind, because we're because we're on talk, even my mind keeps coming back to things like God, could you conceivably feed it data to a point where you could convince an emergent intelligence of the existence of a God? I mean it would like, like I said, it's a language, jamalel right, it doesn't have beliefs, citizen, have you know, an internal
sense of ego herself? As far as I'm aware, it's just kind of putting together words that we like probability engines, like yeah, it's the most likely word to come after this one. Yeah, exactly. I wouldn't describe it in an intelligence, right, So yeah, but prostituting tests, Yeah, I don't even know if there's people that say that the Turing tests itself, isn't even a good enough tool to use to describe, um, you know, like like artificial intelligence, like what what we consider to be passed.
I think you might have called into the wrong show. Yeah, that's true. That is above my pay. Great, I'll tell you that I did computer science twenty three years ago, so I am way way out of touch on that. Yeah, he's still run it like we had to connect with him through dial up. Actually we were first getting him in before. Yeah, it was. It was a whole thing. But anyway, I only know interesting, interesting rabbit hole of discussion here. I'm gonna go ahead
and let you go so we can talk to some other folks. But appreciate you calling in on you know, some of those topics there, higher intelligence and whatever the hell that even means. Yeah, maybe I'll just phrase the question a little bit badly in terms of trying to get a response. But yeah, interesting thoughts. I don't think you phrased anything badly, Jamie. Are you doing a great job? Isn't he doing a great job? Everybody? Yeah, listen to that audience. Look beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.
We're all having a good time here. So um, also, folks, I want to let you guys know about a couple of different things. You can support us on Patreon at tiny dot cc slash patreon t hum And there is a channel that houses all of the shows of the ACA in podcast form. You can visit that at tiny dot cc slash a n podcasts. If you're like me and you like to listen to stuff rather than watch stuff, you should definitely check that out. Of course, you should also check out
the Talk Heathen Facebook group. It's fan run and it's really cool. It's tiny dot ccs slash fbt HG for that if you like having a discussion with like minded people, run by fans for fans of course. And in case you didn't know, Talk Heathan does have a TikTok and is going to be live before the show's on Sunday. I don't know who was actually on today. I should have I should have heard that, but oh it's up. Yeah, well Talk Heathen is doing it um and uh they're starting to do
it for ESP as well. But yeah, if you want to check out the pre show um for uh, you know, before the show starts on TikTok, you should definitely check that out. I think it's really cool, and I think we are about at a point where we can we got a little bit more time. I think after maybe the next call we'll talk about the the top five patrons. But real quick, one more thing as well.
If you happen to be in the Austin area May twenty eight, twenty twenty three, we will be broadcasting live from the Free Thought Library, just like we are doing today, so you can look at talk Heathan being hosted by Forrest Valkai and some special guests. Atheists Experience is also going to be hosted by Forrest and Jim Barrows. So doors open it noon and hope to see you there, just like just like today. So fun stuff there. JB ready to keep the discussion train moving, chugging along, chugg it,
chugga, choo chow. Okay, I don't know where I'm going with that, but we are here to the next call. Here we have Chris, who's calling in from Pennsylvania. Chris, you're live on talkie? Then what's going on? Chris? You are live on talkie? Then can you hear us? Oh? No answer? Well, Chris, I'm gonna put you back in the queue so that you can talk to our folks in the back see if we can talk to you, but otherwise we're gonna move on to another caller. Um, I think this is a good one we have.
I think it's Matthias. Please tell me if I'm not pronouncing your name correctly, Matthias from Finland? What's going on? Matthias? Are you there? Hello? Hello? Apologue? Um? Yeah, hello? Nice? Hi? How's it going? Is it Matthias? Did I get it right? What time is it in Finland right now? I don't know if I've talked to somebody from Finland on this show. Quot up to ten so okay, well, all right, quarter to ten. I guess there's an answer. Well, what's going on? And what do you want to talk to us
about? Yeah? So after that cool COVID situation, there has been a lot more street preachers, which is understandable in Finland. Really, yeah, that's like the last place I expect there to be street preachers. I'll be honest. I thought you guys were, like, you know, not really into that stuff, but well we're not. I have been like the literal first instances that I've met them, So ah, that makes sense. Interesting, Okay, So a lot of street preachers going on in Finland. Well,
there are some, but I don't know if that. Well, they are in every huge city in nowadays, and they are very obviously foreign, so like very few of them are actuated things. That makes sense. That makes sense, you know, evangela evangelism is I was going to ask how many how many of them are from outside of the country, right, Well, we got to talk to those heathen Finns, right, I mean, if anybody needs to convert to Christianity, it's the Finnish people. Come on.
That's yeah, yeah for sure. So I guess are you calling so that you want to know, like how to deal with three preachers? That is that the call here? Yeah? What should I do with them? Because they are taken to speaking I cannot like ACTCO and Sasla. Well, I know I could go and yell at them, but I don't think that
is product. So how should I approach them? Should I just like completely ignore them like most people just ignore them because I think if I think you should ignore them to be honest, you know, um, like like the thing is if somebody who's put when you talk about people who do what they do and literally go to other countries to evangelize. Often they're paying their own time for that, right. Some people, you know, do fundraisers and stuff, but for a lot of times it's their own money to kind of
do this thing. And when you're that heavily invested in the thing that you're preaching about, it's just, I mean, statistically, very unlikely that you're really going to change anybody's mind. Now, if you do have the patience and you think you could talk to them, I obviously vocate for street epistobology, right, asking folks questions about what they believe in why, and maybe
having that conversation with them. But I can tell you, as somebody who also literally went to student to student out of college campus, you know, your goal is to kind of like talk to people about Jesus. Your goal isn't to really hear what they have to say about it. You know, you're kind of pushing your own things, So your results are really going to
vary with that. And of course you never know who you're going to talk to in the streets as well, so you have to be very cautious with who you talk to, especially if you're going to be skeptical about it, right, But in general, I mean, it's sad to say. It's honestly, usually not worth your time. Unfortunately, if they engage with you directly. I mean, of course you might want to talk to them. People might be you know, be empathetic if you can, yeah, be
interested. I mean, you don't have to believe anything they say, but they'll probably say something that's logically wrong, or you can pick a hole and if you want. But here's something I've heard from a few people that have interacted at the ACA, especially ones who used to be evangelical or went on
missions like Moments and evangelicals. They go to Europe, they go on the mission, they stay in Europe for a bit and go, wow, this place is actually really cool and not many people believe in God, and maybe there's a link there, and it's actually kind of a step in the deacon version sometimes. So just be the nicest thing you can be. Yeah, yeah, exactly the nicest thing you can be. I like that. What
do you think about that? That makes a lot of sense. I have talked to few of them, and they do like I mean, I am. There's not a lot of people usually, so whenever if I flow down, they quite easily can point in my direction. So I have actually talked with a few of them, and well, obviously they they're not going to change their mind of anything like that, so it's a stuff. It's pointless.
But what has been interesting I have talked with hard Actuationers, which that's a bit of a different, very different religion, but I actually have gone a few of their meetings as well, because I wanted to kind of check check it out what it's all about them. In fact, frankly, they didn't speak anything about religion. They were just like chilling and just like trying to be you know, look in the world and see how they could become
their better selves. And that fuss frankly, how I wish most religions would be. So yeah, I'll put an asterisk on that because the High Christians definitely have their own sort of issues. But as someone who has also spent some time with the Higher Christians, they are more about vibes for the most part, which you know is agreeable. For all would say about that is that there's no reason you need to have a religion to get those vibes.
It's perfectable. And i'd also push back on the it's pointless thing that you said I don't think is any gentle affirmative conversation you have with someone, even if they don't you don't change their mind right, then you might be one step time step in their like pursuit of actual there is I mean, like this is something and Jamie knows is as a host, but it's like something I would encourage anybody who's having these kinds of conversations if you're going in with
the expectation that you're going to completely flip somebody's mind, prepared to be fucking dunked on, okay, because like you will not you will. You will feel bad and you'll be like, oh, why isn't this person seeing the way I do? Because people just don't work like that. It's very rare that somebody completely changes their life philosophy based on one conversation. More than likely, though, you can be a stepping stone. I mean, like some
people, they've just folks, like street preachers. They're used to people just as ignoring them. Like they may enjoy having a conversation with you that lasts more than like ten minutes because like they may not even get that you know. So yeah, you could be a stepping stone. But I think that's how you have to approach these kinds of conversations. Like I like in this metaphor to therapy, no therapy, No therapist is going to be like, oh, you just need to come to one session to me and like all
of your problems are going to be gone. Like that's just not how therapy works, right, There's stuff you got to work on. And the same thing when we talk about really big concepts like religious beliefs, like that's usually something you kind of have to work on for yourself. You know, It's not something just flip a switch and suddenly you're different in a day. I mean maybe that is for some people, but for most people, that's just
not how it works, right. But anyway, I appreciate you calling it, and I hope, I hope your interactions with street preachers are useful and fruitful for you. Um, which doesn't happen a lot with conversations with three preachers. But you never know, maybe in Finland things are different. I'm gonna let you go now, but thanks again for calling in, and go
get some sleep. I guess, um, you know in the dark, dark, cold, No, no, it'll be light because the sun will be going down probably about two in the morning to see is he close enough to where like, you know, it's it's like sun six months and then yeah, it's more north than Scotland and they you never really probably gets dark in summer. Yeah, well, I you know the funny thing about that I've heard about, you know, the study of proxemics, which is this
idea of how close people are to each other in certain social situations. Right, so what's typical for Americans? What's appropriate social distance between People's going to be different differ countries. Finished people, as far as I understand, have the longest, you know, distance between themselves and strangers. It's like several feet away. It's like, I don't know, it's like, yeah,
you guys, easy to huddle up. It's it's it's cold up there, from as far as I understand it, But I've never been there anyway, talking a lot of shit about the finished people today, I don't mean to do that. But regardless, we got to move on here, and we have some super chats that I've been late to announce, so let's go ahead and read these. First of all, we have someone calling James who gave us five dollars, who said O d love what you do blind blimey,
nice to meet you. I go yeah, really good. Another one from ben Ravita who gave for ninety nine and didn't leave a message, but we appreciate the for ninety nine. Thanks for that. And it looks like that is all the super chats we got right now, but again we will continue to read them, so please send him in if you have them. Right now, it is time to give our top five patrons a bit of a shout out. So I got the list here, so I'm gonna read it
this time. So our top five patrons are going to be number one Dingleberry Jackson, number two, Ayam, number three, Oops All Singularity, number four, Dave or Valgian, number five, Calleve Hallavetti, and the honorable mention this week goes to Jonathan Hall who was like our patron of the week, like last week our truth Wanted, which is awesome. So thank you Jonathan Hollan. Thank you everybody who donates on that patreon. You guys are
awesome. And if you want to get a chance to be one of the top five patrons and get your name shouted out on talk Heathen, hey, go to that patreon and check it out. Maybe you get your name shouted out on the show. You literally couldn't do what we do without you, exactly exactly. So let's see we got more folks who want to talk to us. I think Chris is now ready to talk to us. Chris from Pennsylvania. You're live on Talk Heathan, Do we have you? Yeah,
I'm here. Awesome, Chris. What's going on? Oh? No much, you know, just trying to enjoin up the weekend. Cool? Cool. So I see here that you want to discuss the origin of morality and how it affects society. Is that right? Uh? Yeah, okay, okay, so yeah, I know, please continue. I'm sorry, go ahead, I'm sorry, No, okay, saw you so says Acts of I was atheist, and you know I am. I do believe with God, and I think that Moraley is very essential to the run of society.
I think is very It's like the blue that whole society together. Um. Often times when I talked to atheists, you know, they tell me that Moraley doesn't come from God. They do tell me that Moraley is something. Well, I've heard that Moraley was something that was evolved throughout our species. As evolution occurred. I just want to ask you guys, like, how do you guys to find morality? Yeah, morality is kind of a tricky
word, you know. When atheists typically discuss this, they usually at least they shouldn't, in my opinion, use the word morality because morality kind of implies a system that we may not actually agree exists. Sin, for example, is something that most atheists are going to say isn't a thing too, So it may not be correct to say something is immoral, but it may be more correct to say something is ethical. Right, and ethics being sort
of a system, a guideline that could be followed. Of course, there's many different forms of ethics, and the history of port philosophy is filled with them. You could literally spend your whole life reading about them and not get to all of them. But the point is, as far as where do ethics come from? Where do our sense of right and wrong come from?
I personally do believe Yeah, it is something that comes naturally, something that comes and makes sense to a society of beings that are able to communicate with each other like we do, and have to live with each other in order to thrive and survive. Right and I do think actually that other animals at least have some form of right and wrong, but like it's more so in the sense of what works in their best self interest or in their own self
preservation. Like dogs, for example, you typically live in herds and will like sometimes have pack mentalities and hierarchies within there because they understand following that system of ethics is going to lead to their own self preservation. Right, So it may not be right or wrong in some like godly Christian sense, but it does lead to self preservation. I think, like that's how a lot of ethical systems are kind of based on. Yeah, a couple of a
couple of thoughts on my end. Firstly, I ascribe to humanism the great rugod like what does the best, the most good for most people? And we are social creatures. So I believe that what we call ethics and what we may be term of morality is a product of our increasing socialization and need to be a society. Morality yeah, not the best word in my opinion in didn't it tamplige? Judgment? Yeah, And I don't think you judge you can be judged on morality. I think only the effect of your actions
should be judged. But what my question to you is, Chris, how do you determine whether something that comes from the moral code you follow? You say it comes from God. How do you judge that actually is moral? Well, it's kind of hard to discuss that with atheists because they don't believe in God. I believe that things, at the end of the day are kind of like binary. It either falls into a category of it is or it isn't. And I know, like, uh, because I didn't want
to, I'm sorry, I'll ask you a question first. That would be the way that I do it. Um, it's binary, either something is good or something is bad. Because, like I like to think the humans like computers, and we like the fact that we process things kind of similar to computers. When you have a computer, you given instructions, it always comes out to a binary. There's no like in between. It either is or it isn't. So that's interesting. You think all moral actions can be
put into a binary? Yes, I do so. The way that I look at morality is I believe that because I know people talk about the gray areas, so you have something that's good and something that's bad. I think all actions fall in between. The end result of those actions fall either in
between good or bad. Right, So the gray area to me, yeah, just as killing people unnecessarily for example, that would probably fall into a bad right, Like, just just to you know, give an example to your point, I would argue that take a life is bad in general. Now, the great area, the great area for me is the intent.
Right. So for example, I like the users all the time. Like, if you have somebody who's poor, right, and they can't afford to eat, and maybe they're just hypothetically about to die the next day, right, and you know you, as a good person, don't want them to die, but you don't have any money. Right. Yeah, Let's say you're going too the store and you take food so they won't die, and you give them the food and they don't die. Now, I don't think
anybody will debate that the act of stilling is wrong. You're taking something that doesn't belong to you from somebody else. You didn't work for that, you didn't have anything to do with that, So stilling is wrong. But the intent to save the person's life is the good thing. Right. So I think from that point is you know, you would you would debate at that point was that action justified. But I think the morality itself, that the
action of living bad, falls into one or the other category. Okay, So if God, for example, were to kill a bunch of people unnecessarily and his intent was he believed them to be, you know, not up to his standards of what he's right or wrong, would you say that that's a bad thing to do. So I think the context is important, like, you know, because I've heard that argument many times, So suddenly none
of them like binary then subjective. Yeah, it seems like that there's more context than just you know, yes or no in regards to what exactly. Well, you said that all moral actions can be viewed as either correct or incorrect, and so I asked, well, if if not it did a moral action specific way, it's either correct or incorrect, right according to this view. Um, but you seem to indicate that it's a bit more complicated. Well not really, because when I was talking about the person who stole
from the store, the action itself is bad. So this is where like atheists and Christmas kind of like, this is where the dissonances. You know, you can't you can't relate. God is supposed to be the arbit or good in the buybre Right, everything is good is supposed to come from God, so all the action that he does are just well, i'd like to use this example, right, I don't because I have to say I'm sorry
to cut it off there, Chris. But like, there's so many things in that book that I find personally abhorrent, and I can't disguise that I'm not going I could chugger a coat too. And they are as a or on the orders of God, and to the point where he overrides the natural in numbers twenty three when you go when they go and take out the nights after did you say he said number twenty three numbers. I'm not a Bible
absolute Bible scar but scolar. But it's the famous story of Moses commanding the troops to go and and sack and eliminate the mini media nights because they did a plague apparently, and they spare the women in children, and God is angry and tells Moses to tell them to kill all the women and the boy children and any of the other girls that have known men. So that is monstrous. So if someone's gonna be a proponent of that kind of action. Even if I were to say, yeah, he's got a moral code,
I don't want to follow that code. Sure. Yeah. In other words, it may be that under God's system, whatever he says is right, But why should I care about what God thinks is right? Right? Like we can always say, well I think what I do is right? Okay, So what right we have to like kind of look outside of that a little bit? Okay? I mean, I respect the point that you guys
are making. Um, there was an example that I was given in regards to them, because you guys gave me a scenario with God commanding I'm sorry, well, can you just repeat what it was? If I'm getting it right? If I'm getting get right, the God, as part of the exodus, sorry, from their exodus from their slavery in Egypt to find the promised land, Um, Moses commands what was it, one thousand of every tribe to come to war, and it gets about fifteen thousand guys and they
destroy an entire civilization on God's orders. They kill all the men, They burn the entire civilization to the ground, they spare the women, and that anger's God because they didn't do a thorough enough job. So he commands the army to kill the women the boy children, but the girl children who have not known a man, you can keep for yourself. And I think we can make an implication what they mean by keep for yourself, and it's not
a very nice implication. I doubt they're going to be scrubbing flaws or only scrubbing flaws. So when someone says morality comes from God, and that's an example of what he sees his moral, captain h he sees his moral I'm like, I don't. I'm not sure I can agree with that if I'm honest. Oh, I'm sorry. There was a scenario before they that you, guys, if you asked me a question. I believe it was along
the line of like if um, like if God killed God. If God decides that he wants to kill me, for example, just says that I should die, you know, would you consider that a good thing? So again, I think because I was given an example in regard to that, the scenario like, for example, if you have a guy, right, he um, I don't want to, you know, demonetize your God. Some said the great I say, there was a person who greened who killed
right? You put them in Joel, right, and he kept finding a way to get off, right because I told because the position that I hold is something that is good or bad, and for me, killing is always bad. Right. But I also did say that, you know, it's that gray area to see if it's just a no. So he keeps escaping, Joel, he keeps murdering. He murders people's by the thousands, right, So you put him the jail again, and then he keeps breaking out.
So the only solution you can do to emiliate or just eliminate the fact that people are suffering is to kill this guy, right. I think it kind of go along? Is that saying like kind of principle, you know, the killing itself. Yes, I believe that, you know, humans should not kill each other. That's what I believe. But again, that
grey area that I'm talking about, is it just? I believe it is just in that case because the evil that he's spreading in the world, which is to kill him, you know, the griping and all other stuff, is going to be basically non existent when he dies. Sure, but I guess to say that. Let's take for example, they I don't know if you believe in a literal flood. But you know in the flood right Book of Genesis, it talks about now literally everyone on Earth except for Noah's family
was killed by God. And that has to include women, that has to include pregnant women, has to include children, right, I mean people who weren't going out killing other people as far as we know, we're suffering from this, right, like to kill someone under those circumstances, I would describe that as a bad thing, right, And I want to know would you consider that a bad thing? Because you also said, yeah, killing like unjustly is wrong, and I agree with you, and I think this is
an example of killing unjustly. Right these people again, you can't the five year old child that died in that flood is probably not going out murdering people. Didn't know the todlist could be literally wicked. Yeah, you know, so, like, what what is the deal here? Do you understand what I'm asking? Far as I know? The disobedience that happens in the Bible, Like a lot of people in the Bible were disobedience, so you know, in God's eyes or if you believe in the concept of like you know,
it'd being a bin or anything that goes against it. So if you go against good, it's you, you know what I mean? Yeah, and I agree. I think killing toddlers is evil. Do you agree killing toddlers in a flood? Yeah? This should be like a like a no brainer. Oh right, killing toddlers in a flood is mad? Right, that's evil. I mean again, it's a lot of it's a lot of context. I don't think there needs to be context for in a flood, like that's the problem, right, This is Look, Chris, I'm sorry
to rub, but this is what Christianity does. Okay. It justifies terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible things because you feel an obligation to a God that says this is right. Because I say so, that's it. There is no other justification. He's the creator, he gets to make the rules. That's it. That's all I've ever heard from Christians, and that's all
I ever continue to hear. It's it's like, look, in any other worldview, if I said, well, my God, Perry the platypus, I don't know it says like we should kill toddlers in a flood because they're wicked, I would hope you'd say no, that's bad, right, because you're not a period of platypushologists or whatever my followers are. Yeah, and you think that that's evil, because like we we have the capacity. This
is what we mean when atheists say we talk about ethics. We have a capacity to evaluate what is beneficial for us and what is not beneficial for us. And let me tell you, it's a really simple thing, killing toddlers in a flood. Yeah, that's an easy one. Don't do it. I don't think that. I don't think you should do it. And I'm not a big proponent. I would like to say this, Chris, and I'll let you speak after these promise, But would you take any other authority,
any other authority that goes with do what I say? Or you're dead? So you're asking me answer the question. Yeah, would you take that authority from anyone else? Anything else? In a government, any person, any friend, anyone, if they threatened you with death or obedience, he could know. Because I believe that humans are flood. Yeah, so somebody could be telling me to follow something and I necessarily not be from my benefit.
I believe if the God of Christianity is flawed too, because I don't see how a perfect god of a who's perfectly good as a perfect understanding, has any reason to kill toddlers in a flood? You got it right first time. It was perfect. Yeah. So so can I ask you God as a question very quickly? Yes? So like what in the Bible? So when the Bible do you have an objection with? Like the things that we have to follow, the killing toddler's mart that's I cannot make this more
clear, and I have an objection to this. Let's go to the tennis mother and thy father? What if they're abusive? What if they're horrible people? I know, people who have been utterly, utterly damaged by the people that brought them into this world. But if why so used to follow God's word, you must honor them even though they beat you and burned you with cigarettes, starved you and locked you in a closet. No, I'm not
going to follow those rules because they are immoral in my mind. If you want to go with morality or unethical, yeah, but that doesn't really like answer my question like why like and thy mother and thy father? Yes, you have suations where parents would do that. You know, I'm not denying that, But why is that inherently a bad thing because you know, things are contextual. He just said, why it's a it's a bad thing because not all don't honor them. Yeah, not all parents are created equal.
You know, some parents just suck. That's it, Like you shouldn't have to honor them. And I apologize for getting hated. Its quite sing to you. No, no, I understand, But that doesn't look that that doesn't like necessarily answer my question. Why it like you have a situation where yes, a parent will abuse you, but I'm talking about the idea of honor and my mother and my father. How is that a bad thing?
Because because as as an absolute rule, it's a bad Chris, if Hitler was your dad, I don't you don't have to honor him, you know what I mean? Like, like I think that's a bad thing, right if you're like, well, listen, I have to honor my dad because the Bible says, like I would say, no, you don't. You know, Chris, are you still there though? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm still here. So I mean that's that's like, like it's not really like answering my question. So what do we not answering? Chris?
So can you imagine Chris can you imagine a situation in which a pet like, what do you mean by honoring your mother than your father respecting them? What what does it mean to honor a mother and the father? Can you give me a definition on that? I would say, like going alone a lines of not disrespecting them, like you don't have you don't have to be fond of them, like for the Hitler example, right, Okay, I would say, like, so, so let me say this way. I
need to hear this. I'm sorry, Chris, what about the Hitler example? Please? So Like for the Hitler example, right, I wouldn't say like I would say, like, for example, you don't have because the way if you respect is to hold something in high regard. Um. I don't think that's what the Bible means about it because it was written in Hebrew and Greek um, depending on the Testament that you're looking at. Okay, So I would say it more allies with the fact like not disrespecting that person,
you know what I mean? So not going out your way to like I don't know, I don't know if you can. I think so if Hitler was your dad, right, Like, would you think it would be wrong if you went out of your way to disrespect him me personally. I mean, I probably wouldn't do it. Well, that's wild, that's wild. Uh, that is the difference between you and I. I guess if Hitler was my dad, I would be like, yeah, man, that's you know, but not a fan of your work, you know what I'm
saying, Like, I'm not honoring that. So that again, that's hold on. I'm sorry. I just need to interject the reason why I sound for like my question is not being answered because that's like an extreme I feel like you could take a shrink anything. Okay, Well, let me give you a less extremely exam. Chris, Chris, Chris. Okay, let's hypothetically say you know someone who has a kid, right, and they are letting that kid um run them up. They're not disciplining them, they're not
properly cleaning up after him. They're feeling nothing but drunk food. They let them watch R rated movies even though they're ten years old. They do like out, They're drunk around them, they do drugs around them. They're just a crappy parent. Would you respect that person? Person you're talking about the parent, I'm that person, not from your perspective, or Yeah, from your perspective, that person is a bad parent, would you respect them as
a person. Probably not. I wouldn't probably want to them hold them in any high regard at all. Then why does that kid have to? Then why does that kid have to just because they're related? If you weren't respecting, why do you demand the child last? Well again, I mean I believe that when it talks about respect is the whold something in high regard. I don't think God is going to be mad at you if you don't hold
your parents in high regard. I think there's two different things. Again, I don't believe that the word I'm sorry, I don't believe the word respect is the same concept that we use today. What do you think they meant? Like, what what do you think that that rule was asking? So like for example, like if you had a situation where your mom's a musing, don't call her you know, an F andbi tch, you know,
like something like that. You know, so you think it talks about don't cuss your mom out, Like that's what the Bible authors intent was, Well, don't disrespect, like that's one of the things and it tells disrespect that's what that's what I mean. But I don't. I don't feel like this still answers my questions. So if we if we like those extreme examples, if we take those out right, how is that inherently bad to show respect
to you? Because they're extreme examples? But every damn day there, Yeah, there are children who live with abuse of parents, and and and and shouldn't have to feel obligated to listen to anything and what they have to say about anything. I mean, in fact, it's damaging because he's like, do you believe that they must honor that mother than their father if they won't do anything to get themselves out from under the awful situation? Right? I don't. I don't. But see, that's that's the thing I like.
I feel like you can do that. You can get yourself out of those situations without having to disrespect your parents. That's what I'm saying. Like, I feel like a lot of nuance and context is being missed here. You know, I'm not saying, well, if your parents tell you to smoke weed or drink or cut yourself, listen to the that's not that's I don't think they're saying that. I'm just trying to understand, Like, how is
that bad for society? I mean, we would agree, like a lot of stuff that's going on in these schools today, like you know, kids fighting their teachers because there's a lack of respect not only for the parents, but the teachers as well. I think that I think Jamie already, I
think Jamie already made a great example of this. Right, if you wouldn't show respect to someone who's abusing their child, why should the child show any amount of respect period towards their abuser, right, because that's all they are in that situation. There, they're less of a parent, but less of a caretaker, and more of just an abuser. Right. I don't think they're owed any amount of respect just because the ten Commandment says so there's there's
no reason. But look, we really do have to wrap this up because we got to move on and talk about it. Thank you for calling us, Chris about this. But clearly, again, this is the difference between how I used to think about ethics and morality versus how I do now. I do not feel an obligation to listen to interpretations literal or otherwise of a text to tell me, well, this is how you should live your life versus what does Anna even mean? Yeah? Yeah, I mean again,
for simple questions like is it okay to drown a toddler? I have very easy answers to that. I don't have to cite context. There's no context for that. And that is the difference between the systems that we come up with as atheists, which again are secular in origin and our human focused versus ones that demand obedience to some sort of divine higher authority that we can't see here or interact within any meaningful capacity. So there you go. That's my
take on that. Hopefully we don't have to elaborate any further. So real quickly, I think we got time for one more caller and oh we got audience questions. Actually we're going to do that in just a second, but real quick, before we get to our audience, have you ever said yourself, I really love the content the ACA creates, but I wish there was a way I could get it all the time. Well, we got you covered. There is a twenty four seven live stream of the Atheist Experience that
you can go to right now. Don't do it right now because they're listening slash watching to this, but after this. You can check it out and tune in at any time of the day to experience the clips from old stuff and stuff this from specials and content that has existed for twenty six seasons of The Atheist Experience UM and check in with the chat there as well. There's usually other people there and it's a good time, so check that out when
you're not watching a slash listening to talk Ethan preferably. But I'm not your parents, so I don't have to respect me, so anyway, I respect UM. But I listened to it as I go to sleep at night. I use it as white noise, not that it's not nonsense, but it's just a wonderful way to to drift off with the He's saying the Atheist Experience hosts are so boring that he can fall asleep to it. Jamie, you're man, you're two for two, dude, I'm one. He's he's Oh
boy, you're gonna have some fun conversations with hot State. But we're gonna switch to a audience member here who has a question for us. If we can get that Cameron screen there we go. Audience member, what's going on? H hi on Gabriel now's sorry. I was wondering was the dumbest so on start you did because you're an atheist, So what's the dumbest thing someone has thought we believed? Or yeah I believe okay, okay, gotcha someone And it was in the YouTube comments of a video, of course, so
take it with an extremely large grain of salt. But someone said I was afraid of truth, that I was afraid of knowledge and I was closed minded, and I'm like, no, yeah, the best it's not even directly related to atheism. But the funniest thing is I was on somebody's video talking about flat earth arguments and somebody said that I was just a paid NASA shill because I believe. I just believe the Earth is round. That's it. Like, not because I got anything else going on in my life. So
it's like, that's a lot of people NASA's pain. That's a big budget. Yeah, I'm still wanting to talk about deficit. I mean, geez, that's I don't know, that's to me the funniest stuff. But yeah, you know, you see people have weird prescriptions and ideas about what we believe all the time. Is a big one, like, yeah, you can't be moral. You're not moral like you you're you were around Lady's not objective, so it doesn't matter. You want to live in sin. I'm
like, yeah, yeah, I like gluttony. That's fun. Yeah, well that's shame before. I don't know if everybody shares the same opinion, but yeah, there you go. So yeah, lots of interesting responses from people. But we do have some other folks here. I think we can get at least one more call in, so let's see do. Let's talk to Harry. Harry, who's calling in from South Africa. Harry, you are live on Talk Heathen. What's up? Hi? How are you doing
good? Having an interesting show today? So South Africa again another country. I'm not sure I've had the pleasure of talking to any callers too, So welcome to the show, Harry. How can I help? Thank you? I grew up Christian, but I always thought, no, this does not make sense until I watched that scene called the zig zigat Tis but it was talking about Christianity, and then I converted and became atheist. You became,
and then okay continue sorry? Yes, what is that was around? The age was now what you would call college university okay, but then yes, weenty something happened which made me, now go back to being at East. You know, I don't know what you know about African spirituality, but we believe more in terms of ancestral worship. Sure, have you ever heard of
ancestral worship where where people speak to the ancestors? Yeah? Yeah, I mean I'm certainly not an expert on it, but I've definitely seen people talk about it and aware of the concept. Yeah. He crops in the areas of the world as well here for sure. So so something happened that made you convinced that that was a real phenomenon or the ring? Okay, So what happened that it was my I always heard about it, but I never believed because I was a skeptic. It was my brother still spectic party.
So I know the kids that he grew up with, and I know what they're like. You know, in Africa you get stigma as well, people from a bad background an okay background, So this kid, she was acting funny. I didn't understand why until my aunt told me she understands what's happening because this best spirit twelve whatever is overcoming her. And then she just told me go and buy smith is a product called Sniff that people here used to
communicate his answers. I went and bought it. She brought the charge to the garage and started speaking to the started speaking to the spirit and the voicing. I mean, this key child go up with my brother. So I could recognize the difference. And then from that day I started researching and then I thought, you you know, I found out, No, this is something that in Africa people they don't even ask questions. Everybody believes. Okay, So then just to summarize, that's what you told me so far here.
So basically, there was a family event that was going on and a family member of yours you believe possessed by an ancestor of yours, and you believe you were able to communicate with that ancestor as well as us. I couldn't hear exactly what you said, but some sort of item to sort of believe, yeah, some type of special void. Okay, Yeah, Well that's certainly an interesting experience. I gotta say, I've been hosting for a
few years now. You're the first person who's told me about this particular scenario. No, I actually have a similar experience myself, not in the context of African belief, but in being in the presence of someone who was channeling an ancestor. It was in the context of the spiritual healing, where the doctor was channeling the spirit of an older genius, doctor of his past, the person who was performing on me. But my question is, how can
you tell that it wasn't a delusion or an act? Can you think of any other explanations because there are many creasibly wrote back, I want to get to that. I didn't just you know, convert like immediately. I did research, you know, like any good feast. I wanted to spread this eventially camp. When I was there was another incident. I'm communicate with my cousin saying this is real, and he's a priestie, you know, preaching Christianity that only God is real. And then his brother says to him,
how could you not believe what he says? Do you remember? So in Soul he got shot eight times, went to the majority. He says that when he was in the machary, he had a dream that one of his
ancestors pooked with miss his stick and said wake up. And today that guy woke up from the majority he's walking around and then but the main prison I'm calling, I'm just wanting to say that I have had a good reason to convert, not whether it's real or not, but everybody here walks around like it's really Yeah, I mean, I only believe that this experience definitely impacted
your belief and certainly you know, gave you pause. I would, of course push back, and you probably expect this on whether or not it's a good reason right to believe in what you do. I mean, like the thing is what you're describing. Of course, ancestor possessions and stuff obviously prevalent
in African culture, is cross cultural as well. Certainly other cultures around the world have something similar to it. So you may be able to point to that and say, well, so many people have these kinds of experiences,
there must be something there to it. But kind of like if you're listening earlier to a call that we had, it can also point to humans having the same sorts of biases and the same sorts of you know, fallatial thinking, fallacical thinking, right about what we consider to be but yeah, yeah, I mean, like the thing about ancestor worship, right, is that the mechanisms by which we can sort of do that are very dubious to me in some parts as someone who believes all we are our physical beings, right,
I don't know what it means if a spirit is argue, what what is it? I don't know, you know, like I don't know what I don't know. Are they coming from the pure world every time and played the spiritual play? I don't know. If you have researchers who can look up you know the history of vaccines in America. Vaccines in America? Yeah, yes, because the way that I was told with my research is um, you know, the older slave owners wonder, why aren't you Africans dying?
And then the African lady said no, ancestors told us to take the bit of the disease cut to herself. And then you rather it the something which is common even today in Africa. My dad has discussed, you know, we never died from what is this the one ricketts? I mean this is something malaria? Like we knew what to do everything we know the COVID You understand when it starts offering predict your productions, you know what I mean?
Like if we're I'm doing the ancestral peoples had insights and kind of like through through their efforts, came up with these excellent solutions that have now been refined over the time. Yeah, inoculation and all that kind of stuff in canaparks. It's fantastic. But when you saw your ancestors told you they probably
told each other while they were still alive. They didn't, do you believe that they only they withheld this knowledge to pass on until after they died, and only did it through dreams or or spiritual interaction or was it just several generations ago it was passed between families and people. Maybe, but I don't
know. Well, maybe the problem with stories like that, Yeah, I mean, you know the problem with stories like this one, Harry, is that I can't be with you at that family event and be there, be your witness to that, and say, hey, this happened the way exactly you're describing. You know, I'm hearing this, you know, secondhand from yourself, right, So it's hard for me too. I can never tell you exactly what happened in that event because I simply don't know. But I
can give you possible alternatives. Something I'm sure that you've heard before but once that you have to really deeply consider in order to understand what it is that we're talking about here, right, because like if ancestor worship and ancestors were able to possess people's bodies, I mean, that really has to change our understanding of the world, right, Like, if that was true, then certainly other things about the world have to be true. And like, I
don't know if my world view can really allow for that. And infortunately, anytime anything like that has been investigated, it's either found to have had a completely normal explanation. Natural explanation has been found to be a sham. Yeah, yeah, I mean natural has never been proven. We've we live in a world where I go ahead because I mean here Africa, they're actually medical bodies. Wait, it's an institution, and they also have spirituality to wait.
It's an institution where they wait side by side. I mean, could they be doing that for nothing? I don't know they is there to be something well, you know a lot of health institutions do work with the background beliefs of their environment, right Like if you go into the United States, for example, it's very common at when you're filling out forms, they ask you what your religion is, and that's not so that they're going to perform
some sort of ritual that's specific to your religion. But there may be things that they have to avoid or things they want to be accommodating for because it gives them better access to quality healthcare. The vast majority of hospitals in this country were built by religious organizations, names like Saint David's and St. Luke's
and St. Joseph's. You know. Yeah, but again like on that point, right that that's almost an argument of from authority, right, like we if the supernatural is real and if people are being possessed, I want to see I want to be able to talk to that person for firstally, but also like I need to see that outside sources are able to really verify this, And I don't know that'd be a tough one. I mean, I guess would have to be things that an ancestor could tell you that nobody
else could. But even then that's very horrid. Like I want to be the guy the first person who has ever shown how to generate electricity, thinking it was the purview of God's before. Then I want to be that going, yeah, we can, we can do it. You know that. I wan a lot of talk. Even it has experience because it helps, you know, send on Christians because we have a lot of them here, you know, I mean they're banning which is and all sorts of horrible atrocities.
Sure, yeah, but I just want to say, yeah, if because I recently now have socialized, we said, a lot of these people when they're next to each other, they ask ritual antenna or whatever. They go off like literally they can't be in the same room. I don't know. I just wonder what would happen if we would put people like that on emma ice scans and put them next to each other. I wonder what that would be, would we I wonder what that would be too interesting? That
would be an interesting thing to study and to look at um. But yeah, I don't know. It's one of those things right where it's like you have to you know, a skeptics. We want to be able to build cases of verifiability, right. We want to be able to see where we can check but whether it believe it's true or not. And the thing about possessions stuff like this is there are a lot of ethics that are common applicated in a situation like this, whereas a study like that could I wouldn't pass
a lot of I would want to work more like a passenger. Sure, sure, um yeah I would. Yes, I would not use the web possessing. I would lose that. It's like a passenger, use spiritual that they speak to you. If, for example, I have a problem and any day Hell, I would go to the person. The person through their spiritual passenger would be able to communicate with my ancestors. Harry, if you can get my ancestors some people to possess me and then talk on this show,
that would be pretty cool. Cool. I mean that's not yeah, he's saying, how would I mean? They do that every day? You know, if you are in South Africa, especially South Africa, on radio stations, people calling and speak to their answers as every day. It's a it's a normal thing that happens every day. People call, they please let my answers that I'm having problems, and then they call they talk. I don't know, maybe all the radio stations are speaking. It's maybe I'm putting
millions and millions of buildings this very day. All around the world, there are people eating crackers and thinking it's becoming Jesus. Yeah. I mean there's that too. I mean there's there's psychics all over the place, right, There's Pentecostals that go to church every Sunday and think that the Holy Spirit is talking to them. I mean these kinds of um, I mean, I would say delusions, right, are pretty common. But they also have various
explanations as to what's actually happening. Like some people say, oh, it's demons, some people say it's your ancestors. I mean, it's just I'm not saying it didn't happen. We're just saying that we're not compelled by the evidence. And yeah, and unfortunately testimony is weak. Yeah right, I mean there's a lot, I mean, everything I know about African spirituality and what happens there, first of all wild stuff going on, but also in
combination with evangelism there, specifically in Christianity. I mean you're seeing a lot of that happen in Christianity too in Africa. I mean, how many videos have come out to apologize on half of my anstices for setting all that crap up by invading and stealing country. My ancestors probably had something I might not want to talk to. We might not have that much in common. They might not like what I'm doing here. But anyway, look, Harry, I'm sorry. We do have to let you go because we are at a
time. That's one for today's show, real quickly, you got twenty seconds. Yeah, one more question the point or do you know the coincon people to send people the bushman he made these sianide poison that it took I don't know the gemens how long When they asked, how did you know? This is our answer to has told us. I don't know. It's just too many stuff to be a cool coincident. I don't know that that would be news to me. I mean, like again, like that could be a
cultural understanding. I mean, how many people I can't tell you how many people have talked to you, Harry on the phone that said God has told them something? You know, like like yeah, I mean maybe, but also maybe you think God told you and they didn't. I mean, it's just hard to verify. But really, we do have to let you go because we are out of time. Thank you for calling in and talking about that. Yeah interesting tossing, Yeah, yeah, I would again, if
if you start acting like you're possessed by your ancestors on this show. That would move the needle for me. I don't know if I go all the way, but I mean fair enough. But if I start speaking in tongues and think I would help you cool enough to priests? Yeah maybe yeah. We're not calling any priests around here. We don't make out going calls. This is a call in show, not a call out the show, so
you'd be out of like there. But we do need to wrap things up just to remind you guys, um give an answer to our question this week or talk heathen to me segmentum, and the one for this week is what is it? It's what is What is a little known reason God sends people to hell? That is the question that we have. So we'd love to hear your answers on this. I want to reiterate a couple different ways to
support the show. Please like, subscribe hit bell and also consider becoming a member or contributing to our Patreon. Any way you can help us is wonderful. Um if we have the Facebook group as well that you can look and after the show, there is a fan run discord server that sometimes talks to hosts. Not today, but also that happens as well that you should check out links to that in the description and lastly just to read it as well.
There are audio versions of this show that you can find if you don't like watching the video. And the next show on the docket today is the nonprofit so stick around and watch that if you want to see what's going on. I want to give a big hand here to Jamie for having his first first real time hosting today. He did a wonderful job. I did all that may become a man who does more his name. Yeah yeah. And also I want to give a special shout out to the audience today for joining
us. Thank you. We'll give a hand to you. Thank you guys so much for being here and supporting the show today. It's been really fun being back in since COVID and I'm glad we're able to do this at least once a month, so consider coming by next month and hanging out with us. And of course, last but never least, we have to thank the wonderful, fantastic, amazing Stupend his crew that helped make this show happen.
Give it round to a boss for the crew to work behind the scenes and work very hard making sure that we are still on the air, even though we constantly make efforts to make sure that we stop being on there for all kinds of reasons. But we also have to give our love rings. And Jimmy, I'm gonna let you start the love rings here. Can you get it out there? Let's see oop there we go. Always a little bit delay the love rings. Well first time, No, no, it's not
you. It's the electromagnetic interference between the rings within us that communicate with the equipment. There's a bit of a delay. It's student quantum fluctuations stuff. There's a lot a lot going on there. I'm not an expert on the science, but you know there's something going on this. So love rings to all of you who are watching this show. Thank you. Whether or not you believe you, if you are an essential worker, we of course want
to thank you. And if you don't believe, this is your community. And if you do believe, we don't hate you, just not convinced. Thanks again, everybody, this has been talk ethan. I'm objectively dad, this is the blind blind me Jamie, and we are signing off. Have a good Sunday. We want the truth, so watch Truth Wanted live Friday
at seven pm Central. Visit tiny dot cc slash y t tw and call into the show at five one two nine nine one nine two four two, or connect to the show online at tiny dot cc slash call tw
