Why the apostle Paul is a scoundrel? Part two. If you think that slavery was just the ways of the Old Testament, I have bad news for you. In Titus two nine through ten, he writes teach slaves to be subject to their masters and everything, and to try to please them, not to talk back to them, not to steal from them, but to show them they can be fully trusted, so that in every way they will make the teaching about God our Savior attractive. Slavery is unequivocally and reprehensible and morally
indefensible. It represents a gross violation of basic human rights and dignity, perpetuating a system of exploitation and dehumanization. The practice entails the forced subjugation of individuals, stripping them of their autonomy, freedom, and agency. Slavery fosters a culture of inequality, justice, and cruelty, denying people the right to live their lives with dignity and pursue their aspirations. So before you, yes,
you call in and say who are you to decide what's moral? I can assure you I am more moral than your God or his spokesman, And you can trust me because I have a mustache. Do you disagree? Give us a call because the show is about to begin. Hello, Hello, everybody, welcome back to talk. He then I am your host day objectively Dan joining me. I think that was Sidney's dad. It was, Yeah, your dad did a great job of the intro. They said slavery rivers his
justice instead of injustice, which is you should have said injustice. I'm so sorry. That's okay. I messed up the opening intro so bad last time. My truth wanted. I have no room to talk. But anyway, Sidney Davis Junior Junior is joining me today. Sidney, what's what's what's going on? What's happening other than my dad ruining the cold open? No, not much is going on here. We do need we should probably rehearse the cold open before we actually do it, because I don't know we don't actually
rehearse at all for me. Well, I mean that what that makes it a cold open? Right? Like, you're right, It wouldn't make it as cold, it'd be a hot it'd be yeah, more of a hot open. And we want to be a cold open. Right. That was an ice cold ice. You're right, You're you're right, folks. Today is February the eleventh, twenty twenty four. And this is Talking Even.
This is a product of the Atheist Community of Austin, a five to oh one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government. And what you should know is that Talk Even is a live call in show and we have open lines right now, So get your calls in at five to one two nine nine two four two or from your computer at tiny dot c c slash call thh City. I've been sick a little bit this week, but I'm good
now. I took some stuff before we're doing today, but I didn't get to do trith one this week. I didn't do some of my other stuff. But yesterday I was going to go to a There is a witch market in Austin and uh over two hundred vendors. We're gonna be at this thing selling witches or not selling which is selling. I guess potions, eyes of newts and probably like its over expensive soaps is what I imagine a lot of
the product is. I actually don't know what they sell at a witch's market, but I wanted to check it out, but it got canceled due to inclement weather. What kind of inclement weather did you guys have? It was a little stormy yesterday. I mean, it wasn't too bad, but it does make you wonder. And I'm not a witch. I'm not in the community. But isn't there like a spell for that? Like can't you stop?
Or is that more druid territory? But I mean, I don't mean to speak for witches, but I believe witches also have days where they're like, you know, I just not today, you know what I mean? Like even witches are like the vibe is off, and it's like you could cancel the storm, or you could be like, you know what, we
can do this another time. I'm just a little witch vended out because I mean, I imagine that's a lot of like I don't know, gluten free scones and stuff to make, and maybe they just maybe they just wanted to do it a different time. Hey, First of all, everyone can enjoy a gluten freeze going. And I'm not trying to hate I I we were just reading a great article about intersectional feminism within the witch communities and stuff, and that's great. A lot of them are like super active this stuff.
I just I'm interested in the intersection between witchcraft and capitalism. I just don't know because I see this stuff on TikTok where it's like leave leave this, leave this flower mixture out under the full moon to charge, Like I saw that one time, and I'm just like, what does this even mean? What is happening here? I mean, but did you try it? Well, no, but you tried it, you may have learned. I guess you're right. There's just I have a lot of questions. That's me too,
but I'm not a part. Can you tell the story that you were telling me, which is that you hung out at a witches you were with a witch's coven? Oh? Yes, I did not. Yes, Okay, So I lived in Chicago before I lived here in Nashville. I mean
in Austin. I definitely live in Austin. I'm not in Nashville. And at like six months after living in this building and just seeing weird stuff all the time, like I could go into great detail about weird stuff that I saw, I finally asked my neighbor, who at the time was quite a stranger to me. We were not close, but I had to ask somebody. I said, you know, I've been seeing some weird stuff and I got to know if this is normal. And that's when I found out that
every couple who lived in that building were witches. They were all witches, every single one of them. Every single one of them had alters and and the things they showed me, but I don't want to incorrectly label the items, but they they definitely were active witches. And they told me I did not need to be afraid because they had done the witch version of blessing the building and only positive vibes. So I still moved. Don't get me wrong,
I still moved. But I'm friends with some of those people, still great people, but I definitely still got out of there. So that kind of makes you water. So like if a Catholic priest less is a building and then a witch blesses it, does it counteract each other in some way? Or are they non interactable? Is the vibe change? I don't know. Again, just I have a lot of questions. I'm thinking very scientifically
about it. I don't I don't know if if that's how the the which community sees everything they do, which is if you're watching this, let us know what write in If you think you know the answer, we'd love to hear from you, because that is a great question. I think. I think it is mostly people who participate in. My understanding is it's participating in the ceremony for vibes. It is just like I'm with a bunch of people
who feel the same way I do about it for vibes only. Yeah, and it's for vibes, And I mean that in a very like real way, Like I think it's just like I think that's just how I think it's a community activity rather well. I mean, like, I'm pretty sure there's like documentation of the Salem witch trial happening because the vibes are off. Like I'm one hundred percent sure there's a document out there that says that. Yeah, that's definitely what they wrote down. Yeah, they said, ye'll hear
ye, hear ye, the vibes are off. Yeah, we gotta kill all the witches. It's very sad. Yeah, it was really sad. I don't know if they ever fixed the vibes, but I hope they did. I would hope. I would hope the vibes have been fixed since. However, long ago. That was a few hundred years now, but maybe not actually, so yeah, so this is a call in show and right now we do have some open lines, so please I encourage everybody come call in. It's been a minute since I've been on Sydney New host this time
number two for you. Yeah, so happy to be hosting with you. So yeah, I I am. I'm really excited to see what kind of calls that we can take together for talk Heathen's sake. But this is also we're competing in our efforts with another Perhaps how should we put this game at which a lot of people people I think is amazing, That is also a bold game. It is very busy, it is very there are lots of people checking it out. Yeah, it synonymous with amazing, is also a
game, is I think a good way to put it. So maybe some people are watching that instead of us. But yeah, we want to talk to you guys, hear what's going on. If there are any of those today, they don't start for a while. I think several hours. Oh yeah, you're right, I don't think it actually has started yet. This is how out of the loop I am on all matter of sports. I really don't yeah, I don't. If there is a big sports event happening,
it would happen in the evening around I believe seven PMS Central. But maybe there's pregaming efforts, you know, maybe a different kind of pregame than what I'm thinking of. But hey, you know, Sidney, this is a show where we have a segment every week called talk Heathen Timmy, so maybe we should talk about that. Talk he Me is where we ask you guys a question and you give us an answer, and we picked specifically three of them which we think are the best, and we read those out to
you. So last week we asked you what would Jesus Do? Which is a great one. It's an open essay, you know, prompt that you would see in like school before a big test or something. So I really like this one, What would Jesus do? Let's read our top three answers. Number three come from the nihon Jin who says WWJD his handholds, which is maybe one of the most disgusting things I've ever had to read on this
show, but it does give me pause. So it did bake the list this week, and like, don't I want to say that would be wrong, but I don't think so, it's I think it's definitely wrong. It's wrong, but like, actually I don't know. I'm not I'm not even gonna parse that. I'm just gonna move on and get to with our next answer here. Number two comes from I think it's Leith Crower Wreath Crowther sixty eighty six, who says, what would Jesus do? Probably a sheep?
Which, come on, come on, guys, come on, that's that's I don't know. I mean, like, I don't know, you don't know. I feel like he hung out with enough people all the time around. You're right, Jesus was a sociable dude. He had at least twelve dudes and at least like one lady a segment of his adult life. Now before that, though, who knows, you know that's true. I wasn't
there. I was not just saying it could be a thing. Number one comes from X million seventeen oh four, who says Jesus would help me remember the password to my born hund, which he seems like a nice guy. He seems like a helpful guy who would have done something like that. That is really funny. It's like if Jesus if you hung around you. If you was around today and he hung around you and he knew the password, would he give it to you if you really need help? Because think about
this theologically? Okay, does this intercede on free will on some way? If Jesus is holding the password for you to sin, would he still give it to you? Yes, because he'd want to see what decision you make, because it's a free will thing, right right, Because he'd want to see would you use it or would you not with that power? Would you use that power or would you contain yourself? Exactly? So? I think you would. But but also is giving is giving away account information that's not
yours? A sin? You might be he might become in me a sin. I think that loving thy neighbor. I think it's loving thy neighbor. It is loving thy neighbor. But also it's violating property rights, which Jesus is a huge fan of, I think, But I feel like he's more into sharing is caring, even if it comes to a porn account pass. Yeah, I think it explicitly breaks the terms and agreements of pornhub dot com. Oh well, see, if it breaks terms and agreements that you agree
to, then I don't think Jesus would do it. Yeah, Jesus upholds contract law. Yeah, yeah, he does very much, so he does. Yeah, So then I don't think you would do it. I think he'd be like not man. Sorry, See that gets a little deeper than you got to give it credit for. Thanks for the links for the answers this week. Guys, you discussing disgusting people with your disgusting answers, all three of those very dirty, but still appreciate it that you guys give those
answers. The prompt for this week is going to be why are people really leaving the church? And then it's really with capital letters really in the script here, So answer your best answer below in the video and we will we'll get in the comments below the video. I mean, we'll answer the top three answers for next week. But before we move on here, Sidney, why are people really leaving the church? I think a combination of things.
I think many people leave church to go scream at a barista immediately after talking about how you should treat people with kindness and respect. I think they leave church and then they're like, what do you mean you've discontinued the unicorn frap. Don't make me tell you again. And then I think other people are leaving church because they're like, too early, Sunday's my one day to sleep in. Can't make it. Streaming services exist, right, I can catch
TD Jakes at home in my living room. And then I think a lot of people are leaving the church because the whole you know, it doesn't make a lot of sense, and they don't believe what it says, and it fosters poor relationships with people that we should care about. But it's probably the Barista thing. Honestly, statistically, I think, statistically, you're right, it's probably the Barista thing. But on a more serious note, I do think there is a lot of people who leave the church but still have some
sort of semblance of Christianity. I actually think that's I think that's more common than us, yeah, which is like not adhering to Christianity at all. I think that there are lots of people who leave the church but still identify as Christian or identify as having a God belief. And there are people who
say it the whole thing is is wrong. Yeah, in all seriousness, I talk to a lot of people who still follow the teachings of Jesus from the Bible, but they don't want to consider themselves Christians, and they don't want to go to Christian churches because of the messages they don't agree with and the things that they don't agree with, and so they would rather just say they say they're a christ follower, they say they followed Jesus Jesus teachings,
but they don't want to use the word Christian or Evangelical or anything like that because they don't identify in that way. There. Yeah, absolutely no. I think if Deconstruction podcasts have taught me one thing is that there is a significant portion of the population that does feel disaffected by religious organizations at large, but still have that sort of spiritual identity that they wish to assuage. Either because when you grow up at a church, right, like, that's a
that's a meaningful community space which you're a part of that. We just don't have the luxury of having as non theists most of the time. I mean, there are some organizations like aim Men of Boston, but like those are not common, like right, right, and they're usually online, not really
in person quite often. Yeah, and we don't have like liturgy. Like liturgy is a huge part of the religious organization structure, particularly if you're like from a like a Catholic denomination for example, that that is very meaningful for a lot of folks too. So some people want to have that spirituals practice
in a group setting. So for some people, like literally church becomes like their weekly podcast that they listen to, and like, I, I don't know, that's that's how it kind of was for me for a bit. I definitely was in sort of a deconstruction zone where I was kind of half way in, halfway out and didn't know where to put myself before it right put everything away so right, And a lot of people don't understand that deconstruction
doesn't always mean going from religious to entirely non religious. It just means changing your belief system or deconstructing from your original belief system. So you can deconstruct and still believe that there's a God or believe in the teachings of Jesus and have deconstructed from your prior belief system. Absolutely, Yeah, there's definitely a lot of stuff to think about there, So give us your answers. Why
are people really leaving the church? Serious? Or not serious. Be honest, we do tend to we do tend to go towards the not serious, so you know, with that bias in mind, please leave a common below and let us know. But real serious answers too, just for discussion sake. I think is really good. And before we get going here, in our first call, we want to go to our crew camp real quick, just to show you that there are real human beings that work on this show
besides the two people you see on screen right now. So let's go to that camp and see all the folks who are helping out today. Thank you guys so much for doing all the work. And we've got people in the free Thowle Library right now in Austin, Texas, which is great. We've been doing so many shows not in the library now. It's always weird to see it, you know. Oh, Man, twenty twenty really just changed
everything. Huh oh my gosh, it really did. Yeah, but hey, you know what it also means we could have hosts from all over the world now as regular hosts, which is is pretty cool and it's cool, but I do miss seeing people person like me, like how I am local and I live in Austin. You totally live super You're so local to Austin. I think if you drew like a new equator and uh, you know,
prime meridian to Austin. I think you're right in the send. Yeah, like if I move at all, they'll see me in your square. That's how local I am. Yeah, yeah, you can. You can. You can base your directions based on where Sydney is in the city. You can see behind me. Yeah, that's definitely Austin behind him. Let's get to our calls, shall we. Uh we got a couple of different people who want to talk to us. Uh so first, Oh man, we have some good ones here. Oh my goodness, we have some good
ones. Folks. Please stay on the line so that we can talk to everyone. First, let's talk to Jack, who wants to talk to us from Florida, who seems to have an issue with our talk Heathen to me segment saying that we're being disrespectful. Jack, you are alive on talk Heathen. What's up, hi, guys? Yeah, the chat told me to call in because I found the jokes about Jesus disrespectful. I'm an atheist. I just don't feel like it's a good look for you guys to imply that
you know, Jesus committed best reality. I understand not agreeing with the religion, but when it rises us to disrespect, I think it's going to turn off people that might be interested in a seism or on the sense as far as ISSU is a concern. When you hear you guys talk like that, yeah, I think that's I think it's fair, that's valid. I think so. You know, like the thing is, for some people, making
jokes like that is a relief, right. It's a way of saying, hey, it's okay to talk about this thing that we haven't been able to talk about or haven't been able to make fun of our entire lives, and sort of to give people the confidence in speaking up against something that they haven't previously had the power to do. The downside of it is, you're right. It can be tacky, right, it can. It cannot be seen in good taste, and people think that we're not being serious or that we
don't have serious conversations about the subjects. The thing is, we can all contain multitudes, right. There are some days where I'm going to be really academic about everything that I'm talking about on here, and sometimes I'm just down for really good joke and I would rather not limit myself based on outside perspectives on so what other people think I should be, rather than just be the person that I am, which is both. At least that's my answer to
it. I don't know what you think, is it. Yeah, I think that is a completely fair and completely valid observation to make, and I think that you're correct. I think that some people would hear an introduction like that and be like, you know, this isn't the kind of show that
I want to call into. I also think that some people the way that they process the trauma that they've been through and things that they've experienced is through humor, and so sometimes at the risk of processing those things, you can't make everyone happy. As with any type of humor, any type of communication, there will always be someone who's offended. And I think people are just as offended by that as sometimes they are by the things we talk about on
the calls, by the topics we cover. So I think you're completely and totally correct in your statement, and I do appreciate that you call in and you let us know your thoughts on that, and I think that some episodes are for certain people and some episodes aren't for those particular people. And I just hope that each episode offers something a little bit different for different types of people and what they're looking for. But I do appreciate your perspective on that.
I think you're correct. Yeah, there you go, Jack, What do you think? Oh? Yeah, thank you. I mean, I still think it's a bit disrespectful. I think you're gonna lose people, and that way, I think you've acknowledged that you're going to lose people and that every episode is for everybody. It seems like you're okay with it. I
understand that people use jokes to process the trauma that religion can cause. I understand all that, but I wonder if really making jokes on a show like this rather than just you know, in your personal everyday conversations, I wonder if that's really the prizest choice. But that's pretty much all I got to say. Yeah, And I think that's a great question, and I would love to hear in the comments what people think in terms of do do they agree, do they disagree? Which side do they see the point of?
I think that's a great question. Yeah, I think so too. What also, I want to point out those are jokes that were made by the comment section. Yeah, we did not make those jokes. We didn't make We did add on to it though. I understand that. I understand that. But y'all asked for and we did and we yeah, and we picked those and yeah, it's totally fair. But in the same sense, right, provocation is also a method of getting people to call in and getting people
to have some of those some of those deeper conversations with us. So, like, there's there's two sides to the coin. If we were all completely academic all the time, there's a lot of people that wouldn't even bother to watch this. A lot of people have first found ACA content because they saw a title that they thought maybe was ridiculous, and then that gets it into it. Right, So it's just it is kind of capitalism and action there.
It is sort of like appealing to certain demographics and market and and and you know that aspect of it is always kind of you know, uh, not the best or right. I hate participating in and helping and making the YouTube algorithm work the way it does as much as anybody else does. That like makes content on this platform. But uh, yeah, I don't know. It's just uh, it's just a part of it sometimes, you know. But yeah, that's all I got. Yeah, I I I understand
that. It's just I wonder if the kind of the kind of content is actually going to attract like the type of Christians that would be more inflamed by it and turn off the more academic ones that might give you good calls. Yeah that's yeah, Yeah, that's a great question. That's a great question. That's fair, and it's not something I haven't uh thought of myself. You know, Uh, that our content has made particular openings is made by a large group of people. It's not just us as hosts. It's it's
it's a lot of people that approve and make these messages go out. So, yeah, we hear your feedback. We appreciate that. Jack. Well we'll see, we'll see what happens with that and comments too. Let us know what you think about that kind of stuff. Uh, and maybe our producers could take a look at that and see, oh maybe there's a way, there's different ways we can go about it. So thanks Jack, Yeah,
thank you Jack. Anything else you want to add before we let you go, oh, thank he's gone now, all right, well thank you jack h Yeah, no, it's it's it's fair. And you know, I don't always like reading the openings that we have either. Sometimes I think our stuff is kind of crass. I really do. Yeah, and I definitely I completely understand. I completely understand what he's saying, and I think
that is a valid point to make. And I think that that's one of the reasons why we take these calls is to to get people's thoughts and opinions, to hear what they have to say, to weigh in in the comments. And there's no better way to open it as discussion then have people call in who have constructive feedback and critique like that. So I appreciate that he
called in and left that feedback. And if people comment below like, yeah, I didn't want to say anything, but this is always the part that I hate the most, or something like that, it's something we can learn from. That is something we can learn from. I always at least feel better at the end of the day if the substance of our conversation always ends up being good. Yeah, you know, we kind of have to do.
We have to play the YouTube game. We have to do the bullshit shock jock kind of stuff sometimes, which is like, it's not great, it's not a great feeling. But also we want the show to be successful and we want it to like, we want to have people watching it. Right, if it doesn't grow, then it's not hitting more people. Right, you want us to stop doing the shock jock humor at the beginning, Please subscribe to the Patreon, Please send us, Please speak with your dollars.
Damn. She's like, Hey, if you want this to stop, pay us and then we'll stop. Wow, all right, I mean, but we would we do listen to the folks who do pay for the show, because obviously they're the ones who are very invested in it. So yeah, that is a method of letting us know. But that being said, we should go ahead and move on to some other callers who want to talk to us about other stuff. I think that was a fairly what's that?
Oh, I said, let's do it. Yeah, let's do it before we get to this next call, I should mention as well as the page run, we also have an option to become a channel member on the show, So you can click that joint button below if you want to you get custom chat emotes, early access to clips and shorts, and you will be helping perpetuate the mission of Talking in the Eightheist community of Austin. And we're
serious about this. By the way. We want to make content that everybody enjoys if everybody's not enjoying it, and we want to listen that feedback and make the appropriate changes. So thank you for everybody who is a member and everybody who does support the show. That way. Another way to support the show's course through super chats. You know, you can leave a question or comment through that. We try to get to as many as we can. We don't have any in the moment, but as soon as we do,
we will read some of those out and last before we move on. Liking the video and subscribing is also a way that you can support through non monetary means, enabling those notifications too. But of course we're always going to be live at the same time every Sunday for the foreseeable future, so hopefully you know when that comes out. But anyway, let's take another caller here. This is an interesting premise. Here we have Howard who's calling from New York.
Here, Howard says or wants to know why some atheists are against the death penalty while we accept evolution, and is that a contradiction? Howard, you're live on Talk Heathen. Is that a fair summation of your question? Yes, yes, Hi Dan, Hi Sydney. Yeah, that's my main question. But very quickly, I wondered if either one unviewed have an answer to a biology question I have. Let me give you the rundown. My grandmother had, my mother, my mother had my sister, My sister had
a daughter. Is my grandmother's eggs in my sister's daughter? How how many lines of of of an egg would would there be from a grandmother to a granddaughter? Do you know understand my question? How many lines of an egg? How are you lines of DNA or pardon? So, are you asking if any of the eggs in your sister would be eggs from your grandmother or like what percentage? Yes? Or any part of my grandmother's eggs DNA or whatever would would carry on through generations? I mean we can never be that.
So, first of all, there are chimera eggs, right, there are eggs that actually don't even take parts of DNA from like one parent and stuff and so like the answer is that really depends like it it depends on people's individual situations. I don't know if biologists can ever say for sure, yeah, you're exactly this percentage of your parents and this percentage of your other
parents. I don't know if it really works like that. Also, like DNA does change and stuff over time, right, So like the DNA that you have in your body right now is different from what you may have like seven years ago. So well it's hard to say, like what is going to be from your parents and what's going to be from your own. Yeah, well, and women are born, if I remember correctly, women are born with the number of eggs are going to have their entire life. It's
not like sperm where they can regenerate. So eggs are brand new. The like the eggs that a woman has in her body are just her eggs. But in terms of like familial DNA, if you're just splitting it kind of stand wise, like there's no steps or halves or anything in there. I imagine it would be like their DNA would share I don't know what is that, like an eighth or sixteenth something like that. But in terms of eggs that I think the eggs are just brand new, they're just her own.
Yeah, it's it's it's I think there's my grandmother's egg. Go ahead, go ahead. Inside my grandmother's egg was my mother's egg. And inside my mother's egg was her daughter's egg inside her egg. And does it do you mean the egg that eventually became your mother and the egg that eventually became your sister, then yes, oh yeah, if that's the case. Yeah, so the egg contains the next generation? Yeah, in part yes, yeah, partially. Okay, okay, yeah, that was the connection I was
trying to make. Okay to the to my question about the death penalty. Most atheists feel that this is it, This is our life now is all we have and it's precious. Correct, would you agree most atheists feel that way? It's hard to say. Atheists are are blend of a lot of different people. We don't subscribe to one particular ideology. But at least folks I would say, I'm comfortable saying most of the atheists are the atheists me
of Austin feel that way. Yeah. Yeah, So if someone believes this life is all we have, that would make it even more precious, right, that our consciousness ends at depth and that's it. So why would people who've evolved from animals if you believe in evolution, we are an animal, correct, yes, So why would an animal not eliminate another animal that is
taking that precious life away from someone? You know what I mean? You mean like murderers, Yeah, anyone who would commit acts against someone else. And a lot of animal societies they eliminate that person for that animal, But the humans won't do that. A lot of them don't believe that there's that killing someone who eliminates the preciousness of someone's life. It just doesn't connect with me. Whynths all say that they don't believe in the death Coloty. So
Dan, do you mind if I yeah? Yeah, go ahead. So
I think something that I think something that separates human beings from animals. You know, we're all mammals, But I think something that separates human beings from animals is the idea to have thoughts and feelings and to understand nuance, and to understand that not everything is black and and we can also predict the thoughts and feelings of other human beings, whereas say monkeys or leopards or cats, they can't necessarily process what they think the thoughts of the other cat would be,
or what the other lion would be. I can look at Dan and I can say he would probably be upset about this, he would probably be hurt about this. He would probably enjoy this thing. And that is something that is unique to human beings that animals can't do. And so when animals see one of them kill another one and then they kill the one that's killing everybody, what they're saying is this animal is defective. It's eliminating members of
our population. We're just going to get rid of it because it doesn't work for us. That's just a natural inclination. Human beings can say. Sometimes people kill because they just want to kill. Sometimes people kill because they have brain damage. Sometimes people kill because of the environment in which they were raised,
they have mental illness. Such a wide variety of nuance when it comes to why people harm other human beings that humans look at it and say, we need to get to the bottom of what it was that caused this person to be this way. We need to get to the bottom of what it is that we can fix or what it is that we can study in order
to change this. And the answer isn't always kill that human being. If we kill other human beings, that doesn't necessarily make us any better than the original murder that we are getting justice over if if that makes sense, Yeah, that's a good answer. I mean, I would also say, first of all, there are atheists that think that the death penalty is fine. To be an atheist doesn't require any ideological commitments. I think you're correctough and
saying that. If you were to survey the atheists in the United States, I think most of them would say that there don't agree with the death penalty. And I think that mostly stems from the idea of punitive justice versus rehabilitative
justice. And there is a pretty broad consensus amongst atheists, at least in our community that I believe in this idea of ability of justice, that justice isn't meant to be sort of a punishing affair, but rather justice should instead be something that helps grow and change the people that are a part of the system. That if they aren't changing people, and if they aren't doing things,
then then the system isn't working as it should be now. And of course not everybody feels that way, and there are folks that will that currently exists that we can't change, right, We either lack the medical technology or it's just a matter of will. I mean, it's just it's just how it is. And there are some of us that are okay with that that we still support those people anyway, even if they're living in a prison population,
because people feel that's the right thing to do. We don't always make our choices based off of pure economics, right of Oh, well, this person is a dredge on our society, so we need to cut them off, right, Like, that's just not how we always make decisions, And some would argue it's not the most humane way to make decisions. There.
You're gonna get a variety of answers on this, but for me, it is because of this idea of rehabilitative justice that causing someone to die for their actions does it make us necessarily the better for doing that, even if that person is a murderer, even if they are guilty of crimes that are heinous and should be rectified in some way. You know, it's not that we
don't think that justice shouldn't occur. It's just we don't think that the death penalty is the most just action right in that scenario, and killing somebody doesn't solve the problem. It solves our need for justice and bloodlust. If we're killing somebody for killing somebody, we're just doing it because we feel upset about what they did and the only way that we're going to stop feeling these difficult
feelings. Or if we kill that person and we feel vindicated, but it doesn't actually do anything in terms of fixing the problem, changing the system, making any kind of positive change or development in any way. All it does is feed our needed for I feel better now because that person is gone, and that doesn't help anyone, if that makes sense. Yeah, there you go. I think we gave some pretty long answers there what you're both saying,
Yeah, okay, cool, glad to do. I just think that I just think that the more precious you consider your life, that this is it, This is all there is, and how precious it is, especially small children that are killed for no reason, no mental issue, just random murder of a child who has been robbed of the's limited life we have here.
If this is all there is, then someone needs to pay. Yeah, listen, how we're not saying that we don't listen how We don't say that no justice should happen to murderers, right, We're just saying we shouldn't kill them because, for exactly your point, life is precious. So taking away that murderer's life, we also believe is a kind of wrong in some way, at least those of us who believe in a rehabilitative justice system.
That doesn't mean they shouldn't suffer consequences for their actions. We just don't think those consequences should involve the death path, right. They should not be in the population with anyone else. And I might argue that I don't think there are many cases in which, especially children are harmed for quote no good reason
at all. I think if we study these people, and we pay a lot attention, and we ask them questions, and we deep dive into their background, there will be even if unjustified, there will be a particular reason or thing or trauma or something that made that person do that action, even if it's just drugs, even if it's they were just out of their mind. And so we can't again, we can't study these things, and we can't fix these things if the only way we operate is eye for an eye.
But again, not not advocating for the rescue of people who murder children or anything like that. I don't think they belong in the population. I don't believe they have should have the right to vote, or anything like that.
But I would argue that I would be hard pressed to find a scenario in which somebody was murdered by somebody who was completely normal and saying and had absolutely nothing wrong with them and just chose to murder one day for no reason, even if they don't recognize that something is wrong with them when they do it. Okay, I appreciate both of your comments and your opinions. Thank you Howard taking my call. Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, I appreciate
the call there and appreciate the conversation thereof. And you're gonna find, like I already see some differences between my view in Sydney's view right there, right like, uh, you know, there's there's there's nuances there, and there's we're not a unified political body, much to the dismay of many of us, We don't know think the same way about it because we don't have Christianity
proclaims to have a unified moral system. That is, you should be able to make All Christians should be able to make the same decisions if they follow the guidelines presented from the system. Obviously that doesn't work in practice, but this is what Christianity says should work. In practice. It doesn't work because Christians have a wide variety of death penalty sort of opinions right and atheist.
Obviously, maybe even wider opinion because we're not having to cite biblical sources or historical examples, right, we can draw from even a wider sort of variety of sources in which to make our decisions on why we think something is right or wrong. So it becomes immensely more complicated, and you're gonna see some
differences there. But by and large, yeah, I think, especially in America, most of us don't support death penalty, right, And like, don't get me wrong, I absolutely have days where I hear something on the news and I'm like, get rid of that guy, Like yet I'm out of here. But you also recognize sometimes, or at least in my opinion, you recognize sometimes that there will always be an innocent person who gets put
to death if we allow death penalties to do. And so even if it means keeping somebody alive that I think is garbage and deserves to be kicked headfirst into a fire pit. If that saves even one person from being innocently put to death because the ability to put them to death doesn't exist, I think that's worth it. Yes, Yes, I stand that. I stand that Sydney, good good opinions, goodbye, good job. Yes we have some
super chance that we need to read out real quick. One we got from from the lovely Kelly Laughlin, member of two years, gave two dollars who covered me on truth wanted on Friday because I could do it so sick naked Kelly, who said, did Jesus die a virgin answer? No, he got nailed. Kelly. Let the record show we did not write. Now we're oh my god. See now everybody's trying to make us say the worst jokes possible after our discourse there, which is very funny. All right,
Kelly, you get that one, Thanks for donating. Another one is a new member who gave two hundred chech korunas, which I don't know how much that is in America a lot. It sounds like a lot, but money can be very deceptive. But thank you. Quantum answer, who's a new member to talk to you than who said I think if Christians can freely say about Jesus anything they want without evidence, we can say also whatever we want about Jesus without evidence. It's fair. By the way, jokes are fun,
preaching is not. That's an interesting perspective, that is. Yeah. I like that people just kind of say shit and it doesn't necessarily have to be true. I do, like, yeah, obviously the the beast. Yeah, maybe it's a little different, right, I don't know. Well, And like I've always thought that if you're going to make yourself a public figure, you should be open to jokes about yourself and at your own expense. And like, if anyone's a public figure, it's Jesus, you know
what I mean. It's Jesus. That's true, and it is one of the most public figures. I think there was a study done once that said Jesus and Ronald McDonald were like the two most recognizable people to children in like kindergarteners. I think you're thinking of They talked about the cross and the and the McDonald's m yeah, something like that. It's like a lot of people know Jesus, so I feel like Jesus can be the butt of some jokes.
Yeah, I think I think that study was talking about like recognizable symbols, and I think it showed that the McDonald's M was more recognizable than the cross. I was totally wrong on that. Yeah, maybe kru Can can can back me up there and show me what that was. Just like inventing statistics. Yeah, just for the just for the sake of accuracy, if we're ever going to say certain things. But yeah, no, Jesus is
definitely like a popular dude. You can't say he's not. He's very popular, very popular for a guy who's been gone for a while, very large staying power back guy. Well that in Walt Disney. But a lot of people don't think that he's been on for a long time. So there's that. Yeah, that's true. I think that's that's part of it. One more super chat here we have from Ben nine Lives, who gave four ninety nine and says great combo Sydney and Dan. Quick question, Dan, are
you still going to continue truth wanted? Yes? I think I have hosted the last two episodes before the last one. Again, I was sick this last weekend. I get people are worried because I haven't been hosting as much. I've just had a lot going on in life, to be honest, I was out for a minute and then I try to get back on and then some other stuff come up. So just a reminder again, we say
this all the time. I have a regular job, I do regular things outside of this, and I also have been trying to host another project that's alive on Thursday nights that's outside of the ACA, and you know, it's like a lot of just takes up my time and sometimes too, I'm just like, I just want to do other things. If you want to see Dan more often, join our Patreon. Yeah, now I I will.
I you know, I'm I will let you you will know if I'm not on truth want anymore or talk even I will post about it somewhere or something the earth were no longer on truth one. Uh yeah, yeah, I like it will it will be that information will be publicly available, so so you know, I I have no like, Yeah, I have no like agree bit that says, oh, I can't say if I'm not on anymore or whatever, Like, yeah, I will you know. That's that's I
I I continue to enjoy hosting it. I've just had a lot of personal stuff happened up up recently, so you know, it's it's it's meant that I have been able to host every time. So twenty twenty four has been a doozy. Let me tell you. Yeah, I find by the way, folks, I finally got my car back last week last week from my accident that happened in October. Uh so that tells you and Austome Police Department has not done any work on figuring out the drunk driver that hit me and
kind of changed my life. So that's cool. Thanks APD. Really appreciate that. So just a little public announcement there. I'm glad that my car was fixed. At least that was I didn't expect that to happen. So yeah, but anyway, that is. That's all the super tests we got right now, but we will continue to read them as they come up. Let's get to another caller here. We have uh, we've got again a lot of good god gosh, a lot of good ones on the line right
now. I want to get to Brett though. Let's talk to Brett from Missouri. Brett says the New Testament is a good guide for morality. Brett, you're live on Talk Heathen. What's up. Hello. I hope you're all doing well. I actually run a YouTube thing in a podcast myself and I thought you guys were interesting, so i'd call you up. I'm at Brett Keene on YouTube if you're curious. Okay, right, So what do you think? Why do you think the New Testament is a good guide to
morality? Let's start there. Well, there's aren't it's face surface by itself, it is actually a good guide. I've even heard many atheists states that the philosophy that Jesus taught was exceptional and one could actually live a pretty good life based upon it. But I've also compared the theology and the morality based upon other religions as well as atheism, and I've come to the conclusion that atheism is a subjective morality. It's basically whatever feels good, nihilistic, nothing
really has any meaning and value. It's only what's acceptable in society or whatever nature evolved us to be kind of concept. Well, as you know, nature isn't very kind. There's a lot of things such as pedophilia, killing, destruction, and nature and society. We've got you guys were just talking
about the death penalty, right. One of the big reasons why Christians argue over it is because our system is broken, it's messed up, so we don't know if we should go along with the system that says it's okay to kill people when they can't even get their cases right or people are treated fairly in the process. You get what I'm saying. Yes, And also Jesus is a victim of the death penalty, so I would think that most Christians would be against it, but you know, obviously they don't all agree on
that. So yes, And Brett, before we continue, though, everything you've said so far is about atheism. I haven't heard anything about the New Testament. And also you've described atheists morality as nihilism, and I don't know if you've actually done and I'm sorry correct me if I'm wrong, Brett, But have you actually read the literature on secular philosophy, because there are many philosophers that have to be a very I actually used to be a very very
popular social media former atheist until I came over to Christianity. I've only been doing Christianity and theism for about five six years, but Okay, the majority of my life doing the Aaron Rahm, Matt Della Hunty amazing Anus kind of thing. That's great, Sorry about that, Remember, I appreciate that.
But I'm I'm asking about because there's different forms of secular morality, right, right, Like if you look at Camu, if you look at Sarch, if you look at a Nietzsche. I mean, all of these are just twentieth century examples obviously go to fill out the majority of secular moral systems, right, But like there's more than one kind of secular morality. And is it subjective? Well, it's not based on a universal moral principle all the
time. Yeah, But like you know, to just come to the collision say that it's all just nihilism, that's a red flag for me, right, you understand, right, Well, wasn't Nietzsche a nihilist? He basically said, you know, even though he believed that God did not exist, even stated God's dead, he said, we have to have something to fill the void. In his writings, he said, if we don't have some kind of moral foundation, then there's going to be it's going to be a
cataclysm. Society can't hold itself. That's why a lot of our leaders say that if you don't have God in those objective concepts to go along with, then it's it's how do you make laws? Like that? Who's going to make the laws if it's just our human subjective behavior, animalistic instincts and ideas. Okay, so again we're talking about something if you're talking about what Nietzsche wrote in Thus spoke Zara Thrusta, which he's talking about the deconstruction of Christianity
as the main social and moral function of society. He does say that there has to be something that comes afterwards, right, He's using Zara thrust is a is a is a. You know, it's sort of the profit that he uses to sort of represent this. And he says, there's this coming of age where there's going to be you know, people who are looking for something outside of of Christianity in order to fulfill that. And he has a
lot of various ideas about what that might be. But like when you say he's for nihilism, I mean again, it's like, well, he's describing like one potential system, a system that he thinks is going to be you know, useful across all of of well, not useful necessarily, I mean for usefulness. He's talking about the ubermentioned stuff's where he's writing about that, but like nihilism, he's this is a descriptive part of his more systems.
Okay, so that's that's kind of the nuance I want to make here, because he's not saying this is a good thing and that this is like what we should all be following. He's saying that this is going to be the result of it if we don't develop you know, sex their forms of morality, which other writers like later do, which again it's like this is a very complicated issue. There's like a lot of thought that's gone into this.
So I just have to do with the New Testament either. I've also yeah, it doesn't really have much to do it, like like, okay, we can talk about the problems of secular morality all day, right, Absolutely, that doesn't mean the New Testament is suddenly right the greatest and best of all the morality systems out right, right exactly. Those are two totally different
conversations to be had. Well, I was when we started the conversation, if you'll remember, I said, compared to the atheist position and other views that I've researched and studied. I believe that the New Testament has a more efficient moral system than what is set up. And I don't just say that based upon obviously disbelief and faith. I based it on stats and what we've seen historically. Anytime that seen where non believers were given power or political push,
it always ended the entire civilizations being enslaved or killed. Gun control where weapons were removed than people were left, like setting ducts in a barrel, so it never turned out good. God, I don't think that's the case though. You know, America was one of the largest slave owning organizations like in the world for a long time, right, obviously, and we were.
It's not like we are less Like it's not like we're more Christian now, right, there are more people like statistically who identify not saying population wise, but but but per person, like not per person, Sorry, I'm the opposite of per person. If you divide up the population of slave owning Americans and all Americans, there's like we're more Christians than there are now. So, like, I don't understand why you're saying it's the more it used.
The word efficient is interesting, Like why on earth would we follow Christianity when it seems to lead to just as many problems as any other system, Like, I don't see how it's the best one. And the New Testament, and yeah, the New Testament talks a lot about taking slaves in a way that it supports it so absolutely it never and there is not a single line in the Bible that says slavery is wrong, right, or that human ownership shouldn't happen. They literally give you instructions on how to do it.
Yeah, no, there's not there. Not In the Old Testament it says that if you kidnap people, then you'll be you'll get the capital punishment. You're not allowed to take a person as possession. The entire book of Exodus talks about a man who is sent by God to free over four hundred thousand
slaves. And as far as that doesn't mean that the institution of slavery is inherently bad, that happened because it was the occupation of Jewish people, and by the way, which didn't happen, right, that narrative is false. But also if you look at Leviticus, which is what Sydney is referencing, that outlines the actual rules that you have to follow if you're going to own a slave, right, which again it doesn't say don't own a slave.
It says, this is what you do when you own a slave. These are the preferred ways in which you should own a slave, because you should. Apparently. Okay, so you know, you guys are making some good points, but as far as the New Testament goes, you guys would have to agree on this that if you're doing on to others you want to be done under yourself, and you're loving people, and you're loving your neighbor and
loving your enemy, you would not enslave them. That's unless the Bible gives you permission to enslave them, which does Again, the slaves are not considered your neighbor in the Bible. That's not who they're talking about. They're talking about peop who are your equals. They definitely had slaves that did not have the same rights and freedoms as everybody else. When they say love thy neighbors, they're talking about non slaves. They're talking about people who are equal in
your community. I do not think that counts for slaves. Yes, in the Epistles, Paul does not write slave owners free your slaves. He says, slaves obey your masters. Okay, Jesus, Like if we're just saying, oh, do unto others as you should do under yourself is the best form of morality. Okay, that's one thing. Oh, we could talk about that, But that's different from just saying the New Testament is consistent in that idea, because it's definitely not not No, it is definitely not.
Well, let's take history for example. You mentioned slavery in the United States of America. Now, if we really dwelled into this, how did people get freed from slavery? Anyway? It was the Christian community, the Christian citizens who actually fought. You can't find me one single apist who actually fought against us. You can't find a Christian that supported slavery. Is that what? We Christians who actually stopped slavery? We also Christians who owned slaves.
Like you understand that it was like, definitely okay by most Christians for a long time. Yes, the American South very Christian very pro slavery like that as a whole, those things go hand in hand. You do realize that there was a lot of Christians who were hung alongside blacks for actually you do realize there were Christians that were doing the hangings, like you really are doing a chicken and egg thing here, Okay, here's the chicken. It's the
Christian society, the Christian institutions that allowed it. We didn't even allow women to vote until the nineteen hundreds, Okay. And that's also because of Christians, by the way. And it's because it was secular forms of morality, humanism that was influencing this stuff more than anything. Right, Puanism did not only exist in society, but more as humanism began to develop, as secular forms of justice began to become widespread across the world, that's when we actually
saw the social changes. It's not because people got to their senses and realized, oh well, Christianity actually says this. I'm sure some of them justified their anti slavery practices through Christianity. In fact, I know that for effect
because I've actually read about this subject. But if you also read about this subject, you will see document after document after document that outlines church sermons, that outlines people's public opinions at the time that said, yes, absolutely, the owning of people is absolutely okayed by Christianity and they had no doubts about that, at least some of them. Definitely, we're okay with this, especially depending on the Again, Okay, so historically Christians are actually the ones
who broke the slavery and that's the reason why people are free today. But no, no, no, no, no, it was the Christians that went to fucking Africa or capitalists, but also Christians that went to fucking Africa and took those people over in the first place. Okay, this was a mostly Christian society that we're doing these things. Slavery was just as much of a legitimate practice in Christianity as anything else that the Bible prescribes, because there
are no admonitions against Christians against slavery in the Bible. There is absolutely zero, none, no supporting scripture that says you shouldn't other You have to go the back way around and say, oh, well, the Bible says we should treat others like we should treat ourselves right and that and and then you can get to that conclusion. But the actual institution of slavery is not prohibited in the Bible. In fact, it's actually supported. Phibit Brett. I'm
an atheist and I'm telling you it is wrong to own slaves. Brett did not watch the Cold Open, Brett, you were. I'm sorry, Brett. I don't know who you did on what you did on social media or
whatever. But like, if you're going to be an influencer, you have to know the literature, right, you have to know the fact from just like the common narrative that gets spouted off by apologists and stuff, because like I like this is this is absolutely ahistorical in your understanding, and also just I don't know, I'm kind of flabbergasted that you take this position on this. I don't think there's a way that you can seriously take this. Yes,
yes, because you're seeing many wrong things, Yestt. I want to make sure that our audience knows that they're wrong. You don't even have enough moral framework to listen to another person's side of you. First of all, Brett, I'm talking to you right now on the show. We're live on the air, Okay, I couldn't test hang up any time I want. We'll go ahead, Sydney see Buddy, Sydney talk now, because I have anywhere go ahead. I'm sorry, Frett, Brett, I have listened.
I know who you are. I've listened to hours of your content, hours of your content. I've listened to so much of your content that I recognize what kind of conversation we were about to go into because I remember you, and I've watched your content, and I've listened to you at nauseum. That's why I feel comfortable being like, ooh, this is not going to go well, because i know exactly who you are, and I've watched your content.
I've watched your content since back in like twenty thirteen. I know exactly who you were when you called. I have listened to you so often that I don't even have to hear what you're about to say in order to know what you're about to say. Right, So it's not like we don't want
to listen to you. It's that we have listened to you, and we know what a time crunch and a time suck this conversation's going to be, because I recognize that you're just going to disagree with us, even when you know for a fact you're mis citing history, even when you know for a fact you're misquoting the Bible. You know this. You and I both know
this about you. Brett. I remember you and I both know that you just like to continue to say the opposite even when you know for a fact that what you're saying is not true, because you like to hear yourself life on air and you like to get people railed up. But I remember you, Brett, So accuse me all you want of not letting you talk, but I have listened to you ad nauseum, and I know how this conversation's
gonna go. And it's fine because you're gonna leave here and you're still gonna assume you want and you're probably gonna make a video about how you won, and you know atheists won't let you talk or something like that, and that's fine. I hope it's monetized. But it's like, I know how this conversation is gonna go because I've listened to you. If that makes sense. Yeah, it's cowardly to mute people like that and just ramp right over them.
Do you have no moral framework and you've got no place to be able to tell us who's right or wrong? Brett. I'll tell you what's cowardly. It's not doing your fucking homework and telling us that you think you know what the fuck you're talking about because you are talking out of your ass right now. Seriously, why don't you go fuck yourself? Actually, what's hey? Do you want to? You ad do unto you and I'm telling you to do unto yourself. Go fuck yourself? You understand, all right?
We have conversations with all kinds of people on this show. You are not even the most divisive. You don't even come close. No, okay, you're really not worth you if you're gonna seriously come here and pretend like you can lecture us about morality when you haven't even read the fucking books, when you don't even understand our position and you choose to frame it in your own narrative anyway, I mean, and when you assume we don't know who you
are, Yeah, it's going to be an influencer. At least be expected for people to know who you are. You're a bad influencer if you assume you're a stranger at everything, I don't know who the fuck you are. But if you're an influencer, I feel sad for the folks that listen to you because you don't know what the fuck you're talking You just don't. You don't know what you're talking about. There are lots of people who have identified secular moral frameworks, and again, not all of them are create equal.
There are definitely some that work better than others. But there is a conversation there that you are missing out on, because everything I've heard so far is the exact same shit I've heard from Christian apologists who have also never actually read anything by any serious moral philosopher that has thought about this stuff, and just think that Christianity is the only game in town. It's not. It's not even close. So anyway, Uh, ridiculous conversation. But it always gets
ridiculous when we talk about slavery. I love that one. Oh it's the Christian it's the white man that say that ended slavery, Sydney. I want to know which he's going to use that he destroyed me. I want to know which one that's movie. Don't you know it's white people that helped end the institution of slavery? You know? Yeah, I don't know, it's it's it's that same kind of argument. Ridiculous. Uh, absolutely, honestly though, I'm going to say this, and I hope he's still listening.
Yeah, I feel a little bit like I talk to a celebrity. I do. I feel a little bit like I talked to a celebrity. I'm I'm happy for I feel a little bit like I talked to somebody who is like famous on reality TV in like two thousand and one. Yeah, yeah, maybe. So anyway, that that was, that was ridiculous. Sorry if I was dominating the conversation there citing you know, my moral frame.
No, no, no, you don't understand. My moral framework doesn't allow for other people to talk on a call in show, well, especially if they're women, especially especially if you're a woman. Yeah, no, definitely, your your opinion is definitely not on the same level as far for sure not. And so we got to like accommodate time accordingly, I think. Anyway, moving on from that fucking conversation, Oh boy, let's see, do I have any other stuff to talk about right now? Let's let's uh,
let's talk about our top five patrons. Actually it's about that time, and I think we should do that. We want to thank everybody that donates to the Talk Heathen Patreon. You guys are awesome, uh, and help support the show. So we're gonna read our top five patrons actually said, do you want to read? Yes, top five Patriots. I would like to know from you or the audience what voice you would like me to read the top five patrons? And ooh, ooh hmm, do you have a
good like Almo impression? I don't know if oh, I don't know if I can do Elmo. That's like the one I don't know if I can do. Okay, how about like like, who's somebody soft like mister Rogers or somebody Bob Ross proud of you? Let's see, Yeah, I'll read it like the way that Bob Ross would read it. Okay, the top five patrons and they're they're really great patrens. You're almost too soft? Can you speak? The top five patrons? And you know they're happy little patrons
and we're proud of them, and they're they're trying really hard. For example, one of my favorite patrons, although I don't have a most favorite because everybody's equal. Uh Dingleberry Jackson, it's great to have you. You're just a wonderful person. Oops, All Singularity, we we're so glad to have you here. You're you're loved by us all and I hope you're having a great day de voor Valgin. I hope I pronounced that right, But if I didn't, I hope you can forgive me, because you know, we're
just happy to have you here. Then we've got kelvettykel Vetti sounds like a font. I'm proud of you. I'm really proud of you. Left in the leaves. I hope you. I hope you enjoy it there in the leaves, because we're here for you whenever you're ready to come back. We never left you. We've been here with you the whole time. And then honorable mention six Brian zoop Key. Honorable mention six Brian Zupkey. I don't know if that's your whole name or if I was supposed to read you as
an honorable that's the honorable mention. Yep. Really happy to have you here. You're just You're really fantastic, and I hope you know that we're just we're here for you. Thank you, Thank you for that that lovely reading, Sydney. That was awesome. Uh yeah, And if you want to donate, you can do that at tiny dot, cc slash, Patreon th h and maybe if you get a top five you'll also get a lovely reading from Should Sydney should be sad Ross? Maybe? No, that doesn't really
work sid sid Ross. I don't know. Sid Ross sounds like a Grammy winner. Sid Ross doesn't like great. I kind of like sad Ross now that I like that. Yeah, sod Ross is a is a new one that I'm thinking to take home. Okay, Uh, let us continue. Man again, We've got some real good ones here, but we will take this next one. I think. Andrew from Florida, Uh, and oh man, Okay, this I may regret taking this, but it's already You're already on the line here, Andrew. Uh, this is coming from the
collscreen. You think that Jesus was the Martin Luther King Junior of his time? Uh, please elaborate on that, Andrew. Yeah, according to historical Jesus scholarship like from Yale and Harvard and these Ivy League institutions. Uh, Jesus, the historical Jesus was a progressive, non violent, resistant revolutionary. He wanted to liberate his people from an oppressive regime called Rome. And he he did show a lot of grace and mercy to the marginalized of his society,
like the prostitutes. You know, prostitution back then, it wasn't willful. It was out of desperation, and Jesus showed them a lot of grace and humility. And Jesus was an extreme humanist when it came to his own interpretation of the Jewish law. So Jesus's flaws, like he didn't denounce slavery. I think his flaws were because Jesus was a product of his time. But if you compare him to the product of his time, he was pretty
progressive. I'm willing to grant some things here. I think. Well, first of all, so the store with Jesus in the prostitute, it's it's Jesus and the adulter. So I think it's the prower term there. That's actually not that's that's a later addition to the uh to the gospels. Just fi for people's understanding that. Sorry, okay, oh no, that's fine if you're talking about like Mary Magdalene or whatever. I mean, Like, look, so was Jesus a non violent sort of revolutionary I actual, for
the most part, I agree with that. Besides, like the weird verse, I think was it John It's like I come not to bring peace, but the sword which is like really weird or maybe that's in Mark, I need to I need to update myself on that. But yeah, I think if you if you take the body of work that has come out of that
and you're trying to describe a historical Jesus, I think that's fair. I don't think you have to go so far to say that he's MLK because there's a lot of like non violent revolutionaries that were definitely fighting for like different things
in what Jesus was, particularly Martin Luther King Junior. But yeah, if we want to just say, like if we're trying to describe historical Jesus and say that he was, to use a modern label progressive for his time in a non violent sense, I mean I guess I'd be willing to meet you there. What do you think, Sydney, Yeah, I think if we're just making a comparison of like peaceful people who made an impact and then yeah, like that's that's not where I thought that was going. So yeah,
I thought that was going on not where I thought that was going. But yeah, no I'll grant that. Yeah, there you go, Andrew, what do you think? Yeah? Absolutely, you know, I'm glad we can find some common ground. I just all the supernatural stuff. You know, he was an ancient Jews, so he thought that a supernatural god would do it. I'm a dallast myself, but I think atheist should really appreciate the historical Jesus and ignore the one that Paul, you know, recreated,
and ignore the one that modern day Christians recreated. Yeah, oh, go ahead, said well, I was just gonna say, I mean so I I first of all, I app you said something that most people don't say, which is actually fantastic, which is Jesus's interpretation of Judaism, which is a big, big, big big thing because a lot of Christians don't recognize that's what it is. Jesus's interpretation of Judaism is what Christianity is. Because
Christians like to think of it as its own system, it's not. It's based off of Judaism, and it's specifically with the Gospel's account of what Jesus. This is interpretation of Judaism and the epistles of Paul. And he also mentioned an interesting thing that Paul's reconstruction of Jesus is not something that we should
all take into account. And I also agree with you on that Paul, As far as we know, I never actually met Jesus, so he's just saying whatever he thinks is right honestly a lot of times and interpreting that super imposing that onto Jesus. Unfortunately, the vast majority of Christians, for the vast majority of history, do take those epistles quite seriously, and so it's kind of hard to separate Christianity as we know it today as a separate thing
from what maybe the historical Jesus actually was. This idea of a secular understanding of a historical account of Jesus is quite new in history. Only start around that really right before the twentieth century, if I recalled right, we were talking about eighteen hundreds. Really, like, actually sussing this out was sort of a newer academic phenomenon than what's historically been, you know, an understanding
of Jesus accounts. So yeah, I think we're mostly in agreement here, Andrew, Yeah, yeah, So atheists, oh, you know, the historical Jesus and apology for all those insults. Uh, well hold on, you got to give the man credit. I think you got to give the
man credit. Well, here's the thing though, and I don't know about you, Dan, but I've always thought that if the if Jesus as a as a character, as a person were looked at from the perspective of say fables, of these are lessons we're trying to learn from the same way that Aesop's fables are, the same way that so many stories are supposed to teach a lesson. I think there's a lot of good that we can draw from
the way that Jesus. Not the overall Bible, but Jesus talked to people and spoke to people, and the things he said and the rules he said to follow, specifically Jesus. I don't want anybody to claim that I'm like pro the Bible, because I'm not. I think where most people disagree is whether or not he actually existed as a human being. I think some people think he really was on earth and he existed. Some people don't, But the actual actions and words and teachings of Jesus aren't. I don't know a
lot of atheists who are riled up about that part of the Bible. Yeah, I mean so. So there's a consensus among historical scholars that Jesus existed as a person. His personship is separate from that which is described when the epistles, obviously, but also the gospel accounts are not eyewitness accounts of Jesus, so they're also in a way reconstructions of Jesus. The truth is we
probably we don't really know a whole lot. But but Andrew is right in the conclusion that scholars make, which is that Jesus was a likely non violent revolutionary with a particular interpretation of Jesus. I mean, he's still a cult leader, Andrew. That's the thing. He's still a cult leader. I cannot I can't give him that right, and I apologize to him. Yeah, I'm not gonna say, oh, well, we should be thankful for him, because no, he said he I mean, well, actually the
set okay. But before I get too much into the nuance, there's also a difference in what scholarship actually thinks. I get it. There's there's also a very much different account of what Jesus actually said versus his divinity as well. There's a lot of debate as to whether he actually said he was the son of God, because that's not actually found in all the gospels. Weirdly enough, you think it's there, it's not. It's really mostly in John. So it's like, yeah, okay, his divinity is also in question
whether he's actually the son of God. But point is, I think he if he was a religious leader and he had a different interpretation of Judaism, it still comes with the baggage of everything else, right, Like, I don't know, there's there's something to be said there about like, oh, we should give credit to the guy that kinda sorta got it right but also ended up you know, screwing us over in other ways too. It's it's hard for me to give credit to a cult leader again. But you know,
I guess you had some good points, you know. Anyway, that's a lot of thoughts. I don't know. Yeah, go ahead, Jesus. Uh, Jesus denied when somebody like his own divinity and luke ken he's a good teacher. One once said, do it inherit eternal life, and Jesus said, why do you call me good? There's only one good but God. So right right there, you can just show Christian's look he was he didn't think of himself as God. No, I agree with you.
Yeah, but that's why there's a debate as to his divinity and that's why you don't see a lot of that language until John. So yeah, there's we're we're in agreement there, Andrew, but we we've said a lot here. I just want to make sure we're on the same page mostly me. Yeah, okay, cool, all right. Would you have any interest in calling in in the future, maybe next week, to tell us a little bit about Taoism and your beliefs? Uh? Sure, Yeah, we'd love
to hear back from you at the time. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. I'm a dallist open to just as a humanist construct soul why pro Christianity, just the positive elements. Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'd love to have you call in next week or something like that to tell us a little bit more about it. Yeah. I get you, Andrew, I get you. You want to make sure that we're giving credit where credit's due.
Right, Here's the thing. It's hard for us to do that because we have to give very very very specific and nuance credits okay when those things are appropriate, and it is very hard to do that without people just taking a clip from us and saying, oh see, even Jesus, they think Jesus is all right, you know, it's it's it is an uphill battle for us if we give any ounce of you know, credit, which is why
you have it's like pulling teeth from us. Okay, we really don't like to say it all the time, but like we can, we can give that within the appropriate context, which I think this conversation allows. It's just it's it's not always easy to do that. But Andrew, we are going to go ahead and let you go because we do have some other folks that want to talk to us. But that was a good conversation, Sidney, what'd you think of that? Me too. There is an after show discord
that you guys should check out before the end of the show. It's on the fan run discord server, so take a look at for that. But we have some more folks. Uh, We got like two more callers. I want to see if you can get to both or if not, at least one of them. And this next one is someone who's been on the line for a while now, so I want to get to them. This is Sam calling in from Canada. Sam is an ex Muslim and wanted to talk to us about some of his experiences. Sam your live on Talk Heathen
what's up, Hey, guys, thanks for taking my call. Yeah, it's just I've been listening to ACA shows for many years, so I've heard all types of topics discussed, but i don't know if I've really heard this one, which is, you know, basically, as a Muslim kid growing up from a non Arabic speaking country tree, you will have Quran classes the same way that you know Christians will have Sunday school usually on a Saturday, you know, either be at the monscu, you go to some kid's house,
and you would have these classes where they teach you how to they teach you Arabic, but they don't actually teach you how to speak Arabic. So you learn the alphabet and how to sound things out and what it means when the letters are put together and with accents above and below them, but they never actually tell you what it means. And so the whole purpose of it is just to get you to read the Quran, because the whole yeah,
the whole goal of being a Muslim is is to read the Koran. So once you actually read it, it doesn't matter if you understand what you're reading. So every week you kind of sound out different sections of it until you get to the end and there's like a little bit of a celebration. As a kid, but I always thought, well, you know, I didn't register as a kid, but as an adult, it's a bit sinister that I spent years learning essentially Arabic, but I can't speak arab and either can
my parents. Neither could my grandparents, and you know, they had the same experience where they could sit there and read it sounded out, but nothing, It didn't mean anything to us. Yeah, that is very interesting. Interesting. I feel like Christianity and Hebrew does that too, where they'll teach you names or certain words, but they don't teach you enough to actually go back and read it in Hebrew and figure out if it's the same as what
you've been told your whole life. Very interesting. Yeah, I imagine it's I can't speak to speak to that. But I also have Jewish friends and told me they had the same experience with Hebrew. So the reason why you don't see that in Christianity is because Jesus likely spoke Aramaic, and there is no Aramaic Gospels, right, so the original Gospels written in coin Greek, and so later the Catholic Church famously right, sort of adopts Latin as it's
kind of official language. But of course Jesus wasn't speaking Latin either. That was just sort of you know, the canon way to read things. So
there's no like real origin language that most of us have to stary. I mean, like if you do New Testament studies, they're going to talk about Greek, and then they're going to obviously talk about Hebrew as well, but like there isn't as much of an emphasis because as you know, you know, in Islam, the prophet spoke and wrote these things or his followers wrote things in Arabic, and so that is that like the official Holy language,
which is you know, just not a Christian phenomenon, at least for most of us. Yeah, well, I mean, you get zero credit for reading the Koran in any other language, like if you read it, if you're an English speaking person and you read it in English, you don't get
any credit for that. It's only if you read it in Arabic, regardless of whether you understand it, which is funny because like allegedly the prophet Muhammad is does can't write in Arabic either, like he was like famously illiterate, right, So yeah, I mean that's actually one of the one of the proudest facts for a lot of Muslims, is that, right, that's part
of the miracle. So we got to do all the work and he doesn't do You think that's why so many people who are Muslim are okay with the idea that they can't necessarily like they're not fluent in Arabic because you know, oh well he wasn't either, So yeah, possibly, possibly, I mean personally I think that like, at best it's just negligence, but more likely it's that they don't want us to know what these words mean, because if we actually read them, then it's it's not things that people want to hear.
It's kind of terrible stuff. And you know, you're at red the Karna English that I you know, really detached myself from the religion, the irony, I think, I think the well, the intentions too fold one. A lot of the original uh uh texts in Islam were from oral traditions, right, and so obviously those are traditions were Arabic. So in order to keep that cohesive, you have to keep in the same language, because when you translate stuff, you lose meaning, right, So I think there's
an idea of keeping purity there in some sense. But the irony is if you don't actually speak Arabic, it's it doesn't actually you don't retain the meaning because you don't understand the context either, right, because you don't speak Arabic. So it's kind of a uh, you know, accorded with two sides there. It doesn't really work out for anybody. But yeah, yeah, exactly. As kids, we would we would read the verses together and then
we would have a teacher that would paraphrase what we read. So it's this version, but he wouldn't say this is what each word meant that you just read. Interesting. Yeah, that is really funny. Yeah, obviously, I wish we could talk more about kids. Go ahead, Sam, Sorry, I was just saying to imagine if you sent your kid for seven or eight years to language classes and at the end of it you couldn't speak the
language yea in Spanish. Yeah, one day I stop the BiblioTech And I only know that line as much as I do because the community was just a fun show. But yeah, no, I I understand the frustration there that that sucks that you can't even speak the language, and the ones you do is the like the kind of language you don't even want to speak anyway.
Well, Sam, do you have kids you plan on teaching? If you had kids, would you teach your kids or I guess you can't even teach you because you don't even know the arapic well enough to to do that. Huh No, exactly. Yeah, No, I don't have kids, but I do have a niece and I'm I do my best to make sure that she's not any of this stuff, or at least given that on the other side of things. Yeah, yeah, yeah, maybe maybe not not teach at all, but like with with like a lot of context, right,
I think that's probably the best way to do it. Yeah, totally. Sam. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and let you to go because I want to get to at least one of the call here before the end. But thank you for sharing your experience, and uh props props to Sam for waiting on the line for as long he was, like on for like an hour. We just had some of the calls when I get to but that's
what happens sometimes, folks. You always want to stay on because we still might get to you towards the end there, and we got another five minutes or so, So I want to get to another caller. Let's get to Ash. Who's calling in from Illinois. Ash, you're live on Talk Heathen. What's going on? Oh right, where's it going? Good? Good? Good? Good? What do you want to talk to us about? Well, I'll move to your channel. I got a shout out from the
Easiest experience. I was on their life channel there and they shout, you guys outside, figure, I give you guys a listing. Hell yeah, but I wanted to talk about what you guys think about life after death. I was pretty much an atheist for all my life. My mom was Protestant, my dad's Jewish, and they gave me the opportunity to just look at all the religions and I figured out I was not a fan of any of
it. And I was pretty content with my beliefs up until my friend died, and after that I was a little bit lost on what to believe because I don't believe in heaven, I don't believe in a hell. I don't believe in ghosts, I don't believe in spirits. But a part of me still shouts out to the air like as if she's there, and I want to believe she's there. And you know, there's a part of me feeling like energy, like in my belief, energy cannot be created or destroyed.
Energy runs through us, runs in the neurons on her brain. Maybe some delusional thought of me believes a part of her is there somewhere in this world, you know, whether she's recycled into it or not. And I don't know what what's the the atheists belief on it? Like, have you guys run into this situation before? Dan? Do you mind if I answer absolutely? Okay. So I'm gonna give you my thoughts. Personally, I cannot speak for all atheists, and they're gonna sound at first, they're gonna sound
sad, but stick with me. I like these thoughts in yours. Why so, I personally do not believe that there is any life after death. I think that it is lights out. I think that it is over flipping a switch. However, I'm actually a big fan of that idea. And let me explain. I never understood true nothingness, like true blackness, true peace until after I had once been put under anesthesia. Have you ever been
put under anesthesia. Oh yeah, it's weird. You don't even dream, you just exactly you're just lights out that they're counting down from whatever number they said, Like in my experience it was one hundred, I said ninety nine, and then I woke up three and a half hours later. So a lot of people think that when atheists say there's nothing after death, they go, oh, so you think it's just a black void. No, I don't even think that. Oh so you think you're just wandering around for nothingness.
A lot of people simply cannot process the idea of nothing because and beings have never once experienced nothing in our lifetime unless you've been put under like that. And then you're like, oh, I get it. I didn't feel anything. I wasn't lonely, it wasn't sad, I didn't have any reflective
thoughts whatsoever. Now that being said, I think that memories and I think the things those people leave behind can still bring us peace and bring us joy, and bring us the exact energy they would want were they still alive. I do believe that you feel your friend, you still maybe hear her, you still maybe see things that remind you of her. And I do think that those things should give those of us who are alive peace. For example, my dad died a week after my first birthday, so I never really
knew him very well. But he was an artist and he left art behind, and he let he was a writer, and he left writing behind. And there's pictures and people are still here to tell me exactly what I do that's just like him. Apparently there's a pose I do when I'm thinking that's
just like him. And so while I do not think that he is here with us anymore, and I don't think that I'm going to heaven and I'm going to see him again, I still get immense peace by being told all the things that I do that are like him, all the interests I have that he was interested in, And there's no way I would have known that.
It's not like I'm just trying to copy and be like him. And so, while I don't think your friend, in my personal opinion, I don't speak for all atheists, while I don't think your friend is there anymore to what you know her to have been, I do think that you should embrace those feelings and those thoughts and those opportunities to still maybe talk to her or if it makes you feel better to surmise what she might have thought about
certain things that she didn't get to live to see. And I do think that your friend would want you to find peace and those things and would want you to know that you can still do those things even if she's not here with us. If that makes sense, that's very well. I'm all in back tears right now. That that's very well said. I I guess I gotta practice that because it was. It was hard for me because you know, that's originally what I believe is when you're out, you're out, there's
nothing. And then after that, it was in my head that it was just like I hope that there is something, like I wanted there to be home. I hoped for hope. But it's just right, it's it's hard to replace that. But like you said, you know, having them live on through memory and having her memory live on through my heart, you know, that's where I be at because yeah, yeah, like I said,
I was so confused because I don't believe in ghosts. I don't believe in spirits, but right, but also think of it this way, her presence is at You can also think of it this way she's also not suffering. She's also not somewhere hurting. She's also not lost and alone. It is simply there is she ceases to be outside of what she left behind for you. She's still here through her thoughts, her memories, her pictures, her
videos, if she did you know, crafts, things like that. She's still here on Earth, but she's not anywhere existing in a less than favorable way that a lot of religions want you to believe. Yeah, you know, And I think that's the pull too with a lot of religions that I was, you know, looking at, especially with not necessarily religion, but monism or monism is you know, that the belief of how our energy or consciousness or something like that still continues to exist on this planet in a way.
And I was almost leaning towards that, and I'm still debated with you
know, I don't believe in phenomenon. I address everything with reason and logic, and it only goes so far before there are more questions than answers, you know, right right, absolutely, Yeah, Yeah, I don't know if I have talking to me, of course, of course, I don't know if that I have much more to say that would add on to what Sidney I think surmised wonderfully just that you know, as those of us who are deconstructed Christians, this is often a belief that either doesn't get touched in
some ways or is just kind of redone in a way that makes us feel the best. And while it's important to be honest with ourselves about what we think is true about reality and what's not true about reality, I also think it's okay to believe that if this person's life is meaningful to you in such a way that there's a belief that works for you better, that it is okay. Like not everything has to be reductivist or reductionist in some sort of
way. While there's a lot of debate about afterlife and how people are and whether physicalism or materialism is all there is or et cetera, this is what makes us human on some level, Like we're losing that every day with a but if we're going to have some semblance of like human identity, it is this. It is the idea that there is some sort of dare I say, divine spark within us that makes us different from the rocks and the plants
and everything else in that person, the way we are. Yeah, exactly, So I say, this is one of those moments where I'm okay, it's just saying leave your truth. You know. This is something I say about everything, but this is one of those things. Anyway, as, was there anything else you wanted to talk to us about before we let you go? No? No, not for the moment. But I think I'll definitely become a subscriber and I'll call if I have anymore. Yeah, thanks
for calling in. You appreciate it. Yes, thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate have a good you too, You too. And we're getting towards the tail end of the show here. That was a great call to in this. I like to think that if I were to pass that people who knew me, especially people like you, Dan, I feel like you would know what I thought was bullshit and what I'd enjoy from here
on out. I feel like you'd be able to look at something and say, oh, my goodnessit he would hate this, or Ah City would love this, or something like that. Yeah, I could. I could. I could pontificate for fucking hours about this ship. I don't know. We don't have time to go into my full thoughts, but uh, yeah, I would definitely say. Oh yeah, Crystal Energies City would love that. That's her favorite thing in the world. She loves talking about it. She
loves talking about that stuff. She read my favorite black licorice, licorice probably devout Christian. Yes, yeah, yeah, so I'll have an accurate picture of you for sure. But anyway, jokes aside real quick, like, we have a super chat from blind limey is a member for six months, gave five dollars that said Maverick encapsulated how we can still be influenced by those we've lost quote talk to me goose, which, uh that's a top Gun reference. I'm pretty sure. Thank you Brian Lovey for Top Gun. I've
never actually seen the original top Okay, so I haven't either. I know the characters names, and that's why I recognize that. Pretty I didn't see the new one either, but I should talk about that. Oh we have a few more too than I actually have two more. Yeah, yeah, we have two more. We got one from Miranda Rensberger, who is member for one month, gave five dollars and said Sydney's Bob Ross is such a relief after that call. That's true, I really liked yours. I feel
like we all just needed a moment to be thankful and peaceful. Yeah, yeah, I really enjoyed that. I think it says there might be another one. I see one right here, read the other one. Yes, please? So mc beard gave five dollars, Thank you so much, mc beard, And they said, I think Howard was trying to make a point that each generation contains the subsequent generation as an ilk received attempt to disprove evolution. Yes, yes, I do think I took his comment a little literally
when he was talking about eggs. I think I was thinking he was asking if like his grandma's eggs like ended up in his sister or something like that. But it took a little bit, but I think we got there. Yeah, okay, yeah that was from a way earlier. I should we should have read that earlier. That's my bad. But yeah, no, there is like like like generative AI like proves that this is wrong, Like you try to make new generations of a based on the onlyin and they're not
exactly the same when you do these like training methods. I don't know if we if that happens in such as relatively simple CYPSTMS compared to like how fucking DNA works, Like you don't think that there's going to be iterations between each generation as far as like gene genes that change versus don't. I guess some people have an idea that your exact DNA is just change is passed on every time. I just I really think, I really think that men should take
a class on women's reproductive systems. Really think it would be a good thing. The thoughts and opinions I've heard on how Ovary's work concerned me greatly, and I just think it's a good thing to read up on. Christian or not, he did start with the eggs thing and that that threw us off. It did think it did. But anyway, man, I've I've man, it's been a minute since I've hosted talk to you than I've really enjoyed
today's show today, really really good. You should come to the after show on the Discord's Clash a CD Discord if you want to talk to some folks on there. And so you want to hear my back history with Brett I. You know, I said I was gonna have time. It's been a minute. I'm gonna come on for just a little bit. I do ask some stuff I gotta do today, but you know, I'll be on there to Sydney will be on there, so it's not recorded, uh for show
purposes or anything. So feel free just jump on just hang out with us for a little bit, because I think we'll both be there. The prompt for this week is why are people really leaving the church? And so replying the comments in tune in at the beginning of next week's episode. Do you hear the top three answers on that? Please be serious? Only serious, serious inquiries own, Please no jokes allowed? Just kidding. No, I
don't. I don't want to like there's I think that's there's there's good criticism there. No, that was a great critics. No, that was a great critique. It's a good critique. I think. I don't want to dismiss it. No, no, not at all. But no, only serious. But also I'm going to make jokes because that's al Yeah, we're just maybe we're just not serious people. You know me, I am a very serious person. You're No, You're the most serious person. That's why
I got fired from the Second City. Just kidding. I never got fired. I still work there. I'm on their faculty page. But it's a terrible picture. Please don't look at it. Oh my god. Yeah. Uh. Anyway, Cindy, you want to do some love rings? Yes? Do you want to do them this time? Do you know how? Do you know how to? Can't? I don't know how to do them? So you start by stomping your feet, okay, and then clap your
hands a little bit. They say, oooga, chaga, No, just kidding, I just you just do a little bit of this motion right here? Ready? One, two, three, love rings? Love rings going out to everybody watching at home, haters and lovers. You're all welcome here, baby, yeah, so we appreciate it, and thank you to the folks that called in today as well. Calling in is a thing to do that it gives us the content. So you know, if you want to see different kinds of calls, come and call in and change the show that
you want to see it. But we had some really good ones today, So thank you to everybody being here and folks in the live chat. Thank you, guys, and thanks to Yesman Meadow Flower member for two years who just donated two pounds literally as we speak, and they said God is dead and I am not into necrophilia, Sunshine. That's a that's glad you're not into necrophilia. I'm glad you're not in necrophilia too. Okay, let's could be I'm a cease love rings casts a cease cease and decis there we go?
Okay, got it all right? Cool? Thank you, Thank you crew for assistance in the lovering ritual. And last but not least, Sydney, we should close this out by saying, if you do believe, we don't hate you, We're just not convinced. Thanks everybody, We'll see you next week. 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 two, or connect to the show online at tiny dot CC slash call tw
