We are face today with quite a few theocrats who think that we should all be following their god. I had a conversation recently with someone I'm very close to about how they think if we based all laws on the Ten Commandments that we would have a peaceful and just society. So some pretty basic questions about that. One should I be legally required to honor my mother and father? What if my mother and father don't honor their mother
and father? Should I be bound to not be covetous of my friend's perfect children, or their instagrammable life, or their neat and tidy house. How would the government even know about that anyway? And when it comes to putting other gods before theirs, is that something that I should be legally kept from doing. I have a lot of questions about this. If you feel like I'm being facetious, or if you feel like no, it totally makes sense to base laws on these ancient moral codes, completely stripped
of context, then give us a call. Because the show is starting now.
Yes, yes, wonderful intro. We are here. The music has played. I am in the mindset to get the show on the road. This is talky than Welcome everyone today is January twelfth, twenty twenty five. I am your host, Jimmy Junr. Joining me today is the wonderful and brilliant Sophia Spina. How the heck are you, Sophia?
Waking up? I'm waking up. As we were talking before the show, I'm still in the you know, almost five months old, so maybe not quite as newborn and newborn, but we're still figuring out sleeping and all that stuff. So I'm here. I feel less brilliant than normal, but we're getting there.
Well, you're in the thick of it, for sure. You are in the thick of it, five month old baby. I don't know how you can be feeling less brilliant. You know, we did a show a few weeks ago and you are absolutely on fire and that was a lot of fun. You me, Dan, We had a good time.
Yeah. Did you know that when you're pregnant your brain actually shrinks, like physically shrinks.
I didn't.
Yeah, I don't know that. I knew that. My wife might have mentioned that, but she talks a lot about pregnancy brain. Uh, and actually how women lose like I guess your hormones and uh, they tend you. They tend to make women lose certain I guess muscle memory when it comes to you know, how you think and you know.
And then it grows back, yes, right, So you know, it's a whole it's a whole interesting thing to be to be doing this as my brain is actively changing. It's amazing though.
Well, I'm super thrilled to be working with you again, folks. This is talking than a product of the Atheist Community of Austin. We are a five oh one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular use excuse me, secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government. And we are a live call in show. We have open lines right now, so get your call at five one two nine four two or from your computer at tiny dot cc forward slash call THH. And
you know, today it's the top of the show. So I just want to throw this out there for all of our listeners. We have a super Chat challenge, and I really like what has been going on with the Superchat challenges. You know, a few weeks ago Ben and Christy did the drawing challenge, and so I'm gonna reignite that. Actually, you know, I just signed up for new oil and acrylic painting classes. I'm taking like a three month course over the next well couple few months, and so I'm like,
I'm ready to reinvigorate the artist inside of me. And so I'm going to be drawing for all you folks. You give us a super chat five dollars at least, and tell us in the superchat what you want me to draw. I will incorporate that into the drawing. And I'm going to rally very hard. I can't make any promises to make it a T shirt, so I want everybody to give me their best and I will come up with a talk heathen piece of merch unique to today,
January twelfth, which you can be a part of. Before we start doing that, let's get into this week's Question of the Week segment and presenting this segment today is our wonderful backup host, Kelly Laughlin Kelly oh.
Way, sir, all right. Last week we asked for you to complete the sentence. It wouldn't surprise me if the atheists started blank. And here are our top three answers. Number three from Shay the Crowcheer, It wouldn't surprise me. Brendan Fraser or doing the Sign of the Cross to a real saint, Keanu Reeves. Now I'm going to agree with the Benden Fraser park. I'm not so sure that I agree that Keanu Reeves is a saint. But am I missing something there?
Why is Brendan Fraser America's sweetheart?
Because he doesn't love Brendan Fraser exactly And I'm like, he's amazing, whether it was George of the Jungle or Blast from the Past. Also, I remember watching that as a kid and being like, look at that gentleman. It was a non toxic rom com.
That's Sino Man and Sino Man can't forget and Sino Man that one.
But I believe you he was a.
Cave man that was dug up in some kids, some high school kids back yard. It was awesome, So okay, great. Didn't he just win an oscar like a year ago.
For the whale? I think, which maybe I don't as wholeheartedly endorse. I know there's some depictions of sadness. People are a little you know, iffy ab out in there, but he still seems very sweet. Sure, he bought some kid off a freeway once, like he just gave him all the cash he had, and the kid out a box with the chihuahua and bought the Chiuaha. That's cool.
Yeah, that's totally cool. I always get him mixed up with uh oh geese.
Now I can't think of his name. He was in Glory. I have no idea, but it seems like you're mixing everybody up.
You got her Crawford, Is that right?
I don't know.
I don't know, but let's move on.
Yeah.
Well, because I'm just making myself look stupid, so I don't want to do that.
He thinks about Reeves by the way, I just want to say that, all right.
Number two from X million, no surprise atheists are going to petition the government to get Satan in the Pledge of Allegiance. Well, that would be awesome. I would love to see that.
Now. I think that's more likely than number three. I feel like an actual fight could take place like this. This is this could be reality. Satan's people petitioning to get Satan in there.
I just think it would be fun, that's all. I don't.
You know. Obviously, I don't believe in Satan, but I think it would be fun to have them inside the Pledge.
Of allegiance. So and our number one answer from the amazing, incredible Chuck Gatos. It wouldn't surprise me if atheists started saying Hellelujah when their team scores, so the church police will think they're agreeing with the sermon instead of blacking football on their phones. Yeah, is perfect. That's great.
So that reminds me of church as a kid. Like when we got home TV went on, football came on right, it was like because we're on the East coast, and it was like, you got to get home by one o'clock. One o'clock is when the game starts, so you could the game.
Yeah.
Like, man, if if if my father had any your piece with a with a you know, a radio, he definitely would have smuggled it into church, that's for sure.
Oh yeah, definitely definitely my dad would have done the same thing. But our prompt for next week is sin is to God as what is to what? Sophia, what do you.
Think I would say? Sin is to God as Kuten is to my friend him. I don't know, that's all because I'm just kind of like it's sort of this obsession with it. There's so many things with it, you know that are in it, but you can't have it and it's bad, and so it's it's sort of a fraught relationship really more than like antie. You know, it's repellent but also attractive.
Jimmy, you got an answer for us?
Yeah, I do. Sin is to God as child abuse is to clergy members. So you know, they they they probably act like it's not good, but they just do it anyway. If you've ever read the Bible, God is the biggest sinner out of all the characters there. So, uh, yeah, that's what I came up with.
Does you're bringing fire to this? I was just like, yeah, you know, gluten versus fucking child abuse.
Man.
Wow, sorry, never miss an opportunity to call out the hypocrisy, That's what I say.
Yeah, yeah, totally, totally, totally.
Well.
I hope, I hope we come up with some good answers, don't don't forget. Put them in the comments below, not in the chat on the side, And next week we will read out the top three answers from this week, and hopefully one of them will be yours. And I want to thank Jimmy and Sophia for letting me come on and do this for the show. Thanks for doing it.
You're amazing and we love you.
Yeah, and I thank you so much. We love you too.
So all right, cool well, thank you Kelly for leading us through the question of the week. And with that, you know, we have a show to do. What we're doing the show anyway, But first before we move forward, we got to go to the crew camp. We got to acknowledge all the people that make the show possible besides Kelly, and so let's bring up our wonderful, wonderful crew and some animals. I was gonna call it, we got a cat. That's awesome. Look at everybody. Hell yeah, man,
we had a party going on. Jonathan nice hat man, man of style killing it all right, all right, cool well, thank you to the crew. You know, Sophia, we have got a voicemail this week. I want to kick the show off with a very odd voicemail that I don't know where this person is coming from. I don't know how to feel about it, but I'm gonna ask the crew to go ahead and run that.
Ready.
Hey, so I know you're going through a lot, but you're a really bad liar and you kind of sucked like my mom. But I love my mom and just stop paying a stubborn idiot bye.
What So apparently, you know, this caller is saying, I know you're going through a lot, but you're a really bad liar. I don't know who he's talking to talk to me? Yeah, I don't know. I mean I did. I did a promo this week, and I felt like I was pretty like I don't know, even keel I wasn't yelling at the camera this time. But why why does his mom suck?
I mean, that's sort of mean to his mom. I mean, maybe his mom does suck, like it's possible some parents do. But yeah, that was an interesting moment to just throw her under the bus. And also a bad liar is does his mom lie to him? Does he feel you were lying to him? Or whoever he was speaking to. There's a lot going on there. Like the vibe I get is that somebody just like gained the gumption to just be like, I'm gonna call and say a thing and then immediately lost what they were going for.
You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, I would have really enjoyed some context too, because I want to know what we're bad liars about. What is it that we get accused of a lot of things in like the show comments and stuff right, whether it's Facebook or YouTube or Instagram TikTok. You know, people are constantly calling us or making accusations towards us, like not only that we're lying, but like we're mad at God or you know, we
just want to send you know, the common things. But I'd really like to know from some of these people, like what is the actual beef? What is the actual beef? And so yeah, man, I have to pause right there. Super chat from Nero just asked hotly, smokes, did that get put in? All right? I'm reading this. Nero asked, can we get a drawing of Jesus with donkey features? I have to make a note because I can't. I don't know if I could do this right now. Jesus with donkey features?
All right?
So I don't know what that person's going for, ears and snout and tail. Okay, cool, thank you, because I was hoping we weren't moving to what was it the Ezekiel reference where it's so God, Yeah.
They don't don't drag Jesus is junk.
No, I don't want to drive Jesus is junk? All right? Hey, Nero challenge accepted. All right, ears snout tail. We're going to get to that later. Cool.
I appreciate that they're not taking it easy on you here. That's a complex drawing.
And I feel like I asked, you know, give me a thing to draw, and I got ear snout tail. So I mean you we'll see, we'll see.
I mean it's it's when you say a thing that could be a lot of stuff. Oh, we have one from Kelly who is trolling us, also a little bit.
Thank you.
I love it. I can read that out.
Also read it, read it. I saw it dry puppy.
That's also a vampire.
All right, I'm doing this to myself. Thank you, Kelly. Uh So, anyway, I will try and get those going in just a little while here. But we've got some you know on that note, you know, people saying that they like on that voicemail. Back to the voicemail, like hey, no, you're going through a lot. Are a bad lawyer or a bad liar? You suck like my mom. We've got some comments on some of our some of our videos right that go back to the relationships between people in
the household. So, for example, on our optional content here, are screenshots which I don't necessarily have to get to, but I want to bring these up just because of that person's weird, weird voicemail. We're gonna go to number five, and Sophia, this will be a good thing for us to have a conversation about for a minute, because I know that we've talked about this. You know, I was
talking about let's see, I was talking. I was criticizing parents for kicking their kids out of the house, for being gay right, and that we don't have to just stop it gay right. But that person said there are atheists that will disown their children that profess to be Christian. I'm going to push back on that a little bit. I don't know, nor have I ever heard a single thing about an atheist kicking out a child. For me,
I've never met one. Not saying they don't exist, right, but it is far more, far more common in my human experience to see a Christian family turn on people who don't subscribe, who no longer subscribe to their beliefs anymore. Right, It's so common, and it's awful. You cannot do that to your parents, to your children. I don't know, Sophia, go ahead, no.
First of all, I agree that that is definitely, in my experience, something i've seen more. I think that with atheists there are so there are not as many of us, and so just by virtue of that, like, hey, if seventy percent of the population were suddenly atheists, would probably start seeing a lot more really bad atheist behavior. Just by virtue of the fact that there's going to be more people who ascribe to the label, more people will suck.
There's a proportional suckedness. I suppose that would happen. And so I think with that caveat the idea of kicking someone out because they're Christian. I think that's the part that might be the most different. An atheist's parent could suck,
and an atheist's parent might kick out a child. I would never ever co find that, But kicking them out because of a difference in religious belief I think is less likely, because so often it's this fear of contamination that the somehow non Christian child or the gay child is going to somehow contaminate or cause the rest of the house to sin, or by accepting them your sinning. Those ideas don't really work in an atheist context. You know they're not going to contaminate you to sin because
we don't believe in sin. You know, that idea of I have to get this person away from me because they're bearing something unholy that is simply incoherent from an atheist context. So the idea that we would just abandon a child or kick them out for the disagreement, I think is less likely. Also, even if this were true, it doesn't mean anything about the truths of these two propositions. Christianity is not more true or less true because people
kick their children out of it. It's just that it's a shitty thing that people will do and use their faith to justify their horrifying parenting. Atheism would not be somehow debunked if it turns out that some atheist parents are also really shitty people and really shitty parents. So yeah, it's a thing, and it's I think. What we see also, though, is that the more religious a state is, the higher
its youth homelessness rates are. So we see Utah with incredibly high youth homelessness rates because if you're queer, it's more likely that you are kicked out because there's a lot of very strict, high control religion in that state. So I think we actually can kind of look at it and be like, it is more likely in this context. Also doesn't Really, it's not an argument against atheism or for Christianity, even if it were to happen in the other direction.
Yeah, you know, I think it's so counter productive for an atheist to kick out their child for exploring religion or subscribing to a religion. Actually, I think that you know, largely in an atheist household or among the atheist community, we encourage free thought, we encourage research, and we would want our children to be reading up on these things, right, We would want our children to be looking at the things that we disagree with, because we want them to
find out for themselves. Don't just listen to me. That's I mean, that's how you get a religion anyway, right, by not doing the investigation. I mean, that's how that's how we've ended up with thousands of years of people subscribing to dogmas just because somebody else read that dogma for them and didn't give them an opportunity to question it.
Yeah. Well, and here, you know, it's interesting because the number one way to let me think of hout to her phrase is the best way to get someone to fall for an idea is to never expose them to it, right. And so when I think about the fact that if I have never heard a flat earth argument, I might be unfamiliar with the arguments that are made, and they might sound really reasonable if I have never been exposed to them or never heard them before, I think there's
a bit of almost idea inoculation that's possible. So if I never expose my child to Christian thinking and someone comes along and we're to present like, here's why Christianity is true, it can sound really reasonable. So I actively want my child to be exposed to many different schools of thought, many different religions, partially because if there are so many salesmen of these religions out there, someone will
attempt to expose them to these ideologies. It's like how you tell your kids about multi level marketing schemes because somebody is going to try to recruit them, you know, and you kind of want them to be at least aware of the facts of how this really works. And so yeah, I would actually say that that far be it from from trying to keep them from learning about these things. I actively believe in exposing children to as
many different ways of thinking and being as possible. I think in Texas, with some of the curriculum that has been passed that brings religion into the classroom in a way that presents it as though it is true, I think that's going to backfire real hard because I think that there are going to be some parents who think this is great, They're going to send their kindergartener to school, and then there's going to be children from non Christian homes who are going to say, well, I don't believe that.
And I think that's going to be really frightening because if you are religious and you're trying to keep your child believing exactly what you believe, you don't want to expose them to that idea.
You know, it's not a quick process, but the questioning of these kinds of beliefs has been taking place for centuries. You know, ever since the Catholic Church schismed and Protestantism was born. It never slowed down. In fact, it's been
speeding up right. Protestantism turned into multiple religions, and those multiple religions turned into multiple cults, and it keeps spreading and now we're at forty five thousand different denominations of Christianity, and you know, you just can't avoid having to answer for the things that you are professing, for the things that you subscribe to. And when you can answer for those things, you lose the credibility and legitimacy. And the funny thing that happens to me is that it happens
in a very nascent stage among children. Right these same children who are challenging each other on the existence of Santa Claus are also the ones taking lessons on religion, and you know, just kind of innocently exchanging ideas and forced being forced to face the realities that they live with. You know, I've got a little Muslim friend and I really like them, but you know, people have problems with that kind of idea, and so you have to you have to investigate it anyway.
Sorry, yeah, no, no, that's good. If you're in a more act, like a very act of religious home that believes you can save people by just having them say magic words, you can sort of lead to some children traumatizing each other. I do know someone who was a friend at the time who when she was seven, I closed wouldn't let someone out of a closet at our house until they accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior.
And I'm like, I would bet that that kid that was locked in the closet until they accepted Jesus Christ by this other kid had some serious backlash against religion someday, because that's a kind of traumatizing experience. And so it's almost like the harder it's pushed on little people, the more horrifying that really is, and the more likely they're going to be to question it or leave it later on, you know, speaking.
Of parent child relationships when it comes to religion. We actually have a caller on the line who wants to talk about their relationship with their father, and so we're going to go to d in Iowa. D you are on the line with Jimmy and Sophia. What is going on in the great state of Iowa.
It is colder than you know what out here? Hey Jimmy, Hey Sophia, Hey.
Ry So what is up d you? You know, Sophia and I are here talking about family dynamics and you chimed in at the perfect time. So what's going on?
So I did not grow up in a religious household, you know, like fundamentalist type religion. My mom did make me do things. I go to Sunday School, go to you know, vacation Bible school in the summertime. She she kind of wavered between sometimes going to the Methodist church and sometimes going to the Baptist Church and sometimes not going to church. So U and dad was an agnostic, and uh, you know, when when I came out in the early nineties, I knew that his objection to my
sexuality was not based on religion. So I didn't have to go through that trauma, thank goodness. And I ended up being, you know, much more religious than they did. I took all of those little lessons in Sunday School and that to heart. At seven years old, I was trying to convert my playmates, you know, during recess, and very serious about it. And when I got out of the Air Force, I really threw myself into Bible study.
And I remember my folks ran a boarding house in this small town we had when the railroad was still operating. The railroad workers would come in and stay overnight. They would rent rooms there and one of the borders there was a good family friend that was going to seminary. He wanted to be a Catholic priest, and I asked him one day to pray for my father because at that point I was getting very fundamentalist and I was
worried about his soul. And I got in. He went and told my dad that I had asked for him to pray for him, and mom and Dad got extremely upset with me. And yeah, it was like kind of a reverse of what so many people you know, go through, getting uh, you know, getting family against them for not being religious. And this was and it just made me more determined to learn more and become more godly and
closer to Jesus and things throughout my life. So the I consider myself lucky in some ways, and my heart really goes out to people who are, you know, the that the religion is used against them so ferociously and so yeah, so that's my story.
Yeah, so I can identify with some parts of that personally, and that my mother was Church of Christ and my father was. He wouldn't like the term lapsed Catholic, but functionally it was very Catholic. If you talked about it, but didn't tend to go to Mass very often. You'd watch it on TV a lot, but neither of them really went to church as often, and yet they were
very approving when we would go to church. So my sister and I kind of almost self radicalized in a way, and we would consistently go to church because it was sort of this feeling that that's the right thing to do, and my parents would pay lip service to that, and I think did believe it. It's just they didn't realize how
seriously maybe we were taking that. You know, if you take your kid to Sunday school or send them to church or vacation Bible school or all the manner of free Christian childcare, there are there are a lot of those. I think sometimes it'll feel like, oh, well, that's generally good, like I grew up going to it, and they won't realize how we're being told you're going to go to hell if you do not follow these rules and pray this prayer. And you know, some of the church I
was in get literally baptized. And so we're going to take that very seriously and try to convert people in our lives because we're young and we love our parents, so don't we want them to be you know, safe and saved and not go to hell. Don't we want to see them later on. So it comes from this very earnest place. And it's interesting to me when folks maybe religion didn't have that impact on them when they were growing up and kind of going through the motions
of going to Sunday school, but it really can. And for me it was sort of similar. I it was almost to some degree my teenage rebellion to be just so perfectly virtuous. You know, I didn't swear, I didn't drink. I didn't do any of those things that people almost see as like teenager rebellion because I looked at my parents and I was like, you're not godly enough. I can make you feel like shit by being perfect in
my Christianity. Now that's a very twisted thought, but that is how I sort of my teenage rebellion was being perfect and was also like religion was used both as this thing that I had was measuring myself against and that I knew there was like power in and performing, if that makes sense. And there was that layer of I really thought everyone was going to go to Hell, and I couldn't figure out if my dad was actually going to go to hell or not because he was Catholic.
That was always its own question, like does he have to be Protestant? I know that's its own thing. But yeah, I think that children take these things seriously and they love the people around them very much. So I can see why your parents were sort of offended, like, you know, what is she doing asking people to pray for me? But at the same time, I totally get where you're coming from, where you're trying to save them in the way you have been told how.
Right, Yeah, from the people at the church where my mother was sending me. So you know, it was I know, I remember having pictures of Jesus in the house and in my bedroom when I was little. I know that Mom put those pictures up there, so it was like he was always there, you know, watching over me. And I got really, you know, I got it was like central Nebraska and a very tiny town, so it wasn't
fundamentalist there. There were really no fundamentalists. I didn't get into that until I moved into a bigger city and found Assemblies of God and the non denominational and that, you know, that concern for my dad never left me until after he was gone, and I started really backing away from spiritual thinking and beliefs. Excuse me, sorry about that.
So did you did you ever come out sexually in church?
Not in church? I was already by the time I came out, I had sworn off organized Christianity. But I did come out to a couple of friends. They had basically been strong mentors and best friends for me in the church during the time when I was completely submerged in the Assembly of God. I lived with Christians, I worked with Christians, I worshiped with Christians. I had, you know,
the leisure time with christ to everything. So I did because they would eventually they would every once in a while get in touch with me after I moved away and got married to my best friend and had turned to paganism, and they would call me and just to get in touch see how I was doing. And they would, you know, they would always tell me, you, oh, you've got to come back to the church. You got to start reading your Bible again, you got to do this,
do that. I had never said anything to them, really until I just got tired of the calls and and that, and I decided it was time to be honest with them. And they would either accept it or not, and I sent them along email explaining, Hey, you remember Julie, I married her, I am the pagan, I love my life, I'm doing great. I just felt that you needed to know. And the only response was we'll pray for you, and I never heard from them again.
Oh well, you know, it really sounded to me like you were starting to tell us that you actually got support from some of your Christian friends. So I'm disappointed to hear that in the end they gave you the old i'll pray for you thing. You know, A big, a big criticism that many atheists have about people who claim to be so morally superior religious people, you know, let's let's put it bluntly, is that they're so quick
to turn their back on others. And you know, unfortunately, it sounds like you had to go through that experience, and I'm so sorry that you did. But you were able to take your best friend with you and and marry her, so I think that's great. But yeah, it's always baffled me how you can be so pious and profess to be so morally superior because you have a ligned yourself with the most powerful and the most loving God,
the creator of the universe. And also you can turn your back on your own children and on your neighbors, which directly conflicts with the point of view of your savior, who tells you to love your neighbors. You can hate people that don't look like you or think like you, you can hate immigrants, and you can spread hate in general. It is such such a hypocritical platform to take, and you know, I'm just so sorry that you had to deal with that, you know, if you don't mind, I'm
really intrigued by your story. You know, what is what is Julie up to these days? How are you guys doing And how long has it been since you guys were able to kind of escape the clutches of your Christianity and and marry get married.
Well, that is another whole story in itself, Jimmy, Okay.
Well, don't feel I don't feel like you have to share something you don't want to. But I love a feel good story, and I think even just the one that you've told us shows that there's some hope out there for people that are struggling with their true identity and what they're being told they have to be, which is, you know, such a travesty, because nobody should have to tell us what we are. They should help us figure out who we are.
I haven't try to put it away.
Yeah go ahead, Oh no, you go ahead.
I'll remember my point.
Well, what I was going to say is is try to put away the fear. You know, people out there. You are so much stronger than.
Even you know right now.
And yeah it's hard, and you might have your heart broken, but the feeling of being free is so worth it.
I love that. I feel like I want that on like a button or T shirt or something, or just a daily affirmation. Absolutely, that's wonderful. I you know, thinking about the idea of like telling someone you know who who you are, who you're supposed to be. You know, I feel like parenting is maybe a big theme today, and at least, you know, for me, I started off being like, I'm tired because I'm parenting a small person.
But I remember being around I was like a teenager talking to other teenagers about I was still very much a Christian at this point. It was just some idea that a more conservative contingent I was around at the time didn't necessarily agree with. And one of the adults who was kind of around this group because you're always monitored when you're a Christian youth. It was just turned to the other parents and said, don't worry, you can
reprogram them later. And there was so many different emotions in there for me, one being that it was clear they thought I was somehow being bad or contamina eating people with my ideas or with whatever I was saying, and no one was going to it wasn't bad enough they were going to necessarily say that I was wrong, But apparently it was bad enough that they didn't want their children acting like me. And that was how I
found out. Was sort of just someone saying, oh, don't worry, like you can just exert your control over your own children later, and then the inherent troubling implication they think children can and should be programmed, and that exposing them to ideas is dangerous and you need to take them back home and rewire them so they can do all of the right things. Again. I thought that was really disturbing, even at the time and I was still a Christian.
And also it was really hurtful because I was like, these many of these people are the ones who supposedly love me. I was part of their church, and yet I'm still being thrown out there is like it's just too different, it's just too dangerous, it's somehow too wrong. Yeah, and you mentioned that, you know, you might get your heart broken. There's a thousand little ways you get your heart broken when you're part of the church by being told you're not good enough.
Yeah, thank you so much for being willing to call. Yeah, and uh and share such an intimate part of your life. Did you have something else you wanted to say?
No, that's really all. I'm glad that I got to talk to you guys. Thanks so much for taking what call. And you guys have a great risk to you Sunday.
Yeah.
I always love when you call. Thank you so much. You know. That was Uh, that was such a you know, the thing that I really like about about these call was that, you know, she didn't just stop short of kind of giving us our experience, but she or her experience. Uh. But I had a message they did? I say, she, I'm sorry. I did so well in saying they in the beginning, and then I said, she forgive me d but we corrected.
Yeah.
Yeah, they you know, had a message for people, which I think is really important, you know, take take that experience to kind of turn it into something that you can help make other people's lives better. And so I thought that was really important.
Personally, really appreciate older atheists as well. I think that you know, and I sort of mentioned this before, you all can't see Kelly, but we do because he's a backup post, and he was just doing his like we well, winning macho victory arms or something is adorable.
Yeah.
I just I think that in the church, I always had this like hope and desire for Sorry, I was just invaded by a dog and a toddler anyway, So if you hear stuff in the background, that's them. This desire that I would have mentorship in love by these older people in the church. And it had me constantly seeking approval and like sort of questing for it. Man, so much approval seeking, you know, in the church. And
I think that's a very common experience. So to have people who are atheist elders, I suppose that I feel like of appreciate me for who I am or what I already am, and I don't have to be different for them to care about me. That is a sort of healing experience for me, and so I hope that it's productive and helpful for you know, d you to speak to us, and that they enjoy it too. But I get a lot from that as well.
You know, I witnessed this a lot in family situations particularly. I have family members that never, they don't really get together a whole lot, but when they do, I see family members that are never outwardly Christian or outwardly religious all starting to be religious around each other. It's like this group think tribalist type of identity that they're sharing with each other to kind of create this commonality and to uphold this bond, which I'm sure plays into why
religion is so effective, that sense of community. But you know, people in my family who were raised Catholic, who don't even go to church, are all all of a sudden around other Catholic family members and it's, oh, you know, they're they're they're joking and like saying things before dinner, and I'm like, you don't ever do this ever, never, right, you haven't been to church in years, but anyway, uh So, yeah, that that approval seeking is really it's really profound, and
it's it's a way that the church thrives, you know, it guilts you into being an outsider, and so you're kind of born with that right and raised with that.
I also feel like, at least amongst the religious folks that I was around, there was sort of this there's pressure to live up. You're seeking approval, but you're also scared to directly ask anyone a question. So I'll know, like, you haven't been a jurdge in years, but no one's going to say, hey, when's the last time you went to church, or do you actually believe in Noah's flood literally happening, Like, no one's going to really have those
conversations because they're scared of that conversation too. So it's entirely performative. There's no substance to it. It's just just about like, hey, I'm going to show you I know all the moves, and so you will think that I have all the thoughts too, like all the beliefs as well.
Yeah, yeah, that's such a good point. And you know a lot of if you and so I study ancient religions kind of on my own. I'm not an expert, but if you look at the most ancient religions, it's all about ritual. It's all about ritual. The thing that makes the God being worshiped almost come to life is the food preparation, the singing, right, the dancing, the brewing of beer.
The.
Acts that that bring this god into fruition. And it's it's not the God that's ever really coming into fruition, it's the people doing the things that make it seem real, right, they buy into it. And again it's that community factor.
And I always found that so fascinating. People always ask, or not always ask, but scholars on the subject will say, well, the Near East religions have a whole lot in common as far as X, Y and Z, And it's like funny, those societies were all in contact with each other, the people with the same religious aspects, they all have the same trade routes, right, they all exchange the same ideas. And I think that's what we see largely. It's what
we see largely. So yeah, I really feel like and to your points off you, nobody's going to talk about that. Nobody wants to peel that onion back and figure out how did we get here? Right, They just want to reemphasize the fact that this is where we are, and this is who we are, and shame on you if you don't subscribe. And that D's point is where she's
coming from. And I think to the criticism, criticisms that we have had about religious parents and overly religious families, critical families, that is the groundwork behind it.
We've invented this cultural taboo. We're not supposed to talk about religion, politics, and people's income, right and with all of those, uh, with every taboo there there are is going to sound almost paranoid. There are I think power structures that are kept in place by us not asking whoo there's microphone, by us not asking each other about it, by us not exploring it with each other. We're trying
to deepen our understanding and our knowledge. We're not supposed to ask about religion because if we actually had critical conversations more regularly, then I doubt as many people would believe what they do. You know, we're not supposed to talk about politics because you know, it might be contentious and we just have to remain pleasant at all costs, and so it's considered impolite, when in reality, that's the
only way we're going to really solve anything. We're not supposed to talk about income because you know, we shouldn't be asking for more if we find out that our friend is getting paid more for the same thing, you know, the power. It just feels like we're reinforcing power structure,
power structures through politeness, which is which is troubling. And I think that's maybe a huge part of people's problem with atheists in general, is that if you are an atheist, you said you are an atheist, You're out there talking about this, and you are exposing the fact that not everyone believes this, not every good person believes this, not
every smart person believes this. And if you're a good, smart, moral, or virtuous person and you're an atheist, it inherently questions quite a bit that I think would not benefit the church and would not benefit those who seek to control others through spirituality. So it's you know, the jokes about like how do you know someone's an atheists, Like they'll
tell you ha ha ha. It's like, yeah, because I'm going to talk about the fact that you are trying to manipulate people by believing in an powerful being that somehow you alone can interpret, Yeah, and ahead of tell you that.
Hence this idea that that's perpetrated. I don't know if that's the right word. Heads this idea that has taken hold that atheists are evil, that atheists are bad. Right, if you get your kids to think that early enough, they'll never engage with you, and they will never learn the things that you learn right or or take the take the steps that you have taken to become informed
and become knowledgeable. And so, uh yeah, I think that it's it's kind of a cheap shot to just say, well, the people that are not like us, they're evil, they're bad, they're sinners. Well, you know, engage with somebody. Give us a call, right and see if we're actually as bad as you think we are. And by the way, folks, we do have open lines our phone number five one two nine nine nine two four to two. Please give
us a call, get your call in. Don't forget about the superchat challenge today, because I actually have a really good picture going. I'm actually pretty proud of it. But so what we're doing is if we get ten super chats of five dollars each, we will draw the things that you tell us to draw in that superchat, and
we'll read your superchat. So so far, we've got five out of ten superchats, but some of those superchats were more than five dollars, so we've actually got the equivalent of like nine five dollars super chats.
So, uh, yeah, we've got what do I didn't even realize that.
Yeah, so we have a few more. I'm gonna read right now. So right now, it looks like I have a drawing going of a donkey Jesus and a vampire puppy and Miranda Rensburger. Remember for one year we love Miranda has said, make Donkey Jesus fight the vampire puppy. Hey, I got you, I got you, Miranda. We're gonna we're gonna have a fight between donkey Jesus. Excuse me, Yeah, Donkey Jesus and vampire puppy. Some kind of Vicky, a good friend of ours, sends five dollars, says have the
vampire puppy expressing a sense of angst. The puppy is anxious. I can tell you that. I can tell you that, Uh, the puppy is sweating. The puppy is fighting, and the puppy is sweating. And I've got a great picture here that I can't wait to show people if we get the super chats. Finally, Philip Mitchell member for one year, sends us twenty dollars, Thank you so much. Philip, Donkey, Jesus and Vampire Puppy are super Scian or sayings they
are doing the fusion power. I think that's what like a dragon ball Z reference or something.
I don't know. I'm just like, I'm not a dragon ball Z expert, although I suppose in this moment it's when they're like doing their big power up to like, I don't.
Know how to incorporate that, but I'm gonna look it up. For now, I've got a fight.
Th conclusion lines.
You know, Oh I can do that. I can do that. That'll be good. So yeah, folks, I appreciate you all participating in our super chat challenge. You know, we've got, like I said, if this goes well, I'm going to try and get everybody to make a T shirt out of it. I may even redraw it so that's a little bit neater, but I think you'll all be happy with the product I've got so far. And speaking of merch, get your talk Heathen Merch at tiny dot c c forward slash Merch ACA, and man, you know, actually that
white sweatshirt looks pretty dope. I think I need to get one of those. I've got a T shirt, I've got a couple other things, a mug, but I need to get myself a white T shirt that is that is fresh, to use an old term from the nineties for which I come And so yeah, while you're getting your merch, you're going to be getting that at the ACA website. And we do have a website where we want you to know what is going on, be informed
of what's happening in your community. Head to www dot Atheist Hyphencommunity dot org and you can learn about our organization, it's policies and how you can get involved and tell us what you like about our show. As well. You can email us at TV at Atheist Typhencommunity dot org and let us know your feedback on our show. Or you can leave a voicemail and just like the person that left up a voice left us a voicemail bashing his mom, why, I don't know, you should probably put
that out with mom. Don't do that. But you can leave us a voicemail as well. Maybe we'll even feature you on one of our shows with that, Sophia, I'm going to jump to another call.
Sounds weird.
Well, actually the calls coming up, the calls coming up looks like he's in the screening room. I don't know, crew, Am I good to take this call? I'm not sure if well, no.
Maybe we could do a quick I feel like there are some of the comments people have had, some of the screenshots that are specifically about you know, we've been talking a lot about family, talking a lot about like parenting. Do you want to hit some of those? Because we're both parents, and so I'm curious you want to do you guys.
Do you have the Why don't you tell the crew which number you want? I did want online already. We can go jump towards one of yours.
Okay, let's do number nine. Sweet oh that's when I'm smoking the bear. I love it. So the comment says, I support spanking children as a form of discipline, and frankly, it has nothing to do with any religion. So I actually I'm gonna do something a little unorthodox and say, in tandem with that, could we also put up number twelve real quick because it addresses the same question, and
so we can kind of compare these same day. Apparently people were really upset by me talking about this, but they said spare the rod, spoil the child allegory, so, which is just they're just like, yes, there's that, so let's I think it's really interesting that one comment says it has nothing to do with the religion, and the other one pulls up Bible verse to support the spanking of children, or that does support the spanking of children,
or is often used to do so. So that's an interesting contrast to me because it almost feels like the comments are arguing with each other, like you know, from the same standpoint that they don't necessarily like that I'm saying it encourages the hitting of children, but they're sort of disproving each other, which I find kind of interesting.
The other thing I would say is that if we look at the current who advocates for spanking, who advocates for harsh discipline, actually, in our culture, it does tend to be people who are more religious, particularly in the United States, who are Christians. Are you familiar with the Pearls, Jimmy.
The Pearls, Yes, I don't think so.
Very sick and twisted Christian fundamentalist child rearing expert couple and they talk quite a bit about even the specific rods you can choose. They are part of the group that will get a big blue stick from the craft store so you can hit your kid with it and it won't leave marks, so you know you won't be called CPS, won't be called on you if you do that, because you need to break their will. There are big advocates of blanket training. Do you know what blanket training is.
Jimmy, Uh, not quite nice from your day.
By telling you about all this stuff. So blanket training is when you take a one year old, So it usually starts about one year old, so before children can really understand cause and effect in a discipline way, and you put them on a blanket and then you have toys and other things to lure them off the blanket, but you tell them not to leave the blanket and you hit them if they do. And so what you're doing is teaching them to obey you beyond their own desires.
It doesn't matter what you It doesn't matter the fact that I'm actively trying to lure you out with toys that I know you like, I'm going to hit you if you go for them. All these things teach is that your parent is not safe. Is that this is a person who's going to try to trick you into disobedience and then punish you for that same disobedience. Does that sound like someone we know, perhaps someone from an
ancient book that some people worship. It's really disgusting. And so when I'm thinking about the people who are advocates for this kind of parenting, they're pretty universally religious. I may not be entirely correct, write in let me know, are there atheist parenting experts who advocate for this kind of abuse that teaches a child not to trust themselves and to assume that their parents are always looking out to find them doing something wrong. Because that's really what
this is. It's because they think they're going to somehow make an ungodly child if they let that child have an opinion or an idea, or pursue things they love on their own, and maybe by their rules they will be. But what you do end up getting in this instance is a child who is yeah and yeah, they talk about breaking their will, they're breaking their spirit. You know, it's disgusting, but that is soonamental is parenting.
Now, this idea that it has nothing to do with any religion is just so false, and it's actually a fundamental part of religions, especially if you look in the Bible and it tells you how to discipline your children or that you can take really harsh practices against them. You know, where do people think that humanity, that our societies that exist today get their information. It's over hundreds, maybe thousands of years of repetition, repetition from practices that
nobody ever questioned. It's just what you did. I mean, does anybody ever ask themselves? Why is it then that when we meet with family for holidays we have a big meal? Why? Why why do we do that? What if? It is a link all the way back to the most ancient religions and where everybody was taking the time
to prepare food. The communities were getting together to prepare food to attract the gods to their temples or out of their temples, right, I mean, food was such a big part of religious practice, and religion was the organizing factor of society. That fast forward many many generations and it's just now how we operate and disciplining children is
no different. You know, religions that treat you to be harsh and teach respect and hey, in line with the Ten Commandments and the intro that you gave Sophia, honor
thy mother and father. That's exactly what we're seeing, right, And it doesn't leave any room for questioning whether or not you should honor your parents if they're horrible people, right, and there are many horrible parents, just like you've explained, And a lot of this behavior is rooted in religion, and that's why it's so important to dive into where the stuff comes from and question how we behave and why and what we believe and why and get to
the bottom of it so we can make positive changes.
So yeah, about children's rights. So I could go on all days.
I know, I know you could. I know you could. I think we all could. I know that our our, our lovely, our wonderful beloved backup post, Kelly is cringing behind the scenes right now because he's got such uh you know, just such a He's had a tough story of his own, which maybe we could talk about in the in the after show. Uh, considering this show is so has so much to do with family, family values, if you will today, but without further ado, I want to bring up our next caller. Okay, we have Omar
calling from Texas. Omar, the subject says, atheist views on trans and lbt plus issues. Okay, I mean, I don't know if there's a such thing as an atheist view on lgbt Q plus. I think that, you know, atheists are just people that don't accept the God beliefs that they're presented with. Thus far, a lot of atheists, in my experience, are free thinkers. They value human rights and
therefore supportive of the lgbt Q plus community. On that note, though, Omar, please feel free and and ask your question.
Hey, I Sophia, it's Omar calling live from the Free Thought Library in the atheist community of Austin.
In Austin, I wondered if this was this is the Omar I know? Hello, Omar, Hello, Hello.
Yeah, I just figured I would call and didn't put it maybe the clearest way I could. But yeah, I have noticed there has been a lot of I guess atheists, Uh, you know, we'd become atheist and then a certain group just like try to rationalize like hatred for trans people or trans issues or not accepting trans people as well as other maybe not scientific beliefs, and I just kind of wonder, like, how did that happen? I wanted to
get you guys' thoughts on that kind of stuff. The one that was particularly on my mind is just like being so anti LGBT in terms of trans issues, or not even accepting that trans people are real people.
Clarify. Is it kind of like you're wondering why without religion, Like if somebody became atheist and they still are transphobic, is that the question?
Well?
Sometimes I feel like people they don't have an opinion on it, but they just go in on that. They kind of accept it almost uncritically. So yeah, well what do you all think of that?
I mean, I feel like I think that leaving religion doesn't mean you leave bigotry, right, Like, I think that there are still ways in which I've definitely seen atheists, particularly when it comes to trans issues, feel like they can make some sort of biological argument, and really it's that they still have these like transphobic ideas and they just haven't really dealt with them. I mean, I think it's interesting because there is, as Jimmy said, there's no
like atheist view of sexuality. Right. Atheists have a lot of different opinions on pretty much everything. The only thing that we can all say is that we do not believe that there is a God. I personally look at it and think about, you know, as an atheist, I've had to work so much harder than I did when I was religious to be rigorous about like what do I actually believe is moral? What do I believe is right?
And so I started re examining my own beliefs about because I was pretty bigoted as a Christian, Like, I'm going to put that out there, and I'm sure that you know, there are still ways in which I'm you know, anyone who says that they're just like the most open minded and they have no bigotries whatsoever, they're just not examining themselves and trying to root it out. It's kind of my belief there's still ways I can improve. I'm
one hundred percent sure about that. But I started looking at you know, is the stuff that I was saying wrong? Is it wrong? What was I basing that on? What was I you know, what was I actually what was I responding to? And now that I've left religion, if I continue to believe that somehow it's wrong to be gay, or wrong to be trans, or the trans people don't really exist, or like their experiences that are legitimate. What
am I basing that on. I have so much more freedom now that I have left religion to look at it and be like, these are people who are finding that they are happiest living a particular way. This is who they are. I don't have some magical supreme authority to say that they're not. And why would I want them to suffer so that they can fit into an imagined binary that I only believed because I was told
I should when I was a religious person. Like that starts to feel very ridiculous for me personally after leaving religion. So I guess while I would say all that almost like sort of rambling to say, I think that even though there isn't like here, here is the atheist thought, I look at it and I'm like, I can see how my thought process changed when I left religion because I started to just challenge myself to be like, not kind of such a little shit.
Yeah, And when it comes to these beliefs that we have when we are religious, I want to harken back to the point that Sophia made about the power structures. You know, when you're in religion, the bigotry toward people unlike yourselves is there in order to protect the power structure, because if you accept those people that are different from what you're being taught, then the entire power structure is
vulnerable to crumbling. You have to teach that homosexuals and transgender people are not what God intended in order for their intent to manifest itself in the minds of others who they're trying to draw their support and they're financing from. Once you go, once you turn your back on that, or once you change course, you'll lose your credibility as far as being the power structure that is saying these hateful and hurtful things, because then maybe people say, well,
what else are they wrong about? And maybe I don't even need to go there or give them money anymore, and then that kind of thing could be so ingrained. And you know, coming out of religion and still having a bigotry towards transgender and LGBTQ plus people is a lot like realizing I shouldn't say it's a lot like because still that hatred is so much and so far more destructive toward those people. But I want to liken it to the thing that a lot of people experience
when they come out of their religion. They still hold on to, like the belief in hell, for example, because it's so freaking scary. It's the thing that has probably kept them in their religion the most. And then they realize that they've got questions about their religion, and so they start moving away from their religion, and almost always the last thing to go is the belief in hell.
They could call themselves an atheist and still be afraid of Hell because they've spent a lifetime being so freight And if you spend a lifetime hating certain people, it might take some time. It might take some time to get over that hatred. On the other hand, though, for the people that do get over that, I would say that once you do start questioning that power structure, you realize the lack of validity that they have with the claims that they make, you realize, you know, these people
are just people, right. LGBTQ plus people are people having a human experience trying to find themselves, just like I'm trying to do, trying to leave this religion that has taught me so many things that I disagree with and that I'm not okay with, And when you step out of that, you open your eyes to the fact that we are all individuals you can't help but have that
same sympathy for the LGBTQ plus community. And I think that that is likely why so many atheists who also consider themselves free thinkers have such sympathy or have such empathy for those people. And so that's my thoughts. Those are my thoughts on that.
Omar, what say you Now, I agree with you on the I do. Just there's one thing I've noticed is a lot of people just kind of get into this idea of like trying to find a rational belief and oh, I've got out of religion, now I want to be rational, and they kind of are contrarians on a lot of things.
So they'll probably look into like, oh, let me look at these anti trans arguments or or maybe even go into other kind of conspiracies and then like rationalize, oh, well, I was smart enough to get out of religion, now now I'm smart enough to believe this stuff. And then they get into all this other hatred and bigotry, or at least that's what I have noticed, well, like, well it's right, yeah.
Omar, Omar, I want to I want to challenge on one thing. And don't get me wrong, glad that you made the switch, and glad that you progressed what i'll call progression out of religion and into the realm of free thinking. But just because somebody is religious does not mean that they're not smart, right, And so I want to make that I want to make that point there.
You know, you may you say you were smart enough or people are smart enough to get out of religion, but some people, you know, I look at religion as a form of survival. I look at it as an indoctrination. First of all, they are when people are helpless and young, usually they are told who they are and what they need to think, not how to think. And that is a disastrous way to let your your or have your brain,
your your thought processes form. So not only that, but then they risk throwing away all of their security, their sense of community. Their family may be, funding for college, may be a place to live, food on the table, a shelter over their head. If they are to challenge those views that they have been instilled with. And so while they may be smart. They also need to take action to ensure their own survivability, to ensure their own
comfort in life. There many people that call us from Muslim countries that say, you know, I'm not a believer, but there's nothing I can do. In our advice to them a lot of times is hey, look, don't do anything that's going to put you in danger, because in those countries, if you come out as an atheist, you could be stoned to death, you could be imprisoned, it could be hanged, and so we don't want to see that happen, right. We don't want to also, though, give
the impression that we think they're not smart. And I don't think that you mean that maliciously, but I think that that's a good opportunity to step in and say, you know, let's be a little bit sympathetic to people who don't have the luxuries that we have had or the awakenings that we've had.
I think I might want to throw out there. I don't know if that's exactly what Omar was meaning. Okay, connected for mang Omar, I think that at least how I interpreted that was sort of and I agree with everything you said there about like, I'm not smarter now than I was before when I was religious. You know, it was just I was exposed to a very different I would say, set of facts, but I was given, yeah,
a lot of sort of twisted information. But I think that there is a sort of I would call it, like a dude bro atheist who does leave religion and take the attitude that they are now smarter and so they're going to be contrarian about everything. And so I think about people who are secular and are maybe anti trans are arguing, for how to put it, they perceive cultural pressure whether they are correct or not to believe
a certain way. So they've just decided they're going to reject everything, so if they feel that they are supposed to be these are people who complain a lot about like political correctness. Right. It's a very terminally online kind of person, the online dude bro, the atheist dude bro. I guess, which I realize is gender language is just I feel like I've often run into folks who are men who kind of do this that. Well, I'm an atheist because I'm a smart freethinker. But I'm also a
smart freethinker, so I don't buy into the transagenda. Like, there are people who hold these two simultaneous beliefs who do exist in atheist spaces online, and it's unfortunate, And I would argue that those are people who are they're not actually taking in evidence about how like that trans people do in fact exist. They're not listening to people's experiences of what it's like to live as a transperson.
They're just kind of trying to do the It's similar to the Ben Shapiro facts are smarter than your feeling style. The facts are more important than your feeling style thing. I believe that it's a way for them to try to cover up any hurt, to never be vulnerable because they can just be the super smart dude in every situation and they don't have feelings, They just have logic kind of thing. So at least that's how I interpreted it.
But yeah, just to throw that out there, that that does exist, and I do see it, and I find it an interesting archetype as well.
Yeah, that was more what I was referring to, Sophia. I don't I think people have their own personal journeys on their reasons that they're still believers or they're not. But I do think there are some kind of people who just think take it as like, well, I figured this out, so I'm smarter than other people because I can figure out other things. That is kind of contrarian too. What the popular notion of what to believe.
Is, Yeah, I feel like there's I take that.
Down like not to like to like keep getting atheists who believe the earth is what.
Yeah, it's kind of this people who are more married to being contrarian than they are actually seeking what is most true, and they're these kneeture contrarian reactions are potentially obvious skating truth rather than actually helping them find it. It sort of goes with kind of what I feel like we say often is just that that not all atheists agree or say the same things, or believe the same things, and that in our community with the ACA, I feel very fortunate that you know, people have met
are affirming and wonderful. But I also feel like those are people who select to be part of a community together where they may be challenged, where they actually are going to have to think about what they're saying. And I think that yeah, when people have some of these like ideas of well atheists, you know, these atheists are jerks too, like they're they're out there and a lot of them can suck. But I think they're not pursuing like factuality. I don't think they're leaving religion because they
became convinced it was untrue. I think sometimes they're leaving it because they just want to be contrary and that makes them feel big, and so they'll be contrary about what they view as the transagenda, or they'll join the manisphere, you know, or be part of that space because that also makes them feel big. Yeah. I think that these are the atheists who sometimes will convert back to a religion and because it was never really like a well founded atheism to begin with.
Yeah, Omar, sorry about that. I thought what I was hearing from you was maybe a misspeak. Uh, not that you necessarily thought that, but that uh, you were kind of just highlighting that as a as a way to think about it and or or maybe something that comes from other people, and that that's a good opportunity to get in there and dispel these kind of rumors that that atheists quote unquote think like this right when we don't write I don't think, for example, that uh, you know,
religion is a mental littleness. I don't think that people are stupid because uh, they believe in religion. And so yeah, Omar not necessarily directed toward you, but I really appreciate you bringing that up.
Thank you all for technical Thank you.
Do I know Omar? You said you know Omar?
Do you might have met Omar? I don't know, Okay, yeah, full disclosure Christmas. He's a good friend. Oh good was he on the I'm like, that's not one of our thanks but yeah, so.
Do you know if he went to the back cruise, I feel like I did beat him.
I don't know, he probably did, but I was. I was about to give for giving birth on the back cruise this year, So.
Well, we'll see you this year. Hey, you know, we have eight months until the back cru so viewers, you could start planning now. I know that many of us are, and I can't wait. I'm already looking at the calendar to see, uh you know, when it's going to be and where I'm going to stay and what have you. But on that note, after that wonderful call, we are going to go to the top five patrons. Sophia, would you mind doing the.
Honors yes, okay, So our top five patrons. Number one we have oops All Singularity, which is amazing. Number two we have Dingleberry Jackson. Number three Kleevi Helvetti, which I think I said right because I was like, I just got to go into it. I can't just like think about how I'm going to say it. Yeah, thank you. Number four Brian Zupkey, which I'm thinking is going to be said upkey on zoop. Well we go with that.
Number five I have Ja Calton and then an honorable mention to Moldrid d Malcontent, which is an amazing name.
Yeah. I thought that too before. When I pulled up the script for the first time, I was like, that is dope. That's awesome.
You are Dope, mister Malcontent or miss mal Content, individual malcontent anyway, Yes, love it amazing.
Yeah, thank you, and thank you to everybody who gives to us on Patreon. If you want to have your name read on the air, please consider supporting us at tiny dot cc, forward slash, Patreon THH And on that note, we have started recording the talk Hethen Discord after show for all levels of paid patrons, So if you go
on to Patreon, you become a member. You can hear our after show, which I will be on today on Discord, and Sophia, you'll be joining us, I understand excellent, and our man Kelly backstage is going to be joining us as well. So if you want more content and a more informal look, and here's some of our conversations that we have without a script, join us. Join us on Patreon today and definitely chime in today to the Discord after show. We have a couple of super chats that
I want to get to. All right, so Nero sends us five dollars. If your child can't learn by verbal education, spanking communicates even less and is functionally useless. If you can, spanking is unnecessary. Thank you, Yeah, krudos, I mean I can't I have I have nothing to say except I agreeheartily. Some kind of Dicky is back for more. He gave
us ten more dollars. If your morality is based on your religion, then your decision to beat your child is based on your religion, whether you're beating your child with a Bible or a stick. Very good point. You know, how do you know? You argue, well, I get my morals from God and then you abuse your kids or others and hate your hate people, you must derive that from this, this all loving, all powerful source.
Right. I thought that was really good. Yeah. I've never met a parent who spanks children that isn't doing it out of fear. And if your morality is based on God, and God is teaching you to act out of fear, then your God is a fearful and small person or being rather yeah.
Yeah, And on that note, you know, we did only receive nine out of the ten super chats, but we received the more than the fifty dollars we were looking for. And so on that note, even though we didn't get ten, I'm going to show my drawing. Okay, so folks, I want you to not be too critical.
So what we had, right, and no critical everyone criticize it so hard.
Oh we got we got a full screenshot, all right. So we were asked for a donkey Jesus with a tail, snout and ears to fight a vampire puppy while the puppy was showing signs of angst and having some kind of power, you know, powerful background. I'm going to bring this up and this is going to end up on a T shirt, someday. So there's amazing. There's Jesus, Donkey Jesus. The puppy is sweating angst. He's got nunchucks. I mean
that's kind of a dog. I don't know if that's quite a puppy, but you know, the puppy Jesus is in like a karate stance. You see the power behind them. And I started to spell challenge wrong forgive me super Chat challenge one twelve twenty five. And so puppy puppy, vampire, vampire fangs, He's got his nunchucks, he's fighting donkey Jesus. They're getting into it all right. And so I hope everybody enjoyed that drawing.
I so good.
I enjoyed.
I was like, be so critical. I wanted to tease you, but it's actually really good.
I'm like, well, dang, well, maybe I'll redo it. Maybe I'll redo it a little bit, and I could like maybe get some support on making that one of our pieces of merch. But yeah, so, folks, that is going to do it for today. I want to thank Kelly for helping us out. Kelly popped up. Yeah, Kelly, what is up?
Dude?
Did you have any comments you wanted to make about today's callers. Oh muted, you did it again. You did it again.
I totally did I pulled it, Johnny. I don't have anything to say about the callers, but I do want to say that I totally agree with Sophia. There's no reason to spank your children. I have two adult children that I never spanked while I was raising them, and they both turned into wonderful adults. So it's to me that's proof you don't have to spank your children. So yeah, yeah, Kelly.
I appreciate you being with us today and reading the question of the week, going through that challenge with us. The prompt for this week is sin is to God as what is to what? Make sure that you reply in the comments to this video and tune in at the beginning of next week's episode to hear all our top three answers. And with that, I'm going to ask the crew to give us some lover rings. Yes, they're
coming from Kelly's tie them from Kelly Spot. So, folks, if you do not believe, remember this is your community and we appreciate you being here. But if you do believe, just know that we do not hate you.
We're just not convinced.
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 four two, or connect to the show online at tiny dot cc slash call tw