As an atheist, folks often try to sell me on a watered down, gentler version of Christianity, sort of a moderate version of Christianity. And I have a couple questions of that about that. First, why what are we assuming I've never considered that, that I didn't look at that before leaving the faith, that I could never be moderated. It was fundamentalism or nothing. And second, isn't that still picking and choosing which aspects of a Christian faith you
want to hold on to. It's still choosing to believe in the verses that make you feel good or that affirm your worldview. It's fundamentally lacking in curiosity, lacking in the intellectualism. And I don't really want to live a life lying to myself, even if it's a more moderate version of lying to myself. So if you find that upsetting or offensive, or you actually agree and are like, yeah, get rid of those moderates, come over to the atheist side,
then call us. Because the show starts now. Yay, welcome everyone. Today is September fifteenth, twenty twenty four. I am your host, Sophia Spina and joining me as my co host. Objectively, Dan, what's up.
How's it going, Sophia.
It's going all right. How are you doing good?
Doing good? I'm not hosting today. You're hosting today, which is a reversal of the last time we hosted together. So you know, it's nice. I get to sit back. I don't have to look at what's in the call screening notes or anything or the announcements. You know. So you you, you slay, queen, you take over, you got.
I have all the reading, which yeah, yeah, yes, it's like a book club this for those behind the scenes. There's a lot to read. You've probably noticed, but yeah, so we get to test my like basic english skills pretty much.
Doing great so far. I've understood every word you've said, so keep it.
Yeah, because I bet my tongue the other day, so I am worried. I'm like, yeah, if I'm sorry, it's it's just a tongue bite. Man.
In normal life it doesn't matter too much, but in podcasting it's a big deal.
That's I know, I've been very self conscious. I've been gone for a couple of months and so I'm like, oh, man, like right before coming back, so yeah, I just had a baby. So that's why I was gone, and now we should.
Talk about maybe that may you mentioned the fact that you are now a you know, a giver of life.
Second time, second.
Time, yep, yep. Rate Oh my god, no, no, oh god, let's not have that conversation on the show today. Please that I.
Think I may have just invited it in. I'm sorry about that.
Oh no, oh no, yes, congratulations to that we missed it. I thought I was going to be able to see you in person at the backt weekend. I think you're still, you know, busy being a you know mom, So that worked, that makes sense.
Yeah, she ended up coming quite late, and so I was still kind of recovering because she just decided that she did not want to do not want to make the exit at all. So we had too a victor, which now has happened to me with two children.
So yeah, well you're gone through it. So that's good. And yeah, everybody say congratulations to Sophia in the chat or for doing that, because.
Yeah, we can talk about God's divine plan for childbirth and that's creating a doctor with a hook.
Yeah you are, you are fulfilling God's divine plan, you know, for that, So that's good that's good, keeping the human race alive and all that.
So for you correct them with my atheism.
I can't do that. I don't have that power, which is great. I don't want that power. Just to be clear, I'm happy with the parts I've been given. I'll put it that way, so you know good. I'm all good, is what I'm trying to say. I don't know where I'm going with that, to be honest with you, I'm just going to make a small.
Talk reaffirm that being child free is a great choice. And I know that some people get assume that that's not how I feel as I now have children. That's such a weird thing to say. When you move from having a kid a baby, so like you have children now, that feels very strange. But yeah, not having children to bring them into, you know, a world of chaos and whatever this is is totally fine and I fully support that.
And I have a lot of siblings and family members who've made the similar choice and are being involved in my children's lives instead, which is not an obligation, but I appreciate it just so much. I'm like, Yeah, the more adults are focused on these little children, that improve their odds of survival so great.
Yeah, you know, yeah, my partner I've talked about adopting. That's something that we've talked a lot about. But we'll see, we're trying to get married first and then we'll do that.
But yeah, versus me, it was pregnant at my wedding, so I just did it all at the same time, you know.
Yeah, yeah, you got it all done, you know, in a year or whatever. So that's that's pretty good, pretty efficient.
I have an efficient womb. Yes, it's been said of me, but I think I was thirteen the first time my dad told me, you know, if we were living in a medieval era, then I could get such a good like bride price for you. And I was like, that's a weird thing to say to your teenage daughter.
Day.
Oh, if you have a dowry, costs wouldn't have been as great. I would kind of discount, you know. Yeah, really cool.
So you know that's something I've held onto and choose to interpret as a compliment, because.
Yeah, I think that's the best way to do. Yeah, for sure, I give.
The impression of heartiness anyway, with all that talk. Heathen is a product of the atheist Community of Austin. If I have a one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and the
separation of religion and government. Very exciting that we live in Texas for all of that Talk he That is a live Collin show and we have open lines, So get your calls in at five one two nine nine nine two four to two or from your computer you can call at tiny dot c C call t H. That's tiny dot cc slash C A L L t H. Like Talk Heathen, So we have a question of the week. Like every week in our Talk Heathen to Me segment, we get to present that last week we asked you
to complete the sentence. Not even faith healers will attempt to heal. Fill in the blink and here are our top three answers. Do you want to give that a look, Dan?
Or actually I don't have it open right.
Never mind, I should imagine beforehand. I'm coming back. I'm figuring it out.
I didn't realize you're going to ask me to do things. So that's sorry.
Fine, as you're pulling it up, I'll go ahead and read number three. So it is from X million who said, no faith healers wanted to touch my hemorrhoids, just saying oh that, you know, if they were effective, I would hope that for you they they would do that. I appreciate the disclosure was quite a disclosure that you have had, you know, after just having fun pregnant. I feel for you. But that is amazing. You're right, they want to you know, Yeah, so why not get up in there? Come on?
Why not? Why?
Okay it's number two ready?
Okay. Number two is from James West who says, not even faith healers will attempt to heal a lego foot injury, which is true, so true. Can't tell you how many times that happened to me?
Well, and you could also feel like, couldn't they just help prevent the lego for injury? God helps people find their keys all the time, apparently, so why can't God just shift legos out of the way? You know?
Oh no, when you're a kid, did you have like a gigantic bin of just all the legos, just all the pieces. That's what I had.
I'm the second of four children, and so we would have like a whole society that included pokemon figurines, Fisher Price like castles. And then we always assigned the younger kids to have to be miners and sort out the legos because we were horrible exploitative older children capital n and so yeah, we had a whole society going on with our giant lego bin and the needs for organization.
Wow, you're really feeling God's plan even at a young age. That's crazy.
Filling God's plan for power.
Yeah, unequal opportunity of work and unequal distribution of power. That's amazing.
Plaiting children, God for shaping children to your will.
Uh, the children yearn for the mind, Sophia, They really do. So you know, don't take it too hard on yourself.
They never complained. I mean, come on, so I never complained. How am I supposed to know?
Yeah?
All right, on that note, do you want to read number one?
Yeah, I can do that. Number one is from Dan Johnson, who says not even a faith healer could put Humpty Dumpty back together again, which is very silly, but yeah, it's funny. That's a good one. Thank you for setting those in. Thanks everybody for contributing.
Yeah, that one makes me think about the fact that it just was putting it out to me, like for the first time that Humpty Dumpty is never mentioned to be an egg.
No, No, it's not. I think it's I think it's one of the is that like one of those old tales where it's like, oh, it's actually supposed to represent like a political figure. I think it's one of those, right.
Yeah, I always assume it's a political figure or like a gruesome plague. Those are gonna be like my assumptions about things in the past like that. I just feel like it's really unfortunate to imagine a guy named Humpty Dumpty. I can't imagine a flattering name.
You know, everything isn't dumpty. I feel like a lot you could do with that that isn't great. But but but you know, you can't these. I mean like there might be somebody whose actual name is Humpty Dumpty out there.
Right, that's true middle school because that would be tough.
That will be tough, that will be tough, definitely, definitely definitely pumped for. Oh sorry, ahead, I see. That's the thing. I'm so used to running things, Sophia. Every I am. I am the host on every single freaking show I do, and now you know, I'm just letting you take the just go for it.
I'm going to lean into that. I need to lean into God's design for my personal power. So right, the prompt for next week is what's the reason God created hell wrong? Answers only? So enter your best answer below the video in the comments, and next week we'll real the top three answers. So again, that is what is the reason God created hell wrong? Answers only? Objectively? Dan, do you have an answer for this?
The cynical fedora wearing atheist in me came up with the answer of, oh, so we can hang out separately from the Christians. But you know, that's that's that's what that came up with. So but I'm one hundred percent sure you guys can come up with better answers. So I want to see what you guys come up with in the comments on this one.
That sounds like a great answer. And also I love the idea of just you know, yeah, having a big atheist party for eternity. Why not, it'll be more interesting, you.
Know, I always say that. And then it's definitely like not the classical depictions of how like it's definitely like a lot of torture, a lot of torment, definitely lost suffering. But there's always like this side in the community that's like, oh, it's just all we just get to separate from them, that's just great. It's like that's a little more complicated than that. But okay, sure, yeah.
It definitely it definitely is. And also I don't want to exist for all eternity. So there's that, But there's that.
There's a great old timey song from a National Geographic record that they compiled in the seventies about it's all like Western songs and they were apparently historically actually sung and it's about God giving Satan Texas to create Hell and then eventually he decided he did too well and needs to go back and like create a different Hell because it's too hot in Texas and there's cacus and hants and all these things. It's a great song.
So all right, all right, Well that's that's a vision. It's becoming. Texas is becoming more and more like Hell every day. I think that's true. But you know, we get to say that as Texans. I feel like there's no great talking about a geopolitical space then from the person coming from that space, I feel like that's the maximum level, right.
I feel like, in particular, I know I can bring up the baby thing. It's sort of top of mind, you know, having just done that. I've given birth to two babies in Texas as they're rolling back women's medical rights, and I'm just like, this is I feel like i can say a lot about that now. I feel like I've earned that right, like that badge of like, hey, I didn't die, and I was going to say a swear word, but I'm not sure if we're far enough into the show.
I think we're good.
Who are down with that?
We got a super chat from Blindlimy who gave ten dollars and said, oh Lord, please heal my eyes. And while I'm asking for impossible things, please make me a wing commander in the RF so I can fly the Eurofighter. And I didn't see that last far before it went off the screen, and I don't see it in the chance, but it will. Maybe we'll read the rest. If a crew can put that in the chat for us, that w'd be great.
Yeah, and uh yeah, that would that would be amazing.
There you go, Yeah, what's our rate about childbirth mortality in this country? We're not We're not first I know that.
Yeah, at we're up there, uh for industrialized nations or I'm.
Saying in Texas and compared to other states.
What's our what's actually that's a great question.
I'm pretty sure it's not great. So you know, first of all country by the way, allegedly, so it's really cool, really awesome.
So cool it anyway.
I talked about this before, but I went to Amsterdam earlier this year and I thought Austin was cool, and I was like, holy shoot, we don't know what freedom actually is. Okay, because you can just like you can. I mean, granted they want you to do it inside and coffee shops. You can smoke weed pretty much on any street corner in any coffee shop in Amsterdam if you want. Of course, there's red light district and all
this other stuff. It's just like, man, this is this is a place that knows how to live it up, is what I'm trying to say, Like they know what it's like to actually, you know, live in that whole you know, freedom thing, doing a freedom thing, which which we always talk about here, but I don't think we ever actually an action on that note.
Like I took my last year when he was one, I took my son, just him and I. We went to Leiden, which is a little bit outside of Amsterdam. We love Lighten so much. We never actually made it to Amsterdam, so we Lighten and we have friends who
lived there. It was so easy to have a baby there, like just we could walk everywhere and it felt like things were it just friendly, yeah, and like there were bikes and there were tons of kids in the park, and there were tons of parks and like all of these things that I understand that we were in like an urban area. So probably there isn't quite the same
level of walkability in all places. But for a place that espouses family values like Texas does, it was easier for me to have a one year old in the Netherlands than having a one year old in Texas. So I thought that was pretty interesting. And when we're thinking about freedom, we don't always understand or it doesn't come to mind, the idea that sometimes freedom is just the ability to go where you want to go without getting
hit by a car. With that across traffic, Like, there's a lot of ways we can look at that, and I felt pretty free with my one year old also strapped into my chest and he took a nap and went to the pub, which was really great.
Yeah, yeah, we are. America is just kind of one giant car park, and like I feel like Texas is the worst about it, especially like Austin Dallas, you know, the whole I thirty five basically section. It's like, there's no, this is not Austin is not a walkable city. For the most part. You can do buses, but that's that's about as good as it gets. And uh yeah, a
restaurant's got that figured out. Also, again the architecture and stuff, like, we think that we're religious, but then they got these amazing, awesome churches and stuff in half of them aren't even being used for services, like they're just don't know, they're just doing their own thing with it, which is great too, because again you see these like giant Austin buildings, and then across the street it's literally like the Weed Museum or whatever. So I don't know, that was that was pretty funny.
Yeah, something in Liden, they really proud of their university and so there are paintings all around town of things that people discovered at that university. So like certain planets were discovered there and different like I believe X ray systems were discovered there too. There's a moment in Oppenheimer if you've seen that, where he's teaching at the university
in Leiden. Actually, and so it's really cool to see this focus on scientific discovery and academia and intellectualism and just be walking around the city and see monuments to that as well as these churches. It's like, we can't evolve as a society and celebrate more than just the fact that in the past we built a really cool building, but a really big building, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's like right, so it was really refreshing, It was awesome. Yeah, that was sort of a tangent from from.
Our Yeah, let's just let's just show about how great Europe is. This entire show that's.
Really entertaining and really good hard I love. Yeah, But to just remind you real quick before we move on, please enter your answers to what is the reason God created? How wrong? Answers only, and then we will read the top three next week. I really really quick before we take our first call, I want to go to the crew camp also and think the video there they are I look at those gorgeous peeps. Such a good beard.
Thank you to all of the video and audio people, moderators, the people who take notes, make timestamps to do call screening, Like there's so much going on that I always feel like I'm a just a yapper and they're the ones who do the real work.
A yapper. Well, yeah, that sounds like a nineteen twenties like slang for an adulterous woman or something like what is that?
That's le just really it's just a talking like just a person who's an opinion have her and that's all they're really doing.
Ye there and giving me the vapors. Oh my gosh.
Yes, I think I'm gonna hold on to that. I just sort of think that out, but I'm going to be like, you know what, I'm gonna hold on to that, all right. So our first caller, we have Chloe she her who is from occupied Lenape Territory. I'm sure that I'm saying this incorrectly. If that's part of an indigenous tribe, I absolutely am sorry that I'm saying that not not correctly, but it's spelled l e n Ape for anyone who wants to like Uh, to look that up. That's cool
that she specified that. Wow, I'm rambling anyway, She's going to be talking about evolutionary nature on spiritual experience and you, as an atheist, our perspective on experience. I'm not sure I quite understand that. But we're gonna going to bring her on here. Hello, Chloe, So tell us your take.
Yeah, I'm a theist and.
And I wasn't a theist for a long time. What finally convinced me was ultimately experienced itself. Having the experience changed me in a way that I cannot describe with words. And it's frustrating.
Ye had a spiritual experience the question specifically.
Yeah, I had many spiritual experiences.
Okay, Okay, great, go ahead.
And what I want to know is is that as much as I remained skeptical, as much as I hold on to my skepticism and I treasure it, I have to look at those experiences and wonder, why are we wired for those experiences? Is this just a quirk of the I mean, I'm actually happy with the answer of this is a quirker devolution, deal with it. But the nature of those experiences, given how personal they are, given that they've answered personal questions about my life and answered
you know, and it really brought something to me. That's when I have to bring up the question, what's going on here? What's the deal? I don't think your license to get the sciential base, I will go into the what's deal? But yeah, that's just what's your perspective on all of that?
Yeah, do you want to start d Dan, You look like you've got a sign.
I just I think about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, right, I think about how we are beings that are capable of sensory experiences beyond our complete and total comprehension sometimes and our need for explanations sometimes overrides our need for things to make logical sense. Like I think we experience things before we fully logically understand them anyway, And so I think that kind of bias sometimes shapes our perspective. And I don't think that that's not always a healthy
thing or a good thing. I think having a sense of life purpose and having a sense of uh, you know, place in the universe it can is a great thing, as everybody who talks about it seems to think the world of it. At the same time, though there are people that take advantage of that and abuse that. How many stories do we have to hear about people who felt so happy while they were in a cult, and
then later after the cult they realized they were being abused. Right, Obviously, that's an extreme example, but the fact is that that's a thing that happens with humans and seems to be unique with humans. Right. Dogs don't really get into cults or cats as far as I'm aware, but you'll let to be seen. So yeah, I do think it's a
quirk of evolution. I do think it's a quirk of just the human existence, our need to kind of fulfill ourselves, and sometimes we interpret our experiences in a spiritual way in order to do that. I don't think that necessarily lends credence to any particular ideology or way of thought process to be more correct than another in a religious sense. That being said, I haven't seen everything in the world. I haven't known everything, I haven't experienced everything, So I'm
open to being wrong on that front. But when it comes to the contemporary spiritual experiences that most of us, particularly in the US, talk about, i e. Christianity, right, like, that seems to be pretty bunk. For the most part, I can't speak to global spiritual phenomenon. Though maybe some tribe somewhere has some access to some deity or some sort of you know, transcendent being that I don't, but I've yet to see any clear evidence of that. So there you go. That's my that's my take on that.
What do you think, Sophia, Yeah, so I think a.
Couple of things. One, we can easily start coming into sort of evolutionary psychology, which I think is a fun field, but there's not a lot that we can really say is evidently backed in there. We talk about like why do humans feel a particular way, We can theorize about how our brain's developed. My take with this is that as a social species, we have to empathize with each other.
You know, our survival was benefited by the fact that we were able to work together, that we were able to empathize and view things from a different person's point of view. That requires imagination. And so the way that I look at it is that imagination is which I think that spiritual experiences can kind of be a component of not that you're sitting there imagining on purpose, but that your brain is capable of presenting us with things
we have an experience in the physical world. Imagination is a byproduct of the ability to work together and to be compassionate to each other, and so I think that that's the way that I conceptualize it. Like I said, I don't have specific evidence for this, because that's a very murky area of science that's super interesting, but again, like doesn't provide a lot of really concrete, provable answers.
I think it's more likely that that is the case though personally, than that we are endowed with godly visions. I think it's also when I look at it, we tend to have the spiritual experiences that we are somewhat
primed to have. They tend to be fairly culturally specific, and to me, that would potentially affirm the fact that this is part of an outgrowth of us being a social species, is that even our or spiritual experiences tend to make sense to some degree with those around us, or to be similar to things that we've heard of happening before. I definitely don't want to speak for your personal experience, and I feel like I'm sounding a little bit like I'm doing that, And so that's how I
would conceptualize a spiritual experience. I personally was religious for quite a while, and I didn't have as strong of spiritual experiences as some folks definitely report having. But I remember feeling everything that you're supposed to feel, you know, And I look at that now, and I was desiring of meaning and I was finding it there. At the time. I was primed for those experiences, and I was part of a group that I really wanted to be part of,
and it developed that for me. So I think that quite a few spiritual experiences can also be explained that way, that we're opting into a part of ourselves that's open to that. Yeah. So all that to say, what do you think there, Chloe?
What I think is unfortunately nothing. I have no idea what to make of it from my uh from from a lay perspective, because I don't know anything about neuros, and I don't know anything, you know, beyond what I needed, what I've needed to get by with my mental with
my mental health. But when I feel really, you know, through meditation and through prayer, and when I pray to my gods, I'm Norse pagan and they tell me to go to therapy and take med like, what do I make of how do I make sense of those experiences? Like honest yeah, yeah, Like fundamentally, how do I how do I trust my experience?
What I mean to say, that's a really interesting and kind of difficult question because when we're talking about spirituality, we are saying, or when I'm when I'm talking about it here is it's a byproduct of evolution. I am finally mentally saying, I realized, don't fully trust your experiences. And I know that that's really tough and not the message that I necessarily want to give people, right, So
how I would interpret that? And that's all I can tell That's really all I can tell you here is that there's a part of you that is giving you that information that this is like this belief in this instance is giving you information that I totally think is great going to therapy and like seeking mental health solutions, but it's a way for you to maybe clarify what
it is you're really needing in that moment. Again, I don't I really don't want to come across as though I'm telling you what you need to believe about your own mental health and your own brain. But I think That's how I would think of it. Is that, you know, thinking your God's telling you that you need to do these things to be healthy is awesome and is also I think something you maybe know deep down inside and having it come from this external feeling voice maybe validating
and giving you the oofs to go forward with it. Again, though I don't want to feel like I'm putting something on you here.
Yeah, I would add that, you know, let's talk about experiences sans God or san spirituality. Okay, If i have a week at work where I'm getting really down to myself and I'm telling myself, Dan, you really I screwed up at work this week. I'm doing a terrible job. I really don't think I'm doing all that great and I'm letting my team down. That's a perspective I might have. But that might not be something like my co workers might have for example, right, or somebody else might have.
And like you know, one could be true or one could not be true. But it's not healthy regardless right for me to have that perspective, even if I am making mistakes, even if the things that I am improved that I need to improve on, like, that's not a healthy place for me to be at, right, So like, sometimes your health is more important than whatever is like
objectively true in that moment. Right, So like I in my experience, I would say, look, I would worry less about whether the whole is there a God that's telling me I need to do this thing is happening, versus I need to do this thing because this is what's best for me, right, So like that should be your
most important thing. I think take care of yourself first, because think about this, if there is a God or God's they probably want you to be healthy if they want to have a relationship with you, right, So it's it's a good thing to do regardless.
Right.
And if there's not, well, you should still want to be healthy, right because you want to live and maximize life to your full potential. So I think that's how you should approach it first, is like, hey, let me get into a place where I can be okay to even talk about these kinds of questions because that can be a really life upending thing, right figuring out Okay, I don't think this thing is real actually, or I do think this thing is real and I need to
make some serious changes. So either way, like your health is probably the most important thing you should be looking at if that's if that's how you're approaching this.
Right something out there in there as well.
I mean, I just wanted to chime in that, you know, the experience of you know, my God's telling me to make sure anythink my meds go to therapy is just an example.
You know. Well you gotta understand as as when we hear that, we have to address that, right Like, we can't let that on the table, so you know, we want to make sure you're doing okay first.
Yeah, oh, definitely, definitely, but yeah, those kind of experiences where they just hold you in place and make you fel comfortable with yourself.
Sorry if that doesn't make any sense.
But those are the No, it does in the sense that I think we can relate to that feeling, that experience. There's a really interesting existentialist psychologist that you might enjoy, Irving Yaalam or Irvin Yalom rather, and he created was a big hand in at least amplifying existentialist therapy. And he himself did not believe in a god, and so he talked a lot about his own death anxiety, but he did talk about the fundamental need before meaning. Another
big name in existentialist psychologist Victor Frankel. They both focused quite a bit on meaning, and they didn't shy away from the fact that if they have someone that they're working with that is a person of faith and that is entirely fine, there's no virtue to convincing someone hey, actually all of your experiences are wrong provided because meaning is just such a huge component of life. So even if you have existential therapy, it's focused on how you
develop meaning in your life. And I think a fundamental component of that is also feeling comfortable with yourself, feeling that you deserve meaning and deserve to live a full life based on the meaning. Sorry, I can rant about this sort of thing for a long time, but I feel like, moving aside from just a focus on being told to take your medic and go to therapy, the
question of meaning is big for most people. I wouldn't say oh, because maybe there's exceptions, But I think that being comfortable with yourself like that to me sounds like it's fulfilling a fundamental need of yours that I also have. I just fulfill it a different way.
Yeah, And as a I think it's solely valid, and I want to make sure that that's not a point of contention here.
Yeah, it's just part of how I would make sense of it for myself looking at it from an atheist perspective.
Those are really the big questions that I had. I really don't have much else, not unless you've got questions for me as a theist.
I think my big question for you, and this doesn't necessarily have to be something to answer right now. I'd be curious what you wanted to be told about this, because it looks like it's something that you're working through and you're thinking about, and you know you you called us, and I really appreciate your perspective. I appreciate your call. What is it you want to what you wanted to hear?
And I don't know that you have a perfect answer for that, but I wonder if inside you there's something that's like looking for a particular answer, and that's I'd be curious as to what that is, even if it might be too personal. Don't want to share in the air too. Does that make sense?
Oh?
It does. Yeah. If I go into a place where where people agree with me on the whole nature of spiritual experience. What am I going to learn? What am I going to work towards? What am I going to what's base am I going to explore? So I just wanted to make sure that my understanding was correct and make sure that I wasn't coming up this the wrong way. There really wasn't anything I was expecting or wanting. It was just I don't know yet, So well.
Thank you for calling Oh sorry, yeah, thank you for calling me in it. Go ahead and let you go. But yeah, that I appreciated that perspective, and I feel like that's something a lot of people are wreaking through who aren't part of organized religion anymore necessarily and who are still, you know, looking for something. Feel there's something I appreciate. Sounds odd, but I appreciate the uncertainty and the honesty about that.
Yeah. I think when I was a Christian, I did struggle with sense of life purpose, right. I thought I was waiting for God to tell me what he wanted me to do with my life, basically, And I regret that now because I felt like there was a lot of time I could have invested in myself in doing what I wanted to do versus what I thought God wanted me to do, because because you know, whatever conclusion I would have come to probably would have been some mix of both anyway, right, Like I don't think if
you like hate animals, but then like I don't know, God says, oh you need to be a zoo keeper, I feel like you don't hear that story. I feel like it's always like, oh, God told me to do this thing, which happens to be the thing I love doing the most. Right, So, like, you know, I think you'll work that out usually, but you know, point is right, Like I don't need spiritual explanations or experiences to necessarily
dictate how I should live my life. Right, And it's a harder way to live because I don't get the benefit of having a divine officer give me commands on what I need to do. I have to kind of figure it out for myself. But it's it's something that we all have to deal with, right. So there's pros and cons. The pro being you have an immense freedom, the con being what do you do with that freedom? It's a choice paralysis problem because now everything is open to you, and so what do you do with that?
Right?
So that's that's how I interpret, you know, my own sense of finding identity and purpose now as an atheist is just I got to figure that shit out. For me. It's reading a lot of books and going to work and living life, and that's that's how I'm doing it. And it's working out okay so far. I'll tell you if that changes, if I need to go, you know, study with some Tibetan monks or something to figure out the next phase of my life. But it's working out okay right now.
Yeah, I feel like it's funny that you bring up freedom because not to be such a wonk and a nerd right now, but Irvin yallam, like freedom and death are two of the things that he freedom, death, meaning those are like three of his big central tenants. There's a fourth one that I'm sure someone's yelling at their screen because they remember, but I don't right now.
And Pejor Frankel's book is literally called Man's Search for Meeting. Yeah it's too.
Which I think I've referenced on this show before, which is pretty funny because I'm like, yeah, just going into existential or existential psychology, I suppose you kind of have to you.
Kind of have to when you talk about meaning, because there was a time where people got through meeting from contemporary Western society got through meeting from God, and now we don't, at least some of us don't. So what do you do with that? That's the question. That's what everybody's trying to figure out. And I don't know. Some people turn to other religions. Most most folks I've talked to from the pagan communities we're a Christian at some point.
It's very un new. There are some that we're kind of mostly atheists, But most of the time when I talk to it's folks who experienced spirituality in other mediums that weren't satisfying enough to them, and a lot of them find more satisfactory experience through through paganism. So that you know, that's that's that's like a shift in people's self identity in reflection of themselves to the world in the same way that we do. We figure out that we're no longer Christians, but we go the atheist way.
We have to figure out our own ways of navigating that. So you know, I'm not saying that that makes paganism, uh. You know, obviously I believe that there are gods or anything. I just think that that's the way that people interpret their life experience.
A lot of answers to it, and I think that when we're thinking about meaning, it's it's really hard to dictate how that should be answered for folks, right, And I definitely don't think that's what we're trying to do. But yeah, on that note, I'm going to give a few announcements before we take our next call do it so. We are excited to announce the return of our popular brick fundraiser. After the overwhelming success of our first round, we're opening up another opportunity for you to leave your
mark with the ACA by purchasing an engraved brick. Like I feel like you guys have probably seen those little library or something. I feel like it's such a cool thing to see. You can contribute to the creation of beautiful patio. Look at those Look at those gorgeous bricks that showcases the heartfelt messages of our generous donor. Each brick will be inscribed to your personal text, making it
a lasting tribute to your support. So join us in building a space that celebrates our community and the impact of your contributions. Look at all that work going in. That's gorgeous, amazing. Get your brick at tiny dot cc slash ACA Bricks. That's tiny dot cc slash ACA Bricks. And I'm actually really glad this has come back because I meant to get one the first time and I didn't, So yeah, I get to have. I know.
To Tina, who is a member of our board and also is in that video, and she told me when we were at the backer she hates that video because she's like standing there in it and she's like not actually doing any brickwork stuff. But she's a very hard worker and does a lot of stuff in the ACA. So give it a shout out to Tina there because I just think that's funny.
That justice for Tina. She she absolutely does hard. That's amazing. Yeah, yeah, one hundercent. So next thing we want to call your attention to is that there are principal call in flyers at China dot cc slash ACA flyers. You can see them there on the screen, so you can post these with permission to community bulletin boards so people know they should call our show and defend their faith. If you do post any flyers, make sure it's not a picture of it in place and send it to TV at
Atheist dash community dot org. It's TV at it's atheist, and then a little normal looking dash community dot org, and we may feature your photo on an upcoming show. Like these are really cool to get people to call in and have a chat with us, So that would be awesome. You can get those again at tiny dot cc slash ACA flyers. Yeah, you should also give a call to So I'm sorry, I'm going to restart that whole sentence. You should follow Talk Heathen on TikTok, which
Richard works very hard on. We appreciate Richard so much at talk He then all one word Talk Heathen and join us for our pre show lives at the ACA. Uh yeah, so Atheist Community of Austin. Okay, So there's an Atheist Community of Boston TikTok and a Talk Keithen TikTok.
That's right. That's awesome about the Talk Heathen TikTok is that Richard is always going live beforehand, and when he's live, you know, obviously like we're here trying to like get stuff ready for the show, he could absolutely be talking mad shit and we would never know because we have to get so ready for the show. And uh, I'm going back and looking at those lives I don't know about. So he could absolutely get away with it and we would we would be none the wiser.
So I almost hope you.
For us.
Yes, yeah, let us know.
That is amazing. He's just like Sophia can't read out loud today. That's very clear. Uh, that's what he's probably saying. I'm feeling like right now. We also have merch, so get your talk Heathen merch at tiny dot cc slash slash merch a c A. That's tiny dot c c slash m e r c h a c A. There's new pins and backpacks, onesies. I needed a onesie real bad. I need it so much, and youth tease so you can outfit your whole family and talk Heathan Gear And
I mean that sounds amazing. And please like this video and subscribe to the channel, enable notifications. Comment below on your favorite caller, on your opinions and violent reactions, whateverybody is that you want to you know your reaction to the show, so you know all the all the YouTube stuff that helps us out, that really does help us get seen, which helps more people call in helps more people think a little bit more harder about their beliefs,
does all the good things the show does. You can help by just hitting like and subscribing and enabling notifications which is a little bell icon in case you didn't know that, and commending below. So with all of that, let's take another call. We have Marlin. He him from the Philippines. Shout out to the Philippines. I lived there for a bit, super cool. I would like to discuss about my paranormal experience and how it proves that spiritus
spirits are real and documented. So Marlin, thank you for calling tell us, tell us your thoughts here on the spiritual experience you had and what that proves for you.
Hello, guys, how are you hie?
Do it all right? What's up? What's up with your your thought here? I'm curious that spirits are real and documented? About that?
Well, well, it's because there has been an incident on a playground. This is located on a schooled a cemetery and then there are people walking by day they noticed the issuing on the playground. It never stops moving, it just keeps swinging back and forth and until the cups were called and even the police has has saw it. Even the police has been involved in the local news. They came in with the dogs and there were people that that's saw shadow figures over in that playground area
of the school. So yeah, it has been documented.
So to me that gives including me where where has this been documented? Is there a website for this?
Is that?
Or and the local local news?
Okay?
Is there paper? Is there? Is there a reference? We could look at this on the newspaper.
Interness it's been told in GMA. I think GMA there was a program called kmgs.
Okay, So I think that the way of that I might view this. Though, Yeah, I feel like local papers do tend to report a lot of things that don't necessarily turn out to be super well substantiated, just because they're looking for news. But I would also say that this kind of sounds like an incident to me that could be a sort of like one person thought they saw something and then it became the suggestion that that's
what you're supposed to see. And I know it's hard because in a way I'm saying like I doubt your personal experience, but I think that sometimes we're primed to see things. I think that if we go by and the there's a breeze or something happening, that it's entirely possible that that we see what we expect to see, that we're going to see a figure, see a shadow, and not look for natural explanations because we're ready to believe a spiritual explanation.
The swing step nevers stop moving. It's nevers stopped moving.
They tried to do.
Anything they can intervene.
I'm assuming it's stopped now, like it's not still going.
Right, Yes, going for a couple of our Okay, well.
Again, I'm desperately trying to google stuff here that I think in the future. And this is for anybody that
calls in. If you have a specific experience and you say this is documented publicly, you should be ready to provide that source to us so that we can take a look, because otherwise it's going to be your word versus our world, right, Marlin, Like, I can't verify that what you're saying is true without having a source to look at it, right, Otherwise we have to just blindly speculate based on what you're telling us, And that's not a super great way for us to figure out if
something's true or not right, Like, we have to be able to kind of look at the facts of a situation and see what's actually going on here, because maybe it was going on for hours, maybe it was just for a little bit. Maybe maybe it wasn't actually reported on the paper, maybe it was reported on a forum somewhere. Right, there could be some differences here that we're not going to be able to verify unless we have that information handy. Does that make sense, Yes, I understand.
De Yeah, I think that that's pretty important because we kind of just are, like I guess that might have happened. We don't necessarily have anything to look at here. I would also I would be interested to know your thoughts on a particular TV show. So have you ever heard of Paranormal Home Inspectors.
I've seen that shit, it's been great.
Yeah, I if it's available, I highly recommend it. I actually can't've been looking for like, because I think it aired initially in Canada, so I can't in America see
exactly where I can watch it. But it's super fun because they take a psychic and a paranormal researcher and a certified home inspector into the home of someone who believes they're being haunted, and the people who live there and the site it will usually have experiences that they feel they can't explain, experiences that they feel are very
concrete evidence of what's going on. And then the home inspector inspects the house, and almost every single time has quite a few explanations for, oh, this actually is drafty and you might not realize it, but that's what's causing this noise up here, and so these things are connected and we can actually fix that. It's a problem with the house. It's not necessarily something that it is paranormal,
as much as that's how people experience it. So I would be curious if you can, you know, watch that TV show, because there are a lot of little incidents that sound very similar to something like a swing continuing to move when people try to stop it, and there is a natural explanation the vast majority of the time, at least, So I would say, you know, I'm certainly skeptical of this being proof of anything, partially because I am, like you know, I think that there's a lot of
times a natural explanation without actually having the news story. We can't speak too specifically to it. But I think that's my take.
Yeah, And I've talked about calling about this to you guys, because I have a big deal and a couple of both those of a shadow figure like cut on my phone.
You know, honestly, I would say, send that to the email.
Yeah, turned to the email wanted truth, wanted what we'll want to hear it. We'll want to hear it on there. But here's what I'll say. And I think we'll probably let you go after this, Marlin. But you know, the Philippines in particular, extremely Catholic country. Right, every time we get a call from the Philippines, it's always about demon possessions or shadow people. I don't know if the Philippines got something going on that the rest of us don't
have it. But I think the lens of a cultural experience might reinterpret some facts of a particular matter that we that we could see here, and I wouldn't I wouldn't even doubt that even if a local paper is reporting on a phenomenon, that there may be some things, again where a cultural bias might be a play as to the particular facts of a phenomenon. I think you have to evaluate in your own mind which is more likely that people are misremembering, mishearing, or misinterpreting an event
that's happening. Or there's demon figures that are hanging out at a playground swinging a swing for a couple hours for apparently no reason whatsoever. Right, Like, you have to think about, you know, what's going to be more likely in this case from what I'm hearing you right now, I'm going with the former, which is just I think there's a misinterpretation of events that's happening here. I think
maybe there's some telephone going on. If there is some documentation of this, I'd love to see it, but for now I don't have that. So that's the that's the conclusion I'm left with. Does that make sense?
That's also the same case with miracles, you know, like religious miracles.
Okay, so there's I'm going to go ahead and say goodbye to you because we actually have another call coming up that I feel like speaks a little bit to you know, the what they say is religious phenomenology, and so I feel like this is kind of paired with that. We could go on all day about somebody saw a miracle or experience a particular thing, and that there's you know, not a lot to substantiate it, but they very firmly and very earnestly believe in it. So I think that
that's maybe what we have going on here. After living in the Philippines for a bit. Yes, it is a country where there's quite a bit of discussions of demons. There's quite a bit of it's sort of referred to as folk Catholicism in one textbook I read about it. I think that every place adapts the faith to their local culture, right, and I think that this can be
a part of it. It's also it's fun and exciting to think that there's a spirit there, you know, it's always exciting to be like, maybe it's a demon.
Yeah. But Marlin, if you're still listening, to answer your question directly, yes, I do think this applies to pretty much every miracle that's ever been recorded ever, even modern times.
In the Catholic Church, when they talk about miracles, which they do have committees for which they allegedly, you know, go through a rigorous process for determining whether something's a miracle or not ninety nine percent of the time, and in modern times, those miracles are going to be medical phenomenon that we don't have a full understanding of, like
a remission of cancer and stuff. Right, but then when you go back like five hundred years, it's like they put her head back on her head and she was walking around town, and it's like, Okay, well I haven't seen that, but cool, if it happened, I guess, so there you go.
Yeah, I would also, you know, emphasize that even if we don't have a perfect explanation for it, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's a spirit. And as you were kind of mentioning that, like, the less we understand about the natural world looking back in history, the more we're emphasizing. You know, people thought it was a spirit. People literally believed Jack Frost existed and painted frost on your windows. That's it wasn't like a myth. It was a thing
they really thought was happening. And we know now that that's not necessarily true. So yeah, even if our answer was to shrug and say, like that does seem weird, it doesn't actually lend itself to believing that it's a spirit. It doesn't really prove anything in that vein, which again is can be hard. If it's an earnest belief. But I think that's my take on that one for sure.
Yeah.
On that note, let's I feel like this call dovetails really well into what we were just talking about. So we have Jackie. He him from Mississippi. This is really funny. By the way, I lived in the Philippines and I also lived in Mississippi for a bit. So we're just having like the places that I have lived call in today, which is interesting. The case for religious phenomenology. All right, so Jackie, give us the case for religious phenomenology.
Okay, first of all, before Makas, I just want to check on how have you been after giving birth.
Oh, that's so sweet of you. I've been doing all right. Everything's you know, recovering as it should. The baby is super cool and she, you know, she actually doesn't cry as much as I almost feel like she should. And it's interesting because this is totally silly, right, but I was thinking that, you know, psychopaths, the parents of psychopaths and sociopaths always say that their babies didn't cry very much,
and so I'm kind of like you could cry more. Actually, like she's too easy of a baby, if that makes sense.
But yeah, it's that's a specific lens to view that sofia that I feel only you would have.
My brain is a very strange place.
I don't think he's extrap away like that.
Yeah, I think you're right. I just am yeah, I just am being a little silly about it. It's been really exciting to watch my son become an older brother also and have he's very cute with the baby and that's really great. So yeah, I've been really enjoying it. That's incredibly suit of you to ask, so thank you.
So yeah, I basically wanted to present the case for religious phenomenology because so are you guys familiar with the term continental philosophy.
Yes, I'm not. Actually you want to go ahead and give us a summary of that one.
So basically, continental philosophy is philosophy from mainland Europe, so Europe, Uzerdan, UK and Ireland. And basically I tend to notice a lot of atheists who are publicly advocate for atheism are not generally familiar with it, where most people don't have that type of mindset. So it includes things like phenomenology, existentialism, German idealism, psychoanalysis and other movements.
And I tend to notice that.
In the debates about religion, a lot of it goes on to like propositional logic and with more the analytics style flasia philosophy from America and Europe. And I think that's the flaw because it is a major part of philosophical component that I don't think it's talked about enough, but anyway, that it's sort of condentally related to the point, So are either of you guys familiar with the cognitive scientist John Vervaiki.
I was just going out that analytic traditions and continental traditions are both Western. I don't know why you'd make the distinction between them being like one particular parts in America and different parts in Europe, but yeah, they're definitely both Western traditions of philosophy and a categorically flawed understanding are categorically flawed sort of way in which to view philosophy,
but they can be broadly useful. But yeah, I can concede to your point that, yeah, there is a particular lens in which some atheists will look at the structure of arguments that may be problematic under some views of philosophy. But to your other question, no, I'm not familiar.
So basically, John Traviki is a cognitive scientist in Canada identifies as a non deist, which I disagree with, But he basically talks about the case for the problem with atheism lacking debility to recognize spiritual and religiousness things ontology, mysticism, mysticism being properly construed, not as some new age wlu wu stuff, but a genuine ontology, and how participatory engagement spirituality in a religious sense transforms people. Or are you of you guys familiar with Jordan people.
Yes, I think we can start maybe with the point you just made. Actually, if that's all right, because so the premise there, if I'm understanding e correctly, is that atheists are not addressing the fact that religious experience changes people. Is that correct?
Uh?
Maybe? But it's more kind of a novosimplication. I think a better way to say it is they don't seem to engage with the more essential aspects of the relation between cognition and transcendence, if that makes sense, Like what like how how relation to the transcendence or influences people's decision making, How the transcendence it effects are subconscious or psyche or collective unconscious using Choreung's terms, and how participation
in these reenactments of virtual experiences allows us to tap into that ourselves.
I mean, I don't so what is this a guy's opinion or is this research that he's done that says, oh, atheists don't do this, Because it sounds like this is some guy's opinion. If this is some guy's opinion, I'm happy to shay that. Yeah. I recognize that people's understanding of their beliefs and their system of beliefs affect their social framework, affect their identity. I mean, we were just talking about that in our previous call. It definitely affects
their worldview and how they operate in the world. I don't know why me as an atheist means I lack an understanding of that.
I'm curious specifically, Like I mean, I'm not I don't go ahead, Oh sorry, I'm curious specifically because I'm kind of still trying to get my brain a little bit around what it is I'm supposed to be answering here. I think, uh, sometimes we get a little lost in jargon, and I think that might have happened here to me.
So I'm looking at the you said essential aspect between cognition, and it sounds like kind of a more spiritual experience and the ability to have like a subconscious and the other components of our.
Brain, so our either of you guys generally familiar with phenomenology like Martin heideger Maurice M. Ponti, Carl Jasper's or the other ones.
Yes, German phenomenology with Highdeger Yes later stuff not as much but mostly Yeah.
The way I would say, it's sort of like Jordan Pierson talks about like this, when you see a cup, why do you see a cop? Well, because that cup provides you water?
And what does that?
Why?
Why is that water valuable?
Because it helps you live? Why is living valuable? And you can go on and on with an infinite regress of perception and so basically the phenomenological interpretation of meaning in a religious sense, that whatever sits at the pinnacle of the infinite regress of reasoning for living and for motivation is in the you could say, religious phenomenological domain.
And I would also argue, using Jordan Pearson talks about using Core Jung's that analytics psychology, that there's aspects of our subconsciousness, a priori archetypes that we motivate to as a human needing. Yes, described in religious language.
Yeah, So, Jackie, do you think ninety nine percent of Christians understand their relationship with God that way? I mean, what do you mean about ninety five percent or ninety percent? Do you think any of them are using that language to describe their relationship with God or their relationship with Christianity as a theological system, right? I don't think. I don't think most people are, is my point. I think these are particular people who study phenomenology and who write
papers about this stuff. I don't think that's the world I grew up in as a Christian, and I don't think most people grew up as so. To be honest, I don't really care. Right, Like, what I'm interested in is mostly the power dynamics that Christianity brings, but also like the real world experience that Christianity brings. I mean, we can talk about it in this in this grand philosophical sense of the regress of perception and what have you, But why does that meaningful to me? It's not like
I can engage in this conversation all day. But like, like what's the point. What am I going to get and what are most Christians going to get out of that?
Even well, the meaningfulness here is the question is arder meta narratives and orders meda narratives, what we were described as religious or eternal So, like say Nietzsche.
That's a separate question from everything you've just described.
To explain just I'm getting down, please, Okay. The way the reason it can the overlap here is some of the existentialists, like Nietzsche, John Poulsart, we're talking about, Okay, existence precedes us. We are not born with a priority values and we have to make meaning in our life and we should also the thing which between chist right, I don't think they were the same, but essentially it's rejection of eternal abuse. The reason this is fundamentally wrong.
Is that's well, I have a critique of your interpretation of Nietzsche and Sartro, but yeah, go ahead and keep going.
And we are born with.
A priority values in our consciousness and how we perceive the world. Right, And I would say, you know, so analyze religion in his read books. When people construct meta narratives, it's not to oppress people, sort of like a deluge or talks about postmodernism, right, power structures are pressed. No, the meta narrative there is not one of assortation. You need a meta narrative in order to live and have motivation.
But that meta narrative is not internal. It's a relational, and the relational is between your cognition and how you experience the world around you in a social compaent.
So I'm going to pause you there because yeah, I think we've reached back to the idea of phenomenology, which I think, Okay, we've we've made this circle. I think actually you want to start, Dan, I'm going to clarify my thoughts real quick.
Okay, sure, yeah, So yeah, do losing folk call talk about post Their postmodern understanding of power dynamics can involve a different understanding of meta narratives. Actually, they're the ones that are interested in meta narratives. I don't think really, sorry to or Nietzsche talk about meta narratives. So I don't you know, you've thrown a lot of the stuff
around here. Well let me let me look. Yeah, I don't think that they're super related, and I'm kind of using track of what point we're trying to get out here, I can engage in all of these ideas. I don't know what is the point? What am I missing here? One am I as an atheist sort of not getting at because I don't recognize that there's a contextual relationship with the transcendental with religious people that I somehow don't have.
Okay, Okay, So I'm going to jump in right there real quick, because to address meta narratives, I think we've started with a fundamental what I would say is a misunderstanding of the idea of a meta narrative. They don't It is not my belief in this and how we discuss this that they start as a top down thing, like we're given a meta narrative from an authority and then we just go forward. I believe, and I think that if this is fairly well born out, that meta
narratives are the product of culture. And so even the phrase that they're not constructed to oppress, well, they're not really constructed consciously. There's something that arise organically out of cultures around them. When you're talking about phenomenology, and I've been looking it up kind of as we're talking. That's
referring I'm going to finish what I'm saying. That's referring to how we interpret the experience that we're having, right like, our understanding of the phenomena that we are experiencing, and so meta narratives would impact our understanding of the phenomena that we're experiencing. I can see that connection that I
feel like you're trying to make. In an odd way, though, I would argue that this is almost making an argument for atheism or for lack of need for a god to interpret these things for us, If we're thinking about how we experience the world and that comes from a meta narrative that really is more culturally dependent, then why would we need something to tell us what our value? Why would we need a prescribed meta narrative. I think it makes a lot more sense to think that, yes,
our culture in our context determines what we see. Going back to the Jordan Peterson example about the cup, that's sort of a bizarre one to start with as an example of phenomenology, he says we see the cup because we drink out of it. I would say we see the cup because it's advantageous for us to be able to see the cup that our eyes which developed over millions and millions of years, are able to perceive food sources because that was advantageous for us over time, and
water sources and all of that. It's not to interpret that as divorce from I would say here evolution and the evolution of our species would be to misinterpret it. We don't see the cup because we feel like a cup should be there because we want water. We see the cup because it's advantageous for us to be able
to see that cup. So applying that to religion, if we're thinking about a meta narrative, if we're thinking about these stories that we live by that come from our culture, we see a god maybe because we need to see a god, because we want to see a god because it makes us feel better. Nothing in anything I've heard makes an argument for anything eternal other than the assertion that something eternal is there. Does any of that make sense?
Yeah, I think maybe you're just gonna sort of my point about postmonderism. My point was the sort of atheistic postmodern view is that power meta narratives are constructed in power relations to oppress or that I and I said.
I don't think that's true at all. So at least it's not.
That's what de los in folk all that you talking about? Do talk about that? Yes? I don't know me Yeah, the regular average Joe atheist. I think that's for postmodern schools of thought.
But yeah, so are you wanting me to argue on behalf of fuco?
Yeah?
You know this too, Like what do you want from us?
Like?
What what are we what are we lacking here that we need to understand?
Well, the main thing is so the claim.
It's is it is a meta narrative constructed or not constructive? Is it developed? You could say? Is it processed culturally? Well, you can say when a meta narrative is adopted, you can say that you make a choice to adopt it. But there are certainly some meta narratives which are more
true than other meta narratives. And the reason you know some meta narratives are true more than other meta narratives is because the prescription for modality of being have in certain circumstances been more advantageous than others.
Black.
Well, yeah, I'm always saying this, dude, Absolutely, Yeah, I'm always saying this. Yeah, one hundred percent. Sorry, I'm not being to be dismissive, but what the fuck are we talking about here? Like, Okay, I'm not arguing that more meta narratives are truer than other narrative. First of all, I don't agree with that, but also like why why does this pertain to us? Like what are we are?
What do you argue? What is the position that we allegedly hold that you say that we hold, like you seem to work under some sort of assumption that we're operating under. And I'd be curious because maybe you read our minds or maybe you've heard Sophia's you know, thesis on fou cult and power dynamics that I know that she's written about and I talk extensively about on talk hethan before, Like what are we talking about here?
Are you saying that if that the Judeo Christian meda natives that I would say probably influenced the collective psyche of the West is more true than other meta natives, right because oh.
Okay, all right, there we go. Awesome, awesome, awesome. See well, I disagree with the take that some meta narratives are truer than other met meta narratives because that would just
kind of derail everything that postmodernism is ever done. Right, Like One of the broader themes of postmodernism is that there is no one true meta narrative, right, Like, I don't know if you're ever going to see them ever saying, oh, well, there's some that are more true than others, Like that's definitely not a take that's ever happened, but I think, of course. But yeah, but like, why the hell would you say that Judeo Christianity is somehow more true than
other Christianities? Like how does that? How does the meta narrative become more true? I would love to hear that part.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Postmodern is wrong essentially by rejecting men notatives. And the reason for this is because the essential canon of the Judeo Christians metaphysical substrate is individual respect for the vinity of the individual, the idea that the individual's creating the image of God reproduction, which.
Is sorry, I'm gonna, I'm gonna. I'm gonna interrupt you, simply because it is important that you actually answer that question. You're saying why postmodernism is wrong. You are asked why your view is correct? Why is it true that christ Judeo Christian No, you're not start with the question. You're asked for you, I am.
I'm telling telling you the Judeo Christian meta notatives says, for example, reproduction is virtue. Well, clearly that's a beneficial cultural.
Okay, Again, it doesn't always say reproduction is a virtue. It's not a thing I would love for you to find in the Bible where it says that all people on all earth should be able to reproduce. No, it's God's chosen people. For first of all, it's a specific race. So let's let's start with that first off. But again, we're talking about just a lot of things here. Just because one religious idea, one ideology says a thing is good and you agree with that doesn't mean it makes
it more like true than other people's ideologies. That's just not how ideologies work, right, Like, you can't just say, oh, the entire the Western Christianity is actually super dope, you guys, because it has some things that I think are awesome. Like, that's not a good argument.
You're not letting me finish, so please, Okay, No.
We're not good.
You have to make a good argument.
So here I think that I might go ahead and and moderate. Here we have another collar I'd love to get to and we have some other things. But so I'm gonna I'm gonna drop here because we've descended into bickering, which is not a good use of our time. And so I think that really quick, I'm going to mention this system that it feels like we're following, which is blank is good. Meta narrative says blank is good, and
so it is correct. That is really tough because you have to actually give an example of what is good or what is you have to define that somehow. That's a really tough thing to define. Globally, it's a really tough thing to define at all. I think in this conversation we got really lost in jargon at the beginning.
I would say this is one of those instances where maybe it would be beneficial for the caller if you're still listening, I'm sorry if you're frustrated, to restate things in your own argument as discinctly as possible, because I think that would maybe help in making some of these points.
We're kind of in a strange place here where it was frustrating, to be honest, to get to the meat of what we were trying to say, and I feel like we were trying I think that they were trying for the most part, and yet with all of the kind of dragon like let's say at fifth grade level, guys.
You know the Thank God, there's so much wrong with this. This is I'm sorry, I'm going to say this, and it's going to trigger some people. This is what happens when you like people like Jordan Peterson take over your thought process in your life. You come to really dumb conclusions by really throwing out a lot of words and thinking that you're the smartest kid in the room. Okay, Judeo Christianity is not a thing. That's a thing that's made up. Okay, there's no through line between Judaism and
Christianity unless what the Christians say it is. Okay, just because you think that that's really awesome and it's really cool and everybody else should follow the way that I do thinks doesn't mean that it's more true than other things. Which this is just a really complicated argument for essentially what asserts to fascism, right, this idea that look, we have to follow these moral codes and these principles because not only is do I think this is true, but
this is actually metaphysically true. This is actually what makes up the encompasses our reality, what makes up Western civilization. And if we don't follow through with this, this could collapse. Apps are civilization, This could this could make us lose what we have in our society. Right, So, like, yeah, you might view that as extreme, but this is essentially what this comes to. This is the reason why folks
get interested in this stuff. They think that there is this idea of the West versus the rest of the world. And then then you know, we have to protect the West and all of its values, even though they're inconsistent and some of them are great, and and it changes all the time, and who is a part of the West and not part of the West is going to be a constant end abate with no end. But but this is what happens, Like, this is what this community
gets to do. And I guarantee you Sofia, we're gonna get the Jordan Peterson stands in the comments telling us how we're all wrong, we're taking things out of context. But I've read Nietzsche, and I've read Sarge, and I've read food cult and I disagree with the a lot of the premises here. I don't I don't think you can get to these kinds of arguments.
I've read them and forgotten a lot about them. Must be real I haven't found and.
They're hard to understand, so it doesn't really matter. Also, Nietzsche, it's like a brilliant book philosophers, and I say the others, but you know, I would.
Say that I find them less useful than attempting to work out logic from my own standpoint in the world, I think that, yeah, they're hard to understand and they're easy to get lost in. And so I realized that I oftentimes will start rephrasing something as like, hey, let's let's try to put this into something that's a little bit easier to digest. It's not because complex ideas aren't important. It's that I don't believe that we need to use
words that are kind of alienating to explain them. And if someone doesn't understand an idea well enough to simplify it, then I don't know that they understand that idea well enough full stop. So yeah, I think that this was an interesting call in the sense that I think you're right that folks get lost in finding folks who tell them what they want to believe. And I kind of think that's a bit what's happened. So yeah, I look forward to Jordan Peterson stands in the comments because I'm
not really sure he would like me anyway. So yeah, yeah, but he liked the fact that you had a kid.
Oh good, you you fulfilled your reproduction version, Sophia, congratulations is real. You're a pillar of Western society. That's awesome, that's really cool.
I'm going to destroy Western society. Yeah, you know, like I get a.
Little heated with this. I just I really don't like this.
This.
I don't like this idea of, first of all, monopolizing a conversation with absolute just out of the wall stuff, out of pocket, stuff with stuff that neither of us have actually argued for or have we're really interested in talking about. To be blind.
That was pretty funny, just the like, well, it's what postmodern atheists think. I'm like, I don't think that.
I don't know, like cool, Well, when you're strong man with folks online and uh, you know, and it's a lot different when you actually have a conversation with somebody and figure out like, oh, what people actually think and how they evaluate ideas. I guess I don't know, maybe maybe I'm being a little extra, but I can't be more extra than what our callers decided to bring to the table today, right.
So no, I like it, and I think that there are there's something to be said. And I've said this on the show before that like, I know that you want to get your point out, but I'm not going to let you preach. This is not a sermon, this is not just time for you. And so I appreciate the call and the perspective, but maybe it's really important to hit our points really fast. So I actually got a little bit sass here there that I typically do, just because I think I was a little frustrated with
that too. So I don't know, fiery makes it interesting. All Right, we should talk real quick about the super chats first of all, that are in the chat, which include actually the end of Jamie's Blind Blind Limey sorry the super chat there and yeah, you want to read those out real quick.
Sure.
We got one from Miranda Rensberger members six months gave five dollars, who said, is Jackie familiar with communicating like a normal human? Yeah? I listen, We're no. I mean, look, if you're gonna come and talk to us, about your points. There's definitely a more succinct way you can, like, like absolutely if you want to talk about hey, I think the Christian menaitrev is more true than others. Cool, let's start with that. Let's just why do we have to
have this preamble? I don't understand. If you have great idea and it involves some philosophy context, there's definitely a way you can talk about on this show. There's definitely a way where you can make it work. But let's let's, you know, let's try to think before we call our hosts and and do that for next time. So thanks for that. And then also we have our top five patrons. Do you want me to read those two SOPHI? Yeah,
I got it right here, Sure, go for it? All right, we got top five patrons this week is oops all singularity, Dingleberry, Jackson, ca Levy, Helvetti left in the leaves, Neil the six O four atheists, and honorable mention goes to Brian Zook. Thank you so much to our top five patrons. And if you want be a patron on the Patreon you can do that in the description anyway you can go. Gready to keep going.
Okay, so give me one second, because I am going to point out where they can go to give on Patreon here. If you want to have your name read on the air, then please consider supporting us at our patreon, which is tiny dot cc slash patreon. T that's tiny dot cc slash patreon th like talk ethen. Yeah. On that note, we started recording the talk e than discord after show for all levels of paid patrons. So if you want more content and more sort of an informal
look at the hosts. And this isn't just the host who've just posted. Sometimes other hosts come on there and just have a much more casual conversation. It won't necessarily be like show themed. It's really fun actually, So you can access that if you join our patreon. There's a
couple other super chats a little bit further up. First, I want to Blindlimy the last thing that you said here, aside for asking God to make him a wing commander in the Arif so you can fly the Eurofighter, the last wish while we're asking for impossible things was a reasonably priced one bedroom in Austin. I would say keep dreaming, Bud, and then we have a super chat from Nash for five dollars five dollars a Canadian. I don't know why
that matters. I feel the need to point it out though, Yeah, Canada. But Jack Frost is one of my favorite myths. It seems so interesting to me that people would attribute something so small to a whole supernatural being. I completely agree. I love the Jack Frost myth. And there's a book that I greatly enjoyed reading called The Year one thousand, and it looks at a medieval calendar for each month and uses that illustration to talk about what life was
like in that month. And that's they talk about Jack Frost and the end of the harvest and all of these different rituals and so specifically Britain in the year one thousand. So if you're interested in Jack Frost and some of these interesting ideas that folks had back in the day when we understood less science, that would be when you might enjoy all right, so the sweet Okay, those are all the super chats. Be sure you can
totally send us more super chats in the comments. All right, So we have one more collar that we're going to take, and I am definitely curious about this we have had a theme today. The theme has been like philosophy basically how our brains work, how we respond to things because our brains work that way. So this is Rogue Show. He him from South Carolina and says is it necessary or is asking is it necessary for atheists to study philosophy? All right, so we're going to bring in hey rogue show.
All right, you're asking tell us about this? Is it necessary for atheists to study philosophy?
Yeah? But there's one thing.
There's one thing that's kind of nagging. It's for those for those who want to know post modernism is actually active perspective that takes a lot of perspective. It's pretty much we have to consider a lot of perspectives here or not. We can't just operate on one. And it focuses on science and a lot of it focuses on science and critical thinking, which sees U don't, which sease.
Don't, Mike.
But my question, yeah, my question is like is it is it not necessary?
Is it really?
Is it necessary to study philosophy as an atheist or is it like just a side gig you can do?
Why is it necessary? Live your best life? Who cares? Who would you want. I don't think. I don't think being an atheist. Oh wait, you have to. You have to get your credits in Sorry, you know you can't have your bachelor's and atheism without getting your philosophy credit Rogue show. Actually, so we gotta we got to revoke your atheist degree.
Right.
I don't think it's like that. I think it's more just like, yeah, you can look at it if you want to. Now, granted, there is a benefit to studying philosophy in a formal context versus watching a fifteen minute YouTube video that summarizes some guy's books. Right, So you're going to get a deeper understanding if you read the word. Obviously, I can't speak any of the original language that folks
like nietzschee right, writing in German. And then most postmodern philosophers are French, so a lot of them are going to be writing in French. Right, So like there's I don't have that benefit. And I've heard that that's like the best way to read a lot of works. But I think it's great if you can if you want to speak confidently about a particular subject. Sure, But the thing is, philosophy kind of by design is always going
to be endless. I mean, I guess that's true with any kind of science, but like, if you're going to speak on any sort of like real knowledge or authority, it helps to actually look at the original source material, especially if you're going to be engaging with folks online,
which is like what a lot of us tend to do. Right, Like, you're going to be on the back foot if people are going to be talking about religious phenomenology and you're not familiar with some of the basic texts that like go into that, right, Because philosophy, unlike a lot of other fields of study, are really context dependent on the sources that come before it. There's a really you have to really no philosophy in the order in which things were kind of written in order for things to make sense.
Like if you just start with postmodernism, you're going to be really confused if you haven't read modernist texts. And then you're going to be really confused if you haven't read you know, the Greeks, right, and then you know, there's like a lot of stuff that gets referenced each time. So in short, yeah, if you want to go for it, but like I'm not going to be the atheist police and say you haven't read your philosophy. No, no, that's bad news. Yeah, just do what you want. I don't care.
Live your best life rogue show.
Yeah. I think that. My take is that no matter what it is you're looking at, there's always going to be somebody who disagrees with you and knows more about it than you do. So there's never going to be like this perfect amount you can know about any subject that will mean that you're the most like bulletproof or certified atheists or whatever it would be. Clearly I am less well versed in philosophy than Dan Is, Like that's
just evidently true, and that's fine. I think that there can also be a lot of space in it isscussion to ask what someone means by what they're saying. If they're using a term I don't know, then I'm happy to say, like, hey, I'm not familiar with that term, because then I get to know how they're understanding it and what standpoint they're actually arguing from, and I can
maybe have that conversation a little bit more successfully. So I've also feel like I feel like there's value in focusing on critical reasoning, like regardless of what topic you're looking at, and for me, philosophy is it's cool to get into different philosophers, and critical reasoning is a fundamental part of it. But being able to be critical on the fly and just to think through, like what are the questions I have about this? Like what can we
explore further? I found a lot of help with a lot of help from that, I guess I found that extremely useful. I guess I'm not always the best with words, but I feel like being curious and asking questions as you're having conversations is totally okay. I do think that there will be experiences you have with atheists and theists. They're going to have read a philosopher and they're going to do a lot of Dickson in with it, like sorry, that's rather a cross term, and people without Dick's also.
Do that it's an appropriate term.
Yeah, there isn't quite another term that I'm really sure gives this this ideal. But I think there are folks who will feel like they're smarter than you because of that, and who will walk away and feel like, well, they didn't even know blink. But okay, I'm not really trying to impress those folks anyway.
You know, it's also appropriate, actually, Sophia just to add on to that, because philosophy folks tend to be chauvinistic. There is a tendency towards this idea of this sort
of rational objectivity that some people speak to. You know, look at any philosopher ever and you'll see that there's some of the most problematic people that have ever lit like like like like Heidegger is like kind of a Nazi, Like that's like kind of been spoken about, you know, like there's all kinds of people who have absolutely written amazing stuff that have contributed to the literature, and they themselves are not the most rational people when it comes
to other issues. So the point is, if you're doing it to better yourself, that's great. Well it make you think more critically sometimes, Sure, it's not the be all end all. Please do not treat one specific discipline as, oh, this is going to solve everything for me and make me super smart and be able to debate people and take them down and be the winner. Because that's what a lot of people take when it comes to philosophy. That's kind of the approach. And yeah, you know it's pretty bad.
I think that that can happen too. In I feel like that's happened with psychology. Let's think about Jordan Peterson, Like that definitely comes up. I think that can happen with economics, Like I've seen a lot of folks who are even hobbyist economics act like this is the field that really explains humans. This is really what gets us, you know, all of the answers and anything that you come to me with if you don't understand my jargon
is wrong, So people can be kind of crappy regardless. Yeah, I would also just throw out that there are there are different ways to engage with philosophy in the sense of like how people actually live and how we apply ideas to how we live. I'm a big, big advocate for reading fiction, particularly from different time periods and different cultures. I think that being able to see belief supplied in fiction is incredibly valuable. I think that that's a great
way to understand other people. Even if it doesn't necessarily help you, like win a debate, it helps you understand how other people live and why they live that way. So I would throw out there that like literature, fiction also has a place and just human understanding, even though it does not aim toward being objective. Does all that make sense? We just threw a ton of a ton of words at you. We've both had some feelings on that one.
Yeah, yeah, it makes sense.
I guess I can.
Okay, if I leave you with two.
Things, sure you leave us with one and a half things, just kidding, you can.
Do too, Okay, I will, I will, I'll rearrange the numbers.
So the first the first thing is that the reason the reason why.
I sort of this question ask this question, it's because I personally find philosophical conversations annoying, and it's like, do you really need to do you really need to study this? Like because it just feels like the art of talking past each other a.
Lot sometimes sometimes.
And second and secondly one and a half one and a half lead. What what woke moralists don't understand about post modernism is that it's flawed due to a metaphorical such creak.
That's pretty good, that's a pretty good Jordan Peterson right there.
I was like, Jordan Peterson, Kermit the Frog, that those were the two. But I love idea of Kermit the Frog lecturing about what moreless got to say that I went there. No, thank you, So I'm gonna go ahead and the club thank you for leaving us with those two things, and awesome, thank you for calling. Definitely call back. We really liked that question. Yeah, yeah, sorry when it happens well to answer that question.
Uh, I know, I think a lot of philosophy is useless to most people. I'm not afraid of saying that. I think I think there's yeah, it's it's it's immensely interesting for some people, and for some people it's just whatever, doesn't matter. What what does uh, you know, religious phenomenology mean to a fisherman in Taiwan. I don't know. It could mean some things. It could be some very useful stuff. It's not going to help them fish any better, right,
Like it's for a lot of people. Granted, maybe maybe I'm speaking to the mode of capitalism there, right and saying, oh, it's not useful for you making money, And that's not what I'm trying to say. What I'm trying to say is that, like you know, when we're talking about metaphorical or metaphysical substrates, it just doesn't hit with a lot of people because it's it's it's not unless you're in the academy and you're producing works. It's it's not gonna
do much for you. So yeah, I don't think you have to have an understanding of philosophy to be a smart person or a competent person, or to think correctly. I only think it's useful for talking about the subjects that philosophy tends to talk about, which which could be a lot of things.
It's like when you play a really complex board game, which I myself have learned to appreciate because many people I love really like complex table top board games. Being good at that game just means you're good at that game. Being good at chess doesn't mean you're actually going to be good at war. Like sometimes we like to make these things seem like a bigger deal than they are.
For me, it took me a long time to actually feel confident in saying I am smart and I don't understand that and that's acceptable, and okay, I do think I'm a little self conscious of that as a woman, to be honest, because I feel the need to almost be like, well, I have to be the smartest, but no whatever, fuck them. So yeah, I agree, And I just feel like trust yourself and trust your logic and your arguments and things that you can logically defend are true.
Do you know, yes, one hundred percent. That's my mission and make everyone say they don't be and make everyone okay with saying they don't know. I read that last super chap there.
Oh yeah, sure, I'll do that, and we have the super chat from Constellation Pasis, who gave twenty dollars nineteen ninety nine. Thanks for that and said, thank you. What's the most infuriating subject you have to deal with?
That's a good question.
Yeah, I don't know what's the most for you, Sophia.
Well, it's interesting because I was thinking about, like, what actually makes me the angriest, and it's not. It was more from when I was in the church actually than something that I engage with as much now. If another Christian ever looks at me and smiles and says, well, no one is righteous, no no one, I'm going to fucking drown them. Like I have heard people say that about child molesters, about like folks who are just obnoxious
about like it's just a deflection. I've never heard it used in a way that isn't just to say, well, you're bad too, essentially, and I'm like, if that's where your faith gets you, then I have no interest in your faith or your interpretation of it. So I think, obviously that gets me kind of riled up, and that's I feel like I deal with that attitude more now than the actual phrasing because now I'm out of the church.
But it was it was smirkingly used. I don't know if that's a word smugly maybe used so often in the church, and it was, it's disgusting. It's a coverall for being disgusting. So anyway, that at least makes me the maddest, not to that that's good.
That's good stuff, Sophia, I don't. I do like into I dislike intellectual posturing. In case that wasn't clear already, I think I think that's a pet feeve of mine. I don't care whether you're the most you think you're the smartest guy in the room. It doesn't matter. All that matters, is what we're talking about. In that context.
I've met so many people in my life who are exactly as you describe as if you they're good at they're good at the one thing or or or they think they're real good and they think that they're just the bees for everything in life, And there's always so much more you can learn from other people if you take the time to really set your ego aside and look at the world and spend time with people, Because it turns out not everything you know, wisdom doesn't always
come from discord conversations and YouTube videos. There's more to life, right than just engaging with other people online arguing the same things every day, which I do see from some people sometimes, right, Like, there's there's a big world out there. So that's the stuff that probably annoys me to know end, it's the folks who do call in and who consider themselves experts on particular subjects and until they've actually talked
to somebody about that subject, I guess you know. I'm not saying any in reference today in particular, but even just like you know, general Christianity kind of stuff too. You know, people saying, oh, well, you haven't actually read the Bible. Oh well, I've read it actually from beginning to end, and I can tell you estummation of probably every book if you ask me in one you know what am I missing here?
Right?
That kind of stuff, So yeah, I don't know.
I think in our so we're big load of the Rings people in my family, and we thought about naming
our Sontheodin. We did not, but you know, we thought about it, and we refer to that as Saramon syndrome, because if you read Lord of the Rings, this my nerdy self is like Saramon didn't take the time to really understand how armies are composed and effective to the degree that a professional essentially not standing army but a more professional, cohesive army like Rohan which has been operating as an army for years, understood and so when in the movies it looks like Saramon is a genius with
an overwhelming force, realistically, Saramon thought, because he's a very smart person, he would be able to of course take over you know, the lands of the row herem of course he could you know, be on par with Sorron and be a power to match his. When in actuality, he just assumed that because he was smart in these things, he knows he's smart and that he's good at everything. There are are some some powerful tech folks that I
feel like fit this description. It's essentially the idea that I understand this, so I can run everyone else's lives, right, or I can tell everyone else how to live because I have this thing.
I know this thing.
So yeah, I feel like sorromon syndrome is what I think.
Of that gone great man and history vibes there right, like great theory of history there vibes well. Yeah, the tegbros thing. Yeah, very very on point with this. I like that. But hey, we're getting close to the Yes, we.
Need to wrap up. You are right to remind everyone the prompt for this week is what's the reason God created hell? Wrong? Answers only replying the comments and tune in at the beginning of next week's episode to hear the top three answers. And we also want to thank Richard for helping out today. Richard, do you want to pop on and tell us what is what was your favorite part of the show? Here's Richard.
Jackie, Jackie, Jackie, Jackie.
By the way, were you talking before the show? I'm just curious because you.
Better, I'm going to I'm going to keep that secret.
Well, Jackie, Jackie.
I usually coming in I give a general appraisal about all of the calls, but the last two weeks. I feel I've answered Jackie. If you are an honest person, which I believe you, maybe you will know that the phenomenology of religion is a wide field with many many disagreements within it.
That's true religious phenomenology. I'm sorry I'm interrupting you, but that also weird anyway.
Well, one of the things that really pisses me off with people like that is they come on and they make statements as so there is only one opinion in the field, and it is not true. It is not the case, and something cannot be I could go on about this for hours, so I'm going to keep this as short as possible. Something cannot be more true than something else. You might be more persuaded that that thing is true, but something is either true or false. It
cannot be more true than something else. This could have been an amazing call. Had Jackey been, you know, someone who wanted to come in and have a genuine conversation about this subject, it could have been an amazing call.
We could have got to the point to that thing where we could have investigated what makes something, you know, a legitimate belief is what is where the phenomenology of religion really comes into its own is where is something a legitimate belief where we cannot criticize someone for having a belief in that thing, and does that make it true? That would have been an amazing call, but instead we had to go down this singing. Here's what Jackie did,
and here's what Jordan Peterson does. What they do is this stuff fifteen twenty maybe twenty five pretty decent sized testicles in the mouth, and then they open their mouth and then they all come cascading out like a fucking waterfall. It's bullshit. You can speak in plain language if you understand the subject and you want to be honest when you're discussing the subject, you can speak in plain language.
The reason you don't do that is because because you know full well if you do that, there is a conversation to be had, and that the conversation takes all the power away from you, because what you want to do is interspersual superiority. And finally, before before I drop out, you don't talk to my fucking host like you talk to them.
I was the one who muted you at the end of that call. I will do it again. You do not talk to my host like that.
Thank you guys. That was a fantastic show.
I really appreciate you.
Thank you. I feel so supported.
Just came in and like, you know, talk to the teacher or something. That was That was the feeling I got there.
It's nice. Yeah, and nt I drop the call and I was like, oh, it's already muted. I wonder how that happened. It's amazing, well, amazing. Thank everyone for watching, for being here. We are going to have a bit of an after show with at least a couple of us at to theatiny dot cc slash ACD discord. I've got all those words out. That's where you can catch us. And if you don't believe, this is your community and we appreciate you being here. If you do believe, we don't hate you.
We're just not convinced. Thanks again, everybody. We'll see you later.
We want the truth, so watch Truth Wanted live Friday at seven pm Central. Visit tiny dot CC slash YTTW and call into the show five one two nine nine one nine two four two, or connect to the show online at tiny dot cc slash call tw