In seventeen oh eight, so the story goes, a great ship called the Concordia was wrecked on the coast of Australia, with ninety survivors going inland and founding a colony in Central Australia. In eighteen thirty four, the Leeds Mercury newspaper published a story about a British Army expedition that had come across the survivors, and an eighteen fifty one Dutch magazine told of a British sea captain recounting a tale of carrying passengers that had met a Dutch colony living
in a primitive manner. Dutch DNA found in modern native people from the area, European style cave paintings encountered by early explorers, and native women with Old Testament names encountered by early missionaries all make this story intriguing. Thirty years after the Leeds Mercury report, there was no trace of any colony, if they existed at all, they had disappeared entirely from Central Australia. All we are left with is fragmented and tantalizing pieces of information that may or may
not inform that this story is true. So should we believe it? It is intriguing, perhaps to some even compelling, but should it be convincing? The pursuit of truth is very important, and how we assess the evidence and form our conclusions is a matter of discussion. Are we being biased? Are we motivated by the story being true? Does the evidence sufficiently support the claim? The great thing about the above story is that it would rewrite Australian history if
it were true, and yet it hasn't convinced historians. Imagine if those historians hadn't only got those scraps of evidence, but had been brought up in a culture and society where tradition helds that the story was true, and believe in that story had influenced in shape society where in every city there was a monument to the colonists and holidays were organized around the alleged dates of the shipwreck
and encounters with them. Would they be more inclined to believe it if they were steeped in a tradition that it was true. I think yes, And I think that's what persuades many religious people their faith is true. Not that the fragmented evidence is sufficient to infer it is true, but the tradition has told them that it is true. If you disagree, give us a call because the show is about to begin. Hello, Hello, welcome everyone. Today is
May the eleventh, twenty twenty five. I'm your host, Richard Jilber, and with me today is a very surprise host, Aaron Jensen. How are you, Aaron, I'm well, a surprise, I'm here.
I made it.
Yeah, we brought you in at last minute. Unfortunately Dan couldn't make it, and you were very kindly on hand to step in. So we are going to hopefully have a good one. We're going to get some fist calls in, and we're going to get some evidence for God's existence. Surely we are day.
It's Mother's Day here in the United States. So what better day then to bring out evidence for God than on Mother's Day.
Bring your mother as well and let her give us evidence. Yeah, that don't even make sense.
I don't know what I'm talking about.
Talk Keithen is a production of the Atheist Community of us in, a five h one c three nonprofit organization which is dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking,
secular humanism, and the separation of religion and government. Talk Keithen is a life calling show and we have open lines, so get your calls in at five one two nine nine one nine two four two all from your computer at tiny dot c c slash call t H. But of course, before we do that, we're going to do what we normally do and go in for the question of the week. Let's welcome Eli to take it away.
Hey, uh, yes, so it's time for our hot Heathen to me segments. We're we into you the question. Last week we asked you rewrite a scripture using modern slang on Here are the top three angel answer is chosen by Johnny p Angel Number three Miranda Rensberger Revelation twenty two fourteen from nrsvue. Blessed are those who wash their robe so that they will have the right to the tree of life and may enter the city by the gates. Modern slang version, Yo, smell check bra you on your
last chance? Undis or what you best mow the laundry if you want to hang around here, because don't no one want you around? And that's thank asspit.
Laundry. I that's that's a new approach to doing the line. I haven't heard, I have never mowed my laundry before. Also give that a try. I've never heard mo before. I seem to think it wouldn't last, you know, but I'll give.
Yeah and yeah, that's the only time you can Number two from stealing time at work. A fool lip doth funk around and his mouth invites him to find out Proverbs eighteen six. I like that one a lot.
That's opera po to kind of what's going on here in the United States is like, okay, this is what this is what we get now?
Right?
Hm? Topical I guess is number one from Alan tenor modern slang Bible verse.
NGL.
Not gonna lie that apple over there really slaps, but if you door dash one, you'll literally get unalived in a hot minute, no cap.
I like the unlive. I think is the best part of that is you know, with all the YouTube videos and filtering that the platforms do unliving and other words that people come up with the replace whereas that they can't use.
Right, So I'd be glad that you did tell as what NGL men, because I had no idea being incredible.
Man.
Yeah, Now that was just for me to demonstrate that I knew basically, like like I'm I'm like old enough for people to think I'm too old to talk like that, so I'm like, I still get it though. So the problemt for next week is how do you know when you've overstayed you're welcome at Bible study? Aaron, do you have an answer for this one?
Usually I know I've overstayed my welcome when the lights go out. That's you want to know it's time to wrap things up. Their deaths, they are just gone. You know, they've talked themselves into bed, they're asleep. That's usually when I know I've overstayed my welcome. That's a pretty good indicator. Yeah, fair enough.
Well, my niece, she's grown up now with two children, but we took her to a Bible study ones. They were playing in the sunfit during this Bible so that they this little out wooden figures in the sunfeit representing different tribes of Israel, and it sweeps them all up with the hands. This was the first time she'd ever been to any church service of any kind whatsoever. She sweeps them all up in the hand, stood up, held their arms aloft, threw them to the ground, and just
shouted out, I am God. I am going to kill you. That is one way to get out of any Bible studies. Let me tell you, I know I lived it.
That's amazing. Maybe this isn't the best fit for you.
Yeah, these are both really good.
Just what's in the Bible? I mean kind of I'm sure we can find a Bible story too where that's kind of happening. Yeah.
Yeah, once you imitate God, I think they're ready for you to leave.
So yes, that is definitely true.
So we're anxious to see what the audience comes up with. In the comments section, give us your best answers and tune in next week to see the top three. And I'm gonna dip out. You guys have a good show.
Thanks, thank you very much. Yeah, it's of course, it's not just us and Eli who make this thing happen. We do have a crew as well. As much as it pains me to say so, they do do a good job and deserve some accreditation for that. So let's have a look at them. There.
They are.
Bad eyes on one or two of those people, and they know why Wales it has not been forgotten. So while we're waiting for calls to come in, it is mother's day, But that is not an excuse not to
call theists. I want to just I want to just remind the people on the Talk Heathen, on the eighth Community of Austin facebook page, and on the Atheist Community of Austin TikTok, and on my own TikTok page, and on the Atheist Community of Austin what's that on the Instagram page that's the one, all the pages, all these platforms where I have have interacted with religious people who have been down like slagging off our show and commenting on our videos and saying that the hosts don't know
what they're talking about, the hosts are wrong, and have extended the invitation to call. Please do call. Don't just sit there doing nothing, don't just sit there, you know, being keyboard warriors. And I'm going to use that term because that is what a lot of these people are.
The repeat commenters. You know, there's people on our YouTube videos who will preach week in week out on every single video we make, and I'm constantly telling them preaching is the least likely thing you can do to convince me that God exists. If you want me to be convinced that God exists, bring arguments, bring evidence. That's the
thing that will convince me. In fact, if all you're going to do is preach at me, that tells me that you don't have good reasons to believe that God exists, You don't have good arguments, that you don't have any evidence, and that, for me, is a sure sign that you don't know what you're talking about. So don't just sit there tapping away your keyboard. Come in and talk to us directly. We're not going to buy it's you know, we're not going to shout at you. We want good conversations.
And with that, we do have a call. Excuse me, we do have a call ready to go. We're going to talk to buddy, who says he respects the Pope and was prompted to call via the poll. So let's have a talk to buddy. Hey, buddy, how are you?
Hey, how's it going? Richard?
Very well?
Thank you? How are you?
I'm doing the best I can?
Good? Good. So do you tell us in your own words, what is you want to talk about?
Well, I.
Joined the stream, and I saw the poll and I voted on it, and I'm one of the few people that was like, yes, I do respect the new Pope's views, even though I am an atheist and all of that. I just wanted to see how you guys feel about that.
Okay, So I'm not going to light here. I'm not familiar with the new Pope. I don't know what his views are. So if you could lay some of those out for me, and like, give us what you're thinking the kind of the best not just the best example of his views are, but the best example of his putting his views into action and kind of influences influencing his flock to do the same. If you have an example of that, have me just I think we may have had a couple of technical problems, but are you there?
Oh goodness, I keep I keep getting bounced back and forth between you and the call screen.
I apologize, So I don't know what how and that if you can, if you can give us an example, buddy, of what you think the kind of the best of the Pope's views are, but not just his opinion on them, but how he's actually influenced his flock into acting in such a way that represents these views that you're consider good.
So they're My personal view is that the new Pope is going to have to do a transitional period between his papacy and uh, the previous pope, and that's that's going to be interesting to see how it goes, especially because Ship what was his.
Name, Francis Francis.
Uh, he was a very staunch supporter of UH regressive views. And I'm very interested to see how the new guy does, especially being an American born or American native.
Quote unquote quote.
That's going to be interesting. But he has given enough pushback to stuff that I can't necessarily speak to knowing the nature of the channel, but I'm interested to see what he does and just what the nuance that he brings to it.
Yeah, I'll give them the benefit of the data first, and hopefully he can solve some problems that the Catholic Church has. You know, rampant sexual abuse is very much still a problem in the church, and they haven't seemed to be doing anything about it. I think that's the biggest problem that I would expect. I would hope any pope is going to solve that. That should be their number one priority is protecting kids, So I hopefully he gets on that really quick.
One of the one of the primary ones that is on what I would like to see happen.
Is just the abuse. Has he made any comment regarding that in the past that you know of it? Has what has been his opinion on that abuse? Then that's taken place?
Oh oh, just the the way that the church has buried the treatment of you know, minors and younger people in.
The church, condemning it, I would like to see brought to light. But has it Has it made comment on these previously that you know of? Uh?
I am honestly not terribly uh well aware of any of their positions, but I would be very much interested in seeing how this gets addressed.
Yes, so what is it specifically?
Then?
What is it? What is it specifically said that has kind of media rather than just kind of appearing to be progressive. What has he specifically said that's kind of led you to think this guy could be a good pope. He's very progressive. He might kind of change out the shape of the church moving forward.
And to be perfectly honest, I don't know. He's very recently been put into this position. Ultimately it's up to him to make that move. But at the same point, what I have seen so far is that he's said stuff that makes an orange person quite upset with.
That, it is upset in somebody who's in power, regardless of that political spin. Is that enough to kind of give us confidence that the guy is actually progressive and may make changes for the for the positive what we would consider positive from a kind of perspective of humanism.
That's that's a very good question. It's it's not a great baseline, but as in as an overall it's it's a good place to start. And specifically, like if you've been outside, outside is a very scary place recently.
Yeah, so I was gonna ask the same question that Richard asked us. Just because you upset the orange one, doesn't does that make you qualified for people to listen to you? And I would say, you know, probably not.
You know, I really want to see a pope, uh, progressive maybe not be the right word that is going to appreciate that people would appreciate that aren't atheists, but someone who's going to let people love they want to love, who's going to let people live their lives that they want to live, whether it's Catholic or Christian or not.
That he's going to preach what I think are the most important things that Jesus taught that to love one another and to serve your neighbor, and to love your neighbor and to help other people that are around you.
And I hope that he doesn't continue to I shouldn't say continue, but I hope that he doesn't try to double down on intolerance and on the historical, you know, ideologies Christianity where things have the dogmatic aspect, where things have to be a certain way, and that he can lead people to be more loving and more accepting of the people around them. That's what I'd like to see from a pope, for any religious leader, honestly.
Yeah, And that's that's exactly the kind of things that I hope he would do. But he's just getting started, so we still got to give him a little bit of leeway to do what he's going to do, and hopefully it's going to be a good thing.
Hopefully, I hope it is.
I'm not going to lie. I'm not confident.
Beyond that that beyond that will be proper for the after show, So I will let you guys get on to another color.
All right, Okay, but thanks for your call. We appreciate it. I think for me, I think it's we are. I think for me it's important to kind of get this this idea of progressive. You know, what does that actually mean? You know, just just making noises about someone being progressive doesn't demonstrate for me that we've got, you know, a progressive guy coming in who's going to make a real, real difference to things that will have to be shown
out in his actions. And the Catholic Church, from my understanding of there's you know, there's many, many denominations of Christianity, like Church is not up there with the most progressive of them. And I think, you know, coming in you upset in the apple car in an in an organization such as that, Being progressive in an organization such as that might be a long way off what I would consider being a progressive person. Aaron, what do you think on that?
No, I totally agree. I think you're going to be the organization that you're a part of can only let you be so progressive. There's a there's a factor in the Catholic Church and how progressive you can be. I used to be Mormon, and it's the same thing in the Mormon Church. No matter how progressive somebody a leader in the Mormon Church wants to be. There's only so much the church, the other leaders that you have to
work with. I'm the same with the pope. He may want to make sweeping changes, but he's he's still going to be responsible to be held to come up by the other cardinals, by the other members of the church. And if you get too progressive, you may lose members, and then there's butts and seeds and so I hate to say it, but if you're sitting at the top, it's a it's a calculus that you have to do. How progressive can I be and still maintain our power,
our influence. Our butts and seeds are tithying those kinds of things.
Unfortunately, Yeah, I agree with you, So let's let's swiftly move on. So, the ACA wants you to know what is going on in our community. You can head over to www. Dot Atheist Hyphencommunity dot org where you can learn about the organization itself, it's policies, and how you can get involved. And another way to support us is by sending super chats. Get them in and we will read as many as we can if they are appropriate to do so. I'm pretty thick skinned out. I think
you can get away with most things. We do have merch so get your talk keythan merch at tiny dot c c slash merch Aca. And I've not said this for a long time, but i will say this now.
It probably won't affect many of you because you'll live across the sea from me, but any of our British fans, if I see you in the street wearing a piece of talk Heathen merchandise and you approach me and have your photo taken with me and we can publish that photo on the show, then I will buy you another piece of merchandise from my own pocket, of your choice.
So if you are a British fan or an American fan and you happen to be visiting Britain and you've got your talk Heathen merch with you, wear it and if we bump into each other, might get you an extra piece for free, absolutely free in the UK. Yeah, do do do. Let me have a look.
We don't have any superchats yet. I must say I'm kind of disappointed that we don't have any superchats yet. Come on, people were there that? Oh is that at super Chat? Watch Chris Conspiracy, biggest cover up in two thousand years. I have no idea what that is? Never heard of?
I have not seen it.
Did we just give someone some free screen time.
That Hey, they send us two dollars. It's not free, they paid for it.
Yes, I guess we're two thousand dollars for christ Spiracy. It's a groundbreaking documentary revealing the biggest cover up in two thousand years. Okay, yeah, very interesting. Okay, well, thank you for that super chat.
Yeah, I think we might having a couple of technical difficulties. I'm going to try and take the next call. Let's see if we can do it. Yes, yes, Michelle, have we got you? Michelle? Are you there? No? I don't believe we do it. I've having a couple of technical difficulties. Just bear with me one second. Well, we try and soort this out. And in the meantime, Aaron, let's talk
about what some people have said about me. Oh I have I was apparently criticizing religious people for being intolerant of the LBGTQ community, and someone responded to that saying, none of what I listed is objectively wrong in atheism. I am assuming that they think that there is nothing that can be objectively wrong because atheism has no ground for objective morality, And in response to that, I would say, listen here, cupcake, nobody has any grands for objective morality.
So you know it's not just an atheism thing. I invite people who are religious, and to all your religious people who are listening now, I invite you to call and have this discussion with me. To show me where in the Bible, either through his actions or instructions, God demonstrates that there is an objective morality because there isn't anywhere where that occurs. What he does is demonstrates subjective
morality all the way through it. And what's even more frustrating about this for me is the subjective morality is not inconsistent with most forms of theology. So I don't understand why kind of Christians and religious people thrust this kind of there must be an objective morality out there because it's not inconsistent with God, with theology. It's not an argument against God to say that morality is subjective.
In my experience, people that have religious beliefs they pick and choose which part of religious beliefs they like, and they kind of either ignore or don't recognize the part that they don't like. That's subjective. That's subjectivity, right. And I think they do the same thing with those commandments that come down from on high. You know, mixed fabrics, people or mixed fabrics. That's not important anymore, right, you know, christ fulfill the law. And there's even more, you know,
really heinous examples of genocide in the Bible. Nobody. I don't see many Christian preachers out there preaching genocide, chattel, slavery, awful, awful things that are still in the Bible that people just kind of say, well that was back then, or they somehow just you know, excuse it away, or just don't pay any attention to it. But they feel and they focus on the things that they like, which is which is I think is good. That's kind of humanist.
Let's let's focus on the good parts, right, Let's take the good prows of all these things and and use those going forward, because we know they're good, they know they help people.
Yeah. One of my one of my I'm going to say favorite, I use the loose sleigh. One of my favorite kind of apologetics comes from a guy called Jonathan Sheffield. I don't know if any of you have heard of him as a scholar and apologist, and regarding the verse in Numbers where God orders the virgin girls to be taken a spoils of war, he argues that we shouldn't say that they are being sent into sex slavery because that is not true. They are not being sent into
sex slavery. The context of the time is that they would have been forced to marry the soldiers and become their brides. I mean, come on, man, if that, if that's your defense of.
It, yeah, oh they're getting married, They're forced being married. Oh that that fixes it. Yeah, that makes it okay.
Yeah. If you if you want to kind of argue against us against that, if you kind of want to argue against us against this object objective morality thing, please do give us a call. You know, I love having these conversations. I don't get to have them anywhere near enough on this show. So if you want to kind of discuss the objective morality thing, I will be more
than willing to take your call. The Numbers call is one five, one two nine nine one nine two four two, or you can use your drowser at tiny dot c c slash call t H Right. I'm going to bring Michelle back in. I think we've got everything works out, Michelle, are you there? I do apologize for the earlier debacles.
No worries, sir, Richard, no worries.
How are you doing and what is it you'd like to talk about.
I'm doing very well, sir, Thank you for asking you. I would like to talk.
About the kind of like the idea that that in my heart and my emotions I still linger and believe in a creator, whether I don't whether at the moment I don't know or no not, if that creator is deistic or deistic near or far closer distance, I know not. However, in my heart and emotions, somewhere lingering in there, there is something that says they or he or she is real and exists. Well in my mind, my mind, that's
all foolishness. It's kind of like I harkened back to Brodo when Warmere tries to take the ring from him and he and process the Wormere. I know what you would say, and it would seem like with them except a part of me.
Yeah, great subjects. I think to talk about this. What I'm going to do is I'm going to pass it over to Aaron to kick this off because Aaron himself has deconstructed from religion, and we'll be able to talk from a personal perspective from this, whereas I have never been you know, I'm never really believing in God. I don't have this perspective. So I'll kind of go through some of the more technical stuff afterwards, but I'd like to hear what Aaron has to say on this first.
Yeah, michell, so why do you think you want to believe? Why do you think that emotional What do you think you have that emotional need to believe that there's a creator out there? And what about the creator? Do you? Yeah? Yeah, why do you want to believe that? What's that emotional need about?
Do you think I wouldn't call it so much an emotional need as well?
It started out I would say as.
An emotional need, but that need as I grew to know or or I won't say no, because I don't believe anyone can know something that is unfalsifiable in nature.
But I will say know that perceived the concept of my perception of what this being more beings were and how they were interacting were not necessarily totally interacting with my world and with okay, but large and like and so it was more a it wasn't a need so much as a so much as a as what I said before, as it was kind of like a longing for something greater than myself.
So you're you're longing for something that's greater than yourself, that that gives you some kind of what What is having that? What does that give you? Because you give you peace? Does it give you content contentment? Does it give you purpose? What do you think it gives you?
Well, I'll see. I know we all want to I want to say.
I know where you're going with this, like and please interrupt me if I'm wrong, Please interrupt me if I'm wrong, But like, are you going?
Are you taking this down the route?
Can I not find any of this contentment?
And am? Maybe?
No?
I'm just trying to understand because I think at the end of the day, I think, at the end of the day, your problem is not is common right? I think at the end of the day, we are emotional creatures and we make emotional decisions. And so having this belief in a have you wanted having this belief that there's a deist or a theistic god, or wanted there to be one and not be able to let it go. I think that's just kind of human nature, and so I think the only way to really understand it is
to understand, Okay, what is this giving me? Why does my why does my emotional side want to have? I want? As is the best wad I can I can come up with?
Uh?
Want to hold on to this belief or have this belief? Is it bringing me peace? Is it sheltering me somehow? Does it give me a purpose? I mean yeah, So I'm just really trying to understand you, because I think it can be different for different people.
I gotta say a couple of different reasons.
What is Michelle? Michelle, let me just interrupt me very quickly. Are you on speaker phone by any chance?
I'm on the call in. I was kind of I was, I was late.
I was kind of sitting back in your computer.
Can hear me better now?
Yeah?
It's kind of a cracker line. I'm not sure what's causing it. So I was just wondering if it would speak a phone. But if you're not on speaker phone, that's fine, Just go ahead. Sorry.
So what really draws keeps me in my heart?
Belief?
And I'm believing in my emotions is that you know, the God who thinks about me, who loves me, who cares about me, whether that's from Afar or near. The idea that I've had it dreams where I've actually literally been encompassed by angel wings and seen he been in my dreams and been a part of that place soaring in the clouds and the glowing and all kinds.
Of stuff like that.
It's just the imagery at all of the imagery, the beauty of the artistry of that whole story. We take all the bullshit and crime and genocide out of it and just say that God got a big ser campaign in most of the religions.
Yeah. Yeah, So it sounds like you're You're kind of you. You enjoy the the idea of it that it does bring you some kind It brings you some kind of sense of belonging maybe in something that's bigger than yourself. Yeah yeah, And I think that's I think that's kind of how I define spirituality. Spirituality is this feeling, this desire that we all have to feel connected to something
bigger than ourselves. And fortunately, unfortunately we've grown up in a society or a culture where that something that's bigger than us is God, right, it's typically Christianity, but it can be other things. And so look, having to let that go and means finding something else to be connected to and be something that that And a lot of people use nature, they go out in camp or they go hi. Can they feel connected to the world, to
the earth around them. Some people go out and find great friend groups and they just feel that sense of belonging and connection with friend groups. And so yeah, usually if you're if your I don't know if your goal is to get rid of this emotion or just understand it or what's your what's your goal here?
That was my second part of the question that I didn't put in. Am I okay in my.
Position being an agnostic, atheist and anti theist, Well.
Yet somehow in my heart and I want to also practice that by dayg.
I've had I've suffered a concussion, a seizure, disorder.
An uh A stroke and an aneurysm and a brain blee all in a short period.
Of time maybe two and a half three and a half years.
That's a lot.
And so I don't know if.
It's Yeah, it's lucky to be alive.
I don't know that some of those injuries and conditions that still cause disciplin gering believe kind of like maybe a split bringing patient with that's wort of thing going on. So I don't know if there's any true way around it other.
Than Michelle, I would suggest that the reason you have this lingering belief is because you are a human being.
And I don't know if you were listening at the top of the show where I recounted the kind of story of this vessel that had crashed on the coast of Australia, and if we took it away from that fragmented there's little bits of tantalizing information here and there which suggests that they might have been a colony of Dutch in Australia before we actually knew they were one who kind of had relationships with the Aboriginal people, and there was a colony there for some a number of years.
And you know, there's lots of tantalizing bits that might make that true. But how much more convincing would that be if we'd been brought up in that culture they'd been up to have been told that that was true, not just there's this bit of information here that we're trying to piece together, but this is true. Our holidays,
our culture, everything else is based on it. I would think that that would convince even with the same amount of evidence that we have, I would think that would convince far farm far more people that that was true than they're currently are. And I think that's very, very important, the fact that we're kind of being brought up in a society where we are told that this thing is true, where we're convinced that is true. And I think you know, you were talking about the labels you would use, and
you know, is this belief consistent with those labels? And what I would say is, for the moment, just kind of forget about the labels. You know, it doesn't matter whether you call yourself or people call you an agnostic athee or an antitheist, or a theist or a deist. What matters is what you are convinced of. And if you are convinced that God exists, then you are convinced
that God exists. And let's look at the reasons why you are convinced that God exists or you know, when you get the opportunity explore yourself the reasons behind why you are convinced you exist. Rather than trying to fit yourself in a neat little box, have a look at the reasoning behind it. You know, there's lots of work being done in psychology and neurology that talk about, you know,
the reasons people believe things. There's lots of biases that we are prone to, that our prains are prone to, just through the basis of the way it is evolved and the you know, these can be. They were good for us from a survival perspective, they're not so good for us in trying to assess what is true perspective. So, you know, it's a very hidden Psychology is very interesting because what it does is it shines a light on how our brain. It doesn't work as we tend to
think that it works. It's not a computer. Our eyes on video cameras when we see the world, we aren't seeing like we would on a film, a video image and motion of image in motion. What we're taking is lots and lots and lots of little separate snapshots, and then the majority of what we experience in any given moment is our previous experience. Cross referencing those little bits of information that are coming in, and that is how
we form opinions about the world. It's not all this stuff is coming in and it's pure and it's perfectly computed. That's not how the brain works. And I think having a look at this would you know, you know, going and going in your own time and having a look at this would really really shed a light on a lot of the reasoning behind why you are convinced that God might still exist. And I think that is far far more important than kind of stick trying to stick
yourself in a label and in a box. Sorry, Michelle, go on, please, in my.
Mind, I would say, in my head, in my thinker, I'm not convinced. I don't see any evidence, but in only in my heart, and even in my heart, I'm not convinced.
But why is your heart? There is no There is no that. We don't have two separate things. We don't have a head which just does rational stuff and the heart, which does emotional irrational stuff. That's not how we work. That's not you know, our emotions and our brain and our consciousness are all part of the same system.
And I share a hypothesis.
You can indeed, and I will not mute you myself when I say that you can, so you can actually hear me. Please go ahead.
Free to meet me. If you do, it's your show, go right ahead.
But no, so you.
Know, I know that the chemical that our emotions come from our brain, right because like our brains are producing all of those chemicals and neurons and electricity.
That fire throughout our body and then get processed by our body, and then our body feels those emotions.
Because of those chemicals.
But I think sometimes when they go back to the brain, they change and then they send another signal, and those signals can sometimes say get bypassed and do a whole bunch of shrent things and odd things and say oh we don't like this, I like that, and then you have kinditive.
Distance, Michelle. I have a very good friend who is also one of the ACAS nonprofits, called doctor Richard Firs god be here, who is an expert on emotions and in fact wrote the book on emotions, which is maybe very useful, you know, to kind of inform you on some of this stuff. It's called the Human History of Emotion. And this what Dr Richard would say, as soon as I heard you say, our brains form emotions I had Dr Richard Firth's God be Here heading my voice in
my head saying no, no, it's not our brains. It's on emotions. It's our it's our whole kind of system that forms emotions. It's the chemicals, it's the it's not just neurons, it's a chemical reactions in our body. It's our goat has a lot to do with it. All of these things have a big part to play in emotion. We are we are a system. We are not just an isolated brain, you know. And there's a there's an
interesting thing in biology which is often overlooked about. And I will shout about this till the ends of the earth, and I will criticize consciousness studies to the ends of the earth, because whenever you get consciousness studies, what you get, and you get these conferences about consciousness studies, what you get is you get a whole load of people in my field philosophy. There you get a whole load of psychologists say, you get a whole load of neurologists say,
and they're all bantering about. But what you don't get is animal biologists consciousness conferences. And you should because there is a thing in biology called the unvault, and it is the sensory perception of a particular species. Is so, as a human species, we have a particular sensory perception which is related to our biology. An ant, or a bat or a dog as a completely different sensory perception
because it has a completely different physical makeup. So emotions and consciousness are far more than just the brain doing shit. It's the whole physical makeup. It's the whole body, it's the it's the all chemical interaction between it. This is a fascinating and you will see me get animated on this because this is something I it's something that's in
my field and something I love talking about. And it's very very important that we take all of this into account when we're talking about how we interpret reality and how we kind of assess what might be true and might not be true. And that's why I say to it, it's so important not to say that the head does this and the heart does this, because we are a system, right.
I guess, yeah, thank you, sir Richard, that I just need to be built in like I get that the whole boy. Yeah, now I'm understanding more like the whole body and the God, the heart, the head, everything, the bones, the marrow, everything, Like you can feel emotions in different parts of the body at any given moment, and the body is so like an integral in how we perceive the world.
Yeah. And one of the damaging things that I think religion can do and Christianity and my experience did to me was it actually tries to separate your brain from your body. It tries to It tries to tell you that we're like these spiritual beings having this physical experience on earth, and so we have to not we have to deny our body, have to deny our emotions, what we're feeling, what we want, and we have to be
purely in our heads. I know that my religion did that to me, and so it's really and I'm literally learning and working on every every day trying to integrate back my brain and my body and understanding what I'm feeling and what I'm thinking and realizing I'm one big system, one big connected thing. I'm not. I'm not just as I heard someone describe once, not just this head that my body body moves around from room to room, right, and this whole, this whole human being. Yeah, does that make sense?
Well that makes perfect sense.
Yeah, go ahead.
I don't know if you guys had anything more to say, but I'm allbun.
I mean, this is my come out.
Public trans I mean, I'm coming out publicly, like Michelle is my my trans name, and I have a couple of different lady names that I go buy trans names, but they're all feminine sounding, and so yeah.
Congratulations on congratulations and thank you for doing that out here with us.
Yeah, we appreciate that very much. So and you know, we hope that our community. Sorry Michelle, go ahead.
Did you mind Richard that I did that? Is that okay on your show?
Of course it's okay. Yeah, Look this this community is here for you, you know. And you know, if if you want to if you want to discuss your journey and your identity and you want to talk to someone who's had that experience, called back when Dr Ben's hosting, because Dr Ben is a trans man, so you know, Dr Benn has lived that and he will be able to kind of you, you know, if you're just beginning on this journey. Dr Ben is you know, he's been doing this in the public space, talking about this in
the public space for a long time. And he might be able to give you some helpful advice. But absolutely you are welcome to do it on our show. You you you stand from the rooftops and and say on our show, Michelle, because you are more than welcome to do that, and you are more than welcome to call back any time and continue discussing your your journey through your identity or your journey through your belief with us at any time you want to do.
Thank you, sir Richard. And was it William moves on Aeron Aeron. That was my next guest, A.
Thank you. That was a great call. It was a great Callah, so many many reasons I don't get chance. And I can see a j I can in my mind's eyes sat in the back laughing because she knows that I get so so animated and expressive when I talk about consciousness. It really really is one of my
favorite subjects to talk about. And it really does infuriate me when we get this kind of snobbery in consciousness studies that kind of for some reason, and I don't know what the reason is that excludes to such an extent non human animal consciousness studies. There is so much great work being done on different animals, and as I said earlier, this thing is called the unvault, a sensory bubble that is their world that perceives the world as
a species. There is so much great work that's been done with so many different animals and through so many different aspects, from spiders to bats, to whales to dogs. There's a great I think it's on I'm not sure if it's on Netflix. Is a documentary at the moment about how dogs sense the world and see the world, which is I watched that recently, and that's a great program as well. And there's so much out there, so much information out there, and we seem to completely ignore
it when we talk about consciousness studies. And it is so baffling to me when it is so blatantly obvious that the physical makeup of a species has so much to do with its consciousness and how it perceives the world, and ignoring that, ignore that at your peril people, because
it's ignorant to do so, I think. And I will stand loud and proud on my soapbox and scream about this to the consciousness community at every opportunity I get, because there's something I'm passionate about we need to do more of our and police.
So it's a really fascinas and fascinating topic. You know, we're all these unique individuals and we're all we're all conscious conscious whatever that means. But consciousness makes you think that you're you came from somewhere, almost like there's and the thought of a consciousness like didn't exist once. Now it exists, and then it's going to stop existing. It's hard for the consciousness itself to accept that kind of fact.
You know that it's gonna that it just came out of nowhere and then it's going to go away eventually. And and uh, the studying animals I think is crazy. It's it can be. It's really fascinating to see the ways that scientists can study other animals and figure out, even though we can't talk to them, figure out how they perceive the world, how they understand the world. Super clever scientists out there studying. I think it to be
super clever to study those kinds of things. Pretty fascinating stuff.
I love it. I love I love the whole field. I love I mean my wife, I love psychology as a layman. My wife's an educational psychologists as well. So I get to kind of into a really really expensive books that I don't have to buy to read some of these like proper studies that have been done. So it's really good. I find it really fascinating and just I think we need to do more, then, needs to be more to just to educate people on how the
human brain works and how human consciousness works. And I think this would dispel if people educate themselves, this would dispel a lot of people who do believe in God. Bringing it back to the last call of bringing it back to Michelle. My wife obviously has been married to me being my wife. That's what married people, don't, they are married to each other. We had conversations for years and years and years. She was a theist, and we had conversations for years and years and years, you know,
talking through kind of epistemology and things like that. And she, you know, no matter how much I talked to her, she didn't relinquish her believing God. What made her relinquish her believing God was doing a master's degree in psychology and actually having that Eureka moment for herself, of shit, this is how the brain works, This is how we relate to things. And it was doing that, it was doing the homework herself that actually kind of brought her out of theism. And I think we need to push
education now. I know there's some things in the US at the moment where you know, I'm not going to get political, but education is not high on the agenda.
And frustrating.
Richard is exceptionally frustrating. And to my mind, to my mind, education should be the highest agenda, and how we interpret the world should be the highest of the education agendas. You know, just learning how can you operate as a society, as a function in society if you do not know how you work yourself? That baffles me, It really really
does baffle me. And there was the frustrating thing about it is it's not like it's a fringe thing and it's just a couple of mad people on the internet like me shouting about it, saying, you know, we should have this in education. This is mainstream stuff. This is mainstream stuff that everybody should know about.
And totally, yeah, we should be teaching people about it. How the brain works, why the brain works. The brain is not reliable, what's reliable? How do we know? We know there definitely needs to be a pistemology classes in high schools. Here we need to be paying teachers more. But in educated in educated populous is harder to control. Yeah, well put it at that.
We have some super chats and we have some patrons. So what I'm going to do is we'll go through the patrons first year. I have the list of patrons in front of your Aaron, would you like to read them out?
Let's see here, where are the page? I don't think I have the patrons here.
I will read to the patrons out then in lou of you having the list. So the top five patrons are number one Oops All Singularity, number two Dinglebridge Jackson, number three Coleeve, Hella Vetti, number four Brian Zuppke, and number five J Colton. And an honorable mention goes to six and I can see my me and my wife have been married so long. An honorable mention to number six. It's you, So right, let's get that sillin us out
of the way. We also have some super chats. So there's a super chat we have from Miranda Rensberger who has been a member for one year and kindly sent ten dollars and says it might be worth traveling to Britain stalking Richard just to get a free piece of Toki the merchandise. Something to consider absolutely, stalk away Nero Marlott said five dollars and says happy Mother's Day. All of your mamas out there are awesome and shouldn't really
do that. In my actension, all of you all mamas out there are awesome and beautiful and kick ass warriors. Respect is due absolutely and Aladdin, and Aladdin sends twenty Danish corona. I think that is if I'm not mistaken, if.
I am Darkey kN king Kingdom's.
Kingdom, yev. We'll go with that one, and says time is an illusion, lunchtime double. So yes, we have open lines. So if there are many sists, don't let Mother's Day get in the way, give us a call, especially if you're one of the very, very brave people who've been doing the keyboard warrioring in our various platforms.
We're nice, we want to have a conversation. Look at Richard, he's had tough conversations with his wife and still he's still married. Right, they go through it. Richard's a nice guy. He's not going to be mean.
I might be mean, depends, but I'm un likely to be mean. If you're come in good faith, I'm not going to be mean. Oh, we have someone in chat. I don't often call people out in chat, but Maverick, being frank, says the evidence all points to a designed universe. Anyone who doesn't realize the assumption that the universe is not designed is not only logical. But I'm getting that wrong. Is he arguing against someone saying it's designed. I don't know if you think the universe is designed, give us
a call. I might have read that.
I might have a conversation about that. Theers is definitely not designed.
Yeah. Yeah, that's a big that's a big, big fail.
So for engineering, someone who designs things, universe is not designed.
Yeah, let's let's go back to, you know, talking about people who've disagreed with me. We have someone on comment number two crew who has said the hate of God is unmatched. You spend your entire day mocking the real God and leaving other gods. This, I have to say, is complete nonsense.
Heat.
I think what they're trying to say is that we kind of we are only picking on I assume the Christian God, because that's usually the kind of message again and leaving the other gods out of it. So let me tell you. Let me tell you that I have
been having these conversations for well over thirty years. I have in that time talked to Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, of all different denominations, people of kind of nature religions, people of pagan religions, all these different kinds of people I have had a conversation with, and they call the show we had a conversation. In fact, I believe it was last time Aaron was on where we had a lengthy conversation with a Buddhist caller. We have all sorts
of conversations with all sorts of different people. We don't just pick on one god or challenge one god. That's not what we do. What we do, in fact do on this show and Christians, if you don't like us only talking to Christians, you can help us here. What we do is we talk to the people who call into the show. So if a Christian calls in, we talk to them. If a Muslim calls in, we will talk to them. If a Buddhist calls in, we will
talk to them. If you want to see us Christians talk to more non Christian people, then by all means share the show. Go into your local mosques and go into your local temples, and go to our website and download the flyers that we have available and go and stick it on if it is safe to do so, on their bulletin boards, and you can help us get more non Christian callers. There they are look on the screen,
they look very much like that. Download them and go into your local mosques and going to your local temples and go into your local goodwarrus and please please stick them up on the bulletin board with permission, and you know we will get more non Christian callers we tend to have. Well listen to this from mind blowing. So the ACA is the Eightist community of Asin Austin is in Texas. Texas is in the US. The main religion
of the US is Christian. Most of our callers speak the same language as the main callers in the US, so while Christian and that is English, and therefore by some weird, weird coincidence that means we have more Christian callers than other religions from maybe regions that don't speak so much English and don't have predominantly Christian religions and no ACA in their area. Really weird, that isn't it.
So it's how that works out. If you're in California, you're mostly surrounded by Californians, and when you're in Texas you're mostly surrounded by Texans. It's kind of weird. How when you're in a country that's mostly Christian, you're you mosto get Christian callers. That's kind of weird. But yeah, we are no respector of gods here. We will we will gladly demolish any belief in God, regardless of who they God is. Yeah.
Absolutely, I'm still waiting for the person who was mentioned in the chat who, whether it was them or whether they are talking to someone else, the person who is claiming that the universe is designed please call in again. The number is five one two nine nine nine two four two, or you can visit tiny dot c c slash call th I'd.
Love to hear We'd love to hear evidence for that.
Absolutely, we would love to have that conversation with you. In the meantime, I'm going to pick on more people who've decided to pick on me, and the number three comment that people have pought to me is that they call its faith for a reason. Gules see in the end, not all things can be explained, doesn't mean they're not real. God bless. I hope you find happiness. To believe nothing must be a miserable existence, and that was aimed towards me.
This is I find this one again. This one is so full of different stuff with good address, it's actually ridiculous. The one point I do kind of want to address in and just from a personal point, is that I must be miss I must have a miserable existence. I can tell you I am the happiest motherfucker alive on the planet. I am happy, almost unrelentlessly happy, almost all of the time, and to the point that it really didn't annoise people because I am so happy, and so
I'm not miserable. I love life. I think life's great. I've had a very privileged life. I've been very lucky. I wasn't indoctrinated into believing that a man in the sky created everything, so I didn't have that massive burden around my neck. I've had a really great life. I'm happy life.
And I and I am getting happier as I deconstruct my religion more and more. What makes me, what's making me miserable? It's all the religious baggage and all the it's all the ship that religion put on me. The way I should be, the way I was supposed to be, the way I was supposed to live my life. That just wasn't true and authentic to who I am. And now that I'm learning to be more true and authentic learning who I am, I'm way I'm a way happier person. Yeah.
Absolutely, And I kind of just address a Maverick being frank again in the audience, or the monster dealing with amicably. But you know they're saying that that argument for a designed universe is irrefutable. Give us a call.
I will refute it.
I will put I will tell you now on this spot because I have no callers in the queue and I'm struggling for it to talk about me, and I will refute it. You you sit there and boast in my chat that your argument is irrefutable, and you will get called out to call into the show, and I can absolutely guarantee you that I will refute your argument.
I wonder why it's so important to them that their argument is irrefutable. Yeah, it's them.
It's so irrefutable. They've got to sit there and tap away on the keyboard and tell everybody in the chat that it's irrefutable, rather rather than calling in and telling the thousands and thousands and thousands of people who are going to watch this show on replay that it's, you know, how irrefutable.
It is.
Really weird, that really weird, Aaron in Loo of callers. You know you've you've never been on this show in a while. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your ground. You mentioned Earlie you were a moment.
Yeah, I was raised Mormon, born and raised. I was, as I've heard it's in. I was in it to win it. Wanted to be, you know, return and live with Heavenly, with God, with heaven Father after I died. So I was, you know, an obedient Mormon. I got baptized when I was eight. I mean, nobody really that's usually when you get baptized as a Mormon, you don't as an eight year old, you don't really have much of a choice in it. You kind of do it
because everybody tells you to do it. But then I went on a mission when I was nineteen, served for a couple of years there, came home, got married, started having kids. You know, the Mormon church is they give you the they give you the check. Let's they tell you how to live your life. Do this, and then do this, and then do this, and then do this, and and I was I did my best. I worked hard, I had I had responsibilities. I believed it. I was
a true believer. And then it wasn't until my son was born, way back in two thousand and five where it all started to crumble down. Because my whole life I was taught that God is loving, God is perfect, and one my son was born, I was like, oh, I have this incredible, incredible love for my son. I would literally do anything to help him, to protect him. I would move I would literally move mountains. If he needed me, I would hop on a plane, be there, no matter what the cost.
Right.
And I realized that I did not get that from God.
Right.
I was not receiving any of that help, any of that comfort, any of that it's gonna be okay, reassurance. I know life is hard. God was just like he was actually absent from my life and That's when I started to kind of deconstruct what was going on. It took about eight years before I stopped going to church, and then another few years before I was like, no,
I can't do this anymore. It was actually I was on YouTube and the algorithm showed me an atheist Community of Austin video and listen to that video, and I was like, oh, this Matt Dilla, hunty guy. He makes a lot of sense, and started watching videos down their podcast, started listening to the podcast, and literally within two or three months of watching ACA videos, I would call myself. I started calling myself in atheist. I was like, oh, I had no reason to believe that God existed, I
had no reason to believe the church was true. It was it's all just it's all just made up. And then I've been deconstructing my faith ever since.
Yeah. Absolutely so I've got some questions for you based based on that. First of all, is it true that you warm underwear that was made out of a material not is similar to this?
Yes, yep, it's just like it looks like a cotton shirt, just like this. I still wear one. This is this is not the Mormon one. This is just a white T shirt that you get to Haynes or whatever. But yeah, just wear a white who looks like a T shirt under your clothes.
Yep. The magic underwear of the Mormon Church.
Yeah, yeah, called the garment. Is the is the official name for it, but everyone else calls it the magic underwear.
Yes, And did you go on pilgrimage not pilgrimage on mission? So I don't know.
I serve. I serve the mission. I was called to serve in the Fresno, California Spanish speaking Mission. So I served in the United States, but learned Spanish and taught uh Spanish speakers in the San Ua Valley of California.
Oh wow, so you had to learn Spanish specifically to do that.
Yes, I had learned Spanish. They could send you to the MTC. If you're learning in a language, you go for about two months and then they send you out to the field. If you're not learning a language, they send you there for three weeks to trend you out to be a missionary. Then you get sent out. And yeah, so I could probably still today, I might be able to have a somewhat coherent conversation about religion in Spanish. But I could not have every day regular discussion about
anything as bad. I couldn't. I couldn't name five things in my house using their Spanish names. Well once we only use Spanish when we were teaching the gospel.
Yeah, what was there a little bit of disappointment that you didn't get sent outside of the US on mission?
Yeah? A little bit, Yeah, because that's kind of more. It's more, it seems more adventurous, right, it seems more glamorous to go out and be in a in a foreign country.
Yeah.
I remember speaking to a moment a great guy. Great guy was from about twenty miles outside of Las Vegas, and you know, I was speaking to him and he told me that we were actually speaking about Michael Jackson. Is the missionary was with was talking about Michael Jackson. And it had such a blank look on his face. And it turned out that it'd never heard of who Michael Jackson was. He'd been lived in such an isolated community. He never even heard of Michael Jackson. And the guy
was so sweet, it was so nice. And I'm sure you will know yourself and that this is kind of everybody that you know, the guys who go on mission. And I'm sure you were the same when you went on mission, did it? Sincerely? Really really nice nice people
really you know, willing to do anything for people. But the church behind that is so manipulative and kind of controlling that it's kind of two separate worlds, and that you until you're not actually allowed to go to the temples, as I understand it, until you've passed the temple test to see if you're worthy of going to the temple.
Yes, the more mature is very big on obeying the commandments, on keeping the commandments that they're that's and before you can go to the temple, they have a list of questions and they ask you are you keeping all of
these commandments? There's like ten or twelve, I can't remember how many there are, but yeah, they ask you all the questions and if you can't answer note any of them, or you're not obedient, you can't, well they give you they give you a piece of papers called temple recommend and if you if you don't answer all the questions, then you can't get a recommend you can't go into the temple. Yeah.
Yeah, so yeah, that's really amazing. I think I think a lot more people could do with learning a lot more about the moment church because it is including many many practicing Yeah, because it is so it is so fascinating, how it I mean, it really is. I mean, you've got a modern religion that begun where you know, the founder of the religion was killed in prison, and you know it was it was brought up on fraud chargers
and it was killed in prison. And many members of the church don't even know this, and when when it is given to them, it's given such a such a spin that it's completely reframed that he was Yeah, it was in prison for his own protection, and and you know, yeah,
yeah it is. It really is, and it comes from very much from the top in the latter day, since it doesn't look unfortunately like our brave keyboard warrior from the chart is going to call in and and it is Mother's Day, so I kind of I'm going to kind of give it to the thieves today that you know, I don't begrudge anyone spending time with the with the mothers. My mother is no longer with us, it would I would love to have that opportunity to spend time with
her again. So I'm going to kind of forgive people today, So let's let's have a little conversation about the pro again, just remind people of the prompt. The prompt for this week is how do you know when you've overstayed your welcome Bible study? Replying the comments and tune in at the beginning of next week's episode to hear the top three answers. And we want to thank Eli for helping
out today. So if we can bring Eli back in for a little bit, I just want to Eli, what were your favorite moments of the show, what we are least favorite moments? You know, give us your opinion on it.
Well, I think I might share the same favorite moment with everyone. Michelle coming out I think was really super I you know, color me honored to be a small part of that. I was in the background. But I also I did want to touch on something that because I felt like in something Michelle said, she made a connection with neurological conditions and religiosity in the effect to the effect of like, you know, I've suffered X, Y, and Z, and I wonder if that's the reason that
I still hold these beliefs. And I think, you know, I would just stress that not only is that unfair to you, Michelle, but also to atheists with neurological conditions and to religious people to sort of equate those two things. So I just say to take care of yourself, be gentle on yourself while you're kind of exploring these beliefs. Yeah.
Absolutely, And Eli, I want to thank you as well because you did as I want to thank Karen because you did step in at the last minute. We had a last minute change of personnel, and we did a little you know, when we're trying to find backup hosts, it's sometimes quite difficult to find, especially last minute to find backup holds for the show, and then it did become like busses and all fucking come up once and
today we had like a pleasant of people. So yeah, we were fortunately we had many people to step in and what great people as well. I want to see if Eli's head can perform the massive magic trick of shooting loverings out. Yes, it's almost like they knew exactly what I was going to say.
I think the university designed how did that happen? What other explanation is there?
That's great if you want to come and see us in the atheist community of Discorde, we will have an after show after the show, and that's over at Discorde, and you are more than welcome to join us over there. That's at tiny dot cc slash ACD Discord. I believe all three of us are going to be over there, So if you want to ask any of us any further questions or continue the conversations we've been having, or even start new ones, you can have them in the
Discord after show. We will all be there. If you don't believe this is your community and we do appreciate you being here, and if you're on a journey as Michelle was, please take advantage of that community. There are plenty of people here who've had life experience as parallel to yours and who will be able to help you, you know, navigate those difficult waters were. The great thing about the Eartheist community of Austin is we have such
an array of people here. You know, I can't speak about coming out of religion because I've never been religious, but Aaron can. And that's what's so good about this community is you know, you'll always find someone who will be able to speak on your level and who has had a similar experience to you and if you do believe you, we do not hate you. We're just not convinced. See you next time.
We want the truth. So watch Truth Wanted live Fridays at seven pm Central Call five one two nine nine one nine two four two or visit tiny dot cc forward slash call tw