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1:01

is faith? Well, according to Hebrews

1:03

11.1, faith is the

1:05

substance of things hoped for, the evidence

1:07

for that unseen. And then the book

1:10

goes on to list Bible figures that

1:12

were rewarded for their faith. And yet

1:14

we have concepts like a crisis of

1:17

faith, needing to renew or refresh faith,

1:19

to fail in faith. And it seems

1:21

kind of high maintenance, unreliable

1:24

way of seeking truth. Now,

1:27

I seek truth through skepticism

1:29

and critical thinking, rational

1:31

thought. I've never had a crisis

1:33

of skepticism. I've never really needed

1:36

to renew my rationalism or whenever

1:38

my reason is tested, it's

1:40

through empiricism. It's a self-correcting set

1:42

of systems that only ever improves

1:44

with use. So I say to

1:46

you, O believer, if you

1:48

are watching. I bet you 10 times

1:50

out of 10 that my reason, my

1:52

skepticism will beat your faith when it

1:55

comes to seeking truth. And if you

1:57

disagree, then you should call us because

1:59

the show starts. All

2:08

right, everybody. What a great

2:10

intro. Today is

2:13

March 3rd. Almost forgot the date there. But

2:15

it is Sunday, March 3rd, and that means

2:17

it's time for TalkEven. I am your

2:19

host, Jimmy Jr., and joining

2:21

me today is the phenomenal, phenomenal

2:24

Jamie the Blind Limey. And

2:26

Jamie, how the heck are you doing today, sir? Well,

2:29

I just have to say to

2:31

the viewing audience that our hydrodynamic

2:34

visages are the peak

2:36

of male performance, and I'm tired of

2:38

pretending it's not. Yeah, yeah.

2:40

You know, I think our

2:43

sleek, clean look actually enhances the

2:45

show, you know, hopefully will attract

2:47

some people to want to come

2:49

in and be a part of

2:51

this, you know, we do have

2:53

open lines, folks. And we are

2:55

looking for you to call us and tell

2:58

us what it is you believe and

3:00

why this is TalkEven. This

3:02

is a product of the atheist

3:04

community of Austin. And we

3:06

are committed to the separation

3:09

of religion and government, secular

3:11

humanism, critical thinking and the

3:14

promotion of atheism, a 501

3:16

C3 nonprofit organization. And

3:18

we've got some things we want to do today. We're

3:20

going to have some great callers. I'm sure we've got

3:23

some question of the week that we want to get

3:25

to some questions we're going to ask of you. But

3:28

you know, I just want to know, Jamie,

3:31

how's how have you been doing? Like what's

3:33

your experience been like so far? You came

3:35

on with the ACA a few

3:37

months before I did. And we're still like,

3:39

you know, I don't I wouldn't say that

3:42

we're new. But we're like

3:44

approaching a one year mark, right? And

3:46

we're in the thick of it. We're we're

3:49

kind of helping, helping out

3:51

helping the old guard kind of

3:53

carry this thing through. And it's been a great experience

3:55

for me. I just kind of wanted to get your

3:57

take on that. It has

3:59

been I feel privileged to have

4:01

been given a platform

4:03

to speak. I

4:06

feel like my role here at the ACA

4:08

is kind of as the layman. I

4:11

don't have the specialist expertise knowledge

4:13

that people like Jay Mike

4:15

or Richard Gilliver or Forest

4:18

Valakai have. But I

4:21

know who's bullshit when I smell it, Chief. And

4:24

we'll call it out as such. And

4:28

so the conversations I've had

4:30

with callers have ranged

4:32

from very gratifying to

4:36

frustrating. All

4:38

are useful, all are worthy,

4:41

but I'm just

4:43

hoping that we're

4:45

getting through to people that may

4:48

be leaning towards questioning their

4:50

faith, their place in the religion, or

4:52

at least giving solace to people who

4:55

are out of religion and feel like

4:57

they're isolated or alone. That's

4:59

what we're here for, really. Yeah, absolutely.

5:02

I think that the reason

5:04

I'm here is for the latter part, honestly,

5:06

because that was what my road was like.

5:08

I had no idea that

5:10

these conversations were taking place. And

5:13

it kind of really made me comfortable to

5:15

open up and accept who I am. And

5:18

I don't know if I

5:20

can really put it into words, how

5:24

grateful I was to come across this kind of

5:26

mission, but I know I can

5:28

put it into action, that I want to be able

5:30

to reciprocate that and give that to people out there

5:32

who might be struggling. And I

5:35

don't think that that was the only

5:37

struggle that I've had.

5:39

I kind of feel like I'm at a point

5:41

in my life where I need to redefine what

5:43

my boundaries are. I need to kind

5:45

of reconsider

5:49

who I'm willing to keep in my life

5:51

and who I'm comfortable letting go because I'm

5:53

either not being accepted or

5:55

because I'm not being taken seriously. And,

5:58

you know, I just feel

6:00

like I found my tribe here at the ACA, and

6:02

it's been great. I've

6:05

been on Talk Heathen now for a while,

6:07

doing the nonprofits regularly. I'm

6:10

on the show this week. We've

6:12

got some great topics that we're going to cover, but

6:14

things like the Bat Cruise, and just

6:17

being able to go into Discord and

6:19

chat, or reach out to

6:21

one of my fellow colleagues

6:23

when I'm having some kind of issue,

6:26

and be able to talk through things with them. So

6:30

yeah, it's been really great. And so anyway,

6:33

we're here, and we're going

6:35

to get going. Our first time working together,

6:37

sir. And I have been super

6:40

looking forward to it. And

6:42

I am going to want to get

6:45

your take, or your

6:47

response, to the question of the week. But first,

6:49

we're going to go over the results from last

6:51

week. So it is

6:53

time for our Talk Heathen to Me segment, ladies

6:55

and gentlemen. And we're going to

6:58

get into the question of the week. We're going to go over

7:00

the top three answers from

7:02

last week's question. And what we asked

7:04

was, what's a holy scripture that lives

7:06

rent free in your head? And here

7:08

are our top three answers, number three.

7:11

Coming in from Andars, not

7:13

fair Andars, you were

7:15

in the top three last week. You got to, come

7:17

on, spread the wealth a little bit. But he's

7:20

got a good answer, or she. I

7:23

played a crazy monk in an

7:25

RPG that had a drawback of

7:27

only quoting inappropriate Bible verses. That's

7:30

a pretty cool characteristic to have. So

7:33

what holy scripture lives rent free in

7:35

my head is Deuteronomy 2817, your

7:39

basket and your kneading trough will

7:42

be cursed. It

7:44

was always inappropriate to use according to

7:46

Andars. I don't know. You have any

7:49

thoughts on that, Jamie? Those

7:52

first four books of the Bible are

7:54

wild. There's some really

7:57

crazy shit in there. So you

7:59

could almost. stab your finger at random

8:01

points at any of those pages and

8:03

go, wow, that's weird. I

8:09

don't know how any of this stuff was

8:11

ever a good idea. Just

8:15

why would somebody follow or

8:17

accept that a man or

8:20

a relative of a supposed

8:22

profit was drugged

8:25

or made drunk by his daughters and that

8:27

they forced him to have sex with them?

8:29

That is a bizarre story in any

8:32

timeline that you live in. So I'm

8:35

not sure how people kind of look. Don't don't look

8:37

at that and say it's time to question what I

8:39

believe a lot. Yeah. Yeah.

8:41

Yeah. I never learned that one

8:43

in Sunday school, by the way. I wonder why. So

8:47

number two comes from Colin Matt's rent free

8:49

Bible verse in my head. Slaves

8:51

obey your masters, even the

8:53

cruel ones that should be game over Christians.

8:55

And that's a quote coming from Colin Matt.

8:58

Yeah, I'm I'm a

9:00

big believer in slavery not being a

9:02

good thing no matter where you are,

9:04

no matter when you live. I don't

9:06

know. If I'm not mistaken, that that

9:09

particular quote comes from the

9:11

New Testament and which

9:13

is one of the things that we get a lot

9:15

of refutation on, like, oh, slavery is in the Old

9:17

Testament. It was pre pre

9:20

New Covenant, but phrases

9:22

like that, which I think are the words of Paul,

9:25

but also Titus, Titus

9:27

to where it tells you that the

9:29

slave should should be

9:31

obedient and and not talk back.

9:35

Yeah, no, like the whole Bible is just fine

9:37

with slavery. And I'm like, I'm

9:39

not I'm not fine with that being fine

9:41

with it. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

9:44

it's always a mystery to me

9:47

how people can kind of reconcile

9:49

their way around slavery in their

9:51

so-called moral high ground or their

9:54

holy book that is

9:56

a guide, right, to living a I don't

9:58

know. theoretically

10:02

fruitful and good life. I don't know

10:04

how you incorporate slavery into that kind

10:06

of thing or how you can

10:08

reason your way around it. So

10:10

I just ask people, you know, would you

10:13

be okay being a slave? And

10:15

the the answers are hit or miss.

10:18

You know, you have some people who just

10:20

for argument sake will say, well yes

10:22

it's for God, but trust me you'd want

10:24

to read up on slavery if you think

10:26

it's okay. All right. And number one

10:28

comes from Sergius Maximus, a verse that

10:31

lives rent free in my head and

10:33

this is a classic. Ezekiel 2320,

10:35

there she lusted after

10:38

her lovers whose genitals were like

10:40

those of donkeys and whose emission

10:42

was like that of horses. Yeah,

10:46

I guess I guess big old donkey

10:49

dongs were we're good we're a good thing back

10:51

in the old days, huh? Maybe

10:53

they're still good things. I have

10:56

a very image

10:59

oriented imagination and I

11:01

wish I didn't give

11:04

me bleach for my brain please. Thanks Bible.

11:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That is a well

11:14

known one Sergius Maximus, a well-known

11:16

and favorite crutch for people to

11:18

fall on and say, well

11:20

can you explain this one? Again, I never

11:22

learned this one in Sunday school, never heard

11:24

this one mentioned in church, nor

11:27

have I had anybody or do I

11:29

recall anybody trying to make sense of

11:31

why is this in the book

11:33

about God? I don't know. I don't

11:35

know why religion is so obsessed

11:38

with sexuality and what people are

11:40

doing. You know, so what if

11:43

there was a woman who liked men

11:45

with you know big members and

11:47

who liked to engage in sex acts? I

11:50

say go for it, you know,

11:52

more empowerment. Do what makes you happy,

11:55

but to frame this person

11:58

as somebody who's evil for having these kinds of thoughts

12:00

to be held into this kind of,

12:02

I don't know, what's the phrase,

12:05

like mental servitude or or thought crimes,

12:07

having thought crimes, right? It's

12:10

just unjust and inhumane. I

12:12

don't know, kind of kind of

12:14

rambling on, but I think I could say a lot about

12:16

this. I don't know, Jamie, any reflection there? Just

12:19

the general theme of repression of

12:21

natural urges as a

12:24

vector for control. That is

12:26

very much a part of a lot of

12:28

different religions, not just Christianity. So

12:30

it's like, oh, the thing you feel that's completely

12:32

natural. Yeah, don't. And if you do, you're wrong. Yeah,

12:36

I don't I don't get on board with that either.

12:40

Well, great answers, everybody. And

12:42

thank you for staying engaged with us.

12:44

Thank you for giving

12:46

us your best. And we have

12:48

a new prompt. And

12:51

the prompt for next week is what character

12:53

from a holy text, when you get

12:55

a drink with and why, and

12:57

you can enter your answer in the

13:00

video chat below, not in the comments

13:02

or excuse me, I'm going to flip

13:04

that around, enter your answers in the comments

13:06

and not in the video chat, not in

13:08

the live chat. But you

13:10

know, once the once the video is posted,

13:12

and you can enter your comments do so,

13:14

we will read the top three next week.

13:17

But first, Jamie, I need to know, sir,

13:19

what character from a holy text, would you

13:21

get a drink with and why? Well,

13:25

as a nerd, as a weaver, when

13:27

I draw from the the

13:30

tales of Shinto. So there's

13:32

a goddess known as

13:34

Amino Usume no Mikoto, pardon

13:38

my pronunciation, who was the the

13:41

kami of the dawn. And

13:44

at one point, the

13:46

sun goddess, Amaterasu was

13:49

soaking in a cave and refusing to come out and

13:51

do the sun thing, which is bad, of course, because

13:53

we need the sun. And the gods were trying to

13:55

get her out of the cave. And

13:57

I mean, it was the

14:00

successful one because she rocked up and

14:02

not only being the goddess

14:04

of the dawn is also the

14:06

goddess of revelry and up turned

14:08

the bucket stood on top of it and did a

14:11

strip tease and that made outer

14:14

raso come out read

14:16

into that way you will and i think that

14:18

seems like a person that i could enjoy having

14:20

a couple of drinks with hmm

14:24

well that sounds like a fun time i'm happy

14:27

that you have the confidence in you sir to

14:30

assert that a woman would find your company

14:32

so enthralling that she would give you a strip

14:34

tease and you know what not

14:36

i guarantee she would i've met you in

14:39

person and you are a lovely

14:41

gentleman and let me tell you anybody

14:43

that doesn't want to give you one well shame

14:45

on them they're lost good

14:51

lord i'm supposed to the one that says

14:53

the out-of-pocket thing that sets the host

14:56

of to shay sir well done well

14:58

you know you just got a couple of bald

15:01

guys having fun who knows how crazy this party

15:03

can get i will tell you this

15:05

though i was gonna say medusa right

15:07

i i think uh i think i would

15:09

like to have a drink with medusa but

15:11

you know there's some back and forth uh

15:14

between scholars over whether she actually had the power

15:16

to turn people to stone and i don't know

15:18

that i want to take that risk what

15:21

i think i really want to do is have a

15:23

drink with satan and that's because we

15:25

don't have his side of the story i

15:28

mean i need to know what really happened you know

15:30

i don't know if i can trust all the things

15:32

that were said about him and i think if i

15:34

you know just had a drink with the guy uh

15:37

he might be able to say no look man this

15:39

is how it all went down and this is why

15:41

i'm down here in hell and actually i didn't

15:44

even ask to be here and i'm not the one that

15:46

killed millions of people i don't get how i

15:48

get the rap for being the bad guy i think

15:50

that's what satan would say to me i would definitely

15:53

buy him a beer uh and see if i'm right

15:55

see how close i get to the truth but yeah

15:57

satan satan i think would be my guy so That

16:00

was a wonderful answer and hey

16:03

kudos to you for nailing that you said

16:06

you said Pardon my

16:08

pronunciation, but it sounded like you speak Japanese

16:10

fluently the way that you just said that

16:12

So I tried learning it for a few

16:14

years. I've got the pronunciation down a little

16:16

bit, but I don't remember almost anything Yeah,

16:20

a second language is a forgotten art if

16:22

you're not using it frequently But

16:25

that was a great answer and I am

16:27

anxious to see what our audience comes up

16:29

with so remember in the comment section Give

16:32

us your best answer and tune in next week when

16:34

we reveal our top three now We do

16:36

have callers waiting and I'm excited about this

16:38

because we've got we've got a caller who

16:41

wants to get clarity on the chat Poll

16:43

but first before I do that I

16:45

need to cut to the people that make

16:47

it work Okay, cut to the crew cam

16:50

if you will, please and let's let's take

16:52

a good look at all these magnificent people

16:55

Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. Look at them

16:58

Just making it happen. It's not

17:00

just me and Jamie showing up here and

17:03

and creating magic But it's the people

17:05

behind the scenes that do it We

17:07

have got our our audio people our

17:09

moderators notes and stamps or aka describes

17:11

as I like to call them And

17:13

then we have the call screeners. We've

17:15

got the people that run the discord

17:18

We have got, you know moderators in that

17:20

aspect and everybody just coming together

17:22

to make this whole thing work and make this mission So

17:25

many people that let us do what

17:27

we do and and people who contribute as

17:29

well volunteer Oh, you know

17:32

channel members patrons who if you?

17:35

materially support us like

17:38

It's amazing. Whether it's

17:40

time or resources or skill.

17:43

We love you all. You're amazing. Yeah,

17:45

absolutely We get a

17:48

lot of supporters on patreon, which I think is

17:50

a great a great avenue I don't know if

17:52

we we really talk about that enough, but you

17:54

know, that is actually a great way to catch

17:56

our episodes You know, you can you don't have

17:58

any of this these interrupt or you

18:02

don't have kind of these paywalls and things like

18:04

that, I don't know. I'm not an expert on

18:06

the technical topics, but I can say, you know,

18:08

Patreon's been great. You can

18:10

listen to us wherever you get your podcasts.

18:12

So as much as we want people to

18:14

tune in live and call us live, if

18:16

you can't make it, wherever you get your

18:19

podcasts, that'd also be another way to interact

18:21

with us. But

18:23

what do you say, Jamie? Do you wanna get to some calls? I

18:26

think it's time. All right, let's do

18:28

it. Without further ado, we are gonna go

18:30

to Indiana and talk to Kyle. He,

18:33

him. He wants clarity on the

18:35

chat poll, where we asked, is

18:38

faith ever a good thing to have

18:40

or something along those lines? In

18:42

any case, we're gonna bring up Kyle and

18:45

talk to him about what he called in about.

18:47

So Kyle, you are on with Jimmy and Jamie,

18:50

and we're happy to have you. How can we help you? Well,

18:54

Jimmy, Jamie, good afternoon. I

18:56

saw your poll question about faith, and I am

18:59

an atheist, so I have to agree that

19:01

necessarily having faith in God probably

19:04

isn't your best avenue, but I don't

19:06

necessarily believe that faith is always a

19:09

bad thing. Can I assume

19:11

that since the question's there and you

19:13

guys sort of think that faith isn't

19:15

good, are you saying that faith is

19:17

bad? So

19:20

first, we need to define terms,

19:23

because when I say faith in

19:26

terms of biblical faith, I

19:28

am taking the Hebrews interpretation,

19:31

the evidence of things unseen. It's

19:34

basically believing something regardless

19:36

of the evidential state, and in

19:38

some cases, even in

19:40

the face of opposing evidence. But

19:42

do you have a different definition for faith? Mine's

19:46

very similar. Faith is just

19:48

believing something to be true,

19:51

even though it may not

19:53

seem like it's factual. So

19:56

believing that tomorrow is going to

19:59

be a better day. even though

20:01

your life is crashing down around

20:03

you. And I also equate faith

20:06

very closely with hope. And

20:08

I just, I think people need to have hope.

20:11

Even when the odds are against them, I've

20:13

seen it work great things in people's

20:16

lives, that faith and hope is

20:18

the only thing that got them through till tomorrow.

20:22

I don't know about you Jimmy, sorry to

20:24

sort of bo guard this, but I would

20:27

push back. Hope, yes. Hope

20:30

and faith may seem similar, but

20:33

I draw the distinction on the

20:35

degree of certainty. Faith comes in

20:38

a, this will be better. Hope

20:40

is, this may be better. And

20:43

I think that it's actually

20:45

healthier to understand that while

20:48

we want things to be better, we wanna hope

20:50

that things are gonna be better, to

20:53

understand that we don't know whether they will

20:55

or not, to

20:57

come to terms with that builds

20:59

resilience. And the

21:03

concept of believing in something

21:06

regardless of evidence or in the face

21:08

of contravening evidence is in my opinion,

21:11

far more dangerous than it is

21:14

beneficial. So do

21:16

you have any other examples

21:18

of where faith would unequivocally,

21:21

undeniably be the

21:23

better option? Not

21:27

really, I have to

21:29

agree with you. Biblical faith is probably not

21:31

a good idea because it's not factual, but

21:34

sometimes I think that atheists use

21:37

the word faith in a context as

21:39

if it's a negative thing.

21:41

And I can tell you, I personally

21:43

know many people and I would bet

21:45

the two of you might also know

21:47

people that faith is

21:49

what gets them through. Now

21:52

saying that, let's,

21:54

if you remove the faith from that person,

21:57

what other motivations can be?

22:00

they have to continue to

22:02

keep a positive outlook going

22:05

forward? So,

22:11

in my day job, I

22:14

talk to a lot of people who are in

22:16

desperate situations. I talk to people who are very

22:18

sick. And

22:23

they have to find motivation

22:25

sometimes to continue their medical treatments

22:27

and things like that, despite the

22:29

fact that these treatments may

22:32

not work and are in and of

22:34

themselves unpleasant to go through. And

22:37

some people have

22:39

to rely on a trust

22:43

that they can work. And

22:45

I think that's where the construing of the

22:47

word faith and how it can be used

22:49

in different contexts butts up against each other.

22:52

Because there is evidence that

22:54

these things can work, so

22:57

we just have to put our trust in them. But

23:00

that's not ungrounded

23:02

trust. It's reasonable,

23:04

even though it might sometimes be a

23:06

long shot. Whereas faith,

23:09

the biblical faith and how people

23:11

want to ascribe

23:13

faith as a route to truth,

23:17

especially when it's like, I'm going to take this

23:19

on faith, I'm going to believe this is true

23:21

on faith, is

23:24

not trust. You don't trust in anything because

23:26

there's nothing to trust in other than that

23:29

your belief is true. And

23:33

the question is, what

23:36

can't you believe on faith? There

23:40

are many people who believe things that

23:42

are completely wrong on faith and it's

23:44

had hideous consequences.

23:50

Name a terrorist act, name a

23:52

crusade, name a holy war. History

23:55

is littered with the people who believe they

23:57

were doing the right thing on faith. So

24:01

that's why I say we should be very careful

24:03

with that word and use synonyms.

24:06

If you mean faith that something's going to be

24:08

alright, I trust things are going

24:10

to be alright. I hope things

24:12

are going to be alright. But if

24:15

you're going to have faith, I

24:17

think that you have to understand the

24:20

baggage that comes with that word. Step

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25:28

I've got a couple of thoughts on this myself, Kyle. So

25:31

I do think that Jamie made

25:34

a great point as far as building resilience. Building

25:37

resilience where it relates

25:39

to faith comes with its

25:41

own evidence, right? So if

25:43

I say, using your example, I

25:45

have faith that tomorrow is going to be a

25:47

better day. Well, I'm basing that on the fact

25:49

that I've had better days before. I'm basing that

25:52

maybe on the fact that I've had some not

25:54

so good days and I've tried to get through

25:56

them and they got better. Right. That

25:59

I've had experiences. is that I was

26:01

able to master. And as I go through

26:03

my life, I've built that resilience to be

26:05

able to overcome certain things. That's

26:07

not the same. And excuse me. And that's

26:09

my evidence. My evidence is I can

26:12

do this. I know I can do this. And I've

26:14

done it before. However, when we take

26:17

the word faith and we apply that to religion,

26:20

well, what's the evidence? What's the evidence of

26:22

religion? What's the evidence of our God? There's

26:25

zero. There's zero. And so that's why

26:27

it doesn't necessarily work the same way.

26:30

And I agree wholeheartedly with the

26:33

idea that we need to use synonyms or

26:36

maybe even redefine what it means to

26:38

have faith. Because

26:41

as a military member, I can

26:43

have faith. I need to have faith in

26:46

the people that I work with and the

26:48

people around me and know that they'll come

26:50

through. They usually do.

26:53

I have faith about that because, well,

26:56

they usually do. And because

26:58

I have gone through the same kind of training

27:01

and accepted the same kind of doctrine

27:03

that we have to do certain things

27:05

to uphold each other and make each

27:08

other successful, hold each other accountable, et

27:10

cetera. But having

27:13

a faith as far as a religion, again,

27:16

I have no

27:18

experience with that being kind

27:20

of beneficial to what I'm trying to achieve. So

27:24

I hope that differentiates a little

27:26

bit and shows you that faith,

27:30

I guess, can be good. But when you

27:32

put it in terms of religion, I do

27:34

think that the definition is different. I think

27:36

religious faith is not the same thing as

27:39

the way that we might use faith in other areas. And

27:43

so as far as getting back to your

27:45

question of, is

27:48

this negative? Well, I don't necessarily

27:50

think it's always negative. But to echo

27:53

the hideous consequences that come from faith

27:55

that Jamie had alluded to, yes,

27:59

that is negative. and to

28:01

apply this dogma to, you

28:04

know, wanting to accomplish some kind of

28:06

goal without having evidence, then yes, I

28:09

do believe it's negative, even if sometimes

28:12

your belief yields some positive consequences.

28:15

So that's my response. I

28:17

don't know. How do you feel about

28:19

that, Kyle? I

28:22

appreciate both you guys' opinions on this.

28:24

I don't think we're so far apart

28:26

because with faith you

28:28

have to have action. Without action,

28:30

faith is worthless. I

28:32

just read the poll question and those were

28:34

the thoughts that came to my mind. I

28:37

appreciate you guys taking my call and

28:39

you can move on to other callers if

28:42

you'd like. Well, I

28:44

actually do have one follow-up question. I always like

28:46

to do this when

28:48

we speak to other atheists, right? We

28:51

do like to

28:54

give precedence to theists, but then

28:56

also people who call about the chat. I

28:58

mean, we're asking you to call in, so

29:00

you did that and so we obliged and

29:02

I think we had a good conversation. But I

29:05

want to know, were you always

29:07

an atheist? So

29:10

were you? Were you always an atheist? No,

29:12

I was a Christian for over 30 years,

29:15

non-denominational as

29:17

a child, many different churches, even touched on

29:20

Catholicism for, I don't know, 5 or 10

29:22

years. And

29:24

just long story short, I actually took

29:27

the time and read the Bible and

29:29

I just found it to be absolutely unbelievable.

29:33

That's where I'm at. You have

29:35

given me what I'm looking for and

29:37

while we've got you, I was

29:39

kind of hoping that you could give

29:41

us a little bit of insight on

29:43

what it took for you as a

29:45

30-year-plus Christian to

29:48

turn down the road of skepticism. Was

29:50

there a significant event, a story? Were

29:53

there circumstances in your life that kind of

29:56

made you second-guess the way it

29:58

was that you were living? And I'm

30:00

a little bit compelled anytime

30:02

I hear a theist say several

30:05

decades or excuse me an

30:07

atheist say I was a theist for many

30:09

decades and then I changed. That is quite

30:11

uncommon I think in my experience. So would

30:14

you be willing to oblige if it's not

30:16

too you know too much to deal with?

30:19

Sure, absolutely. I

30:21

had a son and once

30:24

I had him being a believer I sort

30:26

of felt like the God question was the

30:28

most important thing that I would need to

30:30

instill in him. So I took

30:33

the time and read the Bible and

30:35

quite frankly I found a lot of unbelievable

30:37

and especially once I got to the book

30:39

of Abraham and where

30:41

he God asked him to sacrifice

30:43

his child at which

30:45

point I realized that if

30:48

God is real he's a pretty that's

30:50

an evil act in itself. I

30:53

continued to read on you have

30:55

the story of Jepathah and then once those

30:57

doubts got in my head I looked at

30:59

the rest of it very critically and found

31:01

you know I can

31:03

find some higher truths in it you

31:06

know but as far as being true

31:08

it's at least not a choice. I

31:12

just stopped believing I just couldn't find

31:15

myself in a position to support

31:17

it as being true

31:19

any longer. Very

31:21

well said. Yeah

31:23

excellent. I think that it's

31:25

common to come across people who investigate

31:28

the things the principles that they've

31:30

been given throughout their life and

31:32

kind of turn away and

31:35

take a new path. So well

31:37

I will say congratulations to you and I

31:40

appreciate you giving us a call and

31:43

you know I hope you'll find a way to give us a

31:45

call back in the future you know you might

31:47

be an atheist you might be just like us

31:49

but there is probably things that we don't agree

31:51

on and I'd be

31:53

happy to talk to you anytime

31:55

you want to correct me. Make

31:58

me smarter. I appreciate that. And

32:01

I enjoy your show, been watching for, I've

32:04

been watching the Atheist Experience, it's

32:07

probably where I started for decades. So love

32:10

what the atheist community often

32:12

does. Most of the time

32:14

I don't have any disagreements with you guys

32:16

at all, keep doing what you're doing. And

32:18

trust me, if I see poll questions that

32:20

I have questions or need clarity on, I

32:22

will certainly call. Excellent,

32:25

excellent. Thank you, sir,

32:27

we are going to let you go

32:30

and we've got some other

32:32

content I wanna get to. You know, Jamie,

32:35

he made a really good point. He

32:37

said he's been tuning in for decades.

32:40

I don't know how many people know this, but we've

32:42

got a fan base all over

32:44

the world, really. I

32:46

talked to somebody this morning who

32:50

messaged me on Twitter and said, hey, I just wanna

32:52

let you know that I love the show, I've been

32:55

watching for a long time. Well,

32:57

at first they asked me when I was gonna be on again. I

33:00

told them today. And he said, well, great, I've

33:02

been watching for 10 years

33:04

or something like that. And I never miss a show

33:06

and I'm out here in the Netherlands and I don't

33:08

care how late I have to stay up to catch

33:11

the show. So I thought that

33:13

was pretty cool. And then I reminded him our

33:16

boss, the anointed one,

33:18

Richard Gilleber is over there in Greenwich meantime as

33:21

well and he stays up

33:23

pretty late to contribute. So that's

33:26

pretty cool. Yeah, and

33:28

we have people on the ACA Discord who

33:31

are from around the world. There's a couple of

33:34

regulars. There's one guy who's, I believe in Iran,

33:37

who's in the after shows quite

33:40

often. And yeah, we touch people

33:42

around the world. It's pretty dang

33:44

fantastic. Yeah, absolutely. For

33:46

those of you who are out there, staying in

33:48

touch with us and keeping

33:50

in contact, wanting to know

33:53

what's going on, we do

33:55

have an updated website. So

33:57

head to www.atheist-community.org. You

33:59

can learn more. about our organization, our policies,

34:02

and how you can get more involved. I've

34:06

been seeing flyers in

34:08

my local supermarket about church services,

34:10

and I am definitely

34:12

going back with an

34:15

ACA flyer and putting

34:17

that up and taking a picture of myself,

34:19

because we do have flyers available on

34:21

the website. If you

34:23

want to print one of those out and with permission, put

34:26

that somewhere on a local bulletin board

34:28

or post it somewhere with permission, do

34:31

that, take a picture of yourself with it, and maybe

34:33

you'll get on the show, because we want to show

34:35

those. We do want to hear

34:37

from you as well. Let

34:39

us know what you like and what you don't like. I get

34:41

emails pretty regularly, not all

34:43

the time, but pretty often, I'd

34:46

say once or twice a month at least, somebody

34:48

wants to ask me a question or

34:51

get clarification on what I said, because guess

34:54

what? I don't know at all, and I'm wrong

34:56

a lot. I'm happy to be wrong. I love

34:58

being wrong. I was wrong last week,

35:00

and you know what I did? I dropped

35:03

out of the show and brought Kelly

35:05

in to correct me live on air.

35:08

Guess what, Theus? Can

35:10

you do that? I don't think so. Yeah.

35:13

I don't think so. A little bit of humility goes a

35:15

long way. Yeah, for sure. I know, Jamie, that if I

35:17

didn't do that, you might say, I don't want to work

35:20

with this Jimmy guy. I thought if

35:22

I would have a career here with the ACA

35:25

and work with great minds like Jamie the

35:27

Blind Limey, I need to get my shit

35:29

straight. I did that. We

35:33

have, oh, this is awesome,

35:36

a new limited edition t-shirt, and I

35:38

have to get one of these for

35:40

myself, absolutely. You

35:42

can have your Jesus and eat him

35:44

too. They'll be gone at the end of

35:46

the month, so get your order at tiny.cc.merch-a-ca. This is there to get

35:48

them now. Yeah.

35:54

Jesus is good. Oh,

35:57

man, that's awesome. So we have... another

36:00

caller on the line and Jamie I think

36:03

we got to get to let's see do

36:05

we have do we have no don't

36:08

have pronouns so I'm gonna say we're gonna get

36:10

to them and we have

36:12

got Jesse anytime I

36:14

argue that God is pro slavery I've

36:16

had some Christians who ask me what

36:19

is an objective fault with slavery I

36:22

always respond by saying they're insane for

36:24

not finding anything wrong but how do

36:26

I respond to that honestly all right

36:29

so sounds like we've got another atheist

36:31

or skeptic looking to kind of relate

36:33

their experience I am going to bring you

36:36

up Jesse and you are live

36:39

with Jimmy and Jamie what do

36:41

you say hello hi

36:43

guys oh hi

36:47

so I'm an atheist

36:50

and I'm still in high school

36:52

big deal for me

36:55

because my mom's kind

36:57

of mad okay well

36:59

all right so your mom is

37:01

met so I'm sorry you're an

37:04

atheist and your mom is mad

37:06

yeah but I

37:09

was arguing with my church pastor and

37:11

I told him that

37:13

I don't find a nice slavery

37:15

is you know God

37:18

is for slavery and he asked me

37:20

what what's of just objectively wrong with

37:23

it and anytime I said it just

37:25

wrong only another human being and stuff

37:27

it's kind of off he

37:30

kind of he was kind

37:32

of like there's nothing objectively wrong with it and I

37:34

didn't know to respond to that Jamie

37:38

all yours brother one

37:41

of the responses I've always

37:43

enjoyed hearing people uses well

37:45

okay then would

37:48

you be my slave under the rules

37:51

of the

37:53

Bible of the of the first

37:56

five books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus

37:59

and Exodus Would you do that for

38:01

me? Would you be

38:03

happy under those circumstances? And

38:08

let's get into the nuts and bolts of it.

38:10

I mean, I would recommend you read those parts

38:12

of the Bible and understand what they're saying about

38:14

slavery, because it's not just about owning people, which

38:17

in and of itself is highly,

38:19

highly immoral. It's also how

38:21

you treat them. Oh, yeah, I can beat the crap out of

38:23

you. As long as you don't die, it's fine. I

38:26

can pass you on to

38:29

my children as property. You

38:33

are my property. And

38:35

ask them, are

38:37

you so lacking in human empathy

38:41

to not understand that being owned

38:44

and having your agency forcefully

38:46

taken from you, and

38:49

that agency dampening

38:52

enforced by violence if

38:55

you don't understand why that is bad, and

39:00

you can't imagine yourself in that

39:02

situation, then I'm sorry, I

39:04

can't help you. Your empathy is broken.

39:07

You need to have more empathy to

39:09

understand why it's bad. Yeah,

39:14

that's kind of how I'd go at it. I'd say,

39:16

well, what if it were you? What if it were

39:18

your daughter? Would you want your

39:21

children to be taken and enslaved in

39:23

that way? Would you be happy with that? Yeah.

39:27

Yeah, so Jesse, did

39:29

you say what your answer was? How

39:32

did you respond to that? Obviously,

39:37

I said it's kind of wrong to beat

39:39

off slaves and stuff. He

39:41

didn't find anything wrong with it. He kept

39:43

on saying slavery was a necessity. Well,

39:48

you know, that's unfortunate. So

39:51

there is some truth to that, and don't

39:54

get me wrong. Slavery

39:57

was necessary.

40:00

it was necessary to

40:02

do the things that people did, right?

40:04

So like many ancient cultures all

40:07

have slaves, right? And they built the cities

40:09

they did. And they may

40:12

they had the accomplishments that they did. And

40:14

the United States is even one of those

40:16

those, you know,

40:18

fits into the category of using slaves to

40:20

better itself, right, if you will. Being

40:24

necessary and being right,

40:27

being virtuous are not the same

40:29

thing. Okay, so you

40:31

can kind of have

40:34

these goals of, you

40:36

know, achieving something for your

40:39

organization, for your state, your

40:41

nation. And you can do

40:43

it without slavery. It just takes

40:45

a little bit longer to get there, you

40:47

know, the economics favor slavery. The

40:50

outcomes as far as architecture

40:53

and logistics, favor

40:55

slavery because you don't have to pay them, you know, they can

40:57

just do whatever you tell them to do. And things happen. But

41:03

being correct is not the same thing.

41:06

Being morally, morally virtuous

41:08

is not the same thing. And I think there's something

41:10

that really needs to be taken into account. You know,

41:13

it's not just the beating. It's

41:16

the taking children away from their mothers, or their parents,

41:18

I should say, but and selling them off. Or

41:22

the sexual

41:24

abuse, I think that that is

41:26

actually quite an understated

41:30

reason for why

41:34

people wanted slavery so much. I

41:36

think that, you know, having access

41:38

to free, you

41:41

know, I want to find an appropriate way to

41:43

say this, but free sexual pleasures whenever you want,

41:45

if you will, was something that a

41:47

lot of people look for. I think

41:50

that that was probably one

41:52

of the reasons that many slaveholders wanted to

41:55

maintain slavery in the United States. So, you know, there

41:57

are some things that are really

41:59

important to me. There are some kind

42:02

of, I think,

42:04

objections to the idea that slavery was bad

42:06

for the economy. That's true

42:08

as well. However, at least

42:10

in the United States, but

42:12

I guess we'll never really know. I

42:15

mean, you have to stimulate the economy by paying

42:17

people and giving them money to spend and this

42:19

and that, but the reality was

42:21

that people didn't want to spend that money

42:23

and take that chance. They just wanted the

42:25

free labor. And so that's the way it

42:27

was kind of throughout history. And

42:30

anyway, I'm kind of rambling now because I have a

42:32

soft spot for slavery. I have a soft spot for

42:34

women who are mistreated through

42:36

slavery. I have a soft spot for women

42:39

who are mistreated because of religion that

42:42

allows slavery. And

42:44

the last caller talked about Abraham. I

42:47

think one of the most heinous things in that

42:49

story is the fact that Abraham's

42:51

slave girl had no choice but

42:53

to have Abraham's child. I

42:56

think it's one of the most egregious things in

42:58

the Old Testament and certainly one of the earliest

43:00

indications that God is not going to step in

43:02

and do anything moral. So having

43:05

said all that, Jesse,

43:08

I think Jamie and I have kind of given

43:11

you some ammo, but

43:13

I think all those things are objectively wrong.

43:16

I don't know. What's your take on all that?

43:21

I do find it wrong, but I

43:23

find it sad when I watch someone

43:25

like my mom defend it and it's

43:27

so against her and she doesn't see

43:29

it. She is so

43:31

into the Bible, everything in defending

43:33

it. I just kind of feel

43:35

sad seeing her defend it.

43:38

Even my pastor, I just, I'm

43:40

shocked. Do

43:42

you think they'd be willing to call us? They don't have to

43:45

defend it to you. They can try

43:47

and defend it to us if they like.

43:52

My mom is Kenyan and she's kind

43:54

of slow. I'm

43:58

not going to be mean, but she will. not

44:00

accept it, she will

44:02

be mad that anybody is

44:04

trying to go against her ideals. Well,

44:07

as I say, we have no skin in the

44:10

game in terms of upsetting her. So if she

44:12

wants to have that conversation with someone and

44:14

and vent her side and

44:17

you don't want to be the target, then feel free to

44:19

stick it sicker on us. But

44:22

yeah, I'm sorry you're in that

44:24

situation, man. It's very difficult when

44:26

especially a parent has an ingrained

44:29

belief that is repugnant to you.

44:34

Yeah, Jesse, I mean, are you out as an

44:36

atheist to your mom? I

44:40

have not told her yet. Okay,

44:45

okay. Well, I mean, I'm not telling you

44:47

you have to, or nor should

44:49

you. I mean, that's a decision that you need to

44:51

make for yourself. I was just curious

44:53

because you called said she was mad. And then you

44:55

ask your, you know, you have your

44:58

pastor, I mean, you could always give our

45:00

information to your pastor and say, Hey, I heard

45:02

these horrible people saying some pretty

45:04

horrible things about our religion. And I'd like

45:06

you to call. But

45:09

you're certainly on the right track,

45:11

I think. You

45:13

know, keep, keep questioning. Someday

45:16

you'll find the circumstances and, and

45:19

the courage to come out maybe and do what

45:21

you need to do. Yeah, and I

45:23

just wish you the best. I wish you

45:25

the best Jamie, you got anything else for for

45:27

Jesse? Just look after yourself, man.

45:30

Take care. Yeah, yeah,

45:32

absolutely. Yeah, Jesse, thanks

45:35

for calling in. Oops, I think I think

45:37

I dropped about while he was saying his

45:39

goodbye. But we heard it. We

45:41

appreciate the call. And

45:43

yeah, I always like you know, it's

45:45

crazy, Jamie, that people

45:48

call me, I don't know how you feel about

45:50

it. They call me and ask me for advice.

45:53

I'm like, Whoa, man, like I'm

45:56

on YouTube right now. And I've got people calling

45:58

from all over. They want to know what

46:00

I think. And I just think it's

46:02

really awesome. And yeah,

46:04

I'm happy to share my thoughts

46:06

with theists and atheists alike. But

46:09

yeah, the slavery question is one that's

46:11

tough. It's tough for religion. It is

46:13

tough. I mean, it's always

46:16

a sticking point. Step into the

46:18

world of power, loyalty, and

46:20

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46:22

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46:41

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46:44

at chambacasino.com. Welcome to the

46:46

family. VDW Group, no purchase necessary. Avoid where prohibited

46:48

by law. See terms and conditions. 18 plus. Though,

46:51

uh, to sort of wash

46:53

the sort of sour taste out of our mouths

46:55

in terms of that's a real dark topic to

46:57

go through. We have some more positive stuff to

46:59

go over if you don't mind me hijacking the

47:02

stream here for a moment. Take it. Take it.

47:04

We have had a Superchat come in a

47:07

little while ago from a

47:09

monkey typewriter. Please. Hopefully

47:12

you are not an actual monkey. PSA.

47:16

There is no established link between

47:19

atheism and male pattern baldness. Any

47:22

correlation is purely coincidental. Do

47:25

not seek bears on kids. Well,

47:27

that's $5 worth of excellent

47:29

advice and I don't intend to summon

47:31

any bears or beseech your higher power

47:33

to do so for us. But

47:37

segueing on from that. We

47:40

mentioned it earlier, but

47:42

I do want to go over the fact

47:44

that we do this each week. We call

47:47

out our top five patrons, but

47:51

I want to emphasize how much we actually,

47:53

uh, we

47:56

care that you are contributing because

47:58

here at the ACA. We

48:00

fear no God we fear no devil we fear

48:02

no angel we fear no gin but

48:05

we do fear that soulless

48:07

abomination the YouTube

48:09

recommendation algorithm and to

48:13

operate an organization like this

48:15

takes Resources and

48:17

to have steady resources is

48:19

such a comfort such a boon

48:23

So when I call out these names Be

48:26

aware that you are our bulwark

48:28

you are our lend lease We

48:30

could not do what we do

48:33

without people like you and without

48:35

further ado Our

48:37

top five patrons for this week at

48:39

number one. It's dingleberry Jackson number

48:43

two oops all singularity number

48:46

three Davol Valjean number

48:48

four Callevi Helveti Number

48:51

five is left in the leaves we

48:53

have an honorable mention of Ted Dweejin

48:56

and I'm not

48:58

gonna be funny about it But literally

49:00

as much as people say hey

49:03

You're great for presenting or the crew

49:05

doing the stuff in the background you

49:07

people are just as important to the

49:09

ACA's mission And we can't

49:11

thank you enough So then thank

49:14

you. Yeah, absolutely Thank

49:16

you to everybody and if you want

49:18

to have your name read on air

49:20

Then please consider supporting us at patreon

49:22

at tiny dot CC/

49:25

Patreon well done sir. Thank

49:28

you for for taking that and I always

49:31

love reading the top five callers,

49:33

you know And I always named the word

49:35

dingleberry every time I come on is fantastic.

49:37

I hope I like Props

49:40

to dingleberry Jackson for always been on that

49:42

list because it's just fun to say yeah

49:44

Yeah for sure you know someday. I'd like

49:46

to see an ACA shirt that just says

49:48

dingleberry on it And

49:50

and you know, maybe maybe people out in public

49:52

won't know but you know It might be one

49:54

of those ways like, you know, you're walking down

49:56

the street You see a shirt that says dingleberry

49:58

and you're like, ah What am I trying?

50:01

You know, one of my folks. So just

50:04

one of those kind of

50:06

good esprit de corps for the ACA.

50:09

We can keep the train rolling.

50:11

We've literally had another super chat

50:13

coming from Dark Wolf, Dark

50:16

Wolfie Games, Wolfie Games. Just

50:19

wanted to say it's been great hanging out with

50:22

the amazing Jamie and always

50:24

appreciate Jimmy as well. Have

50:27

a great show. I'm amazing.

50:29

You're appreciated. Yeah, thanks a

50:31

lot. No, just kidding.

50:34

That's an accurate characterization. All right. I'm

50:37

happy to be the sidekick. I don't care. OK,

50:41

if I'm Jamie, the blind limey sidekick, I'm

50:43

having a good day. So thank you for

50:45

that super chat. And thanks for tuning in.

50:47

We've got more callers. We have

50:49

got more callers. And

50:52

man, I got

50:54

one that's good. OK.

50:57

This claim right here, this

50:59

claim is something that needs to

51:01

be investigated. So we're going to go to Georgia

51:04

and talk to Jeff. All right. Jeff

51:07

says Christianity has all the right

51:09

components to be a successful

51:12

religion. So without

51:15

further ado, Jeff, you

51:18

are on with Jimmy and Jamie.

51:20

So tell us about

51:22

Christianity and its components that make it

51:24

successful. Yo,

51:29

what's up? Hey,

51:33

so you said that Christianity has the

51:35

components to be a successful religion. Tell us

51:37

more about that. Yes.

51:41

So, you know, Christianity

51:44

being a monotheistic religion

51:46

has the very special

51:48

characteristic that it's actively hostile

51:51

towards other religions. And

51:54

it also has a very special characteristic. Sorry.

51:57

It is. But

52:00

it's I just gotta I'm gonna so I'm sorry

52:02

if I'm cutting you off if you feel like

52:04

you need to make your point Further I will

52:06

let you continue, but I just need to point

52:08

that out right up front Christianity

52:11

being hostile to others is

52:13

not unique to Christianity Having

52:18

said that happy to let you continue Mmm,

52:25

yeah, no you've got a point has

52:27

stated that very poorly Okay,

52:30

I wasn't expecting you to call me

52:35

Okay, okay, I want to hear from you so Go

52:38

ahead. Give us your Give

52:41

us the why give us give us the what and

52:43

the why why do we care? Why did we choose

52:45

you today to be our caller because I had a

52:47

very funny Hump, I

52:49

don't know Okay, so what is

52:51

it that you're trying to say? It

52:55

has the perfect composition they're not

52:57

really perfect as a very well

53:01

very good composition to

53:03

destroy other cultures and

53:05

religions and make it

53:08

theirs Okay,

53:12

so I Don't

53:14

think I'm quite getting so it

53:16

has all the right components to

53:18

be a successful religion, but I

53:22

Think we need to kind of figure out. What are we talking

53:24

about when we say right? Because

53:27

I don't think you know if

53:29

you're saying the necessary components well,

53:32

that's That's one way of putting

53:34

of using the word, right? If

53:36

you're saying it's got the more

53:38

virtuous components I would

53:40

disagree with that, but it sounds like

53:42

you're saying the doctrine and policies of

53:45

Christianity Make it possible for

53:47

them to succeed as a religion because they're

53:49

willing to squash Everybody else

53:51

that they view as a competitive religion. Is that true?

53:53

Is that what you're saying? Yeah,

53:56

no horrible horrible policies

53:58

great for the purposes

54:00

of crushing other religions. Okay,

54:04

okay, I don't disagree with that and

54:07

you know when I when I was reading your call,

54:09

I thought you were saying basically

54:11

the latter point that I was making

54:13

where it's got the virtuous points, but

54:16

no, you're absolutely right and I'm glad that

54:18

you conceded to the point that I made

54:20

that It's not

54:22

unique to Christianity to be

54:24

violent toward other Religions

54:27

in fact, we know if anybody's read

54:29

the Bible, we know that Judaism is actually extremely

54:32

violent and Intolerant of

54:34

other religions. Sorry, can I can

54:36

I bud in? Sure,

54:39

sure. Did you leave something out? What is it? Yeah,

54:43

okay instead of saying Christianity, let

54:45

me change that the Abrahamic States

54:49

Okay, so so what I want to

54:51

do So so

54:53

you're saying that the Abrahamic States

54:56

are violent is that right? Yes

54:58

by their very name Yes, by their

55:00

very nature you have a God that

55:02

says you guys are very unique and

55:04

special and you're my creation Go kill

55:07

those fucking me All

55:09

right. Yeah. Well, you make

55:11

a good point and I really appreciate you call it

55:13

in Jeff, you know You know, this

55:15

is something Jamie that we

55:17

talk about a lot on this show, especially I

55:20

do because I like discussing

55:22

the The historic

55:24

value of where religion comes from right?

55:27

Christianity borrowed a lot

55:29

of its its

55:32

doctrine and policies from religions that

55:34

predated. Okay we

55:36

know that the Abrahamic religions all have

55:38

in common that they have Committed

55:41

great atrocities to other people the

55:43

the others and they commit atrocities

55:45

on their own people I

55:48

don't think that you know, our last

55:50

caller was necessarily giving us anything new. I don't

55:52

know if you had any comment on that well,

55:56

I I fail

55:59

very very bad

56:02

about conflating dominance with success. I guess

56:04

that is one way to conflate. But

56:07

the one thing that kept going through my head during that whole

56:09

thing is that if we're

56:12

taking the statement seriously, how

56:15

do you square sectarian violence? Many

56:17

of the most damaging

56:21

occurrences are between

56:23

different sects of the same religion, be

56:26

it Shia and Sunni Muslims at each

56:28

other's throat, the Protestants and

56:30

Catholics and all the way through history.

56:33

These religions, overarching,

56:36

fight themselves as much as anyone

56:38

else. So even

56:41

if we are to take the

56:43

statement that Christianity or Abrahamic religions

56:46

are most successful, quote unquote, because they're

56:48

most dominant, I don't know

56:50

whether I could get on board with that anyway,

56:52

because they're so busy beating the shit out of

56:54

themselves, then they

56:57

could do so much better if they all just agree to

56:59

get along. Yeah,

57:03

violence and religion, unfortunately,

57:05

I think are so

57:08

interwoven that we really can't tell

57:10

any history without

57:13

talking about both of them. And

57:15

so it's unfortunate. It's one of the reasons why

57:17

I think we need to

57:19

keep certainly religion away from government. And,

57:22

you know, we just need to kind of keep examining,

57:25

well, how did I how did I

57:27

become a Christian? Why am I Christian? Why am

57:30

I Muslim? Did I do it

57:32

because it was such a good idea that I had no

57:34

other choice? Or did I

57:36

do it because I was born in a country

57:39

that was either Christian or Muslim

57:41

or or Hebrew, etc. And

57:44

my parents were of that,

57:46

that religion, and their parents were and

57:48

their parents were, etc, etc. Because some atrocity

57:51

took place and they had no choice.

57:54

You know, hundreds of years ago, whatever it was, it's

57:56

probably it's probably the latter, but we

57:59

are going to to get on to some

58:01

more calls. Just before

58:04

we do, I'm going to hijack again. Go ahead and

58:06

hijack. We've had a couple more Superchats.

58:08

I'm always going to read out them

58:10

Superchats because I'm a fan of Vtubers, you see, and

58:12

that's what they do. So

58:15

we have had one

58:17

in from Miranda Rensberger who

58:20

I'm sure has been in the moment for more

58:22

than one month. A serious $5 saying your

58:26

head may be smooth, but your brain's well

58:28

wrinkled. Well, I guess. And

58:31

then we have Toy

58:33

Soldier 727 to Jamie

58:35

Good to Eyeballs You

58:38

to Jimmy Whoa. Much

58:42

appreciated. Much appreciated. Yeah. And

58:45

speaking of that, you know, I am not

58:47

just going

58:50

to hijack this call because this person

58:52

wants to ask me about faith in

58:54

the military. And so

58:56

being a military member, I do want

58:58

to take his call. So Joshua from

59:00

Georgia, he him. You are on with

59:03

Jimmy and Jamie. And what is it

59:05

you want to talk about today? Hello,

59:09

Jamie. Hello, Jimmy. Just a

59:11

real quick question. I have

59:13

worked with the military, never

59:15

for Uncle Sam, but

59:17

some of the complaints that I used to hear when

59:19

I used to do a lot of work with different

59:23

enlisted was that it typically

59:26

was whenever you were in a severe situation

59:29

to get counseling, you

59:31

were handed a chaplain as

59:33

opposed to, you know, a more,

59:36

we'll say, professionally oriented someone

59:38

that could help you through that

59:41

traumatic situation. And

59:44

so that's where I was kind of was curious

59:46

as to Jimmy based on how long you've

59:48

been in. Have you sort of seen the

59:50

change to where now they focused

59:53

on less of

59:55

an idea of religion, addressing

59:57

enlisted concerns in more

1:00:00

of a of an actual professional

1:00:02

resource towards this type of situation?

1:00:05

Well, I appreciate that you have

1:00:07

called and asked me about this because I've

1:00:10

kind of wanted to talk about this. First

1:00:13

of all, I think as far as you talking

1:00:15

about have I seen the change? Well, I can

1:00:17

tell you that after about

1:00:20

a decade and a half roughly of serving, I

1:00:23

am in a very different military than when

1:00:25

I joined. I am in one that is

1:00:27

no longer under the don't ask, don't tell

1:00:29

policy. I am in one that has

1:00:32

transgender people, transgender military members

1:00:34

ready to fight, ready to

1:00:36

do their job. And

1:00:39

I am very proud of that. So I

1:00:42

have seen a great deal of progression in

1:00:44

the military over my time. And

1:00:46

I couldn't be happier that the

1:00:48

military is more interested in people's

1:00:50

minds than what they look like. And that

1:00:52

is absolutely true. And I say that because

1:00:55

I like to dispel this age

1:00:57

old stereotype that we are just some

1:00:59

kind of some

1:01:02

right wing conservative arm that we

1:01:04

reflect one single time of

1:01:06

thinking. And not to say that there aren't people

1:01:09

who see things more conservatively than others,

1:01:11

but there's everybody. There's

1:01:13

everybody all over and people come. We

1:01:16

have people that are born in different countries that are

1:01:18

serving that are proud to be American. We've got people

1:01:20

of different gender, faith, you name it.

1:01:22

So I'm happy to serve with all of

1:01:24

them. Now as far as the chaplains go,

1:01:26

I think actually, and

1:01:28

I mean as recently as a

1:01:31

few weeks, I'm kind of

1:01:33

turning the corner on where I see

1:01:35

chaplains. So excuse

1:01:37

me, forgive me if you will, but I

1:01:40

am not as opposed to having chaplains in the

1:01:42

military as I once was. Now

1:01:44

of course, I used to equate it with

1:01:47

an abuse of constitutionality,

1:01:49

if you will. It

1:01:51

is not constitutional to endorse

1:01:54

a religion and having people that

1:01:56

represent a religion serving in uniform.

1:02:00

and get paid as a military

1:02:02

member, but also be paid to serve

1:02:05

in a faith role, I thought was

1:02:09

unconstitutional for the longest time. And

1:02:11

I could still probably make an argument to why it is. However,

1:02:15

I have seen chaplains, let's

1:02:18

say of a Christian background, for example,

1:02:20

go way out of their

1:02:22

way to accommodate Muslim

1:02:25

people, atheist people. And

1:02:28

there is something to be said

1:02:30

about the fact that they aren't

1:02:33

so concerned about representing their religion as

1:02:35

much as they are doing their job.

1:02:37

And I think that's a great thing

1:02:39

about people in the military because they

1:02:41

want to do their job. They

1:02:44

want to be successful at their mission. That's what

1:02:46

makes the military so effective. And that's what you

1:02:48

need. So even if I have

1:02:50

a chaplain who believes

1:02:52

in Christianity, or adheres to it

1:02:54

and believes in it, it's

1:02:56

God and it's deities. And

1:02:59

I say deities because I still think

1:03:02

it's somewhat polytheistic, although there's a central

1:03:05

power. They've got all these, I don't know, saints

1:03:07

and stuff like that. But in any case, you

1:03:09

know, if there's somebody that adheres to that, but

1:03:11

they are willing to go out of their way

1:03:14

to make sure that I have

1:03:16

what I need, I'm okay with

1:03:18

that. Now, that also causes

1:03:21

them to learn about me. It

1:03:23

also causes them to learn about the Muslim or

1:03:26

the Hindu or the Buddhist, right? They

1:03:28

have to interact with people that are

1:03:30

different from them. And they have to

1:03:32

walk away having had a new experience

1:03:35

that they otherwise might not have. And

1:03:37

I think that can actually be beneficial

1:03:39

to dilute this kind of dogmatic thinking,

1:03:41

if that is something that is prevalent

1:03:44

in their worldview. I've

1:03:46

kind of rambled a little bit. I think I answered your question.

1:03:48

I think I got my thoughts out. I want

1:03:51

to ask Jamie if he has any thoughts

1:03:53

on what I just said, and then Joshua,

1:03:55

we'll get your thoughts.

1:03:58

I'll only tell you in a minute. because

1:04:00

I have no experience in the military, I never served.

1:04:03

And I don't know many people personally

1:04:05

other than those who have been through

1:04:07

things like the ACA who have. But

1:04:09

I would actually push back slightly by saying

1:04:12

that while I trust

1:04:15

Jimin saying that these chaplains are doing their

1:04:17

absolute best to

1:04:20

accommodate people and to fulfill their

1:04:22

role as people

1:04:24

of comfort, I

1:04:26

would say that a properly

1:04:28

trained mental health officer that

1:04:31

has had secular training, proper mental

1:04:33

health training in

1:04:35

the same way as like a corpsman

1:04:37

or a medical personnel has

1:04:40

had completely divorced

1:04:42

from any kind of religious teaching would

1:04:44

be a better option because they would come

1:04:46

at it from a fact-based and science-based standpoint

1:04:49

of mental health. That's

1:04:52

my only real pushback. And

1:04:56

the only other thing that's been rattling around in my

1:04:58

head is that the British Armed Forces are technically a

1:05:00

holy army because the head of state is also the

1:05:02

head of the church and the commander in chief of

1:05:04

the military. So you know, very

1:05:07

weird. Wow. Yeah. Actually,

1:05:09

Joshua, real quick, I just want

1:05:11

to inject something. So Jamie, not

1:05:13

really a pushback, per se, because

1:05:15

I agree

1:05:17

with you. I would much rather have my

1:05:20

situation handled

1:05:22

by a well-trained

1:05:25

mental health professional. And the

1:05:27

military offers things like military

1:05:29

family life counselors. We

1:05:31

have mental health personnel in the

1:05:34

military. We've got sources

1:05:36

like Military OneSource that we can

1:05:38

look up and find

1:05:41

different avenues to getting help, whether it's

1:05:43

through family counseling or whether it is

1:05:45

through, I don't know, suicide prevention. There

1:05:47

is a plethora

1:05:49

of avenues you could go down. But

1:05:51

having the chaplain, if I had

1:05:54

no other resource, I'd at least give it a shot.

1:05:56

Joshua, what do you think? I

1:06:00

appreciate both of your words. One thing I would

1:06:02

say is that a lot of the people I

1:06:04

used to work with and dealt with were, this

1:06:08

was in early 2000s, so

1:06:10

we're even now in comparison to

1:06:12

then a completely different

1:06:15

military. So in looking back

1:06:17

towards that, we had people who had

1:06:19

done even operation upholding

1:06:22

democracy, that type of thing, and then doing

1:06:24

two tours in Iraq and two tours in

1:06:26

Afghanistan. So the

1:06:28

old mindset was still sort of

1:06:31

there, but now I would say

1:06:33

I agree with you that the

1:06:35

chaplain, quote, unquote, is no

1:06:37

longer more, it's less of

1:06:39

a religious, it's more of

1:06:41

a heavy amount of training and

1:06:44

being able to deliver support

1:06:46

as needed within the situations that

1:06:48

they're given. Yeah, and

1:06:50

they're not supposed to proselytize, right?

1:06:53

And if they did, I would be the first person

1:06:55

to speak up about it. I

1:06:58

would report an abuse of authority and

1:07:00

I would report that a rule was broken.

1:07:05

But what I don't wanna see, now

1:07:07

there are other precedents, right, or

1:07:10

excuse me, the chaplaincy has created a precedent

1:07:12

that has actually benefited people in the military

1:07:14

recently and I'll explain. Chaplains

1:07:17

are put in place because people

1:07:19

serve in the military and they're moved all over

1:07:21

the country, all over the world, and

1:07:24

by that notion, are taken away

1:07:26

from any regular access to their

1:07:29

religious resources that they would otherwise have.

1:07:32

If they're in their hometown, they know where their church is,

1:07:34

their pastor is, and they can

1:07:36

find the religious guidance that they

1:07:38

need, so the military provides guidance

1:07:40

for those people. Now, we have

1:07:42

also seen that take place for

1:07:44

military members who are stationed in

1:07:47

a state or country that does

1:07:49

not allow abortion. The military will

1:07:51

cover their travel to take

1:07:54

them to a place where they can get an abortion. And

1:07:56

if we make the argument that the chaplaincy should

1:07:59

not be... We should

1:08:01

not be a part of the military. We

1:08:03

put ourselves in danger of

1:08:05

taking other programs away that are established for

1:08:07

the same reasons. And that I don't want

1:08:09

to see. Because I

1:08:12

do believe in the

1:08:14

right of a woman to have

1:08:16

autonomy over her own body. And

1:08:19

she should be able to choose whether

1:08:22

she continues with a pregnancy or not. And if

1:08:24

the military, based on the same rules that are

1:08:26

established by the chaplaincy, is willing to honor that,

1:08:28

I say it's a win. So

1:08:31

that's my final thought on that. I think, Joshua,

1:08:33

I've gotten everything off my chest I need. What

1:08:35

do you have for me? Oh, nothing. I've

1:08:38

been listening to you both over the past

1:08:40

year or so. You've been doing a great

1:08:42

job and I look forward to seeing you on

1:08:44

more episodes. And I really appreciate that.

1:08:46

Thank you. I really appreciate that.

1:08:48

And if you're around, you know, stick

1:08:51

around and join us in the

1:08:53

Discord after show. But

1:08:56

yeah, what a great call. And I'm just happy to

1:08:58

give my expertise if that's what you can even call

1:09:00

it. I

1:09:03

don't want to confuse anybody. I am not

1:09:05

here as a representative of the government or

1:09:07

the military or the armed forces at all.

1:09:10

My thoughts and opinions are my own. They

1:09:14

may not be facts, but they do belong to me. But

1:09:18

I am very proud of what I do.

1:09:20

So I'm just going to cut it off there.

1:09:22

I don't want anybody to think that, you know,

1:09:24

because I have some disagreements with

1:09:26

the military in some ways that it's somehow

1:09:29

a negative organization where I view it

1:09:31

negatively. But Jamie,

1:09:33

we're going to move on. We've

1:09:37

had somebody waiting on the line for

1:09:39

a while and I'm not really sure

1:09:41

what he's asking

1:09:43

us. I don't even know if I

1:09:45

understand. I just need him

1:09:47

to explain. His name is Nate. He

1:09:50

him from California. Are you

1:09:52

agnostic toward theistic gods?

1:09:55

I think my answer is no, but I'm

1:09:57

going to pull up Nate anyway and allow him to explain.

1:10:00

Nate, good afternoon.

1:10:02

I think it's afternoon in California.

1:10:04

I think it's 1209 there,

1:10:06

so it's technically afternoon. You're

1:10:09

on with Jimmy and Jamie. Yeah. Yeah,

1:10:12

good afternoon, guys. Hey. Making

1:10:14

my call. So I

1:10:17

will kind of spare you folks of

1:10:19

a backdrop that I was planning, but

1:10:22

it will take like no more than 10 seconds

1:10:24

for a backdrop, so I'll set foundation for what

1:10:26

I'm talking about. I'm

1:10:28

an atheist, as I don't know your skin, I

1:10:30

must have told you. And

1:10:33

so when it comes to the East, God

1:10:35

we know that it's pointless. He's

1:10:38

got the definition. You can, you

1:10:40

have the instruments, or

1:10:42

you have means technically to be able to,

1:10:44

you know, they're not a

1:10:47

atheist, and if you want to exist. So,

1:10:51

and then, because there isn't any

1:10:53

empirical evidence or

1:10:56

at least not, we know that it's really unlikely that there is

1:10:58

one, right? And in that sense, I'm

1:11:00

an atheist for sure. As

1:11:03

are most people, probably including

1:11:05

you folks, I suspect. The

1:11:09

question is really is, when

1:11:11

it comes to a deist God,

1:11:13

right, who

1:11:16

by definition is beyond

1:11:19

the realms of detection because it

1:11:21

doesn't intervene by definition,

1:11:23

right? But then by

1:11:25

definition, a deist God is

1:11:27

one that also kind of flicked off

1:11:30

the first domino,

1:11:33

if you may. That's how it's

1:11:35

defined. And

1:11:38

there's no way to know. Nate,

1:11:40

I gotta stop you right there, and

1:11:43

I'm gonna, I wanna summarize something very

1:11:45

important that I just heard, and then I wanna

1:11:47

kick it to Jamie to see what he thinks

1:11:49

about what you've said so far, and kind of

1:11:51

my synopsis, because maybe I'm wrong. But

1:11:54

I wanna get his thoughts on it so

1:11:56

far. So you say that the deistic God

1:11:58

would have had to hit the... the

1:12:00

first domino, right? So right there, I would

1:12:04

say not theistic. No, I don't

1:12:06

know. If you touch the domino. No, that's

1:12:08

not what I'm saying. What

1:12:11

was it that you said? So

1:12:14

what you said is different from

1:12:16

what you do. We integrated. What

1:12:18

I'm saying is the way a

1:12:21

D-start is defined. I'm

1:12:24

not taking my best on whether

1:12:27

it's there or not there. I don't know. I don't know.

1:12:31

Absolutely. What I'm saying is

1:12:33

the way a D-start is defined in

1:12:36

the books, a

1:12:39

D-start is somebody

1:12:42

that has, who sits outside

1:12:44

the microwave oven and presses the

1:12:46

start button and everything unfolds inside

1:12:48

the microwave, which is our world.

1:12:50

Yeah, okay. Got

1:12:52

it. I'm not

1:12:54

trying to claim that I know anything yet. No,

1:12:56

I don't think that you know anything, but I

1:12:58

think that by

1:13:01

pushing the microwave button, they're

1:13:03

not theistic. I don't know. It's just

1:13:05

an interesting kind of mental

1:13:08

game I'm playing right now, but I do want to

1:13:10

kick it over to Jamie and see what he's got

1:13:12

to say about your thoughts. Yeah,

1:13:14

well, a couple of things. To directly

1:13:16

answer your question, am I agnostic about

1:13:18

the deistic God? Well,

1:13:21

agnosticism is about knowledge

1:13:24

and that there's no way to... Jamie,

1:13:29

I'm really sorry. I'm not... That really don't

1:13:31

mean to interrupt you, but that's not the

1:13:33

question I asked at all. I don't know

1:13:35

how that is being... Okay,

1:13:38

what question do you have? Yeah.

1:13:42

What is your actual question, please? Yeah,

1:13:45

thank you. So, the question I

1:13:48

really have is, I just want

1:13:50

to validate

1:13:53

the veracity of how I'm thinking,

1:13:55

right? So, I'm thinking that

1:13:58

if someone has... If

1:14:01

someone has to absolutely kind of

1:14:04

figure out what their standard is on a

1:14:06

DS card, I'm thinking it makes sense to

1:14:09

say that I'm very purely,

1:14:12

very purely, purely

1:14:14

underlined, agnostic about

1:14:17

a DS card. I'm exactly

1:14:19

as unsure of its

1:14:22

existence as I am unsure of its

1:14:24

non-existence, which means I

1:14:27

need to be right in the middle of that agnosticism

1:14:30

meter to say, oh, really,

1:14:32

you know, because I just cannot decide for it makes

1:14:35

sense for me to say I'm a 50-50 on it.

1:14:38

Well, I would say... Let

1:14:40

me respond. You've

1:14:43

had plenty of time to explain your standpoint

1:14:46

and I want to get this out. The

1:14:49

DS card, because it has no interaction

1:14:51

with the universe, cannot be detected, cannot

1:14:53

be communicated with. There

1:14:55

is no way to know that it exists if

1:14:58

it does. And

1:15:01

even if we could

1:15:03

somehow understand that it exists,

1:15:05

we can't communicate with it, we can't interact

1:15:08

with it, it will not interact with us.

1:15:11

I don't care. I

1:15:14

really don't. There may as well

1:15:16

be nothing. I'm agnostic to nothing

1:15:18

as well then, because a

1:15:20

deistic God is a pointless mental

1:15:22

exercise in my opinion. What's

1:15:25

the point in calling something a

1:15:27

God when it does nothing, says

1:15:29

nothing, affects nothing, cannot be seen,

1:15:31

cannot be communicated with? It

1:15:35

may as well not exist in my

1:15:37

mind. So yes, technically, you can say

1:15:39

you're agnostic about it, but

1:15:42

I wouldn't give any brain cycles to

1:15:44

that concept. Not really. Yeah.

1:15:48

I mean, where does it get us? Where

1:15:50

does believing in a God that has

1:15:53

no interest in us get us at

1:15:55

all? I

1:15:57

don't think that we really... really

1:16:00

establish any understanding just by sitting around and

1:16:02

thinking about something that we'll never get confirmation

1:16:04

on, which, by the way, that's the

1:16:06

case we're in anyway. So

1:16:09

whatever God it is that you worship. But

1:16:11

yeah, so what are your thoughts on that, Nate? So

1:16:16

I'm thinking I'm all the way

1:16:18

in work that James enjoyed, but not with

1:16:21

you, Jimmy. That's

1:16:23

because I'm thinking, you're thinking

1:16:25

I'm there worshiping from God. That's what he

1:16:27

said, which I'm not. And

1:16:30

also, all the way... I don't

1:16:33

think you're worshiping a God. I don't

1:16:35

think I said that you are actively worshiping a

1:16:37

God. I'm just saying that whether the God is...

1:16:40

No, you're worshiping. That's what he said. What

1:16:42

did I say? I'm sorry. I believe

1:16:44

that Jimmy was speaking the general term,

1:16:47

not to you specifically, Nate. He's one

1:16:49

worship to God. Yeah. If

1:16:51

a person were to worship a God, that's

1:16:54

all I meant. What

1:16:57

I'm saying is if you worship a deist

1:16:59

God, you never

1:17:02

get anywhere. And that's what Jamie said. Don't

1:17:04

waste your brain tackles on it. But I

1:17:07

think that we're in that situation anyway, is what I was

1:17:09

saying. So yeah, I don't think

1:17:11

that you are worshiping a deist God.

1:17:14

Yeah. I'm not. So

1:17:17

what I'm trying to ask you is that...

1:17:21

I know that it is a pointless

1:17:23

exercise wondering whether or not a God

1:17:25

exists, a deist God exists. It's

1:17:28

a pointless, really a pointless exercise all the

1:17:31

way with you on that.

1:17:33

What I'm trying to ask is that if

1:17:36

I have to then simply take a

1:17:38

mental... It's a mental exercise. It's

1:17:40

purely a mental exercise. Because

1:17:43

I have no access to this God or

1:17:45

being able to do anything with it, or

1:17:47

it won't do anything with me forever. So

1:17:51

if I have to figure out what my stand is on

1:17:53

that, wouldn't it make sense to say, I just

1:17:56

don't know in that. So I'm just 50-50.

1:18:00

I don't know if they get some answers. It could

1:18:02

or couldn't. Is that the right way

1:18:04

to look at it? Is the question? I

1:18:07

don't think so. Because the

1:18:10

fact that something is so undetectable and

1:18:12

cannot be proven to be correct and

1:18:15

therefore may as well be incorrect. So

1:18:18

I am an

1:18:20

empiricist. I am a skeptic. I

1:18:23

only believe things when they

1:18:25

are evidenced. And

1:18:28

so while I am technically

1:18:31

agnostic on many subjects and

1:18:33

many gods, I

1:18:35

am going to sway to, yes, it

1:18:38

is possible this thing exists.

1:18:41

Is it probable or

1:18:43

likely? No. As

1:18:45

far as the evidence I've seen

1:18:47

is, no. And if your evidence

1:18:50

is by definition unobtainable, then

1:18:52

that is so unlikely to

1:18:55

exist. It is so improbable,

1:18:57

it may as well be impossible. So

1:19:00

yes, technically you can say I am

1:19:02

an agnostic to a deistic god. But

1:19:04

I think intellectual honesty, 50-50? No. Not

1:19:06

even 99-100. It is infinity minus one

1:19:08

to one in my mind. Yeah.

1:19:17

And Nate, on that, I think

1:19:19

that you are towing the

1:19:21

line of atheism anyway. I mean, why

1:19:24

do you have any good reason to

1:19:27

believe in this god in the first place?

1:19:29

If it is undetectable, then you have never

1:19:31

been shown any evidence to compel you to

1:19:34

question its validity or compel

1:19:37

you to buy into its validity.

1:19:40

So wouldn't that make you an atheist?

1:19:43

Why is battle in the middle? I

1:19:45

think Nate is an atheist. I

1:19:48

think the question, sorry to jump in Jimmy,

1:19:50

is he doesn't believe in

1:19:53

a deistic god. He just

1:19:55

wants to know whether taking a straight 50-50

1:19:57

stance on his agnosticism towards that.

1:20:00

Deistic God is a sensible place to

1:20:02

be mentally. I'm getting you right Nate

1:20:06

Yeah, I and I'm saying

1:20:08

I don't see it

1:20:10

being sensible I mean because you end up in

1:20:12

this you end up in this area

1:20:14

where you're Really you really

1:20:17

an atheist anyway, you know what I mean? So

1:20:20

I don't know if that's clear, but I think generally

1:20:22

speaking again, not just talking to you Nate But how

1:20:25

can anybody who is questioning

1:20:27

the validity of a deist God? land

1:20:30

in the middle because with this

1:20:32

with specifically a deist God, there's absolutely no

1:20:34

evidence and Really

1:20:36

you end up being an atheist because

1:20:38

you have really no good reason to

1:20:40

believe and I think that that is

1:20:44

Kind of the situation that a deist

1:20:46

God presents May

1:20:49

I only subvert a Quick

1:20:53

production so it is not that

1:20:55

there is no evidence for a deist world It

1:20:58

is that you cannot have

1:21:00

evidence for a deist God Undetectable

1:21:07

right undetectable I

1:21:11

don't see how somebody lands closer to

1:21:13

Agnosticism when questioning deism.

1:21:16

I think that you have to take

1:21:19

the the atheist approach I that's my

1:21:21

opinion just because there's no

1:21:23

possibility of good evidence That bothers me That

1:21:27

bothers me. So what if I take a

1:21:29

if I take a atheist approach And then

1:21:31

I need to use Jamie's

1:21:33

language, which I also disagree with what

1:21:35

Jamie said was It

1:21:38

then it is very unlikely If

1:21:40

that's what you are that it's extremely

1:21:42

unlikely that infinity minus one is what

1:21:44

he is It's extremely extremely unlikely that

1:21:46

there is a deist God and

1:21:48

then if you're able to make that assessment

1:21:52

That is unlikely Maybe

1:21:54

not talking impossible. It's unlikely likely

1:21:56

it's unlikely then

1:21:59

what What that implies is

1:22:01

there is some kind of instrumentation,

1:22:04

mental instrumentation available to you that

1:22:06

allows you to make that assessment. But

1:22:09

the nature of a beast God

1:22:11

will prevent you entirely from

1:22:14

making that assessment. So you have no choice

1:22:17

in mind. But if I say that

1:22:19

it's impossible. How to be in the middle? But

1:22:21

if I say no, no, then if I'm going to,

1:22:23

if you go pin me down to a choice of saying

1:22:25

in the middle or in bottom, I'm just going to say

1:22:27

that I'm completely atheist on it, that

1:22:30

is completely undetectable. Like,

1:22:33

I don't I would then pin my

1:22:35

flag to the that I know it doesn't exist.

1:22:38

Because definitionally, I cannot be

1:22:40

proven wrong. definitionally

1:22:43

I cannot be proven wrong in that assessment.

1:22:46

Because it's impossible to know. You're going to

1:22:48

change what you're going to do.

1:22:51

I don't need to prove that it doesn't

1:22:53

exist. And

1:22:59

if you're definitionally saying that it can't be

1:23:01

proven that it does, then I have no

1:23:03

use for it. And I'm willing to just

1:23:05

go, yeah, it doesn't exist. Yeah,

1:23:10

so hey, Nate, you know, I really

1:23:12

go ahead. What were

1:23:14

you gonna say? I

1:23:17

said, Jamie, I'm just talking

1:23:19

to Jamie for a quick second. So

1:23:22

Jamie says that he's going to take a

1:23:24

stand. He

1:23:26

can comfortably take a stand saying

1:23:28

that a days God does

1:23:30

not exist. I know that. That's

1:23:32

what he's saying. And he's saying

1:23:34

that based on the fact that nobody can

1:23:37

ever prove and gone. That's

1:23:39

what you're saying. You

1:23:42

have defined that no proof can

1:23:44

ever exist of the existence

1:23:46

of this thing. So then it

1:23:48

is as near as makes no

1:23:51

difference, non-existent. And

1:23:54

therefore, why should I even conscious

1:23:57

the idea of its existence if there's no

1:24:00

ever way to know and

1:24:02

there's no consequence for not knowing. Like

1:24:05

this is, I'm sorry to get

1:24:07

frustrated Nate, this is navel gazing.

1:24:10

I really, there

1:24:12

are better God, there

1:24:14

are better fist fry,

1:24:17

there are more ornery gods to

1:24:19

tangle with. Getting

1:24:21

tied up in the, I can't

1:24:23

ever truly know whether this thing that can't

1:24:25

ever truly be known is existing. I just

1:24:29

don't get why you hung upon it man. Yeah,

1:24:33

yeah, I don't

1:24:35

see a whole lot of reason to

1:24:37

even care. There is no

1:24:40

reason for this deist God

1:24:43

and myself or any other human being

1:24:45

to ever cross paths, excuse me, or

1:24:47

even think about each other. You

1:24:50

know, it is a moot point. It

1:24:52

does nothing. And on that note, I

1:24:55

am going to move on to some other callers and hope

1:24:58

maybe we have a little bit

1:25:00

more content to contemplate. So

1:25:02

I really appreciate your call Nate. I think it

1:25:05

made for a good brief discussion. But what I

1:25:07

want to do now is go

1:25:09

over to Texas and talk to

1:25:11

Connor, he him. Connor wants to

1:25:13

talk about, you know,

1:25:15

Texas making it legal and providing funding

1:25:17

for chaplains in public schools. And

1:25:20

so want to hear what Connor has to

1:25:22

say on that. And

1:25:24

with that, Connor, you are on with Jimmy and

1:25:26

Jamie, how can we help you? Hey

1:25:30

guys, good to talk to you again. Yeah. So

1:25:34

yeah, I was also kind of

1:25:36

wanted. So, so we'll start

1:25:38

off like, yeah, I'm a

1:25:41

long, lifelong born and raised

1:25:43

at Texas, just in

1:25:45

a little of

1:25:48

Austin. And well, it was that

1:25:50

the first time I actually heard about this is

1:25:52

like, well for one was

1:25:55

like, should I really be surprised that

1:25:57

it's happening in this state? And

1:26:00

the reason why I heard about it, and this is

1:26:02

a little bit of a shout out to my hometown

1:26:05

and that was actually in the local

1:26:08

paper, it was the

1:26:10

school board said, no, we don't want any of

1:26:12

this funding to go through and we don't want

1:26:15

chaplains in our schools. So yay,

1:26:17

Taylor, Texas. Yeah, I asked

1:26:20

you, he was very much on

1:26:22

board with that. Yeah. Like, no, we're not doing it. Don't

1:26:27

know about Randrock though, don't know about Georgetown. Okay,

1:26:31

so I haven't heard anything about that. So

1:26:34

Connor, what did what do you what's your takeaway from that? I

1:26:36

mean, what was the point that you wanted to raise to us?

1:26:42

Are you just happy? You just wanted to express your,

1:26:45

express your excitement that this didn't work out?

1:26:50

Oh, yeah, it was really just I wanted to,

1:26:52

I've been wanting to do for like a couple

1:26:54

weeks now, like call in, like do a shout

1:26:56

out that my hometown said, like, you know, we

1:26:58

believe in separation of church and state. Okay,

1:27:01

okay. Well, I

1:27:03

mean, I don't disagree

1:27:06

with you. I guess what I

1:27:08

want to do right now, it just

1:27:10

talk about real briefly, you

1:27:12

know, why the separation of church and state

1:27:15

is important, right. So, in my opinion, you

1:27:17

know, you can't have you

1:27:19

can't have children's minds being molded

1:27:22

by kind of this

1:27:24

fictional story, right, and using public

1:27:26

funds to do that. I think it's dangerous to

1:27:28

kids. That's, that's

1:27:31

like the single most, the

1:27:33

single most concern I have, especially

1:27:35

as somebody with kids, but you don't need to have kids who feel

1:27:37

that way. Jamie, what do you

1:27:39

what are your thoughts on that? I mean, why

1:27:41

do we care about the separation of religion

1:27:44

and government one of our key tenants at

1:27:46

the ACA? Well, I think

1:27:50

that it's actually in favor

1:27:52

of religious freedom that

1:27:54

the separation of this is why this

1:27:57

coalitions of actual religious

1:28:00

figures and people campaigning for the

1:28:02

separation of religion and

1:28:04

government, because we

1:28:07

don't want to favour one particular

1:28:09

religion over another. Everyone should be

1:28:11

free to believe what they will,

1:28:13

and we of course are free

1:28:15

to question them about it, but

1:28:17

not ban them from it. And

1:28:21

highlighting this fact that, yeah,

1:28:23

the people that push these

1:28:25

legislations through are often coming

1:28:27

at it from a very

1:28:30

Christocentric standpoint,

1:28:33

only to have members of the Satanic Temple

1:28:35

stand up and say, can't wait to be

1:28:37

in schools, can't wait to spread the good

1:28:39

word of Satan to all of the little

1:28:41

elders, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And it's

1:28:43

like, oh no, what kind of

1:28:46

worms have we opened here? Yeah,

1:28:48

I think it was in

1:28:50

a northern state like Minnesota

1:28:52

or something, might

1:28:54

have been Wyoming, I don't know, but a

1:28:57

few months ago, a gentleman went to

1:28:59

a town school board and, you know,

1:29:02

when the town was proposing, using

1:29:05

funds to

1:29:07

put religion in schools in some capacity,

1:29:09

he said, you know, I really want

1:29:11

to thank you because now I can

1:29:13

get my little devils Satanic after

1:29:16

school program up and running with all

1:29:19

this funding. So he was going

1:29:21

to have a little devils, which I

1:29:23

think was a hilarious name,

1:29:25

but a little devils after school

1:29:27

program for kids. It's

1:29:32

funny that that's what it takes for Christians to,

1:29:35

it didn't go through and for Christians to turn

1:29:37

around and be like, you know, maybe this isn't

1:29:39

a good idea after all, which I find ironic

1:29:41

because Satan is very Christian. But

1:29:44

anyway, go ahead, Connor, what are your

1:29:46

comments? Yeah,

1:29:49

continuing on that top, that part of

1:29:51

the topic, like, didn't they successfully

1:29:53

get the battle met statue set up

1:29:55

at the Oklahoma Supreme Court after they

1:29:57

said they could put up a 10th

1:29:59

Amendment? I don't know

1:30:02

another one of the things they were working

1:30:04

on. I don't know about

1:30:06

that one. I don't have a

1:30:08

great deal of expertise. That's something I'd have to

1:30:10

look into. But I did

1:30:13

hear, and consistent with some of the

1:30:15

other calls we've had today, I heard

1:30:18

from a military chaplain recently

1:30:21

who did kind of a seminar that I was in, that

1:30:24

when the Constitution was being framed that

1:30:27

the advisement of a group

1:30:29

of Baptist clergy

1:30:32

was consulted, and excuse me, I didn't

1:30:35

say that right. Let me say that

1:30:37

again. A group of Baptist

1:30:39

advisors were consulted by the framers

1:30:42

of the United States

1:30:44

Constitution, and those Baptists said, we

1:30:46

actually want to make sure that

1:30:48

you put in restraints

1:30:50

on religion and government being intertwined,

1:30:53

because we want to keep our

1:30:56

faith from being influenced

1:30:59

by other faiths. So this idea

1:31:01

of maybe if it's Catholicism that

1:31:03

is recognized by

1:31:06

the government, this idea that

1:31:09

these other smaller religions would be able

1:31:11

to persist might

1:31:13

actually prove that those smaller ones get gobbled

1:31:15

up by this bigger model of the Catholic

1:31:18

Church. And so everybody wants, is

1:31:20

guaranteed protections. Anyway, I'm not going to go

1:31:22

down this rabbit hole. Jamie, do you have anything else

1:31:24

on that? It's a weird

1:31:26

perspective to have to comment on the fact

1:31:28

that the separation of religion and government

1:31:31

is such a hot button topic here and

1:31:33

the important one, because I come from a

1:31:35

country where that is still important, but we

1:31:37

have a state religion. I went

1:31:40

to a religious school. Most

1:31:42

of our public schools are in fact

1:31:44

religious schools, especially

1:31:47

in the K through

1:31:49

12 margin. Okay,

1:31:54

the 12. I went to the

1:31:56

U.R. 12 years old, then the middle school. We

1:32:00

don't take religion that seriously in

1:32:02

the UK, so it doesn't seem to be as

1:32:04

much of a problem in some places. It

1:32:07

is very strange. Yeah, and I like

1:32:10

to stay away from political waves and

1:32:12

climates and things like that. A lot

1:32:14

of times Christianity and religion can get

1:32:17

mixed in with that. It just

1:32:19

doesn't make the conversation easier. Anyway,

1:32:22

I think we had a great

1:32:25

experience today. It was really good being

1:32:27

able to finally work with you. We

1:32:30

had some great callers, great callers, and

1:32:32

had a lot of good conversations. Remember

1:32:35

folks, we asked you this

1:32:37

week what character from a holy text

1:32:39

would you like to get a drink

1:32:41

with and why? So reply in the

1:32:43

comments and tune in at the

1:32:45

beginning of next week's show where we are going to read

1:32:47

them off. Don't forget we

1:32:49

have Patreon. We have

1:32:52

the after show discord that Jamie and I

1:32:54

will be attending. I'm going to stop in

1:32:56

briefly and say hello. I can't stay unfortunately,

1:32:58

but I will be there. Now

1:33:02

is the time of the show where

1:33:04

we introduce the love rings. Jamie, who do you want

1:33:06

to shoot your love rings to?

1:33:10

Right now I would like to

1:33:12

shoot love rings to all the

1:33:15

people who are facing illness,

1:33:19

who are facing a crisis and are

1:33:21

turning towards what we

1:33:24

might call faith. To

1:33:26

implore them to put their

1:33:28

trust in more tangible things than a

1:33:30

higher power. Put your trust in

1:33:33

the people helping your family, the doctors, the

1:33:35

nurses. Put your trust in your fellow person.

1:33:37

Put your trust in the patient and

1:33:39

just understand that things will be as they will

1:33:41

be. But all the love for

1:33:43

you people, if you're feeling that stuff

1:33:45

is getting out of your hands and there's nothing you can

1:33:47

do, at least know that we're thinking

1:33:50

of you. Yeah, that was very good. I

1:33:53

was going to make a joke with mine, but I'm not going

1:33:55

to do that anymore. I want

1:33:57

to send love rings out to all of the

1:33:59

people. doing the good work

1:34:01

to help make other people's lives better.

1:34:04

And it's people that you will never

1:34:06

know, you will

1:34:08

never see, it's people working

1:34:11

behind the scenes doing kind

1:34:13

of this very, I

1:34:15

don't know, tedious work. And,

1:34:18

you know, we just will never know who they are,

1:34:20

just know that they're out there fighting. I

1:34:24

don't see our love rings appearing. We

1:34:26

may be having a technical problem with

1:34:28

the love rings, but I will therefore

1:34:30

call upon all of you wonderful channel

1:34:32

members who have donated at

1:34:34

least $1 to get those

1:34:36

emojis, because I know that at least one

1:34:39

of those emojis is the love rings. And

1:34:41

so feel free to spam a few in

1:34:44

the YouTube chat, since we can't beam

1:34:46

them out. I call

1:34:48

upon you good people to do it

1:34:50

for us. Yep, we don't do this alone. We

1:34:52

need the support of our folks. So remember,

1:34:56

if you don't believe this is your

1:34:58

community, and we're happy for you

1:35:00

being here. But if you do believe, we

1:35:03

don't hate you. We're just not convinced.

1:35:12

We want the truth. So

1:35:14

watch Truth Wanted live Friday

1:35:16

at 7 p.m. Central. Visit

1:35:18

tiny.cc.yttw and

1:35:21

call into the show at 512-991-9242, or

1:35:27

connect to the show online

1:35:29

at tiny.cc. Call

1:35:31

TW.