Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 158: Gamma Atheist - David Viviano

Episode Date: June 19, 2014

   

Do you want to get cognitive dissonance streamed to your iPhone or Blackberry? If so, download Stitcher free today at Stitcher.com. Be advised that this show is not for children, the faint of heart, or the easily offended. The explicit tag is there for a reason. recording from glory hole studios this is Cognitive Dissonance. Every episode we blast anyone who gets in our way. We bring critical thinking, skepticism, and irreverence to any topic that makes the news, makes it big, or makes us mad. It's skeptical, it's political, and there is no welcome at. This is episode 158 of Cognitive Dissonance and we have an interview

later on with David Viviano from Atheist Hangouts but you have to put up with our shit before you get to his shit. I want to point out real quick that I've started doing the notes recently and when I do the notes... And by recently he means one episode. Yeah, this episode.

This episode. Don't take this away from me. Alright? Yeah, no, no. I episode. Yeah, this episode. This episode. Don't take this away from me. All right? Yeah, no, no. I fucking wouldn't dream of it, Tom. I don't want to take it away from you because I've been doing it for 157 episodes. Yeah, look. Okay, I've been doing it for one episode, and I'm already exhausted by it. But I want to point out that when I did the notes earlier, I took the links that I had tweeted and Facebooked and Google Plused and

everything, and I dropped them into a Google Doc and created the notes article, the notes document. And now it's not only rearranged, thank you, it's not only named properly, thank you, but now all of the articles, instead of just being blind links, are now what they are. Right. They have the name of the link. They have the name of what they actually are. Instead of like bbc.co.uk slash forward one two ace. Yeah.

This is awesome. I got to figure out how to do this. I got about 158 episodes before I have to figure out how to do that part of it. Kill me now, Lord. I appreciate that. Look at that. Kill me now. Man, I had to. Look at that. Kill me now. Man, I had to take some fucking complex

coding or something going on there. Anyway, the first story we want to cover comes from BBC.com. Afghan election. The good news. That's awesome. The good news is you get a vote. The bad news is you get only one. The bad news is you get only one. Well, actually, it's not true.

You know, so, you know, they've got a new system for the Afghan vote. The Taliban removed voters' fingers. So, you know, you have to say, like, it would work here in Chicago, right? Because they say vote early and vote often. You'd be able to tell pretty readily who did both. And you really are giving something up by voting, right? I mean, you really got to want that vote. Yeah, exactly.

I mean, if it's just one of those lesser to evil votes, you're just like, fuck that. I ain't voting this election. No thanks. But if your brother-in-law's running, then you vote. election. No thanks. But if their brother-in-law's running, then you vote. Yeah. You know, the thing is like, it's difficult enough here in the States where you get a fucking sticker to brag about it, right? So if you're actually one of the like 47% of people that bothers to swing out on a Tuesday and vote, you fucking get the fucking handjob sticker that's like, I voted! You know, fucking look at me. I'm amazing for punching a thing and doing my fucking very minimum basic civic duty.

Right, right. In fucking Afghanistan, they fucking cut off your finger. And the CISO, they cut off your index finger, dude. That's your using stuff finger. That is a using. I mean, you got a point with the middle from then on, and people are upset all the time when you do that. That's my fucking ET finger, yo.

Like, they can't be cutting that thing off. You know, what do you do with a hanging chad over there? Can you reattach it? Can you reattack? If you get to the emergency room soon enough with a hanging chad, you could reattach it, I guess, is what I'm saying. You know, you've you gotta look at articles like this and take them with something of a grain of salt because you you'll read you'll read sentences like this voting in saturday's poll is described as relatively peaceful despite a series of taliban attacks that officials said

killed more than 50 people the dead included five election workers killed when their minibus was destroyed by a roadside bomb. I'm going to read the first sentence again. Voting in Saturday's poll was described as relatively peaceful. What the fuck is going on over there? That roadside bombs blow up and fucking destroy a minibus full of election workers. They cut the fingers off of voters and everyone's basically like, that actually went better than we thought.

Can you imagine a dinner party with the same standards? You're like, eh, look. Yeah, I mean, we stabbed Bill in the heart with a steak knife and I lit my dog on fire, but other than that, it was a successful evening. It's like coming up behind one of your guests with a fucking baseball and I lit my dog on fire. But other than that, it was a successful evening. It's like coming up behind one of your guests with a fucking baseball bat and knocking him into next Tuesday and being like, who wants dessert?

It's all good. Also, the ballot box probably doesn't smell very good after a couple days, you know? Oh, man. There's a whole new meaning to red states. So this article comes from the Huffington Post. Life in the most religious states. This is just kind of one of those list articles. And it's pretty great. So the idea, of course, being that, you know, the most religious states in the nation should have some kind of advantage, right?

So if religion conferred some kind of moral or other significant advantage upon a people, then the more religious the state, the better off it should be, Cecil. And I would say, based on the information in this article, that's somewhat spurious. Yeah, absolutely. There's some awesome stuff on here. A couple of them I really liked. One of them was all 10 of these states still have the death penalty. That shouldn't be a surprise, right, that all 10 still have the death penalty.

Seven of these 10 are among the 10 states in the nation with the highest percentage of their citizens living under the poverty level. states in the nation with the highest percentage of their citizens living under the poverty level. Six of these 10 states are among the nine worst states in the nation in the rates of obesity. And I feel like that's kind of a punch below the belt. You know what I mean? That's a punch right in the belt.

The problem is you can't get all the way down to the belt. Right, exactly. Well, you know, it's, I mean, when you say the belt, the reason why I say below the belt is because the belly is hanging technically over the belt. Right, right, right. You know, it's funny because nine of these 10 states rank in the bottom 13 states in the nation's life expectancy. So you're not liable to live terribly long. So I guess that is the upside. liable to live terribly long. So I guess that is the upside.

You know, they're talking about like how there's no minimum wage or they're the lowest minimum wage in the country. They're talking about how essentially they have per pupil expenditures are the lowest in the country, lowest in the bottom 20 states in the quality of high school education. You know, I mean, there's so many things on here. The most gun deaths, most online pornography, you know, all the things that, you know, clearly the online pornography is in there so that they could show that, you know, even though they're the most religious, they are also the ones that are, you know, utilizing the most pornography.

And the guns are in there specifically to be like, the gun violence is in there specifically to be like, well, aren't you supposed to be godlike? What the fuck are you doing over there? Well, plus it's so funny too because you get that conflation all the time of like God, guns, and America or whatever it is, and it's like, wait, you can have your guns, you can have your God, and you'll live in a state with the highest percentage of gun deaths.

Like, there is correlation here. Like, there is something to be said for this. It's awesome. Like, you take a look at this. And these are the same people. Like, fucking absolutely guaranteed these are the same people are like, man, what's America coming to? What's America coming to? Exactly.

Got to bring God back into the schools so we can have the highest possible rates of teen pregnancy and like the highest fucking rates of unemployment and like the most deaths at work. And like, it's just like all the worst things. Like all of the worst things. Like name a worst thing. Something you don't want your state to be associated with. And it seems like bringing. And I have to think that it's not, you know, the reason, of course, isn't God, right? Because there is no such thing as God. So God doesn't, it's not like God is more in Alabama or more in Mississippi, you know? So it's, it means there's not anywhere,

but what this amounts to Cecil is education. I think like this is education and cultural attitudes. Yeah, totally. And I, I also just want to point out on the far right side, cause I can't keep my eyes off of it, there's a thing that says artificial vaginas are on the way. I may have clicked on that. There is something to look forward to. I thought an artificial vagina was a hand. Yeah, right? I've had one since I was about 13. Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't know. Along Black Hawk, along Black Hawk, along Black Hawk.

Along Black Hawk. Black Hawk. Jesus Christ. I don't even know what to do with this next article. This is from Tulsa World? Good Lord. First of all, let's pause for a minute. There's a Tulsa World? Like Tulsa World? Isn't that kind of an oxymoron?

Tulsa ain't the world. It has the most boring rides you could possibly imagine. Welcome to Tulsa world. Please keep your hands and feet inside the most boring possible ride at all times. It's essentially a wagon ride through a cornfield. It's just all it is is like the workers just wheel you in a wheelbarrow through a hog farm. That's it. They once in a while chuck some grain in your face.

Welcome to beautiful Oklahoma. See all of our natural splendor. There, you've seen it. Go home. So this fucking story, Muslim convert to Christianity sues Tulsa Church. This story is fucking insane. So there's a Muslim who converted to Christianity sues Tulsa Church. This story is fucking insane. So there's a Muslim who converted to Christianity. And as part of that conversion, he told the pastor, Reverend James Miller, he said, look, you know, this is going to cause me some real shit.

So if you could just fucking not say anything about it, like I'll believe in your God. I'll believe in your religion. If you could just fucking keep your goddamn mouth shut about it before I go back to my home country of Syria. Well, Reverend James D. Miller didn't keep his mouth shut. He published it on the internet. The guy swings back home to Syria. He gets kidnapped by radical Muslims seeking to enforce Sharia law. This is where it gets fucking nuts. He is bound, beaten, tortured for several days, forced to spend 18 hours a day in a 55-gallon electrified drum.

He was stabbed several times, shot, threatened with beheading, and then when he was taken out to be beheaded, this motherfucking badass dude gets his hands free, grabs a firearm from his captor, kills one of them, who happened to be his uncle, by the way, and escapes. And he gets back. And he's suing the pastor for blowing his cover. Fucking you do not rat on James Bond. I don't know that he's James Bond. I thought his middle name was Rasputin.

What do we have to do to kill him? You know what they do to this guy? Jesus Christ almighty. Ridiculous what they had to do to him. I mean, the main thrust of the argument, though, here is that, you know, you shouldn't be posting this stuff online i guess you know but one of the things that just baffles me is what do you just have people that just surf the internet just so they could find out if you're a fucking apostate yeah like you're you come home you would think there'd be better ways to find apostates i know like is it like random web searches is there like apostates.com like where you can go like look them up. Like Christian Mingle.

Did he post like a profile on apostatesmingle.com? You know, it's funny because it's his fucking, it's not funny at all, but it's his fucking uncle who is going to go out and do a little beheading of this guy. So like the prodigal son returns. That's probably how he found out. Yeah, right. That's probably how he found out anyway is because, you know, his uncle knew or his uncle had suspicions and then like probably just did a Google search of his name or something. And up comes our brand newest Christian is. Yeah, welcome to the fold.

Oh, shit. Yeah. And the idea, too, that you're like you're so incensed with your nephew for changing his religion that you're like, well, what should we do? I don't know. Let's rough him up a little bit. All right, well, we'll beat him for a while. Okay. Well, fuck that.

We still got to torture him a little. Okay. I mean, he did choose the wrong God. Let's torture him. And then after a while, you're like, you know, maybe he could spend some time in a 55-gallon electrified drum. Maybe that would be good. If they didn't behead him,

they were going to put him in a 55-gallon drum full of piranhas. You know what I mean? Like, there was going to be. Can you believe what could be the world's most fearsome, destructive weapon? Obama's third term? Not really. That's what Secretary of State John Kerry is saying about global warming. It's been so hot this winter.

I don't know where Kerry has been spending his time, but maybe he's so wealthy they have a special house that all has tropical plants in it. So he feels like he's in the tropics. But the rest of us has been cold as the dickens. This story is from the Raw story. GOP representative, global warming, I can't even say this. I don't even know that I can say this. You can, you can do it, I have faith.

Just read it without thinking, that's what he did. God, my brain will not turn off this much. I think I could read this in a fucking coma and feel fucking stupid as a result. Global warming is a hoax because dinosaurs went extinct without car pollution.

I don't know what to say next. I don't even know. I sat here trying. I'm like, there's going to be a great, hilarious tweet or something. And I sat and stared at this like, like wait fucking what did he say again how did he fucking vomit this argument through his face so here's the thrust of this right he's basically saying i think you've pretty much explained i know i know i know but here's my here's the thing cecil this guy's a representative in Florida. I know. I know.

If he was just some fucking jamoke, who would care? But more than that, Florida is a state that can't afford to get global warming wrong. Right? Right. Florida's a state that if sea levels rise, Florida's like super fucked, man. It's the wang of the United States. It's going to fucking descend. It's like that's bad news for Florida. You're essentially circumcising the wang. It's super fucked, man. It's the wang of the United States. It's going to fucking descend. Like, it's like, that's bad news for Florida.

You're essentially circumcising the wang. It's true, right? Like, you're getting in a cold pool is what you're doing. But the weird thing is the waters are getting warmer. I don't understand how it's shrinking. It should be going the opposite way. I mean, truly, like, if you're from fucking Florida, you have the most to lose for getting this wrong. I mean, Louisiana, obviously.

But I mean, I'm saying you're like a coastal state. Not only are you a coastal state, but you're a coastal state that relies on your beaches, that relies on the beauty of your natural habitat. Right, right. For a tremendous amount of your income, your tourist income. Florida is a state that, yeah, it has some innocence, but it needs tourism to survive.

It is not viable without tourism. So it simply can't get this wrong. And this fucking guy is fucking moaning on about fucking dinosaurs and automobiles. What are you talking about? And then the idea, too, like he's like, well, you know, dinosaurs were killed by something. It's like saying like, well, getting stabbed doesn't hurt because Kennedy got shot. Just like, OK, those two things are totally unrelated.

got shot. Just like, okay, those two things are totally unrelated. So we're going to take a break and give you a bunch of information on how you can become a patron of the show. We'll return with a little bit more of the show and our interview with David Viviano from Atheist Hangouts. Want to contact the guys? Go to dissonancepod.com to get links to their Google+, Facebook, and Twitter accounts. If you want to contact them directly, send an email to dissonance.podcast at gmail.com, or you can call and leave a message at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Do you want to support the show? Go to patreon.com. That's p-a-t-r-e-o-n dot com forward slash dissonance pod. Or click the link on the podcast homepage, and you can donate to the production of Cognitive Dissonance on a per-episode basis.

If you can't spare any money, take a second to give us a five-star review on iTunes or Stitcher, or spread the word about the show. We want to send a big heartfelt glory hole to all the patrons and people who rate us. You fucking rock. So the story comes from the raw story. A man with cerebral palsy calls out faith healer as a fraud before congregation. Yeah, great.

Fine. Who cares? The thing is, the faith healer here, Cecil, is fucking awesome. This is Justin Peters who runs, and listen to this, the Justin Peters Ministries. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. No ego there, right?

Like, it's not even like one of those, like, I'm Justin Peters from the Truth and Light Ministry or like whatever. Right, right. Exactly. The Way in the Water or like the living hope or like whatever fucking. The sword and the stone. Who cares? The aristocats.

I don't know. But this fucking guy, this guy is fucking amazing. If you have not heard about this guy, this guy is basically like a fucking motorcycle jacket, fucking big boot wearing, former drug addict, former sexual assault guy. I mean, pedophile. I mean, he was 15. The boy was seven. So when he was arrested, now he's turned evangelist. And he basically travels around pretending to faith

heal people by kicking them in the face. In the face. Yeah. I don't know if that's going to work. Yeah, I don't know if that's going to work. That's like a doctor walking in with a scimitar just lopping off your hand. What is he?

What's the person he kicked in the face? I was reading the article. Was it like a senior citizen? It was an old lady. Yeah, listen, listen. This is what he says. So these are his words. Quote, and I'm thinking, why is the power of God not moving? And he said, because you haven't kicked that woman in the face.

And there is this old lady worshiping right in front of the platform. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me. The gift of faith spoke to me. The gift of faith comes on me, and he said, kick her in the face with your biker boot. So I inched closer, and I went, bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God.

I don't know if that's the power of God. I think that's the power of gravity. That's the power of a boot! Power of inertia. Kinetic energy and gravity. The best line, according to Christian News, the woman was a senior citizen who was fighting cancer. He didn't even kick a healthy senior citizen in the face with his biker boots. Well, I'll tell you what, she certainly wasn't fighting him.

Right? Jesus. Oh, shit. Lady, keep your hands up, for Christ's sakes. God damn. Like, look at this guy. Like, this is a guy who's clearly working your system. Like, that's what he's doing.

Like, this guy is doing everything but showing up in a shirt that says, I am a big fat fraud. He's walking around. That's fat fraud. He's walking around. It's exactly it. He's walking around doing exactly what he wants. He's walking around and laughing at people and coming up with silly, stupid shit to do on stage, yelling at people, kicking old ladies in the face. Like, it's like there's nothing he can't do. He's already fucked a seven-year-old boy. He's like, at some point point i think he's just waiting for

someone to stop him like at what point is someone gonna say whoa whoa whoa now you've pushed one step too far yeah what does he have to do he's like skinning a parishioner on stage or something but you know watch this video, though. Take a second. Go find this on our website, DissidencePod.com, episode 158. And watch this video. It's embedded in this raw story, and it's only like a minute and a half long.

But just watch how things transpire. The guy, this guy with cerebral palsy says, hey, he quotes a Bible verse that essentially says that this guy's a fraud, and then he calls the guy a fraud. And then the guy pulls the microphone away and then starts talking to the crowd. And when he's talking to the crowd, you just can't get, I could not get the feeling out of my head to think, are all these people just either just so like enraptured by what he's saying? Or are they all just like not even there? They're just in the audience

just to be there. Like, you know, just like putting your ass in a seat just so you could feel like you're somewhere and worshiping. Because it feels just so disingenuous when you watch this guy talk. And I can't believe somebody believes him. I mean, I just watch

him, I fucking, it blows my mind to think that there's a whole audience there wrapped with attention, listening to what this guy has to say, and thinking this is something of worth. Who's that guy on the other side of the glory hole? Who in God's name could it be? Who's that guy on the other side of the glory hole? You know it's got to be It's Jesus, it's Jesus

It's got to be the Trinity On the other side of that wall. So the story comes from the Raw story. Louie Gohmert tells Congress the good news. The good news is that non-Christians are going to hell. The Gohmert is awesome. This guy must be fun at parties, man. This guy must just be a fucking hoot to have around.

Basically, this is a story where a less nutty Christian was coming in. Less nutty Christian. Was basically like, hey, you know, so here I am. I've received the Medal of Freedom from the Roosevelt Institute for his work supporting the freedom to worship. He speaks as the executive director for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State. You know, but he's a religious guy.

He's a reverend. Barry Lynn is his name. And Gohmert fucking went on the attack, Cecil. Yeah, he did. So I want to play Louie Gohmert for you here. We're going to play this. This comes from the Ross story. And this is a congressional hearing. So I think this is probably from C-SPAN.

I'm curious, in your Christian beliefs, do you believe in sharing the good news that will keep people from going to hell consistent with the Christian beliefs? Yeah, I wouldn't agree with your construction of what hell is like or why one gets there. But the broader question is, yes, I'm happy to. When I speak to— Okay, so you don't believe somebody would go to hell if they do not believe Jesus is the way, the truth, the life. I personally do not believe people go to hell because they don't believe in a specific set of ideas in christian no no not a set of ideas either you believe as a christian that jesus is the way the truth the lie for you don't and there's nothing wrong in our country with that there's no crime there's

no shame it's it should never be a law against those beliefs because god gave us the chance to to elect either believe or disbelieve and that's what we want to maintain is people's chance to elect yes or no, the chance that we were given. So do you believe? Congressman, what I believe is not necessarily what I think ought to justify the creation of public policy for everybody, for the 2,000 different religions that exist in this country, the 25

million non-believers. I've never been offended. I've never been afraid to share my belief. When I spoke recently at an American atheist conference, it was clear from the very beginning in the first sentence that I was a Christian minister. I was there to talk to them about the preservation of the Constitution. And in fact, I said, you know, we can debate the issue of the existence of God for another 2,000 years. I want to preserve the Constitution and its effect on all people, believers and not believers, in the next five years. That's what I talk about. So the Christian belief, as you see it, is whatever you choose to think about Christ, whether or not you believe those words he said that nobody basically goes to heaven except through me.

We could have a very interesting discussion sometime, probably not in a congressional Well, I was just trying to figure out when you said Christian. That's the best. Spiritual passages. There's no judgmental. That's not my job. God judges people's heart, in my opinion. But just to try to figure out what we meant by Christian.

So I appreciate your indulgence. Thank you. What the fuck? I mean, could there be a more fucking inane conversation you could have from people who are making exorbitant amounts of money from taxpayers? I mean, this guy's getting paid money from the taxpayers. He's making a lot of money off of us, and he's essentially fucking talking about non... What the fuck does that have to do with anything?

Who knows what it has to do with anything? It's a waste of... It's such an incredible waste of time, right? Like, here we are in this... We've got actual problems to solve. This guy makes... I just looked it up. He makes $174,000 a year.

He makes more money than I do. Actually, he may be making more than that. I'm sorry. He's making somewhere between $234,000 and $235,000. I apologize. So he's making a good buck. The guy's making a good buck. And how does he spend that time?

He spends that time grilling a reverend about whether or not you go to hell if you don't believe the fucking way, the truth, and the light. Are you kidding me? What are you going to do? What if he'd won that conversation? What if he'd won that argument? What then? What changes? How does that affect our policy?

Did that benefit the American people somehow? We were on Atheistically Speaking with Thomas once and he's like, aren't there some days you just wake up and go, it's 2014. This is one of those moments where I listen to this and go, it's 2014. That has no place in any kind of public discourse that Congress should be having. There's no way that he should be sitting up there being like, well, you know, your idea of God is different than mine. Who gives a fiddler's fuck, dude? Do you think the other Congress people are like,

oh my fucking God, not this guy again. Not this motherfucker again. Are we going to do this shit some more? Are we really going down this fucking road again? Is there anybody who, I mean, I don't know a lot about congressional proceedings, but can't you just be like, can't somebody just look at him and be like, that's not on topic?

Isn't there anybody who's just like the topic police who can just be like, stop that. Like hit a gavel, maybe on his head. I don't know. But at least somehow stop him from speaking for a few minutes. I can't believe this guy's been elected. I mean, elected on purpose. Like, I can see if he just wandered in and was fucking just like a homeless person or something yammering but just happens to have nice ties you know

it's a snappy dresser let's see what he has to say oh that was a terrible mistake seriously this is like asking this this i mean listening to this guy talk is like listening to a fucking street preacher. It's that pointless. Did you hear anything in there that convinces you? You asked, Dan, what I meant by woo-woo. That is the very embodiment of woo-woo. So it's on, Cecil.

It's fucking on, dude. This is from Science Blogs. Deepak Chopra issues a hilarious challenge to james randy um but not just to james randy it's to to anybody is a challenge to skeptics is the deepak chopra one million dollar challenge to skeptics yay uh if you do link by the way to deep Deepak Chopra's YouTube, which I don't recommend that you do. It's fucking stupid. But if you do link over to that, it does say, I challenge the non-amazing Randy.

Ooh, burn. It's like calling somebody a dude. It's totally awesome. That's awesome. Non-amazing. That's awesome. Not amazing at all. Do you want to hear his head. It's totally awesome. It's not amazing. It's not amazing at all. Do you want to hear his challenge? Let's hear it.

Okay. So this is Deepak Chopra on his YouTube channel. This is Dr. Deepak Chopra, and I'm issuing a challenge to the amazing Randy and all his colleagues was his so-called militant atheist friends and professional debunkers. Debunkers. Here, Randy, before you go around debunking the so-called paranormal, please explain the so-called normal. How does electricity going into the brain become the experience of a three-dimensional world in space and time? Why?

Why would you have to do that? Like, what does that have to do with anything? You know, that's like, that's the two-quo-kay-whatever-the-fuck. It's the UT one, right? Like, because I don't know something, you don't know something either. It's basically saying, like, look, you don't know the answer to this other question. So if you don't know the answer to this question, how can you say that I'm full of shit? Right.

It's also an implied argument from ignorance there, isn't it? Where he's kind of being like, oh, well, you don't know. So it must be fucking quantum ball sack or whatever this guy thinks. It's God of the gaps, but it's quantum of the gaps. Yeah. It's quantum of the gaps. Yeah. Okay. So there's a lot more. so I'm going to play some more.

If you can explain that, then you get a million dollars from me. Explain and solve the hard problem of consciousness in a peer-reviewed journal. Offer a theory that is falsifiable and you get the prize. Okay? The problem with you and your cronies is that you're bamboozled by the superstition of matter. The superstition of matter? Wait a minute. Hold the fucking phone.

Hang on a minute. The superstition of matter. Right. Hang on. The problem, Tom, of matter. Right. Hang on. The problem, Tom, is that you've been bamboozled by your cronies. I have been fucking bamboozled by a lot of things in my days. But, like, fucking the superstition of matter. Matter doesn't even make any sense.

Superstition. Wait a minute. Because superstition is like the definition of superstition is like the belief that something has a supernatural cause. Right, right. Matter is shit that's actually like matter is the fucking mouse I'm holding in my right hand right now. Right, right. What are you talking about? Like that's that's some fucking Chopra isms right there, man. It's just fucking.

That's awesome. Here's some fucking chopra isms right there man it's just fucking that's awesome here's some fucking word glue yeah idiot i fucking hate this guy oh you got a lot more to go so here we go you don't realize that everything we experience as the physical world is actually a perception and that perception is the result of an experience in consciousness and we have no idea how that happens if i ask you to imagine a sunset on the ocean right now and you have the experience somewhere then explain to me where that picture is and don't just give me a neural correlate or NCC as it's called. Isn't he poisoning the well here? Yeah, he is. Don't answer with the answers.

Don't answer this way. Only answer in the stupid, dumb way that I want you to answer. Oh, my God. You know what? All this bullshit about like fucking your brain is just just like this uh extension of your own thoughts and like like you create the reality around your own thoughts like then why the fuck am i fat like what the fuck like why can't i be fucking ripped like working with a great beard you know what i mean like like why are those things fucking not attainable you know the thing is too like

you look at this and it's like oh man you should totally tell the, you know, thousands of kids who are starving right now. Because I bet they'd like to think themselves up some fucking food, you know? Like, how about those fucking 200 still missing Nigerian girls? I bet they'd like to think themselves back home. This is a privilege stance, right? Like, you can only take this fucking, it's the secret. It's our perceptions define our realities. Fucking nonsense.

You can only do this when you have fucking mad luxury and leisure. If you don't have mad luxury and leisure, you fucking, if you're some fucking dude in Pawpaw New Guinea who's about to be fucking burned with tires for being a witch, it's not because you're fucking, you put negative energy out in the world. It's because you live in a fucking dirt poor country ruled by superstition. Alright, there's still more. I know. Neural correlates of consciousness

are well known, but they're not a good enough explanation for how we experience the world. How we experience color, taste, sound, form, any perception. You can't explain it. Texture, solidity, we cannot explain that.

We can't even explain how do we have the perceptual experience of our own body, experience of our own body or our thoughts intuition insight imagination creativity cognition self-reflection stop listing things oh god i can't do it she's like kid stop just listing things toothbrushes Eating sandwiches You cannot explain cars You cannot explain driving You cannot explain learning to ride a bicycle Then later forgetting to ride a bicycle Then remembering how to ride a bicycle I fucking hate you so much

Oh my god You can't just list things You can't explain crock pots You can't explain crockpots. You can't explain lawnmowers. You can't explain gas tanks. He's listing things that are explainable, too. That's the tough part. It's like he's reading his Amazon wish list.

You know what I mean? You can't explain Beats by Dre. You know, like, actually, that would be pretty good. Like, you can't explain Beats by Dre. You can't explain, like, the popularity of Monster Cable. Like, okay, fine. Yeah, maybe. You can't explain why you'd pay $1,000 for an HDMI cable.

Right, right. Okay, fair enough. Oh, God for an HDMI cable. Right, right. Okay, fair enough. Oh, God, that's fucking awesome. All right. And once again, neural correlates are not causation. So when I asked you to think of that sunset, there was a neural correlate, but it wasn't there until you had the experience, or you had them simultaneously, or one before the other.

It doesn't matter. You had intention. Explain to me intention. How many steps are there to this process? Because I don't even know that I want to write the paper. I don't think you could pay me a million dollars to even write this paper because it feels like I'd have to fucking write 72 different papers at this point. Define a single term, dude. Define one single term, dude. Define one single term.

You know, like, isn't that the difference? Like, Randy's like, look, it's got to be, you're making the claim. Like, here, nobody's making the claim. He's like, he's defining what claim you can make, right? But in Randy's challenge, it's like, wait, you're the one who makes the claim. We just want to test it. We'll agree together on the testing methodology. And once we've agreed, we'll run the test.

That's it. That's honest. It's honest. It's not fucking debunking shit. It's just honesty. Like if it worked, nobody would be debunking it. We'd be fucking amazed. We'd all be standing there at TAM staring at the stage in awe and wonder, right? And that would be the appropriate response.

This guy's just like, I'm just going to throw some word salad at you. Okay, it's not fucking delicious, dude. Yeah. Are we listening to more of this guy? Intention. So until you explain the normal, why are you wasting your time debunking the paranormal?

Experience is experience, whether it's so-called normal or it's so-called paranormal. And we have no explanation for either. So if you can give a scientifically viable falsifiable theory published in a peer-reviewed journal, you or any of your cronies, including Dawkins, Schirmer, and the whole gang, then you get a million dollars from me,

and I'll be happy to present you the check on television, on national media. So that's my challenge, you guys. You take such pride in saying that the so-called paranormal is a perceptual trick, a magic show. Explain to me the ultimate magic show, which is the universe. What the fuck are you talking about? I want

to explain to him the universe. Oh, that's great. There's still more. Oh, there cannot be. Do it, guys. I know your conference is coming up. Times is it? The amazing whatever you call it.

Meeting! It's fucking meeting! You forgot the word meeting? All of you self-appointed vigilantes for the suppression of curiosity and imagination and legitimate science have a good time at your conference and keep

congratulating yourselves as being amazing when you are all naive realists. You don't know one thing about consciousness. Neither do you, dude. And it's totally, it is totally fucking, throughout the whole thing, it just feels like fucking magnets. How do they work?

Man, that's exactly what it is. That's exactly what it is. It's just like, here's some things that I personally don't understand. You're like, okay. Yeah. Man, I mean, I got a list of shit I personally don't understand, but I just don't assume those things to be outside the realm of possible understanding. I'm just like, man, I don't know how that works.

Like, I don't know how my fucking car works other than just some fucking really basic, like, you know, I have no idea. Like, I have no idea how that. That whole fucking, like, valve cam thing fucking blows my mind. I know all the words in that sentence and none of that makes sense. Like, when, like, exhaust gets, like, expelled out while it's pulling in something else, and then it blows up, and then it uses that pressure to push it down,

I kind of vaguely understand how it works, but, like, the person who fucking first made, like, a cam to, like, actually do all that work, that's fucking, you might as well have just fucking broken the fucking speed of light, as far as I'm concerned. Right, but you're not, like, no part of you is like, well, wait a minute, because I don't understand that.

Dragons are real. Like, they're not like, like, because he's basically saying, he's basically saying, like, these things, because these things are difficult for me to understand, then all things are true. I mean, it's basically what he's saying is that all things are true, all things, that there's no difference between something which is true and something which is are true. All them is basically what he's saying is that all things are true. All thing that there's no difference between something which is true and something which is not true. You know, I mean, really isn't isn't that, though, the stance of most like creationists?

And, you know, it's like that shit is too hard to understand. Evolution is too hard to understand. The length of time it takes for, you know, the planet to be where it's at from a fucking hot ball of gas and solid matter is too hard for me to understand. So I'm just going to replace it with something else. It just feels like that's what he's doing here. All this stuff is just too hard to understand. So what I'm going to do is just pretend to know something. I actually think, though, the guy's a charlatan.

I really do think that guy's a charlatan. Because, you know, clearly that guy has a million dollars to get oh for sure i mean like that guy's not a fucking he's not a poor dude and he sells a lot of books and he makes the fucking talk show circuit and he makes a lot of money selling this idea of like quantum bullshit whatever the fucking thing that he thinks is a thing it's that fucking fucking, it's that goddamn, what the fuck do we know movie, where it's like, they didn't see the fucking ship out there, and then they needed somebody to come over and tell them there's a ship, because they had never seen a ship before, and like, fucking, really?

Really? This guy, this guy is fucking Ramtha. Yeah, it's just as bad, man. It's just as bad. And I agree, man. He's not a Will Ferrier Ram man. It's just as bad. And I agree, man. He's not a Will Ferrier Ramis. He's a fraud. Like, he's just legitimately like a fraud.

Like, I don't believe a fucking word that's coming out of his face. I mean, he's selling a product. I mean, nothing he's doing. He's not giving shit away. It's not like he's like, Deepak Chopra, come see me at my free fucking uh you know big event here the guy sells books he sells materials he sells his uh live programs he's he's selling shit man what he's selling is just word salad that's all it is it's it's a bunch of stuff that kind of sounds like maybe it's something because you he sells you shit that's written and you're like, I know all those words.

Right. I follow. What ends up happening when you read stuff like this, because I have read some of Deepak's crap. And what happens when you read it is you get a vague sense that something is being said. But you don't get a real strong, you don't get like a hard sense of what's happening. So you get this vague kind of underlying unease about what's being said. And so then you start kind of putting some things together.

And that's the genius of this marketing ploy. And that's what this is, is that it is perceptual, subjective, and individualized because it's such fucking utter nonsense that attempting to reach any kind of objectivity with it is fruitless. And so you find yourself sort of nodding along as you go in a desperate attempt to understand the situation, and you can't because none of it means anything. So we're here with David Viviano, Gamma Atheist on Twitter, and he runs a show named Atheist Hangouts.

David, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. So, David, if people don't know who you are, other than the stuff I've already told them, could you tell them a little bit about yourself? Yeah, I live in the Bible Belt, North Florida. I have a father, secular parent. I hate religion with a passion. I have a father, secular parent. I hate religion with a passion, and I like talking about atheism and science and stuff like that. So you hate religion with a passion. That's interesting. I want to say that this may be the first time we've had anybody on that's that forceful with this. Is that why you got involved in what you're doing? Is that why you started Atheist Hangouts in the first place? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I always say, I was born and raised in upstate New York, which is very liberal. And so I've always been a lifelong

non-believer. So when I moved to North Florida, I was expecting Mickey Mouse and Disney World and shit like that I get here and there's a fucking church on every goddamn corner and it's everywhere church and God and if you believe in evolution you're a sinner and no shit oh yeah yeah it's it was a huge culture shock and that's what really started to get me to talk more about it and to be more outspoken. And for the longest time, I thought I was alone. You mentioned in your introduction yourself that you're a secular parent. So now that you've moved to the Bible Belt, you're in, would you say North Florida or South Florida? North Florida.

North Florida. The shithole of Florida. I mean, the whole state is a shithole. I was just going to say, it's kind of all a shithole, really. I'm not sure it makes any difference. I guess I'm just curious for clarification's sake. But all right, so now here you are. You've experienced this culture shock, and now you're raising kids as a secular parent. Is that particularly challenging to do in the Bible Belt in a way that you didn't expect at all?

So far, I've been relatively pretty lucky because my daughters are still young, but my six-year-old, she does come to me with a lot of questions. And like I've said on my YouTube channel and whatnot, we read the Bible, we read the

Koran, and we study mythology because to me, all three of those are the same anyways. And my whole goal is obviously not to indoctrinate her into my way of thinking, but it's to give her the tools and the, essentially the tools of critical thinking to be able to have the knowledge of all these other myths and say, wait a minute, they all kind of sound the same. What the fuck? So what about with her friends?

Like, like her, like, are they talking about God and Jesus, like her, her friends and stuff at this age? Is that, has that come up in her personal relationships at all outside of your, obviously your parenting involvement? Um, so far nothing has come up, um, from her school friends, but her mother and I are not together. And her mother and I are on two complete opposite ends of the spectrum as far as us. That's interesting. That's got to be kind of tough, you know, I mean, surrounded because you're, you know,

I mean, you're essentially creating an island, right? I mean, and all around you, you know, the waters are treacherous and she goes out as she gets older and older, you know, she goes are treacherous and she goes out as she gets older and older, you know, she goes out and starts swimming further and further out into those waters, you know, as her autonomy will continue to increase. It's, it's, that's going to be a, um, it's going to be an interesting adventure, I think, for you as a parent to sort of see, you know, how, how, how that works as far as having her come back to that Island and come back, you know, to that pillar of sanity that you're trying to provide for when, you know, kind of all around her is going to be a lot of that sort of homophobic bullshit and all the other kind of nonsense

that's concomitant with that religious indoctrination. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's what I always strive to be is exactly what you said, Tom, is that that pillar of sanity where the stability aspect. I mean, her mom's a Catholic. So if that tells you anything in itself. So I always want her to know that I'm open with her. I'm honest with her. So as she gets older, she'll always have that. Well, if I have a question about something, I always know I can go to my dad. When did you decide to start Atheist Hangouts?

I was drunk one night and I was... That's the best reason. The best reason right there. And I was online and I was talking to a few people and I was kind of figuring out the Google Plus technology. And I was on there, I said, holy shit, I can record this. And I hit record and it went onto my YouTube channel and people loved it. So I kept doing it. By accident. I love it. That's the best. Those are the best things that happen. When did you start getting serious about it though? I mean, because it is, it has really changed from what initially was, looks like, you know, just people hanging out and talking to

a very focused show i wouldn't go that far well i'm trying to be nice here david i'm trying to be nice david that's all look i mean you guys have been on there so i mean it's not that top right yeah right yeah the bar is set pretty low is what he's saying he's saying pretty much the door is open i mean he's like a truck stop hooker is i guess what he's saying cecil he's saying pretty much the door is open i mean he's like a truck stop hooker is i guess what he's saying you know the door is open just come right below it's fine i am the mud below the hooker's shoes oh man let's keep this let's keep this legit um it got to a point where there was the one thing i noticed is that it was something new a lot of people weren't doing it.

And a lot of people liked it. I mean, it was a live show, which I like because I'm lazy and I don't want to edit after the fact. And people were able to sit down, watch us, see the faces of these people, interact with them in a way, and send in their live questions. people, interact with them in a way and send in their live questions. And then people said, you know, started coming to me and saying, Hey, I got, you know, you should bring on some people and talk about this or you should talk about this kind of like, I want to see a discussion on this kind of topic. I mean, we've done everything from secular parenting to,

to feminism, to politics, to, to, and then we've had, you know, I've had some pretty big name guests on. Tom and Cecil from Cognitive Discipline. That's some, I thought you said big name, not just big people. Big people is what he really meant to say. Huge, huge individuals. I got a hundred pounds per letter of my name, so.

You've had Lawrence Krauss on. You've had Cara Santa Maria. Yep. Yeah. Uh, we had, uh, I had Chris Cluey on and you guys, you guys actually followed him up. That's right. Chris Cluey, Greta Christina has been on your show. Yeah. Yeah. And that's the amazing part is I haven't even hit my, my, my one year anniversary yet. That that's exciting. That's exciting. So's exciting. So this has grown a little bit. Tell us a little bit about what's happening with the Atheist TV channel. Yeah, American Atheists are starting an Atheist TV channel in which it's going to be available on Roku.

But they're reaching out to some YouTube atheists. Somehow I got on that list. Don't ask me how. I'm not going to question it. They must have got my anthrax death threats. Right, right. Yeah, that's it. You got compromising photos of a certain Mr. Silverman, I'm just guessing.

Yeah, right, right. But it's good because it opens up a whole new audience. I mean, Roku has 7 million people. But it's good because it opens up a whole new audience. I mean, Roku has 7 million people. And I mean, the thing of it is, and you guys can attest to this, is when we're flipping through the channels, how many fucking Christian channels are on our network? And there's nothing, even the channels that we should be able to claim, like the Science Channel, Discovery Channel, they're fucking filled with other shit that has nothing to do with it i mean to be fair now hold on hold on because to be fair the other day i was watching when aliens attack on discovery and i felt like that was a legitimate science-based program so what what's the focus of this is it all youtube channel like like youtube folks that are going to be kind of in one place and it's a way to conglomerate that?

Or is there a more strict format? Tell me a little more about it. Yeah, well, Richard Dawkins Foundation, they've signed on. So a lot of their content is going to be on the channel. American Atheists are going to have like some of their speakers from the conventions. They have a show as well called The Atheist Viewpoint, so that's going to be up. There's a lot in the works, and because this is kind of like a new thing, especially in the atheist movement, it's obviously going to evolve. It's something I'm really excited to be a part

of. Yeah. That's super awesome, man. I, I hope that that goes really far. I had heard Silverman, I saw Silverman had tweeted about it and I, and there was a gentleman who came on your show, uh, to talk about it as well. Um, someone from the American atheist, I'm forgetting his name though. Uh, Dave Moscato. He came on and he talked about it. He talked about it for a, for a goodly amount of time. So that's really exciting. Now, you run the show, but you sometimes have co-hosts that sort of switch around. What's your idea of the co-host thing here? Because you're sort of the face of it, but you get other people to sort of join in?

Yeah, yeah. The biggest thing was I had a lot of people that were sending me saying hey i want to come on i'm like okay but you got a topic or something i can't just have you come on right what are we gonna do stare at your face right um that was the problem when we were on yeah right oh i mean you carry the show yeah i mean, unless Carrie Underwood's coming on, I like, she's about the only one I could stare at. Right.

Just stare at the face. Yeah. Right. Right. Like this is the show. We're just going to stare at each other. I'm just going to, I fuck you.

On the other side, she's like, David, this is not mutual. I'm just saying. So what's, what, what,

so you just had these people show up. They're like, uh, they want to be on the show, but they, you just want, you just say, okay, well, cool. Why don't you just come guest with me then? Yeah, yeah. I know a lot of people get sick of hearing me talk, and I get sick of trying to come up with questions.

What I like about it is every week I have a guest on, but then I have a co-host on. So it brings a whole other perspective to the show. Doing that, it's going to engage more conversation. The whole point of Atheist Hangouts is trying to really do what nobody else is doing. And then since I've been started doing this, there's a lot of people that are starting to do the same thing. So I got to stay ahead of them. Bury them underfoot, David. That's what you have to do.

You have to basically go to their house and take out their fucking internet. I'm not saying I'm threatening their families, but I'm directly threatening their families. So we were talking about some of the people you've had on. Who's been some, I mean, besides us, who's been some of your favorite interviews? Oh, shit. You've got to put me on the spot like that. I feel awkward. Good.

That's the point. I don't know. It's hard to say like a favorite. I mean. Okay, fine. It was cognitive dissonance. Okay. All right.

It's settled. Was it difficult to interview Lawrence Krauss? Let's ask a different question. He was actually pretty fun to have on because he came on and we were having some issues. And me being me, he like because he came on and um we were having some issues and me being me he like he came on he finally figured out how to do it and he got on and me being me not even thinking i said wow it's about fucking time oh jesus and he got up and he started laughing there's like one of those things where i was like oh fuck i just said that the lord's crowns and he started laughing so i was like okay okay, I felt better then.

That could have gone south for you. Oh, yeah. That would have been a punch to the dick. Yeah, right? He just said, you know what? You know what? I don't need this mediocre show. Fuck you.

I'm out. It's nice to know, though, that people who are kind of heavy hitters within the small community that we're, you know, all kind of a part of that, that there's not that much ego. I mean, there's there's some exceptions to that rule, but there's by and large, not so much ego that it's that that you can't accidentally, you know, make an offhanded comment. And, you know, because if you did that with with people who are, you know, celebrities in many other fields, you know, they'd fucking drop the mic and walk. I mean, that would be, yeah. They'd fucking handle it. That was pretty awesome to just see that side of Lawrence Krauss. And that's what I really like.

And that's what I like to bring to this show is, you know, you always see Lawrence Krauss up there, you know, being all smart and science-y and shit, talking about the cosmos and everything. That is kind of his shtick. He's sort of made a life out of that. So when he comes on the show, the first five minutes, I think we're making jokes about time zones.

And it's great to see that other side of the person. And I think when you start to see these people at conventions, you're like, oh, holy shit, I've been watching this person on YouTube for three years. What do I say to them? Well, you kind of seen that other side of them now on Atheist Hangouts. It's like a mullet. There's like a business side and there's a party side. Cecil just gave me an idea.

That's my new model for Atheist Hangouts. We are the mullet of the atheist movement. We are the mullet of the atheist movement. So now you had mentioned earlier before we started recording that you're going to be going to Apostacon. Tell us about that. Yeah, I got my first speaking gig. Somehow I gave a handjob good enough that they're going to be letting me speak there. I'm really excited for that because, I mean, like I was saying off's a that's a pretty big list of speakers that they have for that so more than

overwhelmed overjoyed to be able to just be included on that list yeah that's cool have you have you i'm curious what uh have you prepared a topic have you given or do they give you a topic that they'd like you to speak on or is it kind of open forum? Yeah, they gave me something. They wanted me to do like a workshop on social media. Oh, nice. To kind of teach. And so my take on it, and that's to give your listeners a little preview, is what I'm going to do is I'm going to build a workshop. So because you have so many people in the movement. You have bloggers.

You have podcasts. You have individuals. Or you just have regular people and they want to learn social media. Best way to do social media, to grow whatever it is they're quote unquote selling. So I'm building a workshop to teach all of those people the best ways that's going to work for them. When and where is Apostacon going to be happening?

Apostacon is September 19th, that weekend of September 19th. And, I mean, Lawrence Krauss is their keynote speaker. Cara Santa Maria is going to be there. And they have a special event, like Neil deGrasse Tyson is going to be speaking there as well. Wow. Neil deGrasse Tyson is going to be there, and Neil deGrasse Tyson is not the keynote. The way it works is because Neil deGrasse Tyson is so fucking expensive to bring in, and he's such a big name right now that he's essentially a separate event from Apostacon.

I want to be so big I'm a fucking separate event. Not like so physically big that I'm an event. You already are. I want to be so big I'm a fucking separate event. Not like so physically big that I'm an event. You already are. I mean, I've already got that covered. You're kind of like a fun factory. You know what I mean? Like you're one of those bounce houses that the kids jump around in.

Last time I heard to get Neil in was like $75,000. Well, you heard that, listeners. We need to dray $75,000. Hey, Cecil, we're only like $74,500 short of that. We're like right there. We're inching up every day. We're inching up. We can do this, man. That's awesome.

Look, if we just do, Cecil, at that rate, in three years, we can have Neil deGrasse Tyson on. I mean, we're pretty much right at the edge. Three years? As long as I'm donating part of my salary to it, yeah. Sure. And then you guys need to have a guest co-host, David Viviano, for putting that bug in your ear. Right.

That's awesome. Well, David, it's been great having you on the show. If people want to find you on the internet, where would they go? Depends on what they're on. I'm everywhere. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Vine, website is gammaatheist.com.

All the social media, you can just search Gamma Atheist, and my YouTube channel, Gamma Atheist. Well, thank you so much for joining us, David. It's been a blast. Thank you for having me on. Well, thank you so much for joining us, David. It's been a blast. Thank you for having me on. So we want to thank David Viviano, Gamma Atheist, the host of Atheist Hangouts and Gamma Atheist on Twitter.

We want to thank him for joining us. Be sure to check out him on the Atheist TV channel that the American Atheist Association is putting in on Roku. That's coming out hopefully late summer, he said. And he's also going to be at Apostacon. So if you're going there in Omaha, you can check him out there. And do check out his show. He has a pretty good show, and he has a lot of great guests like Tom and Cecil from Cognitive Dissonance were on that one. Best guests possible. The very best guests you could possibly have.

We're going to have, hopefully, we're going to have Adam Rieks from the Herd Mentality podcast on our next show. So we'll look forward to that. But until next time, we will leave you, as always, with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit. Creed. Downward spiral brain dead pan sales pitch. Late night info docutainment. Leo Pisces. Cancer cures. Detox.

Reflex. Foot massage. Death in towers. Tarot cards. Psychic healing. Crystal balls. Bigfoot. Yeti.

Aliens. Churches. Mosques and synagogues. Temples. Dragons. Giant worms. Atlantis. Dolphins.

Truthers. Birthers. Witches. Wizards. Vaccine nuts. Shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, doublespeak, stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides. Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive.

Doubt even this. Doubt even this. Thank you. you