Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 537: The Buddha's Story with Chris Matheson

Episode Date: August 17, 2020

Thank you to Chris Matheson for joining us! His new book The Buddha's Story comes out August 31st.   Stories From The Week  

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. This episode of Cognitive Dissonance is brought to you by our patrons. You fucking rock. 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 live from glory hole studios and associates glory hole studios a and b

yeah and it's affiliate offices there's one glory hole that connects these two studios Cecil and if you can fill the glory hole between these two studios, Caliente,

that's all I'm saying. You know what we've done? You know what we've done, Cecil? We've created a glory hole wormhole. We've created a glory hole wormhole. Yes. We've created the world's first glory wormhole.

It's amazing. I love it. Glory hole wormhole. Oh my God. Now, now people are going to be leaving on iTunes reviews,-Hole Wormhole. Oh my God. Now people are going to be leaving on iTunes reviews, Wormhole instead.

Wormhole. It's about the right size. Who are we kidding? Admittedly. Yeah, it might be long. It might be from here to Tom out in the suburbs, but it's very, very thin.

That's a little wiggler. 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 mat.

This is episode 537 of Cognitive Dissonance. And a little later, we're going to be joined by Chris Matheson. He's been on our show, God, what, four times? Yeah. Three or four times now? I know that he's been on in the Trump era,

but he has not been on in the 2020s. That's his own era, buddy. Yeah, I'm kind of curious. We've never had a one year that was an era before. I'm kind of curious where he stands on this stuff. He'll be joining us later on to talk about some projects that he has going on. So you're going to want to stick around for that for sure. Tom, I wanted to talk a little bit about what happened in Chicago this week. I want to thank the people who reached out to me. I know that, you know, I'm on Facebook and whatnot, and I actually got a couple of people sent me messages on Facebook. Hey, are you okay? And I actually live just west of where all the

looting took place in downtown. I live, my neighborhood did get hit. So my neighborhood, my neighborhood got hit, but my building is, you know, maybe three or four blocks west of where the main portion of the looting happened. One of the things that I wanted to say about it was that it's a very complicated issue. And there's a lot of moving parts in this. And I want to talk specifically about why it's so complicated. And what initially happened was, is there was police in a neighborhood in Chicago, a high crime neighborhood in Chicago, and they said, right? And so this is very important to caveat this

because the police in Chicago are known for lying. I mean, just look at McQuan McDonald. I mean, look at what happened there, right? How many cops watch somebody shoot him and then lie 100% in writing right afterwards. Yeah. They are not to be trusted. Their word is not gold here. And from what I hear, there was no body camera, right? So there was no body camera footage that came out of this, right? I was requested or it was it was malfunctioning right so so i want to be clear function like fucking samsung ice makers man they fucking

break it they must be what are they making these fucking body cameras out of i know right it's balsa wood and like the the the camera lens is is. Bubble, like you blow up Mr. Bubble. I'm sorry. It doesn't work anymore. It's unreal. But seriously, you can't trust what they have to say and you have to take other accounts into,

you have to take other things into account because you cannot trust that they're saying, what they're saying is the truth. They said that the person they shot shot at who they didn't kill, they shot and injured him, had a gun and shot at the police, right? The people there said that didn't happen. But again, it's between two different parties. And since nobody's bringing the camera footage to this, which the police have every opportunity to do. Right. You know, which party's correct, right?

It's almost like that's fucking essential in 2020. Yeah, it's almost like somebody painted a thin blue line over the lens of your camera that just must have taken this up. But anyway, so that's what supposedly happened on the South Side. Can I just say, like, that if the police

were really acting with genuine good faith and integrity and doing their jobs well, nothing in the world would exonerate them more from accusations of bad action

than goddamn body cameras. Right, right. You know, and I know that it is a little more complicated than that because a lot of actions take place in a flurry of activity. Yeah. Very quick decisions are made by everybody involved. And sometimes that shit gets a little hazy. So I want to recognize that like, it's a

little nebulous nonetheless as just a general rule. Yeah. Like if you've got nothing to hide and you're on the clock and you're the one carrying a gun on your hip and people are saying you're a bad guy and you're behaving poorly and you can't be trusted anymore, wouldn't it be nice to be like, look at the fucking footage? Yeah, we got it here. Watch what I did. It'd be like if somebody was like, you were stealing on the clock and you're like, watch the fucking CCTV footage of me standing at the fucking cashier not stealing. Right? It would exonerate you. right? It would exonerate you. Exactly. It would exonerate you a hundred percent. And that's the problem is, is that

there's nothing there, right? So we don't know, nobody knows what happens except for the people that were standing there. Right. Right. And so what happened though, right away, Tom, was that on social media, there was an initial, uh, supposedly again, I don't, again, I don't know how, it's all what I'm reading based on this, is that there was an initial Facebook post that said they killed a 15-year-old boy. And that sparked, because that came up, that sparked everybody to go.

Right. And they went up, they went north into the Magnificent Mile area. And then again, I think the other thing that people have to understand is that many of the people that were out, that were breaking into places, don't get me wrong, I don't care that the fucking Tesla store gets broke. I don't fucking care, whatever. I don't care about the target. I don't care about that sort of thing. the target. I don't care about that sort of thing. But there were people there that were specifically there to loot, right? So they came in cars, jumped out of cars, ran into places, got stuff, and then

it was like a getaway car. They specifically had that intent. Did anyone take a Tesla? Because that would be fucking impressive. God, wouldn't that be amazing if they just ran into a Tesla shop and they're just like, fuck it, my Tesla now. Right? Just hop in and just fucking wire it. They're like fucking Elon Musk drives it back home yeah oh that'd be amazing to get into it and then the car starts taking him to the local police

department or whatever it's like this is not your car michael yeah you've stolen this car michael but uh so that's another complicated piece right is that i think there was probably a lot of people that were upset but then there's also people that I think there was probably a lot of people that were upset, but then there's also people that are, I mean, just genuinely opportunistic, right? I mean, like you can't look at that and say that there aren't opportunistic people that are involved in that.

And another thing that I think people misunderstand is that the police knew about it. The police stood there and watched them do it. And I want to say, this is where I think, again, there's another really complicated issue and it's the defund the police thing. And it's cries to defund the police make the police less apt to rush in because it looks like they're saying like, well, look at crime,

look at how bad crime is. You need us here. You have to have us here. Look at how bad things are. And there's been an uptick of crime in Chicago. And there has not been a moment of defunded police, by the way. I just want to say that. Not in Chicago, not in a lot of these other places where they're saying defund the police. They didn't fucking rush it through their billing process and immediately cut their funding. They didn't do that at all, right? They've made some promises in some areas, but they certainly haven't done a whole rehaul of their budgets in a lot of places. And specifically in Chicago, there's been no calls for that. They've talked about maybe doing something in the future, but it's all just been very nebulous. It's like kicking the can down the road till you calm down. That's really what they've been doing. And so there hasn't been a defunding of the police in Chicago. And so the

fact is, is that when people are screaming, oh, well, that's what happens when you defund the police. You're like, well, they haven't done it yet. The cops just literally aren't doing their job because they want you to know that it's really dangerous. And if you defund the police, there's going to be a real problem. And so I think that there's a lot of, a lot of things that go into this, a lot of little, little pieces that fall into this and a lot of things, a lot of moving parts, right? There's no one good answer to any of this. Because it does sort of prove the point, though, that without policing, crime goes up. Sure. If the police lay off of policing and then crime goes up, then it does then stand to reason that part of what keeps crime down is active policing. And so policing is then a necessary component of crime reduction. But then you have to start wondering which crimes are worth the police, right?

Right. Which crimes deserve and need police? Yeah. So I wonder, would one solution to that, and I'm just spitballing, I'm just curious, would one solution to that to be just, if you don't want to defund the police because maybe there's not that political will to do that,

because I understand that's a hot button issue. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but like, couldn't you make less activity criminal? That's like, like it's not,

if it's not criminal. So it's not like saying like the, the cops are not going to enforce these laws. Right. Their cops are just not, you don't call the police when these crimes are being done. You simply make those things, not crimes any longer.

Right. And then you have some, some like, cause what you have right now is like, when these crimes are being done. You simply make those things not crimes any longer. Right? And then you have some, some like, because what you have right now is like, you got fire, ambulance, and police. And I think like part of the answer is like,

don't you need a space force? Don't you need like a fourth branch? Yeah, you need like a fourth branch. Of emergency services that you call when something isn't an ambulance, fire, and isn't police, but it's

still emergent. Like, I wonder like how much better the world would be if you could call an emergency social worker. Yeah. I agree. A lot better. Yeah. And I, you know, like the thing is, is like, look, I don't want to live in a world where it's survival of the fittest and it's whoever the toughest guy is gets to do whatever he wants because that's the world you're going to live in without some sort of force that can do the things that we call upon the police for. And so I'm not a guy who's like abolish the police and we don't ever need police. I know there are people out there that say that. And you know, look, I'm willing to have a conversation with them to see what they think, but I live in an area where there's a lot of crime. And so I'm not one of those people who's like, let's abolish the police. But I live in an area where there's a lot of crime. And so I'm not one of those people

who's like, let's abolish the police. But I am 100% saying we need to ask police to do less and to focus on things that where their expertise of being sort of civilian soldiers is useful, right? Because the rest of the stuff

that they do, they're bad at. So, and I mean, you know, to be honest, they're even bad at that stuff. And so if they just didn't do any of that, maybe they could just be trained like we train the military to be accountable for their actions. And then suddenly things change,

I think probably for the better. But I will say everything is perfectly back to normal. And it was back to normal that afternoon. Chicago's a tough city, man. We're not, Chicago's a fucking tough city. And I saw people running, out walking their dog, out doing their morning chores, doing whatever they're doing, going places.

I was out that day. It's not a, we're not, nobody's going to hide here. And so it's not, it's a tough city and it can take it. So. Is the city mostly put back to normal? Does it look normal if you drive through the downtown? Absolutely. You know, like you're going to see boarded up stuff

because people are now worried about more of this stuff happening. So what happened before was there was a lot of boarded up stuff, but it was perfectly fine. It was, you know, you walk down the road and you just happen to walk into a place with boarded windows. That was it. And it wasn't every place was boarded. It was just some places were boarded. And now they took, they started taking them down actually. So they started taking down

the boards in the last couple of weeks and then it got hit again. And so now the boards are going back up. So you're, what you're seeing is a lot of different, but I will say this, you know, what's happening on those boards is beautiful murals are popping up. Black Lives Matter murals. They're all over the city now. They're all over the city now. They're all over the city. There's hundreds of Black Lives Matter murals everywhere in the city based on the, you know. On the board up? On the boards, all on the boards.

Diversity is strength, Black Lives Matter, you know, all that stuff. It's defund the police. It's all over the place. So it's, I mean, it's, I think a lot of Chicago agrees with the Black Lives Matter movement. I think that's true. Oh, and I wanted to say this too. One more thing about this. There was an article in the Sun Times this week about this whole protest. And I'll, I'll include it in the show notes, but it's, Inglewood's a very dangerous neighborhood in Chicago. And they just held a Black Lives Matter march down there. dangerous neighborhood in Chicago. And they just held a Black Lives Matter march down there.

And when they did it, a guy who is a Inglewood resident came out with a bullhorn. And he said, they didn't let my community know they were coming down here. They didn't put flyers on people's doors. If they would have got something incited by the police, who's got to deal with it tomorrow? It's the community, not them. They'll be somewhere sipping sangria. I'll tell you like it is. He says, if your issue is with the police, take it to 35th and Michigan. That's where the headquarters of the police are.

Don't come to Englewood with it. If the people on the 56th Street want to come over to your protest and protest the police, they can do it. But no one from the North side or Indiana or any place other than Englewood can come here and do that. And I want to say this, there is a white savior complex that a lot of people have specifically around this particular issue. And what happens way more often is they will come in and say, you need a protest instead of asking the community

what they need. And this is a perfect example of someone who lives in a very dangerous community saying, this isn't what I want. I don't want you to come here and talk about defund the police. I don't want you to come here and do that. And he says later on in the article, he's like, where are you when a black kid gets shot in this neighborhood? You're nowhere to be seen. I was like, where are you when a black kid gets shot in this neighborhood? You're nowhere to be seen. Right. And so I want to caution everybody from thinking like that, to think like I can fix this in that.

You know what I mean? Yeah, it does seem like a form of tokenism to be like, I'm going to use your neighborhood as this sort of like example, but I'm not going to include you in that process. So I'm just going to show you off like you're a pet, right? Like I'm going to demonstrate you for you. Yeah. It's really fucking paternalistic and shitty. It is really fucking shitty. It is. And I, and I've told this story before and I want to tell it again. Very, I'll be very brief, but I, I worked in, when I was in, in my grad program, I worked with a, with a group

that was working with people in Haiti. And so they were a grassroots organization that was working with people in Haiti during the time of the earthquake, when there was tons of problems down there and the Red Cross and a bunch of other people came in and came in and said, what you need is a community center. What you need is a brand new facility for this. What you need is this, which, and they just listed off the things they need. And then they started building and doing those things. But people were living in tent cities.

So this grassroots organization came down and said, what do you need? Tell us what you need. And what they said was they needed lights at night because people were being mugged and injured at night by ne'er-do-wells who were in this tent city. And so if they had lights, it would be a lot easier for them.

And the lights cut the crime down immensely and people were happier because they just happened to have, that's all they wanted. One of the things they wanted that nobody addressed, right? Because they came in with the idea of, I can fix this for you instead of tell me what you need. And this is another perfect example of that.

It's like, I can come in and fix this for you. It's like, no, tell me what you want. What do you want? How do you want me to help you? And I think that that's a, it's a different way to approach a problem that people aren't used to, especially, you know, when we get into this, you know, when you get into white savior complex, which is a big thing, you know, it's like, it's like kind of the, it's the way most of us operate. I love the idea that like white people are going to solve the problem of white people oppressing black people

for black people right like right hang on black people i'm even going to be oppressive in my solutions to your oppression like that's some fucking weird like meta oppression shit going on it is like holy shit it is crazy it is crazy but i wanted to mention it because i i it was an article that i came across this week that i was like you know know, you've got to approach this in a way that's more, tell me how to help you, not let me tell you how we need to do this. So this story is from the New York Times. A Bible burning, a Russian news agency, and a story too good to check out. So I thought this is just a fascinating article. So back in 2016, when Russia was interfering with the election, the way that they were interfering with the election is very different than the method that they're using now. And it's like anything else, they've gotten more sophisticated, right? And the way that you get more sophisticated when you're going to manipulate public opinion is you make it increasingly less obvious

that you are manipulating public opinion. You remove yourself from the conversation to make it appear as if the conversation is entirely organic. This story is a wonderful example of kind of how really scary this is, like genuinely kind of scary this is. So there was a video that was circulating

and it's the fucking, it is the most like nom, nom, nom, nom, nom click baity video ever for like the, for the right. You know, it shows a bunch of protesters burning Bibles and then chucking American flags on the fucker. And it's just like, you know, this is what they want. You know, this is is where these protests will lead and all this stuff. And the whole thing is basically perpetuated by and propagated by Russia, this whole story. But the way that they're doing it now is they're feeding it not from bots into your news feed. They're creating buzz about these stories and feeding them right to major news outlets. And when they feed them right to major news outlets,

the news outlet picks it up. So just vetting the news outlet is not enough to know whether something is an overblown fabrication or whether something is a real and genuine story. Because now they've gotten sophisticated enough to where they're feeding major news organizations bogus or semi-bogus stories. And then those get published, and then those get shared, and then those get tweeted and retweeted. And dude, it's a flat-out fucking disinformation war is what's happening.

It's a flat out fucking disinformation war is what's happening. What's crazy to me, Tom, is that, you know, we've been fighting an uphill battle to say that this is a real thing for a long time, right? We've been talking about this for years. And when we first started talking about this, there were so many people who didn't think it was real and they didn't think it was,

or they thought it was minimal, right? There's no way you can look at this particular, specifically this particular story, right? This particular, and let's take out all the rest of the stuff because, you know, you don't know what it's, how it's going to affect people, affect voters, affect any of that stuff. But I will say this in this particular story, you have senators retweeting this. You have, you know, I mean, he's not from this planet, but he's still a senator, Ted Cruz, tweeting it. But then also his son, who has, you know,

I don't know if he's, but he's certainly got more than a million Twitter followers. I don't know what the extent of his Twitter following is, but it's certainly more than a million. So you have people that are spreading this disinformation because it fits their narrative and they're willing participants in your disinformation campaign, right?

There was a Bible that was burned. That's true. But there weren't burning stacks of Bibles. There was a one Bible that was thrown in there. And you know, the thing is, what's crazy to me is like, all of these Republicans flip their shit over the fact that a Bible is burned,

yet the president can roll the constitution into a tube and fuck it. And nobody gives a good goddamn about that, but they sure as fuck care about the fucking Bible. Yeah, he can do that and then use the Bible as a prop in order to shit on your civil liberties, right? Like, so it's still

a grotesque misuse of the Bible. If anything, it is a worse misuse of the Bible, at least when they burned the fucking Bible for kindling as part of a larger fire, one Bible and nobody fucking cared. It wasn't a Bible burning in the sense that the Bible was being burned in a symbolic way. It was just, hey burning in the sense that the Bible was being burned

in a symbolic way. It was just, hey, this is made of paper. Yeah. But, you know, like, that's what they're fucking worked up about. Like, they're burning,

you know, burning a Bible is sort of like burning their religion in effigy and that's not even what happened here. You know, so, like, they're worked up about a thing

that didn't even happen. But the things that do happen where a Bible is literally held up as a goddamn prop right before your civil liberties are fucking trampled like shouldn't we be more aggrieved by that yeah and it's lying to your face it's it's lying to you saying look at because he's holding up and back fucking backwards for crying out loud he doesn't even know that like which side is the front of the book for crying out

yeah he was upside down. What does that tell you? Did it have a cross on it? Because that would have been great. That would have been such a great photo op, but I don't think it did. That's such a missed fucking opportunity to make fun of him. And it's hard not to realize

that these types of things are going to be the things that people will be then focusing on to be the things that people will be then focusing on to try to get other people to retweet and go viral with. And I think news organizations specifically, and it's funny because I didn't see any

left-leaning organizations fall for it, but I did see a lot of right-leaning papers fall for it because it fits their narrative. You should have a lot more integrity than that. You're telling people what the news is and you need to see a lot of right-leaning papers fall for it because it fits their narrative. You should have a lot more integrity than that. You're telling people what the news is, and you need to be a lot more. And, you know, in this particular instance, you could say that those were fake news. Oh, yeah. Well, let me read kind of how this works because I think it's important that people know how this works.

So the Russians are relying increasingly on English language news sites to push out incendiary stories that can be picked up and spread by Americans, many of whom have proved as eager as foreign powers to stoke partisan divisions inside the United States. The Russian technique is a kind of information laundering akin to money laundering. Stories originate with Russian-backed news sites, some of them directly connected to Moscow's spy agencies, officials and experts said. They are then picked up by Americans on social media or in domestic news outlets, and their origins quickly become obscured. By the time this story reaches most of its American audience, there's little to indicate that it was created to fuel

grievances and deepen political divisions. Some of the news outlets used by Russia are well-known, like RT, which is a Kremlin-financed operation whose video news agency ruptly put out the video of the Bible burning. Others are more obscure. The thing is, one way to stop this is to refuse to get your news from your friends. Your friends are not a good news source. And what I mean by that is like sharing and tweeting and like, well, I heard it from somebody who posted a story about what, like just that is not good.

Like just don't do that. Seek out your news with intentionality. Find sources that are trustworthy sources that you can vet and read the news as a thing that you do, which has its own intention and purpose that you have approached with a critical mindset. When you get your news accidentally, which is how you get your news from your friends, when you get your news accidentally, you're not in a critical mindset. Nobody is

switching from cat pictures and vacation photos to news stories with the same mindset all within the same scrolly few seconds. It's not a smart way to look at news. If we are in a place where we are being lied to and we are being purposefully manipulated by sources with massive amounts of resources and great technical sophistication. Like, I do think at this point as consumers, we need to shift when we consume our news, from whom we consume our news, and how we think about the consumption of that news. And if we don't do that, like, we're going to continue to fall for shit because it's just going to appear. And then we're going to be interested and we're going to click on it.

And I trust Cecil and Cecil shared it. But you know, like Cecil got it from his friend that he trusted it. It's fucking purple monkey dishwasher very quickly. And we can't afford that because we're literally, like there are massive spy organizations literally counting on that exact method of gaining information. And we don't have anything in place to try to slow that down because we've ignored it for the last three years, even though we know it exists. And even though there's been several intelligence reports

that say it exists, we've literally ignored it and anything that's come up about it to try to change that has been blocked by the Senate. So we've essentially just allowed it over and over and over again. And now this last week, the Postmaster General just fired a bunch of people

and took down a bunch of mail sorting equipment, which again, Trump today literally out loud said the reason why he was doing that was to try to slow voting by mail. Yeah. Said it out loud. the reason why he was doing that was to try to slow voting by mail. Yeah. Said it out loud. Holy shit. Yeah. Said it out loud. So that's a big problem too. And then

he also this week he got the dates wrong for the pandemic. Oh my god. We have to talk about that. It was so delicious. It was so delicious. He said because they come at him and they said something, they asked him a question about the pandemic

and his response was, well, the last time the pandemic was around, it probably ended World War II because- He talks about like in 1917, it's the thing that probably ended World War II. And you're like, oh, are you talking about the 1918 flu pandemic? Which was hot on the heels of World War I, but which in no way affected World War I?

Like, did not. Right. Like, you got everything about that sentence is wrong. It's fucking amazing. It's fucking amazing. It's like he's, I mean, he doesn't do any fucking research. do any fucking research. What I think, though,

is that, and I mentioned this on Twitter, is that this might be a 40 chess moment, Tom, in that if you don't know history, you're not doomed to repeat it. There we go. Because it's a surprise when you repeat it. It's a surprise. I don't know anything about the

previous pandemic, so all of this is new to me. Oh, more with Germany. We've never done that before. This is the best. Holy shit. It's the best way to approach anything is that if you don't know anything about it, you're not doomed to repeat it. It's actually brilliant. Oh, my God. This is a stroke of brilliance on Trump's part.

I know that the comparison has been made many, many many many times but like have you read 1984 a long time ago but I have not in a long time so I don't remember most of it my wife had never read it and so we re-listened to it together and like when you listen to that book now it's like oh man man the purpose of writing a dystopia is to warn us not to do this. How can we do this right in front of our, is seriously, like you said it earlier, but like, you know, this whole administration is like, it's like slamming your own hand in the car door and knowing you're doing it, you know, just like, well, my hand's going to blow. God. Oh, I watched myself do it and did it anyway. like, well, my hand's going to blow. God. Oh, I watched myself do it and did it anyway. And we're just doing it over and over again. Yeah. Yeah. What the fuck? We literally know better. And the

Russians are like, all right, that shouldn't have worked the second time. It's going to work the second time. It's going to work the second time. And the problem is, is that if Trump gets elected again, nothing will happen about it, right? No. So it can then happen a third time and a fourth time and a fifth time. And then they can essentially just decide who they want to be president. And it will never change. It will never stop.

They will basically be a puppet state for Russia. Shouldn't it give everybody on the right pause that our enemy is this interested in getting this guy elected? Yeah. You know, like if somebody, if my worst enemy was like suddenly real invested in an outcome, I would be dubious of the fucking, of my goodwill in that outcome. Absolutely. I'm fucking flabbergasted at how we've all of a sudden, like the right has made friends with Russia. That is the most like mind a splody thing ever. How can you have, how can you have an entire political party Cecil that's that would fucking exhume the body of Ronald Reagan just so they

could blow him one last time. Yeah. Right. And at the same time, be like, but you know who I really love these days? Russia. Yeah. Yeah. Like, if Ronald Reagan could fucking spell

his own name before he died, he'd be rolling in his grave to hear that. He would be kind of, he'd call Putin on the phone and be like, Mr. Putin,

put back up that wall. Right? Like, it makes you feel like a crazy person. You you know it would be really funny to like have a time machine and only go back a few years and be like all right i got a story to tell you yeah uh remember donald trump from the yeah he's the president and we're best friends with russia and russia wants him to be the president again. And somehow Republicans are like, all right, sounds like a good plan for us. How the fuck should we accept this? We live in such a crazy world. I mean,

but you know, when you think about it and you think about just even just a COVID response, how many people did you think if the government were to give some sort of guidelines on the COVID response, how many people did you think would disobey it? Because going into this, I didn't think it would be a lot. I thought it would be, you know, yeah, sure, you're going to have outliers and you're going to have people who are dipshits. But I didn't think that there would be people that would be filming themselves screaming at people in coffee shops and Whole Foods and whatever. Talking about how you're infringing on their rights

by wearing a mask. I mean, like, I didn't think that that was going to be a thing. You could have told me this a year ago and I would say, no, if there's a pandemic, people are going to listen. But I'm fucking, no, they won't. Yeah, but Cecil, I will say, like, I think people would

have listened, but they would, I will say, I think people would have listened, but they would have listened to one voice. The problem is we gave them 50 different voices to listen to, and they didn't all say the same thing. And so people chose the voice whose answer they liked the best. Oh, the governor of Florida and the president, they're not down with masks, so I'm not down with masks. Because like, because we didn't have like, nobody said to do any, like the people that like could have unified us in that moment that we needed to be unified

because they failed so utterly to speak with one voice. I think sincerely that that's what like caused this fracture. Cute. Quack, quack, quack. Quack, quack, quack, quack, quack. I think sincerely that that's what like caused this fracture. I got every problem with the government saying we can't go out. That's a prohibition. It's illegal. It's against the constitution. This story is also from the New York Times.

This is the times we're living in, I guess. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon supporter, wins House primary in Georgia. So that's certainly news. That's definitely happening, Cecil. Well, and Georgia is one of those places where this QAnon person will probably get elected, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I should have been. I should have. I should have added that. Yeah. Being the Republican in Georgia is called being the elected candidate in Georgia. Trump says on Wednesday morning, Trump tweeted congratulations to future Republican star Marjorie Taylor Greene on a big congressional primary win in Georgia against a very tough and

smart opponent. Marjorie's strong on everything. Strong on everything. Strong on everything, Tim. And never gives up a real winner. During his campaign, Mr. Cowan had adopted a slogan, I thought this was funny, that summed up the predicament that she posed for Republicans. He wrote, all of the conservative, none of the embarrassment. And I was like, how is that a slogan that's positive for your side? You know what I mean? Like when your side has to tacitly acknowledge that like your side is embarrassing. Yeah. Like, yeah. Fuck. Yeah. I am like, it's like being on like the shirts and skins team and you're on the skins team and you're just like, man, everyone's going to see my moobs. Like, that's not good. It's like being on the shirts and skins team and you're on the skins team and you're just like, man, everyone's going to see my moobs.

That's not good. It's just the moobs team. I want to be shirts at the pool team. Can I be shirts at the pool team? This is not surprising though. We talked about the last story and we moved forward. This isn't surprising.

We're in a time right now where the internet makes these people think that their voices are amplified. The internet makes them think that they are with a lot of other people. We talked about this with the insuls a while back where the insuls

feel like they're not alone, but not just that they're not alone, but that these are actually mainstream opinions because there's a couple hundred thousand people in a Reddit somewhere. Well, that still is a relatively small amount in comparison to say the world or people on the internet, but it's still enough to make you feel like, I got 6,000 upvotes on this post. So clearly it's important for me to, you know, hate women or whatever. And the same thing goes with these QAnon supporters who have this echo chamber full of dipshits who constantly just unsubstantiated rumor them into thinking that, you know, that sort of thing is normal.

Thinking that, you know, that sort of thing is normal. Yeah. And like QAnon is fucking bonkers crazy. Yeah. Like QAnon is like we've talked about on the show, but like it should be disqualifying. It's so fucking crazy. Yeah. It's cuckoo bonkers crazy town.

And like we're at a place in American history where we're like, yeah, you know what? You know what's not disqualifying? To be a fucking crazy person. Yeah. To be a goddamn lunatic. Like we don't even have like, we don't even have like a standard where it's like, you know what? You can't be and still be in Congress. Fucking crazy. Yeah. Instead we're just like, nah, you know what? I guess that's all right. Yeah. You do you. Yeah. Like, yeah. We think that there's really like a pizza fucking conspiracy where like hot dog means boys and, you know, whatever means girls. And if you show up in the basement of a pizza parlor that doesn't even have a basement, that there'll be a secret cabal of international sex traffickers. Like you hear that stuff and you don't think that's fucking bonkers. fucking bonkers three and a half years into this motherfucker's presidency and like you're still waiting for him to like lift the fucking great lid off of the conspiracy like liz croakin lost two fingers since this thing started what else has to happen liz croakin gave up two fingers for

this guy right come on get on the ball because she can't we need she can't actually grab it just falls right out just shoots right out it's can't actually grab it. Just falls right out. Just shoots right out. It's like a banana. Just poof. Just bounces right out of her hand. Like what more do you people want? And you know what's crazy too, Tom,

is that he doesn't even know in that one interview that he did where he was saying, well, I don't know if Jeffrey Epstein killed himself or not. Oh, right. He's the president of the United States and he's a conspiracy theorist. I don't know if Jeffrey Epstein killed himself thing. Our president

is a fucking conspiracy theorist who's not ashamed of it. No, not at all. You know, like there are some people who are like, ah, you know, I kind of have some like fringe beliefs, but they know enough to be a little embarrassed of their fucking fringe beliefs. They're like, yeah, it fucking feels true, but I feel weird about be a little embarrassed that they're fucking fringe beliefs. They're like, yeah,

it fucking feels true, but I feel weird about it. So I'm not, I'm going to kind of keep that to myself. Like we're, we have a fucking conspiracist in chief, man. Yep. It's crazy.

And he's been like that forever. And now, now what's coming out is the birtherism for Kamala. Oh, are you fucking serious? Absolutely. Yeah, I know. That's the new push is that she's not actually eligible the birtherism for Kamala. Oh, are you fucking serious? Absolutely. Yeah, I know.

That's the new push is that she's not actually eligible because they want to make up reasons. Because she's not white enough, Tom. That's why. It's amazing how many people are not from America when they're black. Yep.

Because so far, it's two for two. Yep. Two for two, guys. Yep. Like you need a different narrative. Like, if you want to pretend, if you even want to just pretend

so that it's not glaringly, fucking crazily, like, wearing a fucking Klan hood obvious, like, maybe you should try a different tactic. Like, when you're always doing it, like, all right,

every time it's a black person, they're not from America. Yeah, exactly. All right, so we're joined by Chris Matheson, the author of The Story of God and The Trouble with God, and new book coming out, Chris. What's the name of your new book? The Buddhist Story.

Taking on Buddhism. Yeah. That's the one that generally the non-religious leave Buddhists alone for some reason, just kind of like back off. Like, ah, it seems harmless-ish, which is I think a way of saying, I don't know much about that. I think that's exactly it. I think so. Yeah. It gets a pass. It gets to be the cool one. It gets to be like, well, you know, Buddhism, like you can be around and going under the hood and looking at it. And I thought, well, this is just as stupid and ugly.

Is it really? Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think, cause I think a lot of people give Buddhism to sort of like, you know, like it's, it's about as dumb as fucking crystal healing and probably about as harmless. So if it's not, I'm curious why. Oh, I don't think it is harmless, actually. But in terms of the, so I'll get to the why I don't think it's harmless, but why it's dumb is because the stories that surround, it's all about this guy. The stories that surround, it's all about this guy. I mean, it's Buddhism because it's named after the Buddha, and it's about him.

And the stories that pertain to him are just really, really laughable. They're really so overblown. All their literature, they're trying to make him sound absolutely incredible, kind of like he's just the most perfect being who's ever lived. That sounds familiar. But in fact, the stories invariably make him sound like a complete asshole. He's just horrible. So here's his birth story. I mean because it starts from the very beginning. You know, here's his birth story.

I mean, because it starts from the very beginning. He is born, and of course he doesn't exit his mother's birth canal because it's so impure and corrupted, obviously. So he has to come out through her side. He exits her side, and he immediately, a couple of gods show up with like little parasols to shade him. And he runs out of Versailles, almost like he's going down a little staircase or something. And he runs around and he takes, I think, eight steps. And then he says, I am the king of the world. So that's his birth. Wait, that's day one?

Yeah, that's his birth. Man, that's peaking early. Isn't that peaking a little early yeah kind of and then what's you know and then it's kind of hilarious that at the age of 30 he you know he just he doesn't even know what i mean he announces at birth i'm the king of the world and then and then he doesn't really do anything and then he's like he's just this insufferable rich boy for a really, really long time. He's very, very privileged. He's a young prince, literally.

And he's really coddled. His mother dies giving birth to him, by the way. Yeah, that happens when you jump out someone's side, I guess. Kind of, wouldn't it? It happened in Aliens that way, too. No? Happened in aliens that way too. No shit. When they were intended. Out the side.

I guess not. So he's just this, so she dies because he's so perfect. He's so impeccable that she can't ever give birth again. So really she might as well just die. So she does. And, and,

and his dad raises him and he's his prince. And he's all bad things are kept away from him. Like he's not supposed to know there's any sickness. He's not supposed to know there's any aging. He's certainly not supposed to know there's any death. And he doesn't. He somehow is so oblivious that he, and these are, again, because it's sort of the same like thing that I did with the God book. I'm just going to their books.

I'm just using their stories. Like this is what you guys say is true. And so he's insufferable. He's a jackass. He's a dick to everybody. He's super, super – he's the most arrogant character I think I've ever come across. And then the beliefs themselves I think are – I mean if it was just like, well, this guy's a fatuous dipshit, I might leave that alone, but I think the beliefs are really kind of ugly.

Like the basic tenet of Buddhism is life is pain, life is suffering, life is bad. And the only thing that you really should strive for is to is pain. Life is suffering. Life is bad. And the only thing that you really should strive for is to not exist. That's the only thing worth striving for. Don't exist. Cease to exist. You're going to keep coming back because, you know, there's all this reincarnation and you're going to keep coming back, but it's always going to be shitty. You know, it's like, it's really so uplifting. I don't even know what to do. This is, are you sure this wasn't written in 2020? Be a good fit actually.

I think it's real interesting that you chose this one. Like I said, cause this is, this is the one that I think people read like the little, uh, and I'll, I'll count myself as guilty of this. Right. So like, I've got like the little, like a dime store, you know, noble truths thing like that you get, and it has like these little excerpts. And, you know, I read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, like back in college at some point. And so, you know, there's, there's a kind of a sense of like, ah, Buddhism's kind of chill. Like it's kind of the chill one, but like, you know, if you, it sounds like if you dig into it, there's nothing really enlightening or uplifting.

There's nothing actionable in a way that's like going to yield significantly better moral compass for anybody out of this. I don't think there is, actually. And I think that this idea that like, well, life is pain. That's the starting point. And so the goal is to not exist. And the goal is to disconnect. Don't feel pain. I mean, that's really the goal.

The goal is don't feel pain because life's pain, life's suffering. So don't suffer. And the way that you cease to suffer is you don't feel, you don't make any connections to anything. That's his big epiphany, right? His big epiphany is life is pain. And so disconnect from everything. And, but then he kind of bumps into like, okay, well, how are you supposed to do that? I mean, like you were saying, what's actionable. And then it gets

really ridiculous because the rules that he comes up with for how you're supposed to do that are just absurd. It's like, you know, be perfect all the time. Do perfect work, have perfect habits, speak perfect, you know, always behave perfectly. Says the baby who chest burst out of his mother and then did a tap dance across her fucking blown out belly or whatever. Jesus Christ. He's got some atoning to do on that front. Good God. So other than C-sections without anesthesia, how is it harmful? You know, you were talking about Buddhism being harmful earlier. You had said- Yeah, I think it's nihilistic. I think the idea that basically life is bad, life is suffering, life is not worth living, I think is a nihilistic truth. And I think they need to be examined and explored. Because I don't think they're good for people. That's my own belief,

I guess, that that stuff's not very helpful, that that stuff's not very beneficial. These stories of like, here's how it is, here's everything, here's how the whole universe works and do the following things and you'll be all right. I don't really much like that. I think there's a tremendous amount of pomposity involved in it. And I think things that are gassy and pompous, I don't know, are they bad? Are they dangerous? But I don't know. But I do think the nihilism is actually really bad for mankind. It kind of sounds like the solution that he's proposing is a sort of promotion of psychopathy, isn't it? Like, like a lack of empathy and cold heartedness is like a hallmark of

psychopathic personalities. And like, that's like his solution to the problem. Solution to the problem is like, well, don't feel shit. Like, don't want people, don't want things, don't want connection, don't feel. That's a disorder. Yeah. You know, he's so stunningly mean. You can't believe how mean he is. And again, I just got to repeat, I'm using their stories. They think he comes off great, but he doesn't come off great, at least not to my eyes. And I think to a lot of people, he wouldn't. He's amazingly cruel to his stepmother. He's stunningly cruel to his wife, who he just walks out on, on his 30th birthday. He kind of realizes, you know, I've got to go. And he's got a newborn. He's got, he's got a newborn son and they romanticize it and say, well, isn't this

wonderful? You know, it's like, he's so, uh, wants to save the world that he's just going to walk out on his wife and his newborn son, which he does. He just leaves and he walks out. He's amazing. Was he getting a pack of cigarettes? I mean, they're never coming back. Yeah, he's out. He's gone. He's stunningly cruel.

He's got a little friend named Ananda, his sidekick Ananda. And, um, he's unbelievably mean to Ananda. He's, he's so, so I know what you're saying about the, the, uh, psychopath thing because he's, he's completely cold and cruel to everyone he interacts with. It kind of sounds like psychopathy combined with that radical honesty bullshit and then a hell of a lot of pomposity. This is like horrible. It's a hell of a lot of pomposity. Yeah, it is. And it's all cloaked in loving kindness, you know, quote, loving kindness. But you're not really supposed to love anybody.

And, you know, you're not supposed to love a mate or a kid or anything like that. In fact, kids are bad. You shouldn't have kids. Because whenever you have kids, you're just perpetuating the cycle of more life. And the goal is like, end it. Stop it. And so like women are really dangerous because women want to have children, right? And they'll seduce a man into having sex, and then that will result in a child. Well, that's a disaster because that's more life, you know? So it's really ugly stuff, I think. But they wrap themselves in this loving kindness thing, which is supposedly loving kindness for everyone, right?

But this is complete bullshit, right? Because what does that even mean, loving kindness for everyone, right? But this is complete bullshit, right? Because what does that even mean, loving kindness for everyone? Go on a Buddhist website. Go on one of these American Buddhist websites, a big one, and they're so gassy and they're so kind of like there's this fake sort of compassion for all, which is, I think, completely fraudulent because I don't believe personally humans are made like that. I think we can love other people. I think we can love our people. I think and I think, you know, large people can love maybe a lot of people.

But you can't just love everybody. It just it's meaningless. It's vapid. And you don't love anybody, actually, but you claim to love everybody. You claim to be always acting in a spirit of loving kindness and compassion. But I don't buy it. I think it's ego. I think it's all ego.

That's the fraudulent – that's the deeply fraudulent thing here is that he he ostensibly another thing, you know, that it's built on is lack of ego, right? Separate, you know, lack of ego. But it's all about this guy's ego. Everything's about this guy's ego. He calls himself perfect one. He has his followers call him perfect one. Tathagata is perfect one.

And he says, you know, it's not because I have any ego because I don't have any ego. Um, I just am perfect. So it's just a statement of fact that I'm perfect. And you know, it's ridiculous. Yeah, right. Exactly. It's laughable. It's like, oh, come on. Now, when you, when you dug into this and I into this and this is something I don't know and it may be something you don't know but when you dug into this and you started reading do you know if there's a lot of different factions of Buddhism

and did you maybe just pick one that chose him as a douchebag and there's other ones out there that treat him differently do you know if that's true or not I mean there's two giant sort of branches there There's the original, which starts with him, which starts in India, which is Theravada Buddhism. And Theravada Buddhism is kind of like really, you know, it's really, really based on his words. And that's

very, very austere. And it's very, like, you know, cut yourself off from life, you know, like that's the goal. But then there's another version, you know, like that's really hard to live by. And it's kind of from monks who just cut themselves off from life. And it's a very severe belief system. So it kind of morphs into this different version in China, which is called Mahayana Buddhism. And Mahayana Buddhism more resembles like, it's not so austere. It's not so like, it's like, be good and you'll go to heaven forever. And their heaven's called Pure Land.

And, you know, Pure Land is great. In pure land, the streams will sing to you and you can eat rubies as much as you want and waving banners. It's just kind of absurd, really, their picture of heaven. So Theravada is more rooted in him and Mahayana is more trying to make something more user-friendly out of it, I would say. It emerges a few hundred years later. It's more popular, as you can imagine. So they have to make the move and go, well, you know, actually, these were his secret messages.

This is what he really meant to say. He didn't say it. Or like, you know, we have new information, basically. It's always that. We have new information. This is what he really meant to say. He didn't say it. Or like, you know, we have new information, basically. It's always that. We. Um, he just is, he just, and you know, that's just funny to me because it's the Buddha, right? It's like synonymous almost with goodness, like, ah, the Buddha, that's the ultimate, but he's really horrible, uh, on the page everywhere. And I read a lot of this stuff. I immersed myself in it for a year. Do you think that you feel, do you start to feel like the guy that no one is going to tell them what their favorite movie is because you're just going to shit on it now? You know, like

you're one of those guys that, that you gotta sit down, just trust me, Chris, you gotta watch this movie. It is the best movie you're ever going to see. And then you sit down and you just shit on it. Do you feel like you're starting to become that guy? Oh, you know, I think I've been that guy. One of my favorite movie was Bill and Ted though. Like that would just be a conundrum for you. Yeah. Right. That just puts me in a kind of a, like a weird contorted position. No'm totally that guy and no you know that's an obnoxious thing to be right like i remember one of my literally one of my friends was like i said i mean i basically was asking him you know what have you seen i mean it's exactly what you're describing what have you seen that you liked and he told me about some movie and scene that he

liked and i just started just thrashing it because I hated it. And he was like, you asked me what I like, and now you're telling me it's a piece of shit. And I'm like, oh yeah. So there you go. Literally what you just described. I guess that's, whoops. Okay. All right. All right. Well, I guess that that's not a surprise then. All right. In the book, what's the approach you take? Do you, are you the Buddha in the book? Yeah. Oh, okay. All right.

Yes, first person. The first line of the book is, I'm the Buddha and this is the story. This is my story. And so he tells his whole life from birth to death. And, you know, I just, I'd like just drew on all their literature, all their stories of his whole life.

And with a lot of past lives, because he has a lot of past lives and he loves their stories of his whole life. And, um, and with a lot of past lives, cause he has a lot of past lives and he loves to talk about his past lives and his past life stories are always, you know, hilariously self-serving. They're, they're, they're really, really funny. So yeah, that's the approach. So let's talk a little bit about, uh, Bill and Ted three. Cause you were, you, uh, uh this this is a project that you were part of uh tell us about it in somewhere around 2008 at solomon and i he and i co-wrote the three movies we had a dinner with alex and keanu and we basically wanted to know, are you guys interested? I mean, do you guys have any interest in sort of thinking about a third movie?

And they didn't rule it out. So I think we had a little inkling. I mean, we had a just a very very rough notion of what it would be which was just based on the fact that it hadn't worked out i mean all these big things that were supposed to have happened like them them sort of saving the world it hadn't it hadn't happened and so they're like 50 years old and you know they're still struggling and and they've had to just all this pressure that they've felt for 30 plus years to do it and so they liked that and they thought that was

interesting and then we just we had to come up with a plot that would drive it and it took us because we were going kind of slow we weren't working on it you know all that much but we ed and i would just keep talking about i know we came up with this idea of them deciding that they must have written the song at some point so that they were going to go into their future and basically steal it from themselves. So that's how they'd come up with the song. So that's kind of the premise. They keep going into the future, deeper deeper into the future to try to steal the song from themselves but it it never really works out um it kind of it doesn't go the way they want

it to go yeah so that's kind of the premise so you know and then and then we we wrote it and and then nobody liked nobody liked it nobody wanted to do it i mean we were done by 2011 we had a draft that alex and kiani liked and they were and and we you, we were done by 2011. We had a draft that Alex and Keanu liked and they were, and we, you know, we were pretty pleased, but nobody wanted to do it. And then it just kind of languished for a number of years. And then John Wick, I think probably changed everything. Then suddenly there was more interest. And, um, you know, by 2016, there was kind of a deal but it fell apart and then by 2018 there was more of an actual deal

and by 2019 we made it and now it's coming out we're going to put links on this week's show notes to places that they can buy the book and also a link to Bill and Ted 3 we want to thank you Chris for coming on and when the audio book comes out, send us a message. We'll mention on the show.

We know we have a lot of people who listen to Audible and audio books and our listenership, so we'll mention it to them when it comes out on Audible. Cool. Sounds great. Thanks so much for being on. Thanks for joining us. Thanks, gentlemen. So we want to thank our patrons. Of course, we want to thank all our patrons. We want to thank our patrons.

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We'd love to give you free stuff. So join up. Got a bunch of email this week we're going to talk about. We got a message from Casey and he said, hey, you guys have to watch Tread on Netflix.

If you haven't already, it's a documentary about the guy that bulldozes this whole town. And he said it'd make an excellent Citation Needed episode. Citation Needed is a podcast that Tom and I do with The Puzzle and the Thunderstorm guys. It's a lot of fun.

You should check it out if you haven't already. We have a blast on that show. We laugh a lot and tell you some weird history most of the time about odd people or sometimes some serious history. And it's a great time, so come check it out. But we actually, Casey, have done that episode, but it's only for patrons.

So go become a patron, Casey, of Citation Needed. You'll get access to the Killdozer episode, which we recorded for patrons only. We got an image from Christine. And Christine sent in an image and we're going to post it on this week's show notes. It's really great. So check it out.

We also got a message from Jason who sent in a video, a New York Times article, which I think I'm going to try to include, but I will tell you that the name of the article is he predicted Trump's win in 2016. Now he's ready to call

2020. It's a New York Times article and I'm going to spoil it for you. He calls it for Biden, but only slightly for Biden. There's 13 factors, 13 factors that they go through and list. And those 13 factors are, is there currently unrest? Was there a major victory overseas? Was there a major fumble overseas? You know, things like that.

Were there more that failed? How's the economy? victory overseas? Was there a major fumble overseas? You know, things like that. Were you, you know, war that failed? Um, how's the economy? Uh, you know, all the, and, and these are all really big, basic things about the country and he, the way he lists them out, um, they're either true or false. And he comes up with the idea. You can watch the whole video. It's actually a really interesting video. Um, it comes up with the idea that Biden is going to win. And 538 also came out this week with Biden leading pretty dramatically in a lot of the polls, but they're the same numbers that Hillary had at this time when Hillary ran in 2016. Yeah. And the, the, I will say like the, the Alan Lichtman predictions, it came out with this prediction model in 1980.

And it's been rock solid since 1980. Yeah. Predicting Clinton, predicting, he did pick Gore. Yeah, he predicted Reagan in 84. Yeah, yeah. So it's interesting. Like, it's an interesting model. I've seen a lot of different modeling types.

And I don't know, you know, like everybody was like real fucking excited about, I mean, lots of these different models in 2016. And now everybody's like, huh? And now, you know, everybody's like, yeah, fucking burn me once. And, you know, I guess what I want to say, Cecil, is this is what happens when you get too excited about these modeling techniques and then you launch yourself into an alternate dystopian reality. So like maybe,

maybe we just shouldn't talk about these things, guys. You know, it's crazy though because we have this, you know, you have these modeling techniques that we put together and no chance is different than some chance. And people just don't get that.

They don't like that idea and they don't get that. And they want to say, well, it was a 60% chance that Hillary is going to win or a 70% chance and damage she lost, therefore your model sucks. And it's like, well, that's not how this works. Yeah, right. You forgot about the 30% chance that this thing that happened was going to happen. Like, if you never thought unusual things were going to happen, they'd close every casino right now.

Yeah, right. Exactly. Right? Every casino in the entire world would close for lack of patrons. Yeah. If we thought, like, if everybody was like, well, unusual things never occur. Yeah. Well, close the cas like, if everybody was like, well, unusual things never occur. Yeah. Well close the casino. Exactly. Yeah. It will never have another lotto, you know, there's no reason, you know, no, no reason to bet on the pony. Got a message from Frederick

and Frederick says, I disagree with Seth Andrews. He says his point about the, the woman who visited the Nazis, uh, they didn't reason that basically they, they didn't reason. You could state facts against the Nazis to say that people should have human dignity, but they might not listen to you. It's the emotional connection that those people build with a person that changes their mind. So he said, I slightly disagree with Seth on that. And I think that that's a good addendum because you're right. But I think that when you that, you know, when you talk about God and I think that that was, that was mainly what he was using that for, I think was, uh, you know, a lot of the things that, that, that got me out of believing were specifically

using a logic to come at that idea. And it couldn't, it didn't hold water anymore. The moment I started thinking about how ridiculous it was. And I think it's very different when we're talking about breaking people of emotional ideas. But once I, once I started paying attention to how, you know, just how absurd the idea was of a God,

that's when I started to really break out of it. So I think that that, it still matches what he was saying about belief of a higher power. Yeah. I, you know, I think that a lot of there's, there's a lot of different ways that we change our minds and a lot of how we come to change depends on where we're at at the time that change comes to us too. Right. So, you know, if you're at a place in your life where, you know, let's say you're in college and you're questioning a lot of other types of beliefs because you're in college at the time,

and that could be a very rational moment where rationality is the thing that leads you through to change. Absolutely, it could. You could also have similar changes which are much more emotionally. Absolutely, yeah. There's different places in your life where, you know, different factors affect us more and less.

I guess the point is like, like don't abandon one as being useless. Like, like don't build this, like this always works. This never works. It's sort of like binary thing because it's just not, like, I don't think either is representative of the human animal. Yeah. Right. Like we're just more complicated than that. We're just more complicated than that. We're more momentary than that. I think that's a great point, Tom, because you look at Anthony Magnabosco. How many conversations has Anthony Magnabosco had

with people that use a different method than what we were talking about? And he can change somebody's mind and then he could have 60 conversations that never change that other person's mind. Absolutely. And so it's, like you say, right where you're at. Yeah. And you know, the other thing too, is like, minds don't like a lot of things don't change.

Like in a finger snap moment, a lot of things get seated. Right. So somebody like Anthony Magna Bosco may have a conversation that goes nowhere that he knows about. And it may be the case that that person goes home and it's like, that was fucking about. And it may be the case that that person goes home and is like, that was fucking weird. And then talks to somebody else about it and kind of can't get it out of their mind for some reason. And then pokes around online a little bit. And two years later, their mind has changed.

I just like, I don't think like our minds are these simple sort of flowchart decision tree things. Yeah, there's no way you could throw a wrench in the cogs and just fix everything, right? Right. Okay, I threw a wrench in there and now it's going to work differently. And so, yeah, I think you're right. They're more complicated than that. I want to talk a little bit about Seth Andrews too,

because we got some pushback about Seth Andrews coming on the show, specifically because people are upset about comments that he made in the past. And I know that this is all this drama stuff that Tom and I try to stay away from. We try to stay away from the drama. Years ago, during this Mythicist Milwaukee thing, Tom and I stayed away from it for the most part. They invited us initially up.

Didn't invite us. They told us we were going to be there. They basically added us to a website without our permission that we were going to be there. We had to send them a message and say we weren't coming. We were one of the first

few people to bow out of it. Not because, and to be honest, it's because they, I think it was even before they wound up getting problem. I had to guess Tom and I were just mad that they, that they just presumed like we were upset. We were upset that they just presumed that we would be there. And so we were like, fuck you go. Yeah. As soon as you, as soon as you presume, I'm going to be there. I guess where I'm not going to be. Yeah. but then you wound up there but well yeah I was gonna say

like I didn't exactly stay out of it yeah that's why I was saying I was like we almost stayed out of it but yeah so we kind of

but we didn't really pay a lot of attention to what was going on there to be honest I didn't remember that Seth was part of this or supposed to be part of this and people were bringing up

gosh what feels like a long time ago this last week about what Seth had said to a group of people. I guess he had called some people an outrage brigade and it upset a lot of listeners of his show and some listeners of our show that they were grouped in with a group of people that were called the outrage brigade for basically saying, look, don't go patronize this place because these people are bad people and they're doing this all in bad faith.

And I want to say a couple of things about it. The first is, is that I want to remind people that on this show in the past, I have said trans slurs and I was not as super receptive about hearing whether or not those were slurs from our audience. And it took me a little while to come around. And so I want people to recognize that sometimes when you feel like you're somehow being questioned, sometimes the pushback is natural and it's not something that you can control is, uh, that it's not something that you can

control as easily. And so I just wanted to say that, um, that people should start being a little, I think Seth is a good person and you should be a little more forgiving about things like that. Yeah. I, I kind of want to echo that and, and, and say similarly, like we should not be so quick to throw people away. Like we should be like really fucking cautious about throwing people away. Um, we should be cautious about throwing people away, particularly when like they, in all other aspects seem to be genuinely trying to be kind and decent. Right. So it matters that people try that makes a, that, that. That matters a lot. I know Seth to be a kind and decent and well-meaning person. I don't know him to be a perfect person because I haven't met that

perfect person yet, myself and everyone included. We all make mistakes and say goofy shit sometimes, and we all are wrong about things and have to learn and have to change and have to grow. And we all are wrong about things and have to learn and have to change and have to grow. Like our minds change. We oscillate in our views. I think it's a mistake to say this person doesn't agree with me on every issue. They're wrong about this. So they're shit.

Like if you do that, you're going to run out of people like real fast. Like we're going to run out of people to be on our side. We're going to run out of allies. We're going to run out of people that, to be perfectly frank, are interested in listening to that kind of vitriolic binary bullshit. And that's honestly what it is. We need to be more accepting of other people. Isn't that like part of what progressivism is, is understanding the whole person and being accepting of who people are. And that does include some people that are not fucking perfect, which is all of us. So give people some grace. Give people some room to be wrong about something. Give people some time to have a goddamn emotion and push back on something because their blood is up. It's the reason your blood is up about this, right? Because these are emotional issues.

So I think we just need to be a lot more fucking cautious about this stuff. And when we're not cautious and when we're not careful and we don't act giving people the benefit of the doubt, when in so many other aspects, like if you got a checkbox, you're like, man, it's so weird because I agree with this person 75% of the time. And then they're wrong about these things. You know because I agree with this person 75% of the time and then they're wrong about these things. You know what, you agree with him 75% of the time. Yeah. That's an ally.

Yeah. Well, and- And, you know, I was thinking about this in a sense, like we're all walking sort of Venn diagrams, right? When I hang out with Tom, there's a lot of the Venn diagram that crosses over. There are some things where Tom and I disagree. We just disagree on it, naturally disagree on it. But the Venn diagram is pretty close. There are some people that the Venn diagram is very small

or it won't even intercept, right? It won't even come in close because I have nothing in common with that person. I don't have any values that are common with this person. I don't have any. But many of the humanists that I meet, that Venn diagram is pretty big. It's pretty large. And to say, I don't need to respect someone, I don't need to respect the human dignity of all these people, that's not being a humanist.

There is a strong and prevailing sense that any transgression is an unforgivable transgression. And we should be very, very, very cautious about what transgressions are absolutely unacceptable. I'm not saying that there's nothing that somebody can do that is unacceptable. I do believe that there are things people can do which are unacceptable. But especially if those things are not acknowledged and accounted for, right? But then there's a lot of other stuff that's like, yeah, is that a big deal?

Is it really? Is that person really the same as somebody who is in opposition to you? Is it really oppositional to be not perfectly aligned? Do you know what I mean? Like, like you don't have to be exactly parallel to be heading in roughly the same direction. And then we need more people heading in the roughly the same fucking direction as us on big, important issues. And like the, the, the tighter we zoom in, the more we see how not exactly parallel our allies are. And we focus on those differences. We don't move ahead. We fight amongst ourselves. It's valueless to do that.

And we should push back against that instinct because it is not an important instinct. And you're absolutely right. And this happens in politics all the time too, where I'm not perfectly aligned with someone else who's also progressive, but I'm not as progressive or whatever. And it's like, know, progressive, but I'm not as progressive or whatever. And it's like, okay, well, but I'm, like you said, 60 to 80% of close to is progressive

and I'm way more progressive than your uncle Bill. You know, I'm way more progressive than other people. So don't throw me away just because I didn't choose the exact farthest left position. And I feel like there's this feeling, especially in politics with the people that get upset with other people who aren't as progressive as them, that you've got to help people grow and you help people grow by showing them that's the right thing.

And that's how you do it. And you can't just expect people to automatically just snap their fingers and grow. Growth takes time. And if you look back at, I know for sure, there's been a couple of things that have happened because I do follow Seth on Facebook once in a while. And there's been a couple of things that I've seen him come back. He said a thing and then came back and said, okay, no, I get it. And so there's a

possibility for the person to learn, just give them a chance. You know, and I totally agree. And the one thing, the only thing I would add to that is, you know, you got to listen as much as you talk, if not more. And there's a lot of yelling going on. There's a lot more yelling at people. There's a lot more lecturing and expounding and pontificating. And there's not a lot of listening, man. There's not a lot of listening. And that's partly a function of the spaces that these conversations take place on. But like caution yourself as a general principle against the idea that you always have something to say and that you don't always have something to hear. Like that's just, you're probably not right about that. Do more listening. You're never going to communicate with people if you're not listening to them and finding out how they feel

and meeting them where they're at. You can't do it. So we did a fun stream this week. It was a little broken, but hopefully you could check it out on YouTube. And the people who are patrons won't experience any kind of break in that timeline at all.

It'll just be snapping. It'll be done. Seamless. It's almost like if you pay for it, it's better. It'll be perfect. At least I hope so. Hopefully Ian's listening to this and he makes it seamless. All right. But we want to thank Chris Matheson for coming on. He is the author of The Buddha's Story. It's out now. And he's also the screen, I think the screenwriter, and he's certainly

involved in the production of Bill and Ted's Three, which is coming out this month, the end of this month, hopefully on demand. I know I'm going to watch it because I love the... I'm a sucker for the old-timey Bill and Ted's. I got to re-watch them. I haven't seen them since they first came out. I watched them a long time ago, but I also watched them more recently. So check it out.

And if you're interested in his book, check the show notes. I want to thank Chris, of course, for coming on. Great guests. A lot of fun. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you like we always do book, check the show notes. I want to thank Chris, of course, for coming on. Great guests. A lot of fun. That's going to wrap it up for this week. We're going to leave you like we always do with the Skeptic's Creed. Credulity is not a virtue. It's fortune cookie cutter, mommy issue, hypno-Babylon bullshit.

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