Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 80: No Longer Quivering

Episode Date: December 31, 2012

Special thanks to Vyckie Garrison  from Conservapedia - abstinence Godless Matt’s fundraiser page: Twitter:

Hey, everyone. So I had finished mixing the show this morning when I was contacted by Godless Matt from the Broadly Focused podcast. He had asked that I mention to our audience that there's currently a fundraiser podcast being planned for someone who's involved with a very large religious discussion group on Google+. Google+. The person's name is Nadia. And here, just let me read directly from the message here. It says, Nadia, a male female transgender who is in transition, has fallen on hard times, has been out of work for some time and is running out of medications that allow her to function in her current state. Without medication and rent, she will be homeless and sick in a city, New York City, that is not very kind to the transgendered we are putting together a benefit live podcast possibly a 24-hour podcast to raise a bit of cash to help her out i was really hoping you might be able to throw in a quick plug on your show for the site and twitter feed the site is meds4 that's meds thenyc.org. And the Twitter, which is meds4nyc.

That's all one word. Now, we're going to put both of these links on our show notes for this time. And keep your eyes open on these two sites for the next couple days. I'm sure more information is going to be posted as time goes on. And good luck, Matt. Want to stream Cognitive Dissonance to your Android or iPhone? Buy the app. Go to DissonancePod.com and click on the link on the right-hand side of the page.

Each purchase helps support the show. But when you go back and you read the words of our founding fathers, and you go back and you read some of those letters they wrote, some of the speeches they gave, sermons that were preached by the pastors during the Revolutionary War, those were the kind of sentiments that were expressed about the anarchy of the British crown. And they came here to get away from that. We are not now willing to revert back to anarchy,

to have our liberties stripped away from us. The right to keep and bear a gun has been the privilege of Americans from day one, and it has never been a problem. It's not a problem now. Back when we had prayer and the Bible read in our schools, we didn't have school gun shootings. Back in the day when faith had a prominent place in the life of Americans and American families, we didn't have this kind of rampage in our country. We have gotten away from it. We used to have the Ten Commandments posted in our school rooms

so that every day our students could see where God Almighty has said, Thou shalt not murder. But we've deemed that as illegal now, according to the Constitution. We've taken that out of our classrooms. We've taken prayer out of the classrooms. We've taken faith and morality out of our nation's population. Listen, the lack of knowing the Lord and living godly lives

is what's caused this problem. It is not the presence of guns. 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. 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, Matt. This is episode 80. This is the post-Christmas spectacular pre-New Year extravaganza. And for this show,

we have Vicki from the blog No Longer Quivering. It's actually located at patheos.com, which is actually the same site, I believe, that hosts the Friendly Atheist blog. Vicki, welcome to the show. Hi, Cecil. Hi, Tom. Vicki, I wanted to talk to you real quick about your latest post. It's from December the 20th, Fearing God at the End of the World. I read this post today, and I was quite interested in it.

One of the things that strikes me about this post, the post discusses sort of the change in mindset from when you were part of the Quiverful movement and part of a Christian faith tradition to being out of the Quiverful movement and being out of the Christian faith tradition and with an atheist mindset. One of the things that struck me was the personal responsibility

and intellectual responsibility issues that you brought up in your post. Tell us a little bit about that and how that changed from when you were part of the Quiverful movement to sort of what's different about that now? Okay, well, one thing about Quiverful is that it's very much a fundamentalist branch of Christianity. It kind of takes Christianity to its logical and extreme conclusions. And I think that the reason that I went that far with my faith walk is because I did have a lot of fear. And, you know, when I wrote that blog post about fearing God at the end of the world, it was because, you know, I had been reading all of these posts and and news stories about what happened in Newtown, Connecticut, with the shooting. And then there's all of this about the end of the world, the end of the world.

We decided that we were just going to have an end of the world party at our house. And it was kind of a joke because obviously we didn't think that the world was going to end. But just to acknowledge all of that fear and to talk about, you know, with my kids, the fact that our Christianity, when we went that far with it, when we were extreme fundamentalist believers, it was a mind game. It was a head trip that we were playing with ourselves to mind game. It was a head trip that we were playing with ourselves to kind of counteract that fear or to deny the fear. And so it's interesting that during that time, I really felt that I was fearless. If you'd asked me what I was afraid of, I was like, nothing, because I have God on my side, because I'm right with God. And so I know that he's looking out for me, he's protecting me, etc. But what it really does is just kind of shuts down the fear response. And I'm starting to

realize that that's not a good thing. Fear can be a great motivator. And fear can be something that, you know, when you feel that, you know, nowadays, when I start to feel fear, like after the shootings, I heard about, you know, all those little children in the school, and I have kids in grade school, and in public schools, and I'm thinking, you know, what if it would have been, you know, it could have been our, our kids, it could, it could be anywhere, it could happen. And just having that, that fear kind of well up there and rather than pray or do the things that I typically used to do as a fundamentalist to calm that fear, I realized that I really need to address those fears, find out what's causing that and what can I do about it and take, like you said, that personal responsibility. So I had a quick follow up to that. And I'm genuinely curious. When you would previously, I've never been a person of faith, so I really

don't have any experience with this. And I am genuinely curious when, when you would experience a fear, you know, especially an existential fear, like, you know, you seem to be describing with your reaction to the end of the world and the events in new town and these sort of fears of mortality. And before you said that you had felt fearless, that you, you had felt like, well, I'm, I'm, I'm wrapped in sort of the protective cloak of my faith. Do you think that that was more of a psychological game that you played to calm yourself down? Like, okay, I'm getting worked up. I can pray.

The praying is a psychological response. It gets me calm. Or did you intellectually believe, okay, I am safer because of this prayer? At the time when I believed it, I wholeheartedly believed it. I felt that God, you know, that the Holy Spirit was calming my,

you know, quieting my spirit, calming my fears, giving me peace. You know, I felt all of that. And it was, you know, I can look back now and I can see where I was playing this, this really intricate head trip with myself. And now we know that I'm not able to kind of play those mind games anymore, because I've, I've had my eyes open, I can see, you know, that it was just a psychological thing that I was doing in my own head. It's, you know, it's like, there was fear, even then. But I it was like a coping technique. It was not a healthy, productive coping technique. It was more of a shutting down and an escapism where I

just didn't really deal with things because I just give it to the Lord and let him, you know, put it in his hands and it was his problem. It wasn't my problem. And so it was very much an escapist kind of mentality. Now, when you talk about this lack of fear, did it transfer into other things that you would do, like decisions you would make? And also, did it sort of preclude you to certain ideologies? And I'll give you an example. When you think, because I used to be a believer, so to give you some context, I used to be a believer.

When you think about the world in the context of the Bible, when you think about the world in the context of God, are you letting go? Are you just saying sort of a Jesus take the wheel sort of feeling about a lot of the decisions you're making in your life? Also, when you think about the way the Bible teaches us about how the world exists and what the world is here for, does it preclude you to certain ideologies like your global warming denier because you think, well, geez, there's no way there could be global warming because God wouldn't let that happen? Does that sort of permeate all aspects of your life in that way? Yes, and as I said, quiverful, you know, they're very much the extremist segment of Christianity. And that's not to say that their viewpoints are aberrant to Christianity. I believe that quiverful is just your basic regular Christianity only lived out to its logical conclusions. In other words, the majority of evangelical Christians are going to be deniers of global warming. But, you know, Quiverfull says, you know, I'm just going to keep having babies, and I don't believe that there's an overpopulation problem.

God's going to take care of these things. So yeah, and really what it meant for me personally was that I didn't have to make decisions, because those decisions were already made for me and spelled out chapter and verse. You know, I had a Bible verse for every situation in my life life so that I didn't have to think about it. And I wouldn't, you know, at the time that I was living this lifestyle, I never would have said that I wasn't thinking because I was thinking. I just was thinking in some very unhealthy and very unproductive ways. So when you when you made decisions, were you just sort of going with your gut then sort sort of just letting yourself – and I'm talking like big life decisions. Let's say like if a new job offer comes up or something like that, something big on the horizon.

Would you just – I mean did it affect your thinking that deeply that you wouldn't weigh pros and cons? It absolutely did because when I got into Quiverful, before I became a Christian, I had made up my mind that I was not going to have children because I knew my own personality. I knew my own taste. You know, when I was growing up, I never babysat other people's kids because they just drove me crazy. I just knew that I wouldn't be a good mother. I had no desire, and I had decided that I wasn't be a good mother. I had no desire and I had decided that I wasn't going to have children. But then I got into Christianity and I learned from the Bible that that was my life purpose. You know, the reason that God created me and gave me a womb was so that I

could reproduce and, you know, raise up these arrows for God's army, these mighty warriors. And so that was a life decision. And when I started having the babies, you know, I had some very serious health issues, which made pregnancy and delivery extremely, you know, there were times when I actually risked my life with another pregnancy. The choice, I felt like I didn't have a choice because I felt like, well, the Bible says it, and I'm going to keep getting pregnant, I had this blanket, one size fits all, you know, God says that women are, you know, to be fruitful and multiply. And that is my purpose. And so I just, I did it, you know, I just obeyed. I was like, though he, though he slay me, yet will I trust him. That was my life verse. And there were times where I came close. I almost lost my life on several occasions during those pregnancies and deliveries because I just don't, you know, I'm not cut out for childbearing.

And yet I kept doing that. Um, and yet I, I kept doing that. And it was because I had that mindset. I had that mentality that as long as I was doing what God says, according to the Bible, then he would protect me. He would take care of me. And if I did die, um, it's like I was resigned to that. I had that whole martyr mentality. You know, Jesus went to the cross and gave his life.

Um, so why should I be, you know, unwilling to give less than that in my commitment to following God's will? Something you just said and then something that you wrote in the same piece that we were talking about, it occurs to me, and I don't mean this in a rude way at all. But what I keep hearing is this idea that, you know, if I do write, you know, and I know this isn't a philosophy you subscribe to anymore, but I'm genuinely kind of fascinated by this idea. So the idea is if I do write, you know, if I follow the commandments of my God, then I'll be protected by my God. I'll be, you know, the Holy Spirit or what have you will look over me. And that's sort of when you see tragedies like, you know, what happened in Newtown and then, you know, just every day opening your newspaper. Did you have to do a lot of sort of mental backflips? I did. And it was it was especially difficult for me because I am a

thoughtful person. I, you know, I have a high intelligence not to be bragging or anything, but I'm not just like a follower type of person. I am not a naturally submissive sort of person. I have kind of a leadership personality. And yet, because I bought into this whole idea that God reveals his will for people through the written word of God. You know, the Bible says that women are to be submissive. The Bible says that we are to trust him. The Bible says that God is good. And so I just had to believe those things, even though, you know, there was so much,

you know, like my eyes would see one thing, my mind would see one thing, but my faith had to keep bringing me back to, you know, obey, obedience. I'm just going to take God at his word. So when you would previously, when you would see something, you know, awful occur in the news or what have you, would it be the idea, well, they didn't have, they weren't following God's plan and that's why they weren't protected? Or was it, this must be good and I just can't see how it's good? I'm just kind of curious. I'm curious how that reconciles. You know, there's so many, you're just trying to find some, you know, acceptable way of reconciling that.

And so I would just, you know, come up with, and there are so many Bible verses that I call them thought-stopping verses now because I realized that those verses, I would just, you know, something would start to come up, I would feel troubled, I would feel, you know, something would start to come up, I would feel troubled, I would feel fearful or whatever. But there's a Bible verse, and I can just repeat it and meditate on that kind of concentrate and focus. And that would calm me down that would reassure me. And so it was a way of dealing with the fear or with the confusion or with, you know, that cognitive dissonance that you have to be able to just have peace. You know,

I always felt like I had so much peace in my heart. And what it really was, is, you know, kind of like that blissful ignorance that they talk about. is, you know, kind of like that blissful ignorance that they talk about. I, you know, I definitely achieved that state of mind pretty regularly. And to the point where, I mean, it takes, you've got to be pretty well, I hate the word brainwashed, but it actually is a good description of what happened. I mean, to the point where I was willing to risk my life, even after I saw how close I came, you know, in one pregnancy. And then to go ahead and get pregnant again, even against the doctor's orders, even against, you know, everyone. My mother would, you know, come to my hospital bed and beg me, you know, don't do this to yourself.

Your children who are alive need a mother. You've got to quit risking your life. And yet, you know, I was so into that mentality of trusting God that I would just, you know, repeat those verses and I would just shut down all of those, you know, intuition that I don't know common sense logic all of that I could shut it down and soothe myself by holding on to my faith and you know I will admit I was I was crazy it's a it's a form of like mental illness I think I think I was crazy. It's a form of mental illness, I think. I think I was insane at that point. And if somebody would have locked me up, it would have been appropriate because I was risking my life. I was risking my family.

It was not healthy, not rational. I was a mess. I got to ask one more question about the fear thing here. Now, as I said, I used to be a believer and I think one of the worst parts about believing for me was it opened up the belief for a lot of other things. And I actually think I was way more fearful when I believed than I am now. And I'll give you some examples. When I used to, I used to be terrified of Revelation. I used to be terrified of it. I mean, it's like a, it's, it's a, especially when you read about it or you hear predictions

about it and, and there's such vague things that they talk about in Revelation that it could apply to basically any time. So the entire day, you're basically looking over your shoulder at Revelation. It opens up the idea of demons and ghosts and all these other supernatural things. And so I feel like, you know, I was, and I also wasn't a good Christian. You know, I wasn't bathed in the white light, so to speak. You were one of those few warmer Christians. I put down my nose on. I was actually, you know, I thought I was a good person, but I certainly didn't think,

you know, there was always the possibility because you hear about the righteousness you would need to get into heaven. There was always this possibility of hell. So there's all these other fears, I think, that permeated my life. And when I finally shrugged all that off, I feel, I think, a lot more free now. Do you feel any similarities at all to that? I do. And it's really interesting, you know, when I say that I felt fearless, like I said, that was a total head trip that I was playing on myself.

It was a mind game because there was so much more to fear. You got all the supernatural stuff. You got all the end time stuff. You had the world to flesh the devil that are out to get you. You know, I feared my own. I feared my intellect. I feared my intuition because the Bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. So I believe that within me was this heart that wanted to rebel against God. As a woman, you know, there are so many verses that talk about the woman was the one who was deceived. And so I believe that as a woman, I was more susceptible to deception by Satan. And so I got to the point where if something made sense to me, if something seemed logical,

it was almost like I took it as an anti-indicator of God's will. Because if I thought, you know, this feels right, this seems like a good idea, I thought, that must be Satan. That's probably Satan or it's my own flesh. It's my own, you know, rebellious will. And so it's like almost I would need to do the opposite of that in order to know that I was doing, you know. So if it was painful, if it was, you know, embarrassing or humiliating, that would make, that was like confirmation for me that I was doing the right thing, you know, embarrassing or humiliating, um, that would make, that was like confirmation for me that I was doing the right thing, you know, by God, because obviously, you know, um, the walk of faith is, is a walk of sacrifice. It's a walk of, you know, they talk about, we need to be a peculiar people.

And I got to where I was extremely peculiar. So we're going to be back with Vicki Garrison at the end of the show. If you're new to Cognitive Dissonance, we will be talking about a few things in between. But we'll be interviewing Vicki about her blog and her work later on. So stick around for that. So Cecil, we've got to talk about this story from ThinkProgress.org. Top conservative publication. Shooting occurred because women ran the school. National Review's in-house editorial suggested that Newtown was

the price of the Second Amendment. Recently published a piece on Wednesday from anti-feminist Charlotte Allen suggesting the reason the shooter was able to kill so many students was because Newtown was a feminized setting. This is probably one of the most insane and offensive things that I've read in a long time. You sent this to me and I was fucking flabbergasted by this. Yeah, this is fucking crazy. I want to read a little piece of this here. It says, There was not a single adult male in the school premises where the shooting occurred. In this school of 450 students, a sizable number of whom were undoubtedly 11 and 12-year-old boys, all the personnel, the teachers, the principal, the assistant principal, the school psychologist, the reading specialist, were female. There didn't even seem to be a male janitor to heave his bucket at the person's knees.

Women and small children are sitting ducks for mass murders. You know, here's the thing, Tom. I think this review article has actually hit on something. Instead of arming teachers, they should arm them with buckets. I don't know why. I carry a bucket. I just cut holes in it and I wear it on my head. I actually carry buckets around whenever

anybody annoys me, I just heave a bucket at them. I just throw a bucket. And it depends on the weight. Obviously, your metal bucket's going to do a little more damage than your basic plastic pail. But you really got to weigh out those situations. I have a whole utility belt full of buckets

that I walk around with. There's kind of a bucket for every situation. Well, that's why they call it a bucket brigade. Yeah. Right? It's tough, man. That's where they came from. Bozo was a badass motherfucker with those Bozo buckets.

Jeez, he had fucking six of buckets. He will fuck you up, man. And he had ping pong balls. I love that the janitor just like walks around with a bucket. Yeah. Like, okay, well, you clearly have never been or seen the janitor just like walks around with a bucket yeah like okay well you clearly have never been or seen a janitor like that's not unless they have a need for a bucket at the moment they're not just carrying them around in case mass murders swing by buckets

have wheels on them anyway i know like they're the only bucket i've ever seen a janitor with is a mop bucket and the thing is is, is like fucking – here's the thing. I got a busket. You got a gun, motherfucker. I know, right? Like a gun versus busket. Like you don't even need to run this simulation from that. Remember that one show where they had animals fought each other and they run a simulation to decide if the polar bear can beat the tiger shark?

Let me tell you something. The gun is going to beat the busket every fucking time. that's that's a pretty low like which is faster heaving a bucket or a two two three rifle not even comparable like the bucket is not traveling at the speed of sound plus like it's not like a mock two bucket it's not a bucket's not a super You don't turn the afterburners on the bucket when you start chucking it. The only way a bucket flies that fast is if it's on a Stealth 2 bomber. That's the only way it goes that fast.

Well, and this fucking fool of a took goes on later to say think of what Sandy Hook might have been like if a couple of male teachers who had played high school football or even some of the huskier 12-year-old boys had converged on him. Well, you know what it would have been like? It would have been like a couple of dead male teachers who had played high school football and some dead husky 12-year-old boys.

Who died. Because I don't give a flying fuck how tough you are. He didn't go in and wrestle them to death no he didn't go in and and attack them with his bare fists and bad attitude he went in and fucking shot them yeah that's what happened and do am i really to believe that a couple of 12 year old husky or not 12 year old kids are expected to rush an armed assailant that's am i a male teacher is expected to rush an armed assailant that's this article says in general a feminized setting this makes me crazy is a setting in which helpless passivity is the norm. Really, women are helplessly passive. Male aggression can be a good thing, as in protecting the weak.

The weak read here as in women. Yeah, sure. But it has been forced out of the culture of elementary schools and the education schools that train their personnel. As if to suggest also that at one time, teaching elementary school was a primarily male-dominated profession. Yeah, no kidding, right? It's never been – it's not been forced out of the elementary schools. It was never part of the elementary schools.

Male teachers are still very much the minority in elementary school. This is so mind-bogglingly offensive and stupid. Well, isn't the gun the great equalizer? Isn't that what it is? You put it in the hands of 50 barely trained people and they could take down any group of people that happen to have any kind of melee weapons at all. So look at a conflict that would erupt between peasants versus the nobility, somebody like a class of warriors that actually had like swords or spears or whatever the fuck they had. They could have anything. They could be a knight carrying another knight and they would still die.

Like you still get shot and die. They could have a crossbow that shoots nights it's like a ballista for nights it just shoots them and they just fly across the field no seriously that is the great equalizer i don't care you know how fast does a man's body drop in comparison to a woman's you know like that's the only thing you're going to be measuring here is how quickly they crumple to the ground when they've been riddled with bullets the this guy didn't come in and he didn't have a fucking machete he had a gun he had a gun that it takes two or three calories of energy to kill another human being or seriously injure them so they can't move i mean he's not you don't have to be a wizard to

wield a gun you know you'll be very unskilled and hurt many, many people with it. And the thing is that people don't understand that. They seem to think there's this fucking Charlie Bronson idea that if a guy ever comes and tries to hold up my school, I'm going to dodge in there and slide in and punch him in the balls and he's going to shriek and drop his gun. No, he's probably just going to shoot you as you run at him. And the idea too that when you're an unarmed dude or an armed dude, I don't care, when you're a person not trained in combat, there's a reason we train the police. There's a reason we train security. There's a reason we train the military. And it's not just because we want them to be tough guys. I mean, you can get a tough guy

without going through all of the training that they put people through. But part of that training that's very important is the psychological training to evaluate, assess, and not fucking run. Yeah. Because if you've ever had a gun pointed at you it is an incredibly scary thing that is the idea that a gun being pointed at you and fired at you while bodies are dropping left and right and you're gonna have the presence of mind and the courage of conviction to not only rush this guy but to rush this guy unarmed yeah and succeed yeah it's so fucking that is he it is he it is a disservice and you know i look at this i read this article and the very first thing i thought when you sent this to me is um i thought about that teacher

in fact she's she's in the article victoriaoto, she saved 20 or so kids, not by male aggression, as this article would have us believe is wanting in the school, but by using her fucking brain and hiding the kids in closets and cabinets and then tricking the gunman into thinking that all the kids had left to go to the gym. He shot and killed her. Sure, she's dead. But she saved 20 some lives. Saved them. She just saved 20 some lives, an entire classroom full of people. She saved. Not by aggression.

Sure, she didn't rush it. But by the antithesis of aggression. Well, I've had, you know, I'm going to speak from authority here. I've had a gun pulled on me. And the first thing I did was run. The first, I didn't even think about it. I mean, it wasn't even like, there wasn't even a moment. And there was three of us.

And he pulled a gun on three of us. And the first thing I did was turn and run. I didn't even care about the people I was with. I was like, this is fucking every man for himself, man. Fuck you. Good luck. I hope you run as fast as me. You don't have to outrun the bear.

You just have to outrun your buddy. No, I'm kidding. And it's totally true. Like fucking friendships that I had had for years were thrown out the window. It's like who cares? I need to get away from this person. And the idea that you're just going to be like, well, I'm going to have to take this guy down. Shut down.

Like nobody thinks that unless they're thinking about it from like a Monday morning quarterback situation where they're thinking, you know, man, if that guy would have done that to me, I'd have beat his ass. Yeah, well, you weren't in that situation, tough guy. Yeah, you don't get to like – and if you get hit by the bullet, you don't get to like pop onto a mushroom and get big again. Yeah, no kidding. It's not how it works. It's not like that. What the actual fuck? What the actual fuck?

What the actual fucking fuck? What the actual flying fuck? What the actual fuck? What the actual fucking fuck fuck? What the actual... The actual flying fuck. What the actual fuck? What the actual fuck is this conservatidia bullshit? What the what? What? What? What the actual fuck, conservatidia?

Abstinence. Studies of the effectiveness of abstinence education programs have yielded differing conclusions. A 2004 study by the Conservative Heritage Foundation found that virginity pledges significantly reduce premarital sex without putting backsliders at risk. A study funded by the administration of liberal President Bill Clinton through Mathematica Policy Research found that the programs had no effect on the sexual abstinence of youth. But this study reached this liberal conclusion by omitting abstinence education during the pivotal high school years and by only following four elementary and middle school programs out of 700 total schools that had received funding. Liberals oppose abstinence policies and Planned Parenthood, a powerful liberal organization, profits from teenage sexual activity. Yet the facts are Thank you. through the absence of sin. Peace of mind in one's life, future relationships, and marriage.

More self-respect, respect for others, and respect from other people. Entering marriage with a more positive outlook and without emotional baggage. Personal freedom for both marriage partners. Significantly better chance of a satisfying and stable marriage. Longer- lasting relationship. Premarital sex breaks up more dating couples than any other factor. No sexual comparisons in marriage. The covenant of marriage entails being free to enjoy maximum sex,

maximum leisure, maximum satisfaction, and maximum liberty in the way God intended. No worries about pregnancy. No worries about pregnancy. No worries about sexually transmitted diseases. No worries about bad reputation. Persons and couples who have premarital sex are more likely to have affairs and commit adultery. Premarital sex often fools a person into marrying someone who really is not right for them.

No fears of rejection and reliance on another's mercy to keep the relationship going. More experienced individuals are generally less desirable and less respected as dating or marriage partners. There is a 98% chance that couples who meet in high school will not marry, so it is always better to maintain purity for the right person, the future wife or husband.

Secular progressive assault. Abstinence is hated among the liberal population, and they work hard to discount the benefits. In insults against Christian principle, Barack Obama has killed funding to abstinence in favor of sex education. Democrats continually roll out studies claiming no benefit to abstinence prevention programs when it is the best choice. Liberals on social media websites have a coordinated abstinence kills babies campaign. Their oh-so-quoy saying mockingly proclaims,

Every time I have my period and don't have sex, a baby dies. This story is from Tribune.com. Mob justice, alleged blasphemer lynched in front of police. This is a story out of Pakistan. Basically, there was a guy in Pakistan who maybe didn't really catch him doing it he maybe burned a Koran but they got back at him for burning a book maybe

by burning him oh yeah that's how you do it because books and people are analogous somehow there is some sort of equation somewhere that somebody is furiously trying to write where they can actually figure out whether or not people are equal to fucking books. I can't believe this.

And the thing is, is like like now they're not even doing it for like outright blasphemy. They're doing it for alleged blasphemy. Right. And really, you could basically kill anybody. Just go like sprinkle some ashes on their Korran and be like they tried to burn it and you could have them put to death this guy had already been arrested he'd been arrested for it's not like he wasn't coming to possibly coming to justice it's that they were so bloodthirsty and so outraged that somebody had damaged this collection of paper, this book, that they stormed the fucking castle like fucking Princess Bride style.

Yeah, they did. They fucking overpowered the police. Too bad this guy didn't have a Holocaust cloak though because if he had one, he'd be fine. They just light him on fire and he wouldn't have burned. If I ever am forced to go to Pakistan for any reason, I'm just going to wear asbestos. I'm going to wear an asbestos and Kevlar vest. That's all I'm going to wear. I'm going to wear a tank.

I'm going to wear the United States Army. Yeah, no kidding. I'm going to wear the entirety of the United States Army. I don't care. I'm going to wear the entirety of the United States Army. I can't even imagine being of such a mindset that they've damaged your – you think this guy has damaged your holy book. And let's even pretend he did it. Sure.

Who cares? Whatever. It's a book. And he's been arrested for it. You're like, not fucking good enough. We didn't beat him in a crowd and set him on fire enough yet. Gosh. I mean it really you know the thing that gets me to is the alleged part you know like i mean and he's already been arrested first off

you have a country that arrests people for doing this which is fucking shocking and stupid but then the person's already been arrested so now they're gonna face charges or you know they're gonna actually collect evidence or whatever now it, that's not good enough. Let's just kill him. Let's just take him out of the police custody and kill him. I mean what kind of – you can't look at your country. You can't look at your society. You can't look at your religion at that point and be like we are civilized.

You can't do it. You can't. You are fucking an ooking tribe of fucking chimpanzees man yeah when when fire is your solution to the problem there are very few problems wherein the solution is did we set that person on fire yet when that's the solution your problems have gotten out of fucking hand i also want to point out before we navigate away that the part of the article that's also kind of killer is there's 200 villagers. There's a dozen police. The 200 villagers stormed the police station.

At the end of the article, the 10 policemen have been charged for negligence. It's 20 to 1. Presumably they have guns, though. Maybe. But if you've got 200 people with fucking pitchforks and fucking torches and shit, I mean, you've got a gun with like 16 bullets in it. I'm letting them through, man. I'm not fucking playing some Gandalf thou shalt not pass shit.

Fuck that noise. It's 16 dead and 184 pallbearers, I guess. Right. It's like, I got 184 more people to shoot me or burn me. Or to burn me, which they most certainly will do since they were provoked by so little before. No kidding. It's like, I mean, you burned our book. We're very angry.

You shot our buddy. Oh, look out. We are vastly more angry. So we're going to take a quick break, give you some information on how to contact us. Don't forget to stick around. At the end of the show, we're going to be visiting with Vicki Garrison from the No Longer Quivering blog. Want to contact Cognitive Dissonance? Visit them on Facebook.

You can find the link at the website, dissonancepod.com, or type it in the Facebook search bar. Be sure to follow the guys on Twitter. Their handle is at dissonance underscore pod. The guys also post to Google Plus now too, so check them out there. And if you'd like to email them, you can do so at dissonance.podcast at gmail.com. You can also leave a comment on the blog at their webpage or give them a call at 740-74-DOUBT. That's 740-743-6828. Long distance rates apply. And to everyone who listens, shares, retweets, or rates the show, Cognitive Dissonance would like to cordially thank you for all of your fucking support. This story is from... This is Lestershire.

Lestershire. Lersh... Lers... Lersenshershire. Wershshershire. Wershshershire. This is from Boston. This is from Boston. This is from Boston.

Terrible. Oh, we're going to get off. People are going to send us, you know, fanatic ways in which to pronounce this, you know. These Americans can't pronounce anything. Maybe we're playing it for a fact. Don't give away all our secrets tom atheist peter crawford in court for ripping up quran at stall in boston that's not boston basically this story gets over this guy gets arrested for tearing up his own book.

Like it's his own Koran. That's the best part of this story. Guy shows up at a stall with Muslims promoting Islam. He pulls out his own Koran, his own copy of it, which I don't know if he brought special purpose for this event. I love the idea of him packing his own Koran from home that day. Or if he just always carries it around in the hopes that someone will offend him. Just in case, Tom. You never know when someone will tell you that the Koran is the true word of God and you'll have the opportunity to tear it up in their face.

And tell them, quote, your religion is a load of bullshit. I love that. I don't love that he points a gun finger at them. What the fuck is that about? That's so dumb. It's so goofy, too. Like, gun fingers? You're pointing your finger like it's a gun and saying, I'll be back for you or whatever.

And they'll be like, wait, you guys didn't even have fucking guns over there. What are you going to do? Point your finger at them again? Right. I know. It's like, wait, you guys don't even have fucking guns over there. What are you going to do? Point your finger at them again? Right. I know. It's like bang, bang. That's still not actually a gun. That's still just a finger.

You do realize that soon. You got to get a knife, bro. That's how you do your fighting over there. Yeah, but the thing is knifey finger just looks a little dirty. It does. It does. Like it's not as scary. You could draw your finger across your neck or something, you know?

Yeah. Like in another threatening gesture that you could actually follow through with. Or you could just speak the threat aloud. Yeah. Just be like, threatening gesture. I am threatening you. And like the thing is, is this guy kind of – this is kind of network news because this guy – there's no reason for this guy to flip out like this. No, he just loses it.

He just kind of flips out, tears some pieces of the Quran up, and they... But the thing, you know, I guess the thing that bothers me is that it's a crime in other countries, but it's also a crime in England. Yeah. It shouldn't be. I don't understand why religion gets a special... Yeah, this guy's

a douchebag, right? Yeah, the guy's a douche. The guy's just a fucking enormous douche nozzle. What the fuck is the point of walking up and being like, I'm an insightful assbag? You know, like what the fuck? There's no reason for it. But he didn't get arrested for making pointy fingers and like threatening these guys. Had he been arrested for that, I'd be like, well, yeah, he fucking threatened some people. He gets arrested for insulting a religion.

That shouldn't be a crime. That's crazy, isn't it? Isn't a religion an idea? Yeah. How can you insult an idea? That would be like insulting conservatives. It's like – and it's an ideology. You're like, OK, well, I don't like conservatives or I don't like – I mean I don't like people who are – who think socialism is a good idea.

I want to insult socialists. If you can't insult socialists, why not? Yeah, just – you're just going to like walk – like any idea are all like conceptual notions somehow subject to a don't insult me clause. Like you can just like walk into like a group of psychologists and be like, I think Rogerian philosophy is a load of bullshit and start tearing out. That's crazy. Like Freud sucks. And then you get arrested for it. No, like every other idea is subject to the critique of the marketplace.

Right. Even if that critique is not a good critique. And that's the only thing that separates this crazy wild-eyed lunatic from a reasoned debate. This guy's critique is not well-reasoned and polite and respectful. But when you make speech subject, when you make a certain set of ideas subject to only certain types of speech, you are – I mean you're just basically saying like, well, we just don't have real free speech in this country. Because it's not a dangerous thing to do, to do that. It's not fire in a crowded theater. It's not the same thing. So we're joined again by Vicki Garrison of the No Longer Quivering blog.

Vicki, could you tell us about your work, about what you do with this blog? Okay, No Longer Quivering, we call it a gathering place for people who are healing and escaping from spiritual abuse. And by spiritual abuse, what I'm talking about is that desire that we have. um or the you know the women who really get deep into the religious faith um and the the walk of faith i think it's because we have this desire to do good to you know lay down our lives for our families to make sure that you know we're um we're doing our best. We're being very loving. We're being very kind. And so we have this desire, but we're not really sure exactly how that plays out. And when these religions, you know, and I think especially because, of course, you know, I'm American and Christianity is very prevalent. But I think especially the evangelical Christian and the fundamentalist Christian faith really plays on that desire and uses it to the point where we end up actually going against our desires. We actually end up harming ourselves, harming our families, harming the people we love in the name of trying to please God, to serve God, to do right.

We end up hurting people. We end up becoming very judgmental, very unloving, unkind, and doing things that don't even make sense. And so, you know, when people come to the blog and they start reading the stories of women who have gone to this extreme, who have lived out this quiverful ideal, and they're just taught, you know, it's a way of processing when you start telling your story and writing it out for other people to read. It's a way of just kind of thinking it through and going, why was I doing that? How did that make sense? And, you know, getting the feedback, it's very much an interactive, you know, it's therapeutic, really, to do that.

But people will come and they'll start reading those stories. And even if they haven't gone to that extreme, even if they are, you know, like I call people, pop Christianity, or pew warmer Christians, even those people who haven't gone to the extreme of quiverful, they will still recognize that mindset in themselves. And they'll say, wow, you know, I see where this is very harmful. And not everyone who comes to no longer quivering ends up atheist. In fact, I would say most don't go quite to that extreme. In fact, I would say most don't go quite to that extreme. And I'm not saying that atheism is extreme and wrong.

I'm just saying that, you know, from fundamentalism to atheism is a huge leap. Sure, to wide swing. Right. But every time that somebody comes and starts reading, it definitely changes the way they understand religion and the way they look at their faith. And they start to think it through and to really analyze what it is they're doing and why they're doing it and how much sense it really does make. Is this really helpful? Is this really good for my family? And so it's kind of like an online support group. I heard you say earlier when we were talking, you said something effective before I got into Christianity. And then obviously now

you're out and you're out of the quiver full movement. Can you tell me a little bit about what was before you got into Christianity? Did you have a different faith tradition or did you just accelerate your Christianity somehow? And then tell me a little bit about why you left the Quiverful movement. What happened? You said something must have happened, I would imagine, to precipitate that change. I was not raised in a Christian home in any way. My mom was kind of, she was a spiritual seeker. She believed in God

and she wanted something. She had that kind of instinct to want to worship and to believe in a higher power or whatever. But she tended more towards the new agey things. She was a she experimented a lot with occultic sort of things, whatever was different and sounded kind of spiritual.

We did a lot of, I don't know how you would describe it, Ouija boards and seances and whatever. But I remember my grandmother saying, just don't ever go to a church because all they care about is showing off their fancy clothes and their new cars. They're just a bunch of hypocrites. And so we never had any of that. But the thing is that my home life was very chaotic. We had a series of stepdads. I have two half-siblings who, you know, none of us had the same dad. We didn't know our dads. A series of boyfriends that came in and out of the house and moving all the time.

You know, it was just wild. And so I was looking for stability. I just wanted to settle down. I wanted some answers. I wanted that assurance, that blessed assurance, you know. And so I turned to the Bible and I started, you know, praying and asking God, show me how to live my life because I don't want to, you know, have this total chaos that I've been living. I would like to have purpose and direction.

And so what I got, you know, I was looking for a sure foundation. And that's, you know, that's why I went for the fundamentalist Christianity. You know, when I got into it, I totally threw myself into it. And I wanted that security. I wanted those firm answers. I wanted black and white, yes or no, chapter and verse, because it felt safe to me. Was there like a quiverful church down the road? Or how did you get involved there? The thing about quiverful, you know, I like to define it as a very powerful head trip.

It's more of a mindset of fundamentalism than it is. You know, there's not like a doctrinal statement that you sign and and say, this is what I believe. But it's more like. It's like regular Christianity. It's the things that are taught, but the living out of it. You know, once you get that idea, that literalistic approach to your faith where, you know, if God says it, I'll do it, period. And this whole idea, it's like you get this vision that God, because he's our creator, because he's the one who made us, he knows us intimately. He knows what is best for us, the best way to live, what is going to be really fulfilling for us. And so once you get that mindset and you start going to the Bible and searching out, you know, digging in there and saying, you know, what does God want for my life?

What you're going to find is patriarchy. You're going to find, you know, that women are supposed to submit, that women are supposed to be homemakers, that women are supposed to be producing, you know, fruitful and like a fruitful vine. producing, you know, fruitful and like a fruitful vine, you know, it's like this vision that you get in your head. You're like, here's how I can have the perfect life. And it really is an ideal of perfection. It's like trying to get back to that Garden of Eden where everything is just great and fine because you're in God's will. You know, I always go back to Corrie Ten Boom because I remember reading The Hiding Place. And she talks about being in that hiding place. And the hiding place isn't a particular location.

The hiding place is, according to Corrie Ten Boom's, you know, what she laid out there in that book is that when you're in the center of God's will, And what she laid out there in that book is that when you're in the center of God's will, when you are doing what God wants you to do, then you are in that safe place. God will protect you. God will make everything work for you. And so, you know, no matter where you are, no matter what's going on, no matter, you know, what kind of chaos, if you're in a concentration camp or whatever, if you're in the center of God's will, then you are in that safe hiding place. And, you know, nothing can touch you, because basically, you've got God surrounding you and protecting you. And that's, that's really the appeal, the draw, quiverful. and what what got me into it and i think what what gets most christian families into it was through homeschooling that's where and homeschooling is really growing among evangelicals because of the fear because you know we've got the whole

end time thing with left behind and um and then we have this fear of our government because, you know, we have a liberal president and the secular schooling. Every time that a liberal or progressive agenda or whatever, you know, ideal is put into place and implemented, it scares the Christians. They feel like they're losing ground. They feel like Satan is winning the battle. And their reaction, the reaction that they do is like, well, I've got to keep my kids safe. And so the thing that they do is they decide to homeschool. And once you get into that homeschooling, there's this whole world. Christian homeschooling, and I will say that there are homeschoolers who are not doing it for religious reasons.

I know atheists who homeschool, but Christian homeschooling is not about academics. homeschooling is not about academics. It is not about providing, you know, a high standard of quality education for your kids. It is about a lifestyle. It is about biblical family values. It's about protecting your children. It's like they, you know, it's kind of like this protection racket that they've got going where they hype you up with all of this fear. They say, you know, here's all the enemies that are out to get your children. And we have the solution. And the solution is, and I figured this out, you know, after I got out. Because I went down in my basement where we kept our homeschooling supplies.

And I started looking around. And we had shelf after shelf after shelf of materials that were teaching this lifestyle and I was like wow you know this is like a business and I hadn't really thought about it before but it's it's a marketing thing they're selling you protection and they're selling books and seminars and workshops and tapes and DVDs and, you know, retreats where you can go, and you can learn about family values. And when they're talking about biblical family values, they're talking about patriarchy. They're talking about, you know, trusting the Lord with your family planning, prolific motherhood, homeschooling, sheltering your children.

And by sheltering, that means like you basically your kids have no life. You're such a restrictive environment for the children because you just have to control every outside influence to keep the world of flesh, the devil on the outside. So, you know, to protect your home from those influences. How many children did you have? Seven. Seven children. Now, when you were you were homeschooling all of these children? Well, okay, so my health really took a toll. Okay, so my health really took a toll. And I would say that my children were home. And the schooling part was very hit and miss, mostly miss. Because I was overwhelmed.

And my health was so bad that there were days where I couldn't even get out of bed. My oldest daughter did a lot of the homeschooling. And if it wasn't for her, I don't know if my kids would have learned anything it was it was very much you know i mean they give you this ideal and say that you can do all of this but in reality it's a very demanding lifestyle that is unsustainable it is really impractical and it can't be done um anybody who who says they're doing it you You know, the Diggers, have you seen 19 and Counting? Oh, yeah. I've seen like advertisements for the show. It's not a show I would sit down and watch, though.

You know, they make it look like it's doable. I remember watching Michelle Duggar when it was like 14 and pregnant again or something like that. And I was just so enthralled. I was like, wow, you know, she is my idol. And that is what I'm looking for.hralled. I was like, wow, you know, she is my idol. And that is,

that is what I'm looking for. That is what I'm hoping for. My life and my family was not coming anywhere near to that standard. But that was the vision that I had. That's the kind of family that I wanted. And the thing is, you know, it's all picture perfect and everything. But anybody who says that they're actually making it work for them, I'm sorry, but no. Don't you – I mean don't you really have to treat your children like indentured servants though at a certain point to actually achieve any kind of ideal? I mean you really – if you have that many children, it's – I mean what they're up to now. What are they up to? Sixty-seven children or something, whatever they're up to? Some ridiculous number.

Yeah, but any – they have a whole clown car full of children, basically. So the thing is, is that is that they have so many children that that they have to basically take those children and they have to to make them parent the other younger children, because at a certain point they're going to be too exhausted to parent them all. And they call it the buddy system. You know, as soon as the, as soon as the child is born, you know, by the time they're a few months old, they are paired up with an older buddy who is responsible for making sure the kid is dressed, fed, and, you know, the, the older buddies will do the homeschooling and they will um you know basically parent the younger sibling um yeah it's it's not a good deal for the kids because they have their life all pre-packaged and handed to them and like this is how you're going to do it and they don't have choices they don't they aren't encouraged to um to really think about

what they want their life to be like what they you know what their interests are or anything it's like here's what god wants for your life that buddy system's a raw deal it's like i'm gonna tell my wife we got a buddy system i got one kid i'm like he buddy. I'm not going to do any of the work. That's how, that's a terrible system. It's not a system. It sounds like it would be a great deal for the guy, you know, because he's basically got this submissive wife. He's got kids who are just totally focused on obeying daddy. But it turns out that it really sucks for the men too.

It is not a good system all around. It's not a healthy way of relating and it's very manipulative. It's very twisted. And what you end up with is people who are miserable. You know, they hate themselves. They hate each other. All, are miserable. You know, they hate themselves, they hate each other, all because they're trying

to conform to this standard that does not allow for any deviations. It doesn't allow for different personality types. It doesn't allow for different gifts and talents or for weaknesses. You know, if a man doesn't happen to have that leadership type of personality, too bad. He's got to suck it up and lead anyway. You know, it's just it's very rigid. It's very oppressive. And yet people are just contorting themselves to make themselves fit this standard that, you know, is like biblical family. This is how biblical families are.

How did you get, how did you leave this behind? How did you push yourself past this? It got to a point of desperation for me because my health was so bad. And I was seeing that my children were not thriving. My children were, you know, I could tell that our homeschooling was failing. My kids were unhappy. They were like, they had no lives. They had no personality.

It was like they were just shadows. They're like little robots or something. They were living in fear. They were living in, you know, it was just so stressful. And I remember reading a verse in Ecclesiastes that says it's the gift of God that a man should enjoy the fruits of his labor. And that word labor just triggered me because I knew about labor. And when I thought fruits of labor, I'm thinking, okay, kids. And I realized that I wasn't enjoying all these children. I had a quiver full of children, but I was not enjoying them or being around them because I was so exhausted.

I was so wiped out. And they weren't enjoying. None of us were happy. But I got to the point where I just realized that I couldn't keep living that way. where I just realized that I couldn't keep living that way. And at about that same time, I had an opportunity to meet my uncle, whom I had not known ever. And he is an unbeliever.

You know, I was warned to stay away from him, that he was a tricky person, that he would just try to confuse me. But for some reason, you know, because I was like this good Christian apologist, I read Josh McDowell and Walter Martin and Robbie Zacharias. So I wasn't worried that he was going to, you know, plus I had my own personal testimony because of all the times that, you know, God answered prayers and all the things that he had done in my life, et cetera, et cetera. He was so real to me that there's no way I, you know, I was just convinced that there's no way that I would be talked out of my faith or whatever. So when I met my uncle, I don't know, we just kind of hit it off immediately. We had this connection and we just started writing to each other through email and it was uh it was an opportunity for me to start re-evaluating what i was doing and why i was doing it because i knew

that you know things weren't working i was you know tending to blame myself that i must not be doing it right i must not have the right understanding I must not have enough faith whatever you know but writing to my uncle was a way for me to start thinking again thinking kind of outside the box and trying to look more objectively at what I was doing and that was the beginning. What it led to was me coming to the conclusion that fundamentalism was our problem and that this whole literalistic interpretation of the Bible and it wasn't very long after I realized that that I started realizing that, you know,

if I didn't believe it literally, I actually didn't believe it at all. And I found myself, you know, if I didn't believe it literally, I actually didn't believe it at all. And I found myself, you know, not appreciating Jesus or any of it. And so it was kind of scary. It was very scary, actually. You know, when I had built my whole life on this firm foundation of the word of God and a personal relationship with Jesus. And all of a sudden, that is all gone. I didn't believe any of it. And yet I still have this lifestyle. We were even making our living by publishing a Christian family newspaper.

Oh, no. So everything, everything was just, you know, like my purpose for everything that I was doing in life was gone. Now your children at a certain point, um, they were all taught this. They grew up like this. Where are they at? Are they in the, are they still believers? Are they falling towards you or where do they sit? Well, they all have like their own personalities and everything, which they weren't allowed that during their quiverful day. Oh, no. We're like, okay, whatever. You know, you guys get to discover yourselves.

You get to invent, you know, who you are and what's important to you and everything. And so they've all kind of taken their own paths as far as, you know, what they believe and everything. And I think at this point, like, none of them really believe it anymore. I have several who are just outright atheists and say, you know, that's all bullshit. But, you know, because it was so oppressive for the children, I mean, I chose that lifestyle. It was a deliberate decision. And I, you know, I remember my thought process that led me into it. And I remember why I was doing it, I had that motivation and that inspiration. And so for me, it was, you know, at the time, it was a very, I don't know, I felt like it was a good experience.

But my kids who were born into it, who had no choice about it, who felt very oppressed by it, they were more than happy when I said, you know, I just don't believe this anymore. And we're just not going to have chapter and verse. We're going gonna figure these things out for ourselves they were more than happy to go that route and say um you know they were they were thrilled when i put them in public school and let them have televisions and xbox and you know all these things that they never, you know, friends, they started to have friends. So for them, it's been like, yippee, they're happy.

They are so glad to, you know, and they have the contrast of what it was like when, you know, they basically had these little cookie cutter kids to not have that kind of oppression and that kind of rigidity, they're thrilled. They're all pretty happy. If someone – if a woman were to come into this movement, let's say she was raised and the people that she was raised by thought that this quiverful thing was a good idea. She came from, say, a big family and she married someone who thought it was a good idea. And come to find out she's barren. How would that affect something? I mean because women – I mean you even said there are baby factories in this faith tradition.

They don't really serve much of a purpose except for to procreate. What kind of life would someone who doesn't have the ability to have children, what kind of life would they expect in this kind of faith tradition? Right. And we have had women come to no longer quivering who were in that situation, and it was hell. It was very much they felt worthless. They felt judged. They felt like it was their fault, Um, that, you know, obviously

they were not pleasing to God. Um, you know, and so they, they were definitely under a lot of condemnation, a lot of guilt. Um, I knew one, one woman while I was in it who was barren and she, you know, basically devoted her life to, um, taking care of other mothers and their kids. It was like she still couldn't go out and get a job because that would be out of God's will. But she didn't have any children of her own, so she baked a lot of casseroles to the women who were having babies. It was very sad to see. Oh, that's awful. Well, we want to thank you so much for taking the time out to talk with us today, Vicki.

And if people were going to find your blog, where would they go? If you type in nolongaquivering.com, it will come up. So we do have that domain, even though it's on Pathio. So that makes it less complicated to try and find. But yeah, no longer quivering. Okay. Thanks so much for visiting with us today, Vicki. We really appreciate it.

So we got a couple of voicemails. I can't play one because it's three minutes long. So someone had called us up and left a long voice voicemail. We're going to paraphrase it after we're done to talk about a little bit about what the person talked about, but it's three minutes long. It's a little too long. Uh, but we are going to play two other voicemails. One of them, which one of them was, uh, Travis from Utah. So we're going to play those right now.

And then we're going to talk about them right afterwards. What's up, Tom and C. So this is Steve, the tow truck driver. Um, it's not that we, uh, forget to rate you on iTunes. What's up, Tom and Cecil? This is Steve, the tow truck driver. It's not that we forget to rate you on iTunes. It's just that once we pick up the bag of Doritos, we have to go to the Doritos website to rate how delicious the Doritos were. So I do apologize for the rating situation,

but I don't apologize for eating burritos thanks guys hey guys is Travis here back again I was just thinking after my last rant maybe there should be something done not regarding guns but maybe mental illness you know why don't we take a closer look at the mental illness within this country? Maybe register the mentally ill. Maybe make sure that families that have mental

ill people in their home, they're properly storing guns or maybe suggest they don't own guns. Maybe let their neighbors know that there's a problem there and they should store their guns properly and that they should be aware and awake

and involved with their neighbors. Maybe that's a better solution than gun control. Anyway, maybe you guys can speak to that. We appreciate it again. And talk to you again. Bye. We want to talk about Travis here. Travis also called and left a three-minute message talking about a couple of things.

One of the things he said was he was talking about our gun control talk that we had last time, and he had mentioned, Tom, that waiting periods don't work mainly because if like a woman were to get – being abused or being threatened and she has to wait for a gun, she could get killed in the time that she's waiting for a gun. And he also mentioned that registries don't work because Canada had tried to do a registry and it failed up there. I do want to say that just because another country tried to do something and failed doesn't mean they tried the only way that we can do a registry and fail. It wasn't like they did the platonic ideal of registry and they tried the perfect registry and it totally didn't work. They had bureaucracy just like we would have bureaucracy. But we could probably learn from their mistakes. I mean they tried it for 10 years and totally didn't work. They had bureaucracy just like we would have bureaucracy, but we could probably learn from their mistakes. I mean, they tried it for 10 years and it didn't work. So let's take a look and see what they did and then try to work it from there. I do think registries would help. I know that there is a big obstacle to overcome

in this country, mainly because of all the guns that already exist. But I think a start would be the registry. First off, you have to pay to have your guns registered. So that helps fund the process. And then you also make sure that you post people that are at the places where people actually use their guns. So where the people are shooting, you either post people or have people visit randomly to make sure that guns are registered at those places. And then when you show up, they have to register their guns. And if you find people without guns that are registered, you should confiscate those guns. I think that those are the, you know, if you set yourself up at the shooting ranges, you could start collecting, basically collecting guns at every shooting range you visit if they choose not to register them.

So then you start funding the program that way. If you could catch people hunting too, there's lots of ways in which you, people use their guns. You just find those people that are using their guns and make sure that they're registering it. I don't care that grandpa's, you know, shotgun that hasn't been shot in seven years isn't registered. I just care when it gets out into the street, when it, that, then it needs to get registered. So that's what I'm talking about.

And I think there are safe and, and intelligent ways to go about that. Even if Canada failed at it. Yeah, just because something is not perfect doesn't mean it's not worth trying. That's for sure. You can't let – as you've said, you can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I think that that's important to note. One of Travis's other comments was the idea of registering or keeping tabs on the mentally ill. I have to say I've heard this a couple of times.

The idea that we are so in love with guns that we are immune to the idea of registering them. We just shriek away at that. But we would register people. That seems like the greatest possible invasion of privacy. There's so many problems with that. It's so incredibly insulting. You have to determine, okay, well, which mental illnesses are we going to register? Because clearly, you're not going to register everybody who's ever taken a Prozac for six months. Or we're going to register new moms who have postpartum depression. Are we going to register students with ADHD?

I really strongly object to this idea that mental illness is somehow fundamentally different than physical illnesses and so is more necessarily dangerous. We wouldn't say we're going to register everybody with certain physical illnesses. That would be horrible, even if the intention was to register them for a bone marrow transplant database. No way. Abso-fucking-lutely not. We're not going to put people on a registry.

It's an invasion of privacy. The government has no business in people's medical records. And somehow mental illness for a lot of people gets a pass on that as if it's some separate and different category, despite the fact that mental illnesses are real. They're biologically based. It's a legitimate illness of the body. And somehow it would be okay to register people instead of guns. And I also think it's totally useless.

Somebody could be not mentally ill on Tuesday and three weeks later could have a psychotic break and develop symptoms and engage in activity that reflects their status as a mentally ill person. It's not that cut and dry. It's not a good idea. I also want to talk about the waiting periods really quickly, Tom. You had an interesting point when we talked about this earlier. I think, Travis, when you say that the waiting periods don't work because what if a woman wanted to get a gun and she couldn't and then she got killed? I think you're – not only are you – you're placing this all on a single scenario. You're also saying how that scenario would have worked if she had a gun.

There's no guarantee that if she had a gun, it would have protected her at all. It might have been in her glove compartment. It might not have been loaded. It might have been in the other room. The person might have wrestled the gun away from her and taken it and shot her with it. So, you know, there's a lot of – I think there's a lot of trust in your scenario and understanding whether or not she would have been able to protect herself. I think waiting periods have been proven to work, and we're going to talk a little bit about the waiting periods they have in Canada later on.

But hey, it's a healthy debate. If you don't agree with us, that's cool. You don't have to agree with us. Nobody has to agree with us. But these are some ideas that Tom and I thought would be good ideas and could be useful. Tom, we got a quick message from Francois. Francois says – Francoise is it? I don't know.

Whatever. It's a fucking foreign name, so I mispronounced it. It's Francoise. It's Francoise. So Francoise says that she used a clip from our show as a ringtone. And the clip, Tom, is of me saying dove because fuck your children. That's the clip. That has got to be the weirdest ringtone don't let that ring when you're picking up your kid at the daycare or touring the dove manufacturing facility yeah no yeah you want to avoid it too yeah but thank you for using our voices ringtone it's funny i like tom's laugh

after that too it's pretty good tom we got got an email from Gabrielle to give her advice. In a nutshell, Gabrielle is asking – she is an atheist and her mother is definitively not from the sound of this email. And her and her fiancé are having the should we, shouldn't we children debate. And she's asking if we have any advice on that subject. Yeah, she's worried that it might put a rift between her and her mother if she has children and raises them as atheists. I personally, now I'm child-free. Tom, you have children, but I am child-free, happily child-free.

And I will say right now that the children, not children discussion needs to happen in a vacuum away from other things in your life. So you need to think about it in a way like, do I really want to have children? Do I not really want to have children? It's okay not to have children. It's okay to have children, but you need to think about it and not think about, uh, think about how that affects other people in your life, but how it specifically, how it's going to affect you and your life. Once you get past that decision, whether you decide to have children or not, um, then you, then you go through with it and then you worry about the consequences of that act later on. Yeah. I can't imagine if you really want to have children, um, then fuck your mom. You know what I mean? She's let her be unhappy. That's not your problem. You're not there

to make your mom happy. That's, I mean, it's great if she is, but I mean, if she's not happy, then she's not happy. And if you don't want to have children, then don't have children, but don't let it be because, you know, mom doesn't want you to have children or mom's going to get upset. If you raise your children a different way than she wants you to have children. Her mom is going to get upset if you raise your children in a different way than she wants you to raise your children. Let your mom be unhappy. Her happiness or unhappiness is not your responsibility. Yeah, and you're going to be raising the children.

You're going to be raising the children. That's your job as a parent. You're going to raise your children. You receive very little advice from outside. I mean I'm sure you'll receive unsolicited advice all the time from outside. But you'll make those decisions on your own. So I would make the decision on whether or not I was going to have children first and then deal with the consequences later on, whatever those consequences are. And if the consequences are your mom doesn't like it, your mom is mad at you, it causes a rift between you. Your child is going to come first.

That's what always happens. But good luck to you. We hope everything works out. We want to thank Chris for sending in a rant. We enjoyed your rant. Thank you for sending a link to your rant to us. Aiden sent us an email, Tom. Aiden is a member of the Canadian law enforcement.

They only have one. It's the Canadian law enforcement. They only have one. It's the Canadian law enforcement. The Canadian. Now, he's a law enforcement officer in Canadia, and he sends us a little bit of a correction on what we talked about last time. One of the things that I wanted to mention was we said it was a waiting period on guns. It's not. It's a waiting period on licenses.

So if you want to buy a light, if you want to get a license to buy a gun, he says here for five years, you have to wait and they can call people that you list as references and they can talk to them. But it's not like a letter of recommendation system, but the avenue is open. So their system is very different, I think, than ours because each state has different regulations on the way in which you buy guns. And I'm really only familiar with the state, our state, which has the FOID, which you don't, which lasts, I think, for 10 years. You use it to buy guns and ammunition, but you technically really don't even need it if you want to buy it from a personal, like private party. And there's all these weird little gun laws that pop up state to state. Yeah, I appreciate the correction, though.

We certainly don't intend to get these things wrong. It's just that I research things so very poorly. Yeah, yeah. I didn't even click on links inside of blogs. I didn't even bother. Thank you for sending it, though, Aiden. We appreciate it. We got an email from Joel, Tom.

I like the sign here. The sign reads, he sends us a sign that says, religion is like a penis. It's fine to have one. It's fine to be proud of it. But please don't whip it out in public and start waving around. And please don't try to shove it down our children's throats. I like that. Richard

sends us an email from Northumberland. Northumberland? Northumberland. Northumberland? Northumberland. Northumberland. Terrible. Yeah. Thank you, Richard, for sending us an email.

He's happy that he found Cognitive Dissonance. And we are happy you found us as well. So we want to thank Vicki Garrison again for joining us and talking about her blog, No Longer Quivering. So you can go to NoLongerQuivering.com to about her blog, uh, no longer quivering. So you can go to no longer quivering.com to find her blog. It's on the Patheos set of blogs there. That was a fascinating conversation we had with her. It was great. It was great. I'm really glad she came on the show. So, uh, we're gonna, we're gonna wrap the show up now, but we will leave you as always with the skeptics creed. Credulity is not a virtue it's fortune cookie cutter mommy issue hypno babylon bullshit couched in scientician double bubble toil and trouble pseudo quasi alternative

acupunctuating pressurized stereogram pyramidal free energy healing water 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, evangelantis, 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