Cognitive Dissonance - Episode 89: The Thinking Atheist

Episode Date: March 1, 2013

Special thanks to Seth Andrews of the and author of the book for joining us this time.

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. Reverend Mazur, Reverend Rock, I'm grateful for your generous invitation to state my views. While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight,

I want to emphasize from the outset that I believe that we have far more critical issues in the 1960 campaign. The spread of communist influence until it now festers only 90 miles from the coast of Florida. The humiliating treatment of our president and vice president by those who no longer respect our power, the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor's bills, the families forced to give up their farms, and America with too many slums, with

too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space. These are the real issues which should decide this campaign, and they are not religious issues. For war and hunger and ignorance and despair, no, no religious barrier. But because I am a Catholic, and no Catholic has ever been elected president, the real issues in this campaign have been obscured, perhaps deliberately, in some quarters less responsible than this. So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again, not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me, Not what kind of church I believe in, for that should be important only to me, but what kind of America I believe in.

I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute. Where no Catholic prelate would tell the president, should he be Catholic, how to act. And no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote. Where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference, and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him. 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 mat. This is episode 89 of Cognitive Dissonance, and we are joined today by the thinking atheist. I know last week we had the friendly atheist. We're going through all of the adjectives available to us for atheists. Today we have the thinking atheist, and we're very glad to have you on the show. Thank you for being here. It's my pleasure. Now, I always like to sort of draw a big circle around the fact that I'm Seth Andrews, host of The Thinking Atheist.

But in a world of people like A.C. Grayling and Stephen Hawking and Richard Carrier, I don't posit myself as the thinking. I'm on the C team. And honestly, The Thinking Atheist is an idea. It's the icon with a bulb in it that essentially says it's okay for those of us coming out of the church where they told us to shut off your brain, take everything on faith. My community encourages everyone to start thinking, keep thinking, engage the organ between your ears. So lest anyone think I have the hubris to call myself the Thinking Atheist, I ain't. I just simply host the community. And the larger thing is just everybody's welcome to come in and be as critical as they want

about pretty much anything. Well, I have to disagree with you because we're a minute and a half into the show and already you've out-thought me. So I would disagree with your assessment. Tom, the multi-syllable words really do come in handy when you're in a dialogue with people. It doesn't take much. Don't get me wrong. I was just going to say, Tom, this is a real easy thing.

What he's done is very simple. So the first story we're going to cover today comes from NPR, that bastion of liberal media. And the title of the story is Sometimes the Lord Seemed to Sleep, the Pope Says in Farewell. Now, for those unfamiliar or living in Iraq, Pope Palpatine is stepping down to spend more time with his liver spots. And according to his farewell address, he kind of went out on a sour note, Seth. he kind of went out on a sour note, Seth. I mean, it felt like he kind of threw a shot over the bow here to God. You know, Mother Teresa did the same thing. You know, it seems like everybody sort of wants to give that equivocation at the end of the deal.

Like, well, hey, look, he wasn't always around. I had my doubts. I've had my questions. You know, it's a natural human thing. As if on the way out is the time to make that announcement. There may be a problem here. Houston, we have a problem. And honestly, it's almost played like a virtue. You know, we've all been through that moment in the valley where we ask for the voice of God and heard nothing.

And yet I still knew he was there as if it's a virtue. And I'm looking at, you know, I'm looking at Benedict going, whoa, wait a minute. You know, you're the freaking Pope. And he was asleep for you. Hey, you're supposed to be the guy with the bat line. Like he's got the Commissioner Gordon head. Like he can summon the big G bat signal at any moment like he's freaking infallible yeah you are you are his number one you're his number one and you can't get a call

back there's a huge problem that's like joe biden saying like yeah listen i don't have obama's email so you're gonna have the guns like, really? Fucking really? Well, you know, I think there's something about the aged, and this is, I know, a gross oversimplification, but there's something about the advancing in years that sort of removes the filters, right? So people really say what, for better or for worse, they really say what they're thinking. It's like asking your grandmother something. You're just going to hear whatever's on her mind, whatever it is. So this is probably the most honest he's been. Hey, there were times when we got nothing. There were times when we tossed, we threw the long ball waiting for God to catch it, and there was nothing. I mean, there was

nothing. And for him to say something like that, honestly, is kind of a revelation. Hey, there were times when, yeah, nothing really happened. I wonder why. It draws a big circle around, I think, the larger problems. I have to admit, I saw this and I was pleasantly shocked that there would be this sort of admission of non-responsiveness to his deity. I mean, from,

even if he felt this privately, you know, there's such a difference. And like you said, maybe it's the age filter. It's being removed. Maybe he doesn't even know when he's speaking in front of other people at this point. Who knows? But, you know, he sort of did become the mumbler in chief there at the end. I always found myself listening to the, you know, to the papal prayer and thinking, what the fuck? What did he just say?

What did he just say? And, of course, there are, you know, 100,000 people at rapt attention. Like, it's a big deal. All you hear is, like, the soft whir of the breathing machine behind him. Like, that's all you hear. Get my Pope poking stick. We got to wake him back up. What a Pope poking stick. Look, somebody explain the Catholic Church to me.

What a Pope-spoken state. Look, somebody explain the Catholic Church to me. Maybe it's because I'm a product of Protestant Christianity in Oklahoma, which is my home state. And we have about two Catholics here. And they only go to church because they like bingo and beer. That's it. Like most good Catholics. I mean, they don't really do anything other than invoke God, go to Mass, and drink beer.

And that's all they do. And that's at least here in this region. But I look at the Catholic Church, and I think this, it's like if you had decided, let's make a caricature of a church. Let's put together something that is really outrageous, and it looks like a costume ball gone horribly wrong, and let's put on all these traditions and smoke and incense and toss in a bit of scandal and some mafia corruption and all these others. Let's just make it crazy. And the Catholic Church is that, and yet it is taken seriously across the globe.

And I can't figure out for the life of me how it has survived and thrived for all this time. I just don't get it. It has a lot to do, obviously, with tradition, I think, is the reason why Catholic Church is still taken seriously. Because you're right. You're absolutely right. Go to a Catholic mass seriously because you're right. You're absolutely right. Go to a Catholic mass and you're right. It's the incense. It's the, um, they have, they, they try to incorporate all five senses into their, into

their, into their mass. They have, you know, the taste, they have the smell of the incest, uh, incest. Where'd that come from? Uh, the incense, uh, it's not incest. It's pedophilia. I mean it's totally different. But no, they have all these sort of throwbacks to an ancient culture I think. And really when you look at the Bible, what is the Bible? It's a throwback to an ancient culture.

They just embody it I think. And I think that there's a lot of tradition that the reason why people still go, I mean, you talk to people who are Catholic. I know dozens of people. I know more than that. I know hundreds of people who are Catholic. And really, if you did delve into their beliefs, it really does come down to tradition. You know, my mom did it. All these other people did it. They don't really sit and listen to these sermons. They just go there for the, you know, the moments where they have to do the jumping jacks and then go up and get the food. That's what they do. It's almost like you're hitting the reset for the week. I did a video on it where the confessional was like a vending

machine. And you just essentially go in and you put in your money and you make your selection and you're out and you're satisfied for a week. And that's kind of how I feel. I also, I can't help myself when I think about the Catholic church and the bishops and the Pope and all these. I always think of that scene in the 1982 classic Flash Gordon with Ming the Merciless. As all of the various tribes come to pay tribute, you know, and you hear the soundtrack going. Every time I see the Pope or a bishop or somebody in a big hat, that's exactly what I think about. For those born after, say, 1975, you'll want to YouTube that. Flash Gordon, 1982, Ming the Merciless, and you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

That is outrageous and awesome. Now, I got to ask a question. So firstly, I don't really know your standpoint fully. Are you are you because I've listened to several of your shows and I really can't pin it down. And I don't want to pin you down here either. If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to. But are you more anti religion or are you more let's be tolerant to religion and see if we can work it all out? Look, I don't want to comp out here.

What I want to say is this. I'm an opponent of religion. I mean, you could be said that I'm the enemy of religion. I hate what religion does to us. I'm bitter about what it did to me. I'll admit that I feel like I was duped for most of the – all the years of my childhood and many of the years of my young adulthood is I feel like I was just, I was isolated in this cocoon and never knew the difference and I'm pissed off. I feel like, you know, wait a minute.

Why was I never taught how to think critically? Why did I not have a chance to discover the world? Well, I, I believe I was inhibited early and they just drill the fear of hell into you and they have you surrounded with people who believe in the sky wizard and the talking snake and it's normal that's your normal and so yeah i mean i'm an enemy of religion where i draw the line is this i'm as hard as i can be on religion as long as we're going after it um and to we're destroying the false to make room for the true as robert green ingersoll once said but i love people

and so what i hate is whenever people start throwing those grenades at the believer. You know, oh, they're all stupid. They're all haters. They're all ignorant. They're all these horrible things. They're all monsters. That's where I start to pull back and say, you know, let's go after the dogma. But whenever possible, let's remember that we're talking about human beings, many of which are good people.

And that's where I fall. I see. Okay. Well, I do have a question, though. So now there's a lot of uh there's a lot of talk about what they're going to do now they have this plan for you know obviously they have to they have to get a new pope the pope's going to stay there i guess under uh like care support yeah i mean i don't know like what it really what it really might be is immunity right

it might be he's staying there because he's he's immune to any any crimes that may have been committed while he was on on the watch. You know, that's what look at his age. I just don't think I think he's immune. Yeah, there's no freaking. It's true. It's true. He's not competent to stay on trial. He can't even stand.

By the time they throw him through the process, he's 95 right before they get to whatever supreme authority there's going to be as far as the court systems are concerned. It'd be a nightmare in the court of public opinion. It's not going to go anywhere. So I think, quite frankly, they're just going to put him out to pasture. They're going to call him a figurehead and pat him on the head until that day comes when he passes away. But he'll never be really held responsible. But when they're looking for this new pope, how could – do you think that there's anybody that they could choose? And I'm not saying that you know anything about anybody who's even remotely in the running. But a type of person that they could choose that would maybe mend some fences that have been sort of broken?

Bruce Campbell. I want Bruce Campbell proposed. Bruce Campbell can mend all fences. You know, I don't disagree. I don't disagree at all. Well, I think, look, the larger problem isn't just the person that you put in there. Whoever you're going to nominate is going to be, they're going to find some baggage. There's never going to be the perfect case like the american political system you know anybody in the running is is obviously going to have some skeletons and they're going to

find them right i think the larger problem is the system i mean we are in a culture where people are really starting to walk away especially the 30 and undercraft we're starting to walk away from religiosity they're they're just sick and They're sick and tired of people telling them that contraception is bad. Well, wait a minute. In fact, when it comes to the church's stance on just about anything regarding sexuality, the under 30 crowd is saying, screw that. I don't buy any of that. The church doesn't represent me on that, and I'm not going to live that way.

I mean, look at the percentage of the people in the Catholic Church, which stands against the use of condoms, who use contraceptives. People are just getting less and less accommodating about the church, and I think the church is becoming less and less relevant. Now, it's going to be around for a long, long time, but that's a bigger challenge. Whoever's in the hot seat is being taken less and less seriously every single year and mostly by the next generation. I'll be curious to see how relevant the church is in a half century. You know, I saw it in an article, I don't remember if it was this one or not, but also discussing the Lord seemed to sleep. You know, one of the things the Pope also said in this address, he looked out, and this is for real, You know, one of the things the pope also said in this address, he looked out and this is for real.

He looked out and he was addressing, you know, how many tens of thousands of people. And he said to those people and all the people listening, he asked them to pray for him. A man who lives in a golden palace. Please pray for me, he said. Not like for the church, not for the, you know the the papal we so to speak but like sure not for the 30 000 people who will starve to death today right no pray for the guy in the gilded car with the bulletproof glass on it yeah that's the guy who really needs intercession go figure i don't i don't really understand it. And I think – do I think Benedict has a good heart? Whatever.

Maybe the guy does. Maybe he does. I don't know. He might have had one once. He may have had a heart. I don't know. Do I think he's the devil? No.

Do I think he's all these horrible things? Probably not. But I have a real problem with the fact that he is the franchise player for the catholic church and he is going to have to come forward and not just apologize for but begin to solve the problems of pedophilia sexual abuse corruption and cover-up within his own establishment and i don't care how what a sweet old man he is, he's responsible. He's got to come forward. He's got to lead by example.

He's going to have to put himself out there and fix it. And he did not. And that's a problem. Well, I heard there's like this lab in the Vatican where they're going to take him. They have this brand new technology. They're going to rebuild him and turn him into Robo-Pope. And then that's how he's going to handle all these problems. He's going to handle all those.

You just wait. You just got to wait for it. Well, I how he's going to handle all these problems. He's going to handle all those problems. You just wait. You just got to wait for it. Well, I think he's already – does he have the waving hand thing? Because that's pretty easy to replicate in the lab. You just put a couple of servos in there and you're all set. He can wave his hand all day. He can wave his hand and never get tired. He'll never get tired from it.

So we're going to be back with Seth Andrews, author of Deconverted, A Journey from Religion to Reason, available on Amazon right now. But he's also the host of the Thinking Atheist podcast. We'll be back with him at the end of the show. So if you're new to Cognitive Dissonance, you have to suffer with us for a little bit. But don't worry. We're going to have a nice long interview with Seth at the very end that you're going to want to stick around for. So, Cecil, this story is from the BBC News.uk.

Cardinal Keith O'Brien resigns as archbishop. They can't keep anybody these days. And I have to ask this out of total ignorance and legitimately. How do you resign as the archbishop? Are you still a priest at that point? Like if you resign, legitimately, I'm asking, like if I'm the archbishop? Are you still a priest at that point? Like if you resign, legitimately, I'm asking, like if I'm the archbishop, I know that's like a job within the church, right? Yeah. So if you resign, are you really resigning from the church or are you just stepping down from your authoritative role?

What happens to you when you resign? I kind of don't even understand what that means. Well, I think, I think that all the other priests then kill you and eat you. Like, are we going to see this guy at like Starbucks? Is he going to be like the next barista?

Yeah. I hope so. He has to bring the hat. If he is, he's got to wear the hat. I think that's, it'll have the whole espresso machine in the hat. It's just,

he has like a little lever on the front and he just holds it up. I wanted no foam, no foam. I always get foam when I get it from former Archbishop Cardinal Keith O'Brien. God damn it. This guy is the reason why he's resigning is because there's been allegations made against him. And so three priests and one former priest have come forward. And I'm going to read these allegations. The former priest claims that this is directly, by the way, from BBC News.

The former priest claims Cardinal O'Brien made an inappropriate approach to him in 1980 after a night of prayers when he was a seminarian at St. Andrew's College. The complainant says he resigned as a priest when Cardinal O'Brien was first made a bishop. A second statement from another complainant says that he was living in a parish when he was visited by O'Brien and inappropriate contact took place between them. A third complainant alleges dealing with what he describes as unwanted behavior by the cardinal in the 1980s after some late night drinking. And the fourth claims that cardinal used his night prayers as an excuse for inappropriate contact. Now, if you scroll down a little bit, it says he was named Bigot of the Year last year by a gay rights group in Stonewall, Scotland, after he said gay marriage was a grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right. One thinks thou dost protest too much.

And the other thing, too, is, you know, there's all these priests out there, Tom, who can't get their goddamn hands out of the little kid's pants. But you do it to a priest and oh, shit. Yeah, everybody's coming. Up in arms now. Now I'm going to come forward. Well, where the fuck were you when one of these guys was diddling a kid? I thought the same thing. It's like it's like he comes in the room just thrusting his hips.

He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa. He's in fucking mode. Bring him a little boy. Bring him a little boy. Bring him a little boy before he gets to one of the priests. They're like running up. Like, are we out of little boys? It's the middle of the night. No.

Popey needs his treat. Popey needs his treat. That's terrible. Yeah, no shit, right? Like, they can't be bothered. They can't be bothered to raise these allegations when it's defenseless kids. It's like, oh, well, yeah, they're just kids. We'll just move them to another parish. It's like, wait, we can't move them to another parish. He'll

fuck the other priests in the parish. That's going to be awkward at the Christmas party. Man. And the people, the priests with autonomy, the priests that have every ability to say yes and or no to a sexual act. Those are the ones we're worried about.

Right, right. The people that have no power over saying yes or no to a sexual act will fuck them. Yeah, that's. No, I mean, no, I mean, I mean, fuck them. I mean, like literally fuck them. You almost wonder if like one of the one of the higher ups who didn't pull him aside at some point. No, no, no, literally fuck them. You almost wonder if, like, one of the higher-ups didn't pull them aside at some point and, like, no, no, no, no, no. We don't have sex with the grown-ups here. Like, no.

Hands off. They must be this tall to ride this ride. Get your hand back in the cookie jar. Back in the cookie jar. Oh, no. Oh, no. cookie jar yeah oh no oh no they say that i make the contention that gays caused the holocaust this is wrong i've been very clear in my writings and everything i've said that the nazi party is responsible for the holocaust but how did the nazi party come into being the nazi party ladies The Nazi party, ladies and gentlemen, was formed in a gay bar in Munich.

And historians agree that Hitler's earliest enforcers, the stormtroopers, the brown shirts, were almost without exception homosexuals. So it was homosexual thugs that helped Hitler to form the Nazi party. In other words, no homosexual thugs, no homosexual brown shirts, no homosexual stormtroopers, no Nazi Party. So Cecil, this story comes from America Blog. America Blog. Pope candidate Cardinal Turkson.

Pedophilia is a white thing. This is coming from Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana. He's one of the top candidates being considered for next pope. And Cecil, he's bed shit fucking crazy. He's awesome looking. He looks really crazy with that staff and that crazy little, you know,

all their hats look like they're made out of butcher paper for like a little kid. Like it looks like somebody took you know, like mom's like, OK, well, I guess I'll make you a hat. She got out the stapler and cut open a paper bag and like made a big, goofy fucking hat for this guy. He looks awesome. I thought it looked like a linen napkin like at a nice restaurant. The thing is, is that he says that that and this is from the article, not he doesn't say this. It's distilled down. But basically, the pedophilia scandal is really a gay scandal.

And pedophilia is a white thing. That's not a black thing. And he says I'm going to read directly what he says here. He says here, he says African traditional systems kind of kind of protect or have protected its population against this tendency, he said, because in several communities, in several cultures in Africa, homosexuality, homosexuality or for that matter, any affair between two sexes of the same kind are not countenanced in our society. And you and I guess that that's good news, Tom, because in Uganda, you can either be killed or jailed for life for being homosexual. So if there's no homosexuals in Africa, then that law either doesn't need to be there or it's just one of those precaution sort of laws. Like nobody's really going to like fucking cut up some kids and boil them, but we need a fucking law against it anyway. Wait, why the outrage then? Like, why even mention it? Why even bring it up?

You don't even know what it is. You've never experienced it. What's this crazy homosexuality all the kids out there in the western part of the world are talking about? Why did you steal our rainbow, damn it? It's such a farce. It's such a fucking farce you i i read what this guy has said and it's like he's he's he's even more frightening in the sense that he's more insulated than the already crazily insulated like these the church people are already so far removed from the real world, from the actuality of everyday life. And this guy's removed from there.

He's like, he's like, popes are from Mars. Cardinals are from Venus, man. The Cardinals are from Venus because they wear the red. Oh, no, that's Mars, I guess. I guess I'm wrong. It's the red planet. I'm thinking of the white planet. You got it mixed up.

Pope is from Venus because he wears a white outfit. The Cardinals are from Mars. They wear the red outfit. I figured this out. I think I've got this. I've got this down now. You've broken the Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code.

I've cracked open the Bible and inside is a rape whistle. It's very small for little hands. You've got to get your little tiny lips around there. So we're going to take a break and give you all the information you need to send us messages. And we'll return in just a moment for the interview with Seth from The Thinking Atheist and for the rest of our nonsensical banter. 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. Cecil, this next story is one of my very favorites. If you click on no story from our blog but one this year, so far. So far. You know, it's only been two months. I know.

I will preface it. This story is from couriermail.com.au. Christian's upset over the poster of a woman licking a cow to promote a burger chain. This is a very confusing image. I don't know what to think. Well, somebody, one of the women here mentioned, she says, it's definitely a sexual sort

of image. It says, get intimate. So they're not talking about a pet thing. Now, what they're basically talking about is that there's a woman who is licking a cow. The cow has a monocle and a top hat on, and it says, get intimate. Now, it's for a burger chain.

The burger chain is called Burger Urge. Now, if you go there, you have to visit their sister's store. It's called Hot Dog Desire. It's not Burger Urge. My wife goes there a lot. I don't know. Also, don't Google Hot Dog Desire. Whatever you do, if you do, do it with a safe search on.

That's all I'm saying. But in any case, Burger Urge, a very interesting name for a burger joint, I guess, in Australia. They have different, I don't know, things like naming conventions. Because I would never go to a place called Burger Urge. It sounds like Urge just has this sort of throw-up-y sound to it. Like you're just like, Urge, Urge. Like I don't know if I would – I would never go there. But in any case, this woman says – I'm going to read it again.

It's definitely a sexual sort of image. It says, get intimate. So we're not talking about a pet thing. The cow is dressed up as a man, she said. And the cow is definitively not dressed up like a man. It's just a sophisticated cow. It has a monocle. That's how you can tell it's a sophisticated cow.

This isn't fucking rocket science. And to be fair, the woman clearly has something for the monocled set. Mr. Peanut's been cuckolded by this. She ate Mr. Peanut 20 minutes ago, my friend. She's cheating on the Monopoly man. Peanut. She ate Mr. Peanut 20 minutes ago, my friend. She's cheating on the Monopoly, man. Of all the things to get upset about. Do we really think that people are going to see this image and be like, yeah, I'd fuck a cow. Yeah.

I mean, the Burger Urge commercial saw, you know, I saw that picture. I thought, man, I could totally go for a nice cow fucking. You know, I just I don't understand what the outrage also, though, is bookended because for some reason, Burger Urge decided to deliver condoms to letterboxes across Brisbane. It says here in related coverage. And it basically says here later on, it says, I'm not asking for a nanny state, I'm just asking

would somebody please make it so that our children are allowed to have their childhood? So basically, I guess a kid could come out and look in a mailbox and see a condom, and immediately they are fucking transported to the age of 21. There's like, mama, like they're immediately 20. Their fucking clothes don't fit.

They have facial hair. I mean, they're completely, their childhood has been torn away. You know what? If a kid sees a condom, you know what they do? They blow it up like a balloon because they have no fucking idea what it's for. The kids, I'm going to get the mail. I got the mail, mom. do they blow it up like a balloon because they have no fucking idea what it's for the kids i'm gonna get the mail i got the mail mom dad i need the keys to the car i got this condom in the mail now i'm gonna go fuck a cow i don't want to get mad cows it's like it's like there's like a whole world of things to get upset about i know this is not

one of those things and i also would have to say while i think it's very funny that they mail condoms kind of at random who trusts a random condom in the mail? You're like, I don't want to impregnate you. The condom was free from a burger joint, though, so let's get it on! Yeah. I don't know. Maybe they got something there. There's condom, condiments, condom, condiments.

The lubrication is lard? You were talking about people with monocles I mean Colonel Mustard it's right there I'd fuck Colonel Mustard in the drawing room in the name of Jesus we speak that. In the name of Jesus, we speak that. See, so this story is from BBC News. Religious satellite TV show Miracle Hour is risking lives.

I actually think that's putting it mildly. No kidding. It is probably just killing people, like Miracle Hour. It's a miracle you survived the entire hour. I'm just thinking the same thing. It's a miracle anyone survives any moment. This guy, his name is Bishop Simon, and I guess he's on Sky. I don't know.

I guess it's a TV station over there. And they have millions of viewers. And this guy comes on, and people will call in. And he's got this little troll with this barrel-like body who sits next to him. It's actually one of the imported goblins and she kind of grunts and moves like a goblin too she's like like she's really strange looking she could explode at any moment oh my goodness she'll explode with fucking the love of jesus but she's she's sitting next to him and he'll people will call in and say, I got fucking something wrong with me. And he'll say, I am pulling the diabetes out of you. I'm pulling

this cancer right out of you. You are cured of cancer. He's basically saying that he's curing people of their illnesses over the phone. And so they did an investigation. He said in like 10 straight shows, he cured someone over the phone and he never made any mention of going to hospital at all. Like to at least continue the treatment that you're currently on. Well, why would you want to continue the treatment you're currently on? You'd survive it. This guy guarantees no complaints from his therapy. Like imagine what better business model?

Call in, I cure you, you gratefully shower me with praise and money. And then you die. Then you die. There's no witnesses. It's the perfect crime. This is Colonel Mustard. It's like stabbing someone with an icicle. The weapon has melted.

How does this guy get away with this? The weapon has melted. It's on me. How does this guy get away with this? You would think one person would watch this show. Like, one person who's in charge of a stuff. Yeah, whatever it is. Watches this show and is like, did he just tell that motherfucker he was cured of diabetes? Like, I gotta, hold on a minute. I'm gonna call the shut this guy the fuck down hotline. Yeah, no kidding.

And get this guy, I don't know, shut the fuck down. Even Trudeau over here got ripped off the airwaves because of his fucking nonsensical claims. You know what I mean? Right. Like Trudeau comes on the fucking TV infomercials, and now he's got to skip around kind of what his stuff even says. He can't even really come out and say it. It's basically just like buy my book and you'll get the secrets. Like it's totally – can't even really come out and say it. It's basically just like, buy my book and you'll get the secrets. Like, you know, like it's totally, he can't even come out and say it.

Over there, evidently, you're just like, whatever. Who cares? There's nobody. It's like nobody's watching this. Nobody's paying attention. And then at some point they sent him a message. The BBC did. And so the next show he basically came out and said, you are cured, but you should still see your doctor to make sure that you're cured.

Because God is equivocating through me. You know, the thing is, is God moves at his own pace. Right. And he might move slower than your lifespan. So you might your corpse might be cured. Like when you real slow in the summer, it's corpse might be cured. I'm going real slow in the summer. It's real hot up here. I just got my piece of grass in my mouth.

I like to sit with my bare feet and my hound dog on the porch and watch the sunsets. And if I'll get around to your cancer when I get around to it. Now, I done gave it to you in a hurry. Now you want me to go ahead and take it right back. This is like this is London. Like this is where you can get hauled into court for calling somebody a duty head unless you can prove that they're actually a duty head. I cured you of your duty headedness. Duty headedness.

And may we somehow recapture the vision which for the present eludes us. Madam President, I hear the floor and suggest the admins of the quorum. Clerk will call the roll. Expressions of approval or disapproval are not permitted. See, so this next story is from Salon.com. This is like a – This is so crazy. It's just the craziest laws.

Like it was almost like propose a crazy law week. You know, like when you were a student and there was like spirit week, it was like it's crazy hat day. It's almost like they were like – It's 70s day. Right. It's like it's crazy law month. Let's all propose day. Right. It's like, it's crazy law month. Let's all propose the craziest laws. It almost feels like the junior senators or like the freshman senators were getting punked.

Like somebody was like, no, no, pass this. No, see if you can get this passed. It'll be hilarious. Ashton Kutcher like pops out. He's like, I got you, America. I ruined the economy. No, I'm just talking with you with the Ayn Rand thing. See, so one of these in Montana.

Now, granted, this would only affect seven people because nobody lives in Montana. But in Montana, State Representative Steve Laven introduced a bill that would allow corporations to vote, taking the idea that corporations are people seriously. At some point, you have to look at this and be like, well, bravo, man. Next logical step. It's like he clearly didn't understand it. Like he's taking everything so literally. He can't read literature anymore. He's probably a literalist.

Yeah. He's probably like a biblical literalist. Like everything is literal. There are no metaphors. Corporations are actually people. I know. I slept with one. Well, the next one's great, too, where the guy's like saying that you should criminalize gun control. And by saying like criminalize gun control, meaning anybody who tries to pass a law, it'd be a criminal offense.

Really? Right. That's how you want to run. That's definitely how you want to run your state. You want to run your state so somebody's like, I have an idea. Ideas? Oh no, son. Down here in Missouri, ideas are illegal.

What the fuck? My wife would like this next one. There's an Oklahoma birth control trying to pass some birth control laws. One of the people who was talking about this, I'm going to quote him here. It says, part of, my wife is going to love this, part of women's identity is the potential to be a mother, Padula said.

They are being asked to suppress and radically counterdict that part of their own identity. And if that wasn't bad enough, they are being asked to poison their bodies with birth control. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's part of your identity as a woman. You know, know your fucking role, basically. If you don't birth a baby, you're less as a person. Absolutely.

I'm just saying. Yeah. You know, that's just I mean, I didn't say it. The send of Oklahoma. Less than. Yeah. It send of Oklahoma. Less than. Yeah. It's the symbol. The mirror.

Read Ayn Rand or stay in high school. Those are your choices. Ayn Rand. Ayn Rand is now a requirement for all high school. That's what you got to have. Ayn Rand. Why? I don't know.

Because an Idaho senator likes it. The Idaho senator said he was sending a message to State Board of Education because he's unhappy with the recent move to repeal a rule requiring two online courses to graduate from high school. And he says, why that book? I love this. It made my son a Republican, he said, then adding, well, he's not a practicing Republican, but it certainly made him a conservative. He also added that he's not gay anymore. Well, he's not gay any less, but he's definitely not gay anymore.

He's not a practicing Republican. Yeah, I love that. He doesn't need to practice anymore. He's that good. He's so good. He's got a down pat, baby. And then there's like a thousand fucking creationism bills, which are like those. Yeah. Like those

happen so frequently. I don't even put them on our blog or Facebook. I know there's so many of them. It's just like teach the controversy. It's like, oh, my God, there's no fucking controversy. Here's one. It says here, it says, according to the bill, science teachers would be required to provide information to students of the scientific evidence, which both supports and counters a scientific theory or hypothesis. Now, I'm not a scientician, but I don't think you can have something that is all the way up to theory if there are counter arguments that are valid against it.

No, would we suggest the same thing for everything we teach in science? We should teach a possible opposing viewpoint. Like everything. The earth is round. Probably. We think that's probably true. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe it's flat.

Fuck it. Fuck it. How do you have a test based on that? I just see every teacher standing in front of the class with the book, and then they get through half the lecture, and they just throw the book in the air and walk out the class. This is Carrie who says I buy a lot of clothes and other items at Goodwill and other secondhand shops. Recently, my mom told me that I need to pray over the items, bind familiar spirits and bless the items before I bring them into the house. Is my mother correct? Can demons attach themselves to material items? I heard a story in, I believe, the Philippines, a person who went to Thailand. There was a witch who had prayed over a particular ring and asked for a spirit to come into it. Well, this Philippine girl was so attached to this ring, she had to buy it.

She bought it, and all hell broke loose until she finally recognized what it was. So can demonic spirits attach themselves to an inanimate object? The answer is yes. But I don't think every sweater you get from Goodwill has demons in it. But in a sense, your mother's just being super cautious. So, hey, it didn't hurt you to rebuke any spirits that happened to have attached themselves to those clothes. And see, so we have to end the show with Pat Robertson from the Raw story. Robertson rebuked demons by praying over possessed secondhand clothes. Evidently, the devil lives in thrift stores, and he loves Half-Off Tuesday. It's not the thrift stores.

You're not clear on the entire demonology about this, but these are the famous dry cleaning demons from the laundry pits of hell. It's a lower level. It's really hot. It vibrates sort of a little bit because the dryer is sort of, it's not balanced right, so it vibrates all the time down there. And in order to get rid of these demons, you have to wash them out with Baal. Baal.

You're like putting your sweater on. It starts to constrict around your neck. Your last words are like, I should have used woolite. Fuck. You open the dryer door and there's, like, an evil snuggle bear in there just laughing maniacally at you. You try to put the clothes in and the washing machine door just, like, bangs down on your head like it's, head like it's getting eaten by the washing machine. What the fuck, Pat Robertson? The picture, I have to point out, the picture is of Pat Robertson.

He looks like he's either farting or considering farting. I'm just saying. Actually, it looks like he's getting a blowjob. That's what it looks like to me. I don't know. Just an old face? I don't know. Maybe that lady on there in the break is giving him like to me. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe that lady on there

in the break is giving him a hummer. I don't know. But the idea here is that if you listen to the bumper that we started this with, basically the idea is that he's saying that can demons come back to you from possessions that you buy that are at second

hand stores? And his proof of being not too cautious is some cockamamie story that he's clearly making up right there. About a witch who had prayed over a ring and asked for a spirit to come into it. And then the, when the ring was purchased, all hell broke loose.

Yeah. I saw cat's Eye too, dude. I love too that he's like specifically talking about like getting shit from Goodwill. Yeah. I mean, if it's from Goodwill. What if you buy it from St. Vincent's? Yeah, no kidding. Like you go to the Morningstar mission, you're like, yeah, I can only buy clothes here because that fucking secular goodwill charity keeps –

Those goddamn humanists keep putting evolution in my pants. That's why you pay so much more at the religious-run ones because they have to hire a priest to stand there and exercise all the clothes that come in. They wash them in holy water. Pure holy water. It's a lot of money. That stuff ain't free. So we're back at the end of the show with Seth from the Thinking Atheist podcast. Seth, if somebody in our audience hadn't heard your show before, what exactly is your show about?

Well, I'm a former believer. I was raised in a Christian household by theologian parents. I was a true believer, spokesperson for Youth for Christ. I went to Christian schools for eight years. I was deeply true believer, spokesperson for Youth for Christ. I went to Christian schools for eight years. I was deeply immersed in the culture, ended up a Christian broadcaster for over a decade. I was a morning show host of one of the most popular Christian morning shows in the country. No kidding. A station called KXOJ Radio. And so for those who say he was never a true believer, you're kidding yourself. I mean, I was a true believer. And honestly, a couple of big events and about a thousand small ones started to really stir the seeds of doubt in my own mind and

heart. And I became less and less satisfied with the answers I was getting from the establishment, from the supposed experts. And finally I got smart and in my late thirties started to do some digging, go figure. And I, for the first time, read my Bible, not subjectively, but objectively, go figure. And I realized that it was all a bunch of crap. And I ultimately came to reject Christianity. And being in Oklahoma and being an atheist is a slightly isolating feeling, let me say. And so to help create community and perhaps help some others, and because I'm a professional producer, video and audio, I thought maybe I could create an online community that would give support to others who were going through the same journey. So I started thethinkingatheist.com

and that website's been up since 2009. I have over a hundred videos posted that tackle a number of subjects, everything from Noah's Ark to the indoctrination of children to the creation story in Genesis to Scientology to Mormonism to whatever. And then a few years ago, I started a radio show called the Thinking Atheist Radio Podcast, which has grown in popularity this month. We hit 400,000 plus downloads for the month of February. Holy cow. So it's been very exciting.

Very exciting. Wow. Congratulations. That's amazing. That's amazing. That's tremendous. And you know what I like about it? It's not some, look, I'm no great thinker. I'm just a guy, right, who's going through the journey like billions of other people.

I'm just an everyman. And I say that on the show. I ain't Lawrence Krauss. I can't fill that guy's shoes. I'm just a guy who, you know, I'm just trying to figure out what's true. I'm trying to navigate the ocean of bullshit that that's thrown at me every single day by the church. I just want to, I want to figure out what the, where the answers are, what the evidence is. And I want,

I want the religious card to stop getting a pass just because it makes people feel good. You know, religion has been given a pass for thousands of years because it's religion. And in the age of information, those days are over. And, um, and I think people respond to that. People respond to not being spoken down to, or not being made to feel like they're in a college lecture hall all the time. They want a radio show where we tell stories and swap opinions and have conversation and laugh and love people. And, and it's taken off, and I couldn't be happier. Now, when we talked right before the show started,

you made a comment that you're here to serve us. And I've heard some of your language really does speak of that sort of indoctrination, growing up in the church. Do you think you brought some of the good aspects of the community of the church with you when you started this project? You know, in the introduction and acknowledgments of the book that I just released called Deconverted, A Journey from Religion to Reason, available now on Amazon.com. I actually referenced Jerry DeWitt, who is a former pastor, and Teresa McBain, a former Methodist minister, both who were some of the first graduates of the Clergy Project. They're in the pulpit, and they come to the conclusion in their own life that what I'm preaching is not true. It's just not true.

What do I do? And they extricated themselves from their religious roles, and now they are spokespersons for free thought and humanism all across the country and what i like about them and what i said in the introduction was this they bring the kind heart of a pastor into the often caustic world of the atheist community i love the atheist community but i'll tell you there there are some sharp edges to it i mean there are some acidic acerbic, and that's cool. I don't know that you're talking about. I would have no idea. I have no recollection, Senator.

But I think I bring a softer edge. I also bring a three-dimensional look at the believer. And quite frankly, most of the people in my life are believers and they're fantastic people. If I was in a burning building, they'd be the first person running to get me. They love people. They work hard. They're just trying to do good things and live a good life. And they have been taught, largely programmed by their family and culture, that religion, God, Christianity, whatever, is the way to do it. And so they're just sort of in this routine, never challenged. Look, I just talked to a guy the other day who I worked with in Christian radio back in 1995, and he admitted to me, and this is the year 2013, after all this time,

he said, you're like the only atheist I've ever met. Well, how does that happen? Look, if atheism is the fastest-growing demographic, quote-unquote religious demographic in the United States, and somebody says, well, you're the only atheist I know. How does that happen? That tells me that you are in a biosphere, right? You're in a big bubble and you've got happy little colors and rainbows and all the animals who know as are surrounding you. And this strange foreign planet called the real world way outside that membrane.

But, you know, the people who live inside that bubble aren't monsters. Largely, they're just good people. And I think what I bring to the table is sort of a, you know, that same thing. People are often just people with differences. And if we can learn to empathize and see them in three dimensions, I think we can be more effective in helping to change attitudes out there. You know, I wanted to ask you a question about your time when you were, as you call it, a true believer. So, you know, we just talked at the beginning of the show about the Pope and how the Pope at one point had said that there were times when he felt like God was sleeping. And you at one point were a true believer.

Was there ever a moment where you felt like, and I don't mean this facetiously, where you felt like God wasn't sleeping, like there was a real communication there? Or was it always this sort of one-way street that eventually grew somewhat tiresome to, you know, to constantly have to navigate a relationship where you're the only participant would at some point, I imagine, grow old. Yeah, well, I see it this way, and this is quite often the language that believers will use. And those of you who've come from the church will nod your head in familiarity and recognition when you hear me say this.

But they'll say, I need to pray about this and see where God leads me. Now, you're thinking the guy who blinked the cosmos into existence would just tell you, right? Seth, look, I want you to build a church, and I want you to do it in this town, and here's what you're going to preach. I mean, you'd think that would make sense, right? At least he could send a telegram, right? You know what I mean? Yeah. But instead what we do and what we're programmed to believe is normal is if you are, if you feel inclined, if you lean a certain way, well, you know, I'm kind of thinking maybe I ought to, maybe the Lord's leading me. Well, what this is, is this is my own brain, my own mechanisms of thought and reasoning and rationality working, and I'm just painting God into the lines.

And that's how God speaks. And often we'd go to churches and we'd have a moment where we felt like we did feel the touch of God. What we were feeling was conditioned response. We hear an amazingly powerful sermon. The music cranks up. There's lights, there's smoke, there's fog, there's people holding hands. We all have a sense of mission and purpose. Kumbaya. I was touched by God. I really felt his presence. Well, no, we felt emotion. We felt moved, but we painted God onto it and called it a supernatural experience.

You'll find the same thing when it comes to prayer. Look, I've got someone right now I know who's got – there's a beautiful child, eight years old, in Texas who's dying of cancer. And it pisses me off to think that right now there are people who are praising God over all of this. They're like, you know what? God is in control. This girl is surrounded by physicians, right? At incredible expense, they're using the latest, greatest technology in every effort to save her life.

This girl who should be out on the playground, who should be doing little girl things, whatever that is, is instead in a life and death battle and everybody's talking about God. And the only person making a real difference are trained human physicians. But we are trained to, if she has a good day, to thank God before we thank the doctors. And that's another reason why I'm an opponent, an enemy of religion.

So now your show is a call-in show. It's run on Blog Talk Radio, so you have people who call in through the Internet or call in through telephone. You also have guests on your show. It's run on Blog Talk Radio, so you have people who call in through the internet or call in through telephone. You also have guests on your show. Now, if you had... This may sound a little selfish. I'm a storyteller. I don't know about you guys, but you're communicators. I'm a communicator.

This movement needs storytellers and communicators. When I first started doing what I was doing, I noticed there was a lot of great information out there. You guys see that? There's a lot of great data. And you would notice that it's like they took a handbook for how to sterilize this amazing information and make it as bland and vanilla as possible. How to be monotone, chapter five. I would watch conference videos of some of the most amazing, compelling scientists,

educators, theologians, historians, philosophers, what have you, these amazing people, and they would do these conferences and they would be videotaped for the Internet audience and for posterity. Their idea of a compelling storytelling device is to put this poor sap on stage 500 feet away in front of 300 audience heads. And you're looking at the back of the heads as somebody sticks a handy cam in the back corner of the room, not even white balance, so everybody's green. And there's no mic, right? They have no live feed from the soundboard or from the audience mic.

So you're hearing and you are seeing the tiny head of a pin, which is your subject, way off in the distance. And 45 minutes of that. I'll convert it. Just, just turn it off. And I think to myself as a professional videographer, I think to myself, this or this movement needs storytelling. We need someone who can get a

camera up in someone's face and learn how to Mike a subject and learn how to ask the right questions and learn how to light a set and learn how to take what is often complex information and make it palatable, not dumb it down, but make it palatable so people can engage and understand. And I think one of the reasons that my show has taken off, one of the reasons your show resonates is because we're talking and storytelling and painting a picture with words like real people. And the movement needs a whole lot more of this. Well, you know, one thing that strikes me as particularly appealing about your show, when you say it needs, it is all about the people for you.

You know, I remember, see, so I remember the first time you and I had the friendly atheist on our show. And this is going in the Wayback Machine. We just had him on recently again. But, you know, he said something that struck both of us, I think, and that resonates with me about your show, Seth, is that it's got to be, the stories have to be about people. If it's not about the people, it is that bland sort of data. And you get those, you know, the scientists and the people who are incredibly brilliant

and you put them on a stage and they've been trained by their field. They've been trained by their discipline to pull all of the emotion out of the subject matter. That's, you know, it's not necessary. In fact, it's antithetical to the scientific process. So it's got to be removed. You know, and I think one of the things that your show does is it brings people back into these stories. And people call in, and I'll be honest, sometimes it makes me a little crazy. People call into your show, and they want to tell you their story. They immediately start launching into,

here is my story. And it's like, well, that's a damn question. Back when the earth cooled and dinosaurs roamed the earth. Well, look, and I'm going to speak to emotion here in just a second. But to actually answer the question that you originally asked me about, do I like a call-in or a guest show? My favorite show is one that starts off with about 30 minutes of monologue. I try to start off by telling a story. It's the kind of show I like to listen to where you spend the first third at least of a show and you have total control of the information. With a caller, you're not really sure exactly what you're going to get.

I love our callers, but you guys know what that's like. It's a crapshoot. Sure. first 30 minutes, I can paint the picture with the brush I want at the speed I want with the colors I want to, to develop sort of the overall feel and tempo I want for the show. And those, that's one of my favorite parts of the show is the ability to sort of tell a story at the beginning. And it really, after that, it depends on the guest. I've had some, I've had Shermer on a few times. The guy's always good. I always feel like an idiot after I've had him on for half an hour. Richard Carrier, that guy is so freaking fast.

And I think, I'm an idiot. I am an idiot. I am the guy who rolled the VCR into the library in school while he was busy reading the books. I was the teacher's assistant who just rolled the cart from room to room. You realize some of our listeners right now are Googling VCR. VC, VCR. Oh, no. And then you get into beta and VHS, and that's a whole other mind screw.

But if I can, I want to speak to emotion. I used to take a lot of heat for the fact that I like some of my work, video work, especially to be evocative emotionally. I've done some projects that really do use a specific type of narration and pacing and visual cues and soundtrack to evoke a specific emotional response. A great example is one called Afterlife. Another video is called Welcome to This World. One is called The Center of All Things and others. And I use music and other production and storytelling cues because I want to create sort of an immersive experience.

And I will get emails from people saying, you're manipulating because you're trying to be like the church. You're trying to be like the church. And I'm always like, no, no. Look, I'm not trying to be like the church. And I'm always like, no, no, look, I'm not trying to be dishonest. What I'm trying to do is enhance the message using storytelling tools. The information is still good. It's still the same good information, but rather than you reading it out of a black and white textbook, I want to take to the, I'm going to grab you by the

shirt collar. I'm going to drag you through the screen and I want you to take the journey with me. And the storytelling tools that we use are valid in doing so. And the church does not have a monopoly on emotion. They just don't. Why do we surrender the emotional experience? As long as we're not governing our lives by it, we should be free and be happy to be able to experience emotion that comes and feel awe and feel sadness and feel all these things because it's a human experience, not a church one. That's how I feel. You know, that, that, that reminds me of an episode of yours that I just listened to recently, where you were talking about the indoctrination of children,

um, is get them while they're young, I think was the name of the episode. Um, and you talked about the child evangel evangelism fellowship or foundation. Yeah, CES, the Child Evangelism Fellowship, I believe. And those folks were near me recently. Over the summer, they approached my five-year-old and invited him to a party and all this shenanigans, just like you were discussing in the episode. Now, did you know about it beforehand? No, which is why I was incensed, absolutely incensed. Incensed. Absolutely incensed.

To invite a kindergartner to a party without their parents' permission struck me as unacceptable for any format other than evangelists. And when you're talking about using the tools of emotion, it strikes me that, like, you know, the difference is they're using the tools of emotion to lie to people, to intentionally lie, particularly to people who, you know, are most at risk for bad ideas, particularly children, you know, who believe in Santa Claus and rabbits that give you eggs and, you know, fairies that take your old dead teeth and replace them with coins. Like these are not a critically thinking people yet. I mean, they're they're small. They're young. They're impressionable. I chronicled in my book, which is called Deconverted, A Journey from Religion to Reason, available now on Amazon. You're going to kill me.

That's awesome. Do it all the time. I'm sorry. I didn't make me laugh. That's awesome. Just makes me laugh. That I was in fourth grade when I first attended Christian school. It was makes me laugh. I was in fourth grade when I first attended Christian school. It was this tiny

little, I mean, you talk about a, if you were to, again, draw a caricature of a Christian school, the uniforms were red, white, or blue pants, slacks, red, white, or blue shirt. And on chapel Wednesdays we had to wear a clip-on tie, red, white, or blue, with little American flags on it.

I shit you not. Oh, my God. You should have seen this. We looked like little patriotic paper dolls walking the halls. Seth, could you pick red for everything or blue for everything? So you're just always monochromatic no matter what? If you had taken the student body out into the parking lot, you could have landed aircraft by us. We were that bright.

And we would go into these chapel, they're like little church services, and we would hold our hand over our hearts and we would say our pledges. And we set our pledge to the American flag. But after that was the pledge to the Christian flag and to the Holy Bible. I pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, God's holy word. I won't do the whole pledge for you, but I can remember them all by heart easily. I didn't even know there was a Christian flag. I mean, I'm sort of a white flag with kind of a blue square in it and a red cross. And then for the Bible, they would hold the Bible out with one hand over one hand under, and you would say your pledges, pledge allegiance to the Bible, God's holy word. Now we're, we're chanting these pledges out. I'm in fourth grade. Do I have the first clue what a pledge of allegiance?

Do I know what allegiance really is? No. I mean, look, I don't know anything about the world. And I'm being carted in like cattle, right, to line up in front of these instruments, these symbols of our indoctrination, and pledge my lifelong allegiance to them. Tell me that's not indoctrination. Tell me it's not programming. Tell me it's not brainwashing. Tell me it's not abusive to children to do this.

I was never given the opportunity to go out and discover the world for myself. I was told, pledge your allegiance. And it was indoctrinated into me so heavily that it took me decades to get out. Decades. Wow. So now you often have on your show sort of a liberal and progressive political themes. Do you think that your lack of faith like leans makes you lean towards a more progressive political view? Are they connected in some way?

Man, you had to bring up politics. You're killing me. That's what this show is. This show is this show is look yeah that's that's send your mail to hate at the thinking atheist here's the problem okay and i know that non-believers come in all shapes and colors and spots and stripes and sizes and all i mean i get that but i'm a little bit of an anomaly. I'm socially a liberal. I'm a huge champion of gay rights and the woman's right to choose and all of those things that I think we should be

champions for. But fiscally and politically, I do not necessarily fall hugely left. I'm liberal on some issues. I'm not quite conservative, but you could say I'm at least libertarian on some issues. And I think most of us have a pretty complex worldview. Sure, sure, absolutely. Are all of us really defined by the R or the D by our names? Sure. A few of us are, yeah. You know, Rick Perry, yeah. I get that.

I get that. You know, he's right down the party line. But I would like to think that most nuanced people out there have a pretty complicated view of the world. Their life experiences have sort of spoken to a complex, complicated, sort of a lengthy examination of the issues that don't fit in a cookie cutter. And so I sometimes get myself in hot water for things like being a gun owner. I am a licensed to carry gun. Sure. Sure.

Some people flip out. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's that's a little odd in some progressive circles. In a lot of ways, though, I think that there is there should be at least I think there should be more atheists on the progressive side because of the things that that there there's pushback against. I mean, contraception, pushback against women's right to choose, pushback against gay rights, those sorts of things, they sort of lend themselves to the people who are skeptical and atheist, I think. Well, it's funny.

When I became an atheist, when I rejected my faith and said, screw it, I no longer believe this to be true. And I'm now going to go out and search for whatever the real answers are. I found myself looking at those very issues with fresh eyes, homosexuality. I was raised to believe that God destroyed whole cities for the homosexual acts that took place, these evil things, you know, and of course the Bible itself says they deserve death. I never went that far, but I always felt it was a sin. They were deceived. They needed to be prayed for and rescued and all those cliches. And you look at that now and you go, wait a minute, wait, there's something else going on. So when you realize that, that the biblical explanation for it and solution, or if it needed a solution, which it does not, it is totally wrong. Then you flip and you, you change your worldview. And boy, once you do that on, you do it on gays, you do it on contraception,

was a great one. I've done it on some drugs. You know, it used to be that all drugs are evil. And marijuana, oh my God, it's horrifying. It's terrible. Well, here I am. I don't smoke. Look, I don't smoke.

I barely drink wine. I am boring. I am the C-span of human beings. You go to sleep to yourself? Pardon me while I listen to myself talk. But the idea now to me where drugs used to be this big thing, I think to myself, there are people in prison right now for smoking weed. In a world of murderers and rapists and abusers and all of these horrible things, there are people smoking weed who are doing time. I found myself saying I don't buy it.

I honestly think it should be legalized. I think we have bigger fish to fry. Maybe that's the libertarian in me that's coming out. So now you, I think you have a book, if I'm not mistaken. I've heard something about this. I might have heard, what is your book about? What a spontaneous question. Thanks for asking. You know, it's funny. I'd always, I'd done a lot of short form writing and I'd done a lot of communicating. And I thought about writing a book, but then, you know, everybody funny i'd always i'd done a lot of short form writing and i'd done a lot of communicating and i i thought about writing a book but then you know everybody's everybody's got one yeah and a lot of people wanted to hear my story which i appreciated i didn't know if it would really hold anybody's attention i mean quite frankly to write a book about yourself is an

odd thing and i want to make sure i wanted to make sure it did not come from a standpoint of hubris or ego or or being puff up, hey, look at me. What I really wanted it to be was one cathartic, a cathartic way to put it all on paper and just be able to sort of see it myself. And I also wanted to encourage other people who might be going through the same thing and to maybe inform lifelong nonbelievers as to what the power of childhood indoctrination is like, to give them a sneak peek inside the windows of religion. And so off and on, I kind of put it together. It's not a big book. It's about 190 pages, and it's got those big romper room type font in there, so you get through it in about 10 minutes.

But essentially it walks you through. It walks you through. It walks you through how we were programmed from a very early... Programmed is a tough word, but it's an accurate word. I mean, we were never given a choice. Jesus was true. Noah and the floating zoo were true. Adam and Eve and the talking snake were true.

Heaven and hell are true. Believe in this. God says, love me or die or burn. That's true. And so all of that's in there. And then I talk about my time in Christian music, which is kind of a colorful anecdotal walk through, you know, a decade in Christian music. And then finally, to my own doubts and apostasy, and then how the thinking atheist started and why

and how it has survived and thrived. So it was fun to write and people seem to be responding positively to it. And for that, I'm pretty thankful, pretty thankful. So if people were going to find your podcast, where would they look? Well, I'm on blogtalkradio.com. You can simply search for The Thinking Atheist, but you can also link via my main website, thethinkingatheist.com. I enjoy Blog Talk Radio as a site host because of the options that they give me. because of the options that they give me.

They frustrate me because to date, here in almost March of 2013, they do not have good audio quality. No, they do not. And it makes me crazy because I like their switchboard. I like the way they feed out to all the different platforms like iTunes and Stitcher and everything else. Their ease of use is so good. Their marketing is so good. Their audio in the year 2013 is 8-bit 16K mono.

It's like the 56K motor on the radio. I mean, you get better sound quality from two tin cans and a string. I mean, really. Dude, look, I could take an empty toilet paper roll, put it over my mouth, and I could get better fidelity. And I keep writing letters to them. I keep sending them emails going, hey. And they keep responding with that pat answer. We're working on some improved audio solutions for hosts.

Stay tuned. Yeah, we're working on it. In between our sessions of Bejeweled or whatever, we're working on it. In between our sessions of Bejeweled or whatever, we're working on it. Their server is just an old ColecoVision at this point. I had one of those. I had one. Donkey Kong was

my first game I ever got. You know, if you can get past a little bit of an audio fidelity issue, I think most people really don't care. I clean it up a little bit in post and try to make it as palatable as possible. And honestly, the upside is that in the age of the Internet, AM and FM radio dials no longer dominate the conversation. You know it used to be that you had to have a shitload of money and all these connections to be able to have a show. And the Internet has changed the game.

We have a voice now. The podcast circuit has changed the radio environment. And the AM and FM folks are panicking. They're freaking out because they no longer hold the reins. Now we hold the reins, and people are rallying together to make it successful. It's awesome. We hold the reins, and we have no idea where we're going. I was going to say the same thing.

It's like we're staring at our hands with the reins, I'm like, oh shit, what do I do now? Quick horse drive! Well, Seth, it has been absolutely amazing talking to you. You are a great guest. We didn't have to do anything while you were on, which was awesome. So we want to thank you so much for coming

on and talking to us today. I enjoy the opportunity. You know, it's fun to get together with a couple of guys who know how to bump their gums just like me, just to see what happens. So honestly, thank you for the work that you do. Thanks for being part of the discussion and getting people talking and being a fun show to listen to out there when we need so much of it. So appreciate what you guys do and keep doing it. So we got a voice memo from Jeff. We're to play for you, a little shortened version of it. He sent like a two-and-a-half-minute voicemail.

We can't play longer. A voicemail is longer than two minutes, but we're going to try to cut it down. And then we also got a voicemail as well from our phone line, so we're going to play that for you right now. Hey, guys. How are you doing? This is Jeff from Memphis. I just wanted to tell you about a little conversation I had the other day. I've always been one that was pretty easy to dismiss the evils of religion, you know, as ancient barbarism

or modern day fanatics. Not thinking that just normal run-of-the-mill Christians were really a problem. But I was talking with a friend of mine the other night, and she started asking me some questions about my daughter. She has a 10-year-old daughter. My daughter's 18. And so she was just hitting me up for info, like how bad are the teenage years, and how is it talking to them about sex,

and what's it like when they start getting their period and everything. And I told her it's not as bad as everybody says, and you can get through it. And our daughter's been real good. And she said, oh, yeah, but, you know, a friend of mine, she has a 16-year-old daughter. And her daughter's on birth control. Can you believe that? Isn't that terrible?

And I said, well, I don't know. She said, oh, that just tells them it's okay to have sex. I said, well, you know, some girls have a lot of problems with their menstruation, with cramps and headaches and mood swings and bloating and all kinds of things. And, you know, sometimes a doctor will recommend birth control to ease some of these symptoms because that's exactly what happened with my daughter when she was 16. I didn't say that. And she said, oh, that's bullshit.

That's a cop-out. And I said, what do you mean by that? She said, well, God gave us our period, and God never gives anybody anything they can't handle. So that's just a cop-out, and that's bullshit. And I said, yeah, well, I'm not so sure about that. But that really drove it home right there, right that minute, that here's a woman who's going to make her child suffer through, you know,

I didn't ask her if she'd give her Midol or whatever, but who has the idea that menstruation, I guess, is a gift from God and must be endured because God wouldn't give it to us if it wasn't for a reason. I thought that was a little scary. Hey, this is listening to your podcast. Awesome job, guys. Love it so far. Not managed to listen to everything yet,

but I wanted to call specifically because I have an awesome idea for something you could bring up in the irony of religion. or something you could bring up, in the irony of religion. Basically, Muslims and other religious sects like to cover up a majority of their body, basically shielding them from sight and sunlight. Now, this plays an interesting role because without sunlight, you don't produce vitamin D. And there is a mini epidemic of things like cancer, autism, and other just not nice things by them following their religious creed and basically abstaining from sunlight. Therefore, their bodies are malfunctioning. If you don't consider that the irony of following your religion is that you die of disease for doing it, I don't know what you would think.

We want to thank Jeff for sending in his message. We thought it was great. You know, not giving your child my doll is interesting, I think. It's the woman's curse, right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's totally her curse. That's what that's referring to. I can't believe people believe that.

They shouldn't even make Midol. Right. They shouldn't. That shouldn't even be a product. And to the voicemailer, we just want to mention that we're not sure if people know where autism comes from. I'm not sure. It's lack of vitamin D.

Yeah, we just wanted to throw that out there. I'm not saying I know it's not lack of vitamin D, but I'm not sure that link has been conclusively proven. I don't know that it's been proven. But, you know, it's an interesting claim. And, you know, like the thing is we've come to the conclusion that it's not about vitamin D. It's not about that sort of thing. They are vampires. I'm just hoping nobody sees them sparkle.

That's what we've come to the conclusion. I'm just hoping nobody sees him sparkle. That's what we've come to the conclusion. But your theory is just as, I think, valid as our vampire theory. Or they are all Batman. All of them are Batman. There's like one Green Lantern and the rest are Batman. So we got an email from Caleb. Tom, I'm just going to have you read it because people wanted to find the people.

We talked. We asked earlier last week. We asked on Facebook. If you're not on Facebook, you didn't get a chance to chime in on the conversation. So you need to go like us on Facebook so you can get some of these messages. When we pull the audience, lots of times we'll do it through Facebook. So if you hate Facebook, I'm sorry, but that's where we normally do it. We ask people if they like the voicemail section.

We like the email section. And people said, mostly said yes. They said, some people said drop the Google Translate. Some people didn't. I thought the fucking Google Translate last week with thou shalt, with Julie, where it's like. Yeah, I like that, Julie. Yeah, that was fucking awesome, man.

It was great. I thought the Google Translate of the Ten Commandments was hilarious. If you didn't think so, you're a fucking stick in the mud. So, but most of the, sometimes you're a fucking stick in the mud. But most of the – sometimes they're not funny. I get it.

We'll only do it when they're funny. You see that we didn't read it this week. But people mostly, most people, I would say a good portion of people asked, why don't you read your hate mail? Read your hate mail. We want to hear more of your hate mail. We don't get hate mail. We get it very rarely. But this is as close as we came this week, which I think is a joke, but I don't know.

It's probably joke mail. It could be. Or it's at the very least weird mail. It's a weird mail. What the fuck are your Higgs damn views on the singularity? You're talking about death and bullshit energy not being created or destroyed. But seriously, what the fuck do you know about quantum mechanics and the hope of the singularity? I seriously want to know I hope that perhaps I can discuss this further with you

we can't discuss this further because we did not discuss this to start like to discuss further would imply a beginning of a discussion we did not have that let me ask you though quickly what the fuck do you know about quantum mechanics and the hope of singularity

nothing maybe a little less than that so neither of us know anything about it so we're moving on Tom, let me ask you, though, quickly. What the fuck do you know about quantum mechanics and the hope of singularity? Nothing. Okay. Neither do I. Maybe a little less than that. So neither of us know anything about it. So we're moving on. Thank you for the message, by the way, Caleb.

We appreciate what we think is a fake hate mail. We got an email from David. And, Tom, I'm just going to let you read this. I am a 50-year-old African-American atheist male who has attended my local atheist meetings and I'm trying to branch out to other black atheists. Keep up the good funny. People are listening and tuning in. Thanks. David in Tennessee.

David is a 50-year-old black atheist in Tennessee. That's awesome. That's super awesome. I want to point out, too, at the end, he says, I will put my review of your podcast on iTunes, even though I hate iTunes. We want to thank David and everybody who gives us reviews on iTunes. That helps us climb in the rankings. So if you get a chance this week, you know, we're close to 500.

We are at like 494 now. So if you have a minute this week and you think, man, I really like these guys. I'd like to get a good review. Give them a good review. Now, if you think we suck, you probably haven't got this far into the podcast anyway. Why would you be listening? You probably didn't listen to this part. But if you like us and you think we're fun and you like the show,

please rate us on iTunes. We appreciate everybody who rates us on iTunes. So thank you, David, and thanks everyone. Tom and I, we check the ratings probably once a week, and most of the time we just love to read them because it gives us a chance to see that people really do enjoy the show. So thank you very much for everybody who rates us. And I do want to say that, David, as a 50-year-old black atheist in Tennessee, you are the Rubik's Cube of minorities. You are a puzzle nobody can figure out down there.

So we got an email here from Doug, and Doug says he was wondering if we ever consider doing an episode with a live audience. He's doing now there's a in Toledo, Ohio, this summer, 16th to the 18th. There's a Great Lake Atheist Convention. They're putting something on. As time goes on, hopefully Doug will send us more information so we can tell you about it, especially all you atheists that are in Ohio or Michigan or Indiana, those neighboring areas where you can head on over to Toledo. He says, I've been loving the show and listening for over a year now. I think it would work fantastically in front of a live audience. We disagree. Yeah, we would not work in front of a live audience. We would not work well in front of a live audience. We disagree. Yeah, we would not work in front of a live audience.

We would not work well in front of a live audience at all. Most of this show was us staring at monitors and sort of really intently trying to figure out, more desperately trying to figure out what next we're going to say. And to be honest, the other part I think that really is missing is that this show is edited. You guys do not hear the final version of this show. We cut parts of this show. A lot of times the jokes really do happen in the run-ons when we're running back and forth between bits, when we're letting things run and continue to go. And we cut out all the things that don't work and we keep what works.

So the editing process really does make this show listenable. It would not be listenable as a live show. It would just be boring. And I refuse to do this show wearing pants. So in front of a live – we've only ever done this show in front of each other one time. Yeah, so – In front of an audience. Yeah, audience would be too much.

But thank you very much for asking us. We would love to attend a convention, obviously. Um, you know, if you're having a convention and you think with someplace we can make it, send us an invitation. We'll try to come, uh, Tom and I, we, we wouldn't be good speakers at a convention, but we would love to come and just hang out with people. So that's something we could do. We could also do a panel discussion. If you add a bunch of people on a stage, Tom and I could certainly sit up there and make fart and dick jokes for a little while. But if it was a program thing, it's just not something we'd be able to do. But thank you anyway for thinking about us. And if it's something that you want us to attend to, send us a message. Maybe we'll be

able to make it out there. We got an email from Dawn who says that she says, you know, some people say that Pink Floyd and Dark Side of the Moon is supposed to be synced up with The Wizard of Oz. He said, well, I took my car. She said, well, I took my car through the local automatic car wash and hit play on your podcast. The operating thing was just an awesome experience when combined with all the water jets swirling around. I love that. I think that's us. That's how our podcast should be used, Tom.

That's just proof that God works in mysterious ways. It really is. It really is. That was God speaking to you through an atheist podcast in a car wash. Let's see here. We've got an email from Kyle. And Kyle wanted to say there's a small portion. It's a longer email.

Kyle says he found us through Carl, this conspiracy skeptic. And he said, I also want to note that listening to your podcast, a lot of my views have changed. This is specifically related to feminism and your avid defense of an advocacy for women. I was never a misogynist, but I always believed in the always believed in the equality of women. But and I hate to say it now, I was always skeptical of the feminist movement. And so as he listened, he's grown more and more accepted. He's accepted it more and he's thought about it more. And he said it's opened his eyes to it.

And we just want to say, thank you for listening with an open mind because we know how hard that is. A lot of people come into the world and see things at a certain viewpoint and they never get past that spectrum. They always stay in that one spectrum of thought. They don't look at other things outside of their comfort zone. And we're happy that you came to us with an open mind. We hope that other people do that and and it changes their mind about things.

That's that always shows, in my opinion, I always show somebody somebody who really is thinking when you can change your mind about something. I've never had an open mind myself, but I hear good things about it. It's supposedly good. No, we want to thank people who listen, who might not share all the same viewpoints but listen nonetheless. We got an email from Roger about NA, Tom. Yeah, Roger says he's been an atheist for over 40 years and had been clean for 25 years through NA. He understands our misgivings, but one of the major differences between NA and AA is that most NA groups have no problem with us, us being atheists. A large part of NA are old stoners

and hippies, and we continue to try to change our literature to remove all references to God. We have a pamphlet addressing differing concepts of a higher power. It's very interesting to note. He says, P.S., many recovery groups which use the 12 steps use the term power greater than ourselves, which is there to challenge self-will. So thank you very much for the email, Roger. That's certainly an interesting email. And I know that NA and AA are very different, although I think they're based from the same program principles. But it's good to know that NA is available for atheists. got to think about yourself is like you're getting more powerful by rejecting it. Sure.

That's a good way to look at it. That's how I would look at it. I wouldn't look at it as like a higher power of like God, but you're increasing your power. You're leveling up in your cold turkiness. I just think about electricity. It's a higher power than me. It is. As long as it's a power line. It's a higher power.

It's above me. We got an email from Michael, and Michael sends us a Tim Minchin video, the Pope song. We have heard this before. Tim Minchin is hilarious, and we thank you. But we wanted the best part of this email was the bottom, Tom, the P.S. P.S., if you ever want to test your hunting skills with wildlife that would love to kill you, come to Australia, and I'll show you around. Love to kill you.

Come to Australia and I'll show you around. All your wildlife, generally speaking, is either in the ocean, which nobody's hunting. Right? Or a small poisonous thing. Yeah. I don't know. What do you hunt funnel web spiders with? Zucas. What do you use?

Yeah, I don't know. I'd use a boot. Although, maybe not a boot because they probably fucking bite through that shit. But, you know, like what do you hunt a rattlesnake with? I mean, I guess crocodile is the only thing or alligator. What do they have down there? Are they crocodiles? They're those saltwater crocodiles.

Those things are mean bitches from what I'm trying to say. They're pretty big. Yeah. Sharks. I guess we could hunt a shark, but you do that with a fishing pole. It's not hunting. That's fishing. I think you could hunt the elusive box jellyfish.

Be like, I got one. Oh, fuck. Yeah. It just slipped right off the hook again. Damn it. Damn it. I keep shooting the ocean, but it won't die. If I'm going to Australia, I'm staying as far away from the things that want to kill me as possible.

Which means I'm hovering over the ground. I'm not touching anything. I'm basically in orbit. I'm in geosynchronous orbit over Australia. I would ride dingoes everywhere. That's all I'm saying. I would just ride a dingo. I'd crawl in the biggest kangaroo pouch I could and get a ride around town.

They don't make kangaroos that big, but if they did, I would crawl in their pouch all day. See, it's like a hunting for koala pairs. Those things are vicious, man. You gotta be careful. Hanging peacefully from a tree. It's like shooting a

really cute sloth, you know? That's not gonna hurt anyone, blam. What the fuck? Well, to be honest, Tom, we have shot magnificent birds. Like, that's all we've shot is birds. Like, there's nothing they can do to us. There's no, it's not like they're even, it's like we, and to say we hunt is ridiculous.

We murder. The dog hunts. The dog does all the work. We don't do anything. We shoot a gun in a direction. It's a guide dog. It's like a dog we rented. Yeah, no kidding.

It's like a service animal. who runs the Thinking Atheist podcast, who's also the author of Deconverted, A Journey from Religion to Reason, available through Amazon and paperback and Kindle. It's also an audio book, and it's on Barnes & Noble. If you go to his site, thinkingatheist.com, you can pick it up. He also runs a podcast called The Thinking Atheist, and it's a great show. It comes out weekly, so you can check out his podcast from his site. He's also available through iTunes.

We want to thank Seth for coming on. He was a wonderful guest, and we really enjoyed having a little bit of time with him. We will be back next week guest-free, I think. Guest-free indeed. Guest-free. Guest-free. Although, very soon, we are going to have Mike Marchand from Skeptics with a K. That's going to be in March. That's going to be a lot of fun.

And then we're going to be having a couple more guests, we think, in March. But Mike Marsh in March for sure. That's coming up. So all you Skeptics with a K fans, you're going to love that. But until next time, this is the end of this episode. We want to thank you for joining us. And until next time, here is 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 doc you tainment leo pisces cancer cures detox reflex foot massage death and towers tarot cars psychic healing crystal balls bigfoot yeti aliens churches mosques and synagogues temples dragons giant worms atlantis dolphins truthers birthers witches, witches, wizards, vaccine nuts, shaman healers, evangelists, conspiracy, double-speak stigmata, nonsense. Expose your sides.

Thrust your hands. Bloody, evidential, conclusive. Doubt even this. Credential. Conclusive. Doubt even this. The opinions and views expressed in this show are that of the hosts only. Our poorly formed and expressed notions do not represent those of our wives, employers, friends, families, or of the local dairy council. We'll see you next time. I'm just going to ask you to, we're going to start out by having you basically introduce yourself and tell people about your show. So I'm just going to introduce you really quickly. Now, do you want real short answers or what?

Oh, no. Go as long as you want, man. Hell, because the rest of the show is just going to be us talking and that's going to suck. So you go ahead and talk as long as you want. Well, I mean, I don't know if you guys are on a time limit. No, no, we don't have a time limit. You talk. Go ahead. I'm verbose. That's the problem. So is Tom. I have to shut him up all the time. No, that's obese.

You misunderstand. It's obese.