# God the Moral Monster

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 3 Dec 2024, 1 h 05 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/62333201/podcast_774_godthemoralmonsterv3b.mp3

Don't let the "Jesus is Love" crowd fool you. The biblical god is pretty terrifying. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: Understand the thinking atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists in this country is going.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Through the rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred.
[0:18] Speaker 1: If I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
[0:22] Speaker 1: not because I put my hand on a book and
[0:24] Speaker 1: made a wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking, feel so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 2: Truth Beusian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 2: It was back in I think two thousand and seven
[0:59] Speaker 2: when Rich Dawkins The God Delusion released. I was watching
[1:04] Speaker 2: a video of one of his speeches. He was reading
[1:07] Speaker 2: excerpts from the book, and he read this, The God
[1:11] Speaker 2: of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character
[1:16] Speaker 2: in all fiction. Jealous and proud of it. A petty, unjust,
[1:20] Speaker 2: unforgiving control freak, a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser, a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal,
[1:31] Speaker 2: philicidl pestilential, megalelemiacal, sato mesochistic, capriciously malevolent, Bully. The God
[1:41] Speaker 2: delusion was seismic for me. It was just a watershed
[1:45] Speaker 2: book and it hit me at the right time, and
[1:49] Speaker 2: it altered the trajectory of the rest of my life.
[1:53] Speaker 2: And to use that kind of language to talk about
[1:56] Speaker 2: the God of the Bible was just, I mean, talk
[1:59] Speaker 2: about yes for me, talk about sacrilege, Holy Cow. And
[2:05] Speaker 2: as I got into my own journey, I had read
[2:07] Speaker 2: a book by Charles Templeton, who was kind of the
[2:10] Speaker 2: Canadian Billy Graham. In fact, he was an associate of
[2:14] Speaker 2: Billy Graham. The book is called Farewell to God. Charles
[2:18] Speaker 2: Templeton passed away years ago, but his book was out there,
[2:21] Speaker 2: and I think i'd heard Christopher Hitchins mention it, and
[2:25] Speaker 2: so I grabbed the book and read it, and it
[2:27] Speaker 2: was the same thing. He just went point by point
[2:30] Speaker 2: and said this is wrong, this is offensive, this is horrifying.
[2:35] Speaker 2: I just felt so dumb. The stuff was there, in
[2:38] Speaker 2: black and white, front and center, right right there in
[2:42] Speaker 2: the Bible, and yet I just hadn't seen it, or
[2:47] Speaker 2: I hadn't noticed it, or maybe I just hadn't wanted
[2:50] Speaker 2: to notice. It's embarrassing. It's embarrassing, and so of course
[2:56] Speaker 2: once you start to read the Bible objectively, you know
[3:00] Speaker 2: I'm going to start to fall. There was an article
[3:02] Speaker 2: that Dan Barker posted years ago on the Freedom from
[3:06] Speaker 2: Religion websites for Freethought Today, and he wrote a book
[3:11] Speaker 2: called God the most Unpleasant character in All Fiction. And
[3:16] Speaker 2: he said, here is my list of the ten worst
[3:18] Speaker 2: Old Testament passages in reverse order. My main criterion is
[3:24] Speaker 2: that this list shows us something about the character of God.
[3:28] Speaker 2: All believers admit that the Bible contained some stomach churning tales,
[3:33] Speaker 2: but these examples reveal the Lord himself commanding, committing, or
[3:38] Speaker 2: condoning the brutality. Richard Dawkins was not exaggerating when he
[3:43] Speaker 2: called God a capriciously malevolent bully. Number ten. God destroys
[3:49] Speaker 2: a good family for no reason. God made a bet
[3:54] Speaker 2: with Satan the job a good and blameless man would
[3:58] Speaker 2: remain faithful e then if he killed his children and
[4:02] Speaker 2: ruined his life. Here we see God indicting himself for
[4:06] Speaker 2: the crime, openly confessing that he destroyed a family for
[4:11] Speaker 2: no reason. The Lord said to Satan, have you considered
[4:15] Speaker 2: my servant job? There was no one like him on
[4:18] Speaker 2: the earth. A blameless and upright man who fears God
[4:22] Speaker 2: and turns away from evil. He still persists in his integrity,
[4:27] Speaker 2: although you indicted me against him to destroy him for
[4:32] Speaker 2: no reason. Job chapter two, verse three, number nine. On
[4:39] Speaker 2: Dan Barker's list, God destroys the fetuses of those who
[4:44] Speaker 2: do not worship him. This is not the only feata
[4:48] Speaker 2: sidle passage in the Bible, but it is the worst.
[4:52] Speaker 2: You shall acknowledge no God but me. You are destroyed Israel.
[4:58] Speaker 2: The people of Samaria must be bear their guilt because
[5:01] Speaker 2: they have rebelled against their God. They will fall by
[5:05] Speaker 2: the sword. Their little ones will be dashed on the ground,
[5:09] Speaker 2: their pregnant women ripped open. That's Hoseiah Chapter thirteen, number eight.
[5:17] Speaker 2: God approves the massacre of a peaceful people so one
[5:21] Speaker 2: of his tribes could have a place to live. Most
[5:25] Speaker 2: believers think God destroyed the Canaanites because they were depraved
[5:29] Speaker 2: and immoral, although the Bible does not make that claim.
[5:33] Speaker 2: They were killed and labeled evil and wicked simply because
[5:37] Speaker 2: they did not worship him. Here's a group of people
[5:40] Speaker 2: who did nothing wrong. They were at peace and secure,
[5:45] Speaker 2: but they had to be eliminated. Judges Chapter eighteen, verses
[5:50] Speaker 2: one through twenty eight. And in those days the tribe
[5:53] Speaker 2: of the Danites was seeking a place of their own
[5:57] Speaker 2: where they might settle, because they had not yet come
[6:00] Speaker 2: into an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. Then they
[6:04] Speaker 2: said to the priest, please inquire of God to learn
[6:07] Speaker 2: whether our journey will be successful. The priest answered them,
[6:12] Speaker 2: go in peace. Your journey has the Lord's approval. Then
[6:17] Speaker 2: they took what Micah had made and his priest and
[6:20] Speaker 2: went on to layish against a people at peace and secure.
[6:25] Speaker 2: They attacked them with the sword and burned down their city.
[6:31] Speaker 2: The Danites rebuilt the city and settled there. The Canaanites
[6:36] Speaker 2: were not the evildoers. The Israelites were the invaders. Number
[6:42] Speaker 2: seven babies are slaughtered and wives raped. The murderous Old
[6:48] Speaker 2: Testament deity deemed human life to be worthless, placing his
[6:53] Speaker 2: own megalealmiacal glory above human values. Here's one of the
[6:57] Speaker 2: worst examples, Isaiah thirteenth. As see, the day of the
[7:01] Speaker 2: Lord is coming, a cruel day with wrath and fierce anger.
[7:07] Speaker 2: I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty.
[7:10] Speaker 2: Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes.
[7:15] Speaker 2: Their houses will be looted and their wives violated. Number six,
[7:23] Speaker 2: A mixed race coupled is murdered by a godly priest
[7:26] Speaker 2: to keep God's people pure. The righteous priest Finihas murdered
[7:32] Speaker 2: a loving couple for the crime of missagenation, which means
[7:37] Speaker 2: sexual relationships or reproduction between people of different ethnic groups.
[7:43] Speaker 2: Then he was praised by God and rewarded for the
[7:46] Speaker 2: hate crime with a perpetual priesthood for keeping the nation
[7:51] Speaker 2: racially pure. Numbers Chapter twenty five. Just then one of
[7:56] Speaker 2: the Israelites came and brought a Midianite woman into his family,
[8:00] Speaker 2: in the sight of Moses and in the sight of
[8:02] Speaker 2: the whole congregation of the Israelites. When Finnihas, son of Elizar,
[8:09] Speaker 2: son of Aaron, the Priest saw it, he got up
[8:13] Speaker 2: and left the congregation. Taking a spear in his hand,
[8:17] Speaker 2: he went after the Israelite man into the tent and
[8:20] Speaker 2: pierced the two of them, the Israelite and the woman,
[8:24] Speaker 2: through the belly, so the plague was stopped among the
[8:29] Speaker 2: people of Israel. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Finnihas,
[8:34] Speaker 2: son of Elizar, son of Aaron, the priest has turned
[8:37] Speaker 2: back my wrath from the Israelites by manifesting such zeal
[8:43] Speaker 2: among them on my behalf, that in my jealousy I
[8:46] Speaker 2: did not consume the Israelites. Therefore, say I hear my
[8:52] Speaker 2: grant him my covenant of peace. It shall be for
[8:56] Speaker 2: him and for his descendants after him, a covenant of
[8:59] Speaker 2: perpetual priesthood. Because he was zealous for his God and
[9:04] Speaker 2: made atonement for the Israelites. Dan Barker's list continues number five,
[9:11] Speaker 2: A daughter is burned as an acceptable sacrifice to God.
[9:16] Speaker 2: General Jeptha made a vow with God in order to
[9:20] Speaker 2: defeat the enemy. When Jeptha won the war, God received
[9:25] Speaker 2: his one hundred pounds of flesh Judges Chapter eleven. And
[9:31] Speaker 2: Jeptha made a vow to the Lord, if you give
[9:34] Speaker 2: the Ammonites into my hands, whatever comes out of the
[9:38] Speaker 2: door of my house to meet me when I return
[9:41] Speaker 2: in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord's and
[9:45] Speaker 2: I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering. This story
[9:49] Speaker 2: just bugs me. What did he expect to walk out
[9:51] Speaker 2: of his door like a can't you know a pig
[9:55] Speaker 2: or something? I mean, he had to have thought, well,
[9:57] Speaker 2: the chances of my kid, you know, I mean, she's
[10:01] Speaker 2: got gait privileges, right, she would have entered an exit
[10:04] Speaker 2: in the house. Well, what are the chances? I just
[10:06] Speaker 2: don't understand. When Jeptha returned to his home in Misbah,
[10:10] Speaker 2: who should come out to meet him but his daughter
[10:14] Speaker 2: dancing to the sound of timbrels. After the two months,
[10:18] Speaker 2: she returned to her father, and he did to her
[10:22] Speaker 2: as he had vowed. Now let me flesh this one out.
[10:25] Speaker 2: So Jeptha came back and all of a sudden, big surprise,
[10:28] Speaker 2: his daughter walks through the door and he has an
[10:31] Speaker 2: O shit moment. And the argument by apologist is that, well,
[10:37] Speaker 2: actually this meant that she was consecrated to the Lord,
[10:41] Speaker 2: that she would commit the rest of her life to
[10:43] Speaker 2: God like a nun. She wasn't burned on the altar,
[10:46] Speaker 2: which is total crap because if you read that series
[10:50] Speaker 2: of verses, Jeptha flipped out, he wailed, he agonized, he
[10:54] Speaker 2: tore his clothing. Why would he do that if his
[10:57] Speaker 2: daughter was merely being consecrated. And then his daughter asks
[11:02] Speaker 2: if she can have eight weeks to go into the
[11:04] Speaker 2: wilderness to grieve over the fact that when she dies,
[11:09] Speaker 2: she'll die of virgin two months have gone. Ah shit,
[11:13] Speaker 2: I guess I'm never going to have sex in this life.
[11:16] Speaker 2: And then she comes back and agrees. Does she just
[11:20] Speaker 2: lie down on the altar? Does she pour the fuel
[11:23] Speaker 2: upon herself? Does she arrange the twigs and the sticks
[11:26] Speaker 2: and the kindling. I don't understand the story, but it's offensive,
[11:30] Speaker 2: and it is in the Book of Judges chapter eleven.
[11:34] Speaker 2: After burning his daughter, Jeptha was rewarded with a prestigious
[11:38] Speaker 2: judge ship and was later buried with honor number four.
[11:45] Speaker 2: The cannibalistic God makes people eat human flesh. There are
[11:51] Speaker 2: nine passages in the Old Testament where God makes cannibalistic threats.
[11:56] Speaker 2: Here is the worst one. This is Leviticus, verses twenty
[12:01] Speaker 2: seven through twenty nine. And if ye will not for
[12:05] Speaker 2: all this hearken unto me, but walk contrary unto me,
[12:11] Speaker 2: then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury,
[12:16] Speaker 2: and I even I will chastise you seven times for
[12:20] Speaker 2: your sins. And ye shall eat the flesh of your
[12:23] Speaker 2: sons and the flesh of your daughters. Shall ye eat?
[12:30] Speaker 2: Number three from Dan Barker. God threatens rape, then takes
[12:35] Speaker 2: credit for it. Jeremiah thirteen. This passage was new to me,
[12:41] Speaker 2: Dan says, and it blew me away. I guess I'd
[12:44] Speaker 2: only read it before in the King James version, where
[12:47] Speaker 2: the sexual molestation is not obvious. Here it is in
[12:51] Speaker 2: the NRSV New Romi Standard version, where the Israelites were
[12:56] Speaker 2: asking why they were being attacked by the babylone hear
[13:01] Speaker 2: and give ear. Do not be haughty, for the Lord
[13:04] Speaker 2: has spoken. And if you say in your heart, why
[13:08] Speaker 2: have these things come upon me? It is for the
[13:10] Speaker 2: greatness of your iniquity that your skirts are lifted up
[13:14] Speaker 2: and you are violated, because you have forgotten me and
[13:18] Speaker 2: trusted in lies. I myself will lift up your skirts
[13:23] Speaker 2: over your face, and your shame will be seen. Skirts
[13:29] Speaker 2: lifted up is sexual assault. Violate is rape. The King
[13:34] Speaker 2: James version has the quaint heels made bear, which obscures
[13:39] Speaker 2: the sexual assault. Note that the iniquity for which they
[13:44] Speaker 2: were being raped was not immorality or depravity. It was
[13:47] Speaker 2: simply because quote you have forgotten me. Number two, God
[13:55] Speaker 2: threatens sexual molestation. The Lord will haras attractive uppity women
[14:02] Speaker 2: by exposing their private parts Isaiah chapter three. Moreover, the
[14:07] Speaker 2: Lord saith because the daughters of Zion are haughty and
[14:12] Speaker 2: walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and
[14:16] Speaker 2: mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their
[14:20] Speaker 2: feet their form. The Lord will smite with a scab
[14:24] Speaker 2: the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion,
[14:27] Speaker 2: and the Lord will discover their secret parts. The new
[14:33] Speaker 2: International version covers up this embarrassing passage with make their
[14:38] Speaker 2: scalps bald in place of discover their secret parts. The
[14:44] Speaker 2: Hebrew four poth pot is vagina. Other translations are more honest.
[14:52] Speaker 2: The Orthodox Jewish Bible has lay bare their nakedness, Amplified Bible,
[14:58] Speaker 2: stripped naked, come complete. Jewish Bible expose their private parts.
[15:03] Speaker 2: Common English version uncover their private parts, and Living Bible
[15:09] Speaker 2: expose their nakedness for all to see. Even if Daughters
[15:15] Speaker 2: of Zion is a metaphor for Israel, it is a
[15:18] Speaker 2: metaphor of sexual assaults. And finally, number one, God wants
[15:25] Speaker 2: you to be happy to dash babies against the rocks.
[15:29] Speaker 2: Dan Barker says, I've always thought this was the worst
[15:33] Speaker 2: verse in the Bible, and my opinion remains unchanged. Psalm
[15:38] Speaker 2: one thirty seven, verses eight and nine, O Daughter Babylon,
[15:42] Speaker 2: you devastator. Happy shall they be who pay you back
[15:47] Speaker 2: what you have done to us? Happy shall they be
[15:50] Speaker 2: who take your little ones and dash them against the rock?
[15:56] Speaker 2: God was not merely saying that regrettable collateral damage might
[16:00] Speaker 2: occur during wartime. He said believers should be happy. Some
[16:05] Speaker 2: translations say blessed to kill innocent babies of those who
[16:10] Speaker 2: are keeping you from worshiping your own God, and Dan
[16:16] Speaker 2: finishes by saying this, anyone who claims to admire and
[16:19] Speaker 2: worship the biblical God has either abandoned all sense of
[16:22] Speaker 2: moral judgment or has never actually read the Old Testament.
[16:27] Speaker 2: Since most believers are good people, I prefer to assume
[16:31] Speaker 2: the latter. I think the world would be a much
[16:34] Speaker 2: better place if people would actually read the book. A. A. Milne,
[16:39] Speaker 2: author of Winnie the Pooh, said the Old Testament is
[16:43] Speaker 2: responsible for more atheism, agnosticism, disbelief call it what you will,
[16:49] Speaker 2: than any book ever written. It has emptied more churches
[16:53] Speaker 2: than all of the counter attractions of cinema, motor bicycle,
[16:58] Speaker 2: and golf course. Before we can cure an illness, we
[17:03] Speaker 2: have to diagnose it. Please, let's read the Old Testament
[17:07] Speaker 2: and then excize the cancer from our lives. And I
[17:12] Speaker 2: do recommend Dan Barker's book It's called God, The Most
[17:16] Speaker 2: Unpleasant Character in All Fiction. More examples from the Christian
[17:23] Speaker 2: Bible about the moral monster, the most unpleasant character in
[17:28] Speaker 2: all fiction. Plenty of your calls and plenty more examples. Next,
[17:39] Speaker 2: one thing I want to say here before I go
[17:40] Speaker 2: to the phones is we can't let the New Testament
[17:44] Speaker 2: off the hook. And a lot of people are like, well,
[17:48] Speaker 2: Old Testament hate and death and pain and awfulness. New
[17:52] Speaker 2: Testament is light and love and goodness and charity and
[17:54] Speaker 2: warmth and Kumbai yah, which is a monumentally oversimplified look
[17:59] Speaker 2: at scripture. There are a lot of, I think better
[18:02] Speaker 2: things in the New Testament. But Jesus could be a
[18:06] Speaker 2: total asshole, you know he could. He was a misogynist
[18:09] Speaker 2: the way he treated I think he compared a woman
[18:11] Speaker 2: to a dog. And he told people to abandon their
[18:14] Speaker 2: families without even letting them say goodbye. And he had
[18:17] Speaker 2: all of these things. Plus we're talking about the New
[18:19] Speaker 2: Testament where hell is introduced. Doctor David Madison has the
[18:24] Speaker 2: book Ten Things Christians Wish Jesus Hadn't taught and other
[18:28] Speaker 2: reasons to question his words. You can find that in
[18:32] Speaker 2: paper and digital and I read the audiobook, but there
[18:35] Speaker 2: is also a whole website where he lists out a
[18:39] Speaker 2: whole bunch of this stuff, bad things Jesus taught dot
[18:43] Speaker 2: com And that's a great resource when you find a happy,
[18:47] Speaker 2: clampy Christian who thinks that Jesus was just to love
[18:50] Speaker 2: the little children and we are all his little children
[18:54] Speaker 2: kind of person. Jesus was not always a good guy.
[18:58] Speaker 2: What is it that you are bringing to the table.
[19:01] Speaker 2: I would like to know. I'm going to talk to
[19:03] Speaker 2: seven one seven. There's no name given, but are you there.
[19:08] Speaker 2: My name is Stephen Steven. We're talking about the God
[19:12] Speaker 2: of the Old and New Testament. What do you have
[19:14] Speaker 2: for us, my friend?
[19:16] Speaker 3: So, I having trouble understanding or accepting how people can
[19:20] Speaker 3: still view religion so non critically. And I know that
[19:26] Speaker 3: that you know when you're raised in a particular religion.
[19:29] Speaker 3: I mean I was raised Methodist and then Catholic, and
[19:33] Speaker 3: you know, and I eventually worked my way out, but
[19:36] Speaker 3: my mother also raised me to question everything, which sort
[19:40] Speaker 3: of set me up for disaster when it came to
[19:43] Speaker 3: religion anyway, And I understand there's a difference between following
[19:47] Speaker 3: a particular religion as well as what you want your
[19:51] Speaker 3: belief system to be as being two different things, you know.
[19:55] Speaker 3: I mean, we can look at the Bible, and you know,
[19:57] Speaker 3: I remember very early on being like, who was Cain's wife?
[20:02] Speaker 3: If there were only the four of them, you know, Adam, Eve, Cain,
[20:05] Speaker 3: and Abel, How did Cain and Abel get married? And
[20:08] Speaker 3: where did their wives come from? So that was like
[20:11] Speaker 3: an immediate plot hole for me at six years old.
[20:15] Speaker 3: So I feel like people can be raised in a
[20:17] Speaker 3: religion and taught not to question it in quotes, but
[20:22] Speaker 3: that there have to be things that just scream at
[20:25] Speaker 3: them as being inconsistent or wrong. And how I tie
[20:28] Speaker 3: this to where I am now is, you know, I
[20:31] Speaker 3: have friends who are pastors, and I'm in a same
[20:35] Speaker 3: sex marriage, and I learned last night that this person
[20:39] Speaker 3: that I met randomly who happens to be a pastor,
[20:42] Speaker 3: turned out to be the pastor that my husband had
[20:45] Speaker 3: approached to officiate our ceremony. And he backed out like
[20:50] Speaker 3: two weeks before we got married, and he still feels
[20:53] Speaker 3: guilty about it, and it was whatever issues he was
[20:57] Speaker 3: having with it had to do with you know, the
[20:59] Speaker 3: fact that it was the same sex marriage that he
[21:01] Speaker 3: was officiating, and it was a little too liberal for
[21:04] Speaker 3: him to be able to do. But yet we've been
[21:06] Speaker 3: married a little over a year now. Every time this
[21:10] Speaker 3: pastor bumps into my husband, he's still apologizing for doing that.
[21:14] Speaker 3: So he clearly knows that his position was wrong and
[21:18] Speaker 3: sort of created a little bit of chaos, but not
[21:21] Speaker 3: enough to like change his ways or mend his ways
[21:24] Speaker 3: when it comes to what his religion is telling him
[21:27] Speaker 3: to do. And I'm trying to understand because where I
[21:31] Speaker 3: I you know, my husband told me this last night
[21:33] Speaker 3: actually is when I found out about it, and my
[21:35] Speaker 3: response was, well, good, he should feel guilty because he
[21:39] Speaker 3: was in the wrong, and I'm glad on some level
[21:41] Speaker 3: he knows that, but clearly it's not enough to push
[21:46] Speaker 3: him a little further along. And when I look at
[21:48] Speaker 3: the people in my life who are really religious, who
[21:52] Speaker 3: seem to not be getting it, I look at them
[21:54] Speaker 3: and I'm like, you really should know better. I'm hoping
[21:57] Speaker 3: you can speak to this a little bit, because it
[22:00] Speaker 3: really baffles me when I look at somebody in front
[22:03] Speaker 3: of me who's clearly intelligent, who's clearly thoughtful, compassionate, a
[22:08] Speaker 3: good person in many other metrics, but as soon as
[22:12] Speaker 3: something comes up against their religion, it's like, oh no,
[22:14] Speaker 3: I can't think outside the book or think outside the box.
[22:18] Speaker 3: I have to go along with what my religion says.
[22:21] Speaker 2: I think this is the dilemma. People are very modular
[22:25] Speaker 2: our brands. It's funny how we can be logical here here, here, here, here,
[22:30] Speaker 2: and then have the place in the brain where the
[22:32] Speaker 2: weird shit lives. And it's not just religious people that
[22:36] Speaker 2: do this. I've seen people across the color and culture spectrum.
[22:41] Speaker 2: You know, I met atheist flat earthers. Was it Mehdi Hassan?
[22:45] Speaker 2: Who's this?
[22:46] Speaker 4: You know?
[22:46] Speaker 2: He's not an uneducated guy who hosts his own show,
[22:50] Speaker 2: and he's kind of a global name out there, and
[22:52] Speaker 2: he believes that Muhammad rode to heaven on a winged horse.
[22:55] Speaker 2: What the hell? And I find myself thinking, how do
[22:59] Speaker 2: you not see it?
[23:01] Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's kind of My husband is at the
[23:04] Speaker 3: point now where he's like, do you have to bring
[23:06] Speaker 3: it up? Because I can't just sit there with some stuff.
[23:10] Speaker 3: I used to be a little more tolerant, but you
[23:12] Speaker 3: catch me on a bad day and I'm just like oh, well,
[23:14] Speaker 3: you shut up. I bump into people who have to
[23:17] Speaker 3: throw praise God or praise Jesus every other sentence somewhere
[23:21] Speaker 3: in there to thank them for I don't know that
[23:23] Speaker 3: they found their keys or whatever, and I'm like, just
[23:26] Speaker 3: come on, just stop for a second. Or when they
[23:30] Speaker 3: try to engage me on the fact that I'm in
[23:32] Speaker 3: a same sex marriage and aren't you worried about going
[23:34] Speaker 3: to Hell and I'm like, well, not really, because I
[23:36] Speaker 3: don't believe it's there, so you know, and I've been dead,
[23:40] Speaker 3: so you know I can use that as a that too.
[23:45] Speaker 2: You can't just throw that out you've been dead.
[23:49] Speaker 3: Yeah, I had a heart attack and I had a
[23:52] Speaker 3: near death experience, and I didn't go to Hell, and
[23:56] Speaker 3: I didn't go to Heaven, and I was in a
[23:59] Speaker 3: white room and all the typical descriptions that most NDEs have.
[24:04] Speaker 3: And I also know what happens in your brain when
[24:06] Speaker 3: your brain thinks you're going to die. But the bottom,
[24:09] Speaker 3: I mean, I had a born again Christian tell me
[24:11] Speaker 3: that I didn't really have a near death experience because
[24:14] Speaker 3: I didn't see Jesus. And I said, so, you're critiquing
[24:18] Speaker 3: my near death experience as not aligning with your religions,
[24:22] Speaker 3: so it didn't really happen. And I'm like, I don't
[24:25] Speaker 3: think it works quite that way, but okay, all I
[24:29] Speaker 3: know is that they had to bring me back with paddles,
[24:31] Speaker 3: you know, and I know all the stuff that happens
[24:34] Speaker 3: in your body when you are close to death happened
[24:37] Speaker 3: to me. So you know, I think those are the
[24:40] Speaker 3: qualifying things. Because he was also, well, God brought you back,
[24:44] Speaker 3: and I was like, well, not unless the God's name
[24:46] Speaker 3: is Jerry, because that was the paramedic who shocked me,
[24:50] Speaker 3: you know. So it becomes a whole thing. But when
[24:53] Speaker 3: I say that to a Christian or other ultra religious person,
[24:58] Speaker 3: they don't have anywhere to go because I've had an
[25:01] Speaker 3: experience they haven't had. So I keep that in my
[25:04] Speaker 3: back pocket.
[25:04] Speaker 2: Oh God, if I were sitting at the table with you,
[25:06] Speaker 2: I'd be like, all, Hail Jerry, we worship the Jerry.
[25:10] Speaker 2: Let us pass the plates for Jerry.
[25:13] Speaker 3: Exactly exactly.
[25:15] Speaker 2: Changing minds, I think starts with understanding how belief in
[25:19] Speaker 2: the brain work. And I've become fascinated. I'm preparing a
[25:23] Speaker 2: speech that I'll be giving in late twenty twenty four
[25:26] Speaker 2: and touring with in early twenty twenty five about why
[25:30] Speaker 2: facts don't change minds. I've been having a lot of
[25:33] Speaker 2: conversations with Melanie Teresa King at thinkingspower dot com about
[25:38] Speaker 2: all the times I walked into a room and I
[25:41] Speaker 2: showed them the data, and I opened the Bible and
[25:43] Speaker 2: I pointed at the verses and I said here, here, here,
[25:46] Speaker 2: and here, and then I showed them the overwhelming a
[25:49] Speaker 2: a lance of evidence for evolution here, here, and here,
[25:53] Speaker 2: and all of the prophecies that were not fulfilled, and
[25:56] Speaker 2: the contradictions and the immorality, the slavery, the infanticide, the genocide,
[26:02] Speaker 2: thinking yes, once they see it, they'll see it, and
[26:06] Speaker 2: they never saw it. Instead it was fight, flight or freeze.
[26:11] Speaker 2: And there's a reason for that. People approach an ideological
[26:15] Speaker 2: threat in the same way they approach a physical threat.
[26:18] Speaker 2: They will lock down or fight back. And so I
[26:21] Speaker 2: think we have to understand that there is a defense
[26:25] Speaker 2: posture rooted in how they identify. Christianity isn't just a belief,
[26:31] Speaker 2: it's an identity. So if Christianity isn't true, then the
[26:35] Speaker 2: ground beneath their feet just dissolves. And that's terrifying and
[26:39] Speaker 2: it's understandable why it's terrifying when I see somebody in
[26:43] Speaker 2: my circle who says God bless or the Lord brought
[26:46] Speaker 2: us a beautiful day, or any of that stuff. I
[26:48] Speaker 2: don't worry about that. I don't jab them for it,
[26:51] Speaker 2: because that's just going to put him on the defensive.
[26:54] Speaker 2: If somebody says, praise Jesus, the chemo worked, I will
[26:58] Speaker 2: jump in and say, well, let's not forget the physicians
[27:01] Speaker 2: and scientists who were behind the treatments. If someone's coming
[27:07] Speaker 2: after me and they're doing that condescending thing, then I
[27:11] Speaker 2: tend to turn up the temperature. Then my language becomes
[27:14] Speaker 2: a little sharper, and I push back a lot harder.
[27:18] Speaker 3: And I tend to think that's where I'm at most
[27:21] Speaker 3: of the time. I sound crankier than I really am,
[27:23] Speaker 3: because it's a thing where when I run into a
[27:25] Speaker 3: situation where someone expects me to echo or mirror what
[27:29] Speaker 3: they're saying and I just simply refuse to do.
[27:32] Speaker 2: That, doesn't it come down to gauging intent. If someone
[27:35] Speaker 2: says I'll pray for you, and that is how they
[27:38] Speaker 2: have been trained by their culture to express concern, I
[27:42] Speaker 2: don't sweat that. But if someone comes to me and says,
[27:44] Speaker 2: i'll pray for you, as if it's a conversation stopper,
[27:47] Speaker 2: and they're condescending to me because I am one of
[27:50] Speaker 2: the unwashed, hell bound heathen. That's a different kind of
[27:55] Speaker 2: i'll pray for you. It's almost like bless your heart.
[27:57] Speaker 2: If someone's being sincerely kind, Oh yeah, your heart, or
[28:01] Speaker 2: if they're like, bless your heart, which is that that
[28:03] Speaker 2: teeny tiny fuck you that I like to talk about.
[28:06] Speaker 2: I mean, we have to gauge intent, and that determines
[28:09] Speaker 2: how we respond.
[28:10] Speaker 3: Sure, absolutely, as well as being the idea of saying
[28:14] Speaker 3: grace before a meal, you're forcing me to engage in
[28:17] Speaker 3: this ritual with you, and that's where I'm like, no,
[28:20] Speaker 3: you can go ahead and pray over there if you're
[28:22] Speaker 3: that worried about my cooking, but I don't have to
[28:25] Speaker 3: join in and I'm not stopping you. So be as
[28:28] Speaker 3: respectful of me for not forcing me. And not all
[28:32] Speaker 3: religions do that. So I could be a different religion
[28:34] Speaker 3: and it would be just as rude. You would just
[28:37] Speaker 3: be happier about it if I just happen to be
[28:39] Speaker 3: a different religion in that situation.
[28:41] Speaker 2: So if they invite us to say grace. I think
[28:44] Speaker 2: we just thank Jerry. Oh, Jerry, we thank you for
[28:48] Speaker 2: this turkey, your mashed potatoes, Jerry, we appreciate your generosity
[28:53] Speaker 2: and grace. All hailed to Jerry. So that's my new
[28:56] Speaker 2: guard for the week.
[28:57] Speaker 3: Bro, Jerry.
[29:00] Speaker 2: Even thanks for calling.
[29:01] Speaker 5: Brother.
[29:01] Speaker 2: Just keep kicking. And I don't know how to change
[29:04] Speaker 2: minds as much as I think i've in my own life.
[29:06] Speaker 2: I'm going to slow my role. I'm trying to I'm
[29:09] Speaker 2: trying to tap into our shared humanity. I'm trying to
[29:12] Speaker 2: make people feel less attacked unless they're attacking me. But
[29:16] Speaker 2: I don't think there's a magic bullet. So if you
[29:19] Speaker 2: find one, you call us.
[29:20] Speaker 3: Okay, I will do that, Thanks, Seth, take care, Yeah,
[29:23] Speaker 3: see you later.
[29:24] Speaker 2: It's funny the stuff that is not directed at me.
[29:28] Speaker 2: When I get together in a religious gathering of family
[29:32] Speaker 2: and friends, they never, of course, will ask me to
[29:35] Speaker 2: bless the meal. They know better, and they never ask
[29:39] Speaker 2: me how work is going. I've noticed that much. I'll
[29:42] Speaker 2: go around the table. How are things at the office,
[29:45] Speaker 2: how's your job going as a nurse? Hey, didn't you
[29:47] Speaker 2: get a promotion? Did your office move?
[29:50] Speaker 4: Wow?
[29:50] Speaker 2: What's that like? Are you working from home fantastic and
[29:53] Speaker 2: they just skip me, seth, how is work? Knowing that
[29:58] Speaker 2: my work is an atheist tackctivist. I am a full
[30:01] Speaker 2: time atheist activist. Nobody asks me how work is going,
[30:07] Speaker 2: and I just find that interesting because I'd like him
[30:09] Speaker 2: to ask again. Getting back to the most unpleasant character
[30:14] Speaker 2: in all of fiction, here's one in the Book of Leviticus.
[30:20] Speaker 2: Did you know that the God of the Old Testament
[30:23] Speaker 2: certainly wouldn't let people approach him in his holiness unless
[30:28] Speaker 2: they qualified for the cover of People magazine, Like you
[30:32] Speaker 2: have to be beautiful in order to approach God? How
[30:36] Speaker 2: freaking shallow is this verse? Leviticus, Chapter twenty one, verses
[30:40] Speaker 2: eighteen through twenty one. For whatsoever man he be that
[30:45] Speaker 2: hath a blemish, he shall not approach a blind man,
[30:50] Speaker 2: or a lame or he that hath a flat nose,
[30:55] Speaker 2: or anything superfluous, or a man that is broken footed,
[30:59] Speaker 2: or broken handed, or crooked backed, or a dwarf, or
[31:03] Speaker 2: that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy
[31:08] Speaker 2: or scabbed, or hath his stones broken by the way
[31:11] Speaker 2: stones testicles. So if you have broken balls, you screwed.
[31:15] Speaker 2: You can't go and talk to God. No man that
[31:18] Speaker 2: hath the blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest
[31:21] Speaker 2: shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the Lord
[31:24] Speaker 2: made by fire. He hath a blemish, he shall not
[31:29] Speaker 2: come nigh to offer the bread of his God. Anytime
[31:35] Speaker 2: you hear Christians talk about the God of the Bible
[31:38] Speaker 2: being this all accepting, come as you are Deity, just
[31:42] Speaker 2: pull up Leviticus chapter twenty one, verses eighteen through twenty
[31:46] Speaker 2: one and say, okay, well, I hope you don't have
[31:48] Speaker 2: a flat nose, a crooked back, or crushed balls because
[31:53] Speaker 2: you're screwed not able to go talk to God according
[31:57] Speaker 2: to the Old Testaments. I've got two to nine, is it? Scott? Scott,
[32:05] Speaker 2: thanks for calling. What do you want to talk about?
[32:09] Speaker 4: Trying to just understand trump Ism? You think I would
[32:14] Speaker 4: be used to it by now, but I just can't
[32:16] Speaker 4: grasp how people in my circle still follow the man.
[32:21] Speaker 2: Who's in your circle. What are we talking about.
[32:24] Speaker 4: I have family members, I have neighbors. I live in Utah.
[32:28] Speaker 4: I have a Mormon neighbor that flies his flag daily
[32:32] Speaker 4: and wants to preach about Trump and just worships the
[32:36] Speaker 4: man and I used to be kind to her, but
[32:39] Speaker 4: I do not hold any punches anymore. It's been long enough.
[32:43] Speaker 4: I constantly remind her about how he likes to physically
[32:46] Speaker 4: assault women, allegations of child abuse and sexual assault and
[32:52] Speaker 4: criminal and she just she's got excuses for everything. I'm
[32:56] Speaker 4: just constantly reminding her. I said, an, you know, the
[32:59] Speaker 4: man's a convicted I said, He's been found primarily liabel
[33:03] Speaker 4: to as assaulting women, and he's bagged about assaulting women.
[33:06] Speaker 4: And these people just have excuses, and I just struggle.
[33:12] Speaker 4: It's time to understand it. I should be used to
[33:15] Speaker 4: it by now, but I'm not.
[33:17] Speaker 2: Oh you know, I hope we never get used to it. Scott.
[33:20] Speaker 2: You know that's the key. We cannot get used to it.
[33:23] Speaker 2: I mean, how much of this insanity has been normalized?
[33:26] Speaker 2: Have you noticed that whenever we see the craziest thing
[33:30] Speaker 2: in the headlines, we have become so numb. There's so
[33:33] Speaker 2: much scar tissue that these days we barely blink. We're
[33:37] Speaker 2: ten years ago it might have been a huge deal,
[33:40] Speaker 2: and now we're like, oh shit, you know, there is
[33:43] Speaker 2: no bottom. Stephen Hassen is a cult expert. He's an
[33:47] Speaker 2: ex mooney. He was part of the Mooney cult, and
[33:50] Speaker 2: he busted out and he wrote a book called The
[33:53] Speaker 2: Cult of Trump. And it is interesting to see that
[33:58] Speaker 2: people do to Trump that they do to their gods
[34:02] Speaker 2: and their cult leaders. They have removed their individual identity
[34:08] Speaker 2: or latched it, welded it, melded it into the identity
[34:13] Speaker 2: of the leader and the culture, which is maga. And
[34:18] Speaker 2: then whatever he says goes. If he wants to eliminate
[34:21] Speaker 2: the constitution, hey, you know he's the one in charge,
[34:24] Speaker 2: He's the dear leader. If he wants to go and
[34:27] Speaker 2: fire half the government and eliminate the Department of Education
[34:31] Speaker 2: and put his hands on women and declare war on
[34:34] Speaker 2: whoever it rubs him the wrong way, well you know
[34:37] Speaker 2: he's the dear leader. Will follow his lead. It's an
[34:40] Speaker 2: absolute surrender, and it is very much a cult model.
[34:44] Speaker 2: It is a thought stopping culture. I share your frustration
[34:50] Speaker 2: because I think if you and I had behave one
[34:53] Speaker 2: to one hundredth of the way that Donald Trump had
[34:56] Speaker 2: behaved toward anybody in everybody be cast off by the
[35:01] Speaker 2: people in our own communities.
[35:03] Speaker 4: Right absolutely. I have an older brother that our whole life,
[35:09] Speaker 4: I've always we've always gotten along We've never had an
[35:12] Speaker 4: unkind word to say with each other, and because of Trump,
[35:16] Speaker 4: we don't speak. We have it spoke since January sixth,
[35:21] Speaker 4: and it's all because of Trump. He has a girlfriend.
[35:24] Speaker 4: I was in his living room. They had Fox News
[35:28] Speaker 4: on and Trump was on, and she kissed the TV
[35:34] Speaker 4: and I was disgusted, and they I have the problem.
[35:39] Speaker 2: I think it was doctor Hector Garcia who had written
[35:42] Speaker 2: about how I'm going to take it in the teeth
[35:46] Speaker 2: for this. But among political conservatives globally, not just in
[35:50] Speaker 2: the United States, there is more of a gravitation toward authoritarianism,
[35:55] Speaker 2: tribes and tribal symbols, which is why we didn't see
[36:00] Speaker 2: a Biden flag everywhere. I mean we see some, we
[36:03] Speaker 2: saw some. We're seeing some Kamala stuff out there, but
[36:06] Speaker 2: we're not seeing a truck drive by with twelve Commala
[36:11] Speaker 2: flags on it the way we've seen it with Trump.
[36:13] Speaker 2: I mean, there is a utility of tribal symbols. The
[36:17] Speaker 2: American flag is a tribal symbol. Waving the gun is
[36:21] Speaker 2: a tribal symbol, the red hat is a tribal symbol.
[36:27] Speaker 2: And I think these are very much things that political
[36:30] Speaker 2: conservatives rally around, you know, they make them part of
[36:33] Speaker 2: the club. They become their identity, and that takes us
[36:36] Speaker 2: back to identity beliefs, and we can all be guilty
[36:39] Speaker 2: to a degree. But I've never seen anything like it
[36:42] Speaker 2: in this country like I've seen with Maget culture. And
[36:44] Speaker 2: I grieve. I grieve that it's cost you relationships. It's
[36:48] Speaker 2: made relationships difficult for a great many people. I've heard
[36:51] Speaker 2: it as ended marriages, spouses, you know, on both sides
[36:54] Speaker 2: of the political spectrum. It became a conversation about values.
[36:58] Speaker 2: They just couldn't share the same space because they didn't
[37:01] Speaker 2: live in the same world.
[37:03] Speaker 4: Right, you talk about in the marriage I divorced my
[37:07] Speaker 4: life in twenty sixteen. There was a lot behind that,
[37:12] Speaker 4: not politically related, but it was the political aspect of
[37:16] Speaker 4: it that drew the final straw with me.
[37:19] Speaker 2: Well, I don't know now. I don't understand how people
[37:24] Speaker 2: who are banging the Bible and doing that moral chest
[37:28] Speaker 2: thumping can embrace the worst of us. Yeah, And all
[37:32] Speaker 2: I can say is I share your frustration, and I
[37:34] Speaker 2: look ahead to November and I think, please let sanity return.
[37:39] Speaker 2: And so you and I will watch the calendar and anticipate,
[37:43] Speaker 2: hopefully something good, Scott, I mean, do you have any optimism.
[37:48] Speaker 4: I'm really feeling good about Kamala and yeah, I'm feeling
[37:52] Speaker 4: good about this election.
[37:54] Speaker 2: Well, I'm sorry about your brother, but I'm so glad
[37:57] Speaker 2: you're here. I'm glad you're called. And let's try to
[37:59] Speaker 2: mean pain some hope, but more than that, let's maintain
[38:02] Speaker 2: momentum and keep working. Okay, absolutely, all right, be safe,
[38:07] Speaker 2: We'll see you. What's that book? It's called Why Smart
[38:10] Speaker 2: People Believe Dumb Things. There's this myth that intelligent people
[38:17] Speaker 2: can't adopt and embrace and protect stupid ideas. That's ridiculous.
[38:23] Speaker 2: Intelligent people can often have some of the worst ideas,
[38:27] Speaker 2: and they can be the most clever at trying to
[38:29] Speaker 2: rationalize those ideas. I get sick and tired of the
[38:33] Speaker 2: meme verse saying that everybody is just it's all about
[38:36] Speaker 2: IQ or mental illness. I'm thinking of doing a speech
[38:40] Speaker 2: maybe in the next year or two, about some of
[38:43] Speaker 2: the worst atheist arguments I have seen. I know I'm
[38:47] Speaker 2: going to become a target. I'm going to paint a
[38:49] Speaker 2: big bull's eye on me if I do that, because yeah,
[38:54] Speaker 2: it was Seth is just tone policing. And I'm like,
[38:58] Speaker 2: shut up. Yeah, I'd like to think after fifteen years
[39:03] Speaker 2: on the front lines of the movement, having these conversations
[39:06] Speaker 2: on an hour by hour basis, seeing what does and
[39:09] Speaker 2: does not work, I qualify to offer a perspective on
[39:13] Speaker 2: what does and does not work, what is and is
[39:17] Speaker 2: not a good argument. You can take it, you can
[39:19] Speaker 2: leave it. But I'm not tone policing by saying that
[39:22] Speaker 2: religion is not a mental illness. It's just a bad argument.
[39:27] Speaker 2: It's just stupid. There's one I saw the other day
[39:31] Speaker 2: where people walked into a church and the usher was
[39:36] Speaker 2: taking their brain at the door. Oh you're walking into church,
[39:39] Speaker 2: you won't be needing this, and they take the religious
[39:43] Speaker 2: brain out of their head or something. It's just dumb,
[39:45] Speaker 2: it's superior, it's not helpful, and it's I think betrays
[39:51] Speaker 2: the fact that thinking people can have bad ideas. Reasoning
[39:57] Speaker 2: people can have bad re But it doesn't mean that
[40:02] Speaker 2: they are not intelligent. It doesn't mean they're not thinking.
[40:06] Speaker 2: They might just be having wrong think. And that's a
[40:09] Speaker 2: different conversation. I'm thinking about doing a whole speech on it,
[40:13] Speaker 2: and I'm sure people are going to come after me.
[40:16] Speaker 2: Seth Andrews. Thanks to you. People should all do it
[40:19] Speaker 2: his way. Blah blah blah. Leviticus chapter twelve has another
[40:26] Speaker 2: ditty for us. But if she bear a made child,
[40:32] Speaker 2: m aid made child, then she shall be unclean two
[40:37] Speaker 2: weeks as in her separation, and she shall continue in
[40:41] Speaker 2: the blood of her purifying three score and six days.
[40:47] Speaker 2: You know the Bible has that verse. I'm doing this
[40:49] Speaker 2: one from memory where a menstruating woman was banished from
[40:54] Speaker 2: her community for a week. I mean, they're weird about
[40:57] Speaker 2: periods in the Bible. Just kick her out of the
[41:01] Speaker 2: town for I think seven days, seven days mark Chapter twelve,
[41:07] Speaker 2: Verse nineteen. Master Moses wrote, undo us, if a man's
[41:11] Speaker 2: brother die, then leave his wife behind him and leave
[41:14] Speaker 2: no children. That his brother should take his wife and
[41:19] Speaker 2: raise up seed unto his brother.
[41:24] Speaker 5: Ah.
[41:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of happing. Thanks with your brother's
[41:26] Speaker 2: wife and the Bible. I'm just saying, And we didn't
[41:30] Speaker 2: put it there, We're just revealing that it is there.
[41:36] Speaker 2: We've got more calls more to talk about. And I'm
[41:38] Speaker 2: going to play a segment from my book Deconverted on
[41:42] Speaker 2: atrocities and horrors in the Bible and the day or
[41:47] Speaker 2: days that I first discovered them. That's coming up next,
[41:57] Speaker 2: continuing our conversation about the moral monster Downelle at nine
[42:05] Speaker 2: one eight. That's my home turf. You're in the Tulsa area,
[42:10] Speaker 2: I am, what's on your mind?
[42:13] Speaker 6: The guy called in was talking about how he had
[42:15] Speaker 6: a near death experience. I've had one too, and it
[42:19] Speaker 6: was at home. No doctors, no medication, anything like that.
[42:24] Speaker 6: And I was wondering, as an atheist, how do you
[42:27] Speaker 6: view a near death experience?
[42:30] Speaker 2: We understand that for many people that moment when the
[42:35] Speaker 2: brain is deprived of oxygen, that's something called hypoxia happens,
[42:41] Speaker 2: and this taps into memory and imagination. The brain sort
[42:46] Speaker 2: of hyperactivates in a way, and so that explains the
[42:50] Speaker 2: white lights, the memories of Grandma, et cetera. There are
[42:54] Speaker 2: some people who come up with the story that, well,
[42:57] Speaker 2: you know, I had a near death or post death experience.
[43:00] Speaker 2: I was on the table for three minutes and I
[43:02] Speaker 2: floated above my own body, and I heard exactly what
[43:05] Speaker 2: the doctor said. And I couldn't have known that because
[43:09] Speaker 2: I was dead. Yeah, but I mean, what do I
[43:13] Speaker 2: do with an anecdote like that? You know, and if
[43:16] Speaker 2: we see many people saying the same types of thing.
[43:19] Speaker 2: It's interesting, but the plural of anecdote is not evidence.
[43:24] Speaker 2: I am curious, though. Tell me your story. You were
[43:26] Speaker 2: dead on the table.
[43:28] Speaker 6: I was in my bed. I had an affection. I
[43:31] Speaker 6: become sepsist, and I tried to wake my ex husband up.
[43:36] Speaker 6: He told me to go back to sleep cause I
[43:37] Speaker 6: was hurting and everything. Everything went black, and I felt
[43:41] Speaker 6: my self jerk out of myself, and I saw myself
[43:45] Speaker 6: looking down at my ex husband and my son in
[43:48] Speaker 6: his crib beside my bed, and I was going up
[43:52] Speaker 6: and I'm like, what is this? And I went through
[43:55] Speaker 6: like black, and so I'm going up through black, and
[44:01] Speaker 6: all of a sudden, I see a white It's beautiful.
[44:06] Speaker 6: I'm not scared of dying, you know. It was beautiful
[44:09] Speaker 6: as golden and white, and it felt peaceful and loving.
[44:15] Speaker 6: And I said, God, not right now. My son need
[44:19] Speaker 6: to me, Please God, not right now. And I hit
[44:23] Speaker 6: my body. I felt myself hitting my body, and I
[44:28] Speaker 6: woke up and I was able to crawl across the
[44:31] Speaker 6: floor and call for help.
[44:33] Speaker 2: So let's say that I had taken a hallucinogenic, that
[44:38] Speaker 2: it affected my brain, be it lack of oxygen or
[44:41] Speaker 2: just causing the synapses to fire in funky ways. And
[44:45] Speaker 2: I had a dream that I was flying in a
[44:47] Speaker 2: kaleidoscope of color, and I saw all the people in
[44:51] Speaker 2: my life who have already died and passed on, and
[44:53] Speaker 2: they welcomed me, and we all hugged and reassured each other,
[44:57] Speaker 2: and then I felt myself slammed back into my phys form.
[45:01] Speaker 2: What would you do with that? If I, you know,
[45:03] Speaker 2: I'd taken a substance that had produced a story like that,
[45:06] Speaker 2: would you feel like it actually happened? Do you think
[45:08] Speaker 2: my mind was just kind of a playground that made
[45:13] Speaker 2: it feel like it happened.
[45:15] Speaker 6: From what I'd gather, hallucinogenics make your brain bleed, so
[45:20] Speaker 6: I would view it as that. I don't think taking
[45:24] Speaker 6: anything can make you have a godly experience or anything
[45:28] Speaker 6: like that.
[45:29] Speaker 2: Wait a minute, hallucinogenics make your brain bleed. I'm not
[45:32] Speaker 2: sure that's accurate.
[45:34] Speaker 6: Yes, from what I gether whenever I was in school,
[45:38] Speaker 6: something about the brain detaching from the side of your
[45:42] Speaker 6: skull or something like that, and it causes your brain
[45:44] Speaker 6: to bleed.
[45:45] Speaker 2: I'm going to have to do a little peer review
[45:47] Speaker 2: on that one. I don't think that's I'd not convinced
[45:50] Speaker 2: that that's correct. But how do you know that it
[45:53] Speaker 2: was God? I mean, you mentioned the word God. Was
[45:56] Speaker 2: it God that was part of your NDE?
[45:59] Speaker 6: I don't no, see, I do not believe in a
[46:02] Speaker 6: Christian God or any god of any religion. I think
[46:07] Speaker 6: if that was God, God is an energy maybe that
[46:12] Speaker 6: we go back to. Does that make sense? I don't
[46:16] Speaker 6: believe in an all knowing, powerful God that strikes us
[46:20] Speaker 6: and puts us on hill and all that stuff. I
[46:23] Speaker 6: just think if that was God, God, this energy or
[46:29] Speaker 6: this life that we all go back to, well.
[46:33] Speaker 2: I would like to see some evidence for that. But
[46:38] Speaker 2: knowing that the brain tends to fire in unique ways
[46:43] Speaker 2: when we are in moments of trauma or oxygen deprivation
[46:47] Speaker 2: makes me skeptical that we have tapped into a supernatural membrane.
[46:51] Speaker 2: The day somebody is able to demonstrate that, I would
[46:54] Speaker 2: be insanely curious. I would like to know that. But
[46:58] Speaker 2: I appreciate you telling me your story. I'm glad you're okay.
[47:01] Speaker 2: I'm glad you came back to life. I'm glad you're
[47:04] Speaker 2: still with us. You know that's huge. So that's the
[47:07] Speaker 2: I think that's the headline donell you know you didn't
[47:10] Speaker 2: die that day.
[47:12] Speaker 6: Now, Well, thank you for answering my question.
[47:16] Speaker 2: I don't know that it was an answer, I think
[47:18] Speaker 2: more than anything else, anecdotes they're interesting, but they're not evidence.
[47:23] Speaker 2: I think we have to keep digging, and so you
[47:26] Speaker 2: do it. I do it. We'll see what happens. Okay,
[47:28] Speaker 2: thank you, all right, see you later, Steven. Are you
[47:33] Speaker 2: with me? Yes?
[47:35] Speaker 5: Your audio is terrible, but I can't understand what you're saying.
[47:39] Speaker 5: First of all, I must say it says that I'm
[47:41] Speaker 5: a great, big fan, read your books, I like your show.
[47:45] Speaker 5: And I only say that because I don't want you
[47:47] Speaker 5: to think that I'm deliberately trying to shut anything down.
[47:51] Speaker 5: You had made a comment earlier, which is very common
[47:54] Speaker 5: in Athis circles, that Jesus said this or did this,
[47:57] Speaker 5: and God said this and did this and testament of
[48:00] Speaker 5: the other. And I am much more of a skeptic
[48:05] Speaker 5: perhaps than you are, because I don't think that God
[48:09] Speaker 5: said any of those things. I don't think Jesus said
[48:11] Speaker 5: those things. If they did, we have little evilents if
[48:14] Speaker 5: none about that. What we do have evidence of is
[48:17] Speaker 5: a scribe who wrote down something. Maybe they heard it.
[48:21] Speaker 5: Maybe they invented it, maybe they it was done some
[48:25] Speaker 5: whole cloth. I don't know. But I take a bit
[48:29] Speaker 5: issue when you say that Jesus said something, God said something.
[48:32] Speaker 5: All I know is that a scribe, an anonymous scribe,
[48:36] Speaker 5: Yet two thousand and more years ago, said something and
[48:40] Speaker 5: we now are reading it.
[48:42] Speaker 2: Stephen, do you genuinely believe that I think that a
[48:45] Speaker 2: deity wrote those things. I'm essentially just saying what the
[48:49] Speaker 2: Bible says. It says, but it's not because I believe it. So,
[48:53] Speaker 2: I mean, you might call me a poor skeptic, but
[48:56] Speaker 2: I don't. I mean, the title of my channel is
[48:59] Speaker 2: a right. The thinking atheist is sort of the brand
[49:04] Speaker 2: that we use. I don't believe in any god anywhere.
[49:07] Speaker 2: Does that make sense?
[49:08] Speaker 5: Yes, and I certainly agree with you. I'm only objecting
[49:12] Speaker 5: slightly to comments that many people make, many atheists make.
[49:16] Speaker 5: But God said this, and Jesus walked from the garden.
[49:19] Speaker 5: We don't know any of that stuff, and I don't
[49:21] Speaker 5: think that's emphasized pufficiently. That's on my only point.
[49:24] Speaker 2: Okay, you think atheists genuinely believe God walked in the garden, No,
[49:28] Speaker 2: they're I think reciting the stories. It's like if I
[49:32] Speaker 2: was talking about Lord of the Rings and I said
[49:34] Speaker 2: Gandal was speaking to Frodo. Doesn't mean I believe in Gandal.
[49:39] Speaker 2: But we are talking about the narrative of the story,
[49:43] Speaker 2: so we can address the words that claims the actions
[49:46] Speaker 2: within that story. We're giving the context and the characters,
[49:50] Speaker 2: but it doesn't mean we believe in those fictional characters.
[49:53] Speaker 2: That's fair, isn't it.
[49:55] Speaker 5: That's fair, and I agree with you. I don't think
[49:57] Speaker 5: we have any dispute at all those points. I just
[50:00] Speaker 5: feel that someone calling in or tuning into the show
[50:05] Speaker 5: might be misled because they hear you saying or any
[50:08] Speaker 5: other raceus saying the things that I find it out
[50:12] Speaker 5: as an example.
[50:14] Speaker 2: Okay, well I'll keep that in mind moving forward. Man,
[50:17] Speaker 2: I appreciate your call.
[50:18] Speaker 5: Thank you, Okay, thank you for talking to me.
[50:21] Speaker 2: You are most welcome. Thanks for your perspective. When I
[50:25] Speaker 2: say Yahweh said this, When I say Jesus said that
[50:29] Speaker 2: Moses went to liberate the Israelites, Gionah was inside the
[50:34] Speaker 2: belly of the big fish, John wrote the Book of Revelation, etc.
[50:39] Speaker 2: Do you think I do I come across as someone
[50:40] Speaker 2: who literally believes those things. Am I misrepresenting I don't
[50:47] Speaker 2: think so. By the way, got a message in from
[50:50] Speaker 2: Downell who called just a few minutes to go to
[50:52] Speaker 2: the show. I saw this. She said, I'm the one
[50:55] Speaker 2: from Tulsa that ask about the near death experience. I've
[50:59] Speaker 2: been googling hypoxia and sepsis. I think you're right. I
[51:05] Speaker 2: thank you. I've always wondered about that. I think it
[51:07] Speaker 2: would explain why people experience almost the same thing. So
[51:12] Speaker 2: I think we got a correction on the whole brain
[51:15] Speaker 2: bleed LSD thing and hypoxia and sepsis. At least that's
[51:21] Speaker 2: how I read that. So Donell, thanks for the call
[51:23] Speaker 2: and thanks for the clarification. Years ago, I told the
[51:28] Speaker 2: story of my deconstruction and deconversion in a book, and
[51:33] Speaker 2: I did a whole chapter on the moral monster, and
[51:37] Speaker 2: I really like the way I said it way back then,
[51:40] Speaker 2: so I'm just going to plague you the chapter again
[51:43] Speaker 2: in just a second. Hang On. I was just a
[51:53] Speaker 2: few years out of my religious days, and I wanted
[51:57] Speaker 2: to chronicle my story for two reasons. I wanted to
[51:59] Speaker 2: talk talk about my own journey while it was still
[52:02] Speaker 2: fresh in my mind, but also encourage other people who
[52:05] Speaker 2: might be trying to understand or maybe navigating doubts of
[52:09] Speaker 2: their own. And so I wrote a book. It released
[52:13] Speaker 2: in December of twenty twelve. It's called D Converted, the
[52:17] Speaker 2: Journey from Religion to Reason. And I got to the
[52:20] Speaker 2: point in the story where I was talking about going
[52:23] Speaker 2: back to Genesis one one and reading the whole Bible
[52:27] Speaker 2: objectively or more objectively for the first time, and I
[52:32] Speaker 2: got what I called scripture shock. Maybe you know what
[52:35] Speaker 2: this is like when you don't have the rose colored
[52:38] Speaker 2: godglasses on, you read the Bible and you're like, oh,
[52:41] Speaker 2: wait a minute, Wait a minute, is that it? Wait
[52:44] Speaker 2: a minute, Ah, that's crazy, that's horrifying, it's offensive, it's
[52:48] Speaker 2: im moral, it's it's right in front of me, and
[52:51] Speaker 2: it has been the whole time. So I had that epiphany,
[52:54] Speaker 2: and chapter eleven of D Converted sort of chronicles a
[52:58] Speaker 2: few of the things that jumped off the page and
[53:00] Speaker 2: slap me in the face. And so, you know, if
[53:03] Speaker 2: you've heard this, my apologies if I'm being redundant. I
[53:07] Speaker 2: know a lot of people like the way it's laid out,
[53:09] Speaker 2: because it is an assembling of bullet points for people
[53:13] Speaker 2: who say that God is always good, all the time anyway.
[53:16] Speaker 2: Chapter eleven of Deconverted will be the last segments of
[53:21] Speaker 2: our show today.
[53:27] Speaker 1: Teaching hatred to children could be the gravest offense to
[53:31] Speaker 1: our species. Kujill, Cincinnati, Ohio.
[53:37] Speaker 2: Chapter eleven, The Edge of the Sword. The God of
[53:41] Speaker 2: the Bible endorses rape no kidding. Within the pages of
[53:46] Speaker 2: Christian scripture, God Yahweh, Elohim, el Shadai, yeshiwa Jehovah, Jirah,
[53:53] Speaker 2: the Alpha and the Omega condoned and sometimes even instructed
[53:57] Speaker 2: the kidnapping and sexual assault of women. As a child,
[54:02] Speaker 2: I had heard a dozen times the account of Lot
[54:05] Speaker 2: Genesis nineteen, verses fifteen through twenty three. A righteous man
[54:09] Speaker 2: was saved from the destruction of the wicked city of Sodom.
[54:13] Speaker 2: His wife turned into a pillar of salt for disobediently
[54:17] Speaker 2: turning around to look. This story was classic Sunday School fodder.
[54:22] Speaker 2: Man was wicked, God was merciful, Obedience was rewarded, disobedience
[54:28] Speaker 2: was punished. Justice was done. Meanwhile, hidden in plain sight.
[54:33] Speaker 2: A few verses earlier, Lot God's righteous servant had offered
[54:37] Speaker 2: to protect his angel guests by offering up his own
[54:41] Speaker 2: virgin daughters to be raped by a crazed mob Genesis
[54:46] Speaker 2: nineteen six through eight. Lot went outside to meet them
[54:50] Speaker 2: the mob, and shut the door behind him and said, no,
[54:53] Speaker 2: my friends, don't do this wicked thing. Look, I have
[54:58] Speaker 2: two daughters who have never slept the man. Let me
[55:01] Speaker 2: bring them out to you, and you can do what
[55:03] Speaker 2: you like with them. But don't do anything to these men,
[55:07] Speaker 2: for they have come under the protection of my roof.
[55:11] Speaker 2: How exactly does take my daughters their virgins constitute righteousness?
[55:17] Speaker 2: Can you imagine any moral father saying something so obscene?
[55:22] Speaker 2: Wouldn't you, as a parent, throw yourself between your own
[55:25] Speaker 2: children and harm, even at the cost of your own life.
[55:29] Speaker 2: A frothing mob pounds at your door for the purpose
[55:32] Speaker 2: of sexual violence, and you flame your daughters into the
[55:35] Speaker 2: firing line like skeet. Meanwhile, as Lot was indeed rescued
[55:41] Speaker 2: and rewarded after this revolting display, his wife was struck
[55:45] Speaker 2: down by God for the heinous crime of looking over
[55:48] Speaker 2: his shoulder. The story gets even better. Lot's daughters got
[55:53] Speaker 2: their father liquored up Genesis nineteen thirty four so they
[55:57] Speaker 2: could take turns having sex with him. To quote preserve
[56:02] Speaker 2: our family line through our father. Well, of course, when
[56:06] Speaker 2: you have baby fever and there are no male prospects
[56:10] Speaker 2: in the immediate area, it's perfectly acceptable to date rape
[56:14] Speaker 2: your own parent. God offered no word of protest over
[56:18] Speaker 2: this incestuous rendezvous. Perhaps he was still fuming about those
[56:22] Speaker 2: icky homosexuals back in Sodom in Numbers chapter thirty one,
[56:27] Speaker 2: verses seventeen and eighteen. God continued his promotion of sexual
[56:31] Speaker 2: violence by instructing Moses to kill all of the male
[56:34] Speaker 2: Midianite children and quote, kill every woman who has slept
[56:39] Speaker 2: with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who
[56:43] Speaker 2: has never slept with a man. Save the virgins for yourselves. Really,
[56:49] Speaker 2: Apologists insists that the soldiers bore no malice nor intended
[56:53] Speaker 2: any violence to these teenage girls, also shrugging off the
[56:57] Speaker 2: kidnapping angle and lauding God's merd for sparing lives. I mean,
[57:02] Speaker 2: I suppose you can talk yourself into believing that the
[57:05] Speaker 2: kidnappers blessed the abductees with joyous lives of equality and
[57:10] Speaker 2: freedom free from strife. But you'd have to be hitting
[57:13] Speaker 2: the mescalin pretty hard. Deuteronomy chapter twenty, verses thirteen and
[57:18] Speaker 2: fourteen had God laying out the rules for battle, instructing
[57:22] Speaker 2: the slaughter of all the men, women, children, livestock, and
[57:26] Speaker 2: possessions could be taken as plunder for yourselves. The following
[57:31] Speaker 2: chapter encourage the taking of enemy women as wives if
[57:35] Speaker 2: a soldier was attracted to her, complete with Yahweh's direction
[57:40] Speaker 2: to shave her head, trim her nails, and put aside
[57:44] Speaker 2: the clothes she was wearing when captured. Deuteronomy twenty one,
[57:48] Speaker 2: Verses twelve and thirteen. Nice kidnap her, alter her appearance,
[57:53] Speaker 2: and claim her. Not happy with the woman that you
[57:57] Speaker 2: just abducted after slaughtering her previous husband, and no problem,
[58:01] Speaker 2: just release her like a stray cat. The list goes
[58:05] Speaker 2: on and on. Rape victims actually received a death sentence
[58:09] Speaker 2: in Deuteronomy twenty two, twenty three, and twenty four punishment
[58:13] Speaker 2: because they did not scream for help. The twenty eighth
[58:16] Speaker 2: chapter instructed that a rape victim must marry the rapist,
[58:21] Speaker 2: with the rapist paying fifty silver pieces to the father
[58:25] Speaker 2: is compensation. Second Samuel twelve eleven and twelve had Yahweh
[58:30] Speaker 2: hand delivering wives to other men to be raped, saying quote,
[58:35] Speaker 2: this is what the Lord says out of your own household.
[58:38] Speaker 2: I'm going to bring calamity on you before your very eyes.
[58:42] Speaker 2: I will take your wives and give them to one
[58:44] Speaker 2: who is close to you, and he will sleep with
[58:47] Speaker 2: your wives in broad daylight. Zachariah fourteen announced that a
[58:53] Speaker 2: day of the Lord is coming Jerusalem, when your possessions
[58:56] Speaker 2: will be plundered and divided up within your very walls.
[59:00] Speaker 2: I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight
[59:03] Speaker 2: against it. The city will be captured, the houses ransacked,
[59:07] Speaker 2: and the women raped. Throughout scripture, women were burned alive
[59:12] Speaker 2: Leviticus twenty one. They had their limbs hacked off Deuteronomy
[59:17] Speaker 2: twenty five, eleven and twelve. They were shunned as unclean
[59:21] Speaker 2: Leviticus twelve five, and were relegated to the shadows of
[59:25] Speaker 2: the man's authority. For Timothy II eleven through fourteen, these
[59:30] Speaker 2: women who weren't branded as whorees and harlots were given
[59:34] Speaker 2: strict instructions to shut up, remain submissive, and know their
[59:39] Speaker 2: place in the pecking order. For his Corinthians eleven eight
[59:42] Speaker 2: and nine said, for man did not come from woman,
[59:45] Speaker 2: but woman from man. Neither was man created for woman,
[59:49] Speaker 2: but woman for men. I'm ashamed to admit that these
[59:53] Speaker 2: passages were new to me. I had been baptized in
[59:57] Speaker 2: the gooey poetry of Ephesians five twenty five, where husbands
[1:00:01] Speaker 2: were instructed to love their wives as Christ loved the church.
[1:00:05] Speaker 2: One Corinthians thirteen. The Love Chapter had been recited at
[1:00:09] Speaker 2: countless weddings and Valentine's Day church functions, punctuating the misty
[1:00:14] Speaker 2: eyed romance of it all with the climactic thirteenth verse.
[1:00:18] Speaker 2: And now these three remain faith, hope, and love. But
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: the greatest of these is love. Somehow, my pastors and
[1:00:27] Speaker 2: teachers had neglected to teach us about God's evil twin,
[1:00:31] Speaker 2: the sexually obsessed executioner, who regarded women as the mere
[1:00:36] Speaker 2: spoils of war, objects to be plundered, second class, and expendable.
[1:00:42] Speaker 2: And those passages were the tip of the iceberg. God's
[1:00:45] Speaker 2: contempt spread well beyond women, to anyone who rankled his
[1:00:49] Speaker 2: petty sensibilities. Reading the verses of scripture without a deferential filter,
[1:00:54] Speaker 2: I discovered example after example of a bloodthirsty and murderous
[1:00:59] Speaker 2: dictator Exodus thirty two to twenty seven. After seeing the
[1:01:02] Speaker 2: golden calf, God commanded the Levites. Each man strap a
[1:01:07] Speaker 2: sword to his side, go back and forth through the
[1:01:09] Speaker 2: camp from one end to the other, each killing his
[1:01:12] Speaker 2: brother and friend and neighbor. Three thousand were slaughtered, and
[1:01:18] Speaker 2: God was pleased. Numbers, Chapter fifteen, verses thirty two through
[1:01:22] Speaker 2: thirty six. A man gathered sticks for a fire on
[1:01:26] Speaker 2: the Sabbath. By God's command, he was stoned to death.
[1:01:30] Speaker 2: Number sixteen twenty seven through thirty three. The men were rebellious,
[1:01:35] Speaker 2: so God caused the earth to open and swallow up
[1:01:38] Speaker 2: the men, wives, and children. Numbers twenty five nine. A
[1:01:42] Speaker 2: plague from God killed twenty four thousand Judges seven nineteen
[1:01:47] Speaker 2: through twenty five. Under God's direction, the Gideons defeated the Midianites.
[1:01:52] Speaker 2: They killed and decapitated their princes and delivered the heads
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: to Gideon. Judges eleven, twenty nine through thirty nine. Jeptha
[1:02:02] Speaker 2: cooked his beloved daughter on an altar as a human
[1:02:06] Speaker 2: sacrifice to God in gratitude for giving him victory in
[1:02:10] Speaker 2: battle for Samuel six nineteen, some of the men of
[1:02:14] Speaker 2: Beth Schemesh looked into the ark of the Covenant. God
[1:02:18] Speaker 2: killed all seventy of them. For Samuel fifteen seven and
[1:02:22] Speaker 2: eight God commanded Saul to attack the Amalekites and quote,
[1:02:27] Speaker 2: totally destroy everything that belongs to them, Do not spare them.
[1:02:31] Speaker 2: Put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle
[1:02:36] Speaker 2: and sheep, camels and donkeys. Second Samuel six, verses six
[1:02:41] Speaker 2: and seven. The oxen carrying the ark of God stumbled,
[1:02:45] Speaker 2: and Uza reached out to steady it. God punished this
[1:02:49] Speaker 2: irreverent act by killing him where he stood. First Kings,
[1:02:54] Speaker 2: thirteen fifteen through twenty four. A prophet lied to a man,
[1:02:58] Speaker 2: telling him that it was fine to eat bread and
[1:03:01] Speaker 2: drink water in a place that the Lord had previously
[1:03:04] Speaker 2: told him not to. The deceived man ate and drank there.
[1:03:08] Speaker 2: God sent a lion to kill him, and his body
[1:03:12] Speaker 2: was thrown down on the road. Second Chronicles, thirteen seventeen.
[1:03:17] Speaker 2: God delivered the Israelites to Abijah and Judah five hundred
[1:03:21] Speaker 2: thousand enemy dead. Ezekiel twenty twenty six. Israel rebelled, and
[1:03:28] Speaker 2: God's punishment was sobering. Quote. I let them become defiled
[1:03:33] Speaker 2: through their gifts, the sacrifice of every first born, that
[1:03:37] Speaker 2: I might fill them with horror, so they would know
[1:03:40] Speaker 2: that I am the Lord. Filled them with horror There
[1:03:46] Speaker 2: was plenty of horror in the Book of Joshua, the
[1:03:48] Speaker 2: book that contained the celebrated story about Joshua's miraculous victory
[1:03:52] Speaker 2: at Jericho. As they blew the trumpets and the walls
[1:03:56] Speaker 2: of the city fell, I still remember the song we
[1:03:59] Speaker 2: sang as children and Sunday School. Joshua fought the Battle
[1:04:02] Speaker 2: of Jericho. Jericho, Jericho. Joshua fought the Battle of Jericho,
[1:04:08] Speaker 2: and the walls came tumbling down. This catchy little ditty
[1:04:12] Speaker 2: conveniently ignored the specifics of what happened after the walls
[1:04:17] Speaker 2: came tumbling down. Under God's direction, Joshua's army became a
[1:04:21] Speaker 2: blood drunk horde of executioners, putting men, women, teenagers, and
[1:04:26] Speaker 2: infants to the edge of the sword. The soldiers then
[1:04:30] Speaker 2: pillaged the gold, silver, bronze, and iron for God and
[1:04:34] Speaker 2: burned the city. This scene of carnage would be repeated
[1:04:38] Speaker 2: throughout the next several chapters Joshua Chapter seven, verses nineteen
[1:04:42] Speaker 2: through twenty six. Acan conquered his son's daughters, cattle, donkeys, sheep,
[1:04:48] Speaker 2: and possessions were taken to the Valley of Acre, where
[1:04:52] Speaker 2: they were stoned and burned. Joshua chapter eight, twenty two
[1:04:56] Speaker 2: through twenty five. Twelve thousand men and women were slought
[1:05:00] Speaker 2: Joshua ten ten through twenty seven, all of the Gibeonites
[1:05:05] Speaker 2: verse twenty eight, all of Mikida verse thirty All of
[1:05:08] Speaker 2: the city of Libna was put to the sword Verses
[1:05:12] Speaker 2: thirty two through thirty three, all of Lakeish verses thirty
[1:05:16] Speaker 2: four and thirty five, all of Eglon verses thirty six
[1:05:20] Speaker 2: and thirty seven. The army killed the king of Hebron,
[1:05:23] Speaker 2: its villages, and every citizen. Quote. They left no survivors
[1:05:29] Speaker 2: Joshua ten, thirty eight and thirty nine, all of Debur
[1:05:33] Speaker 2: Joshua eleven six. God commanded Joshua to defeat the army
[1:05:37] Speaker 2: at the waters of Merim. Quote, you are to hamstring
[1:05:40] Speaker 2: their horses, which is a horrible act of animal cruelty,
[1:05:45] Speaker 2: and burn their chariots. You know it's funny. Sunday school
[1:05:49] Speaker 2: teachers never taught us these stories when I was a kid,
[1:05:53] Speaker 2: or even as an adult. And the fun continued as
[1:05:56] Speaker 2: I dove deeper to discover that Christianity, sacred and holy
[1:06:00] Speaker 2: Bible showed God endorsing slavery and the beating of slaves Exodus,
[1:06:06] Speaker 2: chapter twenty one, verse twenty and twenty one actually allowed
[1:06:09] Speaker 2: masters to physically assault their slaves, providing that the beaten
[1:06:13] Speaker 2: slaves were able to stand after a few days. God's
[1:06:17] Speaker 2: law in Exodus twenty one seven actually provided instructions for
[1:06:22] Speaker 2: fathers who were selling their daughters into slavery, and true
[1:06:26] Speaker 2: to form when it came to women, Leviticus twenty seven
[1:06:29] Speaker 2: decreed that female slaves were worth half the value of
[1:06:33] Speaker 2: male ones. Some Bible stories were just bizarre. For Samuel, eighteen,
[1:06:38] Speaker 2: verses twenty five through twenty seven explained how David gave
[1:06:41] Speaker 2: King Saul a dowry of two hundred Philistine four skins
[1:06:46] Speaker 2: to earn the hand of Saul's daughter Michael in marriage. Oh,
[1:06:50] Speaker 2: I'm sure this really spice things up at the wedding reception.
[1:06:53] Speaker 2: Penis flesh, Oh, it's lovely. Deuteronomy twenty three to one
[1:06:59] Speaker 2: instructed that no one whose testicles are crushed or whose
[1:07:03] Speaker 2: male organ is cut off, shall enter the assembly of
[1:07:06] Speaker 2: the Lord. Genesis thirty eight, verses eight through ten had
[1:07:09] Speaker 2: God telling a man named Onin to have sex with
[1:07:12] Speaker 2: his brother's wife in order to produce a child, and
[1:07:16] Speaker 2: when Onin instead pulled out and ejaculated on the ground.
[1:07:20] Speaker 2: God killed him right there. Deuteronomy twenty five, verses eleven
[1:07:24] Speaker 2: and twelve dictated that if a man was in a
[1:07:27] Speaker 2: fight with another man and his wife intervened by seizing
[1:07:31] Speaker 2: the opponent by his genitals, the woman's hand was to
[1:07:36] Speaker 2: be hacked off at the wrist, foreskins, testicles, seamen, genitals.
[1:07:43] Speaker 2: For an omnipotent master of the universe, God sure had
[1:07:46] Speaker 2: a conspicuous and violent obsession with the penis. Stories like
[1:07:52] Speaker 2: these and so many others were extremely disturbing, But he
[1:07:56] Speaker 2: was even more disturbing to watch Christians excuse them away,
[1:08:00] Speaker 2: offering up lazy explanations that would be rejected wholesale if
[1:08:04] Speaker 2: applied to the Koran or some other religion's Holy book.
[1:08:07] Speaker 2: You know, it was a different time. His ways are
[1:08:10] Speaker 2: not our ways. Some of those stories are just metaphors.
[1:08:15] Speaker 2: Just stick to the New Testament not the Old Testament.
[1:08:18] Speaker 2: Or he's God, so he can do whatever he wants. Apparently,
[1:08:23] Speaker 2: we mere humans cannot possibly comprehend an infinitely superior being.
[1:08:28] Speaker 2: Biblical curses, decapitation, kidnapping, rape and fanticide, human sacrifice, and
[1:08:35] Speaker 2: rivers of blood were all part of a greater plan
[1:08:38] Speaker 2: that we mortals cannot digest. And according to the armchair apologists,
[1:08:43] Speaker 2: even if God had acted with bigotry, misogyny, petty jealousy,
[1:08:48] Speaker 2: frothing rage, and cruel vengeance, well, it's his universe, his game,
[1:08:53] Speaker 2: his rules, and the obedient Christian is expected to simply
[1:08:58] Speaker 2: fall in lockstep, shut as his mouth and trust that
[1:09:02] Speaker 2: Father knows best. As I continued to dig I found
[1:09:07] Speaker 2: that many of the scriptures that weren't wildly offensive were
[1:09:10] Speaker 2: either contradictory or demonstrably false, like the Nativity story. Matthew
[1:09:16] Speaker 2: Chapter one, verse twenty says that the Angel appeared to Joseph,
[1:09:20] Speaker 2: but Luke chapter one, verse twenty eight says that the
[1:09:23] Speaker 2: angel appeared to Mary. Luke. Chapter two, verses one through
[1:09:28] Speaker 2: three says that Querinius issued a decree for a census,
[1:09:32] Speaker 2: but the Book of Matthew mentions no census at all,
[1:09:35] Speaker 2: and Querinius's census didn't actually take place until six CE,
[1:09:40] Speaker 2: and that census would have taken place in Joseph's local
[1:09:43] Speaker 2: tax district like his own hometown, and only the male
[1:09:47] Speaker 2: heads of households would have been required to register. Matthew
[1:09:51] Speaker 2: Chapter two verses thirteen through sixteen declares that Mary and
[1:09:55] Speaker 2: Joseph fled to Egypt to escape Herod's death edict for
[1:09:58] Speaker 2: the firstborn children. Yet Luke two thirty nine says that
[1:10:02] Speaker 2: they returned to Nazareth and there's no mention of Herod
[1:10:06] Speaker 2: at all. The virgin birth story is actually based on
[1:10:09] Speaker 2: a mistranslation of the Hebrew word alma, which translates young
[1:10:14] Speaker 2: woman of marriageable age and could have been applied to
[1:10:17] Speaker 2: any young woman without any immaculate conception backstory. The Hebrew
[1:10:22] Speaker 2: word for virgin is actually bethulah. Also interesting, several pre
[1:10:27] Speaker 2: christ pagan gods were also said to be born of
[1:10:31] Speaker 2: a virgin, including the gods Perseus and Romulus. We three Kings,
[1:10:36] Speaker 2: a popular Christmas legend and song. Well, that's not factually
[1:10:41] Speaker 2: tethered to the Nativity story. Matthew chapter two, verses one
[1:10:45] Speaker 2: and two calls the magi or illusionists, and there's no
[1:10:49] Speaker 2: mention of the number three anywhere. Contrast this with Luke
[1:10:53] Speaker 2: two twenty five, which says that shepherds, not magi, journeyed
[1:10:57] Speaker 2: to see baby Jesus in the manger. A few other contradictions.
[1:11:02] Speaker 2: Can a man be righteous? Genesis chapter seven, verse one
[1:11:05] Speaker 2: says that Noah was righteous. Job two three tells us
[1:11:10] Speaker 2: that Job was righteous. Luke one six says Zachariah and
[1:11:14] Speaker 2: Elizabeth were righteous. James chapter five, verse sixteen says that
[1:11:18] Speaker 2: some men were righteous. First John three seven says that
[1:11:22] Speaker 2: Christians can become righteous, but Romans three to ten states clearly,
[1:11:27] Speaker 2: quote as it is written, there is no one righteous,
[1:11:32] Speaker 2: not even one who is punished for sins. Ezekiel eighteen
[1:11:36] Speaker 2: twenty asserts that the penalty of sin lies solely with
[1:11:40] Speaker 2: the sinner. The son shall not bear the iniquity of
[1:11:44] Speaker 2: the father. But Exodus twenty, chapter five declares that sin
[1:11:48] Speaker 2: contaminates generations. Quote I the Lord, thy God, am a
[1:11:52] Speaker 2: jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children.
[1:11:57] Speaker 2: Unto the third and fourth generation? Does God keep anger forever?
[1:12:02] Speaker 2: Jeremiah chapter three, verse twelve, For I am merciful, saith
[1:12:06] Speaker 2: the Lord, and I will not keep anger forever. But
[1:12:10] Speaker 2: in the very same book, Chapter seventeen, verse four declares,
[1:12:14] Speaker 2: ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall
[1:12:18] Speaker 2: burn forever. Who brought the copernium Centurion's request to Jesus
[1:12:23] Speaker 2: In the New Testament, Matthew chapter eight, verse five says
[1:12:27] Speaker 2: it's the centurion himself. Luke chapter seven, verse three states
[1:12:31] Speaker 2: that the Centurion sent elders. Luke chapter seven, verse six,
[1:12:35] Speaker 2: Now this is the same book. In chapter as Elders,
[1:12:39] Speaker 2: it says the centurion sent friends. Where did Jesus go
[1:12:43] Speaker 2: after feeding the five thousand? Mark six point fifty three
[1:12:47] Speaker 2: says that Jesus and the disciples went to Genessaret. John
[1:12:51] Speaker 2: chapter six, verses twenty four and twenty five says that no,
[1:12:54] Speaker 2: they went to Copernaum. Where did the anointing of Christ
[1:12:58] Speaker 2: take place? Mathe U twenty six six and seven tells
[1:13:02] Speaker 2: us that the anointing happened quote in Bethany, in the
[1:13:06] Speaker 2: home of a man known as Simon, the leper oil
[1:13:10] Speaker 2: is placed on Jesus's head by an unnamed woman. Luke seven,
[1:13:14] Speaker 2: verses thirty six and thirty seven says that the oil
[1:13:17] Speaker 2: was placed on Jesus's feet, not his head, at the
[1:13:21] Speaker 2: house of a pharisee in Galilee. John twelve three says
[1:13:25] Speaker 2: it wasn't an unnamed woman who annoints Jesus, but Mary.
[1:13:30] Speaker 2: Did the cursed fig tree wither immediately? Matthew twenty one
[1:13:34] Speaker 2: nineteen says the tree withered immediately. Mark eleven twenty declares,
[1:13:39] Speaker 2: and in the morning, as they passed by, they saw
[1:13:42] Speaker 2: the fig tree dried up from the roots. Also, why
[1:13:45] Speaker 2: would Jesus be angry that the fig tree had nothing
[1:13:48] Speaker 2: for him to eat? Wouldn't an all knowing deity know
[1:13:52] Speaker 2: when fig season is now? Bible scholars like to rationalize
[1:13:57] Speaker 2: that Christ was using the tree as a metaphor for
[1:14:00] Speaker 2: or the nation of Israel. But if that's the case,
[1:14:02] Speaker 2: it's uncanny how often this god man so often rejects
[1:14:07] Speaker 2: plain speaking in favor of muddy, confusing symbolism. What were
[1:14:12] Speaker 2: Jesus's last words on the cross? Matthew twenty seven forty
[1:14:16] Speaker 2: six says, my God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?
[1:14:21] Speaker 2: And this contrast Luke twenty three forty six, where Jesus's
[1:14:24] Speaker 2: last words are Father, into thy hands, I commend my
[1:14:28] Speaker 2: spirit and John nineteen thirty has them as it is finished.
[1:14:34] Speaker 2: Who were the first visitors to Jesus's tomb. Matthew twenty
[1:14:37] Speaker 2: eight one says it was Mary Magdalen and the other Mary.
[1:14:41] Speaker 2: Mark sixteen one says there was a third person, Salome.
[1:14:46] Speaker 2: Luke twenty four to ten lists the two Mary's Joanna
[1:14:50] Speaker 2: and quote the others. John Chapter twenty, verse one mentions
[1:14:54] Speaker 2: only Mary Magdalen, how did Judas die? Matthew s through
[1:15:00] Speaker 2: eight states that Judas hanged himself, but Acts Chapter one,
[1:15:05] Speaker 2: verses sixteen through nineteen says, quote, now this man purchased
[1:15:09] Speaker 2: a field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong,
[1:15:12] Speaker 2: he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels
[1:15:16] Speaker 2: gushed out. Those examples are just a few of many,
[1:15:21] Speaker 2: And for the first time in my life, I was
[1:15:23] Speaker 2: examining the different accounts of identical events side by side,
[1:15:28] Speaker 2: astounded and embarrassed that I hadn't noticed the discrepancies before.
[1:15:33] Speaker 2: I brought these Bible born examples of bloodlust and incongruity
[1:15:38] Speaker 2: to the attention of friends and family, only to be
[1:15:41] Speaker 2: met with shrugs of indifference. Nobody had satisfactory answers, nobody
[1:15:46] Speaker 2: joined my chorus of concern, Nobody really cared, and their
[1:15:50] Speaker 2: lives moved forward without a hitch. Happy scriptures were embraced
[1:15:55] Speaker 2: and extolled, and nasty verses were just blinked away. If
[1:16:00] Speaker 2: there were problems with the Bible, Christians didn't know, and
[1:16:04] Speaker 2: the worst part was they didn't want to know. I
[1:16:15] Speaker 2: hope this broadcast, this conversation has been useful for you
[1:16:20] Speaker 2: and might be useful in the future. If someone gives
[1:16:23] Speaker 2: you that look, that sort of happy clappy mannequin stare,
[1:16:27] Speaker 2: and holds up their Bible and says God is good
[1:16:30] Speaker 2: all the time, Amen, Praise Jesus. If that happens, well,
[1:16:35] Speaker 2: now you've got even more examples of why that may
[1:16:38] Speaker 2: not be true. Thanks for listening. I'll see you later.
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