# History Will Not Forget

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 7 Nov 2024, 15 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/62656128/podcast_770_historywillremember.mp3

Seth Andrews has thoughts on the 2024 presidential election. VIDEO: https://youtu.be/mDAabvMH3uQ 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 this country is going through.
[0:13] Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If
[0:19] Speaker 1: 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 Usian 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: These are just a few thoughts I have released in
[0:59] Speaker 2: video for that YouTube link is in the description box,
[1:03] Speaker 2: but the audio is right here and it runs about
[1:06] Speaker 2: thirteen minutes. I know that you and I are doing
[1:18] Speaker 2: our best to engage with our day, do our jobs,
[1:21] Speaker 2: take care of our families, fulfill our obligations. But when
[1:24] Speaker 2: you have just watched seventy two million of your fellow
[1:28] Speaker 2: country men and women vote to set fire to the
[1:32] Speaker 2: Western world, it's hard to focus. And so I thought
[1:36] Speaker 2: I would just say out loud what I think a
[1:38] Speaker 2: lot of us are feeling quietly. I remember twenty sixteen,
[1:43] Speaker 2: the unexpected Trump victory felt like an electrical shock. I
[1:48] Speaker 2: was so mad, I was so indignant. It motivated me
[1:52] Speaker 2: to express every ounce of outrage verbally in writing online.
[1:58] Speaker 2: Eight years later, I still feel shock and indignation, but
[2:02] Speaker 2: the electricity not as much. It feels overshadowed by a
[2:07] Speaker 2: kind of numb resignation. I just look around. I can't
[2:11] Speaker 2: believe it. Seventy million Americans looked at the grifter, the predator,
[2:17] Speaker 2: the bully, the child, the Khan, the anti democracy want
[2:23] Speaker 2: to be king, and they said, yeah, I want that.
[2:27] Speaker 2: It is hard not to feel the way that gor
[2:29] Speaker 2: Vidal felt about Western democracy. He wrote these words. He said,
[2:34] Speaker 2: as societies grow decadent, the language grows decadent too. Words
[2:41] Speaker 2: are used to disguise, not to illuminate action. You liberate
[2:46] Speaker 2: a city by destroying it. Words are used to confuse,
[2:51] Speaker 2: so that at election time people will solemnly vote against
[2:55] Speaker 2: their own interests. You know, today I feel two sensations.
[3:02] Speaker 2: First of all, the idea of spending any time in
[3:06] Speaker 2: the direct vicinity of family members, friends, associates, people that
[3:12] Speaker 2: I bump into in my life. The idea of being
[3:15] Speaker 2: in a physical space next to them sickens me right,
[3:19] Speaker 2: the people who voted for an assault on democracy and decency,
[3:24] Speaker 2: I just feel resentful. And two, while I will continue
[3:28] Speaker 2: to speak to my values, I am also preparing to
[3:31] Speaker 2: watch people gleefully destroy the American experiments. You know, this
[3:37] Speaker 2: country may well choke to death on the smoke of
[3:41] Speaker 2: its own bonfires. And sometimes it feels like all the
[3:45] Speaker 2: rest of us can do is put on a gas
[3:47] Speaker 2: mask and point garden hoses at the flames. I mean,
[3:51] Speaker 2: I still feel like a crusader for what is just,
[3:54] Speaker 2: but I also feel like a spectator. You know, I'm
[3:58] Speaker 2: standing behind the led she in advance of the dirty bomb,
[4:02] Speaker 2: hoping people might survive this. My evangelical trumper associates right now,
[4:09] Speaker 2: people that I know personally, they are likely celebrating. It's
[4:14] Speaker 2: probably a party. They're high fiving and thanking Jesus right
[4:18] Speaker 2: and whatever their intentions may be, maybe they think they
[4:22] Speaker 2: are being noble, it's about the abortion debates or something else.
[4:26] Speaker 2: Or maybe they bought into the myth of the billionaire genius.
[4:30] Speaker 2: Maybe they believe in divine destiny. Whatever their glee makes
[4:35] Speaker 2: me sick, God's sheep are likely thanking their sweet Lord
[4:40] Speaker 2: for bringing unto them. A shepherd, and they see these
[4:44] Speaker 2: events as destiny biblical. They have combined the cult of
[4:49] Speaker 2: Christianity with the cult of Maga. All the while they
[4:55] Speaker 2: are discarding the best teachings of Jesus Christ, humility, general charity.
[5:02] Speaker 2: Their bibles say that the love of money is the
[5:05] Speaker 2: root of all evil. They worship rich people. Their bibles say,
[5:11] Speaker 2: don't take vengeance. They cheer the guy who says, get
[5:15] Speaker 2: even with your enemies. You have so much to do.
[5:19] Speaker 2: You don't have time to get even.
[5:21] Speaker 1: You only have time to get right. Well, revenge does
[5:24] Speaker 1: take time. I will say that does, and sometimes revenge
[5:28] Speaker 1: can be justified.
[5:29] Speaker 2: Their bibles say to forgive. They admire the guy who
[5:33] Speaker 2: holds grudges and threatens the rights of those who criticize.
[5:38] Speaker 2: Their bibles say, do not oppress the foreigner. Meanwhile, they
[5:43] Speaker 2: are vilifying immigrants. Their Bible declares in Matthew that those
[5:48] Speaker 2: who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble
[5:52] Speaker 2: themselves will be exalted. They love the egomaniac. Their bibles
[5:58] Speaker 2: say not to perform their prayers in public. Go to
[6:02] Speaker 2: your quiet room. Right. They applaud Christian nationalist prayer theater
[6:08] Speaker 2: in the halls of power. Their Bibles say they should
[6:11] Speaker 2: commit themselves to serving others, and then they turn around
[6:16] Speaker 2: and send their money and give their allegiance and adoration
[6:20] Speaker 2: to someone who serves only himself. Self service seems to
[6:26] Speaker 2: be part of the MAGA movement. You and I express
[6:30] Speaker 2: real concern, right great concern about the rights of women,
[6:35] Speaker 2: the rights and the safety and the equality of marginalized groups,
[6:41] Speaker 2: minority groups, the victims of atrocities in foreign lands, the
[6:46] Speaker 2: cruelty and the bullying, and the crazy word salad disinformation
[6:51] Speaker 2: that defines most of Trump cult. And these people look
[6:55] Speaker 2: at us, and what do they do? They complain about
[6:58] Speaker 2: the price of a dozen ages or many of these people,
[7:02] Speaker 2: immigrants are both lazy leeches who are milking the system
[7:08] Speaker 2: without paying any taxes or having any societal responsibility, and
[7:13] Speaker 2: they are also hard workers coming to steal their jobs.
[7:17] Speaker 2: They're convinced that devil democrats want to padlock their churches
[7:21] Speaker 2: and come into their private homes and confiscate their bibles
[7:24] Speaker 2: and make Christianity illegal, which is crazy because these supposedly
[7:29] Speaker 2: persecuted American Christians are the least victimized, persecuted, and endangered
[7:35] Speaker 2: demographic in the entire country. They seem to value things
[7:41] Speaker 2: based on borderlines that were subjectively drawn by people that
[7:46] Speaker 2: they don't even know. They hold up their fingers and
[7:49] Speaker 2: they say, we're number one, talking about a nation that
[7:53] Speaker 2: fails next to all other developed nations in almost every
[7:59] Speaker 2: metric healthcare, cost of living, education, violent crime, etc. They
[8:05] Speaker 2: don't see the whole world because to them, the US
[8:08] Speaker 2: is the world, and everybody else is somehow less important,
[8:13] Speaker 2: less interesting, less valuable. I think it's ironic that we
[8:18] Speaker 2: are still called the United States of America United, except
[8:24] Speaker 2: that we're split in regard to almost every opinion that
[8:29] Speaker 2: we have. And sometimes I have this thought, I wonder,
[8:34] Speaker 2: I wonder what might happen if we divided the United
[8:37] Speaker 2: States into two separate countries, Nation A and Nation B.
[8:43] Speaker 2: So Nation A could discover what MAGA really means. A
[8:48] Speaker 2: dictatorship at the mercy of Trump and Vance and the
[8:52] Speaker 2: rfks and the elons, and the demagogues and the oligarchs,
[8:57] Speaker 2: the agents of religious and financial privilege, the managers of wombs,
[9:03] Speaker 2: the purity police, the school boards who are writing mythology
[9:08] Speaker 2: into school curriculums. It could erase or at least airbrush history.
[9:14] Speaker 2: So lessons from history would not be learned by future generations.
[9:20] Speaker 2: Nation A could make scientists the bad guys. It could
[9:24] Speaker 2: ignore deadly viruses and reject vaccines. It could choke the
[9:29] Speaker 2: planet with unregulated industry. It could pray to the sky
[9:34] Speaker 2: against all these afflictions happening on the ground. It could
[9:38] Speaker 2: pretend that the rest of the world doesn't even exist
[9:42] Speaker 2: or it doesn't matter. Nation A would be an alternate reality.
[9:48] Speaker 2: It could be a place where people were finally forced
[9:50] Speaker 2: to experience the consequences of ignoring the true reality. And
[9:57] Speaker 2: on the other side would be Nation B. And this
[10:00] Speaker 2: is where I would like to live. Nation BE would
[10:03] Speaker 2: return to the original motto of the United States, e
[10:07] Speaker 2: pluribus unum out of many one. Our diversity would be
[10:13] Speaker 2: something to embrace and celebrate. We wouldn't vilify the immigrant.
[10:18] Speaker 2: We could disagree and discuss, even argue about things, without
[10:23] Speaker 2: fear for our rights, or our safety or our lives.
[10:27] Speaker 2: We could recognize that we are both individuals and we
[10:31] Speaker 2: are a community. We could enjoy personal liberties while also
[10:36] Speaker 2: embracing collectivist values. We would be both one of us
[10:41] Speaker 2: and all of us. We would protect and empower science
[10:47] Speaker 2: and scientists. We would use our great advances to inoculate
[10:51] Speaker 2: and improve and save people's lives. We could make sure
[10:55] Speaker 2: that people had individual rights to be religious. We would
[10:59] Speaker 2: find for their right to be personally religious, but we
[11:03] Speaker 2: would also ensure that government never became a church. We'd
[11:08] Speaker 2: see ourselves as citizens of America, but also citizens of
[11:13] Speaker 2: the world. Everybody a part of the human condition. We
[11:17] Speaker 2: are all brothers and sisters. We take better care of
[11:22] Speaker 2: our environment, serving the planet that has served us. We
[11:26] Speaker 2: would teach our history without air brushing or erasing it.
[11:31] Speaker 2: We would be honest about what our country has been
[11:34] Speaker 2: and what it's done for better and worse, to help
[11:37] Speaker 2: educate and inform the future. We'd celebrate success without allowing
[11:43] Speaker 2: the oligarchs and the hoarders. We would elect an accountable
[11:47] Speaker 2: president and not a king. And I wonder how these
[11:52] Speaker 2: two nations would fare against each other, You know, you
[11:55] Speaker 2: have to wonder. Would Nation A come knocking on the
[11:58] Speaker 2: doors of nation be begging for equal rights that they
[12:03] Speaker 2: had eventually lost, Begging for medicines that they had previously
[12:08] Speaker 2: thrown in the trash. Can you know, give me a vaccine,
[12:11] Speaker 2: give me prevention, give me a cure. They would beg
[12:14] Speaker 2: for cleaner air and water. They would beg for safe
[12:17] Speaker 2: haven against bigots. They would beg for teachers instead of preachers.
[12:21] Speaker 2: They would beg for leaders that didn't act like gods.
[12:27] Speaker 2: Questions like these, scenarios, like these, realities like these, they
[12:34] Speaker 2: are why we should seriously be teaching our history. You know,
[12:38] Speaker 2: you and I know that the historians of the future
[12:43] Speaker 2: are going to look back at the United States today
[12:46] Speaker 2: and they're going to look at us much the same
[12:48] Speaker 2: way that some of the rest of the world is
[12:50] Speaker 2: looking at us right now. They're going to say, what
[12:53] Speaker 2: the hell happened? And for my parts, while I do
[12:57] Speaker 2: feel real despair, I'm going to try not to look
[13:00] Speaker 2: at the headlines as much as I look at the people.
[13:04] Speaker 2: Tens of millions of people voted for authoritarianism, corruption, grift, oppression, division, hatred.
[13:12] Speaker 2: I'm going to try to remember them, But I'm also
[13:15] Speaker 2: going to remember the tens of millions that resisted. And
[13:19] Speaker 2: I refuse to do what MAGA culture wants me to do,
[13:23] Speaker 2: give up and let them operate unchecked and uncriticized. They
[13:29] Speaker 2: want us to check out, right, because if we check out,
[13:33] Speaker 2: then nation A becomes Nation A and B. Standing against
[13:38] Speaker 2: the threat is the only hope we've got of somehow
[13:41] Speaker 2: salvaging what the United States was supposed to be. The
[13:47] Speaker 2: agents of harm must be they must be confronted by
[13:52] Speaker 2: the advocates for humanity. And even if this country self
[13:57] Speaker 2: destructs all around us, we can hold our heads up
[14:00] Speaker 2: and say that we never gave up, we never stopped fighting,
[14:03] Speaker 2: we never surrendered our values, our humanity. We can say
[14:08] Speaker 2: proudly that our conscience is clean. Let's work together to
[14:13] Speaker 2: make sure historians also remember that.
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