# The Planet's Punchline?

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 27 May 2025, 50 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/66270171/podcast806_planetspunchlinel.mp3

Plenty of calls in this week's commentary about the State of the United States. 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 the.
[0:13] Speaker 1: Rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If I
[0:19] Speaker 1: tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth, not because.
[0:22] Speaker 3: I put my hand on a book and made a wish.
[0:25] Speaker 1: 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: Hard to believe it's almost the month of June. Time flies.
[1:01] Speaker 2: I find that time travels faster as I get older.
[1:06] Speaker 2: Remember back when we were kids and we wanted to
[1:09] Speaker 2: do something, or we were waiting for the day we
[1:12] Speaker 2: get our allowance, or there was a special event on
[1:15] Speaker 2: the horizon or whatever, and we were like, can we
[1:19] Speaker 2: can we can we? And mom and dad would say, well,
[1:22] Speaker 2: we can do it next weekend, which seemed like an eternity.
[1:27] Speaker 2: Oh my god, it's five days. I have to wait.
[1:32] Speaker 2: It's prefer you know now, I blink. Five days gone.
[1:40] Speaker 2: Wait a minute, Wait a minute, It was just last weekend,
[1:43] Speaker 2: and now it's next weekend or this weekend. Wait, it's
[1:47] Speaker 2: almost the month of June. Wait a minute, what's happening.
[1:51] Speaker 2: Things are spending much too quickly. I'm already disoriented those
[1:56] Speaker 2: of you who were under the age of thirty. I'm
[1:58] Speaker 2: just saying, buckle up, because when you hit midlife, you
[2:04] Speaker 2: will wake up one day and go, hey, wait a minute.
[2:08] Speaker 2: When I fell asleep, it was January and now it's Thanksgiving.
[2:13] Speaker 2: That shit totally happens as we get older. Anyway, it's
[2:18] Speaker 2: been a wild month, you know. We had the god
[2:21] Speaker 2: awful movie Show late last week, a bonus broadcast, and
[2:24] Speaker 2: then before that, we had a show which I got
[2:27] Speaker 2: a lot of feedback on and a little bit of pushback,
[2:31] Speaker 2: as it was called Cholesterol. You Have One Job. We
[2:35] Speaker 2: were talking about the fatty deposits in the cells of
[2:40] Speaker 2: Captain gomb Over, the tangerine Palpatine of the White House,
[2:46] Speaker 2: Donald Trump, and how many of us are rooting for
[2:50] Speaker 2: his demise of natural causes, and some people thought this
[2:57] Speaker 2: is just base. It's been neath you. I can't believe
[3:02] Speaker 2: you speaking with Glee about the day that he finally
[3:06] Speaker 2: feels over, and I just can't apologize for it. I'm
[3:11] Speaker 2: just you know, every day when I log on, I'm like,
[3:15] Speaker 2: is he live? There's a website it's called Alive or Dead,
[3:20] Speaker 2: and people like to use it for celebrities that they
[3:23] Speaker 2: haven't seen in a while. So you just log on
[3:27] Speaker 2: and you're like this celebrity. You type in the name
[3:30] Speaker 2: dead or alive, eh, and it says dead or alive,
[3:34] Speaker 2: and it gives you their age. How many times have
[3:39] Speaker 2: we been in a conversation and somebody will be like, hey,
[3:42] Speaker 2: did you know that they just turned ninety eight years old?
[3:45] Speaker 2: Like Dick van Dyke is he's either ninety nine or
[3:51] Speaker 2: a hundred years old. I mean, the legendary Dick van
[3:55] Speaker 2: Dyke is still alive. Well, you can go to a
[3:58] Speaker 2: website and you can his name in every day and
[4:01] Speaker 2: find out it's maybe it's morbid. I don't know, speaking
[4:06] Speaker 2: of death. I went to it totally. This is what happened.
[4:11] Speaker 2: I woke up the other day and it was early
[4:14] Speaker 2: and I don't know if someone sent me the link.
[4:17] Speaker 2: But there's a website that will quote unquote predict the
[4:21] Speaker 2: date and the manner of your death. And so it's
[4:26] Speaker 2: a death date website. It's very dark, it's just right
[4:29] Speaker 2: up my alley. So I went to the site, and
[4:31] Speaker 2: of course, you know it's nuts. Nobody knows it's bullshit.
[4:36] Speaker 2: We all know that. But I still filled out the form.
[4:40] Speaker 2: What's your age, right, when were you born? What's your
[4:42] Speaker 2: lifestyle like, do you smoke, do you drink? Do you
[4:45] Speaker 2: get exercise? What's your height? What's your weight? It calculates BMI,
[4:50] Speaker 2: your body mass index, which I have heard is total crap.
[4:54] Speaker 2: I've heard that BMI is not actually like a useful thing.
[4:58] Speaker 2: That's a whole other convers But I typed in all
[5:02] Speaker 2: of my metrics and I said when and how am
[5:05] Speaker 2: I going to die? And lucky me, it popped right up.
[5:13] Speaker 2: I discovered thanks to the death clock, at the age
[5:18] Speaker 2: of fifty seven years and just under two months. Their
[5:22] Speaker 2: calculations say my death date will be the twenty ninth
[5:26] Speaker 2: of January twenty sixty four. It will be a Tuesday
[5:32] Speaker 2: when I suddenly keel over at the ribald age of
[5:35] Speaker 2: ninety five years and just under ten months, over fourteen
[5:42] Speaker 2: thousand days left. What a relief. I guess that's better
[5:48] Speaker 2: than you know, typing in all of your stats and
[5:50] Speaker 2: it says you will live to be fifty seven years
[5:53] Speaker 2: and four months, because you know, I would have a
[5:56] Speaker 2: lot to get done. I would need to get my
[5:58] Speaker 2: affairs in order pretty quickly. I'm just saying the cause
[6:01] Speaker 2: of my death, according to the bullshit website, is cardiovascular disease.
[6:08] Speaker 2: And somebody made the assalient point that you know, if
[6:12] Speaker 2: you're ninety five, your vascular system has had a pretty
[6:16] Speaker 2: good run. Degeneration is probably understandable. This is not too
[6:22] Speaker 2: big a leap anyway. That's how I started my day,
[6:26] Speaker 2: the death date thing. Somebody on the Cholester Wall show
[6:32] Speaker 2: was talking about the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, and
[6:38] Speaker 2: we were talking about the conspiracy theories and how his
[6:42] Speaker 2: ear healed up awfully quickly. You know, remember when people
[6:47] Speaker 2: were walking around taping tampons to their ears. The magas
[6:50] Speaker 2: were taping tampons. But a lot of people were like,
[6:54] Speaker 2: this is staged, it's bullshit. So much stuff doesn't make
[6:57] Speaker 2: any sense. But I got uncomfortable because I don't like
[7:00] Speaker 2: the idea of I mean, when we got into we
[7:04] Speaker 2: don't assassination is not it's not what we want, it's
[7:09] Speaker 2: not who we are. You know what I'm saying, I
[7:11] Speaker 2: don't know what hellse to say, and it's just not.
[7:15] Speaker 2: So we were talking about how this needs to happen
[7:18] Speaker 2: organically and naturally. I mean, he's not a spring chicken.
[7:24] Speaker 2: But as soon as I had that conversation about the
[7:28] Speaker 2: guy and the shooter and the ear and all that,
[7:31] Speaker 2: some weird shit started to pop up on my Facebook
[7:35] Speaker 2: feed about how it's all a big conspiracy and how
[7:40] Speaker 2: none of it makes any sense. The trajectory of the projectile,
[7:46] Speaker 2: the nature of the injury, even the gradient colors of
[7:50] Speaker 2: the blood. None of it looked real. So was it
[7:54] Speaker 2: all a big staged event so that he could put
[7:57] Speaker 2: his fist in the air and show strength in the
[8:01] Speaker 2: wake of a lethal threat. You know, I tend to
[8:08] Speaker 2: lean into Akham's razor. The simplest explanation is the easiest.
[8:14] Speaker 2: You know, Conspiracy theory speculation usually don't help us, but
[8:17] Speaker 2: it does bug me some of the stuff. I look
[8:21] Speaker 2: at it, and I don't want to become Joe Rogan either.
[8:24] Speaker 2: So I guess we know what we know, then we
[8:27] Speaker 2: don't what we don't. I don't know is that a
[8:30] Speaker 2: cop out? Anyway? F y, I'm going to be in
[8:34] Speaker 2: Wichita speaking for Wichita Oasis this Sunday. I love the
[8:40] Speaker 2: oasis model because it's kind of a come one, come all.
[8:45] Speaker 2: You don't have to be atheist, you can be religious, spiritual, whatever,
[8:50] Speaker 2: but it is very much a pro humanist and pro
[8:52] Speaker 2: science thing. And there are Oasis groups in cities all
[8:57] Speaker 2: around the country. Kansas City's we got one, Houston's got
[9:01] Speaker 2: a big one. And I'm going to be speaking at
[9:04] Speaker 2: Wichita Oasis Sunday morning, and it's totally free, so if
[9:08] Speaker 2: you're in the area, come on out. Going to be
[9:10] Speaker 2: a great time. Go to seth Andrews dot com slash
[9:14] Speaker 2: events for details on that. I also mentioned last week,
[9:19] Speaker 2: and I'll mention again that the Thinking Atheist store is back,
[9:23] Speaker 2: and I've got the thinking person icon now on mugs
[9:28] Speaker 2: and T shirts, and we've got the cat drawing on
[9:31] Speaker 2: mugs and t shirts, and new products are going to
[9:34] Speaker 2: be added over the coming months. But you can go
[9:37] Speaker 2: to the Thinkingatheist dot com and then there's a shop
[9:41] Speaker 2: button on the tab at the top, so go and
[9:43] Speaker 2: kind of browse and see if anything tickles your fancy.
[9:46] Speaker 2: It's a great way to have Thinking Atheist merch in
[9:49] Speaker 2: your house, get some swags, support the work. At the
[9:52] Speaker 2: same time Thethinkingatheist dot com click on the shop tab. Okay,
[9:58] Speaker 2: plenty of phone calls to get to on this broadcast,
[10:03] Speaker 2: and so we begin to zero two.
[10:06] Speaker 4: Hi.
[10:07] Speaker 2: What's your name?
[10:08] Speaker 4: Name is Frank, Hi, Frank, Please forgive my speech. I
[10:13] Speaker 4: have some issues with autism, so my speech sometimes comes
[10:17] Speaker 4: out a little messy. I thought it would, thank you.
[10:23] Speaker 4: You were talking about the assassination attempt on Trump. I
[10:28] Speaker 4: don't remember where I saw this. I think it was
[10:31] Speaker 4: on one of the TV news channels that the bullet
[10:35] Speaker 4: didn't actually hit Trump, it hit the glass teleprompter and
[10:41] Speaker 4: the glass flew out, and that's what took his ear out.
[10:45] Speaker 4: Don't quote me on this, but that's what I heard,
[10:49] Speaker 4: probably the evening after the event happened. I really wanted
[10:53] Speaker 4: to talk about, Yeah, okay, what I really wanted to
[10:56] Speaker 4: talk about was an experience I had in your backyard.
[11:01] Speaker 4: About two years ago. I was having some work done
[11:04] Speaker 4: on my RB in Oklahoma City, and I started getting
[11:09] Speaker 4: some light pains in my chest and my left arm.
[11:13] Speaker 4: I'd had a heart attack before, so I decided to
[11:15] Speaker 4: go to the hospital and make sure. The closest hospital
[11:19] Speaker 4: was a major hospital on the south side of Oklahoma city. Well,
[11:24] Speaker 4: they came in. They put me in this little room.
[11:27] Speaker 4: People came in stuck the little sticker things all over.
[11:30] Speaker 4: You connected me to the machine, and they just connected me.
[11:35] Speaker 4: They left and I was left in the room with
[11:38] Speaker 4: a nurse to fill out the paperwork. And you know,
[11:41] Speaker 4: I was giving her my information, and then she asked
[11:44] Speaker 4: what religion are you? And I said, I'm an atheist.
[11:49] Speaker 4: I was watching her and her whole body jerked like
[11:55] Speaker 4: I had slapped her real hard. She didn't say anything else.
[11:59] Speaker 4: She finished up whatever the line was she was working
[12:01] Speaker 4: on and left the room. About twenty five thirty minutes later,
[12:07] Speaker 4: some guy comes and stands in the doorway and says,
[12:12] Speaker 4: you're not having a heart attack, you can go. There
[12:15] Speaker 4: was absolutely no thing of trying to figure out what
[12:18] Speaker 4: my problem was. I suspected his acid in digestion, but
[12:23] Speaker 4: I put my shirt back on. Walk down in the hallway,
[12:27] Speaker 4: and the entire emergency department was completely empty. There were
[12:32] Speaker 4: no nurses, no doctors, no patients, and all the doors
[12:36] Speaker 4: to the little patient cubicles were open, and I saw
[12:40] Speaker 4: about three or four of them where the bed had
[12:43] Speaker 4: been rolled out away. I had to figure my own
[12:46] Speaker 4: way out. I ended up having a walk all the
[12:49] Speaker 4: way around the hospital to get to my truck, which
[12:52] Speaker 4: I had parked in the front. But that is the
[12:55] Speaker 4: first time in my life I have ever actually had
[12:59] Speaker 4: something like that happened to me. It is stuck with
[13:02] Speaker 4: me pretty heavy.
[13:03] Speaker 2: So your inference here is that once they knew you
[13:07] Speaker 2: were godless, they kept a distance, and.
[13:12] Speaker 4: The fact that nobody tried to figure out what was
[13:15] Speaker 4: really wrong with me that hurt. Also.
[13:19] Speaker 2: Have you noticed that when something happens to a believer,
[13:24] Speaker 2: God is using this light and momentary affliction to build
[13:28] Speaker 2: their faith, or if they die, some God called them
[13:32] Speaker 2: home it was their time, their work on earth was done.
[13:36] Speaker 2: I don't know they've got some sort of apologetic at
[13:38] Speaker 2: the ready, But if it was to happen to you
[13:41] Speaker 2: or me as atheist, God pulled the plug because we
[13:45] Speaker 2: had rejected him and he killed us or allowed us
[13:48] Speaker 2: to die. Have you noticed that the narrative changes based
[13:51] Speaker 2: on who believes what.
[13:53] Speaker 4: I actually haven't had any experience with it at all.
[13:56] Speaker 4: I've had some instances where I told us some I
[14:00] Speaker 4: was an atheist. I can't pull up at any particular
[14:03] Speaker 4: one or instance in my brain right now, but I
[14:07] Speaker 4: never had any kind of reaction, like they've got to
[14:10] Speaker 4: get away from this devil that has gotten into their facility.
[14:15] Speaker 4: I have a whole bunch of things wrong with me.
[14:18] Speaker 4: I'm now seventy three. I've had full blown AIDS since
[14:22] Speaker 4: nineteen ninety one. I am in the process of dealing
[14:26] Speaker 4: with prostate or anal cancer, have diabetes. Just the problem
[14:31] Speaker 4: is go all the way around. That's one of the
[14:33] Speaker 4: reasons I'm having some difficulty with my speech. But the
[14:39] Speaker 4: autism also causes that. I like your channel, I'm sticking
[14:47] Speaker 4: things in the wrong way.
[14:48] Speaker 2: You're doing well. No, I'm totally tracking. This has actually
[14:51] Speaker 2: been a linear narrative, so I don't know, don't apologize
[14:55] Speaker 2: you're doing. I'm so sorry these things have happened to you.
[14:58] Speaker 2: I'm interested to that. You know, science made it possible
[15:02] Speaker 2: for people who were diagnosed with AIDS, especially in the nineties,
[15:06] Speaker 2: to be able to survive and live much longer lives,
[15:10] Speaker 2: and for that, I am very thankful to science. I'm
[15:13] Speaker 2: sorry that you know the infection happened.
[15:15] Speaker 4: I am, you know, but.
[15:16] Speaker 2: I'm glad you're still kicking still with us despite the challenge.
[15:19] Speaker 4: Yeah. I actually we figured out who gave it to me.
[15:23] Speaker 4: There was a couple of guys this was in eighty
[15:26] Speaker 4: three that were doing stuff and they knew they had
[15:30] Speaker 4: it and weren't killing anybody. In my entire I had
[15:34] Speaker 4: sex with maybe six or seven people. Let's see. It
[15:38] Speaker 4: was in eighty three I met my life partner and
[15:41] Speaker 4: eventual husband. He passed away fix years ago now. But
[15:46] Speaker 4: I appreciate every day that I have because when I
[15:50] Speaker 4: was first diagnosed at ninety one, they gave me six
[15:53] Speaker 4: months and at the time I lived in Washington near Washington,
[15:58] Speaker 4: d c. Or just outside of town. And my HIV doctor,
[16:02] Speaker 4: which was my primary doctor too, when I told him
[16:05] Speaker 4: I was getting ready to move to Colorado, which is
[16:07] Speaker 4: where I'm at now, he said he was sorry to
[16:10] Speaker 4: see me go because I was the only patient that
[16:12] Speaker 4: he had from that period five So believe me, I
[16:18] Speaker 4: appreciate every single day that I've got.
[16:21] Speaker 2: It's a good encouragement for the rest of us, all right,
[16:23] Speaker 2: seize the day, yeah, and be grateful despite the challenges.
[16:28] Speaker 2: That experience at the hospital is fascinating to me. I'd
[16:31] Speaker 2: be curious. I'd like to be a mind reader to
[16:33] Speaker 2: know what was happening inside the skulls of those who
[16:36] Speaker 2: sort of vanished in your hour of need, especially when
[16:39] Speaker 2: they have a duty of care to all of their
[16:41] Speaker 2: fellow human beings. But it is a fascinating story. Big
[16:44] Speaker 2: hugs for me and the audience to you and yours,
[16:47] Speaker 2: my friend. You keep kicking, Okay, thank you very much.
[16:50] Speaker 4: This is the second time in my life I've ever
[16:52] Speaker 4: done a call in.
[16:54] Speaker 2: You did great too, I mean you really did well. Oh,
[16:58] Speaker 2: there's no apology. Your smooth as silk, smooth like. Butta
[17:03] Speaker 2: you did good. Thanks for colling.
[17:06] Speaker 4: Thank you all right, we'll seek the good work.
[17:09] Speaker 2: I took a second and looked up the story about
[17:13] Speaker 2: the bullet striking the teleprompter and the fragments of glass
[17:18] Speaker 2: hitting the ear. According to the Associated Press, as published
[17:24] Speaker 2: in July of last year, the FBI confirmed it was
[17:28] Speaker 2: indeed a bullet that struck the former president's ear. This
[17:33] Speaker 2: was again before the election. They said both of the
[17:36] Speaker 2: teleprompters were totally intact after the shooting. Anyway, that's the
[17:41] Speaker 2: official word in from the a P. I've got Irene
[17:47] Speaker 2: dialing into the switchboard. Welcome to the show, Irene. What's up?
[17:51] Speaker 4: Hi?
[17:52] Speaker 3: Can you hear me?
[17:52] Speaker 2: I can? Indeed? What's up?
[17:54] Speaker 3: Well, I'm calling you from France. I've been living here
[17:57] Speaker 3: for forty years, but I've been listening to you as
[18:00] Speaker 3: American podcast for many, many years. I've been listening to
[18:04] Speaker 3: you for years, and I'm loving you. And if I don't
[18:08] Speaker 3: have a French accent, it's because I grew up in California.
[18:11] Speaker 2: Okay, Well, thanks for the kind words. I appreciate that somebody.
[18:15] Speaker 3: Said something earlier. Maybe it was you about a president
[18:20] Speaker 3: needing to have a heart big enough to accommodate the
[18:24] Speaker 3: whole country. That a dollar on.
[18:28] Speaker 2: The show who had that perspective.
[18:29] Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And that's something that I've been thinking about
[18:34] Speaker 3: in conjunction with several things, but I'm going to narrow
[18:38] Speaker 3: it down to two. One is that ideally, in an
[18:43] Speaker 3: ideal society, what we would have is what Plato would
[18:46] Speaker 3: have called the philosopher king, that is to say, a
[18:50] Speaker 3: head of state who has the country at heart and
[18:53] Speaker 3: has the competence to manage all the workings of the state.
[18:59] Speaker 3: And I ideally that's what we should have. Unfortunately, I
[19:03] Speaker 3: don't think we will ever have exactly that. We've had
[19:05] Speaker 3: close to that sometimes, but not really that, and today
[19:09] Speaker 3: we're so far from that. That it's not even on
[19:12] Speaker 3: the radar.
[19:13] Speaker 2: Can I ask you a question? I read Ye'll forgive
[19:16] Speaker 2: the interruption, But you living in France, what kind of
[19:20] Speaker 2: things are you hearing about the United States over there? Oh?
[19:25] Speaker 3: God, well, first of all, I listened to US podcasts
[19:29] Speaker 3: all the time, so what I'm hearing isn't the same
[19:33] Speaker 3: thing as as French people. Because I'm still an American.
[19:36] Speaker 3: I've put in my paperwork to request naturalization as a
[19:39] Speaker 3: French citizen. But it's all kind of you know, I'm
[19:42] Speaker 3: waiting to hear from them. But most French people I
[19:45] Speaker 3: talk to are just shocked at you know, I don't
[19:50] Speaker 3: talk politics with a lot of French people, but the
[19:52] Speaker 3: ones I do talk politics with just don't understand. They
[19:55] Speaker 3: don't understand how the American people could do this, and
[19:59] Speaker 3: I have to explain to them that it was only
[20:02] Speaker 3: you know, like, first of all, he didn't get a
[20:04] Speaker 3: majority of the popular vote. Second of all, everybody doesn't vote,
[20:09] Speaker 3: and so it comes down to I think he got
[20:12] Speaker 3: about a third of the voting public's vote, but he
[20:18] Speaker 3: did get more votes than Cambel Harris did, or more well,
[20:22] Speaker 3: he did actually get more docular votes, and of course
[20:24] Speaker 3: he got the electoral College.
[20:25] Speaker 2: I mean, if you count the Democrat and then I
[20:27] Speaker 2: and the independent votes, he didn't get as many, but yes,
[20:31] Speaker 2: he got the popular votes by the letter of the law.
[20:34] Speaker 2: So you're saying that they're scratching their heads the way
[20:37] Speaker 2: many of us here are scratching our heads. Do they
[20:39] Speaker 2: know that we all haven't lost our minds? I mean,
[20:42] Speaker 2: I'm just I just want to apologize to the rest
[20:45] Speaker 2: of the world and say there, you know, there are
[20:48] Speaker 2: there is a resistance right there are dissenters here within
[20:52] Speaker 2: these borders. I just want to communicate that.
[20:55] Speaker 3: I think people know that, but you know, to tell
[20:58] Speaker 3: you the truth. After two sixteen, I started gathering up
[21:03] Speaker 3: my documents to request naturalization over here. And then, you know,
[21:08] Speaker 3: there was so much resistance in the States, and I
[21:10] Speaker 3: was hearing so many things that gave me hope that
[21:12] Speaker 3: it was only a passage, you know, four years, and
[21:15] Speaker 3: then we'd be done with it and people would realize
[21:18] Speaker 3: the mistake and we'd move on. And then Biden was elected,
[21:22] Speaker 3: and I like, what Biden did? You know, personally I
[21:27] Speaker 3: like Biden. You know, I know he was old, but
[21:29] Speaker 3: so what. But then they did it again. They liked
[21:35] Speaker 3: that person again, and I can't. It's like I don't
[21:38] Speaker 3: understand it. I don't feel like I belong with the
[21:42] Speaker 3: American people anymore. So I've now completed my paperwork, submitted it,
[21:48] Speaker 3: and hopefully after forty living here for forty years, I
[21:53] Speaker 3: can become a French citizen. But anyway, you know, the
[21:58] Speaker 3: French people, of course, they know that it's not everybody,
[22:01] Speaker 3: because it's not everybody in France that likes Lapin, so
[22:04] Speaker 3: they understand that. But we tend to think of people
[22:07] Speaker 3: as monoliths. We tend to think of the French people.
[22:12] Speaker 3: There's no such thing. Really, there are people who are French,
[22:16] Speaker 3: but there's not the French people, because everybody's got their
[22:20] Speaker 3: own individual view of the world and so and this
[22:24] Speaker 3: is the same for American people and anybody else obviously.
[22:28] Speaker 3: So no, the French people, I don't know they I
[22:33] Speaker 3: would have said, like a few years ago, I would
[22:35] Speaker 3: have said, well, the French people love Americans, and it's
[22:38] Speaker 3: what's true. I don't know that that's true today because
[22:41] Speaker 3: they don't understand. They just can't. They don't get it,
[22:45] Speaker 3: and I don't get it.
[22:46] Speaker 2: I haven't heard that French people love Americans, I've heard.
[22:51] Speaker 2: I've heard that, and then this may be true with
[22:55] Speaker 2: many of our allied around the world, you know, they
[22:58] Speaker 2: I think many see us as spoiled than coddled and entitled,
[23:01] Speaker 2: and a lot of a lot of other things beyond that.
[23:06] Speaker 2: Though your commentary about the type of person who should
[23:09] Speaker 2: be president, that is a person who would be one,
[23:12] Speaker 2: we don't put a punctuation mark on it, right.
[23:14] Speaker 3: So okay, So yeah, So I was listening to a
[23:19] Speaker 3: recent Colbert interview of Bill Gates, who has decided to
[23:23] Speaker 3: over the next twenty years, give away eighty percent of
[23:27] Speaker 3: his wealth or to spend eighty percent of his wealth
[23:30] Speaker 3: on his causes. And I think that's laudable. I think
[23:34] Speaker 3: it's great. I think people who have a lot of
[23:36] Speaker 3: money should give it back, you know, they should find
[23:39] Speaker 3: something to give it to that's worthwhile and do that.
[23:43] Speaker 3: I also think people shouldn't be able to get that
[23:45] Speaker 3: much wealth in the first place. But here we are,
[23:49] Speaker 3: and I think that, you know, I have thought for
[23:52] Speaker 3: a long time that it's a horrible idea to have
[23:57] Speaker 3: the people who are wealthy decide but causes our worth
[24:01] Speaker 3: while and then put their money into those causes, Because
[24:05] Speaker 3: you know, then we have a world governed by the
[24:08] Speaker 3: wealthiest people, who aren't necessarily the most competent or the
[24:11] Speaker 3: smartest or most benevolent people. But if we've got Bill
[24:16] Speaker 3: Gates giving his money to eradicating polio and malaria and
[24:22] Speaker 3: the other causes that he's putting his money into, I
[24:25] Speaker 3: and I said, bravo, do that. And today, given what
[24:31] Speaker 3: is happening in the US government with you know, all
[24:34] Speaker 3: the people, the people that Trump has been putting in
[24:36] Speaker 3: place in all of the key positions that are taking
[24:41] Speaker 3: charge of all the American agencies and so forth, and
[24:44] Speaker 3: they're incompetence and the malevolence that is being installed. Now
[24:50] Speaker 3: I'm in a quandary because maybe we do need rich
[24:54] Speaker 3: people to take over and start doing the right thing
[24:58] Speaker 3: and just leave the government. When the government becomes so
[25:01] Speaker 3: corrupt and so incompetent and so evil, maybe what we
[25:08] Speaker 3: need is for people who have the means and the
[25:11] Speaker 3: intelligence to do so, to actually take away those decisions
[25:16] Speaker 3: from the government and do the good work themselves. So
[25:21] Speaker 3: and like I say, it's a quandary for me because
[25:23] Speaker 3: I really think that fundamentally it's a bad idea, but
[25:27] Speaker 3: today it might actually be a good idea, and I'd
[25:29] Speaker 3: like to have your thoughts on that.
[25:32] Speaker 2: Let me think about that one for a second. Can
[25:36] Speaker 2: I chew on it and maybe give you my opinion
[25:39] Speaker 2: here in a second off the call. But yeah, you've
[25:41] Speaker 2: given me something to think about, but I need to
[25:44] Speaker 2: consider it for a second. Would that be okay?
[25:46] Speaker 4: Sure?
[25:47] Speaker 2: I appreciate you calling all the way from France, and
[25:51] Speaker 2: please tell everybody that we haven't all lost our collective
[25:54] Speaker 2: minds over here and that the resistance is rising.
[25:57] Speaker 3: Okay, ok, thank you sir, and thank you for taking
[26:01] Speaker 3: the call.
[26:02] Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're bad. Thank you. I think the question
[26:06] Speaker 2: starts with is there such a thing as an ethical billionaire?
[26:14] Speaker 2: And I'm not sure the answer is yes. I do
[26:18] Speaker 2: see Bill Gates, etc. Who have done a tremendous amount
[26:21] Speaker 2: of charitable work. And I don't begrudge anybody great success,
[26:26] Speaker 2: even in the millions of dollars. But where I used
[26:30] Speaker 2: to think, Well, this is America, and you can get
[26:33] Speaker 2: as rich as you want, and then it's all trickled
[26:35] Speaker 2: down and look at all the industries you've created, and
[26:37] Speaker 2: look at all those things that you can accomplish. Blah
[26:40] Speaker 2: blah blah. I'm not convinced that any one human being
[26:44] Speaker 2: should have that much money and power in a world
[26:47] Speaker 2: with this much suffering. I also think that many of
[26:52] Speaker 2: the CEOs of very powerful corporations are in fact psychopaths.
[27:01] Speaker 2: They have tendencies towards psychopathy. I would like a psychologist
[27:07] Speaker 2: to weigh in on that one. But you do not
[27:10] Speaker 2: get to where you are usually without exploitation. You do
[27:18] Speaker 2: not get to where you are as a billionaire without
[27:22] Speaker 2: stepping on the heads of the commoners. Do I think
[27:26] Speaker 2: that's always the case? I don't know all the billionaires.
[27:31] Speaker 2: Somebody made money in the market, somebody built a better
[27:34] Speaker 2: mouse trap, blah blah blah. But at some point, in
[27:38] Speaker 2: a world with this much suffering, how many thousands of
[27:42] Speaker 2: millions of dollars should one person have? And then they
[27:46] Speaker 2: get to construct an alternative universe where they have totally
[27:50] Speaker 2: different rules. They skate on stuff that you and I
[27:53] Speaker 2: would maybe go to jail for. They can manipulate stock
[27:56] Speaker 2: markets and be influences to foreign powers to shift world events.
[28:03] Speaker 2: Should any one person have that kind of power? And
[28:06] Speaker 2: if you were going to make your billions as part
[28:09] Speaker 2: of a society, do you not then owe an obligation
[28:13] Speaker 2: a debt to that society to pay it back. And
[28:17] Speaker 2: at this point, I've got Mags screaming socialism. He wants
[28:21] Speaker 2: to turn us into Russia. Everybody wants to talk about freedom,
[28:25] Speaker 2: nobody wants to talk about obligation. I worry that in
[28:30] Speaker 2: so many cases, the characteristics that made someone that filthy rich, dirty, rotten, filthy,
[28:37] Speaker 2: stinking rich, those characteristics are not those of benevolence, because
[28:43] Speaker 2: I'm not sure someone that benevolent wouldn't have already allocated
[28:48] Speaker 2: resources to the society that they grew up in to
[28:51] Speaker 2: benefit planet Earth. But then I think, well, you know,
[28:57] Speaker 2: Mark Cuban is a billionaire, but he seems to be
[28:59] Speaker 2: a on the side of progressive values. I mentioned Bill
[29:02] Speaker 2: Gates how Taylor Swift is a billionaire became rich by
[29:09] Speaker 2: providing something that people wanted. Lover or hater. She is
[29:15] Speaker 2: a tremendously savvy business person who did it her way,
[29:20] Speaker 2: rose from pretty much nothing to become one of the
[29:22] Speaker 2: most successful pop artists in the history of music. So
[29:28] Speaker 2: I don't begrudge Taylor's swift success, but at some point,
[29:32] Speaker 2: how many thousands of millions does one person need when
[29:37] Speaker 2: there were so many people who are sick and suffering.
[29:40] Speaker 2: I struggle with the idea of an ethical billionaire, but
[29:45] Speaker 2: Irene may have a point where if this is the
[29:49] Speaker 2: scenario that we are stuck with, if the world's richest
[29:53] Speaker 2: person is doing this much damage, and we've got a
[29:56] Speaker 2: billionaire in the White House who was doing that much damage,
[30:01] Speaker 2: then maybe the other billionaires are a corrective force or
[30:07] Speaker 2: could be mobilized activated to use their massive amounts of
[30:12] Speaker 2: wealth to try to stop the tide of cruelty and absurdity.
[30:18] Speaker 2: If this is the handw're dealt, I these are the
[30:20] Speaker 2: chess pieces we're playing with. Would I rather have a
[30:23] Speaker 2: powerful chess piece to take out the oligarchs? You damn right,
[30:26] Speaker 2: I would. It's messy. It is so messy. What would
[30:32] Speaker 2: you do with a billion dollars? I mean if you
[30:35] Speaker 2: gave away most of it, if you gave away ninety
[30:39] Speaker 2: nine percent of it, you'd still be a millionaire, right,
[30:43] Speaker 2: I mean it's my mind cannot process all of this.
[30:47] Speaker 2: You tell me what you think in the comments section,
[30:50] Speaker 2: and we will hear more of what our listeners think
[30:54] Speaker 2: after this. It is the final broadcast of May of
[31:05] Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. Summer is on the horizon. We can
[31:09] Speaker 2: look and see summer approaching, and then, of course is fall,
[31:15] Speaker 2: which means October, which means Halloween. And I'm one of
[31:18] Speaker 2: those guys who is counting down the days to Halloween
[31:22] Speaker 2: even though it's not yet. Summertime drives people crazy. I'm
[31:27] Speaker 2: already planning my Halloween decorations. Big deal in my house. Well,
[31:33] Speaker 2: it's a big deal to me. Natalie endores it. She
[31:36] Speaker 2: likes it more than she says. So I have options
[31:40] Speaker 2: this year. I'm either I can't believe I'm telling you
[31:43] Speaker 2: this in the month of May, but it's on my mind.
[31:47] Speaker 2: I'm either going to do an alien theme because I
[31:51] Speaker 2: bought kind of a cheap xenomorph costume, which is fun
[31:56] Speaker 2: and funny. I thought about doing maybe the eggs, the
[31:59] Speaker 2: alien eggs all over the yard and having the alien theme.
[32:03] Speaker 2: I thought about squid games. My fantasy is to have
[32:09] Speaker 2: one of those giant dolls from the game I forget
[32:13] Speaker 2: what do they call it? Stop or Go game where
[32:17] Speaker 2: when she looks the other way, you can run, but
[32:19] Speaker 2: if she looks at you, you have to stop and
[32:22] Speaker 2: freeze or else you die. What's the name of that game?
[32:25] Speaker 2: I can't remember. But there's this big statue fifteen feet tall.
[32:30] Speaker 2: I don't have the money or the skill to build
[32:33] Speaker 2: something like that, but oh my god, in a perfect world,
[32:37] Speaker 2: I would have that. And then some squid games, uniformed
[32:41] Speaker 2: figures all around, and we let people play the game,
[32:46] Speaker 2: you know, for fun. We wouldn't actually shoot them. And
[32:50] Speaker 2: then the one I'm probably gonna do because it's cheapest,
[32:53] Speaker 2: is I'm thinking about doing a skeleton bande. I've got
[32:59] Speaker 2: the skeletons already, I've accumulated them over the years. Build
[33:04] Speaker 2: like a I don't know, a fake drum set. Buy
[33:07] Speaker 2: a couple of old plastic toy guitars and hang them
[33:11] Speaker 2: around the necks of the skeletons, and put a dance
[33:14] Speaker 2: floor out and then we just play music while the
[33:17] Speaker 2: skull band stands there and everybody can dance to Halloween music.
[33:21] Speaker 2: That might be kind of fun.
[33:22] Speaker 4: I don't know.
[33:24] Speaker 2: These are the things that occupy my brain in late
[33:27] Speaker 2: May of twenty twenty five. But what occupies your brain?
[33:33] Speaker 2: Let's find out. Nathan is calling from area code nine
[33:38] Speaker 2: two zero. Hi, thanks for waiting, are you there?
[33:41] Speaker 4: Yep?
[33:41] Speaker 5: I am here, Thank you.
[33:43] Speaker 2: Let's talk what's on your mind?
[33:44] Speaker 5: Pardon just moving from one room to the other, I
[33:47] Speaker 5: add a question. I got to dust off my Bible
[33:50] Speaker 5: to one of these days. I'm an atheist, but looking
[33:53] Speaker 5: back on the past salvation, I think according to Catholics
[33:57] Speaker 5: and Christians, I think with Abraham it boils down to
[34:01] Speaker 5: believe obeyed some form of repentance through sacrifice or asking
[34:05] Speaker 5: for forgiveness directly from God. Noah, same thing, Moses, same thing,
[34:12] Speaker 5: but with a lot more rules to obey. And then
[34:15] Speaker 5: it comes to Jesus, which is supposed to be this
[34:17] Speaker 5: like new covenant, something brand new, and it feels like
[34:20] Speaker 5: it's the same thing. Believe, obey, repents through some form
[34:25] Speaker 5: of forgiveness or maybe a sacrifice through martyrdom.
[34:29] Speaker 2: Are you asking me if I see similarities from religion
[34:32] Speaker 2: to religion?
[34:33] Speaker 5: I think this probably would have been a better question
[34:36] Speaker 5: for doctor Bohen or a pologia, but I had time.
[34:40] Speaker 5: I'd rarely get to calling.
[34:43] Speaker 2: For somebody who was.
[34:45] Speaker 3: It.
[34:46] Speaker 2: Yes, I'd like to talk about faiths the major funding
[34:50] Speaker 2: of religions, especially like Mexican food. Like you walk into
[34:56] Speaker 2: a restaurant, you say, I would like a taco. What's
[34:59] Speaker 2: on a taco? You got tortilla, meat, lettuce, cheese, and tomato. Well,
[35:02] Speaker 2: I would like a tostata instead. What's on that? Well,
[35:05] Speaker 2: you got a tortilla, meat, lettuce, cheese, and tomato. Right,
[35:09] Speaker 2: I would like it an ininchulada. What's on that?
[35:11] Speaker 5: Way?
[35:11] Speaker 2: You got a tortilla, meat, lettuce, cheese, tomato. I think
[35:14] Speaker 2: that the major religions have the same ingredients, they're just
[35:18] Speaker 2: served up in different ways. Right, You've got a holy book,
[35:22] Speaker 2: You've got a dogma, you've got a paradise, you've got
[35:25] Speaker 2: damnation or potential punishment, posthumous existence. You've got your clergy
[35:30] Speaker 2: and priests, and you know, I see a lot of similarities.
[35:33] Speaker 2: I don't know, what do you think of my Mexican
[35:34] Speaker 2: food analogy? Is that just lame?
[35:37] Speaker 5: It makes me a little bit hungry. It's on the
[35:39] Speaker 5: treadmill before I called in.
[35:42] Speaker 2: You know, I may have to I would door dash it,
[35:45] Speaker 2: but I don't think I want to pay thirty five
[35:46] Speaker 2: dollars for an enchilada, which is kind of You got
[35:49] Speaker 2: to be super lazy to use door dash, and I
[35:51] Speaker 2: have been guilty as of late. At the end of
[35:54] Speaker 2: a long day. It's a totally different conversation, Nathan, Was
[35:57] Speaker 2: there anything else about the similarities between the religions that
[36:01] Speaker 2: you wanted to speak about.
[36:02] Speaker 5: It was mostly just focusing on Christianity in the various sects.
[36:07] Speaker 5: As I think according to what I've heard from some
[36:10] Speaker 5: Jewish people, salvation is kind of a revolving door. I
[36:14] Speaker 5: don't quite understand it. I'd have to read up on
[36:16] Speaker 5: the tour I have, but all my religious books are
[36:19] Speaker 5: in a storage locker collecting dust right now.
[36:21] Speaker 2: Nathan. If we're talking about the different splinterings or denominations
[36:25] Speaker 2: of Christianity, you're saying that even though they split, they
[36:29] Speaker 2: have much more in common than they have in disagreement.
[36:32] Speaker 5: It was mostly just focusing on the paths to salvation,
[36:35] Speaker 5: starting with Abraham going to Jesus, because they all seem
[36:39] Speaker 5: to be the same thing, although they seem like they're
[36:41] Speaker 5: being presented as something new, and when you get to Jesus,
[36:44] Speaker 5: he seems pointless because it's the same damn thing. Whether
[36:46] Speaker 5: you believe that Jesus is half divine or fully divine,
[36:50] Speaker 5: you're still asking God directly for forgiveness, and you still
[36:53] Speaker 5: have to believe, obey, and repent. Whether you're talking Jesus
[36:57] Speaker 5: as divine, then you're just talking directly to God. If
[36:59] Speaker 5: it's a divine Jesus, I guess, is kind of serving
[37:02] Speaker 5: as a concilieri. But still you have to obey God.
[37:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, I misunderstood. I think I thought you were making
[37:10] Speaker 2: a comparative religions comment, but you're making a comparative denominations comment.
[37:16] Speaker 2: With tens of thousands of different denominations of Christianity, I'm
[37:19] Speaker 2: not sure we can use the word all, but I
[37:22] Speaker 2: take your point that many are. They seem to be
[37:25] Speaker 2: serving the same ingredients, only in slightly different orders.
[37:30] Speaker 5: Well, I'm kind of taking the denominations out of it
[37:33] Speaker 5: all together and just focusing on like the paths as
[37:36] Speaker 5: they are in the Bible, because when you just look
[37:38] Speaker 5: at the paths as they're presented, not I know, the
[37:41] Speaker 5: translations are going to be a little bit different, but
[37:44] Speaker 5: the ingredients for the salvation through each one, whether it
[37:47] Speaker 5: be Abraham, Noah, Moses, and Jesus, they all seem to
[37:51] Speaker 5: be the exact same thing. And it baffles me when
[37:55] Speaker 5: I think about it, why we would even need anything
[37:58] Speaker 5: beyond Moses, because Jesus doesn't present anything new. Whether half
[38:04] Speaker 5: divine or fully divine, you're still petitioning to God. You
[38:07] Speaker 5: still have to obey all the commandments and you still
[38:10] Speaker 5: have to ask for forgiveness or have some sort of
[38:12] Speaker 5: sacrifice or repentance. That's what's kind of baffling, mild autism.
[38:16] Speaker 5: So I'm kind of like focused, no on that thing,
[38:19] Speaker 5: just Jesus himself being the whole advent of him, or
[38:23] Speaker 5: the whole religion being formed around him just being completely pointless.
[38:28] Speaker 2: That's deep. I'm gonna have to think about that when Nathan.
[38:33] Speaker 2: Apparently I need more coffee always. I don't have enough
[38:36] Speaker 2: ram to process this one immediately, Nathan. But it's interesting
[38:41] Speaker 2: and I'd be curious to hear what the comments have
[38:43] Speaker 2: to say about it as well. So thanks for all.
[38:47] Speaker 5: I'm a over the road trucker, so most of the
[38:49] Speaker 5: time I hear the programs I'm at work and can't
[38:52] Speaker 5: call in. I just listen on the drive.
[38:54] Speaker 2: No, it's an interesting approach. Let's chew on that one.
[38:58] Speaker 2: Save travels out there. Thank you for calling.
[39:01] Speaker 5: Yep, you have a good day there, Bye bye.
[39:03] Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, I guess we could go further toward
[39:08] Speaker 2: the beginning the genesis literal genesis of the story. If
[39:14] Speaker 2: God is omniscient, why would he have implemented a plan
[39:17] Speaker 2: that he foreknew would fail a riff on that is,
[39:20] Speaker 2: why would God create anyone that he foreknew would end
[39:23] Speaker 2: up in hell. We don't have hell until the New
[39:26] Speaker 2: Testament depart from me, you who are cursed into a
[39:29] Speaker 2: lake of everlasting fire and damnation. So the scenarios are
[39:34] Speaker 2: a little bit different. Where the Old Testament seems to
[39:38] Speaker 2: be a little more focused on works, obeying God directly,
[39:44] Speaker 2: where the New Testament is more You've got to have faith,
[39:48] Speaker 2: but faith without works is dead. So works are important,
[39:52] Speaker 2: but it's not about works.
[39:55] Speaker 4: I don't know.
[39:56] Speaker 2: I need, I need. I need a topper on the
[39:59] Speaker 2: coffee to be able to process. I don't have the
[40:02] Speaker 2: bandwidth to be able to properly address this. You deserved better, Nathan,
[40:07] Speaker 2: you deserved more from me. I leave it. I stand
[40:10] Speaker 2: on the shoulders of giants, the greater skeptics who were
[40:13] Speaker 2: watching and listening to the show today. Michael is calling
[40:18] Speaker 2: from two zero seven high.
[40:20] Speaker 6: Oh hello, fancy meet you here.
[40:22] Speaker 2: What's going on? What's on your mind?
[40:25] Speaker 6: Well, we're supposed to be a lot of our problems
[40:29] Speaker 6: right now are because of breakdown of our rural law.
[40:32] Speaker 6: Right this is why I see anyway, Okay, and I'd
[40:36] Speaker 6: like to present the idea that I think lawyers should
[40:39] Speaker 6: be civil servants because we're a nation of laws. The
[40:44] Speaker 6: law is supposed to work for everybody, and you can't
[40:47] Speaker 6: have equal access to the law when it takes money
[40:49] Speaker 6: to access it. Just like we provide cops, prosecutors, district attorneys,
[40:57] Speaker 6: all those things, lawyers should be right there too. You
[41:02] Speaker 6: got a problem, you go to the courthouse or the
[41:04] Speaker 6: Civil Service building or whatever and present your problem to
[41:08] Speaker 6: a panel two or three judges or lawyers or whatever,
[41:12] Speaker 6: and they hear you out. If they think you get
[41:16] Speaker 6: the case, Excuse me, I'm reasing hard that I just
[41:18] Speaker 6: ran upstairs.
[41:19] Speaker 2: You're fine.
[41:20] Speaker 6: If they think that you get a case, you get
[41:23] Speaker 6: to sign a lawyer, and whoever you get a problem with,
[41:25] Speaker 6: they get to sign a lawyer. That way, you can't
[41:28] Speaker 6: one party can't hould you out because they can afford
[41:31] Speaker 6: a battery of lawyers and you can't hardly afford one,
[41:34] Speaker 6: you know.
[41:35] Speaker 2: I think some would argue that the public defender model
[41:39] Speaker 2: meets this need. I think your larger point stands where
[41:44] Speaker 2: we don't want the lowest times right, we want the
[41:48] Speaker 2: highly skilled, the greatest in their field to be available
[41:52] Speaker 2: to those who normally wouldn't be able to pay four
[41:55] Speaker 2: hundred dollars an hour for a qualified attorney.
[41:59] Speaker 6: Right, that's only works for criminal cases. I'm talking about
[42:03] Speaker 6: if you've got an issue with the law, If you've
[42:05] Speaker 6: got a problem with somebody that's a corporation, you want
[42:08] Speaker 6: to go up against a neighbor or whoever. If you've
[42:11] Speaker 6: got a problem, it's not criminal, it's civil, and it
[42:15] Speaker 6: still takes money to deal with a civil case. And
[42:18] Speaker 6: if you haven't got any you can't make your complaint
[42:21] Speaker 6: in the first place, because you just can't access the system.
[42:24] Speaker 6: And if you do have a legitimate complain about somebody,
[42:26] Speaker 6: they can ride you out by hiring more attorney and
[42:31] Speaker 6: running postponements. And they don't care about the legal bill
[42:34] Speaker 6: they're racking up because the point is to win. You
[42:37] Speaker 6: can't beat that.
[42:38] Speaker 2: I feel the same about healthcare. I feel like a
[42:41] Speaker 2: society absolutely as an obligation to take care of its own,
[42:45] Speaker 2: not those who can simply afford the policy. And it's
[42:49] Speaker 2: stupid to live in a culture where even those who
[42:51] Speaker 2: have full health insurance, full coverage, can still go bankrupt
[42:55] Speaker 2: with one major medical event, and the people can cry
[43:00] Speaker 2: them all they want, But I envy Canada because their
[43:03] Speaker 2: healthcare system, despite its imperfection, seems better than what we've
[43:07] Speaker 2: got here.
[43:08] Speaker 6: Absolutely, our healthcare system is a mess, but so is
[43:12] Speaker 6: our legal system. We wouldn't be here now.
[43:15] Speaker 4: Well.
[43:16] Speaker 6: I think Biden's biggest failing was not taking care of
[43:19] Speaker 6: the Supreme Court while he was.
[43:20] Speaker 2: In I love Ruth Vader Ginsburg and admired the hell
[43:25] Speaker 2: out of her, and I'm pissed that she did not
[43:28] Speaker 2: step down when she was in poor health so that
[43:31] Speaker 2: a non Zealot could have been appointed in her place.
[43:35] Speaker 2: You know, It's just one of those things.
[43:37] Speaker 6: The appointment system for the past few judges has been
[43:42] Speaker 6: broken anyway. They've all broken their oaths of office. They've
[43:45] Speaker 6: lied and perjured themselves. They're an illegitimate Supreme Court as
[43:49] Speaker 6: far as I'm concerned. And Biden's bigger the steak was
[43:52] Speaker 6: not fixing that. If they had done that, we wouldn't
[43:55] Speaker 6: be here now.
[43:56] Speaker 2: All right, Michael, I got you my.
[44:00] Speaker 6: Opinion.
[44:02] Speaker 2: Thanks for calling and giving your opinion. I know a
[44:04] Speaker 2: lot of folks will have opinions. Okay, well your opinion.
[44:07] Speaker 6: Oh I could give you a lot of opinions, but
[44:09] Speaker 6: I know you ain't got time to hear that.
[44:11] Speaker 2: I don't have time this time. Be safe out there, Okay,
[44:14] Speaker 2: we'll see you later, all right. You know, I'm still
[44:18] Speaker 2: thinking about healthcare. When I was a devout Christian, I
[44:23] Speaker 2: opposed universal health care or government provided or government funded healthcare.
[44:30] Speaker 2: I don't even know why, except that we were scared
[44:34] Speaker 2: with the S word socialism.
[44:38] Speaker 4: Right.
[44:38] Speaker 2: Uh, small government good, big government bad. Jesus was a
[44:43] Speaker 2: las a fair capitalist. It was that kind of thing.
[44:46] Speaker 2: I mean, it's the most unconsidered approach, especially when we
[44:51] Speaker 2: look at societies and the responsibilities that those societies have
[44:56] Speaker 2: to care for their citizens, which is what we were
[44:59] Speaker 2: talking about with the billionaires. You know, I've totally switched
[45:05] Speaker 2: my perspective. I think about how I wasn't overtly trying
[45:10] Speaker 2: to be cruel, but I was so dismissive. Well, you know,
[45:13] Speaker 2: get a job and buy your health insurance, or get
[45:16] Speaker 2: a job where the employer will pay for your health insurance.
[45:19] Speaker 2: Plenty of opportunities out there. I mean, you just gotta look,
[45:22] Speaker 2: you gotta be committed, you gotta want it. I mean,
[45:25] Speaker 2: how naive was that? How privileged was that? Now I
[45:30] Speaker 2: see these stories on the news and they're presented as
[45:34] Speaker 2: feel good stories. In broadcast terms, they called to kicker.
[45:39] Speaker 2: They often play these sort of warm, fuzzy stories at
[45:42] Speaker 2: the end of a newscast, after all the doom and gloom,
[45:45] Speaker 2: to leave you with kind of a sugary taste in
[45:47] Speaker 2: your mouth. And they're like Little Timmy was thirteen years
[45:50] Speaker 2: old when his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Timmy
[45:56] Speaker 2: started his own lemonade stand at five a glass. The
[46:02] Speaker 2: school mobilized, his community rallied around him. The word spread
[46:07] Speaker 2: on the media. He has sold five hundred glasses of
[46:11] Speaker 2: lemonade and helped to pay for his mother's healthcare. What
[46:16] Speaker 2: a beautiful story. Twenty years ago, I'd have been like, Wow,
[46:21] Speaker 2: that's really sweet. Right now, I think Jesus Christ, why
[46:25] Speaker 2: in the world is a kid having to sell freaking
[46:27] Speaker 2: lemonade to save his mother. These aren't feel good stories.
[46:34] Speaker 2: They are indictments of a broken system. And yet somehow
[46:40] Speaker 2: Christians who say that Jesus fed the poor, he divided
[46:44] Speaker 2: up the loaves and the fishes are multiplied the loaves
[46:47] Speaker 2: and the fishes, and he fed the five thousand, and
[46:50] Speaker 2: he told the rich man, sell everything you have and
[46:53] Speaker 2: give it to the poor and follow me. There's this
[46:58] Speaker 2: notion I think, well, if the government is meeting your
[47:02] Speaker 2: needs and you rely on the government, maybe you're not
[47:06] Speaker 2: relying on Jesus or you worship the state. That's one
[47:11] Speaker 2: of the narratives out there. Is healthcare a right or
[47:15] Speaker 2: is it a privilege? Something that has to be earned?
[47:20] Speaker 2: Do we really want to dole out a bunch of
[47:22] Speaker 2: free stuff to people? Takers out there, not providers, not producers,
[47:28] Speaker 2: but takers, and all they're going to do is drain us,
[47:30] Speaker 2: dry us wordy you. The Christian faith is infected with
[47:36] Speaker 2: this kind of thinking, even as many of the people
[47:40] Speaker 2: who are part of that faith are being financially devastated
[47:44] Speaker 2: as they go through their own health crises. And then
[47:49] Speaker 2: a side note, they go in and they get science
[47:52] Speaker 2: based medical care. When they have a good day on
[47:54] Speaker 2: chemo or they recover from a wound of some kind,
[47:58] Speaker 2: they often ignore the doc and thank Jesus. That's a
[48:01] Speaker 2: whole other pet peeve of mind. But when did we
[48:06] Speaker 2: as human travelers on this planet, brothers and sisters, primates
[48:11] Speaker 2: who have evolved together and must share this rock in
[48:15] Speaker 2: a trillions of galaxies universe, when did we decide that
[48:19] Speaker 2: maybe the weak should die out. Maybe the unfortunate did
[48:24] Speaker 2: have it coming. How ironic is it that this fundie religion, Christianity,
[48:31] Speaker 2: has in some ways adopted a kind of social Darwinism.
[48:36] Speaker 2: Or maybe it's that they simply believe the church has
[48:38] Speaker 2: to meet all those needs. The government's role is to
[48:42] Speaker 2: be small and allow citizens to own bibles and guns.
[48:47] Speaker 2: I guess maybe that's what they're thinking. It's a private
[48:50] Speaker 2: issue that should be solved in the free markets. Maybe
[48:55] Speaker 2: I don't know. It's messy anyway. My mind spins on
[48:59] Speaker 2: this idea that you and I live in ostensibly a
[49:04] Speaker 2: first world nation with more resources than anybody else on
[49:07] Speaker 2: the planet, and we've got people who cannot afford the
[49:11] Speaker 2: basics of their healthcare. And if the best version of
[49:16] Speaker 2: Jesus Christ showed up in five minutes and tried to
[49:20] Speaker 2: do something about it, Maggi, evangelicals would point at him,
[49:25] Speaker 2: call him a socialist, probably throw him in a black
[49:28] Speaker 2: van and ship his ass down to El Salvador. Okay,
[49:32] Speaker 2: I'm done venting. That's all we're going to do this week.
[49:36] Speaker 2: Always a pleasure to spend some time with you. Thank
[49:40] Speaker 2: you for spending part of your day with me. Hang
[49:44] Speaker 2: in there, I'll see you soon.
[49:45] Speaker 1: Follow The Thanking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a
[49:49] Speaker 1: complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and
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[50:01] Speaker 1: Log onto our website, The Thinkingatheist dot com.

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