# A Cold Day in Hell

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 28 Jan 2025, 58 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/63791612/podcast785_colddayinhell.mp3

Freezing temps. Warm callers. Lots of variety in this week's show. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: 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
[0:22] Speaker 1: because I put my hand on a book and made
[0:24] Speaker 1: a wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 3: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness. Truth,
[0:32] Speaker 3: 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 3: I saw this cartoon and it shows various elements bing
[1:01] Speaker 3: crushing darkness, time drags, seemingly no escape inhospitably cold, and
[1:10] Speaker 3: one person says black hole, and the other said, no,
[1:13] Speaker 3: it is just January. And right now, of course, we've
[1:17] Speaker 3: been seeing this historic what meteorologists have been calling a
[1:21] Speaker 3: once in a generation winter storm blasting across the southeast.
[1:26] Speaker 3: It's just been crazy. I'm ready for spring. I don't
[1:30] Speaker 3: know about you, but Natalie and I have been waking
[1:32] Speaker 3: up recently and we just brace ourselves. Now we're waiting
[1:37] Speaker 3: to be force fed the next dose of existential dread.
[1:42] Speaker 3: What will the algorithm bring us today? What's the headline
[1:46] Speaker 3: going to say today? What fresh hell awaits us today?
[1:51] Speaker 3: And we have been then seeking therapy, distraction, something else
[1:55] Speaker 3: to think about, and we've gotten hooked on this docu
[2:00] Speaker 3: series that is streaming on Prime. It's called The Yorkshire Vet.
[2:06] Speaker 3: And I'll just describe it here while I'm waiting for
[2:08] Speaker 3: the switchboard to populate with calls today, is your calls
[2:11] Speaker 3: on any subject that you want to talk about? The
[2:14] Speaker 3: Yorkshire Vet. These charming people, doctors and nurses and support
[2:19] Speaker 3: staff at Skelldale Veterinary Center in Thirsk, North Yorkshire. This
[2:24] Speaker 3: beautiful stretch of land and all kinds of creatures great
[2:28] Speaker 3: and small, treated by the Yorkshire Vets. Someone brings in
[2:33] Speaker 3: a mommy dog that is having trouble delivering puppies, and
[2:36] Speaker 3: so the vets intervene and before you know it, there's
[2:39] Speaker 3: a table full of puppies. Oh my god, the puppies.
[2:43] Speaker 3: They're just so freaking cute. Somebody else has a chicken
[2:47] Speaker 3: and the chicken's not properly digesting its food, so they
[2:50] Speaker 3: put this little anesthetic mask on the chicken head and
[2:55] Speaker 3: it goes to sleep, and then they make a little
[2:58] Speaker 3: incision and they pull out like two pounds of food
[3:03] Speaker 3: that just got stuck. I mean, it's fascinating stuff. And
[3:07] Speaker 3: then the chicken wakes up like nothing happened and goes
[3:09] Speaker 3: on with the rest of its day. You have a
[3:11] Speaker 3: kid brings in his pet rat, but the rat is
[3:15] Speaker 3: three times the size it's supposed to be because the
[3:17] Speaker 3: kid's been feeding it essentially candy. So they put the
[3:23] Speaker 3: rat on a diet and then they monitor the weight
[3:26] Speaker 3: of the rat throughout the show. They bring in baby
[3:28] Speaker 3: goats and have to remove the horns, which you think
[3:31] Speaker 3: would be traumatic, but it's actually not. In fact, it's fascinating.
[3:35] Speaker 3: And the beauty of UK medical shows is that they
[3:38] Speaker 3: don't shy away like in the United States. If we
[3:42] Speaker 3: get anywhere near an incision or blood or private areas,
[3:45] Speaker 3: even on cows and stuff, they just blur everything. But
[3:49] Speaker 3: not in the UK. They just show you everything, for
[3:53] Speaker 3: better and worse. And as there is death and life
[3:57] Speaker 3: in the real world, there is death and life in
[3:59] Speaker 3: the show, which adds a little bit of urgency to
[4:03] Speaker 3: the cases that come in because you honestly don't know
[4:06] Speaker 3: that everything is going to have a happy ending. Occasionally
[4:09] Speaker 3: it doesn't usually though it does, and we are obsessed.
[4:15] Speaker 3: We watched three seasons in a week, three seasons of
[4:19] Speaker 3: the Yorkshire Vet. We're so tired we can't even keep
[4:22] Speaker 3: our eyes open, lying in bed with the TV on.
[4:24] Speaker 3: You Let's just watch one more honey, cute sweet animals
[4:29] Speaker 3: being rescued and rehabilitated. That's good medicine. So if you're
[4:35] Speaker 3: looking for a distraction of your own, and you like
[4:38] Speaker 3: critters and the Yorkshire countryside and don't mind seeing the
[4:43] Speaker 3: occasional pile of undigested chicken food, I just want to
[4:47] Speaker 3: throw that recommendation out there. Okay, that's a freebie from
[4:51] Speaker 3: me and Natalie to you. And now that I've bought
[4:56] Speaker 3: us some time, let me take us to the switchboard.
[5:03] Speaker 3: I've got Mick on a web call from Australia. Mick,
[5:06] Speaker 3: thanks for calling. What's on your mind?
[5:10] Speaker 4: I just wanted to have a quick talk about what
[5:14] Speaker 4: I consider God's hypocrisy. God of the Bible, I would
[5:18] Speaker 4: reckon is probably one of the greatest sinners, certainly in
[5:22] Speaker 4: the Old Testament than anyone else ever. And I mean
[5:27] Speaker 4: by that would be the seven deadly sins. So you've
[5:30] Speaker 4: got the seven Deadly sins and the God of the
[5:34] Speaker 4: Bible constantly commits them NonStop. Now, you and I and
[5:38] Speaker 4: anyone else would probably get their asses thrown in health
[5:41] Speaker 4: for it, but he keeps doing it all the time.
[5:44] Speaker 4: For example, he's constantly brought to Rah. He is envious,
[5:49] Speaker 4: jealous of everyone else, of other gods. He has pride, Well,
[5:54] Speaker 4: there's jealousy straight up as well, and quite a few others.
[5:58] Speaker 3: What do you think, I think you're onto something. He's
[6:01] Speaker 3: to do as I say, not as I do, God,
[6:03] Speaker 3: isn't he absolutely?
[6:05] Speaker 4: Absolutely? I tried looking at a few others. You can
[6:09] Speaker 4: put him down a slice, because for most of the
[6:12] Speaker 4: early part of the Old Testament he was constantly talking
[6:16] Speaker 4: with people and walking on earth and what other rubbish.
[6:20] Speaker 4: And then, of course ever since then, he's never shown
[6:24] Speaker 4: his face to anyone ever again. So that's laziness, isn't it.
[6:27] Speaker 2: It is?
[6:27] Speaker 3: Indeed, I got to look up all of them now
[6:30] Speaker 3: and just make sure I'm remembering the seven deadly sins pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath,
[6:37] Speaker 3: and sloth. Trying to think about gluttony if he's a
[6:41] Speaker 3: spiritual being.
[6:42] Speaker 4: Yeah, I had a bit of trouble with that one.
[6:45] Speaker 3: Well, maybe it's more gluttony in terms of like coveting.
[6:49] Speaker 3: You know, he once see he's gluttonous for power, obedience
[6:53] Speaker 3: and worship. Maybe that's gluttony.
[6:55] Speaker 4: I buy that absolutely absolutely.
[6:58] Speaker 3: What's the religious climate in your part of Australia?
[7:02] Speaker 4: So we're obviously not as fanatical religious as you guys
[7:05] Speaker 4: are over over there in America. For the most part,
[7:08] Speaker 4: over here isn't as big a deal. People have their religion.
[7:13] Speaker 4: Some people have their religion and they go to church
[7:14] Speaker 4: every Sunday, But the numbers are waning over here, and
[7:17] Speaker 4: I think I looked it up a few weeks ago
[7:20] Speaker 4: and it's probably down to about forty or fifty percent now,
[7:25] Speaker 4: which is a good thing I suppose. But most people,
[7:28] Speaker 4: unlike what I hear from going on in America where
[7:31] Speaker 4: people are at work and they ask you about God
[7:34] Speaker 4: and all that sort of rubbish, that doesn't happen here.
[7:37] Speaker 4: People really don't give a shit about religion. Oh so
[7:41] Speaker 4: it's a good climate to beer, mate.
[7:43] Speaker 3: I envy you. Yeah, it would be nice.
[7:46] Speaker 4: Can I ask you one thing Trump has already gone
[7:48] Speaker 4: after Rowe versus Wade and with the Christian nationalists getting
[7:52] Speaker 4: in again, is it probable they're going to go after
[7:55] Speaker 4: the establishment clause in the First Amendment, because that's been
[7:59] Speaker 4: on the thorn in their side.
[8:00] Speaker 3: It's already happening. We've got blacklists, We've got threats against journalists.
[8:05] Speaker 3: We've got the threats to remove credentials from any sort
[8:09] Speaker 3: of non sycophantic publications. We've got the oligarchs who are
[8:13] Speaker 3: running the Washington Post, etc. And they are censoring their
[8:18] Speaker 3: own people. You've got journalists who are quitting in protests
[8:21] Speaker 3: and trying to start management free journalism elsewhere out in
[8:26] Speaker 3: the wild on the internets. You've got the Christian nationalists
[8:29] Speaker 3: who have long been going after the establishment clause. We've
[8:33] Speaker 3: got in my home state, we've got a politician who
[8:36] Speaker 3: has submitted yet a again, for the umpteenth time, laws
[8:40] Speaker 3: to put the Ten Commandments in public schools. And I'm
[8:44] Speaker 3: at oppressive. I'm right here on the razor's edge because
[8:47] Speaker 3: part of me wants to be informed about the world.
[8:49] Speaker 3: I don't want to be uninformed, is a better way
[8:51] Speaker 3: to say it. But at the same time, I want
[8:54] Speaker 3: to protect myself from the unbelievable, jaw dropping, brain melting,
[8:59] Speaker 3: heart kill bullshit that is going to be going on
[9:02] Speaker 3: for the next several years, and I don't know how
[9:04] Speaker 3: to handle it, and I'm struggling with it.
[9:06] Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying, Well, you guys aren't alone.
[9:08] Speaker 4: You know pretty much most of us here in the
[9:11] Speaker 4: rest of the world are on your side. And sometimes
[9:15] Speaker 4: when I'm debating Americans, I say, well, you know, your
[9:18] Speaker 4: air politicians, none of your business will the matter effect
[9:22] Speaker 4: is that anything that happens in America, I'll fix all
[9:25] Speaker 4: of us here in the rest of the world. So
[9:27] Speaker 4: really we've got to say as well, even though we
[9:30] Speaker 4: haven't got a vote, we do have a say.
[9:31] Speaker 3: We are all the human condition. Everything that happens here
[9:35] Speaker 3: does ribble out. There are consequences, and you absolutely have
[9:38] Speaker 3: every right to have an opinion and to even be
[9:41] Speaker 3: an activist on that opinion. And I welcome your partner.
[9:45] Speaker 3: I feel like, ten thousand miles away, I have a
[9:48] Speaker 3: brother who understands me, who feels my pain and the
[9:51] Speaker 3: pain of so many millions of Americans. Mick, I hope
[9:55] Speaker 3: to get back down Under in the next few years.
[9:58] Speaker 3: Maybe it's worth a fifteen hour pl Lane ride from
[10:01] Speaker 3: lax to Sydney just to be down to that beautiful place.
[10:04] Speaker 3: So if I get down there, we'll shake hands and talk.
[10:08] Speaker 4: Okay, great, talk to you, Mike. Thank you both that
[10:10] Speaker 4: I see you later.
[10:11] Speaker 3: Take care. I've got Mike at five two zero. Mike,
[10:16] Speaker 3: are you there?
[10:17] Speaker 2: I am here?
[10:18] Speaker 5: How are you? Seth?
[10:19] Speaker 3: I'm well? Thanks for calling. What's on your mind today?
[10:22] Speaker 4: So?
[10:22] Speaker 6: I just want to start out. I want to give
[10:24] Speaker 6: you a little thank you. You were instrumental in my
[10:28] Speaker 6: own journey out of Christianity. You were the first atheist
[10:32] Speaker 6: that I came across when I was first starting to
[10:35] Speaker 6: really doubt, and your work has done a tremendous help
[10:40] Speaker 6: for me mentally and emotionally and dare I say spiritually?
[10:45] Speaker 3: Wow, that's huge. Thank you. How'd you find me? Would
[10:47] Speaker 3: you type the word atheist into Google?
[10:51] Speaker 7: So?
[10:51] Speaker 6: No, Actually, so it started out because part of what
[10:54] Speaker 6: I wanted to talk to you about is that you
[10:57] Speaker 6: had mentioned before that during your formative years you were
[10:59] Speaker 6: partly raised in Pentecostal churches. That's where I came from,
[11:04] Speaker 6: That's where I came out of, and I had already
[11:07] Speaker 6: left Pentecostalism, and I was just kind of rooting around
[11:11] Speaker 6: looking for something that fit me better in a sense.
[11:15] Speaker 6: And it's just It is quite literally one of those things.
[11:17] Speaker 6: The YouTube algorithm back in two thousand and decided that,
[11:22] Speaker 6: you know, I was looking at just what different faiths
[11:25] Speaker 6: were believing, and your one of your videos popped up,
[11:28] Speaker 6: your video about Noah's art, and I watched it, like, yeah,
[11:33] Speaker 6: that makes sense, and so I kind of followed down
[11:36] Speaker 6: that rabbit hole, and he led me to reading books.
[11:40] Speaker 6: Christopher Hitchins, got a not great kind of got me
[11:43] Speaker 6: into Sam Harris when he was more of a public figure,
[11:46] Speaker 6: and a few short years later I just kind of
[11:49] Speaker 6: came to the realization of holy shit, I actually I
[11:53] Speaker 6: don't think that there is a God. So yeah, it
[11:55] Speaker 6: was quite literally I stumbled on you.
[11:58] Speaker 3: My mother was a Pentecostal, and I remember the times
[12:01] Speaker 3: we went to Pentecostal churches. They did the you know,
[12:06] Speaker 3: jumping around and speaking in other tongues, you know, thanks
[12:10] Speaker 3: to the Holy Spirit. How intense was your Pentecostal faith?
[12:13] Speaker 3: Was it that kind of thing?
[12:15] Speaker 4: Oh?
[12:15] Speaker 6: Yeah, very much, so very much. The speaking in tongues,
[12:19] Speaker 6: running around the aisles, the rolling in the aisles. You
[12:22] Speaker 6: know that people make the jokes of barking like dogs,
[12:24] Speaker 6: But that did happen a time or two and it
[12:28] Speaker 6: was all just performative art to show everyone that, hey,
[12:32] Speaker 6: you know, I'm a true blue Pentecostal. See how in
[12:35] Speaker 6: the faith I am.
[12:37] Speaker 3: Mike, if I can jump in quickly, did you speak
[12:40] Speaker 3: in tongues and roll around and do all that? And
[12:42] Speaker 3: if you did, where did that come from? Did you
[12:44] Speaker 3: feel pressure? Like, well, everybody else is doing it, so
[12:47] Speaker 3: I have to show that I'm filled with the Holy
[12:49] Speaker 3: Spirit as well.
[12:50] Speaker 4: Yes I did.
[12:52] Speaker 6: The first time that I did, I was this is
[12:55] Speaker 6: going to sound terrible. When I was six years old
[12:58] Speaker 6: and it was a special service some missionary hitcom raising
[13:03] Speaker 6: money for a mission he was doing somewhere on the
[13:06] Speaker 6: other side of the world, and they had that altar
[13:10] Speaker 6: call and the pastor's assistants asked, who hasn't had the
[13:15] Speaker 6: Holy Ghost? And so, you know, me being all six
[13:17] Speaker 6: years old, raised my hand, and so they brought me
[13:20] Speaker 6: up to the church. And in the church at the
[13:22] Speaker 6: time of about two hundred people, I was the center,
[13:25] Speaker 6: focal point, and I had about fifty people crowding in
[13:29] Speaker 6: around me, putting hands on me, all of them yelling
[13:32] Speaker 6: and gibberish, and so I started crying because at six
[13:37] Speaker 6: years old, that is a huge thing to put onto
[13:40] Speaker 6: a child, and my lips started quivering. And to them
[13:46] Speaker 6: that was speaking in tongues. It's like, oh, he has
[13:48] Speaker 6: the Holy Ghost. And so you know, that was you know,
[13:51] Speaker 6: this big, huge celebration, but I'm just falling and crying
[13:53] Speaker 6: and being curled up in a ball. And so from
[13:56] Speaker 6: there it became the norm. You know, now that I
[13:59] Speaker 6: have the Holy Ghost, I have to learn how to
[14:01] Speaker 6: actually speak in tongues. And it's not something that they
[14:04] Speaker 6: actually like to admit that they teach you how to do,
[14:07] Speaker 6: but they do. And so you learn, you know, how
[14:11] Speaker 6: to you know, you hear you know, the pastor doing
[14:14] Speaker 6: any people around you, and you just start to do
[14:16] Speaker 6: the same kind of things. And so I started doing
[14:19] Speaker 6: that because that's how you show that a Christian and
[14:21] Speaker 6: you want to fit in. So yeah, I can say that, yes,
[14:25] Speaker 6: I did speak in tongues, and I can absolutely guarantee
[14:28] Speaker 6: that it is all forced and it's a learned habit
[14:32] Speaker 6: and behavior.
[14:33] Speaker 3: How do have been a tough journey to bust out
[14:35] Speaker 3: of that? Are you doing okay? Are people judging you?
[14:38] Speaker 3: You're people trying to anoint you with a whil and
[14:41] Speaker 3: lay hands on you and do all that pentecostal stuff
[14:44] Speaker 3: you bring you back home.
[14:45] Speaker 6: Not anymore. It has pretty much destroyed my relationship with
[14:49] Speaker 6: my family. We speak on holidays, that's about it. But
[14:55] Speaker 6: I'd rather have my peace than family that doesn't accept
[14:59] Speaker 6: who I am. I'm so I've got my wife and
[15:02] Speaker 6: my dogs, and you know, we're just out here living
[15:06] Speaker 6: our best life.
[15:07] Speaker 3: You got family here, Mike. What are your dog's names?
[15:11] Speaker 2: I have mut his name is Bilbo.
[15:14] Speaker 6: Then I have a purebred beagle and her name is Pippin.
[15:17] Speaker 3: Bilbo and Pippin. Oh, give him scratches ye for me.
[15:21] Speaker 3: And thanks for the kind words and sharing your story. Mike,
[15:25] Speaker 3: You're much appreciated.
[15:26] Speaker 6: Thank you, sir.
[15:27] Speaker 2: Keep up the good work.
[15:28] Speaker 3: Take care of yourself, little bill boy. I love dog names.
[15:34] Speaker 3: Some of my favorite dog names are human names. I mean,
[15:37] Speaker 3: the dog names are fun, but I just I mean
[15:40] Speaker 3: all animals, whenever they have a distinctly human name, like oh,
[15:45] Speaker 3: look here's my kakatoo. His name is Larry. I just
[15:50] Speaker 3: think that's awesome. You know, this is Charles. There's something
[15:57] Speaker 3: so charming about that. Tony at nine seven zero, Thanks
[16:04] Speaker 3: for waiting. Are you're there? Yes, I'm well, Tony.
[16:08] Speaker 5: Hey, I did see that video that you made. That
[16:11] Speaker 5: one what was it called The Story of Us?
[16:13] Speaker 2: Oh?
[16:13] Speaker 3: Yeah, the one I was whining about a few weeks ago.
[16:17] Speaker 7: Yeah, it's like.
[16:18] Speaker 3: I mean to me and nobody watched it, and somebody
[16:21] Speaker 3: was like, would you like some cheese with that wine set?
[16:24] Speaker 3: Then they're probably right. I was being a big baby.
[16:27] Speaker 3: But thanks for watching it, Tony.
[16:29] Speaker 7: Yeah.
[16:29] Speaker 5: I posted it on Facebook and I sent it to
[16:32] Speaker 5: a lot of my family members. I used to be
[16:35] Speaker 5: a Christian, but not anymore, probably not for the last
[16:37] Speaker 5: eighteen years. But yeah, none of my family ever answered
[16:41] Speaker 5: or acknowledged that I even sent it to them, and
[16:44] Speaker 5: they think I'm going to Hell.
[16:45] Speaker 3: Take a number. You and I are going to the
[16:48] Speaker 3: same hell. So maybe I'll just I'll save you space
[16:50] Speaker 3: if I get there first.
[16:52] Speaker 5: Right, Yeah, there always is. I need to get back
[16:54] Speaker 5: into church and get my life right with God so
[16:57] Speaker 5: I don't burn in hell. So anyway, Yeah, you're not
[17:00] Speaker 5: alone out there.
[17:01] Speaker 3: Well I appreciate it. What else is going on, Tony, I'm.
[17:04] Speaker 5: Just working right now. I enjoy listen to your shows
[17:08] Speaker 5: and your podcast and learning a lot. Just want to
[17:11] Speaker 5: say thank you.
[17:12] Speaker 3: Well, thank you, Tony, and have a good day of
[17:15] Speaker 3: work and safe drive home.
[17:17] Speaker 5: Okay, all right, thank you sir, see you later.
[17:20] Speaker 3: Five one two? Is it Gomez?
[17:23] Speaker 2: Yes, yes, it's what King Glomez? Hi, how are you doing?
[17:26] Speaker 3: Welcome? Let's talk what's on your mind?
[17:29] Speaker 2: Hey, I'm just not sure if your community is aware
[17:32] Speaker 2: of the recent ridiculous flat earth debunkings that have been
[17:35] Speaker 2: going on. Mostly I see a lot of religious people
[17:38] Speaker 2: believing in this pseudoscience stuff, you know, and well there
[17:43] Speaker 2: is professor Dave. I'm not sure if you're aware of that.
[17:45] Speaker 2: It's kind of been viral.
[17:47] Speaker 3: You're talking about Dave Farina. Help me understand the flat
[17:51] Speaker 3: Earth has a new conspiracy theory or there's a new
[17:55] Speaker 3: method of debunking flat Earth.
[17:57] Speaker 2: Well, there was a recent they caught it, the Final
[18:00] Speaker 2: experiment where they went to Antarctica to see today believed
[18:03] Speaker 2: that the sun was a twenty four hour son and
[18:06] Speaker 2: on their flat earth model, they're like, if there is,
[18:09] Speaker 2: you know, they there was just all these conspiracies around.
[18:11] Speaker 2: No one's allowed to go to antarcticle. So some rich
[18:14] Speaker 2: guy paid for basically the top flat earths to go
[18:16] Speaker 2: down there see if themselves, and some of them actually
[18:19] Speaker 2: turned away from it when they realized that their theory
[18:22] Speaker 2: was wrong and the sun is twenty four hours in Antarctica.
[18:27] Speaker 2: They used to think there was like an ice wall.
[18:29] Speaker 2: But honestly, most of them are still believing this pseudoscience,
[18:34] Speaker 2: even though their own thing, it's called the Final Experiment,
[18:37] Speaker 2: was kind of recently that I wouldn't say, like two
[18:39] Speaker 2: weeks ago, they went down their head. They're still clinging
[18:42] Speaker 2: to their beliefs, I guess.
[18:45] Speaker 3: All right, yeah, well, thanks for talking about it and
[18:47] Speaker 3: thanks for calling.
[18:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, thank you. Keep up the good work man.
[18:51] Speaker 3: See you later. Okay. I pulled up the news story.
[18:57] Speaker 3: This was published on the eighteenth of December twenty twenty
[19:02] Speaker 3: four after a pastor took a group of flat earthers
[19:05] Speaker 3: to Antarctica to prove definitively what shape our planet is.
[19:10] Speaker 3: Some of the truthers were startled to find that the
[19:13] Speaker 3: globe is indeed round. In an expedition dubbed the Final Experiment,
[19:20] Speaker 3: Pastor will Duffy took a group of flat earthers to
[19:23] Speaker 3: Antarctica for the first time ever. His mission to prove
[19:27] Speaker 3: that there are no barriers literal or figurative, to prevent
[19:31] Speaker 3: him from visiting, but also that the sun shines there
[19:35] Speaker 3: twenty four hours a day in the summer, something that
[19:38] Speaker 3: simply couldn't happen if the planet was actually flat. Pastor
[19:42] Speaker 3: Duffy said, I created the final experiment to end this debate.
[19:47] Speaker 3: After we go to Antarctica, no one has to waste
[19:50] Speaker 3: any more time debating the shape of the Earth. In
[19:54] Speaker 3: a video from that voyage, flat Earth influencer Jaron Campanella
[19:59] Speaker 3: admit that when it comes to the midnight sun, he
[20:02] Speaker 3: may have been mistaken, and Jaren actually made this confession
[20:08] Speaker 3: or admission on video.
[20:10] Speaker 8: Here's the clip, so obviously you all know Jaron Campanella
[20:14] Speaker 8: of Jaronism, one of the most popular flat Earth YouTube
[20:17] Speaker 8: channels for long. All right, guys, sometimes you are wrong
[20:24] Speaker 8: in life. And I thought that there was no twenty
[20:26] Speaker 8: four hours son. In fact, I was pretty sure of it.
[20:28] Speaker 8: But I respect Will Duffy for being a stand up guy,
[20:33] Speaker 8: at least in the way that he kept saying it
[20:35] Speaker 8: was true. I kept saying it wasn't. He said, do
[20:37] Speaker 8: you want to go, I'll take you and brought me here.
[20:40] Speaker 8: And it's a fact the sun does circle you in
[20:44] Speaker 8: the south. So what does that mean? You guys don't
[20:47] Speaker 8: have to figure that out yourself. Don't listen to my
[20:50] Speaker 8: beliefs or my opinion. It shouldn't matter to you, but
[20:52] Speaker 8: at least you should be able to accept that the
[20:56] Speaker 8: sun does exactly what these guys said as far as
[20:58] Speaker 8: circles the southern So that's about it.
[21:02] Speaker 5: I realize that.
[21:05] Speaker 8: I'll be called a shill for just saying that, And
[21:07] Speaker 8: you know what, if you're a shill for being honest,
[21:10] Speaker 8: so be it. I honestly believe there was no twenty
[21:13] Speaker 8: four hour son. I honestly now believe there is.
[21:16] Speaker 3: Okay. Couple of things on this real fast. First of all,
[21:20] Speaker 3: Pastor Will Duffy, who is the pastor of a Christian
[21:24] Speaker 3: church in wheat Ridge, Colorado, a gap a Kingdom Fellowship.
[21:30] Speaker 3: He's a volunteer pastor. He took that role after the
[21:34] Speaker 3: original pastor passed away, so we sort of jumped behind
[21:38] Speaker 3: the podium and he's been there and he believes the
[21:40] Speaker 3: earth is a sphere, and he organized the trip and
[21:43] Speaker 3: he managed to convince what three or four flat earthers
[21:47] Speaker 3: who took the journey that yes, the Earth is a sphere.
[21:52] Speaker 3: It is not flat yet I have to wonder a
[21:55] Speaker 3: Pastor Duffy has read his own Bible about the shape
[21:59] Speaker 3: and nature of the planet. The first chapter of the
[22:03] Speaker 3: Book of Genesis, God said, let there be a dome
[22:07] Speaker 3: in the middle of the water. Let it divide the
[22:10] Speaker 3: water from the water. God made the dome and divided
[22:13] Speaker 3: the water under the dome from the water above the dome.
[22:18] Speaker 3: That is how it was. And God called the dome sky.
[22:24] Speaker 3: So apparently there was the water here that we see
[22:26] Speaker 3: in our lakes and oceans. And then there's a firmament,
[22:29] Speaker 3: think of a snow globe. Right, We've got the flat
[22:32] Speaker 3: earth here, and then we've got the big dome, and
[22:35] Speaker 3: then there's space water that has been separated out there.
[22:38] Speaker 3: And a lot of Christian apologists like to use this
[22:41] Speaker 3: particular verse in scenario to explain Noah's ark. God allowed
[22:46] Speaker 3: or caused a rift in the firmament, so the space
[22:49] Speaker 3: water spilled down and covered the planet in liquid right,
[22:53] Speaker 3: And this is part of the foundational book of Pastor
[22:56] Speaker 3: will Duffy's religion. Has he not read the Book of
[23:01] Speaker 3: Revelation Revelation seven to one. And after these things, I
[23:05] Speaker 3: saw four angels standing on the four corners of the Earth,
[23:11] Speaker 3: holding the four winds of the Earth. How can the
[23:15] Speaker 3: Earth have corners if it's a sphere. Secondly, and I
[23:20] Speaker 3: think this is kind of typical, and we've discovered this
[23:23] Speaker 3: about identity beliefs and conspiracy theorists. Duffy sent out a
[23:29] Speaker 3: press release in advance of the trip, and he said,
[23:32] Speaker 3: once we go here and we demonstrate the Earth isn't flat,
[23:35] Speaker 3: the debate will be over and no one will need
[23:38] Speaker 3: to waste any more time. Yet, oh how he had
[23:41] Speaker 3: underestimated flat earthers, who would protest from ironically all around
[23:48] Speaker 3: the world. On websites and in forums and across reddits
[23:53] Speaker 3: and social media platforms. Flat earthers have been explaining why
[23:58] Speaker 3: it's all fake. They're talking about camera angles and shadows
[24:03] Speaker 3: that make no sense and footprints. There was even a
[24:06] Speaker 3: pastor in Alabama who said Satan was involved in the
[24:11] Speaker 3: planning of this expedition and the posting of these lies
[24:16] Speaker 3: about an earth which is obviously flat. I talked about
[24:21] Speaker 3: flat earthers in my speech that I posted just a
[24:23] Speaker 3: few months ago called the Brick Wall Brain why facts
[24:27] Speaker 3: aren't changing minds, And I encourage you to look that
[24:31] Speaker 3: up because we get into why identity beliefs are just
[24:35] Speaker 3: so entrenched and so hard to change, but I got
[24:38] Speaker 3: to give props to the people who took the trip
[24:41] Speaker 3: and looked around and saw the sun and said I
[24:46] Speaker 3: was wrong. I'm going to update my position. That does
[24:50] Speaker 3: give me a little bit of hope. Anyway, we have
[24:55] Speaker 3: more of your calls. Whatever you want to talk about,
[24:58] Speaker 3: we will talk about next. My patrens get the broadcast
[25:08] Speaker 3: commercial free. They also get a two days early. And
[25:11] Speaker 3: your support is so welcome and appreciated. Patreon dot com,
[25:16] Speaker 3: slash Seth Andrews. I've got Michael on a web call. Michael,
[25:23] Speaker 3: thanks for waiting. Are you there?
[25:25] Speaker 4: I am? How are you, Seth?
[25:26] Speaker 3: I'm well, what's on your mind?
[25:28] Speaker 9: I'm just looking at the trends around us and how
[25:31] Speaker 9: fewer and fuel people know how to vet sources. Fewer
[25:33] Speaker 9: in fer of people know who they should trust. You know,
[25:36] Speaker 9: there's really no such thing as an authoritative source to
[25:38] Speaker 9: a lot of people, a lot of people. You know,
[25:40] Speaker 9: you did a video recently about how facts don't change mind.
[25:43] Speaker 9: So I'm wondering how do we navigate this as a society,
[25:46] Speaker 9: how do we move forward? I mean, I think you know,
[25:48] Speaker 9: shows like yours are important and I support them, and
[25:51] Speaker 9: I talk about these issues with my friends and family,
[25:53] Speaker 9: but it doesn't seem like that's enough. So, you know,
[25:55] Speaker 9: can you look into your crystal ball a little bit?
[25:56] Speaker 6: For me?
[25:58] Speaker 3: This is the dilemma and I with it. And it's
[26:02] Speaker 3: interesting because ninety nine percent of scientists can say whatever
[26:08] Speaker 3: like evolutionary scientists that you know, there's a consensus. But
[26:12] Speaker 3: in the minds of some the more there is a
[26:13] Speaker 3: scientific consensus, the more it proves the conspiracy that scientists
[26:18] Speaker 3: want to lie to you. And what do you do
[26:20] Speaker 3: with that? Right, Michael, Right?
[26:22] Speaker 9: And you know, to some extent, the meta of this
[26:25] Speaker 9: seems to be like we're preaching to the choir if
[26:27] Speaker 9: you'll forgive the pun, you know, because the people who
[26:30] Speaker 9: are good at skepticism and critical thinking, they don't need
[26:33] Speaker 9: to be told those things that they should be open
[26:35] Speaker 9: and I think, you know, it's the people that need
[26:37] Speaker 9: to hear it are the ones that aren't paying attention
[26:38] Speaker 9: to what we're saying and have no interest in the conversation.
[26:41] Speaker 3: I think one of the utilities of shows like this
[26:43] Speaker 3: and the tone that I try to set for better
[26:45] Speaker 3: and worse, is to maybe create a forum where we
[26:51] Speaker 3: can better tooel ourselves up for conversations and our own
[26:54] Speaker 3: life now where we go out and we interact with
[26:57] Speaker 3: the world. I'm trying to be a d escalet. I'm
[27:00] Speaker 3: sick and tired of all the name calling and the
[27:02] Speaker 3: pointing and the blaming and the shaming on the micro level,
[27:06] Speaker 3: on the day to day level when we deal with
[27:09] Speaker 3: our friends and neighbors. And I mean, I understand frustration,
[27:13] Speaker 3: but I'm trying to get to the point where we
[27:15] Speaker 3: can get in and maybe create a crack that lets
[27:18] Speaker 3: in the line. But I'm surrounded by people who, even
[27:22] Speaker 3: to this day, are more afraid of the COVID vaccine
[27:25] Speaker 3: than they are of the COVID virus. I know somebody
[27:28] Speaker 3: who thinks the Earth is a disc I know people
[27:31] Speaker 3: that think the Earth is a few thousand years old,
[27:33] Speaker 3: like the Samerians. Apparently the Samerians didn't exist, right. Michael
[27:40] Speaker 3: and I have the same ole.
[27:42] Speaker 9: You know, you can't reason yourself out of a position
[27:44] Speaker 9: you didn't reading yourself into. I think that applies. But
[27:47] Speaker 9: you know, you know, me and my partner, we've both
[27:49] Speaker 9: been working and practicing and getting better at spotting logical
[27:53] Speaker 9: fallacies and being informed and learning how to have those
[27:56] Speaker 9: conversations and navigate them and call out the bad arguments
[27:59] Speaker 9: when we see them. And I think you're absolutely right.
[28:01] Speaker 9: I think more people having that skill set is going
[28:03] Speaker 9: to be an avenue here. But you know, I always
[28:05] Speaker 9: feel like maybe there's something more we should be doing,
[28:07] Speaker 9: and I'm not sure what that is.
[28:09] Speaker 3: The imperfect answer is that we are going to have
[28:11] Speaker 3: to determine which sources are credible, and I think those
[28:15] Speaker 3: questions to a degree can be answered. I mean, you
[28:18] Speaker 3: can see actual vetted, peer reviewed scientists who are publishing
[28:22] Speaker 3: in Nature, etc. I'm not saying they'd never gotten it wrong,
[28:25] Speaker 3: because they have, but I mean I think we can
[28:28] Speaker 3: do our own homework to see that we have credible
[28:31] Speaker 3: researchers and teachers and even scientific activists who actually know
[28:37] Speaker 3: what they're talking about, and they're continually checked by others
[28:41] Speaker 3: who are experts in their field. And there are hubs
[28:44] Speaker 3: for those types of information, and if we contrast them
[28:48] Speaker 3: with say evolutionnews dot com or Joe Rogan or some
[28:53] Speaker 3: of these other benchit we can see that one is
[28:55] Speaker 3: going to be more credible than the other. There are
[28:58] Speaker 3: websites like Snopes and up. There's very fact I think
[29:01] Speaker 3: is another winner verify. I have to look it up
[29:04] Speaker 3: off to fact check my website fact checking. But there
[29:08] Speaker 3: are more and more of these things which at least
[29:10] Speaker 3: tool us up to take that journey and do our best.
[29:14] Speaker 3: But our best is always going to be imperfect. And
[29:16] Speaker 3: in the era of bad info and the oligarchs and
[29:19] Speaker 3: fake news and deep fake videos, etc. I don't know,
[29:23] Speaker 3: I'm overwhelmed by it, Michael. I'm just overwhelmed.
[29:26] Speaker 9: Yeah, I am too. And you know, it's nice to
[29:28] Speaker 9: share some sort of kinship in that regard, and like,
[29:30] Speaker 9: I'm here to try to move this forward. I'm here
[29:33] Speaker 9: to try to do the right thing and try to
[29:34] Speaker 9: improve society for everybody. But it just seems like it's
[29:37] Speaker 9: just a tsunami right now. And it just it feels
[29:40] Speaker 9: like I'm a very small person trying to fight the tsunami,
[29:43] Speaker 9: if you know what I mean.
[29:44] Speaker 3: And that's a strategy. You know, the disinformers out there,
[29:48] Speaker 3: it's like the Merchants of doubt, that book that was
[29:50] Speaker 3: written about the tobacco industry, etc. They don't need to
[29:53] Speaker 3: go out and debunk as much as they need to
[29:56] Speaker 3: create a fog so that no one knows anything, nob
[30:00] Speaker 3: bod he trusts anything, and you know, when you get
[30:02] Speaker 3: people to question even the most basic of things. The
[30:05] Speaker 3: Earth is a sphere, we landed on the moon, vaccines work, etc.
[30:11] Speaker 3: You can get people just to decide, well, nothing is verifiable,
[30:15] Speaker 3: then you can get away with murder. And that's so
[30:18] Speaker 3: frustrating in the era of the oligarchs, the billionaires now
[30:22] Speaker 3: have weaponized the media and the largely ignorant public is
[30:26] Speaker 3: lapping it up. As Carl Sagan rolls over in his grave.
[30:30] Speaker 3: And the best I know how to do is to
[30:33] Speaker 3: try to find hubs where the experts are and we
[30:36] Speaker 3: can verify that they are experts being peer reviewed and
[30:40] Speaker 3: checked by other experts, to set them off, to sort
[30:43] Speaker 3: of cull them from the disinformers out there, to do
[30:47] Speaker 3: our best to ask the hard questions. It's an imperfect solution,
[30:51] Speaker 3: but it's all I got, Michael.
[30:53] Speaker 9: Yeah, you know, I've arrived at the same conclusion, and
[30:56] Speaker 9: I'm watching you know, I've been studying AI lately, and
[30:58] Speaker 9: that's just the worst possible. We pour the gasoline on
[31:01] Speaker 9: the fire of people asking this. You know, this algorithm
[31:05] Speaker 9: questions now and the algorithm doesn't know what's true and
[31:06] Speaker 9: what's false. It's just repeating things. So yeah, I think
[31:09] Speaker 9: it's going to get worse before it gets better, unfortunately,
[31:12] Speaker 9: And I'm just trying to think about how do I
[31:13] Speaker 9: prepare myself to people around me, to basically meet this
[31:16] Speaker 9: head on.
[31:17] Speaker 3: This is related, Michael, I saw a ted talk from
[31:20] Speaker 3: a man. I'm doing this from memory, so give me
[31:24] Speaker 3: some grace. But he was talking about a new kind
[31:26] Speaker 3: of scam. He picked up the phone and his son
[31:31] Speaker 3: was on the other line, and his son had been
[31:33] Speaker 3: he was overseas in real life, he'd been overseas. But
[31:37] Speaker 3: the voice of his son said, I have gotten myself
[31:40] Speaker 3: in legal trouble and I need ten thousand dollars wired
[31:44] Speaker 3: here if I'm going to get out of jail. Dad,
[31:46] Speaker 3: Can you help me, Dad? Please? You know, I want
[31:49] Speaker 3: to come home. And his father was, of course absolutely traumatized,
[31:54] Speaker 3: and he wanted to rescue his son. But over the
[31:56] Speaker 3: course of this short conversation realized that there were a
[31:59] Speaker 3: few things that didn't ring true, and it became apparent
[32:04] Speaker 3: that the voice was computer generated to sound just like
[32:08] Speaker 3: his son, but it was in fact a scammer. And
[32:13] Speaker 3: for that reason, Natalie and I have come up with
[32:17] Speaker 3: i'll call them safe words, you know, honey, if I
[32:20] Speaker 3: have a call with an outlandish story and I need money,
[32:23] Speaker 3: or I'm trying to get resources, or I want your passwords,
[32:26] Speaker 3: or I need any of this other stuff. Here are
[32:28] Speaker 3: some questions that only you and I would know the
[32:31] Speaker 3: answers to. We have to verify each other's identity because
[32:35] Speaker 3: we live in an age where somebody could call and
[32:37] Speaker 3: sound like me or you, and the other might not
[32:40] Speaker 3: even know the difference. So maybe we need an entire
[32:44] Speaker 3: culture of passwords, verifiable words, proof of life words, safe
[32:49] Speaker 3: words when it comes to those types of things. I
[32:51] Speaker 3: don't know.
[32:52] Speaker 9: Oh that's a good thought, and that's certainly something I'll
[32:55] Speaker 9: be talking with my partner about. So thanks for that anyway. Yeah,
[32:58] Speaker 9: I love the show and have it as a anyway
[33:00] Speaker 9: I can and keep doing the keep fighting a good
[33:02] Speaker 9: fight set.
[33:03] Speaker 3: Thank you, Michael, Take care, Take care. I just pulled
[33:07] Speaker 3: up this related story. It's a different instance, but it
[33:10] Speaker 3: sounds awfully familiar. This is becoming a more common scam.
[33:15] Speaker 3: October twenty twenty four, a California senior citizen was swindled
[33:20] Speaker 3: out of twenty five thousand dollars by scammers using an
[33:23] Speaker 3: AI voice mimicking his son to make him believe his
[33:28] Speaker 3: loved one was involved in a horrible accident and needed
[33:33] Speaker 3: money to be bailed out of jail. The man, identified
[33:37] Speaker 3: only as Anthony, said he received a call from who
[33:40] Speaker 3: he believed to be his son, saying he'd struck a
[33:43] Speaker 3: pregnant woman while driving and she was rushed to the ICEU.
[33:50] Speaker 3: It was his voice. It was absolutely his voice, he
[33:53] Speaker 3: told ABC seven News. There was no doubt about it.
[33:59] Speaker 3: Anthony said that after a short conversation, the scammer using
[34:03] Speaker 3: his son's AI generated voice hung up, but he received
[34:08] Speaker 3: a second phone call minutes later from a man claiming
[34:11] Speaker 3: to be his son's lawyer, Michael Roberts. He said, you
[34:16] Speaker 3: need to get nine two hundred dollars as fast as
[34:19] Speaker 3: you can if you want to get your son out
[34:21] Speaker 3: of jail. Otherwise he's in for forty five days. Suspicious
[34:26] Speaker 3: about the lawyer's call, Anthony said he tried calling his
[34:29] Speaker 3: son to verify that he needed the bail money, but
[34:32] Speaker 3: his call was sent to voicemail. The worried father then
[34:36] Speaker 3: went to his bank and told the teller he needed
[34:39] Speaker 3: a large sum of money for solar panel installation, so
[34:43] Speaker 3: as to not raise any unwanted questions about the situation.
[34:48] Speaker 3: After returning home, Anthony had his daughter call the lawyer again,
[34:52] Speaker 3: who told them an Uber would be by shortly to
[34:55] Speaker 3: pick up the bail money. Surveillance cameras outside his home
[35:00] Speaker 3: show his daughter verifying the Uber license plate number and
[35:04] Speaker 3: handing the money to the driver. However, the scammers weren't finished.
[35:09] Speaker 3: Moments after the driver left, Anthony received another phone call,
[35:14] Speaker 3: this time from a man named Mark Cohen, who identified
[35:17] Speaker 3: himself as another lawyer on his son's case and told
[35:22] Speaker 3: him the pregnant woman had died and his son's bail
[35:26] Speaker 3: had been raised to twenty five thousand dollars. Fearing his
[35:32] Speaker 3: son desperately needed the money to be bailed out of jail,
[35:35] Speaker 3: the concerned father returned to the bank and repeated the
[35:39] Speaker 3: entire process. After pulling out more money from the bank
[35:43] Speaker 3: and handing the second payment to another Uber driver, the
[35:47] Speaker 3: call stopped and Anthony was left wondering if his son
[35:50] Speaker 3: had been released from jail. As they waited, he said,
[35:54] Speaker 3: his daughter began researching the number and what was said
[35:58] Speaker 3: to him online, where she made a disheartening discovery. Dad,
[36:03] Speaker 3: I hope I'm wrong, she said, I think you've just
[36:06] Speaker 3: been scammed out of twenty five thousand dollars. Anthony said
[36:10] Speaker 3: he was so worried about the fate of his son
[36:12] Speaker 3: that had never even crossed his mind until after the
[36:15] Speaker 3: fact that he was being swindled out of a large
[36:18] Speaker 3: chunk of his savings. Los Angeles Police Department Detective Chelsea
[36:24] Speaker 3: Sager told ABC seven that scammers have become more clever
[36:28] Speaker 3: and sophisticated over the years. They're using social media and
[36:32] Speaker 3: technology to craft these very believable and convincing stories, and
[36:38] Speaker 3: people really do believe they're talking to a grandchild or
[36:42] Speaker 3: a government official. While phone scams are not, new technological advances,
[36:48] Speaker 3: specifically in artificial intelligence and number blockers, have opened a
[36:53] Speaker 3: new playing field for fraudsters who prey on unsuspecting victims
[36:58] Speaker 3: to steal their hard earned money. They call and when
[37:01] Speaker 3: you answer and it to scammer, there's silence. They want
[37:06] Speaker 3: you to say hello or is anybody there. All they
[37:10] Speaker 3: need is three seconds of your voice to input it
[37:14] Speaker 3: into AI and clone it. The detective also said scammers
[37:19] Speaker 3: will go through video posts on social media as a
[37:23] Speaker 3: way for them to capture voices and clone them to
[37:26] Speaker 3: use to defraud others. Seger told the outlet the department
[37:30] Speaker 3: was investigating what had happened to Anthony and looking into
[37:34] Speaker 3: the drivers who had picked up the money. However, she
[37:37] Speaker 3: revealed that uber or lift drivers are usually uninvolved in
[37:41] Speaker 3: the con and are just hired to complete the task,
[37:44] Speaker 3: completely unaware that they are even part of the scam.
[37:49] Speaker 3: Sanger said, never to send money to someone you don't know. Anyway,
[37:55] Speaker 3: that's the gist of the story in some of the
[37:57] Speaker 3: details about this fresh new scam. Keep your skeptical eyes
[38:01] Speaker 3: and ears and mind open and on alert out there.
[38:05] Speaker 3: A lot of folks are trying to take what you
[38:07] Speaker 3: have by sounding like someone that you already have a
[38:10] Speaker 3: relationship with. Pretty scary stuff. Bernard at four seven zero, welcome,
[38:18] Speaker 3: thanks for calling.
[38:19] Speaker 10: How are you?
[38:20] Speaker 7: Can you hear me?
[38:21] Speaker 3: I can? What do you want to talk about? My friend?
[38:24] Speaker 10: Originally, you know the danger, you know, of the encroaching
[38:27] Speaker 10: theocracy that they're trying to impose on us. Here there
[38:30] Speaker 10: was something that doctor King said, you know that I'm
[38:33] Speaker 10: thinking about it. You know, we want to ban porn,
[38:35] Speaker 10: even if you don't watch porn, like many of us don't.
[38:38] Speaker 10: It's an encroachment on free speech, and I worry about
[38:42] Speaker 10: people like us, people like you Seth and Arn and
[38:45] Speaker 10: so many others who are trying to speak this truth.
[38:47] Speaker 10: You speak reason, because it's not going to stop. As
[38:51] Speaker 10: doctor King said that, you know, threat to justice anywhere,
[38:53] Speaker 10: a threat to justice everywhere. They won't stop. And I
[38:57] Speaker 10: think that's the real fear, because this ideal, its time
[39:01] Speaker 10: has come. And there's nothing more powerful than an ideal
[39:04] Speaker 10: whose time has come. And this is why they're so terrified.
[39:08] Speaker 10: And that makes them really dangerous, you know, because I
[39:11] Speaker 10: am a former Jehovah's witness, and I'm telling you it's
[39:14] Speaker 10: a cult. You know, you come out of it and
[39:16] Speaker 10: you look back. You don't realize you're in a code
[39:18] Speaker 10: until you're out of the cult and you look back,
[39:20] Speaker 10: Oh my god, I was in a code. It just
[39:22] Speaker 10: doesn't make any sense, you know. You begin to put
[39:25] Speaker 10: the pieces together, You begin to speak to people who
[39:27] Speaker 10: are informed, read books that are informed, look at all sides,
[39:31] Speaker 10: and then come to the logical, and not only the rational,
[39:34] Speaker 10: but the moral conclusion that this doesn't make any sense.
[39:37] Speaker 10: Because when I left, I lost in that certainty that
[39:41] Speaker 10: we who were in the truth, which is what they
[39:43] Speaker 10: call it, we have the truth. No one else has it.
[39:46] Speaker 10: Only we in this group have it, you know, And
[39:48] Speaker 10: the belief that, for instance said it takes on average,
[39:52] Speaker 10: at least when I was in the organization, it took
[39:54] Speaker 10: on average knocking on people's doors six point one years
[39:58] Speaker 10: to convert someone not least in the religion to the religion,
[40:02] Speaker 10: teaching them all the tenets, getting them to agree, getting
[40:05] Speaker 10: them baptized, and then getting them out knocking on doors,
[40:08] Speaker 10: whereupon at that point they're one of Jehovah's witnesses. However,
[40:12] Speaker 10: in those six years, how many people have been born?
[40:16] Speaker 10: So it's just not rational. But to think, you know,
[40:19] Speaker 10: that any all knowing God would use this method is
[40:22] Speaker 10: the equivalent of trying to swim up Niagara Falls. It
[40:25] Speaker 10: just doesn't make any sense. And the fault that no
[40:28] Speaker 10: other group, no other culture, no other people have any truth,
[40:31] Speaker 10: any morality. You know, that a mere maybe at best
[40:35] Speaker 10: twelve thirteen million people are completely holding the moral center
[40:40] Speaker 10: is just irrational. Everyone else is abusing their children, abusing
[40:44] Speaker 10: their cheating on their wives, cheating on their taxes. They
[40:47] Speaker 10: have no morality at all. The only morality are those
[40:50] Speaker 10: in our group. It's just absurd, And it's a funny
[40:54] Speaker 10: thing that It's like, you know, having chicken pox, which
[40:57] Speaker 10: will immune you from maybe a more deadly form of pots.
[41:00] Speaker 10: You come out of it and you so quickly realize, Wow,
[41:03] Speaker 10: I've been through this. I see it in another application.
[41:06] Speaker 10: Just as you said, Oh, America is God's favorite country.
[41:09] Speaker 10: You know the expression bullions and billions. We now know
[41:12] Speaker 10: it's trillions and trillions. So all all the truthions of
[41:15] Speaker 10: planets and star systems, you know, this God is only
[41:18] Speaker 10: concerned with the third planet from the Sun and a
[41:21] Speaker 10: minister spot of the Milcuar galaxy. Now the one hundred
[41:25] Speaker 10: and ninety plus nations. He's only concerned with the American people,
[41:28] Speaker 10: as if they can take the flag and plant it
[41:31] Speaker 10: on God, their God, and claim it exclusively for this nation.
[41:34] Speaker 10: It's absurd, you know, And you come out of it
[41:37] Speaker 10: and go, oh, my God. I was literally in a
[41:40] Speaker 10: brain wash cult, you know. But I agree like you
[41:42] Speaker 10: because my father. My father was wonderful, my brother is wonderful,
[41:46] Speaker 10: my oldest sister is wonderful. I have friends who are
[41:48] Speaker 10: still in the group, and they're wonderful. I just think
[41:51] Speaker 10: that they're misled, but they are wonderful people. And like you,
[41:55] Speaker 10: I've met atheists who are awful, and history has proven
[41:58] Speaker 10: that some atheists are awful. But like offing you and
[42:01] Speaker 10: many others, I view myself not so much as an
[42:04] Speaker 10: atheist first, but as a rational humanist. Well what do
[42:07] Speaker 10: you think?
[42:08] Speaker 3: I was on a show with some Christian apologist years
[42:13] Speaker 3: ago and they were taking issue with something I'd written
[42:16] Speaker 3: about in my book. It was a book version of
[42:19] Speaker 3: my speech. Christianity made me talk like an idiot. And
[42:22] Speaker 3: I have a chapter in there, Become Lord Jesus, where
[42:25] Speaker 3: we you know, like everybody's looking to the sky for
[42:28] Speaker 3: their arrival of Jesus Christ. But if you look at
[42:31] Speaker 3: it even logistically, it makes no sense. And they were
[42:34] Speaker 3: talking about my protests that, well, where's he been for
[42:37] Speaker 3: two thousand years? And the rationalization was he wants to
[42:42] Speaker 3: give people more time to accept Jesus, which is why
[42:46] Speaker 3: he has delayed the rapture, you know, retrieving the believers
[42:50] Speaker 3: up into heaven. He wants more time for people to
[42:52] Speaker 3: accept him and be rescued. But it's an infinite regress.
[42:56] Speaker 3: When does that end? Because you've got millions and millions
[42:59] Speaker 3: of people being born all over the place. Though you've
[43:01] Speaker 3: got fresh people who need to be rescued, and that
[43:04] Speaker 3: cycle never ends.
[43:06] Speaker 10: It's never ending. One of the most important thoughts that
[43:10] Speaker 10: I learned that helped me and out of that mindset
[43:14] Speaker 10: was by the great Frederick Douglas. There was a minister
[43:17] Speaker 10: who was criticizing him for having run away from his master,
[43:21] Speaker 10: and I said, yeah, you were wrong to run away
[43:23] Speaker 10: from your master. And he said in what way? He said,
[43:26] Speaker 10: you should have gotten on your knees and prayed to
[43:28] Speaker 10: Providence for your freedom, if that be his will. And
[43:31] Speaker 10: I've never gotten over when I read of Douglas's respondence
[43:35] Speaker 10: and he said, Sir, on my knees. For twenty years
[43:39] Speaker 10: I prayed to your God for my freedom, and it
[43:42] Speaker 10: never came. So one night I prayed with my feet
[43:45] Speaker 10: and it was mine. I think, what a wonderful expression.
[43:50] Speaker 10: We need to make the world better on our own.
[43:54] Speaker 10: We've got to do it. Stopped looking for some seedar
[43:56] Speaker 10: beyond the skies. It's up to us to make the
[43:59] Speaker 10: word looking constantly in the future. Because having been one
[44:02] Speaker 10: of Jehovah's witnesses, o armagedness just around the corner and
[44:05] Speaker 10: just in that organization, they predicted it in the eighteen
[44:08] Speaker 10: seventy eighth nineteen fourteen, nineteen eighteen, nineteen twenty, nineteen thirty eight,
[44:15] Speaker 10: nineteen sixty six, most famously nineteen seventy five. It just
[44:19] Speaker 10: goes on and on. It's just to regress it, just
[44:21] Speaker 10: like a soccer ball, just kick further down the road.
[44:24] Speaker 10: At what point do you say enough, We've got to
[44:26] Speaker 10: do it ourselves.
[44:28] Speaker 3: I normally don't do counterapologetics and memes, but I did
[44:32] Speaker 3: see one that said, I believe Jesus will return in
[44:36] Speaker 3: my lifetime signed billions of dead people. I just thought
[44:40] Speaker 3: that was.
[44:40] Speaker 10: A great meme, billions of dead people.
[44:42] Speaker 3: Yeah, Bernard, I appreciate you. Thanks for sharing your journey
[44:45] Speaker 3: out of that Jehovah's witnesses and making some good points
[44:48] Speaker 3: here out of comment in the chat that you have
[44:51] Speaker 3: a lovely voice, so people enjoy listening. Do you speak
[44:54] Speaker 3: well done?
[44:55] Speaker 10: Well coming from you, coming from you, that's high praise
[44:59] Speaker 10: and d And your book you do realize that every
[45:02] Speaker 10: book that you've written them, I've got those books. Not
[45:05] Speaker 10: only do I have them, I have them all signed
[45:07] Speaker 10: by you.
[45:08] Speaker 3: Thank you for that. They're not hitcheins, but I'm proud
[45:11] Speaker 3: of them. You know, at this level, I was tempted
[45:14] Speaker 3: to include colors and puzzles on a pop up section.
[45:17] Speaker 3: But they are what they are, and I appreciate the
[45:20] Speaker 3: kind words Bernard, be safe, aren't They're okay?
[45:22] Speaker 2: Okay?
[45:23] Speaker 10: And I promised everyone that he did not pay me
[45:25] Speaker 10: to say that.
[45:28] Speaker 3: All right, take care, We'll see you later. But yeah,
[45:33] Speaker 3: interesting that he brought up Frederick Douglas, because right now
[45:36] Speaker 3: I'm in the middle of an audio book. It's narrated
[45:38] Speaker 3: by Charles Turner, as Turner narrates the words of abolitionist
[45:44] Speaker 3: and civil war human rights activist Frederick Douglas. A black
[45:49] Speaker 3: man who has been born into slavery, and he was
[45:53] Speaker 3: taught to read, I think at least partially by one
[45:56] Speaker 3: of his masters, which, of course the masters then realize
[45:59] Speaker 3: was a mistake, because as his mind became liberated, then
[46:03] Speaker 3: the rest of him would soon follow. He escaped, became free,
[46:07] Speaker 3: and then cemented his name in the history books as
[46:10] Speaker 3: one of the fiercest human rights and civil rights and
[46:14] Speaker 3: anti slavery activists in the nineteenth century. A lot of
[46:19] Speaker 3: people think that Frederick Douglas was an atheist. I don't
[46:23] Speaker 3: believe that's true, but he was a fierce critic of religion,
[46:28] Speaker 3: especially when religion was weaponized to oppress others, and he
[46:31] Speaker 3: wrote this quote in the book. He said, we have
[46:34] Speaker 3: men sold to build churches, women sold to support the Gospel,
[46:39] Speaker 3: and babes sold to purchase bibles for the poor heathen,
[46:44] Speaker 3: all for the glory of God and the good of souls.
[46:49] Speaker 3: The slave auctioneers bell and the church going bell chime
[46:53] Speaker 3: in with each other, and the bitter cries of the
[46:55] Speaker 3: heartbroken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his
[47:00] Speaker 3: pious master. Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave
[47:06] Speaker 3: trade go hand in hand. If you haven't become familiar
[47:11] Speaker 3: with the writings and the speeches of Frederick Douglas, I
[47:14] Speaker 3: would encourage you to do so, because I think they
[47:16] Speaker 3: really resonate even today. Okay, more of your calls as
[47:22] Speaker 3: we continue our time together on the other side of this,
[47:31] Speaker 3: this just popped into my brain because it just popped
[47:33] Speaker 3: onto my calendar. In the last few days, I've been
[47:36] Speaker 3: invited by a local skeptics group to go on a
[47:40] Speaker 3: ghost hunt. Apparently there is a theater in a town
[47:46] Speaker 3: in Oklahoma about an hour from me or less, and
[47:49] Speaker 3: it is supposedly haunted. I think tongues are planted firmly
[47:54] Speaker 3: in cheek. I went and looked at the website and
[47:57] Speaker 3: it's like, well, we've had some people say, you know,
[48:01] Speaker 3: so I don't know how straight they're playing it, but
[48:04] Speaker 3: this skeptics group is going to go and I guess
[48:06] Speaker 3: they're going to spend the evening or spend the night.
[48:08] Speaker 3: And they said, we know you're local, would you like
[48:10] Speaker 3: to come with us? And I said, well, I've always
[48:13] Speaker 3: wanted to do that, not because I believe in ghosts,
[48:15] Speaker 3: but because I love ghost stories and I've always kind
[48:19] Speaker 3: of wanted to grab your sleeping bag or whatever. It takes,
[48:23] Speaker 3: some cameras and audio equipment and just report from the scene.
[48:27] Speaker 3: You know, was there a corpse floating three feet above
[48:31] Speaker 3: the ground going woooo.
[48:34] Speaker 2: Oh?
[48:34] Speaker 3: It's the laughter of children inside the walls. That's terrifying.
[48:39] Speaker 3: Where did that noise come from? The room was empty?
[48:43] Speaker 3: What's up with this temperature drop? The monitor on my
[48:46] Speaker 3: camera shows a little orbs flying around. Oh, it doesn't
[48:50] Speaker 3: look like they're floating. That couldn't have been on the breeze.
[48:52] Speaker 3: They're going somewhere on purpose. Maybe it's Grandma. I've always
[48:58] Speaker 3: wanted to just be in the room for this stuff,
[49:01] Speaker 3: And so I'm gonna go and I'll take some gear
[49:05] Speaker 3: to record some stuff, and if it turns out to
[49:08] Speaker 3: be an entertaining evening, then I'll post some stuff about
[49:12] Speaker 3: it on my channels and maybe here on the broadcast.
[49:16] Speaker 3: I don't know if it's just the skeptics group that's going.
[49:19] Speaker 3: I'm kind of hoping there will be some others involved,
[49:23] Speaker 3: true believers, the ones who were walking in and they've
[49:27] Speaker 3: got the dowsing rods and the temperature meters and the
[49:31] Speaker 3: you know, the crystals, and they're speaking to the walls.
[49:34] Speaker 3: Can you hear me? Do you have a message for
[49:37] Speaker 3: me from the afterlife? There may be a Wigi board. Hell,
[49:41] Speaker 3: I participate, you know, give me the give me the
[49:44] Speaker 3: Ouiji board. I would like to just be a part
[49:49] Speaker 3: of it. But I'm going to see what happens and
[49:52] Speaker 3: not expecting really anything to happen. But I will go
[49:54] Speaker 3: in with an open mind and then commit myself to
[49:58] Speaker 3: submitting anything for Opper scientific review if it should happen.
[50:03] Speaker 3: So check back in with me in the month of February. Hell,
[50:07] Speaker 3: even if I saw a ghost, I don't think I'd
[50:09] Speaker 3: be scared at all, because nothing can terrify me more
[50:12] Speaker 3: than the living people who occupy my home state of Oklahoma.
[50:18] Speaker 3: I'm surrounded by these Bible waving, red hatted deer leader
[50:23] Speaker 3: evangelical types who apparently don't realize what they have just done.
[50:28] Speaker 3: They either they don't get it, they don't care, or
[50:31] Speaker 3: they love it. And Natalie and I have been thinking,
[50:36] Speaker 3: I wonder who else would have us, Like if we
[50:39] Speaker 3: were to pack up Linus and Gracie and Cat and
[50:42] Speaker 3: we were to move outside of the United States. That
[50:45] Speaker 3: seems kind of a feeling. Switzerland is supposed to be
[50:50] Speaker 3: the greatest country on the planet statistically as far as
[50:54] Speaker 3: quality of life. Would Switzerland even have us? Could we
[50:57] Speaker 3: afford to live there? We've had this conversation Australia, what
[51:02] Speaker 3: a lovely place, and the country seems less insane. The
[51:07] Speaker 3: United Kingdom. Yeah, they've got their problems, but it doesn't
[51:10] Speaker 3: seem equivalent to what's happening here Canada. Canada's probably building
[51:15] Speaker 3: a barricade right now just to keep Americans from infecting them.
[51:20] Speaker 3: Even for those who think some of this are okay,
[51:22] Speaker 3: they can't afford to roll the dice, They can't take
[51:25] Speaker 3: the risk. Well, wait a minute, seventy seven million of
[51:27] Speaker 3: you lost your freaking mind. How do we know that
[51:31] Speaker 3: the rest of you aren't carriers of some virus or
[51:35] Speaker 3: brainworm that has caused all of your reasoning capacities or
[51:39] Speaker 3: moral centers to just fall away? N Naa, you stay
[51:42] Speaker 3: out of here. We got our own problems in Canada.
[51:45] Speaker 3: But Natalie and I've been talking like we are open.
[51:50] Speaker 3: We're open to getting out of Dodge. I'm not sure
[51:54] Speaker 3: I would like this front row seat to the shit show.
[51:58] Speaker 3: I've had friends outside of the United States borders reach
[52:01] Speaker 3: out and say, if you need a place to stay?
[52:03] Speaker 3: No shit, They said, do you need a place? So
[52:07] Speaker 3: I'm like, no, I you know, I'm not going to
[52:10] Speaker 3: be cat o' kaalan and sleep on your couch. But
[52:13] Speaker 3: you know a lot of people are having conversations about
[52:17] Speaker 3: where they want to be, where they want their family
[52:19] Speaker 3: and friends and anchored to be geographically when Rome burns
[52:25] Speaker 3: itself down, so to speak. Anyway, Kevin at age five zero,
[52:31] Speaker 3: thanks for calling Kevin. What's up?
[52:34] Speaker 7: Well? This is kind of weird, but I just want
[52:36] Speaker 7: to tell you I love you, bro man. You're such
[52:38] Speaker 7: a good guy.
[52:40] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[52:41] Speaker 7: Thanks. These things are weird because you know you're reaching
[52:45] Speaker 7: so many people, and then we have this strange relationship
[52:49] Speaker 7: where you don't know us, but we see you. And anyway,
[52:52] Speaker 7: that was not what I called about.
[52:54] Speaker 2: I was sort of.
[52:55] Speaker 7: Inspired by the discussion about moving out of the country,
[52:59] Speaker 7: and I get a little bit worked up about it
[53:02] Speaker 7: in the sense that out of care for my fellow
[53:05] Speaker 7: human beings, in the sense that it's like in twelve
[53:09] Speaker 7: step programs they got this phrase, wherever I go, there
[53:12] Speaker 7: I am, you know. And so my personal work for
[53:16] Speaker 7: my own mindset is to get right with myself no
[53:19] Speaker 7: matter where I'm at. And I know that that's, you know,
[53:21] Speaker 7: kind of lofty and philosophical, but at the same time,
[53:24] Speaker 7: it's all I can do. Really, I can't change the
[53:26] Speaker 7: macro about politics and global economics and all that stuff.
[53:30] Speaker 7: I don't think there will ever be this perfect solution.
[53:34] Speaker 7: So I've found a way to be productive and inspiring
[53:38] Speaker 7: and vibrant and potent in my own personal day to
[53:41] Speaker 7: day life and touch the people around me in the
[53:44] Speaker 7: hopes that I can just live in a better place
[53:46] Speaker 7: wherever I'm at.
[53:47] Speaker 3: You ever fantasize about it just getting out of Dodge.
[53:51] Speaker 7: No, I anecdotally, this is, you know, just my personal experience.
[53:56] Speaker 7: But last weekend I was at a major sporting event
[53:59] Speaker 7: in Anaheim Health and I talked to two groups of
[54:02] Speaker 7: Canadians that want to be here because they're of the
[54:05] Speaker 7: problems in their own country. They would rather be here.
[54:08] Speaker 7: And I was in Colombia a while back and they
[54:11] Speaker 7: greeted me with the most loving open arms. So I
[54:15] Speaker 7: think that again, it's like it's a personal mindset in
[54:19] Speaker 7: the work that we do on our own for ourselves
[54:21] Speaker 7: to look at it from a different way. I just
[54:23] Speaker 7: got off a sales meeting call from my job, and
[54:27] Speaker 7: our budgets this year are limited and I can't do
[54:29] Speaker 7: the job the way I think that I want to
[54:31] Speaker 7: do it. So instead of riping to my boss that
[54:34] Speaker 7: I don't have the budget that I need to do
[54:36] Speaker 7: my job effectively, I'm looking at it like, Okay, this
[54:39] Speaker 7: is what I do have, so I'm going to kick ass.
[54:41] Speaker 7: Was what I've got? Does that make sense?
[54:44] Speaker 3: It does? I guess every nation has its own problems,
[54:47] Speaker 3: and it is relative. If I wish to end up
[54:51] Speaker 3: in say Yemen or Pakistan, I would be yearning for
[54:56] Speaker 3: the United States. So I guess, yeah, it does. Rec
[55:00] Speaker 3: why there's some perspective and that's I appreciate you keeping
[55:04] Speaker 3: it Kevin real quick.
[55:05] Speaker 7: Don't get me started on that rabbit hole. When I
[55:08] Speaker 7: talked to Christians or other believers in whatever that have
[55:11] Speaker 7: made up their own God and their own ideas, I say, yeah,
[55:15] Speaker 7: you know, there's all these lofty things that we thank
[55:18] Speaker 7: God for here in the United States or in some
[55:20] Speaker 7: other developed country. I think, yeah, it's easy to do
[55:24] Speaker 7: when you're not born in Syria and your main goal
[55:27] Speaker 7: is not to starve to death by the time you're five.
[55:30] Speaker 3: Appreciate you calling the show very much, my friend.
[55:33] Speaker 7: Thanks V.
[55:35] Speaker 3: I read this article in The New Republic. It was
[55:38] Speaker 3: published on the twentieth of January. It was titled the
[55:43] Speaker 3: First Resistance Failed, the next one can't, and the subtitle
[55:47] Speaker 3: was Democrats are wallowing in their failure to stop a
[55:51] Speaker 3: second Trump presidency, which looks to be even more damaging
[55:56] Speaker 3: than his first one. Snap out of it. I won't
[55:59] Speaker 3: read the article here, but you can find it by
[56:01] Speaker 3: that title if you want. Then I guess it sums
[56:04] Speaker 3: things up. Resignation on one side, and the desire to
[56:08] Speaker 3: try and continue to fight and salvage and rescue and
[56:12] Speaker 3: resuscitate and restore on the other. Side, and then I
[56:15] Speaker 3: think we're a lost cause we're circling the drain. Maybe
[56:20] Speaker 3: it's time just to do a post mortem and then leave.
[56:24] Speaker 3: And then I flip back to the other side of
[56:26] Speaker 3: the metronome and say, well, moral people need to stand
[56:30] Speaker 3: up for the moral thing. And if you and I
[56:34] Speaker 3: don't do it, who will. I'd rather go down fighting
[56:37] Speaker 3: back and forth and back and forth. And I don't know,
[56:43] Speaker 3: I'm maybe I'm weak, or maybe you can relate. Maybe
[56:48] Speaker 3: Natalie and I could like do a six month vacation
[56:52] Speaker 3: in Canada or Australia or Switzerland. Maybe we could just
[56:55] Speaker 3: do dual citizenship. Maybe maybe that's a solution. No, we've
[57:00] Speaker 3: covered a lot today. It's been fun hanging out with
[57:03] Speaker 3: you once again. We'll do it again next week. Take care.
[57:07] Speaker 1: Follow the Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a
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