TTA Podcast 96- A Conversation with Matt Dillahunty

okay here we go stand by three 2 one action assume nothing rash bald face blasphemy question everything I find it extremely hard to imagine open your eyes it is quite all right to be an atheist the fastest growing group of people in the country has been measured as being those who have no belief or who are atheists you don't have to be apologetic or quiet about it challenge the opposition you see religion on 100 fronts losing the argument and start thinking this is the Thinking Atheist worldwide since the vast majority of our listeners hear this show in archive and not during the live airings on Tuesday nights at 6 p.m. us Central I wanted to start this show with a quick disclaimer and an apology at the time we started the show with Matt deah Hunty uh we had some audio problems that resulted in some not great audio Fidelity and some occasional Distortion and for that you have my apology unfortunately we did not have the time to stop everything at the moment and find the source of the problem and get it fixed the good part is is that Matt dillah Hunty was just such a good guest and we had such a good 90-minute conversation that I think it sort of transcends the technical challenges we had so again accept my apologies and I hope you can get past the glitches to enjoy what was a great show with Matt dillah Hunty host of The Atheist Experience thank you so much for joining us this first hour of The Thinking Atheist Radio podcast is brought to you by our very first sponsor the folks at evolve fish.com Gary and the folks out there who have been a tremendous supporter of TTA on our YouTube page and I'm proud to have him here on the show my special guest you probably know him as host of The Atheist Experience and more importantly to he's a good friend Matt I'm glad to have you on the show my friend thanks so much for having me on I'm glad to finally be able to get our schedules coordinated for this I know you're always in motion I know that you're juggling the full-time job and now are you still the president o over at The Atheist community of Boston or I am until the elections uh in May I think is when we're having elections and I'm not running again you're done I mean not that you're done with the organization but there's simply hard enough hours in the day I'm guessing yeah it's you know the the ACA is structured so that the president is kind of an outward facing position the vice president's inward facing and so gen peoples does most of the actual work but you know I've I've been president for six or seven years or so and and we've managed to accomplish quite a bit but I have a lot on my plate I don't know that I'm actually doing the ACA any good as president I have no intention of uh leaving the show or ceasing any of those efforts and I'll still be involved but I I want to step out of the way so that it doesn't just be I don't want it to be the the Matt show there are other people with other ideas who can come in and and lead the ACA to bigger and better things I hope well talk to me about some of the other people that help you when people talk about the atheist experience in some ways you've kind of become the franchise player at least you're one of the names that people know and recognize but there are also many others who are a vital part of that show who are doing just as much if not more than you are and you want to give them some props real quick here on the show Absolutely it used to be just me and four or five co-hosts and got to be a little difficult people just weren't getting enough time so one of the thing and I wasn't getting enough time off so Russell Glasser who has been doing the show longer than I have fills in as host so I do three weeks and he does a week um but there's a lot of shuffling of schedules but there are also several co-hosts who are just absolutely phenomenal I mean Tracy Harris is one of my favorite people and she has this way of thinking that really has the ability to drive home points and make great analogies and and kind of cut to the chase Jen peoples who's the vice president of the ACA uh and fills in for me quite often when I'm when I'm out um it she's been great everybody's been great I mean I could I could talk everybody up Martin Wagner Jeff D who's been doing this probably longer than I've been an Atheist since the show was on while I was still uh a Christian and Martin used to host it then too and um Don Baker and I'm forgetting somebody I'm sure Martin Jeff Don Tracy Jenna that's that's the main five but the behind the scenes people whose names come up at the at the end of each show in the credits um Frank and John and Shelly those are the producers who work with you know they went and got certified at the public access Studio to be able to produce a live TV show um they're there about an hour or so before every show to set up the table and the blue screen and the lights and the audio and do a practice call and get all the CG Graphics stuff ready to go I know you've given your story I don't I don't need the full monty here but I do want to do due diligence and talk about your early years your desire at one point to be oh what a southern baptist Minister and your journey out can you give me the reader digest version for those who might just now being uh introduced to you sure uh the shortest version is I walked down the aisle at a Southern Baptist Church at around the age of five or so to accept Jesus into my heart during a Revival um my I folks my parents and almost everybody else in my family were also Baptist there was a handful of people on one side of the family that were catholic and some of them later converted um and I spent my entire life raised around that it was just something you everybody was and everybody did and everybody believed in my teenage years when I actually got more interested in the church all my friends were in the church um I started to realize that I couldn't have possibly understood all this stuff at the age of five so maybe I wasn't really saved and I better do it again um or at least rededicate my life to Christ and I was active uh in the church group the ministry as a kid it was in in through my teen years and I never had a bad experience you know I wasn't abused or molested I didn't lose any uh loved ones that caused me to you know you know doubt or question God this is just the way things were and I left and was in the Navy for eight years after high school and got to explore the world and got to meet some people and you know you you learn a little bit more about interacting with people whose beliefs aren't like yours but I I have to say that even throughout the time I don't don't really coming across don't remember coming across anybody who was explicitly an atheist certainly there were people who oh I don't go in for that God stuff and that was just the end of it and during that time I wasn't very religious I mean I still believed in God I still had all the same beliefs but it wasn't an important part of my life my life was you know the Navy and potentially as a career when I left the Navy I I got out moved to Texas a friend of mine hooked me up uh with a job at Dell computer and so for the next few years I was focused on my career um and working in the tech industry and making money and having a good time and and God just wasn't that important and when I lost my job in the tech industry I I did not want to stay in that field and in my teen years I was convinced that God had wanted me to be a minister but I was terrified public speaking um and I was you know in love wanted to get married you know wanted to make money do all those things and so when I left uh dell I said you know hey God if if you want me to be a minister if that if that was real then I'm willing to do it and I spent about 18 months or so uh in really kind of serious study and prayer and and in talks with uh ministers and and relatives who were you know spiritually wise and my roommate the time was an atheist and we are best friends we're still best friends and we had just agreed not to discuss this you know hey I believe you don't no big deal let's not let that ruin our friendship and when I set out to actually get serious and be the best representative of Christ that I could be it was pretty easy for me to say I have to break this agreement because I don't want to go to heaven and have my best friend who I love like a brother in hell so I set out to specifically find um the arguments that I would need to use to convince my atheist roommate um who was not he's not very well versed and any of this stuff he just knew you know hey I'm an atheist um but I needed to convince him and uh that backfired spectacularly and then I got involved with the ACA you guys in Texas are going through I it just seems like just like Oklahoma there's one after another some piece of legislation that's someone is attempting to sort of move through that promotes intelligent design or teaching the controversy or teaching the alternative you know I'll talk to Ain about some of the stuff he's been going through down there in Dallas and here in the state of Oklahoma recently the most recent ones Senate Bill 758 and House Bill 1674 you know they they word it very carefully very cleverly it's always something along the lines of these are very complex issues let's discuss and we should we should treat all of the AR hum equally are you guys still going through some of that down there in the state of Texas yeah it's it's uh they they word it carefully because they have to because they've lost so many you know every time they go to bat for this in court they end up losing and when they reach just a little too far um the public gets interested and all of a sudden the next thing you know you've got big changes on the State Board of Education um if they the the more clever they get about it the easier it is for them to kind of weasle their way in on this because oh yeah what they're saying really isn't that objectionable they're not trying to really teach that the world 6,000 years old um we Texas first of all the legislature is only in session every two years every 18 months or so and but the State Board of Education is is constantly doing stuff but but they review standards for different uh courses at different times and so we did science a year or two ago and then you know then was Health standards um and I'm I honestly don't know what they're actually working on now but I do stay focused on the Texas Freedom Network which is yeah I don't have the bandwidth and the ACA doesn't have it as a mission to be a watchdog for the State Board of Education but the Texas Texas Freedom network does and they're amazing I read their their blog and I try to to keep up on what's going on and and go down and uh you know uh testify at Schoolboard hearings or uh Lobby our Representatives it's not as bad it's it's as it has been in the past but we're a long way from having it solved because Texas is a is a the state that kind of dictates what other states are going to use for for Public School curriculum I uh hear a lot about your governor in the headlines not as much lately but certainly during the height of the presidential primaries and it was just one punchline after another what goes on in your mind when you see your hom State Governor and all of the insanity that seems to surround him well it's you know we had a call this week on the show you know somebody tried to suggest that wouldn't I be happier if I was living somewhere up in the Northeast instead of in the middle of redneckville and of course no uh because Austin isn't really Texas despite the fact that our Governor's here uh I I think Rick Perry will probably be governor for just about as long as he wants because there's enough wrong with Texas to keep seeing him get elected uh he a couple several years ago probably four or five years ago when his book about the boy scuts came out and he had made a number of statements um that were not just like pro-christian which he's want to do but anti- atheist antise secularism and during uh I was down at the state capital for the national day reason and he was walking up to the Capitol building with all of his guards and I had already called him out on the show and so I followed him and kept asking you know kept asking him you Governor don't you represent atheists too AR aren't you supposed to be here to represent all of us why do you keep making statements that are in direct opposition uh and alienating an entire section of the population you know do and he you know just wouldn't look at me kept walking and finally one of the security guards just kind of turned around and glared at me until I walked away um you know I I don't expect the governor to engage with I I I was some random guy to him who came up on the street um but we you know we tried to get him to call into the show and it's frustrating but I also think that uh running for president probably in in the eyes of everybody outside of Texas it probably did him some political harm because I mean he looked I mean he didn't even know how many Supreme Court justices there were mean he just look like an idiot but I don't think it's actually going to impact him I think if he if he runs for re-election he he's probably going to get reelected and fairly easily and it's it's scary so you chase down the governor of Texas I mean I'm just have a visual in my mind of a secret service going whoa whoa whoa hey hang on or is it secret service that handles the governor I don't know I want to address the issue of whether or not you are a lightning rod and this is something that I I sort of grabbed from a recent speech of yours regarding whether or not you are a fire brand I don't think it's unfair I've called myself an Evangelical atheist um I'm fine with Firebrand I mean it's a person who Kindles Strife or encourages unrest and a troublemaker I'm that I am an enemy of religion no make no bones about it I'm not necessarily an enemy of every religious person I actually would argue that I'm a friend to the religious people you want to qualify that for me you are a friend to the religious well sure because I think you know one of the duties that a a true friend would have would be to point out where you think your friend is aired um I AB absolutely despise by and large religion and what it does to people I you know I've seen it firsthand in my inbox is full of people who are suffering because of it I've seen people who have been atheists for 40 or 50 years who are still suffering uh from some aspects of religion I personally you know don't have that much suffering in my life because of it but I am convinced that their claims are not not necessarily that they're absolutely false that I have confirmation that they're false but they're not true they haven't demonstrated that they're true they haven't met their burden of proof that it is irrational for people to accept these things i' I've said before and and I'm hoping to have a conversation uh with some people about it at some point that I'm an atheist because I'm a skeptic and I think the proper application of skepticism necessarily leads to atheism it does not support the theistic proposition I think the best you know being a friend to people involves sometimes tough love now now that said I don't really know how much of a fire brand I am I don't know that I am I try to make sure that I'm addressing arguments and not people um you know and I've tried to point out that on the on the occasions where I've said you know you're an idiot what I really mean is you're being idiotic or and we're all guilty of that I'm an idiot from time to time as well maybe more often than than the people I'm talking to but telling people honestly and trying to educate them about how to use critical thinking and evaluate claims um is the type of thing that I think a friend would do talking here with Matt Dillahunty one of the host of The Atheist Experience when somebody calls your show to defend the theist position how interested are they really in dialogue I mean haven't they circled the wagons aren't they totally on the offense not listening are you wasting your time it's it depends it it varies from person to person I do not think by any stretch of the matter of fact I'm I'm absolutely positive that I'm not wasting my time because I have emails from people who used to be theists and are no longer theists because of the show at every single uh speaking event whether it's the secular student Alliance event or a debate or whatever else there has been at least one person who's come up and said I'm an atheist because of what you guys do on the show I used to be this I used to be this my story is like yours so it's not when I'm having a debate or discussion with the caller it's not necessarily about the caller it's about the other people that are listening but I have heard from people at least one if not two who were repeat ERS to the show several years ago um and are now atheists but they don't want to acknowledge you know they don't want to call back in and say I called and said such and such and here's why I was wrong they're still kind of coming to grips with this but I've heard about heard it in email um I've heard it from people in person there's no way that this is a waste of time with any individual caller it may be and we we have prank callers who honestly don't even believe what they're saying and my my take on the prank callers has always been as long as it's something that somebody believes I mean I can't tell whether or not they're sincere most of the time there are sometimes when you can spot the obvious Prank Caller but it the if they're presenting an idea that somebody believes and we can have a conversation about it that provides education to people that's good enough you know I obviously I don't want the prank calls that you know oh you're fat or you're dumb or blah blah blah uh those are a waste of time there there are callers who have circled wagon they are just calling in to preach and those are the ones I I try to make sure people get as good as they give on the show and that's why I can have a 45-minute debate with Matt slick or a really long conversation with somebody else as long as there's a dialogue going on but as soon as somebody starts arguing dishonestly if they refuse to acknowledge points if they just hop from one thing to the other and it's clear that all they're trying to do is a shotgun approach of getting their ideas on TV there's enough religious programming on TV that I don't have to sacrifice our show to encourage that it's funny I had a message in from someone seems like it was the first part of last year which was something along those lines you're wrong you're deceived you're missing the point you're deceiving others and then I got a message back just a few weeks ago that said hey I'm I'm sorry I blew it you know I I I actually I've come to the point where I sort of have lined up with you which is weird I mean it's a very rare thing normally people are sending they're not receiving but there's no feeling like having uh correspond from someone who actually said you know you sort of made sense it's a tremendously gratifying feeling it must be for you as well yeah and if you think about it you know I'm living breathing walking talking proof that arguing with Believers is not futile and my my friend Keith L Jensen who uh is absolutely hilariously funny uh and and I can't wait to see him again at the American atheist convention and stuff like that he he has this bit that he did where you know when he's with atheist groups he kind of breaks from his comedy uh routine for a moment and says look how many people out here in the audience were were used to be Believers please you know raise your hand and the hands are up all over the place and he says I think we were worth talking to I think we were worth engaging with and he's absolutely right everybody is worth it but I put you on the spot and said if there was one repeat theist argument that makes you want to just get in your car and drive into a retaining wall because if you you know because you've heard it so many times I mean what is it is it the how are you moral without God is it Hitler I mean what are some of the ones that just really cook your noodle whenever you hear them well there was a period of time where we just flatly declared moratorium on Pascal's wager because it's I mean it's wrong at every conceivable level it's it's the most useless um kind of safe bet thing well you might as well do it cuz you know you could get reward I it's just dumb um but I you know having done the show I don't know I don't know how many hundreds of episodes over the last seven or eight years we've heard arguments over and over again and I I strive to try to find new ways to address them because I have to understand that some people are listening for the first time and the people who are listening for the 10th or 15th or H 100th time might benefit from a slightly different way of addressing it and so of course people will write in to say oh you completely dropped the ball on you know this episode on that and maybe I did but you know I want I want to try and address these things as many ways as possible um I the transcendental argument for the existence of God is annoying because it's one of those things that there's a small subset of people who actually really do properly understand what they're talking about in that argument transcendental argument by the way is is is the Cornerstone of presuppositional apologetics and it's it's basically the three foundational laws of logical thought identity non-contradiction excluded Middle have to have some author and that author is God and it it's wrong all over the place but I've taken to kind of addressing it differently lately because what they're basically admitting when you go to it and you say give me your absolute best knockdown argument for God and they go to tag um what they're saying is they believe that we exist in a universe where we were created by a God who gave us a brain popped us down and allowed us to use that brain and logic and reasoning to discover all that we can about the universe but the single most important question that anybody could could possibly discover the truth on if it's true is something that can only be properly comprehended by a very very small educated thoughtful portion of population and yet when I walk into Baptist Churches the people down there don't believe I'm convinced that nobody has ever come to a belief in Christianity because of the transcendental argument for God this is a prime example of starting with a conclusion and making every attempt to structure an argument that leads to it and it's flawed at just every corner is it an excuse for say the apologist to take the position of moral superiority it's not a convincing argument to the general population is it just a way for the elite to sort of position themselves I I'm convinced it's a way for apologists to convince themselves that they're smarter than they are um you know you mentioned the moral argument earlier I I kind of incidentally come become known as the morality guy because I keep doing these debates and even when the debates aren't supposed to be about morality that's always the go-to uh I don't find that frustrating at all I'm actually kind of fascinated by the topic and I I enjoy talking about it and thinking along those lines but tag is is one that just seems to by and large be a waste of time uh I I enjoy it because I'm kind of a philosophy nut I'm a little bit of a let me do the deep thinking masochist thing but there are days where it's just you know shut up already that's that's just a really dumb argument after a while I mean you can only hear Do You Believe In absolute morality so many times before your left eye just starts to Twitch and you think is there nothing new Under the Sun and you've done a lot more debating I mean I do a lot of conversation in these shows we do a lot of Storytelling I don't do a lot of debate I don't know how you do it how do you get through a show when it's the Hitler card it's the uh the uh all of scien is in conspiracy to deceive you know s the Satan has corrupted the whole of the scientific Community I mean one argument after the other do you ever have you heard any fresh ones lately or are they all pretty much the same it's kind of funny over course of the the time that I've done the show I've noticed that they seem to come in Trends and it depends on which apologist is the apologist dour and what argument that they're they're currently trotting out and so for a while you'll hear uh Pascal's wager and then it'll kind of Fall by the wayside and then it's colam for a little while and then you'll hear start into the presuppositionalist and you and you work through this pathway and then all of a sudden you can tell okay I I know based on what the caller is saying exactly who they've been reading who they've been listening to um and by and large most of the callers don't even fully grasp the arguments that they're trying to make which we see over and over again when I try to get them to outline it I mean it's bad enough that they they couldn't put together a a valid and sound syllogism if they tried and this is not this is not a slam on people for being stupid this is a a kind of a an area that most people aren't really educated I mean we don't spend time in the public school system we should spend more time teaching critical thinking but we should also spend more time teaching the foundations of thought and logic and we don't and so people hear things and because they reinforce what they already believe they're convinced and so literally I've had people just call in and say well look at the trees look at the trees how do you explain the trees without God I don't know oak trees come from seeds it seemed kind of simple to me it's almost like when you become a freeth thinker when you become a skeptical thinker you take the Looking Glass and you just flip it 180 you find yourself looking at different ways at what you used to take for granted you probably did a 180 completely on what everything from homosexuals to abortion to stem cells any of that take place in your life yeah I agree I I Chang my views on a lot of things you know and before I actually hit that this we often accused of being arrogant you know atheist oh you're so arrogant it's actually the Christian worldview and the theistic worldview that thinks they are the special creation and everything in the whole dang Universe was specifically created with them in mind how much more arrogant can you be uh you know if anything the recognition that I'm an insignificant uh little speck on another insignificant little speck in the broader universe is is something that's very humbling um but they tend to to to try to think that well because we think we've got it figured out that makes us arrogant and it's really not that we've got it figured out it's that we understand that their claim to have it figured out is not true before I get to the switchboard and do the emails are you opposed at all to speaking about your family your mother and father I've spoken about him a little bit before I you know normally there's no subject for me that's truly off limits but I mean you know well I know that you know for our parents this is a very difficult thing I think if I and correct me if I heard you incorrectly but I I want say that it was in Canada when I heard you say something along the lines of I know there can't be a heaven because if my mother was to go to heaven there's no way she could achieve absolute Bliss knowing that her son was being tortured forever and I'm paraphrasing but is that an accurate statement yeah it's it's something along those lines it's it's an argument that I was putting together to show that even if there is a heaven none of us are there nobody's there um and it really has to do with with how we label ourselves and we uh with identity and my mom is this collection of memories um my mom loves me and so if I am being tortured in hell and my mom is in heaven and there's no sadness in heaven that's a conflict there's no way my mom could be in heaven and be happy now you could put some fa simile of my mom up there but that's not my mom and you find people are starting to equivocate now right well God wipes your memory I've actually heard this argument yeah which means it's not you up there yeah God actually he he erases and you start again so that you can then enjoy Heaven she won't know that her son is being tortured forever does your mom truly feel that way does she worry about you in hell oh my mom thinks I'm working for Satan and that I'm destined for hell yes that's that's now it's it's actually better on my my mom still loves me despite this um on my wife's uh part of my wife's family they don't think I'm working for Satan they think I am Satan wow so yeah it's yeah and then really don't care the difference of course is that my mom cares well what about what does that do for Thanksgiving and Christmas you you go hang out with your family is it the elephant in the room do you guys talk about it is are you kind of done talking about it we're kind of done um you know early on there was there were several attempts to talk about it um they were not equipped to have those conversations and they knew they weren't equipped to have them um and they just they're going to keep clinging to God and so we kind of came up with this agreement um you know I love you you love me uh we're not going to to wreck that by talking kind of the same agreement that I had worked out with my roommate ages ago um my mom violated that agreement one one time and sent me a a long email all about how she knows God's real and she wouldn't lie to me and I ripped into it just as if she were nobody I I I replied at link to that email with no consideration to who the author was I wanted to be as honest and straightforward as possible and I was worried when I clicked send that this was going to end my relationship with my mother and as it turned out uh she just wrote back and said oh you're just like me I used to have all those same concerns but Jesus fixed it all and then my dad forbid her from talking about it anymore you just have doubts I've had doubts in my life Matt you know I've been through the valley in my life but I just know one day Jesus will reveal himself to you and when that day comes we'll Rejoice together that kind of thing really rings a bell with me I don't know if that's what she said it's worth pointing this out because this comes up a lot with other people who are dealing with uh the loss of family and everything else our relationship mine with my parents will never return to what used to be normal but we have settled in on a new normal and it's the recognition that we love each other and the one tip the one thing that I think I did right because there were a lot of things that I did wrong in this um but one thing I'd recommend is and it only applies to people whose parents have beliefs similar to mine but they they believe God exists they believe God wants me to know that he exists and they believe God has a plan and answers prayer and they also understand that I'm not going to be swayed by their emotional appeals and their personal uh appeals to personal revelation and so what they need to do is pray to God to reveal himself to me because they know I won't deny it if it happens that has allowed them to take the burden off of their shoulders and put it squarely on God where it belongs so your parents don't punish themselves for failing as parents not anymore um there was there was a little bit of that early on um when I saw what what Christianity did to my dad um if I didn't already hate religion in Christianity I would have definitely hated it at that point um but I don't think that they're going to grieve probably until the day they they die but they're they're choosing to leave it in God's hands and focus on maintaining a relationship as I am I love my parents I want to you know so when we're at Christmas and they pray they they pray I I just stand there we when Beth and I got married my dad and and Mom put together the rehearsal dinner and um I let them do whatever they wanted to do and on their own they said look we don't believe in drinking so I'm not going to foot the bill for any alcohol but they're welcome your friends are welcome to drink if they want and when we before we have dinner I'm going to do a prayer because you know it's I'm paying for it and I was like pray go ahead I I don't mind and nobody none of my friends are going to mind if you do a prayer before the rehearsal dinner it was fine everybody got along you had an opportunity to maybe create some Goodwill no skin off anybody's teeth you didn't sell out right and you still had RN Rock be the efficient at your wedding which is one of the most awesome things ever yes it is it most definitely is and it really though it's it kind of it was about being consistent you know my house my rules your house your rules and I will you know when I'm at my dad's house I couldn't there's nothing that could possibly make me object to them praying and the rehearsal D dinner was my dad's house it's something he did for us um and I'm fine with him doing it anyway he wants to and if it would have sucked then we could have done another one on our own you know my dad can have whatever party he wants and it was great everybody had a good time talking here with Matt dillah Hunty if you have time I'm going to go to the switchboard and feel some calls absolutely area code 704 thanks for waiting you're on the Thinking Atheist Radio podcast who's this this is Jasmine Jasmine I'm so glad you waited on us what's going on what do you have for me and Matt there was a story the other day my brother told me that I wanted to share with you guys he in middle school now and some guys came over some I guess they were from some church or something they came over to school he's in public school and they came and talked to the students about God and Jesus and stuff they gave them all these little little Bibles to take home and he came home and he told me this story because he knows that stories like this really pissed me off so he he came over and he told me this wonderful story about people coming to school and they them having this big assembly about over it and stuff is if you're wondering what to do part of it depends on whether or not attendance was required um part of it depends on how they went about doing this but the fact that they were handing out Bibles yeah that was it would be worth it I think to contact uh the freedom from religion Foundation get them the details and tell them what went on uh this may actually and it sounds like it might be um against the law I think it was it was because everyone had to be there according to what you told me everyone was everyone had to be there so yeah yeah I'd recommend contacting the for from religion Foundation or or possibly the ACLU okay well thank you for that thank you Jasmine very much for calling all right it's funny I was just talking to Katherine Stewart here last week about the Good News Club and the efforts of religious organizations to try to get their fingers and their toes in the doors of public school systems and they are by the hundreds all across the uh the and and it's legal but it's right there on the cusp yeah actually Katherine's awesome I I met her this a week or two ago at the North Texas secular student convention and got to listen to her talk about uh the Good Good News Club um so it's it's great to hear that you had her on because that's that's the type of information that we really need to get people and also we need to you know make sure people know that um yes it's often difficult you know you contact the ffrf or the ACLU and maybe you're not not a parent at that school maybe you have you know you're going may have difficulty uh gaining standing to even bring a case but making these organizations aware of what's going on allows them to go out and find people who do qualify who who can have a say in this um and hopefully allows us to make some changes area code 619 thanks for waiting you're on the Thinking Atheist Radio podcast with guest Matt dun who's this hello this is Jason thanks for waiting Jason what do you have for us well my first time on um I would say I'm a I'm still at the closet on the atheist gnosticism for most of my life I went to Baptist Church like liberal Baptist and stuff like that and tried to I went to a Baptist College for two years and actually went to Mexico as a missionary in Baja I'm from San Diego so I went to Baja for a few years and then I came back and basically went to a non-denominational church Vis back to the Baptist but I wanted something more I was looking for something more so I finally last three years went to the Catholic Church but I discovered well not only you guys but I discovered have you guys heard of guy Pete Harrison sure yeah guy's a friend of mine and in his book 50 reasons is one that we constantly recommend I've got an extra copy to give away as a prize later not today thanks man I have I have both hey if you want to run a contest in the last 20 minutes feel free okay yeah I I have both of his books that they really open up my eyes but um basically I'm just seeing everything with the politics with the whole just reading history what they believe and I'm thinking you know what well that you said you were a Baptist you heard Evangelical well there's Evangelical Catholics and it just turned me off totally you know what I mean y so it's like in my heart probably a little r I guess in my mind I know I don't believe but in my like emotionally I still like um do the thing go to church go to Bath do the prayer even though I don't believe necessarily you're kind of in a position where you're you're mostly keeping up appearances while you're learning right there's too much cognitive dissonance so what I'm wondering is what what should I do you know I see the cogn distance now I don't believe but I feel still attached to it in a way emotionally I I actually I know some people who have maintained that attachment for many many years and and it's for any number of reasons for appeasing family members Etc um I'd love to tell you that uh you know it'll go away and but I don't know I don't know you so I don't know for sure that it will um one of the things about coming out as an atheist that people ask about all the time and I just keep saying you know do it do it when you're ready do it when you're convinced that you are willing to to take on the risk of giving up the things that you're potentially going to lose and you know you're not the only atheist in church you're you're probably not even the only atheist in your church um iist I think priest was yeah I really think he is it it wouldn't surprise it wouldn't surprise me both because of what I've seen from the clergy project and because there's a Methodist Church here in Austin that has an openly atheistic Minister uh I'd love to have a conversation with him because I don't understand that at all um but yeah you're not alone by any stretch of the imagination so let me ask you this though I'm wondering what percentage roughly because I heard you say about there's less and less people going to church I agree I agree with that but what percentage of people go to church in the USA would you say I mean roughly I don't have a stand for the for the number of churched it's funny we have uh the statistics on the rise of people who do not go to church who are the nuns the non-religious who do not associate with God or any God centered organization and that number is rapidly Rising it's the fastest growing quote unquote religious demographic in the USA as far as the number of people who butts and pews I don't have the first clue I do know that there is a tremendous surge in secular thinking or at least critical thinking and non-religious starting with young people under the age of 30 which is hugely exciting I mean we've got the secular student Alliance and all these other organizations it's pretty amazing I've got a gall poll that says that less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church so it's all a facade that it's just all kind of just a show fake or something uh there's lots of different reasons that people are involved I mean you yourself you get something out it maybe it's Community maybe it's not for me you know by the time that I I got free and realized um I the only place pleasure I get out of going to church and I go on occasion um not to my own church because I don't have one but I visit other churches because I want to make sure that when I represent Christianity that I'm representing what's actually being taught from the pulpit and not just my memory or my suspicions and so I will occasionally go to churches and listen um I get pleasure out of sitting there um just like playing spot the fallacy you know stuff like that there's nothing about the actual Church experience that I enjoy I have I have hymns and Bible verses and all kinds of crap that was drilled into my head when I was a little kid that that I can't get out of there you know little little nursery rhymes and songs and stuff I despise all of it I wish it wasn't in my head but I'm glad that it is because it gives me the perspective that I have thanks for the call I got to move on my friend okay oh you're welcome course all right take it easy that's probably a common thing right is it the community thing is it the comfort thing you spend your whole life you're going to church Sunday morning you you love everybody you feel like you belong you have a life mission maybe you've got food I don't know whatever the attraction is and then after you come to a point where you at least you don't hold to the abrahamic god anymore you still think well there's something out there and church makes me feel good A lot of people like to sort of live in that particular neutral zone yeah yeah I think not only do do we have a pretty good understanding that religions by and large tend to prey on people's fears but they also to maintain attendance because of fears because coming out as an atheist in the in the United States in the culture that we live in is not a risk-free thing to do in in many cases you may be the only non-believer that you know and you risk losing your entire social structure your in some cases your job your livelihood this is not a trivial thing it's not like coming out and saying you know I I I like I don't know chocolate I mean it you know it's there there's a risk there and the fear of losing what you have is strong enough to keep some people playing the game I'm going to ask Matt dillah Hunty about the pope we're going to talk a little bit about the the Catholic church and get to your calls very quickly though I want to say a huge thanks to Gary and the folk at evolve fish.com the sponsor of tonight's show by the way if you get a chance you got to stop by when I was at the reason rally in DC like last year I actually saw a young lady who had this pendant right and it's got the atheist day that looks like the atheist day that's part of the bulb in The Thinking Atheist logo and I just stopped I said wait a minute where'd you get that and so I stopped and took a photograph you'll actually see it in the video and and evolve fish.com has a bunch of stuff just like that essentially products for progressives and it's not just about religious stuff either there's a lot of political stuff uh they've got stickers that say stuff like for comedy go to Fox news for News go to the comedy Central Network stickers that say focus on your own damn family there's another one that says it's your hell you burn in it the top 10 reasons why beer is better than Jesus and probably my favorite in the list is I give Evolution two opposable thumbs up that's the kind of stuff little bit of humor a lot of good fun they've also got the atheist symbols and pendants and whatnot this kind of stuff it's a it's a really kind of a conversation starter right you go out and someone says hey wait a minute what are you wearing and then you get to tell them abely well I absolutely don't believe in a deity anywhere now this is guaranteed to be a stimulating course of conversation and that's why some people are like what are you doing you're just religious by wearing this stuff and I'm like well absolutely not absolutely not no you're essentially it's an outer representation of what you are representing what you believe in it's a great conversation starter by the way Gary's also got some very cool mugs including an Adam and Eve mug with fig leaves on Adam and Eve when you put the hot water in and the coffee the Fig leaves disappear he's also got a DNA glass mug it looks like a sign speaker anyway I won't waste your time with the whole litany but if you get a chance stop by and see the website it's evolve fish e v o l v evolve fish.com one of his taglines is an equal opportunity offender many people are offended by the Catholic Church as they should be we've watched the dodging and the the corruption and the shuffling around of priests and the money and all of the insanity and now the pope who's supposed to be appointed for life just decides he's done Matt dillah Hunty talk to me about your opinion of the Catholic church and the Pope I think stepping down was probably the most rational thing that rat singer's ever done um you know he it shows that he does have a concern for his organization I just wish his organization had a concern for all of the atrocities that they're involved with um the Catholic church I've said before is engaged in criminal actions around the globe we're finding out more and more not just let's cover up and Shuffle around and hide pedophile priests but uh work camps for women who uh were were suspected of possibly wanting to have premarital sex stealing babies and and hanging uh somebody's the threat of Eternal damnation like 16-year-old girls who have a kid uh out of wedlock there were nurses and and nuns who basically blackmailed those girls into either giving up that baby or marrying uh the father in order to save the soul of that kid it's just I mean it's it's it is almost like a little Mafia yeah crime syate I mean for for all practical purposes right they're insulated they're beyond approach they've got a shitload of money and I said the other day you know I when when reporters talk about this please stop calling it a sex scandal this is not a sex scandal with with the Catholic church is involved in it's a criminal act a sex scandal is when somebody goes out and has an affair you know an elicit affair on their partner that's a sex scandal and by the way it's not it's not the um the individual priests who are raping kids that's not the Scandal I'm talking about what I'm talking about is the cover up and the cover up has nothing to do with sex this is an organization protecting itself at all costs and sacrificing anybody else who gets in the way you guys have any Catholics down there in Texas we do around here it's all Baptist Pentecostal or Assembly of God a few methodists a couple of lutherans but you know there's not a whole lot in the way of Catholicism here in this town yeah it's you know you I'd love to I keep find myself put in a position to defending people who are otherwise despicable when it comes to for example the westbo Baptist Church um I have to people go after them in ways that would violate their first amendment rights to free speech the same rights that protect you and I and everybody else and so I find myself put in a position of Defending westbo Baptist Church even though they're despicable and I find myself you know when conversations come up about religion uh versus science and you know I got to point out that the Catholic Church they're pretty good on evolution they're crap on all kinds of other science stuff and they're damaging and harmful with some of the things that they come out with and I hate being in the position but I have to be honest when it comes time to elect the new pope I would hope that maybe by the you know we're in the 21st century now maybe some people could look at this and say hey wait a minute I thought this was God's representative I thought he was infallible um why you know there's even talk about him trying to to work out a deal to they're going to hide him in the VA I don't know how true this is so that he doesn't have to face prosecution this may just be conspiracy theory nonsense but it's the type of thing that seems like it could happen and so there's going to be a new pope and I don't really care that much unless the new pope comes in and actually starts not just apologizing but actually making amends for what the Catholic Church does then my goal is to still bankrupt it but religion makes him feel good you know religion gives people hope man provides the structure for their lives you're attacking people at their very core and you know the Catholic church has done a lot of good in the world so how in the world would you attack it wholesale and seek its bankruptcy and destruction how could you do such a thing it's kind of about what kind of image do you actually portray do your Deeds back up your words and if you say that you are a good organization if you say that you're a good person and yet what we find out is that you are engaged in some of the most appalling behaviors I don't know that saying you're good person or that you're you're part of a good organization actually does any good I mean Mafia Crime Boss has donated to lots of Charities were they good people I mean you know how much good do you have to do the Catholic church has done massive amounts of good universities yes that's all great but that doesn't excuse the bad and then and then when when somebody is confronted on their bad behavior when somebody's confronted on the actions that they've taken or endorsed that are appalling how they respond to that is the true measure of whether or not they're a good person or a good organization and if their response is to lie and cover up and pretend like it didn't happen and handwave about all the other good stuff they've done they're not good and is there anything that has been done that could not have been done without all of the religious window dressing and all of the the religious red tape I mean honestly helping other human beings and feeding the hungry and providing medicine and doing those charitable efforts requires no religious umbrella covering it honestly it's just a personto person human to Human Experience that's why we support a lot of secular Charities do you do have you worked with any charities in your endeavors with The Atheist Experience yeah I work with um you know I donate to Foundation beyond belief and I've worked with Camp Quest many times to raise money because it's it's the type of uh effort that I I think is really needed I remember going to church camp but you're absolutely right it's uh it's people that are doing this is there's no religion required the only the only part that the religion's required for is the cover up because it's designed to protect the religious institution if you get rid of that that institution there uh you still have good people doing good things talking here with Matt Dillahunty now I got to come back to the Catholic church for just a second because I always do a little show prep I'm always putting my ducks in ril before we actually do the podcast and I came across this little gem this little down bite from one of the episodes of The Atheist Experience where the caller was defending the Catholic church now the police force exists it's a necessary Force to keep criminals away yet there exists corruption in the police force and they do things far worse than the Catholic church and mind you these pedophiles would have done what they did pause pause I'm going to let you finish pause we do not we do not I put you on hold in case you didn't hear that nobody can hear you but you right now so you're PA not get rid of a necessary are you're still yelling into the phone yeah I do not want to have a shouting match H you're not having a shouting match with anybody except yourself your ass is on hold that would be most appreci you don't understand if you would pause for a second I'm trying to explain to you I'm trying to explain to you that you're on hold so that I can respond to your nonsensical position here wow you don't know what hold means I'm going to give you exactly one more chance to actually have a conversation here which is a back and forth and you're gone so you the minute you hear somebody going off the rails you just go ahead and call it right you take control and you say wait a minute hang on let's address this first point and you're not going to be a seminar caller it's what I do most of the time and it's it's because you know if you begin a conversation and you say that you can survive in out an outer space with no mechanical assistance and no suits um and that is your starting premise for your argument for the existence of God we need to stop right there and Define what it is that you mean what is it you're really saying and do I agree because if we don't if we can't reach agreement there and if we can't reach agreement about The Logical process of how we're going to uh address these things and discover the truth then all the conversation is a waste of time area code 248 thank you so much for waiting you're on the Thinking Atheist Radio podcast with special guest Matt dillah Hunty who's this hello this is Mark from Metro Detroit what's going on the thing I wanted to mention is that first of all it's Atheist Experience isn't what made me an atheist it's what made me a skeptic I was an atheist for most of my adult life but I was not a skeptic I was an atheist basically because I replaced god with Cosmic beings and there was a lot of things I believed for the longest time like I was actually going to call the a experience one time and argue for the ancient astronaut theory I was actually going to make that argument and as I watched the show more and more I realized that I even if it even if there is some evidence there's not enough evidence for you to make that claim that that Ancient Aliens have come here there is some there might be some evidence but there but it's such an extraordinary claim that you need much more evidence than what they're providing thanks for that I mean you know as somebody who's an atheist because they're a skeptic finding out that that the show helped somebody identify as a skeptic that means as much or more to me than finding out people have given up religious beliefs I actually did grow up in a um in a religious household and I still have and and I'm fighting a battle now that I don't think I can fight I don't think I have the ability to fight it and the battle I'm fighting now is that my brother has two kids and he's teaching them that creationism is true absolutely and I I want my brother's kids to grow up knowing what it knowing what is true the problem is is that it isn't my position to tell him how to do that and my brother has basically told me he doesn't want to talk about Evolution anymore because I have basically I have basically explained it to him and I think he's gotten to a position where he realizes that he can't argue with me that I know more about it than he than he understands and he also comes from the band camp of K hope and it upsets me so much they actually listens to that guy and doesn't understand that guy doesn't know a lick about science you lead me into a a question that we addressed a little bit last week and let me sort of coopt part of your statement there and ask Matt something you have a family member who is raising their kids they're not your kids they're your brother's kids right your sister's kids you're whoever's kids and you know they are being raised under the false teachings right demonstrably false teachings of scripture what is your role do you try to intervene in some way or is it your call at all or do you opt out completely what would you do if it was somebody else's kids in your own family so I'm I'm I have that situation but mine isn't very difficult um I can talk about it both specific to mine and in general and in general uh parents get to decide how they're going to raise their kids um you you need to be very careful about how and if you involve yourself uh unless there's demonstrable harm taking place and not just filling their heads with nonsense even though I I agree that that's potentially harmful there's very strict guidelines as to you know when you can and should intervene in my case um my brother is a Christian he's a fairly moderate to Liberal Christian um he's a smart guy he's we he had no problem at all really as far as I'm aware um with me being an atheist we've had lots of conversations he's listen to the show H for all I know he's listening to this and I I have a nephew and a niece um and my brother and I got together and talked and I said look how do you want to deal with this because this is my thinking I don't ever want to lie to my NE nephew or niece and so when they ask Uncle Matt why he's not going to church I'm going to tell them and I need to know if that's going to be a problem for you and he's like nope you tell them you know you can be honest with him now I don't ever set out to undermine anything that they learn in church or from from my brother I'm not even sure what my brother's you know he's a he understands science he you know accepts Evolution and so I don't think that they're being filled with too much nonsense but if I was in that position what I would do is what I recommended other people do encourage those kids to question things and explore and discover the world you don't have to go after religion specifically you can teach them about science and educate them about you know asking questions and critical thinking and you can do it with puzzles and games and trips to the museum and all these things that get them curious and and encourage them to explore the world and discover the truth and always be honest and and say I don't know but let's go find out if they've got a question why is this sky blue and you don't know I don't know but let's go find out and that is about my best take on it thank you very much for the call my friend I appreciate your patience on hold thank you and you have a good day bye all right I'll throw in one other caveat too is I had actually had this happen with a a non-family member right they've got they've got children and the children are like wow that guy's an atheist and it it came up right and I uh I informed the parents look you know if you're if this comes up and your kids want to ask me about it I'm going to tell them what I think but I will guarantee you I will not do it outside of your supervision right they're young enough as a gesture of good faith I want to make sure that you don't ever feel that I'm trying to subvert your role as a mother and father if it comes up I will tell your kid look I'd be happy to answer your question but I want to do it when at least one of your parents is in our company and until they hit a certain age that's the tack I personally am going to take and it it works for me yeah it's it's very similar to to what I told my brother is that if they come to me with questions outside of his presence um I'm going to be honest but I'm also going to recognize um what he may or may not want me to say and so I will direct them back to their dad or their mom to say here's here's what Uncle Matt said and he told me to come ask you to get your take about it so that they know exactly what's been said but it's never really been an issue thankfully um my niece and nephew are just awesome and when we're together we have fun it's not like you know six and 11 year olds or seven and 11 year olds are going to come up with all kinds of God questions yeah they're just talking about kids stuff they just want to be young people yeah come down and you know play video games with me or can we go outside and make a snowman and will you show me another magic trick yeah you beta we're talking here with special guest Uncle Matt Dillahunty I had a uh an email in from Paul he said being atheist in this country is tough enough but I truly despise the under godline in our Pledge of Allegiance our first amendment gives us freedom from religion which makes this pledge unconstitutional but it would be political suicide if any if any politician made note of this or attempted to correct it what can be done let me make a larger question uh we're talking about the possibility in the next several let's call it couple of Decades of an atheist high-profile atheist political candidates viable or are we kidding ourselves oh I think I think it's possible I don't know how profile and I don't know how soon well on the way to doing that you know it was a few years ago the study came out with the a with atheist listed as the least trusted minority but also like within the last year for the first time more than half of people pulled said that they would also vote for an atheist uh I think for president if I'm remembering the study right you would have to think that there are a lot of atheists already just not public I mean you know they're playing the God card like they'd play a poker hand it's it's about poll numbers it's about popularity contest but under the surface they're like a it's all a bunch of crap you know I mean you got to figure the law of averages says there are plenty of atheists in Congress as we speak I would think yeah yeah I I would I would agree and you know from what we've heard there are several who just won't say so um but you know on the on the under God thing uh I don't even know that those are battles worth fighting cuz nobody can require you to say the Pledge or to say under God one of my favorite ones was was a a young kid who said uh uh one nation under Canada which I thought was just absolutely hilarious what was that t-shirt I saw once that uh somebody was wearing and it at of a highlight of Canada and it said Canada America's hat and then I saw somebody else with a Canadian shirt and it said the USA Canada's ass just kind of came exactly there's also one nation under educated which I think is a little bit more poignant but uh it's one of those things where I carry around several dollar bills uh with me from before 1954 because they don't have in God we trust on them as a matter of fact I just got a hold of a in 2007 when they started releasing the presidential coins there was a fact there was a a mint misprint where they did not put in God we trust on the edge of the of of the one of the first runs of Washington and Adams coins and I have one of those that I carry around now too uh it's more of an error the others uh point to our error our our grand error of sacrificing a perfectly wonderful national motto uh and then going to the pledge and inserting probably the most divisive phrase possible directly before the word indivisible talking here with Matt dillah Hunty you have a military background yeah eight years I'd see uh you know obviously the atheist Community for lack of a better word has widely differing opinions on patriotism what's your take I mean is it you know it's blind allegiance to the state it's just like religion uh being in the military is just like religion did you want to speak to that well I think there's certainly there similarities um military indoctrination you know it it serves a purpose um I won't kind of validate it as good or bad but when it comes to patriotism I I hate the kind of jingoistic super patriotism I will I'm just brutally honest is America the best well it depends on what category you're talking about because on quite a few of them we're nowhere near the best um but when I when I talk about my own patriotism my own love of the United States it's about the ideals it's about not even what the United States is so much as what it could be and should be and was probably architected to be and uh I love my country enough to work to correct the mistakes that we've made um but I'm not beholden to the United States if this if this turned into a hell hole Beyond repair um I would hate to do it because I like where I live and everything else but I would pack up and leave I don't owe allegiance to anybody my elected representatives are there to work on my behalf I don't owe them anything they owe the electorate there seems to be that rampant kind of lazy hazy love it or leave it there's America and then there's the rest of the world mentality it's very very prevalent in the church and it is extremely frustrating it's true I think as a general truism that Americans are spoiled undereducated arrogant and condescending I mean we are we are the world's last superpower I mean you go anywhere else and they've learned English I don't speak any other language I've got like remedial Spanish and you know other stuff is we we are quite often too separate from the rest of the world and you've got religious uh ministers and and speakers who are are striving to keep it that way any attempt to unite the world is portrayed as as a one world order Global conspiracy we're going to take over and Destroy God's country uh we need to get out of the I I want to end this idea that we are God's country or that any country is God's country you know I break down the barriers I realize you're not going to convince everybody you're you're probably going to have wars and strive maybe forever but at least for quite a while um but one of the things that I I like about the United States is what it could be area code 59 thanks for waiting you're on the Thinking Atheist podcast who is this this is uh Tristan you're on with special guest Matt dillah Hunty what do you have for us first off I just want to say hey Matt thanks for your service um I've been in for five and a half years in the Air National Guard so um thank you for your time in uh thanks for your service as well you probably have done more than I did actually not really I work for a special tactic Squadron but I'll I'll digress from that point um what I was really I guess the main point I really want to call about is that I recently started uh an online community because I kind of wanted to get involved one thing that I've noticed is that uh I open it up to both uh Believers and non-believers to kind of uh see if we could eliminate the the diet tribe that was going on in between the two and I've noticed that a bunch of pretty much like it's it sounds like uh well-learned apologists have up and just pretty much uh for like a better term raped the page and so I was wondering uh is there a good resource for atheists to go for common arguments that apologists use why funny you should ask that I knew this was coming several years ago Russell Glasser and I got together and decided we wanted to start a counter apologetics Wiki called ironchariots.org um it's I I had I don't have anything to do with it currently I wrote some of the uh articles that are are on there uh my verse by verse deconstruction The Sermon on the Mount um and and it's kind of become more of a static resource there's not a lot of people working on it but the basic Arguments for the existence of God are there and there's also rebuttal and links to other resources um it's it's named after a passage uh judges 1119 uh that says uh the Lord was with Judah and he drove out the inhabitants of the mountain but couldn't drive out the inhabitants of the valley because they had Chariots of iron and so we figured Chariots of iron is clearly the one thing that can stop God's power and so we started that Wiki and it's it's a good starting place um but there's tons of others I i' definitely also recommend infidels.org the library there was critical to my uh escape from religion and I mean it's it's easily one of the best resources on the web that is fantastic I've got them both open up right now and I'm already looking through them infidels.org has their Library divided into a Historical Library where you'll read ingersol voler and hum and all this other stuff and then the modern Library where you'll read things from uh people who just it just boggles my mind how much my world has changed in the last 10 or 12 years I was reading Richard carrier's uh remarks and Jeffrey D lder and some of the others there at infidels.org during my process of escaping from religion and now of course you know Richard and I are are friends or at least friendly and it's just so cool to to to see this community building and people come together and working uh to help people and help the world you be be a better better places to the best that we can anyway absolutely yeah I've been out for six months and I've been looking for something to uh take get try and get involved um and my best friend and I came up with it about two weeks ago and already we've got some pretty good conversation going on there but uh do you all have any suggestions for I guess a growing uh I guess aspiring online community like how to create one or well no I've already got created I've got uh Facebook Twitter Google+ Forum website all that kind of stuff already created it just looking to grow it more I really don't I couldn't tell you how to grow a group um I just you know somebody else started the ACA somebody else started the TV show I came in kind of Johnny come lately and um we've grown but we haven't grown immensely and I haven't been concerned personally about how big the group is how many people are in it um how many people are active I the group be what it needs to be to make sure that the people who are there and are active are doing the things that they want to do that's how you keep volunteers uh engaged is encouraging them to do what they want to do go let the group be whatever it needs to be there's nothing wrong with a group that is just a let's go drink in the pub and rag on religion and then there's other groups that that are much more than that that are political politically active um but I found that it's pretty much a good idea to let the group be what the members need it to be and if you go try to start steering it too much um you end up kind of dividing the group a bit right I I was wondering if there is a community that's fulfilling the same purpose that mine is because the last thing that I want to do is to have too much of the same brand that's out there if you will no I I don't well first of all I don't know every atheist Community out there I like the sound of what you're doing um I like the idea of potentially engaging and and having the sort of community where Believers and non-believers can get together that's interesting but I wouldn't be the slightest bit concerned about whether or not you're another one of a hundred groups or a thousand groups because at this point we need as many as we can you know we we are lucky in Austin to have Public Access TV and the ability to kind of build up this TV show and the various podcasts but I don't want to be the only live call-in atheist podcast or TV show on the planet I'd like to continue doing it i' I'd like to strive to be you know uh the best I would love love some you know competition but if there were a thousand of those shows how freaking awesome would that be you know it makes you look you're no longer a fringe group when there's and there's some Growing Pains within the atheist and skeptic communities uh right now that some people are looking at is you know oh this is crazy divisive and oh you just like religions or whatever else setting all that aside this is what happens when your community grows to the point that there's a plurality of views within it we're we're no longer marginalized the nuns are bigger than you know Jews and Muslims and others in the United States and growing and growing faster than any other uh and that's a good thing and so yeah there's going to be growing pains and fighting but if there's a thousand shows doing what I do um cool cuz I didn't get into this you know to be uh The Atheist TV host and uh mind if I share one amusing anecdote with you knock yourself out okay well last week for some reason I had the strangest dream ever uh Matt you were the chauffeur of Christopher Hitchin who happened to be my landlord too much Linguini before bedtime will do that to you pal you know you gota you gota watch that man that's that's a dream I am proud to have a a supporting role with take it easy my friend we'll see you later all right take care it is a difficult balance Matt you know one thing about the Thinking Atheist Community is that I I do want to maintain a specific Tempo I mean there are some things quite honestly that I just don't want I mean it it may be appropriate in another venue but it's not the tempo I want for the Thinking Atheist it's just not you know we're not a debate Arena I don't it's not a theist platform we don't allow seminar posters to come in and try to try to convert US and whatnot that's really a safe haven for the non-believer and those who are theists or who want to come in and have a legitimate discussion and they rarely happen but they do are they're treated with respect and everybody else is just escorted out we don't do drama we don't do craziness I mean I think an admin is going to have to take some ownership of the tempo they want for their community and not being everybody always screams censorship which is not what I'm after but I think you know you you are you still are sort of guiding the car you're still behind the wheel to a degree would you agree that's healthy yes no not only that I'm glad you you said it I mean I I just finished just before the show an email conversation um on this exact subject about you know there are people who seem to think that and and I don't want to get into this in detail but figuring out what your group what your organization even what your YouTube channel or forum is about is entirely your decision you're the owner the people who there's always going to be somebody who doesn't like it there's always going to be somebody who cries censorship um there's going to be people who are claiming well you know if you don't allow everybody to say everything then clearly your ideas have no merit I mean it's it's just pointless nonsense because you can't be everything to everybody and it's one of the reasons why you know I absolutely love the James Randy Educational Foundation and the amazing meeting and it's great ry's a hero of mine and uh DJ well we're we're friendly I don't I don't know him well enough to actually say we're you know like good friends or anything but I have no problem at all with a skeptic group saying hey we're not going to actually focus on religion um that's their prerogative It's it's they've determined that if they're about education it may even be the best thing that they can do I do have a problem with with people who are saying that skepticism you know shouldn't address religion or can't but that's entirely different thing and so you know if the Thinking Atheist uh does something one way and you want this type of conversation and you don't want these others that's fine that's directing your mission the way you think is most effective it's inevitable whenever a troll is banned or someone is removed escorted from the room after being warned or what have you that you know the email comes in you know uh it's censorship this is big brother you're no better than the I mean of course it's all baiting you and the truth is is that uh the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one you know always always go back to Tre in in a crisis well and the other the other trk you can go back to that they're trying to decide is this you know who watches the Watchers um which you know if you're going to govern how if you're the ultimate Arbiter of what gets said in your Forum um how do we know we can trust you well you can't you don't know that what you can do is watch and see what happens you know I I um on my YouTube channel I only pay attention to comments for about a day or so after I post a video and then it lives there and people can say whatever they want I very rarely go back and block anybody or delete it but it does happen on occasion and it's because there are some things that I don't need or want on my channel I'd like to keep the signal in Roy ratio a little higher than just let's you know sling insults at each other let's call people names and and if somebody gets bothered by that sorry I I pref my goal is to try to at least do it something small to raise the level of public debate and the people who aren't interested in that congratulations you can do your own thing I don't I don't owe you a forum to talk on look after as many shows as you have done and as many shows as I have done and we both manage our pages and neither one of us are in the shadows if someone by now doesn't know what we're about cannot vouch for our character and what we stand for and whether or not we stand for this or that if someone doesn't know it just means they're not looking that's not my fault yeah it reminds me this this comes up a whole bunch of times is somebody who's watched four or five episodes of the show will write in or call in and say why don't you guys ever talk about such and such when we've probably talked about it you know a dozen times why don't you spend more time on Scientology well I did a whole show on Scientology six or seven years ago we've touched on it once or twice I don't feel much need to touch on Scientology because by and large uh scientologists aren't a big threat to me or to the United States or to my rights um there's you know I I still have the same objections to their beliefs that I always have um but I got bigger fish to fry yeah if you have just a few more minutes I'd like to tackle one or two more quick phone calls you good for time yeah I'm fine I figured I'd just monopolize you you know and get you on the hook as long as I got you here area code 314 thanks for waiting you're on the Thinking Atheist Radio podcast who's this hey Seth it's Brooke from St Louis Brooke you're on with Matt d what do you have where where in St Louis where whereabouts without giving your actual address I don't don't want you do that like like the St Charles Area uh do you do do you know that I graduated from Francis h no way yeah I graduated way that's that's right up the street my dad's house lives in the H District yeah you know uh right there uh Hunter's Point is the name of the subdivision oh my gosh that's my that's my dad's subdivision there there you go that's so crazy anyway um 2011 Big Sky Drive go ahead yeah so um I um grew up Catholic I was raised Catholic actually went from Catholic School um from kindergarten to 8th grade St Paul I don't know if you know where it is but um yeah and it's just I was very it was very hateful to be in that school everyone just had like they're very snobby even the teachers and everything and um it's just when you go into the church the Catholic Church Church it doesn't feel like it has any like emotion to it like it's just a bunch of old ladies going Hi myy Full of Grace like 10 million times and so that's the kind of Drew Me Away from the Catholic church and everything but I just want to touch on a couple you know I know you guys are running out of time but um and then you guys were talking about um children and stuff and how to raise them and stuff like that and I have a little sister who's 9 years old so I mentioned her to you briefly and um she wants me to say hi she's at cheing practice right now she would say hi herself but um my parents are religious but I show her you guys videos all the time and her and I have um very long conversations about it and you know she's too young to like know for sure now but she say she doesn't believe in God and everything and um yeah so I have like discussions with her about like how to question things and stuff and um she really likes you guys and she wanted me to tell you guys hi well hi back and um one other thing Matt I watch like all of your um Atheist Experience videos on YouTube and your videos like on you um your drive to work and everything and you have like given me the confidence to like in my high school and everything to say hey that doesn't make sense or yeah well as an atheist I think this and it's actually worked out really well um considering the area I live in and there are actually a lot of people almost every time I say well as an atheist I think this there actually a lot of people who are like oh I'm an atheist too and I'm like no way so um anyone who out there listening even if you live in like a religious area and everything you'd be surprised I would I it's not best for everyone but I would definitely you know you hear all these bad stories about people coming out and bad things happening but it can turn out good thank you thanks so much for for saying that and by the way drop me an email um there's a place in downtown St Charles A friend of mine open I don't want to advertise uh illicitly on on set show knock yourself out man I mean if it's what's your email uh you can just do president atheist tyen community.org but Downtown St Charles it's uh oen ky's oldtime soda shop and they do gooey buttercake and hand run Fountain sodas and stuff it's great oh that sounds like a field trip I totally will and I'm not much of like an arguer and everything although I do get into it with a couple people but I think just my role in atheism is just to show people that we're not you know bad people and everything I think it's just to say hey I'm an atheist let everyone know but let them know that like we can be happy fun caring kind Sweet People yes and that may be far more important than actually engaging in debates or even doing podcasts or TV shows because it's much much harder for somebody to vilify the person that they know and love oh you're an atheist neck that's not possible you're such a good person it what just having more people out and open about it and living and enjoying life is probably the biggest ass that we have exactly and a bunch of people in my school have said that to me they're like wow before I knew you I thought atheists were like these horrible people and everything and I think it's just about changing the perception of how people you atheist how you guys were saying about um a lot of people wouldn't vote for an atheist you know and Congress or whatever and this is could maybe be my small part help change that thank you Brooke very much thanks I'm so glad I got to talk to you I'm a huge fan Matt and you s thank you thanks all right thanks bye all right how important is it for us to address the douchebag quotient we all know of examples of people who are for lack of a better way of saying it a little bit toxic I'm not talking about the people who are out there just being assertive that's necessary sometimes anger is necessary I'm talking about the people who are always brandishing the middle finger to everybody they meet who is religious in any way I myself have a little bit of a hard time with that because I think ultimately it's damaging you're you're you're not reaching anybody and you're putting them off and they come back to me and they say I am an individual no one's going to tell me how to act how do you address some of the more how do I say it iny face almost toxic type Personalities in the mov it varies there are some of them um that I've actually tried to engage with and sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't um one of the things you know I talked before about how there may be some Growing Pains I think you know Westboro Baptist Church um while my parents share some of their beliefs they don't represent my mom and dad um and the atrocities in the Catholic Church don't even stand as representative of the average Catholic and I think that recognizing that there's going to be um some bad Representatives is essential and it's just worth pointing out that just because we share a label that we identify with doesn't mean that we agree on all things or even anything beyond that that one label it's the potentially you know we we should um we're not a hive mind and and our community is is special in the sense that boy there's no there's no real nice way to say this um there are from from my personal experience and I love by and large The Atheist Community the skeptic Community there seems to be a slightly higher than I would have expected percentage of people who are awkward maybe even I don't know it maybe they were disproportionate maybe that we're talking about a group of people who have been ostracized who have been the outcasts and are now now starting to you know uh feel their own and reach out and be more assertive and just aren't always good about it I I'm the first one to say I'm not always the best representative of atheism or skepticism um but I don't ever think that I'm a terrible one and if I am or if I find a situation where I have been then I try to take some steps to correct it and I think that you know dealing with the people who are bad Representatives of the community as a whole is part in recognizing that the community is diverse and you're going to have some bad I mean there are people who are identify as Skeptics who are bad Skeptics and there are people who are atheists who are not the least bit rational on any number of other things I hear from so many atheists who in name pick a conspiracy theory uh pick a woo belief you know they they they think that they have beaten the most important question that there is and therefore they can't be fooled and they're always right and their brain is superior and that's not necessarily the case and so it's I guess it's up to each one of us individually to to do our best to recognize this I don't know what we can do to help others recognize it other than to call them out on it it's an unpopular thing because then we look like we're trying to we we're it's almost like they're they accused of making the style over substance argument well this is just the way he or she is and it's actually a larger thing for me I think man we should be as attractive as we can not in a false way but I would rather build a bridge than burn it let's uh do one last call I've got a um a skyp line Adam you're on the Thinking Atheist Radio podcast with guest Matt Dillahunty hello can you hear me I sure can okay um this is my first call I'm an atheist in Louisiana and I'd like to talk a little bit about the school system here um I go to a public school in Southern Louisiana and and there's a lot of like religion in the class in the curriculum um like I'm in a vocal class and one of the main things that we do is we sing nothing but religious music and as an atheist I find that quite offensive and I don't know what I can do to help myself about that well help me out I mean are we talking about handle's Messiah something that could be considered like one of the class is it an artistic thing or is it the teachers pring through the music selection the song titles are I must tell Jesus blessed is the one in a Maria it's a public school yes wow okay so in keeping with my recommendation from earlier you need to contact the freedom from religion Foundation um you need and there are there are other students both current and former students that you can probably talk to that have taken uh that have addressed these issues so that you can decide whether or not this is an issue you want to fight um you know of course I'm thinking of Jessica Alquist and um and and several others but Conta ffrf is probably the first thing you want to do because they're going to have a lot better information they've dealt with this many more times um than I have okay thank you I I I hate to to just Shuffle you off but I'm also going to be the first one to say I don't know enough about it to really give you good advice on contacting the people who have the good advice okay so like an email to freedom from religion Foundation would be able to be a good starting Place yeah and you can I I think there's even a telephone number them that you can call um you can just go to the website it's ffrf.org MH and you'll be all set all right okay thank you very much thank you Adam much appreciated Matt we're looking forward to seeing you going to be in Austin Texas for the American atheist convention yeah because I live here yeah that's pretty nice you can just what walk across the street be no our our house is actually probably you know 20- minute drive from downtown um but you're you well you you are of course welcome to come over that's not only is that uh the American atheist convention weekend but it's also my birthday so happy birthday you will you will of course have to stop by the house and uh have a drink I would love to I would love to and and I'm a big fan of I mean I'd sound so tried but I mean thank you you're the kind of person I think that we need out there and I'm sorry it took me so long to get you here on the show but it's been a real pleasure to have you well I really appreciate it I've been looking forward to it since probably before we first met when I came up to Oklahoma when you outed herself and an yeah I was like I just can't wait till you know Seth and I get to work together and something so uh and and you know if you're in Austin as I've said before and it's a Sunday that's not crazy we'd love to have you come sit in on The Atheist Experience if you feel like uh addressing some callers with rather confused uh ideas about reality Matt dun I encourage you to check out the website it's atheistexperience doccom we will look forward to seeing you in Austin Texas at the 50e anniversary of the American atheist convention my friend and thanks again for being a guest on the show I hope we can have you back and it we'll be another two years before we do it all right anytime man thanks much take it easy again special thanks to our sponsor for the show evolv fish.com I will see you next Tuesday night on The Thinking Atheist Radio podcast I'll see you then follow the Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter watch dozens of original videos on The Thinking Atheist YouTube channel and visit our website for resources links contact information the editor's blog and more the thinking atheist. [Music]

Channel: TheThinkingAtheist

Views: 72,742

Keywords: atheist, atheism, agnostic, The Thinking Atheist, Seth Andrews, Matt Dillahunty, The Atheist Experience, podcast, radio, religion, God, bible, Christ, Christianity

Id: G2GmfbAPhs4

Length: 91min 54sec (5514 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 21 2013