Merry Christmas.

There I said it, and I meant it too.

Even as an atheist, It's always been called Christmas to me.

But if I were French, it would be juye nouel.

German would be flaher Weinachten, if I was remaining study hid, and even in the cradle of Christianity, Italy, it would be one natal.

None of those words are etymologically linked to the name Christ.

But Christians seem to be bent out of shape these days on making sure that everyone calls it Christmas, even though, of course the word holiday comes from Holy Day, not specific enough, even though it's divine.

So if you think that we should call it Christmas, if you think that people around the world should call it Christmas, regardless of their native tongue, then please do call us because the show starts now.

Welcome everyone today.

It's December fourteenth, twenty twenty five.

I'm your host, Doctor Bennon.

With me today is Jamie the Blind LIAMI how are you doing It?

Sounds like you've got a little bit of a beef with some Christians about the holidays.

Yes, and it turns out the voice of God is Romanian.

Strange, that is, But yes, it's less beef with Christians, it's with the kind of Christian that makes it a problem, Like that insists, Oh, it's merry Christmas, you know, and if you say happy Holidays, you're being disrespectful and how dare you?

And you remember the reason for the season.

And I'm like, it occurred to me.

Who else says Christmas like the Japanese do, but they're not a Christian nation and all the European countries have their own way of saying happy Holidays, none of which is linked to christ.

And I'm like, it's a massive nothing burger that they're making this huge issue and throwing it out as every Christmas is the same thing, the wool room Christmas every goddamn year.

But yeah, so it's more a venting of frustration.

And I would like to hear from any theists who might want to defend that position.

And if you really think that not just the englishers, but our European cousins should also say Christmas because of the Christ, please do call in.

But how about yourself, Ben, Yeah, there's a lot with this topic.

I'm super excited to dive into this.

This is basically our holiday show apart from kind of the recorded stuff that we often play around the holidays themselves.

So this is your chance to call in talk to us about why we should celebrate the Christian Christmas, if you want to tell us to celebrate Hanukkah instead, if you want to tell us any stories about being an atheist around the holidays, or if you want some if you need some advice about how do I interact with my family.

I'm sure some people are going home for the first time since deconverting or are now starting to question their belief system.

Now is a great time to call us, or even if you want to prepare yourself for a debate when you go home to see your family.

You can bring some of your arguments to us and we can workshop that for you as well.

But we are taking calls today.

This is a live call in show.

You can call us at five one two nine nine two four to two or from your computer at tiny dot cc slash call t.

We're here every Sunday at one pm Central on YouTube.

But if remember, if you can't make it for any reason, you can always go back and watch this later.

You can also get this wherever you find your podcast, including on Patreon, but Talk Heathen is a production of the Atheist Community of Austin, a five AH one C three nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion of atheism, critical thinking, secular humanism, and separation of religion and government.

And of course, as always, we cannot do this on our own.

And so in kind of the grateful mood of this giving season, let's go to the crew cam because they give us the gift of being able to do this every week.

So shout out to all of them.

Yeah, and not to sort of jump on the topic, but I find that the holiday season really is about the people, like being around people, being thankful for the people with you.

And most of my good memories of the holiday season are just our family memories, and some people don't have that, and that's you know, that's a that's a real shame when the time that's supposed to be joyous is ruined because of family disparenting.

Yeah, this can be a very very hard time for a lot of people, especially thinking about people who are LGBTQ, who don't have supporting family members, people who have philosophical differences, value differences, religious differences to their family that can be very alienating.

Something else just if you live in a place where your family isn't around, if you're going through a tough time because of job loss, or any number of reasons why this time of year could be very, very difficult.

We're all here as a community together, and I want us to remember that we at the ACA are we're here.

We love to chat.

We've got people live in the side chat.

Now I will have people live in the side chat for AXP as well, So you've got community here, and I hope we can get through a lot of this together.

So yeah, and I'm feeding that bite.

Of course.

I have friends here and I'm not like lonely lonely, but I'm thousands of miles away from my mom on Christmas and New Year, and that's been a constant like tug every year I've been here, to feel so far away from the from my loved ones, but it is balanced out by people like at the ACA in and I know that Ben and I we've been sort of doing stuff, other little projects and playing games and things, and it's it's great to fight to sort of find a family as well if you're missing one yourself, So do feel free to reach out to us.

We can we can be a bit of a fan family for you.

Perhaps I don't know, I'm your weird, but.

I know there's there's evet's going on at the at the library.

Still if people are looking for some more in person community, right.

Well, yeah, literally today.

I mean, I know this is maybe a little bit last minute for some people, but if you happen to be in the Austin area, we're doing Drag Drag Queen Story Hour at three pm Central here and of course I'm in the studio and we'll be doing a live watch.

Along with XP too, So come along.

We're here and we.

Like you awesome.

And with that, we do have a caller all screened up and ready to go, So let's talk to Lisa from Canada.

Lisa, you are live on talk.

He then it sounds like, uh, you have a question about atheists in foxholes.

Can you tell us a bit more about your question?

Hi?

Well, I'm an atheist, but one criticism that I've heard from theists is they'll say there's there's no atheist in a foxhole.

And I mean, is that a legitimate criticism or do you think that it lacks context?

Or like I just sometimes I I grew up in a very Catholic household, and I was very religious when I was in a teenager because I that's the kind of I was.

I was giving kind of like spiritual help to a pretty bad episode of depression.

And you know, people people often like before I wasn't really a believer.

I was questioning, but then something bad happened in my teenage years and personally I felt that.

I feel like that's kind of a It's not just judgmental, it's also like cognitive dissonance, in my opinion, because when someone is in crisis, their their first priority is self preservation and some kind of relief that things will be okay, you know.

And sometimes I have a mood disorder, I have a mental illness, and sometimes when my symptoms kind of come up, especially in the winter, Yeah, I mean sometimes I there's a time where I feel like, I say this, like the prayers that I used to recite as a teenager when I was religious sometimes enter my mind, even though I'm thirty eight and I'm an adult, because it's something i had trained myself to do.

But I'm not.

I don't believe in that stuff anymore.

But like sometimes I feel kind of I mean, no, those thoughts come back to me if I if I'm starting to get sick, because that's that's how they were telling me how to cope with it when I was just when I was growing up, and I just wanted to know what your personal thoughts are and also if you could give kind of like whether or not that's a logical fallacy or something.

Well, firstly, I'd like to say that you're you're very brave for coming up a calling and going through a period where you have, you know, mental health issues that you have to deal with.

You do want to find comfort.

And one of the things that annoys me most about certain sects of religion is that they pray on the on those that are seeking relief as a form of indoctrination.

You know.

The stories here is like I was at my lowest step and then I found Jesus.

It's very common.

So I would say that whatever is happening that is allowing you to get through these periods of distress, as long as they're not actively destructive and you are yourself cognizant that these prayers that are coming back into your mind, you don't believe them if they asked, you know, bringing you comfort.

I mean, don't feel guilty for it.

Don't think I'm being a bad atheist or don't or like, oh I shouldn't be.

You know, don't beat yourself up about it.

You're already going through it, so don't add weight to that scale, would be my advice.

And in terms of is it a logical fallacy, we all go through grief, we all go through strife, and the no atheist in foxholes things that everyone turns to religion or a higher power of God when they're at their absolute breaking point.

That isn't true.

There's plenty of atheists in literal foxholes as well as the metaphorical ones.

And you can even be an atheist in a religious space in crisis and still maintain your lack of belief while engaging.

I mean, I yesterday I went to church.

Yesterday I went I went to say goodbye to a friend at church, and that was that was rough, and I was very out of place, and all of the religious stuff was slightly off putting.

But you don't have to succumb to it.

And it's okay to find ways to cope outside of religion.

Lots of people do, so, you know, I really would disagree that there's there's no atheist in foxholes.

There's plenty of them.

And I believe that making building coping strategies that don't involve magical thinking is a better way to go ahead.

I'm not a mental health expert, just a p caviar, but knowing something concrete that you can you can fall back on and seeking out help and support.

Yeah, so that's that's basically, you know, when I started having problems, I was fourteen and well being, going to a Catholic school, living in a Catholic household, and they I don't want to say pray because I think there were good intentions, you know, but they a lot of my a lot of the things they helped me with coping is like just uh was prayer.

But and to be honest, it wasn't even so much the fact it wasn't even so much what I was saying.

It just became like a chance for me to focus on something else.

Like but now if I if those you know, if those prayer comes back to mind when I'm when I'm when I when I'm not doing well, sometimes I start I'll be like our father, who are and then I can't finish it.

Because they start laughing because of how creepy it sounds.

Yeah, yeah, this is this is something where I.

Have to figure out a replacement.

I have to like unlearn and then learn at the same time.

That's not easy.

It's okay to It's okay to have like a mantra or something that you can repeat to yourself, or something that will help.

You calm down in a way.

Like I think, definitely humans are creatures of habit but also of ritual.

We like things to be kind of orderly, especially in states of chaos and in states where there's a lot of uncertainty.

I think definitely with the argument there are no atheists in foxholes, that's this idea of course that like, yes, humans want to have an answer, we want to be taken care of, we want to know that things are going to be okay.

But I think there's also a difference between you know, somebody just trying to grasp onto something that may or may not be there and actually believing in some kind of religious claim.

And I think that I honestly think that criticism they're not no atheists and a fox whole.

I think honestly it's just you're trying to appeal to emotion make someone feel bad, Yes, and I think that well, yeah, my personal opinion is.

That it.

I just.

Think I think there, I think there are ways to kind of help, and it's it's definitely more daunting when you don't have some kind of set, fullyef system that everything's going to be okay.

And I think that's that's one of the things that makes it so hard to deconvert from whatever religious background people come from, is this idea where like, you know, looking back at times in my life where I was religious, it was nice to believe that everything had a purpose and that everything was going to be okay.

And now looking at my life and the stay of the world in thinking like, I don't know if it's going to be okay, I don't know what the outcome is going to be.

In that, on the one hand, can be very liberating if I'm not tied down to one method of solving a problem or one going forward.

But at the same time, there is risk in anything that we do, and that's very scary.

So how do we kind of.

How do we mitigate those emotions and how do we push ourselves to move forward even when we don't have that answer?

And this is something where I do think adding some form of ritual or routine in your life isn't a bad thing.

I think having like even if saying the Lord's Prayer was a form of meditation for people, I don't think that's inherently bad, especially if it's something that you're looking to a time in your life where you felt more secure.

That might just bring some nostalgic comfort, and I think that would be okay.

Maybe you find a quote from a book that you like, or a quote from a person that you respect or somebody that you look up to, and think of ways to still have kind of that self talk, but in a way that's going to be more productive going forward for you.

And I did see some mentions in the side chat, and this is important to bring up if you have a lot of struggles with this personally or even for people on the side chat.

Recovering from Religion is a great organization to help out if anyone needs to make a phone call and go over this with somebody.

They do a really good job and they have evidence based methods for kind of handling.

Some of this.

And I'm a big fan of the secularization of religious ritual like icing Silent Night at Christmas.

I don't believe Jesus was divine or born.

I don't even know if he was born, but I still sing the song.

It's pretty so And so if the Lord's Prayer, like I say, becomes just a mantra to you, you don't actually believe that there's anyone listening to it.

But if it brings your comfort, I don't think there's any real harm in that.

I said.

I recited it yesterday.

I don't believe that God's there, but everyone else was saying it and it did bring a little bit of comfort.

But yeah, as Ben said, find other sources as well.

One of my favorite ones is the poem if by Rodyard Kipling to fill the unforgiving Men with sixty seconds worth of distance run.

That brings me comfort and strength, and so far, so far, the.

Only ritual I have come up with that's different, and I think I had eight a special gummy before thinking of it.

The only thing I've been able to replace it with is I believe in cats.

I believe in dogs, and I believe in myself.

Hey that works.

That works, And if that is empowering to you, I think that's great.

Like we have evidence that dogs and cats are real.

I mean, that's perfect.

Okay, Well, I'm gonna head off, but it was really great talking to you.

Thanks for the advice.

Sometimes I do feel bad, like if those prayers come to mind when I'm when I'm struggling.

So I sometimes I do feel bad about it because it's like I, no, I don't believe in this, but why is it coming.

Back to my head.

Don't carry that guilt.

That's that's not your burden to bear.

And let words come if they come.

You know, they're just words.

Okay, you guys, have a good Sunday.

Cas Well, what a thoroughly pleasant call.

What a thoroughly pleasant person.

Rather relate anyway, Yeah, it sounds like you might have a nice little positive show today.

Again the theists where we're looking to you.

If you want to bring a debate or something, we we have minds open.

But to everyone out there in the audience.

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Just hit that like button, hit that subscribe button, turn on notification so you know when we're alive.

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Oh my goodness, it's it's I only I only like videos that I'm in such such a natist.

I've liked plenty of shows from the ACA and my liked video list, but I've all got my face on every little Every little helps.

Yeah, and any I don't know anything else on your mind there, Ben.

Nope, that's kind of kind of a big thing.

We have of another caller waiting to talk to us.

Let's talk to Ann.

She her from California, wants to tell us about working in retail in the holiday season as an atheist, and I'm excited for this story, and you are live on TALKI then tell us, tell us a bit about your situation that sounds miserable but possibly possibly funny.

Well, hello, Ben and Jamie, how are you today?

Festive?

All right about yourself?

Pretty good?

Pretty good?

Yes, years ago, I used to work retail during this time of year as as an atheist.

And you know, where I live, there's like a lot of Christian you know, there's a lot of megachurches around, you know, the big churches around, and so you know, you get customers sometimes and like if I said happy Holidays, I never knew how to close out a transaction with someone, you know, Like like I would say happy Holidays, and they would say, like, merry Christmas.

You know, they really throw a lot of anger and attitude behind it, and it kind of felt less like a greeting than a you know, like they're trying to flex or something.

And it just got Sometimes when people said Merry Christmas like that, it felt like they were trying to have some kind of you know, power over you or something instead of instead of oh, merry Christmas, you know, and not get all upset if you say happy holidays or so, you know, it's like you it's like a certain kind of well you wrong.

Like you said the wrong thing and I'm correcting you because you're wrong, and I you bad, and it's like no, I'm not, no, not, and no I'm not.

Yeah, it is.

It is frustrating when you are in a customer facing position off work retail a long while ago, and I work in a call center now, so I'm talking to people a lot, and they will, you know, say things like Merry Christmas and the like, and how do I respond in a honest manner without insulting somebody, without without causing offense.

And as a customer service person, you know, you're expected to please the customers.

You supposed supposed to be polite and happy and all that kind of stuff, regardless of how much boiling seething rage is bubbling inside you.

You want people to leave your sharp happy for self preservation if nothing else.

So I tend to go.

I tended to go with the I wait for them to say what they want to say, and then I would respond to them.

Again, that's not a fool proof thing.

If you don't say anything, you say, oh, take care and you don't say Merry Christmas or happy holidays or wishdomer seasons greeting That can also be seen as rude, but at least it's not quite as incendi areas saying the wrong holiday greeting.

For certain people, say Merry Christmas, I would say and to you too or something like that all or just to say Merry Christmas back to them, because now I know it's kind of like almost you know what it's like.

It's like it's like.

When you want to know someone's pronouns, like how do I refer to you?

How do I and to not upset or insult you?

How do I refer to this holiday season in a way to not insult you?

And is ironic that they get so bent out of shape for us basically dead naming holidays so to speak.

I don't know, how do you think then.

Like we're trying to keep this more inclusive, And it's wild that the Christian population like they have there if they actually go into their Holy text and read the passages about like turn the other cheek and like, oh yeah, if people are mean to you, you should be kind to them, love your enemies and all that stuff, and it's like we're not even being enemies, Like you're just being more inclusive of other people, and it's like, oh, that's persecution.

Like we're at a point where we think that inclusion of other people is is now persecution and that is just absolutely wild to me.

But it's be funny to just start saying happy Hanukkah to to everybody and see what happens there, because I'm sure they would not be very happy about that.

But one of these, one of these two groups was actually like very very very heavily persecuted, and still tends to be persecuted, like to a lesser degree, but there's a lot more toxic behavior towards one of these communities than the other one.

And yet the one kind of with the most presence right now is feeling but hurt that they don't get to control everybody else's speech.

So I'm assuming you're you're you're a ways out of retail now and you don't have to face down the throngs of the holiday period.

Yes, that well, yeah, you know of it's self distress, so you don't want any more on top of that, right, right?

I mean, like like because we would usually have to say that the thing first, and I think, you know, they basically told us, you know, to say happy holidays, and then the person would you know, come back with an angry Mary.

I just okay, thank you you too, you know, after that, like you know, so I didn't want to be rude, but sometimes like one time, I was working on Thanksgiving and I wish this lady a happy Thanksgiving.

It says, well, I'm a Jehovah's witness.

And then.

As I realized, like I cannot guess everybody believe yeah, you.

Know, and and the assumption that you should or that you I'm not psychic.

I can't read your mind, and the offense I have you even not know that I'm this very specific denomination of this specific religion.

Yeah I can, I can imagine.

But it's the persecution complex is ingrained in the faith, like they are taught to be.

Feel like you're under attack.

Christianity is always under attack, always, always, always, Anything that's outside of outside of the doctrine and the dogma is an attack.

It's an it's the work of Satan, it's the anti Christ.

They are coming for you and they're going to, you know, take your faith away and break the world down.

So which which the phrase happy holidays has?

You know, its history in Christianity, because especially the Catholics would have multiple holidays over the winter season, but just most of them.

We don't really celebrate outside of the Catholic Church and they weren't as commercialized, so Christmas became the main thing.

But like the holidays, the Holy days originally referenced, like we're predominantly Christian holidays.

So that's something to bring up when people get angry about saying happy Holidays, Like, so are we just supposed to ignore all the other Christian holidays too there that fall in the same month.

I mean, we shouldn't be surprised, though.

We talked to so many fists that don't know their own Holy Book?

How are they supposed to know that the history of their faith?

Like they're getting bent out of shape over exmus It's like X is a christagram.

It means Christ in that context.

Why are you getting just because it isn't c Christ.

You're getting bent out of shape like and it's such a nothing burger, it really is.

And again it's that they're taking their offense at what is nothing basically because the sentiments they're happy holidays.

I honestly, like, I don't care what you are, who you are, I honestly want you to have a happy holiday season.

I want you to be happy.

And that's not good enough for you, Like, oh, thanks for throwing my sentiment on the ground and stomping on it because I didn't have this particular word in my greeting.

Yeah, very frustrating.

Yeah, language police, you know.

I mean sometimes it just got to the point where I would say, have a wonderful day, have a good day, because I figure that works all year long.

Yeah, I just say take care is my standard degree that one that one doesn't take that one doesn't tend to flip people switches.

But I also work in a context where the calls I'm taking a kind of quite fraught.

So have a you don't want to say to someone who's just been diagnosed with cancer, have a wonderful day.

That would be sensitive, right.

Yeah, it's harde you know, Yeah.

It is.

And I always think because I've been trained for that, I've been trained and I'm relatively aerodite, you know, I talk the word good.

But it also comes down to what if you have language issues, what if you are you're a divergent, so what if you can't pick up on social cues as easily?

And like, I'm sure there's plenty of people who don't even realize like that it's a complete blindside that they get essentially attacked by these people for saying the wrong greeting and they just don't understand why.

And it's like, what I say wrong, I can't understand why, you know.

So I feel for people that have issues with social cues because how the hell are you supposed to know?

It's just it's a minefield.

Well, yeah, especially when you're dealing with hundreds of people a day at your register alone.

Welcome to J C.

Penny.

I'm feigning enthusiastic.

Yeah, anything else.

Yeah.

Twenty or so years ago, someone said there was a war on Christmas, but this red cut declared war on you know, well, I just I don't like commercial Christmas.

And when I was a single mom, I really grew to hate the Santa Claus story because I was a single mom struggling to pay the bills, and I would work at these small businesses that would close during the holidays and they were not, you know, by law, required to pay holiday pay.

So they did.

Yeah, and this so not only yeah, like I you know, I uh, not only could I not pay my bills, I couldn't even give my son anything for Christmas.

And I really grew to hate the whole Santa Claus story.

That's going to be a relatively common way that, especially these days, children are going to find out that Santa is not real.

Happened to me when I was a kid.

We had a real, real rough rough year and mom and dad had to tell us, like, might not be any gifts this year, and that's when the secret was out.

You know, can't stop something Santa isn't real because we can't, we might not be able to get you anything.

And that's going to be happening around the country this year.

Because of the problems that we're having, kids are going to get horribly rude awakening that this thing that this plastered everywhere is a is a fiction.

And uh, what I'm hoping, what I hope for those those that are going to go through that is that they learn to appreciate what gift giving he's about.

It's not about commercially it's all getting stuff.

It's about generosity and the care and protection of your parents.

And things like that.

So that's what that taught me that if it's not coming from Santa, it's coming from my parents, and therefore they are going out of their way to get me nice things, and I should be grateful and thankful for that.

So yeah, and normalize handmade gifts, normalize like quality time.

Like I know there's the trope in the media about oh, I got socks for Christmas, I got a scar for Like if somebody who took the time to make you that, I mean number one, they might not be able to afford a different present.

But if you think of somebody who is like spending hours and hours and hours knitting you something, like they're thinking about you the whole time that they're making that item for you, like that's a big deal and that carries even a lot more weight than somebody going to Walmart and picking out a cheap toy or whatever that you know, probably isn't actually worth the plast it gets made of.

But like I think kind of decommercializing this season and saying like, hey, I made you a card, I wrote you a letter.

We're gonna spend quality time together.

We're gonna sing songs, go out and do some maybe do some window shopping, not buy anything, but go see the Christmas lights all that.

Like, I think there are plenty of ways to enjoy this time and when it's gonna be very hard for a lot of people.

But I think I definitely agree that the commercialism has has gone way too far, and I think, especially now, we're seeing a lot of people just very very upset with it because it's not realistic for a lot of.

People right now, right Well, one the reason why I really hated the Santa Claus story because Santa like, you won't get anything for Christmas because you're bad.

Sanna won't be And it's like I didn't want my son thinking that he was bad, and I don't want any child to think that, you know, just because you know the people in their life can't afford to buy them gifts.

I don't want them to think they're bad because of.

Some Yeah, it's almost like.

It's almost like prosperity gospel stuff like like if you're not if your faith isn't strong enough, if you aren't doing the right things, then then you're not going to get toys for Christmas.

But your friend, your friend who's parents are millionaires, CEOs like they're going to get whatever they want, and like that can be very hard for a kid to see, like what is their friend doing that they're not and how did they get into the situation.

And this is where like the I mean the religious aspect of that is horrible enough, and then bringing that into the secular space and it's this is where underlying religious beliefs are incredibly problematic even for non religious people, because you still have this idea that you have to deconstruct that if you're not making lots of money, if you're not super wealthy, then it's your fault.

You're the one that's to blame for all of it.

And that's really really problematic.

Yeah, it's like, the more I think about it, the grocery is like directly linking consumerism too moral good is pretty messed up.

And also, yeah, you deconstruct from your from your faith, but Santa Claus is still watching you, always judging you.

Get off my back, knock, I'm not like to be naughty sometimes, which not even to.

Mention like the some of the problematic lyrics within some of those songs.

I mean, of course, the whole idea is to police your children and make them think that they're not going to get presents if they're naughty.

But like you have that line that he knows when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake.

Like, why do we have an old man watching children while they're sleeping?

Like that is messed up?

That should like someone needs to like.

Not for goodness?

Yeah, some needs a restraining order against Santa.

Yeah, it's like the surveillance state.

Yeah, what do you want for Christmas this year?

Jamie?

I would like a javelin missile launcher to take that guy out the sky.

Fat chance he can fly mac Mac twenty eight.

If he was flying that fast, he would, he would, he would ignite the atmosphere.

There's so much wrong with with Tanta, just breaking physics left and right.

I can't stand it.

There's a there's a comment in the side chat that I agree to.

If Santa is always watching, why is there an elf on the shelf?

Yeah?

Like why why if we normalized this like over the top surveillance of our children.

It's like the early indoctrination into big brothers watching you.

Like, I don't I don't know if we want to start getting.

Comfortable with that.

Oh God, it's all very dark.

Yeah, it's like like maybe this is where like I mean, I'm not a parent, but you know, having different conversations with kids, like having them understand like that what Jamie was saying that the gift giving is about, you know, building up the community around you, building relationships with people around you, spending quality time together, all that, and then like you don't need somebody, You're not doing good things because somebody's watching you, Like you should be doing good things because that helps people, and that's what you'd want to have done to you, and this is what makes everybody have a better time.

Like I think a lot of the Sannah and the Elf on the shelf stuff, all that like is kind of taking away from what could be very important lessons that children need to learn at an earlier age, like learn how to have empathy, how to have compassion, how to do nice things even when no one is asking you to do them, or even when no one's going to see you doing them.

We could be having those conversations instead of parental responsibilities onto fictional characters.

Yeah, yeah, and you know that does fit in with like the god thing, right or why I see us will believe in a god because they've some I don't know all.

I don't want to put everyone in one box, but like God is watching them and they're either going to go to heaven or they're going to go to hell after they die, and that's their belief.

And well, as humans, we seek justice, We like fairness.

We like to think that people get rewarded for being good and punish for being bad.

Unfortunately, the world doesn't really work that way.

So we build these systems of faith around the concept of like, you'll get what you deserve, and that just gets twisted.

And yeah, it's become secularized with Santa Claus and the like.

It's very difficult to escape because it's part of our kind of nature to want want the scales to be balanced, to want to to want to see people get what they will get what's coming to them.

So to speak.

But yeah, so I would.

I would always fall back on one of the main pillars of the atheist community, bust in rational thinking, secular humanism and rational thinking.

Is it rational to believe in Santa Claus?

Can you prove that he exists?

The obvious answer is no, So don't believe in something I know people say are you taking the magic out of the scenes and let the kids out saying it magne this answer, I'm like, the magic comes.

From the people.

It comes from the love and the sharing and the togetherness and the warmth, you know, the interconnection of people.

It's about people, damn it.

And that's what I'd like to see Christmas.

That's what Christmas was to me.

I was lucky that that was what Christmas was to me.

And that's what I hope that Christmas is and all holidays and all gathering celebrations are connections of people coming together.

Well, and you can still have the magic.

It's okay to have the magic and say it's a story like this is a it's a fairy tale that we tell around the holidays because it's fun.

Like you don't have to believe in it, and you can.

I mean a lot of us adults like still have fun with the Santa Claus songs and stuff, and we don't believe it, but it's still fun.

So yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, the Christmas songs some of them are still fun.

Silent Night or used to make me cry when I was a little kid, though, but but yeah, I mean there's there's some things about you know, this time of year, like some of the Christmas songs, you know, even if it's about you know, Santa Claus or whatever.

But like, I didn't really tell my son there was a Santa Claus.

I just or like I never I never.

Pushed things on my son like Santa Claus or the tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny or you know, I'd figured if he has questions, you know, I'll answer his question.

And I didn't tell him anything about God either, so he's, yeah, he's not a believer.

You know, there were some things that you know he would ask about because you know, even if you're not religious, religion is all around you, you so, but yeah, I didn't really raise him to believe in any gods or anything.

He doesn't believe to this day.

So teaching rational thought rather than doctrine is I always think is the best way to go about it.

It's more difficult.

That's one of the reasons why religion is so popular.

Like Ben saying, you're you're foisting your some of your parental responsibilities onto an organization of faith, a doctrine, and a dogma, a fictional character, so you don't have to you don't have to explain things.

You just have to say because God said so, and.

They yeah, No, I think we're all on the same page and I think we all pretty much agree on this stuff.

Kind of any closing thoughts on this.

I don't I don't know think of anything right now, say something.

I don't know what to say.

Well, thank you, thank you for the chat, though it's been it's been really good discussing this stuff.

Just making me think about the tooth fairy though.

It's like, do you value your teeth?

I know someone who does more.

All right, Well, thank you so much for your call, and happy holidays to you.

Happy holidays, have a wonderful day, Merry Christmas, whatever it is you like to celebrate, enjoy it.

Yeah, go for it, all right, take care all the Germans.

I just like that.

You can't you can't prohounce those words.

That's why the voice of remaining God came in because I was going to say I was going to say to myself, and then one of our crew who is remaining.

Is like, no, I will say it, and I'm like, yes, probably for the best anyway.

All right, ready for another call, Jamie, I think so.

All right, we have Christina she Her from New York.

It sounds like you believe in the heavenly Father that Jesus talks about, but not the Old Testament.

God, I'm really curious about your position.

Please tell us more.

And you are lye on talking.

Then yes, I believe the Heavenly Father that Jesus taught us about is not the same as Jehovah or Yahweh in the Old Testament Bible of the Bible.

Okay, And how do you squear that?

Do you have like a passage that leads you to that direction or some evidence for that?

Oh?

I could literally go all day with that.

Just just alfin Omega, Jehovah's got a beginning, and and then where my heavenly Father is without a beginning, without and then Jesus is the thing yesterday, today and forever, so forever is eternity.

There's no end where Jehovah's got an end, and Revelation is also Jehovah.

And I believe it's the son of Man they talk about in Enoch, and Enoch is Megatron, the son of man that's coming to judge, because my heavenly Father and Jesus both don't judge.

So they're only love and they don't judge.

So the Christians belief of all this judgment and sin is just well, like Roman seven four, you're to die to the law, to belong to another.

Who's the other my heavenly father, who's the law Jehovah?

And it's all through the Bible, but no one sees it, and it's said.

Do you believe that?

So do you believe that the Old Testament is should like it's not connected to Christianity?

Because if if it's not the God of the Old Testament, then what is the New Testament trying to If Jesus says that the New Testament is to uh, it's not to end the law, it's not to break the law.

It does change a couple of things, but it does rely on the Old Testament history.

So do you believe that these are separate religions or what do you think Christianity is based on them?

I believe the Christianities should be that you worship God in spirit and truth.

Like you told the woman at the well, You're you're neither going to be in this mountain or in Jerusalem, but you will be worshiping the Spirit and truth and Jesus said in many gospels that no one has seen the Father at any time.

No one heard his voice or or seen him before.

So who rustled with Jacob, who walked with Adam, and Eve, who was with Abraham talking to Sarah, heard Sarah laugh, and all these things, if no one has ever seen nor heard Jesus.

I mean I heard the Father before Jesus came along.

He was the first form of the Father.

Now, even in Matthew eleven eleven, John the Baptist was the greatest born from women, absolute greatest, all right.

So out of all the men that are born from women out there, if you're called least in heaven, you're doing greater than John the Baptist, all the lawgivers and all the prophets prior.

I mean, how do Christians even explain that?

I No, you'd have to ask a Christian.

I'm not a Bible scholar.

It's certainly an interpretation.

But this conversation is just bringing to mind the fact that this one book, or this one compilation of books, has been interpreted so many times in so many different ways.

I mean, I have to say that I'm not like it's an interesting thought.

I'm not convinced, because I'm not convinced that any of it's true.

You'd have to maybe speak to someone with more specific knowledge of one of our excellent co host on the Atheist Experience just in Deconstruction Zone.

He is literally a Bible scholar like two degrees in the subject.

He's forgotten more about the Bible than probably any of us will ever really know, So he'd be able to help you interpret that and see if there's any credence to that reading of the Bible.

But what would you hope to get from from presenting this?

Do you think it would have any kind of impact on people, on either us as non believers or on Christians?

Well, the son of God Keeman Flush which was Jesus, and.

I don't believe that.

I don't believe any of that.

What I'm asking is not what you believe.

I mean, you believe what you believe, and I believe that you believe it, and I don't think you're lying or pulling our leg But what I'm saying is what do you hope to happen?

What would be the ideal outcome of these kinds of conversations for you?

Well, I'm nastick, so I'm a transgender female, I'm nawstic, and if my religion tells me that this is my route, and this is what I've always felt since I was born, Why are Christians able to influence my life and attack my group of people when they're like Romans two versus one two six, they're just reflecting on themselves.

It's crazy.

They don't even hold the truth, but yet they attack everybody in the world, and we're making volves again.

I think we're losing him.

Hello, you see, I see.

I get your point, But I think this isn't the best argument to kind of put onto Christians like I think I would agree that Christians should not be using their belief system to influence other people.

They should not be transphobic in their actions, and they should not use the Bible to justify transphobia.

Like that I all agree with.

I also hold the position that Christians, for the most part, do not really understand their own religion.

But in that it doesn't really matter to me because the example that you're giving, let's say that it's true, that would just register to me as a contradiction within the Bible.

And there are plenty of examples of times where something was said in the Old Estimate that is stated differently or directly contradicted in the New Testament, and that is something that I easily, like, I easily accept that there are contradictions, so that I wouldn't say that like that necessarily overturns all of the rest of Christian beliefs.

That it just sounds to me like there's an inconsistency within the text itself.

And I do agree that maybe Justin is a good person to kind of help iron this out.

And actually he is going to be on XP today, so if you want to call him about this as well, he can give more of the nitty gritty, like what is the Bible actually say about that?

From my perspective, this just sounds like a Bible contradiction.

Yeah, just another one.

And there's plenty of contradictions within the New Testament as well.

We've well worn round over the different tellings of the resurrection story and all this kind of thing in the inconsistency is there, So yeah, it's not particularly convincing to us.

And I would also say not to play say Devil's advocate Savior's advocates, shall we say?

There's plenty of Christians out there that use their faith as justification to defend trans people and are progressive like I still think there epistemologies massively flawed.

But if they are saying Jesus told me that you know, to love everybody as I love myself, and to love and to help those in need, I'll walk arm in arm with them like until until the job is done that everyone has equal, fair human rights.

I always put my humanism and above my skepticism, above my racism.

I'm humanist first, skeptic second, atheist third.

So I have worked with religious people on trying to avert the encroachment of religion into politics.

You know, with members of the ACA, we went down to the Capitol Building to protest the HP ten, the the the put the Ten Commandments in schools thing.

Because we disagree with that policy.

Doesn't matter where it comes from, doesn't matter who who put it into motion.

It's just that we thought it was a bad policy.

And there were Christians and Jews there with us, going, yeah, now this is a bad policy.

We don't want that either.

So I would give Christianity as a whole, not a pass.

But they're not a monolith like the point at a given Christian and you'll get very very different people, whether they believe in the inerrancy of the Bible, or whether they believe the Old Testament is true or that or that in the Triune God, you know, the Father, the Son of the Holy Spirit.

As long as that their faith is causing their actions to be beneficial, I will leave my my verbal assault on their epistemology for a later date.

There are there are bigger fish to fry right now.

Right, I understand what you're saying and what it is as you listen.

Peter was given the key the rock to build the church, and he's to build the church.

But it's either to bind you or free you, and has it from earth.

So I mean, it sounds more like you're preaching right now, and so we don't really want that to be the case.

If you want to make points, fine, but just my point, but just but just preaching from the book.

He's not something that we really want to have happening on the show here.

Well, I'm not preaching.

I don't have a Bible or nothing with me, but all right, the Old Testament is not relevant to Christians today and they don't see it.

And then you got Paul saying that's burial resurrection, which is not what Jesus taught.

And then you have a revelation, which is so you've got a very small version of the truth in there.

And if people go around thinking the Bible is in error and all this, then they're never going to see the truth and it's just frustrating.

So again, so again, like pushing back though, like if we're going to make the claim that the New Testament has validity and the Old Testament doesn't, like there are ideas directly stolen from the Old Testament, and a lot of the like the rules, regulations, a lot of the kind of practice of the religion does stem from the Old Testament.

So like whether or not people treat the Old Testaments as relevant or not, we have a lot of overlap.

So if you're gonna say that the Old Testament.

Is broken the basket, so it's counting the twelve broken disciples.

But anyway, so it sounds like there's some cherry picking on your end, Like there's definitely contradictions, Like we accept that, but to claim that all the rest of like the Christians are not knowing the truth because they're still adhering to this Old Testament where you're saying that the truth is in the New Testament, Like, I still don't think there's truth in either.

Like, sure, there's some aspects within the book that are truthful.

I believe that Bethlehem is a place that existed, But I don't see I guess maybe Jamie and I don't quite see where this argument is is going.

But also how are you going, Like what convinces you that your position is true compared to the rest of the Christian religion And why should atheists care about this position?

Well, I believe in the Nagar Library a lot of the text that we're taking out of the Bible, because you know, they had a narrative of if you know God, it doesn't do you good for building a country or wars and all that.

So, like there's a lot of reasons why they took stuff out of the Bible, the original Bible, the original writings, and Christians were you know, killed for And I just feel I'm an Austic, so I believe in all the writings that aren't in the Bible.

And if you go just by the Bible, there's a lot of stuff it's not true in there, and a lot of men have added and taken away.

You can't.

How do we tell the difference if the stuff in the Bible is true and stuff in the Bible is not true, how do we as lie persons tell the difference?

Well, I can't tell you without preaching.

But no, it's it's Jesus.

If you have to have only fother for the holy gulls in the name of Jesus, and you will be guided to all truth and the truth so set you free.

But the thing is, so, there's he come?

And how come people?

Then?

How come people have very different ideas of who God is?

If if people are all calling out to the Holy Spirit and calling out to Jesus to give them the right information, why do we have so many different ideas of what is true and what isn't?

In America we have freedom of religion.

So if I, if I choose to follow gnostics belief and be a transgender female, I should be entitled.

I don't bother Christians.

That's like perfectly fun.

Yeah, you're allowed to do those things, but it doesn't it doesn't convince me that your belief system is true.

And you've used the word truth multiple times to describe your specific belief system.

And so I'm coming as a person who I would describe to the belief that Paul was a cult leader and a lot of the New Testament is the cult of Paul.

It is Paul's doctrine being pushed forward based on Jewish tradition that Paul wanted to utilize to control a group of people.

So, if I were to take my position in your position, how do we know which position if either of them is more correct.

Well, if you're people that are nastic listening to your shows will know why I used truth as many times as I did, and I'm not allowed to say why.

But anyways, okay, Christina, let me let me put it this way, right, you said that God, the Holy Spirit came into you.

You basically had this, you know this truth through revelation, it's been revealed to you.

Is that correct personally?

Yeah?

Okay, And I'm going to just straight up believe you like I believe that you believe you're telling the truth.

However, we've we talked to other theists all the time that have come to their faith that disagrees with yours, Like they believe in the Old Testament and they believe in trying God for the exact same reason they had it revealed to them by the Spirit of God.

So you come to me saying, the Spirit of God told me this is true.

Someone else comes to me saying, the spirit of God told me this is true.

How do I tell who's correct?

Well, you know by the name of truth, but you don't know who that is because just softistring.

I'm sorry.

There are also Muslims who say that their position is truth, but there are Hindus who say their position is truth.

There are Buddhists that believe their position is truth.

Does not make it so if I write hair on my head, it doesn't give me a full length of flowing locks.

Like, you can't just call it truth and declare it that way.

You re talking.

You can't just say it's truth and expect people to believe it without anything to back it up.

Well, I can bag it up.

But you don't want me to preach, and you don't want me to quote the Bible.

Because the Bible is like, you can't that's a circular argument.

You can't prove that the Bible is true with the Bible like it's it's a circular thing.

I can agree, I agree with that, but you can take outside sources from the Bible improve things in the Bible.

Yeah, which outside sources are you going to give us specifics?

I can use the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Mary Magdaline.

So other religious texts that were part of a Bible or are part of some version of the Bible don't count.

That's not an extra biblical source.

Even if it's apocryphal, that is not an extra biblical source.

Well, I disagree with that.

But Jesus says the knowledge will increase in the end times.

In nineteen forty five, all these things come out, and then we also have the Dead Sea Scrolls and Enoch and all those right into They don't count either.

If it's a religious text, then it is the claim.

It's what's making the claim.

And you say Jesus said, no, a book said Jesus said, And we have no actual evidence that he actually said it.

We have very littlevidence he was actually ever alive.

Although I'm not a mythicist, I'm happy to believe that there was a guy named, yes, you world, Jesus or Emmanuel walking around as an itinerantrap around that time.

Seems reasonable, right.

But the thing is is that everything I believe I like to think at least I can either point to sources outside of where I learned it from, or I have a methodology to prove it, Like everything I can.

Like I believe that gravity's real, I can take a cup.

When I can drop it in, youll fall and does demonstrating gravity.

Now, understanding how gravity works that's more complicated, but it's still something that you can methodically move towards.

I don't just say, like I don't say that evolution is true because of Darwin or because of Honorgy know the species.

I can I point to the data, to the testing.

And the problem with religious beliefs is when you can keep going back to the texts, it's like I believe it because the book said so It's like, no, you have to give me something more than that.

Well, Jesus says, I leave my peace unto you, but not as the world's peace, but as his piece.

And same with truth.

Yeah, there's truth in the world, but then there's the real truth.

But anyway, I don't believe Jesus said that.

You're going to have to try and convince me that he did otherwise it's just a story.

No, I see what you're saying.

I get it, and I'm sitting here trying to think, well, how can I prove it?

And I don't.

I can't think of any way because it says you just look for a sign and Greeks look for knowledge.

So I'm not smarter anybody else and I'm not asking for a sign, so like, there's no way to prove it.

I guess you're very honest, and I'm glad of that.

So that's that's much much more intellectually honest than most of the people that calling to these shows as these What do you think, man, Yeah, just.

Like thinking about how do we prove anything through history.

I'm not a historian, so my knowledge is very basic about these kinds of techniques.

But like for other people in history, like what evidence do we have that Alexander the Great existed, or that Julius Caesar existed, or that Abraham Lincoln existed?

Right, there are certain criteria that need to be met that give enough evidence to suggest that we can reasonable believe that this person was real and did these particular things.

You would think that with Jesus Christ being such an influential figure throughout society, throughout history, and the specific things that he is said to have done.

You would think, especially with the Romans being such good historians, you'd think we'd have an abundance of extra biblical sources.

That is not the case.

And even a lot of the texts that you bring up are still religious texts and don't don't really do much for the case of did these events actually happen?

Like is this truth?

Like the Dead Sea scrolls are something that can be brought up, but what is like even if those scrolls are you know, valid compositions, Like, all it says is that they're old.

They're old scriptures.

There are old texts that are found.

It can give us an insight into cultural things.

It can teach us about the religions at that time.

We can use it to kind of put things on a timeline, but it does not give us any evidence that any anything within the text are actually true.

It just means that we have we have texts that are old.

And you've also got it right.

Sorry, we mentioned gravity earlier.

He says, we can prove that it's there, Well, we can prove the Bibles there, but we can't prove how it works.

We might not be able to explain it.

I can't explain how truth works, but I know it exists.

I know it's there.

I know father.

No, no, no, no, no, that's not how That's not how we evaluate truth.

We don't just know something exists or just know that something works in a certain way.

We study it.

We put it to the test over and over and over again.

And like with.

Gravity, we put that to the test repeatedly and we get overwhelmingly consistent results.

And when when we started experimenting with anti gravity, like zero gravity situations, we learned that our model actually you know, extends to other parts of the universe.

We learn like where are the context where this coefficient works and where it doesn't it.

The more that we've learned about it, the more the model has become relevant, and the more the model has become repeatable.

So we should be able to do similar things with the Bible.

We should.

It's going to be different types of evidence because it's not the same kind of scientific model that we're looking for.

It's more of a historical type of evidence.

But we can look at archaeology, we can look at how the timelines fit together, we can look at the world at particular times in history.

We can go to other records.

We as far as the non supernatural claims, we can pretty reliably gather data as.

Far as who was alive at a certain time, especially prominent historical figures, places that existed, all of that stuff, And that's that stuff that there's a low threshold to prove that, right Like, if someone says, yeah, we have evidence that Jerusalem existed at this at some point in history, I'm probably gonna believe it pretty easily because that's not it's not changing a lot of things for really anything Like, Okay, cool, I know cities exist, But if you're going to start claiming supernatural things, right, like, we need a lot more to back that those particular claims up.

So what's spiritual?

What specific things?

Like with what spiritual things do you believe our truth?

And do you have a way to demonstrate that or are we just gonna argue the whether or.

Not Jesus existed.

No, I'm not even arguinging that point, because it was the Son of God that came to earth, the light that came into the world that the darkest couldn't comprehend.

But it was he wore the flesh of Jesus.

So here he's in the he's wearing the flesh of me right now, you know what I'm saying if he's in me, So that argument is not what I'm trying to claim here.

And I believe God is one, so I don't believe in this.

So you're specifically so here's the thing.

You're specifically claiming these supernatural aspects, and that is a lot more difficult to prove.

So you're going to have to really make your case there about how this could possibly happen and how you're so confident in that.

Like if I were to ask you, with what you just said, on a scale of zero to one hundred percent, how confident are you that what your position is is truth.

One hundred percent?

And I'll tell you why.

Listen.

I used to think and believe everything the normal.

All the Christians out here claimed to be truth, and I was one hundred percent sure of that truth, and I was along with them doing everything they need it.

And then so Christina, it sounds like it's before you even get into it.

Sounds like you're living on this binary of zero to one hundred and it's like either your zero percent sure you're one hundred percent sure, And that's the way A lot of people who believe in spiritual things kind of take the position out, and especially a lot of Christians.

And I don't really buy it because I don't I don't buy that you've actually done studying on this and actually looked into it and still maintain one hundred percent confidence in it.

I think one of those things may be true, but you would think the more you study and that the less evidence is out there, you think, like, if you were being honest, that should knock you down a few percent points at least, And you're like, why one hundred percent?

Why not ninety percent?

Why not eighty percent?

You can still be a believer and not be one hundred percent confident in something.

You're also fighting an uphill back because I mean, Christina, I.

Would one hundred percent even before I had my.

Kay that happened, So I don't mean so even talking Christina, Christina, Christina could gie me hello right, just one quick point, and you're fighting to be able to pill battle here because I've been listening to the way you've been talking and the way you've been going about this discussion.

Unfortunately, it's reminding me of discussions I've had about things like flat earth and anti vax and things.

You're talking like a conspiracy theorist.

You have the truth, everyone else is wrong, and that is a difficult position to defend when you have a fringe idea that goes against the consensus and likely goes against the scholarship around the subject.

So, yeah, that's all I wanted to say, Like, you're speaking like a conspiracy theorist, and that hurts your credibility on this matter, at least from my perspective, because it's you know, it feels like red strings on a corkboard and connecting this and that and the other and rejecting bunches of stuff that is generally accepted because it doesn't fit your specific narrative.

And that's what it feels like to me.

That's set my piece.

I totally see that.

Yeah, when I was playing the Christian role that everybody does nowadays, I was one hundred percent sure then too, So that actually means nothing.

But I had an experience lightning, and I had real doubt.

It sounds like it sounds like Christine, Like I have a huge problem with that because it sounds like you're going to be believe one hundred percent regardless of the evidence.

Like, that's what that tells me.

And that's I think what Jamie was talking about was saying, this sounds kind of like a conspiracy theorist belief because it's very difficult to be a reasonable person and just automatically one hundred percent belief things like that.

That's not an honest thought process.

You're you're reasonable to talk over someone before they even get a chance they explain that you're reasonable.

No, no, because the issue is we have a disagreement about like how to find what is truth, and like if someone is inclined to one hundred percent belief, well, and someone who will go from a hundred percent belief in something and then immediately over to one hundred percent belief in another thing, that's concerning to me that that doesn't tell me that there is a lot of honest questionings.

That's not what that tells me.

Like like when I changed, Christina, when I deconstructed my belief system, Like when I was a believer, I was in the you're either one hundred percent or zero percent.

And because that's how it's taught to you, is that you have to be one hundred percent sure, And I think a lot of people are afraid of not having confidence in the things that they believe.

It's reasonable to want to have all the right answers.

However, like as I learned that my position wasn't reasonable, that percentage went down and down and down, and slowly I've been building up confidence in other positions, but I'm even at like I would say, I'm a pretty pretty confident atheist, but I do not have I'm not anywhere close to one hundred percent on the majority of my positions.

And so it's just it's just a red flag when somebody is like it's so heavily in a campus, especially when you don't have evidence to back that up, Like that's concerning to me, Like, how do you get to one hundred percent certainty?

Because I have the Holy Ghost?

You get one hundred percent that he doesn't exist?

We don't.

I'm not.

I just so you didn't listen to me because I just said, even as a fairly confident atheist, I do not have one hundred percent certainty of any of these positions, and that.

You fear you should be afraid of that.

No, No, because when I get information, I can evaluate that with as little bias as possible and say what actually what is true and what pieces are true?

Because the other thing, too is you can take there can be half truth in things, there could be partial truths, and kind of sifting through that.

It's going to be more productive to take a null position, to take a position without those extra beliefs and add on things that are true, as opposed to starting at one hundred percent and then shipping away at one hundred percent.

I'm sorry, I really am one hundred percent.

I can't change it, I know for a fact.

So Christina, let me ask.

Let me ask you.

I see what you're saying, and I agree with you, but I can't change it because I know it for sure.

Okay, Christina, let me ask this quick question.

What does it feel like to be wrong?

Oh?

I'm wrong about a lot of things.

Yeah, but how does it feel?

How does it feel to be wrong?

It's this part of you can't there can't be right without wrong.

I mean, like, Christina, how does it feel to be wrong when you don't know they were wrong?

When you're wrong?

Yeah, if you see, it feels exactly like being right until someone tells you you're wrong, shows you You're wrong you.

I was trying to tell you, but you wouldn't let me explain it.

I got sick, I got I was shaken.

I thought I was gonna die.

I thought the devil has deceiving me.

I was having hotplages.

I was really in a bad shape when the truth hit me.

Like, I don't know how to explain it, but it woke me up and shattered my world.

And it like, I can't say that.

It sounds like it sounds like you had an experience and you feel like your belief system kind of helped you out of that bad experience.

Is that what I'm gathering from you?

No, I I look, you want to you want to know what really?

I went outside and I'm like, all right, because first of all, I got into the Bible four years ago for one reason, to find out why every Churchian hated train.

So I got into the Bible.

I read the Bible, and I'm reading it and I'm starting to believe.

I go to church and then I'm like, well, am I supposed to know that I'm forgiven if you can't even forgive the devil, I'm having this conversation with God, and all of a sudden lightning bull hit hit right near me.

This isn't, This isn't.

This isn't a productive way to look at things.

And I will say I am a trans person like and I agree that there are is, there are a lot of issues with how Christians straight trans people, but that God, God isn't the answer.

God isn't necessarily the.

Answer to that, and leaving things differently than other Christians does not mean that God is real.

And there are ways to be comfortable being trans without without believing any of.

That Fans was wrong, even when I believe like the Christians did.

So this is this is internalized transphobia.

This is a battle with being taught that you don't deserve to exist, and then you feel bad, you feel like you're the problem.

And this is this is an issue within religion.

I absolutely agree, But going to another religion, going to other things that don't have demonstrable evidence isn't helpful and in fact, that can that can hurt your situation even more.

Like what needs to happen, Like you need a supportive community, you need to be kind to yourself.

You need to kind of deconstruct a lot of those religious things, like whether or not the religion is true.

Like if you're trands, you're trands, and it's not a bad thing.

In fact, there are a lot of advantages to being trans.

There are great things about being trans.

There's a lot of perspective that you get.

There's a lot of perspective you get from being trans.

But that's not a reason.

That's not a reason to pursue a religion that doesn't have merit to it.

Yeah, this conversation is pointless.

You guys are like I can by time I get to my point, you've made me come up with five other points that I can't even get back to.

Like because because where Because Christina, this isn't as productive of a conversation because you're.

Not staying on kind of one point, you're going to different things.

We're addressing one one topic here, and that is what is truth?

And how do we find truth?

How do I know what the truth is?

God exists, is love, He's said his son, which is.

Why Christina, that's and that's not Christina that and that was the preaching that we were getting frustrated with earlier, that we want to know why you believe what you believe and why we should believe that as well, and and your arguments so far have been because I had an experience and now I'm one hundred percent confident, And that's not enough for us, Like do you understand someone that doesn't have that belief system already, like it is not going to be convinced by that.

We need a little bit more.

We need you to We need you to show us why you're convinced.

You won't let me tell you.

Because again I don't want to put words in your math, Christina, and I believe that you believe.

I absolutely believe that you feel you are telling us the truth and that you feel you have the truth.

And I'm not trying to disparage you in any way on that front.

But every time we've given you the opportunity to try and convince us of what you're saying is true, you simply start either going back to the book or talking about the spirit or your experience with God being in you, all of which we cannot verify.

Right, But your experience has led you to be an atheist, so you can't say mind don't count when yours does.

This is different.

This is different.

You're talking about a subjective experience and I'm talking about being disproven by science and disproven by logic.

These are different things.

So yes, you could technically call it an experience to have debates with people and to read studies and all that, but that's not the experience.

Isn't what made me deconvert.

It was the fact that my reasoning was proven to be bad.

It was I was shown that I was.

Thinking illogically, that the things I believed did not correspond with reality, and and that is what got me out.

So what you need to do.

You have to show us that what you believe is true and it corresponds with reality in ways that we can verify it, that we can demonstrate that we can replicate these things, because if it.

Is true, it should remain true no matter what else happens.

Right, truth does not change.

That's an odd thing to say.

And the thing is, I'm slightly I'm slightly upset and insulted there, Christina, that you that you obviously didn't hear me when I said every belief I hold, I can externally verify.

I don't have to just tell you because I believe it.

I can show you and you believe.

No I don't, No, No, I don't.

I'm not convinced that there is a God.

I don't think that there isn't one.

That's a truth claim.

I don't claim there's no god.

You don't want to hear about it, because all the only thing that you're giving us is your own experience.

Internally, there's nothing external to you that we can look at other than the books.

We're getting here.

Next to me, I could prove to you that I see things in the Bible that no one else sees.

None of no other Christian have I run into sees the things I see in the Bible.

And my uncle Jerry sits thanks to me every time I go to Christmas and convinced tries to convince me that he sees that the world is flat, and I don't believe him either.

So I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, Christina, you've failed to convince me.

Yep, I see your boy, and I understand what It still sucks.

Yeah, I think, yeah, Well, I think I think you should.

I think you should call the I can't even talk.

You should call the Atheist Experience after this show, because I'm sure Justin and J Mike would love to have a conversation with you about this, especially with your talks about the apocryphal texts and all that.

I'm sure that would be a great discussion, but I think we've kind of reached the end of kind of where we can get with this.

So I hope you have a great rest her Sunday, and please.

Have a beautiful day.

So God is law.

And if you please call, please call XP all right, have a great have a great Sunday, all right.

And also and and happy Honukkah.

It's people out there who are celebrating because tonight is the first night of Hanukkah, and so and I also want to recognize that there are a lot of secular Jews in our community who still celebrate those holidays without necessarily believing the stories.

So it's fantastic that turkey is kosher because turkey is awesome.

But yeah, what a what an exciting show today.

I do have a few announcements because I didn't want any of the callers to drop, so I was saving some of those for the end here.

But there are some awesome things you can do to help us get some more callers on this show.

If you're thinking, oh, I know some Christians or some believers in my life, or I know some communities that would be interested in call in.

We have flyers at tiny dot cc slash ACA flyers and you can print those out, post them with permission.

We're not advocating for anything illegal, but with permission post them at libraries, community centers, all that so people can call in and tell us about their faith.

And once you do that, get a picture and send it to TV at Atheist Hyphencommunity dot org and we might feature your photo on a show live.

That'd be super cool, and I believe we have.

We didn't announce the patrons earlier on in the show, Jamie, would you like to read the top five patrons of this week?

Let me just bring those up, learn men.

Top five atrons all fantastic people who give their their hardened wanga to make sure we can do what we do.

In at number one, it's Oops all Singularity Love still love that name.

Number two ever Classic Dingleberry Jackson love that name too.

Then number three ker Levy Helvetta always stal work.

Number four Carolyn Begot, Begit Begot.

I'm sorry, I've just butchered your name.

And then we have number five Scott, just Scott, and then an honorable mention for icon icon oaklast, I'm like, what I can't Yes, So thank you very much to all of you.

Literally, we couldn't do what we do without the generosity of the people that donate to us.

And we are trying to sort of expand what we do to do more community building and the like.

As I say, we've got the Drag Story out coming here, we have events at the library, and we're always here for you.

So thank you very much.

Patrons.

Yeah, thank you to the patrons.

And also I mean going back to our talk about consumerism.

I know we had all the thing about how consumerism isn't great, but we have merch if you like to buy some, if you like to, if you want to show your kids that Santa is real and he's giving you presents, get your kids some teas, hoodies, crop tops, get yourself a crop top, get your spouse crop top hats, tumblers, mugs, all that.

Because we all know that Santa he is a talk Heathen fan and he would be getting your your family talk Heathen merch.

So you can get that at tiny dot cc slash merch Aca.

So do not.

Don't forget to take.

You Capitalism has been sponsored.

By sponsored by the merch shop, and we also had a super chat that popped up earlier on in the show from and Christine.

The donut Fiend.

Gives five dollars saying thank you for having me on the show.

You guys are awesome.

Thank you so much for the call.

It was great talking with you.

And uh, we have somebody in the basement that we'd like to chat with as well, Kelly, bring him up on the screen.

Thank you so much for help it out at the show today.

I'm sure you have some I'm sure you have some thoughts about some things that were said.

I like the idea of the basement.

Dan last Friday called it the Kelly hole, So.

My favorite K hole.

Yeah, I did hit.

You know, you were talking about how Santa kind of like starts to starts getting kids conditioned to indoctrination and into the police state, right into the police state.

And when you were saying that, I was thinking, don't public schools do that even more?

You know, you look at all the new school buildings.

They don't have any windows on them anymore.

They're like prisons and they and one of the things that I really upset me, and it happened decades ago, was they made it legal for the police to go into a school and just search kids lockers without a search more, you know, So it was that to me was like more of a step toward indoctrination into the police state, was getting kids used to just going to school and dealing with it.

They're on a daily basis.

So maybe I'm wrong, but that's just the way it hit me.

And Amy, you mentioned rational thinking.

I don't like to use the word rational because son of Sam kind of rationalized what he did because he talked to his neighbor's dog, you know, critical thinking to say critical thinking, But that was about it.

One thing Christina really said something that really made me wonder though, like why did Jamie, why did you have to sit next to Christina to understand what she was saying?

I didn't quite get that.

What was it?

You know?

I think it's the fact that it might be more that this format.

While we try and be more conversational, by necessity, it's difficult to have a conversation.

I mean, it was the same over the internet, like everyone has easier time chatting in person than they do over zoom or whatever.

Though we've become more accustomed to of late, I can understand someone wants to sort of like quite quite look me in the eye and have their and have their say.

It's it's more sort of personal personal, and they can be emphatic.

And also body language is a thing.

We kind of have the advantage there that they can see us, but we can't see them.

And also private, you know, this show being a show is slightly performative, So I can understand the want to have someone to sit there.

And I have had those kinds of conversations.

But like I said, I've had those conversations with family members whore trying to convince me that there's such a thing as the Black Pope and that the Earth is flat and the firmament's real, and I'm like, you're not convincing me.

And that conversation felt very very much like I was talking to my uncle Jerry.

Gotcha, gotcha.

I didn't even think about that.

And honestly, like, because we talk to people on the internet all the time, three of us, to me, it just seems natural and normal, So I wasn't even thinking about that.

Thanks j Yeah, I appreciate that.

Yeah.

So I do want to give a shout out to Christina because as frustrating as that call was.

It takes bravery, takes courage to put yourself out there, especially if you have a free giant ear.

So while we were quite harsh on that idea, thank you again for calling in because it took it took a bit of a bit of coage to do that.

Yeah, totally.

I always think it's awesome that people, you know, do face up to calling in, because I'm sure it's difficult for a lot of people.

So yeah, keep the calls coming, folks.

Don't don't feel like you can't call.

Definitely call in.

Yeah, we're really not that scary, like we had apart from the last caller.

We had some very chill conversations with the other two callers about the Christmas season.

So I try not to be scary, but I don't know if I always succeed at it.

So I am a large man, so I kind of have to very deliberately be not scary.

But I've been told I'm adorable, so there we go.

That's fine.

I'm cuting.

Speaking of adorable, Jamie, it was really good to see you wearing a tie and looking all dapper, yeah style.

But I happened to get hold of some more form.

I was supposed to be wearing a vest as well, but it didn't arrive in time.

But oh well, I'll be looking DAPA next time maybe, but yeah, almost like a Wall Street Gordon Gordon Gekko is good.

Thank you both for joining in today.

It's super fun and like I said earlier, like this is I believe the last show of this season, so we'll be coming back in January with some more fun.

And of course don't don't go anywhere because we do have some shows that go out that were pre recorded that we have a good laugh about over the holidays.

So but I think we'll be joining you all in the side chat for that as well, So if you want to hang out there, we'll we'll definitely make sure we say hi.

But it's been it's been good.

It's been a good year for Docky.

Then lots of new hosts joining us, lots of varieties of callers, different topics that we've discussed, and like as I said earlier, this is our community.

And I know a lot of people are in his time now where you don't have family to lean on, you don't have community around you for whatever reason, and it's it can be really, really tough.

So we are your community here.

Say hi to us in the side chats, go to the library for Drag Queen Story Hour if you live nearby, and we really want to be here for you all, so please please take care of yourselves.

You matter, and whatever's going on, Hopefully we'll pass and we'll see each other again in January.

But if you don't believe, stick around.

Yep, we're just not convinced.

We want the true, So watch Truth Wanted live Fridays at seven pm Central Call five one two nine nine one nine two four two, or visit tiny dot cc forward slash call tw