AS168: Baha'i With Sahar, Part 2

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:31 Thomas: Hello and welcome to episode 168 of Atheistically Speaking. I'm your host Thomas Smith. Well, today we get to learn more about the Baha'i faith, adding to the zero I knew before this, and then maybe like the one to two points of knowledge from part one, and now we're going to add on top of that. So, very interesting stuff. I want to thank Sahar again so much. Probably didn't pronounce that right this time, but, you know, three out of five or something. Anyway, let's get to part two with Sahar.

0:01:19 Thomas: I'm curious why you jumped all the way to atheism. So you didn't have any thought that, oh, maybe there's a different religion that has it better. Was it like, is typically the case where, I don't know, maybe not with Baha'ism, but oftentimes these religions bash other religions or at least have arguments against other faiths. And so when you start to doubt them, there's not really another faith to jump to. Um, was it, was that, or was it just, oh

0:01:38 Sahar: Know, it's so interesting that you pointed that out. And I think maybe in a way subconsciously, because I grew up in the faith and I've already accepted all the religions where one religion is coming from God. I think that explains it perfectly.

0:01:58 Thomas: Yeah. So it's like you knocked

0:01:59 Sahar: Why?

0:01:59 Thomas: Them all out at once.

0:02:01 Sahar: Absolutely. Because it's not just Judaism and Jewish, sorry, Judaism, Jews, the same thing, Judaism and Christianity and Islam. It's also the Baha'is accept Buddhism. They accept Hinduism, Sikhism, Zoroastrian. So yeah, Bahaite faith accepts already most, if not in fact, maybe all the major Middle Eastern, Far East religions. So I guess, yeah, I guess if I decide I didn't want to become Baha'i, then I absolutely disqualified those other religions. But my story of becoming an atheist, and it's kind of funny, given your podcast, that you were, I think you were reviewing the book, The Blue Dot.

0:02:45 Thomas: Pale blue dot cosmos.

0:02:46 Sahar: Yeah, The Pale Blue Dot, exactly, The pale blue dot. Well, I had just finished watching the reboot of The Cosmos. Yes, Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson. And at the last episode, he read the poem, The Pale Blue Dot, and showed a picture of the Earth from outer space. And that's when it clicked inside me that, my God, that is a small, tiny planet in the middle of a very hostile universe. There's nothing looking after that planet. It just occurred to me then, like, there can't be a God. Why would this all-powerful being be concerned with just this, essentially, this little particle of dust, you know? So it occurred to me then, there's just no God then. But that being said, I've kind of—so the hardest thing about moving away from the Baha'i faith is, you know, no longer believing that there's a, you know, life after death, that there is a soul. But I've kind of reconciled those beliefs in that, yes, there may be no life after death, but then that means every day you have here is precious and it should be enjoyed and treasured.

0:02:56 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, wow.

0:03:59 Sahar: And we need to look after this planet because it's the only planet that we have. And yes, you may not have a soul, but there are ways of being spiritual and connected with this universe without having to think that you need a soul as a medium to do that. And surprisingly, Neil deGrasse Tyson actually helped me with that because even though he's agnostic, he has that same spiritual belief that we're all connected one way or the other through stardust. And that really helped me with the transition to atheism. So, um, and cause that was my major.

0:04:29 Thomas: Well, that's interesting. Yeah, well, I, I find that's really cool story because, um, yeah, Yeah, the pale blue dot thing that Carl Sagan wrote is just really, it never gets old to me. I could watch that over and over. It's just so, it's mind blowing. And I feel the same way. I have the same thing. And people argue like, oh, well, God could have still created, you know, there's always arguments you can make like, Oh, he didn't waste the space. It's juste how he made everything. And it's fine. You can make those arguments, but it's like, yeah, but I just don't, I don't buy it. You know, like you can come up with justifications if you want, but it, it sort of becomes a process. I think of your brain, you find, you just don't believe that justification. It's like, nah, doesn't really make sense to me. And that's kind of how I feel too. I think, I think it would be different if, if it was just earth and like, there was no outer space, you know? It's like, well, this seems pretty, this seems pretty intentional. There's like.

0:04:30 Sahar: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly how they thought about a thousand years ago when they thought the earth, uh, everything revolved around the earth and we were the center of the universe. And then what a, what a big smack to the face when they found out, oh, that is actually not the case. Um, but you know, my, my parents, not my parents. Sorry. My, uh my family members, my close family members made this argument like, well, aren't you concerned about your spirituality if you leave the faith? What's going to happen to your soul? And it's very difficult to explain, especially to people who believe in religion, because I've also had the same encounter with my coworkers and good friends, to explain to them that, look, you can still, yes, we live in a very hostile world, and we're just very vulnerable beings when you think about it. But when you You can still be connected to all of this. And I guess for everyone, it's their own spiritual, I use spiritual inverted commas there, I guess, or apostrophes.

0:05:26 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, right. Yeah Yeah, sure.

0:06:22 Thomas: Well,

0:06:22 Sahar: But you can have your own experience of how you connect to the world. I think that the part where in Cosmos they explained that how the Earth was created and how life on Earth began because bacteria – well, some life microorganisms in an asteroid clash in Earth. And these microorganisms flourish under the conditions of Earth at the time. But they didn't originate from Earth. They actually originated from space. And yeah, well, I think when we go to Mars, because I think the theory is that this, that current microorganism might have come from Mars. So hopefully with at least the current, the robots up there in Mars, or at least once we send a man there, hopefully, we'll be able to maybe confirm that theory or not.

0:06:52 Thomas: It's just a theory, by the way. That's not the, yeah.

0:07:09 Thomas: I don't know that. Yeah, that's just one theory, but, but then it doesn't answer the question. I mean, you still have to find out where did that come from? And it's not too terribly important because as, as people have said, it, it something that's very, very, sehr, sehr rare because it doesn't happen ever. You know, it can't be something that happens all the time. Otherwise there would be, the universe would be teeming with life.

0:07:12 Sahar: On yeah yes that's That's a very good point, and I think I'm willing to accept to accept that I just don't know, and I'm kind of happy not knowing. I don't want to live in a lie anymore where I have to live this, believe in this imaginary, uh, Santa Claus. When you really think about it, that if I'm, if I'm good, on my life he'll guarantee me a nice little spot in heaven afterwards. I just, I, I don't want to live that lie anymore. I would rather believe in, and I know the scientific theories are theories, and maybe a hundred years from now they'll be, they'll be laughed upon how ridiculous they were, but I, I enjoy listening to the alternative of those things, like, yeah, that, that that could be a possibility. That could be.

0:07:36 Thomas: Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

0:08:10 Thomas: Well, there are tons of theories. Yeah. There are tons of good theories and they're interesting. And, you know, scientists want to look for evidence for different ones and they want to see what's most consistent with the model of the universe or the model of Earth's formation and all that. And it's interesting science, but some magic story about it, you can't really verify that. You can't do anything with that. You can just say, oh yeah, this is how it happened.

0:08:12 Sahar: Hmm. Hmm, hmm. So I'm even more willing to believe that at the end of the day, we're just part of an atom. That's part of a molecule. That's part of someone's jacket. I'm like, I'm willing to believe that, you know, the Douglas Adams idea of that. We're all just part of a what was it like an apple cake or something like that? That should be your next book club book. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

0:08:57 Thomas: Oh, that's a good idea. I, I hate to confess I never got all the way through it. I liked it, but I just, I lost, lost steam for some reason. It's one of those ones I need to pick back up, but I do love Douglas Adams

0:09:07 Sahar: It gets a little crazy and you do need a break after a while, but it's, it's so hilarious how he's able to take all those scientific theories and just make complete jokes of them. It's a great way of actually teaching people too about science as well. So, so yeah, well,

0:09:08 Thomas: Yeah yeah yeah well how long have you roughly, have you've been, at this point you've talked about where you're, you're an act, definitely an atheist oh wow it's so, it's new, it's fresh, it's fascinating

0:09:32 Sahar: Well, I've probably only acknowledged I'm an atheist maybe just the past three months alone, but I've been agnostic. But I accepted it immediately once I came to the realization of, it's kind of funny. I knew I was agnostic for the longest time. I was probably agnostic for maybe 10 years of my life, even though I never acknowledged it personally. I've always, always protest my hatred of agnostics, because, uh, not hatred, my dislike of agnostics rather, because I don't like people who cannot make up their mind. Like, you think there's something there, but you don't know for sure, unless you have some proof.

I just never agreed with that. Even though I had begun doubting God, but I was always finding excuses, um, that, that Baha'i excuse, or maybe the next manifestation will explain this, you know, it may be a hundred years from now, maybe a thousand, or maybe I'll understand this in the next life. You know, I, I just had that idea, and then it became so frustrating, and um, and it was just, yeah, this past three months alone, um, after watching the Cosmos, reading the Blue Dot, and uh, um, those Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson have been great influences in my life, um,

0:10:25 Thomas: Yeah those

0:10:48 Sahar: Along with other yeah you know, and then other influences too, like, uh, Dr. Christopher, Christopher Ryan, who you should also consider having on your show. He really helped me come to terms with, especially with homosexuality, and even just sex in general, because I think religion does try to control sex, particularly the Baha'i religion. And I think this is where a lot of the problem stems for the homosexuals, because they're not seen as people. They're seen as having a disease where they always just want sex with people of their gender. So Dr.

0:10:48 Thomas: Are two good influences that's for sure, yeah it's like my disease, I have a disease where I always want sex with people of my, not my gender, so I guess it's the same disease. Similar disease, right?

0:11:29 Sahar: It's a good disease.

0:11:32 Thomas: Yeah. It sounds like we all have the disease. It's just the details are a little bit different.

0:11:32 Sahar: It's the approval of disease you know but but as long as you have it for one person, okay? As long, don't don't start looking at other people, don't share your disease around, you just share that disease with one person for the rest of your life and that's it

0:11:42 Thomas: Oh, okay. Yeah. Uh-oh. Now people are going to think I have some sort of venereal disease. You're actually... Yeah, go ahead.

0:11:57 Sahar: But, but anyway yeah, the Dr. Christopher Ryan really helped me with that too, um, so I think he's also going to be a great guy if you decide to have him on your show, um, I don't mean to keep on, uh, attacking other people that's

0:12:07 Thomas: I would love to, but sometimes it's not up to me. We'll see. I'll have to see. Have you communicated with them personally, uh, well

0:12:12 Sahar: True. No um, I just listened, he's also a podcaster, and I listened to his podcast, but he's probably more, he's, he's probably more famous for his book Sex at Dawn, which he also accuses of religion trying to control not only just the sexual lives of people, but particularly controlling the lives of women.

0:12:19 Thomas: Maybe I'll check them out, yeah

0:12:35 Sahar: And that really is what helped me come to terms with what religion is and why religion tries to control us in this way, because it has helped me so that I don't resent the Baha'i faith. I don't resent the Bahá'í faith. Faith, I've just now come to no I, I, I'm very saddened, let's put it that way. I'm, I'm more disappointed that the Baha'i faith cannot accept current science and cannot move on. Um, I have come, I've had, had discussions with other Baha's who, um, who not are sexual homosexual, but um, know people who are homosexual Baha but don't want to come out or fearful of coming out, and I've also had that same discussion with people who, with Baha'is who fear homosexuals and think they're going to destroy the religion. Um, they're just not interested in looking at the current science of it all. And, um, it's, that is the part that probably disappoints me the most.

0:12:47 Thomas: You don't resent the behalf, hmm, so

0:13:34 Sahar: And I, I just know now that I cannot fight that as a Baha', because I've just come to the conclusion that I can no longer accept religion over total. I don't believe there's a God anymore. I I don't believe as much as I think Baha'u'llah overall was a nice gentleman of a sorts. I don't believe he was a manifestation of God. So I cannot fight that fight in the Baha'i faith. But I definitely encourage the Baha'is to, to come to grips with this in the future and try and sort this out. If they do sort it out in the feature, I don't, it's just over. I'm not going to become a Baha'i again, but it, it, it's very, it saddens me most more than it, than I, I just can't be angry. I guess maybe it's because I still have friends who are we're Baha'is and my families are Baha'is, but I just, I can't be angry at them. I can resent the faith.

0:14:19 Thomas: It's your way of kind of finding closure or settling kind of in your mind, yeah, moving on have there been any negative consequences of this, I mean in your family life or in, you know, anything, um, you've mentioned kind of the, uh, the, the way that the faith has treated women, homosexuals and all that. But has that had consequences on your personal life at all? Is there anything you've had to like shed any, you know, that sort of thing?

0:14:25 Sahar: Yeah. It's, you know, they really, it, I guess another reason why I find it hard to resent is because Baha'is really are the nicest people. I was probably one of the least nicest Baha'is, you know? When I was a Baha'i, I was, I was one of them not so. I would actually, when I was Baha'i, I would tell people, please don't judge the Baha'i faith on me. Okay.

0:15:08 Sahar: I am not a good Baha'i. Um, but you know, I know it's, it's probably, they're going to be upset, they're probably going to send somebody from the local assembly to try and talk me out of it, but overall in the Baha'i faith they are, you know, um, they're not to be prejudiced, not to judge others, this is actually a tenet in the faith, okay, abolish or eliminate all forms of prejudices and just to accept people as they are. What makes it funny with the discussion of homosexuality is that even though, I know it is ironic, but even though the Baha'is are, they cannot accept homosexuality, they do not discriminate against homosexuals.

0:15:08 Thomas: Yeah, I was going to say.

0:15:49 Thomas: Oh,

0:15:49 Sahar: So you could still be a gay and lesbian Baha', but could you get married? Could you get the same rights as a Baha'? Most likely not, because there will be people who will think you have some spiritual handicap, basically, basically, so uh, what happens, unfortunately, is that even though there's no push to get conversion therapy, it's sort of encouraged, they, they encourage you, well, why don't you seek help, why don't you pray about it, maybe it will go away on its own, um, so there is that, that kind of push which is why a lot of gay and lesbian Baha'is don't come out in the faith, they normally, uh, keep, keep it, keep it amongst, uh, keep it silent basically. Um,

0:15:50 Thomas: So

0:16:35 Sahar: So, but the, but the idea is that even if they were to come out as Baha'is, we cannot judge them for who they are basically.

0:16:43 Thomas: I there are worse faiths than Baha'is for sure. They, they, yeah.

0:16:46 Sahar: Oh, absolutely. That's why I feel really sorry for Harley, uh with the Jehovah's witness guy. Cause I think he has a worse deal overall, um, in his situation because, you know, we are allowed to at least talk openly about these things, you know, as Baha'is. Even though, unfortunately, what it comes down to is, well, it's the writing. What did the writing say? You know, Baha'i, yes,

0:17:09 Thomas: Well, I think, yeah, Jehovah's Witnesses just, it's such a bigger ask, you You know, it's a bigger sell that they need to make because the claims are so much bigger. You know. Baha'ism, it sounds like the claims aren't really, I mean, in terms of religion, they're pretty modest. They're not, it doesn't, it'S not a huge pill to swallow, I don't think. You know? You don't have to cut yourself off from everybody. You don'T have to do it.

0:17:31 Thomas: Yeah. There's a lot of, a lot OF things like that.

0:17:30 Sahar: That's, yeah, and that's very true. But it all comes, you know, the one thing in the Baha'i faith is that all our writings originate from Baha'u'llah or tenets of his faith, his son, for example, that was considered infallible and could also make a right or interpret at least Baha'u'llah's beliefs. So if the writings say that a marriage is between a man and a woman, which they do say right now, there's no room for argument there. But in the case of the Bible, and this is the argument I made to my Christian friends, the Bible is up for interpretation because many people, I mean, you do get your conservative Christians who take everything that the Bible says seriously, but I think the majority of Christians take it up for interpretations. But there is no such case in the Baha'i faith, which makes it very difficult for a lot of these people.

0:18:25 Sahar: But just for me, because I don't want to focus too much on just talking endlessly about homosexuality and faith, but just for me, I don't foresee any hardships. I think I'm going to keep my friendships with the Baha'is. I'm just no longer going to be taking part in Baha'i activities such as teaching, such as Baha'is just love the study groups. I don't think I'll be doing the study group in the future.

0:18:53 Thomas: Yeah. I ought to give you some more free time, right?

0:18:56 Sahar: You know, my one of my family members made this claim that, you know, the only reason why you want to leave the religion is because you're lazy. You know. I love this family. But I told her, listen, I'm not going to lie. I enjoy the extra free time I have to read important stuff like Christopher Ryan's Sex at Dawn, like Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot, like watching it. I'm going to enjoy that free time and use it fruitfully. But I never enjoyed a study circle all my life. I've never enjoyed going to the Baha'i gatherings, which we call feasts. I never enjoy them because I thought they were a waste of time for me. Because, and this was during my years of agnostic Baha'i, where I was trying to struggle with, well, I'm a Baha'. So I should be enjoying this, but I'm not enjoying this. And I don't agree with half the things that are said here. And it's useless. And so, I, it's a sense of freedom because now I can actually do things that I like to do and investigate things that I feel that are important. So, yeah,

0:19:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

0:19:59 Thomas: And can we mention, you had told me right before we started recording that you had just handed in, or not handed in but were about to mail your letter of resignation.

0:20:07 Sahar: Yeah. It's a Sunday. So I haven't I haven't gone to the post office just yet. But yeah, I'm going to go old school. I attempted to try and email the National Assembly of America, but there was just no way of emailing them. So I made a letter, not handwritten, okay? I did print up in a computer. I'm just going to sign my name on the bottom. And yeah, in an envelope with a postage stamp, and I'm gonna mail it, and it will essentially be my letter of resignation, a resignation, sorry. Sorry. Um, so hopefully

0:20:11 Thomas: Right. And this is something they require to get out of the faith? Or what does this do? Because you don't have to do this with probably most religions.

0:20:52 Sahar: I want to do it because I need to make that, that step. I need to make it official.

0:20:56 Thomas: Do they have you registered somewhere? Like, is it actually... Oh, okay. So it is like Mormonism where there's some paperwork involved. Okay.

0:20:59 Sahar: Yes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I guess I should have, I should have given more detail about the Baha'i faith and what they do. But so in the Bha'i faith, just because you're born into the B'hai faith doesn't make you a Baha'. You have When you become 16, you can sign a card, which we called, you could make a declaration, basically, of you declared your Baha'i.

0:21:08 Thomas: That's okay.

0:21:24 Thomas: Well, see, I like that. That's another thing that makes Baha'ism pretty decent. I like when you're not born automatically into it. I like that they at least kind of give some semblance of a choice to it, so that's good.

0:21:30 Sahar: Yeah. Well, I will say, and I love my Persian family, but I didn't feel like I had that much of a choice. I know more non-Persian families, there was that choice. For me, um, there was like a little, a little nudge, like, Hey, you're going to sign your card. Right. So I did sign my card, but if anything, I might've been an agnostic even earlier than in my twenties. It might've Been when I, when I was 16, um, because when I did signed my card I signed my card in private and I felt so ashamed for doing it. Cause I felt like I'm just giving in. Um, but I, I could understand my own feelings at the time, why I felt that way, but but I did sign my card. And usually a lot of, well, nowadays they really, it's a celebration when you sign your card, like there's usually a party, you know, it is more of a festive thing. Even then people were very happy when you signed your card.

0:21:43 Thomas: Okay, well, a little bit.

0:22:31 Sahar: Usually you could, some people I think had parties even back then when they signed their card. I didn't do that. I did it in private and I handed it to the secretary of my assembly and she's like, oh, congratulations. And it was like like exchanging drugs with somebody. It's like, yeah, here it is. I'm going to go right now. Just rushing out. I can't, I don't know. I don't understand why I felt that way at a young age. It might've been because maybe that, uh, maybe, yeah.

0:22:54 Thomas: Maybe you just always knew. I don't know. Maybe you always knew that it wasn't quite... I certainly feel that way. Sometimes I'll think like, oh, I was religious, and then I'll have another memory where I'm like, wait, I specifically remember arguing as an atheist, like at a very early age. And I can't quite get it straight when exactly I knew I was an atheist. But maybe I didn't have the right terminology. But yeah, I know what you mean, though. It's like, I don't I guess I didn't accept it forever. I don't know. It's hard to say.

0:23:23 Sahar: I remember even as a young age, um, we, I was, I can't remember. I might've been like maybe probably around 16 as well. Um, when I was in a study circle, um with other Baha'is. And Baha's just love study circles. We have these eight books, which are part of the Ruhi Institute, where basically they just teach you how to be a good Baha'. But we invite non-Baha'is to do the books too. And I remember one of the books, they were talking about God and how God is so full of love. And I remember thinking, well that can't be right, Right. Because if you read in the Bible, this was when I attempted to read the Bible as a young kid. It's like when you read the bible, God sounds like a really mean guy. I mean, he just destroyed an entire village. I think I read the story of Sodom or something at that stage.

0:24:15 Thomas: Sodom and Gomorrah.

0:24:16 Sahar: I mean Gomorrah was like, hey, just destroy the entire village all because they were, you know, having sex. And even the wife, when she fled, she turned around and turned to salt. Oh, exactly.

0:24:24 Thomas: Yeah, the pillar of salt. The

0:24:27 Sahar: I thought like that.

0:24:27 Thomas: Most meaningless story.

0:24:27 Sahar: I was thinking, but doesn't that show that Old Testament God was was sort of a mean guy and everybody just gave me a look like I was crazy and I didn't know anything and said, no, that's not that's not our God. Our God is full of love. And I remember getting up and leaving at that point. I I was like, okay, I'm done here. But I still, even though I disagree with them about, you know, about God at that stage, it never occurred to me, oh, I guess I didn't hear about atheism as a young age. Perhaps if I heard about atheism as a younger age, I would have identified it

0:24:28 Thomas: Yeah, it's so dumb.

0:24:49 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:25:06 Sahar: Then. I think we've got to be very careful about that. Our new prophets are Richard Dawkins.

0:25:07 Thomas: That's the religion for me. Yeah, exactly, yeah.

0:25:17 Sahar: Yeah, that's a funny thing.

0:25:18 Thomas: Gotta worship them all the time, that's what we do, yeah.

0:25:20 Sahar: Exactly. Sam Harris's and all that. Uh, but yeah, but, um, I think young people today are very lucky in that sense because of especially the internet, they have that access to that information. I do know funny stories since you go to these, you talk about these meetup groups with your talk with Ishmael and I, Oh, you did one. I've done several.

0:25:39 Thomas: Well, I did one. Yeah, I, I just did one. Yeah.

0:25:44 Sahar: I'm sorry. I don't know. I done several and I think I've Done several too many exactly how you describe it. Just a bunch of old people it is weird

0:25:44 Thomas: How did they go? Uh-oh. That's so weird. I don't get it. And again, no offense to all my, my older listeners, but I don't oftentimes, I don't think you're the same people that I'm talking about older listeners because it's, it's always, it'S always these weirdos that it's just like, I DON'T like conspiracy theorists, like just weird. It's it's odd. Kind of, kind of weird.

0:26:06 Sahar: You're it is odd and you're really trying to find somebody more or less your own age that you can connect with and you still find people your age who are weird, so But one meetup group that I did go to, there was a 16 year old girl there and I was like, oh, this is, this is great. I mean, oh, no, sorry, I didn't go to the specific group. I heard of a friend who went this group and said a 16 year old girl was there.

Um, but I still think, oh, this is fantastic because you are, you know, children when they think it, I wish when I was 16, I had that available to me so I could go meet with other people and discuss with other people about an alternative to religion or what atheism is about. So, uh, I, so I wish I had the ability then because I, I think even at a young age, I was already having those issues. But believing the Baha'i faith is a hard one because the Bacha'is can so easily explain things in ways that will make it very attractive to come back. So, again, going back to why I need to submit my card, yes, I can't be an atheist and a Bacha at the same time. I've got my if

0:26:14 Thomas: Yeah. Uh, yeah, yeah.

0:27:23 Sahar: Anything.

0:27:22 Thomas: Gotta officially cut ties.

0:27:24 Sahar: Yeah. If anything, it just means I won't be able to vote anymore. The next elections, which I'm more than happy to not do. I cannot be elected in the into these assemblies either. That's the worst that comes to it. Last time I checked, they will still let me go to feast if I choose to go to feasts. I'd rather not go to feasts. I'm still allowed to go into celebrations like holy days if I want to devotionals. So it's not like um uh I guess what your talk was it Chris Shelton and scientology yeah it's we're not a cult we're not, we don't, we don't go after people and you know, uh, call them suppressors or anything like that, it will not be that bad so no one worry about me I know

0:27:28 Thomas: Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, Well, it's a little different in Scientology. Scientology is a lot worse. Yeah. Well, good. Congratulations on becoming an atheist and your official ceremony. There's going to be more excitement about this card you're signing than the first one, I'm guessing. Interesting.

0:28:08 Sahar: Yeah so yeah when I signed that letter you're right it'll be like signing another card it'll be like I am undeclaring my faith that will be well

0:28:24 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, thanks for coming on, and thanks for your extensive knowledge. I've learned a ton about a religion I did not know anything about, and that's a good day for me. I like learning about stuff I had no idea about, so thank you very much.

0:28:44 Sahar: You're welcome and I guess uh I'm going back to what I said before please don't judge the baha'i faith on me and in case there are any listeners who are not atheists and are looking for a new religion um you you absolutely read about the baha'i faithful uh and get to know baha'i people they're not bad people

0:29:02 Thomas: It sounds not that bad. Yeah it could be worse. Could be worse,

0:29:06 Sahar: Exactly I I they're worse or I don't want to say worse but there's religions that are are just awful and the baha'i faith in my opinion isn't, is not the worst religion I hope in the future they will they will change their stance with homosexuality but uh for now overall they're just the nicest people you'll ever meet. So yeah, probably not.

0:29:27 Thomas: All right. Well I don't know if I'll ever come across another Baha'i, but if

0:29:35 Sahar: Very

0:29:36 Thomas: I do, I'll be like, whoa, hold on. I got to talk to you now. I gotta see if you're nicer than Sahar.

0:29:41 Sahar: Good.

0:29:42 Thomas: How did I do? Was that good? No? All right.

0:29:44 Sahar: And you will meet other Baha'is that will be nicer than me. Trust me. Okay.

0:29:48 Thomas: All right, well, thank you so much for coming on, and I hope to talk toyou again soon.

0:29:54 Sahar: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

0:30:13 Thomas: Alright, well that's it for another week. I want to make a couple quick and, I think, good announcements. We've got some great guests coming up. Again, I've mentioned the Justin Schieber debate that I'm going to be hosting and moderating. I'm very excited about that. Also, it's looking very good that we're going to have Matt Dillahunty on at some point in the future. He's a very busy guy, so it'll take a while, but that's looking good. Let's see, what else? Else. I've got someone who's been very critical of my interpretation of the Bible, and he's a Christian, and I think that could be a very interesting debate. So right away, three, I think, very interesting episodes in the future. Not in the immediate future, but coming up.

0:31:00 Thomas: So I'm just excited about them, and I wanted to tell you along those lines. Also, Jake and Thomas bonus content is going to be back, finally. It was just too rough with the schedule to be able to do, and it was my fault, not Jake's. I definitely had too much going on, although apparently Jake had a lot going on too. But that will continue for my lovely patrons, so if you go over to patreon.com/atheist, you can access that today. Speaking of that, I've got a new patron, Russell C., to thank. I think I've thanked Aaron M Gleason, so thank you both, just in case I haven't so much. Very much appreciated. Again, patreon.com/atheist if you'd like to support the show, especially since I think it's going to all cool places.

0:31:48 Thomas: I'm taking it to new heights, I think, or new heights as annoying people might say. Uh, so I also want to thank my top patrons, Zimu, Zinu Jr, Adrian Borschoff, Michael, Jonathan, Moye, J Alden Walt, and of course, Bangs, Naughty Bits. Thank you so much. Extra extra special thanks to Bangs for, uh, helping me with computer stuff at the new house and such, and, uh, providing me with an amazing new, uh, piece of equipment or two that I really like, so thank you very much, much, much appreciated. Also got to thank Sean Zipperer, Peter Skelton, Brian Garefort, Dale, Mac Garrett, and so on. So thank you guys for being patrons. Again, I really, the show would not be able to go on without you.

0:32:34 Thomas: And it's, it's just incredibly touching that you are willing to support the show. So, thank you so much. Patreon.com/atheist. And with that, I will We'll see you next. Oh, and I didn't even say the parent panel. That's going to happen. Another great topic. It's going be really interesting. It's gonna be about morality as a parent as pertains to sex and pornography, that kind of thing, raising a kid. But as an atheist, you don't have an easy answer. I mean, religious people can kind of just hold up, turn up their nose, be outraged, say no, never under any circumstances, can you do anything? But it's a little more complicated for us atheists, so that's going to be a fascinating topic, and that will be out very soon. So lots of cool episodes coming up. I'm very excited for them, and I hope you are too. So with that, I will talk to you again next week.