AS193: Abortion and Christian Terrorism

Transcript

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

0:00:30 Thomas: Hello and Welcome to Atheistically Speaking with your host Thomas Smith. This is episode 192, closing in on 200 there. So much for tuning into the show. This week I had an interview with Eli Bosnick, who I'm sure you know, I'm certain you know who Eli Bosnick is, I'm a huge fan, he's over, does all the shows with Noah and Heath, he's the funniest guy that I think I know of currently, he is just absolutely hilarious. However, here's the thing. It was meant to be a one-episode interview. It went incredibly long. And as you know, I've talked about what I'm going to do when I have a long interview. Well, here is what I am going to do this week. This time, it's a little different because I absolutely want to do Tommentary today.

0:01:17 Thomas: There is too much to talk about. There is obvious news that really needs to be discussed. So, I am not going to have it be the two episodes. I am going to do Tommentary today. Today I'm going to release the entire interview, actually even unedited. I might give you some bonus stuff for the patrons. So I'm gonna give that whole long interview for the Patrons. If you go over to patreon.com/atheist, then you can listen to the entire thing. I'll put it on that bonus podcast feed. But for everybody else, it's going to be two episodes. It's going to be one this week and one next week. So. That's my solution for this time. We'll see how that goes and it'll be a little, little thanks I can give to the patrons for being so awesome. Uh, they will get the full unedited interview ahead of time, uh, right away. So that's what I'm going to do. But in the meantime, we've got some commentary to get to. We've got a lot to talk about.

0:02:17 Thomas: I'd like to kind of do a thought experiment with you guys, and maybe you'll indulge me. If you could imagine you live in a country, not this one, because I think for this thought experiment we're gonna have to imagine you live in some far less stable country or something, because imagine if you lived in a country where there are certain people, there are a pretty decent number of people, who are committing acts of murder, heinous acts of of murder and are actually sanctioned by the government. They're fully supported by the government and half the country, and they're committing just brutal acts of murder, just murdering children all day long, every day, millions per year.

0:03:03 Thomas: I think you know where I'm going with this. But if you imagine that, just look at it that way, if you look at actual murder, could you then imagine not being supportive of those people being stopped once the government is in on it? Because it's one thing if, okay, there's some murderers out there, the government doesn't, it's not sanctioned, the government will take care of it, then, you know, vigilante justice is definitely wrong. I mean, you have to kind of, you can't take matters into your own hands, etc. I means, you've got to trust the system. But seriously, I want you guys to imagine that you actually thought, that you ACTUALLY thought there were murderers just on the loose, fully endorsed by the government. What would you do? What do people do? I mean, this has come up.

0:03:49 Thomas: There are countries where there's a lot more corruption, and when the government doesn't provide rule of law, now, I know it's just in these people's opinion, but when it doesn't provide rule of law, things break down. Violence happens. You know, it's hard to just sit idly by while you think people are being murdered. I suppose there is the slight caveat. Obviously, you know, I'm doing... If you haven't figured out by now that I'm trying to get you to imagine what it's like in the mind of someone who believes abortion is literal murder, then maybe you are just a little behind, but that's okay. That's what I'm obviously talking about. No big mystery here. It wasn't a very good reveal. It's too obvious. I suppose the only difference you could say is that the murderers are only murdering a certain group of people who you couldn't, it's not as though you could be the next victim.

0:04:44 Thomas: So I guess that makes it a little different. So for my thought experiment, you'd have to say, well, these people are getting murdered. They're not willing participants, by the way, but it's not as Though you could just be murdered by, by whatever this gorilla group of people are. So it does make it slightly harder to imagine. But seriously, though, if you could try to imagine that very thing, I tweeted something to this effect. I have a hard time imagining. It's one thing if you were against abortion, but you're against abortion but you don't think it's actually murder. You see some shade of gray with what a fetus is. You say, well, it's not quite a person, but it is wrong to kill a potential person. So then there you could at least say, I understand why those people wouldn't cheer the murder of an abortion doctor.

0:05:35 Thomas: But if you are someone who thinks these doctors and maybe the mothers too are literally killing a person. They're literally murdering a person. I don't understand how you would not cheer the acts of this crazy dude who shot up an abortion clinic. Because when I see all the tweets that I've seen lately that are like, check out these people actually supporting what happened, or at least saying, well, I wouldn't do it, but, you know, that's what you get when you murder kids. When I see tweets from atheists who are in disbelief, I'm not really in disbelieve about this. That's, honestly, maybe I'm weird. Go ahead and call me weird. That would be the norm. See, if I truly believed there were murderers loose endorsed by the government, and I said, now, maybe I don't want to kill him myself.

0:06:26 Thomas: I don't want to, you know, I'm not going to, I might be sort of pacifist in that regard. I'm not going to take matters into my own hand, but think about if it was like a drug dealing gang. So, there's, maybe you're in Mexico and there's these, there's these cartels that are just killing at will and maybe you're not going to do something about it yourself and the government doesn't seem to be doing anything about it. Now, if you see on the news that some person just went, just finally had enough and went and just shot a bunch of these cartel members somehow, I don't know, they found a group of them, shot them, killed them, wouldn't, I mean, honestly, my literal, I'm being literal here. Like, if I put myself in that situation, my thoughts and my feelings would be, well, they kind of deserved it.

0:07:11 Thomas: You know, the government wasn't doing anything. These people were killing innocent people. People, honestly, that guy, I mean, I wouldn't do it, but he's kind of a hero. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more. I think it doesn't happen more because half the country thinks you'd be crazy to say such a thing. So I think people hide their emotions a bit on this. And it's a reason why, again, I'm not terribly impressed when I see the anti-abortion people who are saying, well, yes, we think this is bad, but we don't support the shooting. We just don't, like, I'm not really impressed. I'm also not, here's what I'm not looking for, and this is, this may be, make me different than some of you. I'm not really looking for, okay, I want someone to be if they're pro-life, I definitely want them to come out against shooting, like publicly come out and say, well, we're against shooting doctors.

0:08:05 Thomas: Like that, honestly, that doesn't do a whole lot for me, because I just think it's a logical conclusion of a certain set of ideas. Is. It really is. I'm not, it's not a surprise to me if deep down in their hearts, pro-life people are kind of like, well, he's not, you know, they had a coming. It's not that to me is not any more shocking than simply being that level of pro-life. Now I've had a pro-lifer on, I've got a secular pro- lifer on this show. A great person. I really liked her. I really liked the discussion. I myself am not 100% on this issue. I don't think it's an open and closed issue, which may confuse you. But I think I'm going to have to explain a little more.

0:08:50 Thomas: So I think, I want to explain the importance of ideas, how I see it, how I see this issue, and what's going on here. I first want to say that there are obviously different levels and different ways of being pro-life or anti-abortion, however you want to see it. I think that's the important thing. But we can, but here's the thing, we don't have to lump them all together. We can kind of make assertions about each one. So if you're someone like me, or maybe just a little, because I am pro-choice in the end, but I do think morally there, I think there is a little gray area. Like if, if you and a partner agree that you, you want a child and you agree to take that on and then have cold feet in like the third trimester. I don't, there, I think it gets a little more interesting.

0:09:38 Thomas: I think you've consented to carrying, to being a violinist, to having the violin, what's the thought experiment, having the violinist, you know, attached to you or whatever. I think that's where that argument breaks down. I think if you've agreed to it, if you're agreed to take someone onto your boat, you know, it's, it, the arguments, the thought experiments, you can go back and listen through the episodes when I talked about those thought experiments and what I thought about the violinist and, you know, the stowaway on the boat or whatever. Like, there's different, different thought experiments that I think are useful, but I do think they break down, at least the ones that I've heard, when you consent to conceiving a child and, uh, you know, it is not an accident. It is not rape. It's not any of that. So all I mean to say by this is I think there's gray area there.

0:10:26 Thomas: I think you still should be allowed to get an abortion because we don't know what's going on. And ultimately, I think the important thing is it's not a person yet. It's not a person. They haven't had experience. They're not, they're not missing anything. There's that they're not, that's, that's what matters to me. There's no loss of life there, really.

There's no loss of experience, loss of, you know, and if it's the parents themselves who don't want to have this child, then there's no, you know, I think there are little gray areas, but I still ultimately support the right, which is I just want to make clear that while I don't think it's open and shut, I do still think there's a difference between my view and maybe someone who's slightly more pro-life than me.

Like maybe there's someone like me, but who thinks a little more to the right I guess and thinks, yeah, it's close, but you shouldn't have abortion be legal, I still think that person is different than someone who thinks killing a fetus is literal murder. That's what I want to differentiate between because that's not what my view rests on. It's not as though my view is, well, the fetus is a fully formed person, they are a human being, and yet I support killing them. That's not my view. I think there could be people who support that view.

I do know there are people who say about the violinist thought experiment that, yeah, even if it's a fully formed adult, because you haven't consented and you don't, you know, you shouldn't be required to provide, let your body provide for that person, you're allowed to kill them. I think that's a different story. That's a conversation we can have.

0:12:05 Thomas: Again, I think it breaks down once you do consent to having them and then change your mind. But let's say you didn't consent. Let's say it's an accidental pregnancy. Then I'd agree. You do have the freedom to abort. All this is to say that there are some nuanced views. The one I want to specifically talk about, so just so just prepare for it because I'm preparing for certain replies to this that I've already kind of gotten on Twitter and on Facebook. So I'm just saying this applies to people who are literally calling abortion doctors murderers and who view fetuses as actual human beings who have full rights and any killing of that fetus is murder. Those are the kind of. So if you happen to be pro-life, which I know I have pro-life listeners, but your views are maybe more nuanced, they're not quite, they don't fall into that camp, I'm not talking about you.

0:12:57 Thomas: I don't, I'm not worried about you endorsing abortion doctors' deaths or something like that. I really am not. So I just want to make that clear. That's why I was going into all that detail. I think they're, so I'm specifically targeting that group of beliefs and the consequences of those beliefs. Now, So, how prevalent is this group? Well, you can look at polls, and one here says that 61% of Americans think abortion is morally repugnant, and 57% of people think it is an act of murder. An act of murder! And the way I'm seeing the question, it just says abortion, so I don't... it doesn't look like they asked, well, at a certain trimester... which would matter to me. I mean, if you're within, you know, a month, how in the world could that be looked at the same way as an abortion the day before potential delivery, you know, like that, those could not be the same thing to me.

0:13:56 Thomas: I don't know what the answer is, but I don't think it's the same for those two things personally. But anyway, that's, that's a lot of people. That's a significant percentage of people and what I want, what I'm trying to say, the point of a lot, of what I'm talking about, at least in this first point here, is that this is why ideas and beliefs are so important. They are incredibly important. Because I actually believe that if you think abortion is an act of murder, I kind of think deep down inside, you've got to not be that sad about abortion doctors getting killed. I mean, I just think that's human nature. I think it's kind of justified. And now, again, people might be shocked at this, but I think that if abortion doctors or the mothers and or the mothers are literal murderers, not just complicit, not like, oh, they're part of the system, whatever.

0:14:49 Thomas: No, you think they're actual murderers. Personally, I would think, okay, karma, man, you're getting, I don't believe in karma, but you're getting what you deserve when someone decides to shoot you. And this is why it's so important that we debate these issues. These issues should come up for debate more often. I've specifically said this about abortion before. I think we ought to be having constant dialogue, not, oh, you're anti-women, huh? Well, I'm pro-women, you know, like not that.

I think We actually need to get into it. We need to get into the philosophy. This is where I really think people ought to get into the philosophy, they ought to get into the medical, maybe a little bit as much as they can understand the medical status Of the fetus, that sort of thing, and of course, I guess, have to get get into religion a bit, because if your religion says that the soul is part of this murder equation, because that's a whole can of worms, you know, does the person have a soul, you know, if your belief is that the moment of conception, they have some sort of magic soul thing, and if you kill the fetus, then you've murdered a human, I don't know what amount of philosophy and science can disabuse you of that notion, but I think it's important to try. And I think that's where then it's important to have a religious discussion. This is something that we don't have at all.

I mean, not me, not atheist podcasts, not that sort of thing. Just think of everyday life. Think of shows on TV and news shows, talk shows, Fox News, CNN, whatever. Do we really get into this debate? Do we really say when someone says, well, I'm a Christian, I believe in such and such, I believe the soul enters the body.

0:16:33 Thomas: Do we really, do people debate that person? I almost never see it. Once something is declared a matter of faith, a matter of belief, I mean, really in this country, the majority of people are like, oh, okay, that's your beliefs. Well, I think, what they respond is they respond with their beliefs. They don't, no one ever tries to take apart someone else's beliefs. And I think we should. I think we all should be subject to that. I really do. And I, and I think that theists or believers or whatever, should I go ahead and try to take apart my atheistic worldview as you see it? And then that gives us a chance to debate, and I would be happy to debate because maybe we'll change some minds. Now, I understand in light of last week, I think it's too big of a thing to tackle to try to talk about this problem. In light of James Lindsay's book, that's something I do want to comment on eventually, essentially, how do things like this change, given his view, if we take on his view of God?

0:17:30 Thomas: I just want to let you guys know, I'm going to kind of table that for now, simply because this is such a big issue in itself and abortion, it would take a lot of analysis, I think, to think, well, okay, how does the James Lindsay's version of God-belief relate to the abortion debate and all that? So I'm going to table that for now. Anyway, by the way, I've said this before. I want to remind you guys that I've said this. I even think, to be intellectually consistent, you should think, if you're pro-life and you think that killing a fetus is murder, again, I'm specifically targeting that group. If you think it's literal murder, you should support being pro- life. You should, rather, you should be anti-abortion, even in cases of incest and rape. I really think you should. I'm not so, that's why I don't understand. We need to be consistent with these ideas.

0:18:17 Thomas: I don't get when people are shocked at that. When people are shocked, well, okay, it's one thing if you're pro-life, but if you are pro- life even in cases of, you know, of rape and incest, then you're just nuts. Well, in my mind, that's coherent. That makes sense to me. If something is murder, why is it not murder when it was rape? Either way, the fetus doesn't know. The fetus has no idea. If you're viewing that fetus as a, like, if you're viewing them as a full person, imagine if it was an adult. Imagine if it's a 20-year-old guy. One of these people, two 20- year-old guys, one was just normal, born of consensual sex. The other guy, 20-years-old, was a product of rape. But he's 20 years old.

0:19:02 Thomas: It's been, you know, that's far, is it okay to kill one but not the other? No, it has nothing to do with it. It has, let me repeat that, absolutely nothing to do with how the person was conceived. That to me is intellectually consistent, which is why, again, it's so important that we talk about these ideas because it's crazy to me.

I think that when pro-life people do say there should be an exception in case of rape or incest, I think they are essentially betraying their own beliefs. Beliefs they're, they're essentially be, almost cowardly, um, just giving up on their own beliefs because of popularity.

It's like so many people will have such a bad reaction to you saying that, that you shouldn't be allowed to abort a, uh, incest or rape child, uh, I know that's a, that's a bad thing to call someone, but sorry, just shorthand, a product, someone who is a product of that, if you're just essentially kowtowing to popularity at that point, which I don't think is right. I hope my point's clear, but I think I'm going to try to reiterate because I think it's weird for people. I think people don't, and maybe I'm wrong, feel free to tell me if you think I am wrong, but I don't think I am.

0:20:24 Thomas: It's kind of weird to say. I think it is more important that people be consistent with their beliefs and that we engage one another other with these beliefs and that we debate these beliefs, then it is that you say, well, I'm pro-life, abortion is murder. However, if it's incest, then that's probably fine. Like that, that isn't progress to me. Maybe, maybe some of you see that as progress. Maybe some of you see a person who is pro-life, but not pro-life when it comes to incest. Maybe you see that person is somehow better or more, I don't know, I guess you agree with them more, you think they're, I see them as the same.

I see them as pro-life, which I disagree with, depending on, again, to what extent they are, plus intellectually inconsistent. That's what I see. So I actually see them as kind of worse than simply pro-life. And it's something that I don't know that everyone agrees with me on that, which is why I want to bring up the thing. So when someone is pro-life, and I should add the caveat, again. If you are pro-life, if you are abortion is murder person, but you are anti-death penalty, then that could be another story.

If you're anti ever killing anyone for any crime, if you are, if there was a drug dealer murderer in your midst and you refuse to kill them because you just think you shouldn't be allowed to, we shouldn't kill criminals as a punishment, that adds another nuance to it. I should have added that earlier on. People have pointed that out on Facebook.

0:21:55 Thomas: Facebook. However, I just think if you look at the numbers, most, you know, abortion is murder. People are not anti-death penalty. So we'll go ahead and we'll cut that piece of the pie a little thinner. So again, we're dealing with specific beliefs, very specific beliefs. We'll take those people who are pacifists, would never kill a person who is committing murder or maybe not to to stop a murder. That might be, well, no, that isn't unfair. If, okay, let me ask you this. Let me, now I'm reconsidering as I'm going. If again, to carry on with the analogy, because so many people are making this point because they're bringing on, again, people I'm interacting with already on Facebook about this, they're brining on, well I'm anti-death penalty, so that's why I wouldn't cheer when, even if I were pro-life, I wouldn't share when abortion doctor dies because because I'm anti-death penalty.

0:22:49 Thomas: Well, let's look at that. If you thought someone was, again, actually committing murder, actually committing murder, endorsed by the government, endorsed by half the people, even if you're anti-death penalty, in order to not be a little bit happy about that, wouldn't you also have to be, if you caught someone in the middle of committing murder? Because again, these abortion doctors to you are actual murderers. You would have to say, well, well, I would not use any lethal force to kill that person to stop them because that's wrong. It's not just the death penalty. It's more self-defense kind of thing or defense of other innocent people. Don't you see that? Let me know if you disagree with me on that. It is not simply we have caught a murder, what are we going to do with it?

0:23:36 Thomas: These people are murdering. They are committing murders today, every day, endorsed. So, I think it is a little, it doesn't quite cut the pie as thin as you might think on there. Let me know what you think about that in comments, by the way. I finally want to bring up just one more quick comparison. I think the issue is not just rhetoric. I don't even think the issue is rhetoric. Pro-life people, if you've called abortion doctors murders, you're complicit. Now, if you're pro-life and you haven't called abortion doctors murderers but you believe they're murderers, then you're not complicit, see? I don't even think of that. I don't even think that's true. Again, I think people might disagree with with me on this. I think what the problem is, is that people are wrong about a matter of essentially fact.

0:24:23 Thomas: This isn't really even opinion. I mean, it's an established fact that a fetus, especially at the time of conception and maybe a little longer, is just not a person. It's not the same thing. It is not equal to murder. I shouldn't say fact. People are going to go nuts on that. It's, you know, it's a very well-formed opinion, I think, that abortion is not equal to murder, essentially. That is what I think is very well established. And there are people who simply are wrong about that. The problem, the thing I'm trying to emphasize is the problem is not what they do with that. Whether or not they say, well, I don't endorse, you know, killing abortion doctors, however, I still believe all this. That's not what's important. Important. What's important is the actual belief to me.

0:25:10 Thomas: That's what's important. And to put a very basic analogy, if you have a group of people who believe, let's say, black people, just to use a comparison, that'll be easy. A group of People that believes black people are murderers, like they're actually murderers. But then, you know, so as a result of that, one of these people kills a a black person. And then a group says, well, we, you know, we're not pro-killing them. We just think they're all murderers. We're not, you don't endorse shooting them. Well, are you really satisfied about that? It's like, no, we need to deal with this belief you have, this completely wrong belief you had. That's what we need deal with. We don't, that's sort of how I see it. So let me know where you, if you think that breaks down in a particular point philosophically, if you think that argument breaks down.

0:26:02 Thomas: But I mean, that is really how I see it. Now I'm going to change gears a little bit and talk about another aspect of this, and that is the equivalence part. The part where it's like, well, you say there's a problem with Islam that leads to terrorism. Well, here now we've got a problem with Christianity that leads to terrorism. Therefore, stop talking about Islam and terrorism. There are these people. I know that's a bit of a straw man.

But this is the next topic, and I think we need to look at a few things to be fair. First off, I have no problem calling this terrorism. Feel free. That is something I do support. I think it is backwards. I think it is unfair. I think it is maybe even racist when media outlets immediately call Islamic terrorism terrorism, and yet, you know, white trash, kind of white person terrorism. They don't call it terrorism. I do think that's wrong. I want to say that right out of the gate. So there's easy points right there. I think that is wrong. We have to call terrorism terrorism. We have to call it terrorism when someone uses a gun to make some sort of political point, uses violence to create terror. It's pretty easy. I mean, I think it's a pretty easy definition. Here's the thing though. I think we need to look a little closer before we start making all this equivalent stuff. First off, this man's insane. This abortion doctor killer, I Think he mainly just killed police officers.

0:27:30 Thomas: I'm not sure if, I think some people are in critical condition. We'll see what the casualties end up being. Not that it doesn't make a difference, by the way, I'm just saying. This person is not mentally there. Islamic terrorists, I cannot think of one. Maybe the Fort Hood shooter, maybe he was mentally unstable. If that's the case, if he's mentally unstable, then it would be appropriate to say this is not a case of terrorism.

Even if he shouted, even if he sounded Allahu Akbar, if he had a diagnosable, if he's actually mentally unstable, I would go ahead and not tick that box for Islam being a factor in that. Because I think once you are diagnosably mentally ill, you've got something weird going on, your picture of reality is not right because of an actual medical, you diagnosable condition, I think it's a little unfair to hold Islam or Christianity accountable for that. So, we need to be consistent about that. And here's why I have more, I think Islam is slightly more of a problem than Christianity is when it comes to extremism. Because these abortion doctor shooters, most of the time, are just nuts. They are absolutely nuts. These Islamic terrorists are not so. They are not. Go ahead and find me the times when you can actually point to them being mentally ill. Again, I think maybe the Fort Hood shooter was. I can't think of anyone else where people said, yeah, he was, he was like, think of the parachuters. Are we going to get a bunch of accounts?

0:29:11 Thomas: I certainly haven't seen him. Are we going to get a bunch of accounts where people were like, yeah he's he was, first he's been in and out of jail for sexual assault. He's he's saying all kinds of incoherent things all the time. He's doing all this. Maybe it has happened. It's most of the time not it with these coordinated terrorist attacks. Because just think about that. I mean, that aspect, can you imagine more than one of this crazy guy who shot up the abortion clinic coordinating? That's just not going to happen with someone who's nuts. And that's important because Islam, I think, Islamic fundamentalism, belief in the afterlife, jihad, all that stuff, that is more able to take sane people and turn them into terrorists than Christianity in its current form is able to take sane People and turn Them into terrorists.

0:30:04 Thomas: That's my belief based on the evidence. Please feel free to show me contrary evidence. If you have it, I'm happy to change my mind. I really am. But that's what I see as the difference, and all this false equivalence is just that, it's false equivalents. We also have to look at prevalence. Now, if you just are US-centric, if you're America-centric. I actually do think right-wing terrorism is what you should be focused on, and that seems pretty basic. I mean, if your concern is not with the rest of the world, it's simply with the the United States domestically, what's the biggest threat? Yeah, it is. Right-wing terrorism is more of a problem. Now I would also put this guy, this this weirdo, crazy abortion killer, not quite into that category.

0:30:53 Thomas: Now, yeah, it's technically terrorism, but it's not a coordinated coming from a group that has an objective, a political or religious objective, like you see with some of these, you know, racist or KKK related, that kind of terrorism. That is, that's, I think, a bigger threat, far bigger threat on U.S. soil than Islamic terrorism. Terrorism, I don't know that this guy would fall into that because he sounds like he, honestly, the biggest culprit with this might just be gun control, you know, the ability of someone who is unstable and not able to form a rational picture of reality, the ability for them to get a gun and go commit murder, and it might not be solvable. That's a whole separate debate. It might just, in this day and age, too easy for that to happen.

0:31:41 Thomas: So all I mean to say is, if you want to look at the US domestic situation, right-wing terrorism is a bigger problem. So that should be something we should focus on more. If you want to look at rest of the world though, I think that Christian terrorism, if you're trying to compare Christianity to Islam in terms of propensity to lead someone to commit acts of terrorism against innocent people, I think Islam wins. I still think Islam has a bigger problem, because it has specific ideology in the idea of paradise, the idea of, you know, all that stuff, specific ideology that can lead to those actions, that can leave sane people to kill people for simply drawing a cartoon of someone fake, or rather not fake, but someone with fake powers, someone, a historical figure figure who people falsely believe to have some sort of magic powers.

0:32:39 Thomas: Killing people for that reason, that is something that Islam is currently better at right now. But however, like I said before, let's look at specific beliefs. Let's deal on the level of beliefs. No reason to demonize all Muslims. No reason to demonize all Christians. Let's just look at the level, people who believe it's okay to kill someone or even punish someone for drawing a cartoon of any kind. I don't care what the cartoon is. If you believe violence is an answer to cartoons, look at the poll numbers. Lots of Muslims, a striking percentage of Muslims support this. However, again, don't need to demonize all of them. Simply talk about the specifics, the specific numbers. Let's do more polls.

0:33:24 Thomas: Let's get a better idea. Those people, that specific set of ideas, that if you draw the prophet, you should be subject to violence. I disagree with those people. Those people are harmful. Those are dangerous ideas. I strongly disagree with those ideas. If there's a group of Christians who think if you draw Jesus in a certain way that you ought to be dealt with violently, that's a horrible idea too. Those people are just as big of a problem. I don't think those people are nearly as as prevalent. If you did the polls, that doesn't seem to be a part of the Christian religion like it does with Islam. One more little tidbit I noticed. You might have missed it, or you might have seen it, in this guy's biography, because inevitably we always break down, who was this guy, what was he doing, what is, you know, all that, and you know maybe we have to in order to make commentaries like these.

0:34:15 Thomas: One little detail was that he had a profile, online profile I think it was, dating something, or personal ad, I don't think it said where it was. Where he talked, he was trying to solicit like BDSM sex sex, that sort of thing. One thing you haven't seen with those who are doing the equivalence thing of, well, look at this, this is a Christian terrorist. One things they do with Muslims, one thing they even do with ISIS is they'll say with ISIS, they'll look at these people, they do all these things that are not Islamic. They look at porn. Have you seen those arguments? These ISIS people, they don't really read the Qur'an. They do these things that are not compatible with it, so therefore ISIS is not Islamic.

0:35:00 Thomas: Well, you could make the same argument with this guy. He's doing an advertisement, putting a personal ad out for BDSM sex outside of marriage, therefore he's not really a Christian. Well, I don't think it works that way in either case. I think in either case the importance is what the actual motivation is. Now again, if ISIS were all just diagnosably crazy, mentally unbalanced people who all needed medication, who happened to all gather together and just form a weird group, different story. I don't think that's the case though. I'm pretty sure that's not the case. I also read another, actually a New York Times article the other week about these wives of ISIS fighters in... In Syria, it was pretty enlightening.

0:35:46 Thomas: They were wives of pretty ordinary, I think, representative of ISIS people. It wasn't any sort of anomalous ISIS fighters. And they wanted to have kids. The wives said, well, if we're here, we should probably have kids, one of the husbands said, no, we shouldn't have kids we should use birth control.

0:36:09 Thomas: They You know, they were trying to have kids, all this, and yet both these husbands, might have been three, it was two or three, but anyway, the same thing happened to either two or three of them. The husbands volunteered for a suicide mission because they're normal people. They've got a wife. They're maybe starting a family. They live in a, you know, a normal house. Like, they do a lot of normal people stuff, but they'll volunteer for a suicide mission. They'll go and blow themselves up. Up. And by the way, to add insult to injury, if you can even think of it that way, the missions weren't even, they didn't even really make that much of sense. You know, one of them was against other Muslims, which the wife was like in disbelief about. She's like, I can't believe that he went on a suicide mission against other Muslims just for this particular, because it's all about the religious goals of ISIS.

0:37:01 Thomas: They have religious goals. That's what it's about. So So all this false equivalent stuff, I don't really see a lot of value in comparing it. I think that if you want to look domestically, again, right-wing terror is definitely a bigger problem than Islamic terrorism. We shouldn't go closing down mosques in the US. That's idiotic. That's obviously idiotic at the same time. If you look worldwide, I think we can deal with the ideas. We can deal with the actual percentage of people who say they support certain ideas, and we can try to argue with those people and say, rightfully, that they're dangerous and their ideas are dangerous. So that's it. As usual, please comment. I'm happy to hear comments about this. A lot of stuff to digest, I think. And if you want to hear the interview, I will go ahead and post the unedited interview.

0:37:49 Thomas: Again, unedited with Eli Bosnick. Great interview about social justice warriors, about trigger warnings, about all this stuff. Turns out Eli is very pro SJW, pro trigger warning, pro all this stuff. Stuff that you maybe have heard me be a little negative on in the past. So we had a discussion about that. Fascinating. I love Eli. Great stuff. It was not just your normal talk about Eli's shows or anything like that. It was a good, good hearty debate. Hard to get a word in edgewise with Eli, but that's how it goes. I will post that full unedited thing for the patrons over at patreon.com/atheist. If you'd like to donate as little as a dollar a show, you'll hardly notice it. It's a couple cups of coffee a month, maybe at most, uh, you can get access to that. Otherwise, you may end up having to wait for part one and part two, and I will see you on Thursday for that. So thank you very much for listening.