SIO39: Seth Andrews of The Thinking Atheist

Transcript

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

0:00:28 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 39 and I'm your host Thomas Smith. All right, someone on the show who I can't believe it's taken this long and it's funny that's only happening now, long after I've since changed from being an atheist named and related show, but Seth Andrews of The Thinking Atheist is here today and you'll see why now because of the topic we're talking about. I think it's interesting. And so glad he came on. Stay tuned. Also, I've got a bit of a preview of a video I made that I think is really funny and I think does a good job of illustrating the problems with the American Health Care Act. So stay tuned for that. And then I'll give you a link in the show notes if you wouldn't mind sharing it. I think it's worthwhile.

0:01:14 Thomas: So all That's what's happening today. Oh, in addition, patrons also at patreon.com/seriouspod already have access to what will be a future episode in which I talked with someone who disagreed with me on the Canadian Bill C-16 and the Jordan B. Peterson stuff. It was one of my, in my ongoing effort to actually talk to people I disagree with and who disagree with me. And it was something. Something of a breakthrough. So you want to check that out. That's a good reason to be a patron. But in the meantime, let's get over to Seth Andrews.

0:01:57 Thomas: Joining me now after much battling of technical difficulties and other things, Seth Andrews, so excited and honored to have you on the show for the first time. It's overdue. Thank you for coming on.

0:02:11 Seth: It's an honor to be here. Thanks for the invite. Much appreciated.

0:02:13 Thomas: I'm a huge fan. You've been putting out stellar work for such a long time, and it's amazing to finally speak to you. We...

0:02:37 Seth: The springtime, yeah, you'd think it'd be me for sure, but it's the devil. You know, it's influence of Satan. So, yeah.

0:02:49 Thomas: If I, yeah, if I lose. We'll see. I mean, if we lose this one, then I've got to say like rule of threes or something like it's got, I'm going to go ahead and have to, I'll come on your show and I'll make the case for Christ at that point. But no, all that battling aside. Thanks for coming on.

We're stable, we're good, and I was so interested by something you put out on Facebook the other week, and I think is going to be a forthcoming episode of your show where I'm sure you'll explore it in plenty of depth, but I was interested by something you were talking about, which is people becoming inactivists when it comes to atheism or when it comes to freedom of religion, maybe those kinds of issues, and it's something that I'm certainly sensitive to because...

People know, maybe new listeners won't know, but I did change the name of my show. I used to be an atheist-centric show and I had become so interested in more general topics like politics and so forth that I decided to go a different direction. But I just, I wanted to talk about this because I'm still very sensitive to the issues at stake. So do you want to explore that a little bit?

0:03:04 Seth: Okay. All right. Yeah, and I honestly think it's perfectly understandable for someone to sort of stretch the bounds. You can only do so much of, there's no evidence for any gods anywhere. And as religion isn't giving us really anything new to talk, I mean, they're giving us new headlines. There are new battles to fight. There are some contemporary challenges to face in relation to how policy is made and many of the problems religion presents continues. It's why I do what I do. You know, the indoctrination of children hasn't gone away. The contamination of science hasn't going away. The influence of these superstitious businesses has not gone away, and the damn it's done hasn't go away.

A way, and so I'm proud and happy to be a show that is about atheists and those who are curious about atheism, but I think it's perfectly natural to want to stretch into the culture we live in and human rights issues and we talk more about politics and this has been the case even in my own show. I mean, we'll do some shows that are totally off topic. We've done some entertainment based stuff. We'll get into politics. We'll getting into general knowledge.

We'll, you know, I, I'm a a host who loves what he does, but even I want to talk about something else from time to time, and uh, so I, you know, I honestly think that it's, there's a culture of people, I don't really understand, I mean, I understand them, but I don't get them, who the minute you stray from hard conversations about non-belief and skepticism in regard to religion, if you're not talking specifically about the Bible or the Quran or the Vedas or the Church of Scientology or whatever, they flip out and they're like, this is an atheist show, I didn't turn in to talk about other things.

0:04:09 Thomas: Yeah.

0:05:44 Seth: And I think, well, you know, the truth is is that my lack of of religious belief, my lack of superstition, my pursuit of the evidence ripples into the other aspects of my life. I don't know about most people but you knowthe fact that I am a rationalist or desperately desperately want to be, despite my flaws and biases, impacts my perspective on the issues of the day. And it impacts how I live, and how I speak, and How I vote, and I don't think my atheism lives in a vacuum. I think it does naturally for most people.

I think it just ripples out and affects how you live. And so when you start talking about how you live and how, you know, rationalism can make you a better advocate for human rights and the LGBT community, and you can talk about things like the death penalty, and you talk about public policy, talk about these things, some people just flip out, and I, I just, I'm so frustrated because I think, what's your problem? Why in the world are you so averse to using rationalism and evidence-based living to try to make the world a better place but

0:05:57 Thomas: Yeah, right. Yeah. Hmm.

0:06:53 Seth: Sensei, they have all these labels in their back pocket, these pejoratives that they use to try to essentially say that you've lost your way, you're off the path. And I honestly, I think most people, you know, how they think obviously translates into how they act.

0:07:07 Thomas: Yeah. Well, I talked about it in an episode some years back that I don't even know, when you talk about atheism and your worldview creeping into all aspects of your life, I totally agree with that because for the life of me, I don't know that if I... You know, if I could have been married to someone who was like a hardcore Christian, I think that it's just, I mean, maybe I could, you never know, but I just think it changes so much of your other views about life, about what your goals are, about, you know, how you want to raise your kids. Like, it is a very big thing. Like, it impacts everything. So I take that point definitely. I think it impacts all kinds of things. But at the same time, have you found once you, I'm curious, once you venture into these other issues, which you have on your show, as you've said, of course, I found at times, and one of the reasons that I did end up ultimately changing the direction of my show is there's a whole lot that atheists...

0:08:02 Thomas: It's an amazingly diverse group of people, which is great, by the way, which is great to have a diversity of opinion, but I wonder if that's the kind of thing you run up against when you start exploring other issues. If you get a segment of atheists over here who are like, wait, wait, wait, wait, I have these political beliefs. Let's not, you know, represent atheists as all kind of one block.

0:08:29 Seth: Well, I was on broadcast with some apologists. It was a Christian radio show, and they asked me about my atheistic worldview, and I just stopped them. And I'm like, well, first of all, atheism is not a worldview. View Atheism is my lack of belief in gods, and you'll find atheists with all manner of perspectives on, you know, they vote differently, they feel differently about the world, they have different attitudes and personalities and perspectives. The one thing we have in common as atheists is that we don't believe in gods. There's no guarantee even that we came to atheism for rational reasons.

You know, the aliens told me there is no God, well that person's an atheist, but they didn't come to do atheism through rational venues, through rational avenues. And so I always talk about the difference between the atheist and the humanist. And Dale McGowan has a great way of phrasing this, and it's true in my own life, and I think for many others, that atheism was the first step, and humanism is the thousand steps that follow. And when we are in a culture of supposedly enlightened thinkers, and it's true that many people, who are especially those who operate sort of beyond the insanity of religious instruction, they pride themselves on being enlightened people, they have pretty healthy egos, many

0:09:05 Thomas: True.

0:09:52 Seth: Of them, where you get all these people in the same space and you do quite often find conflict, and you'll find, I don't know, there's an eagerness to divide rather than unite, and this is where it always gets sticky, but I had somebody on YouTube the other day who was obviously eager to misunderstand. I was talking to No Illusions, of the scathing atheist podcast I was saying, you know, I'm frustrated by the fact that so many activists are not only sniping at each other, they're doing so publicly, these, you know, petty Twitter battles, and people throwing just radioactive junk all all over each other, just in such a public and ugly way. And of course, I say how frustrating that is. And people say, well, you just want us all to get along and you want groupthink and you want just another religion. You want church. No, I'm not saying that at all.

Noah and I had a disagreement about the use of terms agnostic and atheist. We were just talking about how we approached this issue differently. And at the end of the conversation, we remained fast friends and and big fans of each other's work, and so glad that the other's out there doing what they do. It was just such a positive thing.

0:10:04 Thomas: Sure. Yeah, good friend of mine.

0:11:02 Seth: Now, we disagreed about something, but we didn't turn to personal petty insults. We didn't tear each other to ribbons. We Didn't try to diminish someone to make ourselves look better. And that's one of the things I'm seeing now in the movement that it does frustrate me. I think disagreement's healthy. I Think debate's healthy, even public debate. I think we don't want a herd of people who are accepting blindly. We do want challenge and criticism. But there's a difference between someone saying, I don't agree with this, and here's why. Can we talk? And you're the stupidest person. How could you believe this? Only an idiot would do that.

I mean, there's huge difference in how we approach the differences between us. And then, of course, we lose sight of the bigger picture, which is the fact that we as an atheist movement that's still sort of on a shoestring at this measure is going up against the multi-billion dollar religious steamroller that's negatively impacting the entire freaking planet. We're so busy looking at these small little skirmishes that we've totally lost sight of the larger war. And after almost a decade of this, sometimes it's exasperating. Do you ever feel that? Everything, just think, oh God, people, you know, just turn the volume down just for a second, let's all breathe, you know, we're all friends here kind of thing

0:11:44 Thomas: Sure. Hmm. Yeah, interesting. Do you think it could be a factor of, I suppose, in your life, maybe even geographically where you are, what's affecting you the most? Because the reason I say that is, you know, living in California, I think that while I was, you know, raised not only Christian, and there's certainly the influence of religion. The first job I had out of college, I worked at a small company and they were under the mistaken impression that I was Catholic.

And it was interesting because I had all kinds of inroads with the CEO and was golfing with him and friends, and then he found out I wasn't Catholic, and all of a sudden that kind of thing stopped. So it's definitely, religion has impacted my life somewhat, but when I, that was years ago, and I've kind of gone along a progression that I think is a little bit natural among atheists, which is coming out of the atheism closet, kicking and screaming, and then kind of, you know, eventually settling down and taking sort of a natural progression towards other concerns and stuff. But then I just was at ReasonCon. I don't know if you're familiar with

0:12:22 Seth: So yeah I'm familiar with the recent con they actually showed a video of mine at the very end of the last day so

0:13:24 Thomas: That. Yeah. Oh, that's, of course, That's right. I saw it. That was excellent. And it reminded me, being in, in, you know, North Carolina, being in a totally different place than I am, of course, in California, where there's no power, frequent power outages. But anyway, it struck me, like, oh, yeah, this is a different place. There's a lot, there's a lot of different things going on in the country. And there's going to be areas where, yeah, religion is going to be the most pressing concern on your life. I mean, if you're in a state where you're a woman and you cannot get an abortion because the religious right has ruined your access to Planned Parenthood or to any other clinic that might offer you those services, I mean, these are pressing issues. At the same time, I think maybe, I don't know if you're...

0:13:28 Seth: Yeah

0:14:14 Thomas: Meaning to reference this specifically, or if you're keeping it vague on purpose, but there's been a big divide on social justice lines in atheism, and I sort of wonder if it's a lot of people who are coming at it from the other end, saying, hey, yeah, religion is bad, of course, but what's influencing, what's impacting me right now is social inequality, is Black Lives Matter, is... Police violence is whatever it is. And therefore, they're coming at you from the other end. And maybe these are some of the voices you're talking about. I'm not sure. But they're saying, you know, can't we all get along on this? Can't we all focus on this? And it's sort of a battle of, you issues do to focus on?

0:14:57 Seth: There's a lot to unpack here, um, you know, everybody's got the fire in their belly. Well, I say most people have a fire in their body about one specific issue.

You can see when you post a video about, I mean, I can post a video, a specific subject, and let's say we're talking about, um, secular nature of the the United States Constitution, and let's say I post a video about that, well, you can tell what people, the soapboxes that they drag into the comment section, everybody's walking in with their own thing that they're passionate about. And you can see them twist or move or bend or mold whatever their comment is into their pet cause.

So the video can be about something totally unrelated, well, yeah, the United States Constitution and the church-state separation, First Amendment, but feminism, and then they'll just grab This thing and just go crazy, or, uh, you know, uh, there's someone sent me a message the other day, they wanted me to do a whole show about autism. It's a very important topic. Is it a good fit for my show? I don't know, it'd be a matter of trying to fit it in, probably under a larger umbrella. But you can tell that that's what this person's thinking about, that's they're focused on, it's what has impacted them personally. Everybody's got one of of those. And I'm one of those people too, who I'm weary of those who insist on speaking in these very clumsy, broad strokes. When you talk about social justice, the anti-social justice people will find the most toxic, venomous, counterproductive

0:15:42 Thomas: Sure. Yeah.

0:16:25 Seth: Person on the planet who waves a social justice flag and they'll say, well, you're like them. And well, I don't even know them. I'm I'm not about them, they don't represent me, we're not talking about the same thing. People are so busy shouting, nobody's listening. If you are a person who's an atheist and you aren't impassioned about social justice causes, I mean, that's very much your prerogative. You don't have To go out and join us on the front lines, you don't have to march and demonstrate and whatnot. Not, but there are many people out there who, they see those who are non-heterosexual who've been treated awful, just horribly, often for religious reasons, and they're like, well, let's go out and try to change the game. They see women's reproductive rights under fire and in danger of being minimized and marginalized, and they want to go out, no, that's that's just wrong.

And of course, many of the people are doing this for religious reason, you know, they're waving their Bibles. Why in the world would I not want to go out and make the world a better place? Now, you used a word that you and I have been kind of bantering back and forth, the word inactivist. And I think the show that I'm thinking about doing down the pike is going to be called Inactivism, or the Inactivists.

0:16:32 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Sure.

0:17:43 Seth: I don't begrudge anybody who's an atheist who isn't wired for activism. You're not required to go outside and try to change the world. Some people just aren't that way. They don't want that for themselves. Ourselves and I you know yeah

0:17:55 Thomas: Yeah, people have wives and kids and families and husbands and whatever's, you know, sometimes it's not for everybody to be able to devote that much time to it. I get that.

0:18:01 Seth: And That's cool. I mean, I'm not one of those people who thinks that you are, you know, you're a bad person if you reject superstition and bad ideas, but you, you aren't out there leading the charge. Some people are not wired for that. I think you can, you know, you can live your life, you can take care of your family, you can, some people just, there's also a lie or a misconception that activism means you have to be out there with the placard or a banner, quite frankly, Activism can mean you're just being yourself in full view of your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers, associates, and they get to see what a secular life looks like.

I mean, that might be all you have to do. You don't have to be anything, but stop throwing stones at the people who look at the world tearing itself to pieces and just want to go out and try to make the world a better place. Stop associating good people with the the worst over here. Stop speaking about everybody in binary terms. These are not yes, no, black, white, A, B answers. Quite frankly, often there's a tremendous amount of nuance that these discussions deserve, and you don't get them on a comment section. Yeah.

0:18:30 Thomas: Absolutely Not. Yeah. And lot of questions, but I guess first and foremost, what inspired this? Did you see, were you getting that kind of feedback? Were you seeing people who were, who were, I suppose, discouraging any sort of activism and really being kind of a wet blanket on that front?

0:19:29 Seth: I I get comments from time to time from people we did a show about does religion poison everything it was a riff on the subtitle of Christopher Hitchens' 2007 book. And I've done a couple of shows by that title, actually, because it's such fertile ground. Does religion poison absolutely everything? And I told a story about attending a wedding that was supposed to be a beautiful occasion, and instead the pastor turned it into a guilt fest about how the man is supposed to rule over the woman and the woman must submit. And he gave the audience permission to rebuke the couple, sort of like church discipline, if they felt they weren't acting correctly. And, of course, I'm in the audience thinking, this is Xanadu. This is some fantasy land. This can't be an actual wedding.

0:19:37 Thomas: Hmm. Sure. Oh, gosh.

0:20:16 Thomas: That's happened to me in California. That's happened to me. Yeah. I cannot believe that people allow that to happen at what should be their day. You know, it's, yeah.

0:20:18 Seth: Really? Had been the groom, I think I'd have been like, what right do you have to do all this? Of course, if I'd been the groome, there wouldn't have been a pastor being the officiant anyway. But it just shows you a beautiful thing that didn't require superstition. And the superstitious ideas actually made it worse. It damaged it. It sold some pretty awful ideas. And so we did this show about religion. Does it poison everything? And I had callers and emailers who were spouting off. And in the comment section, I see these people and they're just, they're like, yeah, I'm an atheist. I reject superstition, but you know, it's no skin off my teeth. It doesn't bother me. Why would it bother you? What are you so upset about? Who would spend all their time talking about this kind of stuff? Who would want to go out and be an atheist activist? Why bother with a website? Why make videos? Of course, religious people ask me this question, but it's in a different tone.

0:20:30 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

0:21:17 Seth: Like, why are you so obsessed with God? I think you have a guilty conscience kind of thing. And of course, my response is, you've got to be kidding. You've had a monopoly on the conversation for thousands of years. I wouldn't exist if you weren't already doing what you're doing. I exist, I do what I do, activists do what they do, because you influence political candidates and you taint science books and you go after vulnerable children and you sell the idea of pray the gay away, and you know, you're doing all these horrible things. The only reason we exist is because you exist. We are the response, right.

0:21:20 Thomas: Yeah.

0:21:52 Seth: We've

0:21:52 Thomas: It's one of the most frustrating retorts you'll hear from, well, I was going to say Christians, but it's mainly Christians in this country because they have such a stranglehold on so many things. You'll hear, oh, this is surely a sign you believe in God that, you know, the fact that you're, Seth, you're obsessed with God. You can't just, you can't just ignore it. I mean, you can't, it's like, no, you know, the problem isn't God, really. The problem is... You. The problem is the religious right or whoever, the religious whoever who's doing all the things you just mentioned, who's fighting against science, who's fighting against reproduction rights.

0:22:26 Seth: Been talking talking about scripture right We're talking about, and I'll, I'll know the Bible better than the defender of the faith that I happen to be having, having coffee with or whatever. And I'll be like, no, that's not what it says. No, this is not. What would you say about this? How do you deal with that Old and or New Testament? Blah, blah, blah. And they look at me and they go, why would an atheist be so interested in the Bible? And I just think, what a stupid question.

0:22:28 Thomas: Yeah. Usually not hard. Yeah.

0:22:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:22:50 Seth: There's this saying that there's no such thing as a stupid. That's a stupid questions.

0:22:56 Seth: Better phrase, the question is this. Hey, Seth, why do facts matter? Right? Because that's essentially what they're asking me. Why would facts matter, Why would it matter if any of the stuff that's in the Bible was, you know, we

0:23:15 Thomas: But I think my opinion is that...

0:23:39 Seth: See it with the Johnson Amendment in play here during the Trump administration. And honestly, that's the first part of it. I think there's a second part, and that is that Christianity as a culture tells you that if you're not being persecuted for your faith as Christ was, you're being a good Christian, right? Good Christians are persecuted. So what do you do when you live in the most religiously free, arguably the most religiously-free nation on planet Earth? And I had a Christian mother, and there's a blog out there called Letter to a Christian Mother, and she was talking about how Christianity is always under attack, and I think it was around the Christmas holiday, you know, when they're always bringing out the baby Jesus story in Fox News.

0:24:21 Seth: And did like a laundry list. All right, hang on just a second. You can worship any day, any hour, on any street corner. You can build a church. A church of any denomination. You can pray over your meal in public. You can put Christian flags on your property. You have a Bible in every hotel room. There's a good chance that your elected official shares your Christian faith. There are Christian radio and television networks broadcasting the Jesus message 24-7. You are a cultural majority. You are protected under the United States Constitution. Just tell me exactly how you are persecuted.

0:24:23 Thomas: Someone said happy holidays to me. Well, it's even worse.

0:25:01 Seth: I know. But if you're not persecuted, though, you're not a good Christian. I think that's part of the lie they've told themselves.

0:25:19 Thomas: That is your income.

0:25:52 Thomas: That's all it is. And to paint that as persecution is, it's mind-blowing. It really is.

0:25:56 Seth: I don't know if you just heard my dog barking in the background. Even he's upset about the Johnson Amendment fiasco here. Well, you know, American Atheists filed a lawsuit unsuccessfully a few years ago because the churches, even as non-profits, aren't required to fill out the same paperwork as other 501c3s. They don't have to be as transparent about where the money goes. And of course, they're hiding under their religious privilege blanket. And there's a huge double standard in place. And if you say, look, we would like you to fill out the exact same nonprofit paperwork as all the other 501c3s, you tell them that. And what happens on the church level? They flip out and claim that they're under attack.

0:26:40 Thomas: Yeah.

0:26:40 Seth: Now, how is that an attack? You're right. It's Christian privilege being reminded that they are not the only seat at the table and they flip out I

0:26:49 Thomas: Yeah. And now is a great time to, I suppose, bring this back up on my show because, I mean, maybe under President Hillary or something, the state of the country would be different. But you just mentioned this Johnson Amendment thing, this executive order, this totally unconstitutional executive order that Trump just wrote. Yeah, this is a real step backwards in terms of separation of church and state, this administration. I mean, Mike Pence, I mean, gosh, it's hard to find a more privileged who's wanting to enforce a lot of his views, a lot of his religious views on the nation. So this is, I think this is maybe now more than... Any time in my recent memory, under Bush, I'm sure it wasn't great either, but this is no time to become an inactivist, I suppose is what I'm trying to say.

0:27:39 Seth: Think that's the presidential slogan for this I think this is a big step backwards was actually on a bumper sticker I saw on the highway uh it just I I'm weary. I, I read the headlines every day and I, I sort of shift between outrage and just being numb from, you know, thinking how much, how worse can it get, how much how insane are things going to become. And we have to remain vigilant. That's why I'm a huge supporter of the Secular Coalition for America at secular.org and the Freedom From Religion Foundation at ffr ffrf.org, other organizations who are, you know, they're out there on the front lines, uh, and I, you know, even if we aren't out there on, on the right, there on the courthouse steps, I think we can support the organizations that are, and it's never been more, more critical. Well,

0:27:46 Thomas: Make America backwards again. Yeah, take America... Hmm.

0:28:34 Thomas: That's a great point. I think you'd be hopefully a good person to ask about this. You've mentioned a lot of various activities you can do in terms of being from anywhere from, who knows, being a, gosh, they have to have these in the South, they have to have these essentially security guards for women who want to get an abortion. I mean, from anywhere from being like an abortion escort or something like that, or picketing or something. To what's a way that someone, maybe like we mentioned earlier, the kind of person who, you know, has got a lot going on, very busy person, maybe they got an all-consuming job, maybe they got an all-consuming family life, whatever, who still would want to get involved. I mean, I figure you've got to be a great person to ask for this. What are some of the things that they can do and be in that fight?

0:29:20 Seth: That's the key. If someone wants to get involved, I don't think they should do it because they feel guilty or because someone else is shaming them into it. If it's not your thing, it's like, I want to be a part of this conversation. I want to be part of positive change, but I have no idea what to do. I give the same advice that I used to give when people would ask me about getting into broadcasting. And I would be like, play to your gifts, right? Find out what you're good at. I mean, you may not be wired to blah, blah, blah, right.

0:29:46 Thomas: We all know what Seth's good at. He's got that silky smooth voice. I

0:29:51 Seth: Not everybody's wired to go out and stand behind a podium and, you know, and speak to a hundred or a hundred thousand people. Not Everybody's wired too, to do a specific thing. You may not Be well-versed in the letter of the law, or you may Not be well-read even on your Bible. But there probably is a gift that you have that can help communicate the ideas that are pro-rationality, pro-human beings, pro a better planet, pro science. There are people who don't know the first thing about the book of Genesis, but they're a brilliant songwriter. They love to play music. And so there are people Who go out and they create songs that celebrate humanism and and a quest for Answers and a vigilant curiosity and a wonder and gratitude for being alive. You'll find people who paint, you know, they're, there's a cartoonist who are doing great satirical cartoons. I saw a great one just this morning that had, uh, was it, um, Kinham and Ray Comfort, he'd done them in satire, and they were, uh, it was a banana man kind of a riff that he was doing.

0:30:59 Seth: And he's He's demonstrating the absurd by using his gifts as a satirist and as sort of a political cartoonist, and he is doing what he's good at, what he is passionate about. To Find what you are good at and what drives you, and then see if there is a way that you can make that gift a part of the conversation. Don't force it, you know, it's like, so those guys just come to me and say, "I want to be in the business of radio," and I just have to look at them and just to save them years of time, I would be like, "This may not be where your gifts lie."

0:30:58 Thomas: Think I saw that too, yeah.

0:31:31 Thomas: Yeah,

0:31:32 Seth: What are you good at? Let's start there. And that's always what I tell people. And it doesn't have to be in front of a massive audience. You being at the office with a Neil deGrasse Tyson coffee mug sitting on your desk next to a fundamentalist might just be the conversation starter that begins discussion, discussion that helps them to see you in three dimensions, that has them maybe at a point in their own life when they're curious about, "What is a secular person? What is a non-believer in Jesus?" And before you know it, that small innocuous thing might create a relationship that changes somebody's life. Start small. Don't feel like you have to be swinging for the fences every time you go out. Be who you are, where you are. Play to your gifts. That's always what I say to people. Well,

0:32:17 Thomas: I would echo that. And also, you know, people do work on, like, the best charity and the best, most effective altruism. And it's not, you know, it's, there's no reason to look down upon someone who merely is great at their job and then uses the success that they've found in their professional life to donate to good causes. I mean, that's actually... In some ways, it can be even more effective. I mean, if you are somebody who's just a great, you know, you've been blessed with the ability, so to speak, to earn a great living, there is nothing wrong with that being the way you contribute if you're not someone who's a, you know, cartoonist, a broadcaster, whatever. So I would throw that in as well.

0:33:00 Seth: If we have a focus on people, right? I mean, I just want to help people. My neighbor goes on vacation and I do him a favor and mow his lawn while he's away, I have already accomplished more for the cause of humanism than a thousand people who sat with their hands clasped and prayed to the sky that something good would happen to this family. You know, I've already been a part of some positive change, and there are no little things. I just think there are not really insignificant things.

Everything matters, and at the end of the day, I'd like to see people a little less eager to divide, not to blindly agree, but to splinter and throw venom and publicly and just be ugly. I think we can passionately, strongly disagree about the things we care about, but we can also love each other and we can care about the bigger picture and come together when it's most important to do so. And if there was one thing that I would like this movement to be doing at this measure, especially in the wake of the Trump administration and the anti-science culture in place, is we need to think about

0:33:05 Thomas: Great point.

0:34:09 Seth: The big picture and come together and choose our battles and understand that we're all on the same side, or at least most of us are on the same side. We want a better world. Let's just try to make that happen at whatever it takes. I

0:34:19 Thomas: Yeah, I think I'm going to have to address the elephant that's going to be in the room with my audience, at least. Yeah, I had a big disagreement with David Smalley. And I do want to emphasize, though, that I actually take your point. And no matter how much we had a kind of a disagreement about some facts and about how things were dealt with, the whole time, and I will say now, I think the guy does great work. And I'm happy if people listen to his show, support his work, support his activism. At no time did I ever...

0:34:55 Seth: Think that's fair. Hell, I disagree with Smalley on stuff. I mean, I can't think of anybody in this movement. I've agreed with every by everything on you Know I'm saying, uh, there have been times when he handled something, or another activist handled something, in a way that I would have done it differently. At the end of the day, though, I'm willing to give Dave and everybody else's, I would hope they give me the benefit of the doubt. Now there are some people who've just gone off the rails And we, we have to address those, that we just have to, we haveと say I'm sorry, I stand apart from this, this is, this is wrong and we feel it's damaging.

There are some people brandishing the atheist moniker who I think are doing real damage to the conversations out there. They don't represent me in any way and I stand apart. I think there, there's an occasion when you have to, you know, you have get out, get serious, go public, but whenever possible, you know, I'd rather build a bridge than barbecue one. And so I'm going to try to do that, and then if it becomes impossible, we'll figure out what the next step is from there. Yeah.

0:34:55 Thomas: Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah.

0:35:52 Thomas: I think you're right, and I think the key is I'm always willing to talk. I mean, personally, that's what I try to do. I'm always willing to engage. I'm always willing to debate. And I think people who, and you don't at all have to sign your name onto this, but I'm not afraid to because I've been put in this position. People like, say, PZ Myers. I asked him a question on Twitter about something he tweeted, and I got blocked. There's nothing now that he will never have any influence on me or my thinking because he has taken himself out of that conversation. And the only reason I call him out specifically is because with someone like him, I have no option now. He has decided to block me for what was a nothing question, any sign of disagreement. And I just don't think that's productive. I will now never have any...

0:36:33 Seth: Yeah

0:36:44 Thomas: I think keeping that fine line of not falling into groupthink, I think you've outlined it pretty well there, where it's, yeah, there's people who take the name of atheism and say or do pretty awful things with it, and there's no reason to endorse everything. I think keeping that... Keeping the conversation civil and outlining where you disagree is the key there. So I think you've made a good point.

0:37:07 Seth: That's what I mean about nuance there is no no AB, there is no cookie cutter, exacto knife solution. I think it's person to person, case by case. It's a hugely complex thing. We just do the best we can. And if someone closes the avenue of dialogue and discussion, but continues to go out there and spread bad ideas, I consider them fair game. So yeah,

0:37:29 Thomas: Sure, sure. Do do you think... that atheists have a bit of an obligation to be out? Because I think that's been a key ingredient in some of the things you've talked about where, you know, maybe you've got your science mug or your atheism mug in your workplace and you open up the potential for someone to learn about atheists, or like you said, you mow someone's lawn, they know you, maybe they already know you're doing it for humanist reasons or not, you're just a humanist and they know that you're doing good. Do you see that as somewhat of an obligation if possible to be out as an atheist?

0:38:00 Seth: Possible, I don't know if I would call it an obligation. The reason I say like go mow somebody's lawn and, you know, be a friend and, and you know, a lot of times there I've known some people that the first thing out of their mouth as soon as you meet them is something atheism related, right? So if, if they go out and hang out, they were not talking as people, one person's already talking as an activist. And Ryan Craig and studies down at the University of Tampa have some, some great data which show that data, information, facts, evidence, those aren't really the things that change people's minds, right?

0:38:34 Thomas: Oh, I know. It's so unfortunate. I wish it were.

0:38:37 Seth: Social circles, the changing of social circles is Probably one of the key things. So what happens if my neighbor meets me and the first thing he hears is I'm an atheist? How often do you think we go hang out? But if we turn out to sort of jive, we meet at the mailbox, and before you know it, we go out and play a round of tennis, and we all go out to eat somewhere, and we hang out. We develop friendships organically in the the course of conversation, after they've gotten to see me in three dimensions and and seen past the caricature of the evil, angry, baby eating atheist and see this nice guy that you really enjoy. It's much harder for him to put me in a in a box. It's harder, you know, I really have messed with his categories at that point, and he has to then reconcile his Bible and what Christianity says about atheists against the guy that he lives next to who's actually a good dude, you know. And And that's why I talk about doing those kinds of things.

0:38:38 Thomas: Yeah. Absolutely.

0:39:29 Seth: People should come out whenever they can, but I always say, if you're not sure and the consequences are high, wait. Because the first two years of the Thinking Atheist website, it launched in 2009, I didn't show my face or give my name because I was working for a company that largely had a church clientele and was owned by evangelicals. Now, I'm a middle-aged man with a mortgage and responsibilities. What happens if they find an excuse to fire me and I'm no longer able to provide for my family? I was working a way out. I was navigating, trying to find a way through that situation. Dan Barker wrote in his book, Godless, that he preached behind the pulpit.

Largely, they were humanistic messages, granted, but for like two years as he was trying to figure out, I'm the pastor who doesn't believe. What am I going to do with my life, right? There are consequences, and those consequences can be small or they can be life-threatening and massive, depending on who you are and where you are. So I think we all should be working to a place where we can live honestly. Life's too short not to be who we are and not to say it loud and proud and not to live in somebody else's shadow. We're not obligated to keep the rest of the world happy.

0:39:58 Thomas: Right. Wow. But if you're in Saudi

0:40:44 Seth: But if you live in Pakistan, I get it. I totally get it. And I think we shouldn't shame those who are playing a longer game. In many cases, it's chess, not checkers. And so I think my hope would be that you can navigate to a moment when you can say the word.

0:40:45 Thomas: Arabia, by all means, stay in the closet. Yeah. Yeah.

0:41:04 Thomas: Yeah.

0:41:05 Seth: With my family, I started with questions. I didn't walk in with an atheist t-shirt on, like R.N. Ross got a great shirt that says, "There is no God, but Allah." Just kidding. "There is no God." That's a great t-shirt. I didn't wear that to my family's thing. What I did was, is I began to ask them questions. I began to sort of gradually warm the waters to the point where it wasn't, you know, it was still a shock, but I was, I really, I'm not trying to hurt anybody else. I just want to live an honest life and I would, that would be my hope for everybody. I hope you can get to the point when you can embrace your life, when you're surrounded by those who will accept you for who you are when you can speak your mind without fear or apology and we can live our lives as human beings with a wonder and curiosity and awe and appreciation of these brief moments that we have in the sun. I think that's all I could hope for anyone.

0:41:59 Thomas: Absolutely. And it is depressing. That's been a theme of my show of late. More, again, more focused on Trump supporters. I tried to debate. Actually, you probably know Dr. Robert Price. I had him on the show to talk Trump. And it is... It, well, I did my best to let him speak and poke at him where I could, poke at his arguments where I could. I thought it was productive. I don't think it's going to take a force of God to change his mind because he's really mired in that. But I think the response was actually really good. And I would do it again, even though He said some really, really awful things, like he would welcome another Kent State. Just disgusting stuff that I would challenge him on more next time. But I've just gotten frustrated with just the impenetrability of... You could say both sides. I think that it's fair to say that both sides of any spectrum of people are usually resistant to changing their views, but there's something going on with Trump support and with people who are in a real alternate set of facts that makes it particularly difficult.

It's unfortunate that, I think you're right, and I think that research you referenced is absolutely right, that logical arguments, unfortunately, and evidence, as has been, I had another expert to talk about that a little bit afterward, that those aren't the things, unfortunately, that do it most of the time.

0:42:13 Seth: That go good sure

0:43:27 Thomas: And I think it's a good reason possibly why rural areas are so much different than areas where you're, you know, like cities where you're meeting a bunch of people, you're interacting with people of different... Creeds of different, you know, sexual orientation of all that. When you're in an insulated little environment and, you know, you don't get a chance to interact with different people, you're not going to develop that sympathy for them, that empathy for them. And I think that's a good, it might be a good note to go out on. And it's a good message that you had, which is get out there and do good work and be kind and be a friend at first. And then, you know, then they see.

0:44:00 Seth: Yeah there's a time for anger right but but let's not let's start with rage I mean I mean, when dealing with each other, if you know, if there's any chance the other person's working in good faith, let's, let's start with the volume not at 11, and then when the time comes and we do get good and pissed off, it means something, you know, because those times will come, but no, it's been an honor to be a part of the discussion. I appreciate the invite. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you. Thank

0:44:10 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, thank you so much for coming on, Seth. Keep doing what you're doing. Of course, I know you will. And it's a big honor to talk to you.

0:44:42 Seth: You

0:45:06 Thomas: All right. Thanks so much to Seth for coming on. Great discussion. That guy's a pro and always interesting and always sounds great. He can't help but sound amazing. So with that said, I would love to play you. I'm going to play the audio of a video I made. Now, of course, the video will be better. So if you don't, if you would rather just watch that, feel free to stop the episode now because this is the end. But if you want to take a peek, listen first, a sneak listen first. Here you go. And if you like what you hear, check out the link, as I said, and share it because I think it, I think it illustrates some good stuff in a humorous way. And I'm, I'm really hoping it'll catch on. So thanks for that. Thanks for listening. And here's a, here's my real honest Republican ad for the American healthcare act.

0:45:54 Clip: Hi. We're the House Republicans. In 2016, you, the American people, sent a clear message with your vote. And we listened. That's why we've just passed the American Health Care Act. The man you elected promised there would be no cuts to Medicaid. And so, we're adding $880 billion to Medicaid by 2026. You made one thing absolutely clear in electing Donald Trump, that people with pre-existing conditions need to be protected. Well, it took us a couple of tries, but we've got an amendment in there that guarantees access to health care. That's right, we will not physically prevent you from using bags and bags of money to pay whatever an insurance company decides is fair to cover that weird thing you have.

0:46:47 Clip: We know Obamacare guaranteed coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, but our bill does it better. It gives states the choice to hopefully probably keep protecting you. Why? Because when someone has the option to let you die and they choose not to, it means more that way. You might be asking yourself, how do we do it? Well, we Republicans follow the example of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who is pictured here putting the sick into high-risk pools and hoping it all works out.

The bottom line is, you, the American people, cried out with one voice saying, please don't let health care costs bankrupt me, and we said yes, we hear you, and that's why this bill eliminates a very modest tax that applies to investment income for families making more than $250,000 a year, because maybe, maybe you know one of those families, and maybe they'll let you borrow some money if your hospital bills get too out of hand. Look, some of this might not seem like exactly what you asked for when you elected Trump, but trust us, we know you better than you know you. So keep us in power. We are the representation you deserve.