SIO182: A Conversation with Russell Glasser

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 182, I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and this week, and now for something a little different, you know, obviously, there's a lot going on in the news, and I'm sure you should tune in to Opening Arguments to hear more about that, something a little different for this show this week.

You know, Russell Glasser is somebody who's been a fixture, especially on Atheist Experience and his other podcast, The Non-Prophets, and just in the atheism scene for quite a while, So if you're an atheist like me, certainly in the last 10 years, you've probably...

Spent a lot of time listening to or watching Russell, or at the very least, you might have heard of him, anyway, he recently kind of dropped out of the scene quite a bit, he hasn't done a show of atheist experience in at least a year, maybe more, he's stopped doing that kind of thing, he is backed out of activism a decent amount, And I saw some of his posts about it recently, and I asked him if he wanted to come on and just talk about it, so, here we go, a conversation with Russell Glasser, who, of course, you'll know from Atheist Experience, among other places, Let's head on over and talk to him.

0:01:44 Thomas: Russell, welcome to the show.

0:01:46 Russell: Hi there, how are you?

0:01:47 Thomas: I'm doing well. How are you doing? All right. I, you know, we've never, we haven't really talked a lot. I know we met very briefly once, but I'm so glad to have you on. And I'm really, yeah, I,

0:01:49 Russell: I'm doing pretty good, yeah, was, was it at, where was it, the American Atheist Convention or something like that?

0:02:02 Thomas: I think that's where it was. I think it was one of those things where we were both, we're both on our way somewhere else, maybe. And we're just like, oh, hey, yeah. We should talk. And then we, you you know, finally we are. So I'm glad we're talking, but I had seen some of your posting lately and it's interesting.

I talk a lot about on the show about the atheist movement and, you know, my thoughts on it and where I feel and whereI feel I fit in or don't fit in and all that kind of thing. And it seems like, you know—and you're somebody who—well, I want you to give your story for the listeners who might not be familiar, but you're Somebody who's far more integral, I think, in my opinion, to atheists than I would ever be.

So it's really interesting to hear these thoughts from your angle too. So I very much want to hear it. But just to rewind a bit and go back, could you give kind of your background at least, obviously not time for your life story, but just within kind of atheism and the movement and the work you've done, that kind of

0:02:58 Thomas: Thing, for people who aren't familiar?

0:02:58 Russell: Yeah, well, sorry, I'm gonna go a little bit into life story as far as it's relevant. I'm a lifelong atheist, my, my parents are both secular Jewish physicists, and I was raised, I actually had a bar mitzvah, but didn't take any of the religion angle seriously. My dad and his whole family were staunch atheists. I'm told that his, like, grandfather was reading Bertrand Russell on his deathbed. And, of course, that's, you know, I'm named after Bertrand Russell for what that's worth.

0:03:02 Thomas: That's okay. That's Okay.

0:03:12 Thomas: Oh, wow.

0:03:38 Thomas: That's awesome.

0:03:39 Russell: Lived in Alabama for a few years, and now I live in Texas. And I've lived a few other places. But I moved to Austin, which is not really Texas, in or around 2000, and I hooked up with the atheist community of Austin. I was a member for 18 years. I was president of the group for the last couple of years there, and that was until last May. And I also did a lot of time hosting the Atheist Experience, and I also launched another show that was never quite as successful called The Non-Prophets. So, yeah, I've been around in atheist circles a lot.

0:03:50 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:29 Thomas: Yeah. And, you know, I'm sure so many people are going to be familiar with you and your work, especially from atheist experience and Non-Prophets. But also, can you talk about what led you to wanting to, it's one thing to be an atheist and it's probably, I guess, a little bit another to want to feel the, I I guess, motivation and desire to really try to be public and publicly engage with people about atheism. What do you think drove you toward that end of things?

0:05:02 Russell: There are definitely a few things, and one of them is, like I mentioned, when I was five years old, my dad moved to Alabama. He had been an associate professor at Princeton, which is a pretty nice gig to work at, But he got a full professorship at Auburn University. University. So right about the time I started growing up and coming into my own opinions and grappling with what it means to be an atheist, since my whole family already was, I was surrounded by Alabamans. So that made me kind of strident and outspoken about it. And also, you know, I was going to college in the early 90s, and I was a computer science student, and so the internet was becoming cool after I was, you know, I'm going to be hipster about the internet now.

0:05:17 Thomas: Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah, ah,

0:06:02 Russell: So I was on, like, a lot of proto-message boards before the internet was really the internet, and that got me into arguing, as well as the fact that I was on the high school debate team, so I've always been kind of blunt and not shy about my unpopular opinions, and I noticed that atheism is way less of an unpopular opinion than it used to be, so I kind of figure, you know, my work here is done.

0:06:18 Thomas: Oh, interesting. Yeah okay, well that's a good transition to talking about that. I mean, has there been a change in how you felt about public atheism, online atheism? And And if so, you know, talk about that change, kind of when it happened and what goes into it.

0:06:51 Russell: I'm real proud of the early stuff that we did with The Atheist Experience. It wasn't always an internet show. It started on cable access and my experience, I mean, drawing back to being a kid in Alabama at that time, it felt like if you tell people that you're an atheist, they wouldn't be offended so much as confused, like, what do you mean there's no God, God? That doesn't even make any sense. So, like, I didn't get beaten up over my atheism or anything like that. But I think the interesting thing, and I've always kind of drawn on the fact that I majored in computer science and minored in political science, so the fact that the birth of the Internet had a huge impact on the way people saw and approached atheism has always been super interesting to me. And I think there were a lot of people who were in a worse situation than I was, like a lot of people, who rejected the idea of God, but were not in a supportive family, and didn't have anyone to talk to about it.

0:07:17 Thomas: Yeah,

0:08:13 Russell: And feel like the internet brought people in contact with a lot lot of contrary opinions in a way that they wouldn't have been able to hear or talk about in earlier times. So, you know, being a guy who's geeky about technology and also a guy whose used to people being pissed off at him for those unusual opinions, it just kind of became a niche interest of mine.

0:08:50 Thomas: Yeah. And I want to echo that, you Know, I love so much of the work that you've done and so much of The Work That Atheist Experienced did in popularizing and bringing to the consciousness, you know? Because it's so funny when you hear those callers from time to time that just are really baffled. Like, they don't seem to be able to comprehend what it even means for someone to be an atheist. And they always think atheists are like mad at God or something. And so there's a lot of excellent work, tons of excellent work through now, what, decades, a decade and a half? And, oh, wow.

0:09:13 Russell: Yeah. Uh, yeah, I think the show got its start in 1997, I want to say, and then I got involved sometime between 2000 and 2001.

0:09:33 Thomas: Yeah. So you were there for all through, you know, the quote unquote new atheism, I guess, what movement, trend? I don't know what you call it, but you were kind of there before it and after it.

0:09:42 Russell: Yeah, I was pretty excited by how much attention it was getting for a while. Well, here. I mean, I especially remember September 11th being a significant turning point for people talking about atheism publicly because, I mean, first of all, was an act of religious terrorism, and there are a lot of other factors that went into it. And I'm not only an atheist, but but pretty liberal, and so I like to think that my opinions about that sort of thing are nuanced, um, but like, the one hand, it kicked off a sudden greater awareness about the dangers that religious, religious fundamentalism would pose, and on the other hand, there was a lot of, you know, well, now

0:09:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to talk about that? How that looked from where you were sitting?

0:10:37 Russell: More than ever we need God, so shut the hell up atheists. How, how much am I okay with swearing on this podcast? Okay, so shut up atheist. Um, and I saw all these articles coming out that were like, "You know, oh, hopefully now this will put atheism to rest," because, you know, we need Christianity to counter this rising tide of Islam. And then also there was this wave of anger and even religious violence against not only Muslims, but people who looked Muslim or gave the appearance of being sympathetic to Islam. So there was, as I recall, there was some kind of, or a community center being built in New York,

0:10:43 Thomas: Yeah. You're fine. Oh, yeah.

0:11:31 Russell: At the time, and it got this huge amount of political pushback. And there were stories of Sikhs walking down the street being assaulted. Assaulted. And it was like, you know, what, what happened to those like one or two days or so after September 11th, where everybody was talking about being unified as Americans, it like evaporated immediately.

0:11:39 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I were united. We really were united for like a day or two, maybe even a week, you know, like sports stopped, like all this stuff. It was crazy. And yeah.

0:12:01 Russell: Going to be hipster again for a second. The Iraq war had like 80 or 90% approval and I was in the 10 or 20%. I

0:12:06 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, nice. Well, that's, that'S good. I was, uh, at the time, you know I'm a bit younger than you. I was in high school and I was raised in a solidly Fox News household. So I think you can probably guess where I stood on all these things. I, I, I've come a long way since then. Uh, but, but yeah, but it is interesting, you it up just a little side note. It's something I I brought up before when we get really, sometimes people are very angry about any politician who voted for the Iraq, who voted for The Iraq War. And I get that anger also, but I feel like as you bring it up, it had massive approval. And it's interesting for the public to say, hey, no, these representatives who, by the way, were being lied to by, you know, Condoleezza Rice or whoever, some people in the White House, they ought to do not what the public wants.

0:13:03 Thomas: They ought to do something different than 80% to 90% of the public wants. It's weird to take that as a principle going forward on other things. It feels interesting.

0:13:14 Russell: Think, I think people have a really short attention span. Um, and, know, as a person who has always been into skepticism and also has a master's degree in software engineering, I'm like hyper aware of statistics and How people use numbers to lie a lot. Know, I think it's to maintain that awareness that there's a sort of crowd think and people make bad decisions when the bad decisions happen to be popular. But of course, people should still get props for going against that, but it's way harder than people seem to think. And also, it's a point that really bugs me about who first and foremost identify as skeptics, that they think that that they're skeptical and rational is some kind of magical shield from ever being wrong about anything. Yeah.

0:13:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:14:13 Thomas: I couldn't agree more. Sorry, a little side topic there, but it is interesting when you talk about having having been there for that, you know, and, and it's, it's it's amazing that you were part of that 10% or maybe 20% of most, but I think a lot of people in retrospect think they were, or say they were as like, wow, that seems like a lot of people when it was only, you know, 10% of the public or so. But, but it's interesting having lived through it.

Like, yeah, people were all on board with that. And like George W. Bush's approval rating went through the roof. It was like 92 or something. It was crazy. But anyway, long story short, off of that little subtopic there. Yeah, so over the years, you know, I guess 9-11, I think was a catalyst for Sam Harris as well and his writing and, and I guess it really, really was, You know, a lot of why the new atheists came to prominence, um, and it's interesting because of the way, you know, the the age that I was, like, I didn't necessarily know that New Atheism was a new thing. Like, I thought, I thought in my process, you know, like, I was just coming across these authors who had always been around writing these books on atheism, but it turns out it was a bit of a wave in that time.

0:15:30 Russell: Yeah. I used to do talks at atheist conventions and used to. I mean, it's still less than a year since I quit doing stuff. But I had this graph that I really loved to show of the of the American population that say they don't follow any religion. And it goes for decades just being flat at like 5% or something like that. And then all of a sudden in the early to mid 90s, it takes this upward tilt and then just keeps going and going and going until the present day. And it's like, hmm, what happened in the earlier to mid-90s? I mean, you know, the Internet is the point.

0:16:21 Thomas: That's interesting. I wonder, a bit of a pessimist on this kind of thing because we talk a lot about the rise of the nuns and the N-O-N-E-S, obviously, and, you Know, the fact, and I do definitely think that being able to identify as atheist has become easier and all that, but sometimes I wonder if I could put put together a counter hypothesis that would have more, well,

0:16:31 Russell: Yeah.

0:16:40 Russell: Probably going to agree with that counter hypothesis, too. I

0:16:50 Thomas: I'm not sure. Yeah. Yeah, it could be both obviously, but I think people have become more and more disenchanted with organized religion. And I do think a tremendous number of the people who say they are nuns, that they don't have a religion are actually, they just don't want to say they're Catholic or they're, you know, specific denomination, especially given all in the nineties, a lot of of the church, you know, priest abuse, all the stuff that came to light, it was also at the same time as the internet and as atheism was getting a little more visibly okay. I think also there was just a lot of anger at organized religion. And so there may be a lot of people mixed in who probably believe in God, but just answer not, you know, not affiliated kind of thing.

0:17:36 Russell: Mean, you're right, but also the percent of people that say they don't believe in God has continued to rise also. And, of course, that proportion was and still is smaller than the nuns, but they grew kind of together. So that's one thing, but, also, I feel like, during that time, religious fundamentalism has grown a lot, too. So I think it's not just that atheism is straight up more popular. I think it's also that people are just getting more polarized and hardened in whatever side they happen to be on. I

0:17:44 Thomas: Yeah. Right, right, right. Of course. Yeah, mm-hmm.

0:18:05 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah,

0:18:20 Russell: Evangelicals had the highest turnout for Trump, which is weird, if you you think about it, I mean, and I'm sure I'm sure you have thought about it because I I mean, because it speaks to it's like the team mentality is more important than than the principles that they say they stand for. Oh,

0:18:23 Thomas: Yeah. Amazing. That's incredible. Yeah, yeah.

0:18:47 Thomas: Well, we've jumped around a bit. I know, sorry. It's just interesting to talk about some of this history with somebody who's, been there for more of it.

0:18:51 Russell: I'm I'm super add so that's all right.

0:18:54 Thomas: Well, but you cause I, essentially the punchline that, you Know, that I'm very interested in is it does seem like, and I, you know, put it in your own words, but it does seems like you are kind of ready to be, you know, be done with atheist activism or take a step back in some way. And I I'm, I'm curious along that journey, we've gotten detoured a little, but what more do you want want to add along the way that would, that would kind of properly tell that story.

0:18:54 Russell: Um, Well, I haven't hosted a show since middle, last year. And I will come clean with a confession. I lost my reelection for president of the ACA. The current president, perfectly nice guy, no objection to him. But, I mean, it gave me some time to step back and notice that there are a lot of things things that have been stressing me out in the last few years. And unfortunately, just dealing with and thinking about the atheist movement has become way more of a source of stress and misery than it is like enjoyment of sharing some information that people need to hear. And I thought, you know, it's not on me to deal with whatever, you know, financing the damn website or making sure that, you know, making sure the next event goes off without a hitch. And, you not going to name any specific names, but there were were just a lot of people who it was more of a burden uh than than a joy to hang out with, and so I was basically like fuck it eventually.

0:19:34 Thomas: Hmm. Yeah.

0:20:43 Thomas: Which is, I mean, it's, it's, it's probably gotta be heartbreaking to a lot of your fans and a lot to, you know, people who have followed you throughout the years.

0:20:43 Russell: Uh yeah. I've tried to explain where I've gone, but I mean, mostly, you know, communicating with people publicly is is exactly the kind of uh uh burden and effort that I stepped away from. So uh I haven't been too good. Like, there are still a lot of people who are listening to years old Atheist Experiences, and at some point they say like, hey, I haven't heard Russell host in a while, that's weird. Um so, so I get messages from time to time going, hey, where have you gone? And and I feel good about knowing that people miss me like that. But not good enough to go back to that.

0:20:51 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:21:34 Thomas: I, it sounds like, you the stress of running any or being president of any any organization is obviously going to be, regardless, there's going to be stress involved, but there's something about, uh, the movement or the organization or the kinds of interactions you're having that was, that was stressing you more than is worth it.

0:21:49 Russell: Yeah, I mean, some of it is people in the group. And a lot of it is, I mentioned this in the post that you were responding to when you got in touch. I was saying that always would ask me, How do you have so much patience to field all these callers? How can you keep responding to these same dumbass arguments over and over again for religious callers, and I honestly said the callings don't get to me. I still find those fun after all this time.

0:22:01 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

0:22:27 Russell: But I mean, what was really bugging me was the huge number of, I mean, not huge, it was always a minority, but it was a growing number of people who would call who were atheists with like a bone to pick. Uh and I think they kind of felt like I had a responsibility to represent their point of view, and I uh didn't. Um uh and I I think actually the first version of that that started to impose on my consciousness was actually 9-11 truthers. Like like

0:22:45 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, wow. Some got some atheism, atheist nine 11 truthers calling in.

0:23:12 Russell: Oh, yeah, plenty. I I think 9-1-1 truth had a really active uh atheist uh uh fan base. Is that news to you? I

0:23:16 Thomas: Oh, I guess it would be news to me, like in particular, like I I wouldn't have thought that it was disproportionately atheist or anything, you know, so I don't know, but

0:23:34 Russell: Know if it was disproportionately atheist, but what I think it was is that, like, atheists who listened for a while, and they would be like, all right, these guys are awesome. They're anti-religion. They speak for me. And then they would hear me make an offhand comment about, you know, these dorks who think that 9-11 was fate or an inside job. And then they would get really pissed off. They would be like, how could these guys be so skeptical and rational, but they buy the official government story?

0:24:07 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. That's, well, that'S rough. So, so that's rough, step one, but you know in looking at your post that you also referenced, I think you had a follow-up comment there too about the idea of atheism. I think this is something interesting to talk to. I think that some people at the kind of, I say the top of atheism, or at least in leadership or prominent people, started to, you know, a few years ago, tie all of their views along with the bundled package of rationality and atheism kind of thing, you know, and I wonder if you could talk about some of those views or some of of those callers or something, because I really do think there's this pretty brilliant salesmanship job that even people like Steven Pinker feed into a lot, which is enlightenment equals, you know, rational equals atheism equals good. And don't you think these feminists have gone too far and are yelling too much kind of thing?

0:24:42 Russell: Yeah.

0:25:10 Russell: That is a lot to chew on. Actually, so, I mean, I have so many opinions about that topic, but it's always hard to frame it into a good way to start, but there's actually a question I've been wanting to ask you. Um, if I can put you on the spot for a second, because the The first time I ever heard of you was when you showed up in blog feeds saying, oh, this guy is going to humor Sargon of Akkad by talking to him for a long time at some convention somewhere, right?

0:25:19 Thomas: Mm hmm. Hmm. Oh, sure. Oh Really? That's how it showed up places, that's interesting. That's how it showed up places, I'm curious about that.

0:25:44 Russell: But in the kind of blogs I read, it's like, what is this guy thinking, giving Sargon Akkad oxygen? And who is he anyway? And I mean, that was the first I ever hear of you. So I don't

0:25:50 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Well, that's fair. Yeah. There's no reason. Well, uh, yeah, I mean, I've told that story, of course, um, but just, just to answer for you, um, yeah, I was committed, they had me down to debate, um, Dave Rubin.

0:26:13 Russell: Know who that is.

0:26:14 Thomas: And you're, oh, okay.

0:26:14 Russell: Or I, I feel like I've heard of him, but I don't.

0:26:17 Thomas: All right. Well, they had me down to debate Dave Rubin, which is, he's, I can't stand Dave Rubin. I think he's a YouTuber who pretended, he actually interviewed Sam Harris, was the first interview of his new YouTube channel thing that has millions of subscribers now. And he's just this, in my opinion, incredibly annoying, like right-wing in disguise kind of guy who talks about being the last liberal, but then conveniently all his talking points are pro-Republican stuff and that kind of thing.

0:26:46 Russell: Is he going to hear this, uh, this podcast that we're doing? And then am I going to get spammed with Twitter mentions from people who hate me now?

0:26:49 Thomas: No, I would highly doubt it, but that's okay.

0:26:55 Russell: I mean, I'm used to

0:26:57 Thomas: I talk trash on Ruben all the time, and I've never heard from him.

0:26:57 Russell: It, but, but okay. Um, hi, Dave Rubin. I don't know who you are and I don't care.

0:27:06 Thomas: Okay, I'll put it this way. He's too big time for me, I will say that. He's doing well. He's got millions. He's actually partially funded by, is it Koch brothers or is it? Yeah, it might be Koch brother money. He is doing fine. Anyway, yeah, he is doing well. He goes on Tucker Carlson all the time as The last liberal, by the way. He is a liberal. He pretends to be liberal. Anyway, the point was, back in this time, they had me signed on. They had him signed on and I was going to debate him or at least interview him. And for me, because of how I feel, that would very quickly turn into a debate. And so I was I was on board. I was signed on. I was, you know, travel was arranged, all that kind of thing. And Dave Rubin backed out. And they the people at this event who I had, I'd been at this event the year before and had nothing but a positive experience because and maybe this is something you can relate to as the president of a group. This Milwaukee group had both

0:27:21 Russell: Really? By just want to. Oh yeah.

0:28:10 Thomas: Awful people in it and good people in it and the year before I had dealt with some good people

0:28:10 Russell: Yeah. Listen, I had opinions about this Milwaukee group before I heard anything about the Akkad group either. Because I was only familiar with the, oh my gosh, the Mythicist group, right? Which has so many weird people in it.

0:28:15 Thomas: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yes. Yes. It but I, so I didn't know, you know, I had nothing but a good experience. I'd went and did a Bible talk at their thing, had a great experience, it was a good event, nothing wrong with it, you know, I met Matt there that year. And And so I, you know, I had, at that time I had nothing but goodwill toward them. And so this guy, you know, Dave Rubin drops out and they say, well, we'll find somebody else for you to pay. I say, whatever. And the other thing is like, I'm, you now, you know how it is. I'm busy. I don't think about it. Whatever. I said, they'd mentioned this Sargon guy. I hadn't heard of them. They said he was a YouTube kind of right wing guy. And I said fine. I don't care. Like I'm already, the travel's already booked. Everything's already good. I'll go. You know? So that's on me. Like I didn't look into him at first and I accept that responsibility

0:29:11 Russell: Okay, well I can't blame you if you had no idea who he was.

0:29:19 Thomas: Yeah. And then Like eventually people brought it to light uh and I had to really think about it and like I went through a process. I think I even talked about it on the show. Like I really, I was this close to not going, but like, a I did, I committed, so I felt like it would be really shitty to pull out at the last minute to something I committed to. Um, you know, I just, I just really didn't feel good about that.

Again, again, under the assumption that I had dealt with these good people in this group before. Turns out there were some good people and a lot of really shitty people. So had I known that now, like, you know, had I know what I know now, could have been different. And Secondly, I was like, you know, I agreed to do it. And I'm just going to put it all on the line. I'll just call out this guy. For one thing, Carl has a lot more YouTube subscribers than I have listeners. So I don't think I'm giving him a platform. I think if anything, it's probably goes the other way. But you know, they're not, they're, they're stuck with him. Here's what my thinking was. They were having him no matter what.

I, by the way, I wrote email saying, can we, once I found out who it was, they said this is not a good idea, you should not have this guy, but they were committed to that. And so I thought, okay, if I don't go there and challenge this guy, who are they going to hire and what will that person do? Will they, be you know, will they just sit there and not bring up all his bullshit and will they just be a be an easy

0:29:55 Russell: Okay. Okay.

0:30:42 Thomas: Interview for him? Uh, that would be worse to me. Uh, that, that would have been worse. So my thinking was, it will be worse for atheists who go to this convention who are thinking, you shouldn't have got me on this topic, man, this is your problem now. Now you, now you have to hear what my thinking is. It would be better, my thinking was, here's an event that I, for all I knew, was still a good organization.

Now, at about this time, I was starting to realize it wasn't, but I was thinking there's going to be people who are going thinking, oh, this is just an atheist conference, and I didn't want them to have a racist, sexist piece of garbage up there spouting crap and have someone nodding along, giving them a softball interview, and then have those people think, oh, that's a cool, that guy's part of atheism, he's a cool whatever. I wanted to make sure that people would know who he was.

Already committed, I didn't think they were going to find somebody who would do what I would do, and so I went with it, Now, was that the right decision? I don't know, probably not, I don't, but like that, that was my thinking. So there you go.

0:31:36 Russell: I mean, I'm not going to bust your chops about it or anything.

0:31:39 Thomas: You feel free to, I mean, you can, I, I it is what it is. Feel free to say whatever you think about it. I don't care.

0:31:41 Russell: I mean I'll just say that by the time it comes to light that someone like that is getting to have a prominent spot at the convention, like that there would have been a red flag to me that like, what kind of convention is this that I'm going to? Uh,

0:32:01 Thomas: Yeah. Right. It's again, the second year I had gone. So it was a level of confusion. Like, and what, what happened was the people who were shitty kind of took over in that second year. So it's very confusing, but I agree with you. Like I, uh, I would never do it again. I'm not going to do something like that again because we shouldn't be giving those people platforms. We shouldn't Be setting it up as a debate. It's not, you know?

0:32:06 Russell: Yeah. Sure. And You know, actually, this whole concept of giving people platforms or not is is one that really like resonates with my twin interests of atheism and technology because like I've, I've listened to a lot of the stuff about important it is for for free speech to be absolute and and just let anybody talk about anything at any time. And I think as a person with a debate background and as a, as a person, uh, uh, who had some success, and I'll say like with a call-in show, it's kind, you, you're, you're kind of taking conversation on easy mode because you have the hang up button, um, If if you're five minutes into a debate with a complete asshole at a convention, uh, you, you have to actually make a decision. Like, am I going to walk out of this or am I gonna suffer through another 55 minutes?

0:32:52 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:33:35 Thomas: Yeah, that was the decision I found myself making. Yeah.

0:33:35 Russell: Um, And you know, there there were some huge assholes, religious or not religious, who would call me and they would, you know, as soon as they would call, they would like start like insulting me. And I was like, I'm here to have a conversation. And if you're not approaching this in good faith, then you are wasting my time. And the right to free speech is in no way in jeopardy right now.

0:34:09 Thomas: Right.

0:34:09 Russell: Well, I mean, people have more free speech, they have more opportunities to talk about whatever the hell they want to talk about any time any place pretty much, but I also believe in the right to not have my time wasted, um,

0:34:26 Thomas: Well, and it's another part of the sales job that I was talking about is linking enlightenment with rationality, with, oh, what's another enlightenment value? Free speech is certainly an enlightenment value. And then kind of bastardizing the definition of free speech to mean everybody should have a platform at all times. And I want to mention though, like it depends on where you're standing. So when I made that decision, not to go too much back into it, but I made the decision as somebody who could not get, I did everything I could to talk those people out of giving Carl a platform. Platform. I said, don't give them a platform. But once I had no control, I could not get them to not do that. The platform was given.

It was going to be there. So from there, I said while I'm going to go and I literally yelled at them in the event and said, you shouldn't have given this guy a fucking platform. You should be embarrassed. So Like that was my thinking. Like the guy has the platform. Now I'm gonna go on and try to speak what I think is the truth about that situation, situation, um, but I would never, don't, I hope nobody, uh, certainly nobody listens to me, I don't think, and I don't blame you, you know, you aren't familiar with me or whatever, my thinking about it, I would hope that nobody thinks I would greed with the idea of doing that debate. Like, I don't think that debate

0:34:54 Russell: Yeah, Oh, Sure. Yeah,

0:35:43 Thomas: Should have happened in any on that stage at all. I mean, if you want to do, if you want to a right-wing asshole convention or a YouTube convention, uh, where it's like, hey, we, we would just want people to argue about these things, fine, whatever. But that was where it really started. And we can get back to the topic of atheism. The idea that this was an atheist organization, like they were, that was what they were doing. They were trying to put on an atheist conference. And choose to, what debate you choose to host has impact there.

0:36:13 Russell: And I mean, you know, part of what I'm tired of of with organized atheism is just the notion that when criticize somebody who is worthy of being criticized and happens to be an atheist, I always get a whole bunch of people jumping on me and saying, oh no, how are you, you know, you're being so disloyal to our team. And I'm like, there's not an our team here. Like the fact that I don't believe in God is just one aspect of my identity, and I know plenty of Christians who are better than a bunch of atheists that I know, uh, so Like, like, don't, don't misunderstand me, they're still totally wrong about the God thing, you

0:36:54 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, well, and that's what became so unbelievably frustrating about this weird, I don't know, I guess right-wing atheists or at least kind of center-right. It's more anti-liberal, I guess, I think. Like it's because if you look at the numbers, like there's not that many atheists who voted for Trump. You know, there are a few, I've argued with a couple of them, but like it's this weird weird anti-progressivism, anti-PC, where they still might technically be Democrats, maybe, but they're also harassing women and stuff. It's weird. But anyway, what I was going to say is so harmful about it is the most important thing you would think, the fundamental issue for atheism.

0:37:49 Thomas: If you and I were just coming to this planet and we didn't know anything and we get up to speed a little bit and we're like, okay, what should atheists care about? Well, not having theocracy in place, like that would be very high on the list of priorities. By backing Republicans is exactly what's happening. You know, like you're putting in justices, but because you're so anti Hillary, anti-PC, anti progressive, you're allowing things to happen in your political system that will result in theocracy. It's incredible.

0:38:19 Russell: You know, I, I recall, uh, uh, after Trump got elected, I think it was Sam Harris in particular, who posted this thing that was like, well, this sucks, but if I'm hunting for a silver lining, I think maybe Donald Trump is an atheist. And I'm like, I don't know if Donald Trump is a atheist, and I don't really give a fuck. He had the highest support rate among evangelicals of any president ever. And so what does it matter if he's lying to them and just seeking their support? He's still seeking their support. He's still behaving in a way that attracts those people. So whether or not Trump is an atheist, and I still don't know or care, how is that helpful to me? And I think that gets lost a lot in the idea of, you know, oh, I only have to care about things that are objectively true. And it's like, no, you also have to take care about the way that current events affect people, because that's also a true thing for everybody.

0:38:31 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, I Harris.

0:39:37 Thomas: Yeah, I totally agree. I want

0:39:39 Russell: I

0:39:39 Thomas: Be very fair, you know, because I'm critical of Sam Harris often, but he, to be totally fair, was and is still against Trump, you know, and he spoke, and one of the interesting things in the direction that he went is he was very anti-Trump and talked about how much he didn't like Trump and got a bunch of pushback from his audience and, like, was kind of confused by it at times. It's like, well, when you have Ben Shapiro on your show, you know, like, yeah, you're going to, or on your live event, I guess it would be, which he published on his main show. Yeah. You're going to have people who, yeah.

0:40:08 Russell: Mean, it sure doesn't seem to me like he listened to, like he noticed the fact that that he had all these pro-Trump fans who were angry at him and thought, am I doing something wrong to encourage these people?

0:40:22 Thomas: Right. Yeah, I agree with that. And it's funny because he mentioned, you Know, I kind of poked fun at it, you Now, from a distance anyway, way, because he, I've never spoken to him or anything is all I mean, but he, shortly after that Ben Shapiro interview, he was like, yeah, some people seemed just like he had no idea what was happening. Hey, some, I'm getting some people are confused that I'm an atheist, you know, and like, so I was like yeah, that's what happens when you start, you know, like having these right-wing people on your show thinking like, oh, well, debate, debate, debate. And then you give them, you know, a platform, again, talking about platforms, giving them a giant Platform. Form. Oh.

0:40:45 Russell: Yeah, for a while, people sure seemed to have convinced themselves that Jordan Peterson was an atheist for some reason. I

0:41:06 Thomas: And I It's amazing how many atheists that he swayed. Did you get a lot of those Jordan Peterson supporters? You get along with him and he was interaction with him? Oh.

0:41:13 Russell: Think I sort of left the group at, at Sort Of An Upward time in Peterson's popularity, uh, so I can't really say, I mean, I, I got a, I heard from a few of them, but, uh, but not really. Yeah.

0:41:19 Thomas: You Got out in Time. Yeah. Oh.

0:41:34 Thomas: Okay, wow, well, lucky you, uh, because that was that was a big thing for a while, um, but so that's interesting. Where does that leave us here? I mean, I mean, there any more reasons you want to express that the atheist movement in particular is stressing you out, causes you stress enough to not be involved anymore?

0:41:36 Russell: Obviously There were, you know, the, the fact that Trump was elected was just a thing that introduced a low level of stress into a lot of people's lives all the time. Like, I like to say that Trump is a black hole of news. No news can escape his orbit. Everything becomes a story about Trump. There was even like a hilarious, I don't know if you've ever seen The Onion's movie reviews where there's a character named Peter Rosenthal who just goes off on these crazy wild tangents about everything, and, and he was, like, there was a video of him recently where he was reviewing the movie Christopher Robin, and he said, you know, it is a beautiful, heartwarming, coming-of-age story, which is probably about Trump for some reason because everything is now. Sigh. Um.

0:42:09 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. It is a living nightmare.

0:42:50 Russell: Yeah. You know, we are living in the alternate bad 1985 from Back to the Future Too. Biff is president.

0:42:55 Thomas: Totally true. It is so true. True about Trump as an atheist. So what does that do for you? I totally agree. And the funny thing about that, of course, is that's the very identity politics thing that those people hate so much. That means nothing. And furthermore, it's so clear that Trump cares about being president. That's what he cares about. He doesn't care about atheists and he he doesn't care about Christians. It's neither. He's, in my opinion, an amoral person who cares about Trump. And the best way for Trump to stay in power is appoint the furthest right judges in as many numbers as possible. And so the idea of atheists supporting him is so just mind-blowing because he is making the theocracy happen.

0:43:45 Russell: And I mean, it, it's, it was kind of worse for me because, like, the Atheist Community of Austin, which I was so deeply involved with, is a non-profit organization, and there are specific rules that we tried to stay on the right side of, which said that, like, you're not allowed to endorse candidates. You know, you are allowed to talk about political issues, but there were always members who would get squeamish about, like, well, are we really allowed to do this? And there were always callers who would call in and say, you know, how dare you spout this liberal stuff on a show that's called The Atheist Experience? You're supposed to capture the experience of all atheists. Um, and there are right-wing atheists. Why don't you be sensitive to me? And, and it just felt like atheism is an important issue to me, but, like, uh, it's less important than all the terrible, uh, other stuff that's going on right now, and it was frustrating me a lot that I would have to dance around these political topics unless they were directly related to atheism.

0:44:02 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:44:53 Thomas: Yeah, that's an interesting question. Like, how did you, you know, how did you approach that? Because, you know, on one hand, I kind of see an argument, you know, like, if you've got a non-profit and you're doing an atheism show, you know, I get that people probably want you to stick to the God debate or something. But if, yeah, on the other hand, how much can you separate basic human rights value, like human decency from, you know, like, atheism isn't just one. I don't don't think any belief is in a vacuum entirely, you know?

0:44:57 Russell: Yeah, I think you can't. I think that separating politics from other stuff, especially now when every goddamn thing is about Trump, is impossible and artificial. And I think that this pretense that you can be neutral is one of the things that made it easy for this, frankly, anti-truth strain of the right wing to come into power. I mean, like for a long time, Fox News's core slogan was, you know, we're fair and balanced.

0:45:28 Thomas: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

0:46:04 Russell: And, you know, their slogan wasn't we're Fair, balanced and accurate. It's we're balanced. And what they mean by balance is, you know, there are, I always thought, take it to pretend like this isn't political for a, a second, if you had a, if you had a scientist coming on who said, who talked about how we landed on the Moon, they would give balance by providing a kook who, who would make a serious case that we didn't land on the Moon. And they convinced people that it is a virtue to not only like fairly represent all sides, but to treat all sides with equal respect, which is bullshit.

0:46:11 Thomas: Right. Yeah, yeah, I agree. And it's interesting, and it really does tie back in with the free speech talk we're talking about in the platform discussion, you now, because there's lots of lovely quotes from the, you kno, from the Enlightenment age of people saying, well, you k, if someone is wrong, it's, it's great, uh, you always want to hear them out because either they'll convince, maybe they're right and they'll convince you, or your argument will be made the better for it, and like right.

0:47:00 Russell: It, I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it, right?

0:47:23 Thomas: That kind of thing, yeah, and they sound great and they sounds really cool and amazing and like inspirational and heroic and kind of these quotes, but like the in the reality, the, the actual practice of putting these things into place is, if you're Fox News Channel, you have a certain number of hours of the day and you have an audience, you have a platform, and you're not going to put two sides of every question that ever has happened. You don't have the time. So there are going to be assumptions you'll make. And I also think it's such a convenient argument for people to make. And it goes back centuries.

0:47:23 Russell: For people

0:48:03 Thomas: Countries. Yes. For people who are, for people who know, yes.

0:48:03 Russell: Who are wrong it's super convenient for them every

0:48:08 Thomas: For people who have, who know that they have disgusting beliefs and like are kind of, they kind of know it. Like they know that everybody hates their beliefs. It has always been the go-to to talk about free speech and to say, no, no free speech, free speech, because you can get a, you already have the people who agree with you, even though it might be a small number, but you can also pick off a few high minded, you know, like liberal minded people are like, well, maybe it is. We do need to hear them out. Everybody needs to have their say. Yeah. And it's a natural fit.

0:48:36 Russell: Time yeah uh I mean, I have a good example of that in action, which I think atheists will relate to, uh, even if they don't agree with with me on the political stuff, which is the history of creationism. Actually, back in 2003, I and a bunch of friends with the Atheist Community of Austin went to a public hearing on textbooks here in Texas, where we have an outsized influence on what textbooks the rest of the country gets to read.

0:48:45 Thomas: Oh, That's right.

0:49:09 Russell: And I, you know, I was by that time pretty well read on creationism, And I knew that sometime in the mid-90s, they realized that they weren't making any headway by trying to get creationism back in schools. So they came up with something that they referred to as intelligent design, where they could pretend they were just coming at this vague, abstract, philosophical position, even though it was really creationism in a cheap suit.

0:49:26 Thomas: Yeah, yep. Yeah!

0:49:41 Russell: Um, but the funny thing is, right?

0:49:42 Thomas: Teach the controversy! Teach The Controversy!

0:49:45 Russell: Well, yeah, and that's the thing, by the... like, it wasn't even "teach the controversy" yet, but by the time we got to that school board hearing, it it was already in the process of morphing again, and we realized they weren't even going to be promoting intelligent design, they were going to say they they had this line that people kept saying all night, which was, "We just want to teach the strengths and weaknesses of evolution." Um...

0:50:11 Thomas: Yeah.

0:50:12 Russell: Yeah, there, there were a bunch of pro-science people who had come in from out of state, and one of the guys made this brilliant point, which was, because, you know, they're not being honest here. They keep saying they want to teach the strengths and weaknesses. If evolution has weaknesses, then what you should do is stop teaching those. Like, that's how science is supposed to progress, is by throwing out bad facts. But what they want do is not that. They're not trying to teach accurate science. They want to leave in the things they think are weaknesses and call them out specifically so they can criticize them, to undermine actual science. And that's where they're being dishonest.

0:50:54 Thomas: Interesting, yeah. It's not, because you can't really get them to point to any actual quote-unquote evolution science fact that, like, is wrong, you know. They could just say, well, yeah, there's weaknesses, and then they, they try to add, so therefore we need to add in something over here, which is, of course, you know, creation, creationism in disguise. Yeah, that's an interesting, interesting point, yeah.

0:51:16 Russell: Yeah. So, I mean, how this relates back to the free speech is that I think are always throwing around the notion of free speech as, like, if I criticize somebody for saying something asinine in public, I am not denying that he's allowed to say those things. I'm just saying, hey, buddy, me calling your opinions bullshit is part of free speech. And if you freak out and try to stop them from, like, if you try to get liberal professors fired or whatever for just criticizing the nonsense, then, you know, you're paying lip service to free speech, but you're just using it as a way of focusing on a position that you don't like. Whether it's evolution or whether it's, let's say, you know, I'm quitting Twitter now because this guy who everyone calls a racist got kicked off of Twitter. Like, you pick and choose the things that you highlight that bother you. I

0:51:41 Thomas: Yeah.

0:52:31 Thomas: Yep, uh, that touches on so many things I've talked about here. Um, you know, we're, we're coming to around the time that I, that I normally, uh, do these interviews. I'm wondering if, uh, I, I'm sure a lot of people, a lot or your fans want to know, like, what's, what lies ahead for you? So, do you have it, like, what, what do you, what do think atheism, or not atheism, what do you think your life looks like going forward in terms of your, your public voice?

0:52:56 Russell: Obviously, I think I said to you, I am happy to come on because I love to hear myself talk. Um, but, you know, when I was kind of overstressed and pulled in too many directions last year, I thought it was, I mean, you know, I didn't spend a lot of time on the atheist experience talking about how much I actually love software engineering. And and you know, I'm enjoying my job at a big company that I shall not name, but it's not a secret. You can look me up.

0:53:21 Thomas: I

0:53:34 Russell: But I think that that people get. So I, I was always sort of tangential to the atheist celebrity culture. Like, I'm not a Sam Harris or a Richard Dawkins or even really a Matt Dillahunty, you know, but also that's not my entire livelihood. So I did not, like, grab for celebrity because it wasn't the way that I intended to make my living. And I think people mistake being good at debating for having points that are accurate. And that's one of the things that I've gotten disillusioned with over time, because to me, it seems like the principle of being competent and making stuff actually happen is a good skill to have.

0:54:30 Russell: But it is, excuse me, I mean, I think that is an important skill, and, and the other skill, which is unrelated, of being able to convince people of stuff, that's a good skill to have, but you shouldn't confuse the two with being the same as each other, and So and so I'm frustrated at the especially YouTube atheist culture, and I don't know if you consider yourself part of that, if so, no offense,

0:54:47 Thomas: Totally Agree, no, I don't have a YouTube channel. Really? So, no, yeah.

0:54:59 Russell: Okay, then. I'm frustrated with the kind of people who brag about their followers and have the power to send angry mobs at people on Twitter, but really do not have any background in something worthwhile, while you know, they're not people who, uh, stuff, I don't know. I, I'm sort of wondering

0:55:06 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:55:23 Thomas: They create a lot of, like, yelling at feminists, that's That's about it, though, yeah, I agree. Um, well, yeah, no, that's interesting. I mean, I think some people are going to be sad to hear that news about, you know, where you're going, but I guess on another level, we should all be very happy that you're doing things that are making you happy more. So, congrats on that. And you know that's yeah,

0:55:29 Russell: Yeah. Yeah. Just kind of turning everything off has been kind of nice. Well,

0:55:52 Thomas: I bet. I bet well. I hope that you'll still, you now, be expressing yourself somewhere that I can follow, of course, but even if not, you, now, I

0:56:00 Russell: You can follow me on Twitter and Facebook, and I don't promise to be

0:56:04 Thomas: Thought you said you turned stuff off. You're still going, going to do Twitter and Facebook, gotcha.

0:56:08 Russell: I'm not very active on those places, but if I have something to say, then I'll probably say it in one of those places. If if I have a cute one-liner, I'll say it on Twitter, and if I have anything longer to say, it's usually Facebook.

0:56:10 Thomas: All Right, well, I'll make sure to, uh, Absolutely. Well, I will make sure you, uh, to tag those, uh, and people can check you out there. If, if there's anything else you want to plug, let me know, but it's kind of, this is like the opposite of that, you know, you're, you're here to come on and talk about, whether you don't have stuff to plug, really, but, uh, but Russell Glasser, thanks so much for coming on.

0:56:40 Russell: Thank you for having me, it's been nice talking to you.