SIO187: Voicemail! Anti-Vaxers, Christchurch, White Fragility, and Other Topics

Transcript

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

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 187, I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and it is time for a voicemail episode, I have to thank you guys, so many good, interesting voicemails, this, or so much voicemailing, I guess, so much voice mail, I don't know, either way, many amazing messages, critical messages, good questions, good points, it It must have been, I don't know, a particularly contentious month, I mean, we did have a lot of news this month, so either way, I'm very happy, very grateful, thank you so much, keep them coming, but I'm gonna get right over to it, because we've got a lot messages to get through, a lot different interesting areas to take the show, here we go!

0:01:09 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas, what's up? My name is Mike, I'm a nurse over in Portland, love your show, just wanted to respond to the comments about lowering the voting age. I am completely in favor of this, I think it's a good idea, but I think a difficulty is presenting this to people that are opposed to it is that most of the arguments I've heard in favor are challenging in the sense that they seem equally arbitrary, like if you pick 16 because people are not always responsible or informed, why not 15, or why not 17? Like, if you're going to change the status quo, why? The same would apply to being affected by laws that they can't vote for. People are affected by laws they can vote for from the minute they're born, even before they're born. So it's a good argument to me, who's on your side, but I'm not sure I'd be convinced if I weren't on your side. I would just say, well, why 16 then?

0:01:54 Voicemail: And if I was conservative, the obvious reaction would also be, and of course you believe this is going to give you an advantage so you're biased. Thank you. I love the show.

0:02:03 Thomas: Hey, Mike, thank you for the call. Yeah, so, again, I'm not, like, die-hard in favor of this argument, but I just noticed, the main reason I talked to you, because I noticed how funny it was that basically every counter-argument I was hearing on Twitter was stuff that I could just turn right around to Trump supporters. I think someone even said, I forgot to include this one, but someone was like, would you ever want to put your 16-year-old self in charge of any aspect of your life right now? And to which I said no, but I also would not want to put my life in the hands of any Trump voter. It all still applies, pretty much everyone. But no, good points. I think these are things to consider that don't necessarily fall in the category of easily can be turned on Trump supporters.

0:02:53 Thomas: So my answer would be that once you can start working and being subject to not just income taxes, but also the dynamics of labor in this country. You know, like, I feel like that's a pretty good time to be led into the fold in terms of voting. And for, I'll just speak for me in California, I think it's the same everywhere, but I'm not, you know, I'm no lawyer. I haven't checked every state or anything, but you know you can't work until you're 16 here. I think there's something weird where you can get, maybe if your parents sign off on it, you can work when When you're like 15 in some circumstances or something. But anyway, I'm pretty sure widely speaking, broadly speaking, 16 is when you can start working for not your parent, like, you know, go get a real job if you have to.

0:03:41 Thomas: And I, it seems like that's a reasonable time to me. And I think that answers the slippery slope question, like, I guess it's weird to me to say, I mean, it might be weird, again, I'm not like a million percent on this argument, I lean toward thinking it would be, it's probably the right thing to do, but I'm, it, I, I am not super die-hard, but like, if we are saying, yes, you can go and your labor can be used for some person's profit, you know, like some corporation's profit.

Now, I and by the way, and the income taxes that you'll have to pay, I mean, you have to pay less, you know, if you're dependent and stuff like that, but you still have to pay taxes if you work, especially if you, you know, you make more than a few thousand dollars or whatever it is.

So I guess I would turn it the other way and say, and by the way, you can drive and stuff, so like, if you can do those things, in most circumstances, most of the time you can when you're 16, 17, whatever, if can do things, if he can work for somebody and make some corporation some money or whatever, or makes a business owner some money, and you can and all that, like, why shouldn't you have a voice in policy that might affect those things?

So, I guess that's how I would turn that question back around, and it gets around the slippery slope thing, if you say 16 is, I mean, it's a little vague, because this does vary by state, I am kind of coming from a California perspective here, it looks like you can work at 14 and 15 for a certain number of hours at certain jobs, so, I, mean, just like any human endeavor, there's no bright...

Black and white reason why exactly the year, you know, on your 18th year you're a good voter, like you should be voting, and then the day before your 18 birthday, you shouldn't be voting.

0:05:24 Thomas: I mean, there's that, that That slippery slope argument kind of applies there, too, and so, anyway, that's how I look at it, I think for a lot of states you have to be 16 to work, it seems reasonable that, you know, that could also be a voting age thing, so, that is how I would look at that. Now, Mike also had another separate voicemail here that is also very good, so I'm gonna go ahead and play that now.

0:05:47 Voicemail: I wanted to talk a little bit about addressing white fragility to white people, who might themselves be fragile. I'm a nurse, I have to deal a lot with vaccine-hesitant people, or as we common call them, anti-vax. And we have to do something like this all the time. We have to be very, very delicate when we approach this subject, but at the same time, you just want to scream at them for being so stupid and how they can believe something that's so obviously wrong.

But if you do that, you will not succeed in convincing them. I think to some degree, the same thing applies to white white people. But because this is the case, I think this is an argument for why white people, and particularly white men, need to take up the mantle of trying to have this communication, because it's unfair to expect people of color who suffer from all these issues to also have to play nice around a bunch of fragile white people also.

And I may have heard this on your shows, I apologize for repeating, but I think a good argument tactic that I do use with vaccine hesitant people that could apply to your white fragility is to address that losing privilege does suck, but it's the right thing to do.

0:06:41 Voicemail: I think we often present it as it's a good thing, and it is for a society, but for an individual, your rights, your privilege rights are being reduced. And I think we can acknowledge that that's not always fun, but it is a good thing to do. So the vaccine comparison would be it's not fun to take your kids and get them a shot that they're going to hate and you might be worried about, but it's the safe and right thing to for them and for society. Anyways, thank you again, I love the show, keep doing what you're doing.

0:07:05 Thomas: Alright, so, very interesting topic, this is probably a topic for another show, I haven't done a lot of anti-vax stuff, I think I've, if I'm remembering right, a couple years ago, I had a doctor on, and we talked about it a little bit, but, you know, alright, so this might not entirely be related to your voicemail, which is excellent, I right when I considered this issue, started considering your voicemail is I just Google, like, what is the data on what actually changes anti-vaxxers minds? Cause that so much of the last three, four years for me has been thinking like, all right, let's just forget everything.

0:07:53 Thomas: Like just has anybody researched what changes anybody's mind? Cause you know, whether it be a diehard, hard Trump supporter, whether It'd be a flat earther, whether, whatever, it just seems as though, you know, because of the internet and terrible YouTube algorithms and other things that there are so many, uh, more, it feels like there are more people like flat earthers or anti-vaxxers. Now I'm not positive there. I think there are, but they also are more organized because you know that allows them to form a community around their, uh horrible beliefs. So I just, you Know, I just searched that and I came up with, uh you know just quickly because this is just one voicemail. Again, we can do a show on this maybe later. But a USA Today article that is actually pretty, pretty good, pretty thoughtful about this topic.

0:08:39 Thomas: And the other thing is, it pretty much bears out almost everything Mike is saying, I think. I think you're right on that, it doesn't, it's saying it doesn't work to just quote facts at anti-vaxxers. It doesn't work. It doesn't work to yell at them. It doesn't, you know, like, it's saying, the couple things things it is saying is like someone with community ties to them needs to intervene or to start nudging them along the lines of reconsidering, and here's the thing, it's a huge uphill battle no matter what, like, the main takeaway is people don't often change their minds, and and when they do, it might take forever and be for weird reasons on stuff like this, not on everything, you know, not on minor inconsequential facts about things, you know, you you learn a fact about the population of some country and then you're like, oh, okay, I had that wrong.

0:09:28 Thomas: I thought it was big or small. You know, not that. Things like this where your identity gets tied up into it. And one thing I'm, that I find sad, and I'm like, doing a call-out or anything, I don't like a lot of the really callous, dismissive, insulting posts people do around anti-vax stuff, like, if someone's kid gets sick, yeah, obviously, it's the the parents' fault that they didn't vaccinate them. But like, also there's a kid who might've died or gotten sick that didn't have a choice in the matter. And like, it's weird. It's sort of a creepy, sad thing. I don't know. Maybe it's just cause I'm, you know, have kids now.

0:10:13 Thomas: Um, I have kid and soon to be kids in a, in a few weeks here. It just makes me sad, you know, and I, I don't think it helps anybody. And it's kind of this thing we do in the skeptic community. Because a lot of the stuff that every community, I'm not singling us out, you know, every community has their memes. And, you know, they have their things that they share to reinforce their beliefs and to, that's part of a community. And honestly, part of that is oftentimes bagging on other people, insulting other people. That's just how it goes. If you're in a liberal group, you're usually insulting Republicans and vice versa. And I don't think that's going to change or anything. And I think this is just part of of that dynamic, but like, I don't really ever share stuff like that. And I don't really like it. And it, I don't know, maybe it's just something to think about it.

0:11:01 Thomas: You know, think about it, there's especially when there's a kid who might be sick or dying, not there, which is not their fault, like I don't, that's never, to me, that's never really funny. It's never really, that's punching down, you know? Yes, you can be angry at the parent, but also note that it doesn't even, you're not even changing their mind, you know? Like, and one thing I linked it back to, it gets so frustrating because you start to feel like you can't change anybody's mind.

But I will say, if you think about it from a big picture thing, it probably is still good to be reinforcing and strengthening our pro-science positions. Even if hypothetically, as a skeptic community, we were never changing, like, converting an anti-vaxxer to a vaxxer, it might be that we're strengthening, like, somebody who maybe wouldn't have seen or looked into this issue and then maybe later on would have been exposed to anti-vax stuff and then been like, oh, what is all that, you know, proactively engaging on that issue and making it something that our community is correct about, hopefully, I think that does likely still do good, you know, it might, it It might be preventative, though, like it might be preventing people from being ill informed and falling into a YouTube algorithm thing. Side note, too, this article talked about YouTube and I think Facebook and possibly Pinterest for some reason, I didn't know that was a anti-vax hub, but I guess it makes sense on cutting back on, like, search results and stuff.

0:12:40 Thomas: And that is to me, that is absolutely what we have to do, because when you line it all up, and sorry, because I could go on forever about this, again, maybe maybe I should do a separate show, but I don't know, maybe I'll say everything I have to say right now, when you light it all up and you you line up all the facts, which is that vaccines are unambiguously the right thing to do, the safe thing to do, apart from, you know, there's a small percentage of people who actually can't do them, which has all the more reason why everybody else needs to be vaccinated, by the way, but the science is clear, it's incredibly harmful to not do it, you know, it only takes a certain number of people before, uh depending on the disease you're talking about or whatever, the virus, whatever it is, that uh people are vulnerable, again, it is a public health hazard, it's a, it's a high, high uh ranking public health hazardous, actually, increasingly, and that I, I think that's, you can either say that that's where your freedom of speech ends, possibly, but when your speech is causing a public health hazard, I think for me that's a pretty easy distinction.

Or you can say it's along the lines of inciting violence, it's kind of that sort of restriction. Maybe you don't have to say that you're abridging anyone's freedom of speak.

It is more like this is already built in, we already, we already knew that you can't falsely advertise that a drug cures something, but it actually poisons you like that, you know, for example, that speech, we all, I think we all agree that a company can't make cyanide pill and market it as, you know, extreme boner growth pill and sell it to people and kill them, like, we all know that that's that speech that we're all like, OK, that shouldn't be allowed.

0:14:22 Thomas: Out. I think the same should apply to speech like this, that's causing a public health hazard. And I'm glad that social media companies are cutting back on it. And YouTube, I think is probably the biggest culprit. You know, there's all those jokes and this was true. I didn't come up with this or anything, but this was something I noticed years ago was that like you watch your YouTube account as a couple of videos related to nothing. And then all of a sudden you're getting recommended like Joe Rogan moon landing fake, you know, just like nonstop conspiracy theory. It's a, it's awful. The algorithm is, is harmful. I think it really is responsible for a lot of damage, uh, in our, in the world, maybe, you know? When you think about Brexit and all this stuff, like these rage inducing, um, counter culture theories, I have so much power on YouTube and it's, it'S disturbing.

0:15:16 Thomas: So, I would say, you know, this goes for a lot of things, but another thing, and again, caller, this isn't, I know it's not directly what you were talking about, so I just want to emphasize, your message was awesome, I'm kind of branching off a little bit, but what I think about is, it just occurred to me, in terms of changing minds, the best thing we can do is focus down on our own communities first, you You know, and maybe that means you're going to a popular science website or blog or podcast or Facebook and you're getting the facts there first, which is awesome. So those should still be doing what they're doing. I'm not, I'm Not saying anybody should stop, you know, trying to communicate science, but like then using those tools to, rather than yelling at someone to whom you have no connection on the internet or Twitter or something, because the science shows that that doesn't do anything.

0:16:03 Thomas: Um, focus, focus inward. Word. You know, like I, there are members of my family who are not anti-vax, but are a little skeptical of vaccines and tried to, you know, talk to me about like, oh yeah, I know they're, they're the right thing to do, but I think there's too many of them and I want to space them out. And so I went and I, that was actually, I think that was part of the reason why I sought out that, that doctor that I had on a few years ago to get the real facts on that. And I tried to do that. I don't know that it worked, but, you know, I tried to present those counter arguments like, hey, there's less of the quote unquote, you know, with heavy quote unquote toxins or whatever. There's less of that stuff than ever. These things are safer than ever, it's you don't have to worry about it.

0:16:51 Thomas: It's more dangerous to space them out and leave room in there for your kid to get sick or get someone else sick. That's way more dangerous statistically. So things like that, trying to affect the people around you on issues like this, I think that might be where we can do the most good. And I'm guessing, you know, as a nurse for Mike, the caller here, I, I think that's sometimes going to be in a position as well.

If you have any sort of authority like that, I think that that's another way. It sounds like Mike's doing the right thing there. Just yelling facts at somebody or saying you're a horrible person who's killing their kids. It will not do anything. It might feel the, like the right thing to do. And, you know, believe me, maybe, maybe it's something, a situation is so so anger inducing that you can't help it. And I'm not saying you're like morally wrong, but more and more like global warming, you know, all these things, Trump support, as I said, anti-vax, these things that just feel like this is a mind virus that's happening that we need to be able to not vaccinate, but cure people while both vaccinate people for and cure people up. And then you look at the research and says, well, no one ever changed their minds about anything except for in these limited circumstances.

Part of me is just thinking like, all right, we just need to start focusing down on that, like do our best to focus on the actual ways that are proven to change people's minds. I know it's hard, but that doesn't mean we have to lose our community of reinforcing each other because people, you know, you need reinforcement, you needs community, nothing wrong with that. So, allright, and then, okay, so back to your call a little bit, I was going to agree on on the sentiment with white fragility.

0:18:26 Thomas: And, uh, but I guess minor thing at the end there, I don't think that white people have to lose their privilege. Um, I think that, uh—well, A, it's not in danger of happening anytime soon. But B, I—it's more like—well it depends on what you're talking about. But in a lot of these scenarios, if police search black people less for drugs, I don't lose anything. I mean, I can't think of a way that that's zero sum. You look at the numbers and if white and black people get pulled over in equal numbers, if they do, then black people gets searched far more. That's a very easy, common statistic that's everywhere.

0:19:10 Thomas: So if police adjust their behavior and stop doing that, I lose nothing. And I think a lot of of examples are like that. Now, I guess you also might consider, you know, slots in a, in a good school. You know, if we start trying to encourage diversity, then maybe some number of people are going to have to lose out on what they currently have, even if what they have is unfair. Sure. But I think that's pretty marginal. Like that's not going to happen. It's more, it's more as a, as a giant, as a whole, that these things make a huge difference. And especially if you talk talk about the wealth gap. Like, I don't think white people will need to like lose all their wealth in order to lift black people up. You know, I think maybe, maybe if you're talking to the Koch brothers, like maybe they should lose some of their wealth.

0:19:59 Thomas: Maybe they should go down from nine bajillion dollars to eight bajillion dollars. But like BFD, you know, like there's not, I don't think there's that much when you break it down that white people really will lose out on in terms of like, quote unquote, losing their privilege, you know, because a lot of it is just black people and other people of color being treated more unfairly. And it doesn't cost us anything as white people to have that stop, you Know, so just a thought on that. I hope I understood your meaning correctly on that if I if I misinterpreted what you said, apologies, but that's that's one minor quibble there. But thank you for the excellent two messages. Those are those are fantastic. All right. I know that was a long one. I'll try to probably try to be a little little shorter with the other ones, but there's so much on that anti-vax question that I care about, so I'm curious for your thoughts as well.

0:20:48 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas, Jason from Iowa here. You made a point that I really wanted to revisit and touch on in the last episode about voting rights and 16-year-olds. A lot of times I see folks saying you should get your voting rights restored after you're done serving your term if you're incarcerated for a felony, but what about just never taking people's voting rights away at all? I see no justification for taxation without representation for folks who are incarcerated, even if they do something truly evil. They're still citizens, they still pay taxes, and their taxes still benefit their families. I just can't think of a good reason to disenfranchise people for something as small as a drug offense, or even if they're a murderer, they should still get to vote, even if there's evil.

0:21:26 Thomas: I totally agree, this is so funny, I did this on Comedy Shoeshine as a bit, like, I don't know, four or five years ago, because my whole joke was like, why, why do we take away the rights of convicts to vote, it's not like if we give them their vote, then they're gonna vote for like a convict president and elect, you know, they're not gonna elect like Voldemort president, it'll just be one of the two candidates that we have in the general election or whatever, and that goes for every other issue.

You, it's it's funny that I don't even get the logic of it, like I think the logic is, well, when you, uh, commit a crime, you sacrifice some number of your rights, like you don't get to move around anymore and you don't get to vote. And it's like, yeah, okay, I get that you do sacrifice some of your rights, but I still don't proactively understand why voting should be one of those rights, like I don't really, you know, if, furthermore, especially maybe it might have made sense back in yield in times when we had a couple people in the, in the, you know, in the town in the stocks or whatever, but like now, when we have just millions upon millions of people incarcerated, you know, and and there's going to be policy that's going to affect them, and and like you said, they work for very, very meager wages, cents on the dollar, and part it goes to taxes, that kind of thing, like, like, yeah, I, they should just vote.

When I did that, um, panel, or, or sorry, interview, that live SIO at QED, which was so awesome, I love QED, I can't wait till the next one, with Emma McClure, and she was taught, we were talking about this very issue, but, you know, in,

0:23:01 Thomas: In the UK, and the whole thing that was funny about it was that she was talking from a perspective of like, oh, you know, half of convicts here can't even vote, and I'm like, yeah, none of them can, you know, and like, well, are you talking about after prison or, you know, it turned out she was talking about, no, in prison, you know, like, so it's, it's different over there, it doesn't have to be the way it it is here. And yeah, I totally agree. So I guess I can leave that one there to try to save some more time for other calls. Good point. Thank you for the call.

0:23:35 Voicemail: Hey, Thomas, my name's Dave, I have been listening for a very long time, first-time voicemailer, I'm sure you're aware of the horrible thing that happened in New Zealand, the terrorist attack, the white male terrorist attack that happened in New Zealand just yesterday, I am recording this voicemail on Friday here, the 15th, it's Things like this, the rising climate of hate, the organized hate, mostly in this country, well, it's mostly on my periphery in this country, but I guess worldwide, we can safely say, it got me really discouraged and distressed, and what happened was horrible, and there's just no words of mine that can approach the level of atrocity that occurred there. But the point is that I've also been a proud atheist for many years, and I've been a critic of religion for a very long time now. And I guess my main question is, what, I guess, is the way forward to continue to criticize what I consider to be harmful doctrines of the big three monotheisms, Christianity, Judaism, and, yes, Islam as well, without contributing to a climate of hate and xenophobia against Muslims.

0:25:06 Voicemail: I'm currently searching for the best way that I can try and help protect Muslims in my community and to push back against this kind of organized hate, but without giving up, I guess, what I consider to be an important thing, which is to criticize and call out bad ideas as well. I was very much a constant listener of Sam Harris. It has not been the case very much in recent years. That has been on the decline, I've got to say. But this is a conundrum, and I was wondering if you had any insight into it. Thank you very much. I look forward to hearing your thoughts about this. I hope everything stays well, and I hope that everybody in our community, the marginalized people in our communities, remain well and safe. Hope everything gets better. Thanks.

0:25:58 Thomas: Hey, thank you for the call, okay, then this, maybe this is going to be a two-parter episode, because now I'm realizing this also could be a whole episode, we'll see, uh, where we get, uh okay, yeah, this is a major question as a result of that attack, I have thoughts, I think I've already, I've given some of them, but I guess I didn't specifically address this question quite as much as maybe I could have. Have. This is one of those things where there's, I mean, there's easy straw men on either side, you know, there, there is, and it's, it's hard, because, like, the dialogue can often devolve into boring, obvious straw men, well, does this mean I can never criticize Islam?, no, of course, it doesn't mean that, and then vice versa, oh, no, you shouldn't ever criticize religion, because you know and it leads to stuff like that, like there's obvious straw man on either either side that I am not interested in.

0:26:51 Thomas: Those are easy. So I guess the, and, and I just wanted to dismiss that and then go on to talk about your very, um, I re I love your voicemail because I love that you saw what happened in the news and thought, wow, uh, you know, how, how should I go for as somebody who was an atheist who's criticized Islam? Like, Hmm, I think just that reflection is already, it probably already means you're on the right track, you Know, cause, cause if you're your first response, which a lot of people in atheist groups was, was to still crap all over Islam day in and day out on these websites and these Facebook pages and all that. I don't know that your heart is in the right place necessarily. But I recently was a guest on the Secular Jihadist podcast with Ali Rizvi and Armin, and I didn't know Armin and I actually was mainly communicating with Ali, so it's an interesting situation.

0:27:49 Thomas: We're going to talk more on that show, but when I went on, Armin didn't have a proper internet connection and we couldn't actually have a conversation. I kept cutting off, so I mainly spoke with Ali, who I actually pretty much agree with on most of the stuff, you know, minor disagreements, but Armin is the guy who started the Atheist Republic who said some really crappy stuff that I vehemently disagree with, and unfortunately we weren't quite able to get into it because of the internet thing. Again, it ended up being a good conversation with Ali Rizvi that I would recommend, so go check that out. But we intend to do a more proper conversation once Armin can be a part of it. You know, once he's back, he was traveling, he's abroad. So his his Internet was terrible.

0:28:34 Thomas: But I talked about some of these things. I think it's worth repeating here. One major point is that because of the internet these days, and the kids on my lawn, it, I, you, it's hard to have a conversation that's in every context at all times, you know, there, I can give you a million examples, so for somebody who is right now living in, I don't know, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, something like that, and they're, and then maybe they're an atheist, and it's illegal to be an atheist in some of these places, or maybe they're LGBT and they could be put to death. There are places where you can be killed under an Islamic regime for some of these things.

0:29:21 Thomas: That's horrible. And what those people are having to live with is horrible. And if they are saying things about Islam, that's inflammatory, I don't really blame them. You know what I mean? If there's somebody right there who, I don't know, in Bangladesh, whose friend was just murdered for being an atheist or something, was just hacked in the street, uh, or something like that, I don't, I'm not really going to go out of my way to like tone police how they can talk about Islam, because there are plenty of places in the world where if you are an atheist, if you're even a Christian, if you're just a, if your Jew, if your LGBT, if you are any number of, of things, you are in the vast minority, uh, certainly, uh, in numbers sometimes, but also just politically, you don't have any power.

0:30:07 Thomas: You are subject to harsh treatment under these regimes. So that's one conversation in that context. And I just don't think that we can move these conversations across context. So if I happen to find somebody in, you know, Saudi Arabia who's blogging about atheism there and how harmful Islam is there, and if I were to like blow up their comments after the New Zealand shooting, like that's not fair. I don't think that's at all fair because it's different places. It's differentplaces in the world. It's totally a completely different situation. Situation, but like the same goes the other way, because I have to say a lot of people were spreading that Jordan Peterson photo after the attack, which pictured an older white man next to Jordan Peterson.

0:30:58 Thomas: And the older white men was wearing this shirt that was like proud Islamophobe because I'm against all this stuff, you know, that kind of thing. And I've got to say for people like that now, I, you Know, obviously I don't know this guy's specific circumstances, but I can, I can draw pretty generally and I know specific people who are like this if you are just a Canadian probably or maybe American either way because you know Jordan Peterson's Canadian but if you're like a Canadian older white man in what way does this Islam touch your life at all you know like isn't it a little weird to be wearing a shirt like that that's like Like, OK, this religion that, by the way, is mostly practiced by people of a different color than I am, thousands of miles away that has no actual effect on me and much, much closer things by white people have more of an effect on Me.

0:31:52 Thomas: But I'm still going to wear a shirt that says proud Islam. It's the it's not that people might be wrong on some of the technicalities of these arguments. You know, they might not be wrong in certain things. But when you look at it that way and you start to notice, and I noticed this on Twitter or any social media, when I talk about certain things, when we talk about Islam, you see the people come out every time that have the same talking points about Islam every time. And you're just like, why are you so infatuated with this one thing in this one place in the world that doesn't have any effect on you?

0:32:29 Thomas: That's where I think it's unhealthy. Healthy, um, I think there's absolutely, we have every right to criticize every religion, uh, and I don't think it's enough. You know, the response keeps being from Dockins and those people, oh, criticize, you know, don't criticize the people, it's about the religion, it's not the people, you idiots, we're just criticizing beliefs. And I don't actually think that I quite gets it, I think that's a little too dismissive. You know, I think, I think you could say that that white older dude in an Islamophobe shirt is probably, I mean, maybe he is just focusing on beliefs, but why is he so focused on those beliefs? You know? If he's American, why is he more focused on that than how Christians are ruining our entire freaking country?

0:33:19 Thomas: You know, like what it's, and I believe there's, there's some bias in there, I believe there's some unhealthy, uh, focus on that, you know, like what is that guy doing in that, you would, I guarantee you that guy doesn't even know a Muslim, like, I would, I would bet, I don't know, but like I would bet that he doesn't know a Muslim personally, like, he does, he could not, if I was like, hey, get out your phone, call a Muslim right now, I guarantee he could not to it. And like, so I guess it's a way of balancing, how do we support people in countries where brutal, awful Islamic regimes are, you know, in charge of everything and making life horrible for people?

0:34:05 Thomas: How do we help those people? You know, and, and like, I guess another question would be, maybe we can't, because oftentimes we can help people in other, in other parts of the world. I mean, I think if you're going to triage the causes of problems in the world, I'm pretty sure buying mosquito nets is like the best thing, you know, and being willing to use the words Islamic terrorism or radical Islamic terror, as Trump says, versus like, you know, extremism or Islamic extremism, whatever the other whatever the Hillary thing was, it wasn't quite good enough. I think that's somewhere in the bottom 1% of things that would help anybody in the earth. If you're talking about me or you, you or I, just sitting here as atheists, what is that?

0:34:53 Thomas: It's one thing to say we need to be critical of Islam because it's awful, especially when you look at these countries where it's part of the government. That's awful. And I agree with you. That's that's awful like they're awful. But what are we doing? You know, like, what are we actually doing?

0:35:14 Thomas: I don't have an answer for that. I don't have an answer for what you and I can actually do. Now, we can try to lobby for better policy. It would be nice if we weren't sending weapons of war over to these places and selling arms to people and all that. And by the way, when you talk in terms of harm, I'm looking at the stats for the Iraq war and the deaths resulting. 460,000 deaths are the estimates as a result. Now, I am not saying that those are all the United States' fault. There's a certain, that's a complex analysis. A lot of them are. But there's also, you know, once there was a vacuum of power, then sides fight it out. And, you Know, like, are we responsible for that in some way? But like, in terms of things that are causing harm, that is very high up there. And that is entirely, you Now, a lot of that is our fault.

0:36:01 Thomas: And That is just the Iraq War. There is plenty of intervention in other places. So, like, that's what I mean. What are we actually doing? And if the answer is, well, we're going to use the word radical Islamic terror and we're going to have a shirt that says I'm a proud Islamophobe, I don't think you're doing anything that actually helps anybody. And I want to emphasize, I'm not either, I am not saying I am helping, like, we are both, me and that old guy with that Islamophobe shirt, we're both not doing anything except he is possibly contributing to an atmosphere of hatred against Muslims in places like New Zealand, or in places Like America or in places like Canada or any places where they are a vast, vast minority and they don't have the power.

0:36:49 Thomas: And then furthermore, they probably don't even have the extreme kind of beliefs on some of these issues that they might have in a place like Saudi Arabia. So like we're both doing nothing in terms of actually helping, except you might be causing harm if you are just focused on this one thing, if you're fixated on this one thing all the time and you're going to every, you know, you're, you're insulting every, every Aina in the world and you're drumming up possible hatred of Muslims all the time online. You know what I mean? So that's kind of how I think of it.

But, there's nothing wrong with saying Islam can be harmful, you know, there is nothing wrong saying, hey, anywhere in the world, any country, if the religion is in charge of the government, that's bad, it's bad here with Mike Pence and others like that, and it's worse, I can't even say that, it is way worse when Islam is in the charge of government than modern Christianity, because modern Christianity has modulated itself. Self. There's not, you know, there's not like stonings like in the Old Testament in the U.S. There's not that happening. And there, frankly, there is in some of these Islamic majority countries.

And that's bad. Like, I feel like that's totally fine to say. It's just this weird constant fixation and harassing that you see online, this obsession over it and this just drawing weird Nazi comparisons that are awful. And so, you know, that I don't see what that helps. And by the way, I don't even see what it helped just then to say those things about Islam. You know, like if you are out there, I don't know, donating or trying to work with some sort of network of atheists in Muslim countries, which maybe you are.

0:38:37 Thomas: I know, I actually know people who've done that. That's great. Then you're helping. And what you're probably not doing is, while you're doing that, making explosive comments about Islam all the time. You don't need to do both those things. You know what I mean? Like, we can try to get the word out there that atheism is a valid worldview and that Islam, you know, the tenets of Islam, A, make no sense oftentimes, and B, are very harmful.

You know, like, we can do all that and not be hateful bigots who are obsessed with a certain religion all the time. But, you know, another thing, this is a heavy topic, but I do have to say, it was another example of what I said earlier about, you know, we have these conversations and they don't work in all contexts, and I have to say, I love that Prime Minister of New Zealand, I thought she was amazingly compassionate and brilliant and it was awesome, but when I was talking to Ali Rizvi, you, know, and he's talking about the fact that, like, look, there are plenty of feminist Muslims and, well, actually I was going to say ex-Muslims and current Muslims who are women who are trying to speak out about the evils of being forced to wear a hijab and the fact that that's a tool, you know, it's a patriarchal tool within Islam and all that.

And like, that's good point. Like, I think that in the small context of, you now, I'm the prime minister of a tiny country that has a small Muslim population that just suffered an attack, I'm going to wear something like the hijab as a, as a way of showing solidarity, now that's fine, like in that context I get it, but

0:40:24 Thomas: Like, I don't know, what if there is, uh, there probably are plenty of women who are Muslims living in that New Zealand population who are like, "I wish I didn't have to wear this stupid." And now the prime minister is kind of just reinforced this as like a sign of, you know, something that it's not. That's, it's interesting. And while I'm on that topic, people always, this is one thing I see that I'm probably gonna, I'm gonna zig when you think I'm going to zag. People always say, "Well, what about when nuns have to wear stuff like that?" So, C, Christianity equals the same. A, no. I was gonna start listing the reasons, but that comparison does not work for me. Thank, first off, like, nuns are a very specific thing, and there's, like, five of them, you know, like that's not a broad Christian, that's a Catholic thing.

0:41:10 Thomas: I'm looking at some numbers. In the U.S., there's, like, less, fewer than 50,000 nuns in the entire U. S. That just, it's not a, and it's not as though, when you're, I know, I can't believe I have to say this, I don't think I have say it, but I see this comparison all the time. It's not as though all Catholic women are forced to wear habits. It is a very specific life choice that some tiny, tiny percentage of Catholics, Catholics, Catholic women make.

And by the way, if you decide to be a priest as a male, you gotta wear some BS as well, and you have to take a vow of, of, uh, chastity, which you violate by molesting people, that's what happens. No, but like, it's not as though it's super beneficial for men either when you choose to, like, it, my point is, yeah, I'm not hugely into the nun life, I'm no into the habit as well, and there is a modesty thing, and it is, you know, it is like a hair covering thing that's slightly different than when you are a male priest.

And sure, granted, there's definitely some sexism there, not denying it, but it's a tiny percentage of Catholics. It's not something you can broaden out to all of Christianity and it's enforced. No one can, you know, I don't believe if you are a Catholic in the US, nobody can make you be a nun. Whereas if you're a Muslim, they, and you're women in many, many places, they make you wear this, this head covering and sometimes more absurdly patriarchal crap that, you know, to cover up women because, you know, so like, I don't see that as a valid comparison, to be honest.

0:42:54 Thomas: I think it's not even close. But that's a very tough question, because I, I love the compassion, passion that Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern showed, I, I love the compassion, and I get the message, um, and, I think, if you're somebody out there who's just yelling at her, oh, you, you know, and that's another thing, it's, it, it this level of extreme, you now, that you see people taking part of, like, this, this level level of criticism and insult and lack of nuance that you see people attack her for, for doing something that's a compassionate thing in that context. But that's the tough thing. I think all, like, overall, it, I think it's probably the wrong thing to do to don a garment like that, that's like a forced modesty thing.

0:43:46 Thomas: Even, even in a show of solidarity, like I think she could have shown solidarity and not done that. I don't know. It's a tough issue, though. I don't think it's like 100% obvious either way. Because, like, where she is, the country she leads has a tiny population of Muslims who just suffered a brutal, devastating attack. So, you know, it's, I think we can, we can be a little more gracious with people who are trying to do the right thing and are being compassionate. All right, wow, yeah, I should have known this. I have so many good voicemails, and these were two very heavy, meaty topics that I had a lot of thoughts on. You know what I'm going to do? Since the baby is due any time, I think I'm gonna make this a two-parter, because I just don't want to cut short, I have like four to five more good voicemail.

0:44:36 Thomas: So I don't wanna cut that short. I think, think I'm going to do two-parter here. And that way I should have this lined up for next week in case the baby comes, because it could be any time now. So, but again, thank you for the great messages. I had them all lined up here, and I start talking, and then I go for 45 minutes already, and I still have five left. So, but that's only because they were great messages with lots of important things to talk about. And there are even more. So that's what I'm gonna do. Thank you so much, much for listening. Hey, if you like the show, if you want to spread the show, please share it, you know, if you think I'm making good points that need to be heard, uh, please share out the show, and please consider supporting at patreon.com/seriouspod, thank you so much to my supporters, and I will see you with a, with a part two next week with some other great, great listener, uh, feedback and questions and criticisms and stuff like that, so I will see you then.