SIO281: Frank and Dan Want You To Run for Something!

Transcript

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

0:00:30 Thomas: Hello, and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only, this is episode 281, that's right, little bonus Sunday evening pod for ya, I recorded with Frank and Dan of Thank God I'm Atheist, this is so funny because they've been doing their podcast, Thank God I'm Atheist, for a very long time, probably, what, 10 years, maybe, even, and, you know, I've been doin' podcasting in a similar-ish vein for around 10 years and this is the first time we've done a podcast together. I just think that's so funny that we had never done that. So we get to know them a little bit. And also they have a kind of a drive they're doing, kind of a cause they're pushing right now, which is to get more atheists into office. So we talk about that as well. It's a lot of fun. So here we go. It's Frank and Dan from Thank God I'm Atheist.

0:01:26 Thomas: And I'm joined by Frank and Dan of Thank God I'm Atheist, how are you doing today?, Yo, I'm

0:01:27 Dan: Okay. Hi! Good! How are you doing?

0:01:31 Frank: Hey, yeah,

0:01:34 Thomas: Doing okay, you know, welcome to the show, I don't think we've ever done, besides that one tryst we had, that drunken midnight,

0:01:42 Dan: Oh. That was, that was, the stuff right there. I enjoyed the crap out of that one.

0:01:42 Frank: Yeah.

0:01:43 Thomas: Yeah, that was fun, that was fun and then we were thinking like we gotta, we gotta actually do more stuff and And I think this will be a really fun, informative show because about what you've been doing, trying to get atheists in office.

0:02:00 Dan: Well, Frank you and I, we, our, our show is, uh you know it's a current events show, uh and one of the things that we've been having to deal with in this country for the last many years is, is Project Blitz. I don't know if you've talked about Project Blitz on your show, but it's basically the Christians, the hyper conservative, like loony bin Christians have been like literally going out of their way as much as possible to infiltrate every level of government. And it's been a concerted effort and a planned effort and they've done a really amazing job of it. And they'd been really super duper crazy effective, which is horrible for the country.

0:02:49 Dan: And uh, and so we decided that we needed to start like hollering at people to get us to do the same thing, like get into local government, get into like, Like, engage. We got to get out there. So that's been our big push.

0:03:03 Frank: Oh

0:02:59 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Tell you what, why don't we leave that as a teaser and get back to that? Because I'm realizing this is the first time we've done anything. Why don't you do the little background? Let's find out if anybody's not familiar with your show. Let's see if a mini kind of bio. So how'd you guys get started in all this? Give us your background.

0:03:21 Frank: What is it like nine some odd years ago? Um, Dan, we've been, uh,

0:03:24 Dan: Yeah, we're old. In

0:03:25 Thomas: Yeah. Cause what time is it?

0:03:27 Dan: Podcasting years.

0:03:28 Thomas: I don't even, what year is it. It's 2021. Yeah. I've been podcasting for 10 years.

0:03:29 Frank: Oh

0:03:31 Dan: Right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. We're all great grandpas in podcasting ears, but Frank and I have been doing it.

0:03:33 Frank: Yeah. Yeah.

0:03:35 Thomas: Yeah, I wait 11 years. I bet I've 11 years, 11 years in May for me. Crazy.

0:03:40 Frank: Yeah,

0:03:40 Dan: There you go. So about the same time that we started, really.

0:03:42 Thomas: Yeah

0:03:41 Frank: That's great. Yeah Um, yeah and uh, let's see. Oh, it was one of those end of world predictions.

0:03:50 Thomas: 2012.

0:03:50 Frank: Harold Camping, uh, yeah he was uh he was pretty yeah I don't know it's uh we're still waiting right we're so and

0:03:53 Thomas: Yeah did that happen or I forgot to check. Yeah I

0:03:58 Dan: I mean, it feels like he just missed it by a few years.

0:04:01 Thomas: Was gonna say maybe Maybe he was right, actually. Maybe we went too hard on that poor guy. It was a transposition. Hold on. 2012, 2021. He just flipped them. Shit.

0:04:09 Frank: Oh no I hope you're wrong about that um But yeah, so we decided to do this little thing on a local community radio station, right, like just one of those, uh, it was kind of an online UFM thing is what it was called, and, uh, and we just got an hour and we did this thing called Rapture Watch, um, and we were just kind of waiting to see like okay this is when he said it was gonna happen and

0:04:16 Dan: We

0:04:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:04:40 Dan: Were really hoping we were following it across the country oh

0:04:40 Frank: Yeah yeah

0:04:43 Thomas: Are you, again, you know, not familiar with all your backgrounds. Are already atheist at this point? Are you? Okay. Gotcha.

0:04:44 Frank: Oh yeah yeah totally totally hmm

0:04:51 Dan: Yeah yeah I Mean, part of the part of the the story is that I, I had been doing a blog called Thank God I'm Atheist, and uh, and I, you know, writing is hard, so I decided that I, you know, I'd rather blather than type, and so uh I Had had been, what's we, so I decided I, I was pushing Frank and some other friends to come and do a podcast with me, and it, it just wasn't gelling, and then, uh, and then Frank and I did this Rapture Watch, and we were like, that actually kind of worked that that was pretty fun maybe we can do this and so we uh so we did it we just launched we didn't know anything about about podcasts we Uh, we're far too stupid to probably be doing it, but we did it anyway, and uh, and it's been working uh, for for this long, so now we're stuck with it.

0:05:08 Thomas: You and me both.

0:05:23 Frank: That Was fun. Yeah yeah oh my god yeah nothing no

0:05:44 Thomas: That's you, me, and half the white men at that time. We all were just like, why not? Let's just do it

0:05:50 Dan: All of us said well I I people p I deserve to be listened to that's

0:05:50 Thomas: Yeah. Need to hear it yeah, we demand to be taken seriously yeah. That's awesome. Yeah. And so you already. OK, so that wasn't any part of your like getting out of religion process or anything that was already predated that.

0:05:58 Frank: Yeah

0:05:58 Dan: Right no

0:06:09 Frank: We were yeah

0:06:09 Dan: But we're both so so we're in Salt Lake City, we were both raised Mormon, so I don't, I don't if you've heard of this Mormon church thing, but they're a wacky group, uh A fun, a real fun fun bunch, um, and getting out of that is enough to, I mean, I feel like half of the atheist blogosphere is ex-Mormons. Just because we're uh you know once once you've gotten yourself free from something as high demand as that you want to start screaming about it.

0:06:33 Frank: Oh

0:06:18 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, there's an energy that comes with it. Yeah I do Really think there's a relationship between like how you know, obviously how, how either big of a deal religion was to you and then like your post religion life. You know, I always talk about the fact that my wife was just raised with no religion, like at all.

0:06:50 Thomas: And she doesn't give a shit about it. Like she doesn'T spend any time thinking about it as no part of her day. What's that?

0:06:54 Frank: How nice how nice oh

0:06:50 Dan: Right yeah because she cheated because she tweeted it's cheat there

0:06:59 Frank: Yeah

0:06:59 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, it's it's interesting, but it gives me hope for raising my kids. You know? It's like, yeah, it can just kind of not really be a thing that you have to worry about every all the time.

0:07:02 Frank: Yeah

0:07:06 Dan: You go yeah well Well, until they rebel and join a religion just to get at you.

0:07:15 Thomas: Yeah. They become Mormons. They go off on a mission or whatever. Whatever.

0:07:19 Dan: I can introduce them to some people. They'll give them the book and everything. It's all free.

0:07:23 Thomas: It's so great though. Cause when you don't indoctrinate kids, then when you come at them with like, whatever your bizarre ass story is, then they're, when they're 20 or something, they're going to be like, that sounds really dumb. I don't know what the hell you're talking about, sir.

0:07:36 Dan: Right. Yeah. If you arm them with like even any critical thinking, they're going to look at Mormonism and go, nope, that's no, that didn't work.

0:07:42 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, even if they're like, well, some religion might be true, but not that that one. I'm just going to say, yeah, gosh. So that's a, that's a decade of podcasting. Anything significant happen in those 10 years that we need to summarize or just, yeah.

0:07:51 Dan: Right, right. You don't have me.

0:08:02 Dan: Oh, my God. No, it was a boring 10 years. It's like everything worked out well for everybody. So I don't even know how we kept going. I I'm I'm worried about you guys you and and and Andrew now that Trump's gone are you gonna even have anything are you going to be okay

0:08:09 Thomas: Yeah. I have joked about that a dozen times already. And I, I'm normally not one to repeat jokes, but this one keeps going because every time, cause so many people said that, did, do we tell you about, I don't think I ever said it on this show. There was was some super like, you know, it's hard because I don't want to insult people. I voted for Bernie in 2016, but like, there's still a Bernie left. You know what I mean? Like nothing wrong with Bernie. I love Bernie and most of the people who support him, but there's also, like, you know, Bernie bro. Like, there is that, but everybody gets mad every time, 'cause they think I'm talking about them. But anyway, there was a guy who was like that guy, and his, his whole theory of Andrew and I, he was going off on us on Twitter. And so funny, I just bring it up, 'cause it makes me laugh every time.

His whole theory of us was that the only reason we supported Elizabeth Warren was that we knew that Bernie would beat Trump. So, this is, there's so many steps to this, Bernie, there a lot of that group, they think Bernie is the only one who could actually win anything and beat run all that, and the

0:08:18 Dan: Yeah sure yeah right

0:09:16 Thomas: Theory of the time was we knew the best way to you know like have Bernie not run was supporting Elizabeth Warren which would then ensure that she or somebody else would lose to to Trump, which would then ensure that we, you know, continue to just rake in on all the Trump money.

0:09:16 Dan: Boom

0:09:33 Thomas: Like this was a several step thing. And it was so funny.

0:09:32 Dan: You guys were playing 3d chess on that one

0:09:36 Thomas: Oh, God, I'm not capable of that level of strategy. I'll just say this person overestimated me by quite a bit. And and the whole thing was funny because I noticed on this guy's profile, he was a huge fan of Chapo Trap House. And I was like, wait a minute. You mean the number one show on Patreon in the Trump era that's cashed in the most? They're fine. But like our little show is really a, there must be something behind this. So, uh, that, that all that is to say, I joke about that because as Trump has left office, we have more than ever to cover. There's so much to cover and we can cover stuff in a good way. Like here's a thing that you may have one ounce of happiness today, everybody, you know, like stuff like that.

0:09:37 Dan: Yeah oh right yeah yeah

0:10:20 Thomas: Like, here's your portion of, like, slight optimism you might be able to have this week. And there's so much to cover. So, no, it's not at all the case. We have so much To Talk About all the time, even though I understand why there was a fear there. But it's better because we're not like, well, honestly, the news cycle is still pretty nuts these days. But we don't have to worry that, you know, there's going to be foreign policy conducted on social media right now, which is nice.

0:10:31 Dan: Yeah or or by Trump's kids it

0:10:50 Thomas: Yeah. Oh, God. When are they going to jail? That's a topic for another show. I do want to know when they're going to be.

0:10:55 Dan: Better happen it better happen I I if it doesn't happen I blame you and andrew that's that's just a fact yeah

0:10:57 Thomas: Yeah. Well, honestly, that's the good thing about my job on that show is I can blame Andrew, too. The whole audience will have pitchforks coming for us. I'll be like, yeah, give me a pitchfork. Yeah, Andrew. I agree with these fine people. What happened? Why is Stormy Daniels not? Yeah. But anyway. Okay. OK, so that aside, atheists in office, you're saying there maybe is some harm that's been done by Christians being being in office. Is that your thesis?

0:11:32 Dan: It's it seems like a crazy thing to say right It seems impossible that the nice people that we all know evangelical Christians in the United States to be could ever do harm to anyone, uh, but it turns out that, yeah, like they, they, they seem to be rolling back a lot of progress or attempting, attempting to roll back a lot of progress that our society has made, and they like to, uh, you hate on women and keep LGBTQ people down for no apparent reason other than, you know, a 2000 year old book said a couple mean things one time, so.

0:11:34 Thomas: Yeah, Yeah.

0:12:06 Dan: You know, we, we need to get ourselves out there, and the other thing is that our numbers as, uh, as nuns, as non-es, as non, non-believers, as, you know, know people not affiliated with religion, our numbers are huge, we are an enormous voting block in this country, and we're not acting like it yet, we you know what I mean we're like I

0:12:30 Thomas: Well, part of that is I've dug into this on the show before. If anyone out there is thinking we can count nuns as atheists, you'RE just wrong. But I think it still is important to note. So I'm wondering, in this Atheists in Office kind of drive that you guys are doing, do you consider it a victory if it's just someone who's not affiliated? There may be an emphasis on that as well. Like, if you're not affiliated, do YOU want to try to, like, leave room for that or not? You know, like spiritual but not Christian or something like that kind of thing.

0:13:01 Dan: Think that's more a question about where their heart is, because if the, re, you know, I, if what they're doing is they're getting out there and uh and looking out for the separation of church and state and and safeguarding people of minority religious positions, including atheism, then yeah, I'm all for it. But I mean, in the end, and especially if they're willing to say, I am not Christian, which just saying that,

0:13:26 Thomas: Yeah. Good luck with that. Yeah. So maybe that counts out the nuns right away.

0:13:34 Frank: Yeah

0:13:36 Dan: Right. If they are willing to, you know, I'll find common cause with anybody that I can. But, I do think that it's really important, even just atheists are probably somewhere in the 10% of our country range at this point. So that is not an insignificant number of people. And we need, yeah, there you go.

0:13:56 Thomas: That's like 10%, I think. Wow. Hold

0:14:00 Dan: I didn't know that you were into math. But yeah, I think that that is a very, that's a number that deserves recognition.

0:14:00 Thomas: On. Let me check my calculator. Yeah. Passionately. Right.

0:14:12 Dan: But the problem is that right now, now, people aren't, you know, you can fly under the radar, you don't have to let anyone know that you're an atheist. And as long as we are flying under that radar, as long as we are trying to, you know, because there are, of course, there are social consequences for a lot of people who, you know, who say that they're atheists, atheism is demonized in this country.

So the only way to combat that, and Frank and I talk about this all the time, you know, we, we mentioned that the, uh, the, the LGBTQ community gave us a roadmap that we can look at, which is to say, they came out, they knew that the only way that they were going to get acceptance and the onlyway that theywere going to be, uh, to, to be able to exercise their political power is by being visible, and we, and so, uh, it was, was dangerous, it was probably even more dangerous for that community to come out than it is for our community to comes out, but it's still dangerous for us. And yet we still have to do it, because if we don't have that visibility, if we're not out there, you know, running for office and saying, by the way, and, you know, when asked, no, I don't, I, I am an atheist, it

0:15:30 Frank: And I think that's, yeah.

0:15:31 Dan: Yeah

0:15:31 Frank: And I think a good point which is we're not asking people to run as the atheist atheist candidate. It's about being honest about who you are if it comes up. The few people that we've talked to who've actually either gotten in office or run for office as people who were atheists, they don't even get asked the question half the time in local office. It ends up really really being a non-issue a lot of times. But that visibility, like Dan's talking about, is absolutely key. And I think somebody running, if they were willing to be honest and really open about their atheism, the visibility from that and then coupled with the values that they're expressing, I think would be a huge win, even if they lost, right? Like if they got some

0:15:38 Dan: It's not a party right right

0:16:26 Thomas: Maybe

0:16:26 Frank: Publicity, the more that we can get out there in front of people, the the quicker, the sooner atheists don't have to you know live

0:16:36 Thomas: We can get a step above pedophiles in the opinion polls. Yeah, like maybe just just eke out arsonists. We're coming for you next after that, by the way, or whoever.

0:16:40 Dan: Exactly I yeah you never know dreams

0:16:46 Thomas: Yeah whoever's next. Yeah. I have to confess in recent years, the focus for me has has has really I mean, just the state of the country and the fact that polarization and party sorting has has been what it is. In my personal kind views, I've de-emphasized atheism a bit, mainly because the Republicans are so keen on Christian nationalism that the most important thing to me is opposing that in many ways. And,

0:16:38 Frank: Yeah yeah exactly yeah totally hmm

0:16:48 Dan: Do come true you guys sure

0:17:22 Frank: Who

0:17:23 Dan: Yeah

0:17:23 Thomas: You know, not that I'm trying to discourage at all this this effort, which I think is great, too. But I've sort of noticed and I think we can talk about maybe a couple news items here. Like, I mean, old news, but the fact that did you did you guys hear a lot of people in the atheism community harping on Reverend Warnock? You know, there's this whole thing. Yeah, go ahead.

0:17:45 Dan: I mean I I Heard some of it, it's, it is kind of funny because, because, absolutely, because if you've been an atheist for a while, you know that we need all the allies we can get. We can't just do this on our own, but also, but I do think that it's important to say, you know, to just have us out there.

0:17:57 Thomas: Yeah. Mm hmm.

0:18:08 Dan: Because it's so easy to demonize a group that nobody has to look at it's So easy to say they're all evil when, you know, when the people who are hearing that messaging don't ever have to meet in person an atheist and see a smiling face who's doing something, who's being nice, which most atheists are pretty fucking nice, so, you know, debunking that myth, just sort of destroying that, uh, that talking point that atheists or evil, I think is really damned important.

0:18:14 Thomas: Right. Right, right.

0:18:45 Frank: Mm-hmm

0:18:45 Thomas: I absolutely agree. I think this is likely going to be a little bit limited by geography in terms of where you can Actually have any realistic shot as an open atheist. Are you, so a minute ago, we talked about the fact that, you know, the question doesn't come up. Are Are you hoping for people to proactively bring it up? Or do you think it would be a wise strategy to kind of run and keep it under the radar and then maybe come out if you win? Or what do you thing about that?

0:18:51 Frank: Right

0:19:14 Dan: We're not political strategists that's not our job at all uh But I will say that I think so, uh, I think everybody needs to decide that for themselves, you know what I mean, like when you get out there. But iwill echo what Frank said earlier, which is that winning is not the major goal here, just Engaging is the major gold. Running is is as important as winning, and good things happen even when you run and lose, uh, because, uh, and, you know, we interviewed a woman who was a listener to our show and had, and actually ran for office and made some good changes in her community and really got her, you know, her face out there. And she lost, but she was still, she still felt great about the experience. So I don't think that this is about, like, yes, I do think that you need to be strategic. If you're running for office, you decide on your own strategy, you figure it all out. But I also want to say that, like, in terms of strategic thinking, I think getting out in front of stuff is often a great thing to do.

0:19:16 Frank: Right

0:19:17 Thomas: Yeah, fair enough. Okay.

0:20:24 Dan: And, you know, when when someone tries to demonize you with something, own it hard. You know what I mean? Don't don't just say, well, yes, I am an atheist, but that's OK, everybody. Don't worry. It's the opposite of that. Hell, yeah, I'm an an atheist I'm

0:20:35 Frank: Yeah

0:20:38 Thomas: Yeah, absolutely true. That's what we discovered breaks the system with Trump. Jump he just if he just said the thing out loud he literally just committed crimes but was proud of it and then everyone's like uh but you did that and he's like yeah but oh crap there's something was supposed to happen when I pointed out that you didthat yep oh No, darn. You know, like, it really a lot of that, I guess it was, you know, self-censoring or self-shaming or whatever. Like a lot of the system relied on that, and we could maybe turn that to good use, like rather than nefarious purposes, and just proudly And openly say, especially because nowadays, if you're running, and I'm presuming most, most atheists listening would be, if they wanted to consider this, would run uh as a Democrat probably, and like Republicans are going to paint you as a socialist devil worshiper, what, no matter what, you know, like it doesn't

0:20:41 Dan: Yeah yeah right

0:20:53 Frank: Yeah yeah And

0:21:12 Dan: A. Hundred percent right Right

0:21:33 Thomas: Matter biden is like a socialist now like Like he's got the, so yeah, I think that is a good lesson. Like there are a couple of not like good outcomes, but lessons we can learn from this past awful four years and apply to hopefully good ends. And I thinkthat's one of them. I think you're absolutely right. Just unapologetically owning something that you don't need to be ashamed of does take a lot of the brunt out of that. It does take a lot, you know, like all of a sudden nobody cares. They're like, oh, okay.

0:21:36 Dan: Yeah exactly yeah well And not only that, but then you have the opportunity to talk about the reasons why it's a good thing, the reasons why being an atheist is actually going to help you in office, is actually going like, you can, you know, if you want to talk, talk about why being an atheist and not having any God belief means that you can be respectful to all beliefs. Or, you know, talking about how, how being an atheist means that you're going to, you're going to try to be very aware of the science and be honest about, about what the science says, in any given thing, so that we don't have a pandemic and then pretend like it's not happening, you know, like these kinds of things, this is a positive thing. If you, politicians are going to be better at spin than I am, but you know, I don't think, not far from being a thing that you have to run from, you can hold this as a, as you know, as a selling point, if you're smart.

0:22:58 Frank: And a lot of the, like, the our discussion that we've been having about this, we, we've, we've been trying to focus on these offices that the very local, the hyper local ones, the school board, right? Um, your community council, right? Like, I mean, if you take the school board, like this, you, if you get some crazies on your local school board, which you probably already do have crazies on your local school board, um these are people who who potentially want prayer back in school um

0:23:27 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah while the three of us 10 years ago were like we should all start a podcast all of the crazy religious people were like we should already have been in government this whole time yeah I'm like damn it

0:23:42 Dan: Right

0:23:36 Frank: No that's really really funny, um, but yeah, but like, school board is is like really important, right, and and the kind of education that the kid kids are getting in your area, and protecting them from the loonies who want to, you know, introduce religious doctrination. And I I grew up in Oklahoma, right, I know all about going to a small rural school system that uh they found every way they could to skirt the rules and try to get religion into our school system, right? So in my mind, that's the level that we need to start with. And then people get to cut their teeth, right, on politics and see, oh, maybe I want to run for city council or something like that. And the other part of this is we're talking a lot about encouraging people to run for office. And some of the feedback that we've gotten is, well, wow, I don't really want to run from. Well, okay, great. Vote for the person or volunteer or donate.

0:24:21 Thomas: Yeah

0:24:23 Dan: Yeah yeah

0:24:46 Frank: There's so many different ways that you can help. This is just an overall message that we're trying to reach the few people out there who've thought, hey, maybe I'd like to run for office someday. We'll do it now. Right. It's kind of what we're thinking. Today's the day. Don't, don't wait.

0:24:58 Dan: Today's the day get in there yep

0:25:01 Frank: And, and, but this is actually an important time of the year to be thinking about it. Um, because you know, like the elections are in the fall in this country. So you gotta be thinking about it now, right?

0:25:00 Thomas: Right now oh crap okay well uh I'm busy right now yeah oh good point yeah Yeah. Mm-hmm.

0:25:14 Frank: So, and you pre you might have a school board thing that's coming up this year or because every, you know every jurisdictions on kind of different cycles. So look into it

0:25:23 Thomas: So you mentioned one earlier, but I was going to ask you any success stories you want to share or any any other experiences of people actually doing this?

0:25:31 Dan: Well I can tell you, we live in Salt Lake City, which is like, uh, you know, Utah was reason as a, until fairly recently, the reddest of the red states, it is, it is a, uh, Utah, Salt Lake itself is a little blue dot in a big sea of red and yet one of the people that we've interviewed on our show is uh is a man named Derek Kitchen who is He ran for Salt Lake City Council and won, and now he is a Utah State Senator, and he's openly atheist. He's one of the ones that we talked about that hasn't had much call to mention it, because in this state, you're either Mormon or you're just not.

0:25:48 Thomas: Mm. Hmm? Yeah. Wow. Mm hmm, other Yeah.

0:26:19 Dan: Those are the two categories. But he's been able to get a lot done. He's a he's a fantastic legislator. And, you know, he's he's out there just doing the Lord's work. So I there's a lot of it's it's. It may not be. You may be more daunted than is warranted in terms of in terms of worrying about.

0:26:32 Frank: So to speak oh

0:26:34 Thomas: Yeah. Hmm. Well, if Marjorie Taylor Greene can be in the rep the house. Yeah, that is a lesson of a lot of this. And I wonder if that's a problem just overall for it. Forget get atheists just in politics, like, do all the best people think like, "Oh, I shouldn't be in charge of anything," you know? Like is that age old, like, philosophical dilemma of like the only person who should actually be king is the person who doesn't want to be, that kind of thing, like, are all the are all good people out there just thinking like I can't be In Charge of Things and then you know Josh Hawley is or something you know I

0:26:45 Frank: Jesus christ

0:26:46 Dan: Right. Right, yeah. Yeah.

0:27:09 Frank: Yeah.

0:27:16 Dan: Yeah, I mean, we definitely have to counteract the Hollies and the and the Greens of this world, world. It's it's imperative, yeah.

0:27:25 Thomas: Couldn't agree more, um, the other thing that was interesting within the atheist circles related to this kind of was people pointing out how many, you know, how Biden had the most, like, references to God or something in his inaugural address ever, uh, which is kind of funny. And I I think it, you know, again, I think there is an element of there's a small but very vocal element of the atheist community that's that can be pretty right wing, and I think they like to use a lot of this as a way to try to divide people, like, "Oh yeah, yeah, see, you can't, you got to vote based on your, you know, go with the atheist rather than whether it's Warnock or whatever." And it's interesting because I still fully on board with this idea and do wish more people were openly atheist running. But I also think it's just really important to note that, like, if we don't try to prevent the right from ruining religious freedom, like, nobody will. Like, it is really important uh to do that I

0:27:40 Dan: Yeah.

0:28:23 Frank: That

0:28:22 Dan: If We wait around and, you know, what we can find common cause with with, uh, with a lot of different groups, you know. You can find common cause with, for instance, the Muslims who are who are every bit as hated as we are, or, you know, not any kind of non-Christian group is going to is going, is going to want to to find common cause with us. But you're right, it's incumbent on us to fix this. This is this is a problem in our country, and it will be for generations because they they did a damn good job packing our courts, right?

0:28:59 Thomas: Was gonna say everybody run for Supreme Court. Okay, run. Oh wait no damn it I don't think that's how that works

0:29:03 Dan: Yeah. Go go start start the atheist version of the federalist society or whatever.

0:29:09 Thomas: Oh wow I wonder what that would be I I mean, but there really shouldn't be that, you know, that's that's the unfortunate problem that does make it a little, it's not the the the version of jurisprudence that you know should win the day is nothing to do with atheism or whatever, I know, know you're making a joke, but it's like, it is frustrating that it's, like, on one, we have to do this balancing act of trying to appeal to, you know, what should, these ideals that really Christians themselves should be on board with, like honestly, if, yeah, they should be in favor of religious protections, you Know, that's what, of actual ones, but too often they obviously just want to legislate their own privilege and into, into law, and it's really appalling.

0:29:12 Dan: Right? Right. Right. And if you want, you know, if people want to, they can say instead of atheist, they're a secularist and talk about secular government because that's what we should all be wanting anyway. And yeah, there's no reason why a Christian shouldn't want that as much as we do.

0:30:00 Thomas: Hmm That's a good point. I, I know definitely in other countries it's almost a taboo for politicians to even discuss religion. That would be nice. We should we should yeah I like that, I wonder, I wonder, yeah, that's not a bad idea to to emphasize the like well my beliefs don't matter, you know, like what I care about is as a candidate or is it whatever is protecting everybody's rights to do, to worship or believe whatever they want to or don't want to.

0:30:19 Frank: Would be amazing well

0:30:19 Dan: Wouldn't that be great?

0:30:37 Dan: Well, and also to just make sure that like government stays neutral on the point like That's the whole point, like government shouldn't be in the religion business at all, and we should all be able to say that like every American should be able to say I want a secular society proudly and easily, that should be an easy thing for them to say, but right now we're in the weirdest timeline

0:30:44 Thomas: Yeah.

0:31:01 Frank: I always thought it I mean that's the crazy part is that like I I feel like my uber religious parents taught me to value secularism and I don't know if if like It was just, if, if that was truly the lesson that they were teaching, or that's just what I wanted to hear, but like, I, I honestly think that like it wasn't until like the last 10, 15 years that they went off the deep end and they, they went off over onto this whole far right nonsense of, of, of, you know, I mean my, my parents have like anti-abortion, uh, license plates, you know, on their car, but it's just like you guys have gone really fucking nuts here right um

0:31:04 Dan: Yeah yeah

0:31:12 Thomas: Well, geez.

0:31:41 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah,

0:31:46 Dan: Yeah

0:31:46 Thomas: That's a story of all of our parents. And most of most of our parents in these last. Yeah there's a real there's a real wormholing effect or whatever you want to call it. I guess just the radicalization of the right via Fox News and all these sources. I mean mean, really, are they Fox News viewers? Is that the tie-in?

0:31:46 Frank: And yeah yeah yeah

0:32:04 Thomas: Yeah, that really seems, I mean Fox News, I think somebody wrote a book on that. And I, again, if I could write, which I can't, it's too hard as we discussed. Like it's, it really is true that almost a, you know, a generation of people, I guess that's exaggerating a little bit, but there, there's a ton of people of a certain age that were taken down this Fox News rabbit hole in the last, I Guess, you you know, a little bit, probably, you know 15 years, like in the maybe even 20, I guess, with the

0:32:00 Frank: My parents yeah yeah exactly

0:32:10 Dan: Yeah

0:32:32 Frank: Hmm

0:32:32 Thomas: Bush years to the reaction to Obama and then to now, like it's so uniform. It's amazing how similar the story is too. Like it's just, you start off as a conservative or a Republican and then it just, the way that rhetoric and misinformation works, it becomes so, I guess, absurd in a lot of ways that you can't just kind of dabble into it, you know, you can't be like, well, I think parts of the earth are flat. You know, you gotta be like all on flat earth or something, you know? It's like, you have to go full in on the earth is flat and therefore the lizard people are preventing us from knowing it. You can't just casually think those weird things. And it's really unfortunate. And I was going to ask, I wonder if there would be, it might've made sense to think, okay, Mormons, assuming, Assuming, you know, your parents are Mormons, right? I mean, yeah. Assuming that, I mean you would think Mormons would have an appreciation for secularism just given that they were a persecuted religion, you Know?

0:32:33 Frank: Yeah oh yeah yeah

0:32:59 Dan: Yeah

0:33:33 Thomas: Like literally,

0:33:33 Frank: And that might be where I got that lesson from you know like like

0:33:36 Thomas: Yeah.

0:33:37 Dan: Well the one of the problems with Mormons is that they feel, uh, don't, I don't think they know that there's still freaks in the world. I think that they feels like they've made it as a, as a religion, that they're big time. Uh, and certainly their bank account as a religion shows that, uh you know, a hundred, a $100 billion will make anybody feel feel pretty vindicated um think they they've now gotten to the point where they feel like they're just mainstream uh

0:33:54 Thomas: Yeah. Per capita or whatever. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they tried that rebranding, Didn't they? Didn't they do the, like, well, we're not, we're gonna de-emphasize the Mormon and whatever and go with the the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day wasn't that what they did you could tell me but

0:34:15 Frank: Yeah. But

0:34:17 Dan: Well they did recent

0:34:17 Thomas: Yeah

0:34:17 Frank: That was after like First they went in hard on, oh, we're Mormons, right? Like, um, I mean, big, uh, billboard ads in Time Square and everything, right? Like, meet the mormon's right and actually

0:34:18 Dan: Yeah it was amazing they Literally spent millions of dollars, probably tens or hundreds of millions of dollars on PR campaigns, like, make, getting, creating positive associations with the word Mormon and Then this prophet, their, their current president, comes along and is like, I, I just think honestly, when he was little, because he's 96 years old now, when he was little it was a derogatory term and he's hated it ever since the term Mormon so he just literally undid all of what, all of that good publicity that they had worked so hard and paid so much for and uh

0:34:44 Thomas: Jesus.

0:34:56 Thomas: Yeah that's hilarious. That's usually not a good branding move spend tens of zillions of dollars yeah it's

0:35:11 Dan: No no I I think in I Think, think in marketing school they would say that that would was a bit of a, a bit of a no-no.

0:35:21 Thomas: Like, yeah, even even Quickster is like, come on really that's a a bad idea how many people still remember that that happened it's it's a dwindling amount that's it's

0:35:32 Dan: You yeah you gotta be an old dude.

0:35:33 Thomas: Yeah yeah When, when we're, you know, 90, we can be like, Quickster, you have no idea what I'm talking about, do you? No yeah jesus I didn't realize that guy was that old he's probably like on the original like pilgrimage out to utah he's not that far away from it right right?

0:35:39 Dan: Right there they're also old the guy that will take over when he dies is also in his late in his mid to late 90s so it's kind of it's how they set up their their hierarchy they they're they're kind of stuck with that for and unless the lord commands them to do it a different way they're that's that's going to be it for a while so

0:35:53 Thomas: He's older. Yeah. Oh, okay. Jesus Christ. Yeah, that must be tough. I imagine whoever's on like the tin can with the string on it, listening to the, just waiting for a message from the Lord. They're kind of, their hands are tied. Yeah. Whoever's good.

0:36:13 Dan: Yeah yeah it's tricky it's tricky but don't don't look for any like hip young progressive mormon leaders anytime soon that's uh that's we're we're 40 years away from that well

0:36:30 Thomas: God. Well uh is there any other aspects of this uh this drive that we didn't get to here

0:36:38 Dan: So

0:36:38 Frank: You can go to thank thankgodimatheist.com and click on the atheist in office tab. And then there's like actually like a form that you can express sort of how you would like to be involved. And then we collect up a little bit of information. And the idea right now that we're kind of running with is, are you someone who maybe has experience politically? And would you be willing to maybe answer some questions or mentor somebody who wants to run for office Or, you know, or do you want to run for office and you just need some help? Right. And so we're looking to try to connect some people. And we have heard from some people already who are, you Know, political types who are willing to give some advice to people.

0:37:26 Frank: Um, and, uh, and the other way that, I, I think just collecting up a, a database of people who are looking to volunteer and Looking to just be involved, um, is really important because, you know, I mean, to, to our conversation earlier about, like, does, does this person, does our ideal person here have to be an atheist? I, I think ideally yes, but like, of course we'll get behind, um, or support or try to help people out who are seeking, working toward a secular society.

0:37:35 Thomas: Yeah.

0:38:01 Dan: Yeah Yeah. If you go to thankgodimatheist.com, click on that, uh, the link there. And, and like, even if you're not planning on running, but you are, but, you know, you've been, you want to sort of try and build a list of people so that if someone's like, you know, I'm in this part of Chicago and I want to run for alderman or whatever. And we happen to know that we've got another person in Chicago who understands Chicago, Chicago politics really well. We can maybe put those two people together and, you know. Start some conversations. So everybody should, should just register and let us know what your level of interest is and what, what you might be willing or able to do.

0:38:02 Thomas: Yeah

0:38:50 Dan: And then we'll see what, what happens, we'll see, we, we don't know what it's going to turn into, but, but we just want to get the ball rolling, yeah.

0:38:56 Thomas: I see, I see it, just a drive and a need and a wanting to, like, stop sitting around and let the Marjorie Taylor Greens of the world actually do shit and get involved yeah absolutely I will put the link in the show notes Were All right. Well, Frank and Dan, thanks so much for coming on the shows. Of course, thank God I'm atheist. I'll pop that link in the show notes and I might have a connection or two I can try to throw your way. I don't know. I'm not sure. I I'll have to reach my rolodex

0:39:04 Dan: Great

0:39:04 Frank: Exactly. Yeah.

0:39:21 Dan: We're we're putting you on the list anyway you're we may we may force you to run for something we're gonna we're gonna make you run for office at some point uh against your will

0:39:23 Frank: It's

0:39:23 Thomas: Oh sure well yeah I I volunteer to be a manchurian candidate is that a yeah I haven't actually seen that, but I think it involves not knowing that you're even a Mancherian candidate, so I hope the joke works. If not, it's because I haven't seen it. But anyway, all right. Thanks so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it.

0:39:32 Dan: Nice Perfect, perfect.

0:39:50 Frank: Thanks Thomas.

0:39:52 Thomas: All

0:39:52 Dan: Thanks for having us

0:40:02 Clip: Thank you so much for listening to Serious Inquiries Only. If you like the show, the absolute best thing you can do is support us at patreon.com/seriouspod. The second best thing you can do, is please share it on social media or by word of mouth. Speaking of social media, follow me on Twitter at Serious Pod. If would like to be Facebook friends, send me a request at facebook.com Thomas podcast. If not up for that level of intimacy, that's fine. Maybe you want to join the discussion at facebook.com/groups/SIO members. Thank you again for listening. We'll see you next time.