Talk Heathen

notes upon receipt

Today’s episode of the Talk Heathen ObjectivelyDan joins Richard Gilliver to answer your (hopefully) wonderful questions. Muji in Europe asks what issues atheists have with god wanting people to do good deeds, like love one another and give to charities? It’s not all good… Non-believers don’t believe gods exist and can do all those same good deeds, sans holy book. The quran supports the owning of human beings and child marriage! That’s straight up immoral and we reject that “holy” book.Nataka in NY wants to talk about free will. There are categories within free will, the hosts tend to lean more toward determinism. Humans are simply physical beings in a physical system so anything we do is physical as well. There is no good evidence of anything supernatural.Mike in WA disagrees with our weekly poll, proclaiming god is not evil but hates queer people. (yay, random transphobia. ugh) Well, hell is super evil. Why does god allow that much evil? Why does god slaughter people? Under your definition as evil is something we don’t want done to yourself, your god is evil. Ahmed in Bangladesh purports there are scientific miracles in the quran, like allah referencing the big bang and creating every creature from water. This is post hoc rationalization. In this case, applying gained knowledge to ancient written text. Big Bang does not equal “heavens and Earth”.Meryssa in UT is leaning more atheistic but thinks there is a small possibility there is something supernatural and a divine experience could change her mind. We haven’t experienced anything divine and there are no compelling arguments otherwise. We don’t think someone shouldn’t believe anything without good evidence.Otari in Georgia claims the problem of evil is a good argument to prove god. A god isn’t necessary to know what is right and wrong. We can still make moral judgements even if objective morality exists or not. Even if a god exists, doesn’t mean they are good. Nick in OH asks why humans categorize animals in this “can harm and can’t harm”. We agree harming animals for no reason is bad. Hard to sum this call up. This call dives into arguments regarding ethical vs unethical treatment, analogies to eating humans, economic impacts, and more. Thank you for tuning in to your community! This week's Talk Heathen To Me prompt is: You are in Hell! Who is your roommate?

Talk Heathen 07.31 with Doctor Ben and Christy Powellshow note when received

Today’s episode of the Talk Heathen is a tag team of Jamies. Jamie Boone and Jamie The Blind Limey team up to … talk about veganism a lot.Tim from MN is disheartened by atheists going dogmatic. Claiming to see similarities of not being able to question something: citing being pro-vaccine even though the Covid-19 vaccine can be harmful. It comes down to risk management. The consensus of medical professionals says it’s best to get vaccinated.Nick from OH claims veganism is inline with secular morality and we’re risking pandemic causing microbes. Sure it can be a healthier diet but we don't agree it’s a morally superior stance. There are widely varying takes on veganism by atheists and secular humanists.Live from the audience, Gabriel asks The Jamies take on the affordability of veganism. That's a good point not often brought up. Not everyone is in an economic position or location for one to go vegan.Sorry Reg-Guy, the call dropped. Sounded like an excellent call, please call back! Thank you for tuning in to your community! This week's “Talk Heathen To Me” prompt is: Wrong answers only, why is god hiding from us?

In today’s episode of the Talk Heathen, Doctor Ben and Richard Gilliver take calls ranging from values to the resurrection.Josh from NY claims that prayer is “incredibly helpful” and goes on to say prayer isn’t simply a cure all. Prayer is about a coin flip in terms of effectiveness. You shouldn’t accept something like prayer without evidence that it works. Get checked by a medical professional if you have any illnesses. Prayer doesn’t help, at all.Amanuel from TX asks how atheists come up with their values or ultimate purpose given we don’t believe in a deity? There are thousands of deities proposed by humans, even thousands of denominations in christianity alone. Any Abrahamic holy book is loaded with immoral laws, proclamations, and values. We’ll stay away from that nonsense.Martin from The UK claims Christ’s resurrection as described in the bible is historical fact. A retelling of a story in an old book is not evidence of a fact, let alone one written decades after said event. Don’t trust christian apologists, they tend to start with a belief and disregard opposing evidence.Connor in TX wants perspective on a frustrating religious argument he had, someone questioned his beliefs. Respectfully decline to talk about religion in a professional setting. Arguments tend to elicit strong emotions and reactions. Make it a boundary and involve HR if available.Latrina in Canada claims there is a placebo effect in prayer, it can be helpful for an individual prayer. We’d rather someone seek medical treatment. Placebo's don’t work on a lot of physiological issues, like cancer or broken bones. The risk isn’t worth any benefits. People have relied on prayer and died, or their condition worsened.Thank you for tuning in to your community! This week's “Talk Heathen To Me” prompt is: What flier would you not expect to see on a church bulletin board?

In today’s episode of the Talk Heathen, Christy Powell and Kenneth take on callers with questions of belief and truth.Chloe in PA asks how we should react if religion pushes prosocial behavior. Do you need religious beliefs to do good things? Even if you can get a positive result out of a lie or fiction, it is incredibly dangerous to do so. Why are people just fine believing things they have no evidence for? If you choose to block out evidence and science, you will be using the same broken epistemological tool that anti vaxxers use. Kaden in FL has evidence for the resurrection of Jesus. Empty tombs, martyrdom, and changed minds can not possibly be used to demonstrate the resurrection happened as the supernatural claim. Even if we combine all the claims and grant them as true, we still have little data points that need a narrative constructed and that narrative is not the most simple explanation. Natural explanations for the claims are more likely than the resurrection. Even if Jesus were to be demonstrated to exist, how is the empty tomb evidence that he rose? Why are the claims of Jesus resurrecting different from the claims in the Quran such as Soloman talking to birds? James in Canada has some claims about Jesus, the tomb, his true teachings. Can you see the distinction between a claim and the evidence for a claim?Ryan in KY believes that something does not have to be a scientific fact for it to be a fact and that the Bible is perfect with no things that are untrue. If it is all about interpretation, does it matter if it is accurate? What does it mean to know something? What makes something worthy of belief? Why should we believe anything in the Bible and that god created the universe? Why are faith claims not discussed in simple language? We are encouraging you to be more critical in the way you think about these things. Otari, in the Nation of Georgia, interprets the Bible literally. How do you resolve some of the obvious contradictions in the Bible? If you don’t read the Bible, how is it that you interpret it at all? How can the Catholic church have teachings aboutmorality that are infallible, while spending billions of dollars settling sexual abuse cases and enabling the behavior for this abuse to continue? Billy in LA describes legislation that requires all schools K-12, and universities to have the words, “In God We Trust” in every classroom. How is this separation of church and state? The people who write this legislation do not care if there are people who believe in a different god or if there are atheists in the class. These are indoctrination attempts and propaganda. There are some groups that are doing things to push back such as using Arabic to write the required words. Thank you for tuning in to your community! The question of the week is: What is a great slogan for Satan!

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Talk Heathen 07.26 with Richard Gilliver and Doctor Ben

Talk Heathen 07.25 with ObjectivelyDan and Jamie the Blind Limey

In today’s episode of the Talk Heathen, Richard Gilliver and Doctor Ben sort out patterns that look like creation, free will based determinism, and the reliability of Paul’s writings.Guru in India argues that god must exist because we would not be around if god did not exist. Does the creator need to be a living thing? Why do we need a living being to create us? Instead of using the term, “created”, why don’t we just use the term, “come into existence”? Where in a rock is there evidence of creation? We don’t know what caused this process to happen, but it is a stretch to conclude that this is the same as when humans design things. In order to maintain the idea of a living creator, one must have a shallow mindset. Redefining examples does not make your original point correct. Not everything that has a pattern, has to have a creator. Chris in WV claims that relativity tells us the future existed at the moment of the big bang and we also existed during the big bang so therefore we have free will existing with destiny which means god is not responsible for atrocities. There are some cases where humans have no choice because there are biological factors leading up to their decisions. If god is the one who made brains work in antisocial ways such as not feeling guilt, how does god have the right to punish these people? How do these people have complete free will? When these people are not in the equation, does the argument still work? How can you make a spiritual claim and then say, “scientifically speaking”? No matter how you cherry pick, religion still has harmful things within it. Why doesn’t the moral instructional book or religion tell us not to own slaves? Christian in GA, asks what standard of evidence the hosts use to see if the Gospels are reliable. We take the approach where we don't accept it to be true until we see evidence and the baseline is not believing. How do we know that Paul’s trip to Demascus happened and not some other kind of trip? When hallucinating, do things happen the way they are described? Validity is not affected by how many people believe something or how many times it is said. What is it that convinces you that the gospels are true? What evidence substantiates the rising from the dead? Wouldn’t people have known about tactics writers used to convince us? People dying for their beliefs do not make the claims true. Can you apply the same level of scrutiny to the Bible that you apply to the Quran?Jim in OH asks Richard about a past call involving Buddhism. This is more of a philosophy than a religion. Richard clarifies his position by stating that there are some gods within this system, just not creator gods. Thank you for tuning in and please remember to thank our essential workers! Question of the week is: What would you have ordered at The Last Supper and why?

SHOW NOTESHello and welcome to Talk Heathen! This week, Doctor Ben and Jimmy Jr. are here to do Satan’s work!Solomon from CA, a former Jehova’s witness, has seen the recent decline of religion by younger generations and wants to know where our hosts see religion going in the future.Felix from GA is calling to argue that Christianity is actually a progressive religion. While it's nice that certain denominations or churches are adopting progressive messaging and stances, Christianity as a whole isn’t pushing the boundaries of progressive values. Is it really progressive, or just a means to survival?Cam from MI wants to know if pride month really is necessary outside of a historical remembrance context. As long as there is someone who thinks the world would be a better place if we went back to a time when queer people’s voices and needs in society were out of sight out of mind, then pride is absolutely necessary.Kathy from IL wants to discuss their experience visiting a Unitarian Universalist church and how different it is from every other more traditional church.Zabi from MI is a former theist and wants to discuss how their deconversion altered how friends and family view them.

show notes upon reciept

Today’s episode of Talk Heathen is hosted by Forrest Valkai and Sofia Spina!Charles from PA states that they asked God to change their life and claims that he answered!Dre from TX was told by an atheist that God is just a guess and has some confusion on the definition of a theory.Tommy from OR wants to discuss the historical background (in the United States specifically), or biblical infallibility.Alex from MI wants to know if our hosts believe in free will, and if so, to what extent.Steven from AZ is moving from Arizona to Pennsylvania and wants advice for living in an ethnically and religiously monolithic area.

In today’s episode of Talk Heathen, Secular Rarity is joined by Tom Benson. You can find more from Tom at https://howeverwegothere.com/First caller is John in TX and asks why we do this show. Talking to callers like you! We want to engage in conversations to affect change. The call morphs to John claiming god is a philosophical, not scientific, conversation. Well, religion causes actual harm in the world. We just don’t have any good reasons to believe in any god. Matt in CA announces the Secular Student Alliance National Conference on June 16-18 in St Louis, MO on the University of St Louis campus. Get your tickets NOW at https://secularstudents.org/conference/2023conference/Nathan in FL presents instinctual evidence of a god. He claims that people, even atheists, calling out “oh my god” is evidence of a god. That is a very localized expression, other religions often call out something different. Those religions are often contradictory to christianity. Rob in CO doesn’t understand why theists have difficulty seeing the bad stuff that comes with their religious beliefs. People tend to lean to simple answers that don't take much work. All we can do is challenge those beliefs and hope we can make a change. Jay in the USA asks who or what is responsible for world wide education. People have passed along methods to further education and eliminate fallacious thinking. Rob in NC brings up examples of the fine tuning argument. Science communicators tend to tone down their public presentations and minimize insider jargon when presenting to the public. We don’t understand everything about the universe and postulate hypotheses to investigate. Thank you for tuning in today! The new question of the week is: If god favors humans, why are they so _____ ?

show notes available upon receipt