Whenever I catch myself watching an apologist or christian superstitionist channel and despair at all the delusion and ignorance in the comments sections I come to you guys for some rationality and reason. Thank you very much for what you both do.
@@singingfedexmanjoshcampbel1614 Or southern Louisiana, or Alabama, or Georgia . . . . LOL Louisiana just elected a new governor and he's a doozie. A maga republican who adores what DeSantis did with Florida. Help!!!!
@@singingfedexmanjoshcampbel1614 I'm pretty sure I'd lose my mind if I was surrounded with so many outspoken god botherers. Fortunately here in New Zealand people tend to keep their religiosity to themselves with fundy bible bashers being the exception rather than the norm. Both Australia and New Zealand are heading towards secularism and are already there for most of the population. From the outside looking in it's such a shame that America has such an ingrained religious mindset. Christianity has been molded as the mark of a fundamentally "good" person. They don't care whether it's actually true or not, if you're a card carrying biblical fantasist then you must be trustworthy and moral. It's crazy. They overlook the fact that christianity is really just a selfish wish to be immortal and a way to be "morally superior" to everyone else. It's absurd. I don't envy you being stuck in the middle of so many morons my dude.
Here I am in Australia. glad that, in the main, the religious nutjobs are not so blatant. ( We have had a few politicians that, for the moment are not in control but not "out of power", the ones with close ties to "The American Tea Party" and Trump ) I start watching some AronRa debates but I can't deal with that constant BS coming out of those religious nuts, that I have to bail before I break something. AronRa has a lot more patience than me.
Both of you guys have accompanied me on my journey out of religion, along with people like Christoper Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Aron Ra, etc., each in their own individual way. Seth has always been the one who, with his marketing experience, can delightfully visualize indoctrinated beliefs through a compassionate eye. With Drew I find clear language and structuredness, but at the same time the ever-present understanding I need to not beat myself up for having once believed something so irrational myself. And you both have a wonderful sense of humor that never means to hurt, but which reliably delivers its often difficult message. Congratulations on 700 'doses' of soothing sanity, and I couldn't think of a better guest for this great anniversary.
As a Northern European All-Time Atheist, I enjoy listening to these people. And I am very aware that I consider myself very fortunate that we do not have to fight this fight over here. At least not yet.
As a European-born Australian 🇭🇲 and atheist and sceptic since age 8, I too feel the same as you do! However, we do unfortunately have a number of disruptive fringe Abrahamic religious fundamentalists and nazis who sheepl-ishly follow the US versions.
It's difficult for me to find time for long form videos and podcasts lately, but I'm very glad I was able to hear this conversation. Very fond of you both.
These 2 are who I resonate with the most. Well… I definitely don’t share the voice and persona of Seth but…. You know what I mean. We are bound with the same supernatural connection of spiritual frequency vibrations.
From the Red and deeply Christian State of Nebraska here. I just want to thank you, Seth. Been following your work for a long time now and you as well as GMS helped me tremendously in my deconstruction process over the years. Your videos, discussions and insights have not only helped me but many other Agnostic and Atheist people I know in their journey. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for your channels and wish you all the best of luck. We need voices like both of yours now more than ever.
Myself being from Alabama, I can definitely agree with GMS here. I am a born and raised resident of the state. And if we could get the conservative evangelicals to at least get rid of the hate for people that don't believe what they do. It would make this place alot better to live in. As it would for all bible belt states.
Seth and Drew I think you are not seeing the big picture here when people say you keep repeating god is not real. These people have been brainwashed their entire lives to fear thinking in general so this means you are starting to break the ice bubble they live in and that scares them.
Great show Thank you both. Your comment about how to withstand all of the chaos and scary stuff happening now is to embrace my Trekkie core and remember that we still have the clone wars?/ WWIII? (you know what I mean) to get through but then we will explore the stars!
How much the world changes in one lifetime increases as well. I grew up with a phone attached to the wall that rang once for us and twice for the neighbor 1/4 mile up the dirt road , I’m only 62
Something that just occurred to me during your discussion about pokemon. I remember the paranoia growing up in a Baptist culture and my elders were completely just that. Paranoid. Anyways, doesn't that mean they really didn't believe the things they were telling me? They were so terrified of something, anything undercutting their worldview because they knew how intellectually fragile it was. That was my whole problem. I was too smart. I was unable to ignore facts. Especially hypocrisy. GUESS what commercial played following this video. Ohhhh that's terrible.
I remember being at a bus stop with my kids and this mom starts ranting and raving about her kid's teacher teaching her kids about demons. So I asked her and she showed me a picture out of a coloring book that was of a popular STUFFED ANIMAL of the time. I literally laughed in her face and told her she was being stupid.
@@littlebitofhope1489 Yeah, I got sent home for bringing a "Casper the friendly ghost" lunchbox to school. Seriously, they called my mom at her JOB and said she had to come and pick me up! It was the SECOND grade! "The Kings academy" school in Florida. Place was a Nazi camp.
Congratulations on reaching your 700th show. Used to be an avid viewer but dropped out in the last 6 or so months (through no fault of your own). Great to see the entertainment, interest and value you and your guests bring hasn't dropped in quantity, quality or worth.
During the satanic panic, my friend Phil was the only guy I knew not allowed to own D&D materials. Instead, his mom bought him an RPG based on the Italian Mafia. (It’s NOT even REMOTELY racist. I’m Sure!) While playing this one afternoon, our characters plotted a hit within ear shot of Phil’s mom while she was making diner.
Seth: Congratulations on Episode 700! We recall the bittersweet 300th in Dallas at which we all enjoyed the day while lamenting the election loss of HRC. Regardless, best wishes going forward.
What a wonderful podcast. Thank you both, from a forever atheist. Seth, I'm much older than you, and as to your view of the future, I totally agree. My peers and I, despair.
SMG, sounds like your position is called agnostic atheist. That’s where many of us land, myself included. I am open to evidence should it ever appear, and don’t think it’s probable a deity exists. I agree that atheism is only one thing about us.
Y’all put your fingers on why I don’t like Joe R either. The retreat to “just asking questions” after saying something stupid that’s not worth discussing is disingenuous.
The funny thing is that when Seth had the high priest of Satanism on, he was very open to hearing what the guy had to say and didn't really push back...even when saying after the interview that he wasn't sold on the belief system. According to GMS here, Seth should have treated the interview like an interrogation, similarly to how he seems to view Joe Rogan having the apologist doctor on his show. Please. GMS is merely saying that if there is a dissenting voice from the liberal status quo, they should be stifled or at least attacked for what they believe because WE can't manage the information flow ourselves. The Christian wants to save us from the lull of the world in the same way the modern liberal wants to save us from ourselves.
There is a small change that that gives me hope. In my neighborhood, an elderly couple has flown a large trump flag (at least 5 feet long) for a few years, but it in the last month or two they no longer fly it. The Ensign is still flying proudly above a veterans' flag, but the white and purple atrocity is gone.
He said something about Jordan Peterson. I'm kinda confused. A lot of atheist activists I listen to don't like Jp. Other than his weird half ass take on religion what is the problem with him because I love him and I don understand the hate.
It's one thing to not like someone and a completely different thing to Hate someone. Most people who don't like JP don't necessarily Hate JP. Now the question becomes "why do some people dislike JP? Well, ever heard of Jordan Petersons Word Salad? To give you a peep into his mind, try to decipher the following (transcribed from one of his videos) "Now, the question is whether the fundamental stuff of the world is that meaningful unknown or something material. You can make the case that what we recognize as material is actually a pragmatic reconceptualization of the meaning of the ambivalent meaning of the unknowable. Now, I know that that's hard. That's a hard concept. But imagine. You see, it depends on whether or not you believe that our descriptions of material reality are the superordinate descriptions of reality or whether our conceptualization of material is actually a form of pragmatic tool use that's oriented towards our survival. And this is not an easy thing to sort out. It's something that I did try to sort out to some degree with Sam." Every time JP opens his mouth, shit like this comes out. And there's more where that came from.
A lot of hardcore atheist evangelists get all in a tizzy when people, especially famous or famously rational people walk away from atheism. JP has been making very solidly logically and rational theological arguments for some time, often debunking GMS and other prominent tubers.
Really confused by Drew. His inclination to kowtow to a public’s misinformed defining of every individual who calls themselves an atheist is frustrating. You want to PIGEONHOLE me, it seems. Why are you complicating this? It seems like you can’t allow people to be individuals, because of what truly amounts to the STIGMA which follows the word “atheist” around. This is unlike you…to consider this topic so shallowly. It’s a fraction of who I am. Stop defining me by it. Oh, let me add: I watch and enjoy BOTH your channels. That doesn’t mean I won’t challenge you in the comments. How else would I “converse” with you, when I feel you are misrepresenting something?
drew… if you want your channel to be the quality (it already is) of seth’s channel, go the extra step and switch off the annoying youtube mid-roll ads… it will get you more viewers (and subscribers) and show you respect your audience more than lame annoying interrupting stupid commercials…😎😉 (yeah, i know, ‘no ads, no videos’… please, don’t use that excuse; seth doesn’t)👍
@@dersitzpinkler2027 - citation needed… seth doesn’t switch on the ads and he is by no means rich… no, youtube premium is beyond my budget; the back button on the remote works fine and is within my budget…😉
That One Time in the Car Before Church: When I was about twelve years old or so, I remember sitting unwillingly in the clothing department of JC Penny at the mall. While waiting for my grandmother to shop for school clothes on my and my brother's behalf I spotted from afar a small section for electronics and video games set aside in the store. There in the display case was a brand new game I'd never heard of, and by strange chance nobody else really had either. Pokemon. I knew nothing about it as this was before the franchise would become a worldwide phenomenon, but I knew I wanted it because the box art was cool, and it had what I assumed was a dragon on the cover. I had a bunch of birthday money saved up, so, I convinced my mom to take me back there later that day to buy the game, and a brand new gameboy to play it on. A couple months later Pokemon fever hit, and I was already well versed in it being one of the rare few who could say they were playing it before it was cool. Trading cards, collectables, everything imaginable followed in the wake of its popularity and being a kid I wanted all of it. Having a younger brother of course, everything I wanted, he also wanted. We became familiar faces at local card shops and Toys R Us to play tournaments in the trading card game. Suffice it to say, we were big fans. One day as we were riding to church on a Sunday morning, forced to listen to the Christian station I remember hearing a sermon, or perhaps it was just some sort of news bulletin from Focus on the Family. It was about an article written by a pastor who had two kids, and in the back seat he had heard them mention the names of a few Pokemon between themselves. The names being Abra, and Kadabra. Of course needing no additional context, the preature decided to begin fabricating any and every conspiratory nonsense imaginable as to how this was indicative of magic and devil worship among other things. Suddenly in much the same way Pokemon had become a huge success out of nowhere, in the Christian world it became the polar opposite. Ludicrous ideas about how it was training kids to commune with Satan, or promoting evolution, teaching kids how to cast spells, and commune with demons to obtain power. You name it. Of course being of an age where I could somewhat reason, and knowing what I did, I knew it was all bogus, but that doesn't matter much when you have little to no say in the affairs of the household. That afternoon when we got home from church my mom took the garbage can and set it right in the middle of the kitchen floor. She told my brother and I to bring ALL of our Pokemon-related things out of our rooms, and to throw them away while she watched. Things that if evaluated today would probably equate to being in the thousands of dollars range, up in smoke. I managed to save a few things. I hid them after she gave the ultimatum that if she found anything we had kept she'd just throw it away herself. My dad had passed away rather traumatically just a few years before all of this, and as a kid, Pokemon was something that had helped me latch onto a hobby, and relate to people, and just like that because of some stranger who didn't even know what they were talking about it was ripped away. Of course, the dread and doom around Pokemon didn't last long. Soon enough Harry Potter would become the only thing people in the Church could talk about as being evil and from the devil. Pokemon was still a pariah of course, but that battlefront had passed, and people had moved their focus onto the next innocuous thing that they could attack so as to instill fear and keep people focused on faith. For me though all it did was teach me that when it came to things I might enjoy, or methods I may have of thinking I would have to hide or deny them if it meant anyone within the faith could twist it into something it wasn't. This lead to a lifestyle of perpetually hiding anything and everything that could cause friction amidst my family dynamic, even if it was harmless. I still hide to this day as an adult, and deny myself the simple sense of satisfaction of feeling accepted for fear of how others will react. There were more instances of this sort of thing of course, but I remember that day in the car being the start of living in fear for no good reason.
i really feel this story. When i was a kid, my twin sister and i had very little in common. One of the few things we did together was watch Ghost Adventures on the Discovery channel (bc of course we couldnt bring ourselves to watch it alone at that age.) Then, one week, our pastor spoke on how "ghosts are actually just demons in disguise" and "believing in ghosts is unchristian" and ghost related things are actually just "opening you up to satans influence". I didn't really believe in ghosts anyways back then (and definitely dont now) so i didnt see a problem with the show, but after that sermon my sister refused to watch the show with me anymore. And that devastated me a lot more than one would expect, because it felt like the pastor had destroyed the one olive branch in our strained sibling relationship. sure, it was just a silly ghost show full of fabricated and/or exaggerated evidence, but for me it was the one excuse i had to get my sister to spend time with me in a positive way. It also forced me to realize that my sister was operating on a completely different framework of reality from me and that I couldn't trust her have my back if something i said or did went against what the pastor said. it took years for me to finally find another middle ground for my sister and i to bond with, and while our relationship is no longer strained i still covet those sorts of bonding experiences as precious.
@@SupahTrunks7 I am sorry to hear that. My brother and I shared only a couple of things really growing up. A love of video games was probably the biggest, but after the Pokemon purge we learned to be hush hush about the things we liked lest they potentially be subject to scrutiny. There has been a trend I've noticed within Christianity, and it's fairly apparent but for as much as society chases trends, Christianity chases the same things only from the point of view of using them to drum up fear and animocity among its patrons. If it is popular in the mainstream, then it's safe to say its popular from the pulpit too as the new go-to source of evil and all that is wrong with the world according to God.
@@Kamenari37 My father, thanks to working in marketing, actually was involved in a pokemon tie-in project by the company he was working for at the time of the craze, so I think that made him see it as a simple secular business franchise rather than a ploy by demons to recruit kids for satan. But he did sit me down when I was reading Harry Potter and make sure I understood that the books were fiction and in real life witchcraft was sinful and not to let the imaginary story influence me into thinking wizards and magic spells were okay. Star Wars was totally fine, however. Because he believed the J in Jedi stood for Jesus and the S in Sith stood for Satan and therefore Star Wars was a metaphor for our spiritual battle against satan's corruption. (and now that I think about it, probably the only reason I wasn't actually banned from reading/watching Harry Potter was that he likely thought the snake symbolism of Slytherin and Voldemort was a similar metaphor and thus he just needed to make sure I was old enough to not emulate the characters in witchcraft while absorbing the underlying message of fighting the "Serpent") I guess I was pretty lucky in that my parents at least seemed to trust us to be able to counter "secular and satanic messages in pop culture" with enough forewarning so they rarely outright *banned* things (though anything with violence or swearing was a no-go) jokes on them for not banning pokemon tho. because the real danger to my faith was the fact i had so much fun playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon that i realized if the rapture happened right then I wouldn't want to go until I was done. one of the many small moments that helped chip away at my belief
@@SupahTrunks7 The range of lunacy and nonsense that comes from the fear of this stuff within Christianity is as varied as the believers in the faith can be. My father died in a traumatic fashion when I was young. I bore witness to much of it, more than I think my family was aware and it has caused me some issues, but my mom doubled down on faith after it happened. She had a lot to deal with for sure, and I don't fault her fully for choices she made, but she is to this day a highly irrational individual because of superstitious nonsense and the atmosphere of fearmongering that exists within Evangelical circles today. Final Fantasy was a game I loved to play alongside many other JRPGs in my youth, but, if my brother and I ever spoke about it, we pretty much had to use code by saying FF, or some such. The word "Fantasy" was more than enough to get my mom's antennae up and sniffing around. What she found to be okay, and what she found to be demonic was arbitrary at best, and she tended to lean on the side of purging anything that wasn't overtly Christian just to be safe. It didn't teach me anything really except how to hide my interests and hobbies from her prying eyes just so I could avoid the hassle. I was once an aspiring writer. I've written four manuscripts for novels, but have never gotten any of them published for fear of perception from my mom and family regarding their content. Due to a lack of feeling free to express myself, that passion has slowly suffocated to the point I may never be able to rekindle it, and losing that joy has deepened my depression over the years. These are the little harms that religion and faith cause in everyday life. It drove me apart from my family in so many ways, and when I finally came out of the atheist closet I was terrified I was going to be outcast for it. Thankfully that did not happen, but there is still plenty that I hide and keep quiet about just to keep the peace, and it isn't right. It's a claustrophobic existence.
@@Kamenari37 I'm really sorry to hear about that. I think, if you still have those manuscripts somewhere, you should try digitizing them and posting them online under a pen name. It may not be able to heal the damage to your writing passion, but it might at least provide some closure and make them feel "completed" without risking the prying eyes and clutched pearls of your religious family. Just looking at the eloquent, narrative style of your comments here on this video I can tell you still care about writing (you wouldn't have given your first comment a title complete with proper capitalization format if you didn't) and you clearly still have the skills too. They always say to write for yourself and not for an audience, but having a way to reach people that will actually appreciate what you do is so vital for motivation. There is someone out there who will love what you've written and you deserve the chance to finally hear it
Thank you guys, really appreciate your work & continuing assisting me in deconstructing the indoctrination. I am a closet atheist although I do occasionally throw a jab on the community chat or make comments to certain friends. It's very frustrating to solve community problems as they always rely on a deity that clearly doesn't give nuts 🤪 so I'm glad to listen to peoples like yourself. Much appreciate Seth for the collaborations & interviews to get a broader perspective.
I just dream of one day being able to join people such as Seth Andrews or Drew in a conversation about atheism, especially perhaps atheism in my country South Africa. I am myself deconverted and watch these videos, and also debates from Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens every single day now. I don't really know of anyone in South Africa that does the wonderful work you do... If I could one do what you do for my fellow South Africans, I would be at peace. There is not really a stage set for this in my country; yes we have atheists of course, but not much a public stage for conversation nor debate.
@@littleredpony6868 yes, a lot. There is a lot of new ground to be laid here for atheism. Not that most of the population is religious, it's just that there needs to be people here that make people aware of atheism in a way that breaks the stigma and stereotypes. Usually we are open minded people, but religion still has a strong hold over those who still fall victim to it.
16:50 This one is perhaps a bit weird for me, because my family's favorite radio commercials, despite being quite religious with some hints of prohibition, were Bud Light's Real Men of Genius. Our most favorite of all was the Overly Competitive Touch Football Game Player, and we never failed to completely break down in hard gut-wrenching laughter at the "I still have issues!" line. I guess my religious parents had not gone fully fundy back then, because now, they evidently cannot laugh at anything anymore.
I was born an atheist (in Germany). With all those fundamental evangelicals in the US trying to turn back the hands of time and to take over the country it's good to see some reasonably-thinking Americans. Keep up the good work for the sake of your country.
Belief is just the state of being convinced. You are convinced that God exists. I’m not. Period. That’s Atheism. The hardest part of Atheism is convincing people that it isn’t anything more than that.
29:36 This is a pervasive problem in general that the Internet has made more visible-the total inability to delineate professional, reliable sources from “quacks.” My dad has a PhD in journalism, but he’ll constantly post misinformation on Facebook from quacks like David Barton. When I question him about these things, he’ll often use the “my friend said it, so it must be true” argument.
To be fair, a lot of people with higher education are never taught how to EVALUATE research, so they think if they say it with their lofty Phd, it carries weight. Try learning about how to actually evaluate good research and then use those rules to have a conversation with him. Talk to a Phd Advisor if you can, but make sure it is from a research school. (Many are willing to talk to people, especially if you happen to be young) Find one that knows how to evaluate it, not just write a paper and cite it. And remember, for a lot of people those letters stand for BS= Bull. MS= More of the Same, And PhD stands for Piled Higher and Deeper. You will be surprised at how many know how to read research and write papers, but they don't know how to evaluate it. Good luck!!!
Currently reading a _A Season with the Witch,_ written by an author who spent the entire month of October 2015 in Salem, Massachusetts. Given that it's right around Halloween, we might also be talking about people who would bring back executions for witches if they could.
I haven't started this video just yet, but I want to tell you that both of you and many of your colleagues have been so helpful in my deconstruction. I'm a 43 yr old trans woman. I grew up in an Evangelical literalist church and home. I'm one of those trans people who has just always known I'm really female inside. As a 3 year old child I was whooped in a store in the mall for grabbing a yellow Easter dress and asking my dad if I could have it. I was three, but it was so traumatic and defining that I still remember it. It was then that I learned that who I was in truth and in my core was an abomination and a f****t. I grew up trying so hard to please this God who created me as an abhorrent monster. I went to a Christian "college" (non-accredited), was a Sunday school teacher, youth group leader, sang in the choir, helped out wherever I could in church. I walked the walk and talked the talk and secretly hated myself both for who I really was and got having to lie about who I really was. And they called me family, I was a beloved friend, trusted "brother". Until my twin brother died and I decided, "fuck it" and came out. That was 2015 and I didn't fully lay down my faith until this year. My church friends and family turned on me so hard. I was finally seen as the monster my father told me so many times growing up that I actually was. But I'm not a monster, or an abomination. I'm just a woman and nobody created me to be a despised creature. There are chains in Christ and freedom away from him! I'm grateful for you and your colleagues. We'll never meet in person, but I know that you actually care about me as a person and my gender/sexuality are accepted. Your channel means a lot to me. Thank you so much!
I’m still undecided about this. 12:00 Not an anti-theist because Drew realized he was being dogmatic about having the one right way to be good. I am more anti-theist because I don’t want people to believe lies and base their life decision off of them. I want to help skeptical thought be widely accepted. This just always seems to come back to not okay with teaching the assumption of a god. Not teaching my children rituals around prayer or perpetuating that spirits, angels, or anything unknown is a fact when it has no scientific evidence. I find myself knowing that I will but heads with family as my kids grow older just because I am not indoctrinating them in church or even vague spiritualism. From what I see in science there is no evidence for a soul or spirit or ghost… there is the mind.
I was thinking earlier this morning about a couple of good friends I have who were missionaries years ago in South Africa. One SA woman asked my friend why they were there when their own country needed so much help. My friend must have really wondered about it as she told me what the woman said to her.
When I hear that one out of every five people are illiterate, my heart breaks to think it's going to get better when they believe some hair-brained idea from someone they trust will give them all the facts they need without thinking about it. They are afraid to hear a counter argument and will walk away, cup their ears, and do whatever it takes not to listen.
Love the conversation here. Two of the best people to listen to on these topics. Thanks to you both!
Apparently this is the real FA channel.
Whenever I catch myself watching an apologist or christian superstitionist channel and despair at all the delusion and ignorance in the comments sections I come to you guys for some rationality and reason. Thank you very much for what you both do.
Try living in Southern Mississippi! 😂
@@singingfedexmanjoshcampbel1614 Or southern Louisiana, or Alabama, or Georgia . . . . LOL
Louisiana just elected a new governor and he's a doozie. A maga republican who adores what DeSantis did with Florida. Help!!!!
@@rhondah1587 you’re right ! There are too many states connected to the Bible Belt aren’t there
@@singingfedexmanjoshcampbel1614 I'm pretty sure I'd lose my mind if I was surrounded with so many outspoken god botherers. Fortunately here in New Zealand people tend to keep their religiosity to themselves with fundy bible bashers being the exception rather than the norm. Both Australia and New Zealand are heading towards secularism and are already there for most of the population.
From the outside looking in it's such a shame that America has such an ingrained religious mindset. Christianity has been molded as the mark of a fundamentally "good" person. They don't care whether it's actually true or not, if you're a card carrying biblical fantasist then you must be trustworthy and moral. It's crazy.
They overlook the fact that christianity is really just a selfish wish to be immortal and a way to be "morally superior" to everyone else. It's absurd.
I don't envy you being stuck in the middle of so many morons my dude.
Here I am in Australia. glad that, in the main, the religious nutjobs are not so blatant. ( We have had a few politicians that, for the moment are not in control but not "out of power", the ones with close ties to "The American Tea Party" and Trump )
I start watching some AronRa debates but I can't deal with that constant BS coming out of those religious nuts, that I have to bail before I break something. AronRa has a lot more patience than me.
Both of you guys have accompanied me on my journey out of religion, along with people like Christoper Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Aron Ra, etc., each in their own individual way. Seth has always been the one who, with his marketing experience, can delightfully visualize indoctrinated beliefs through a compassionate eye. With Drew I find clear language and structuredness, but at the same time the ever-present understanding I need to not beat myself up for having once believed something so irrational myself. And you both have a wonderful sense of humor that never means to hurt, but which reliably delivers its often difficult message.
Congratulations on 700 'doses' of soothing sanity, and I couldn't think of a better guest for this great anniversary.
Congrats on #700, my friend! You've done so much good with your channel and your work! Thank you, Seth!
LOVE BOTH OF YOU.
Seth & Drew together make cathedrals shake!
They will "tremble the nations"~!
😂
As a Northern European All-Time Atheist, I enjoy listening to these people.
And I am very aware that I consider myself very fortunate that we do not have to fight this fight over here. At least not yet.
Australia is going to have to. They are being victims to both CPAC and TPUSA are using Oz as their latest playground.
As a European-born Australian 🇭🇲 and atheist and sceptic since age 8, I too feel the same as you do! However, we do unfortunately have a number of disruptive fringe Abrahamic religious fundamentalists and nazis who sheepl-ishly follow the US versions.
The same, only N American. So grateful that heavy demand religion was never part of my life. We're SO lucky.
Same, even though I am not particularly far not in Germany
Seth, your show has been instrumental in my deconversion. Thanks for being so balanced and honest. Here's to the next 700!
Two of my favorite Tubers! So good to hear you share and talk.
It's difficult for me to find time for long form videos and podcasts lately, but I'm very glad I was able to hear this conversation. Very fond of you both.
I really enjoyed your conversation with Drew. His UA-cam channel is one of my favorites.
These 2 are who I resonate with the most. Well… I definitely don’t share the voice and persona of Seth but…. You know what I mean. We are bound with the same supernatural connection of spiritual frequency vibrations.
Congrats on 700, Seth! Looking forward to many more!
From the Red and deeply Christian State of Nebraska here. I just want to thank you, Seth. Been following your work for a long time now and you as well as GMS helped me tremendously in my deconstruction process over the years. Your videos, discussions and insights have not only helped me but many other Agnostic and Atheist people I know in their journey. I can’t wait to see what the future holds for your channels and wish you all the best of luck. We need voices like both of yours now more than ever.
Myself being from Alabama, I can definitely agree with GMS here. I am a born and raised resident of the state. And if we could get the conservative evangelicals to at least get rid of the hate for people that don't believe what they do. It would make this place alot better to live in. As it would for all bible belt states.
Thank you both of you! Both of my favourite listening on one episode!!!
Congrats 🎉 to the 700th show! I've enjoyed being part of the journey. Thanks for all you do.
Seth and Drew I think you are not seeing the big picture here when people say you keep repeating god is not real. These people have been brainwashed their entire lives to fear thinking in general so this means you are starting to break the ice bubble they live in and that scares them.
What a treat this was. Thanks to both of you for all you do to promote cognitive harmony in society.
Great show Thank you both. Your comment about how to withstand all of the chaos and scary stuff happening now is to embrace my Trekkie core and remember that we still have the clone wars?/ WWIII? (you know what I mean) to get through but then we will explore the stars!
"Nothing new"? Have they HEARD Christian apologetics? It's downright unsettling how predictable that debate pattern goes!
Could listen to you two all day. Thanks for all that you do.
How much the world changes in one lifetime increases as well. I grew up with a phone attached to the wall that rang once for us and twice for the neighbor 1/4 mile up the dirt road , I’m only 62
Party line ?
Congratulations 🎊🎉 Seth is in the 700 Club 😂😂😂
Thanks guys. Great discussion
Congratulations on #700 Seth. Keep 'em coming.
I love both of your channels. This was a very enjoyable conversation. Too short though.
Well Seth if you have to pass the torch to the new generation, you picked a good one. Nice conversation!
Something that just occurred to me during your discussion about pokemon.
I remember the paranoia growing up in a Baptist culture and my elders were completely just that. Paranoid. Anyways, doesn't that mean they really didn't believe the things they were telling me? They were so terrified of something, anything undercutting their worldview because they knew how intellectually fragile it was.
That was my whole problem. I was too smart.
I was unable to ignore facts. Especially hypocrisy.
GUESS what commercial played following this video.
Ohhhh that's terrible.
I remember being at a bus stop with my kids and this mom starts ranting and raving about her kid's teacher teaching her kids about demons. So I asked her and she showed me a picture out of a coloring book that was of a popular STUFFED ANIMAL of the time. I literally laughed in her face and told her she was being stupid.
@@littlebitofhope1489
Yeah, I got sent home for bringing a "Casper the friendly ghost" lunchbox to school.
Seriously, they called my mom at her JOB and said she had to come and pick me up!
It was the SECOND grade!
"The Kings academy" school in Florida.
Place was a Nazi camp.
Most theist don’t understand atheism much less understand (know what a) secular humanist is
You can tell Seth likes his voice, he’s so animated when he talks 😂 great podcast
Congratulations Seth 🎉
Thinking Atheist? That's an oxymoron, ah ah ah ah ah. Just kidding, happy 700th. You are, if you'll pardon the expression, doing the Lord's work.
?
Reminds me of Kathleen Madigan sampling various snacks and calling it "the lord's work" LoL 😆
Yay!! You're the newest member of the 700 club!!
I’ve been with you from the beginning. 🎉
Congratulations on reaching your 700th show. Used to be an avid viewer but dropped out in the last 6 or so months (through no fault of your own). Great to see the entertainment, interest and value you and your guests bring hasn't dropped in quantity, quality or worth.
2 of my all time favorite Atheists. Love you both!
During the satanic panic, my friend Phil was the only guy I knew not allowed to own D&D materials. Instead, his mom bought him an RPG based on the Italian Mafia. (It’s NOT even REMOTELY racist. I’m Sure!) While playing this one afternoon, our characters plotted a hit within ear shot of Phil’s mom while she was making diner.
You can't just tell half a story! What happened? How did she react?
@@danielhathaway8817 No reaction whatsoever.
What's wrong with beer made by satan ?
Wow Drew's parents went deep into Pokémon lore! Mine just said "evolution bad" and no more Pokémon for me
HOW DID I MISS THIS CROSSOVER
TWO OF MY FAVORITES 😮🎉
GMS is one of my long time favorites. Thanks for the interview!
Seth: Congratulations on Episode 700! We recall the bittersweet 300th in Dallas at which we all enjoyed the day while lamenting the election loss of HRC. Regardless, best wishes going forward.
What a wonderful podcast. Thank you both, from a forever atheist.
Seth, I'm much older than you, and as to your view of the future, I totally agree. My peers and I, despair.
SMG, sounds like your position is called agnostic atheist. That’s where many of us land, myself included. I am open to evidence should it ever appear, and don’t think it’s probable a deity exists. I agree that atheism is only one thing about us.
The Fantastic duo! Love you both! Keep up the good works.
Y’all put your fingers on why I don’t like Joe R either. The retreat to “just asking questions” after saying something stupid that’s not worth discussing is disingenuous.
Help!After watching hours of atheist videos and I am being flooded with Christian stuff. Stop it, Utube
The funny thing is that when Seth had the high priest of Satanism on, he was very open to hearing what the guy had to say and didn't really push back...even when saying after the interview that he wasn't sold on the belief system. According to GMS here, Seth should have treated the interview like an interrogation, similarly to how he seems to view Joe Rogan having the apologist doctor on his show.
Please. GMS is merely saying that if there is a dissenting voice from the liberal status quo, they should be stifled or at least attacked for what they believe because WE can't manage the information flow ourselves.
The Christian wants to save us from the lull of the world in the same way the modern liberal wants to save us from ourselves.
Pokemon calls it "evolution" but it is actually metamorphosis. They don't evolve they morph.
Holy Hitchens Seth, absolutely great show. Drew was an extraordinary guest. Y’all keep rocking 🤟🪐
There is a small change that that gives me hope. In my neighborhood, an elderly couple has flown a large trump flag (at least 5 feet long) for a few years, but it in the last month or two they no longer fly it. The Ensign is still flying proudly above a veterans' flag, but the white and purple atrocity is gone.
This is a great crossover
Congratulations on 700 useful and entertaining videos on the Thinking Atheist. Keep up the good work!
Both of you have been a ton of help in my deconverting over the last few years. Wonderful to find out I wasn't alone!
I smiled when he said ONE of the pokemon evolves. Oh grandpa,🤣 love you both.
Excellently rational, gentlemen. Thank you.
2 great guys doing good work!
For me, the most important thing I got from becoming an atheist is the understanding of critical thinking.
Dare I say, Seth has joined... The 700 Club?
seth… tried to set notifications to all but youtube keeps indicating an error and won’t allow it…😢🥴
He said something about Jordan Peterson. I'm kinda confused. A lot of atheist activists I listen to don't like Jp. Other than his weird half ass take on religion what is the problem with him because I love him and I don understand the hate.
It's one thing to not like someone and a completely different thing to Hate someone. Most people who don't like JP don't necessarily Hate JP. Now the question becomes "why do some people dislike JP? Well, ever heard of Jordan Petersons Word Salad? To give you a peep into his mind, try to decipher the following (transcribed from one of his videos)
"Now, the question is whether the fundamental stuff of the world is that meaningful unknown or something material. You can make the case that what we recognize as material is actually a pragmatic reconceptualization of the meaning of the ambivalent meaning of the unknowable. Now, I know that that's hard. That's a hard concept. But imagine. You see, it depends on whether or not you believe that our descriptions of material reality are the superordinate descriptions of reality or whether our conceptualization of material is actually a form of pragmatic tool use that's oriented towards our survival. And this is not an easy thing to sort out. It's something that I did try to sort out to some degree with Sam."
Every time JP opens his mouth, shit like this comes out. And there's more where that came from.
A lot of hardcore atheist evangelists get all in a tizzy when people, especially famous or famously rational people walk away from atheism. JP has been making very solidly logically and rational theological arguments for some time, often debunking GMS and other prominent tubers.
For example????? ?@@AndyMiller_windskisong
Does this mean you have joined the 700 club?😅
Too many people today are prisoners of the algorithm of their social media feed.
THE 700 CLUB !!! Gratz
Really confused by Drew. His inclination to kowtow to a public’s misinformed defining of every individual who calls themselves an atheist is frustrating. You want to PIGEONHOLE me, it seems. Why are you complicating this? It seems like you can’t allow people to be individuals, because of what truly amounts to the STIGMA which follows the word “atheist” around. This is unlike you…to consider this topic so shallowly. It’s a fraction of who I am. Stop defining me by it. Oh, let me add: I watch and enjoy BOTH your channels. That doesn’t mean I won’t challenge you in the comments. How else would I “converse” with you, when I feel you are misrepresenting something?
"The Lord works in mysterious ways" = The ultimate blanket excuse for bad behavior.
drew… if you want your channel to be the quality (it already is) of seth’s channel, go the extra step and switch off the annoying youtube mid-roll ads… it will get you more viewers (and subscribers) and show you respect your audience more than lame annoying interrupting stupid commercials…😎😉 (yeah, i know, ‘no ads, no videos’… please, don’t use that excuse; seth doesn’t)👍
That’s where 90% of UA-camrs money comes from…he would have to stop making videos and get another job. Just get youtube premium
@@dersitzpinkler2027 - citation needed… seth doesn’t switch on the ads and he is by no means rich… no, youtube premium is beyond my budget; the back button on the remote works fine and is within my budget…😉
700 congrats👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿
Very COOL _-_-=THANKS🎉
Mmmm dat pre-emptive like! Why? Because both creators are top notch. Great work guys!
That One Time in the Car Before Church:
When I was about twelve years old or so, I remember sitting unwillingly in the clothing department of JC Penny at the mall. While waiting for my grandmother to shop for school clothes on my and my brother's behalf I spotted from afar a small section for electronics and video games set aside in the store. There in the display case was a brand new game I'd never heard of, and by strange chance nobody else really had either. Pokemon. I knew nothing about it as this was before the franchise would become a worldwide phenomenon, but I knew I wanted it because the box art was cool, and it had what I assumed was a dragon on the cover. I had a bunch of birthday money saved up, so, I convinced my mom to take me back there later that day to buy the game, and a brand new gameboy to play it on. A couple months later Pokemon fever hit, and I was already well versed in it being one of the rare few who could say they were playing it before it was cool. Trading cards, collectables, everything imaginable followed in the wake of its popularity and being a kid I wanted all of it. Having a younger brother of course, everything I wanted, he also wanted. We became familiar faces at local card shops and Toys R Us to play tournaments in the trading card game. Suffice it to say, we were big fans.
One day as we were riding to church on a Sunday morning, forced to listen to the Christian station I remember hearing a sermon, or perhaps it was just some sort of news bulletin from Focus on the Family. It was about an article written by a pastor who had two kids, and in the back seat he had heard them mention the names of a few Pokemon between themselves. The names being Abra, and Kadabra. Of course needing no additional context, the preature decided to begin fabricating any and every conspiratory nonsense imaginable as to how this was indicative of magic and devil worship among other things. Suddenly in much the same way Pokemon had become a huge success out of nowhere, in the Christian world it became the polar opposite. Ludicrous ideas about how it was training kids to commune with Satan, or promoting evolution, teaching kids how to cast spells, and commune with demons to obtain power. You name it. Of course being of an age where I could somewhat reason, and knowing what I did, I knew it was all bogus, but that doesn't matter much when you have little to no say in the affairs of the household. That afternoon when we got home from church my mom took the garbage can and set it right in the middle of the kitchen floor. She told my brother and I to bring ALL of our Pokemon-related things out of our rooms, and to throw them away while she watched. Things that if evaluated today would probably equate to being in the thousands of dollars range, up in smoke.
I managed to save a few things. I hid them after she gave the ultimatum that if she found anything we had kept she'd just throw it away herself. My dad had passed away rather traumatically just a few years before all of this, and as a kid, Pokemon was something that had helped me latch onto a hobby, and relate to people, and just like that because of some stranger who didn't even know what they were talking about it was ripped away. Of course, the dread and doom around Pokemon didn't last long. Soon enough Harry Potter would become the only thing people in the Church could talk about as being evil and from the devil. Pokemon was still a pariah of course, but that battlefront had passed, and people had moved their focus onto the next innocuous thing that they could attack so as to instill fear and keep people focused on faith. For me though all it did was teach me that when it came to things I might enjoy, or methods I may have of thinking I would have to hide or deny them if it meant anyone within the faith could twist it into something it wasn't. This lead to a lifestyle of perpetually hiding anything and everything that could cause friction amidst my family dynamic, even if it was harmless. I still hide to this day as an adult, and deny myself the simple sense of satisfaction of feeling accepted for fear of how others will react. There were more instances of this sort of thing of course, but I remember that day in the car being the start of living in fear for no good reason.
i really feel this story. When i was a kid, my twin sister and i had very little in common. One of the few things we did together was watch Ghost Adventures on the Discovery channel (bc of course we couldnt bring ourselves to watch it alone at that age.) Then, one week, our pastor spoke on how "ghosts are actually just demons in disguise" and "believing in ghosts is unchristian" and ghost related things are actually just "opening you up to satans influence". I didn't really believe in ghosts anyways back then (and definitely dont now) so i didnt see a problem with the show, but after that sermon my sister refused to watch the show with me anymore. And that devastated me a lot more than one would expect, because it felt like the pastor had destroyed the one olive branch in our strained sibling relationship. sure, it was just a silly ghost show full of fabricated and/or exaggerated evidence, but for me it was the one excuse i had to get my sister to spend time with me in a positive way. It also forced me to realize that my sister was operating on a completely different framework of reality from me and that I couldn't trust her have my back if something i said or did went against what the pastor said.
it took years for me to finally find another middle ground for my sister and i to bond with, and while our relationship is no longer strained i still covet those sorts of bonding experiences as precious.
@@SupahTrunks7 I am sorry to hear that. My brother and I shared only a couple of things really growing up. A love of video games was probably the biggest, but after the Pokemon purge we learned to be hush hush about the things we liked lest they potentially be subject to scrutiny.
There has been a trend I've noticed within Christianity, and it's fairly apparent but for as much as society chases trends, Christianity chases the same things only from the point of view of using them to drum up fear and animocity among its patrons. If it is popular in the mainstream, then it's safe to say its popular from the pulpit too as the new go-to source of evil and all that is wrong with the world according to God.
@@Kamenari37 My father, thanks to working in marketing, actually was involved in a pokemon tie-in project by the company he was working for at the time of the craze, so I think that made him see it as a simple secular business franchise rather than a ploy by demons to recruit kids for satan. But he did sit me down when I was reading Harry Potter and make sure I understood that the books were fiction and in real life witchcraft was sinful and not to let the imaginary story influence me into thinking wizards and magic spells were okay.
Star Wars was totally fine, however. Because he believed the J in Jedi stood for Jesus and the S in Sith stood for Satan and therefore Star Wars was a metaphor for our spiritual battle against satan's corruption. (and now that I think about it, probably the only reason I wasn't actually banned from reading/watching Harry Potter was that he likely thought the snake symbolism of Slytherin and Voldemort was a similar metaphor and thus he just needed to make sure I was old enough to not emulate the characters in witchcraft while absorbing the underlying message of fighting the "Serpent")
I guess I was pretty lucky in that my parents at least seemed to trust us to be able to counter "secular and satanic messages in pop culture" with enough forewarning so they rarely outright *banned* things (though anything with violence or swearing was a no-go)
jokes on them for not banning pokemon tho. because the real danger to my faith was the fact i had so much fun playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon that i realized if the rapture happened right then I wouldn't want to go until I was done. one of the many small moments that helped chip away at my belief
@@SupahTrunks7 The range of lunacy and nonsense that comes from the fear of this stuff within Christianity is as varied as the believers in the faith can be. My father died in a traumatic fashion when I was young. I bore witness to much of it, more than I think my family was aware and it has caused me some issues, but my mom doubled down on faith after it happened. She had a lot to deal with for sure, and I don't fault her fully for choices she made, but she is to this day a highly irrational individual because of superstitious nonsense and the atmosphere of fearmongering that exists within Evangelical circles today. Final Fantasy was a game I loved to play alongside many other JRPGs in my youth, but, if my brother and I ever spoke about it, we pretty much had to use code by saying FF, or some such. The word "Fantasy" was more than enough to get my mom's antennae up and sniffing around. What she found to be okay, and what she found to be demonic was arbitrary at best, and she tended to lean on the side of purging anything that wasn't overtly Christian just to be safe.
It didn't teach me anything really except how to hide my interests and hobbies from her prying eyes just so I could avoid the hassle. I was once an aspiring writer. I've written four manuscripts for novels, but have never gotten any of them published for fear of perception from my mom and family regarding their content. Due to a lack of feeling free to express myself, that passion has slowly suffocated to the point I may never be able to rekindle it, and losing that joy has deepened my depression over the years. These are the little harms that religion and faith cause in everyday life. It drove me apart from my family in so many ways, and when I finally came out of the atheist closet I was terrified I was going to be outcast for it. Thankfully that did not happen, but there is still plenty that I hide and keep quiet about just to keep the peace, and it isn't right. It's a claustrophobic existence.
@@Kamenari37 I'm really sorry to hear about that. I think, if you still have those manuscripts somewhere, you should try digitizing them and posting them online under a pen name. It may not be able to heal the damage to your writing passion, but it might at least provide some closure and make them feel "completed" without risking the prying eyes and clutched pearls of your religious family. Just looking at the eloquent, narrative style of your comments here on this video I can tell you still care about writing (you wouldn't have given your first comment a title complete with proper capitalization format if you didn't) and you clearly still have the skills too. They always say to write for yourself and not for an audience, but having a way to reach people that will actually appreciate what you do is so vital for motivation. There is someone out there who will love what you've written and you deserve the chance to finally hear it
Thank you guys, really appreciate your work & continuing assisting me in deconstructing the indoctrination. I am a closet atheist although I do occasionally throw a jab on the community chat or make comments to certain friends. It's very frustrating to solve community problems as they always rely on a deity that clearly doesn't give nuts 🤪 so I'm glad to listen to peoples like yourself. Much appreciate Seth for the collaborations & interviews to get a broader perspective.
Welcome to the 700 club. 😀
Take your kid to work day.
seven thumbs up! 🍻
So tasty, yummy.
i have to wonder why i embrace the new and better and useful while others are terrified. the past was not "good old days".
So you finally joined the 700 Club?
Thank you
Finally!
Are you now a member of the 700 Club?
LOL
Well, just two of my favorite atheists together!
I’m a 75 year old fee thinker and I dig you both.
I just dream of one day being able to join people such as Seth Andrews or Drew in a conversation about atheism, especially perhaps atheism in my country South Africa. I am myself deconverted and watch these videos, and also debates from Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens every single day now.
I don't really know of anyone in South Africa that does the wonderful work you do... If I could one do what you do for my fellow South Africans, I would be at peace. There is not really a stage set for this in my country; yes we have atheists of course, but not much a public stage for conversation nor debate.
Is there anything that you’re able to do there?
@@littleredpony6868 yes, a lot. There is a lot of new ground to be laid here for atheism. Not that most of the population is religious, it's just that there needs to be people here that make people aware of atheism in a way that breaks the stigma and stereotypes. Usually we are open minded people, but religion still has a strong hold over those who still fall victim to it.
Thanks, gentlemen.
👋🏼Alright, Seth!❤👍🏼
16:50 This one is perhaps a bit weird for me, because my family's favorite radio commercials, despite being quite religious with some hints of prohibition, were Bud Light's Real Men of Genius. Our most favorite of all was the Overly Competitive Touch Football Game Player, and we never failed to completely break down in hard gut-wrenching laughter at the "I still have issues!" line.
I guess my religious parents had not gone fully fundy back then, because now, they evidently cannot laugh at anything anymore.
I was born an atheist (in Germany). With all those fundamental evangelicals in the US trying to turn back the hands of time and to take over the country it's good to see some reasonably-thinking Americans. Keep up the good work for the sake of your country.
Belief is just the state of being convinced. You are convinced that God exists. I’m not. Period. That’s Atheism. The hardest part of Atheism is convincing people that it isn’t anything more than that.
I love Jesus!
You aren't a true Christian
29:36 This is a pervasive problem in general that the Internet has made more visible-the total inability to delineate professional, reliable sources from “quacks.”
My dad has a PhD in journalism, but he’ll constantly post misinformation on Facebook from quacks like David Barton. When I question him about these things, he’ll often use the “my friend said it, so it must be true” argument.
To be fair, a lot of people with higher education are never taught how to EVALUATE research, so they think if they say it with their lofty Phd, it carries weight. Try learning about how to actually evaluate good research and then use those rules to have a conversation with him. Talk to a Phd Advisor if you can, but make sure it is from a research school. (Many are willing to talk to people, especially if you happen to be young) Find one that knows how to evaluate it, not just write a paper and cite it. And remember, for a lot of people those letters stand for BS= Bull. MS= More of the Same, And PhD stands for Piled Higher and Deeper. You will be surprised at how many know how to read research and write papers, but they don't know how to evaluate it. Good luck!!!
Very sorry to hear that. Another confirmation that a degree is no substitution for a rational brain. 🙁
Seth and Drew my two favorite atheists, best video ever
21:00 *_Dammit, you're not making Christianity better; you're making rock n roll worse._*
Currently reading a _A Season with the Witch,_ written by an author who spent the entire month of October 2015 in Salem, Massachusetts. Given that it's right around Halloween, we might also be talking about people who would bring back executions for witches if they could.
I haven't started this video just yet, but I want to tell you that both of you and many of your colleagues have been so helpful in my deconstruction.
I'm a 43 yr old trans woman. I grew up in an Evangelical literalist church and home. I'm one of those trans people who has just always known I'm really female inside. As a 3 year old child I was whooped in a store in the mall for grabbing a yellow Easter dress and asking my dad if I could have it. I was three, but it was so traumatic and defining that I still remember it.
It was then that I learned that who I was in truth and in my core was an abomination and a f****t. I grew up trying so hard to please this God who created me as an abhorrent monster. I went to a Christian "college" (non-accredited), was a Sunday school teacher, youth group leader, sang in the choir, helped out wherever I could in church. I walked the walk and talked the talk and secretly hated myself both for who I really was and got having to lie about who I really was.
And they called me family, I was a beloved friend, trusted "brother". Until my twin brother died and I decided, "fuck it" and came out. That was 2015 and I didn't fully lay down my faith until this year.
My church friends and family turned on me so hard. I was finally seen as the monster my father told me so many times growing up that I actually was.
But I'm not a monster, or an abomination. I'm just a woman and nobody created me to be a despised creature. There are chains in Christ and freedom away from him!
I'm grateful for you and your colleagues. We'll never meet in person, but I know that you actually care about me as a person and my gender/sexuality are accepted. Your channel means a lot to me.
Thank you so much!
I’m still undecided about this.
12:00
Not an anti-theist because Drew realized he was being dogmatic about having the one right way to be good.
I am more anti-theist because I don’t want people to believe lies and base their life decision off of them. I want to help skeptical thought be widely accepted. This just always seems to come back to not okay with teaching the assumption of a god. Not teaching my children rituals around prayer or perpetuating that spirits, angels, or anything unknown is a fact when it has no scientific evidence.
I find myself knowing that I will but heads with family as my kids grow older just because I am not indoctrinating them in church or even vague spiritualism.
From what I see in science there is no evidence for a soul or spirit or ghost… there is the mind.
I was thinking earlier this morning about a couple of good friends I have who were missionaries years ago in South Africa. One SA woman asked my friend why they were there when their own country needed so much help. My friend must have really wondered about it as she told me what the woman said to her.
Identity /= world view. I was pretty lost on that point about them being the same thing.
When I hear that one out of every five people are illiterate, my heart breaks to think it's going to get better when they believe some hair-brained idea from someone they trust will give them all the facts they need without thinking about it. They are afraid to hear a counter argument and will walk away, cup their ears, and do whatever it takes not to listen.
OK, Drew. Not all Alabamians are nut jobs.... just... most of us. :P ... Love you guys ! :)