You're listening to, atheistically speaking. Oh, Hello and welcome to episode 68 of atheistically speaking with your host Thomas Smith.

Today we have part two of my conversation with Tom and Cecil of cognitive dissonance, dissonance pod.

These guys are my favorite. They really are because like there's no better mix of just humor and insight I think and when the when the three of us get together

It's a it's a gay old time and I love it and it's also very fascinating every time so I wish we could start a separate

podcast for no for just for more work for me that's you thought I going to say because it'd be fun because now I know I just want another I need more work guys. Let's face it. I'm not doing enough podcast. I need more.

No. So yeah, let's just get right back into that and I will see you at the end of the show. So like here's one thing that I think is particularly interesting about

celebrity as it relates to atheism and it's something that refers directly to what you were saying, Cecil, is that one thing that is I think somewhat unique about the celebrity within the atheist community is that's a celebrity of personality first but it's built on a

celebrity of ideas and that's really unique because in in most of the rest of when we think about celebrity

when we think about that word when when when images of celebrity come to mind

what what happens is we think of what you know you think of like TV

movie you think of people who don't who are not known for their ideas yeah

just good looking for a living. Right, exactly, right?

And fine, I'm not even making, I'm not passing a judgment on that.

I'm just saying that what's interesting about celebrity within the atheist community

is that it's a celebrity of ideas. It's founded on that.

And I think what ends up happening is that the celebrity of ideas snowballs and becomes a celebrity of personality. And when that

transformation takes place for good or for ill, What happens is the ideas which are what sparked the celebrity in the first place,

they become secondary to the celebrity of personality. And the celebrity of personality then becomes the most important thing.

The ideas somehow become secondary to this monolith of the individual.

And it's ironic because without the ideas first,

so who's Christopher Hitchins without his ideas?

He's a fat guy with a comb over.

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