The Atheist Experience 27.35 09-03-2023 with Forrest Valkai and Armin Navabi
The Atheist Experience
The Atheist Community of Austin
4.6 • 2.6K Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2023
⏱️ 119 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Let’s welcome our first caller is Alan from Wisconsin, who as an atheist, is dealing with the all too common issue of a theist’s view that bad things happen to people due to their lack of faith. He discusses wanting to have that frustrating conversation with as much respect and tact as he can. Our hosts share what has worked for them and how this is a common misperception.
Second caller up to the proverbial bat is Dave from Connecticut. Now Dave gives his explanation of why faith is the only access we can have with God and “smart” people know this where those of “less” intelligence cannot understand what faith is and needing it to access God. Does this sound a little bit egotistical? A mental gymnastic game? You are right! Let’s listen to Armin and Forrest break this down and how silly that is.
Caller number three gives a ring, his name is the Monkey King, and he doesn’t know anything.
Ohhh boy! Michael is the fourth caller and he tries to give God a pass on biblical slavery. Do you need any more detail than that? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Oh! And some antisemitism to boot!
Moving to a more productive topic, Carlos in Puerto Rico calls in dealing with the title of being an anti-theist. Forrest explains his hostility against religious teachings, the harm it does, and how he identifies as an anti-theist. Armin adds on explaining why we as activists, care for religious people as they are the victims of theism and pushing against the bad ideas that actively hurts our fellow human beings.
Caller number 6 comes from John living with our friendly neighbors of the north, Canada. Now John brings up Pascal’s Wager which is easy to refute, but then takes a hard right turn to God creating the USA, as the greatest nation? Dear reader, if you belong to another country, I do apologize for this idiotic opinion. Oh! And a touch of trans-phobia. This call goes a little all over the place.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | and he went up from thence unto Bethel. |
| 0:02.8 | And as he was going up by the way, |
| 0:04.8 | there came forth little children out of the city, |
| 0:07.4 | and they mocked him and said to him, |
| 0:09.7 | go up, bald head, go up, bald head, |
| 0:13.0 | and he turned back and looked at them |
| 0:15.1 | and cursed them in the name of the Lord. |
| 0:17.4 | And then out of the woods came two she bears, |
| 0:20.8 | which tore 42 of the children to pieces. |
| 0:24.2 | That's second Kings chapter 2, |
| 0:27.1 | verses 23 and 24. |
| 0:29.2 | What a weird punishment. |
| 0:31.2 | Some children made fun of a dude for being bald, |
| 0:34.4 | and God sent bears to mall 42 of them to death. |
| 0:39.4 | Do you think that that is like justifiable or reasonable |
| 0:44.0 | or in any way okay? |
| 0:46.3 | Why did God honor this curse? |
| 0:48.7 | Did he specifically say send some bears to murder these kids? |
| 0:52.9 | Or did he just curse them and God shorted out the rest? |
| 0:55.8 | How is this acceptable to you? |
| 0:58.3 | If you think that this is the good book, |
| 1:00.8 | call in the show because it's starting right now. |
... |
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