Renowned atheist activist Johnny P Angel and leading advocate for secularism Sofia Spina discuss the importance of allowing children to question authority, explore objective and subjective morality, delve into the limitations of consciousness, address the harmful effects of misguided religious practices, debate the role of God in promoting peace, and advocate for support for vulnerable individuals. They also touch on topics such as religion at weddings, consciousness in artificial intelligence, and the relationship between consciousness and brain science.

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Forest Valkai and JMike hoped to experience miracles as they wrestled with miracles, animals, morality, failed preachers, gender, and apes. Ben in Utah has seen some miracles such as praying and fasting for a person to come back to church that worked, and the person came back. How do you know this happened supernaturally? How do you know there was not something in their life that happened to cause this? If this god is real, what is it doing and why is it useful to us? Apply the same rules of logic that you would for everything else when it comes to god.Levi in Canada asks why it does not undo the concept of morality when atheists believe we are no different than animals. Non-human animals have plenty of morality such as empathy, grief, fairness and equality. The desire to obtain human well being is a source of morality for some, “Survival of the Fittest” causes more harm than good, falls into Social Darwinism, and is complete BS. If there is a being that has the ability to stop harm, wouldn’t you expect the being to prevent the harmful action? If god knows the future and everything that is going to happen, how can we have free will? If god is infallible, then it logically follows that god wants evil to happen. Rick in Canada calls to challenge JMike’s position that Jesus is a failed apocalyptic preacher. Luke and John had to reinterpret what was being expressed in Mark’s account. It is not enough to cite the proof text. How do you know which red lettering in the Bible are the words that Jesus said? Early Christians had apocalyptic messages like Paul, and later believers had to re-interpret that as a spiritual notion. Reality exists outside of the Bible and we can check what happened. Mike in Canada asks if Forest believes that genders are categories that we invent, and inquires about his earlier statement about nature fuzzy that we draw boxes around. Gender varies culturally and generationally so it is impossible to say how a man or woman should behave. Gender is something that we do, and not something that we are. Can you give us a definition of man or woman that is exclusively and solely based on physical characteristics? Just because nature is fuzzy, does not mean Biblical lines can be drawn to classify humans differently than animals. Based on the available data at hand, humans are primates, mammals, and animals. Also, sex and gender are two different things. This is not comparable to the arbitrariness of using the Bible.James in California explains that if god did intervene, he would have to punish all of us because we became immoral. Could you freely not have sinned the last time you sinned? Was it logically possible for Adam and Eve to make the right choice? Could they have freely chosen good over evil? Is god a being that can instantiate any state of affairs that does not contain a contradiction? How are we not just tools for the end?Thank you for tuning in! Question of the week: What is the real definition of the soul?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-atheist-experience--3254896/support.

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In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Jim Barrows and JMike have fun with antinatalism, and most importantly, blasphemy!Kirsten in TX asks about the benefits of religion providing community, and how secular communities can provide the same benefits. We now have many choices on social media where you just can find your community. You can even start your own group! You can use words like “critical thinker”. If we do not do this ourselves, it is not going to happen.Samuel in Canada asks how to talk with a pastor that believes there is no evidence for creation or evolution and to just decide based on faith. There is more evidence for evolution than there is gravity. Everything in biology and in medicine is related to evolution. Changes in allele frequencies in a population over a period of time is already a fact that evolution occurs, and we haven’t even got to natural selection yet.Jon in Canada believes that evidence for god is that people have faith. Does the number of people who believe something have any bearing on whether it is true? If we have evidence that god exists, we will believe in god. We do not have anything against something that does not exist. Queue in IL asks about the hard atheist stance with the belief that god does not exist and needing to provide the burden of proof. You can give a strong inductive case of why god is not probable. Every theist tends to make deductive cases for their god. Every phenomenon that we know of has a natural explanation or we just don't know how it happens. Even in places where naturalism might be improbable, it is just as improbable under theism with extra ontological baggage.Amanuel in TX says there should be a restriction on freedom of speech or expression because of an experiment of his that showed panic caused when some hosts tore up the scriptures. What kind of experience do you have setting up these experiments and was there a control group? How is bias not built into your study if these were people you knew? Stating a position of non god belief is not blasphemy or causing harm. Your irrational fear that should not be someone else's problem is used to justify atrocities such as gay conversion therapy. How does a blasphemous meme harm you? Look at how the Islamic world goes nuts for drawing on magazines. Restricting freedom of speech and what artists can portray is the totalitarian way and downright wacky.Andrew in FL calls to state that atheists tend to lean towards antinatalism and how they are damaging the population. Where do you get this claim? If this is true, why is atheism the fastest growing segment? If correlation is causation, then the increase of ice cream would increase the crime. Up until the last 10 years, the US was 90% Christian. The No True Scottsman fallacy does not work with the Baby Boomers messing up the population.Thank you for tuning in this week and the question of the week is to capture the image shown on the screen by giving us a caption!Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-atheist-experience--3254896/support.

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, ObjectivelyDan and Jamie the Blind Limey are live in studio wrestling with callers who believe the Bible is scientifically accurate and a progressive document.Josh in FL asks about the Bible being taken literally. Do Christians literally heal people by laying on of hands? People make incredibly important decisions about their life, health and family by this flawed way of thinking. What positivity comes with prayer? How do you explain replacing people’s medical care with prayer? It is the secular values that have corrected Christianity, not the other way around. The atheists in this country did not fight to take away rights from people; can you guess what group has?Somber in WA postulates that god is not real if the universe can be reduced to a non-dimensional point because there is no outside space and time for god to exist. A physical universe requires physical things to happen. Sir Le Chef in Quebec believes the Bible is 100% true because there is nothing we can disprove that is in the Bible. How do you know this? Of course, he knows this because of the seven day week! You don’t get to just call into the show and say this without proving it; that is not how logic works. The seven day week existed before Jesus so we do not accept your premise. Is the creation narrative the word of god or not? Rick in Canada says the Bible is 100% accurate because Jesus says that only the sick need a physician. How do you explain people who have cancer with no symptoms? If the disciples had magical powers, is every other Christian who claims to have these powers a liar because only the elite can do it? So the people who prayed for Jamie’s eyes(not faith) were not part of the special 144,000? There are people who pray to get better daily and we have never seen evidence that it works. Isn’t it interesting that cancer can go into remission, but blindness can’t? Can prayer regrow a hand that has been cut off? Can you find someone who can heal Jamie’s retinas through prayer?Jose in TX says that god created a “snowglobe with a dome”, not the universe, and that theists try to make the myth work. Many cultures explained the world without knowing what was happening. The problems with Genesis are a mile high! Andrew in FL says the Bible is a progressive document and just because it is not scientifically accurate that doesn’t mean god doesn't exist. We hope the god that inspired that book is not real because he is obviously not a nice person. Do you believe that god changes himself to suit the times? Does the Bible have literal falsehoods? Why do we even look at the Old Testament in the first place if it is so bad? Why should we care about Christianity any more than Islam or another religion? If cancer does not have intentions, why do you think it is evil? If you believe that god made us, why were we made with the capability of having cancer? Thank you for joining us with these fun callers! The question of the week is: The hardest part about being an atheist is what?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-atheist-experience--3254896/support.

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Johnny P. Angel and MD Aware work through questions from callers that range from evolution to morality. Louis in FL says that scriptures are a revealed message from god to Moses that support evolution. How do you explain god creating plants before creating light? Call back when you are not driving or distracted. Beast in CO describes how he was harmed by the church by sexual abuse among others, and how the pastor did not do anyting about it. What we end up seeing, is there are no reparations needed in this religion because of confession and the forgiveness of Jesus. Voices that report abuses are downplayed and diminished because the church has too much at stake. This is because if people start to ask if the church is wrong, then they will ask if its interpretations are wrong. Check out Recovering from Religion and the Secular Therapy Project for help and support. Joseph in GA reads something to us that says atheists put too much trust and can limit the imagination. What do you think about how a healthy understanding of science can spark imagination? Imagination is key with science because we are trying to figure out the explanations for things, once we know the basics. If atheists are putting too much trust in science, what would be the alternative? How does atheism limit the imagination? Ely in TX believes the historicity of the Bible is what makes it true. If the Bible is not true, does that mean that someone made it up? Could the people who wrote the Bible have been wrong? What is to be said about a useful character such as Jesus being used to tell stories that are trying to educate people about morality or ethics? We know that the Jewish people existed for a long time, but we don’t know that the fantastical claims such as the Red Sea parting happened. What evidence matters most and where is it found? When a book predicts something that happened that is in the same book, there is a problem. Are the witnesses that verified Joseph Smith and his magical seeing stones and golden tablets correct, are they mistaken, or are they liars? Just because brimstone is found in a location does not mean the mythical story is true. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Alok in CA says that the slow growth of atheism in the US is due to people on the fence not understanding where we get our morality, and people looking for some higher purpose that atheism does not offer. People made up the rules to both secular and Biblical morality. The spiritual journey that atheists sometimes pursue involves humans, animals, and plants and can take a lifetime. Michael in FL asks if morality is supposed to be thought of in a social and psychological context, very much the same way we see health. Our sense of fairness, justice, and right or wrong has evolved with its base level in biology. Thank you for tuning in this week! Our question of the week is: What do you think the last words of Jesus really were?Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-atheist-experience--3254896/support.

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, Jim Barrows and Secular Rarity take on calls about divorce, single parents, trans women, and technology before Armin Navabi flies in to help.Andrea in FL calls to claim that atheism leads to higher divorce rates and that Christians have more satisfactory sex lives than atheists. How do you explain the Pew Research Center studies that contradict this claim? Is it more important to stay married and be miserable for the children or is it better to teach them about happiness? What is it specifically about being married and not getting a divorce that makes people better?Otari in the nation of Georgia proposes that children of single parent households are more likely to be delinquent. What studies do we have that single parent households are radically problematic? Could the problem be linked to only one income for the household and poverty? Other than income, how are two parents raising a child better than one? Is the real problem divorce, or is it socioeconomic status? Would abortion cut down on single parent households?Nate in CA asks if trans people competing in sports would have a physical advantage, and what the difference is between sex and gender. Some cis women can have naturally higher levels of testosterone than other cis women. In sports, why are we testing women for testosterone levels but not men? People can be born intersexed, and also be born with different gendered brains. We would rather be on the side of inclusivity to give everyone a chance to participate. Corey in TX asks how technology changing our environment affects our evolution, and is it causing it to speed up. We may be able to evolve to handle higher levels of pollution, but how rapidly do the pollution levels change? There can be a new species of hominids that evolves alongside homo sapiens. Theist in the USA claims that theists have better lives than atheists. There is nothing about community building that is better with religion, and there is no link of intelligence to either atheism or religion. There is no data to demonstrate that atheists are more likely to go down a bad path. If an action increases the overall happiness, then it is good. The evangelical stance on LGBTQA increases the number of suicides in that community, and that is a bad thing. Do NOT Google dolphins having sex with blow holes. Mr. Porter from IL asks what the worst evidence for god is. Jim mentions to look at the trees and Armin says it is the argument for chicken. Kathy in IL calls as an atheist attending the Unitarian Universalist Church, and explains how their model is not conversion, but cooperation. Compared to other religions, this may be good, but secular humanism is a better instrument. When a church seems loving and tolerant, but accepts bad ideas, we must oppose that. Thank you for tuning in this week! Question of the week is: What should the Norse have had a god of, but didn’t? Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-atheist-experience--3254896/support.

In today’s episode of the Atheist Experience, our hostesses with the mostess are Forrest Valki & Armin Navabi.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.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-atheist-experience--3254896/support.

Today’s Atheist Experience is live in the studio with Forest Valkai, JMike, and Johnny P. Angel! They operate as a triple host power team to help us work through pubic angles, Biblical interpretations, more pubic angles, bad design, and casting off religious weights.Evan in VA knows Jesus is true because the Bible says so, and asks the hosts how they know if something they believe is true. Simplicity works for philosophy and evidence works for science. If there is not a good reason to know something, we either stop believing, or look for evidence to see what we should believe. Functionality works if we are not trying to shoehorn something into our beliefs. The perceived reality that we live in has facts that are true and can be tested. Which version of the Bible is true? How do you know that the red lettering are the words of Jesus? Amanuel in TX says that the teachings of the Old and New Testaments are consistent with each other. In Judaism, was the Messiah a concept of a dying and rising god? How do you know what parts to believe and what to not believe? Was there a talking donkey? Other than the book, what raises the probability that this is true? Do you understand the difference between something being evidence based and something being book based? What use is a mental model that will allow you to believe absolutely anything?An audience member asks how we change our brain space to recognize our own power and ability to cast off religious weights. The biggest deconversion manual is the Bible. Exploring and analyzing your faith with a critical eye is a start.Otari, in the nation of Georgia, asks how evolution accounts for bad design in humans like the way the fall of man does and why homosexuality does not lead to extinction. Recent evolution in humans explains this because we can make testable predictions. According to the Bible, god told the very first lie in history to explain bad design. The reason why homosexuality does not lead to extinction is because they are not 100% of the population. This has been observed in over 1,500 species and something that is this ubiquitous, clearly has some sort of benefit.Jimmie in TX feels there is no contradiction in scripture, Forrest’s interpretation is outrageous, and we should listen to Joseph Campbell when interpreting the endemic myth. Do you have access to god’s intentions and know what he wants you to interpret? How do you know that god did not want us to interpret the Bible literally, or a different way? When you criticize another’s view, you have to beg the question.Thank you for tuning in this week! Question of the week is: What is the best comeback for when someone says, “A fool says in his heart, there is no god.”Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-atheist-experience--3254896/support.