Truth Wanted Atheist Community of Austin

In today’s episode of Truth Wanted, ObjectivelyDan and Dr. Ben sort through unexplained UFO sightings before getting into a heated discussion about misgendering and morality as spooky trucks are spotted in the Afghanistan desert. 

Daniel, a theist in Canada describes Jacques Vallee’s work on UFO sightings and how we tend to forget about the small percentage that have no explanation. There is a difference between what is said to the public and what they know because the press can leak far and the process of being stealth can be inhibited. If you did see a UFO, what would that change in your life and is it part of the reality that we experience? Why is there a need to explain something you don’t understand? How do we demonstrate this happened and do something about it?

Annie, a theist in Canada asks why misgendering makes someone immoral, if morality is considered to be subjective. How you address somebody is a matter of respect and since people perceive respect differently, it is important to gain consent for things and have conversations. Problems arise when actions are in direct violation of someone’s communicated ways of being respected. We are not talking about accidental misgendering, but intentional disregard. Why is it such a big deal to call someone by the name or pronoun they have communicated to you? This is kindergarten level stuff. We live in a society that works together. Why would you not care about other people? Why would you not include as many different people as possible when deciding what is best for humanity? Would it be cool to secretly serve pork products to a group of people that do not eat pork? It is not much to ask to call people what they want to be called.  Why are you okay with having an institutional reason to hate trans people?

Dan in Canada told us a spooky story where he could see a truck using night vision in an Afghanistan desert, and his mom woke up from her sleep worried about her son and prayed that he made it through the night. 

Thank you for exploring the truth this week! Question of the week is: What hill would you die on?

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Find the truth today as ObjectivelyDan and Tom Benson transform into book publisher coaches right before our eyes. They work through ideas of book contests, Batman, religious practices, and inspiring theists to do things on their own. 

Miguel in NH started the call with a book writing idea that he has been working on for years and includes a contest. How will this book be written and what is the plan? He then postulates that his approach to time travel will destroy the only universe we have and that will reboot science fiction. Why do you believe that this universe is the only universe we have? Is the multiverse idea supported by the fine tuning argument? What would change your mind about there being other universes? 

Chloe in PA asks if theists can move away from the god claim and work on their religious practices. He asks if religious practices can lead theists down a slippery slope. Beliefs can be bad things when they are tied to unprovable ideas like god. Therefore it is still important to talk about whether god exists or not because this belief is tied to a lot of other beliefs. Rituals are worth examining to see if they are helpful or harmful. What are your motivations for these practices and what is worth keeping? How can we find something that can bring you joy that does not pose the same danger of believing in untrue things? Why do you need the god claim for these things? There are plenty of things for you to do but you just need to get creative with it. Religious beliefs are not a form of mental illness, however, it is always good to think about what you are doing and why. What are the spiritual priorities? When beliefs inspire action we need to be careful especially when there is an underlying god belief. 

Nathan in OH is writing a book about Batman and wants to talk about how to be an inspiration to others to do things on their own without relying on god to tell them what to do. We are not sure about how the copyrights work with something like this. Sometimes people’s engagement in religious practice is their way of doing good and is their understanding of morality. You can ask people about their motivations to determine if it is what their god wants or not. Ask yourself if you can be a source of reflection for people. How can you be a pebble in their shoes? 

Thank you for finding the truth this week and always keep wanting the truth!  Question of the week is: What sounds like a compliment, but isn't? 

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In today’s episode of Truth Wanted, ObjectivelyDan and Kelley Laughlin look for evil in The Garden of Eden while pilots report UFO sightings as a venomous snake bites Paul on The Island of Malta.

Erasmus in CA states that Satan is a real being and does evil things. Christians developed the figure of Satan where the older Jewish religion assigns a different idea to Satan. What are your thoughts on Satan not killing as many people as god? Where in the Bible does it say that Satan actually does evil? How can we know what we are doing is evil if we don’t even have knowledge of good and evil? Why would there be a reason to believe that evil existed in the Garden of Eden when there was no knowledge of evil there in the first place? If eating the fruit was an evil act, then Adam was capable of doing something evil in a perfect environment. Why did god have to put the temptation of the tree there at all?  If we could create full fledged people out of the ground, why do we have to wait for anything else? These are all just stories and there is no reason to believe that any of this is real. Why is the Apostle Paul so special? How do you know that god did not tell Kelley in a vision last night that everything in the Bible is BS? Why do we take Jesus more seriously than anyone else in history who has claimed to be the son of god? How does the resurrection claim make this true?

Dan in Canada wants to talk about the increase of UFO reports from airline pilots and if we should start considering non-terrestrial sources for this. How do we know this uptick is not correlated with the media paying more attention to sitings? Alien contact stories have evolved over time and there was a major shift in content after the Betty and Barney Hill abduction story surfaced. 

The Seed in the US wants to talk about the New Testament dating and how it impacts the importance of the Bible. Mainstream consensus does not put the Gospels much earlier than the 70’s with some of them being as late as 110 AD, the timeframe of the earliest fragments. How do we explain the Gospel metaphors making sense in Greek and not Aramic, the language Jesus spoke? It is not plausible these fishermen knew Greek well enough to write these Gospels. We don’t have the original autographs of these fragments that were from 100 years later. Why should we think that the Book of Acts is a historical book? The consensus among scholars on the legitimate letters from Paul tend to date between 50 and late 60s AD. 
Jeffrey in PA proposes that the commandment given in the garden was to prevent the suffering that results from evil. Why did god create suffering in the first place and why did god create evil? Have you considered that none of this is real and it is just a myth? Why does god have to protect people against evil?

Thank you for tuning in the week and remember to always keep wanting the truth. Prompt of the week: What is the difference between Jesus and Pizza?

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Show notes will be posted upon receipt.

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Explore the truth with Truth Wanted as Objectively Dan and Darante’ LaMar explain the focus on religious gods while debunking yet another conspiracy theory about genocide, all while god is being defined by theists who use morality as a noun just before issuing a warning about predatory self help groups. 

Bradley in NC is a pantheist who asks why the hosts tend to only focus on religious gods and not unusual gods. How prevalent is pantheism in our culture? People need to see this dialogue in real time because the religious indoctrination is so strong. If we know people have doubts about a specific god, we create spaces for those doubts. We don’t need an explanation of the universe to conclude that gods don’t exist. We still have lives to live that are affected by this belief.

Connor in FL discussing the conspiracy theory about the number of Jewish people who were killed and cremated being inflated. The biggest problem with this idea is not all the people were brought to concentration camps. Many were just murdered or were starved to death. Even if these theories were true, why would it matter and what number of people would be insignificant? If you are ever in Amsterdam, make some time to go to the Anne Frank Museum and you wil learn that sadly, this is the most documented genocide in history. 

Bob in Germany asks how the hosts define god. God has just as many meanings as there are people. It depends on the context and we don’t take one definition. God is extremely personal so we go to the person who is talking to us for the definition of god and let the interlocutor spell out how they define god. If they say god is the universe, we already have a word for that. 

Marcia in NC observes that theists use morality as a noun, and non-theists use it as a verb. Most theists are in this camp where they just have to know all the rules to know what is right or wrong. How do theists separate god’s morality from human morality? Where do you get your morality from? Products of highly social species are often hard to define by individuals themselves. How can we lay the groundwork for philosophy when we can’t even agree on what morality is?

Chase in the USA describes the Landmark Forum where people are pressured to become members, recruit friends, pay a bunch of money, and engage in group “therapy”. If you are going to a seminar where people can help with your problems, check the credentials.  This is the type of magical thinking that we want to prevent and this is predatory behavior.  There is something that does not make sense about being sold self help. 

Thank you for tuning in this week for the truth. Prompt for the week is: What is an instant red flag? Keep rising!

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To be added

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