"What would MR. ROGERS do?" | The LET'S CHAT Podcast

hello and welcome to the digital free thought Radio Hour on wo radio 103.9 LPFM right here in Knoxville Tennessee we're recording this on Sunday morning March 17th I'm Larry rhods or DJ doubter five and as usual we have our co-host wombat on the line with us hello wbat hey it's me the wombat cool digital free thought radio hour is a talk radio show about atheism free thought rational thought humanism and the sciences and conversely we'll also talk about religion religious faiths Gods holy books and Superstition and if you get the feeling you're the only non-believer in your town well you're just not I guarantee it here in Knoxville in the middle of the Bible Belt we have a group of over 1100 of us we're The Atheist Society of Knoxville or ask and we'll tell you more about us after the midow break so be sure to stick around wbat what's our topic today what would Mr Rogers do and the reason why I bring that up is I want to do a comparison of potentially better figures for Christianity than just the ones the stock ones we get from the Bible because I I guarantee you that there are better ones and I don't think there's a better example of representing uh healthy values that align with what's purported in Christianity modern Christianity as how we should conduct ourselves in society than what Mr Rogers has demonstrated in in his lifetime in his television show Mr uh the I think it's called Mr Rogers Neighborhood but Fred Rogers himself great guy advocate for Education Music Learning and also proudly Christian and I think you know it's a good thing to note that you know even as atheists we could recognize good Christians along with like really really terrible ones because what we really just want is what everybody wants a nice healthy life where everybody can work with each other and improve everyone's stand so uh that's my topic for the show but before we jump into it L I heard youve been doing some gaming let's talk about some gaming let's yeah playing crisis recently crisis Network or whatever it is not the original crisis wer there with the memes CR Ys I and it takes place in New York and you're fighting aliens okay but that's the original the original was also called uh crisis with C uh yeah but it was on a tropical island so it's the same game so this is industrial New York uh crisis where the aliens are like hey get off the sidewalk I'm walking over here I'm walking over here yeah more like killing over here ah I'm killing over here okay well and also it's uh Earth had just gotten some kind of super bug that killed most of the population which was probably sent uh to Earth by the aliens to decimate the population before they started but anyway interesting shoot them up game first person shooter Larry you're on your third firsters exploration shooting mechanic game is that typically your style yeah because you did Starfield which is first person run around shoot shoot shoot right uh Metro run around shoot shoot shoot but scary and then I crisis around shoot shoot shoot you you're forgetting you're forgetting Doom um Doom you play is the same thing that's first person shooter it's fighting aliens generally so you like Wolfenstein way way way back in the beginning that was like the first first person shooter it was almost 2D but it was third person would you say it's your cup of tea then was that it's it's my main thing right now my main thing is first person shooters out in a wide openen world okay where you can just go wherever you want and do what you want so parents pay attention don't let your kids play first person shooters they they turn into atheist Like Larry lifelong atheist it's it's going to ruin your kids no it's it's just good fun and we were s talking before the game I mean before the show that uh most wives don't like their husbands playing computer games much but that's the thing I mean you know where they are all the time they're right there in the house with you and with the kids and uh it's you know it's not out getting in trouble and not out doing stuff he shouldn't be doing you encourage your husband to play computer games maybe it's a mix of the both because my favorite game are simulation games I like Simulator games because they te how to do stuff in real life right and so things I'm doing right now is learning how to play Fly a drone and this controller is really interesting so like compared to I'm holding up two different controllers for radio listeners this is an Xbox controller has two joysticks it's got buttons on both sides a drone controller just has the joysticks right because when you're flying you're not really pushing buttons you're just changing your pitch yah throttle and and uh I've never used the very much but it's it's a different way of holding the joysticks and it's uh a radio frequency and you can do simulations on your computer with the actual joystick where you dial in the the flight dynamics of the Drone that you're going to fly with and you just do virtual space try to get as many rounds in as possible so that instead of thinking about what you need to do it's all muscle memory and then the fun part is when you actually set up at a park and you try flying and in your head you're like I know what to do but now I know crashes are expensive oh yeah now I know if I if I can't pick myself up off the ground and I don't break my joint I still have to pick get up and walk 3,000 feet out to this thing and pick it up and bring it back home so like the pressure is on a different level until you just get more more more used to it and more confident with it though I did go out yesterday to fly at a park nearby and what was funny was um I'm flying around at a park there's a bunch of kids everyone's having p Tech but I'm like maybe uh 350 ft up in the air right and so you can barely hear it it sounds like a really angry horn it like maybe 20 yards away but people will be like oh what's going on there and the kids will be like looking at it staring at it I can see it with my camera but I'm not focused on recording people I'm just focusing on like practicing my flips and tumbles and then every 15 or 20 minutes or so I got to come back down the land switch out my batteries and go back up again sure when I land there's a bunch of kids since I'm wearing fpv got goggles a bunch of kids come up to me and they're like can I try that and I'm like oh that's cool kid where' your parents try not to talk to kids but their mom was there like nearby nearby like kids have just came up from like a picnic uh blanket and they walked up to me and they're like hey can I try that I was like oh you got to be a licensed pilot to fly which is true in the state in America for the Drone of my weight class you have to have a license likewise you have to also be you have to take a test you have to take a certification test and you have to be licensed which costs money right so like those two things combed um when I told that to the kids they were a little disappointed about I let them hold the Drone and they could see like how heavy it was and they could like touch it and stuff like that that's fine with me and one of the moms who was there was like oh thanks for letting my kids like you know uh learn about this and that was cool the other Mom though was like so you can just record wherever whenever you want wherever you want you could just do you can just record anywhere and so like here's I took this very tactfully cuz I my impression was I'm not here to like argue or anything like that but in a public space there's no expectation of privacy so if you go out to public and you put a blanket out in the middle of the grass it's no different than the a car drove by with a dash cam or someone took a picture on their cell phone or someone popped open a laptop to do some work like everything has cameras you've been recorded So Many Times once you left your house there's no expectation of privacy outside so like that I didn't bring that up but I did say hey if you'd like to take the certification yourself it's called the trust certification it's issued by the Federal Aviation uh uh agency and it'll tell you all the rules and you can get yourself certified and it'll explain to you uh the different classes of drones and how what what you're allowed to record and what not to record and then I just went back to keep flying but it was funny because when I told her she can take the trust certification she pulls out a giant phone from her pocket which I know has GPS has a microphone has multiple cameras on both sides and probably her credit card in information and her call history and you know whatever website browsers that she was using at the time and maybe even a Facebook account that has yeah which is tracking every single thing about her yeah I'm just saying like don't be worried my problem the problem isn't Mine mine's just a cell phone with wings and then on top of that uh a lot of people love an omnipresent God which always blows my mind cuz seems like we have a natural disposition to want not want to be be surveilled but when it comes to God we want him everywhere at all times watching everything we do yeah recording every single and not know that but ready to cast you into hell for the slightest provocation right or even your thoughts like you can get punished for your thoughts yeah yeah like just what is it coveting someone's wife is a problem like even like oh wow that's a pretty lady like that's a problem even in your head it's not even an action like that is the ultimate don't think about strawberries moment where you're just like oh no now I'm in trouble but I did want to extend this to you know we do have role models that we could base our life on to be more Godly even if we were being constantly surveilled by God because what Christians will tell you is we just be like Jesus what would Jesus do in a situation like this and I thought to myself why are we thinking about Jesus because Jesus is in my mind sort of like the sort of like a high school student whose dad owns the school and is the principal and part-time superintendent and has a car that his parent his dad drove and like has basically nothing but privilege his entire life like you're talking about a human being that genetically doesn't even have a dad who's who's who is part spiritual who can do magic tricks and touch things and bring them back to life who doesn't die who can come back to life or does die but come back to life again like he's not playing by the same rules that I'm playing by so how could I why would I want to be like him would I want to have a more closer to an actual human experience and still see the good values that a lot of people purport Christianity has a monopoly on and I found a great example of this Mr Rogers Fred Rogers from the television show Mr Rogers neighborhood is in my opinion one of the best people to have existed religious or non-religious like he's not going to probably get any award from any of the major bodies CU I don't really pay attention to like Nobel Prize laurates or like who becomes a saint or anything like that but in my book Mr Rogers is a top drawer kind of guy and I came up with a list of reasons why I believe that and I want to compare them to a similarly composed objective list with using chat GPT to see you know what stands up from what would Mr Rogers do versus what would Jesus do and maybe can talk about on the show does that sound cool to you works for me all right awesome awesome awesome so I ran a question through chat GPT basically saying hey give me the uh top 10 things that Mr Rogers uh was known for or let me see let me I'll tell you the exact question sure 10 remarkable things that Jesus did in his life versus 10 remarkable things that uh Fred Rogers did in his life and Mr Rogers number one promoted kindness and empathy and if you were to ask me what the two cornerstones of any religion should be it should be and what they say it is yes the lip service yes it should yes dude absolutely it is lip service because it should be not this is what you got to do to avoid hell or this is who your your authority figures are or this is what you shouldn't do or these are the rules of our club or this is how much money you need to give us once a month it's you should be kind and empathetic and through his iconic television show Mr Rogers Neighborhood Fred Rogers promoted kindness empathy and understanding among children's and adults alike and if you're to ask me what's something that the current generation of kids the current generation I'm here with my whipper snapper suspenders on we're both on our we're just like you know a problem with kids today it's a lack of kindness and empathy and I can see that both in kids and adults as well in fact um I've been on a a rabbit hole of watching Uber videos dash cams from Uber drivers just have the wor wor people get in their car just the worst people like I'm not masking or like I want to change I'm not paying you money it's like you did you sign the app it's like I'm canceling the ride if you're GNA be rude to me it's like I want you to speed like people who walk into someone else's car and assume that they're their Butler that's just the most insane thing and and I think to myself man I do not want to subject myself to interaction with Society if I ever deal with toxic people like that we need more kindness and empathy what do you think Larry oh absolutely and uh we we we do see it an awful lot in our in our society we live a pretty darn good life we have a the world is full of plenty if we just uh realize it um but what gets me is the people um the religious people who claim to own the own morality and Truth y are often immoral and and and lie uh constantly especially about their religion and about the opposition I mean how many lies have you heard told about atheists right and why would they do that if they own the truth if they if everything that they do is all about the truth of of the Bible and and morality and all that too it just it just hypocritical to me yeah the narrative has become so tribalistic that we do that most people don't care how bad their leaders are or how bad their narrative is as long as it's their narrative right right if I was if I was starting a religion the first thing I do is put in claims about how my God wants you to be good to everybody that way after people get into the religion you can say see we're good to each other because our God said to do that yeah yeah yeah like we were never good to each other back in the days of Egypt or you know before Christianity before Judaism right like the Baseline the very true Baseline for society should be don't go out of your way to be mean to each other you don't have to be good we're not making that an obligation it's good if you are good but don't be mean to each other and if you have that you have basically a a state where if everybody follows that rule you have people who aren't necessarily contributing but aren't holding down society and then the rare instances where people are taking on additional work and and drive to be extra good that averages towards slightly good without having to punish people with uh for who are who are who aren't being good because you shouldn't be in my mind obligated to do good because at that point you're being volun told to be good you're not actually volunteering a self-rewarding activity I mean it if you do good then you know the old thing about Karma uh people will see you as good and see you as as treating people fairly and and that will come back to you in in many ways treat people um mean or evil and you reap the rewards for from from from your actions yes simple as that you want to live in a good World be good right long term if you care about your surroundings and the neighborhoods that you're in you be you begin to look at different ones who are following the rule of well I don't have to be good but the ones who are good the ones who are contributing they actually make their society a lot better they have better roads they have better teachers I want to live there and I'm willing to contribute to society if that takes pay they they have a better future too because they're contributing to the next Generations I think we can objectively see even if we didn't ask or force people to be kind and empathetic that being kind and empathetic or promoting it is actually a really good way of moving forward and what I love about Mr Rogers is he's not pointing at the camera and saying you need to be kind you need to be empathetic I am your God or I'm the son of your God and I'm teaching you to do this or it's a holy word from this book yeah it was it was literally that it was promoting kindness and empathy like I'm going to be kind and empathetic on my show I'm going to ask questions I'm going to be caring of people who are different than me and I'm going to show you the benefits that I'm reaping as a reward from that and I think that's a good practice for you to follow as well it's a option for you to do that I am demonstrating on my show and I found that so good I always found Mr Rogers is a good uh teacher in the true sense where he demonstrates what he was teaching rather than just literally exposing it as an authority figure to his followers right I never got that feeling from him so go to the flip side when I go to Jesus Christ this is his first thing so if Mr Rogers promoted kindness and empathy the one remarkable thing first remarkable thing from chat gbt as my objective Source uh Jesus taught love and compassion Jesus preached messages of love compassion and forgiveness emphasizing the importance of treating others with kindness and empathy so while it's similar I have a problem with the teaching aspect because Jesus very much is not meeting you oneto one like how Mr Rogers is where he's like here's my home I'm going to put my shoes on I'm going to take my cardigan off maybe I'll make some juice you want you I can't give you juice because this is just a TV show this is a set kids but you want to talk about like sharing or divorce or something like that like we can we can talk some hard topics Jesus by the way is like let me stand on top of a mound all of you sit down there I hope you like fish with bread that's what you're eating and this is I'm going to explain to you like my sermon where I'm talking about like how cool my dad is and I'm going to talk about that for a while and now I'm going to talk about how cool I am and why you got to be my friend because the only path to Heaven is through me and and you know while it's told that it's love and compassion honestly a lot of the stories that Jesus told were about how families would be separating and that he was a sword to split sons and fathers apart in their own households and and how rich people would have a hard get in heaven and not and his his hidden message was the on the reward side I mean you don't do good for each other just to do good and be good you do it to achieve a reward in the next life right you're doing it for a right and um that's a little U dis disingenuous I guess the real reason you should be good is to be good and make a better Society I mean it's and that's something we can see in this this world no matter which next world comes well put well put yeah the the value of being good is that it improves the surroundings and the people that who will live in your environment not so that you can get into heaven not so that you can sit to the right side of Jesus and watch his you know brand new car and and hang out with his dad with his video game his PlayStation 9 or whatever it's like who cares about that it's it's about the world that we're in right now that matters and I feel like Mr Rogers emphasis is be good for the sake of good so that you can improve and and improve the world that you're in whereas Jesus and the life you live yeah just just day-to-day life living yeah and Jesus has no message on any of that he's just like this is your P this is the scheme this is how we're gonna get to heaven guys pick up some trash it'll count for Jesus points trust me that's the only reason why you need to do it yeah like what about to take care of other people it's like we don't care about other people right we're the chosen people right what gets me is you know Christians are always calling it unconditional love you know Jesus has unconditional will love for you well unless you until you break some some sins or unless you do something he doesn't want you to do then you know your reward is a l eternity of of pain torture y um it's just it is fully conditional yes and what gets me is he preaches U com you know love and compassion but it comes right down to it and they ask him what I need to do to get into heaven right remember what he said follow the ten commandments that has nothing to do with love and Comm compassion it has everything to do with obedience right and there are other problems too where he's like you know there are some terrible laws that exist what do you think about that well what Caesars is Caesars and what's God is God it's like don't separate those rules you could just be like hey slavery is a bad thing we shouldn't be doing SL uh you know uh there's a lot of things that are going on back there that I can talk about on YouTube but I can use it to transition to our next topic because if we still have some time I want to bring up that Mr Rogers uh number three on this list is he he addressed important topics he fearlessly addressed importance and sometimes difficult topics on a show such as death divorce and disability and this helped children navigate these issues with honesty and compassion and I remember when uh there was a a plane crash and and it and people died and I didn't understand why that was a bad thing like I understand that PLS this is when you were a Christian this is when I was a Christian and a child like when I was maybe like seven and I and I I remember there was a plane crash and it was talked about in Mr Rogers TV show and I thought to myself like whoa planes crashed because they're machines but there were people inside them I didn't understand that and in the concept of his show he explained like you know about like like in a sense National tragedies but he talked about in a way that I wasn't scared from how he was talking about it and that I understood the sense of loss that came with it and he even made a book that that was like a essentially about like how to like talk to your kids about like bad things that happen in the world just thought that was so good to have an adult willing to communicate with me in a way that like I could appreciate that didn't feel like I was being talked down to I seen that clip Again on YouTube but it's still really good here's what Jesus does Jesus Will on his third on his list is heal the sick and disabled he performed numerous Miracles including Healing The Sick blind deaf and disabled demonstrating his compassion and divine power and my issue with this comparison is that um Mr Rogers will talk about disability and divorce and and death and normalize them with respect to those who have died those who have gone through a divorce like my parents did or those who have a disability that can't necessarily get them healed whereas Jesus in his mind it's worldview and demonstrated in his book would be like oh you're blind Bop you're not blind anymore haha what about the 300,000 other blind people that are behind us blindness in general they just cure blindness in the human I just want to do this for the magic trick okay so like for people who are disabled and deaf like the stigma that comes with them being incapable or needing to be healed sticks whereas with Mr Rogers you talk about disability people who don't have legs or arms and demonstrate that they're still capable and that they're still people like I feel like that is something that needs to be expressed with demonstration and through Mr Rogers efforts compared to what Jesus did and I just find really what gets me about Jesus I mean he raises people from the dead literally yeah they were dead they were dead for days he brought them back and that's the end of the story nobody asked them what it was like to be dead where they went is there a heaven or is there a hell they never address any of that from the people that they brought back from the dead just I mean why not because theyve got nothing to say right and the thing is people still die and even those dead people he brought back are dead again right so like right it's a question of what I've been better off with Mr Rogers approach where he talks about death and in a in a sensible way and explains why it happens and why you know you shouldn't be afraid of it but it is a part of life compared to imagine if Jesus did that once he's just like let me just talk about death for a little bit like it's not something to be worried about your entire life for but it's a part of life and you know it's more about celebrating your life than it is about worrying about your death your entire life right and then Jesus is like no don't worry about that it doesn't it doesn't exist it's just a change of address when you die you're gonna hang out with me if you're good and if you give me a little bit of money if you worship me it's the only thing I'm asking for just listen to what I say give me a little bit of your money and worship me it's that simple yeah we got to remember that before yeah before Jesus there was no heaven or hell I mean he's the one who brought Eternal punishment and eternal AG grandis right um just why why wasn't it mentioned before did the the Jewish people not know anything about heaven or hell matter of fact uh Jewish people today I understand don't really believe in heaven or hell they they just believe you kind of cease to exist uh if you're a Jewish person and have a me one to mention something about that please leave a comment sure sure sure okay I think we're near the bottom of the half hour right we are all right let's do a quick break okay this is the digital freethought Radio Hour on wzo radio 103.9 LPFM here in Knoxville Tennessee we'll be right back after this short break welcome back to the second half of the Digital freethought radio hour I'm dter 5 and we're on wo radio 103 .9 LPFM here in Knoxville Tennessee let's take just a minute to talk about the atheist Society of Knoxville ask was founded in 2002 we're in our 22nd year uh we have over 1100 members we have weekly inperson meetings every Tuesday evening in Knoxville's Old City at Barley's Tap Room in Pizzeria look for us inside at the high top tables or if it's pretty weather outside on the deck you can find us online in Facebook Meetup or go to our website at Knoxville atheist. org or just Google Knoxville atheist it's just that simple by the way if you don't live in Knoxville and you still need to go to meetup.com and do a search for an atheist group in your town don't find one start one one right wbat where do you want to pick up I really want to go back to this list of Mr Rogers and what he's done in his life remarkably that could be used to send an example for Christians and APS alike versus Jesus and what he's done to set examples for the same crop people and what I'm finding more often than not is that Mr Rogers is a better representation slash Mentor slash kind demonstration of good values that I think we should really try to exemplify in our current Society compared to what Jesus Christ did with his entire time here and I will just say this as as simple one of my as as simple fact one of my best and favorite memories from his show is that he would always start a show with that piano song right I'll do a full intro of the little model town you know and it's like a long intro I want to compare and contrast how his show starts to compare to any kid show starts these days where just Quick Cuts Quick Cuts here's here's Alexander he's a superhero and he could turn into this Alexander's a like loud music loud flashing lights show the entire plot line you only have 30 seconds to do this guys hurry up hurry up hurry up sell toys sell toys you can do this make it happen and where as Mr Rogers like a steady four minute like song more like extended songing doing normal things like changing your shoes putting on the sweat yeah close up on the door he opens up the door he starts singing and it's just there's an old man singing on TV and he's not singing fast it's a pretty slow song there's not a lot of accompaniment with it and not only that but the craziest thing is not only he takes off his jacket puts on another jacket slowly sits in front of like everybody and starts taking off his shoes and putting on a new pair of shoes and you're like what's going on he's tying shoes we've been doing this show for like six minutes and there's an old man singing tying his shoes he he wasn't that old he looked like he was about 45 you know or 40 gray hair or anything how do we sell this to kids how do we sell this to kids we got to like GI Jo's next up in the next half hour block how do we compete with Spider-Man people don't realize that really young kids want stability they want uh safety they want um they don't want you to jerk things around and stuff like that but I he he was he had a show for very young children you know pre pre kindergarten so he wasn't like 8 n 10 you know age kids who won all this action and and Mayhem have you seen Paw Patrol have you seen like Peppa Pig like episodes that are only like five minutes long because they know kids have to like they're going to lose their attention span very quickly you have to like keep kids entertained you have to sell toys you got to like have them with cartoons it's got to be colorful whereas Mr Rogers is like I'm tying my shoes and if the song this is the thing that blew my mind if he's still singing in the song ends won't you be my neighbor won't you please won't you please won't you please be my neighbor and he's still tying his shoes he's going to keep tying his shoes he doesn't Rush the entire time he's just like oh I didn't finish tying my shoes yet I'm just going to finish tying my shoes yeah before he starts the show oh it's so relaxing yeah he wasn't just an actor either he created the show right he he composed the music he was the producer and the head writer for Mr Rogers so it was his show he conceived it and made it happen right just the way he wanted and I I just love that he could teach patience you know because one of the main things I feel like again here I am on my porch that you know we I feel are lacking as a society is patience all the habits all the hobbies that we have stress sort of like a YOLO or a you got to do this now or time's running out or this is a limited deal or everything stressing on time being a limited resource whereas to watch a full episode of Mr Rogers is sort of an expectation or setting up the expectation of things are going to take some time but it's totally fine it'll be worth it let's just relax and watch and relax and you mentioned before the show that um he he was honest about everything he did he he talked about the puppets being puppets yeah uh that you know nothing was uh unexplained or left of the imagination other than just the story that he was telling correct but uh Jesus was all about the magic and and he was a hero figure uh in the old traditional uh sense of of hero in story right you know he did or tragedy I guess you could call it because you know he did all these wondrous things and because he did all those wondrous things you know they had to bring him down and kill him you know and hang him up but Jesus was also the ultimate by now not later marketer because his whole idea was within your lifetime the kingdom of Heaven's gonna come down right so I'm your last chance right now start worshiping me right now I'm right here you're here make this happen or I'm going to go right I'm not going to be here forever and your opportunity is gonna go away guys yeah and they've been saying that the end of the world is nigh or 2,000 years now yeah get a clue right it's not it's not he's not teaching patience he's not teaching honesty right because like I as you said Larry it's like it's been 2,000 years and he's still playing hideand-seek apparently um not only that but I also feel like um one of the cool things Mr Rogers did was he went behind the curtain like he shows you hey this is the piano that's playing when I when I when I sing there's a lady who plays it but I can also know how to play music too but uh she go on there and play some music Linda and she plays the music he went to the actors who happens in his make believe town he went to that studio set which is right next to his show he's like these are actors but they're also my friends and we do this show where we pretend that we are on the stage I'm just being honest with you like this is a puppet this is a trolley I can I control it with these two buttons you can see me doing in the show it's not like it's a magical thinking trolley I don't want you to be concerned with the concept of magic like reality already is cool enough and I'm like that's so cool like I can appreciate that mindset and remember Mr Rogers is a Christian right so like I can appreciate that mindset that Honesty from a christian-industrial-music-genre secular mindset now to still respect that show so genuinely because it's not intrusive on my viewpoints of reality because he's being honest right and he's keeping largely his Dogma away from being forc fed to me as a child I just thought that was so good whereas Jesus is nothing but Dogma first you know like hey let me tell you about my dad it's like dude I know your dad's the God is like yeah my dad's God so what are you gonna do about it he's that's literally his entire Motif his entire show to the point where people get so annoyed they're like can we kill Jesus please can we kill this guy he's like my dad's God oh please shut up Jesus how can we make this the guy die faster let's crucify him I like is that the fastest way we can kill people fine whatever all right go for it anyway um all right so other thing that uh Mr Rogers did was as you had discussed um he uh had that piano music so he promoted music and the Arts he integrated music art and creativity into this programming recognizing the importance of fostering imagination and emotional expression and I thought that is cool it would be nice to um hear from Jesus some human some Humanity that he valued because human Humanity at that time Mesopotamia like had built brilliant statues had a culture had poetry you know like we they had music but you never hear Jesus exp on like hey this is like some really cool things that humans only do and you should be really proud that you were able to create this and this is like a joint effort came from a lot of different Minds putting together and you made something really beautiful the beauty was always about God and the only time I've ever seen Jesus relax and have a good time was when he was making wine for his buddies or hanging out in the desert but like it was never time to appreciate the humanity yeah and about about the only only story that really could show compassion is the one where uh they were stoning this woman or we going to and he said you know let the first one who has no sin cast the first stone but that was really about obedience it was about uh sin it was about a lot of things uh it should have been about compassion you know and empathy for the woman but it wasn't and that's that's an opportunity missed yeah there's other missed opportunities too I think there's is Jesus the one who came up with the Good Samaritan story I don't know was that I think it was that Jes terrible because I know no I don't think it was so so was that a I know was in the New Testament um I'm going to assume all right okay so if that's not the case then that's fine but like I feel bad for Samaritans who have to be subject to that story is like you know Samaritans it's like yeah boo right yeah well here's a story about a good one it's like whoo isn't this story kind of generalizing and a little bit racist no just put it in the Bible it's totally fine but um the other one would be like when the lady comes to uh Jesus to like pour oil in his feet and like all the guys around him are like uh this lady doesn't deserve to be around you she's a woman or like she's beneath us and I'm like whoa these are the people that Jesus is hanging out with 24/7 but Jesus like no no no I will let her wash my feet I was like okay hold on a second I don't know if this is necessarily even a good thing in this like oh he's so nice he let the lady clean his feet with the precious oils that's that's so Progressive like would you like to sit down kind of a lesson is this anyway yeah like lady would you like to sit any you're all equal you could all wash my feet he like any of you guys can wash my feet anytime you want to no it's like I feel like Jesus was always there to keep the stratification of humanity in place right like there's God and now there's a new layer which is me and then there's my followers who are immediately below me and then there's everybody else so if you want to upgrade you got to follow me because that'll put you into this new cast of people who are my followers which gets you closer to God but like Jesus was not about respecting the diversity of people and different Minds in around the world and you know Mr Rogers he had different people different face different colors different gender uh on his show all the time different puppets I mean like different animals that was the whole that was the whole concept of the make beleve verse but then you'd also go out to Industries where you'd like talk to men and women working in plants and be like hey this is how fruit cups are made this is how milk is is gathered from cows and it's like women Farmers men Farmers black people white people all working together you never got that you never got the expression that Jesus ever really appreciated Humanity but I only ever got that from Mr Rogers and I feel like because of that I would always listen to what M Rogers would tell me what to do over Jesus which is like this we alien guy yeah okay uh I do want to give props to Jesus for confronting Injustice and hypocrisy it does say in this list that Jesus fearlessly confronted religious hypocrisy corruption and Injustice challenging Authority and speaking truth to power that's what it got said says from chat gbt do you have any comments on that Larry who is talking truth the power this is a remarkable thing that Jesus did oh going to the chat GPT confronting Injustice and hypocrisy he challenged uh religious hypocrisy corruption and Injustice challenged Authority and spoke well what he did was he challenged the old religion to set up a new religion I mean he has his own uh Authority you know he was he was establishing a new one he had his challenge the old one to do it and as far as speaking Truth The power was it truth when he was just I mean first of all we need to take a step back sure I don't know if Jesus actually existed or not but we do know the stories exist and as far as I'm concerned that's all they are I mean no more than you would believe that Muhammad split the moon in two and flew to heaven on a winged horse why do you not buy those stories but buy the stories about Jesus right I mean they're magic Hero Stories they're just stories in a book written by preachers who want you to believe so that you can they can control you put you in the Pew and get your money right if I told you a story with a magical orange and a talking goat people would be like that's a fairy tale but if I say a magical apple and a talking snake people are like nope that's real that actually happened somewhere it's like it's I it's it's not the fact that it's an apple or an orange or a talking goat or a talking Snak it's the fact that this is fairy tales we have nothing to compare it to in reality hey Dre and Dread pirate hgs came in welcome dread Oho ohy Oho hope you're having a good time we're contrasting uh Mr Rogers and Jesus Christ you got I'll throw you cold into it yeah dread I know you're out in the cold right now but have you did you ever have any experience with uh watching Mr Rogers uh neighborhood no no okay it's not Canadian not a Canadian okay so am I late what's up am I late yeah yeah a little bit 50 minutes it's only 50 minutes in the hour show it's all good you're fine you're fine you're fine we appreciate the spirit of it but Dre's doing some real work the time change yeah yeah dread you're doing real work don't worry about it uh but the great thing is uh I feel like we have a better Champion for how to behave and it can even be a Christian who who does so rather than using Jesus CU I feel like we have better role models already that exist and as Jerry I'm sorry as Larry said we don't know if Jesus actually existed we know just know there's stories that exist but we do know Mr Rogers exist and we have videos of him and we have books by him and we have music by him and we have speeches by him and we have Congressional transcripts from him and they're all awesome and I'm saying like why are we wasting time with the stories from Jesus when we already have a much better in color Tech version of a guy who's already exping really good Valu that we should just be listening to anyway like no magic involved no magic needed like we already got it like just put this book away and be like just watch Mr rer neighborhood if you do this and listen to this guy and do what this guy says and still call this Christianity we would literally be better off and Christianity would be in a better light we already have a better role model we should do as Mr Rogers does not Roger anity yeah like there's no ambiguity behind it there's no ambiguity to it it's like we know that guy was a thing and he and we AG we I as an atheist agree with almost everything that was said on the show there's no controversy there's no cancel there's no requirement to throw reality out the window yeah like I'm totally fine it's like if someone had on their bumper sticker uh a picture of Mr Rogers instead of like a cross or something in my mind I'm not thinking oh that guy's just like inhibiting education science uh reality teaching his kids the wrong way to be like if it was just a picture Mr Rogers was like I do what Mr Rogers did I'd be like oh that's a cool parent nice I love Mr Rogers too I'm an atheist I love that show everybody would love that show it'd be great another bumper sticker would be good would be uh would you like to be my neighbor bam excellent got on a shirt dread wonderful all right I'm going to do uh a quick break to see if we had comments we did have a a couple of comments oh uh uh dread would you like to plug anything um well I'm still continuing to do my uh my weekly uh short sermons on my YouTube channel M pirate m i p sermons sermons what about oh about everything like uh I just did one about art bark appreciation day oh cool um sometimes I just uh base my sermons off of um the pastafarian calendar uh so you know prob like every day has is a some kind of a day in in pastafarianism so it turned out that last Friday was Ard VAR Appreciation Day nice and um recently I did one on uh International women's day that was a good one did you do Pi Day I did Pi Day but I I didn't get it up so I've got it now you know it's it's in the can so next year on Friday it's it I will release it well that's Pi not Pi no I I understand no list yeah 314 so I do I have two questions uh two comments that I'm formatting into a question one is from the episode um I'm calling God's Bluff and the question is related to um um uh how to talk to your parents and essentially call their Bluff uh if if if required sometimes but this question is I'm going to give to Larry Larry the comer is electrical crab 9286 uh they say that my mom's telling my siblings that dinosaurs never existed what should I tell her well telling my siblings that dinosaurs never exist assum it's for a religious reason my mom is telling my siblings that's the we have EV we have all kinds of evidence it's I mean how do you explain um the fossils that we have the fossil record of dinosaurs if if they never existed and if you gonna a lot of Christians will say well Satan put them there to confuse us and make us not believe in the word of God you know in the history but I mean which is better to believe that it occurred naturally that that these lived and there's a deep history of time or magic you know so that's your options there dread what uh you know what people haven't been reasoned into they cannot be reasoned out of right they can't I disagree I disagree well oh I like that okay yeah because I can't remember who said that but I thought I think it was I think said it but uh I mean we all were I was you know I was a Believer and so was uh Juan B I believe you were at one time weren't you so we were reasoned out of it it takes time and a it takes a long time yeah and it takes a lot of good arguments a lot of good rationale but it happens and what I hear from this K person's perspective is that no one's invested that time in the mom but also it's a willingness too if I was unwilling to change my mind I wouldn't have changed my mind it took a deep appreciation for knowing that I cared about what was true and what was actually false for me to change and all the reason in the world won't affect that unless if I'm a willing participant in that process and I think if you have those two it is f it is feasible it is feasible uh dread my next question J Jonathan Swift oh okay uh dread this is a good question for you I think um this is asked by this is just a a more extended uh comment but from drip driis who asks hey is it okay for me to privately wear a cross while I'm an atheist um I have a necklace nearly a decade uh old and I occasionally wear it and look in the mirror for sentimental value I'm no longer a Christian but after learning how toxic religion is I am now questioning if it is inappropriate to have the sentimental uh trinket towards any or any any Rel sentimental tricket towards any religious object is it okay to priv wear a cross while an atheist is the question right and of course why not because um I mean symbols are symbols they just represent things and Christians don't have um you know a monopoly on the cross you know if if it doesn't mean Christianity to you then we so what right or if it wants if he just wanted to remind you of the time you were a Christian and how maybe you you you left the fold there's a lot of reasons that you would have I mean you're human you a lot of sentimentality about the past right now if it bothers you that you're actually wearing a cross you could have it melted down and turned into a ring or another jewry I love that idea that's kind of cool yeah I kind that yeah there a lot of Jew that you think about uh like symbols like the file flat cross you know the the Nazi symbol which is way predated the NES right right it was an Indian symbol I think a long time exactly Western Indian yeah yeah so uh you know that's a heart cell though if you're a political figure being like it's not for Nazis like could we agree that it's now for Nazis can we just like can we can we say they did enough to claim that and maybe just like don't wear that while you say please official because you're going to attract attention there was a symbol that the Nazis war was on Iron Cross do you remember that yeah I remember that the iron cross it was very popular uh after the war in the 50s and 60s when uh biker biker Gams and some other people would wear it uh and it used to really tee off my dad who was World War II veteran you I had I actually had a copy of rard Kipling's The Jungle Book and uh it was 100 years old and embossed on the front cover was a picture of an elephant and the bile FL cross the what cross the the Nazi symbol oh really wow yeah and course that was you know I think it was published in 18 you know towards the end of the the century there long before you know Nazis were around never picked it up yeah all right here is my last question this one goes with the layer before we close the show yeah we need to detective mind ask is there such a thing as an atheist Society is there one well yeah I started but you know it's just kind of a club you started you here in Knoxville we started the atheist Society of Knoxville and uh that was 22 years ago and we're doing pretty well it's now a nonprofit um so uh you know we have an atheist society live and well in Bible Belt so yes do that okay cool that's it for me thank you guys for coming to the show feel free to check out or leave a comment Franco accounting says looking good Ty we appreciate it thank you cheers anything else uh uh mind pirate uh uh Dre pirate would you like to plug in I'm good I'm I'm just so sorry I missed the the largest part of the show you're Canadian you do not have to be sorry it's all good it's all good yeah I was late last week you know but I got in in time yeah we're in this weird time States when the time changed all right Larry what do you got what do you got for I oh I think we all agree that Souls were real that's what we missed dread on and that we're ready good to close the show is that right Souls never accurate yeah perfect all right you can find this show on podcasts everywhere just search for digital freethought radio hour and if you're watching this on YouTube be sure to like And subscribe my content can be found at digital freeth thought.com and be sure to click on the blog button for the radio show archives atheist songs and many articles on the subject uh my YouTube channel handle is at doubter 5 you can find my book atheism what's it all about on Amazon remember everybody is going to somebody else's hell the time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and Hells and souls are real until then don't sweat it enjoy your life and we'll see you next Wednesday night at 7 o'clock here on wo radio say bye everybody bye everybody bye Ramen all right let's do it real quick our newly Lord who art in a colander al dante be thy noodles thy blood be rum thy sauce be yum with meat as it is with vegetables give us this day our garlic bread and forgive us our cussing as we forgive those cuss against us lead us not to keto ISM but Deliver Us of carbs for thine are the meatballs and the sauces and the drug whenever and ever all right good