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Religion Is “Declining”… So Why Does It Feel Like It’s Everywhere? · Sacrilegious Discourse - Bible Study for Atheists

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's the wife.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Do you know what we're doing to do?
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[SPEAKER_01]: No.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
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[SPEAKER_01]: What are we doing?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you told me, but I'm yeah for the bit.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I already forgot.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So what's what's what's what's going on?
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[SPEAKER_01]: What are we doing?
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[SPEAKER_01]: How are we podcasting today?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're not reading any macadudos.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: First or second or otherwise.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's our Tuesday live.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't joined us before on Discord, you should.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And more than that, you just stick around for more than like 30 seconds because here's the thing, guys.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just going to let you know, front, every time we get into this court into our live, we lose audio.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We don't have the audio.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't work.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then you have to sit through like a half, one a month to a half hour of banter that is mostly inside jokes.
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[SPEAKER_00]: or me telling you what book I read.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, hey, yeah, but here's the thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Or a movie, have you told me about a movie?
1:00
[SPEAKER_01]: If you do this twice, two to three times, you just become part of the crowd.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And you're like, yeah, I'm in for this.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then you make fun of us for doing things that we do.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And then you're in the crowd.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You're doing the thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then you were in the right to tell me to fuck off.
1:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But you, you've got to be here.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to stay and take it out.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to, you've got to troop through.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever, power pushed through.
1:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to push through.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You've got to be there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Live on this course every Tuesday at 10 p.m. Eastern.
1:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, do it.
1:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's what we're doing right now.
1:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I told you that I came across this article that indicated that religion in the world is like on the decline.
1:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I found that unrealistic and I was a little skeptical about it, but then after I read the article, I was a little hopeful and that seems like something we need in the song today.
1:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, there's not a lot of hope in this world right now.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Hope and joy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I kind of want to talk about that article.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, are you ready to get into this?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Fuck him.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Alright, let's do it.
2:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, so this piece that I came across, this piece of media that I came across.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was written by Professor Dr. Dettliff Pollock from the cluster of excellence in the religion and politics department at the University of Moomster.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
2:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I mean, Professor Dr. Jesus, right?
2:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
2:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
2:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this was a press release that was put out and then articles were written about the press release.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
2:54
[SPEAKER_00]: by the school because he and another guy, I forgot the guy's name already and I didn't note it, but he and the other guy.
3:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that other guy.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They, you know, the other one.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they did this, they do this study every year.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
3:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And they've updated their, their research and they, they were like a textbook about it or whatever.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't get a call.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The press release was entitled Importance of Religion has declined dramatically across the world, and I was like, the importance of religion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: has declined dramatically across the world.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's an interesting way of phrasing it, not religion is declined, but the important to really stick to.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of what made me stop and go, hang on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
3:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
3:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, that gets into like, what exactly is religion and what is God and, you know, all that stuff.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But basically,
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[SPEAKER_00]: This article posits what they say is sociologists of religion present a new addition of one of the most comprehensive empirical studies of religious trends across the world, the updated and expanded new addition of the standard work entitled religion and modernity, so religion today kind of thing right and
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[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't even know that there was, like, a study on religion today versus other days.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I just, I don't know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The whole thing was kind of interesting.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's another quote, the sociology of religion has observed for decades a decline in ties to religion and the church in Western Europe, including West Germany.
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[SPEAKER_00]: However, the dramatic declines across the world in recent years came as a surprise even to a secular theorist, a secularization
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[SPEAKER_00]: So that kind of shows that he was being very objective in his studies, he did like he is a secularization theorist, but he wasn't expecting to find more
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[SPEAKER_00]: secularization.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like he was surprised by the finding.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And I found that kind of comforting, I guess.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I guess part of me feels like it's a little bit inevitable.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like where our society is almost too fast-paced for a god and it's like,
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[SPEAKER_01]: Beyond that, there's so much shit happening, bad things, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, there's so much bad shit that you either have to believe that the world's coming to an end soon because of God or that there is no God, you know, like those are basically your choices in my opinion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I think I think there's two ways to kind of look at this article because
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[SPEAKER_00]: The one way is to say, well, yeah, logically it would make sense that that would go away, but that's not necessarily how it feels in the moment where we sit in this moment in time in the United States.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to say, specifically in the United States, yes.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, in the United States, we are surrounded by religion on all sides, especially in the Midwest, you know, like we, we can't hardly walk out our door without encountering religion.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess the the knowledge of how it should be versus the, but how it feels though, I think that's what was making me making this article stick out a little bit to me.
6:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Like what do you mean not that religion is declining, but the importance of religion and is there a difference between those two?
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[SPEAKER_00]: And what do you think and what do you feel about that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: All right, did you ask me or is it okay?
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[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of see it as
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[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I don't really know how I feel like.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like I just did a thing on our blog about one in 10 people globally.
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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a Pew Research study that came out in January, actually, this year.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I saw that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And one in 10 have left their childhood religions.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're under 55.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So like the people under 55 are leaving religions that they were a part of.
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[SPEAKER_01]: On top of people who are already secular or atheist, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know exactly what that means either, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of people are embracing these online churches and yeah, they left their religion, but are they embracing it there?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Are they are they are they are they doing something else.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So they becoming a church are they are we being their religion like what does that mean exactly right I guess I guess my question.
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[SPEAKER_01]: I think the real.
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[SPEAKER_01]: question will be are they embracing something more secular or are they just not that it's not a time for it and they might pick it up later again right you know like because it this does feel more like we're just in this fast-paced world and you got time for that shit right so but that that's that's how I feel living here in the Midwest around by churches
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[SPEAKER_01]: So again, I don't know that's a fair perspective.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, no.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I totally agree with you.
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[SPEAKER_00]: One of the things that the study said was that, although there has been an increase over the past 20 years in both the attention that society pays to a religion and in the number of political conflicts with a religious undercurrent,
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[SPEAKER_00]: that we cannot ignore the decline in religious ties in many regions of the world, which I found that so like the juxtaposition of as religion is declining, the attention that we pay to it is increasing.
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[UNKNOWN]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I did not expect, like that sentence is like, oh, there it is, because how can both be true at the same time?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think part of that is that it seems more foreign to a lot of people.
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[SPEAKER_01]: We're still talking about that still a thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, shit, that's causing problems, damn.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so it becomes more of a thing that we have to talk about, because it's not just part of,
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[SPEAKER_01]: as many people's everyday life.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you have to explain what this is, why this is happening.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
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[SPEAKER_01]: You have to give the backstory.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, and tour that end, we were recently asked by somebody in Australia why you a nice specifically talk about politics so much in our religious podcast or our anti-religion as some people would call it podcast, however you want to phrase it, and then while I was
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[SPEAKER_00]: an article, like it was in the top five articles that I came across actually.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So I didn't even barely go to the blanking.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It was just right up there.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There was an attack in a Muslim mosque, I believe, in Australia.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I just found it interesting that like right after we had been asked by somebody in Australia, like why are you always talking about that over there?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like it seems like religion and politics are separate and I know they're very separate here in Australia.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So what's going on with that?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And yet I think there's a lot of self-sheltering from news that is harmful to your beliefs, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: are watching or paying attention as much, not all of them, but you're in the US, for example, your evangelical Christians are pretty much watching Fox News, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm just, I'm pretty much generalizing here, the like, Fox News or Jason.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And so they're not going to see the things that are happening to secular Americans, and they're not going to understand how policies that are religiously driven
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[SPEAKER_01]: hurting people that are not of their faith, because they're pushing these agendas as a religious group.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're not going to see those things, because they only hear the good side of it and they're like, well, we're just doing good things and they don't get to ever hear the other side.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So they're sheltered from the harms and they're sheltered from hearing what people in their group did to other people because it's not something that would be promoted as much.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's easy to miss that stuff.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's true.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Here's another piece from that article, contrary to what theologians may claim, the validity of secularization theory, which argues that processes of modernization are linked to the decline and the importance of religion and churches is beyond dispute.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The study explains the decline in the importance of religion by pointing to factors such as growing prosperity, democratization, the expansion of the welfare state, individualization, and cultural pluralization.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So the conditions under which religious belief systems have to prove themselves have Jake, which goes to what you were saying like we don't have time for that.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And here if there's no, a lot of people are watching TikTok fucking preachers or whatever.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I would even call them preachers because half of them are not ordained.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They're just, you know, to personalities, religions, religious personalities.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
12:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But the conditions under which religious belief systems have to prove themselves have changed so fundamentally that belief in an afterlife or in God or in the efficacy of religious rituals or in the salute to salutary power of religious institutions, all of this is no longer plausible for many people.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's what the author think that time for that shit.
13:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
13:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
13:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
13:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's basically what you said.
13:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But I just, I don't know.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I guess, kids today, you know, they be on their phones.
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[SPEAKER_00]: They don't have time for God is what it comes down to.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and I've heard many people say that they've left their church because their church isn't strict enough.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Or whatever.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, ever, you were talking about individualism earlier, individualistic ideas, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And I find that what happens is a lot of people go down rabbit holes with regard to religion one way or another.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
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[SPEAKER_01]: A way from it or towards it, right?
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[SPEAKER_01]: And when you do that, you have this specific brand that is unto yourself.
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[SPEAKER_01]: And you have to find that matching personality that you've created for your way of believing online somewhere.
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[SPEAKER_01]: It's not something you're going to find in the church because there's not enough people like you.
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[SPEAKER_01]: to cater to that in one area.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like everybody has their own personal religious system.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Is it your own personal Jesus?
14:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, actually.
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[SPEAKER_00]: funny that you said that because there's a 10 point list that I kind of wanted to go through here and that is one of the personal Jesus, the personal relationship with God, is one of the things on the list.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
14:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of those things that really bugs me.
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[SPEAKER_01]: when I'm trying to discuss secularism or atheism with people who are religious online is that they have an inability to step out of their own little.
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[SPEAKER_01]: whatever whatever they are and I and all I ever really want to know is like what is your what is your version of God and they're like it's God and I'm like no no no no you're you're there's so many fucking versions of God I can't keep track of them all yeah which version are you like what do you believe what is it that you think God entails what is it that you believe God means right because
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[SPEAKER_01]: Unfortunately, for you, I have to ask that question because it matters.
15:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It matters if with regard to how we're going to have this discussion going forward because I can't have a discussion not understanding where you're coming from.
15:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, some Christians don't value the Old Testament at all.
15:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Other Christians believe it's very important.
15:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
15:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's that.
15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Some Christians are like,
15:47
[SPEAKER_00]: We don't worry so much about, like, if they're progressive Christians, right?
15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't worry so much about the queer community.
15:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas others are like, no, no, it says so in the Bible.
16:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
16:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I need to know these things before we can actually converse.
16:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I find more and more discussing with people online at least that they don't really have a definition for their idea of what religion is.
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[SPEAKER_01]: they literally do have their own personal Jesus and to define what it is that they believe is almost impossible for me and is pretty much impossible for them as well.
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[SPEAKER_01]: They don't even really understand what they believe because they haven't done the research to understand what they believe and they've gone down multiple branches of of rattle holes and just discovered this whatever it is they believe on their own and here they are and they exist there but they can't
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[SPEAKER_00]: that and they think that your questions are antagonistic and that you're just being arbitrary or picky because those aren't the things that matter to them.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So you're like, no, but they do matter to other people, though, they matter to other questions.
16:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the point out that Fern on our discord just said that we're conflating belief with religion and God definition, those aren't the same thing.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That is true, but if you could have this
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[SPEAKER_00]: many questions and they wouldn't know the difference between those terms either.
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[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So where we live in the all-intended purposes, it really doesn't matter that those are separate things.
17:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But they are.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's right.
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[SPEAKER_00]: All right, here's the first point on the list of key findings from this study.
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[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
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[SPEAKER_00]: When religious identities are linked to political, economic, or national interests, this often helps strengthen religion and the church.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And for example, Christianity has risen rapidly among large sections of the population in recent decades, a company by an equally marked increase in national pride.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So when, you know, your whole group identity becomes very, you know, tied to, um, tied to the religion.
18:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
18:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Then it increased.
18:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps.
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
18:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
18:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, you're, you're, you're grouping it with something else that you're, you, everybody wants to feel a part of something bigger.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So like if you can make it part of something bigger, that that definitely helps your brand, you know?
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's what we've seen with maga.
18:27
[SPEAKER_00]: They adopted the whole Christian faith and tied national tribe, patriotism with Christianity.
18:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now when you say nationalism, they're like, well, why wouldn't I want to be a Christian national?
18:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, no, that's not that you don't understand that term, and that's not a good thing, dumb dumb.
18:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, from their point of view, it is a good thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: Christian and being patriotic and nationalistic is like, yeah, I love American.
19:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I love being a Christian.
19:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
19:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Those are good things to them.
19:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
19:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So the second point was religious ties often weak and again, once the political, economic or national goals pursued through religious means have been achieved.
19:19
[SPEAKER_00]: okay and I was like what that's crazy like but it makes sense because like during the 80s and 90s and even the early 2000s we really you and I we thought that religion was on the decrease right we thought we were moving forward um
19:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Like with science and medicine and technology and stuff, right?
19:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It seemed like that that's the direction that we were heading.
19:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
19:44
[SPEAKER_00]: It seemed like it.
19:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
19:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And it seemed like, um, and this is still true that, um, like the LGBTQIA plus community, um, was becoming more and more a thing that that we could talk about openly and, you know, we're more exposure means more acceptance.
20:06
[SPEAKER_00]: that kind of thing.
20:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that has happened.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, that's what I said.
20:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that's what I said.
20:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So that one is true.
20:13
[SPEAKER_00]: That that has been a good thing.
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[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe maybe liberalism peaked with regardless of being in and now we're like, oh, shit.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'll get into why in a minute.
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[SPEAKER_00]: But basically, it was the,
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[SPEAKER_00]: the large group felt threatened, you know?
20:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
20:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So yeah.
20:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the next one number three is if political or other non-religious interests coincide with religious interests, the non-religious interests may absorb the religious, such as Christianity plus mega equals nod dog.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So the same
20:59
[SPEAKER_00]: They combine to the two and that may religion be big.
21:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
21:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It can also have the opposite effect where people who are Christians, they see that nationalism is getting tied up with it and they're like, ew, that's gross.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's not what I want in my religion.
21:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's why you've seen some churches and some religion, some Christians turn away from that.
21:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Not as many as we would like.
21:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But they're like, I did not ask for this combination.
21:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we've got people that regularly are on our discord and that we know pretty well that
21:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And through other means, that left religion during Trump, like, especially his first term, right?
21:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's a thing that we've heard multiple times, actually, and it's, it was, it was too much.
21:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, this guy is too much, right?
21:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And you, you are forced to either deal with the hypocrisy or embrace it, right?
22:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So it can make religion as a whole bigger, but it can make you lose individuals.
22:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So both things can be true at the same time.
22:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Very interesting.
22:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I hadn't looked at it that way, you know?
22:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
22:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Number four, the dwindling belief and a personal God that whole personal relationship with Jesus that you were talking about earlier is a sign of advancing secularization.
22:33
[SPEAKER_00]: because each of us has our own personal relationship.
22:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So we don't have to worry about like the group think.
22:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We just said the dwindling belief in a personal God.
22:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So that doesn't, the dwindling belief in a personal God is a sign of advancing secularization.
22:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Got it.
22:52
[SPEAKER_01]: But we were talking about earlier was like the trend towards a more first god because people are adapting to being secluded in their beliefs.
23:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But it can also lead probably to people shine away from it because they don't care enough or end or they do their own research and follow away from it.
23:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, right, both of those things could happen.
23:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's another case of both true at the same time.
23:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
23:22
[SPEAKER_00]: PS, I have a second note on this one.
23:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
23:25
[SPEAKER_00]: The surveys in the study show that a diversity of spiritual options does not help strengthen faith.
23:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So the more ways that you can have that relationship with God or whatever that doesn't make there be more
23:46
[SPEAKER_00]: religion that that makes their be late.
23:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're saying that the more churches that are in my town of a thousand people are I grew up.
23:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That's religious would become.
23:56
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what this study has found to be true over a large population is going to find that to be true.
24:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But okay.
24:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It wouldn't be true in a small population because in a small population, everybody's going to find their own little club.
24:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
24:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Even if it's just.
24:15
[SPEAKER_00]: the lake, okay, like in school.
24:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember when kid was in elementary school, there was the white team in the blue team, right?
24:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
24:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And they took the first grade class, the entire first grade, and split them into two groups on a rotating schedule, and there was the blue team in the white team.
24:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
24:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And even at that, it was competition.
24:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
24:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So even in a small town, you're gonna have like a thousand different little churches because we have to belong to a group.
24:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, right.
24:57
[SPEAKER_00]: even if it's just that little elementary school, well, the kids in this group are smarter than the other group, or the kids in this group, they do more sports, or they're more artistic.
25:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, whatever the case may be.
25:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, for example, like when you get to, let's take, you know, Islam, right?
25:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Get into a Muslim country.
25:17
[SPEAKER_01]: they don't have choices there, so they're going to be much more inclined to be religious and be very adamantly religious because that is the religion that they have, right?
25:29
[SPEAKER_01]: So definitely in that case, you know, choice.
25:33
[SPEAKER_01]: solidify, solidifies the choice, right?
25:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you have more choices, obviously, that would cause more splintering and cause.
25:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I think what we meant to say was lack of choice, solidifies the choice that you made, whereas the more choices that you have, the more splintered you are.
25:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
25:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
25:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And the more splintered that you are, that's going to, uh,
26:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, especially if, you know, you spend the night at your friend's house and you say, hey, mom, can I go to church with Susie on Sunday instead of to our church because, you know, they go to a different one and I'm spending the night and I go to there.
26:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
26:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You know?
26:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
26:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So, yeah.
26:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
26:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So number five, the more people value self determination, enjoyment of life, and self fulfillment, the more distant they are from the churches.
26:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.
26:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Millennials must not believe in any God.
26:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry, that was a bad millennial joke.
26:34
[SPEAKER_00]: That wasn't bad.
26:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I apologize to all the millennials that listen.
26:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Just the one.
26:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I can see that, like self-determination enjoyment of life and self-atilment.
26:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You cannot simultaneously be looking for living your best possible life and becoming the best version of you and self-growth and self-protection.
27:03
[SPEAKER_00]: all of the things right.
27:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And at the same time, then go to church on Sunday and find out how much you suck and how you're a worm.
27:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And more than that, like if you're trying to better yourself, you want to take credit for it, right?
27:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of giving it to God, right?
27:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And it always bugs me, how people will be in a fucking
27:25
[SPEAKER_01]: doctors officer or hospital, and they are like, thank God I'm better.
27:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, no, thank your fucking doctor, thank your better, thank medicine that you're better, and thank all the things that got you here that you're better.
27:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, if you want to believe in God and think that he helped pull you through this, that's fine, but somebody else did the fucking work.
27:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So I just want to know, who's the fuck do you think you is that God help you live?
27:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, like honestly, who is you that you are so fucking awesome that God came down and put his little precious finger on you, but not somebody else specifically finding keys is one thing that always bothered me.
28:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Praise to you guys, I found my keys.
28:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I literally yesterday and mind you.
28:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I love my parents.
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
28:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I think they're awesome.
28:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure.
28:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, in some ways.
28:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Insofar as I literally got a text from my mom.
28:18
[SPEAKER_00]: She had a follow up with her heart doctor.
28:20
[SPEAKER_00]: She had surgery a year ago.
28:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
28:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Was it a year ago?
28:26
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
28:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I close to that.
28:29
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
28:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Six months ago.
28:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Six months ago.
28:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, where she had a defibrillator, pacemaker, like, does both put into her heart.
28:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And she just had to check up and she literally, you know what, as a matter of fact, I'm going to fucking find the text right now as we are in the middle of this podcast and I'm going to read you.
28:55
[SPEAKER_00]: From the heart doctor, I got this text from my mom.
28:59
[SPEAKER_00]: From the heart doctor, heart muscles back to normal.
29:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Hope you are well.
29:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Woo hoo, thank you Jesus.
29:08
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, why are you thinking Jesus and not your heart doctor?
29:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess I have a hard time with that type of mentality because like I look at the world, right?
29:19
[SPEAKER_01]: My see things like Palestine, right?
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You're more important than an entire group, an entire people.
29:30
[SPEAKER_00]: An entire people.
29:31
[SPEAKER_01]: My name is Matthew.
29:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, doctor is Muslim.
29:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
29:38
[SPEAKER_00]: That makes it even more early.
29:40
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
29:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Jesus, for helping this Muslim doctor save precious me.
29:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know why you chose me to live.
29:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I must be so fucking awesome.
29:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
29:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And all of the people around the world that died today, well, I guess they just aren't as awesome.
30:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess I.
30:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm much more like if I guess I've always been more of a fan of the clockmaker's version of God, because it makes more sense to me, right?
30:13
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to believe in a God, that makes more sense to me because how can you look at all the shit that's happening in the world to people and to places and to just
30:24
[SPEAKER_01]: all the things.
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And then think that the God was involved in this small thing for you.
30:29
[SPEAKER_00]: That's actually one of the points on this list as well, which I appreciated.
30:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
30:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
30:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
30:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Number six, the more opportunities I felt like this was very related to the one we just read.
30:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Self determination and enjoyment of life and self-affirm fulfillment.
30:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
30:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Number six is the more opportunities there are for self realization in work in leisure, the more attention shifts from religious to secular practices.
30:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It kind of feels like an extension of the same thing, but there was an extra note.
30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Because with their wide range of cultural entertainment and leisure activities, modern societies offer a range of alternatives to religious lifestyles or quote unquote distractions such as work, family, friendship, entertainment and consumerism.
31:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
31:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I mean, it goes back to what you said early on.
31:23
[SPEAKER_00]: We'd be too busy.
31:25
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got shit to worry about.
31:27
[SPEAKER_00]: People to take care of, stuff to do, things to buy, Chinese food to order.
31:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
31:33
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, classes to take, you know, art to paint.
31:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
31:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
31:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Books to read.
31:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
31:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Work to get to in the morning.
31:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
31:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Cars to fix.
31:47
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
31:48
[SPEAKER_00]: all the things.
31:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I don't know.
31:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just like, I'm so glad my mom is doing well.
31:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so glad that her heart muscles are coming together nicely and that she is in good health.
32:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I really am.
32:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want it to sound like I'm not glad of that.
32:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I am very glad of that.
32:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't want to take away from people who think that they want to thank God, right?
32:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the same time, I just can't understand
32:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Why, again, it's the scale, right?
32:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, how is it that you, what are you thinking God for?
32:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's what I'm going to understand.
32:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I, because if you're thinking God for pulling through, then,
32:33
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, is the implication that I just don't understand because like the implication is that God had something to do with it, right, or God has a plan, but if God has a plan, then part of God's plan is to kill all the Palestinian children and women and like I just don't understand how that's part of a plan, so I
32:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not trying to admit like I understand why people thank God right and I'm not saying that I don't understand the want to do that if you are religious I'm just gratitude for what happened and yay let's celebrate that I'm alive.
33:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Where does that cross over into?
33:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And instead of thinking the person that had a hand in it, the doctor and all the medical staff, I'm saying that God did that.
33:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.
33:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just celebrate that you're alive and doing well.
33:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm grateful for that.
33:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't need to be grateful to anything more than the advances in medicine and the people who made that happen.
33:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
33:38
[SPEAKER_00]: because her hard doctor is awesome.
33:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I've met the guy.
33:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I've had multiple conversations with them.
33:43
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a great guy.
33:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
33:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm so grateful that he helped my mom.
33:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And um...
33:51
[SPEAKER_00]: you know before the surgery my mom and dad asked if they could pray with him and he was like not even taking a back in all he was like of course you know what I would do the same thing right if being an atheist I would like I'm not gonna I'm never gonna I would never be that person that's like oh no I'm you know I'm not gonna be an atheist I can't pray with you even though you're about to go into a surgery and could die right right yeah
34:14
[SPEAKER_00]: They're gonna be touching the inside of your heart.
34:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll suck up my pride for you in that moment.
34:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You like that, that's a thing that I will do.
34:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's a kindness that you're doing because you care about the other person's feeling.
34:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
34:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
34:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this doctor, he was so kind like the prayer that he did with them, it was so nice.
34:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Like he actually led the prayer for them.
34:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And it brought me to tears.
34:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it was, you know, he was just like,
34:39
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, please give the strength and wisdom to my hands to help this woman and her heart.
34:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Be I forget what all it was but it was like it was so it was humble and it was
34:54
[SPEAKER_00]: perfect for bridging the difference between the difference and the saying this in their two faiths.
35:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was this it was a beautiful moment for me as an atheist to see these two people from different faiths together and to see the you know in this one moment they were celebrating the same God like that was such a beautiful spiritual moment.
35:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
35:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And I really appreciate it.
35:21
[SPEAKER_00]: as an atheist, but I can appreciate that, you know, I'm not blind to, to humanity, to the beauty and humanity.
35:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what that was.
35:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't know where I was going with all that.
35:37
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure, sure.
35:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, he's awesome in my mom and silly.
35:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:42
[SPEAKER_00]: our hearts and good shape.
35:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, we're good.
35:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
35:46
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
35:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Number seven, the differentiation of society generally has a negative effect on religiosity, but can also strengthen religious plurality in specific areas.
36:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
36:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Differentiation of society, meaning like
36:07
[SPEAKER_00]: naming all the different groups that we are.
36:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Like all the different labels.
36:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
36:13
[SPEAKER_00]: All the different groups that might be persecuted, right?
36:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.
36:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's where that's was going.
36:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
36:21
[SPEAKER_00]: naming all of the different groups has a negative effect on religiosity because like let's think for example, the LGBTQI group, right?
36:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like if you're around them all the time, it's not going to be
36:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, not only that, but as we name different groups, and we say, hey, that group is being persecuted, then they gain more recognition as a people who exist and as a people who deserve the same rights and humanity as any other group.
36:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, you're forced to face it and deal with it as a society.
37:02
[UNKNOWN]: So
37:03
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I just, like, it's like you can know this is true, but the phrasing of it, I found so, like, question, question, you know, it made me think.
37:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
37:13
[SPEAKER_00]: The differentiation of society generally has a negative effect on religiosity, but can also strengthen religious plurality in specific areas.
37:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So as these different groups, for example, again, LGBTQIA,
37:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Gaines, it's notoriety or Gaines recognition as a people who deserve human rights like anybody else, religiosity can push back.
37:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
37:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And it'd be like the hell you say, you know, queer folk, which is, you know, something that's happening right now.
37:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
37:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
37:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And also
37:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, who say that?
37:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah, just to be clear.
37:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Obviously, for any new listeners, you know, that that's not what we think.
38:03
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
38:04
[SPEAKER_00]: We love our queer listeners.
38:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, yeah.
38:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Sorry, I don't know where I was going with that either.
38:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm headed towards the end of my life.
38:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, beds.
38:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, okay.
38:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So then number eight, external religious coercion through.
38:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Institutional rules and community expectations stops people internalizing religious ideas and practices.
38:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Say that one more time.
38:37
[SPEAKER_00]: External religious coercion through institutional rules and community expectations stops people internalizing religious ideas and practices.
38:49
[SPEAKER_00]: If that goes with what you were saying where
38:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, people who like they're just going through the motions.
38:55
[SPEAKER_00]: They call themselves Christians because they go to church every Sunday and they do all the things.
39:00
[SPEAKER_00]: They're doing all the things.
39:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So they don't internalize their faith.
39:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
39:03
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, sure.
39:05
[SPEAKER_00]: They just have it.
39:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when you start asking them.
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to Sunday Christians.
39:09
[SPEAKER_00]: None of this is certainly maybe they really are like sure.
39:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a Christian.
39:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I do all the Christian things.
39:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
39:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, but you start asking them was that mean and you start asking them.
39:19
[SPEAKER_00]: What do you believe?
39:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, I don't know the things.
39:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I go to church every Sunday and Wednesday.
39:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Read the fucking devotional every day.
39:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I believe the things.
39:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
39:31
[SPEAKER_00]: You know the things.
39:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
39:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, but tell me about the things.
39:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, but I didn't internalize it.
39:37
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just the things.
39:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
39:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
39:40
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just, it's a practice, not a, um, choice.
39:44
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
39:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
39:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
39:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I just do it by road.
39:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
39:49
[UNKNOWN]: Yeah.
39:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, um, so you have no interest in it then.
39:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
39:55
[SPEAKER_00]: That's I think that's what always kills me and the people that like, they call themselves Christian, but they don't actually do any of the parts that show that they have in interest in it.
40:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Whereas I have an interest in everything.
40:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm like signed up for all of these different online class things where I read so
40:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't I don't quite I mean I do understand because he
40:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Most people just don't have time for that shit, right?
40:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they're not gonna have time to study the Bible.
40:31
[SPEAKER_01]: They're just taking it.
40:33
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the tradition and the life of the church.
40:36
[SPEAKER_00]: You would tell me, this is the most important factor of who you are.
40:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
40:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And you don't have time?
40:42
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I turn everything you can to.
40:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You know it.
40:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You know I agree with you.
40:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I've railed against this a couple of times in the past.
40:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure.
40:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And
40:54
[SPEAKER_01]: It's one of those things where I kind of see both sides also because they've grown up with it and there's they can't they can't see that way out of it.
41:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So they're just in it.
41:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, like they there's no way they to get out of it.
41:09
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I see that, but then when I ask, you know, questions about it and they're like, um, like, why doesn't the label go off?
41:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And why don't they start thinking, oh, you're right.
41:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, think how much is involved in leaving that religion.
41:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You've, you've grown up in that religion.
41:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You're still in that religion.
41:28
[SPEAKER_01]: All your friends and family are in that religion.
41:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it's very difficult.
41:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Anybody to leave their religion.
41:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just saying, this is the most important part of your identity.
41:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You should know more.
41:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Why aren't you interested in knowing more?
41:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that I've asked that question, what are you going to do about it?
41:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to learn more?
41:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to even ask yourself, like, maybe I don't like this?
41:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I've never even thought about it.
41:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, but like, gravity is really important to us, right?
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know everything about it.
41:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't walk around with it as an identity on my YouTube show.
41:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying.
41:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't go knocking on door saying, have you been gravitated?
42:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying that they take it for granted as something that exists much like we take for granted the gravity.
42:11
[SPEAKER_00]: But clearly they don't take it for granted if they wear it around their fucking neck as a reminder and a signal and if they go by stickers for their car and if they give up money out of their budget and if they go knocking on doors they don't take it for granted if they're trying to get other people to join their club.
42:29
[SPEAKER_00]: If they feel threatened they're not taking it for granted.
42:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
42:34
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't have it both ways is what I'm saying.
42:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand that it's never occurred to you before because you grew up in it.
42:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I grant you that.
42:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
42:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You've never been asked before these questions and it's never even entered your little brain, right?
42:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I get it.
42:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Brand new conversation, right?
42:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So now I'm asking you.
42:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Christianity is the most important part of who you are.
42:59
[SPEAKER_00]: It's your entire identity is
43:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So now that I've asked you, are you like, totally and completely fucking like, wow, I am interested in learning more.
43:13
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what the answer is?
43:14
[SPEAKER_00]: No, you know how I know that because I asked my mom like,
43:19
[SPEAKER_00]: There's these different classes, like the great courses, for example, has these how to how to understand the old testament or how to understand the new testament or, you know, roam during the whatever blah blah blah when fucking religion, Christianity, like all of the all of the different history things, right?
43:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
43:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like telling my mom, hey, you can sign up for these for free through the library, blah, blah, blah, blah, and then you can watch these.
43:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, eh, and it wasn't just this particular class or whatever, I was like, well, would you be interested if it was a different program?
44:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Not really.
44:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like,
44:04
[SPEAKER_00]: you're not interested in anything that says how to understand the Old Testament better, not really.
44:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, but you're talking about your parents who shop for a church to find one that was based around the same opinions that they had opinions on what.
44:20
[SPEAKER_01]: religion should be.
44:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So they found the church that matches what they wanted, they were looking for a reason to be able to... Oh, they go there, they're back in a brick and mortar church now.
44:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you told me that actually, yeah.
44:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they wanted people, right?
44:35
[SPEAKER_00]: They made people.
44:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But part of that, for some, I think some people, and I'm not saying even the majority of people, but some people,
44:43
[SPEAKER_01]: want to be able to have their ideas and just feel comfortable in them, right?
44:47
[SPEAKER_01]: They just want these things to be true and so they go find somebody that tells them that true.
44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And then as long as something that person keeps telling them is true, they're fine, they're happy and yay God.
44:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I just cannot understand something being so part of my identity and then not wanting to learn everything I possibly can about it that doesn't track for me.
45:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
45:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure the answer wasn't, no because I'm already studying these other things over here.
45:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't, it wasn't, I'm interested in learning, yes, but I'm doing these things.
45:27
[SPEAKER_00]: already.
45:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It was, nah, I'm not really interested in learning anything more than what I already fucking know.
45:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, oh, so you're not fucking that interested.
45:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's really more about the appearance of it being part of your identity.
45:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not really part of your identity and your interest.
45:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not interested in it.
45:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You're interested in people thinking that you're
45:57
[SPEAKER_01]: For a lot of people, it's the imagery in the club, it's the social aspect of it, it's the, and yes, it is, they do believe that they believe because of the socialness, the club, the inherent importance of it in society, the, and whether they believe or not, they believe.
46:24
[SPEAKER_01]: They definitely believe, right?
46:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But the reason they got there, that's what I question.
46:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the reason they got there is for what reason brought you to this specific church, the specific belief, because you sought this out for yourself to be, so that you could be the way that you are.
46:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So did you find God or did
46:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Did God find you because it felt feels more like it's the first one you you found your God God didn't come to you right yeah I don't know I just
47:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very annoying.
47:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very annoying because there are a lot of ways that I identify as and I try to seek information about those things because I'm interested in them.
47:27
[SPEAKER_00]: all the different ways of writing and reading and books and the written word and oral history, you know, all the things.
47:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
47:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said oral history.
47:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I know somebody in the discord is about to
47:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, number nine, traditional Christianity in Europe thrives more on majority appeal, I'm sorry, majority approval, yeah, then on competition and conflict, they present themselves as members of a threatened majority religion that must assert itself against the growing presence of the foreign.
48:11
[SPEAKER_00]: The study concludes from this that the perceived threat posed by competing belief systems seems to have a reinforcing effect on religiosity only if it is already deeply rooted in the population.
48:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
48:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So that kind of goes with what you were saying earlier.
48:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Where
48:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Hold on, sorry, it just lost my trade with that.
48:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Majority approval.
48:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's like the whole large religion, right?
48:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And then it feels threatened or perceives that there's a threat by a competing belief or a competing belief system.
48:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
49:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, because it is already deeply rooted in the population, then it, you know, tries to fight the other competing one.
49:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
49:10
[SPEAKER_00]: But if it's not that deeply rooted, then it's like, eh, what else?
49:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
49:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
49:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Living live or whatever.
49:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
49:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But I like the part where it says they present themselves as members of a threatened majority religion that must assert itself against the growing presence of the foreign.
49:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's exactly where the U.S. is at currently.
49:34
[SPEAKER_00]: They're like, only Christian, the United States is Christian.
49:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a Christian nation built on Christian principles.
49:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the media is playing into that.
49:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
49:45
[SPEAKER_01]: The fear that, that, that, that, the fear of the, The feeling, um, sense that the sense that
49:52
[SPEAKER_01]: your religion, your identity as white Christian Americans is dwindling rapidly because of this secular and this liberal group over here.
50:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And so they're using that as a reason to enforce religion and revamp religion and bring it back because you've got a fight, you've got a fight hard to keep what we have, you know?
50:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
50:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, you could just believe whatever you want to believe over there and we'll believe whatever we want to believe and we just all be cool, you know?
50:20
[SPEAKER_00]: We could just live in life.
50:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that'd be nice.
50:25
[SPEAKER_00]: We could just, you leave me alone.
50:27
[SPEAKER_00]: We could just, you don't put your religious laws on me.
50:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
50:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We could just, I could have an abortion or be gay if I want to.
50:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
50:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that would be cool.
50:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
50:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I could just be involved with a person who isn't white if I want to.
50:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm.
50:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You know?
50:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of which, I was at the gas station today.
50:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I hadn't told you this story yet.
50:49
[SPEAKER_00]: No, that's one way.
50:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
50:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
50:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
50:51
[SPEAKER_00]: How is this, bro?
50:53
[SPEAKER_01]: That's so.
50:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I was at the gas station and I noticed this Vietnam vet guy wearing a hat looked a little sour like he wasn't real happy sounding but then then there was this couple of black man white woman that ran the store and the black guy was walking around saying good morning everybody just being real cheerful real nice like I mean really great guy like I had a small conversation with them there was a couple of people at a small conversation with he was really
51:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, okay, it's kind of cool.
51:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, both the Vietnam vet and this couple were up at the register at the same time.
51:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And the white Vietnam vet guy just kind of like stared at them the whole time with a flower.
51:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, that seems like it's just going in the wrong direction over here.
51:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And then...
51:42
[SPEAKER_01]: on my way out, they both were kind of leaving at the same time and they had parked right next to each other and this Vietnam vet guy stood outside of his car on his driver's side facing this guy's truck, blowering at him, like with the sourced fucking look I've ever seen and then started shaking his head and no, are you kidding me?
52:03
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, I'm like holy fucking shit.
52:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I just witnessed like direct racism, terrible, direct racism, like we're shaking us.
52:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah.
52:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like wow this is fucking crazy and I know it exists right and I know they exist out there right but like to just see it happen at the gas station in the morning on my way in I'm like oh my god that is fucking crazy like it makes you want to like walk up to a mistake you're ahead of him oh I did I stared and I stared and down from where I was I mean I wasn't gonna what am I gonna go over there and confront a fucking old Vietnam vet guy right that's whatever but I did stare at him
52:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But I don't know if you saw where not, but it made me feel better at least.
52:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So, right?
52:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
52:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, just to be clear to anybody who doesn't understand what we're talking about or who maybe is in a different country, not the U.S., and it's like, what is that?
53:05
[SPEAKER_00]: The Vietnam vet was clearly displeased about a mixed race couple.
53:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
53:15
[SPEAKER_00]: a black man would take a white woman or that a white woman would allow herself to be disgraced with a black man.
53:25
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what that was about.
53:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's disgusting that he thought that way.
53:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
53:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So all right, that brings us to the the final point, number 10.
53:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Small religious communities benefit from conflicts with the majority society, especially when they also represent non-religious interests.
53:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
53:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you read that again?
53:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
53:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Small religious communities, so like the one that you grew up in, Sure.
53:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of.
54:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Benefit from conflicts with the majority society, especially when they also represent non-religious interests.
54:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, not really sure.
54:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't feel like what I grew up in.
54:15
[SPEAKER_01]: That just feel that feels like minority religions or minority groups benefit from conflicts with the larger group.
54:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it gives them something to stand against some of those larger groups.
54:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, well, we don't stand for that.
54:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Come over here.
54:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We believe that.
54:32
[SPEAKER_00]: The white anti-identifying.
54:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, yeah.
54:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
54:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, here's what it says within the context, just to give it more context.
54:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Evangelical and Pentecostal groups in the US and Latin America use a subcultural identity to distance themselves from the majority society while at the same time influencing it through social and political interventions.
54:58
[SPEAKER_00]: For example, on issues such as abortion and homosexuality, the study shows that their relationship with the rest of society is marked by the conflicting, simultaneous separation and connection.
55:11
[SPEAKER_00]: This often has an identity forming effect on members who can thus apply their faith effectively in sociopolitical debates.
55:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So it gives them an identity.
55:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It gives you something to stand on the set to a part, right?
55:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Right, right.
55:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So you can be that small time little religious dude that shows up at a high school and a high school football game and wants to do prayer on the, on the goal line, right?
55:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's small that becomes national news.
55:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah.
55:57
[SPEAKER_00]: stories.
55:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because you're willing to take your religion that far.
56:02
[SPEAKER_01]: You make national news.
56:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And you also come across as, like, the way it comes across is I'm more religious than like you.
56:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You should be ashamed about how unreligious you are because I'm so religious.
56:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm doing this.
56:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm devout a pot of mess.
56:16
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
56:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
56:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
56:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Which is so funny because I wasn't even from that fucking town or whatever.
56:21
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I know that whole thing was crazy.
56:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
56:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there was a movie apparently.
56:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh really?
56:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I think they made a movie about him.
56:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, he's pretty short and interested.
56:31
[SPEAKER_01]: No, no, not at all.
56:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Speaking of movies, okay, this is a little off topic, but kind of not really.
56:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Who was the name of that movie that you and I just watched?
56:40
[SPEAKER_01]: One more battle or bad one bath or another.
56:44
[SPEAKER_00]: One battle after another.
56:45
[SPEAKER_00]: That movie was fucking brilliant.
56:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It really was.
56:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And I highly recommend it.
56:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
56:52
[SPEAKER_00]: it made a caricature of everybody like, but in such a good way.
56:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, it was really very movie.
57:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and and I would love to have a conversation with anybody who's seen it.
57:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, I really like to a lot.
57:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, well, did you have anything else to add?
57:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Where is that the
57:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the 10 points of that article and the study.
57:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
57:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And the press release.
57:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We're right out about an hour.
57:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So I feel like this is a good place to say the in the podcast.
57:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And well, I guess no, let me ask you this as we head out.
57:31
[SPEAKER_00]: having gone through all those points and now been introduced to that study, do you feel like in the world, not just the US?
57:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Sure.
57:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you feel like in the world today, do you feel a little more hopeful that religiosity is becoming less important?
57:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Or does that knowledge,
57:55
[SPEAKER_00]: But up right against what you are living in field.
57:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess I already knew it was becoming less important globally.
58:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, what does that actually mean?
58:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't really mean anything to me.
58:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I live in the Midwest where religion has become a more in my face than ever in my entire life.
58:13
[SPEAKER_01]: because of that almost right yeah and and yeah it's great to know that like you know Scandinavian countries generally are much less religious or or you know the UK is less religious or whatever like all these places are awesome right yeah for where I live yeah and so
58:33
[SPEAKER_01]: This is, you know, we, we say this, it's just a trope at this point, but like, we do this podcast because it affects us directly.
58:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Personally.
58:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Religion affects us directly.
58:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Personally.
58:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Every fucking day.
58:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not just religion, it's the hate that goes along with it, which is why the guy doing the racist thing at the gas station day fits right into this podcast because that guy I guarantee is a quote-unquote Christian.
58:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, right and There's other things that happen recently where people were quote-unquote Christians in my life where I'm like no terrible person terrible person like I mean
59:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I could go on and on and on about shit that is not right, but it's still things I have to deal with on a daily basis.
59:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And people I have to interact with on a daily basis.
59:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So whether or not it's declining globally or people are having less this out of the other, it's more of a conversation in my life than I've ever had to have regardless, even separate from this podcast.
59:34
[SPEAKER_01]: People that don't even know I have this podcast.
59:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just something that is always there.
59:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always in front of me.
59:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always something I have to deal with.
59:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And our politics too, and just social everything is the religion is so wrapped up in it right now in the US.
59:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can't, we can't get away from them.
59:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So the decline is wonderful and great, and I don't see it.
59:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was going to say it's good to know on a global basis, but it doesn't really impact me on a daily personal level because it's not what I'm currently experiencing.
1:00:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, what I'm currently experiencing is where I work.
1:00:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, is a bunch of fucking boomers on the decline, and so all of their TVs are set to fucking Fox News.
1:00:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
1:00:23
[SPEAKER_00]: You know?
1:00:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:00:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And, um, hearing racist things, um, about the people of color that AIDS and nurses who help them.
1:00:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's one of those is just the people that proclaim these things are sometimes some of the most terrible people I've ever met, right?
1:00:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it just feels like a part of me just wants to be angry at religion, right?
1:00:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But I know that's not the answer because I know a lot of wonderful people that are religious, right?
1:00:56
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.
1:01:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I know more genuinely good people in the secular world than I do in religious worlds.
1:01:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
1:01:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know, maybe that's because I seek out people on that side, but like I definitely know an equal amount if not more religious people than secular people.
1:01:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, I don't know.
1:01:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, because of where we live, we are forced to know more religious than secular people.
1:01:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So whenever we do seek out secular people, they're naturally by just comparison because we've sought them out in the first place, gonna be fairly cool.
1:01:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
1:01:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
1:01:42
[SPEAKER_00]: the religious people are just around us, whether we seek them out or not, they're there.
1:01:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:01:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And the majority of them suck.
1:01:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:01:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Unfortunately.
1:01:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I, you know, I don't know what I'll say, just it's something that we have to live with and it's right there in our faces.
1:02:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
1:02:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I got nothing else.
1:02:03
[SPEAKER_00]: That was it.
1:02:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
1:02:05
[SPEAKER_01]: All right.
1:02:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you all for joining us today.
1:02:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, I winner is a bad time of year for us, like things just always tend to go wrong this time of year for us and just overall.
1:02:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to try to get more podcasts out, but I don't want to promise anything until it warms up because we do better and warm weather.
1:02:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But we will see you next time and don't forget to come join us on Discord.
1:02:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Yep.
1:02:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Bye.