Talk Heathen 08.38 with Doctor Ben and Scott Dickie

Talk Heathen

In today’s episode of the Talk Heathen, Doctor Ben and Scott Dickie take on a variety of callers with intriguing subjects!

Ryan in MI wants to discuss OCD and religion, and explains how he has experienced people on the internet telling him his hobbies would send him to hell. How would you explain how this has affected you? How did this play into your way out of religion? Sometimes it can be good to put up some boundaries and take a step back from the internet.


Jackie in MS argues that religion is accurate and inescapable because humans rely on storytelling and religions are stories. Do stories have to be religious, and is all storytelling inherently religious in nature? Why is whatever is at the top of the hierarchy divine? What makes this holy? Are you supporting religion as an institution or are you supporting the claims that people make about god? By what you are saying, any book in this reality is true. How do the Judeo-Christian documents reflect a true depiction of reality? Why are you excluding the claims of Eastern religions? Richard Gilliver joins in at this point and explains that we are not interested in gishy gallop, therefore god, we are interested in why you believe. What convinced you that the Western society has it right? They weren’t founded on Christian principles anyway. Without quoting someone else, what value does religion add to your statements? Without redefining things, how would you convince us that religion needs this much attention?


Benjamin in AL wants to talk about the fallacies of supernaturalism and that supernatural claims can’t be justified through natural means. If you are claiming that something exists in our reality, you need to be able to demonstrate that. How would you go about justifying any supernatural claim and what are the reasons for believing in your god? How did you decide that you needed any religion at all? Why do you need a religion to tell you what to do and just have your own belief? What is keeping you in the church? Dr. Ben explains that being a patient of a code does not mean you have physically died. He explains that as you lose oxygen, you lose function, ability to ration, and things can be distorted. If you learned that these experiences had a natural explanation, would you still believe in a god? It is important to be critical of ourselves and our own beliefs.


Malylun, a monk in FL is curious about people’s opinions on monks, and describes some looks he gets in public with how he is dressed. A lot of the U.S. is not great with respecting culture. In many ways, it is just something that people are not used to and the brain is trying to categorize things that are new and novel. This could trigger a fear response and is why we see xenophobic things.


Thank you for tuning in this week! Talk Heathen to me of the week is: Title a porn movie starting Jesus!
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