This live call-in episode follows a caller named Marlin who argues the Bible is historical, while the hosts and guests compare it to the Iliad and explain atheism, agnosticism and skepticism. It also covers relics, whether belief is a choice, and how to talk to believers.
What is the difference between atheism, agnosticism and skepticism?
The host explains that atheist means not believing in God, while agnostic means not knowing for sure that a God exists. He says claiming to know there is no God would put the burden of proof on him, which he does not need to take on. A skeptic, he adds, does not believe without evidence. He calls himself all three and says they are not mutually exclusive, noting that most atheists he knows are also agnostics and skeptics.
Does the Bible being a historical document prove it is true?
When caller Marlin points to a fragment of the Gospel of John in the John Rylands Library, a speaker answers that a historical artifact does not make its contents historical. The Iliad is offered as a comparison: an ancient book people still read, though few believe the Greek gods fought at Troy. Another comparison is a historical novel like Gone with the Wind, where real events frame an invented story. The host repeatedly asks Marlin what makes the Bible more believable than the Iliad.
Are Christian relics really ancient?
The host tells Marlin to research when relics first appeared, saying almost all of them came from the First Crusade. He raises Emperor Constantine, credited with finding the cross of Jesus, and asks how much wood could last 272 years without rotting. Marlin answers with a wooden statue of Peter made around 1878 and the Black Nazarene in Manila. The host counters with the USS Constitution, a ship from the War of 1812 that is still around.
Can you choose to believe in God?
One guest says belief is not a choice, using an idea he got from content creator John Cohen called doxastic involuntarism, meaning you cannot choose your thoughts. You cannot choose to believe in Santa Claus or that your house is on fire, so you cannot choose to believe in a god without being convinced. He says that when he explains it this way to Christians in the Bible Belt, they stop and think. He stays calm and open rather than confrontational.
How should atheists talk to Christians and get involved locally?
The guest says calm conversation works better than calling believers stupid for thinking snakes can talk, because many atheists are former believers and these people are where they once were. He says some people, such as street preachers, cannot be reasoned with. He also describes local activism, noting that the Ten Commandments were recently passed for schools at the school board level, and he urges allying with groups like Christians Against Christian Nationalism.
Transcript highlights
Selected passages from the live stream, lightly edited for readability. Click a section time to jump to that part of the video.
Atheist definitions, trolls, and bots
[Commercial break]
The host says he thinks almost all the Christian trolls are just four or five people using different names and harassing people under those names while acting like they are not the same. He says it could get worse, because he has the ability to create an AI that can log into a YouTube channel and engage with people in live streams. He adds that you don’t need Russians to make bots like that. He also points out that when Ukraine bombed data centers in Russia a few weeks ago, there was a lot less trolling on the internet for about a week.
The host explains that he always claims to be an atheist, though he admits his form of atheism is a type of atheism, more or less. He says people have asked him whether atheism can take a theist approach, and he thinks it can. He says a person could have a personal god, and that everyone seems to have their own concept of exactly what God is.
He also says he frowns on callers who open by telling him what atheists believe. He describes callers who start with “okay, you atheist, you know, an atheist and a Christian,” and then spend so long correcting the definition of atheism that they never get to the topic they want to discuss. He says he hates sentences that begin with “you atheists believe.”
The section then turns to chat, where a viewer’s line reads “You Christians believe there’s a God,” which the host reads back as the discussion moves on.
Dashboard Build and Stream Tools Demo
Chris asked Kelly to respond to a chat comment from Zorra, who said that people want to demonize others. Kelly agreed that this was right and said it was good advice to read out what someone wrote, since listeners on the podcast need to know what is being answered. Chris said that he had forgotten he could bring the scripture up on the screen too.
Kelly showed John 3:16 on screen and enlarged the display because some viewers cannot see very well. The verse reads, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.” Kelly confirmed that the full screen option worked and that the display could be removed again with one click.
Chris then described the new dashboard he had built for hosts. It has everything a host needs, and he built a Stream Deck for it that morning. A host can open a link on their phone, click the Stream Deck option, and run parts of the show, though not all of it. They can bring up guests, run commercials, and pop up scriptures they have already saved. A host cannot type in a new scripture yet, but any saved one can be displayed and pulled down from the screen.
The dashboard also includes saved quick links for scriptures and for websites the hosts often show viewers, such as the heat map and the contradictions pages. Each one is a hot button that can be clicked to put that page on screen. Chris said that most of the local AI he uses runs on his own machines, and he compared the current tools to how desktop computers were once expected to change everyone’s life in the 1990s.
Chris also talked about his own history with computers. He said he was terrified of them before he ever touched one, after his twin brother broke one at trade school, and that he later built his career working on them. Kelly and Chris reflected on how far computers have come since the Commodore 64.
Valkyrie joined the stream, and Chris welcomed her. She said she had been lurking in the audience for a while. Chris and Kelly then discussed a chat point about arguments such as the Kalam cosmological argument, fine-tuning, and Aquinas, which they said had already been debunked. Kelly said that the Shroud of Turin keeps being offered as new proof even though it has been debunked over and over. Chris asked whether needing to lie to support a position should make a person stop and ask whether they are on the right track.
[Commercial break]
Chris explained the purpose of the project. He is building new shows on the channel that are based on two people calling in about various topics, and he wants hosts to be able to run them with little effort. Kelly can add banners, bring callers up, check the calls, and start commercials from the dashboard. Chris has been hands off apart from reading the chat, and he said that the goal is for him to be able to step away on weekends.
Chris also described the chat moderation tools. The streamer bot is connected to the dashboard, and he plans to tune it so that a first use of a banned word, such as the R word, earns a warning and a second use earns a real ban instead of the toothless penalty they had before. He said he has not finished tuning the bot yet.
Chris said that Kelly can now run a show from start to finish alone once it is built and ready, simply by clicking the go button. They plan to bring in a second host, and Chris expects that there may be a few mistakes at first. He said he now believes the system can handle that, and that a mistake-catching feature will help when mistakes happen.
Atheism, agnosticism, skepticism and the Bible as history
Atheist means I don’t believe in God. An agnostic means I don’t know there’s a God, right? I don’t know for sure, I could be wrong. But if I said I know there is no God, then I’d be tasked with proving that, and I don’t need to. So I’m an atheist because I don’t believe, and I’m an agnostic because I don’t know. And I’m a skeptic because I don’t believe without evidence. You have to show me real evidence, you have to demonstrate it for me, and then I will. I have questions. I want to know things.
I watched you and Kelly interact yesterday, where you would say, “Oh, but this,” and Kelly would say, “Yeah, but what about this and this and this?” You’ve got to be a skeptic and ask hard questions about those kinds of beliefs. So I’m all three of those things, and I hope you understand that those three things are not mutually exclusive in any way. They usually come together. Most atheists I know are also agnostic and skeptics. That’s just my experience, I didn’t do any scientific polls or anything. I’m trying to make more of us atheists, but it’s been a bit of a struggle. The more I explain it, the more people follow, and the more conversions I get.
We were in the middle of a Bible story when we got distracted. The story is about Moses’s wife, who came out, went and got the kid, cut the kid’s foreskin off and put it on Moses’s feet. You can see how that would make you forget what you were saying. That’s the kind of detail that gets lost when you move on too fast, and it’s exactly why a transcript panel is useful for a show like this.
Marlin called in with a question about whether the Bible is a set of historical events. He said he does agree that there are some historical events in it, but he does not think the whole Bible is a historical account. I asked him whether he doesn’t agree that the Bible is a history book, and whether the country of Israel proves the Bible. He said no, and I told him I would let him explain it.
Let me try to explain this. Have you
Part 4
ever seen a historical novel where somebody takes um a part of history and they tell a story within that part of history? One a good example to me would be a a really famous movie Gone with the Wind, right? There’s a lot of historical stuff that is in that movie, but the story itself is I haven’t seen Gone. Okay. Well, well, the events the a lot of the events in the movie are are real. A lot of them are real, but the whole story itself is not real. And that’s that that’s what they do with a historical novel. They take a part of history and they take the facts of that part of history. Is
that your keyboard, Marlin? Oh. Oh, sorry. Yeah, it’s really loud. It’s a really loud keyboard. And they take and they tell a story. that they tell a story in that part of history using the facts of that part of history, but the story itself isn’t real. So that’s what I think the Bible is because I don’t think that any of the supernatural events in the Bible are historical. I don’t think those happened at all. There there was one that’s discovered. It’s the fragment of the Gospel of John. Yeah, you can find it in John Ryland’s library in Manchester, England. Okay. What does it have to do with what I just said, Marlin? It’s a fragment
of the Gospel of John. Like John the Apostle was one of the disciples of Jesus Christ, right? Yeah, I know who John was. But what what point are you getting to though? It’s a historical artifact, a historical document. Yes, I get. Yeah. Right. Yes. But that doesn’t mean the things that are written on it are historical. You understand that? You know what? Here, let me here here let me let me explain it differently. You know the Iliad? You know what the Iliad is? It’s the story of the War of Troy, right? We have copies of that that are historical. Now, did that war actually ever happen the way it is? Did the gods, the Greek
gods come down and fight, right? I don’t think so. Right? So, we have a historical book, the Iliad. It’s part of history. It’s been around for decade, for millennia, but we don’t believe that the story of the Iliad is real, do we? I I I I I don’t believe it. Right. Of course. So why why would you expect me to believe something that was written in the Bible? What makes the Bible different than the Iliad? The Iliad is a poem, right? Correct me. It was an epic poem. It was a long It was very long. It was an epic poem. Mostly when you find a copy of it today, you find it written in pros
more as like a story. And there’s been many movies made about it too. What? This is a a Bible. The Bible must have more. And why does why is the book of the Bible different than the book of the Iliad? What What about secular sources or the Bible? I Well, I don’t know what secular sources you’re talking about, but we still haven’t Marlin. Let’s f Marlin, let’s focus on this. Okay. Let’s focus on this. Why Why is the Bible more believable than the Iliad? What makes it more believable? I mean, with with the Bible, it has a connection. Christianity is the Iliad has a connection to Greek mythology. Greek mythology doesn’t have an established religion.
out there. Sure it does. Sure it does. And people there are there is actually a resurgence of that religion today. Yeah. Sure it does. Yeah. Yeah. Marlin, keep up with the world, man. What’s the I mean Christianity is the biggest religion. No, actually it’s not. Is it is Islam also? I I believe it is. It is Islam. Yes. I I’m going to bring up a a case. I I No, let’s not bring up anything else. Let’s go back to what we’re talking about here. Let’s stay on topic. Marlin, why is the stories of the Bible more believable than the stories of the Iliad? What is the difference between the two books that that makes one
Relics, ancient wood, and a caller’s deconversion story
The discussion began with the timing of Christian relics. Marlin suggested they were first located in the twelfth century, around 1,200 years later. The host pushed back: “Go look it up. They were found by the Knights Templar. Almost all the relics came from the First Crusade. Almost all of them. Go look up your history, Marlin. I’m imploring you to go and do some research and find out when these relics first appeared.”
The host then turned to Emperor Constantine, who is credited with discovering the cross of Jesus Christ. “When did he live?” the host asked, and the answer given was that Constantine ruled from 27 February 272 to 22 May. The host then asked Marlin how much wood could last 272 years without rotting away.
Marlin said that in his town there is a wooden statue of Peter the Apostle, made around 1878, and that the owner lives in his neighborhood. Asked whether the statue is still there, Marlin said yes and that it has not deteriorated at all in about 130 years. The host asked whether it was outdoors or indoors, and Marlin offered another example: the Black Nazarene in Quiapo, Manila, which he said has never been fixed, repaired, or replaced in any part.
The host added the USS Constitution as a counterexample, a ship that fought in the War of 1812 and is still around. The exchange was cut short, and the host said they would return to Marlin after a break.
[Commercial break]
The next caller, Kell, described a painful experience from seminary school. Kell had been a Christian and set out to debunk Thunderfoot’s videos on why people laugh at creationists. After watching one of the videos and getting up from the chair, Kell’s ex-wife threw a chef’s knife at Kell’s face and said, “You said you were an atheist.” Kell said they had not even realized they were an atheist at the time, and that they now judge all Christians by what happened.
The host responded with empathy, saying that having a knife thrown at you is traumatic and that they understood how it could affect later relationships with Christians. The host, who has experienced PTSD, asked whether Kell had talked about the incident with the ex-wife since. Kell said they are now divorced and that she would never admit the incident happened, claiming only that she threw whatever was in her hand. The host agreed that this did not excuse throwing a knife at someone’s face.
For a way forward, the host suggested that the best approach is exposure to the thing causing the problem, along with building relationships with more caring and kinder Christians, who do exist. The host recommended looking for a Unitarian Universalist church, which is
Atheist’s deconstruction story and Norse vision
Patriot grew up with Jehovah’s Witnesses across the street, Mormons up the road, and Catholics nearby. The theological debates he had as a young person taught him to ignore certain believers, because “they’re not true Christians.” Around the age of 11 or 12 he picked up the King James Bible and read it cover to cover. He decided that even if the God in it were real, he would not want to worship the God of the Old Testament, and that was when he started calling himself an atheist.
Around 12 or 13 he had an allergic reaction to an antibiotic called Bactrim, and during it he had a vision. “This was before I had seen the Thor movies. This is even before Skyrim had come out.” He found himself at the base of a mountain, on the edge of a battlefield, with a horse that carried him most of the way up before refusing to go further. He continued on foot to a giant man beside a bridge made of whale bones, with an overturned ship on the other side. The man said, “No harm in letting you take a peek. You’re not dead yet, but go have a look at your ancestors.” Inside, he saw an old man with one eye, who asked what he was doing there, told him it was not his time, and said, “Go back and fight.”
Patriot explained that the vision was very similar to the portion of Skyrim where you go through the Nordic afterlife, but he had experienced it before learning anything about Viking culture or playing the game. Afterward he decided to study more than Christianity. He has no fewer than five translations of the Bible, including a JPS Hebrew Bible, along with a Greek, Latin, and Aramaic New Testament. He said that a Jehovah’s Witness visited him the day before, looked at the collection for no more than 45 seconds, and said, “I can’t help you,” then walked away.
A super chat from Bryce Cerrone then asked whether not wanting to worship God is the definition of atheism. Patriot answered, “Well, effectively an atheist is someone that neither worships nor believes in gods. I just do not worship nor believe in one more god than the Christians do.” He said that if Odin with one eye were real, he would be a magical divine being in the clouds, but he thinks Odin is more likely “some kind of long since dead ancestor that we honor by telling his stories.” In his view, “all gods are just the retellings of stories of ancient heroes.”
Asked whether he had become a Nordic pagan, Patriot said no, and suggested that Woden might have been “not just one tribal chief but five tribal chiefs that lived over a course of 75 80 years,” whose stories were later merged into one person. He compared this to Jesus, whom he sees as “an amalgam of different people all pushed into one,” and to Arthur, who is most likely a composite of a Roman legionary, a Saxon king, and other legends. He also raised the discovery of the remains of Troy and asked how hardline Christians would respond. “Just because we have this historic one historical reference doesn’t mean the whole story is true,” he said, adding that this was the point he had hoped to get across in an earlier conversation.
Patriot’s next goal is to find a monk or priest who will teach him the ancient languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, so he can write a 100 to 300 page manuscript covering his study Bibles and reference books. He called it his speedrun of the desert quadrilogy, the Old Testament, New Testament, Quran, and Book of Mormon, and said he would add Dante, Milton, and the Gnostic Gospels. He would end it with a short essay on the story of Baldur, suggesting that Jesuit monks who were kidnapped by Vikings to write down the sagas may have inserted Baldur into the story to make conversion easier. He then explained the Baldur myth itself, including the prophecy that his death would be the first sign of the end times,
Part 7
they might not think too kindly of it, but is it is a doable thing and and if you get the right priest, you’ll probably get a pretty good discussion out of it if not an actual answer. Right. Well, effectively, if if you look at the Garden of Eden, like uh bloody uh Chris has mentioned this before. So unless you want to say it’s a lie of omission or whatnot that the the snake if you want to say the snake was Satan then he didn’t actually lie in the garden of Eden because in some some people I’ve asked the the Greek word that we translate today as surely more more so means like on this very
day that you eat this fruit you will die and supposedly if you read the text, Adam went on to live for another 900 years. Yeah. Now, I choose to I choose to interpret that as like so on begott so on and so on and live for x amount of years. Perhaps there are dynasties of kings or chieftains of the tribes of Israel. But uh if you want to take it literally that they are just one person and they live for that many years, surely ye did not die that day. Uh so the and what did the snake say? Surely ye shall not die, but ye shall be given knowledge of good and evil and become
like God. What’s the very next thing God says before kicking him out of the garden? They have become like God with knowledge of good and they have become like us. That’s the first question. Who is us? But uh they have become like us with knowledge of good and evil. Lest they eat the tree of eternal life and be and ascend I suffer not rivals. Mhm. So they they so he kicks him out of the garden and denies them access to the tree of life. But they go on to live for another nine bloody centuries. So surely ye did not die that day. And uh then you look at Job. A lot of people would like
to point out Job as one of one of Satan’s crimes. I I’ll have you know that in the beginning of Job, it says God held a meeting of all his sons and Satan was there. And after addressing all his other sons, he turned to Satan and said, “Where have you been? As you have made me, going to and fro, tempting the hearts of men. Have you considered my pious servant Job? Oh, he only is so pious because you so bless him. If uh if you would allow me to strike at him, I could eventually get him to curse your name.” A and in the and then God calls another meeting and says, “You know what?
You’re wrong. Uh don’t kill him, but do whatever the [ __ ] you want to him.” essentially. And at one point, Job is sitting in the pub and his former friends uh basically say, “You must be the most sinful bastard in all of Israel.” And Job cries out, “I do not know why the Lord hath forsaken me.” Uh the the word used in the Hebrew is uh is that of like one of his many names. But the point is back then you’re not supposed to say the name of of the of the god itself was heresy. So he called out called out the name of God saying that he has forsaken him. Satan won the
bout. And then if and then he suffers on for a little bit more and then God feels remorseful and redoubles everything he took from him. Land, livestock, uh [ __ ] uh wealth and also children at Paul’s uterus. But uh effectively God lost that bet with Satan. But also Satan was under orders. Like we don’t like giving the Nazis that defense, but like uh I if I were to be the devil’s lawyer, he was under orders to do the things he did to Joe. Mhm. I just We had Espresso Jack calling in so I I I let him come up on stage with us. So there three We have the three of us up here
Debating myths, history, and belief in atheism
Viewers and hosts discuss whether people still claim divinity for historical figures, and whether modern information makes myths harder to form. One speaker argues that the claims and foundations of the Trump movement were false and will not survive. The other points out that people will believe what they want regardless of accurate information, and that figures like Reagan, Bush, and Clinton were once widely praised without being made into gods. They agree that oral tradition allowed separate figures to merge into one legend over time, while modern documentation makes that harder, though link rot and lost web pages still leave gaps.
The conversation turns to how to verify sources, and one speaker suggests that the consensus of informed opinion is a better guide than any single expert. They agree that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that whether Jesus existed matters less to everyday life than some people assume. One speaker says that claims about talking snakes and talking donkeys are where the scrutiny should be strongest.
On the subject of believers, one speaker says that hardcore Christians who refuse logic are better understood as victims who were drilled into accepting a false reality from childhood. The other agrees that religious indoctrination is almost a form of brainwashing, and that it targets people who are vulnerable, such as children, the grieving, those struggling with addiction, and prisoners, rather than people who have their lives in order. Both acknowledge that former believers may understand this process more easily than people who were never religious.
The host closes by inviting theist callers to join the show and says he would welcome a conversation with any believer willing to challenge him. He notes that he would go past the scheduled end time to accommodate a caller, and the discussion then moves toward an unrelated topic about novelty products.
Talking to believers and local activism
[Commercial break]
What kind of reactions have you gotten when you’ve told people you were an atheist? Most of them are okay with it. Most people are fine that people have different beliefs, but the ones who weren’t fine usually didn’t understand what I was saying until I explained it to them. Most of the people I talk to are Christians, so I live in the Bible Belt. Some of them tell me that in the end you have to make a choice. I tell them I don’t think belief is a choice, and they think about it for a second when I say that. I got this from John Cohen, a really great atheist content creator. If you guys haven’t subscribed to him, please do. It’s John Cohen Unconvinced.
I tell them about doxastic involuntarism, which means you can’t choose your thoughts. For example, you can’t choose to believe in Santa Claus. You can’t choose to believe that your house is on fire. So just like that, I can’t choose to believe in a god or gods. I have to be convinced of it, just as they were convinced of their claims. When I explain it like that, they start thinking a little more. I’m not confrontational about it at all. I’m usually pretty open, willing to talk about it, and very calm.
There are some people you can’t reason with. I’ve had street preachers yell Bible verses at me, call people names, and tell them they’re going to hell. You can’t really reason with those people, so it’s best not to talk to them. People have to be willing to talk about it in order to be convinced, so you have to want to be open to it. If you go at them angry, acting like a know-it-all, and saying they’re so stupid for thinking snakes can talk, nobody is going to want to engage with you. You wouldn’t want to engage with a person like that either, just like I told you about the street preachers. It also goes back to what we were talking about earlier. A lot of us are former believers, and we have to remember that these people are where we once were. We have to work together to get over that.
That’s something I’m trying to convince everybody of. It depends on what you want to do with your time. Do you want to organize atheists? Do you want to get atheists fired up to do things? Those are different from trying to convert or deconvert people, so they’re two completely different approaches. My goal is to deconvert people. I would love to see religion get rid of altogether in the world. My role is to go out there, boots on the ground, talk to theists, and try to get them to think more critically and be more skeptical about the claims they believe in. But you get the angry atheist content creators getting people fired up, and they’re getting people to go out and get boots on the ground too. There’s room for both of us.
I think the effect you’re going for does have a certain sway on what you should do. I’m more for activating people in general, and I do my own secular activism on top of that. For example, I’m part of a group in my area that is involved in local politics. Sometimes religion comes up almost inevitably, because Christians are trying to establish certain laws and rules based only on Christianity, with no respect for any other religion or for having none. They just passed the Ten Commandments in schools at the school board level. These things aren’t just happening at the federal or state level. They’re on the local level, and that’s where we have the most power to do things. It’s a lot easier to get a thousand people to sway a local election than a federal one. If we all start there and be the change we want to see, that’s going to be far more effective, and it gives people more hope because they can see the change they’re making.
I think that’s how most big movements have started, with grassroots first and then they balloon from there. Getting other groups with similar interests to ally with you is a big thing too. If I can get three other groups to show up at my rally because I showed up at theirs, that helps everybody. There are more people at their rallies and more people at mine, and more of us are working toward a common goal. We also have groups like Christians Against Christian Nationalism. It’s super helpful. You don’t have to be confrontational with these people, because we’re on the same side. They want religion out of the government just as much as I do. So we should be allied with them against our common enemy.
Technical trouble and super chat housekeeping
This section was mostly taken up with technical problems, including a guest who kept dropping out and difficulty finding the super chat panel in the live chat. Chris read out a super chat from Bryce Roni, who wrote that not wanting to worship God isn’t the definition of atheism, and asked what Patriot, a previous guest, thought of atheists. Patriot was well received, and Chris said he had a lot of knowledge about mythology. Kelly said she appreciated the community and that viewers had been friendly. The rest of the segment covered how to end the stream and the show’s closing remarks.
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