by Dongtini — Episode 92
June 14, 2013 in Podcast by dongtini
On this episode: Simone’s harrowing yet ultimately quite successful birth experience, church-sanctioned porn ‘n pancakes, fertility is a bitch, when firemen are in your bedroom and you don’t have any pants on, the “Behind The Candelabra” film is finally here!, ugly babies, Hammerhead vs. foreigners, the new pope says even atheists can go to heaven, Rob Bell vs. Mark Driscoll, Tony Jones hosts a feminism week, Stephy’s Facebook note hoping to start conversation around misogyny in church, Lolly wails in the background, Taco Bell news, anal massage and hilarious baseball names. #CharlieFurbush
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The video on self anal breathing and massage you’ve been looking for!
In this interview, Rob Bell talks to Pete Holmes about hell and how maybe it’s not what we’ve been told it is.
Click here to hear it.
Stephy just read this.Closing song: Bee Gees — “Run To Me”
Welcome back!!! Great podcast!!!! Captivating as usual!!!
Fantastic episode! And being severely pregnancy/childbirth-phobic, I even got through it without having any chest pains. Progress!
Thanks, Caroline! Glad I didn’t traumatise you!
Wow, I laughed (a lot), I cried (or at least I nearly did) and I learned a thing or two about babies. This might be the last time I listen to Dongtini while eating, ha. Well done!
I think as the episodes go on, you’ll probably learn all the wrong things about babies.
So glad to have some Dongtini in my life again! I seriously missed you guys and it’s great to have you back! I sent that anal breathing video to a bunch of my friends. One or two still speak to me…
Oh and I really enjoyed the Rob Bell, Pete Holmes conversation but I didn’t enjoy their casual dismissal of atheism. But I still love Rob Bell, he will always be my second favourite Christian (next to Stephy)
How did they casually dismiss atheism? Please elaborate because I didn’t hear it.
Well I know these were two believers talking so I didn’t really expect a long conversation on how awesome unbelief is but two things really rubbed me against my grain.
Firstly there was the casual comment that it takes a lot of faith to be an Atheist. I always react strongly to that because it’s such bullshit. They talk about the weirdness of quantum physics and the mysteries of human consciousness and I agree, there is a lot we don’t know yet. But atheism doesn’t require faith, just patience. I’m willing to wait until we understand better and I don’t feel the need to insert God in there as a placeholder.
Secondly they talked about how most of the atheists on the show were shown to actually be agnostics because they admitted they didn’t really know what happened after you die. This is a common misconception but Atheism and Agnosticism are not mutually exclusive. I am both because they answer different questions. Agnosticism answers the question of can I really know for a fact what is true about the existence of God and an afterlife – no, I don’t know any of that with 100% certainty. Atheism on the other hand answers the question of do I believe in God – no I don’t.
Oh, that does sound irritating! The whole ‘it takes faith to be an atheist’ thing really shows a complete lack of understanding of atheism and how we arrive at that conclusion. For people willing to ask questions, I think that’s a big flaw in their approach to questioning if they think that some kind of faith is required to NOT believe in something. At the risk of sounding Dawkinsesque obnoxious in this simplification, that’s like saying one needs faith to disbelieve in the tooth fairy. The idea that one needs faith to not believe in the thing they happened to be raised in (and it doesn’t matter what that is!) is absurd. When people say things like that, I don’t feel they really know how to let go of their faith and truly ask the questions. I’m not speaking about these guys since I didn’t hear it, but just when people say that in general.
Your explanation for agnosticism vs atheism is great. It also makes agnostics out of many, if not most, believers as they can’t know with 100% certainty what happens after we die either. For me though, even entertaining the idea that anything happens when you die is nuts. We are only entertaining the idea that anything might because we have religions suggesting otherwise, and these are the ideas I reject that lead me to not believe in God. I think I don’t like the idea of entertaining the notion that something happens because of archaic, narcissistic bullshit. Is there any non-religious reason to think otherwise? Do we need to have space to entertain that we might all meet on the astral plain when we sleep because some hippies say that? Do we need to be agnostic about that too?
It’s 5am and I’m up for a feed, so excuse me if some of this doesn’t make sense. I’ve fixed it so many times already! Back to bed!
Nope, that all made perfect sense! I know of at least one Christian author (David Dark) who does make the argument that all believers are in fact agnostics because they believe but they do not know.
I agree that the idea of life after death is a religious one and since it’s not something there is evidence for the burden of proof (a.k.a THE ONUS!) is not on the non-believer. I don’t think I need to justify not believing in things, it’s the one who believes in unprovable things who needs to make the case for believing in it. Atheism should be the default starting point!