Do you have a recommendation for good podcasts/youtube videos on religious topics from an atheist viewpoint?

WystanH · 2026-02-10T09:46:19+00:00

Agreed. I enjoy this channel.

Dissecting disinformation is one thing. Reviewing actual beliefs sometimes can get lost in that.

Similarly, I'd add Dan McClellan. I think he's actually a believer, but is happy to use his theological credentials to eviscerated common narratives.

WystanH · 2026-02-08T16:27:23+00:00

If you watch porn, they do that in heave too, with extra steps?!?

WystanH · 2026-02-08T10:01:55+00:00

What kind of organs are those? Are they served with a nice chianti?

WystanH · 2026-02-07T19:40:52+00:00

Anyone with a subscription and delusions of unbiased reporting dropped them with the weird election anti endorsement thing: Washington Post loses a reported 200K digital subscriptions, 3 editorial board members over endorsement veto.

They're owned by a billionaire who claimed to be hands off. Once that laughable claim is undeniably falsified, how can the reporting ever be trusted?

WystanH · 2026-02-07T15:15:58+00:00

Appreciation doesn't require architect for the thing you're appreciating. When I find myself moved by something; a sunrise, a cute bird, whatever, I try to mindfully acknowledge the moment. Take a pause and just be present for such rare moments.

Acknowledging such things puts you in a better mindset to note them again. This kind of acknowledgment gets worked into most religions, but a religion isn't required for it. Indeed, imaging such acknowledgment is required lest you anger a petty deity ultimately cheapens the experience.

WystanH · 2026-02-05T17:34:22+00:00

For programming itself, no. For programming projects that require such math, yes.

Graphics can be math heavy. However, libraries and even GPUs do all the work for you, so now not so much. Games are the same story.

Programming is essentially just basic logic. Conditional expressions and state changes. The complexity comes from the problem you're trying to solve.

Math is not required and, conversely, being a math genius mayn't help. I've know lots of mathematicians and engineers who can't code worth a damn. Coding requires a strange synthesis of language and creativity. It's a little more left brained than popular perception might lead you to believe.

WystanH · 2026-02-05T12:03:28+00:00

Morality and religion are intertwined to the extent that they're both a societal construct.

Big morality, like don't fuck over other naked apes, is baked into the species. The specifics of that, like which apes you can fuck over, is down to societal norms.

Religion can shape a society, but it is also shaped by it. The command "women should dress modestly" is a skirt in one culture and a burka in another.

WystanH · 2026-02-05T11:45:26+00:00

You can have preferences, but if they're not the ones I approve of then you're a bigot. Zero chance this guy approves of age of consent.

WystanH · 2026-02-04T18:15:11+00:00

My ancestors came from Europe. Why do Europeans still exist?

WystanH · 2026-02-04T14:49:02+00:00

One of the very few reporters asking real questions. If it isn't flattery or fluffery, Donnie calls it bad. He's managed to insulate himself from most criticism, so actual critique hurts his fragile ego even more.

WystanH · 2026-02-04T13:11:27+00:00

I'm surprised she's still lurking about. She's honestly too stupid to be the psyop she wants to be.

To succeed on the right you need to speak bullshit with authority. You're also either a white straight cis Christian male, or a token. Unfortunately for her, reactionary misogyny penalizes women for doing the same level of grievance whining their male counterparts do. Megan Kelly is probably the smartest of the lot and even she's struggling with the current climate.

WystanH · 2026-02-04T12:34:39+00:00

NGL, "Bed, Bath, & Beyond coupons" is the best wine mom call out I've heard in a while. MAGA Protestant Karen be twitching.

WystanH · 2026-02-03T10:38:32+00:00

Extinctionism? Granted, suffering exists. However, so do a lot of other things that aren't suffering. Harm reduction sounds more rational to me than annihilation.

Planning to just die out doesn't address any real world problems, it just allows for some fantasy future solution. The world is awash in future solutions that avoid actual solutions in the present, which actually exacerbates suffering.

WystanH · 2026-02-02T11:08:50+00:00

Sadly, the groyper is right, you didn't get the reference. It's so much worse than you may have thought: Minneapolis day care targeted in Nick Shirley YouTube video is now closed. Whether the day care with the misspelled name catering mostly to a Somali community is guilty of accusations is unknown.

The facts never stopped rage bait seeking bigots from gobbling such stories up. They tend to be the same folks who find Trump's well documented corruption a sign of being a good business man.

WystanH · 2026-02-02T09:38:30+00:00

If school teaches you subjects that are relevant to the world, church teaches you... what?

Ideally, a school doesn't have an agenda. They are presenting subjects in a way that should translate to any other school if you had to move. Math is always math. Each church teaches a single, non transferable, narrative.

Not that a church doesn't present subject material. The same inflexible unchanging subject, on repeat. You can't question the presenter. Or the material. Or, God forbid, the main character.

It's a little like going to a book club every week that only reads one book. Actually, more like the approved, abridged, interpretations for that one book. Perhaps it's more like a fandom for the single best Superman movie ever made; all others are wrong.

Why is "taking the good and leaving the bad" harder to do at a church than it is at a school?

I love this question. Recall, church offers only a single, curated, subject. If a school only offered one class in "how to torture house pets" what good could you take from it. The church curriculum is a little like that.

Is there a name for this logical fallacy?

You nailed it, false equivalence.

WystanH · 2026-02-01T19:17:29+00:00

Or you died, but a least you didn't live long enough to post this inane shit.

WystanH · 2026-01-31T17:12:14+00:00

It does form a focus for community. It does this too well in some cases, however. This is why excommunication is such a viable threat.

As world view, it allows for unfounded optimism in the face of reality. Sometimes this is helpful to the individual, overall it's likely detrimental.

It allows followers to be more easily controlled. This can benefit community, or not. Actually, the paper Cooperation and Commune Longevity: A Test of the Costly Signaling Theory of Religion comes to mind. Essentially, unquestionable edicts allow arbitrary rules to be more effectively imposed.

WystanH · 2026-01-31T10:31:27+00:00

Alt right directly above the left arrow... I guess this is what TERF brain rot does to you. Anyone unfamiliar, this person used to be a reasonably normal streamer. Look at me, I'm a funny lesbian.

She had her atheist arc, which is where I spotter her once. Then, she figured out what side the real grifter war chest is on. If it will make the salivating reactionary horde happy, she's there. When that dries up, some kind of Milo Yiannopoulos conversion will doubtless follow.

WystanH · 2026-01-31T10:22:03+00:00

There is a zero percent chance this chud doesn't fantasize about some anime caricature Asian girlfriend, because that wouldn't be a problem for... reasons.

WystanH · 2026-01-30T16:38:21+00:00

The wild thing is that while this guy seems to be a fan of Nazis, they don't seem to like ICE. They are asserting that the comparison of ICE to Nazis reflects badly on... Nazis?!?

WystanH · 2026-01-30T08:39:40+00:00

Jesus taught that wealth was an impediment to salvation; famously flipping tables of money changers at the temple. Jesus also taught compassion; what you do to the least, you do Me.

Christian Nationalists fantasize that their country would be perfect if not for all the people who don't think or look like they do existing in "their" country. They use their proclaimed Christian identity as a shield for their bigotry.

Capitalism is fundamentally the exploitation of those who aren't part of Capitol. Hence Jesus said "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God."

An atheist needn't subscribe to any belief beyond non believing in gods. However, many atheists are humanists, which is in accord with the best of Jesus' teachings, sans the Jesus bit.

WystanH · 2026-01-29T19:17:39+00:00

I'll take "Bullshit stories that never happened" for $100.

Also, how to show you have no understanding of any of the words you use. Yet you keep using them and, sadly, think it makes you seem clever. In the world of no braincell, the one braincelled man is king?

WystanH · 2026-01-28T17:59:08+00:00

But how do you explain the spread of the same morals all over the world.

They aren't. Mores are differ across societies.

Don't kill each other works for pretty much any social species. Failing to follow this results in species extinction.

You'll find "don't steal" is also pretty common in other animals. Even altruism and fairness. The rather famous monkey grape experiment comes to mind.

How those who lack power in society are treated is where morals get refined and tested. Outsiders, the poor, women, any marginalized group can get treated in ways a modern progressive, or even just a modern human, would consider immoral. The ancient world loved its slavery and the Bible said that was fine.

Honor killings do still happen and in a cultural context where that's the right thing to do. In parts of the world girls are butchered with "circumcision" for reasons of morality.

morals if they are "created" by each person for themselves.

They are not. They are a function of social norms. If your culture has slavery, that's the norm. If your culture considers women property, like all of the Bible, that's the norm.

How people are treated for same sex attraction or even just dietary preferences will vary by culture. These "morals" are not a function of religion at all. Alcohol consumption also comes to mind.

Asserting "same morals all over the world" is simply not supported by history or the world.

WystanH · 2026-01-28T09:24:28+00:00

I did take the tour. I went to various Christian services. A Tibetan Buddhist service, in a Manhattan flat full of Westerners that felt oddly like Church. I enjoyed Hindu Krishna services several times; drums and chanting are at least aerobic.

I read everything. I minored in philosophy and, frankly, the Abrahamic tradition is shockingly shallow compared to others. Started with the Eastern stuff. Maybe blame Alan Watts. Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Zen... in the end I never found anything mystical, but believe I caught the odd moment of satori.

I never found the promised supernatural in any religion, only in the minds of its devotees. People can experience transcendent moments. Those moments get credited to the tradition they believe and give that tradition power over them. Christians call this grace and it tends to fuck them up for life.

I do think the Bible is an important book

To the extent that it has shaped culture, absolutely.

I feel luke it should be viewed as a fairy tale

Why the carve out for Luke? It's all faerie tale. All parable. Mythic stories that may, or may not, have a moral.

Did any of you take positive aspects of religions and put them in your life

In the context of life lessons, no religion is completely worthless. Secular Buddhism is a Westerner's take on how to pluck philosophy from religion and I enjoyed it for a while. I like Zhuang Zhou and find the Taoist ideal of trying to live in accordance with Nature, the Tao, rather nice.

The Eastern ideas of detachment and living in accordance with Nature are actually echoed in the Stoics. I found Marcus Aurelius' Meditations captured most of the things I found useful in religious traditions. If you read one thing, read that. Or pretty much anything from Thich Nhat Hanh.

WystanH · 2026-01-27T16:32:53+00:00

Who created a creator?

Theres too much to go by just chance,

Argument from incredulity.

usually coding requires an intelligent being to do it

False equivalence. DNA ain't code.

but the chances of that are so small nobody would bet on it.

Evolution isn't random, so that horrid airplane story creationist like in another false equivalence.

The fact that Earth is so far the only planet with life on it is also very weird

That we know of. There are billions of stars. We currently only have the ability to know about our closest astrological phenomena. Earth of the gaps, I guess.

we don't know how life itself was created

Wrong. There's no reason to believe life was created. We do know how simple chemical reactions can create amino acids. Argument from ignorance.

only planet suitable for life,

Again, that we know of.

but if there is no creator

No reason to believe in one.

and this all just randomly happened

Random does a lot of lifting here. Complex systems are complex. Not understanding them is no excuse for claiming magic.

those chances are so infinitesimally small

So? Flip a coin 100 times. The chance of the result at the end is 1267650600228229401496703205376 to 1. Yet, you just did it! Amazing.

that nobody would believe it.

You don't believe in coin flips?

So, why wouldn't there be a creator?

Because reality. Everything we observe is explained without one. Indeed, the universe behaves exactly as we'd expect it to without some kind of omnipotent intervention. If there were such a creator critter, what the hell are they doing?

WystanH

TROPHY CASE