Holy Watermelon

To wrap up Spooktober we are talking about exorcisms! Exorcisms are not exclusively Catholic or Christian but can be found in religious traditions around the globe. Exorcisms have been taking place for centuries. Are these demonic possessions real? Or is there something deeper taking place?

Trigger Warning: We take a look at a few cases of people using claims of possession to abuse people.

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Preston Meyer  00:12

it's Saturday night

Katie Dooley  00:17

because the night lost an entire day of my life

00:23

Hi Katie. Hi, Preston.

Preston Meyer  00:27

Man, it's spooky time the

Katie Dooley  00:29

spookiest of the spooky just in time for Halloween, right for Halloween.

Preston Meyer  00:36

The spooky season. We've got about a week left of it. And this is our last spooky season episode. For now, on the whole podcast.

Katie Dooley  00:50

I was gonna say it's actually an exorcism. I like how you brought our intro. Thanks. I didn't know I didn't know what I was gonna do after that. Yeah, so today we're talking about exorcisms or demonic possession and getting rid of it. Mm hmm. We have we put a trigger warning in our notes. Some of these get a little gross suddenly feel gross. And there's some abuse stuff later on which I'll remind another trigger warning right before then. But yeah, just keep that in mind. As we dive into spooky, spooky things, kooky, spooky,

Preston Meyer  01:29

spooky, scary skeletons.

Katie Dooley  01:33

So what the heck even is exorcism?

Preston Meyer  01:35

Oh, man, it's, it's kind of a big heavy thing. Broadly speaking, an exorcism is the act of removing demons or gins, or malevolent spirits or spiritual entities from a person, or sometimes a place, a group of people a amalgam body. Well, we'll see some weird examples of that. I'm excited.

Katie Dooley  02:03

So being in the western country, we mostly hear about exorcisms from a Christian and a predominantly Catholic perspective. But it is an ancient practice that can be found all over the world. And across basically every religion, we have examples from most major religions. Yeah, it's

Preston Meyer  02:26

almost universal, I guess. Seems to be connected to this ancient primal fear that we have in us that there's something that we need to get rid of. It's an odd thing to observe in our species.

Katie Dooley  02:40

It is. And then part of me wonders how that feeling, links to sin. But that's a different episode. Yes. There's always something inherently wrong with us. Right.

Preston Meyer  02:53

So the interesting thing about exorcism is that the word actually means to administer an oath to exercise something is to make somebody bound in an obligation. And the word actually isn't connected to exhortation. Like I initially suspected it was when I went looking for the definition, even though that would have made sense as you're exhorting the demon to say, I'm gone. But no, it's more of actually causing this unpleasant entity to enter into an agreement to willingly leave, which is kind of interesting.

Katie Dooley  03:37

It really, yeah, it really is. It's, you know, we see it about like casting out but you're right. It's really like more of a bargaining than a termination of a lease. Right. I found a quote in the Atlantic, from the Atlantic news website, on the frequency of exorcisms. And so that's one pastor by the name of Thomas This is a quote it says most of the exorcist I interviewed said they believe that demonic possession was becoming more common, which we'll talk about in a minute. And they say that a resurgence in magic, divination, witchcraft, and attempts to communicate with the dead as a primary cause. According to Catholic teaching, engaging with the occult involves accessing parts of the spiritual realm realm that may be inhabited by demonic forces. Those practices become the engine that allows the demons to come in. And I want to bring this up early in the episode because we just finished our occult episode and before that we did wicker and I, wicker in actually both of them, I just don't really know how there's any opportunity for the demons to come in. Wicked doesn't deal with demons at all. The occult, if you get into seances, that might be a bit of a gray area but alchemy doesn't deal with them. Once at all, no, not so much. I just thought it was interesting. I guess the misinformation,

Preston Meyer  05:06

a lot of fundamentalist Christians, and actually a lot of non fundamentalist Christians as well, I suppose, really are connected to this idea that if you're into any of these dark religions that these Christians are happy to label as such, you have either made a decision to deviate from Christianity, or have been tricked by the devil into this awful tradition. It's kind of a weird position to hold.

Katie Dooley  05:38

Well, again, it's a weird position to me, when, you know, we just talked about the occult being astrology and, and oh community, and

Preston Meyer  05:47

there's, there's so much to

Katie Dooley  05:50

those are the ones that stopped because again, they'll have to do anything to do with spirits or demons or anything at all. And then Wicca again has to have the god and the Goddess. And that's kind of the extent of their belief in supernatural and some Wiccans don't even believe in that. Right. So anyway, I just thought it was an interesting little tidbit for this.

Preston Meyer  06:15

Yeah, it's an interesting quotation. Christians generally believe that there is an ultimate good, and that it's personified in God and Jesus. And so necessarily the reciprocal must exist in the form of demons, the devil, and all evil. It's relatively easy to spot in the Bible. And it gets built on a lot more with theological thought of last few 1000 years, for sure. And there's this idea that a person who has been possessed is not considered to be evil, they are a victim. They're basically meant to be treated as though they have an illness that needs to be cured rather than this person who needs to be destroyed. Which so far sounds like a healthy ish perspective.

Katie Dooley  07:09

I mean, they're all healthy ish perspective, but we'll get into that ish part later. So in it's a little exorcisms look a little different from denomination to denomination. And again, we mostly see it from a Catholic perspective. If you you know, watch the exorcist. Or watch The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Exorcism movies are they're all predominantly Catholic exorcism. So in Catholicism, exorcist are a special specialty group of trained priests seals. That joke like Navy SEALs, or, like, I hope that it didn't translate it. Oh,

07:55

it did. I just hear just

Preston Meyer  07:58

even when people talk about Navy SEALs, I think of uniformed seals weird animals that should not be trusted with military duties. Because

Katie Dooley  08:07

some of them,

08:08

right? Yeah. That was ages ago. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  08:14

special group of ordained priests. So not every priest in the Catholic Church can perform exorcisms there's like an annual course to train exercises.

Preston Meyer  08:24

Yeah, it seems that since we have more and more need for exorcisms, they just have opened it up a lot more that, hey, more priests need this training.

Katie Dooley  08:37

But again, your local parish priests might not actually be.

Preston Meyer  08:40

And we'll talk about one of those a little later on too.

Katie Dooley  08:46

So again, in the Catholic tradition, we'll talk about other Christian traditions and then other traditions. Predominantly, the purchasing Michael is believed to be the strongest pair against the devil. And that's the use to help damn spot

Preston Meyer  09:03

right Michael is powerful. But so is the devil apparently. Yeah, Orthodox Christians believe that objects in addition to people can become possessed. And unlike the Catholic tradition, all Orthodox priests are trained to perform exorcisms because the need if even objects can be possessed, that need is going to be a little bit more frequent.

Katie Dooley  09:28

Yes, I also I this is just me off the top of my head. I don't know how big the Orthodox Jewish tradition is compared to the Catholic tradition.

Preston Meyer  09:39

Right circulation wise it is smaller. Yeah. So

Katie Dooley  09:41

if you have fewer priests because you have fewer congregants, and there's a higher need to make sure your priests are trained.

Preston Meyer  09:53

Ah, yeah, most Christian denominations performing exorcisms are required to get physical Want psychological evaluations done before going forward with an exorcism? Which seems like a pretty good idea healthy,

Katie Dooley  10:07

again, which we'll talk about. But it's

Preston Meyer  10:11

important to make sure that you're not dealing with totally separate underlying conditions. Rather than, you know, ignore something that's easy to fix with pharmacology or medical attention. Yes.

Katie Dooley  10:24

Because whether you believe in possession or not, I imagine an exorcism is quite traumatizing to go through.

Preston Meyer  10:31

In every situation that I have found. There is a fight. Right? So sometimes it's a light fight. But there's some sort of fight. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  10:41

A stronger prayer. Yeah. So just another note, to reiterate, is that in the last several centuries, many Christians have been blaming possessions on the increase of witchcraft. And so I actually searched possession rates for Wiccans to see if we can have ever reported possession by a demon and I couldn't find anything. So yeah,

Preston Meyer  11:08

yeah, to believe that you are possessed does require a pre existing belief that it is possible.

Katie Dooley  11:15

Yes, we get into sort of the atheist perspective. And the skepticism around exorcisms that's absolutely something that will come up is that this doesn't happen to people who don't believe in demons.

Preston Meyer  11:27

Or maybe they just don't recognize it, maybe. Okay. But to believe that you've been possessed by a demon, you have to believe that it's possible. That's how belief works.

Katie Dooley  11:39

Please see our previous episode on belief.

Preston Meyer  11:43

Yep. All right, King James, the same guy who authorized the English translation of the Bible for the Church of England back in 1611. Ish, was responsible for a book called demonology, which outlined relationship between demons and witches to help Christians cleanse their communities and ultimately, whose goal was to cleanse the nation, which definitely didn't go so beautifully.

Katie Dooley  12:10

Yeah.

Preston Meyer  12:13

King James was an interesting fellow say,

Katie Dooley  12:17

like randomly killing off your citizens doesn't feel like a good economic choice.

Preston Meyer  12:20

But it wasn't just about economics. He he was the defender of the faith and he absolutely needed to ensure the salvation of his nation. He was a lot more concerned about that than economics. Oh, good. Oh, good. Reminds me of some more people that we've seen more recently.

Katie Dooley  12:41

So interestingly, enough, exorcism is in all sorts of religions. So exorcism and Islam I actually found super interesting. Mostly when we get into gin.

Preston Meyer  12:57

Yeah, so exorcism, they're called as I am, or Rukia basically means healing. And there's nothing in the Quran about exorcism. But there are mentions of it in the Hadith. And there is a record that Muhammad drove out an evil spirit from a young boy. So it is part of that religious tradition. And Jinns are pretty nifty.

Katie Dooley  13:22

Yes, the jinn are spirits, so it's a big umbrella term. So Jin are not necessarily evil. There's a whole bunch of other terms I'm gonna run through, but I got really excited about gin, and spirits. And then I thought about Aladdin and the term Genie, which is absolutely where we get that's where the word comes from. I just say and my little our own personal Preston weird moment, and got really excited about making that connection. So if you want to picture a gin picture, good old Robin Williams, because Jen are described in the Quran as being made of smokeless and scorching fire.

Preston Meyer  14:00

It's pretty awesome. So it's a little bit weird that we have this blue almost entirely smoky Robin Williams.

Katie Dooley  14:09

Yes. He's very wispy. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  14:13

Not not the most true to source material, Genie, but definitely a lot of fun.

14:20

is I think what we're missing is fair. Yeah. Yeah. The tail instead of legs a lot of the time. So the blue Yeah.

Preston Meyer  14:30

Disney's color scheme at the time was definitely red and green or evil, blue and purple or friendly. I hate Yeah.

Katie Dooley  14:36

And then turns into red Genie later. So can happen starting up that way. Jana is derived from the root Arabic word Jen, which conveys the idea of concealing or failing. So again, that kind of wispy,

14:52

serious figure. Yes. So then

Katie Dooley  14:55

there are a whole bunch of other Arabic terms. You have shaytan we To our satanic beings, you have Marine is the demon boot is an evil spirit of for Risa is an angel. So that falls under the chin umbrella as well.

Preston Meyer  15:10

Yeah. And so when it comes to dealing with an exorcism, a sheikh places his hands on the head of the possessed person, and recites verses from the Quran, and hopefully this is going to be enough to get rid of these spirits that are traditionally very obedient to Allah. Which is kind of a perk.

Katie Dooley  15:32

Yeah, that's good. I mean, they as they shouldn't be full of great No, right?

Preston Meyer  15:37

In the, in the Christian tradition, they don't tend to be terribly obedient. No, they they really put up a fight. And we see a little bit of difference here between religious traditions.

Katie Dooley  15:48

So just wanted to clarify because we didn't actually talk about what a shake was in Islam episode, so a Sheikh is just the head of a household or some sort of leader. So you can be a community leader, you can be the head of your family household. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  16:05

those are kind of the two big ones. You could be the leader of a mosque. Yep.

Katie Dooley  16:09

So we do talk about a moms and their leaders of prayer. So if you're getting it down into the semantics, you're only in a mom when you are leading prayer. So the second you're done leading prayer, you are no longer an imam is how I read the definition. I

Preston Meyer  16:23

feel like there's a little bit of variety there. I'm wondering, like you could

Katie Dooley  16:27

probably a job title for a lot of people. So yes, you can be both a shake and a mom. And so yeah, just needs to be a head of a household, or other group or other group to help cast out these Jin.

Preston Meyer  16:44

Judaism also deals with this sort of issue. Demons are pretty often called do book, which is a shorter form of Dubuque Marula raw, which means clinging evil spirit. And so when we cut it down to just do book as is often done, it's basically just calling them cling on. Which I love. There's actually a lot of sweet little Jewish Easter Eggs in Star Trek. Oh, yeah. Interesting. And, yeah, some good fun there. The book are believed to be the lost souls of the dead, rather than any other sort of spiritual being. They're said to take bodies to accomplish some sort of task. So if they're going to perform a possession, they are hoping to accomplish something and then they will just leave on their own. Unless, of course, an exorcist gets there first.

Katie Dooley  17:46

Which I guess, depending on what they want to accomplish might be a good thing, especially if they want to accomplish murder.

Preston Meyer  17:51

That would be a good reason to call an exorcist before that gets

Katie Dooley  17:54

accomplished any unfinished business on Earth, right?

Preston Meyer  17:59

And it's not usually like, oh, well, I gotta find my taxes.

Katie Dooley  18:03

No, if I died, I'd leave that for my right my estate.

Preston Meyer  18:07

That's not a thing I enjoyed doing in my life. It's not the way I'm gonna spend my death. A Jewish exorcist is usually a rabbi trained in Kabbalist rituals, and they operate with the assistance of ideally 10 men in a circle around the person who is possessed. And the exorcist must purify himself according to Jewish ritual practices. And what I thought was interesting, because words, that's my thing. The group of men that help out the rabbi is called a minion. Which sounds an awful lot like the word minion in English. But of course, we can't have an army of little yellow dudes.

Katie Dooley  18:51

Oh, spirits.

Preston Meyer  18:53

Just shouting Banana, banana. So the word minion means count or number or quorum, so nothing terribly fancy there. But they will have many minions. Maybe I like the word. I'm happy. I found it.

Katie Dooley  19:14

I'm happy that you're happy, right?

Preston Meyer  19:19

So sometimes smoking out the demon is necessary. Sometimes that means wood smoke or sulfur. With the end goal, of course being able to learn the name of the demon and have a conversation with it.

Katie Dooley  19:33

Do you know how they know if a exorcism has been successful? How do they do? So you can find the body there's a part of your body where the Spirit will leave from. So it is often a bloody toenail or a fingernail and spirit will just pull you out of there. There are some reports of more gruesome exit wounds. That that's how you know the demons gone.

Preston Meyer  19:59

A few Like when you say the most common exit wound is evidenced by a bloody toenail. I feel like somebody probably kicked something real hard where they're putting up this fight. Oh, probably.

Katie Dooley  20:12

Which makes the gruesome ones more gruesome.

Preston Meyer  20:15

Right?

Katie Dooley  20:15

That's so we're tired, but like, well, messy. Shannon hole wounds and wounds. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that. Do you imagine a little demon shooting out of your penis?

Preston Meyer  20:29

That's not what I'm imagining what I'm imagining is abuse that's being written off as an exit wound.

Katie Dooley  20:35

Oh, well, yeah,

20:36

that's a real prime. I mean, I'm

Katie Dooley  20:37

an atheist. I don't believe in this. So yeah, probably. But just imagine a little genie.

Preston Meyer  20:44

Yeah, it's funnier. It is funnier. It's a lot funnier.

Katie Dooley  20:49

make light of a horrible situation. Yeah. We'll make a graphic for that.

Preston Meyer  20:59

Aladdin rubbing his lamp.

Katie Dooley  21:03

Wow. This is why there's a trigger warning. Just because we're gross. Oh, dear. So we've never talked about Taoism on the podcast yet?

Preston Meyer  21:17

Not really. We

Katie Dooley  21:18

have exorcisms too. Yeah. So Taoism is is a Chinese folk religion. It's kind of parallels with Shintoism.

Preston Meyer  21:26

It has a lot in common with Hinduism. But there's, I feel like there's more to it. In some ways,

Katie Dooley  21:32

I would agree. But it is sort of the indigenous religion of China. Yeah. So actually very similar to Judaism. It is mostly concerned about ghosts of the dead taking over bodies of the living.

Preston Meyer  21:47

Yeah, sometimes the person has said to use magic to deliberately put a spirit into somebody. And of course, this accusation is made against the witches by Christians and stuff, too. So it's, again, not terribly foreign to the things we've talked about before. The

Katie Dooley  22:02

process of exorcism is also quite similar to what we've seen before. So it's the ritual spells casting that with written symbols, as well as chanting

22:16

pretty basic stuff. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  22:17

All right. In Hinduism, demons are called a Soros. And they can be pretty nasty, as I guess they get to be in most traditions, I suppose. But praying to Hanuman gets you the best results for exorcism having apparently it's after centuries 1000s of years even. They just figured, oh, this one aspect of the all God. This one aspect is really good at doing this job.

Katie Dooley  22:50

I mean, it's kind of like the part of St. Peter, how many first did they try it? I know that this one was the most effective right? Planning man is your guy for that?

Preston Meyer  23:00

And hidden do medical tradition that the IRA VEDA that we've talked about before, includes a buta Vidya, which specifically deals with helping possessing demons just chill out? Relax? Yeah. And then of course, once they're chilled out, you can read a lot easier to get them out. Right? Yeah, just oh, I guess yeah, I've been hurting this person by

Katie Dooley  23:26

I feel like this is the most peaceful exorcism of all of them.

Preston Meyer  23:31

So far, based on the details that we've picked out here, and maybe cherry picking a little bit? Yeah.

Katie Dooley  23:38

I mean, also, just the information available, kind of goes in the order we've talked about. There's a whole bunch on Christian exorcisms. Yeah. And then for Buddhism, they don't actually really deal with malicious demons. But Buddhist monks can be called upon to dispel negative

Preston Meyer  23:57

energy, which is kind of as close as we get to an exorcism there. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  24:03

So what about me, Preston? Let's make this about me. Sure. I'm kidding. What if you believe in this so what is actually happening here if you don't believe that demons are real?

Preston Meyer  24:17

Well, if you don't believe demons are real, you're certainly not going to believe that you're experiencing a possession. That's doesn't even make sense,

Katie Dooley  24:27

right? So demonic possession is not recognized as a mental illness, right? But symptoms of possession can be similar to hysteria, mania, psychosis, Tourette's, epilepsy, schizophrenia, or dissociative identity disorder, formerly known as multiple personality disorder. You can also have something called mono mania, which is kind of like hypochondria, so if you truly believe you're possessed by a demon You will start to manifest the symptoms of demon possession. So we know that my human mind is super powerful. We've barely scratched the surface on brain science. And we know that, even from our belief episode, perception is reality. So if you think you're possessed by a demon, you're possessed by a demon.

Preston Meyer  25:22

Right? We talked about this in our voodoo episode, that if you are made into a zombie, you are made to believe that you are made into a zombie. There's so much social pressure that and and your own belief system that you've internalized that if you believe that somebody has turned you into a zombie, there's no reason not to behave the way you've been taught that zombies exist. It's it's a weird feedback loop in culture.

Katie Dooley  25:50

Because it's like, yeah, I can understand how your brain again, if you think you're possessed, therefore you are possessed. But that doesn't mean demons exist, either. You know what I mean? It's tricky. Yeah, right. Historically, possessions have become, there's been an uptick recently in possessions. But historically, possessions have become less common as medical understanding has improved. We know what schizophrenia is, we know what Bipolar disorder is, we know what dissociative identity disorder is. But as the rare possessions do hit the news and made their way into popular culture possessions. In North America increased a whole bunch right around the time the excuses came out in the 60s and 70s. And this is also when we see a big influx of even New Age or alternative religion as well. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  26:43

Yeah, kind of hit in that. counterculture sweet spot. Which is just weird. Though, everything about our culture got real weird for a little while.

Katie Dooley  26:53

I wonder if possessions also increased sort of as like the death throes of Christianity. You know what I mean? Not that the Christianity's gone anywhere, but like, there was a sort of idealism of the 50s and the two and a half kids and a dog and a white picket fence and everyone went to church and it was I wonder if the possession was like a like a death throes where it's like, no, look, it is real. And because you're now doing yoga and smoking peyote, look what's happening, you know what I mean?

Preston Meyer  27:26

I think I follow you. I don't know if that's the case or not, but it'd be interesting to look further into I

Katie Dooley  27:32

am absolutely just spitballing one thing I did look into for my own welfare is are there any claims or cases of atheists being possessed by a demon and a confinement

Preston Meyer  27:50

but I guess asking the wrong people about those cases I

Katie Dooley  27:54

found that really offensive believe is that atheists are inherently possessed by a demon because they do not believe in God that was when I read

Preston Meyer  28:03

it's a really weird position to try and force on people and

Katie Dooley  28:07

then the other one I guess it's kind of similar as that your body is a vessel and if it's not filled with Jesus it is filled with Satan so moderately

28:22

that's that's not okay.

Katie Dooley  28:24

Okay, thank you. What's your Christian take on it?

Preston Meyer  28:29

My Christian take I don't believe that there is any empty vessel that's walking around

Katie Dooley  28:36

like empty you're filled with Jesus are filled with Saint but there's so

Preston Meyer  28:41

many other options like your own spirit, your own life,

Katie Dooley  28:45

you don't have those. Right? This you don't have those. You've

Preston Meyer  28:50

got electricity and blood coursing through your body that help manipulate your identity as you experience life. So there's something and that's just the stuff that's easy to prove.

Katie Dooley  29:07

So this is from that same Atlantic article, and this is Pastor Thomas again, and okay, trigger warning, trigger warning time. Nearly this is quote, nearly every Catholic exorcist I spoke with cited a history of abuse particular in particular sexual abuse as a major doorway for demons. Thomas said that as many as 80% of the people who come to him seeking in excess exorcism or sexual abuse survivors, according to these priests, sexual abuse is so traumatic, true that it creates a soul wound and makes a person more vulnerable to demons. So I have some problems with this. What

Preston Meyer  29:47

What problems do you have? Well, this

Katie Dooley  29:48

is your sassy comment that you should probably read aloud.

Preston Meyer  29:54

So, this idea that sexual abuse is tightly connected to this Experience of possession immediately brought to mind the idea that maybe that's why we see so many Catholics suffering from possessions. Shady because we have a embarrassingly large statistic number of priests who are having a real hard time keeping their vows of chastity and sexual. What's the word I'm looking for? Don't do kids

Katie Dooley  30:27

don't care what the chastity is long there's consent. Do not adult children. Right? So my thing is, I don't think it creates a soul wound. I think being sexually abused is trauma, and you're probably having a trauma response that people are then saying is possession. Well,

Preston Meyer  30:50

if your soul is your psyche, then that is a soul round. But it's not necessarily a wound through which something else enters. It's a wound in itself. At the very least, yeah. And, yeah, that's a problem. So in some parts of Europe, and necessarily following that the European diaspora, demonic possessions have been connected to hysteria, which is, if you know a lot about your medical history, a made up disorder that was treated most effectively with sexual abuse. So if these treatments failed, then you obviously had a demon was the perspective they had, or you

Katie Dooley  31:34

had been sexually abused, right.

Preston Meyer  31:38

It's such a disaster. And we've we've come a long way in our medical understanding, and that's great.

Katie Dooley  31:44

Yes, also creepy, and really weird on this same vein is that possessions are more common in women and marginalized groups. And spirits, this is something read spirits are more likely to be male than female. So I had two concerns, to comment on. One, it's kind of weird to me that we're gendering our demons.

Preston Meyer  32:09

I think an awful lot of religions are, if they're interested in spirits do recognize a difference of some kind, between male and female, whether they're the departed dead, who had a gender in life that is more easy to discern, or if there's something else about them that feels familiar to what we see in life.

Katie Dooley  32:32

And then number two, what does this say about gender roles? And how we treat marginalized groups in society?

Preston Meyer  32:39

You mean most people that heard other people are male? Know, not that there aren't women who are abusive, but we hear an awful lot more about male abusers. Yeah, this

Katie Dooley  32:54

sounds to me, like possession and trauma go hand in hand.

Preston Meyer  33:01

There, they definitely seem to be connected.

Katie Dooley  33:04

Alright, so the DSM five in this is, if you I recently learned about the DSM five, it's the go to manual for identifying mental health disorders. It's a mental health dictionary, if you will. It does list dissociative trance disorder as a mental health condition, which is defined as a single or episodic alteration in the state of consciousness characterized by the replacement of customary sense of personal identity by a new identity. This is attributed to the influences of a spirit power deity or the person.

Preston Meyer  33:41

So exorcisms are not exorcisms possessions are in the medical dictionary. As far as people self diagnosing, and then oh, no, no, this is actually what's happening.

Katie Dooley  33:56

Yes, that's helpful. Yeah. I mean, it's just a more specific type of mono mania. Sure, yeah. Or even potentially, very specific type of dissociative identity disorder. I gotcha. So anyway, so that is interesting.

34:13

Yes.

Katie Dooley  34:17

It is a medical condition, I guess. So. I guess the conclusion that we're not we're not done yet. But that positions are real. Sure, mark that.

Preston Meyer  34:28

I wanted to look at a few specific examples of possessions and exorcisms throughout history, mostly just the last 100 or so years. There's there's some gooders that I think are fun to look at. So the first one I pulled up is from 1906 in South Africa, a 16 year old orphan girl named Clara germana seal, confessed to her priest that she was possessed after having made a pact with the devil. Cool. Write something good out of it. One would hope. I don't think she did, though. Nuns reported that she could mysteriously speak a wide variety of languages that they could recognize, but not explain. Like one of them was Polish. There's not a lot of Polish in South Africa in 1906. But theoretically, I mean, maybe this deal with the devil. She really wanted to talk to this one person. She couldn't maybe

Katie Dooley  35:25

be a hyper polyglot. So she could say she's a hyper polyglot, maybe.

Preston Meyer  35:31

She was also reportedly able to describe the sins of strangers. And she had incredible strength. So describing sins of strangers, pretty easy guests say, Father of the parish touches himself. You know what, probably

Katie Dooley  35:48

everyone masturbation, you're probably

Preston Meyer  35:51

you're gonna be right most of the time. She's also said to occasionally float about five feet above the ground. So no small amount. They're kind of a big deal. No, yeah. And also sometimes turn into a snake. So what? That's

Katie Dooley  36:18

why are there no photos of this?

Preston Meyer  36:21

It's 1906. There were photos in 1906. South Africa was a pretty relatively speaking poor country at this time, so there would have been cameras around but probably not lots. But

Katie Dooley  36:33

wouldn't you want to I find a camera and go find a snake girl.

Preston Meyer  36:39

Yeah, for sure. So anyway, after she'd confessed this to a priest, there was an exorcism that lasted two days for this girl. And after trying to choke out the priests, Clara was declared healed. She lived for only six more years dying of heart failure at the age of 22. So whatever she got from the devil, it wasn't a long term prize. No, that's too bad.

Katie Dooley  37:07

919 49 America, probably one of the most famous exorcisms of all time. Anonymous 14 year old boy now typically referred to as Roland dough was the inspiration.

Preston Meyer  37:24

Was this priest also a baker?

Katie Dooley  37:26

Literally? I'm watching shits Creek and I laugh about rollin shit all the time. Right? Rolando? Use me now typically referred to as Rolando was the inspiration for PDR blade. He's famous novel, The Exorcist Of course. Interestingly, interestingly enough, one of the attending priests father, Walter H. Halloran refused to go on record saying whether the boy was truly possessed. Many of the details aligned closely with what you have seen in the movie or read in the book, flying objects shaking bed guttural noises, an aversion to anything holy, etc.

Preston Meyer  38:07

Yeah. So the little bit of looking at a did into this particular exorcism. The the record that the priests did offer is almost exactly what made it into this book. But the forensic evidence and other non clerical witnesses were like, Nah, man, that's all crap. Right? That's not how it went down. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  38:31

And then, in subsequent interviews, he wouldn't say, yeah, if the boy was actually possessed, so which is really weird, especially because that's you like your job, right?

Preston Meyer  38:44

Oh, well. Alright, little more recently 1974 sounds while right. A fella named Michael Taylor started spending a bunch of time with the leader of their prayer fellowship, Marie Robinson. It wasn't long before Mike's wife called them out in a crowded prayer meeting. Yeah, exactly. He was she was pretty stressed out about their relationship. And Mike freaked out and started shouting gibberish and attacking Marie, for which he was forgiven the next day, thankfully, I guess. But Mike's behavior only got worse. And the local vicar was called to perform an exorcism. The Anglican priest teamed up with a Methodist elder to get the job done. They decided that Mike had dozens of demons in him. And in an all night ritual, they cast out a whole bunch individually, one after the other instead of you know, a mass exorcism to get rid of the scores of demons and I'm kind of a weird choice, but whatever. That's what they did.

Katie Dooley  39:44

I mean, they're really really tough demons, Preston probably.

Preston Meyer  39:47

I mean, that's only you can

Katie Dooley  39:49

cheat on his wife.

Preston Meyer  39:52

Everybody, in the record that I found, refuse to say that he was actually sleeping with Marie but There was definitely some doubt anyway, they're casting out demons one by one. And unfortunately they got tired before they could be bothered to cast out the demons of insanity and murder. So they let them go home to his wife so that they could you know, sleep it off and get some rest feel better and then start again the next day. And Michael Taylor went home strangled and disfigured his wife and their poodle out their poodle Yeah. Before he was found naked and covered in blood just chilling out on the street.

Katie Dooley  40:36

I wouldn't want to be that cop right you know, it'd be just like a guy covered naked with his wiener hanging out covered in blood i i know i drive by or another beat cop

Preston Meyer  40:53

Yeah, that's that's the scary uncomfortable situation. So unfortunately, Mike was acquitted based on grounds of insanity because they didn't dispel the demon of insanity so he got off on an insanity plea where

Katie Dooley  41:08

were the priests and be like, maybe we shouldn't let them off or maybe they were like let him off because it's just insanity demon will take care of

Preston Meyer  41:16

you know, the murder demons still there too. So problems. He only spent four years in hospital, which I mean, only four years is a long time in hospital, but also apparently not long enough. He has since been convicted for indecent conduct with a minor so

Katie Dooley  41:35

they didn't dispelled a kitty diddling demon either.

Preston Meyer  41:39

Right. Problems, lots of oversight. I mean, there's some things you wish you should have started with.

Katie Dooley  41:45

Murdering kitty diddling for sure should have been the first to go, right because like a harmless insane person. It's just pitiable, right?

Preston Meyer  41:55

Yeah, good old Michael Taylor. He's his story is a little bit more complex than this a little bit more interesting if you want to look them up later.

Katie Dooley  42:02

All right, Panama in 2020. Recent stuff very recent. A few villagers ran to a hospital for help after escaping an exorcism ritual that ended up with the death of a woman and five of her young children, as well as a teenage girl that lived next to them. The escapees told the authorities that their captors intended to kill them if they didn't give up their demons and repent their sins. This is not a voluntary exorcism of

Preston Meyer  42:33

theirs. It's such a short list of voluntary exorcism. Well,

Katie Dooley  42:37

I guess that depends on who you think you're talking to the person or not because, yeah, little Linda Blair knew something was wrong with her. Sure. I don't think she wanted to be exercised if she could have avoided it. Right. But this is sounds basically like kidnapping or human trafficking and then some weird, yeah,

Preston Meyer  42:57

now you're gonna obey me or be killed? Yeah. Kind of messed up. Yeah, you're messed up. All right, just this year 2021, Washington, DC. Reverend David Fulton, a Catholic priest serving a couple of parishes in rural Nebraska decided that he needed to participate in the terrorist attack on the US Capitol that happened January 6 of this year. He told reporters on the scene that day that he had performed an exorcism on the Capitol because a demon had taken hold of Congress. Was

Katie Dooley  43:28

it a demon or just a bunch of hillbillies?

Preston Meyer  43:34

Some people have a hard time telling the difference problem. It is a problem. The Archdiocese of Omaha has since rebuked him, because he has not in fact attended the annual training of how to be an exorcist didn't know what he's doing.

Katie Dooley  43:51

Did he know about the parents for St. Michael? No, probably not.

Preston Meyer  43:58

He hasn't received the training. And he showed up in his work clothes, which was called a misuse of His ministry that misrepresented the church of Rome. filed and did his exorcism succeed. Only gonna say probably not.

Katie Dooley  44:16

Was there anything? Do you have an exercise? Well,

Preston Meyer  44:20

the demon that broadly controls the whole of Congress, or even a majority of it just doesn't make any sense

Katie Dooley  44:30

theologically was possessed. Maybe physical building.

Preston Meyer  44:33

I mean, demons can exist in spaces, I guess, depending on your theology. Who knows what his real goal was.

Katie Dooley  44:40

We have one more story is from Bobby Jindal, who is the governor of Louisiana from 2008 to 2016. I just want to point out that this is not slander. He's told this story himself. Yeah. So I don't know why because it makes him look like a horrible person. So the famously homophobic and xenophobic and Jindal was baptized Catholic while attending Brown University. And he quickly showed a dangerous level of zeal. Gentle notice that his friend Susan was acting differently, usually exhibiting a cell in a mood. He decided to get his friends from the Campus Crusade for Christ. We already have a problem with that. To help out with an exorcism, like a bunch of 18 year old boys were like, Let's exercise a girl. This is already problem, right? Oh, God, it gets worse. They restrained her. I remember a bunch of colleges boys, Bibles and crosses in her face, offended by her screaming profanities, and her efforts to escape. So it turns out Preston Suzanne was tired and solid and acting differently. Because she was going through cancer treatments as a university. I mean, cancer, should he anyway. But to be that young and going to university and going to cancer treatments, that would suck, you'd be tired. And and it turns out Jindal is just a day. No kidding.

46:09

Yeah. So

Katie Dooley  46:13

yeah.

Preston Meyer  46:15

Yeah. I mean, if you see the way he behaved as governor, I mean, it. It fits.

Katie Dooley  46:23

I mean, I wouldn't be his friend anymore. No,

Preston Meyer  46:28

yeah. I wouldn't be his friend either.

Katie Dooley  46:34

So yeah, that one's really yucky. Actually, that's assault.

Preston Meyer  46:37

Yeah, it really is. Trigger warning. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  46:42

Those trigger warning on that link, that's assault.

Preston Meyer  46:46

So there just seem to be a few different kinds of possessions. You can have somebody who is sick and actually needs medical attention, but instead gets mistreated, like we just talked about. Or you could have somebody who is unpopular and becomes the victim of abusive rituals, like the Panama one, right? Just messed up. Our sometimes you can have somebody who is acting out for attention and ends up getting what they want, and maybe a little bit more like Clara. Actually, we think Roland Doe

Katie Dooley  47:15

was one of those as well, I

Preston Meyer  47:17

think you're probably right. The weird thing is that these claims of having some undesired lifeforce in the body are medically reasonable. If something is inside your brain that makes it hard to live the way you would normally do. That could be a brain tumor. It could be a fever, viral, bacterial, who knows whatever. There's all kinds of illnesses that are things in your body that shouldn't be there. And if you believe that living things have spirits, then there is an extra spirit in your body. But we also have an awful lot of gut bacteria, that is also that same sort of issue. But benign, is it sentient? Probably not. But these things can affect people's lives. And definitely see a doctor.

48:14

Always get a second opinion. Yeah, for sure. Always. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  48:19

And I would sort of piggyback off that and say, like, we know so much more about mental illness. And that belief in your brain are super, super powerful. So absolutely. Like if you think you can be possessed by demons and you think you're possessed by a demon, then yeah, you're absolutely, I'd say you're manifesting that. But if you believe that it's true, I believe that while you're not wrong. Ray, like I couldn't convince you otherwise, that it's all in your head. So,

Preston Meyer  48:54

right. It's all tricky stuff. And the, the interesting thing is that anciently like going back 3000 years, all of your medically literate people for like, 99% of the time were your religious leaders, your priests and whatnot. But today, there are very few religious leaders that are medically literate.

Katie Dooley  49:20

There's very little overlap. Yeah. And

Preston Meyer  49:23

so, see a medical doctor. And if your problems can't be solved,

49:32

I don't know how to help that.

Preston Meyer  49:36

I've been, I've been asked to perform one exorcism ever. And before she asked us to perform an exorcism for her, she did say, Hey, I also have schizophrenia. And so I kind of talked her out of that and we did not perform when exorcism

Katie Dooley  49:54

realized it wouldn't work on schizophrenia. Right? Good. But you know, it does work on schizophrenia medication I

Preston Meyer  50:06

see a doctor see that's the thesis of this whole thing so doctor

Katie Dooley  50:09

and generally don't be afraid of demons but do enjoy the exorcist this week or something kooky spooky.

Preston Meyer  50:20

Yeah, enjoy the spooky season. Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of the podcast.

50:26

You know what else? What's that

Katie Dooley  50:28

our listeners can enjoy? What? They can enjoy our Discord. Absolutely they can enjoy our social media. Yeah, they can enjoy our Patreon Oh, and we have merch we have merch they can enjoy our merch. So while you're watching The Exorcist, go online and do all that to help support the podcast. Please be with you. By the late Middle Ages is doomed to fail.

After having to record 3 times, it was starting to look like the Dark Forces were trying to keep us from revealing the truth, but Katie and Preston are committed to bringing you the best religious education they can. 

Occultism is a big, nebulous, misunderstood topic. It’s actually an umbrella term for a bunch of ideas that don’t belong to any one religion. The word occult refers to secrets. Occult practices are things that are greater than what you can observe with your senses, but also something that requires you to master a skill.

Practices like alchemy, astrology, divination, magic, tarot, and reiki would all be considered occult. Occult practices gained popular during the 1960s and 1970s as part of the counter-culture movement. 

In this episode, we also touch on Hermeticism, which is a religion based on secret knowledge. 

And lastly, what’s the occult without some Nazis? The Nazis had some wild beliefs about Atlantis and Hitler having hooves.

Tune in to find out more about Hermeticism, Alchemy, Astrology, and more.

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website

***

Katie Dooley  00:09

atheist secret secret of God a secret. Hey, Preston, Katie, you know what happens? When you dive too deep into the alcohol?

Preston Meyer  00:19

Bad things are happening to deer? Yes, seriously

Katie Dooley  00:23

bad things like your audio disappearing from your first recording.

Preston Meyer  00:29

And then your second and then the second

Katie Dooley  00:31

recording. So yeah, guys, don't be careful. This is our warning. This episode is cursed. Cursed episode. That's the title. This is a cursed episode. That's what I'm gonna call it. Yeah, that's right. So that's what we're talking about this week on the

Preston Meyer  00:47

holy watermelon podcast.

Katie Dooley  00:50

Three is a magical number. So hopefully third time is the time. All right, so we've had some spooky conversations. Yeah, so far.

Preston Meyer  01:04

And now we're really leaning into spook Tober

Katie Dooley  01:07

October and the alcohol is really super vague, right?

Preston Meyer  01:11

This huge umbrella for a whole bunch of ideas that aren't really exclusive to one specific religion. It's just kind of this nebulous thing though. The word occult comes from the Latin occultists which means hidden, usually referring to knowledge of a particular kind of secrets.

Katie Dooley  01:32

Secret Secret, secret. Yes, so the occult is anything sort of supernatural but not religious is I mean, we know religious is religion, excuse me, is also a pretty broad and vacuous term but anything has kind of a half decent definition is anything supernatural, that wouldn't be considered. Divine. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  02:02

it's, I mean, it fits into the discussion of religion pretty slowly. But what is a cult is not always, like dogmatic kind of religion, but sometimes a little bit. It's like religion a little bit tricky.

Katie Dooley  02:27

So some of the things that fall under the call it would be alchemy, astrology, magic, spiritualism. Any type of like psychic medium divination, this I mean, I was thinking about this the other day. This is why the Harry Potter books are so contentious because like, every subject they learn, isn't called.

Preston Meyer  02:48

Right? didn't even bother teaching math and Hogwarts. Did

Katie Dooley  02:52

they? Um, they had one called arithmetic z, which is not arithmetic. No, it's the magic of numbers, which I think is super cool, but they don't really talk about it just that Hermione takes it as an option because she took every option in the third book.

Preston Meyer  03:06

The fact that the study of numbers, whether it's magical or mathematical, is optional. feels a little weird.

Katie Dooley  03:17

You're clearly someone who likes numbers then because it's someone who hates members. Thank God, it's optional.

Preston Meyer  03:23

If we're talking like 1112 13 year old kids not taking

Katie Dooley  03:28

mine. No, I was saying are you talking about Hogwarts? Yeah, okay. It's like it's it's real life. I guess it depends if you're muggle born or not. Cuz then you would have done regular school.

Preston Meyer  03:41

So the muggle borns would have done regular school until what the end of grade six in North American Standards five. Yeah, sure. Yeah, cuz I guess when you turn 11 is when you start Hogwarts, you'd be skipping grade six as well. So you wouldn't even have done algebra yet. In most curriculums here.

Katie Dooley  03:58

Sure. Magic. Why do you need math? Do you have religion? Why do you need science? We're digressing? Pretty. We're digressing pretty hard here. As precedents and occult traditions are can be very similar to other religious traditions in that it's greater than what you can observe with your carnal senses.

Preston Meyer  04:23

Yeah, they they differ a little bit that they require mastery of some kind. Like your average Calvinist Christian, doesn't worry about mastering anything. He's a lot more worried about just making it through life and hoping that he's not already consigned to eternal damnation. But with no thought of mastery of any supernatural thing at all right. And so that's kind of the thing that makes the cult interesting is that they'll based Yeah, it's very skill based. It's pretty fascinating that way. And almost everything that is Since directly theological does end up fitting into this realm of pseudoscience, just because there's actions that promise effects, but they can't really be reliably reproduced in laboratory settings, it's so tricky way to go.

Katie Dooley  05:20

And if that's our definition, then a lot of things actually fall under the occult. And we have another definition that we'll chat about later. That's actually from a pastor about the the occult. And yeah, if it's just something fantastical, that can't be explained with science, there's a lot. Oh, yeah, that may, we would normally wouldn't consider being a cult that could be

Preston Meyer  05:42

you ever hear how there's a story going around? That you've probably heard that scientists don't know how bees can fly? This idea has been going around for

Katie Dooley  05:54

a long time, because they're chubby and adorable. Not even a little bit aerodynamic.

Preston Meyer  05:59

Yeah. And their wings are tiny. So I learned the secret behind this ridiculous statement. There was one scientist back in the 1930s. who's like, huh, I don't get it.

Katie Dooley  06:14

Damn, okay. Yeah. And

Preston Meyer  06:15

every other scientist who works in the field of aerodynamics is like, come on, you can figure this out. And the one scientist who said, I don't get it did later on say, Oh, this is how it works. Yeah. And for some reason, here we are, almost 100 years later. And people are still quoting, this idea that scientists don't know how bumblebees can fly. Science is tricky, but it's not that tricky. Tricky.

Katie Dooley  06:50

So with that being said, there are instances of the occult, all throughout history, in all human societies. This is not a western idea and Eastern idea or a heathen idea or whatever, that they're everywhere, everywhere they call to everywhere, always.

Preston Meyer  07:12

It's interesting that it's got a negative. It's got a lot of negative press in the West. Whereas out east, it's not even looked at as weird. It's just like, Yep, this is part of life.

Katie Dooley  07:28

This is part of what we do. Yeah, we we definitely have made it a lot darker than it is and as we explained by tomorrow, hopefully you see that as well. That's it's not just like our last two episodes, disappointingly not oaky. spooky, but

Preston Meyer  07:48

but it does show up an awful lot in our horror stories, because it's so poorly understood by so many people, that it does make a nice element to add to a scary story make it a little bit cooler. Sometimes.

Katie Dooley  08:05

The conversation we had about voodoo though, right? Yes. Many major religions have a mystic branch which could be considered a cult. So there's Kabbalah in Judaism and Sufi Islam and Islam. And there's others in other religions as well. It's not just those two. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  08:21

I think one of the bigger ones of Christianity, historically speaking, would be the Rosicrucian tradition, right? And historically, an awful lot of Freemasons are Christian. And there's just a tiniest little bit of occultism in Freemasonry as well, depending on your your branch of Freemasonry, I guess.

Katie Dooley  08:43

Yeah, and how deep you go, just like anything,

Preston Meyer  08:46

right? That everything is a matter of depth. It's a spectrum, spectrum, take a drink.

Katie Dooley  08:55

Feel Levi was a French esotericism that popularized the term cultism. So this is from Wikipedia. It says unlike older forms of esotericism, occultism, does not reject scientific progress or modernity, modernity, excuse me, Levi had stressed the need to solve the conflict between science and religion. Something that he believed could be achieved by turning to what he thought was the ancient wisdom found in magic. So if you think of something like alchemy, there, there is a it doesn't work, but there's a scientific process to it to do something magical. So I can see how he's bridging that gap,

Preston Meyer  09:32

for sure. So with things like this, we get into the realm of sound therapy, Reiki, some parts of even the generally accepted, alternative medicines can get a little bit funky in this area.

Katie Dooley  09:50

And again, this is another one of those definitions where it's, you know, can't quite be explained but there's something happening and there's a process to it, but it can't be repeated in a lab which is The problem with some of these, and yeah, I would call that cult. I'm less angry about this now the third time around. But I mean, it's still a good point to bring up is that, you know, in few been on the social media at all in the last, let's say six months, you get these people who are so against vaccines, because there's no scientific process, but then they're willing to try crystal healing or essential oils. And then they are fundamental Christians on top of it. And it's like, Kay, well, one science, one is the occult, and one is religion. So it's weird to me that you pick the occult over? That's right. I said, crystal healing has a cult.

Preston Meyer  10:53

Yeah, I mean, technically, it is a little bit funky and doesn't hold up in laboratory settings at all.

Katie Dooley  11:04

And here's the other definition quote that I alluded to from this is from Steve Bong, the lead pastor of Summit, Christian church. He says the occult is any practices that leverage supernatural powers or knowledge apart from Jesus Christ. Again, this is where I don't quite understand how you know if it's Jesus or the devil, but it comes back to the not quite science, not quite magic, definitely not religion.

Preston Meyer  11:30

Right? It's so weird that this is how he's drawing a line, when the average Christian believes that everything good comes from God, and everything that's not good doesn't come from God. And then we get into the question of is a thing good. And that's an entirely very

Katie Dooley  11:52

terrifying slope into an existential

Preston Meyer  11:56

crisis right. Now, you have some practices that tend towards fraud a lot more than others. But an awful lot of religions end up slipping down that slope, too. So absolutely. What's, what is the line? It's a little too tricky for even one expert to say, Hey, this is the deal.

Katie Dooley  12:19

Well, and then. I mean, I think there's no leader on time but the gift of discernment. That's quite a popular thing to talk about, especially in fundamental Christianity. Well, it how do you know that's a gift from God or not, and be like, I mean, you tell me but isn't Jesus supposed to be the only one we're all walking around with supernatural powers? And

Preston Meyer  12:39

anybody who is blessed by him can meet all the prophets and the apostles in the Bible also doing miracles pretty often Okay,

Katie Dooley  12:47

so that's fair, but like a 21st century 23 year old can be blessed by Jesus to put in theory, okay. It's just whether how do we know it was Jesus or not? That's the real trick. On the same website, this made me lol. It said a cultist include Freemasons, witches, psychics, mediums, Satanists, necromancers and voodoo practitioners, which I just found very close minded, to say the least. It

Preston Meyer  13:19

sounds like a list of villains. Yes. Right. This is produced with an agenda for sure.

Katie Dooley  13:24

Absolutely. Because, I mean, I guess you could put some voodoo practices under the occult, but they would just call them voodoo practices, right. It's not like this other thing. Only if you are a LaVeyan. Satanist. Would you fall under the occult if you're basically an atheist, Satanist? No. And I mean, most Freemasons and I think most traditions are pretty normal. Yeah, I think there's I'm sure there's a few. There's a few Dodd ones and everything. But for sure.

Preston Meyer  13:59

And, like we said earlier, matter of depths definitely comes into play here.

Katie Dooley  14:04

I mean, you can go too far in anything. You go too far and on to the dragons.

Preston Meyer  14:08

So that was a thing.

Katie Dooley  14:12

This didn't come up. Previously, we haven't

Preston Meyer  14:17

done an episode on Dungeons and Dragons, but Dungeons

Katie Dooley  14:19

and Dragons in the occult.

Preston Meyer  14:20

I'm sure somebody has done it. We can get into it further later. Okay. But there was a whole season of Riverdale. Archie and friends get way too much into what is not legally speaking Dungeons and Dragons. And people die. Wow. Yeah. Which, honestly, is just playing up the Satanic Panic from decades past where the stories went around that people would get way too into Gentians and dragons and commit crimes.

Katie Dooley  14:51

If you've ever met anyone who's played Dungeons and Dragons, you know, that's highly unlikely. Anyway, so we're going to talk about some specific branches of the occult, starting with astrology. Astrology

Preston Meyer  15:06

is a really fascinating thing. And it's unfortunate that astrology really solidified its claim on the name before astronomy became a separate thing,

Katie Dooley  15:18

because we've all miss spoken.

Preston Meyer  15:21

Yeah, for sure, because astrology does mean the study of the stars. But it's different than astronomy, because we're studying the stars to make ideas about what's happening here on the Earth, with people's lives and world changing event

Katie Dooley  15:38

personalities. And he can marry it's a good fit. I'm so smart and Aries I did not. He's a Virgo.

Preston Meyer  15:46

I don't even know what my wife star sign is. Because I don't remember what all of the star signs sign up would be a cancer. I believe you.

Katie Dooley  15:59

I only know this because my birthday is after hers. And that's the star sign before mine. That makes sense.

Preston Meyer  16:09

I'm a Gemini cuz I remember when I was like 10, that was important to everybody.

Katie Dooley  16:16

That's when horoscopes got real big.

Preston Meyer  16:19

Yeah, it's weird that it's become a popular thing. And I haven't looked at the stats recently to see if it's actually currently on the rise. But there was a time when astrology was dying out pretty obviously. And then it just kind of made its comeback. It's super weird. Looking back historically, emperors, kings, and definitely some American presidents have all found it terribly valuable to get into astrology and to consult astrologists it helped them make important decisions about running governments. Whether or not now is the right time to go to war kind of business isn't helpful. It doesn't do it. It started to lose popularity when scientists started proving during the Enlightenment era, that there wasn't any evidence that the earth was the center of the universe. And so that helped a little bit. It really lost steam on the scientific method and systematic trial and error and evaluation showed that it was completely unreliable and predicting anything at all ever.

Katie Dooley  17:34

What do you mean not all Leo's will marry Aries

Preston Meyer  17:37

right now. Yeah, it's it's just crazy talk. Most people are familiar with the use of astrology to excuse fault someone's personality. Oh, she's not a bitch. She's just a Scorpio.

Katie Dooley  17:55

You know, you know it's not in our notes I just thought of is Mercury retrograde? That's a huge excuse for people. I'm tired. Mercury's in retrograde. There's actually a website called is mercury in retrograde.com. And literally, you have to type in and be like yes or no. It is pretty great. I think we are in retrograde right now. I'm feeling a

Preston Meyer  18:21

little tired. It has more to do with my sleep patterns lately.

Katie Dooley  18:24

And mercury? Sure.

Preston Meyer  18:27

Maybe it's just because there's a ship stuck in the Swiss canal. Again, oh, maybe

Katie Dooley  18:32

the ship is stuck because of mercury. Maybe.

Preston Meyer  18:35

Because there's a another website. Basically, the exact same idea just is the ship stuck. So talking about, you know how the star signs don't really line up with anyone's personality, really in real life. The signs in the skies are also read to find messages from the gods and to predict important events. And so astrologists would help out national leaders with big decision making relative to these ideas. which sounded really helpful 1000s of years ago, probably until people realized, oh, no, that doesn't actually work.

Katie Dooley  19:17

The whole world doesn't orbit around me.

Preston Meyer  19:22

There have always been criticisms against astrology because of the obvious things that are wrong with it. People usually bring up the issue of freewill, the fact that everyone is able to make choices, or at least we feel like we can and the fact that we can discuss whether or not we have free will, helps the argument that we do have free will rather than everything being determined by the stars.

Katie Dooley  19:48

I chose not to marry an Aries

Preston Meyer  19:50

right? Did that specific option actually come up?

Katie Dooley  19:56

Do you mean the conversation of you're not an Aries? Should we be like Ever Sure,

Preston Meyer  20:01

let's go. That's not what I meant.

Katie Dooley  20:02

I don't know what you should know. I didn't. I didn't I didn't bet him that way either.

Preston Meyer  20:08

Yeah. Do you ever date an Aries at all? No,

Katie Dooley  20:11

that's fine. Oh, okay.

Preston Meyer  20:14

Nice. Somebody's really worried about astronomy. Alright, astrology. Yeah. Wow. Here we are. And I made the mistake. Another argument that has come up against astrology is the fact that people with wildly varied birthdays can die in the same battle, meaning the star sign at the time of your birth does not have really a very measurable difference on your actual fate.

Katie Dooley  20:44

No, don't.

Preston Meyer  20:46

But it looks like its present popularity really relies. And I've said this a few times about a few things on the counterculture from the 60s and 70s. It's now in almost every newspaper. If they're making any real money, it's, it's usually in there. They're paying somebody to make stuff up or maybe they're ripping off of older publications.

Katie Dooley  21:11

You mean they're an actual astrologist hired by the New York Times to write horoscopes? Yeah, I think so. Actual astrologers. Yeah. Okay. Not just some board I'd heard.

Preston Meyer  21:24

I mean, I'm education does it take to be an astrologist?

Katie Dooley  21:30

I'm gonna look this up on or off. I'm really curious. Now.

Preston Meyer  21:33

I think if you're professionally paid to write horoscopes, you're as much of an astrologist as anyone else could be.

Katie Dooley  21:42

Shady Preston, I didn't realize that's where you're going.

Preston Meyer  21:45

That's, that's my feelings on Wow. So I'm curious whether or not flat earthers buy into astrology, an awful lot of flat that Flat Earthers talk about this solid dome that's above the earth and the stars are just kind of painted more or less on this dome. And it doesn't help that this idea is taken from a translation choice. From the Old Testament, they from the Hebrew Bible. And I just haven't been able to have a conversation long enough with a flat earther on the subject to get into this particular question. Do

Katie Dooley  22:27

you think they would? What's your hypothesis? I

Preston Meyer  22:30

don't. I don't feel like I can make a proper hypothesis. I don't I would guess. Maybe. Oh, wow. I mean, if you're gonna buy into flat Earth, there's a decent chance you'll buy into it. So really glad that

Katie Dooley  22:47

you're you're not on the fence about this even a little bit. You just have a really strong, I'm close

Preston Meyer  22:52

to the fence. But um, it's true. I'm not on the

Katie Dooley  22:59

I think they would like yeah, I'd say more likely yes, then

Preston Meyer  23:03

no, that is my current operating hypothesis until I have a chance to test it and finer. Not actually, it's not an opportunity I'm really hunting for if it shows itself all I'll engage you

Katie Dooley  23:19

if you guys know anyone that's a flat earther send them our email. Yeah. Now, my favorite occult practice. If one could have a favorite occult practice, Alchemy, turning metals into gold, right? You think science. But science tells us it's impossible.

Preston Meyer  23:40

No, no, science doesn't tell us it's impossible. It's very difficult. Very difficult. Hugely energy consuming. And extremely dangerous. Yeah.

23:52

Probably why like, I love those three things.

Preston Meyer  23:58

Yeah, Alchemy is it's pretty nifty the idea of turning one metal into another metal it's it was really popular is like this great magnum opus. So finding the the philosopher's stone and turning lead into gold or mercury into silver or whatever you have into something better. And then, as tests failed and failed, people said, Ah, it's impossible. And then the Manhattan Project says, Hey, we actually can turn these things into other elements. And but bad bombing? Yeah.

Katie Dooley  24:42

results. So alchemy is based on four four classical elements, earth, air, wind and fire. So everything they're not actually wrong. It's just rudimentary is that everything is made up of a careful balance of these elements. Yes. The stones were sent to me a fire. And yeah, the Manhattan Project prove that yeah, there's fire in those rows fired. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  25:11

Yeah. And I think it's really interesting that the, the properties ascribe to these these fundamental elements of earth water, wind and, or air rather. And water. I put so much thought into I don't even know if I said all four. Water, fire, air and earth. Yes. Those are the four. Very good. Yeah. Let's say quick, I'm good. So the idea that these elements have these properties that we're now actually really exploring, like, the question of particles and waves, are they the even the same thing, but behaving in a particular manner at a particular time? It's all really tricky and really fascinating. And these questions aren't new questions. They're just being asked in new ways as we learn more. I think it's really interesting that alchemy is as weird and magical and mystical and philosophical as it is. There's a lot of good science attached to it. Even though it's not always part of the practice.

Katie Dooley  26:28

I'm sure they made a lot of scientific progress trying to turn metal into gold. Oh, not what they wanted to do. But I'm sure they learned a lot.

Preston Meyer  26:35

I think you're right. It's, it's pretty fascinating to me,

Katie Dooley  26:40

right? I like he says my favorites. Alright. So the last President mentioned, the Philosopher's Stone is the basis of this and it is considered the perfect transmutation of the elements. And the set to bring immortality. The elixir of life is supposed to be

Preston Meyer  27:02

the Philosopher's Stone dissolve dissolved,

Katie Dooley  27:05

I was thought of as the word I was looking for Thank you dissolved into it, that the stone physical hard stone does not exist anymore. Right.

Preston Meyer  27:14

And the real question is, did it ever, but there's an awful lot of philosophers and, and Old School scholars, who are very convinced that it was a real thing. And that's why the old Biblical patriarchs live to be more than 900 years old, in some cases, because they had this thing that kept them alive for so long. And now it's lost to us. And that's why nobody lives to be more than 120 years old anymore.

Katie Dooley  27:46

You know, who found the Philosopher's Stone?

Preston Meyer  27:49

Indiana Jones, yeah.

Katie Dooley  27:50

This is a fun aside before every part of the Philosopher's Stone was published. Like shortly before Indiana Jones, and the Philosopher's Stone was published.

Preston Meyer  28:03

I always thought that was fascinating. I discovered that years ago and then forgot about it. And thinking of it again, it's just brings me a little bit of happiness that there was a book published to an American audience that said, Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone, and then very shortly later, the American publishers are like, Americans don't know what the Philosopher's Stone answer let's call a Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone,

Katie Dooley  28:28

maybe it was because of the poor Indiana Jones sales may have nothing to do with the quality of that novel series.

Preston Meyer  28:34

Maybe.

Katie Dooley  28:39

Alchemy is not strictly limited to Western traditions. Hindu and Buddhism, also include alchemy. The Buddhists are said to possess the philosopher's stone and Tibetan Buddhism. It's actually a brilliant pearl. I imagine like a big like baseball Pearl, like a honkin, Pearl.

Preston Meyer  28:58

I think that's fair. It's gotta be special, right? Yeah. And I mean, how many times have you misplace something that's regular Pearl sized?

Katie Dooley  29:07

Frequently, all of my pearls are gone.

Preston Meyer  29:13

Yeah, so I would want something that's important to be a little closer to baseball sight. At least if you loosen the couch cushions you'll notice it.

Katie Dooley  29:22

And in Hinduism, some figures are described as possessing or using a stone that has the same properties as the Philosopher's Stone.

Preston Meyer  29:34

Yes, pretty much everywhere. And I think that's really cool. Alchemy is also really often associated with fear G divine works that how God operates in the universe. So it's basically theology is the the method of creating the universe. And so alchemy is attached to this, and it's study is also the study of the The nature of birth, death and resurrection. So I thought that was actually kind of interesting. The philosophy of alchemy is some pretty nifty stuff and can get very theological. And going back to my love of words, it's no accident that alchemy sounds a fair bit like chemistry. The owl if you want to break up the word just shows evidence that we've looked at it through a Muslim Arabic lens for a long time. And show me all meaning that yes, yes. And shimmy is basically just the French word for chemistry.

Katie Dooley  30:45

The chemistry Yeah.

Preston Meyer  30:49

But fancy and foreign and missing. Oh,

Katie Dooley  30:52

I love it. Yeah. So they basically have the same meaning. Yeah. Which is funny. Yeah, but they're very different. Yes.

Preston Meyer  31:02

So very different.

Katie Dooley  31:04

To funny. No, I like I like your word asides. President. Me

Preston Meyer  31:09

too. I think words are great. Next, on our list, we have magic. We've talked a fair bit about this over the last month, so I don't want to spend a whole lot more time on it. But basically, magic is the use of rituals to affect something in a way that seems unlikely to an outsider, often relying on the assistance of spirits or gods or anything supernatural.

Katie Dooley  31:36

This can also include incantations, I want to say like potion making, but that's not the right thing when they'll make

Preston Meyer  31:47

elixirs Yeah, I

Katie Dooley  31:48

guess so. Were the like more? Yeah, mortar and pestle up powders and things like that. To see are wicked. But yeah, all of those practices would fall under magic. Spiritualism also kind of a fun one. This would be your taro and your crystal balls and your seances and your psychic mediums. What else would fall under spiritualism? We G boards.

Preston Meyer  32:18

Man we G boards are some really potent part of our popular culture.

Katie Dooley  32:24

Absolutely. Yeah. So all that communicating with the dead essentially, our spirits is falls under here. So this is super common. Around the World. This is not a Western Eastern thing. Everyone wants to talk to their dead relatives.

Preston Meyer  32:42

Yeah, it's everywhere. Every religion deals with it in some manner or another. And there's, there's some traditions that are like, hey, you need to be really careful about this and others are like, You're gonna be fine as long as you're talking to the people you want to talk to.

Katie Dooley  33:00

And I'm just gonna say and then if you look at like Chinese folk tradition, that's the basis of theirs talking to dead relatives. Yeah. So

Preston Meyer  33:10

yes, I was um, Shinto and voodoo traditions all based

Katie Dooley  33:13

upon. Yeah. And all in your ancestor. So what am I have big questions, and I alluded to it earlier in the episode is how do I separate talking to an evil spirit, or having this as the evil or malicious gift as opposed to being a gift from God? Because this is a huge topic, right? If you if you Google, the occult, I would say is the majority easily 60% of the websites are about how bad it is. From Christian websites telling you to stay away from it's actually really hard to research.

Preston Meyer  33:47

So being told as a kid don't touch the Ouija board, you'll invite dark spirits into the house. And I'm like, or maybe maybe alone

Katie Dooley  33:57

if we get a friendly one. Well, we get Casper

Preston Meyer  34:01

right that's that's gotta be an option. They can all be evil, we can

Katie Dooley  34:05

all become bad once we die, right?

Preston Meyer  34:10

Spiritualism is so vague and, and big. And within every tradition, there's going to be some acknowledgement that there's good spirits and bad spirits that you can interact with. Because in real life, walking down the street, there's good people and bad people you can interact with. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  34:30

It's really interesting to me that these were I don't remember the exact numbers but statistics out of America is the majority of Americans are religious. And the majority of Americans also believe in ghosts and spirits, which I mean, even considering they tell you those people that's true. That's absolutely true. Kind of weird to be concerned. They tell you to like don't go near it. But then there's people like Sylvia Browne called his way into it because Wayne fans makes a ton of money off of it. So even when there's definitely there's definitely overlap between religious America and people who are paying Sylvia Browne to talk to relatives.

Preston Meyer  35:12

Absolutely true. Absolutely. And it's weird because if you read into the Hebrew Bible, it specifically forbids dealing with people who have familiar spirits that they deal with. And really, that's the only the only strong basis we have for why Christians and Jews would be uncomfortable with fortune tellers and, and witches and whatnot, is this idea that my book says don't do that. But if you don't believe in the book, what reason? Do you have to believe that idea? Right?

Katie Dooley  35:51

Excuse me? Yeah, it's

Preston Meyer  35:52

a little weird. And, of course, when it comes to spiritualism, there are so many scam artists and have been for hundreds of years. Recently, we have stories like Tiffany, Butch, we talked about a little while ago. And famously, we've got Ed and Lorraine Warren, the couple that's the center of the conjuring series, which is, interestingly enough, the second highest grossing horror franchise in all of human history, second only to Godzilla, which makes a little bit of sense there. He's been around for

Katie Dooley  36:27

a while has been present. I just had a great idea. Yeah. What if we go and get our poems read and do a bonus episode on it? Oh, I like that. Yeah. Okay. Just go to some weird psychic ladies basement. Sure. And we won't tell them that we're not married to each other. Ah, okay. I

Preston Meyer  36:49

know where this can happen.

Katie Dooley  36:51

Okay. I mean, like, literally just drive down the basement and you'll find the psychic, but this is true. Okay. Okay. I really excited now. Unless, sir, yeah, if you guys fancy idea, drop a line artist card, but I'm really excited. So even if you think it's lame, I'm probably gonna do it.

Preston Meyer  37:10

Next on our list, we have hermeticism, which is kind of a big thing, an awful lot of the time when people talk about via call, this is what they want there a lot of the time. And this is a tradition that seems to have popped up in Egypt in the first century of the Common Era, under influence of Jewish and Christian mystic doctrines. And also Greek philosophy. There's a really interesting amalgamation of these things. And the great thing about synchronisation is that when smart people pick the best parts from a bunch of popular things, the result is pretty compelling. And it lasts a long time. We still have hermeticism, today, 2000 years later,

Katie Dooley  37:52

and it's pilot, we're, we'll do a full episode on hermeticism because it definitely warrants it. And there's things that are from the Hermetic tradition that you don't even know, right down, you know, I didn't know one another, another Christian site bashing the occult. So hermeticism is, is centered around Hermes, Tristan Augustus, he's he's sort of the central figure. He is a syncretic combination of Hermes and thoughts. Two very similar gods from Greek and Gyptian. Tradition, tradition. Thank you. So here's a made up person. Smash two people together. Yep. And so here's the code. I think this one is for podcasts as well. followers may name Hermes Trismegistus, whose life is shrouded in mystery. He didn't have a life. Remember, he's not unreal. As the one who unites all all cult teachings and practices, some believed he was a god, others demigod, still other views him as a philosopher and strove to live by His teachings. Again, not real just makes me a little bit angry, also really funny that they're just warping. Like it doesn't take a lot of googling to figure out that Hermes Trismegistus is a made up person.

Preston Meyer  39:09

No, if you google him the first entry and the little sidebar, when you use Google on a desktop device, it will straight up say, this is an amalgam character, so

Katie Dooley  39:19

it just bothers me that they're like, making shit up to push their beliefs on the alcohol anyway. My notes is I just can't handle people making up stuff to foster a weird agenda, which is true. I can't handle that.

Preston Meyer  39:35

Right. It's, it's frustrating. Trismegistus is a really interesting name to me. Hermes, seems like it's just the the Roman equivalent of mercury who is part of this amalgam. But trust me justice is a name with a real meaning for sure. It means thrice great. And if you compare this to the The grammatical precedent we have of the Holy of Holies, or the Sanctum Sanctorum, or king of kings, which mean like the most holy place or the highest King, we're here we got a tripling instead of a doubling. So this dude has got to be the absolute greatest, he's got to be the shit. Exactly. And that's a really bold name for a made up character. That's the head of your traditional ideas. But I like it, it's a little, it's a little special.

Katie Dooley  40:33

I like it, I think it's great. So her medicine is considered by religion by some just like Jenna ism is, it's better fits into the pair religion category, because it can actually be quite compatible with all other religions. And so many people are only interested in the philosophy or the mat magic ignoring the theological piece of hermeticism. Yeah, it's,

Preston Meyer  40:59

it's easy to adopt a thing if you want to just dump some parts that don't fit with your existing worldview. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  41:05

And a good example, is actually the term good vibes, which I literally saw on a coffee mug the other day, it was like hermeticism deals with good and bad vibrations, that is a hermetic idea. So you can see how, like you said, I sat on a coffee mug the other day, this is something that is just the philosophy of it, it's become part of our culture without having to attach to the theology of it,

Preston Meyer  41:32

right. And we've actually got a good handful of little ideas that seem to have originated with hermetic traditions that have crept in in common use the phrase as above, so below has become pretty popular. And this of the original statement is that which is above is like to that which is below. And that which is below is like to that which is above. And that means that we are able to understand heaven, based on what we are able to perceive here and predict heaven based on what we see here. And that's a pretty interesting way to go through life. Instead of an awful lot of people who say that heaven is completely unimaginable, you couldn't possibly understand it and your current state, which just sounds like a really rough way of saying, Stop thinking about it, or you'll realize it's nonsense.

Katie Dooley  42:30

Yeah, that's sorry, I'm sorry, a little rebellious. Katie is like, well, if it's so great, I can understand why do I care? Like why do i Sure, okay. If I can understand, and I'm not gonna give it two shits about it, if I can understand it, is it even worth my Yeah. Is it worth my time to care? Okay, doesn't sound like it. Right.

Preston Meyer  42:53

So, an interesting way to look into the future and the world around you, I guess. There's, I've talked about this before how some pantheistic Christian theology is derived from just adopting ideas from other Eastern traditions over the course of the counterculture movement, there are some Christian traditions that have adopted the pantheistic idea directly from hermetic traditions. And so those ones, if you're worried about how long or where the source of this idea is, you can look at how long they've been talking about it. And if they've been doing it for more than 100 years, more than likely Hermetic tradition. And those handful of Christian traditions that actually talk about reincarnation, definitely are taking this from the hermetic texts more than from other Eastern traditions. precedent.

Katie Dooley  43:49

Yeah, they did something bad would you do? I went down a rabbit hole. Oh, no. Where did you go? So when you google occultism Nazi occultism comes up a lot. Oh, no. So I learned all about Nazi occultism and it was a wild ride. I bet. Did you know? Hitler had whose? I

Preston Meyer  44:14

have never heard that before. Oops.

Katie Dooley  44:18

I can make Clippy clap knows. Who's, that's why I always wore shoes to hide. So on top of that, Nazi occultism is based in Arabic. I hate this word. Very awesome. Very ossipee Thank you. Not so cultism is based in Ariana Sufi, which is an esoteric ideology, which you'll remember from our Wicca episode. esotericism is hard to define but it's basically secrets understood by small group people. So airy, airy ossipee is the wisdom of the Aryans implying that somehow area ends are better or smarter than other people

Preston Meyer  45:03

always think that's funny because Hitler seems to have a wild idea of who the Aryans were. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  45:09

he's definitely confused with like the Vikings, for sure.

Preston Meyer  45:13

But I was like, we know the Aryans are the people who brought the Vedic religion to India. And since that's the only place in the whole world where we see that religious tradition, historically speaking, it's a lot more likely they were a lot closer to India than, say, the opposite end of Europe.

Katie Dooley  45:34

Right? They're all a little darker than he thinks they were. That's for sure. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  45:39

I think most scholars agree that they were probably Persian indo Arab, somewhere around there. But it's like, the Far North Western Europe is a big to get that

Katie Dooley  45:51

blond and blue eyed. Ya know? They're also claims that Hitler was a demon, either not in addition to its so the person that he actually dedicated my income to has, like gone on record saying that when Hitler spoke about the final solution, his voice changed, his character changed. I was like talking to an entirely different person. My guess is that he's just a psychopath. But claims about

Preston Meyer  46:20

something I'm really passionate about, you might notice a change in my tone, talking

Katie Dooley  46:24

like, say, 10 I'm really passionate about the cult. Yeah. I'm so sorry. Yeah. And then, in addition to that, there were a lot of really weird fringe beliefs throughout the Nazi movement, including that Aryans are descended from aliens, they were really fascinated with the Holy Grail as seen in Indiana Johnson, and the Last Crusade, I was gonna say Indiana Jones And The Holy Grail. That's not real. Lucifer, astrology, Atlantis, just like really into some weird ass theories. And I was reading in like, how, how? And then I remember that q&a And the thing, so yeah.

Preston Meyer  47:20

Right, it makes it a little bit more understandable. It's

Katie Dooley  47:23

like if you're that far gone already than Atlantis is actually not that much further to go. Right.

Preston Meyer  47:28

So shortly from that point, it's interesting to me that the Nazis were such great bad guys for Indiana Jones because of their occult interests. It wasn't just because they're the bad guys in the time where we have Indiana Jones, it's because of what they were into.

Katie Dooley  47:47

And I mean, it just helps make the Indiana Jones stories more fantastical. A little bit. chicken or egg?

Preston Meyer  47:53

Generally speaking, or in this in this

Katie Dooley  47:58

did, were you more likely to become a Nazi because you already work cuckoo bananas, or to Nazis become cuckoo bananas. You know, I mean, like, would you already believe in Atlantis and you're like, let's and then some guy comes and says, let's kill all the Jews. You're like, yeah, okay, can gamble with that. Or we like I agree with killing all the Jews. And then they're like, What do you think of Atlantis? And they're like, Yeah, okay.

Preston Meyer  48:20

I think both. I think some people joined up because they were already troubled. And some people became more troubled because of their association with the party. I don't have a solitary answer.

Katie Dooley  48:35

I mean, you're probably right. But it is probably both. And some people never would have gone as far as Atlantis.

Preston Meyer  48:42

Right? There's nobody who bought into everything. 100% Or sorry. There's, you can't say that the whole group bought into everything.

Katie Dooley  48:51

I mean, we know that there were Nazis that didn't even agree with what the Nazis were doing. It was their own. You

Preston Meyer  48:56

had people who are actually party members who did not think it was okay.

Katie Dooley  49:00

What am I trying to say? I'm self preservation. Yeah, for sure. So what I was looking for, it's a spectrum. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  49:10

That's twice in one episode. Wow. Awesome. Sweet. It's, it's a wide varied world, and it's really quite fascinating. But occult traditions don't tend to be specifically religious on their own. Instead, they're usually treated as a science or more accurately, a pseudoscience, used in conjunction with an altogether independent dogma. Usually, the thing that bothers most monotheists, as far as I've been able to observe, is that these pursuits are perceived to distract from the worship of the one true God. And sometimes also suggest that there is an alternative path to immortal glory or salvation. There's actually a reasonably entertaining movie that came out a couple of decades ago, called the last sin eater. And the idea that there is somebody other than Jesus who can take away your sins is not terribly foreign to this idea. Scandalous, right. And it stresses a lot of people out makes people uncomfortable about how much they know about their faith, and what they need to know about their faith to really feel like they're faithful. And just makes people uncomfortable. Yeah. There's

Katie Dooley  50:35

also the risk of letting the devils in, right, which we'll talk about in two weeks.

Preston Meyer  50:43

We're gonna have some good fun with that, as we creep ever closer to Halloween.

Katie Dooley  50:51

I, my final thoughts are that the occult is not actually something to be feared. And it's so vague that when people say Don't dabble in the call, ask them to be more specific, for sure, just to see the look on their faces, because most of them don't know what they're talking about. And I can see that. So I didn't know what she was talking about until we researched this, right.

Preston Meyer  51:13

It's such a wide, wonderful world. And there is a little bit of mystery and magic to it, depending on how you define those words. And there's no reason to go around stressing and being afraid of all of these things that you're not familiar with. And hopefully we can help out with that and help you become more aware of what's really going on

Katie Dooley  51:37

see mystifying the mystical, Katie and Preston. Together, we fight crime and ignorance. And mostly, it's definitely not crime. I'm not built for that. vigilantism

Preston Meyer  51:49

is discouraged. But fighting ignorance, I think is a good pursuit. And I'd like to thank you all for joining us as we've been doing this for as of this episode, a whole year. Well, you

Katie Dooley  52:09

it's fantastic holding hands. Everyone knows

Preston Meyer  52:11

the visual medium, working out.

Katie Dooley  52:16

Yeah, so we thank you all so much for a great year. And we want to keep going. And the best way to do that is to support us any way you can, which can look different. You can follow us on social media, like comment share, you can join our Discord channel where we've been having some really great conversations recently. Or we've

Preston Meyer  52:35

got Patreon. We would love to make a little bit money doing this. So we can do it full time and maybe even do this weekly, instead of bi weekly just thinking that today to be great. Yeah. And if a subscription model doesn't work for you guys, there's always Spreadshirt

Katie Dooley  52:53

we have all our great merch.

Preston Meyer  52:56

And we're slowly building up our collection of things so that you can have more and more options as we develop. We're pretty excited about that. And so thanks for joining us. Please be with you. By the late Middle Ages

Voodoo has a long history originating in the West African Vodun tradition. While pop culture has made Voodoo out to be dark or evil, it's actually a spiritual religion that is syncretic with Catholicism.

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***

Katie Dooley  00:09

Hi Preston.

Preston Meyer  00:12

Hey, Katie,

Katie Dooley  00:13

things are getting spooky.

Preston Meyer  00:15

Right? We're getting closer to spook Tober? Yes. Have you heard people call it that?

Katie Dooley  00:24

I just I feel like that's really stretching for a cute name for October.

Preston Meyer  00:28

Yeah, that's exactly what it is. Okay.

Katie Dooley  00:31

What are we talking about today on the

Preston Meyer  00:36

holy watermelon podcast? We're talking about voodoo. Spooky, right? Well, no, it's not really the way it's depicted in pretty much all of popular media. Absolutely. It's, it's meant to be a little bit spooky.

Katie Dooley  00:55

But like most religions, it's just misunderstood.

Preston Meyer  00:59

Yeah. Oh, more than most. Yes.

Katie Dooley  01:03

There are some perhaps McCobb parts to voodoo, but we'll talk about that. But

Preston Meyer  01:08

there's some some dark and shady and seldom visited corners of most religious traditions. So I don't, I don't think this is really that much different.

Katie Dooley  01:20

All right. Let's talk about

Preston Meyer  01:24

there's actually kind of a lot of variety within what we like to call voodoo. And I mean, it's not even all voodoo. There's so many different ways to pronounce this one word based on different cultures.

Katie Dooley  01:39

Well, and I'll just interject and say originally, we were on this episode to be on both voodoo and hoodoo. And then I realized how big booty was. And I cut the hoodoo, because I was like, There's no way we can cover both properly in about an hour.

Preston Meyer  01:55

So I think that was right choice. Thank you. But the Vodoun tradition comes from West Africa. If you want to imagine Africa, for those of you who aren't terribly familiar with geography, that little the armpit I guess, I No, that's not the best way to describe it, to keep friends with people who are from there. But for those of you who aren't familiar with that the countries that are there, that's so helpful description. Yeah. The countries that are along the Gulf of Guinea, is where the voting tradition primarily is born with the job people

Katie Dooley  02:37

and then photon made its way to North America that the Americas through really shady means.

Preston Meyer  02:46

Shady. Yeah, I mean, perfectly legal slavery. Yes.

Katie Dooley  02:51

Yeah. So the spirit based tradition that is Odin moved on over to four countries predominantly, Haiti, Cuba, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Dominican Dominican Republic are two different countries they are and then then you get the migration of people from those countries to America, where Louisiana Voodoo is kind of its own entity. So we'll talk about all of those today. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  03:20

it's kind of interesting. The way that the voting tradition has evolved over the years, like Shintoism, an awful lot of people found it difficult to classify it as a religion unto itself. And when we talked about Shinto, even though everybody in Japan was Shinto, basically, they didn't see it as a religion, they thought it was easy to adopt. Yeah, another national religion

Katie Dooley  03:48

becomes so integrated. It's just part of the culture. You don't even think about Yeah.

Preston Meyer  03:54

And so the way that the Vodoun tradition and respect for spirits and everything that is attached to it, carried along with the people who are displaced by slave traders, they adopt adapted their religion, primarily, including a lot of principles from Catholicism. And so there's a lot of syncretic elements taken from Catholicism and transposed onto the voting tradition in really interesting ways.

Katie Dooley  04:23

Yeah, let's um, expand on the term sin kradic. Because this is the first time I have really heard about and dive deep into it. So for our listeners, let's define syncretic religions a little bit.

Preston Meyer  04:36

A syncretism is the practice of taking features from one tradition and incorporating them into your own. That's, that's the short of it. And there you can see it in a lot of different ways. The Roman Catholic tradition, is also originally a very syncretic adopting a lot of features from Greek and Roman culture, and why it's so very different from Judaism from which it initially was born. There's a couple other little similarities I thought were nifty comparing it to Shinto. Remember, we talked how Shinto has a different name for the religion among the people who practice it. Often you'll hear it called Camino mici which means the way of the spirits. Vodoun literally means spirit. So I thought that was really nifty, a nice little parallel. And so they believe spirits are in everything, but there's one main creator, pretty similar to a lot of the religions that we've talked about especially tightly similar to Shintoism. They're

Katie Dooley  05:44

obviously like any religion, there's varying degrees, but one thing I read about the main creator is that it's a very hands off creator, or they built the world and said by and left it to the spirits.

Preston Meyer  05:54

Yeah, there's not a lot of religions look at their theology that way. Some of the founding fathers of the United States, were deists that had adopted that particular idea, though, where

Katie Dooley  06:07

there was an initial mover and then he said, by got other things to do fun. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  06:12

exactly. And so instead of interacting with this great Creator, who is now unreachable, you deal with a lot of intermediaries and call upon them to do some pretty cool things, which sounds

Katie Dooley  06:28

a lot like Catholics. Were where they get this really interesting. Mix.

Preston Meyer  06:34

Yeah. So when all these people who are displaced by trader, they are told that you can't worship your old way, you have to worship our way. And they're like, well, that's not terribly different. So fine.

Katie Dooley  06:48

Yeah. Yeah. The sound a lot like this guy. I know. Right? They must just have the name wrong, silly white folk. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  06:59

that's kind of the deal. And so it was easy enough for them to adapt enough to avoid beatings.

Katie Dooley  07:07

Perfect. That's the wrong word. But yeah,

Preston Meyer  07:11

it's unfortunately, everything that we see in popular voodoo, as far as we see it in the Western Hemisphere, is coming from a place of pain, which is really unfortunate. But there's an awful lot of celebration in it as well.

Katie Dooley  07:28

Yeah, we'll dive more into the perception of voodoo. As we go throughout this episode, I just want to mention that's in our notes before we dive into beliefs, that the spirits in voodoo are called Lua. Lua. Is their term for a specific spirit.

Preston Meyer  07:49

We've talked a lot about how a lot of your your mileage may vary with a lot of religions. And that's incredibly true with the Voodoo traditions. Even when you talk about Louisiana voodoo, the various some variety from one town to the next from one family to the next. So I mean, like I've always heard a prance lower rather than Lua. That that's not to say Lua is wrong. It's just there's a lot of variety. And there's many different spellings because of the way people pronounce it differently. I

Katie Dooley  08:25

mean, just like from Christian church to Christian church, it's a little bit different. Exactly.

Preston Meyer  08:31

Yeah, I did put in my notes that there's actually some some interesting though not entirely valuable for educational depictions of voodoo in popular culture. Some of my favorites are the use of voodoo in American Horror Story. And also in Marvel's cloak and dagger was actually kind of cool. I'm

Katie Dooley  08:53

really upset that you didn't add the Princess and the Frog to this list.

Preston Meyer  08:57

I haven't seen the whole movie is the problem. I am aware that it is Baron Samedi that's in that movie, right?

Katie Dooley  09:09

I don't know if he's named named Baron Samedi. But there is uh, you know, the the dark character as you know, Disney, you know, picks Hades or something and wrecks it. Just yeah, there's a dark yeah, there's the bad guy. I don't know if he's called i It's been years since I've seen I don't know if he's called Baron Sandy. But he's obviously based off of barren Sandy. Right, which there is one of the ladies in the movie is love voodoo. She's supposed to be a voodoo priestess. Sure. But again, it's been a minute since I've seen it myself. So we're gonna get some anger email being like, you haven't wrong.

Preston Meyer  09:45

But there's reasons I didn't put it on my list.

Katie Dooley  09:50

But it's the chicken movie.

Preston Meyer  09:52

Believe you I don't remember. Because I didn't see all of it. We'll have to have a movie night I guess so.

Katie Dooley  09:58

So what do people Paul who follow voodoo actually believe Guess what? It's not devil worship.

Preston Meyer  10:07

Yeah, an awful lot of people like to say that Voodoo is evil because they deny God and worship Satan. I don't know where people come up with these ideas.

Katie Dooley  10:18

I mean, if it's like one thing, if you and that, not that I'm saying this is a good thing, but it's one thing if you think people are evil, because they're whatever, not your religion, not Krishna, Jewish, not whatever, but then to like, then put on them that they believe in Satan, when they don't follow the first group, like only those Abrahamic religions believe in Satan. So if they're not an Abrahamic religion, then don't throw Satan on top of it. Right? It's just it's just too much. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  10:51

it's, it's, it's a huge problem. People don't like talking to each other. And huge misunderstandings come out of that.

Katie Dooley  11:02

And actually on that devil worship topic. Voodoo, even though it's syncretic with the Catholic Church does not have a satanic equivalent, right? They do not have any you figure that they go, oh, yeah, Satan. So even though there are these elements of Christianity in voodoo, they don't have any belief in the devil or this big, bad evil thing.

Preston Meyer  11:27

Yeah, the closest they get. Let's go back to that issue we have with Hades in the Hercules cartoon, where Hades is, for some reason, a bad guy because he's the closest thing we can come up with to a King of the Underworld as Satan who is not the King of the Underworld, like Hades is. And so Papa legba, or Baron Samedi, serve as the keeper of the dead. And so that's why he is occasionally portrayed as a villainous character, which is nonsense. Well, and

Katie Dooley  11:59

I don't want to jump ahead too far. But in food death isn't this negative thing that it is an Abrahamic religion? Right? So there you go. He's even less evil than you might think he is right? Even though he's just watching the dead, which is a noble job, right?

Preston Meyer  12:18

Yeah, it's a way people look at religions is just so weird. And that's why we're here to hopefully fix that.

Katie Dooley  12:25

Okay, I really like this the semantics of the creator the universe, right. Do you want to talk about my Whoo, because I didn't actually find that note I found on Barney. Right. So I want to talk so Barney, broadly

Preston Meyer  12:40

speaking, the West African tradition addresses the the great creator goddess as Malu or Ma, who I find mahu a little easier to say. But my Whoo, I think is actually slightly more common pronunciation. And thanks to the French influence on the tradition as it came across the great big lake, or the ocean,

Katie Dooley  13:04

I love this. It makes me so excited. The

Preston Meyer  13:07

creator of the universe has a, a kind of a cooler name, but

Katie Dooley  13:12

it comes it's fun because it comes full circle. So because of the French influence and colonization in the slave trade. Lavon Zhu means the Good God. But in the Haitian tradition, it turned into Bonnie or bhanji. But then in the Louisiana tradition, which came after a turn back until Ubuntu because of the French influence in Louisiana, right? I guess it'd be the Acadian influence in Louisiana, but I just thought that was pretty cool that it went from the Bantu to Bondi to levant you again. Right? And it all just means the Good God.

Preston Meyer  13:51

So Mahou or Bonnie or Bon DIA is connected to the moon, and there is a male counterpart that is connected to the sun. And his name is Lisa. Which I assume for many people listening like me, that sounds an awful lot more like a a woman's name. I

Katie Dooley  14:11

have the Simpsons for at least a birthday song in my head. Now Lisa, it's your birthday.

Preston Meyer  14:19

But Lisa is coming from a different culture not weird to see as a man's name. But my who has seven children that I think are pretty cool. And each of them are Vodoun of a specific element, I guess of of the way that the world is understood. We have sock PATA the Vodoun of the Earth, which is kind of cool. It just takes care of the earth. It's almost half of Hades job actually. Then we've got agbay voting of the see Joe voldoen of the air. So Hades, Neptune and Hey, Zeus. I'm totally mixing together things aren't I? Neptune is Roman, yeah. Poseidon, Hades, Poseidon, and Zeus. I'm ashamed that makes those things together. See how often I talk about Greek stuff? I

Katie Dooley  15:16

guess I could cover that in the new year. Right, get you back.

Preston Meyer  15:21

We've got Auggie voting of the forest. And also as an extension of that pretty much anything relating to agriculture. And then we've got zavio. So photo Vodoun of thunder

Katie Dooley  15:33

Guardium Leviosa, right,

Preston Meyer  15:37

like, you know, mine too. So in addition to being the voting of thunder, he's also responsible for justice. And then we've got Guth, a Vodoun of iron, and also of war. And then legba, sometimes called Papa legba, Vodoun of the unpredictable and fate and a variety of things attached to that. He's kind of like, the god of like, not everything else. But kind of that catch all title of an awful lot of things that aren't part of the other things are

Katie Dooley  16:11

just too hard to predict. Right.

Preston Meyer  16:16

So it's a kind of a cool set of seven siblings instead of three as are actually really quite common in a lot of other totally collections of gods,

Katie Dooley  16:25

especially as you get into older religions. Having things based off of the elements is super common. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So as Preston mentioned, the lewat are intermediaries between humans and MA who are bond you. And they will help you in exchange for ritual service. And yeah, all right. I just have a stroke, I just like don't know how to move into the next slide. So decease, voodoo priests, and priestesses may become lewat. Or you can have talismans or objects that can also become the law, surprisingly, similar to Shinto. Right, right, from the ritual service to who or what can become a spirit. I find it interesting, because I don't think they would have had any influence on each other, which is why I find it pretty confident that you're right. Right, which is why I find the similarities. Fascinating. Like, it's one thing to be like, oh, there's similarities in Judaism and Christianity.

Preston Meyer  17:28

Expect, right, but there's,

Katie Dooley  17:29

these are two cultures that, again, I assume have never or in the time of development would never have

Preston Meyer  17:36

well, once Atlantic Ocean stuff and once Pacific Ocean stuff. Yeah. And Shintoism I guess spread across the Pacific Ocean, about the same time that this voting tradition spread across the Atlantic Ocean, that didn't really have much time to mix. It's just kind of a, a cool way to look at and study primal religions, I guess,

Katie Dooley  18:01

maybe they're the ones who are right. Maybe, because they were both developed in a vacuum and they're the same.

Preston Meyer  18:09

I don't think anything's developed in a vacuum. And they're not the same, but they have similarities. Fine. But they're absolutely worth studying in much greater detail than what we're going to offer in this episode. And, like you mentioned before, most lower have been linked to Catholic saints, Papa legba, in his role of taking care of the keys to the spirit world is very often connected to St. Peter. I think that's pretty cool. Being the dude who holds the keys, the kingdom of heaven

Katie Dooley  18:46

to take over there. And then there's the Mbala, who is a serpent spirit, and he is linked to St. Patrick who notoriously chased all the snakes out of Ireland. What

Preston Meyer  18:57

an ironic connection there that seems a little bit weird. They would have heard the

Katie Dooley  19:01

story of St. Patrick's coat chasing the snakes out of Ireland. Oh, okay. He's killed the serpent.

Preston Meyer  19:08

Maybe, maybe that's how they swung it because when I initially read that I'm like, but one is when one is the serpent voting fella and the other one, like, celebrated for getting the snakes out of Ireland. Now I need to share the druid, however you want to look at it.

Katie Dooley  19:29

It was the druids that were never snakes.

Preston Meyer  19:33

But he also didn't get rid of the druids either. He converted many but druids that shouldn't

Katie Dooley  19:40

be a saint. I'm kidding. I mean, I know I wish I had looked deeper into Dunbar because maybe he's the king of the serpents and can control them. Maybe. And so then because St. Patrick can control the serpents and send them on their way. They were like Oh cool. I'm sure I'm

Preston Meyer  20:05

Vodoun theology is best described as monotheistic. Polylang Patrick, that's the new one, right? So we've talked about monotheism, worship of one single god, or well, not just the worship, but the belief in God. And then Polly Lautrec means that view worship many beings. And so that's basically how we look at the boat in tradition, that there is one Creator God. Of course, he said, Peace out, y'all can deal with the rest of the Vodoun and the laws. And so polymetric is that worship of all of those figures. So there's an awful lot of variety, people will latch on to a specific Vodoun or LOA that they find valuable to their worship, much like you see in the Catholic tradition, where people will hang on to a specific Saint for most of their interests, I guess, and then occasionally branch out to other saints when necessary for their specific needs relative to that saint, but people have patron saints and favorite saints. Same for the Voodoo tradition, my

Katie Dooley  21:18

viewers, St. St. Bernard of Clairvaux.

Preston Meyer  21:24

The lactation what a great miracle. What's interesting, though, is that the idea of this theological model goes a little bit deeper. Like we've talked about some traditions, they look one thing, and then you dig a little deeper, and it looks a little bit differently in the voting tradition. It's, it's kind of funky that because the Creator God is sometimes described as encompassing all things, which would lead us to a pantheist pen. In theistic conclusion, there is a distinct separation between the creature and the unapproachable creator. So it's not true pen and theism. It's kind of a an interesting and complicated distinction we see here. Like

Katie Dooley  22:16

it's you just splitting hairs, right? Did you know Preston, that voodoo practitioner prefer priestesses to priests contrary to most religions?

Preston Meyer  22:35

I had suspected it based on the way it's depicted in some of the more interesting popular media that I've consumed. But I didn't know that before I actually went and dug deep into this. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  22:47

And I guess I've definitely seen them. If you'd asked me prior to research in equivalence, but digging deeper. Yeah, I saw more on voodoo priestesses and voodoo priests. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  23:00

That's, it's kind of nifty that the idea of voodoo priestess would have actually been incredibly offensive to a lot of the colonists in the Americas.

Katie Dooley  23:13

Well, Catholicism you can't have a female priests. So Right.

Preston Meyer  23:17

But the idea that you have a powerful black woman up against the power of the white man, that was offensive to an awful lot of people. I mean, it still is, let's be real.

Katie Dooley  23:32

Gets the scary washing that it does. I think you're right. It's, it's absolutely racism. And these processes will perform regular family ceremonies like marriages, funerals and baptisms, just like a non voodoo priest. What, right?

Preston Meyer  23:52

It's kind of cool. It's, it was weird to me when I first saw that these voodoo priestesses performed baptisms. And then I remembered, oh, yeah, even Katie can perform a baptism and have it recognized by the Catholic Church. Really? Yeah. How do I do that? Well, first, you have to profess the faith in Christ and feel the need to perform the baptism, and then you're good to go. Oh, the Catholic Church acknowledges valid baptisms by pretty much anybody because they want as many Catholics as possible. Yeah. The exceptions, of course, are groups like Jehovah's Witnesses and the Mormons. They don't like those groups for farming

Katie Dooley  24:38

or a Mormon. I mean, I guess, my belief in Christ and I'm not an atheist anymore, right?

Preston Meyer  24:46

If you're a temporary nondenominational Christian Oh

Katie Dooley  24:53

no, I'm phenomenal. I love that. In this moment. I believe in my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Preston Meyer  25:00

I mean, it would be weird to have you perform a baptism. But if you felt the need to perform a baptism to, you know, accepted,

Katie Dooley  25:07

I can perform a baptism on behalf of the Sandlin out of fellowship. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  25:12

you can. Not that baptism is terribly important to this and Lynette is fellowship not yet.

Katie Dooley  25:23

This was a terrible tangent.

Preston Meyer  25:28

What's interesting is that Voodoo is more vulnerable to change than most other religious traditions. Because there's no single authoritative scripture or unifying leadership. It's just an oral tradition that passes from one generation to the next, and is deliberately adaptable to specific needs and situations. I think that's really fascinating. And so you'll see minor changes from one place to the next or one generation to the next. But for the most part, it's still something that you could recognize looking back as being a similar related tradition. I

Katie Dooley  26:05

think so. Yeah. And I think, you know, just knowing its history rooted in slavery, is that that's something they would want to keep recognizable, right, as part of that culture that survived that whole ordeal,

Preston Meyer  26:19

right? Well, it was originally syncretized. With with Catholicism, an awful lot of voodoo practitioners in America have also incorporated elements of Judaism and Hinduism In more recent years. Interesting.

Katie Dooley  26:31

Right? Did you find any specific practices that were incorporated? Not

Preston Meyer  26:36

specifically just other scholars saying this is a thing that I've noticed, and it's possible they're just like, This feels kind of flavored like, since I didn't find those specific notes. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  26:51

no, that's fine. We're gonna talk a little bit more about Baron, Zandi. Yeah. All right. Hey, it's a very good room. I believe you it there's a Yeah. Good. Brom. Great designed to Yeah, you can tell it's sudo inspired ROM.

Preston Meyer  27:10

Make sense with a name like that? Yep.

Katie Dooley  27:16

He's kind of the, I don't want to say most popular because in the religion, he's probably on par with anyone else. But sort of for outside observers of voodoo Baron Samedi would probably be the most recognizable spirit. Like he said, he guards the dead.

Preston Meyer  27:37

He takes the good. Those who have not displeased him back to Guinea and allows him to live in the paradise that is there. And if you've done something to offend Baron Samedi, then you would be left here to kind of suffer and potentially even end up as a zombie. We'll talk about a little bit later. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  28:03

Which is, again, where the zoo gets this like weird rap. But yeah, they absolutely believe in zombies, but not like the walking dead zombies. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  28:12

no, it's, it's kind of weird. And everything that we see in Baron Samedi, there are some that will attribute all of that to Papa legba. So it's things differ from one place to another not really that big of a deal.

Katie Dooley  28:30

All right. So if you were practicing your voodoo beliefs, what the heck do those look like? Oh, is it ritual sacrifices, kidding?

Preston Meyer  28:40

I mean, there's rituals, there are rituals, there are ritual sacrifices, and they're important, but they're not like the be all and end all defining feature of the religion. I think one of the most visible things that you can see in blue is the use of Vevey which are sometimes kind of abstract, sometimes more obvious, they're they're drawings, line drawings that are used as beacons during rituals that represent specific lower and they can look really cool so the

Katie Dooley  29:13

lower will prison possess these things as the presence in the ritual is the

Preston Meyer  29:20

belief until they move from that to a person right, just a thing that is

Katie Dooley  29:27

and these are drawn on the ground with usually some sort of white powder most commonly asked and cornmeal but it would depend on what you have on hand and where you are in the world. And yeah, we

Preston Meyer  29:37

got variety there for sure. Yeah. So animal sacrifices are used to give energy to the lower they take the life energy from the sacrificed animal, and that's used to rejuvenate and re energize the lower to whom it is offered. Way It sounds really foreign. But if you get through the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, that's not wildly different from what we see in the sacrifices offered at the temple,

Katie Dooley  30:12

and it's like a chicken, and then they eat it.

Preston Meyer  30:14

Yeah. Much like we see in the Jewish tradition. It's more of a holy barbeque situation where people share in the meal in most situations. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  30:25

it doesn't go to waste. It's, I mean, if you need to wrap your head around and think about praying before you eat dinner right now, you're just doing you just do a little more prep work. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  30:36

So I think that's kind of cool. These sacrifices are not used in casting dark spells or anything shady, because that's not what the religion is about.

Katie Dooley  30:47

No, there's really no not like Wicca where they really do believe in spell casting and magic. That's not where and like you said, it's not actually spooky, but that's where the okie that's not where the Kooky spooky and voodoo comes from? It comes from the possessions, the spirit possessions. I probably misunderstood that are definitely misunderstood. Definitely. But it is it is a very full. I mean, again, I'm an atheist. So it is a very foreign thing for me to you know, I watched a bunch of YouTube videos and spirit possession and voodoo, but Christians are taken by the Holy Spirit and ended up rolling on the ground and speaking in tongues. So. Right. Yeah, so prime is different. Yeah. But I mean, for me, I'm like, Well, yeah, that's hard to wrap my head around. But yeah, depending on your even fairly mainstream Western religious practices isn't actually that out there. It's a different spirit. Or maybe it's the same spirit. And we just haven't all figured it out yet. Right.

Preston Meyer  31:52

So the the whole deal with possessions in the Voodoo tradition is actually really interesting to me. And they, the terminology is kind of interesting to a person who is being possessed is referred to as the horse. And the incident of possession is called mounting the horse. Kind of an interesting turn of phrase, I don't think this is universal, among all voodoo, but definitely seen in Creole voodoo.

Katie Dooley  32:20

Well, it's an interesting just just imagery to kind of put it into context. And like you said, I watch a whole bunch of YouTube videos on voodoo spirit possession, these people don't remember what's happened to them. So I kind of, even if it's not universal, I like that imagery of you, our blood vessel. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  32:39

You're not the the active participant. It's kind of interesting. And so low are specifically called to possess a person to bring a message or accomplish a task, sometimes performing business transactions, which seems a little bit weird. But that isn't actually crazy, because the God of Abraham is a covenant making God. So having somebody show up, make business transactions, still not that foreign. I will or sometimes they'll simply show up to receive worship, which is not too crazy. Sometimes, however, things get a little bit more complicated, possessed person could receive an unexpected lower, or even a sequence of several lower, which makes for an interesting day, or week, several days. Yeah, it's, there's no set time on how long these possessions can last. And this seems like it'd be a problem when, say the possessed person has social duties to perform. Yes,

Katie Dooley  33:44

um, I mean, that being said, I guess it depends on where you are in the world. Maybe if you're in Louisiana, it's a little different. But when in places like Haiti, where especially in the rural communities where Voodoo is that way of life, people would be like, oh, yeah, he's possessed by Allah. And they either like, wait it out, or get a priestess to intervene, or to figure out what the Spirit wants. But, you know, I think, yeah, this was your everyday life. And again, I I watched a lot of YouTube videos. Yeah, there was one where some guy's son was possessed. And he was just like, wandering around the town. And they're like, well, but I get the priest involved now, because it's been a minute. But

Preston Meyer  34:27

yeah, there are ways to artificially end a possession, to say, hey, it's time for you to go back home lower. There's also ways that people will act to prevent possessions that are unwanted. Usually it means putting something in your hair or your head dress or your hat or whatever. Wax is used, actually, pretty often, in this way. I thought that was kind of nifty. But

Katie Dooley  34:52

I also saw sort of the opposite to that. Were people that the spirit has a preferred color. and they would know that so they these whole like houses and villages are painted a certain color to tempt to encourage a specific law to come. So I searched freeze painted blue and houses painted blue and so that whatever spirit they want to come to visit is more likely to come visit and she knows that's her place. She's welcomed there, right female spirit in this case,

Preston Meyer  35:24

a lot of work goes into this. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  35:27

I mean, it goes until all the religions, right,

Preston Meyer  35:32

like Wicca, as we talked about where people are really not too keen on dividing good magic and bad magic, or black magic from white magic. It's just magic is the thing. It's the tool not doesn't have a will of its own or a moral value in the Voodoo tradition, that they feel the same way if they don't like distinctions between good and bad magic. But there is a thing that's called red magic, which is named because of the color of the eyes when a person is possessed by a malicious spirit. I thought that was kind of nifty. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So it's not like any moral quality thrown on the color red, apart from the malicious spirit happens to cause this thing in a human's eyes, which there's a lot of things that can turn eyes red. So there's no real moral value put on that red color either. Yeah. Apart from the fact that it's a warning of a malicious spirit.

Katie Dooley  36:36

Yeah. And I was I was thinking while you were talking that, you know, this good versus bad or white versus black magic, like, in in, you know, Western Abrahamic religion. We talk about God's will is God's will, whether you agree with it or not. You know, and I disagree with some of this. But you know, someone gets cancer and they say, well, that's God's will. That person saying that doesn't go cancer is bad. They're just saying that's God's decision. Right? Or they're not saying God is bad, excuse me that that's just God's decision. That's his bigger plan for you. So same thing, if you're kind of going, where does this fit or how do I make sense of, but this feels bad or wrong? That's a parallel. I was thinking about. Sure. Okay, fair, parallel. Excellent. Okay. Just like in Shinto, altars are a big deal. And funnily enough, they always include images of the Catholic saints, even if that's I mean, I guess it would relate to the spirit that they're trying to invoke, but it's not like they're saying, hey, St. Patrick, come for a visit. You're trying to bring the spirit that was synchronized with St. Patrick Dunbar in this case, but I just think it's funny you see all these like Catholic prayer candles and statues and right. That's not really it at all.

Preston Meyer  38:04

It's, it's an interesting combination of faith traditions, for sure. In addition to saints, and the more common LOA and the vodien ancestors are often revered and added to the list of LOA and are sometimes invoked in various ceremonies as well. Like if your grandma was a great sorceress or a priestess, depending on your tradition, you might want to have her come and help you with something specifically.

Katie Dooley  38:33

And this I actually found really interesting because it's so different than North America is that in Haiti, graveyards are actually family owned, because that's how important a graveyard is in their rituals, whether that is for invoking a family member or accessing Baron Samedi. graveyards are huge in their rituals, so they're just like, privately owned.

Preston Meyer  38:55

I think it was pretty nifty.

Katie Dooley  38:57

I mean, I don't want to own a graveyard.

Preston Meyer  39:01

It's I feel like an awful lot of people think it's weird until you realize how many people even among Christians, and atheists want to be buried on their own homestead?

Katie Dooley  39:15

I guess so I just like, and maybe this is partially North American culture and partially the state of the world, but like, people move around so much, like grandparents or burden, Saskatchewan. And we're not in Saskatchewan. We're in Alberta, and who knows where I'll end up when I met that, you know, half of my life so to have a privately owned family graveyard is like it's it feels like more of an inconvenience. But, you know, North America, far more affluent than Haiti, unfortunately. So we're a lot more mobile and yeah, so I can see why. If you're kinda staying where you grew up that it would make sense, but yeah, I know. I'm not shipping bodies to Saskatchewan, right? My notes say this is where voodoo can get kind of spooky is that human skulls can be included in some of the altars. And like I said, altars are very common to be found in graveyards, since this is where spirits like to hang out. But not this is not exclusive. Some people have their own home shrines or there's community trends or altars as well so that you're not just always gonna find people in graveyards in Haiti.

Preston Meyer  40:37

Yeah, so the idea of fetishism. And I feel like we posted on Instagram about what a fetish is, but I'm going to restate it here because I think it's a great point to illustrate that a fetish is not not an obsession or a kink. A fetish is an object that brings you power. Within shamanic traditions like voodoo, a fetish is a necessary tool in a charm. Much like in your sex life where a fetish is what gives you the power associated with arousal, which without which you might be impotent. Oh. So a fetish gives one power. So if we get pedantic, having a foot fetish sounds relatively innocent. Owning a fetish. Sounds a bit creepy.

Katie Dooley  41:29

I do.

Preston Meyer  41:33

Do I own a foot fetish? No? No, okay.

Katie Dooley  41:38

I don't know anyone with a foot fetish?

Preston Meyer  41:40

I do. I bet you do know somebody who has a foot fetish. But it's most people don't talk about their fetishes and play company. But I feel like it's a lot more common than most people expect.

Katie Dooley  41:59

So on the topic of, there's like, a rabbit's foot is a fetish.

Preston Meyer  42:04

Or a rabbit's foot is a foot fetish

Katie Dooley  42:07

that you own. That you've put luck on.

Preston Meyer  42:11

Yeah, if it brings you luck, if it's a talisman or a magical artifact of any kind. That's not a non fetish. It is a fetish.

Katie Dooley  42:24

At all malarious right now. So bad.

Preston Meyer  42:32

And an awful lot of manmade objects are believed to have supernatural powers in the Voodoo tradition.

Katie Dooley  42:38

Yeah, and this is just like in Shinto, where spirit could possess basically anything as well. Yeah. Um, during rituals at the altars, offerings of food, like recent animal sacrifices and drink which is typically rum. I think that has to do something with the geography are offered to the spirits.

Preston Meyer  42:59

Absolutely. Pouring out for the departed pour one out for whoever is collecting.

Katie Dooley  43:04

Yeah, one for me. One for the spirit. One for me. One for the spirit. Right. Okay, so when everyone's wanting to hear is about voodoo dolls. And I was so excited to learn about voodoo dolls. And then I was grossly disappointed because they don't exist. Pretty

Preston Meyer  43:25

much. Yeah. voodoo dolls

Katie Dooley  43:29

do not exist. It's like a karate chop.

Preston Meyer  43:33

Doesn't exist. You trying to tell me that? There's no such thing as a karate Joey. No, it's

Katie Dooley  43:37

a judo chop. That doesn't exist. Yeah, Judo is all throwing, isn't it? Yeah. Pinning. No, but when I was a kid, my daddy school Judo that needs to go Judo chop. And then I learned that due to chops aren't real. Voodoo Doll so Andy there Santa.

Preston Meyer  43:54

Hey, Santa Claus is real. He's just been dead for a long time and deliver.

Katie Dooley  44:03

On this horrible tangent voodoo dolls don't exist. They come from English folklore. I'll flashback to last episode. And they're actually called puppets. Puppets are used exactly how culture has made the voodoo doll to look out where you represent the human and you cast magic on it. The idea of the voodoo doll is it's anti black sentiment. Basically they're trying to make voodoo look like a scary world religion and dehumanize it but there's it doesn't voodoo dolls don't exist at all. Like there's nothing even close that I can be like, Oh, it was taken from this. Nope. Only the puppets, which are English folklore are

Preston Meyer  44:47

sure I did find some voodoo doll ish things in the Voodoo tradition in my researches, but they were not meant to be used to hurt

Katie Dooley  44:57

people do not stick pins in them to get Do people body aches? No,

Preston Meyer  45:01

that's not it at all. They're pretty much exclusively used to draw positive attentions of the spirits to the intended person. And from my observation, they're not super common, but I've seen some work that says that they are real thing. Oh, interesting.

Katie Dooley  45:20

Everything I read said, No, you've been fooled.

Preston Meyer  45:24

Maybe the dude I was reading up on, I had been fooled. Maybe.

Katie Dooley  45:29

There you go. So like he said, All this making wudu to look like a scary devil worshipping dangerous. Religion is basically racism.

Preston Meyer  45:39

Yeah, absolutely. It's not basically how can we villainize the black? Absolutely. Yeah. How

Katie Dooley  45:43

do we make them other?

Preston Meyer  45:45

Yeah. But

Katie Dooley  45:47

that being said, they do believe in zombies.

Preston Meyer  45:50

They do. It's interesting, most of what we see as the zombies apart from of course, the more popular science fiction zombies that we've been seeing in the last couple of decades. Most of them are kind of tied to the Haitian tradition. But that's not to say that they didn't exist in the West African tradition, either. The zombie is the Congo Bantu word for God. And new zoom B is a Congo, Congo Bantu word for fetish. And so the zombie that we see is in between, but part of both worlds, it's kind of interesting that it's an object with the divine power connected to it. And they are basically slaves to a book whore, or a sorcerer, they have no personality, or spirit or will of their own. And they are just mindless, kind of like we saw in Dawn of the Dead, which is nice and simple and slow and dumb.

Katie Dooley  46:56

I mean, I saw the report that basically, it's like being in a coma, you can be that kind of zombie to where you appear dead. And they, honestly, they probably aren't good. But they believe that they're still like this life force in them. And they have no control. So

Preston Meyer  47:16

yeah, and sometimes they are walking around. And those freak people out real bad. But there's also the opposite side, where a second kind of zombie is a disembodied spirit. And both of these are terrible fates that are meant to be avoided by faithful vodien practitioners. And the threat of being turned into a zombie was used to keep patients slaves from killing themselves to escape their terrible slave drivers, who are also usually slaves themselves. So life in Haiti before the revolution really sucked. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  48:00

And was that to just like, preserve the population and the culture? Yeah.

Preston Meyer  48:06

It's awful. Yeah. Cuz

Katie Dooley  48:08

I mean, they're discouraging you from killing yourself to be a slave? Yeah.

Preston Meyer  48:16

Yeah, it's awful. And what I thought was really interesting. And we went looking up into some some law books. And article 246 of the Haitian Criminal Code, which was established in 1864, dictates that turning somebody into a zombie counts as attempted murder. What I thought that was really interesting that it is attempted murder rather than outright murder. So I think they get some credit for knowing the difference. Because it's hard to say that a walking body is dead, but you've definitely messed him up. Absolutely. There's been a fair bit of research looking into how these zombies are actually made. And it's a few chemical compounds that basically make you just mentally malleable, like super easy to control and docile and slow and some details kind of line up with a stroke. It's pretty messed up. But there are some elements that they haven't been able to really figure out what's going on with it. And the morality of the issue is actually a problem. Because part of one of these compounds is made from the brains of a buried child. We can go ahead and be testing that.

Katie Dooley  49:44

Yeah, that's interesting. And I I wouldn't be surprised and I don't know this for sure. This is just Katie talking out of her ass. I wouldn't be surprised if some of that is just the faith of it. You know what I mean? That

Preston Meyer  50:00

frogs eyes.

Katie Dooley  50:01

Yeah, right that if you you're I mean a placebo right? If you believe that somebody's tried to turn you into a zombie and then there's chemical chemicals already that are interfering with your your brain chemicals. And you have this belief for your entire life on in voodoo and zombies and spirits. impressionable is not the word I want to use because I think that's unfair, but it's the best word I have for what I'm trying to describe.

Preston Meyer  50:29

Yeah, there's a lot of social reinforcement. That's the existence of these zombies. If you if you are told, and are in a state where you're going to believe that you are dead and a zombie, you're going to behave that way. And people who see you and know that this has happened to you are going to treat you this way. There's no discouraging it. It's hugely problematic, not that it's a common everyday practice. The people who make zombies are generally hated by their communities at large.

Katie Dooley  51:05

Because it's not this is not a smiled upon practice. No, zombies is bad. Yeah, no matter what tradition you're in zombies are bad.

Preston Meyer  51:16

But it's, it's fascinating that it's such a visible part of Haitian folklore, and also visible in other parts of the world as well. Absolutely. On a lighter note, I think it's interesting to note that today, most voodoo practitioners in the Americas at least, and the Caribbean, have been baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. In 1993, Pope John Paul the second actually spoke favorably about the magical tradition that has become so tightly bound to the church, which of course was spoken out against by an awful lot of people who don't like the Pope and Catholicism. Some of the more American traditions of Christianity are like, It's proof that the Pope is terrible. And the Pope is a Satanist in disguise, which is nonsense.

Katie Dooley  52:06

You don't believe in Satan? I mean, I guess the Pope would believe

Preston Meyer  52:11

he does. But the people that he's offering favor to don't. He visited the voting practitioners in Benin in West Africa, and praised their faith and told them that being Catholic does not require them to betray or abandon their voting traditions.

Katie Dooley  52:29

How Hannah theistic have him, right?

Preston Meyer  52:32

Except he is definitely speaking from a point of, Hey, y'all need to become Catholic.

Katie Dooley  52:39

Can you keep that but you gotta become Catholic, right? Yeah.

Preston Meyer  52:42

He is saying this fully aware that syncretism has been a thing in their tradition for so long, that it's just like, hey, that God that y'all talk about? worship Jesus. JC, right. And I think it's kind of interesting. While there are bad actors in voodoo traditions, like the book horror Sorcerer's that we mentioned before, Voodoo is not about casting spells on people, or hurting people. That's not the deal. You're not going to make friends hurting.

Katie Dooley  53:16

As long, right?

Preston Meyer  53:18

The voodoo tradition is about healing. I think that's kind of the best takeaway from all of this. On the small scale, it's about healing individuals in times of need, being able to call on papa legba, or Baron Samedi when somebody is near death, and bless them and have them turnout. Okay. Pretty cool. Pretty positive stuff. On the larger scale. Voodoo is about healing a nation and in some respects the whole world. It's, it's born to us in a place of pain, carried over by the slavery and some terrible abuses, but it's all about becoming better and healing

Katie Dooley  54:02

like that. That was a really hopeful message.

Preston Meyer  54:07

Yeah, I can't take credit for it. That's just what I've gleaned from my studies. All

Katie Dooley  54:11

right. I'll take credit for it, then. You're not going to do it. Oh, well. All right. Well, I really enjoy learning about voodoo. Right. And if you enjoyed learning about voodoo, you should check out our Discord. And hop into the conversation that we're inevitably going to have about voodoo. And you should check out our Patreon so that we can keep producing great content like today's episode, or if a subscription model is not your thing, you can always check out our Spreadshirt and buy some sweet sweet holy watermelon merch.

Preston Meyer  54:51

Thanks for joining us. Peace be with you.

This episode is all about witchcraft and wizardry. Starting in the 1950s Wicca takes inspiration and teachings from English folklore and uses ancient symbolism.

It’s important to understand that witchcraft and paganism are not the same things. Pagan means rustic rural folk, typically used to refer to anyone who isn’t Christian. If you’re not a Christian, you’re a pagan. 

It doesn’t have a faith system associated with it. In the last 150-200 years people have started to self-identify as pagan and are reclaiming the title.

Gerald Gardiner started working on the Wiccan religion as early as the 1930s, and it is the only fully-formed religion that developed in England. Gardiner referred to Wicca as the “Cult of Witchcraft” and referred to practitioners as Wica (no N). 

Wicca grew in popularity during the 1960s counterculture movement as young adults rebelled against longstanding institutions like the government and church. 

Wiccan might use spooky-sounding terms like “coven” to talk about their religious organizations, but it’s not a scary religion. Wiccans believe magic is not supernatural, but rather a natural force that you can learn to harness – just like we’ve learned to harness wind and solar power. There is a saying in Wicca, “If it harms none, do what you will”. They believe any magic you perform will come back to you threefold, so it behooves you to be kind. 

There is no Satan worship in this religion! Wiccans don’t believe in Satan at all, that’s a Christian thing. It is, however, a duo-theistic faith. They believe in the Horned God and the Triple Goddess.  

We promise it's not nearly as spooky as you may think!

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website

***

Katie Dooley  00:09

Hello preston

Preston Meyer  00:20

makes a good episode name no

Katie Dooley  00:22

because there's no context. Okay, either No, I would just say wicker wicker and people can get that.

Preston Meyer  00:33

Yeah, it does need a little bit of a graphic assistance Yeah.

Katie Dooley  00:35

Anyway so that's what we're talking about today on the holy watermelon podcast is Wicca not DJing?

Preston Meyer  00:51

Witchcraft and paganism Well, mostly witchcraft, they're not the exact same thing.

Katie Dooley  00:56

Well, we'll get into that I, we have some progressively spookier episodes heading into Halloween. But much like Satanism most of these aren't actually spooky once you know what they're about. So

Preston Meyer  01:10

they're things that when you name them, people will often come up with spooky imagery. That's about it fair. Like, would you talk about witches? People are probably they're gonna think of Harry Potter or the Sanderson Sisters, or mad mad a meme? Or who knows what something spooky or really awesomely fantastical.

Katie Dooley  01:33

Right? So I just want to get this out of the way. Right now. They do not worship Satan.

Preston Meyer  01:39

Yeah, that's, that's the thing that people say all the time. And if you remember, a few months back, we talked about Satanists, and how very few of them even worship Satan. And none of the witches that are at all part of the mainstream of witchcraft. even believe that there is a Satan Yes,

Katie Dooley  02:00

just like atheists, they don't even believe in Satan to be able to worship him. You'll see here that for the next couple episodes, they don't believe in fate. And do you want to talk about the semantics between Wiccan and paganism and how they do actually interchangeable?

Preston Meyer  02:16

For those of you who have been paying attention? I like words, that's my thing. paganism is a it has a weird history. Today, it's used a little differently than it was originally, the word is derived from the Latin Parganas, which literally means just rustic rural folk, as opposed to the developed city folk. This especially came to be a problem when Christianity was growing really effectively in the cities in the country folk had no use for Christianity. So that became the easy pejorative for those bumpkins. Don't believe in Jesus, those silly pagans, and then it just kind of stuck as if you're not a Christian. You're a pagan. But that's the broad, pejorative title thrown on anything non Christian as paganism is pretty much the equivalent of the Jews calling everybody who's not Jewish, a Gentile. Yeah, that's about it.

Katie Dooley  03:12

So, so pagan, doesn't have anything to do with witchcraft. Inherently, it's sort of adopted that but it's not the original meaning of the word

Preston Meyer  03:21

the last 150 200 years, more or less people have started to self identify as pagan, because they have come to understand its meaning in a Christian context. And so now people are now reclaiming the title, which is a fun thing to watch, I guess. Yeah. I

Katie Dooley  03:40

was really surprised by Wicca because it's a fairly new religion. And we'll talk about this it's based off of older folklore, but Wicca developed in the 1950s. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  03:55

going back to that word thing, just remembered wika old word, new pronunciation

Katie Dooley  04:08

times today, I'm so sorry, everyone.

Preston Meyer  04:10

So that double see a much for some reason Old English has a couple of little things that we see in common with good old Italian, where it'll make a chest sound in most scenarios. And so a wicker as it's commonly pronounced today, the spelling gives us something a little more familiar sounding of the witches. Are you the Witcher? The Witcher was a good show.

Katie Dooley  04:39

I was gonna say it but that ties into this somehow that I didn't research. I

Preston Meyer  04:43

don't know enough about the Witcher. I don't. I enjoyed the TV show. I don't know any of the lore beyond the TV show.

Katie Dooley  04:49

I know. If you know what I mean, right?

Preston Meyer  04:53

Henry's a handsome Henry Cavill

Katie Dooley  04:57

where we can and go down that road. So yes, the founder, I guess of modern day Wicca is a gentleman by the name of Gerald Gardner. And he started forming the religion in the 19, sort of 30s to 50s. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  05:17

he put a lot of study and thought into organizing this religion, it's the only fully formed religion to actually have originated in England. So maybe it's more English to be Wiccan and to be Anglican. Oh, since Anglican, of course, is just Catholic light songs Pope.

Katie Dooley  05:39

I actually think that's really interesting in that JRR, Tolkien really wanted to create a, that's what he wanted to do with Lord of the Rings was create this truly English creation myth. But I think he did a great job he did. And I'm sure there are, there's some peril, religion based off Lord of the Rings, probably. But it's interesting that Gardner was really successful in basing it in stories from the Middle Ages, and, you know, centuries of witchcraft.

Preston Meyer  06:10

He was a great anthropologist, and he really knew what he was talking about when he put this together, reviving some old traditions. But it's interesting to me that the way he used the labels for the organization was kind of interesting to me, that he would talk about the organization as a witch cult or the cult of witchcraft. And never use the generic term Wicca to describe the tradition or the practice. But he did call practitioners of the craft, Wicca, spelt with only a single C, which is conspicuous. And the spelling has since evolved as other people have taken to writing on the subject.

Katie Dooley  06:52

Yes, and now I think most people will refer to themselves as weekends. Yes,

Preston Meyer  06:56

that's a lot more common in my observation as well.

Katie Dooley  06:59

So Wicca is a form of Western. So terrorist ism, esoteric, esoteric esotericism? Is that how you say, that's how you say, all right. Which is a mouthful, a and then also a terrible definition. So basically, the western part means it was developed in England. But so terrorism is a lot harder to define.

Preston Meyer  07:28

Yeah, there's a variety of definitions. And I mean, they kind of work together, but they don't all actually mean the same thing. It's kind of interesting, I found three different almost definitions of esotericism. The

Katie Dooley  07:46

first one says, a matter of a secret internal tradition entrusted to a selected group. Fairly straightforward. I mean, that's kind of any religion.

Preston Meyer  07:56

Some of them are a lot more open than others. But not all.

Katie Dooley  07:59

Members Only stuff. Yeah, a tradition of an enchant. Sorry. The second one is a tradition of an enchanted world view, opposed by increasing disenchantment in the surrounding world.

Preston Meyer  08:12

Look at all this science and people saying, Oh, the world is so easy to explain. And then it's like, actually, no, the world is actually awesome and a little mysterious. I'm on board with that. I like it.

Katie Dooley  08:24

I don't disagree with it either. And the third one is a tradition of preserving knowledge and sensitivity that is rejected by both empirical science and dogmatic orthodox religious authorities.

Preston Meyer  08:35

So this is one that gets up on a lot of people's nerves. You come up with all these things that, like, you got an awful lot of people who will reject one of those extremes for the other. It's either just science or just organized religion. And there's this kind of, I don't want to say middle path between the two because it doesn't take the common secular point. It's like a third point stretching this line out into a triangle. Yeah. Which is actually kind of cool. But it offends a lot of people. And I don't see why that's necessary, but that's the world we live in. Right. And so esotericism is in like you said, an awful lot of religions. It's weird that also a lot of religions really kind of try and shut it down. Especially the way you see in mainstream Christianity. They're really not terribly friendly with Arrow esotericism.

Katie Dooley  09:34

I feel like and correct me if I'm wrong, but it's like, it's because it's embracing that you can't explain it or the entire point of Christianity is to be able to say no, this is true. Or any religion, right?

Preston Meyer  09:46

Yeah. Most religions really like being able to latch on something and like be really dogmatic about it. Where right yeah, so So I just think it's it's really interesting to see this group really embrace what is so unpopular in So many other groups.

Katie Dooley  10:01

I was pretty intuitive actually. Yeah, the research for sure. I could get on board.

Preston Meyer  10:10

So Wicca rapidly grew in popularity in the 60s and 70s, especially with the help of the boom of the counterculture movement that we've talked a little bit about before, when a lot of people, especially young adults rebelled against pretty much every form of authority, especially state and church. And so the esoteric ideas that came with Wicca really appealed to a big chunk of the population. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  10:38

And I think we were, you know, that was a time where we're getting more worldly. That's where Hinduism and Buddhism also really started to take root in North America as well. So big exchange of ideas and people being open to something other than air quotes. Normal, right?

Preston Meyer  10:56

Just being tired of your pastor, your priest or whatever. I mean, I can feel that today. So I get it. And at the time, it was a huge social push to really go out and explore everything. And today, there's still distrust, but there's not as much push to go and explore. I

Katie Dooley  11:18

think we'll see that with Gen. Zed. Yeah. That way, we'll come with them. You might be right. We're overdue. So time will tell. But I think so. Weekends, organize themselves in Kevin's. So pretty common witch lingo, but they don't really organize it all. They don't really organize at all. So there is like an overarching body, but you can just be a self practicing Wiccan. A lot like I just mentioned Buddhism, right? You can just be a Buddhist on your own or you can go to your Buddhist temple every week. Same kind of goes for Wiccan.

Preston Meyer  11:55

Yeah, there's an awful lot of independent practitioners. But there's also a fair size of the Wiccan population is sort of organized into covens. And usually that's how information is passed from one generation to another when you're not picking up a book in a store. I really liked the word coven. I think it's cool. As much as a lot of the world likes to, especially Christians would like to feel uncomfortable with the word coven. I think more people should refer to Christian congregations as covens. I think one it sounds way

Katie Dooley  12:35

cooler in a way.

Preston Meyer  12:37

On one hand, it will aggravate many Christians. But on the other hand, it just might remind them that they're supposed to be a covenant community, which a lot of Christians seem to have a hard time with. We'll see.

Katie Dooley  12:50

He's allowed to say that he's a Christian. Yep. I feel like we haven't reminded our listeners of that in a minute. Maybe I'm gonna get hate mail Preston.

Preston Meyer  12:59

I remember when we first started this, I was asking for hate mail all the time. And we still haven't gotten any.

Katie Dooley  13:06

I mean, I'm really impressed when we do our first year anniversary episode. I think we'll talk about that. I'm really happy actually, that we haven't anyway.

Preston Meyer  13:16

It's almost like our audiences actually clever and enlightened and understands what we're sharing. I love it. It's awesome.

Katie Dooley  13:24

So as I mentioned earlier in Wicked, although a new religion is based off of older English folklore, witchcraft, modern shamanic magic, and it has ancient symbols that might look a little scary, like the pentagram, which has also been adopted by the Freemasons and others.

Preston Meyer  13:46

Yeah, it's a it's a cool symbol. The symbol of the pentacle is certainly not exclusive to witchcraft or the Freemasons as you mentioned. In the same way, the five pointed star is used in Christianity to denote divine light as the source of life and power given to mankind and used directly connected to Jesus in the New Testament. The pentacle is a symbol of power to Wiccans. Each of the five points stands for one of the four elements or the four material states. And the fifth is spirit or ether being the power to bind the others into something useful.

Katie Dooley  14:22

And while it's like semantics there, pentacle is the correct way up, and a satanic pentacle is the opposite. Yeah, pretty much if you see someone wearing a pentacle, they might not be they're not a devil worshiper at all, but you can now identify if they're Wiccan or Satanist. Yeah, so

Preston Meyer  14:46

something practical that you can take out with you into the street right,

Katie Dooley  14:49

just when you see somewhere and pentacle point at them and shout at them what they are saying,

Preston Meyer  14:58

I spy with my I little something that worship Satan or doesn't which is more likely the case.

Katie Dooley  15:10

So we've talked about the history of Wicca What the heck do these witches even believe in besides a little bit of magic or a lot of magic?

Preston Meyer  15:19

Well definitely need to restate not Satan it's it's weird that so many people still are convinced and it's mostly Christians let's be real mostly Christians like to accuse wage worshipping smile and

Katie Dooley  15:39

Abraham I'd Sani Abrahamic but being in Canada we see mostly Christians. Yeah, but I'm sure if you asked a Jewish person or Muslim witches they go to Satan. That's you could be right. I usually am Preston. That's good.

Preston Meyer  16:00

Which is a gender neutral term, and can apply it to men or women. That's what that means. About Warlock which is usually thrown around just at dudes is considered derogatory. It's kind of rude because the word itself actually means oath breaker or sometimes a liar. But really more truthfully, it's an oath breaker, someone who's actually betrayed a trust.

Katie Dooley  16:26

So yes, so boy, witches are witches and girl witches are witches. They're witches ease on binary witches are witches. Right? Very easy.

Preston Meyer  16:35

Yeah. It's one label for so many people who have such a hard time with these extra labels and how do we handle them? Now so easy, there's just one.

Katie Dooley  16:48

So, sociologically, Wicca is primarily a duo theistic religion. Now there are people who are who believe in a more polytheistic Pantheon or a monotheistic Pantheon, your

Preston Meyer  17:05

mileage may vary.

Katie Dooley  17:06

But generally, the majority of Wiccans have a duo theistic pantheon? Yeah, I don't know if that's the best word.

Preston Meyer  17:17

Having Pantheon as a word. Sounds funky. Yeah. Does

Katie Dooley  17:20

duo theistic sky family?

Preston Meyer  17:23

Their theology is nice and simple. Yes, we have one goddess and one God. And that's easy to handle.

Katie Dooley  17:32

Yes. So the man, the male is the horned God. And he's often associated with animals, the natural world, the afterlife, and is supposed to be an ideal role model for men.

Preston Meyer  17:49

Like that, you know, what's the dudes need a better role model than what they've got?

Katie Dooley  17:55

The female also known as the triple Goddess is associated with regular lady things like fertility live springtime, and she's supposed to be an ideal role model for women. One thing I looked into and couldn't find anything on, I think we'd actually have to find a real which is what this looks like now that we're moving away from the gender binary.

Preston Meyer  18:15

That's an excellent question.

Katie Dooley  18:17

I found like one Okay, article, but not right. So cool. Like you have an ideal role model for men and you have an ideal role model for women but but the non binary or gender fluid people, and I feel like Wiccan is progressive enough that they've probably address that within their own Kevin's,

Preston Meyer  18:35

but what you like about either one of them, and you're gonna be okay.

Katie Dooley  18:39

Yeah, but I'd be curious to actually, like, get some research or some actual empirical data on how they, how they handle that now,

Preston Meyer  18:50

right? I think the triple Goddess is really interesting that hecka tea is the name that's, I think, most often, at least really, really often applied to this goddess. But she is revered in three forms, as the maiden, the mother, and the Crone, a young woman, a middle aged woman, and an old woman to kind of appeal to each of the three stages of life and yeah, it's definitely not just for women, which is pretty cool. Yeah. As

Katie Dooley  19:26

I mentioned, just like any other religion, there's lots of denominations in Wicca. They're called traditions, as opposed to denominations. And they vary on what their do a theistic god and goddess look like there's also variations. So the oak King instead of the horned horn, King, horned God, and a boon goddess instead of the triple goddess,

Preston Meyer  19:49

I think it's really cool that the emblem that's used for them, or well, specifically, the emblem that is used for the horned God is Some full circle and like a crescent, like a crescent moon turned upwards right on top of the circle to look kind of like horns. Yeah. And then the symbol for the triple Goddess is that exact same symbol turned 90 degrees, and bring that Crescent over to the opposite side where it is. So you've got three in a line. Yeah, crescent, whole circle, crescent. And it's nice and simple, and yet so easily recognizable. It's kind of cool. It's great. Gardner also spoke of a God beyond the primary duo, whom He called the prime mover, and the supreme god who was too complex for the human mind. Easy enough idea to get a hold of a lot of

Katie Dooley  20:44

religions talk about this Gnostic sort of, yeah.

Preston Meyer  20:47

And so some Wiccans see the supreme god as pantheistic. And therefore, the God and Goddess are just aspects of that supremum God. Some others see him as a prime mover in a more deistic way, that he created the lesser gods, and then just kind of left his creation indefinitely. And there's loads of diversity in between, like Christians, there's just so many different ways you can interpret the ideas that are going around. And unfortunately, there are a few too many Wiccans who are like Christians, too happy to tell others that they aren't real Wiccans when they believe something slightly different. It's, it's not as much of a problem as it is in Christianity, but it's a thing that I

Katie Dooley  21:35

feel like covens are few and far between.

Preston Meyer  21:39

They're not huge parts of the population.

Katie Dooley  21:43

We'll talk about this more when we get into prac the actual practices that happen in Wicca but magic plays a huge role in in Wicca, but it is not believed to be supernatural, which is why this point is in our belief section. So it's considered a force of nature. So you're just wielding it like we control the wind or the water or fire. They use magic.

Preston Meyer  22:12

Yeah, it's, it's a complicated, but natural thing. I mean, we didn't understand the formula for how to describe gravity for a long time. But we're there now. And then we're still questioning it.

Katie Dooley  22:25

There's loads of still stuck in this chair.

Preston Meyer  22:32

You're not stuck. I mean, you've chosen to sit down, you're not tied down. You're not glued down. I

Katie Dooley  22:37

know. But I didn't feel good or float or fly or anything cool.

Preston Meyer  22:40

This is true. I really like the Wiccan read, I've heard it a few times and variations on it over the years as I've had dealings with a couple of wiggers here in the city. And the Wiccan read or advice states, if it harms none, do what you will. Kind of easy, solid. I kind of akin to the golden rule.

Katie Dooley  23:06

But that's like, exactly the same as long as you're not hurting anyone else do what do you want? Yeah, that's my motto. Yes. So this comes up more with the practice of magic is, you know, black magic inevitably comes up. And if you believe in magic, and what it can do, then, you know, obviously can cause harm or just like it could cause good. So that's where this comes in to, you know, yeah, do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If you can perform magic that make sure you do good stuff. I also, I don't. I had a note somewhere now I gotta find it. Maybe I didn't write it down. But basically, it said that whatever you do with magic, we'll come back at you three fold. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  23:57

you got that here. And then I

Katie Dooley  23:58

don't see it. But I won't scroll through everything so that we don't lose our spot. But basically, yeah, that's what it says that whatever you do with your magic will come back at you three folds. So basically do good stuff. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  24:16

And it's kind of interesting that people like to talk about black magic versus white magic, as you kind of mentioned, and some witches will talk about a distinction there, or the left hand path versus the right hand path. But more and more we're seeing that that's less of a popular way to look at magic now which is kind of interesting

Katie Dooley  24:38

and only enough I think we'll talk more about Black Magic next episode. Spoiler

Preston Meyer  24:45

are teasers attached to a very different magical philosophy. Very

Katie Dooley  24:52

physically spooky,

Preston Meyer  24:53

but more spatially more spooky, for sure more spirit.

Katie Dooley  24:56

From my research. I'm already

Preston Meyer  25:00

For the vast majority of witches the shedding of blood is abominable. And animal sacrifices are outright forbidden. Dropping rat tails and frog's eyes and real potion is absolute nonsense. Sorry to disappoint your

Katie Dooley  25:17

nonsense.

Preston Meyer  25:21

I thought the the idea of afterlife was really interesting that the Wiccans Alright, well, not all Wiccans, but an awful lot of Wiccans believe in that there is an immortal spirit that lingers after death. And that an awful lot of witches hold the simple belief that if you focus on making the best of this life, it should probably have a positive effect on the next life. But otherwise, specific doctrines of an afterlife don't tend to hold much importance and can vary greatly from one group to another. There's really no consensus on what what constitutes a spirit or a soul even. So it's kind of an interesting thing. But Gardner did believe in reincarnation, which is interesting, we don't see a whole lot of new religions talking about reincarnation, but this is one of them. And he taught that witches would come back as witches, again, as opposed to any lesser or Well, actually, based on the model that we have from Gardner, there is no greater state to come back then as a witch. But they wouldn't come back as a lesser thing at all, after, and this would be after an indefinite rest in what he called the summer land. You could be resting in the summer land for a short time, a long time, who knows. But it would be pleasant. And that's kind of nice. Summerlin does have a nice ring, right. And this belief is not adopted by all Wiccans. But it is by those people who really stick to Gardner's doctrine. And there's also variants on the nature of the life cycle, what it means to have a reincarnation cycle. Some of them do adopt an idea similar to what we saw in Hinduism, others vary a little bit more. And

Katie Dooley  27:14

I saw in some of the articles I read that they do have this idea of karma, similar to what we see in Hinduism. So what's it like being a witch?

Preston Meyer  27:26

I don't know. You're asking the wrong question.

Katie Dooley  27:30

I was trying to segue in. But thinks, so day to day practices of witches. They don't really have they don't have a religious book, Gardner wrote a book of shadows, which is part religious texts, part notebook part, how to do magic rituals. And so that's revered in some groups of or some covens, I guess, some witches will make their own book of shadows are also known as a Grimoire. Or you can have a Grimoire passed down to you. So there is, that's pretty standard to have something that dictates different magical rituals. It just depends on who is you have and where you got it from.

Preston Meyer  28:18

I've really liked that they're typically treated as a really great recipe book, which is an oversimplification, but I think it's useful to get the idea across that, you know, if you're making pancakes, you don't need tons of yeast, for example, you're gonna have not pancakes if you had yeast. And so these, these grimoires are part of them. Part of them is that you are taking notes on what has been working for spells and what has not. And that's, I think it's really nifty that it's a living text that can change from generation to generation not and not be a problem when it makes those changes. Absolutely. I think it's super cool. For many Wiccans the importance of practice is a lot more important than belief. Ritual is 100% more important than theology. Because what you do affects the world around you. It affects the people you deal with. And your theology is mostly going to be affecting you unless you've decided to be dogmatic about it and start hurting people because of it. Which isn't really a thing and Wiccan Yeah, we

Katie Dooley  29:26

can secure, particularly evangelical

Preston Meyer  29:30

Oh, no, either, in my experience, typically pretty open to hanging out with people of all faiths and inviting them to some events that are appropriate to have guests, but they're not going knocking on doors saying, Hey, have you heard the good news? Makes it easy to be neighbors with them. Unless of course you're sticking the ask Christian who decides to Hate Everything that's different. Then you're the one being hard neighbor,

Katie Dooley  30:04

you're the drum.

Preston Meyer  30:06

It's actually really interesting. I noted in my studies that many Wiccans are actually reluctant to accept the belief in magic. And it doesn't help that there's one single definition of magic that varies from one school to the next. But even these doubting, Wiccans all value, the power of participation in a ritual that brings about a powerful religious experience. And

Katie Dooley  30:30

this is going to be more interesting. Next episode, too. Sure. So next episode, we're talking about voodoo. Absolutely. So as we get closer to Halloween, so I would say that I am reluctant to believe in magic, but there is this energy, right? That I mean, it's like mob mentality, I guess it's like the easiest way to explain it that we'll see this in voodoo rituals a lot next week, where something happens to our psyche, when we're around a lot of people thinking the same thing. And so I can see how that could be interpreted as magic or, like you said, next week as spiritual experience of some sort.

Preston Meyer  31:09

And yeah, it's kind of nifty. Like I don't believe in hypnosis. And that's this kind of plays into how we see voodoo played out.

Katie Dooley  31:19

Have you ever been to a hypnotist? I have, and you still don't believe it. You think people just act like that?

Preston Meyer  31:27

Because I'm such a skeptic by intellectual mechanism that permits hypnosis is complicated and funky. And it's not fair to say I don't believe that hypnosis is a thing and because it absolutely works, but it's not mystical or magical or anything. It's a semi conscious choice. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Which is, itself kind of funky and weird to study,

Katie Dooley  31:53

I think. Yeah. Because I've only been to one or two hypnotist shows and a good hypnotist will put like, pull from the line and be like, No, you have to get off the stage because they know that it's not going to work on you. Yeah. And they know real fast. I think that person because I don't want to embarrass myself and people do really embarrassing stuff.

Preston Meyer  32:13

Absolutely. So slight deviation.

Katie Dooley  32:19

But an important deviation. No kidding. It wasn't even a little bit back

Preston Meyer  32:22

to the belief in Wicca, that ritual is more important than theological belief. Really, the best argument for that kind of position is that there's an awful lot of reasons to do good. Doesn't really matter why we do good. Not as much I think now,

Katie Dooley  32:41

but you have to understand why it's good. And what good is yeah, let's go back a few

Preston Meyer  32:45

complicated as we have addressed, generally, yes, I

Katie Dooley  32:50

see what you're saying.

Preston Meyer  32:53

If what you're doing is good, then it's good.

Katie Dooley  32:58

Perfect. Love it.

Preston Meyer  33:01

People are gonna argue about that forever. Oh, well.

Katie Dooley  33:04

So magic takes the form of spell casting as a ritual practice. So if you watch who I mean, I watched a bunch of documentaries on Wicca. They'll talk about casting a circle. They'll mix things in mortar and pestle. And that's how they worship. They dance around the fire.

Preston Meyer  33:26

They gather energy and send it out into the universe to do good. Love it. Ultimately, it's the the short and sweet summary of it. Which I think is kind of cool. And there's some great times of year where people really put some effort into that.

Katie Dooley  33:45

Yeah, so wicker and I celebrations or holidays are called Sabbats. Which sounds kind of similar to

Preston Meyer  33:54

Shep at It does, doesn't it? Yep.

Katie Dooley  33:57

They come I think exclusively from Celtic or German Germanic paganism. So some of these are very similar in old Celtic and old German religion. So the big one, Salin or Halloween is to celebrate death and the ancestors you will tie in is at the winter solstice or to celebrate the sun's rebirth. A lot of these are on the solstice is the for the eighth fall

Preston Meyer  34:25

to Solstice. Okay, thank

Katie Dooley  34:26

you. We all need to have these falling Equinox, two of these fallen souls This is and then there's extra and then there's ones in between. Imbolc is the first signs of spring so this one happens in like February ish. Ostara is the vernal equinox and I think we touched on this in a previous episode. That sounds a hell of a lot like the word Easter.

Preston Meyer  34:50

Sure does.

Katie Dooley  34:51

So here's your pagan origin for Easter everyone. Beltane is Mayday happens In May, celebrating the fair folk and the full spring like spring is here. litho is the summer solstice. Then we have Luna casa, which celebrates the first roots are, it's a late summer celebration, so about this time of year, because the apples are on my tree. Mm hmm. And then we have Melbourne, which is the autumnal equinox and celebrates the harvest. So that is their holiday celebrations, but they have a lot of other rituals and practices.

Preston Meyer  35:37

And an awful lot of us have a thing called the cone of power, which sounds a little bit like sci fi, I guess.

Katie Dooley  35:47

Did you hear about the Hitler Chrono power? In your research? No. Okay, well, let's explain what kind of power come to power. All right.

Preston Meyer  35:57

So the cone of power is a ritual method of focusing energy, using it to accomplish magical goals by sending that energy out into the world or out into the universe. It's done by witches assembled in a magical circle, focusing on a single point above the circle, thus, a cone which is then elevated by raising the point of collective focus higher and higher until you've just kind of got a beam out into the universe, which is kind of cool.

Katie Dooley  36:28

So in world during World War Two, apparently, the Nazis were coming in boats towards England. And to prevent that a bunch of witches got together and created a massive cone of power. And they did this ritual all night long. And the Nazis never crossed. Is that the channel then the Nazis never crossed the channel. And some of them died. Because that's how much energy they put into it. So I mean, did it work?

Preston Meyer  37:07

I mean, it sure sounds like it did. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  37:08

the Nazis didn't cross the channel. So and they were on their way. Yeah. Isn't that crazy?

Preston Meyer  37:15

That's awesome. Great. The practice of performing sky clad, which means in the nude fully nude. No clothes at all, has been sensationalized plenty over the years. And there are some great reasons for its persistence in the craft. I think.

Katie Dooley  37:33

I feel like we should start by saying that Gerald Gardner was a naturalist. Yeah, you did, in fact, run a nudist colony. So I'm sure that influenced some of this. He was adamant that none of it was overtly sexual. Right people naked people?

Preston Meyer  37:52

Yeah, it's, we'll get to that. So the one of the explanations that's given is that clothes are said to impede the flow of energy, which sounds like a pretty elementary level excuse to get people naked. But licking a nine volt battery will get you a better shock than putting it against your shoe. So there's some solid logic to this. Clothes also also signify and reinforce class distinctions. And it's important to have the group unified as much as possible. And the equality of nudity is incredibly humbling for the average person, while simultaneously empowering. So there's some advantages there. I'm

Katie Dooley  38:38

more comfortable in my nudity. Now that I'm older. Is that weird? Stay on a podcast.

Preston Meyer  38:47

Maybe not. It's not a visual medium.

Katie Dooley  38:48

And I am fully clothed right now. Right?

Preston Meyer  38:57

It's, well, like I said, for the average person, nudity is humbling. And for a lot of people who really like to get bent out of shape on this because it's so terribly opposed to our culture. And just don't, a lot of people find nudity offensive for some reason. There's an awful lot of cultures throughout our history that have been AOK with public nudity. In fact, the Olympic games used to require nudity for their events. And, honestly, I'm glad they've made this I mean, I tell you what, if they hadn't made the switch, the men's events would not be as popular as the women's events. Speak for

Katie Dooley  39:53

yourself. Isn't that I made this So you know, that says, well, orgies probably happen because let's be honest they happen in every religion.

Preston Meyer  40:06

So you say every religion I have never even heard of an orgy in any Abrahamic faith

Katie Dooley  40:12

to children of God.

Preston Meyer  40:15

I really don't feel comfortable qualifying that as an Abrahamic. Let's

Katie Dooley  40:19

just be real. For a minute, okay, I'll accept Okay. Four G's happen. But a lot of people think for some reason that orgies are a foundational piece of Wicca and it's not. Oh, a little bit Oh, and the other eye because I knew you were going to come back with this.

Preston Meyer  40:40

I've never been invited to an orgy. And at this point, I don't think it's gonna happen. After

Katie Dooley  40:46

this episode, knowing your interests you might be surprised. I watched a and I watched a documentary on the Vatican and the sex abuse in the Vatican and a reporter went undercover and he ended up at a gay priest orgy. So I wanted my rebuttal. I was just about to be like, suck my dick, but that's just like, extra inappropriate for the content. So yes, orgies happen in every religion.

Preston Meyer  41:16

Okay, I want to I want to qualify this a little bit of what we're about to talk about in Wicca is actually a legit part of the faith tradition. orgies are straight up forbidden in all of the texts that are accepted by Christians, Jews and Muslims. But anyway, DNS will always exist. My point is

Katie Dooley  41:42

that a lot of people think orgies are like, that's what you do and Wicca and it's really not. It's not at all that was my point. So that if you're worried about Wiccan sex orgies, worry about your odds.

Preston Meyer  42:00

Yeah. It shouldn't be noted, though, that some few groups do perform what is called Sex magic. Only a small number of those have an actual sexual event. Instead of that, instead, the vast majority of witches who do have sex magic as part of the ritual, incorporate a symbolic act of placing a ceremonial knife in a chalice.

Katie Dooley  42:31

I don't get it. I saw one of the ceremonial knives and the handle was a phallus.

Preston Meyer  42:41

I mean, yeah, some people get away into it. Yeah. And this is done to invoke the energy of the god and the goddess for their spells. Most just do a symbolic thing. Very few have an actual sex event in public. And for the very few that do it is actually a deliberate subversion of the Christian morality that's forced on everybody all the time in our western culture. And so sometimes these events get really kinky and take it an extra step to really subvert this cultural norms that we enjoy and sometimes adopt techniques from BDSM dungeons, which I thought was an interesting thing to learn. Wow,

Katie Dooley  43:28

I didn't find those articles.

Preston Meyer  43:33

You're not as committed to the research. Wow. Throwing Shade

Katie Dooley  43:45

Preston's a pervert.

Preston Meyer  43:49

Okay, sure. Whatever. I find things because I've researched

Katie Dooley  44:01

So lastly, on our weekend practices, is the wiccaning. Well, you sound I mean, when you say I like that sounds so much scarier than it is. It's like a christening. You call upon the god and the goddess to protect your child throughout their lives.

Preston Meyer  44:20

It's not a religious commitment, though. Like it isn't Christianity where it's like you're now expected to be a Wiccan for the rest of your life, which is a thing I appreciate because Wiccans appreciate and value individual choice and free will. It's just a here's some protection for a while. I like that. I did, too.

Katie Dooley  44:40

You added this whole section. Yeah, I did. Tell me let's talk about it.

Preston Meyer  44:44

All right. So wicker by its very nature, fending Christians because Christians like to be offended. It wasn't recognized as a religion in America. For several decades after had really become an organized, established thing. And what's interesting is what precipitated that in the United States. A fellow named Herbert Daniel Detmer was incarcerated for something entirely different. And while in prison, he was told that he could not obtain the ritual objects he required for worship, which I mean, we've talked about one of those items is pretty often a weapon. In a prison scenario, this is not friendly. So he sued. And in 1986, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals established that Wicca is a genuine religion, and is therefore entitled The First Amendment protection.

Katie Dooley  45:50

There's, I mean, that makes sense. Yeah. Makes

Preston Meyer  45:55

me wonder, did I couldn't find, did they actually give him a knife? Or did they just allow him to obtain other materials?

Katie Dooley  46:03

I don't know. But that reminds you to other things that I found in my research is, and this is especially a big deal in England is because knife crime is huge. Kind of, I won't say like gun crime in the States, it's nowhere near that level. But their problem crime is knife violence is how do you know differentiate between a weapon and a religious object? So that was something that they had to like, one

Preston Meyer  46:33

seeks having, being armed for when they're, like fully decked out, and there's not a shortage of Sikhs in England?

Katie Dooley  46:44

No. And then the other. This goes to Wicca being recognized as a religion, there was a army widow, and they wouldn't put the the it's the pentacle. They wouldn't put the pentacle on her husband's grave, because they wouldn't recognize it. Eventually, they did. But how sad is that?

Preston Meyer  47:04

Yeah, it's kind of rough. But when the state doesn't want to admit that your religion is valid? Well, at least you get to put up a fight. And thicken a little bit more locally to our Canadian audience in our Canadian home. The last Canadian to be arrested for witchcraft was Tiffany Butch in December of 2018. Wow. Yeah. She's a psychic who was charged for asking a protection fee from somebody who she'd convinced was in spiritual danger. So basically, she was ring running a hankie protection racket. But she was charged for pretending to practice witchcraft, fortune telling contrary to Section 365 B of the Criminal Code of Canada. This, this charge was thrown at her less than a week before the law was repealed for being stupid and outdated.

Katie Dooley  48:03

I mean, the fact that we have a law for pretending to practice witchcraft, right is more concerning than if we had a law for against practicing witchcraft, like, right. What did they do with all the kids that thought they were Harry Potter for two decades? Right. Lazarus pretending to practice witch crusher is like, just the wording of that is so ridiculous. Yeah. So pretending to practice witchcraft causes no harm.

Preston Meyer  48:37

Well, okay. So from the legal perspective, I guess the law that is written here, or was part of 365 B in the Criminal Code of Canada, outlined how it counts is a criminal offence to practice or to pretend to practice witchcraft. If you are deliberately deceiving somebody, and pretending to be Harry Potter doesn't usually come up all the way to pretending to or attempting to deceive somebody keep

Katie Dooley  49:07

it into belief, right? Does this lady who was in spiritual danger, believe that witchcraft was real, then how are you pretending? You know what I mean? If you believe, how do they know she was pretending if they don't believe in it, of course, they think she was pretending.

Preston Meyer  49:30

And that's, unfortunately how the law even came to be, is the belief that all people who practice witchcraft are pretending which is a pretty good reason for the law to be taken off the books, especially when pretending to practice practice witchcraft. We already have laws that make fraud illegal. So having laws against fake magic is redundant. Yeah, just enforce fraud laws won't be okay in theory.

Katie Dooley  50:06

Well, that makes more sense because then it's like, this feels very, like anti Wiccan.

Preston Meyer  50:12

It definitely was seen that way by the entire community. And it was celebrated when I was taken off the books three years ago. So

Katie Dooley  50:21

yeah, absolutely. If there is a, I mean, obviously, this falls on whatever spectrum of you believing in magic, but if you Yeah, then it doesn't hurt anyone who doesn't believe in. Right, and it protects people who do believe that dumb.

Preston Meyer  50:44

Our lawmakers are not always working in the best interest of the whole public. That's probably going to be our reality for longer than I'm around, unfortunately. Yeah, witchcraft is really interesting to me.

Katie Dooley  51:00

I found it. I found this one very enjoyable to research. As

Preston Meyer  51:04

I've learned a few things that I didn't know before. And I've learned more about a few things. I knew a little bit about Sabrina. Sabrina's chilling adventures, or whatever it's called on Netflix. Good, fun, terrible representation of witchcraft. For the first little while, they're extremely Satanic and like, a really weird flavor of parody satanic. But towards the end, it actually starred. They switched from worshipping Satan to worshipping Haggerty so things get better as the show goes, okay.

Katie Dooley  51:42

Yeah, like I said, I was I had a pretty, you know, general idea. I basically thought it was the English folklore not based in English folklore and such a baby religion. This is probably one of the newest religions. It's forever covered until we get to Scientology in the new year. No, they're probably about the same age. Actually. Not I say now that I say that, so yeah, surprised by how young it was. But I think they're sort of foundational. String, but doctrine is pretty, pretty solid, pretty good.

Preston Meyer  52:17

I think they get points over Scientology for being older based on just having drawn from older ideas. Where Scientology is a great new science fiction religion. Ashley Mortimer, former director of the Center for pagan studies in England, said that Wicca is a central tenet is to discover happiness through the truth, find your own individual truth or will, and practice that as hard as you can without bringing harm to others. I like that, in fact, a lot more people need to adopt this specific philosophy, whatever your religion is, apply this philosophy to your religion, and you're gonna have a much better time.

Katie Dooley  53:03

I mean, not even your religion just like anything you do in life. Yeah, that's an if you're approached university like that, practice that as hard as you can without bringing harm to others. Yeah, that's just a good way to live your life. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  53:17

I like it. And do you imagine if everybody held themselves to that high of a moral standard?

Katie Dooley  53:25

I think yeah, a lot better place. Absolutely.

Preston Meyer  53:29

It would. Well, that's wicker. I liked it.

Katie Dooley  53:38

We might call this episode like

Preston Meyer  53:42

don't forget check us out on Facebook Instagram.

Katie Dooley  53:49

Discord, yes, discord and Patreon. We have great conversations on our Discord. Lots of laughs great meme sharing. Patreon. We have bonus episodes in early release. And we have some really cool bonus episodes coming up.

Preston Meyer  54:04

Yeah, we do. And some good fun with those. Yeah, we're

Katie Dooley  54:07

having some great fun. So check out our Patreon for that and to help keep us going with some support. And if you don't like a subscription and want to still support the podcast, check out our Spreadshirt it is our merch store spreadshirt.com/holly waterman and get some exclusive holy watermelon merch.

Preston Meyer  54:29

Yeah. So much fun.

Katie Dooley  54:32

I think so.

Preston Meyer  54:34

Thanks for joining us, everybody. Peace be with you.

Religious Trauma Syndrome is similar to PTSD. Negative beliefs taught at a young age have lifelong ramifications. In this episode, we are diving into what causes religious trauma.

Trigger warning: we're talking about lots of yucky stuff, and we're not psychologists!

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website

***

Katie Dooley  00:09

Hi Preston. 

Preston Meyer  00:13

Hi, Katie.What's wrong?

Katie Dooley  00:16

We have a sad episode today.

Preston Meyer  00:19

It's a little rough for sure. You're gonna welcome everybody

Katie Dooley  00:28

I know that's what you're doing. You're gonna give us more of a soft open.

Preston Meyer  00:32

Yeah, nothing.

Katie Dooley  00:33

All right. Well, welcome to the holy watermelon podcast. Speaking of rough, that was a rough soft opening.

Preston Meyer  00:46

Yeah, a little bit. Might have to make some edits.

Katie Dooley  00:50

Thank you can think of our topic today piggybacks off of last episode a little bit? A little bit. It's kind of how we

Preston Meyer  01:01

we kind of we kind of had a flavoring allusion to what's coming ahead. Wow. Yeah. My

Katie Dooley  01:11

palate is so exciting. It's not actually today. Trigger warning. We are talking about religious trauma for

Preston Meyer  01:21

Yeah, so an awful lot of society seems to agree that religion is good, or at least benign for the most part fair, but broad strokes like that gets you in trouble. Because there's an awful lot within religion that has caused some serious damage over the years and so we're going to talk about religious trauma Color

Katie Dooley  01:45

Me shock already being insensitive.

Preston Meyer  01:53

So we've we've already talked before about how some religious groups really lean into authoritarianism. Some people call them cults or danger, religion or danger

Katie Dooley  02:03

cults, yeah, to separate from regular call for sure. And

Preston Meyer  02:07

they do damage in pretty obvious ways that we've talked about. But now we want to explore some of the more subtle or more common issues found in mainstream religious societies.

Katie Dooley  02:20

Journey free.org defines religious trauma syndrome. And I should clarify so religious trauma syndrome from my understanding isn't like an official mental illness like you find PTSD in like psychologists books, but they are starting to identify it as a separate entity. And it's,

Preston Meyer  02:40

it's a thing that psychologists and therapists are talking about, but it's not in all of the Brain Stuff. Exactly.

Katie Dooley  02:49

So religious, again from journey free.org religious trauma syndrome is the condition experienced by people who are struggling with leaving an authoritarian, dogmatic religion and coping with the damage of indoctrination. They may be going through the shattering of a personally meaningful faith and or breaking away from a controlling community and lifestyle. RTS is a function of both the chronic abuses of harmful religion and the impact of severing one's connection with one's faith. Right. So those are two important parts that a there's the doctrinal pieces and the community pieces, but also removing yourself most likely from all your friends and family. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  03:32

so we're gonna explore each of those points with some depth and and see how,

Katie Dooley  03:39

how it happens. And signs of it, I guess.

Preston Meyer  03:43

And the symptoms of religious trauma are pretty similar, similar to that of complex PTSD. In fact, a lot of people who are studying religious trauma, or having a hard time distinguishing one from the other, and some are just saying, No, it's just it is PTSD. It just happens to be triggered by this particular thing. And that's not terribly unfair, but I because of what we're talking about as the holy watermelon, we're looking at the religious aspects, whether you want to distinguish it from PTSD or not, there's the reason it comes to be is specific and kind of unique. Well, and

Katie Dooley  04:26

I think with religious trauma syndrome, as opposed to a comp, complex PTSD is that it's very systemic. And very preventable. And I'm not saying that there are pieces of PTSD that aren't systemic or preventable, but when you literally have international organizations perpetuating what we're about to talk about, it makes it an interesting case. I guess that's as diplomatic as I can put it.

Preston Meyer  04:56

Yeah. The scholar The classification is tricky. And it's probably gonna be tricky for a while. But the fact of the matter is, it's a real thing. Absolutely. But the symptoms are pretty obvious an awful lot of the time. And so we're going to talk about those was the first one on our list.

Katie Dooley  05:20

Here's why our list is confusing, confusing, confusing thoughts, and the reduced ability to think clearly. And these are also from journey. free.org. So

Preston Meyer  05:29

that's how I don't want to word this question.

Katie Dooley  05:34

I mean, that's like step one, in any indoctrination, is that you don't trust your own?

Preston Meyer  05:40

Your own thoughts? Yeah, if you're trying to free yourself from any system of thought that has been imposed on you for any real long period of time, breaking free of that is going to be problematic and is going to cause confusion,

Katie Dooley  05:54

especially when this isn't targeted at one specific religion, and won't be very sensitive Preston so you can slap my hand. But when it actively, most religions discourage you to think critically.

Preston Meyer  06:07

An awful lot of them, I can't say for sure most of them being more than half. But that's not a thing, I would say. An awful lot of them easily the Abrahamic faiths. Pretty often, mainstream Christianity has an awful lot that actively discourage critical thought. So there's a few that are more or less within the mainstream that encourage it. The Catholic Church has a weird relationship with critical thought that there's like when it comes to science and evolution, for example, they're totally on board with the scientific community. There's a lot of other places where things get tricky and cause bad relationships.

Katie Dooley  06:54

Wow. Just talking around it, love it, we're

Preston Meyer  06:58

gonna get into it as we go on. So

Katie Dooley  07:02

number two is negative beliefs about self, others in the world. And this can take the form of dissociation identity, confusion or crisis, depression, anxiety, grief, anger, feeling isolated, feeling lost or directionless. One thing I read in a lot of interviews that fall under this, there's really a lot of like, what surprised you when you left. And one thing I saw come up a lot is that these people who left their religious group were so surprised that atheists and agnostics could live happy, fulfilling lives. So that false hundreds of the negative thoughts about others is that you think if they don't have and this is just what comes up in research, and I think it's because they're the most vocal group but ex Christians or ex evangelicals, you know, think didn't realize that if you didn't know Jesus in your life, you could be a happy, healthy, kind, good person.

Preston Meyer  08:03

Way too many Christians. I have heard speak over the pulpit saying that there is no way that any non Christian could ever lead a fulfilling life, which, like that's, that's absolute garbage. I don't know how they can believe that. I don't know how you can go through your life and associate with your neighbors and believe that

Katie Dooley  08:25

I think I talked to I think I talked about this in our atheist episode is that I think people just assume they're Christian.

Preston Meyer  08:31

Yeah, I that is definitely reality for a lot of people. I don't know. It's weird.

Katie Dooley  08:38

I think if we picked someone that would didn't listen to the podcast and ask them what my religion was, they probably picked Christian.

Preston Meyer  08:46

Probably. Yeah, if you were just ask a stranger. Hey, what religion do you think I subscribe to? Or

Katie Dooley  08:51

even someone who knows me well enough to kind of know my personality and work ethic and some of that stuff but not know me so well, that we've talked about this or they've listened to the podcast, I would get I probably put money on it.

Preston Meyer  09:07

That's not an unfair assumption.

Katie Dooley  09:10

Anything Do you want to add to that point before I move on? Now, let's leave a lot to cover this video. Number three is a lack of pleasure or interest in things you used to enjoy. I think this is just a pretty general trauma response. Yeah. I look kind of love this one. Number four is feeling behind the times with cultural happenings. For sure

Preston Meyer  09:31

if you've if you've gone to church for years, and they say you're not allowed to read Harry Potter because it's of the devil, and then you go out into the open world and half of the people around you love wizard

Katie Dooley  09:43

know you're out of touch, or not having I mean groups that aren't allowed to have TVs or watch TVs and go on the internet. Oh, that's huge.

Preston Meyer  09:54

So about 14 years ago, I was hanging out with someone My friends and third dad brought home this guy who had left a Hutterite colony. And he ended up going back later on, but because he couldn't handle it, right, which is a problem that will explain a little more as we go through here, but his first night away, we watch Star Wars Episode One The Phantom Menace with him, didn't lose his mind. So to make it worse, somebody told him, this was a actual representation of the world outside of his little bubble, okay, that's mean that this is a thing that is actually happening somewhere. This isn't computer generated effects, space travel. I don't believe that he left the house believing that this is true. But in the moments immediately following this declaration, you can't feel anything other than completely out of touch with the world around you.

Katie Dooley  11:00

I've just finished reading an orthodox by Deborah Feldman. And it's a biography about her leaving the ultra orthodox Jewish community in Brooklyn, New York. And she talks about she's older. And when I mean older, I mean, like 19. And she goes to her first movie, and she like, couldn't wrap her head around. Like she couldn't understand that it was fake or real or like who these people were that they were playing other people. And I think it was Mystic River. She talks about that she's into this day. She's like, I have a really weird relationship with Miss Tucker, because I watched it in a context where it wasn't a movie. And we're like, so you look on screen and you go, who's in Sean Penn, Mr. Curry thing? You go. That's Sean Penn, but like she can't, even to this day. Like she doesn't see him as Sean Penn. Because she knew she watched it like it was a documentary like she can. Yeah. Mind blown.

Preston Meyer  11:56

Yeah, that's a problem. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  12:01

I think after that, she figured out what movies were but

Preston Meyer  12:05

but first time today, it's yeah, that messes with you for a while mistake

Katie Dooley  12:10

or was not like an easy movie to just, you know, it's not Wally, you know? Sure. It's, it's pretty heavy movie. So High School Musical, you know, you're really like jumping into the deep.

Preston Meyer  12:25

Sure. And there's a few other symptoms of PTSD that overlap here too. Nightmares are common flashbacks for sure. General emotional difficulty, panic attacks, suicidal ideation, sexual dysfunction, substance abuse, and sometimes even extreme violence. It's making these transitions can be really rough on people. Yeah. And that all comes from the trauma that you experience within these religious groups that broadly get categorized as good, or at the very least, but not.

Katie Dooley  13:02

Absolutely. And I mean, part of the problem is that, I mean, especially the ones that would cause religious trauma, because obviously, not all religious groups would cause religious trauma that you're supposed to be isolated. So it'd be really hard to even know that you've needed help, let alone being able to ask for help.

Preston Meyer  13:21

Yeah, well, the worst of the groups rely on you being isolated for their success. So that does make things a lot worse. And so of course, these problems appear more often in authoritarian and dogmatic groups than anywhere else, not only in the cults that we've previously addressed as the danger religions, but they're really quite common in Islamic groups, and even more common in Christian groups, specifically, well,

Katie Dooley  13:49

and again, I'll toss in Orthodox Judaism, halter Orthodox, for sure, because I just read that great book I highly recommend. Yeah, but it doesn't look too different from ultra conservative insert Abrahamic religion, right?

Preston Meyer  14:07

The biggest issues that tend to cause lasting religious trauma are toxic environments that focus on doctrines of you're not good enough or you're not good at all. And you're not safe and you can never be safe. I've seen churches do this and it's, I don't know how you stand at the pulpit and say something like that. And think that that's an okay thing to say.

Katie Dooley  14:29

There is I should show it to you when we are done recording. There's a I think it was a refinery 29 dock, a little mini documentary on the Christian mainstream music industry. And they interview like x musicians, and they basically say like, it got really hard to sing about how shitty you are as a person all the time. For

Preston Meyer  14:55

sure. So anyway, it's a world of Christian music is Oh, weird world for sure.

Katie Dooley  15:01

Maybe that'll be an episode.

Preston Meyer  15:03

Yeah, maybe it's weird because there's some Christian music that I really enjoy. And worship music is not the worst Christian music that there is out there. But it is the hardest to listen to. Because it's so repetitive.

Katie Dooley  15:20

Fun. Katie fact, I really enjoy religious Christmas, Carol. Sure. Like if you made me pick between like a secular Santa Claus Christmas Carol and then something about Jesus, I'd pick something about Jesus. They're just better songs.

Preston Meyer  15:36

All right.

Katie Dooley  15:38

I know now always surprises people and like I can appreciate you like, right.

Preston Meyer  15:47

Yeah, so it's, it's frustrating, because phrases like you're not good enough, can be useful in some situations. And as part of a constructive and helpful dialogue, but, I mean, that's a CAN NOT A is, they're usually not okay. Especially when they're repeated too often, especially when it's like drilled into constantly, then you're gonna have a bad time. And things like Original Sin and other mainstream Christian doctrines like that. The nature of hell, which does actually has a lot of variety, depending on who you're talking to about it. They're frequently used to reinforce very traumatizing ideas.

Katie Dooley  16:33

We'll get into that. But yeah, I, I definitely know, kids that were scared of how, yeah,

Preston Meyer  16:39

but an awful lot of parents whether or not their priests agree with them, have used hell to terrify their children. And that's not okay.

Katie Dooley  16:50

You're just asking for religious trauma? Yeah,

Preston Meyer  16:53

really. So there's a lot of ways that abuse fails to be discouraged in religious communities. And I want to address that a little bit, too.

Katie Dooley  17:04

I want to be sassy, you don't say?

Preston Meyer  17:08

One, there's always pressure to preserve traditions that any deviation or modification is treated as disrespect. And any sort of progress is seen as a spit in the face to those ancient righteous people that people like to look up to when they talk about the people who have gone before them.

Katie Dooley  17:26

Yes, because it hasn't changed at all in 2000 years.

Preston Meyer  17:32

Right? That's, it's nonsense. Traditions are constantly evolving. And we'd like to hope that they're improving and in an awful lot of situations they are our society in general, is a lot safer than it was 1000 years ago, for example, but to say that any sort of change or any questioning of why this tradition is upheld, people saw

Katie Dooley  18:00

I mean, it doesn't it doesn't even make sense in the context of, I mean, simply adapt or die. Right. And I think, you know, we'll we'll see. Obviously, this will take time, but it's already starting where churches that don't accept LGBTQ plus people are not going to last

Preston Meyer  18:18

year we're seeing a lot of them dwindle. And

Katie Dooley  18:21

this is a huge problem. And we'll talk in more detail about this later, but a huge problem in the Catholic Church with their sex abuse scandal. It's like adapter die. Alright, figure it out. They had the other third party look into all the sex abuse. And their findings were like, let the priests get married. Like that was literally the result was like, let them not be celibate, and marry and they're like, No, we can't do that. But people leave the Catholic Church in droves because they don't want their children.

Preston Meyer  18:54

Right. Well, it's it's so weird because the Ukrainian Catholic communion still look up to the Pope as the head of their church there. But they're slightly separate. Because they're the Ukrainian Catholics that they've they've joined the Catholic communion after establishing non traditions. Ukrainian Catholic priests can

Katie Dooley  19:14

marry Ukrainian Orthodox compared to beginning orthodox orthodox is

Preston Meyer  19:18

a lot more reasonable.

Katie Dooley  19:23

It's it's funny because it has the word orthodox in it. Right? So progressive Church,

Preston Meyer  19:28

the triggers, they never implemented the law to begin with, as far as I'm aware of where they said priests can't marry, which

Katie Dooley  19:35

is probably why the Ukrainian Catholic clergy are allowed to do it because they go, he's allowed to get married across the street. It's

Preston Meyer  19:43

fine. I guess they establish the tradition and then join the union. And so the Catholic community never stopped them from doing which is really odd. But so we do have Catholic priests who have wives and still work work in their communities. And it's just super obvious that it's working

Katie Dooley  20:07

there. Anyway, so that's my commentary on that point.

Preston Meyer  20:14

So this sort of absolutist devotion to tradition often leads to abuse of any person who points out any reason for change. Some people are shunned and excommunicated. Which there's an instant trauma maker right there. Absolutely. Yeah. Some people suffer physical disciplinary action, potentially an instant troublemaker. Yeah. Pretty high risk. Some people are forced into remedial indoctrination, that's gonna cause some problem. And some people are lucky enough to only be permanently blacklisted from opportunities to serve in their community.

Katie Dooley  20:51

Oh, boy.

Preston Meyer  20:55

Yeah. Which doesn't help build trust. Yeah, it's a problem. But abuse is not only used to ensure obedience to the dead. We also have a whole bunch of systems in place that perpetuates simpler abuses. Some will simply use your differing opinion as evidence that you lack faith. And in the worst situations, this has led to sexual abuse and murder. Yeah, which I don't know how you make that leap, in your mind intellectually, intellectually or emotionally. But it's happening, it's hitting the news. Some will use your lack of commitment to the group as evidence of other sins. And so of course, that will lead to fewer opportunities to serve, which just that builds a terrible spiral, where you're then obviously less committed to the group because you're not serving. And then people assume greater sins and then just gets worse and worse. Yeah, that

Katie Dooley  22:01

falls into the you're not good enough, or that you're not trying hard enough to whatever be holier whatever.

Preston Meyer  22:11

Yeah, that's being part and being an active part of a community is not supposed to be this heart. No, and I

Katie Dooley  22:23

think in my guess we'll probably be more specific on it. But any commitment to any community is supposed to ebb and flow. Yeah. Right. Sometimes you're really into it, and sometimes other stuff gets in the way. And in some of the stories I read, people would say that, like they couldn't give any more when they had to step back and take a break. And then they were guilt tripped into law, you know, like, what's happened to your faith or whatever. But you can only give so much to anything. And yeah, to be a healthy human beings have interests outside of your religion, I presume. And yeah, so some moments of your life you'll be more dedicated than others.

Preston Meyer  23:06

Financial offerings, especially in Christian traditions, though, certainly not exclusively, are directly connected to promised blessings. And unfortunately, this usually leads to manipulating gullible poor people into into donating more and more money and staying poor with the promise of some farcical windfall in the future. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  23:30

there's a few groups we see this in a lot. Send us your seed money. I was gonna say, Yeah, prosperity, gospel churches. Scientology is obviously a big Yeah. Yeah, up to par and too busy to realize what's happening, right.

Preston Meyer  23:51

Next one, I've got on my list, multi level marketing schemes. There's so often pressure to join multi level marketing schemes within religious communities, especially Christian churches, as far as I've been able to see, though, I'm sure it shows up other places too. And if you express any distrust in a company, you're accused of not trusting the people that you see every week and end up being pushed away by the crowd that did end up buying in which just seems ridiculous to me that there's that much pressure not and there is I've seen it, but it's ridiculous because how can your tiny business survive when you flood the market with eating providers?

Katie Dooley  24:37

Yeah, you need to tap new markets, right? You would want to be the only one in your church that sells the product if you're the only one at church that sells Tupperware you make him bank

Preston Meyer  24:49

by but you know what the real problem is? Pyramid Schemes rely on

Katie Dooley  24:54

a downline okay, then you and like you can have two downlines at your church. Ah, that's it.

Preston Meyer  25:02

You got to have more downlines. I know by selling the product anymore, you're just making money off of other people's product. Yeah. Well, not just other people selling your product, other people buying your product and hoping to sell and they probably won't. Because that's how those MLM schemes really work. It's not okay. And so if you're in a hard financial position, and turn down one of these opportunities, you're shamed or shunned for being lazy. I can't get work or join my, my company and be a salesman for me. No, bro, that's not cool. Oh, well, you're so lazy. That's not okay.

Katie Dooley  25:44

I promise you, that's not the problem.

Preston Meyer  25:47

Right? But an awful lot of people get treated that way. And then you lose this, you lose trust in your community. And then things get worse. It's problem.

Katie Dooley  26:03

Why are you doing how are you holding up?

Preston Meyer  26:06

There's so many complaints about churches. And I know they're all valid. I've seen them. But it's it's draining.

Katie Dooley  26:16

I mean, maybe we'll wrap this up on what people, congregants, clergy, churches can do. Oh,

Preston Meyer  26:25

we have to we have to end on a pause.

Katie Dooley  26:29

This is gonna be a long our folks. But try not to.

Preston Meyer  26:36

We've also got way too many people that are actively discouraging their neighbors from getting the medical and professional help they need. Why don't you just believe more, God is going to take care of you. Or God would have prevented this if you just had faith,

Katie Dooley  26:55

or sometimes they this one, I think is almost even worse. This is all part of God's plan. You were meant to get sick, which your child was meant to die. I don't

Preston Meyer  27:06

know how people can go through saying that and believing it.

Katie Dooley  27:12

I think even the act of saying it is traumatizing.

Preston Meyer  27:16

planned for you to suffer. Right? That's not cool. Because

Katie Dooley  27:20

obviously whatever you're going through is traumatic. So to have someone come back at you basically saying you deserve it. It's just very traumatizing.

Preston Meyer  27:29

Well, it's, there's a difference between saying you deserve it. And God planned this for you. That's true, however, but in an awful lot of people's minds. If you genuinely believe in God, they are the same thing. And that's, that's harsh. Gross. Yeah. There's loads of people with full time jobs working for churches or other religious societies, and they're sick, they're underpaid, and the excuses that you're serving God, and you should do your duty to volunteer every waking hour, and your needs will be met. Don't you worry. God takes care of the sparrows and the dandelions he'll take care of you too. And then it turns out, your needs aren't being met.

Katie Dooley  28:13

God also put like doctors on our earth and like labor laws on or Brains, brains, he instilled the minimum wage, because if he's all knowing, and all seeing and good and someone was divinely inspired to make a minimum wage, if you

Preston Meyer  28:33

believe God controls everything, then you have to believe that God supports different minimum wages in all jurisdictions.

Katie Dooley  28:42

So those specific free time very good stick of you.

Preston Meyer  28:56

I wrapping I don't believe in the same God that every other Christian believes in but to say that every other Christian believes in the same God between each other is also ridiculous.

Katie Dooley  29:06

That sounds like a problem within Christianity.

Preston Meyer  29:10

We've got a huge variety. It's a spectrum, you know, take a shot. Yeah, there's way too many people who are either deliberately or sometimes even just carelessly, taking unreasonable advantage of people because of their faith. And this causes problems in pretty much every case. It's especially seen when people in authority belittle their subordinates but there's an awful lot of people who just like to say, Hey, I'm better than you because I have this much faith. i Hey, I'd saw you put less money in the pass around bowl than I did. So. My faith is better so I'm better than you do. People suck.

Katie Dooley  30:02

That's what this entire episode is about.

Preston Meyer  30:05

Right? And sometimes you'll even see people use another person's lack of faith to excuse their own deviant behavior. Which, I don't know how you can take that logical step. Like, I know how it sounds when people say it, but I don't know how you can get there intellectually, yourself.

Katie Dooley  30:25

Give us an example.

Preston Meyer  30:28

Oh, he's, he's so awful. He's, he's a homosexual. So I'm going to step outside of the boundaries of what I know, my faith teaches and beat him with a rod. I mean, if you've read the book, which, as a faithful person you're supposed to have done, you'll know that's not okay. But it happens literally every day on this planet. It's really sad pressed and it is really sad. It makes me mad sometimes. But that's the world we live in a slightly weirder example. That's less extreme. I remember one time when I was a kid, I didn't want to go to church. This one day, it's like, I don't really feel like it today. And my mom was so mad. She's like, No, no, if you're going to really honor the Sabbath, you're gonna go to church. And if you're not, then you're going to work all day, which is an X, an absolute contradiction, because the same law that says you're going to honor the Sabbath also says you will not permit anybody within your gates to work on the Sabbath. And that's a contradiction.

Katie Dooley  31:46

But she got some free child labor out of you know,

Preston Meyer  31:48

I ended up going to church. I would have picked the labor, but she was happy to act unnecessarily hypocritical to get what she wanted out of the situation. And that sucked. Yeah, but that's actually not even weird in Christian communities.

Katie Dooley  32:08

I'd say probably in any Abrahamic community, probably, probably. If you can work it. I mean, how do you think the priests get away with it? Yeah, as

Preston Meyer  32:22

long as you get what you want, you're gonna be alright.

Katie Dooley  32:26

I mean, what?

Preston Meyer  32:29

Yeah, it's, it's really frustrating. But that's, that's the world that we have built for ourselves. And we have the power and the opportunity to change that world. If we want to make that choice.

Katie Dooley  32:47

So now, we're gonna have even more fun, and break down the different traumas, I guess in a little bit more detail. Yeah. So we're going to start with the actual doctrine that causes trauma. And before they this episode, this is basically my entire understanding of religious trauma that something in the doctrine was so disturbing, it basically it causes PTSD. I didn't organize, it's just okay,

Preston Meyer  33:16

that's fine. I just feel like I've kind of monopolize the voice. So just kind of let you do your thing.

Katie Dooley  33:25

So I have a quote by Laura Anderson, who is the co founder of the religious trauma Institute. And she talks about she says, we're talking about in a way brainwashing doctrines taught over and over and over with consequences that are eternal and terrifying. So deep rooted fears of hell can cause PTSD. Absolutely.

Preston Meyer  33:46

If I don't do as I'm told, I'm gonna burn a lake of fire forever. No, that's, that's gonna mess with some people for sure. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  33:55

So while we have Java joked, excuse me, while we have joked about the movie, a thief in the nights, I talked about, I think we've talked about our revelation episode. It's from the 70s It's super hokey. I kind of went to a watch party on Discord one day. But I've read multiple about multiple people that obviously in the 70s, saw for the first time, that were like deeply disturbed by it, including parents and sister. And so I found a quote, I think I found this on Reddit. But this lady says, a few days or weeks after the film viewing and came into the house and mom wasn't there. I stood there screaming and tear. When I stopped screaming, I began making my plan, who my Christians neighbor who my Christian neighbors were, whose house to break into to get money and food. I was 12 years old, and I was preparing for Armageddon alone. So she had thought her mom had been robbed her she was probably at the grocery store. But that's immediately what her 12 year old brain went to, is that the rapture had happened and she had been left behind, which is also a book series targeted towards children and I I can see why that would be deeply traumatizing if you actually thought you weren't good enough to be slurped up into heaven and that it's impending. So that's pretty scary.

Preston Meyer  35:14

Yeah, it's, it's a mess.

Katie Dooley  35:18

So the stories shared on the forum all kind of have similar thesis is, is that even though people have left their faith, and maybe they don't believe in how our purity culture anymore, the physical and mental random notifications, even thinking logically say they don't believe it anymore. It's like imprinted itself on their minds and bodies, they can actually, they can logically say, I don't believe in heaven or hell, but they can still wake up at night terrified that they're gonna go to hell. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  35:51

it'll still come in nightmares, things like that. So, pretty messed up. And PTSD is, right there.

Katie Dooley  36:02

No joke. Individuals have from early childhood that they're empty of goodness, strength, or wisdom and must rely on God for anything of value. So this goes back to our first point of doubting your own your own brain and your own critical thoughts.

Preston Meyer  36:19

If it's not good, it's not from God, if it's not from God, it's not good. Which is not an okay way to go about your deal. Get

Katie Dooley  36:25

into this. And the next section is purity culture, but then you're being told by perhaps a church leader that it is from God, and it's really, really bad. It's really bad. Yeah. And they don't know what to think or do anymore.

Preston Meyer  36:42

An awful lot of churches. I've seen people teaching that if you don't vote for a specific political candidate, there's no escape from eternal torment. It's mostly people using their faith to defend the far right. Especially in places where the Liberals approve or accept the legality of abortion, and the conservatives don't then use if you even give a liberal a time of day, you're supporting them so much that you deserve to go to hell. I don't know how you can go through life like that.

Katie Dooley  37:26

No, I didn't put this in the notes. But I've obviously been thinking about it in our research, and I didn't do anything specifically on this. But and I've talked about this on our Discord, kids and the Passion of the Christ. Like I've seen videos, like, you know, Easter pretty graphic Easter plays, and there's like five year olds in the audience. That feels traumatizing to me,

Preston Meyer  37:52

watching somebody yet whipped and tortured. Yeah, in real life. Yeah. Okay. I don't know how that would not be traumatizing.

Katie Dooley  38:00

I mean, we just don't often talk about it in the scope of religious trauma, right? We write we usually talk about the rapture, or hell. And I mean, I don't know if you have any insights on why we do or don't talk about that. Maybe it's because it's, you know, it happened, it was a thing that happened, where it's like, people are waiting for the rapture and waiting for how. So, you know, you see what I'm saying the difference there. This

Preston Meyer  38:25

imagery is usually like, if you want to take a child to a passion play, and they see whipping and torture. Usually, it's all about the Jesus suffered this so you don't have to, but the but is always included. If you're not good and do what you're supposed to do. His suffering doesn't matter for you, you have to suffer the same kind of torture forever in hell. So it gets tied directly into the hell fears.

Katie Dooley  38:58

Okay, so maybe that's why it's not talked about as its own entity, right. Anyway, I think so. All right. So Bibles graphic, it really is.

Preston Meyer  39:08

Most, I mean, most of the Bible is stuff that if your kid can understand it, then it's acceptable for most of it, but an awful lot of it is way too graphic for kids. So

Katie Dooley  39:24

the next, next traumatizing thing we're going to talk about parody,

Preston Meyer  39:27

culture. Purity culture has messed up a lot of people. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  39:31

I absolutely. I think it's still messing up people and even in non religious ways. Yeah, for sure. We were definitely taught that abstinence was the only guaranteed form of birth control.

Preston Meyer  39:45

If you've read the Bible, it's not

Katie Dooley  39:49

for Mary She was so abstinent, right.

Preston Meyer  39:54

And then bam, baby, but I mean, the huge amount of emphasis As we put on abstinence is actually really problematic for literally any rape victim.

Katie Dooley  40:07

Yes. And I mean, I say purity culture is very much detrimental for women. I know how much men are affected by it not

Preston Meyer  40:16

nearly as much, no. Well, okay, they're not affected as much in a traumatic way, right? Typically, when men really adopt the purity culture, they end up being more abusive. to women. Yes, not to each other. But

Katie Dooley  40:33

so does that always comes back to the poor women? Yeah. But there's like a bunch of really gross analogy is like, Who would want a piece of use chewing gum? That's a favorite.

Preston Meyer  40:44

I've heard it in church more than once. And the next time it happens, somebody's gonna get hurt. Really, for like, you're gonna talk about my throw hands?

Katie Dooley  40:54

Can I come? Sure.

Preston Meyer  40:57

I mean, I don't know when it's going to happen. But the next time I hear the gum analogy in church on the throw hands very like,

Katie Dooley  41:06

oh, man, I'm so excited. Which is gross, because it has no bearing to your worth, right?

Preston Meyer  41:19

Well, the thing that bothers me, in addition to it being a really gross analogy, is that it's absolutely contrary to the doctrine of Christ.

Katie Dooley  41:28

He liked Mary Magdalene.

Preston Meyer  41:31

There's, unfortunately, no evidence that that's the case let's not be liked or that she was a whore that she was a whore, I'd say popular Catholic doctrine that actually has no basis in any reliable source. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  41:44

Dang, that wrecks, Jesus Christ Superstar form a little bit.

Preston Meyer  41:53

But even if she was, even if she was, doesn't matter, who she was, before she changed her life around.

Katie Dooley  42:02

Do sex workers need to change their life around? Well,

Preston Meyer  42:06

this one became a faithful disciple of Christ. Okay, without any I'll give her an injection on anybody else. She Mary Magdalene became a faithful disciple of Christ,

Katie Dooley  42:17

I'd actually say. So there's obviously like, I mean, just treating women like they're objects. And this goes for both men and women. But not teaching kids sex ed, in my mind is literal child abuse. Yeah. And maybe in the moment, it's not traumatizing because they don't know. But one day they're gonna have sex. And that's gonna be traumatizing.

Preston Meyer  42:39

Yeah, there's remember, one on an episode of 1000 ways to die. This super conservative couple. They they'd never kissed. I'm sorry.

Katie Dooley  42:52

I'm gonna tell you. Okay. Tell me.

Preston Meyer  42:57

They'd never kiss before they got married. So they couldn't have sex tonight. They got married, because I was way too extreme. Absolutely. It took us a month to try. Because they just couldn't get over those boundaries that they had put up in their heads that sex is bad and not healthy. And you just shouldn't be doing it. But eventually, they got around and figured it out and finally understood what they needed to do. And they both died of heart attack. Because it was so much stress. And the blood pressure didn't help. They died. I don't know if there's any truth to it. I feel like more than half of the deaths and 1000 Ways to Die are fake even though they tell you they're real. But the fact that there are an awful lot of people who can relate to that level of trauma around sex is a serious real life problem.

Katie Dooley  43:57

Absolutely. Because you're told forever that it's bad. And then one day thanks to a Reagan signing a paper. It's supposed to be good. Yeah. But this is a terrible story. Some people might want to pass hard. It comes from the book unorthodox, which I was like, shoot, I read it in like a day. If you can't tell I'm on a kick. Anyway, and so this didn't happen to the author, Deborah, but she was talking to one of her friends at and you get super conservative, Orthodox. Same thing. Sex is bad. No, they didn't even learn about sex. She didn't even know she had a vagina.

Preston Meyer  44:35

That's not a healthy way through.

Katie Dooley  44:37

She had a vagina. She talks about the book. And anyway, so she and her friend were talking about sex. And this friend, they didn't know what hold put it in. So they had anal sex. And he ruptured her anus and she almost bled to death. Wow, right I shouldn't say that, like, I'm excited. But like,

Preston Meyer  45:04

that's traumatizing. Yeah, that's long term trauma right there. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  45:08

Wow. So everyone should go to sex ed. And it shouldn't even be your parents who've had this conversation.

Preston Meyer  45:16

Yeah, no, it's we've done the sex ed with parents thing for 1000s of years, we've come up with a better way. Don't do that anymore. Take advantage of the newer, better way. And

Katie Dooley  45:30

I guess the other piece, I want to talk about will eventually we'll do a full episode on purity culture, because I think it warrants when the other big piece is that for women, your body doesn't belong to you, it belongs to your dad and your father. You that's the same thing it belongs to your dad, and your husband, and then to God. So you have no body autonomy. Yep. And

Preston Meyer  45:53

it's weird how many women buy into this and vote to preserve this every couple of years? At the fact that it's even a legal issue. That's still being debated blows my mind. You know,

Katie Dooley  46:10

I had someone posted on Facebook today about the tree that owns itself. Have you heard about this? Anyway?

Preston Meyer  46:17

And it's always, always somebody comments, this tree has more personal autonomy than most women.

Katie Dooley  46:22

I know. I didn't comment on it. Because all the comments were like, Oh, that's a really cool story. That that is exactly where my mind went. I was like, for sure this tree has more rights than most women. Because it can't be cut down. Yep. But there's a huge chunk of the United States where women can't get abortions.

Preston Meyer  46:42

Now, to be fair, nobody's gonna give those same rights to another tree in the future. I

Katie Dooley  46:47

mean, that's fair. But like, why can we not revoke these trees rights

Preston Meyer  46:53

because it has rights, you can never take away rights. But most of the time it's, it's not fair. People have definitely taken away rights, but it gets really tricky and it's actually kind of hard to do. But giving rights we have so many people fighting against giving people rights. It's it's a mad world it is. And

Katie Dooley  47:19

purity culture piggybacks nicely into

Preston Meyer  47:22

just the general religious progeny of religion. It's, it's really frustrating. We have evidence of religious misogyny as far back as ancient Hellenism in Greece. Zeus is the worst. He'll rape anything with a pulse. The stories tell us many, many instance. Without pulse

Katie Dooley  47:43

I feel like even dabbled in some of that. No, I don't mean necrophilia. I mean inanimate objects.

Preston Meyer  47:48

I got nothing coming to mind. But it made me think of something.

Katie Dooley  47:52

He seems like the kind of guy that'd be like cool whole.

Preston Meyer  47:57

I mean, that's. And a weird side note on that is, I still think it's super weird how much the Zeus from the Disney cartoons looks like Donald Trump.

Katie Dooley  48:15

I have to google that. Now. I can't picture him off the top of

Preston Meyer  48:18

my head. It's not a perfect likeness because Zeus is muscular as hell. But there

Katie Dooley  48:25

were they right wing, cartoonists have made Trump muscular as hell. And it's real weird.

Preston Meyer  48:34

So in these old Greek stories, where they talk about how men deal with the gods, because of course it was men. They taught that men existed as companions of the gods until Prometheus stole fire from the gods for mortal men. And so Zeus gave them Pandora. And after her all of womankind, and her jar, not a box, as much as I love the pun that we've used that word for lately, her jar contained all evil, and she is personally responsible for unleashing it on humanity. Because women are meant to be objects. And that's actually how that story goes about is that they were meant to distract men from trying to achieve greater things

Katie Dooley  49:27

and doing a good job does it

Preston Meyer  49:31

mean me maybe I have been to you and I'm

Katie Dooley  49:34

not distracting it.

Preston Meyer  49:39

In Christianity, the apostle Paul is very worried about more or less the same thing that women are distractions, and that men are falling victim to them as well as homosexual men.

Katie Dooley  49:53

How can you men can control yourself even a little bit?

Preston Meyer  49:58

That's a great question. And that's not a fair question. But it's a good one. An awful lot of men have great self control. An awful lot are the most dangerous people you see in the world because they have no self control.

Katie Dooley  50:14

To stop, put it on the women. We're not distractions, you're distracted, right?

Preston Meyer  50:19

It's ridiculous. And a lot of people like to take opportunities to praise Paul for his position, saying that we need to suppress women and shame them instead of worrying about what Jesus said. When he just said, If you can't look at a girl without sinning, cut your own damn eyes out.

Katie Dooley  50:44

Can we preach that more often? Can you do to How old are your Sunday school boys?

Preston Meyer  50:48

I have the Sunday school it just for adults. So Oh, when it was

Katie Dooley  50:53

like what age though? Like young adults or like 40 year olds,

Preston Meyer  50:56

any any adults?

Katie Dooley  50:59

Can you please talk about that on Sunday?

Preston Meyer  51:02

I don't think that it really can fit nicely into what I've got coming. Okay. But we'll see where it can come. Okay. Absolutely. Okay, I have done it before. Okay. And I've had people be very happy that I brought it up. Oh, good. I'm happy women. No surprises.

Katie Dooley  51:22

Can I just say, Brian tonight just started dating but at your wedding. I presume a huge portion of your guests were Mormon, half. So unlike Solon, check me out with a child and his arms. And I was like, okay, guy.

Preston Meyer  51:45

Yeah, the one you were there for? I'd say probably about

Katie Dooley  51:47

okay. I assumed it was like me and Lindsey were the only two that weren't. But in the mission, Lindsay side, too. She was like, Did you just see that? I was like I did.

Preston Meyer  52:00

That's unforced. Yeah. Anyway.

Katie Dooley  52:01

So that guy needs to go to your school class. I don't know if you were,

Preston Meyer  52:07

in fact, looking at just talking about a variety of religions here. Muhammad is even quoted as when saying why women should cover up. It's because the men around us are rapists. So let's cover up the women instead of you know, beating the shit out of the men. Maybe I like UNIX. Yeah, sure. I can appreciate their necessity in some instances.

Katie Dooley  52:34

If you're gonna rape lady kebab balls. Yeah. Usually

Preston Meyer  52:38

when I think of Unix, I think of voluntary Unix. But no, no as a disciplinary measure ation? Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. And it would happen a lot less. It's weird that it's not more common. Forced castration for criminals,

Katie Dooley  52:57

even if it was like, I think it can be like a chemical castration, where you're not actually cutting balls, you just make it so they can't get a boner anymore. Yeah, there'd be a lot fewer rapists. I

Preston Meyer  53:07

think. That doesn't mean they wouldn't be touching other people, but the way they touch them would change. Not necessarily when

Katie Dooley  53:15

even just having the ramifications of live losing your penis, essentially. Oh, no,

Preston Meyer  53:24

I don't know, this much product. It's it's weird that instead of learning discipline, which clearly men need, and not just men, let's be real, there are some, some trashy women out there to to add to the list of terrible, terrible men. But instead of learning discipline, it's easier to just make sure women are seen less often. And it naturally follows that if they're seen as in, if they're seen less often, they'll be seen as inferior, because they're actively prevented from taking visible leadership roles, which is the world we live in today. Where nobody thinks that a woman could be President of the United States because she's a woman. And women can't lead because we've just been telling them that for 1000s of years. Nonsense.

Katie Dooley  54:21

I think it was the Trevor Noah show. One of his people went to a Trump rally and started interviewing people. This is like anyone else this is it before his first election, and must have no this is like pre Biden anyway. And no, I lied. This was pre his up before he went up against Hillary. And he asked a lady at the rally if Hillary can be president. She said no, she couldn't because she's a woman. Which I think he already thought was weird because of a woman saying it was like, Well, why not? He's like, Well, she said women are too emotional. He's like, you know, a woman has never stopped In a war, right?

Preston Meyer  55:01

Never ever,

Katie Dooley  55:02

never ever. He's like, You know what? Every war Yeah, she was like we were in tune. Well, she'd start a war or something. He's like, you know, every wars been started by a man.

Preston Meyer  55:14

Yeah. People rely very often on terrible arguments. That's one of them.

Katie Dooley  55:21

Didn't I say that? But I think Queen Elizabeth the first invaded Spain or did they start that with her? She fought a war with Spain. I just don't know who instigated it. Anyway. That's completely irrelevant to this conversation.

Preston Meyer  55:34

No pair of women has ever women can fight against men. That's that's obviously a thing. But I don't think there's ever been now they would

Katie Dooley  55:42

talk about, right.

Preston Meyer  55:48

It's crazy. This world we live in is nuts. But in the Quran, Muhammad goes a little bit further than even Paul did. And actually advises men to beat their disobedient women folk. Of course, there's some scholars who say no, no, we choose to translate that differently. Most people translating the Koran say, ya know, they're talking about you need to beat your disobedient women folk. There's

Katie Dooley  56:18

some and I don't know if this is just like, specific to a group, but there are like Trad, wife, Christian groups that are totally into corporal punishment. And kids, I just don't I don't know if that's in the Bible, or if that's an entire terrible, terrible interpretation, or, like Gothard from the Duggars. He's all into Corp. He's fine with corporal punishment. So

Preston Meyer  56:42

I don't remember any corporal punishment being advocated against wives in the Bible, you've actually read the Torah more recently than I have. Did anything jump out at you on that subject? No, I don't think so. Yes, just crazy. Scientology you had brought up earlier, L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology actually said, a society in which women are taught anything but the management of a family, the care of men, and the creation of future generation is a society which is on its way out. Obviously, this man did not have a healthy relationship with women at any point in his life.

Katie Dooley  57:27

He like abandoned his wife and kid for because he just didn't like them anymore. I think he Yeah, his he was not successful at the marriage thing. So do not take advice from L. Ron Hubbard, right.

Preston Meyer  57:41

An awful lot of I don't want to say Islam as responsible for this, but an awful lot of nations that are happy to describe themselves as theocratic Islamic states have a really hard time allowing women to go to school. And there's no solid cause for this and the Quran, or even the Hadith that I'm aware of. But it's a thing that keeps happening. I,

Katie Dooley  58:12

well, there's that. And then, I would say, the homeschool system, predominantly in the States, but I'm sure it happens here in Canada, that they, I mean, they stay in school, probably. But they get a completely different curriculum that doesn't set them up for life. I don't even think. So the new Duggars on TLC is a show called Welcome to Platteville. And they're also Quiverfull. But they don't have quite as many and

58:39

quiver half full or half full.

Katie Dooley  58:43

And my favorite daughter, her name is Mariah because she totally left the fold. But yeah, she says like the schooling they did, doesn't even qualify them for their GDS. Although she finished grade 12 air quotes, she has no high school diploma. So I mean, while she's not, I mean, she was homeschooled. So being physically pulled out of school is the wrong, wrong phrase to use here. But while she's still going to school, unlike in some of these Islamic nations, she is good as well.

Preston Meyer  59:14

was, you know, rare that she is being deprived to a proper education.

Katie Dooley  59:19

But yeah, that is a much more eloquent way to put it tonight. Thank you. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  59:23

And it's it's not just any one religion, it's an awful lot of religions are seeing this as their reality. And it's a huge problem.

Katie Dooley  59:34

I think, again, especially in, you know, in in here in Canada, we have the public school system, the Catholic school system. And I think just from the size of the Catholic school system, it's a little more monitored. But when you get some of these privatized religious schools, that's where some big gaps in the proper education start to happen. Obviously, these parents think that the proper education as a religious said, Vacation. But that's not set them up for university. And I, I don't know why I'm on it this time, because the entire book was about it. But on Orthodox, same thing, she got a great Jewish Hebrew education. But she, you know, wasn't prepared for university. Right? She's prepared to make babies and cook for her husband.

Preston Meyer  1:00:25

Yeah, there's a real problem where, broadly speaking, which you know, I say don't do but I do. Occasionally. Broadly speaking, people in charge, people with power are not going to give you the education that you need to realize that change needs to come into effect. A lot of people like to say this to talk down about public education. And there's some truth to it. But it's way worse. In private schools, especially rigid religious schools, and of any religious organization who sets up a homeschooling program for you is definitely going to lean into that too. Well,

Katie Dooley  1:01:04

I mean, yeah, public school is not perfect, but at least you'll get the school of life. A little bit of the School of common sense, because you're just dealing with so many different types of people. You're not going to be blindsided when you turn on a TV for the first time,

Preston Meyer  1:01:20

right? If you're homeschooled, you're very likely to hear all kinds of stereotypes about different groups of people, usually, your minority groups. And if you're not exposed to them, because you're homeschooled, you've got no contrary evidence, and you end up believing it because you've heard it so many times, because that's the agenda of who's schooling you. But in a big city with a diverse population, you're a lot less likely to have that problem where you start believing the stereotypes because you have loads of evidence of people who fit the descriptor and don't fit the stereotype that's being shared. We

Katie Dooley  1:02:01

have a family member, I'm gonna speak very vaguely, who occasionally says some pretty Islamophobic things, but they're from rural Alberta. And so often I'm like, Have you even met a Muslim? I don't think you know what you're saying.

Preston Meyer  1:02:24

A little while ago, this lady's saying, talking about this time when she convinced the Muslims that they had been worshipping a moon god, you don't know. We were watching. We're watching a movie together I shared with you. That's what it was. She was bragging in this video about hers, her spoils of victory, teaching the Muslims that they had been worshipping a false moon god for ages. And it's just like, you don't know who the Muslims are. They don't worship a moon god at all. They worship the same God that Christians do. So

Katie Dooley  1:03:02

you've convinced them to not believe in your God? That's not good, right?

Preston Meyer  1:03:08

Sounds kind of weird.

Katie Dooley  1:03:11

We've digress. Our last point, which we've kind of talked around, is that many religions teach that men are both women in heterosexual relationships. And this is I think, this is from the religious trauma Institute. If you feel that you have no choice other than being submissive to your husband or domande to your wife, it might be time to reconsider the structure of your relationship. Yeah, actually, here's a question for you. If you can answer it. Because we always hear about, you know, peer to culture and misogyny as it's toxic to women. Do men feel pressure to be dicks to their wives? You know what I mean? Like if you're a I

Preston Meyer  1:03:53

never have felt pressure to be a dick to my wife. Feel that

Katie Dooley  1:03:59

kind of a dick earlier tonight.

Preston Meyer  1:04:01

But with not with not being funny.

Katie Dooley  1:04:07

He's lovely to us. Please don't have us.

Preston Meyer  1:04:14

She has plenty of opportunities for escape. But I I don't think there's a lot of real pressure in any circles where I travel to be,

Katie Dooley  1:04:26

you know, yeah, you're the wrong I should have done more. Now. I'm just thinking about like, if you're really nice guy and really loved your wife, and she wants to go to university and the pastor's going well, you should put her back in your place and you go

Preston Meyer  1:04:42

Yeah, we'd might throw hands. Probably not become violent, but we definitely have some pretty harsh words.

Katie Dooley  1:04:51

Is that you know, is that happening to men? Probably and sort of what extent that they feel pressured to be this hard ass husband And when they don't want to be,

Preston Meyer  1:05:03

there have definitely been loads of men who have been called to bring their wives in the line, for sure. And probably a lot of them. I can't say for sure most of them I would say, with confidence, an awful lot of them have absolutely done as their pastor has told them to do because of that relationship of authority. Gross, yeah, it is kind of gross.

Katie Dooley  1:05:29

Carry on with the growth.

Preston Meyer  1:05:31

So, the next bundle of things, we got people who are abused for variance of opinion, we got people who are abused for being born without a penis. And we've got people who are abused because of the color of their skin, which is nonsense. And there's an awful lot of layers why people are terrible to each other. Usually, it's just a tribal mechanism that relies on encouraging the simple minded to use only their eyes and not their brains to determine easy lines of separation. But people have very often been abused or simply neglected in the religious communities because of differences in ethnic origin. One of the first examples that comes to mind, having grown up in a community with an awful lot of Latter Day Saints is Brigham Young. He decided that it made sense to ordain children to priesthood offices, including making his 11 year old son an apostle, but decided to undo Joseph Smith's work and deny priesthood ordinations to anybody with even a drop of African blood in them. So

Katie Dooley  1:06:41

everyone, because you know where humans came from, right? Africa that's

Preston Meyer  1:06:48

what the science is showing. Yeah, but that's, that's good. All Brigham Young 66 wives. So you know, how we felt about women do

Katie Dooley  1:07:01

I? I saw a flowchart of Brigham Young's wives once. Yeah, it was terrible. Of how like, so obviously, he was a polygamist. Yeah. But he they don't like bigamy, right, where women can have multiple husbands.

Preston Meyer  1:07:20

That's polyandry. Polygamy is having two wives. Okay. So he definitely likes

1:07:27

polyandry. To when you can have 66 He liked bigamy times.

Katie Dooley  1:07:32

30. Sorry, polyandry. But he married other men's wives. Yeah. Well, there's some are so that is Pollyanna. It is and then they they show ages, and we're sisters, and they were mother and daughter and my kids.

1:07:50

Anyway, yeah, it's weird. It

Katie Dooley  1:07:52

is weird. But we're not talking about that. We're talking about racism.

Preston Meyer  1:07:55

Yeah. And so the way that Brigham Young related to black people was not positive at all. And to be fair, to Brigham Young, and Joseph Smith, and the early Latter Day Saints leaders. They were not alone in this idea that because all black people were the children of Cain, who were was, you know, the evil of the sons of Adam, that all black people were inferior. This is widely believed among most Christians in the 1800s. And the cause and effect there is definitely a huge problem. Yes, has led to a lot of abuse, and is not at all reasonable. And thankfully, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has reversed Brigham Young's policies on racism only about 50 years ago. Not soon enough, but it happened. So at least we got that. When prompted, most people will describe the physicality of their god as matching their own physical ideals, if not their own actual self image. That's why Jesus is classically depicted as European when you look at most religious art, because the Europeans and the European artists didn't really have much of a model reference apart from Europeans. The same is true when you go to Korea Jesus is going to look a little bit Korean. And you hear a lot about black Jesus in the States and other parts of the world as well. But mostly where I've heard of black Jesus in the states it's it makes sense that you project in the absence of a true model yourself on to the God you worship. Back to the Korean Jesus. I think it's really important to state Jesus was way more Asian than any of my Phillip You know, Friends, and I will fight anyone who wants to contradict me on that.

Katie Dooley  1:10:03

He's so aggressive person. I love it

Preston Meyer  1:10:07

this topic of trauma, it makes me very uncomfortable. Oh, I mean, said that. If it makes you feel ugly, you've got issues. The Philippines are islands in the ocean. They're not part of continental Asia, but they are on the Eurasian tectonic plate, but they're not in Asia. The Middle East, including Jerusalem, is in continental Asia. So Jesus is Asian. That's the way it goes, Oh, that's

Katie Dooley  1:10:40

very semantical. But

Preston Meyer  1:10:45

you know what? I'm okay. If somebody wants to draw Korean Jesus and say this is the real Jesus, it is as accurate as saying, British JESUS IS THE REAL JESUS. Because they're both on opposite ends of the continent from each other. Jerusalem is in the middle of

Katie Dooley  1:11:02

some black. No, he was a brown, or Arabic guy of

Preston Meyer  1:11:08

Arabic isn't a fair descriptor. The Arabians are a different nation. But I mean, when it comes to skin tone, yeah. People who have grown up surrounded by just white folks would definitely have a hard time distinguishing the two.

Katie Dooley  1:11:24

Well, that's where the word Caucasian comes from. Is Arabia. That's where the caucus mountains are. But

Preston Meyer  1:11:30

that's not the same thing.

Katie Dooley  1:11:32

I know. I put on a job. We're like, Oh, are you Arabic know, people who are Arabic, just have white skin.

Preston Meyer  1:11:42

I mean, not white, white, but pale, fair, fair, compared to say the depths of Congo.

Katie Dooley  1:11:52

Or, I mean, even just other places you think of in the Middle East.

Preston Meyer  1:11:59

So it's, unfortunately, it's way too easy to step from my God has this skin color. Because if if your God has a body, you're not usually imagining and without skin. So that skin, it's a great Attack on Titan, here we go. So it's not hard to go from my God has this skin color to anyone who doesn't have this skin color is inferior. And that's a huge problem, especially when you jump to the next step that an awful lot of people do. Where if you have this inferior skin color, you clearly have a deficient spiritual potential. And that is evidenced by your skin color. That's not okay. Well, there's an awful lot of reasons why a lot of people have been hurt by religion. And there's no reason for any of these things to still be part of our culture. But we have an awful lot of people who want to perpetuate these problems.

Katie Dooley  1:13:06

So to end on our hopefully positive note, how does it get fixed? What do people need to do? One

Preston Meyer  1:13:15

we need to recognize trauma when it appears. And we need to acknowledge that trauma is a perfectly natural response to the repetition of doctrines of a violent, angry, all powerful God, who is dissatisfied with your race, your gender, your subculture, or the entirety of humanity. Teaching these things should probably stop. Trauma is perfectly natural response to repeated exposure to pastors use threats of eternal damnation or demonic possession to maintain control their flocks that needs to stop. Any person who doesn't conform to strict rules of sexuality and gender expression are at greater risk. We need to acknowledge that and maybe take better care of them, because they face extreme pressure to mask or change their identity, which also causes trauma.

Katie Dooley  1:14:09

Oh, absolutely. Well, and we didn't even touch on conversion therapy, which I won't open that can of worms, because we're, we're well into this episode already. But absolutely, that's a huge part of it. atheists don't do conversion therapy.

Preston Meyer  1:14:27

No, no, are the atheist countries that actually really try and suppress religion? like Russia, for example, just kill their gays. No conversion therapy? No. China has a hard time. We got a lot of countries that don't like gods and don't like gays. There's like

Katie Dooley  1:14:47

all I remember hearing a statute and finally 20 countries that have legalized gay marriage. Now it's like 198. That's terrible. And

Preston Meyer  1:14:57

it's a short list. Leaving a religious group can add to religious trauma because these communities as damaging as they are, also offer some measure of support to their members and sustain a worldview that brings personal stability and promises of safety. So leaving these groups means abandoning that support, and is usually accompanied by greater anxiety and depression. And actual trauma. Trauma is a real thing. And it it ruins lives. But therapy exists for religious trauma syndrome, much like PTSD. And there are loads of resources online to help connect you with the help you that you might need. And it's important to know that religious trauma is a lot more common than you think it is. It's a real thing. A lot of people feel it to one degree or another. And you're not alone. If you suffer from religious trauma. There's people you can reach out to.

Katie Dooley  1:15:55

I also feel like this is a disclaimer, we probably should put the ban but we're not therapists. No, not at all. Not even though if you can't tell,

Preston Meyer  1:16:03

like as much as I want to point people in this in a specific direction to get help for religious trauma. I'm not even qualified to do that. Right.

Katie Dooley  1:16:12

Speak to your local mental health service provider.

Preston Meyer  1:16:16

Yeah, there's help out there. People will acknowledge your troubles and they will help. Absolutely. Well, that was hard. It was hard, but it's I think it's important to absolutely to share. Thanks for joining us it's it's been a bit of a ride will lighten things up a little bit next.

Katie Dooley  1:16:42

You can find us on our Discord server if you want to continue the conversation. We are also on Patreon doing a bonus episodes in early releases and we have a really interesting interview coming up. Probably in a couple of weeks from this episode. I'll just teaser out with a cult survivors. So type a little bit into this title of into our call episode. And of course so Patreon if you want to support and keep our podcast going. And our merch store on Spreadshirt every little penny we get helps us keep this podcast running.

Preston Meyer  1:17:19

Thank you so much. Peace be with you

We're discussing the Revelation of John in this episode. The Revelation is an end-of-the-world prophecy also known as the Revelation of John or the Apocalypse of John. The book is credited to John of Patmos in the first century, though scholars believe this is actually a composite work with many authors.

When reading the Revelation, the content is supplemented from many other books in the Bible, especially the Old Testament Prophets.

What does this prophecy mean for mankind? Should we take it literally or only as a metaphor?

There are six different ways to read the Revelation, and we touch on each of them: historicism, preterism, amillennialism, post-millennialism, futurism and idealism/allegorical. 

We also discuss the symbolism in the book as well as Christian Zionism, the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the Rapture. Tune in if you want to learn more about the end of the world!

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website

***

Preston Meyer  00:09

atheist and agnostic of religion, but you're ready for the end of the world.

Katie Dooley  00:13

No, I'm not even a little bit prepared.

Preston Meyer  00:18

As ready as I was five years ago, Allah that

Katie Dooley  00:22

Were you prepared five years ago?

Preston Meyer  00:25

No, no?

Katie Dooley  00:28

Well, yeah, we're about to prepare you for the end of the world on the

Preston Meyer  00:34

holy watermelon podcast.

Katie Dooley  00:38

So this was a listener request. Thank you, Sarah for requesting the Revelation of John episode, which is why we talked about prophecy two weeks ago to segue into a more specific prophecy. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  00:54

this one's juicy.

Katie Dooley  00:59

That's a really odd way to put it. But I see where you're getting right. I thought it was really fucking weird, right?

Preston Meyer  01:09

I've mentioned before, and I'll bring it up again. It bugs me so much when people call it revelations. Especially since an awful lot of the people who call it revelations are people who are happy to tell you that they have read it. Just not the title. I guess not the title. Revelation,

Katie Dooley  01:35

and the philosophy rock? Sure.

Preston Meyer  01:40

The Revelation of John also sometimes called the Apocalypse of John, which not accurate. I mean, well, we've went and changed the definition of the word apocalypse, which is the real problem. The Greek word apocalypse means Revelation. But because the book describes what feels like the end of the world as we know it, we've

Katie Dooley  02:05

now associated Apocalypse with the end of the world. Yeah. Okay. And

Preston Meyer  02:09

that's, I'm gonna call it cultural illiteracy. Okay, if you hear a word used way too often, and you never actually learn what it means, you start applying it to this new context that you do firmly associated with the word immaculate.

Katie Dooley  02:28

We've done that with the word immaculate. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  02:31

in fact, I mean, that's how languages evolve, broadly speaking in general, but there's, there's a few cases where it's just super annoying. And, I mean, I've gotten used to people describing the end of the world as the apocalypse, fine, whatever, but it is technically wrong.

Katie Dooley  02:55

Okay. If you really want to know my Preston, hop onto our Discord and write revelations over and over again,

Preston Meyer  03:01

yeah, it's like when somebody wants to, quote, a psalm. They'll say Psalms 119, whatever, whatever. Like, no, no, no, no, it's a singular Psalm. It's, if you're referring to just one psalm drop that final s vivid is the book of the Psalms. And maybe that's why people do that with the revelation. Cuz the revelation is sometimes looked at as though it contains several separate revelations. But that's still wrong.

Katie Dooley  03:30

Well, it is kind of multiple we found in our research. I mean, I'm feel like you probably knew this before. But from Britannica, they said that it is a, it is a collection of separate units composed by multiple authors.

Preston Meyer  03:45

Yeah, the scholarship on this book is actually really fascinating. And there's an awful lot of scholars who feel very confident now that it is a large composite work.

Katie Dooley  03:56

I mean, we'll get into this further, but even just how much of the revelation is supplemented by other books of the Bible. I want to say it was grasping at straws, but it really feels like they were pulling from other places. The

Preston Meyer  04:13

revelation really relies heavily on a few of the Old Testament prophets, especially Ezekiel and Daniel. But there's also loads of other little ideas that get pulled from some, some imagery that gets used from Isaiah even as well.

Katie Dooley  04:30

Yeah, well, and I, you'll see, later on, I cited Matthew quite frequently for how to describe the end of the world. Because like, anyway, I went down a rabbit hole and it's terrifying. Do we do do do you know any research on who John was because I found I assumed it was done the impossible. And then I read that there was no indication that it was Jon Postel.

Preston Meyer  04:56

There's an awful lot of scholars who are I'm very confident that there's no possible way that John the Apostle could be John of Patmos, John of Patmos being the the identifier within the text for who wrote the Revelation. And it's kind of weird. They do have some similarities in their language. Both of them continue to use Aramaic words, instead of being smooth Greek. But other than that we have the same first name. And that's really kind of it. I mean, back then everyone was named on the Yohannan was a very popular name among the Hebrews among the, the Juday, and people and the diaspora.

Katie Dooley  05:47

But I actually found sources that said, Jon Postel, was exiled to Patmos and John of Patmos is done the impossible. Yeah. And then I found, like I said, on pretend Britannica says that there's no indication that there's the same person. So some of the more wild interpretations of Revelation, I really feel like they're just making shit up. Oh,

Preston Meyer  06:13

yeah. Identifying John is, is really tricky. There's loads of doubt. And there's some pretty good reasons for that doubt that they're the same person. There are some churches who will say explicitly, this is John, the apostle, is John the Revelator. They're the same person. And there are other churches that are a lot less committed to that idea, because they just tend to stick with the popular scholarly opinion, which makes perfectly good sense.

Katie Dooley  06:44

I mean, I agree with that. Right. So I found on Wikipedia is basically the different ways Christians interpret the revelation and I find this really interesting. So I think we should speak to those. Yeah. So there's six and try to count.

Preston Meyer  07:03

Yes, there are six different categories, six or category.

Katie Dooley  07:06

So number one is historicism, which sees the revelation as a broad view of history.

Preston Meyer  07:18

Basically, just kind of covering things up. We have the Four Horsemen are usually when looked at as historical representations. They're meant to cover the 4000 years leading up to that point in history where this book was written. So the

Katie Dooley  07:33

broad view of history is not a specific event. It's sort of a summary. Yeah. All the stuff that's happened in the world so far, yeah.

Preston Meyer  07:42

It's large loosey goosey. And when we talked about prophecy, a couple of weeks ago, he talked about how it was super obvious that the prophecy of the Pope's was a forgery, because it was super specific, up until the point of publication, and then vague and cryptic afterwards. Here in this text we have vague and cryptic for the history, if we want to go with this historic interpretation of the book. The

Katie Dooley  08:09

second one is Preterism. So this is where you believe revelation refers to the events of the first century, or at the latest, the fall of the Roman Empire is a very specific time in history, as opposed to a broad History of the World History. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  08:28

And that's it, that does fit pretty nicely with the broad use of apocalyptic literature, where it's, Hey, we're an oppressed people, but we're going to overcome our oppressors, and everything's gonna be great. And the fall of Rome, not in a terribly distant future for these people. The

Katie Dooley  08:46

next is a millennialism. So this rejects any sort of literal interpret interpretation of the revelation and is just sees it as symbolic, which I like, because it's gonna get weird. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  09:00

And they, they also reject the idea of there being 1000 year period of peace after all of this happens, which is explicitly mentioned within the text. So it gets a little bit tricky.

Katie Dooley  09:16

But I guess if it's all symbolic, then matter if you say something explicitly,

Preston Meyer  09:20

yeah, you could just say, Millennium hole he just means for a long time. Yeah. Like, anytime we talked about Moses in 40 years, probably was just, Oh,

Katie Dooley  09:32

thank goodness because to be lost in that desert for 40 years is unacceptable. Post millennialism rejects the literal interpretation as well. And sees the world becoming better and better with the entire world, eventually becoming Christianized makes sense well enough, I was gonna say, Where's your commentary Preston? That's, that's okay. I'm satisfied. Okay. futurism believes that the revelation disagree tribes future events, so an actual revelation. So this is also called millennialist.

Preston Meyer  10:06

Yeah, and that's probably most people who are concerned with the book of Revelation. This is where most of them seem to sit. Or they're looking forward to the end of the world as they know it in all of these cataclysmic events. And some of them are very fearful. And, yeah, futurism.

Katie Dooley  10:26

I'm just gonna say there's gonna be a point in this podcast where I don't know if I can be nice anymore. We'll see. We'll see. I'll try. And the last one is idealism or allegorical, which refers to the revelation as not an actual event, but an allegory of your spiritual journey. And this one I can get behind to. Some of them I can't get behind

Preston Meyer  10:49

some of the symbolism in there, it gets really specific alarming for a personal journey.

Katie Dooley  10:59

I just think it's an acid trip at some point. I don't even know if I call it alarming. Czar, like they did a few tabs of acid and we're like dragons.

Preston Meyer  11:11

All right. So what I think is really fascinating is the dragons that everybody draws in connection with this story. of Neil, we're talking like four limbs and an extra set of wings breathing fire. And that's, that's a much newer idea of what a dragon is. The dragon, as we have written in the biblical text, the word DragCon is a Greek word that means serpent. I usually a big sea serpent, something large that lives in the water, but and serpentine. But yeah, I feel very confident that its use here, though it may meant it may be meant to evoke images of the old Leviathan, I feel more like it's meant to evoke images of the serpent in the Garden of Eden, especially as this this adversary of humanity,

Katie Dooley  12:09

and it toys it all nicely back to the beginning. Right. I like that one of the theories that I read again, from our resource from the botanic website is that that is actually a contemporary piece for the first century that is supposed to help Christians get through the persecution from Rome at the time.

Preston Meyer  12:29

Yeah, absolutely. So the moral of the story is when you've read the whole letter, because it's it's written in an epistolary format, mostly, at the end of it, you're supposed to come out of it, having hope, with this message that we're going to overcome this Roman persecution. So yeah, absolutely. Supposed to help with that crisis of faith in a time when the Roman Empire is like, No, you need to worship our God Emperor is the only supreme god. And of course, Christians say, hey, we really don't want to do that.

Katie Dooley  13:04

As someone who has studied the Bible, this is a little off script. But is the revelation so we we believe it's written by multiple authors, or any of those authors, the same authors as other books of the Bible? Or is this like a total? I haven't made it this far. If anyone's listening, I haven't. One Samuel why every

Preston Meyer  13:21

scholar who believes that the book of Revelation was written by multiple authors will reject that any of them had anything to do with writing the base text to anything else in the New Testament, though editor's could certainly have been involved with multiple projects, including the Revelation of John.

Katie Dooley  13:45

Interesting. Yeah, it just feels like again, I haven't read the whole Bible yet. But it feels like such an out there, book, content and structure wise.

Preston Meyer  13:55

It's wildly different from everything else in the New Testament. But familiar enough if you've gone through some of the cooler parts of the Old Testament.

Katie Dooley  14:05

By getting to the cooler parts of the Old Testament, it'd be a little while.

Preston Meyer  14:08

You got to get through history before you get to the prophecy books.

Katie Dooley  14:14

Alright, I see you have some notes on Joel Osteen.

Preston Meyer  14:18

His name? Yes, I do. Name? Yes. So the interesting thing about the Revelation of John, and we've talked about how there's loads of doubt about the author, it was never in editing. Any time in human history. It was never popular in the lists of what counts as the Christian canon. And an awful lot of people have put an awful lot of time arguing against it for as long as it's been circulated. Also, I wanted to define the word canon because it comes up a fair bit in the discussion of this book. So canon means measuring stick or the standard against which other things are measured. So for Star Wars fans, none of the books ever are canon. At no point in history were the books canon. The films are the Canon against which you could judge if the books were truly part of the same continuity. In the same way, the huge amounts of Christian literature that have been created in the last 2000 years, like the words of Polycarp, and CS Lewis, and Joel Osteen. They're evaluated for their content relative to what is in the scriptural canon, which is selected by committees over the course of centuries, eventually bringing us the New Testament as we have it today. And so, centuries of arguing about what is really the foundational texts of our religion, it was super easy to adopt the four gospels that are sitting at the front of the New Testament, it was super easy to adopt the writings of Paul, broadly speaking, but it took a lot of work to figure out which ones were genuine Pauline epistles, and the Epistle to the Hebrews is still a mystery text. It was ascribed to Paul for a while by a bunch of people. And now it's generally rejected that definitely wasn't Paula wrote the epistle to the Hebrews, that kind of thing. So the history of this book of Revelation is flip flop back and forth, mostly. Dionysius, in the mid third century rejected the apostolic opera authorship of the book, but did admit that its author was inspired anything

Katie Dooley  16:38

so it was a revelation just not done the apostle. Right. Okay. And

Preston Meyer  16:42

then, about 100 years later, used to be as included the book in his list of accepted books, but also included in his list of rejected books. He waffled on this? Yeah, and we're not talking like decades apart or books apart, but like, in the same text,

Katie Dooley  17:04

so he had a stack of accepted and a stack of rejecting just switch back and forth

Preston Meyer  17:07

for it was an old stack simultaneously for this guy.

Katie Dooley  17:12

Can't decide today, like

Preston Meyer  17:14

when he wrote on, these are books that are good. And these are books that are bad in the same content lists. Like huge hand you up piece of paper, and on both sides of this piece of paper, one side, good, one side bad. It's on both sides. Because it's, it's, it's a problem for people. Yeah. The Council of Laodicea in 363, omitted the book from the canon, Council of Rome included it only 20 years later. And the Eastern Orthodox Council in trullo, in 692, omitted the book from the Canon as well. It's still rejected by many Christian groups today. When we say the Christian New Testament, it's, it's a lot more monolithic than the Old Testament. But there's, there's still some issues there. We have smaller Christian groups that don't use the same New Testament either. Well,

Katie Dooley  18:13

and then there's just like, how much stock you put in to the revelation, right? There's churches that are entirely based. There's one in the West Ed. It's called The End of Days church. Like it's entirely right, we get these fire and brimstone preachers that base their entire doctrine on the revelation. And then there's Summerlin, kids allegorical. Yeah, right. So

Preston Meyer  18:38

there's, there's an awful lot of freedom when deciding how you're going to use a book. And sure that makes sense.

Katie Dooley  18:46

I guess so.

Preston Meyer  18:49

i The problem comes when you start doing things that hurt people are ruined people's lives with this book that was written so long ago.

Katie Dooley  19:00

Like I said, we'll get into it. And we're tight a little bit before we pressed record. How much people like, put time and energy into this? And I mean, I know I'm coming at it from an atheist perspective, but it's kind of terrifying.

Preston Meyer  19:18

Yeah, there's some weird ways and using this book. Yeah,

Katie Dooley  19:21

there and at some we're gonna talk about Christian Zionism. Some dangerous ways people have used this book. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  19:27

One of my books there's, there's a lot of things I do like pointing out that are in this book to people who aren't as familiar with the faith that they like to lay it out on other people lay it on. And one of these I mentioned a month or two back when we were talking about Satanism, that the idea that Lucifer has to be this evil figure and anytime you ever talk about Lucifer, as a good thing, you're automatically a Satan worshiper. Nonsense. People like to throw that at Freemasons because there was a couple of Freemason authors a couple of centuries ago, that really liked to describe the philosophy of Freemasonry as Luciferian. And Lucifer means light bearer. And Lucifer is the poetic name of the Morning Star. In Latin, referring to Venus or occasionally mercury. Apparently, some people get that confused, I guess, mostly Venus. And the morning star. That symbol of us a five pointed star, whether inverted or not, in old is Christianity, referred to Jesus. And this is actually illustrated in the Revelation of John.

Katie Dooley  20:53

Well, it's it was interesting to me, because like Morningstar is not used a lot in the Bible, it's just twice and once it's for Lucifer, king of Babylon, and once it's for Jesus, yeah, like those are polar opposites. So I thought that was a really interesting choice of language of all the things and I mean, the revelation goes on to calm the lamb and the lion and whatever of all the things the only other reference in the Bible is to the devil, and you're calling him the morning star. And I know Lucifer is not the devil, but common perception is that Lucifer is a bad dude. Or a sexy Tom Ellis, if you're listening, I'd love to interview. That's sorry, I didn't hear you. Yeah, no, I,

Preston Meyer  21:36

I have to deny that Lucifer was ever used in the Bible to describe the adversary of God, except for the one situation where he describes the king of Babylon, and his self styled title, that is equivalent to the morning star. So that's, that's my little thing.

Katie Dooley  21:58

What other fun facts do you like to throw at people about the revelation?

Preston Meyer  22:03

The one of the things that came up last time I talked about this in Sunday school, cuz I'm a Sunday school teacher as well, is this business about the 144,000. Some churches, including the Jehovah's Witnesses, will say this is how many people get into heaven. Jehovah's Witnesses, cosmology and theology is super complicated. And it's, the problem I have with it is that's not a thing that can be fairly pulled out of this text. We have 144,000 elders, who go and do a particular work for the Lord in this text. And that's got nothing to do with who's going to heaven. That's not what this chapter addresses even where this 144,000 are mentioned. What's interesting to me, though, is that the 144,000 is 12,000, from each of 12 tribes in Israel. But that list, it gives us the 12 tribes of Israel is obviously written by either somebody who's not familiar with Israel, or has a specific reason to exclude one particular group. And that is still mysterious to me, because we have the list of the 12 tribes. And usually Levi is left out of any list of 12 tribes, because Levi's descendants never received any city inheritance really apart from where they had their altars, so they could perform priestly duties among all of the people of Israel across all of the tribes. But this list in Revelation includes Levi and excludes Dan for some reason. It includes Joseph, but excludes Ephraim but does have Manasa it's that's a weird replacement thing. And maybe the name Manasa is thrown in where Dan is supposed to belong. It's, it's all really fuzzy. But what's really weird is that people use this exclusion of Dan in this list to say the Danish people are evil.

Katie Dooley  24:30

I believe that

Preston Meyer  24:31

I'm Danish. So problems only for you. And the entire nation of Denmark out there atheist anyway, not all predominantly more than a lot of the way. But the idea of identifying this one little group out of the nation of Israel to equivalent to another nation. Then on the other end of Europe, that is also kind of little is nonsense

Katie Dooley  25:07

also because it didn't exist, presumably, when the Bible was written. I

Preston Meyer  25:12

don't know when the Kingdom of Denmark was organized, but I feel like the Danish people were probably up people around this. I mean, yeah,

Katie Dooley  25:21

but they were would have been all small tribes like we didn't really start to say weren't organized.

Preston Meyer  25:27

Yeah, yeah. Especially

Katie Dooley  25:29

in that part of Europe into like, the 1200s is when what we would call countries now start to farm. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  25:39

Did stretch all the way? Around this Europe pretty much

Katie Dooley  25:44

doesn't feel like you're back then. Is that weird to say?

Preston Meyer  25:48

It's not Europe as we know it. I mean, we had the Roman Empire along basically, everything in Europe, except for the northern bits, which was the Germanic tribes. And honestly, I feel like they were probably more organized than we give them credit for to

Katie Dooley  26:02

probably, let's skip Christian Zionism now and come back. All right, that shouldn't be there. But let's talk about the content, the actual guts of this book. Now, tell me if I'm wrong, but I listened to it one and a half times. And he didn't make it through the second recording. And then I mean, obviously did a whole bunch of research. And I watched some wild videos on the revelation. And from what I listened to read audiobook, versus the interpretations, I felt like, there was not a plot in the book, of which people would interpret into crazy things. Sorry, into elaborate things. So for example, like I know the Raptors from Revelation. I was like key. So where does it describe people being sucked up in their clubs being left behind and everyone else's suffer? And there's like two sentences. And it doesn't refer to any of those, like, how do we get this imagery of

Preston Meyer  27:12

Let Me Google that real quick. I

Katie Dooley  27:13

have it in my notes. Do chapter three, verse 10, is a revelation. Since you have kept My command to endure patiently, I will also keep you from the hour of trial that is going to come on the whole world to test the inhabitants of the earth. I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have that no one will take your crown. That's the rapture. That's what the entire Left Behind series is based on. Is those two sentences. No, that's not it at all. Okay, am I reading the wrong thing? No, that's what I read was we're actress chapter three.

Preston Meyer  27:48

So Matthew 24. That's not the revelation. Right. But that idea, it comes from Matthew 24. The whole left behind. titular idea. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  28:03

Right there. Yeah. The

Preston Meyer  28:05

book series expands and implements a lot of things taken from the revelation. But that idea that one person can be taken up and the person right next to him not, is from Matthew 24.

Katie Dooley  28:16

Okay, so then how does this work in like a Bible study context?

Preston Meyer  28:19

Oh, you have to lean heavily on what we call intertextuality. Where you go flip back and forth between several different books and string together all these different ideas can make up whatever story you want, if you're not extremely careful, yes. Okay. That's the wonderful thing about people who study books, I guess is, they will connect all kinds of ideas. I took a whole course on intertextuality with just different philosophic literature and books that people thought were supposed to be like deep philosophical dives, that when you read this book, and also read Kant or Freud, then this changes the way you understand the book. Yeah. And that is basically how most people read the Bible, because you've got a bunch of different prophets who say, little bits of information here and there. You have to string them together if you want a solid image and some people are really bad at that job and string together terrifying or awfully destructive images. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  29:37

I was I was like, expecting this but you know, having you know, heard of left behind and a season tonight. I was expecting, like revelation to be this big, scary book. And I was like, no. It talks about a really weird animal with bear paws, which we'll get to, but that's about it. But I'm like, oh, and then Nero, which we'll also talk about But like other than that, I was like, this is not nearly the traumatizing book I was expecting. So

Preston Meyer  30:09

cool. Yeah. It's there's an awful lot of ideas that because we're they're connected to the end of the world, we connect to the revelation. And some of it is just not there. And that includes the whole the the nitty gritty of the details of the rapture, the rapture, which is such a weird word. But yeah, it's intertextuality allows us to point to where in the timeline in Revelation, like it does give us a spot where if you understand that this thing is that thing, then that thing happens here in the story,

Katie Dooley  30:49

which is why when I told you I was reading the Bible, in order, you're like, that's not how it's dead.

Preston Meyer  30:56

In chronological order, yeah, that's, that's just not the way it happened. No, people put effort into it, but

Katie Dooley  31:05

oh, well, that's fine. I do. But so is the rapture, the rapture is linked to the Second Coming. Yes. Let's talk about the second Kami, do all Christians believe in the Second Coming?

Preston Meyer  31:17

Not all Christians, do you? Do I believe that Jesus is going to come back in a physical form, and people are actually gonna be able to notice that that is part of what I believe? Yes. Interesting.

Katie Dooley  31:28

All right, let's talk.

Preston Meyer  31:30

So the, the earliest point at which it was taught explicitly, was immediately after he left, and before the epistles were sent out to all the people by Paul before John wrote to his seven churches, anything like that. the Acts of the Apostles, written by a fellow named Lucas or Luke, as we commonly nominate lish, he tells the story of how, after Jesus spent 40 days after he died, hanging out with people showing them yeah, I'm alive again. Check out my holes, whatnot. And

Katie Dooley  32:14

phrasing, press

Preston Meyer  32:16

the holes in his hands, the holes in his side, okay, those five holes, seven, an odd number of holes. Phrasing. So he spent more than a month showing people and testifying that he truly was dead, buried, risen again. And then he ascends up into the sky. And Lucas tells us there was loads of witnesses. And the fact that the book is still around means that there's a lot of people who were like, yeah, no, I was I was there. I'm one of those witnesses. And we have no idea how many that would have taken to establish that, but we have it. And there's in that story, it tells us that there were also a couple of angels, messengers from heaven, who said, the same way you watch them go up, he's gonna come down the same way. And then that idea has persisted pretty strongly among the vast majority of Christians ever since.

Katie Dooley  33:28

Is, I feel like the Second Coming. And I guess this kind of falls in line with just how you take revelations, but I feel like revelation. This depends on how you take the revelation. I feel like some people take the second coming like super seriously. Yes. That's probably a spectrum thing as well. Yeah, I

Preston Meyer  33:52

think so. Like, I

Katie Dooley  33:53

remember going to my friend's youth group. And I remember them like talking about how they like can't wait for Jesus to come back. And like that they have to be prepared because it could happen at any time. And I'm like, does everyone live their life like this? Like is like is that in the forefront of your mind? No, all the time that like Jesus could come back tomorrow, no cakes. That's how they were talking. They're like, I hope Jesus comes back. So in my lifetime, but I have to admit that he might not

Preston Meyer  34:26

like we talked about in our last episode with prophets and a lot of people saying Jesus is coming right away. No warning, but also right away.

Katie Dooley  34:37

The rebel in laws kind

Preston Meyer  34:39

of all the time. So the Revelation of John actually lays out the this promise that you're going to have plenty of warning before Jesus shows up. Like we've got a seven year war. It's gonna be absolutely awful. And in Christ, we got weird animals. Yeah. And Jesus shows up after the seven You're so anybody says Jesus could show up any minute. I guess they believe that this seven year war is already happening. But you've also got loads of other warning signs. Like we have to have Christian prophets in Jerusalem for three and a half years. And then they die in the streets. And then you've still got a few years warning. So anybody like the fellow who said the world was going to end may 21 2011. The guy was seriously out to lunch.

Katie Dooley  35:41

Yeah, this is where your belief is founded. And then, yeah. Now, I was meant to talk about this later. But I feel like this is a good segue into Christian Zionism, which I think is terrible. Yeah. But that these Zionists are trying to force the second coming by making these things happen. I mean, it feels really yucky to me. And I feel like Jesus went like that. I feel like Jesus doesn't want to come back that bad that we can kill a whole bunch of people in Palestine to force the Second Coming to have right Am I Am I wrong?

Preston Meyer  36:18

See, I agree completely. Because the way that any good Christian should be preparing for the Second Coming would be the exact same way they prepare for the eventualities of their death of don't be a dick. And things are gonna be okay. Yeah, because you could get hit by a truck tomorrow, a lot more likely than Jesus coming in tomorrow. If we're committed to the seven year timeframe that the revelation gives us, as an awful lot of Christians are the be more worried about dying by surprise, then being caught by surprise by Jesus? Yeah.

Katie Dooley  36:56

So a lot of Christians believe that the Second Coming is about to happen because the Jews took control of Israel in 1968. So they took control of Israel a 96. Year, but there

Preston Meyer  37:10

was a British nation of Israel started

Katie Dooley  37:13

to form in the 40s, after the war, as a place for all the refugees to go. The United States is a huge funder and supporter of Israel, because they're trying to force the Second Coming. Which again, that's just like,

Preston Meyer  37:30

I mean, it's not only that, but it's definitely including that, well. I have a lot of faithful Jews, hoping to absolute from the nation as well. But it's not just one thing. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  37:42

One of the one of the stats I read is that Trump had voted that Israel was like the like Jerusalem for life to Israel to Palestine, in a un vote, and only nine other countries agreed with him. And the vast majority disagreed with him. And then of course, there were some non non committal country vote so well,

Preston Meyer  38:04

for the most part, the UN, while recognizing the plight of Palestine don't recognize Palestine as a nation. No, it's not an official nation. It's just like, there's no country in the world that officially recognizes that there are two Koreas every country in the world officially sees one Korea and a rebel state. And depending on which country and it depends which, which is the favorite, whether North or South. It's a similar but also wildly different thing. In the Near East.

Katie Dooley  38:49

Yeah, and you can do you can do tours of Jerusalem, and they'll take you and like show you where all the battles will happen.

Preston Meyer  38:58

It's a really weird thing.

Katie Dooley  39:00

Like, I feel like this is really weird and Christian, like Christian Zionism is like the best way I can describe it, like creepy, like the fact that you're willing to like kill people. And we'll get into other parts of revelations on like, this is just weird. And the fact that you're willing to kill people for or aid in the killing of people for it is super weird to me. Brian's sister, so they share a debt but not a mom. Her mom and her new husband like literally went to Israel to fight the crusade. Wow. Yeah. That's like to make it happen. alarming. Yeah. His sister was like, How do I get them back? Like she was like, trying to, you know, that they had like, gone too far. In, in their belief, and he's like, I'd need to get them back to Canada, but they wanted to be there. So I don't know you do. Anyway, that's an anecdote. I don't know if I want to leave that in.

Preston Meyer  39:56

Like so generally. And I don't feel like the contradicts it. But it complicates it. religion doesn't make people hurt other people. But an episode we're going to talk about but extremism and absolutism, which are more common in Christianity than in Buddhism. Absolutely cause people to hurt other people. And this is an excellent example of that.

Katie Dooley  40:31

Yeah, it just like feels super yucky. Yeah. All right, well, thanks for that. That was me bringing up the downer topic of Christian Zionism. We have a lot of other imagery and symbolism and visuals and in Revelation that just like, blew my mind.

Preston Meyer  40:53

Yeah, there's there's a lot of symbols and images in the book that it's weird how much the author or authors use Hebrew words instead of Greek words, like the idea that the author uses Har Megiddo. Instead of Orose mosquito. That's a little bit weird.

Katie Dooley  41:19

Can you elaborate for our listeners,

Preston Meyer  41:22

har is the Hebrew for Aramaic for mountain, or mount and otros being the Greek. It's just, there's a lot of little things in there that maybe they're deliberate evidence that the author was an Israelite, or a Jew rather than a Roman. Who knows, we can't say with any real certainty anymore. But there's also a lot of imagery that is really kind of obviously informed by the Greek and Roman traditions. We've got these terrifying angels that come up out of the Euphrates. And to not see a parallel with the Greek Titans being released from Tartarus. Seems like a serious educational oversight.

Katie Dooley  42:18

See, and this is where, like you said, I'm gonna have trouble being nice. This some of this imagery is fine, if you think it's an allegorical, or, you know, a metaphor, or whatever. But the people think this is literal. Like I just I like I lost me. Like when you think that there's a seven headed beast beast with 10 crowns, or 10 horns with 10 crowns, with feet of a bear mouth of a lion body of a leopard and powered by a dragon. Like, play.

Preston Meyer  43:00

Yeah, why? That's the idea that it's not just symbolic, is mind boggling. I'm not here to judge by it's just I am fully on the symbolic side of this argument for the Revelation of John. Yeah, and if it's good at all, it's symbolic. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  43:25

And then there's other ones that I found so like you said, the the demonic angels in the phrase and even like, the angel Michael coming to fight with its sexy angel armies, watching Lucifer. Just like, what? Like this is never I mean, again, I've only read six, seven books of the Bible, but like, nothing of this level of drama has ever happened before in the Bible. I'm pretty sure how often do dragons show up in the Bible?

Preston Meyer  43:57

Going through automated dragons never

Katie Dooley  43:59

right like it just you know on like, mon on Samuel one. So you know, I'm gonna have some good Bible stories under my belt. Like there's no angel armies. Oh, yeah, absolutely. When

Preston Meyer  44:13

the the Lord of hosts is a title that you've probably heard several times. That so that is hosts means armies, sees the God of angel armies.

Katie Dooley  44:24

When are they fighting?

Preston Meyer  44:27

I want to say that they show up mostly in prophetic literature later on ahead of where you're at. Okay, but I could swear that there's some in the Torah where they talked about the support from angel armies, but I might be making things up. I think you might have to look that up.

Katie Dooley  44:50

To feels like very dramatic in a way

Preston Meyer  44:54

it's a very familiar idea to his audience. 100%

Katie Dooley  44:57

angel armies Hi, you Yeah, but the bear leopard. No, that's Oh, that's new.

Preston Meyer  45:05

more familiar than it is entirely new. Interesting. Ezekiel and Daniel use some pretty weird imagery like this as well. You'll get there. I

Katie Dooley  45:16

don't know. I know. But my brains just going and people think this is real.

Preston Meyer  45:20

It's symbolic. It's meant to be symbolic 100%. At least, that's my position and

Katie Dooley  45:26

barefooted based at the door. It's a dog footed beast.

Preston Meyer  45:35

Very nice. Numbers in Revelation are kind of an interesting thing. Like the this seven heads and 10 horns, nonsense. 10 crowns on those 10 horns. Yeah. It's the idea that it's not symbolic. seems insane to me. But some people really want to see this monster. And so an awful lot of people has been an awful lot of time. Creating art eyes represent this monster and

Katie Dooley  46:03

good ones. And I really liked how they tried to make 10 horns fit on seven heads. I really appreciate the effort there.

Preston Meyer  46:09

Well, having two horns on one head is easy to crowns on a head. No, they put those rounds on the forum, of course, because of that way to hang

Katie Dooley  46:17

properly. Yeah, but I just liked that some of the heads just had like one unicorn horn. Yeah. And then some of the heads had some of the drawings. I saw that they had like two unicorn horns, vertically stacked, sideways, or sideways.

Preston Meyer  46:30

I mean, we have rhinos, saying they're vertically aligned isn't too wildly inappropriate for the animal kingdom.

Katie Dooley  46:39

Yeah, Todd Preston,

Preston Meyer  46:41

is just seeing them on anything other than a rhino just seems. I mean, fairness, so wild to me.

Katie Dooley  46:50

Do you understand what I'm saying? Oh, absolutely. I do.

Preston Meyer  46:53

Absolutely. What's interesting, though, is that seven plays really well into the theology of the audience. So the seven for the good team. Is the seven branch lampstand. Oh, yeah, the menorah of the tabernacle of the Temple of all of the temples of Israel.

Katie Dooley  47:17

My brain didn't figure out it was a menorah. Because it talks about a lamp Sam. Yeah. And listening to it in my brain never made the connection and some Nora, thank you. So what's

Preston Meyer  47:26

really annoying is that we often distract from that symbol by using candles. And though a lot of menorahs use candles, the one in the temple was an oil lamp with seven branches, okay. And so that's actually not that important. But it's annoying to me as a person who likes to look back, I guess.

Katie Dooley  47:52

Is that clear in the writings, because I find a lot of this stuff is not clear, unless you have a normal text tool.

Preston Meyer  48:00

The menorah is not super clear in this text to a reader who's not familiar with the context of the time. But on the other side of that we have the seven mountains or the seven hills of Rome, which also translates to your seven heads and all of the seven bad things are in direct opposition to the seven good things. You got the seven seals that are put in place by God, who is in charge of the seven branch Lampstand of the menorah? Yeah.

Katie Dooley  48:33

Was the number seven just picked arbitrarily or doesn't have a deeper meaning? Or are they giving it meaning by making it? They're doing seven years? Yeah.

Preston Meyer  48:44

There's an awful lot of writing of people saying that seven is this number of completion. And it's interesting that wrong at the time consisted of seven hills. But there's also a couple more Hills either laid added later to the city, officially, or they're just too small to be counted for a while, you know, whatever. It's just an interesting thing is this idea of completeness and this completeness, extending to the full Cosmos, and the totality of life as we know it.

Katie Dooley  49:24

Seven is my favorite number. If favorite numbers are a thing.

Preston Meyer  49:30

I don't know having favorite numbers seems kind of a weird position.

Katie Dooley  49:36

As a kid, I just like the number seven, I

Preston Meyer  49:39

can see how like a number would be a thing. Like if somebody said pick a number between one and 100 There's one number that you'll say more often than any other number. And but other

Katie Dooley  49:50

than that it's completely arbitrary, right?

Preston Meyer  49:54

Unless you have like synesthesia where numbers have a color and flavor to you, then And then it's perfectly reasonable, I guess. But for those of us who don't have that, it feels like a weird thing. Weird yeah I think we'll be just fine though. But numbers are kind of interesting and they they definitely have specific meanings there and the trick is that because we're so far removed from the author and his actual intended audience, it's really hard to say what these symbols actually meant at the time for some of the things

Katie Dooley  50:41

Yeah, I mean, I imagined numerology

Preston Meyer  50:47

garbage I was

Katie Dooley  50:48

gonna say numerology is already garbage and Church changed a lot in 2000 years. So well, we give meaning to now. Might not be what like give meaning to then

Preston Meyer  51:00

yeah, numerology isn't a call it an interesting art form. To read numerology into something into which it was not written, is what I will call stupid behavior.

Katie Dooley  51:12

Okay. I thought I was.

Preston Meyer  51:16

But there's loads of great things that have been written with the intent of numerological readings. And then that's cool. But to read numerology into a thing, where the author did not intend it, you're gonna have a bad time.

Katie Dooley  51:30

That feels like a good segue into something the author didn't tend 666

Preston Meyer  51:35

number of that be? Yeah, we've talked about this before. It's worth bringing up for this episode, though, that the number, almost every scholar, even the truly faithful Christian scholars who are just trying to understand the book, are willing to say yes, this number 666 refers to Nero. Because of numerology, and the values of the letters that make up his name in their mathematical system. 666 is also 616. And some versions of the text matching up with alternate spelling, because of linguistic differences for the same dude's name. You

Katie Dooley  52:18

can literally find this on Wikipedia. Yeah, it will break it down for you very nicely. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  52:22

it's really helpful and nice. For anyone who wants to Davos or for anyone who wants to learn more, go

Katie Dooley  52:30

yeah, go learn more instead. Right.

Preston Meyer  52:34

And, I mean, Nero was an example of an emperor who was terrible to the Christians. And so this figure is showing up in the text as the adversary makes perfect sense. Whether you're looking forward as long distant prophecy, or the immediate future and the things people are dealing with in the moment, as they're reading this text knew that's perfectly reasonable to include this figure that has recently died, people are afraid that somebody like him will come back or even he, some people knew himself could come back in their fears. And then, of course, we have the far opposite of reasonable interpretation of this number that's being imposed on the faithful and readily accepted by the heathens of people actually taking a number on themselves physically, to represent their new fidelity to this false god. And you were talking a little earlier about something you had found in your research is that well, that

Katie Dooley  53:46

is the Bible literalist that truly believe there is an antichrist and a beast coming. We talking about the microchip, yeah. Okay. So I was reading this video on YouTube, and it's, it's from 2018. So it's not even news. Yeah. Well, you know, part of me was like, oh, microchip, it must have to do with COVID But it's so old, hasn't like COVID pre COVID People are talking about so one of the this video, you can find it it's called the revelation explained. It says the Antichrist will give you the mark of the beast on your right hand and I believe that is in the Bible, that it's a right hand and mark, but the video was like it will be a microchip. Like we're in the goddamn Bible, does it see microchip and then he's like, you're gonna need it to buy fast food. I was like wearing the Bible doesn't mention McDonald's. It just makes me angry.

Preston Meyer  54:50

So this is a slight extension to what we call intertextuality where they take this idea and they apply it to the world that they're familiar with. So my bank card has a chip on it. I need it to make most of my purchases.

Katie Dooley  55:07

Correct. But if this is prophetic and liberal, there is no microchip. Correct if you're going to take it exactly, literally you believe a bear pod leopard is coming back. You don't get a microchip.

Preston Meyer  55:20

I agree. Agreed.

Katie Dooley  55:23

You don't get both. Yep. But sorry. So

Preston Meyer  55:31

it's it's interesting to watch people make these arguments. It's definitely a symbolic thing. Even the the, the mark on your hand or your forehead, and it's probably an end situation. So the the fair sake tradition had Jewish people wearing phylacteries on their foreheads and their arms, that's a bad word. So flattery is a little box. That's usually got a little piece of scripture. I've seen Jewish people. Yeah, exactly. So that's part of the Pharisee tradition that continued with the rabbis and as part of mainstream Judaism today. Well, more more conservatives and liberals, though, and you'll still see it all around. And

Katie Dooley  56:09

I think it's just just during prayer, like they don't walk around with it all

Preston Meyer  56:13

the time. No, not all the time. No. But so the audience of this book, and when it was first published, would have been very familiar with that symbol of having a mark for your God, on your forehead and on your hand. And so this idea that there would be a replacement forced upon you by this God Emperor and the new state religion, it's, it's not wildly outside of their understanding. But the way we interpret it without intertextuality and just putting it in a modern context, has definitely caused some problems.

Katie Dooley  56:56

Like he said, you just don't get both. No, that doesn't. That doesn't fly with no weird cameras

Preston Meyer  57:01

and microchips, it's gonna take the Bible, literally, then you don't get a microchip. Agreed 100%. But also, the idea of forcing people to get these microchips implanted in the more they can participate in society. Sounds ludicrous. How do you get the mainstream of the majority of population to get on board with we

Katie Dooley  57:27

just did it Preston with the COVID vaccine? Oh, no.

Preston Meyer  57:33

If you think there's microchips in the vaccines, we, we have bigger problems.

Katie Dooley  57:38

I mean, the entire population, the world has a cell phones. I

Preston Meyer  57:42

mean, you're awfully close to true. And, and

Katie Dooley  57:46

it's in my right hand, right now. Oh,

Preston Meyer  57:51

I keep my phone in my left pocket most of the time. So, oh, well, and

Katie Dooley  57:59

you need it to participate in society

Preston Meyer  58:01

at this point, if this is true. So now

Katie Dooley  58:05

just wait for the seven years where to start, and we're good to go.

Preston Meyer  58:08

I mean, there's an awful lot of the markers in this revelation, like we talked about with Nostradamus. There's a lot of things that if you reward them just right, they are things that have already happened. Oh,

Katie Dooley  58:21

absolutely. I mean, Hitler's, you know, an easy one for the Antichrist because he was persecuting Jews, right. Lots of people thought Trump was the Antichrist. A lot of people thought Trump was the Messiah. I'm pretty sure I've seen Justin Trudeau referred to as the Antichrist.

Preston Meyer  58:38

Honestly, at this point, any leader of any government is probably going to be called the Antichrist by somebody. And you can quote me on that and just check the news on a regular.

Katie Dooley  58:52

Right, so yeah, in that. Yeah, in that way, there's a lot of, you know, I'm sure there's other historical rollouts of things that might flicked like the microchip. vaccine or the market that we

Preston Meyer  59:07

start, we initiated the social insurance already. That yeah, ages ago, people freaked out about that. ever giving us numbers. Yeah, because we got 42 million John Smith's in the world. We can't just have them all. In the government. Yeah. That's

Katie Dooley  59:29

funny. Yeah. And I saw some crazy math on how the social insurance number related to the number of the beasts because it was divisible by six or like, I was like, you're really

Preston Meyer  59:42

stretching by nine digits.

Katie Dooley  59:46

But three groups of nine digits and three and nine is six in the middle.

Preston Meyer  59:54

just reminded me of Bowfinger with Eddie Murphy at the beginning of the movie, He's stressing out because he's he's an actor within this movie. And he got a script for this new show he's supposed to be in. And he counted all of the K's in the script. And it was perfectly divisible by three. And that's an outrage because obviously, Eddie Murphy is a black man.

Katie Dooley  1:00:20

That means the kk k, yeah.

Preston Meyer  1:00:23

It was a really funny scene and, like, bright way to throw shade at the way people read things into things that they shouldn't be reading into them. But it was great. Another thing that popped out to me fairly recently, actually, as I was going through the revelation is wormwood. It shows up a couple of times. And for a long time, it's just like, yeah, it's bitter. I've spent a lot of time looking at the Greek text of the New Testament. And only recently has a jumped out to me that the word that we're actually looking at is Absinthe.

Katie Dooley  1:01:01

Oh, interesting. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  1:01:04

I just thought that was a fun little thing to throw out there. That all of the waters into which this star that falls from heaven, fall turns into absence,

Katie Dooley  1:01:13

I get some sugar kind of wider.

Preston Meyer  1:01:18

It helps the absence go down. The Bottomless Pit is a symbol that we see in the Revelation. And fairly often throughout a lot of religious text. Actually, it's a mysterious and powerful symbol that based on those virtues alone, keep us from giving a better translation of what we see in the Greek text. In fact, it's an endless grave, which is spiritually speaking a much better symbol. Yeah, and you know, Christ is supposed to resurrect all of mankind, as it's laid out in this book. And so the endless grave is defeated. But the serpent is thrown into this endless grave. Some nifty symbology that's actually lost when we translated as bottomless pit instead of endless grave.

Katie Dooley  1:02:15

Right, that's a fun fact. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  1:02:16

I kind of there's honestly so much in this book that's actually fun to unpack. But that's not the focus of our show. And it would take so many episodes and hours to go through what's on this book, and it's not what the Holy watermelons about

Katie Dooley  1:02:34

that we do have our Bible study Patreon episodes, which eventually we'll get to Revelation where

Preston Meyer  1:02:39

we might take some slow time there and let it burn.

Katie Dooley  1:02:43

Yeah, you can fire and brimstone me.

Preston Meyer  1:02:48

Okay, shifty eyes make me wonder if you read something into that that I don't

Katie Dooley  1:02:52

say phrasing, Katie.

Preston Meyer  1:02:56

Yeah, it's so

Katie Dooley  1:02:57

I Yeah. I don't know if this conversations gonna go anywhere this question, but part of me wants to talk about the people who take this so seriously. And again, like creeped me out. Like, I feel like you should pull up the comments on this YouTube video, which again, I said, Revelation explained 2018, you took his phone hour and 45 minutes. Like when Lady was saying, like, she doesn't want to be microchipped. And she doesn't know if she's gonna be strong enough to say no. And like, she doesn't want to be beheaded. And then so it was like, yeah, it's gonna be really hard to watch your child starving and still say no to the microchip. Okay, Preston shaking his head. Like, my brain cannot expand that far to understand that. It's,

Preston Meyer  1:03:45

it just seems like a ludicrous thing, that so many people are genuinely afraid of that being our reality. And it just doesn't seem possible. At all, like beyond plausible, it seems like it could never happen, especially when we have a whole bunch of atheists who will actively prevent this from happening. Yes. And the the single biggest group of religions on this planet identify as Christian. So is it really going to be that bad? I'm gonna say no.

Katie Dooley  1:04:28

Well, and you say that but it's so interesting because someone so it's basically like a wall of like, I, John Smith, take Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. Like, that's 95% of the comments and then there's like a few discussions and what are some common use like I would like really like to, you know, be raptured but I know I'm not worthy because I'm spending my time on YouTube instead of like, gospel rolling it up. I was like, I just don't. This leads probably better into our next step. So then into this episode, but like he said, My, I'm a pretty open minded person. And I also think I'm a pretty intelligent person and my brain cannot, it cannot go there. I

Preston Meyer  1:05:13

feel very confident in saying that if you are more concerned about the Second Coming than literally anything else, then, like, if that's the number one concern in your life, you're living your life wrong. If you are a Christian, then basing your life on any writings in the Bible other than the words of Jesus saying, live right with God and with your fellow man, love your neighbors, you're not doing it right. If you go out doing good in your community, and you're worried about all of these terrible things coming up, based on what you read in the Revelation of John, the New Testament also tells us, the faithful don't have anything to worry about, I just don't

Katie Dooley  1:06:07

see how that's healthy. It's not healthy.

Preston Meyer  1:06:11

The healthy choices going out and loving your neighbors being a good neighbor. But I guess a lot of people would rather focus on literally anything else, other than the need to be good to the people that they just can't stand. And way too many people use a handful of cultural elements of the Bible and the world from 4000 years ago, 3000 years ago, 2000 years ago, to make decisions on how they're gonna be a neighbor to the people around them. Nonsense.

Katie Dooley  1:06:53

Nonsense. He says.

Preston Meyer  1:06:57

It's, there's so many things that people want to say are more important in the Bible than the things that Jesus say. And that's weird.

Katie Dooley  1:07:08

I mean, that's an episode for another day. Yeah. But yeah, anyway, I really enjoyed learning about Revelation. Yet. It's a pretty interesting book. You're right, it is a lot to unpack. But the audiobook if anyone is interested is on YouTube. A great way to consume it. And then, yeah, do some digging on it, because there's a lot in there, including a barefooted leopard. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  1:07:33

It's, like Nostradamus, we talked about a couple of weeks ago. John incorporates a lot of elements from the culture in which he is immersed. But unlike Nostradamus, he actually does use those images to create new ideas that aren't found anywhere else. And an awful lot of people for the entirety of its history have said, You know what, this books pretty dubious. Maybe it doesn't belong in the Bible.

Katie Dooley  1:08:06

It's pretty wild.

Preston Meyer  1:08:09

Yeah, it is. It is wildly different from the books around. In the New Testament, it is unique. As far as whole books, we've got Matthew 24, and a couple other sections of the New Testament that are a little revelant revelation, revelatory, but not quite like this book is. But ultimately, the Apocalypse of John does not describe the end of the world, but instead promises a very rough transition into a long lasting paradise, which is really easy to forget, when you focus on all of the really cool images in the book.

Katie Dooley  1:08:53

I also I mean, I think that's a good summary, too, because I think that's accurate, regardless of what you believe, right? Where we have the most equitable, safest society globally that we've ever had. I'm not saying that there aren't problems our way. Yeah, two steps forward, one step back. And I know sometimes it's hard to remember that when we watch the news, but hey, we don't crucify people anymore. So that's cool. We

Preston Meyer  1:09:22

haven't beheaded anybody with a guillotine until or since shortly after Star Wars first came out. 77 was the last time that somebody was beheaded with a guillotine. I mean, we we still electrocute people to death. Oh, I know for fun. Tell me that. Nobody shows up to these electric chair executions in the audience.

Katie Dooley  1:09:46

It's happening. I believe that it's not fun for everyone. It's not fun

Preston Meyer  1:09:50

for everyone. executions have never been fun for the participants except for St. Lawrence.

Katie Dooley  1:09:58

Is that another saint? That shouldn't be a thing. I have

Preston Meyer  1:10:00

no issues with St. Lawrence based on the things I know about him right now. But his execution, he made a joke of it in the moment. All right, respect St. Lawrence as a champ. prophecies are an interesting thing. But just like we talked about last time, the last 112 Pope's, for the most Protestants, this revelation is describing the fall of Rome, and also the fall of the Roman Catholic Church. But since Frances the tolerable is not Peter, the Roman as we discussed before, the fall of the Roman church is not right away. And I mean, statistically speaking, Pope Francis has got what five years left? Pops. I

Katie Dooley  1:10:57

think he'll last longer. He might. I mean, badly, man, if he

Preston Meyer  1:11:00

lasts more than five years that makes him the second oldest Pope to die. Oh, really? Yeah.

Katie Dooley  1:11:05

I feel like he's got more more spunk in him than the last two. Yes,

Preston Meyer  1:11:10

I agree fully with that. So I feel like keel

Katie Dooley  1:11:13

over a long time. You know, who should be pope if you want a longtime Pope, somebody who's under 50? I mean, it's gonna take Queen Elizabeth. Is she never gonna pay?

Preston Meyer  1:11:25

It feels that way. Some days.

Katie Dooley  1:11:30

I will say In summary, do not be concerned about the end of the world.

Preston Meyer  1:11:34

Yeah, if you're stressing about the end of the world, you are focusing on all the wrong things. You could die tomorrow. Are you ready for that? I'm not I'm not. But I mean, the end of the world. I mean, maybe we'll get hit by a surprise meteorite. You never know what's going to happen in the future. Don't worry about it live right. Enjoy your life. Don't be like don't be a dick. And I think everything's gonna be fine. And

Katie Dooley  1:12:05

by buy Oh, we'll have a don't be a dick t shirt yet yet. But we do have other great merch on our Spreadshirt

Preston Meyer  1:12:16

Yeah, and check out our Discord where we have great discussions. We can talk about this further.

Katie Dooley  1:12:20

And we have a Patreon. Yes, so you can support us with a small monthly donation into the collection plates.

Preston Meyer  1:12:30

You get exclusive content, and you help support us and keep the show going for a long time, which is what we really want to do. Peace be with you.

Prophecy is prevalent in all major religions. Someone always seems to have a phone line right up to the Big Guy. Is prophecy real? When does it get dangerous? How does one become a prophet?

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***
Katie Dooley  00:09

Hello again

Preston Meyer  00:17

man, today's gonna be good.

Katie Dooley  00:19

I feel like a prophecy is being fulfilled. Or at least appointment on the calendar

Preston Meyer  00:27

for sure. Welcome everybody to the holy watermelon

00:32

podcast.

Preston Meyer  00:35

Yeah, so we're going to talk a little bit about prophecy today. And I was thinking about Nostradamus, he is, thanks to History Channel. He's kind of the big profit that's not really tied to any specific religion, as far as popular culture presents really well,

Katie Dooley  00:55

right? He's just kind of this guy who predicts things. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  00:58

I mean, he was a Christian, his family, I was actually Jewish only a couple of generations before him. He lived about 500 years ago. 1500s was his time. And super popular guy, he wrote a book called The prophecies. You know, his name isn't. Nostradamus,

Katie Dooley  01:19

I saw that in our research and in researching this episode, yeah.

Preston Meyer  01:24

Michelle did not Nostradamus that, basically Michael of Our Lady, which is, you know, Nostradamus sounds way

Katie Dooley  01:35

more badass here. Also a little bit like a hippopotamus a little bit, a little bit.

Preston Meyer  01:39

But his hugely popular book, the prophecies, none of it is originally is. We like to give Nostradamus credit as a culture for being this great prophet who saw these things coming? None of the prophecies in his book, were originally his. He repeated a bunch from the Bible, he straight up plagiarized from several other sources. And he also actively denied being a prophet. Aren't

Katie Dooley  02:14

they so vague that it could apply to anything?

Preston Meyer  02:19

Many of them are vague that yeah, they could apply to anything. And we also have a problem with people who want to say Nostradamus was a prophet, translating his works from Old French to too common today English, and deliberately Miss translating them so that they'll line up better with specific events. What happened? Yeah. But Nostradamus, not a prophet, not even a little bit, just a skilled writer. He wrote almanacs and things like that. And then he was just like, and here's a bunch of prophecies that are known to people who read Latin, but my French audience doesn't read Latin, so they're gonna like this book.

Katie Dooley  03:03

So then if Nostradamus wasn't a prophet, what is a prophet Preston?

Preston Meyer  03:08

A prophet is, broadly speaking, if you want to generalize it across multiple religious traditions, A prophet is a person who serves as a mouthpiece for divinity or supernatural force on Oracle is a pretty fair word that's basically the same thing a mouthpiece for a god. So that's fairly distinct from say, a seer, or an agar who is able to read things, things or omens. Like sometimes you'll have an agar who reads entrails or tea leaves or just I don't think an auger is a fair title for one who reads the stars, that's more of a seer Nan agar. We've got a whole bunch of people who have found out a whole lot of different ways that they can read things in the universe,

Katie Dooley  04:07

medium psychics, not that this, that's not this episode. But you're right. There's a lot of titles for people who see things that have yet to happen, right,

Preston Meyer  04:15

and they can do it with a sort of reliability, that's just enough to get people to buy into it.

Katie Dooley  04:24

In my research, so there's prophets and prophecy, and then there's prophesizing, which is a little more you don't need to be a prophet to prophesize in my understanding is that that as in God is speaking to you and telling you what to do with you in within your personal relationship with God, this is very much like a Christian fundamentalist term.

Preston Meyer  04:46

So there's, I like to distinguish big P and little P profits.

Katie Dooley  04:52

Okay. Like

Preston Meyer  04:56

if you are prophesying then that makes you a profit, little p, if you have any official office or title as profit, that would be the big P profit. And so profits can be seen, whether that's their title or not, in every religious tradition and culture on this planet, throughout history, absolutely. Which is actually kind of nifty that we are able to see these parallels around the world without any worry about cultural lines.

Katie Dooley  05:34

I mean, it's, it makes sense in a way that, you know, how else does a religion start? Unless God is talking in the search of supernatural power talking to someone, then you just have atheists? Right? If there's not, whether that's God speaks to everyone, or God speaks through one or two people, there needs to be some connection. Someone has to believe God's speaking to them or when happen, right?

Preston Meyer  05:59

That's a reasonably popular model for religious development,

Katie Dooley  06:04

I guess you get the odd ones. But you will talk about Buddhist prophets as well, where I guess you're working to obtain some level of enlightenment, but and there isn't, I guess, I mean, depends on the model of Buddhism, you look I was gonna say, but there isn't a god and Buddhism. But depending on which one you follow, then Buddha is

Preston Meyer  06:25

what? It all depends on how you define God. Because we've had this argument before to

Katie Dooley  06:31

go back to our previous episode.

Preston Meyer  06:34

So there are some religious traditions that aren't started off by somebody claiming prophecy. If you are describing the idea of a god in the sky, you don't have to speak to him to say to your kids, there's somebody up there who is giving us the lightning in the rain, fair. But at some point, somebody will claim to communicate with that God,

Katie Dooley  06:58

I think so because it comes down to the How do you know it's up there? Exactly. And I don't want to say it's easy to say, but it's, it's a pretty good default to go to well, God told me or God told this person or whatever.

Preston Meyer  07:09

Yeah, Oracle's and prophets tend to speak as though they are the mouth of God, or the God that they serve. For example, the the oracles of Apollo way back in ancient Greece would speak as though their words had come originally from Apollo and they would quote him and speak as though they were him. So it's pretty standard for the way we look at prophets in the Hebrew Bible and the Christian New Testament as well.

Katie Dooley  07:43

All right, so we've all been to notes on property. How do we do want to break down by religion first, what do you think? Are some of my just Mullings?

Preston Meyer  07:52

Let's go through your Mullings. Let's see what what are your thoughts here? Oh, as an atheist

Katie Dooley  07:57

as an atheist? Well, let's start on the scroll down on the notes a bit. I I titled this section profits in the wild. And I'm sure everyone if you live in a major city and have ever taken public transport, you've come across one of these people who claims that God is speaking to them. And I distinctly remember one day, going to university this man on the bus is saying that he had seen the start a time and the end of time and knew how was all going to end and that God was speaking to him and everyone like all the ladies were clutching their bags a little closer or putting them on the seat so he wouldn't sit next to them. And like my notes, I say, but if he was in a suit at a pulpit on a Sunday morning, people would be like, Oh my God, right? So this line between mental illness and being a prophet and we're going to do an exorcism episode around Halloween, but same thing or the difference between are they piss possessed by the devil or mentally ill? Are you profit? Are you mentally ill? And is that like, basically, based on what you wear and what your job title is? Or?

Preston Meyer  09:08

So anytime the audience doesn't want to hear what they're hearing? Yeah, absolutely. It's going to be easy to write it off as this person's probably mentally ill. And apart from that, any prophecy it can only be judged on whether or not it comes true. And I guess another roundabout angle at that would be you can also judge a prophecy based on how detailed it is. And like if it's deliberately going to be obvious that it's self fulfilling, or deliberately so vague that it's going to happen no matter what at some point, and you can tell in advance then That's not terribly impressive because he

Katie Dooley  10:01

even made obviously as outsiders. It's easier. But we see all these doomsday predictions that have yet to come true. So often the followers still believe the person is a prophet and that they're correct. They were just there was a miscalculation.

Preston Meyer  10:20

Yeah, I mean, people, people appreciate when somebody admits that they were wrong. And they can say, oh, no, I miscalculated this thing. That I mean, it's weak, but I get why people who really want to believe and choose to believe can accept that as something to not undermine their belief. But I don't love it. You know?

Katie Dooley  10:46

I don't I can't think off the top of my head because I'm just literally having these thoughts. Now, as we're recording. You know, some of these doomsday cults have, like multiple times, like it's like, Okay, once fine, but there's people who've been predicting the end of the world for decades, and they're their followers just to like, yeah. So let me once shame on you. Fool me twice. Shame on you. Fool me three times. Shame on you.

Preston Meyer  11:16

Shame on me. Yeah. Like, oh, yeah, it's, it's a weird thing. Usually, when somebody gives out a whole bunch of different predictions. It's more of, hey, I'm studying the Scripture. And these clues are here. And this is here. It's all written down. Why can't you see it? They don't usually do the whole profit thing. It's more of a I'm smarter than you. Which is obviously annoying. I'm sure there's exceptions to that, but none are coming to mind right now. Okay. But we we've definitely got loads of people running around saying, hey, the end of the world, isn't i because God told me and hasn't happened yet. Now,

Katie Dooley  12:16

I think there was one recently that came in lens that some cult somewhere was preparing for.

Preston Meyer  12:22

Yeah, I remember in 2011 There was one right there was what wasn't the big one. But there was a reason that we popular fella who decided there's this time in May in 2011, where the world's going to end and that didn't happen. And then he's like, Oh, no, sorry, I was wrong. It's gonna be in October. Oh,

Katie Dooley  12:42

I do remember that October came and went. And here we are. With someone. I'm thinking oh, that was like in December to the Mayan calendar. Oh, yeah. The

Preston Meyer  12:49

Mayan calendar that got a lot of people all stressed out there. I don't. I looked into it. And there's not like any solid prophecy. Yeah, the world's gonna end it's just the calendar did end and a lot of people like well, a calendar this long. Having an endpoint means the end of the world sauce.

Katie Dooley  13:09

So I don't even remember what was it like December 21 2008, or something? That's never my brain. I don't remember the end of the Mayan calendar. But

Preston Meyer  13:16

I'm pretty sure my calendar is 2012 as a trainee.

Katie Dooley  13:19

I don't remember the date. Anyway, someone will correct. But I remember on that day, that all of a sudden, there's like this really weird noise in my neighborhood. Like this whooshing noise It was like it was super loud. And like I was still in high school, like I was still living at home and most of my friends were still living at home with their parents, I say. And so like everyone could hear it like for blocks where I was like, what is happening? And there is a utility station across from the carwash. You know what I'm talking about? I got pretty good idea. Yeah. carwash and junior high. Yeah. And it had like, over pressurize. So it was like releasing pressure. And the immediate neighborhood had to be evacuated. And we could hear it all the way. Like my parents are by the save on. I'd like try not to explain to President where this is without Daxing my parents were ready to save on and they we could hear it. Again, all my friends were like What is and we all that was the end of the world obviously. Because really, what is this noise? And we've lived there for decades and never heard it before. Never heard that sentence. Right? So anyway, that's

Preston Meyer  14:38

crazy. That's I like it.

Katie Dooley  14:42

I will say as an atheist who, you know, clearly I don't believe anyone is a prophet. I actually really appreciate the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints approach to prophecy, and I forget where I read it somewhere but basically, they have prayed but it's to this day the leader of the church of the prophet speaks to get got a phone phone line to God, I presume in his office and their perspective on it and jump if I'm jumping if I'm wrong, but you didn't correct my notes, I assume I'm do it Okay, is that if God spoke to us 2000 years ago, we should still have the ability to speak to him. Now. He wasn't all of a sudden, like peace out.

15:22

But yeah,

Katie Dooley  15:23

I can't I cannot speak to humans anymore. I've spent all this time putting you together and by. And so I'm like, okay, yeah. If you believe that. All these Old Testament New Testament prophets existed and they received revelation from God, then, yeah. Logic would follow that we could still receive prophecy and revelation from God. But there's definitely there's definitely Christian groups that don't think that.

Preston Meyer  15:50

Yeah, is Christianity, broadly speaking, has a weird relationship with the idea of prophecy, an awful lot of Christians reject the idea that there's any way to hear from God outside of reading the Bible, which, of course, is flawed in that you've limited this person that you viewed to be all powerful to the words that have been written down and edited centuries ago. In a book that isn't even complete anyway.

Katie Dooley  16:23

I mean, it's still getting rewritten, right? There's still new versions popping up. So

Preston Meyer  16:27

yeah, I wouldn't say rewritten the best word. But I mean, it does go through an editorial process that we were talking about in our bonus episode was rewritten. It does go through an editorial process before publication every single time. So yeah, a little bit rewritten. And so for example, you've got the the Pentecostals are also pretty big fans of prophecy, because prophecy is promised in the New Testament. Paul talks about how as long as there are believers that will, there will be prophecy among them. And so Protestants and other super charismatic Christian churches are definitely big into that idea that you can receive revelation, direct communication with God. And then some of the older traditions that are still with us from Christianity tend to be a little bit more. You know, the guy in charge, like the Pope, for example, you can receive some revelation to guide the church. But there isn't big revelations of old hidden things or hidden things to come so much anymore. Which I think is actually really interesting. There was about 500 years ago, in the Catholic Church, there was the prophecy of the Pope's, I was it's only about 400 years ago, sorry. It was first published in 1595 by a Benedictine monk named Arnold weon. He attributed this prophecy to St. Malikai, 12th century Archbishop, and it lists the last 112 Pope's it says, These are the last 112 There's not going to be more after this. So the end of the 16th century, this is kind of a big deal. People start counting down to the end of the Pope's. And it's kind of interesting. And remember, this is meant to have been written 400 years before it was published. But it's kind of interesting. It starts with Silverstein, the second and it is completely accurate. And describes correctly all of the Pope's up until just before it was published, then it stops being accurate, weird. Which means that it's very, very likely

19:12

that it was written 400 years before, right?

Preston Meyer  19:15

It's super suspicious. What's interesting though, is that 111 was Benedict the 16th. And then before it goes on to 112 There's this weird little paragraph, just just a short little note. And then it goes on to Peter the Roman. And so because St. Francis or sorry, Pope Francis isn't peter the roman as far as we can tell based on his name or where he's from

Katie Dooley  19:47

that's gonna say his name a little bit round.

Preston Meyer  19:50

There's a lot of people that like to argue that in this list that's called the last 112 Pope's there's space for who knows how many In between 111 and the last, and it's because people are desperate that this list is actually authentic prophecy. But I mean, there's loads of evidence that it's what counts is a forgery being a product of when it was published and not 400 years earlier.

20:25

Wow, it's so accurate. Wow. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  20:28

At the time it was published. People should have recognized Hey, yeah, it's super precise and accurate up to this point. And then is vague and cryptic leading forward. When it was mostly written 400 years before? It's just kind of weird. Yeah, it's fun. It's kind of it's it's like the prophecy that people within the Catholic world think about, as far as recent dish prophecies, interesting. And yeah, it's definitely a forgery. It's not authentic revelation.

Katie Dooley  21:06

Maybe that's a good segue. How do you know when something's authentic Revelation?

Preston Meyer  21:09

In the moment, it's almost impossible unless, theoretically, there's something in your gut that says, Yes, this is right. And even then, I mean, we've talked about the the tricky nature of belief and knowledge. How do you even know that that feeling in your gut means anything? You have to wait and see when that prophecy is fulfilled? To know that it was a proper prophecy, and judge it based on its merit as a self fulfilling prophecy or a guaranteed eventuality?

Katie Dooley  21:39

I really want to sing a line from Book of Mormon, go for it in 1970, God changed his mind about black people, black people.

Preston Meyer  21:50

Yeah, what a great musical.

21:52

And what a great process.

Preston Meyer  21:55

The the one thing that I love about the humor of that show is that it's all just about the two teachers, the missionaries, they were inept from the beginning and didn't know anything. So the presentation of what the church does believe is it's what is presented to be, and not necessarily a matter of historic fact. But it was an enjoyable show anyway. So prophecy is is all over the place, I really like the, the way we see profits presented in the Hebrew Bible, which is, of course, the familiar zone that we deal with in the West. And so they were usually men who served as permanent fixtures in royal courts, though there were a few that were not. And this is basically paralleled around the world, every culture that has a king or an emperor or a chieftain had somebody in his close circle that was basically responsible for reading omens and double checking the decisions of the chieftain or emperor or king or whatever, to make sure that it wasn't going to end in a catastrophic failure, that would end the nation. And sometimes that meant reading entrails. And sometimes it meant just popping off into the corner and praying and seeing what happens, and anywhere in between, depending on the culture and the traditional practices of that group. But what they all had in common is that they proclaimed a message to the people. Typically, in the end, in the Hebrew setting that message was if you guys don't stop doing these stupid things, you will be destroyed. Yeah, yeah. And Israel has a long history of suffering some wicked destructions. Yeah. There were a few of the old Hebrew prophets that talked explicitly about a man who had come to preserve the people in some way or another. And if you're a Christian, especially fundamental Christians, you believe that everything of these prophecies refers to the coming of Christ. Yes,

Katie Dooley  24:20

I am. In the documentary, I watched American gospel like it put on our Discord. It's a wild ride. That's what the one group was talking about is that everything in the Bible in the Old Testament, points to Jesus Christ, and if you can't see that you're not a real Christian. He was like every story in the Old Testament. points to the to Jesus. I was like, does it Oh, the

Preston Meyer  24:46

story of Lot and his daughter say does that it does not. Not even a little bit. I didn't think so.

Katie Dooley  24:53

But, however,

Preston Meyer  24:57

to the credit that may or may not Due to the person who said that the story might point to the need for a Savior with some efficacy. Okay.

Katie Dooley  25:12

I want Yeah, I mean, a lot needs intervention. A lot of things an adult. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  25:24

Yeah. It's, it's tricky. But I mean, if you genuinely believe that everything in the Bible points to Jesus, you'll find a way to connect it. Even if it's as simple as here's a, here's some people that need Jesus.

25:38

You'll figure out Jesus.

Preston Meyer  25:42

So, it's, it's not unfair, but I don't like to make that generalization, the story of Jonah and the whale. If it was written more recently, the story would have started once upon a time, the story of Jonah and the whale is fiction. Absolutely. It was never meant to be read as a historical story about a real prophet. Everything about the story is, like, obviously counterintuitive to anybody's experience in Israel, where if you pay attention, the story, everybody's righteous, and does what God says when they hear they hear the message, except for the guy who's supposed to be spreading that message. Jonah hears, hey, you need to go visit these people. And he says, hell no, I'm going the other way. The people in the boat. They're like, Hey, God has a message for us, and you are a problem to us. We're going to do what's right and get you out of this boat so that you can go into your job. And then Jonah finally gets to the city, and they repent. The city being Nineveh in Babylon, which everybody in Israel is like, no, those people are evil. And in the story is like, oh, yeah, no, we're good now. It's like, obviously, a fiction. But, you know,

Katie Dooley  27:14

we need to do an episode on biblical literalism. It was Yeah, I think you're right. It was requested to sort of, well, let's after

Preston Meyer  27:27

the profits are interesting. You've got prophets like Isaiah, and Jeremiah, these were quarterly profits, they served the king to let him know what he needed to do in any situation where he would ask. And so that's, that's pretty standard around the world. Like I said, before,

Katie Dooley  27:47

we should move on to the New Testament. Yeah. So

Preston Meyer  27:50

Jesus is kind of the central figure of the New Testament, even though he's only actually present for one narrative told four different times. And he's a lot more than a prophet in Christianity, but he does do some prophesying. And most of it pretty vague. He does specifically promise that the temple will be destroyed soon. And while he's also talking about his own body that's about to be destroyed. The Temple in Jerusalem is seen as another fulfillment of that prophecy because it was destroyed about 40 years later. Or 30 years later. Now, the timeline is going fuzzy on me, but that's okay. Shortly after shorts was crazy generation and a half two generations later, which in a grand scheme of than 2000 year old religion, it's not that much, right. And you've also got Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, an angel appears to him and broadly speaking, this fits into prophecy if you are able to speak with divine beings including angels so it Mary

Katie Dooley  29:03

have been a prophet or because she was the lady show some aloud.

Preston Meyer  29:08

Here's Mary has a very special position in Christian in some parts of Christianity,

Katie Dooley  29:16

the reality of Zechariah talk. Yeah, we can get back to Mary sorry. And

Preston Meyer  29:21

they're not wildly different in their experiences. And I'm even Joseph her husband had an angel appeared to him and say, Hey, this What's up? Mary's experiences a little bit more intense.

Katie Dooley  29:35

Yeah. She got to find spunked.

Preston Meyer  29:41

I mean, I don't know the the exact operation of how things happen, but she became pregnant in a way that as far as I know, there's one way people get pregnant. But turns out apps Two Minutes is not 100% effective.

Katie Dooley  30:03

I just think she had the best lie of all of all human history. No, no, I'm a virgin an angel knocked me out

Preston Meyer  30:16

Yeah, that's that's more or less the story.

30:20

I swear

Katie Dooley  30:23

while making shifty eyes just

Preston Meyer  30:25

listing his Joseph's family did not like it one bit No. Otherwise. Right it would have been a lot easier for them to find a place to sleep when I went time to deal with the census and have a place to stay during Passover with family was one usually does.

Katie Dooley  30:45

Well, we'll get to the Nativity episode. But yeah, back to New Testament prophet Paul

Preston Meyer  30:53

is visited by Jesus on the road to Damascus, this council is prophecy. It's one of the more so prophecy depending on how, who you read and how you define things. You've got all kinds of levels of awesomeness of prophecy, and hearing a voice kind of minor, seeing a person and hearing their voice and being able to touch them. opposite end, best possible kind of prophecy level. And Paul, who hated Christians, because they were just the worst kind of why is the word blanking on me. heretics, heretics, Christians are the worst kind of heretics. And then he pulls the one ad and realizes Oh, I shouldn't be killing these heretic Christians because Jesus is real. And is the Son of God and is mighty and divine. So changes his life around because of this revelation that he has. And then you've got John the Revelator, which is, I mean, he is a prophet, he sees and reveals and serves as an Oracle for the divine. And he also, he and Paul warn of false prophets of a couple of different varieties. You've got prophets who do testify of Christ, for their own personal profit, with an F for their own financial gain. That kind of profit. But you've also got false prophets who deny Christ while also performing miracles. And that's also a problem for Christians. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  32:44

We are going to do an entire episode and our next episode is on the revelation. And it's a pretty big deal, because there's entire denominations of Christianity that just love that one book, which

Preston Meyer  32:55

I think is interesting that we'll get into a little bit more. The Revelation of John was widely considered as questionably authentic for a long time among Christians. So

Katie Dooley  33:09

I listened to it while I was working. Yeah, and I'll probably listen to it again. But considering you've like, seen that shitty 70s movie that I showed you. And then there's like the Left Behind series, I was like, so I was like, expecting, you know, obviously, they talk about the beast. I'm like, this isn't nearly as scary as like, these books and movies make it out to be I'm like, oh, no, it was two hours of content. Like, I just thought it'd be a lot more. Spooky. What? Right anyway. But we'll talk about that on our next episode. I don't want to Yeah, give too much away anyway.

Preston Meyer  33:54

What else we got?

Katie Dooley  33:55

I mean, we can move on to Islam, because theirs is an incredibly profit based. Yes. And that's the next chronologically and then we'll talk about Eastern

Preston Meyer  34:09

that even the noise you make for your quotation. So yeah, in Islam, prophecy is hugely important. Muhammad is the final prophet. For most Muslims. There are some Muslim denominations that accept more prophets after him. But that's not typical. But he is he's meant to be the last in the long chain. And they also do respect Jesus as a prophet, not as the Son of God, but as a prophet. Yeah. And there's even stories of Jesus in the Koran. Absolutely. There's even a book in the Quran dedicated to marry as well.

Katie Dooley  34:50

Interesting and in Yeah, but that's a big misconception is that somehow Muslims hate Christians and Christianity don't believe in Jesus say absolute We do write, have stories about it that aren't in the Bible.

Preston Meyer  35:04

I'm reminded of an interview I watched with Reza Aslan, he wrote a book, a great scholarly book on Jesus. Oh, that's on my list to read. Yeah. And he got dragged around so hard in all these interviews with all kinds of people, because he's Muslim writing about Jesus, and all these people who are either Christian or pseudo Christian and be like, Why are you reading about Jesus? If you're not a Christian? A lot

Katie Dooley  35:31

of the theories I saw were like, how can you write about Jesus as a Christian? He's like, because I am a scholar, right? Like, I can I can do this objectively and look at the research. And he does well. And as a Muslim, he believes Jesus existed and was a prophet. It was yes, I'm gonna go roll your eyes out of your head. Watch some of those interviews, because they're like, how can you do this as a Muslim? And he's like, because I'm a fucking scholar. Right? Like, that's like being like, how can you be a nutritionist and be a vegan? It's like, you can still understand the nutritional value of meat. Even if you choose not to eat it. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  36:17

Because I have teeth in a stomach. Thanks. Yeah,

36:19

I have a brain

Katie Dooley  36:21

that I can read about the nutritional value of meat. Like, I just I don't know if that was the best analogy. But yeah, it's like, because the information is out there. And honestly, at this point, 2000 years later, it's all just conjecture. Right? So all the information we have about Jesus is out there in the world. Yep. You want to go and condense that made me come up with some new theories. Anyone fucking do? It doesn't matter what your religion is. Yep. Okay. That's gonna get bowel pressing. You should have brought that up. I'm gonna get off my little soapbox. Step Step. I like I feel like he had another point to make that I just like steamrolled.

Preston Meyer  37:07

Yeah, so back to Islam. So the Quran is revelations received by Mohammed. So he is meant to have received all these revelations primarily through speaking with Gibreel, or the angel Gabriel. And prophecy is kind of the staple that holds the religion together just like it is with Islam or sorry, with, with Israel, the Judaism, with Christianity, we rely on the appearance of Jesus to people Peter receiving revelation for the church, Paul, John, so on. And then we've also got the non western non Abrahamic faiths that are also finding revelation and valuable Zoroastrianism which a lot of people like to point to as kind of the big changing influence on Israel while they were in exile that made their religion what it is today found prophets to be important, particularly Zarathustra, who, of course, is one of those fellows who likes to go into trances, which is terrible, not terribly uncommon for prophets around the world, especially those who like to use psychotropic assistance. Yep. And, I mean, I don't have any personal experience with psychotropic substances. But from what I've heard, that's a great way to become more empathetic with the world at large, I guess, and to feel closer to God, I guess, is the way it's described by an awful lot of people. Whatever their definition of God is that it seems to work. What else we got on our list? I know you did some research. I

Katie Dooley  39:10

was just gonna end that Zarathustra. So he's the founder. Isn't he? He wrote his the sacred writing. So Astron NISM. The Avesta is is a revelation from Him. So inspired writings, just like Buddhism from the Buddha. Which there's our segue. I

Preston Meyer  39:32

like it. So Buddha's an interesting example that we have an awful lot of these people who are either like, okay, families or noble families who go and serve in the king's court as prophets. And occasionally you'll have real humble folks who come up to bring messages to the kings court. And Siddhartha Gautama does is kind of the opposite. He grew up in a royal court, and then said Peace, by

40:06

the way, are you kidding me?

Preston Meyer  40:09

He left the royal court to go and experience life and recognize the depth of the things. He only seen surface level after escaping for one night and became a prophet almost in exile. I don't think that's a perfectly fair label on there, but I'm gonna use it anyway.

40:30

Okay.

Preston Meyer  40:33

So, I think it's novel that he is different in that way.

Katie Dooley  40:36

I think it's great. Girl Siddhartha right.

Preston Meyer  40:42

And we talked a little bit about one of his cool prophecies back when we were talking about this, the Buddha, the chubby Buddha, the Maitreya Buddha, and if you're comfortable with wild mispronunciations of names, the body Buddha, the Buddha, I Buddha, the chubby Laughing Buddha,

Katie Dooley  41:03

so that is his reincarnation that is supposed to happen sometime sometime.

Preston Meyer  41:07

We don't know when supposed to be after the World forgets Buddhism, which I mean. It's meant to be like, if the whole world forgets the correct Buddhism, or Buddhism altogether, one or the other. Then Maitreya, Buddha will come and restore it. Like don't forget

Katie Dooley  41:29

me. Yeah,

41:32

Green Giant.

Katie Dooley  41:36

I didn't find any revelation in Hinduism, but I didn't do a ton of digging.

Preston Meyer  41:40

So Hinduism, you've got the Vedas, and we don't have a lot of solid information about where the Vedas really came from who specifically wrote them or anything like that?

Katie Dooley  41:56

No, they come from God, the gods from

Preston Meyer  42:00

like, even the way that we have the Vedas. I mean, we have them through the people of India. Oh, yeah, absolutely. them from speeding Aryans, who probably did originate the Vedic religion. But we don't have a lot of information there. No.

Katie Dooley  42:20

Yeah. We're just totally came from Brahmins mouth.

Preston Meyer  42:24

Right. And so in, in day to day Hinduism, there isn't a lot of in mainstream Hinduism, there isn't a lot of prophetic figures, publicly, but there are plenty of groups that have shown up where a person shows up and he gets his charisma and

Katie Dooley  42:43

some that are pretty charismatic, I guess is the best way, though, even then the the gurus I can think of that have started, you know, we talked about Bhagwan in our cults episode, which is a Hindu cult. He didn't talk about prophecy. He was just sort of, again, this charismatic leader that people liked the way he presented his branch of Hinduism, but I don't think he had any prophecies, specifically, just a very communal

Preston Meyer  43:15

lifestyle, presented a way to live that worked out. But yeah, I

Katie Dooley  43:19

don't think he had any prophecy that people thought it was new and exciting. He was just happy. Yeah, exactly how he presented

Preston Meyer  43:30

the argument with the tricky thing is define defining the difference between inspiration and revelation. A loads would argue that he was inspired to start all this up. But I guess it depends on how you define inspired. But yeah, it didn't claim revelation.

Katie Dooley  43:52

We actually we skipped over it. The plane I started laughing at do we want to talk about what Yeah, can I ask my question? We're kind of we're sorry, we're kind of jumping back. But modern prophecy. I made a note of what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit. We see this a lot, obviously, being a Western Christian country, being filled with the Holy Spirit. And this is kind of, like Preston said, the Pentecostal having a close personal relationship with God, or God speaks to constantly have maybe we don't see it as you being a prophet, but God is speaking to you. So that was my question. What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit?

Preston Meyer  44:35

So just as Christianity is wickedly diverse spectrum, there's an awful lot of different thoughts on what that means for some people. Can you even say that you're not filled with the Spirit if you're not rolling on the ground, just kind of wigging out. I mean, there's an all Have a lot of people that look like dementia patients when they're trying to show off that they've got the Spirit in them. And some people look like they're suffering from epilepsy. And other people are a lot more dignified and their behavior I guess. I mean,

Katie Dooley  45:16

you see people sobbing. Yeah. Again, if you're a Pentecostal, you speak in tongues. And then some people just like feel the spirit. And some

Preston Meyer  45:24

people just feel comfort and feel reassurance of truth and you're wanting to hold my hand. That is, yeah.

Katie Dooley  45:31

Do you feel the spirit in this room?

Preston Meyer  45:33

I feel love. And for a lot of people that's that's how they recognize that the spirit is there. Because we've been friends for a while. I feel loved when I'm here.

Katie Dooley  45:45

And I just made them hold my hand. I didn't hurt yeah, atheists don't burn, right? Yeah, just everyone knows

Preston Meyer  45:54

severe. So what it means to feel, nor to be filled with the Spirit. seems to vary a lot from person to person. But it's, it seems to me that it's a lot more useful. If it's reassuring ideas, and divine truths, then if it's causing you to roll around in a way that might cause you an injury or, or cause somebody to think less of you or your dignity. Maybe interesting.

Katie Dooley  46:28

We'll have to talk about Glock Glock gloss or gloss. Aliah are some I forget what the technical term for speaking in tongues is. There's a real okay, I'm good.

Preston Meyer  46:39

Okay. Oh, religiously? We just call it speaking in tongues. But no, there's a name for it. Not in my circles where I wander around but I believe you.

Katie Dooley  46:51

glossolalia the phenomenon of speaking in an unknown language especially in realistic religious worship glossolalia Okay, that's your Word of the Day.

Preston Meyer  47:05

That word is a mouthful. GloZell Ali

Katie Dooley  47:14

are bad people Preston.

Preston Meyer  47:18

just reminded me of the word eyeball phobia. It's a palindrome it's phobia. With phobia spelled backwards on the front of what is the phobia of it. It is the fear the irrational fear of palindromes are terrible. Some people who name them are just

Katie Dooley  47:39

there's a few of them that are just ridiculous.

Preston Meyer  47:41

Triscuit DECA phobia is kind of cool. It's the fear of the number 13. But it sounds way cooler than it is. It makes it sound like it's a legitimate thing to be properly afraid of. And if you're actually afraid of the number 13 You do have some sort of emotional problems that you probably need to see a professional for.

Katie Dooley  48:07

You're just dropping bombs.

48:12

So any final thoughts on prophecy?

Katie Dooley  48:15

The prophets? What do our listeners need to know? Be?

48:20

Be wary of false prophets

Preston Meyer  48:23

be wary of profits in general, okay. Cuz the reality is that nine times out of 10 You're gonna be able to prove easily with real investigation that there are false prophets. And I mean, I know that as an atheist, you don't believe there's any profits and that's Yeah, I'm

Katie Dooley  48:43

good. I'm already guarded. my loins are girded.

Preston Meyer  48:46

Right. And that's realistically a pretty safe position to stand in for speaking for your own safety. Like, you're not gonna be brought in by any crazy folks that are looking to take advantage with their prophecies. So it's, I think it's interesting to look at the things that people are prophesied. It's in my religious tradition, there's no hard fast rule that says nobody outside of our faith can receive prophecy. And for some people, that's not the way they see it. And that's, that's fine, I guess. But prophecy in general is a tricky thing. Something

Katie Dooley  49:33

tricky in religion, so

Preston Meyer  49:36

but if you're gonna predict anything, that's can be problematic, but prophecy can also be simply directing immediate action. And usually, that's kind of the purpose when you see oracles or augers or witch doctors in a royal court. That They're there to give that guidance and read omens when the reading omens bit sounds awfully tricky. It's interesting that in Judaism, divination is actually forbidden. You can't be casting bones and reading them or I'll throw

Katie Dooley  50:15

around cards. That's yeah, that's super frowned upon. We're gonna cover that. Yeah. So to Halloween, we have a whole spooky lineup for you.

Preston Meyer  50:23

It'll be some good fun. Yeah. So it's interesting that the way they deal with prophecy is deliberately don't rely on these physical physical objects that obviously are thrown by chance, and communicate with what feels right. In most cases, receiving dreams is common enough within the Hebrew tradition, a lot more with Northern Israel than southern Judah. Which I think is a kind of a weird distinction that ended up being a thing that we noticed. And guiding present action, based on what you see the need is makes an awful lot of sense. Whether that did in fact, come from a God or not. That kind of prophecy tends to be a lot more productive. But yeah, if somebody is trying to tell you, hey, you need to buy.

Katie Dooley  51:21

No, no, you need to sell all your stuff. Enjoy

Preston Meyer  51:24

me sell all your stuff, and give all of your money to this thing that isn't going to do you any good because the end of the world is coming. That is a scam 100% of the time. Prophecy is all right. I think it's cool, but like to look into it and study and see what things people are prophesied. I think it's nifty, but it's not a thing that you need to be stressing out about. Like if you go through your day to day life worried about a prophecy you heard?

Katie Dooley  51:57

Don't unless you're Harry Potter in the seventh book of the series. You don't need to worry about it.

Preston Meyer  52:04

Sure, but none of our listeners are the fictional character Harry Potter.

Katie Dooley  52:11

Harry Potter if you're listening please join our Discord.

Preston Meyer  52:17

Yeah, sure when I like it, I like it. Is that about it for subject to prophecy?

Katie Dooley  52:26

I think so. So we gotta we gotta do some sales now. Yeah, we

Preston Meyer  52:31

do. We would love to have you help support our podcast, keep it going for years to come. Patreon will help us make that possible. And we've also got our merch store Where's merch

Katie Dooley  52:44

store? Our merch store is Spreadshirt you can just search for Holly watermelon. And you can find all of those links and even better conversations on our Discord. All of those links will be in the description box. So we hope to see you on our Discord to continue this conversation. Peace be with you. 

Religion and morality are so intertwined. Many people believe we get our morals from the heavens. How do we know what is good and what is evil?

Morality is the line between good and evil. For a lot of people, morality is informed by their religious philosophies. However, we know that while it plays a part, it is not the only way that people learn morals. 

There are 4 types of morals:

• Moral absolutism – common in monotheism, good and evil are fixed concepts established by the god(s).
• Amoralism – deny the existence of a true good or true evil, the opposite of moral absolutism.
• Moral relativism – standards of good and evil are based on culture, custom or prejudice.
• Moral universalism – a compromise between absolutists and relativists. Good and evil can be examined.

In this episode, we also discuss the arguments of morals being from religion, or a humanist source for morals. 

Morals from Religion

Have non-religious people just absorbed their morals from the religious people around them? A lot of laws and rules in North America come from the Protestant tradition, like monogamy. 

Some people say morals from the gods. The God of the Abrahamic tradition is meant to be seen as a righteous figure. However, there are some actions that don’t align with today’s morals. 

Religion is useful to humanity up to this point; it helps us organize our place in the world. Morality has been there every step of the way. 

Humanist Morals

There is basically a consensus that we don’t get our morals from religion. A lot of smart people have done writing on morals and we talk about the different stages of morality. 

A great question to ask yourself is “What if everybody did this all the time?”

Another argument against religious morals is that our interpretation of Holy Books has changed as our morals have. We interpret things differently or ignore passages altogether. 

All this and more....

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

Learn more on our official website

***

Preston Meyer  00:09

atheist and agnostic Oh man, I'm looking forward to today's episode we've kind of nudged chatted a little bit a couple of times.

Katie Dooley  00:19

I'm excited to I think this will be a lot like our don't stop believing episode.

Preston Meyer  00:27

Yeah, a little bit over this time, we're talking about morality on the holy watermelon podcast.

Katie Dooley  00:34

We're again, philosophical. again today, guys. And we're not philosophers. So I

Preston Meyer  00:43

think we've argued in the past, particularly in don't stop believing that we are a philosopher, anyone can be a philosopher, if you have an opinion about philosophy, some people argue that's enough to be a philosopher. Well,

Katie Dooley  00:57

also like our don't stop believing episode, I don't know how close to an answer we're gonna get.

Preston Meyer  01:05

Morality is a tricky thing. A lot of people like to look at morality as a thing where you judge the world based on what your personal morality is. And it's basically black white with some gray in there. And everything else is either Okay, or not. Okay. People don't think a lot about how other people have different systems of morality.

Katie Dooley  01:32

Yes. Morals are hard to because? I mean, yeah. Because what's good to one person is not good to another person. And then how do you make laws and rules and decisions that benefit the group?

Preston Meyer  01:55

Yeah, it's complicated and tricky. And in almost every case, somebody gets offended. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  02:04

And actually pair this episode with don't stop believing if you haven't listened to yet, because I think, you know, you mentioned somebody people getting offended, this comes down to what you believe and why you believe it. So we're already getting into the weeds.

Preston Meyer  02:21

And I mean, morality, and ethics, which, depending on how you talk about them are synonymous. Sometimes they're not synonymous, depending on how you use them.

Katie Dooley  02:33

I purposely pulled out the definition of ethics to not muddy the waters perfect. Morality today.

Preston Meyer  02:40

Excellent. So it's, it's already is too complicated, but we're gonna dive in and see what we can get anyway. And so generally, morality is the the line between good and evil, more or less, but that gets tricky too. And for a lot of people in the world, their morality is informed specifically by their religious philosophies, but very often not.

Katie Dooley  03:14

It's interesting. So in doing the research for this, I was actually expecting far more. Far more articles and, and thoughts on this, the side that we do get our morals from religion, I thought it'd be more 5050. But from what I found, there's basically a consensus that we don't get our morals from religion, which is really interesting, because 84% of the world's population are religious. But still, even with that, there's a consensus that we don't get our morals from religion, which we'll get into the different sides right away here. But

Preston Meyer  03:54

it's, it's interesting that one of the last classes I had when I was finishing up my degree, was looking at the modern philosophies of religion, and just how religion works from the outside looking in, and specifically part of the course looked at its effects on the government in our country, and a lot of our laws and our cultural norms. And the morality that we adopt because of living in this nation that's run this way, comes from the Protestant faith tradition, where things like monogamy being the only acceptable form of marriage in this country. Is that a moral decision? Those it coming from a religious background who think that the only proper form of marriage can be monogamy is usually informed by the Christian tradition of no polygamy. But there there's A small handful of Christian groups that think polygamy is okay. The Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible says that polygamy is okay. Muslims believe polygamy is okay. But Catholics and Protestants are like no polygamy.

Katie Dooley  05:14

It's funny, you mentioned this and this in the notes or anything, but on an episode of Qi, which is quite interesting, it's a British, for those of you who might not know is a British celebrity trivia show. It's ridiculous. I highly recommend watching it. But the host, Stephen Fry whom I don't know how it comes up, because they just go off the rails sometimes. But he mentions in an episode of Qi, he says, It blows my mind that polygamy is legal, when it's, you know, as long as it's consenting adults, but adultery isn't illegal. And there that's not consensual. So just something to think about is I'm not saying polygamy is for everyone, but I you know, if you're a consenting adult, and you know, you're getting into a polygamist or open or whatever, you're polyamorous, whatever you want to call it, relationship, then all the power to you. Right?

Preston Meyer  06:08

And it's it's weird how often people need to be reminded that what is legal, and what is moral, don't necessarily overlap in every case. Oh, well, we're

Katie Dooley  06:20

gonna get to a quote, I don't know if you saw the quote, I

Preston Meyer  06:24

did see, I look forward to that coming.

Katie Dooley  06:28

Preemptive trigger warning, I'll wear it again when we get to it. But this is a very good example of what is moral is not always legal, and how vastly different morals can be and what it looks like when they're informed by different things anyway, yeah. Foreshadowing.

Preston Meyer  06:48

Generally, when we think about morality, in modern West, typically pretty standardly, people like to bring up the golden rule. And I like that it's, it's pretty solid.

Katie Dooley  07:01

It's a great rule. I saw your note on it. And I actually cited, just because I don't want people coming back being like, see, we do get our morality from Christianity.

Preston Meyer  07:12

The golden rule is a little older than Christianity.

Katie Dooley  07:16

So the first instance of the golden rule is from 1800 BCE in Egypt. So the yes, the Old Testament might have been around, but this is not a Christian tradition. Well, the Old Testament wouldn't even be around at this point. Really? I thought it was about 5000 years, so Oh, no, no, no.

Preston Meyer  07:33

It's the Old Testaments, a lot newer than that.

Katie Dooley  07:37

It says, due to the doer to cause that he do. Which,

Preston Meyer  07:42

I mean, that's a really poetic translation. I like it. But I could see why a lot of people would fumble with that phrase.

Katie Dooley  07:53

It sounds like a dope, doge meme to the doer to cause that he do. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  08:01

I like it. But basically, it's due to others as you would have them do

Katie Dooley  08:05

unto you. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, and we'll get into it. But yeah, I think it's a good thing. If you're confused about the morals or the situation, the golden rule is actually a great reference point, to talk about somewhere else situations that would apply to you. But the first one that comes to mind is gay marriage. Well, if you're going to restrict someone's right to marry, how would you feel if they restricted your right to marry? And I think that's a good lens to look through things.

Preston Meyer  08:36

It's such a weird, and we've talked about gay marriage before. And that as a, as a moral example, I think is really interesting that a lot of people want to argue that marriage is a religious right. And yet, it's governed by the state, which is not a religious body. Therefore, your argument falls flat. It's dead. Marriage is not a religious, right.

Katie Dooley  09:03

No. And then the I mean, same thing, even looking at countries that are predominantly atheists like skin, Scandinavian countries, they still get married there. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  09:10

I mean, there's still plenty of faithful people in Oh, definitely predominantly atheist. Now. It's kind of weird to look at, but not a terrible thing.

Katie Dooley  09:23

Do you want to run through the four types of moral Yeah,

Preston Meyer  09:28

let's do it. So there are a good handful of views on the nature of evil and they tend to fall into four categories as Katie number. The first is moral absolutism. This is really common in specifically monotheistic traditions, but can come up in some polytheistic traditions as well. That good and evil are fixed concepts established by a deity or deities and that is It's all just kind of figured. And sometimes it's observable in nature or you're meant to deduce them from common sense. So it's it's kind of nebulous but there is an absolute this is this is good. This is evil. Marlon, and there's there's not usually a lot of gray in there. But I mean, depending on who you talk to, there's, the less absolutist you are, the more gray there is. And then you've got a moralism, which is some tricky stuff, where you outright deny the existence of a true good or a true evil that everything is great, kind of the exact opposite of moral absolutism. Some atheists will fall into this category, it's a lot easier for atheists and theists to be a moralists.

Katie Dooley  10:57

There's reasons a moralism resonates with me, which we're sure we can dive into after we get through the four types. But yeah, there's definitely an argument for for

Preston Meyer  11:07

it. Yeah. If this definitely jives really nicely with nihilism, if nothing matters, then what is morality? Why is it even a thing to talk about? And then somewhere in between those we have moral relativism, that holds the standards of good and evil are only products of local culture, customer prejudice, and in many instances are things that ought to be adjusted. Especially as people become more aware of groups outside their own. And then the idea of moral universalism. That's some tricky stuff, but it's the attempt to find a compromise between absolutist sense morality and the relativist view. Universalism claims that morality is only flexible to a degree, and that what is truly good or evil can be determined by examining what is commonly considered to be evil amongst all humans.

Katie Dooley  12:07

And because you read that word for word, I'll say that one's from Wikipedia. Yeah. No plagiarism here.

Preston Meyer  12:16

What you're doing copying straight from Wikipedia.

Katie Dooley  12:20

I copied a lot for this episode, not from Wikipedia, from everywhere, all sorts of places, just because some of the quotes I found from people speaking about morality, I found were good conversation starters. Right? As opposed to me putting all my thoughts down. I thought we could dive into some of these quotes about moralism from all sides. Have a conversation.

Preston Meyer  12:43

It is really well worded though I liked it.

Katie Dooley  12:45

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, good, good word grabbing a copy Ctrl C ctrl v.

Preston Meyer  12:52

So my wife and I have been watching for a little while the good place. First shut up and NBC but we've been watching on Netflix, because we don't have cable. And the show does a great job of exploring morality. Don't want to spoil too much of the plot for those of you who might feel interested in watching it later on. But one of the main characters Chiti is a moral philosopher, he did all of his work in university for his entire adult life, studying ethics and moral philosophy, and teaches it to the rest of the the ensemble cast in the show, on and off throughout. And, unfortunately, because he's, he knows so much about moral philosophy, he suffers from absolute intellectual paralysis, when it comes time to making any sort of decision about literally anything funny, he is frozen, by the fear, any sort of decision paralyzes him because he's afraid of making a decision that can have a negative moral or ethical impact, I guess. Which is really frustrating literally

Katie Dooley  14:04

doesn't do anything, right.

Preston Meyer  14:07

Like, this, literally is what killed him. And so so the good play starts, everybody's dead. And when you're dead, you're the points that determine whether you would go to the good place or the bad place. They're frozen. They don't impact you any further at this point in the narrative, but he's still paralyzed by the fear of doing something morally negative for guy and it's it's really interesting show. I love it. i That's one aspect of the show. There's plenty of depth to the characters that make it absolutely lovable. And I'm just focused on that one bit because that's what applies to our subject at hand. But good stuff.

Katie Dooley  14:54

One interesting while we're still talking about what our morals before we get into the two sides of it, one of the things I found her Interesting is the high faith doesn't believe that evil exists. Behind is a very interesting religion. It's a very inclusive religion. If you look at their temples, there's the Star of David and crosses and the Islamic moons. So it's very inclusive, but it is its own entity. We should do an episode on behind, but so they don't believe that evil even exists. It's just the lack of good. So they talk about how cold is the lack of heat and darkness is the lack of light. They don't exist. I don't know, I guess it goes back to your experience, right? If I'm sitting in a dark room, I don't go this darkness doesn't exist, right? It's dark. But it's an interesting,

Preston Meyer  15:50

it's an absence of light. Yeah. And that's actually a really useful response to the issue of how can there be evil if God is good and powerful? And they say that there is no evil, there's just an absence of goodness, because people either are good, or they're not. I

Katie Dooley  16:12

also like in the sense of, you know, giving people second chances, right, as anyone inherently evil. I mean, we can probably get into some of those arguments today. But I think most people have a lapse in judgment. Absolutely. So, you know, Hitler, Ted Bundy, probably are actually evil. But I think your average, you know, person in the present system, just, you know, circumstances and poor judgment got to them to where they're for sure. So, yeah,

Preston Meyer  16:52

yeah, it's, it's challenging, especially if you're looking at morality as a reason to demonize a person, you're gonna have a hard time.

Katie Dooley  17:03

But yes, that yeah, my brain already hurts thinking about. Because people will think I think most people think what they do with moral Oh, absolutely. Just like most people, when people believe what people believe they believe is correct. You don't believe something? Because you think it's wrong.

Preston Meyer  17:26

That's nonsense.

Katie Dooley  17:29

So probably, let's say 85% of what people do they believe is moral. Have I done things that hurt people that I regret? Absolutely, that I would look back and say that was immoral? Have you Katie, but day to day, I think I live morally. So it is absolutely hard to demonize Psalm one, when they think they're doing the right thing, or they're doing the best they can. And, you know, some ones terrorist is another person's freedom fighter, you know, right. Literally, Nelson Mandela was considered a terrorist until there was like a benefit concert for him. And then he became a freedom fighter. So great marketing campaign. And absolutely apartheid should have was supposed to end but the global perspective of Nelson Mandela, up until his benefit concert was that he was a terrorist. Yeah, so

Preston Meyer  18:18

even Mahatma Gandhi was a terrorist. Now this, it's a little easier to show how he objectively may have been a scary terrorist. But he was also fighting for good things, and then started fighting for better things.

Katie Dooley  18:34

Bobby Sands, no nonviolent iron IRA. I mean, still today, you could ask someone about depending on who you asked about Bobby Sands, you'd get two completely different insurance. If you're an Irish republican, he's a freedom fighter, if you're Irish Protestant, he's a terrorist. So how do you? How do you decide?

Preston Meyer  18:57

One sense of morality is definitely tightly tied to one's philosophy, how they see the world and what things have value. And it's it only gets more complicated, the more you look at it. One can argue for a lifetime, whether something has real value or not, and whether that value is worth defending, and how much you're willing to fight to preserve any given thing is a question of morality as much as is a question of philosophy.

Katie Dooley  19:31

Absolutely. I mean, we could just go back and start talking about murder. Right? Yeah. Like capital punishment, murder versus capital punishment. What's, what's

Preston Meyer  19:41

the difference? Different one is that you feel like there is a moral benefit to it when it's capital punishment. Where I mean, some people argue that there's a moral advantage to murder. I

Katie Dooley  19:54

was gonna see I imagine if you spoke to each murder story Some of them might not have a good reason for it, but some of them probably did. Yeah. I think of Charlize Theron, the actress, her mom killed her dad in self defense, and she didn't go to jail. They moved from South Africa to America. But the judge said, yeah, it's self defense. But I mean, it is, you know, objectively murder.

Preston Meyer  20:22

Yeah, that's, it's interesting. The, the line between culpability and responsibility, you know? Yeah. Yeah, she if she's defending her family, she is responsible for the death. But is she legally culpable for that death when it is? Protecting her family? The court said, No.

Katie Dooley  20:49

We need to get a lawyer now. So

Preston Meyer  20:51

I have been reading the news lately and have got some frustrating feelings about some courts lately. Okay. Did you hear about Bill Cosby? Yes. Yeah. And the reason that they decided, yeah, he's should never have been in jail in the first place, is it's not even want to say it's immoral altogether. The whole decision making process has been made public that he was, according to these judges, the majority of the judges on this panel said, yeah, he never should have been tried at all, because the predecessor of the prosecutor, who was in charge of this trial, promised not to charge Cosby. And apparently, these judges, the majority of them are like, well, your predecessors promises. You have to hold them up. So you should never have charged him. So Cosby goes free, gross, morally, I think that's terrible. And some of the judges on that panel agree with me. Some of them find their morality in a different philosophy that I don't know how to define yet. John,

Katie Dooley  22:10

Well, John, Les Mis, their rule of law doesn't matter if it's right or wrong. Rule

Preston Meyer  22:15

of Law go to jail for stealing a piece of bread because you literally need to serve to survive. And yeah, that's, that's a skewed philosophy morality.

Katie Dooley  22:27

Um, do we want to get into these two sides of morals? Let's do anything else, you want to solve them? So I have two headings in our show notes. So where morals come from the pro religion, that's world's religion, and then we have a humanist? side. And I actually, like I said, I had trouble finding more in favor of religion than I thought I would. Sure.

Preston Meyer  22:56

So some people say that morals straight up are taught by the gods or God. And I don't know if you've been paying attention to some of my commentary in the past about Hellenism. But the father of the gods, the king of the gods, good old Zeus, does not teach morality, in fact, is a terrible example of a moral figure. And

Katie Dooley  23:21

there are other I mean, there are other gods in that Pantheon that aren't great either. This is particular Are there any

Preston Meyer  23:26

that are really I mean, like Stand Up Guys or girls based on our morality right now. Like off the top of my head? I don't remember a lot about Artemis, but I think she's all right.

Katie Dooley  23:41

I mean, she was my favorite when we learned about it in grade six. So they sent her a lot but she was like the goddess of the hunt and the moon and animals and nature. I can't think

Preston Meyer  23:54

straight up was a rapist.

Katie Dooley  23:56

Yeah, Dianne, ISIS was a drunkard, Aphrodite, and free love is probably a little more moral these days than she 300 years ago. Her morality

Preston Meyer  24:05

is definitely not as problematic as Zeus is I don't think she was ever hate rape is cool, because it's sex. That's not I don't think it was ever a thing. So I think we're still on pretty solid ground with Aphrodite unless there's something I've forgotten

Katie Dooley  24:25

when we do our Greek pantheon episode.

Preston Meyer  24:32

But for, let's say, specifically Christians, Muslims, Jews, the god of these traditions is meant to be seen as a righteous figure. And some of the stories don't reflect to the same morality that is common today. But overall, he is meant to be seen as the pillar of moral rectitude,

Katie Dooley  24:56

well, and even from the Hebrew Bible to the Christian Bible to the core On the differences in flavors draft shifts drastically So, and we'll get more on to that. But I found a quote that I'm going to read, go for it. The view that non religious individuals are morally dubious is deeply embedded in American society. Atheists and Gnostics are considered less trust trustworthy, even a moral, which explains why people don't believe in God are unlikely to be elected to high political office, such as President of the United States. Which

Preston Meyer  25:35

is why so many elected officials pretend to go to church way more often than they ever do. Which is a problem. Because if you're catching somebody in that kind of lie, it should make them harder to trust. And yet for some reason, the the whole of the public doesn't seem to have an issue with this. What

Katie Dooley  25:58

are the reasons you think that's the case? I need to word that question people

Preston Meyer  26:06

make choices about what to believe sometimes, we've talked about how sometimes you can choose to believe things, sometimes you believe a thing because you believe it. But sometimes when you have information like what this President is probably not as religious as he is showing off, and you can kind of tell by looking at him. Some people choose to believe that there's a narrative that is favorable, and they're going to go with it just because it's convenient to them. Like, I want to believe that he is as good as I want him to be kind of thing. And because

Katie Dooley  26:47

he's religious, it's more likely, I guess, because like you said, we have proof that morals don't come from religion, right? So it shouldn't matter. But apparently, it matters like a ton.

Preston Meyer  27:04

Yeah. An awful lot of people. And I've heard it several times, believe that if you don't believe in a God, then you have no reason to be moral. Which there's loads of problems with that argument.

Katie Dooley  27:22

On the humanist side of things, but you're absolutely right. We have talked about it in the past, I think it was like way back in the beginning, that episode, where we talked about religion being genetic, and, arguably, therefore morals, no morals are genetic. Kidding. It's the debate on whether religion is genetic or not, or what benefit it has, and how being religious is beneficial to people. And I think that ties in with morality, absolutely. In your what you think is moral? Am I making any sense?

Preston Meyer  28:04

I think so. Okay, so we're saying that religion is is useful for humanity up to this point in our social evolution, that it helps us to organize our place in the world, and the world around us in a way that we can understand it. And morality absolutely has been there all along every step of the way. It helps us navigate our relationships with other people and the world around us at large. And I think that's, that falls into what you were saying pretty, pretty, fairly.

Katie Dooley  28:41

Another quote, again, I just found all these great, quote, talking points that again, was for religion, as our source of moral says, one answer. Yeah, one answer to this is that moral values comes from religion, transmitted through sacred texts and religious authorities, and that even the values of non religious people have been absorbed from the religious history around them. And I'll interject and say that makes sense if 84% of the world is religious, that the remaining 16% Very well likely, as the minority could absorb their morals.

Preston Meyer  29:15

Like I said, you some of your morality has been the product of the Protestant faith tradition that's kind of helped and formed the colonization of North America. And

Katie Dooley  29:28

you know, as someone who's an atheist, but married and monogamous, I can't disagree. Some people this back to the code, everyone, some people worry that a general move away from religious faiths will will bring about some kind of moral breakdown in society. But humans, humanists will argue that moral values are not dependent on religion, and it is a potentially damaging idea in an increasingly secular society, society to start that there.

Preston Meyer  29:55

For sure. I don't see any issue there. One

Katie Dooley  29:59

of the The the notes I made too is that part of the problem with discussing religion and morality is that both terms are basically undefinable.

Preston Meyer  30:10

Morality is a lot easier to define than religion. But I mean, define what is moral? Well, and I mean, that's the problem is your art. It's you're arguing what is good and what is bad against, usually somebody who disagrees and says, No, this is fine. And this is perfectly acceptable and your sense of good and bad or wrong, which is complicated and frustrating for most people that have the argument.

Katie Dooley  30:41

I also remember we talked about in I think it was in the beginning episode, about morals coming from religion, and humans always being religious. Is it fair? Like we talked about Protestant values influencing us, but where did Protestant morals and values come from? Like how far back? Right we can say we're whatever, Christian society or we need a Christian God or the Abrahamic God to dictate our morals, but those morals came from somewhere. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  31:14

and I think it is interesting to look into that some of it is due directly to their connection to the Catholic tradition. And some of it is due to recognizing errors in the Catholic philosophical tradition of how people are meant to be towards each other. Especially the idea that you're teaching a thing. I don't believe it, I want to be free to believe what I believe that's, that's the big energy of Protestantism. And what led to the way that North America was colonized by Protestants. And so the whole believe what you believe in secret, don't shout it out too much. That is a Protestant, specific kind of philosophy. And it's kind of nifty to see how all that evolves out of the Catholic tradition that I mean, monogamy that we were talking about. The Christians when they first spread out from Jerusalem, baptizing the world. They were a polygamous people. And then the Romans were like, polygamy bad. You can have one wife only do what you want. It's okay to have sex with the boys and girls down the street. To the man not not the women. And footnote. It's not. But this was the Roman tradition. And that the it's weird to say that it was important to them that you were monogamous, but it didn't matter who you had sex with was the moral standard. And the Catholic tradition that came up out of that Roman Christian tradition? said, Well, okay, yeah, monogamy. Now, that had been our thing for a while, because the state said, so that's fine. But stop touching little boys and girls. And as well as it stuck, it is a immoral improvement.

Katie Dooley  33:27

Well, it's interesting that you say the States made the law because we see that even now. Where I mean, you said earlier, right? Where polygamy is allowed, if not encouraged, and other religious books, but you will not see it anywhere in Canada. And often these religious groups change their tune to follow the laws of the country. Yeah. All right. In fact,

Preston Meyer  33:46

every secular state on this planet says that polygamy is illegal, with one exception that I'm aware of who, Australia, Australia will not permit you to enter a polygamous marriage. But they will honor pre existing marriages that are done outside of Australia. Interesting.

Katie Dooley  34:10

Yeah. And I I'd be curious, you probably won't go to jail and Australia then if you're a polygamist. No, cuz you can be arrested. I know in the States, you can be arrested for polygamy.

Preston Meyer  34:20

Yes. The United States of America is a lot more anti polygamy than most in Canada. I don't think anybody has gone to jail for for polygamy lately. The people who have been pulling us in have gone to jail have been because of other abuses. Yes. And that's part of the the problem that is most visible when people talk about polygamy is we're talking about marrying children and other abuses. Yes.

Katie Dooley  34:49

That's why well, you'd like you're consenting adults, and you know what you're getting into, right, all the power to

Preston Meyer  34:56

you. And so, to me, it's weird that we have laws against polygamy. When if you just say, Mary children forced these other abusive, these laws against abuse, then we're going to be okay.

Katie Dooley  35:11

You made a point that I wanted to go back to Oh, yeah. When you said people believe what they want to believe and have the freedom to believe what they want to believe. I think this is actually a argument against morals and religion. Because if we look at Christianity, and all its denominations and what they believe, and what they believe, is moral. So the note I made is, you have Westboro Baptist Church, which I think is probably the least moral group in supposedly small groups in North America,

Preston Meyer  35:41

so easy to just paint them as our, our typical, these are the bad Christians, because

Katie Dooley  35:47

they're the worst of the worst. But you can take elements of that right like they are adamantly against homosexuality is the big one. I think they're the only one that pickets dead soldiers graves, I don't think that's common in any other denomination, but I hope not.

Preston Meyer  36:05

Right.

Katie Dooley  36:06

So you have them who, again, you know, hate the gays. And then we have our Lutheran pastor, we talked about first transgender leader in the Lutheran church, those are two very different morals in the same religion. So for getting our morals from religion, someone's reading the book wrong. And those are two extremes. Of course, I don't think Megan, Reverend Megan, is that extreme, based off of bio morals, but those are poorly polar opposites. And there's a whole bunch in between and there might be even scary, you know, more a bigger spectrum, then than that. But

Preston Meyer  36:52

yeah, I think religion has a part to play in forming a person's individual sense of morality. But I don't think it's reasonable to say that religion is fully responsible for any person, any person's individual sense of morality.

Katie Dooley  37:09

Absolutely. Because you still have school and family and jessamy Street. And I mean, I make that as a bit of a joke. But yeah, it's the thing that we learn, you know, they talk about sharing and all sorts of other things, spent a long time since I was just

Preston Meyer  37:26

living in a community has an effect on your sense of morality. And that's why you'll notice that people behave differently in big cities than they do in little towns. Absolutely. Because the way they relate to their neighbors

Katie Dooley  37:43

is different. Yeah. And, you know, I think of small town, Alberta, where we are, the types of people in rural Alberta are not that different. Right? You're predominantly white, you're probably Christian, you're probably conservative. So that exposure that may change your morality to someone who's different from you. If you've never had exposure to a Muslim person, then maybe that's something you're fearful of just because you don't know. And then you think, you know, Sharia law, and jobs are immoral, but it's just lack of exposure, and understanding, and most people don't want to go on the internet and Google that stuff. Which is why you should share the holy watermelon podcast with them.

Preston Meyer  38:30

Absolutely. All right.

Katie Dooley  38:35

Are we gonna read this horrible quote, I think it's so bad. It's so bad. So this is absolute moralism. This is that black and white, your morals are dictated by God and there is no gray area. This is cool.

Preston Meyer  38:56

It's so hard to read. I'm glad I read it before going into this trigger warning.

Katie Dooley  39:01

Shut it off if you don't like any sort of sexual abuse. So this is an interview with the honorable Reverend Father Simon Lococo, a Ugandan Minister of ethics and integrity. So he's a father. So he's, I'm Catholic, I presume.

Preston Meyer  39:21

So, already at this point. I know I'm, like I got this far before knowing that I wasn't going to like what I seek is

Katie Dooley  39:28

Ugandan and Catholic at the same time. Well,

Preston Meyer  39:31

okay, that's, that's a complicated combination of things. You and I went to go see the bookmark musical together, takes place in Uganda. And the interesting thing about that is that it said Uganda, because it's such a weird place. culturally speaking, it's very again, I'm gonna say abrasive, I

Katie Dooley  39:54

guess I was gonna say, very it's very First Century, it's very. So in Uganda, it's still it's very much illegal to be gay. There's still hundreds of countries around the world where it's illegal to promote lots of countries, there's only 200 countries in the world. So hundreds is inaccurate. But there's lots of countries, the majority of countries around the world, being homosexual is still illegal. But you can actually be stoned to death in Uganda for being gay or being accused of being gay. So So

Preston Meyer  40:25

relative to the Book of Mormon musical, it's interesting that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints last I checked, has no presence in Uganda, very in most of Africa, and certainly pretty much everywhere else in the world is a handful of Muslim states where they're not really actively present in Uganda as a place where they straight up avoided for a little while. Yeah, this is a culturally different than you're used to place. Yes. All right. Let's get back into Simon Makoto, the Honorable reverend.

Katie Dooley  41:01

Honorable reverend. So again, this is a country where homosexuality is illegal. He's obviously Catholic, where I think even Pope Francis is warming up to gay marriage, but I think it's still discouraged. So he viewed the heterosexual rape of young girls as preferable to homosexuality to consensual homosexuality. So he prefers that adult males sexually abused little girls to two men, consensually, having sex with each other. So the koto says, I say, let them do it, but the right way.

Preston Meyer  41:42

The interviewer says, Oh, let them do it the right way. Let them rape children the right way. What are you talking about?

Katie Dooley  41:50

And the color says no, I'm saying at least it's the natural way of desiring sex. So gross. And so this is someone who gets his morals from religion and moral absolutism from lynchin. And there is a problem with this.

Preston Meyer  42:13

But it's not just religion, having he certainly influenced background, but it's just the way he sees the world to validate saying this. And this is the Ugandan Minister of ethics and integrity and integrity.

Katie Dooley  42:33

What do you think? Do you think he'll get sainted? I'm kidding. I hope not.

Preston Meyer  42:39

I mean, who do we talk about that did get st. We talked about some terrible people. So we'll see.

Katie Dooley  42:47

Yeah, so that's really gross. And I think it's a great argument for your and you're right, there are cultural factors, but even the term natural way of desiring sex, where does that come from? Right.

Preston Meyer  43:02

I mean, what if you're born with it? It's natural, right? So again, he's having a philosophical argument, which is not a popular argument right now. The way he's coming at it is

Katie Dooley  43:18

pretty terrible. And then a trigger trigger warning off for now, so now we're gonna dive into the, the humanist side of where do we actually get our morals from, if not from religion? And how to atheists like me live a half decent life?

Preston Meyer  43:39

How do you do?

Katie Dooley  43:40

I mean, you know? Yeah, so one of the challenges with morals not coming from religion is that non religious people can't explain where morals come from. If not from God, well,

Preston Meyer  43:58

you say can't and people have tried and people have come with some pretty great explanations.

Katie Dooley  44:03

It's yeah, so the best I found is that it's emotional and genetic is that and we talked to we've talked about this before where if you're immoral if you're killing and stealing and whatever the chances of you having offspring are lowered?

Preston Meyer  44:18

Well, yeah, especially back in history where you would have been stoned for that activity. We have rules as a society and that has an effect on morality. I don't want to say though, they're directly connected one leads to the other directly immediately but they there's an effect that one has on the other both ways I think. It's It's not simple.

Katie Dooley  44:48

Why is having a hard conversation saying so? You got a thing. I have a thing and I just can't I don't know if I mean The note on here. I didn't make a note, but it was a Richard Dawkins talk, I believe and the question of, you know, oh, hell, if you don't believe in God, how can be a good person? And so he said, so he asked people to come up with something bad that a religious person could do or has done. And then to give an example of something good that an atheist could perform, because, and so we can think of lots of things that religious people have done that are bad, but we can't think of anything that an atheist couldn't do. Right.

Preston Meyer  45:41

That's an interesting way to illustrate that. I like that.

Katie Dooley  45:44

I thought it's pretty good. Because I mean, like you said, there's, there's obviously lots of examples of atheist behaving poorly. Yeah, there's, I'm not saying because you're religious, you're bad, but it's an easier, right. Like, what? What can you do? That I couldn't do? That's a good moral thing. Right?

Preston Meyer  46:05

I don't think there's anything on that list. Okay. I don't think that's how that works.

Katie Dooley  46:09

Well, then, there we go. Yeah, some notes.

Preston Meyer  46:14

I do have some notes. I found Lawrence Kohlberg model of moral development, pretty useful. The first stage is oriented around obedience for fear of punishment.

Katie Dooley  46:26

So this is like the primal reads like you need to be

Preston Meyer  46:29

good base reason of why not to be a dick, is because you're going to get beat for hurting somebody else. Basic fear punishment leads you to this basest form of morality. The second stage is essentially oriented around the reward for good behavior. Oh, don't just don't be bad, but also do a good thing. And I can get some sort of reward. Kind of nice. Yeah. And then the third stage of morality centers on making your tribe happy, and maybe even bringing a little bit of pride to yourself.

Katie Dooley  47:10

I like that, right? Because you do things to make your friends and family and pets happy. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  47:17

The fourth stage is about doing your duty, upholding the law so that you can expect the same of others. That's we're getting to some pretty strong morality of building a good community where you can feel safe, because you're doing the things that you need to do and expecting others around you to do the same.

Katie Dooley  47:38

I don't want to interject you to mention a topic. I forget who I was talking to, but we were talking about COVID. And things are opening up and people are still debating masks and vaccines. And I don't know how I was talking to you, if you're listening, let me know and I'll show you out. But he said, you know we've gotten so caught up in what is our rights as citizens that we've forgotten what our responsibilities are as citizens and you know, often rights and responsibilities. And that's what this reminds me of and we're obviously left leaning people so we've both been vaccine have masks and and we look at people who are choosing not to as immoral because this is a good example. They're not holding up their responsibility to society and general following. Well, especially

Preston Meyer  48:32

like not all people who don't get the right

Katie Dooley  48:36

reasons. Broad.

Preston Meyer  48:39

But broad stroking it. Yeah, it's certainly morally questionable to go without a vaccine when you can get it.

Katie Dooley  48:50

Fifth stage.

Preston Meyer  48:52

Yeah, the fifth stage. Now we're getting into the, the more the more evolved sense of morality, I guess. The fifth stage is centered around the consensus of thoughtful men. That's the phrase that Kohlberg used and I like it. It's doing what is right according to your society, to preserve your pride and the pride of others that other other people place in you and thinking about what is an effective good

Katie Dooley  49:26

and doing it this is that when your parents sit you down and they say I'm not angry, I'm disappointed a little bit yet but that's

Preston Meyer  49:33

that's a lot of what that is.

Katie Dooley  49:37

Not Andrew Preston. I'm just disappointed. Right. And for that hurts so much more. You're like, I mean, yell at me,

Preston Meyer  49:44

but you have some people who aren't so philosophically more morally evolved, that that expression doesn't work on them. And that's frustrating.

Katie Dooley  49:54

Now you're entering the world of narcissism.

Preston Meyer  49:59

Narcissism As a dangerous beast when it comes to morality,

Katie Dooley  50:02

we're not going to test. We're skipping that. And

Preston Meyer  50:06

the sixth and final stage on Colbert's model is pretty much the basis of the Golden Rule examining the morality of your actions through the lens of what if everybody did this all the time? So why is male rape immoral? Imagine suffering, being on the suffering end of that all the time. Obviously, it's a bad thing. Morality got real easy there.

Katie Dooley  50:35

Um, I like that. And I think it's a good segue into something that friends do. While he's a Dutch primatologist, I have a few points by him. But, you know, he says, if we made our decisions based, I'm paraphrasing, but if we made our decisions based off of a religious book, then we would open that book every time we were struggling with a decision.

Preston Meyer  51:00

There are lots of Christians that I've seen do that, really, and it's, it's really frustrating. especially

Katie Dooley  51:06

frustrating, because you can just find a passage that fits what you want to do.

Preston Meyer  51:11

Absolutely. You can

51:12

air go, Hey, I'm doing well.

Preston Meyer  51:16

So I've mentioned how the story of lightness to daughters is I found people who think that that's meant to be a moral story of good behavior. That an awful lot of people have been longing inside their homes for the last year and a half. I really hope that nobody is looking to this passage for guidance on how they should be behaving right now. Gross. I feel very confident I'm right, that nobody's doing that. But I have to admit that there's one in a billion chance that I'm wrong. And I really hope it's only that small.

Katie Dooley  51:52

So, since we are talking about friends to wall, alright, it's like I say he's a primatologist, he studies primates. And it's interesting because he says that primates have a moral code. And they show no signs of religion. You know, there's so you monkeys worshipping, or making sacrifices or having prayer circles, but they do have a moral code. And there's lots of other animals that have moral codes. Crows will hold grudges.

Preston Meyer  52:23

Actually, back to primates, I think I think it was baboons. It might have been different primates, but I think it was baboons. They had a whole population where all of the men, the male baboons, were killed off and they were gone. I was just females. And then they had males born and they were raised in a far less violent society, because in primates, the females aren't nearly as violent as the males. We're just like humans. There's a lot less art, there's a lot less evidence that you're wrong, then there's that you're right. Human men tend to be more of

Katie Dooley  53:08

a weird way that I was like, you

Preston Meyer  53:10

know, not trying to be tricky. And so with these baboons, when the men, the men, the male baboons grew up, they were taught to be less violent. And when they were they were beaten, and, and caused, they were beat. Yeah, they were, they were taught to be less violent, and they became less violent. And then when outsider males would come, the same thing that would be taught to be less violent, forcefully, sometimes. And that, I think it's a really good example of that morality that's being taught within this population of beings that we definitely count as less intelligent than ourselves when they seem to have morality figured it out better than many of us.

Katie Dooley  54:00

I mean, even I mean, this is a sad example. But like an abused dog. You know, I have a friend who has a dog that better now but was abused by men and was scared of men, right? So it's a learned behavior, and it obviously did not like being abused. And you know, kind of like cross holding grudges. It had an idea of who was dangerous and so if there were no no morals, it just be like, Okay, I guess I deserve this.

Preston Meyer  54:30

Oh, can you imagine living in a world where everything that you experience is because you deserve it?

Katie Dooley  54:38

There's a TV show there.

Preston Meyer  54:39

I guess. Like that instant karma idea is I find peace knowing that I don't deserve everything that comes to me. Good or bad. But can you imagine if you deserved every like you get a flat tire on your way to someplace and you're on a time sensitive chedule the feeling that you deserve this bad thing happening to you, that would ruin a lot of people. And there's far worse things happening to people who are far too young to deserve bad things. That

Katie Dooley  55:16

Wow. Topical discussion.

Preston Meyer  55:19

The world is a dark, scary philosophical place.

Katie Dooley  55:24

I like this quote by Richard Dawkins and I think it brings up a good talking point. He says that there is a moral Zeitgeist that is continually evolving in society, generally progressing towards more liberal ideas. And as it progresses, moral consensus influences how religious leaders interpret their holy writings. Morality, therefore does not originate from the Bible, rather, our moral progress informed put parts of the Bible Christian accept and what they now dismissed. Absolutely. Yeah, it just makes if you think of things that even 20 years ago, you know, precedent or both office fam, I honestly don't think if the office premiered today,

Preston Meyer  56:08

it would fly. All the second episode would have ruined the show. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  56:13

Like, go back and laugh at it, but it's like this different context. Whereas now, it would not. And I mean, you know, I didn't watch a lot of friends. But I know Seinfeld for sure. Same thing. And these are not that old. Like Seinfeld. 40 years old.

Preston Meyer  56:30

How old? He is 40 years in the 80s. Did it really start in the 80s? Yeah, I

Katie Dooley  56:34

mean, friends started in 1994. That sounds right. Yeah. So almost Seinfeld's, probably five to 10 years. I

Preston Meyer  56:40

remember it was on the air when I was watching TV as a kid with

Katie Dooley  56:45

my dad all the time, but it's from the 80s. Okay.

Preston Meyer  56:49

Wow, time flies,

Katie Dooley  56:51

like 40 years ago, like, you can look back to the 50s, where like, we didn't have gay people, because they couldn't even we had

Preston Meyer  57:03

the hyperbole. They weren't super visible on every TV program. No.

Katie Dooley  57:08

And we go back to you know, sanatoriums and how we dealt with neurodivergent people and, and then you go back hundreds of years, and what we thought was moral. Versus now, in the Bible, if I'm not mistaken, hasn't changed a lot in?

Preston Meyer  57:27

Well, it depends on who you ask. You've got people who say the Bible was perfect, when it was published in 1611, under the authorization of King James, and no other version of the Bible, in any language is any good. Which I mean, that's a philosophical problem that is completely indefensible. But yeah, the the Bible largely doesn't change a whole lot. But the way people use it absolutely changes from decade to decade, and more rapidly lately than, say, 200 years ago. But yeah. I think it's interesting that the Bible, as when we talk about the parts of it, that include laws and not worry about so much about the testimonies and prophecies and whatnot, the legal codes in the Bible. They're more and more recently being recognized as, oh, yeah, this was an evolving text written by people based on the needs of their nation as time went on, rather than Yeah, God gave it in its perfect entirety. And that's why it never changes. So now people are finding it easier to say, Oh, well, this thing that seems super sketchy and morally kind of problematic, it's easier to recognize that this was the product of the people rather than the God they worshiped.

Katie Dooley  58:56

Now, while we're talking about rules and laws, what are your thoughts on people who say, I need religion to be a good person? It keeps me good.

Preston Meyer  59:08

Those are the people that can't be trusted.

Katie Dooley  59:13

Ran for far and fast.

Preston Meyer  59:15

If so, imagine, I am only moral because I am committed to my faith tradition to my congregation. And something causes me to stop believing that this congregation is worth my time worth the the energy of mind that it becomes a lot easier to shed the morals of that group and do the things that I wanted to do but didn't because of my faith, morality. That's a huge, scary problem.

Katie Dooley  59:48

This actually happened in real life. Absolutely.

Preston Meyer  59:51

It has happened a lot.

Katie Dooley  59:53

There was some metal guy, some metal musician, like fairly famous. I could grab his name If we're so interested, but take a second do it. Okay. Totally worth it. The guy who put a hit on his way after he left Christianity wow all right. So Tim lamb pieces from As I Lay Dying, was a devout Christian. And then I don't I don't know fully what happened to him, but I think he like got into drugs. Like he had some schism in his own personal life, and he left Christianity and that he put a hit out on his wife shouldn't be really nothing mattered. And so he decided to kill his wife with a hitman. He didn't do it himself. Can't keep his hands clean.

Preston Meyer  1:00:44

I guess there's that?

Katie Dooley  1:00:47

Well, so that's why we're on fire and run fast from people who say they need religion. Right?

Preston Meyer  1:00:54

Right. It's scary stuff. The relationship between religion and morality is a weird one. Like we look at, say, St. Teresa of Calcutta. We talked about her a little while ago. And I've I just I couldn't not bring her up again. Now that I know more about her. She's a great example for the question of morality. Either you agree with her religious philosophy that causing sick people to suffer is the thing that makes the world better. Or that tricking people and to religious rights is noble. Or maybe or maybe more interested in the more modern secular morality and believe that Teresa is a monstrous monstrous hypocrite, who deliberately acted deceitfully betraying the trust of those in our care and defrauding a global community of donors. All depends on what your philosophy is. Some still praise her because to them baptizing people is what gets you into heaven. Catholic tradition also states that liars thieves and traders go to hell.

Katie Dooley  1:02:07

Confusing, I'm confused. So

Preston Meyer  1:02:10

the real question is, which has the greater value positive or negative, which which means more to her moral status?

Katie Dooley  1:02:21

In the Catholic Church, it was the money that she brought it,

Preston Meyer  1:02:24

I would say sainted are they seeing the clutter on the fast track to sainthood? Yeah, so that's where the church stands on that.

Katie Dooley  1:02:34

I added this, like literally hours before you showed up. But there is a and again, I don't want to sound like I'm broad stroking anyone. But there was a study done in 2015, with kids across six different countries. And it was a it was a mix of religious and non religious and it was across religions. The their biggest groups were Christian and Muslim. But they had Hindu Sikhs, not enough of the those other ones other than Christian Muslim to get comparisons across anything other than Christian, Muslim and atheist. But it was a diverse sampling. And I pulled a few articles to read. And they're all worded differently. Everything from our they are religious kids are more selfish. They're meaner, or, or non religious kids are more generous. So the experiment is kids were given a sheet of 30 stickers. And they got to pick their favorite 10. And then they were told afterwards, they're like, oh, sorry, there aren't enough stickers to call around. Do you mind giving some of your stickers to the other kids. And statistically nonreligious kids gave about 50% of their stickers away. And religious kids only give about 40% of their stickers way. So that keep more for themselves. And again, I thought all everything from meaner to selfish to whatever. But it was pretty standard. And as kids got older, their let's say their generosity level became more pronounced. So as religious kids got older, they gave away fewer. And as as atheist kids, they give away more. So that's

Preston Meyer  1:04:25

interesting. Yeah. And it's that same sort of behavior is absolutely visible in, in politics here in North America. People like to talk a lot about the religious right, because most conservative conservatives identify that way because of their religious associations. And yet, nobody talks about the religious left where people like to save the Democrats are godless people, and the Liberals here artistically

Katie Dooley  1:04:56

impossible in the United States. because there's, I mean, just in the last election, it was pretty close to 5050. And more than 50% of America is religious. So some but some Democrats are not godless one

Preston Meyer  1:05:11

awful lot of people lean left because of their faith. What's interesting is that the godless liberals certainly outnumber vastly, of a godless conservatives, which tells you a little bit about morality and the need to take care of your neighbors.

Katie Dooley  1:05:32

One theory from this study is that, you know, religious people put in their time they They filled their moral cup on Sunday or Thursday or Friday. So they don't need to be the rest of Kenny to be as generous outside of that. It's also researchers are also also conclude that non religious kids make decisions more from reason and logic. Whereas religious kids go back to that absolute moralism of black and white decision making laws and codes and doctrine.

Preston Meyer  1:06:08

It's frustrating how tribal humanity is, even in this age of globalization, we still look at tribes. And if you're a church, going person, whatever your faith tradition is, if you're meeting with your community, your faith community on a regular basis, you're going to look at them as your tribe that they get your your charity. And everybody outside. Maybe they've got some but not nearly as much.

Katie Dooley  1:06:40

Yeah, huge. I don't I guess it's not a problem. If you're religious, there's a moral question. But it's potentially a huge problem. I'm just getting within your own community, right.

Preston Meyer  1:06:52

And for those people who don't have a faith community that they attend on a weekly basis, they're a lot more likely to see the larger civic community as their that group that needs their attention and their help. And it's worthy of giving. It's weird to watch.

Katie Dooley  1:07:11

While there are so many examples of it. I don't want to get too political. But there's a lot happening in the world right now that are good examples of that. Absolutely. I, you know, I think about the Indigenous kids, we've been finding across Canada. And I've talked to a few people, and they're just like shocked and appalled, which is, is great. I mean, that should be your response. But like, I'm not shocked. I'm sad, right? But I but we knew about it, right? And it's just an part of me is like you just haven't been listening for the years and years and years that our First Nations have said, this was horrible. I

Preston Meyer  1:07:52

have family who still denies that our nation has been hurting the First Nations people. Right. And

Katie Dooley  1:07:59

this is where and I don't I don't want to sound all you know, high and mighty. But this is, you know, we we've been told for years, we have a good friend of ours who you know, she's said don't celebrate candidate, I don't celebrate candidate, don't celebrate candidate. And now this is the year that everyone's like, we're not celebrating Canada. And I'm like, Yeah, this is like, I mean, it's still late for us as as white settlers. But we've, you know, kind of laid though for the last three or four years for Canada Day.

Preston Meyer  1:08:30

immigration status is an interesting thing. So for more Elson, well, even just is more simple than morally speaking. Like loads of people just like to say all white people are settlers. I mean, if I go back to Saskatchewan, I'm not a settler. My family bought the land that they live on. And I was born there. I am a native Saskatchewan, right. However, where I am now, bam, all over all over again. I'm a settler.

Katie Dooley  1:09:03

I mean, your white washing history.

Preston Meyer  1:09:07

I don't think white washing is the right word for it. But it's definitely a view that a lot of people are way more committed to saying I deserve to be here. Because I said so. And I mean, as a people, the white people came in and destroyed people's lives and livelihoods, their homes, their families, and that's super screwed up. And the morality behind downplaying it and not fixing the system that's caused all this damage. hugely problematic. Yes.

Katie Dooley  1:09:45

Any final thoughts? Or at the end of our notes? Yeah, I'm hot for Oh.

Preston Meyer  1:09:52

I think the big thesis that that I threw together at the end of our notes is it's a good solid way to finish this off. religious piety and zeal are not reliable predictors for ethical behavior. Way too many religious people are absolutely awful way too many atheists are actually good neighbors who take care of each other and aren't bad people.

Katie Dooley  1:10:20

Yes, religion

Preston Meyer  1:10:21

and ethics and morality? Sure, you can argue for a long time that they have gone together in the development of human culture. But somebody going to church every week or every day when that's an option, doesn't mean they're going to behave ethically or morally. Oh, at least not in a way that. Okay. Like we say to them, I'm sure that they think they're acting ethically or morally. If you were to ask them, they would say so. That doesn't mean they're acting according to the ethics of our community.

Katie Dooley  1:10:59

Not following Kohlberg. Model of moral development. Yeah,

Preston Meyer  1:11:04

that sixth stage of What if everybody did this all the time, really should help you navigate morality? It's solid rule. And it's, I like his wording. Like, it's basically the golden rule, but the way he words it is

Katie Dooley  1:11:21

reflective. Yeah, you're asking yourself a question. Yeah.

Preston Meyer  1:11:25

And it's important to be able to think about it to come up with an answer. And the way he adds all the time is actually really helpful.

Katie Dooley  1:11:35

Right? Because you might, you might go, oh, what's what's me stealing a candy bar from the convenience store? But if that happened to the store owner, all the time, right, it's the it's the idea of the few records for the many. Yeah, we've all been affected by a shitty store, or business policy, because the few have, right. I mean, I updated my business policies policies a couple of weeks ago, because I had a shitty customer. And if that happened all the time, I wouldn't be out of business. Yeah, so I agree. I think that's a good way to, you know, every customer that came into that convenience store stole a bar candy. I mean, potentially could have huge ripple effects. The the convenience store would go out of business. But if Aptera convenience store, Nestle would go out of business, which would be okay. They just seem more ethical chocolate practices.

Preston Meyer  1:12:28

It's not just their chocolate. They've got many ethical issues.

Katie Dooley  1:12:33

Hershey's dairy milk is Hershey's is dairy milk, Hershey's. I don't know, let's take an ethical chocolate brand. Fill in your ethical chocolate brand.

Preston Meyer  1:12:43

I like that people are paying more attention to ethical business practices than they have been in the past. Absolutely.

Katie Dooley  1:12:50

I think we're about to see a big change.

Preston Meyer  1:12:53

I think you're right. I hope you're right.

Katie Dooley  1:12:55

I think I don't, this might not go on the episode. But I think think the problem is that you can't you can't emotionally care about too many things. Like I'm not saying don't worry about anything. That's everything. You're right. It'd be Iraq. Right. And I mean, again, we I mean, just go on Instagram, and between Israel, Palestine and our first nations like, again, I'm not saying don't care, but it's hard to care about ever. You can't care about everything. Pick two or three and go hard on those. And if everyone pick two or three things that they really care about, we change the planet.

Preston Meyer  1:13:34

Yeah. And well, okay, I want to add a caveat to that, that's. Pick a few things you really care about. And also, don't just ignore the people who care about other things that you can recognize as important even if you're not just going to if you're not going to join the fight. That doesn't mean you shouldn't acknowledge that there is the worry is worth it. Cool.

Katie Dooley  1:14:01

If you disagree with us, or agree with us? This is a great episode to jump on to our Discord link is in the show notes. We'd love to hear your thoughts on morality and what you think is moral and where you get your, your morality from.

Preston Meyer  1:14:19

And if you've liked listening to us and want to help us keep this show alive into the years of the future, help support us on Patreon. Peace be with you.

A lot of people spent a lot of time getting prayer removed from the public school system. Now it seems getting religion back in schools is a hot topic. Katie and Preston chat about the benefits of having comparative religion in the classroom.

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*****

Katie Dooley  00:00

A traditional Jewish atheist. Hi, Katie. Hi, Preston. How are you doing? Ready for this episode?

Preston Meyer  00:17

Right? This is going to be a little contentious?

Katie Dooley  00:20

I think so we're

Preston Meyer  00:21

not between us. But our our parishioners might feel like they can disagree with us a lot more than they have in the past.

Katie Dooley  00:29

Well, that's what we want, isn't it?

Preston Meyer  00:31

So if we can start a conversation, that's great.

Katie Dooley  00:34

This is very much a op ed, as I called it, an hour or so ago of an episode. We're gonna talk about whether religion shouldn't be in schools. Welcome

Preston Meyer  00:49

to the holy watermelon podcast was pretty good thing. I like that. Having religion in schools is a tricky thing. And it's, it's different than teaching about religion in schools, that's for sure.

Katie Dooley  01:07

Yes. And that's sort of what we have to be very clear about and I saw one I guess position that said religion should be taught in schools but faith should not be taught in schools and I like that's a pretty good for I think our Preston, I agree. So yeah, if you disagree with drop us a line on Discord, but I think that's a pretty good summary of of our opinion on is that religion absolutely should be taught in schools, and we'll run through it both Preston I think that should look like, but you can't teach faith rightly for.

Preston Meyer  01:43

In America, there's a release. Well, it's not really strict, but it's strict. There's there's laws in the Constitution and the First Amendment to the national constitution, preventing favoritism to any religion. But we don't really have those same privileges in Canada in the same format,

Katie Dooley  02:03

which it's funny because they be all and this obviously, I've never been to school in America. This is all just from observation. I feel like we're less likely to break those rules. Not that we don't don't get me wrong, but just from I've been on our Discord even posting some articles and news articles that have come up out of the states.

Preston Meyer  02:25

We've had some pretty good discussions on Discord.

Katie Dooley  02:27

But where religion creeps back into schools where people want to bring him back, or what have you. And you don't get those same news articles here as well, not

Preston Meyer  02:38

so much. No, again, I'm

Katie Dooley  02:40

not saying it doesn't happen. And we're in actually an interesting situation as being in Alberta where they wanted to add religion to the curriculum, and it was terrible, or they're doing it terribly. But we'll get into all that. Yeah. Too much until we have a foundation.

Preston Meyer  02:57

The devil is in the details there. That's for sure. Devil I get it. What I think is really interesting is even in America, where there is a strict disestablishment preventing favoritism of any religion in any government, body or branch or employee thing like the schools, yeah, it's meant for public service. It's not meant to favor any religion. But that tends to not work out so great. Of course, there used to be 10 of the original colonies, actually did have state religions before they did this disestablishment nonsense. And it's interesting that there still is favoritism for religions. Obviously, most of the nation, the United States, is very interested in preserving a Christian identity, especially at starting with the height of the Cold War. There, they started adding more overtly Christian ideas into government related things. In 1954, they added one nation under God to the Pledge of Allegiance they have In God We Trust on their money. And that has nothing to do with the the need to be specifically Christian. But it's also super obvious if you look around studying religious traditions. Christians are the only ones who pretend God is actually the Divine Name and of course all of that had way more to do with fighting the godless communists

Katie Dooley  04:44

well and even just regular religious discrimination throughout the states and yeah and Canada's Well, we I mean, we don't have in God we trust on our money. We got Liz on our money,

Preston Meyer  04:54

we actually do have a little parallel to In God We Trust on Canadian money on Most of our coinage, you'll see D G, Regina, on on our coins, not so much on our bills. And that stands for de Gracia. Regina, by the grace of God our queen. Yeah. And so they'll show me

Katie Dooley  05:16

I guess I mean, I even if you extrapolate we have lives on our money. Well she's the head of the Anglican Church. So

Preston Meyer  05:22

Right. So while we don't have an established state religion like many nations do we still have God on our money here with a religious figurehead on the coin

Katie Dooley  05:35

Interesting. Yeah, I guess I've never thought of it just. I've personified clearly I call her Liz, Elizabeth. I'm her buddy, that I don't even, you know, it's easy to forget that you're right. She is a religious figurehead.

Preston Meyer  05:58

Learning new things all the time.

Katie Dooley  05:59

So how do I do this? Do we want to go through some of the debate points and then talk about how we would see religious studies in schools? If you were talking points.

Preston Meyer  06:08

You want to Yeah, I want to start with a thing that I've mentioned before. And I want to I want to explain it one more time for odd for our audience. And I've had to explain it for my family on more than one occasion. When I started university, I said I'm going in for religious studies. And everyone's like, Well, are you going to start a church or something along those lines?

Katie Dooley  06:30

I just need to jump in. Because I did. I didn't do nearly as much religious studies as Preston. But I took religious studies in school and everyone went but you're an atheist? Continue,

Preston Meyer  06:41

and they don't understand the appeal. Yeah. So there's the, the, the field of Religious Studies is, it's an anthropological sociological field. It's just hyper specific sociology, right? It's the study of real of behaviors, and beliefs that religious people are seeing involved with. And that's wildly different from theology, which I also did study in university. But so theology is the study of God or gods, or the supernatural even is, broadly speaking, sometimes kind of fits in there. Sometimes

Katie Dooley  07:26

it's very, is it fair to say it's very much a doctrinal study.

Preston Meyer  07:33

I've gotten after people for the misuse of the word doctrine. If anything is ever taught by anybody, it is doctrine. But its theology is definitely hyper focused on the doctrines of a faith.

Katie Dooley  07:52

And I guess it comes from a place of belief, not that I put you take a theology class, but it wouldn't make sense for me to go to a theological college, right? Pastor, right?

Preston Meyer  08:03

I don't believe that, right? Whereas Religious Studies is studying people and groups of people and the things that they do that may or may not be because of the theology they subscribe to.

Katie Dooley  08:17

So so this is a religious studies podcast.

Preston Meyer  08:21

Yeah, I occasionally, I'll get a little theological, but we're sticking mostly to religious studies, studies of people and the things that they do, because of their beliefs.

Katie Dooley  08:34

I mean, clearly, whereby we both think religious studies should be taught in school. Yeah, that's what we're gonna go into some of these debating points that we found online. And we'll talk about both sides. But so you'll get our bias in this for sure. I'm not gonna pretend like we're not in favor of it.

Preston Meyer  08:54

Yeah, as somebody who's, you know, actively engaged in teaching our congregants about religious studies. The The only argument that I could think of that sounded like it made any sense was, if everybody learns about religions in school, and it's mandatory, then they won't have use for the Holy watermelon. But I feel like most people don't pay attention to everything they're supposed to be learning in school anyway. So there's still a need for

Katie Dooley  09:30

on school topics. Right? How much fun would it be to study for school by listening to the podcast, right? I mean, I listen to a learning Portuguese podcast and you can take Portuguese in schools. Yeah. It's great.

Preston Meyer  09:47

So I actually I did have to go looking for things that people would actually want to complain about this idea of teaching religious studies in school for because I from my my own thoughts. I couldn't think of anything that didn't sound like a straw man that was just useless and stupid talking heads nonsense. But we found, we found some ideas.

Katie Dooley  10:14

I say, Should we pull up the negative side? Yeah, let's,

Preston Meyer  10:16

let's bring up those that I found two arguments against that don't sound awful. But I don't love them either. So one of the things that sounds like it's not crazy nonsense, is the argument that the appearance of state sponsorship or establishment of those religions, is really a turn off. That is somebody who's going to be teaching about Islam and Christianity and Judaism and schools, and those are going to look like they're favored. And a lot of others are going to be glossed over. Because realistically speaking, there's so many different religious traditions, you're not going to learn about all of them at any one year of social studies.

Katie Dooley  11:06

No, but and this is where we'll get into how I think, a good religious study in the public school system model? Well, look, I just feel like my big counterpoint that I'm gonna bring up frequently, is, I guess, you know, Religious Studies is so vast, but And again, I can only speak from a Canadian school system perspective. But you know, we, off the top of my head throughout my 12 years of public school we did Greece, we did China, we did Japan, we did Russia.

Preston Meyer  11:37

And how often did you talk about the influence of religion on those nations?

Katie Dooley  11:41

We didn't talk about them at all. But like, you could argue, well, there's 200 countries in the world, and you've only picked four, right? And especially now, I mean, curriculums don't change often, which is unfortunate. But in thinking about diversity, right? Like, nobody in North America learns anything about Africa. That's true, right? And Ethiopia was one of the like, founding world nations like right up there with the Ottoman Empire. And we don't learn anything about it. Right. So why did we pick? Why don't we pick Ethiopia? Why don't we pick? Obviously, we learn about Germany because of World War One and two, you know, why don't we learn about Australia as a strange little island colony? Why don't we learn about Central America or South America? Like, you can argue that for a lot of topics? So just to say, Well, you can't do them all? Well, yeah, no, you can't. We can't go over every war in 12 years of public school and younger grades, it's inappropriate to go over some of the wars. Absolutely. I think that's just a cop out. Yeah. Because school is meant to get you learning how to learn. And just interest and I will say interest exposed to enough topics that you can make a somewhat, and I still don't think even it's that great, but a somewhat informed decision on what you want to do after school. So including religious studies in that I think is beneficial,

Preston Meyer  13:11

took me ages to decide I was going to go to university for religious studies after I finished high school.

Katie Dooley  13:16

And I think I like I wish it was included. Pressing, you can speak to this, I don't think there are a lot of religious studies jobs,

Preston Meyer  13:26

no, not a lot.

Katie Dooley  13:28

Not until you get your doctor and become a scholar, or start working in the theological position. So to be able to pursue and that's I mean, not to get all sentimental, but why I'm excited about Holy watermelons that I can actually pursue something that I'm interested in, because I did I mean, if I, I switched post secondary schools, I'm not going to get into my history, but I would have undergrad did undergrad minored I would have minored in religious studies, if I could. Anyway, I felt like I feel like that was a big digression. I'm so sorry.

Preston Meyer  14:05

Another complaint that people have an argument against teaching religion, or religious ideas in school, is the perception that there's a need to conform for fear of exclusion, that a lot of kids are going to feel pressure. And if you pay attention to kids on the school ground, that's happening without religious education,

Katie Dooley  14:32

I think. I mean, again, I I disagree with that point. Because you're right, the exclusion is already happening. And now people don't understand why. Exactly. So I think of two examples in particular. And this is partially where I grew up, but Muslims and Christmas concerts as a kid now they call them winter concerts, which is better, but the Muslim kids would always sit out and nobody really understood why because we We were 10. And we had no concept of it and, and even me, you know, not believing in a Christian God, whatever, like I still, we still celebrate Christmas and Santa came and Santa still shows up with presents. So it wasn't so exclusive story for me, but nobody understood why these handful of teachers obviously did, but the other kids didn't. And then even older social dance, the dreaded social dance, in high school, where you learn like, to waltz and to step and same thing the Muslim kids sit out because you're not supposed to, and they religion touch people of the opposite gender. And I mean, I had a better grasp, obviously, by high school, but you know, just in feedback and doing this podcast, not everybody does understand why that it's a different religion. And this is our belief. So they're being excluded. And no one knows why. Which I think is worse than having that conversation about what they believe. And finding other better or different ways to include them, then, as has the school or the teacher or the authority thinker. There's other ways, when you would dress, why they're separate. Now you can find ways to include them instead of just being like, Oh, we don't talk about it. Right? I think is the, the better solution.

Preston Meyer  16:30

Yeah. And it's, it's not like these kids aren't learning about different faith ideas. at young ages, they're exposed to Sunday school, as soon as the parents send them off, usually at a pretty young age, or the equivalent of Sunday school, depending on what your group is. There's theological education for children. So the idea of them being exposed to these are some of the other ideas that some of your peers have, shouldn't be that hard for them to grasp.

Katie Dooley  17:01

And I mean, I remember as early as elementary, Christian friends inviting me to Sunday school, like already starting to evangelize. Right? Which impressive and a little concerning. But, you know, I remember having conversations about God. As early as I'd probably say eat, and I didn't grow up in a religious household. So it was coming from friends. One of my best friends growing up was a pastor's kid. Which I talked about, extensively in this discord. About the first time I learned about the crucifixion, I didn't sleep for an entire night. But, you know, we worry. We worry about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but kids are also

Preston Meyer  17:47

getting, there's all kinds of peer pressure,

Katie Dooley  17:51

and information. So again, to not have teachers come out with facts or parents to be concerned to not have those conversations with kids. And, like, I was so lucky. Like, my dad, is the reason I'm even into this and doing the podcast, right? Because we would just always have those conversations. And then I was a lot of it when 911 happened. So you know, yeah, to hide kids from this doesn't make any sense because it's happening constantly.

Preston Meyer  18:20

It's the first complaint that did actually come to my mind as a complaint that sounds like just it can't possibly be a legitimate concern, but it straight up is a primary concern for a lot of people. And I don't feel it, but I recognize it. Is that the concern of if you expose these kids to these to the faiths other than their own, they'll just stop believing what we're teaching them at home and if that so if that's gonna happen that's gonna happen. Yeah. And is that really the worst thing

Katie Dooley  19:06

and this comes back to I don't know how often I've talked about my ice cream analogy I think I've talked about mice criminology once on the podcast and this is where I get really excited about religious studies is that I asked you Preston what your I mean presses doesn't count because I asked Preston what his favorite ice cream flavor is, and he says chocolate and I go well what about straw and goes well, I've never tried it. So well how do you know chocolates? Your favorite if you've never tried strawberry?

Preston Meyer  19:36

Black Cherry all the way.

Katie Dooley  19:38

But like, have you tried other flavors? And so that's always been I feel like pet peeve is almost too strong. Because it's like as a parent it's what you believe is written right for your family. But I don't think you know if you want to compare with political spectrums, you go well, what do you think capitalism is the best we'll do you know? About other, or North Korea, would you like the sounds of democracy? All you don't even know what democracy is? You can't make an informed decision. And religious religion period affects so much of how you live your life and make your decisions that I think it's unfair to not have some exposure to other religions. And if you're worried your kids are going to convert, then maybe your beliefs aren't that good. Mic drop. I'm not dropping the mic, Brian, it's fine. Still? Like drop?

Preston Meyer  20:40

Yeah, it's we talked about the nature of belief before. And if you believe a thing, then hearing where other people are coming from isn't going to mess with that. And if you don't believe a thing, then maybe you'll hear something that does resonate. Yeah.

Katie Dooley  21:01

Why struggle with your belief when there might be something that solves the right to have some sort of existential crisis because your religion doesn't fit? And there's hundreds to pick from that, right? Don't waste your time, your life's too short for that.

Preston Meyer  21:18

Right? mentioned being a parent to a kid that just doesn't believe what you're trying to force them on force onto them for years and years. And that's why they're a crappy kid. And then somehow, they get exposed to a thing that they can latch on to that does make them not a crappy kid.

Katie Dooley  21:37

Well, I mean, we're going to talk about religious trauma. i That's essentially, you know,

Preston Meyer  21:44

so there, there can be some serious advantages to teaching about what religions believe, and what they do because of their beliefs in school.

Katie Dooley  21:54

And again, this is not a faith based education. So Muslims don't eat pork. They pray to the Abrahamic God. Ma, Muhammad was the prophet. Like, that's what they're teaching not you need to pray five times a day in this fashion, right. That's why religious studies

Preston Meyer  22:17

and these kids are already in diverse communities in most cases, that I've, I've been to small towns where they're still diversity of religion.

Katie Dooley  22:29

If they're not in diverse communities, they need it even more.

Preston Meyer  22:32

Absolutely. Because they're gonna leave their town at some point and NBN they'll be in for a serious shock.

Katie Dooley  22:39

Or, I mean, again, just spend 15 minutes on Facebook, right? Again, I don't I mentioned this, I think in our Islam episode, where someone said, Well, I disagree with I don't know what Islam is, but I disagree with it. It's like that's, that's not a fair position.

Preston Meyer  22:57

That's ignorant by any definition.

Katie Dooley  23:00

You might not disagree with it. And again, this comes back to my very silly ice cream analogy, but you might not dislike it. You've just never tried it. Right. Like Kadian sushi for far too long in my life. Which role fish? Why would I eat that? Not eating raw fish. And now I regret the first 18 years of my life.

Preston Meyer  23:25

Those are strong words.

Katie Dooley  23:28

Have you eaten sushi?

Preston Meyer  23:30

Yeah, I've had some great sushi. I've had some bad sushi. There's loads of space where you can go wrong with sushi, but there's some great sushi out there. Being exposed to ideas that are not part of your own religious tradition, are also really helpful for challenging misconceptions and prejudices, and straight up reduce ignorance. These are huge important things with everybody wants their kids to be good neighbors. And then so many people fight the idea that they should learn anything about their neighbor. It's I just don't get it.

Katie Dooley  24:22

Well, and it's, I remember someone saying years ago, it's so much it's it's hard to hate someone whose story you know,

Preston Meyer  24:29

right? I like that. Right? What

Katie Dooley  24:32

a that's a good phrase, powerful statement. And Right, that's exactly what this is. And anytime. I mean, being in North America, Muslims get a lot of flack

Preston Meyer  24:44

from ignorant people. Absolutely. And that's

Katie Dooley  24:46

why I'm saying like you just ask them for a recipe. Hope you're in.

Preston Meyer  24:52

It's amazing the friendships you can make over food

Katie Dooley  24:58

and Every Muslim person I've met is so hospitable. We'll give you that recipe and learn some great stuff along the way.

Preston Meyer  25:12

I have some regrets. I've got a friend of mine. I haven't seen a lot of him lately, of course, because yay world events. But super cool guy. He's a professional chef. Yeah, he's done some cooking in some fantastic places, places I just hope to travel to someday at another time, but he's he's asked me for recipes, because of my studies, is specifically looking for old, old, old timey homestyle cooking recipes from the Middle East. Now, this gentleman is ethnically from the Middle East. But he's asking me to help him in his research. And super cool, builds our friendship a little bit. I still haven't found anything that he doesn't already know. But it's pretty cool way to build a relationship.

Katie Dooley  26:11

One of the other, it's actually funny, there's two to four arguments that I found that I actually kind of disagree with. Sure. One is that it's a positive topic.

Preston Meyer  26:25

It's tricky, that's for sure.

Katie Dooley  26:27

And then, and we didn't find the rebuttal on that being a negative topic. And then the other one said, it teaches ethical values. Oh, I'll start with positive topic. So again, this was a for teaching religious studies in school. So when I'd argue that it's not a particularly positive topic, and then B, I'd say why does it matter? Because we learn about a whole bunch of horrible stuff in school. So that's where I'd started. Honestly, it doesn't matter if it's positive topic or not. Because you learn about World War Two, you learn about the Russian Revolution, French Revolution. I mean, obviously, this some of this is geographical if you're American, you learn about the Civil War. Revolutionary warn you that a whole bunch of terrible stuff. Vietnam, we learned about this is all social studies math, horrible. But I mean, you know, we read Death of a Salesman and Hamlet and Macbeth and just

Preston Meyer  27:21

To Kill a Mockingbird.

Katie Dooley  27:25

I mean, it kind of ends happy,

Preston Meyer  27:27

but it makes people uncomfortable. That's true, which is the point of the book. And there's a good reason that every 15 year old kid should have read this book,

Katie Dooley  27:35

literally just read it for the first time in my life, like maybe two months ago, really loved it. It was great.

Preston Meyer  27:41

It was part of my grade 10 curriculum. I think it might have been grade nine, but I think it was 10. And, I mean, I liked the book. It there's there's parts of it that are hard to read, and hard to accept as a 15 year old kid, but it's also really important lessons.

Katie Dooley  28:01

Absolutely. So that's why I say this, even as an argument isn't really agreed argument. And then. So the positivity aspect is that we've covered a lot of horrible stuff in religion, period. So every religion has a sullied past. Yeah, their religious books say not great things, any of them. And, yeah, there's usually a lot of murder.

Preston Meyer  28:31

Yeah, you're coming up in your readings to up great murder with a railroad spike. Oh, exciting.

Katie Dooley  28:35

Well, and I just I finished Deuteronomy, so you have to marry your rapist. Okay, you

Preston Meyer  28:41

don't have to marry your rapist, I strongly recommend it. So I do want to dive into this a little bit and it fits into religious education. But part so there's a lot of laws in the in the Torah are ours, the Hebrew Bible, and that they're not all old laws. By this point, they're old. But they're not all taught by Moses laws. A lot of the material is newer developments as a legal code need to develop as the

Katie Dooley  29:14

nation. Oh, absolutely. You can tell that. Yeah, they're more modern air quotes last for the time. Yeah, absolutely.

Preston Meyer  29:21

But the specific bit about marry your rapist. A lot of people quote this as the worst possible thing for phantom feminism. And it's not meant to be an every case sort of thing. It's an issue of there was a cultural problem among these people where you didn't want to marry somebody who wasn't a virgin. Right? Yeah. And so. Yeah. And so, a woman who is raped would have the option to force her rapist to marry her, so that he would be forced to support her that It would certainly not cohabitate in most situations. It's a punishment for the rapist, not the victim. And she can ask for a bill of divorce if she were to find somebody who was okay with not marrying a virgin later on. Good. Happy. I mean, we're talking about a theoretical person here, but it was definitely some real people in history to

Katie Dooley  30:29

anyway, whether it's positive or not as part of this conversation. I think the education still does happen. Absolutely. And then the point on teachers ethical values. Well, fun fact, that's a whole episode. That's coming in two weeks.

Preston Meyer  30:46

Yeah, that's, that's a really loaded full of baggage set of words there.

Katie Dooley  30:55

I think. If they mean, in the terms that you said, and other points is that it makes you more understanding person. It helps get rid of prejudices. And that's ethical. Cool, but to say that the religions themselves have ethical values you need to learn within

Preston Meyer  31:16

them, then you've started teaching radiology, pretty

Katie Dooley  31:21

money, because a little bit. Again, no holy book is purely good. Right? There's a lot of garbage. And I mean, garbage Jessen, not nice things.

Preston Meyer  31:35

I was talking to somebody a little while ago, who genuinely believed that the story of lat and his daughters was meant to be a story of role model, that you're supposed to look up to him and, and behave like this.

Katie Dooley  31:51

I mean, lot didn't do anything.

Preston Meyer  31:54

Well, he had sex with his daughters, they know they raped him, they raped him while he was drunk. victim blame what? That whole story. This guy believed that this was meant to be a role model story, which, I mean, there's a lot of terrible things in the Bible. Not all of them are role models story.

Katie Dooley  32:18

Yeah, so if it's, you know, the Golden Rule, which again, shows up in any in most religious books in some wording or another cool, but to say that, yeah, it's it starts to muddy with what a what is morals and ethics? Hmm. and stuff. And then you can get into that gray area of theology, as well. I think there's probably some really good conversations and debates students can have about some of the content. But to say, here's this passage, and it's ethical, would be a bad teacher. I think you could have a debate and say, Do you think this statement is ethical and divide the room, but I don't think a teacher pulling some scripture or doctrine and saying this is ethical. I don't think that's ethical.

Preston Meyer  33:12

I like it things are such a heavy topic that we've selected for this week. But religion is always in the classroom, until you have a classroom where nobody believes in any gods or any supernatural power. Religion is in the classroom. Because it's part of your identity, if it's something that you believe, which means it's going to come up in discussion, somebody's going to have questions. And realistically, among teenagers, there's definitely plenty of prejudice. And teachers are going to have to address that well. And

Katie Dooley  33:50

I'm even thinking I remember one social science class I had with the most awesome teacher, she was awesome. And she was it was political points. You know, it was should the the one I remember in particular, was should gay marriage be legal? Because it wasn't Yeah,

Preston Meyer  34:15

that's a whole discussion. First classroom issue is

Katie Dooley  34:19

shoes. My Word of the Week is bitch, and she was a bit she, and I remember because, for me, I absolutely think it should be legal. And I was so worried because I will

Preston Meyer  34:33

just say that one more time and enunciate very carefully.

Katie Dooley  34:36

I absolutely think it should be legal. Okay. Why didn't you

Preston Meyer  34:40

I just felt like your your words were a little soft.

Katie Dooley  34:44

I absolutely think it was should be legal. And I remember I was so massive and 17 I was like, Oh man, I just was so worried that the whole class she actually made us physically get up and move. Yes, yes or no?

Preston Meyer  34:59

Oh, split them.

Katie Dooley  35:00

I'm physically Yeah. And I was like, so scared that I was be the only one on the yes side. I was like, No, I need to be on the yes side. And there was in a class of 30, there was only three people on the no side. And two of the three were definitely devoutly religious. Of course, I don't. And then one honestly, I think was just toxic masculinity. If I, I honestly don't remember any of the other questions, and the room split more evenly besides that question, but Right, that's a political question. With religious in the fluids like, that's what, that's the reason two thirds of the the nose were on the no side. So to say, you know, it's not in the classroom is impossible. And then in, you know, bigger scale, adult scale, it affects your day to day life. And that's political decision making, and how can you live in a secular society? And, you know, fair enough, you can't? I understand that. As a believer, it would be hard to be like, what's best for everyone? For some people? So absolutely. Your religious beliefs ended up in your political voting, which affects everyone. So to have an outside perspective to go, No, I don't believe in abortion. But why do other people believe in or

Preston Meyer  36:35

I shouldn't say I love that word.

Katie Dooley  36:38

I don't support abortion.

Preston Meyer  36:41

Those are two very different.

Katie Dooley  36:44

I don't support abortion. But why might I want to, you know, give that access to someone else.

Preston Meyer  36:55

Which, like, that's an awful lot of people voted for Trump, or literally any Republican candidate in any jurisdiction, or even just conservative leaning whatever the title is, because they don't think that abortion should be legal, but specifically super visible in American politics. A lot of people hate anybody who identifies or announces that they vote in the liberal direction. Because they see them as nothing more than child murderers, which is terribly ignorant.

Katie Dooley  37:36

Yeah, so even even that is where I would say having a religious education is important to realize that not everyone's religious, and then some of the stuff and this was covered on another podcast, behind the bastards covered it. But fabulous podcast, check it out, if I remember to put a link in the description to the episode. But the anti abortion movement

Preston Meyer  38:04

wasn't always there. No, it's kind of a new thing. It's like from the 50s. There's nothing in the Bible that explicitly specifically forbids abortion.

Katie Dooley  38:15

And it comes in I should, if, if you're listening to this, and I haven't put in the show notes, send me a message. But it's rooted in racism is women couldn't segregate? They shut down. abortions, because if you're a single black woman, with a child, you now can't afford upward mobility. So when you couldn't separate them from your, your public life, you could

Preston Meyer  38:49

stratify them more economically.

Katie Dooley  38:51

So that's where modern day anti abortion laws even come from. So to know that, to be taught in a history class, alongside religious studies, I think is important in the world we're heading into.

Preston Meyer  39:06

Absolutely. People do terrible things to each other all the time, our history is full of it. And an awful lot of that list of horrible things, is religiously motivated. Leaving religion out of social studies doesn't make any sense to me.

Katie Dooley  39:24

Well, and then the interesting is, and we've had this conversation before, is things are, on the surface, religiously motivated, and I've had this conversation where

Preston Meyer  39:35

that's how they defend it to themselves.

Katie Dooley  39:38

Because right, what was it that I read? I forget, it's called like, Is religion evil or religion bad? very literal title. And it was it was defending religion. So it was actually quite contrary to my personal beliefs. And and I said, but I still think religion is bad because it exacerbates what's existing and view and I rant I don't If you remember this conversation, you and I ran through a whole bunch of world events that was like, Well, this was made worse by religion you're like, but here's the political socio economic stuff behind it. And while I don't disagree with you, I still think religion exacerbates it. But again, to have to be able to unmask that right to be able to look at a situation like Northern Ireland, Catholics versus Protestants and a to go, these are basically the same religion.

Preston Meyer  40:32

Pretty close. And then be

Katie Dooley  40:35

so we look at it as a religious war, but it's actually a socio economic conflict that started in the 1600s,

Preston Meyer  40:43

but just happens to have an official religious line that divides down.

Katie Dooley  40:48

So what if you brought religious studies into Irish schools to talk about the actual difference between Catholic and Protestant and no, that's not a Catholic and Protestant issue, it's a To Have and Have Not issue. And you're, and you're mad at the wrong person, you've been mad at the wrong person for 400 years, right? Which the length of time becomes a problem and

Preston Meyer  41:13

important. We see

Katie Dooley  41:15

the same thing in Israel and Palestine right now. It is absolutely a religious conflict. But yeah, absolutely started with a socio economic, we gave away your land, and we shouldn't have.

Preston Meyer  41:32

But now we're so many generations down the line, that there's serious, strong feelings on both sides instead of one.

Katie Dooley  41:41

Absolutely. And understanding why it's being funded by the American government is.

Preston Meyer  41:49

Yeah, the allied forces of the First World War have put an awful lot of energy and money into destabilizing the Middle East. And it's it's not about religion at all. It's about we had this empire that we fought in the First World War and we need to keep them from unifying,

Katie Dooley  42:07

though there is a un I don't know how big it is, I should look it up. There is a group of evangelical Christians that want Israel to come about because they think it'll bring the second time Absolutely. And that's a huge like, they are a huge fan, and you can go on like, on your site, you can go and really weird of angelical tours of Israel. That's like, this is where Jesus is gonna show up. But yeah, there's like a huge funding of Israel, because they, some people think it's gonna bring about the Second Coming. So again, here's a huge ly impactful religious conversation we need to be having, because it's hurting a lot of people and people don't want to have the religious conversation. Because they're scared they're gonna offend someone and then you can't have the socio economic conversation or whatever fact political ethical, political, economic, all the Yos. conversation around it, because

Preston Meyer  43:05

because it's touchy, people's feelings get hurt. riled up, right. Anything that fires off that little amygdala in the back of your head is makes for a hard conversation. And some people respond very poorly to that thing firing off, and others not so much. I'm not

Katie Dooley  43:25

a great debater. Like someone give me angry, and I forget everything that I know. That's frustrating. I know this is wrong. And that's all my brain goes is that's all it says. And it makes me really mad. Because, like everything I have in my arsenal just goes away. And I just get mad. Your brain I get. No, I get mad because I can't explain why. Why I'm right.

Preston Meyer  43:50

Your brains too busy being offended,

Katie Dooley  43:52

I guess, to practice?

Preston Meyer  43:57

What else have we got here on our list?

Katie Dooley  43:58

I mean, I want to touch on what I actually think. Religious Studies curriculum. Yeah, look like but I don't know if there's any other debate points, you want to know. Go for it. Cool. So I wanted to talk about what I think a comprehensive Religious Studies curriculum could look like. And jump in if you have any thoughts for sure. Again, this is from a Canadian education perspective. So I'm, I apologize for American listeners. But in Canada, we have a class called Social Studies, you take it grades one through 12. And it covers history, economics, politics. Yeah, it covers those things. And you do a little bit more every year. And I think the US divides history, but I'm sure they teach social

Preston Meyer  44:44

studies when I was in high school we split social studies into geography and history we come and then I did both things and not everybody did.

Katie Dooley  44:54

Yeah, so the we just do different units. Like I said earlier in the episode, you know, one you didn't is China and you maybe do that for two or three months, and then you switch to you learn about China. And then maybe you learn about capitalism as a concept. And then maybe you learn about World War after that her are First Nations and anyways, break broken down to modules. So I think having religious studies as a piece of social studies, is the best way to just incorporate into the class and teach age appropriate stuff. And just like you teach China one year, maybe one year you teach Hinduism, and then you explore some concepts around religion. In addition to that,

Preston Meyer  45:38

yeah, it makes sense. wouldn't start with Greek mythology and Hellenism with the earliest years since Zeus is a little rapey. But we learned about

Katie Dooley  45:47

Greece in grade six, not not age appropriate. Yeah. That's something right. We have to,

Preston Meyer  45:54

you know, age appropriate. left out, though. Yes, absolutely.

Katie Dooley  45:57

We did China in in grade five or six as well. It's not like we learned.

Preston Meyer  46:03

Yeah, I bet you didn't cover Taoism at all?

Katie Dooley  46:05

No, we didn't. But we also didn't learn about all the horrible things about China, either, right? Or, again, and this is a problem. But, you know, the big topic in Canada right now is that we didn't learn about residential schools. And maybe you don't teach six year olds about residential schools because it is horrific. But Junior High in high school, it's just start being introduced as concepts. Junior High seems like an appropriate age. area. It's just like, you don't teach six and seven year olds about World War Two. Right? The the genocide of the Jews, but you'd absolutely learn about a high school and you absolutely should learn about in high school. So same thing, grade one, everyone believes different things. Let's talk about Christmas and Hanukkah, and Diwali, and

Preston Meyer  46:49

Eid? Sure. I like it

Katie Dooley  46:52

fun. And we learn about all the different celebrations that people have. I like it, right. And then in high school, we can talk about, you know, Islamophobia, and, you know, tougher harder topics.

Preston Meyer  47:11

Sounds like a pretty good idea to me. Right? And then

Katie Dooley  47:13

it's not its own class. And I know, I know, a lot of parents struggle with the idea of religion being taught in schools or having a course on religion. So that's why I think it should just be folded into social studies. I also think it should be mandatory by me.

Preston Meyer  47:33

No exemptions. It's, I agree with you completely. The idea that parents pull their kids out of sex ed, for example, these are the kids that need sex ed the most.

Katie Dooley  47:48

And I bring up the the mandatory because that is one especially because like I said our curriculum, new curriculum, not very good curriculum. rollout was supposed to include religious studies, they're talking about revamping it. So I don't know what that looks like. And a lot of parents I saw on Facebook, I don't have kids, but a lot of my parent friends said, I'm okay with that. As long as it's I can exempt my kid or you know, it shouldn't be mandatory or whatever. But Preston's exactly right. The people who would pull their kids are the kids who need it the most,

Preston Meyer  48:18

for sure. It's just the idea that somebody would want their kids to not learn a thing. Sounds obscene to me.

Katie Dooley  48:33

I saw I don't know what they're so scared of, again, as long as it's religious studies, if it's theological. Absolutely. I don't think that should be in schools. But if it is a secular approach to religious studies, I don't understand what he would be concerned

Preston Meyer  48:48

about. Yeah, no, I'm one of those people that was not allowed to be in sex ed. But actually, okay, so, super weird. I was allowed to be in sex ed in grade four when it was in my elementary school, because they just talked about cubes and grade four, I guess, I don't know. But when it came up again, in grade nine, or 10, I think it was grade nine. My mom was like, No, you can't go in there. Anything you want to learn, you can ask me about No, that's wildly inappropriate one. Because you know, that you're not going to have the right questions to get any of the information you need from your parents when you're 14 or 15.

Katie Dooley  49:30

There's so much wrong with that. Also,

Preston Meyer  49:33

there's, there's loads of questions that maybe you do have, that you are not going to feel comfortable asking your parents at 14 or 15. It doesn't matter what kind of relationship

Katie Dooley  49:43

but like, your parents might not want to answer those, right? Cuz kitchens keep getting freakier and

Preston Meyer  49:50

I can I know for sure that my parents would have answered those questions. If you were

Katie Dooley  49:56

like, Mom, what's a Dirty Sanchez? She'd be like, let me show you. I don't know. I'm not kidding. She'd be like, let me tell you. But that's what I mean. Like, there'd be a quote like, maybe this is just me and someone who does not want kids is like, there are things I don't want to tell you. From my own comfort level, not that you shouldn't know them. One, I want you to be prepared when someone asks for a Dirty Sanchez, but I do not want to be the one to tell you what that is.

Preston Meyer  50:26

From videos that I've seen of what sex ed is, in some places. There's an awful lot of material that you shouldn't be learning from your parents. And it's far better in a classroom setting where you're usually safe with anonymity with the anonymous question box thing. And in a large tiniest one, yeah.

Katie Dooley  50:54

My friends, a teacher. And obviously, you should teach a sex ed and she put one on Instagram and it said, Is it true that girls shed their skin when they get their period? I'm sure it was just a troll, but

Preston Meyer  51:13

not really, but

Katie Dooley  51:16

your skin comes off? Like a lizard. Day seven. I'm surprised your wife hasn't shown you. Dead skin. Sorry.

Preston Meyer  51:30

It's important.

Katie Dooley  51:31

Yes. And same thing, right? Like I, I think if it started young, and age appropriately, like I said, if you get to teach kids that some some kids are visited by Santa, and that's really cool. And then some kids can have this massive feast with their family. And that's really cool. And I are some kids get to open small presents for seven nights in a row. And that's really cool. And you're like 16 can just be excited for everyone. And then And then obviously build up to it, then I don't even think you would need a private, private question. Answer period. But if you did, right, like, I cool, but we don't we talk about you know, that's two things. You shouldn't talk about our politics and religion. Well, we still cover politics in school,

Preston Meyer  52:21

and sometimes in ineffective ways. Like, honestly, that needs to be revamped the, the way I was taught about the Russian Revolution, and then the fall of the Soviet Republic, or the Soviet Union was honestly pretty disastrous. I've learned a lot better information about that since I finished high school, that there's it's not just communism that failed. It was authoritarian dictatorship and, and corruption that destroyed nations, and still is. And everyone's just like, yeah, no, it's communism. Like it is a lot more complicated than that.

Katie Dooley  53:01

And I I understand that. The concern about teacher bias, yeah, but it shows up in politics, it shows up in your economics class. And if you're a teacher that is so devoutly one religion, that you feel like you can't teach other religions effectively, he probably shouldn't be a teacher, because that's your job is to disseminate information. But be then swapped with a teacher that can

Preston Meyer  53:29

right, you'll find somebody if you look, right.

Katie Dooley  53:34

To say that it's divisive, or or you know, something that we shouldn't talk about is we talked about a lot of things we shouldn't know about in school. And that's why universities are cesspools of of divergent knowledge.

Preston Meyer  53:51

Yeah. You know,

Katie Dooley  53:53

universities, the weirdest like voting pattern unit, universe ridings, with universities in them, where students live have like the most divergent voting patterns in the tire province. I mean, there's your most you're more likely to get Rhino party in pirate party. Yeah, I want to party votes in a university writing than anywhere else. Of course.

Preston Meyer  54:14

There's our our former Premier runs in a university writing.

Katie Dooley  54:22

She does very well.

Preston Meyer  54:25

And, yeah. It's interesting to see how people who are actively learning behave differently from people who have said I'm done with education for now.

Katie Dooley  54:42

Maybe it's our wrap up question. How do you think religious studies would change? I do you have more thoughts?

Preston Meyer  54:50

No, no, go ahead with your question. I'm just scrolling down to see if there's anything else we

Katie Dooley  54:53

think religious studies like learning religious studies in school would change Other people's behaviors. And I don't know, if you want to talk about that a student level or familial level or academic level, but

Preston Meyer  55:10

not sure. Okay. It's like learning anything, it can have a variety of effects, I guess. But I think if people are learning more about the people around them, they're gonna be a lot less awful to each other. If they can figure out where their prejudices come from, or have somebody explain it to them, which is awful lot more helpful, then they can evaluate them in a way that makes them a lot easier to shed.

Katie Dooley  55:48

Like your skin after a period.

Preston Meyer  55:53

Yeah, you can find out who the lizard people really are.

Katie Dooley  55:58

My skin sloughing,

Preston Meyer  56:00

gross. It's this world is really complicated. And if we can understand the diversity between us, and even within a single religious tradition, there's diversity. And there's realistically not going to be a lot of time to explore internal diversity in junior high social studies class, for example. But just introducing that idea can help. Like you've got people who are so tired of the oppressive Christian religions in a community, that it's easy to lose track that not all Christians believe the same things and behave the same way. You've got the Westboro Baptist Church. And then you've got a lot of pretty liberal

Katie Dooley  56:57

in that we posted about the first transgender leader in the Lutheran church, right, so everything from a transgender Reverend to Westboro Baptist,

Preston Meyer  57:08

which is, of course, our go to example of a bad Christian Church, fat, there's, there's so much diversity, it's a spectrum,

Katie Dooley  57:18

take a shot.

Preston Meyer  57:22

And the world is such a cool place that even in groups that you find unfavorable, for any reason, there's going to be people in that group that turns out you actually like a lot. If you're willing to get past what is sometimes and obvious in your face difference. But people suck.

Katie Dooley  57:49

I thought that was gonna end really positive and you ended it.

Preston Meyer  57:51

So don't be a dick.

Katie Dooley  57:55

I mean, love your neighbor.

Preston Meyer  57:58

I mean, this ultimately, the Golden Rule boils down to that love your neighbor, figure out why your behavior sucks, how it would feel if it were thrown at you. And then stop doing that.

Katie Dooley  58:12

And you know what? I'm gonna get curious. Absolutely. Curious. Because, I mean, we've covered them all quite broadly. But well, we only covered them all. We're working on it are the major the big ones, quite broadly. And as a as an outsider, yeah, sure. They all have some weird beliefs. But they're not that weird. In the end, right, no one is so other in these, these big ones, that you couldn't wrap your head around everyone. They all have their quirks. There's some odd things, but that's what makes them their group.

Preston Meyer  58:51

Yeah. Unless your religion says that you need to find a random stranger and set them on fire in a park. Like you're gonna find some overlap in that allows you to be friends with that person. Absolutely. If you find a person common ground. Yeah. And if you do find a person that likes to light strangers on fire in the park, run, fix that problem.

Katie Dooley  59:19

Oh, well, I think that was a pretty good one sided debates.

Preston Meyer  59:22

Yeah. I mean, I wish that we could disagree a little bit more on this. But I mean, I feel like we were mostly on the same page.

Katie Dooley  59:31

We covered some of the other outside arguments.

Preston Meyer  59:33

I feel like there are people who disagree with us, and we would love to have you join the conversation. We have great discussions from time to time on Discord. If we can make those a little bit more frequent. I'm totally game. And we have good times. We share ridiculous memes.

Katie Dooley  59:49

Yes, so we are always content continuing. We are always continuing this conversation on our Discord. And if you want us to keep creating more awesome real legit studies content, please check out our Patreon or our merch shop and get some sick some bitchin. Holy watermelon merch. Please be with you.

"You're a saint" might not be such a big compliment once you hear this episode! There are a lot of saints in the Roman Catholic Church... we're talking about some more questionable ones!

In this episode, we’re talking about five Catholic saints that probably shouldn’t be saints.

Saint Barbara

While her story is interesting, we have no evidence that Barbara ever existed! 

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Saint Bernard was really devoted to Mary. Like, a little too devoted. The miracle that got him canonized is an intimate dream her had about Mary feeding the baby Jesus and squirting some milk at Saint Bernard.

Saint Thomas Moore

A devout Catholic, Thomas Moore oppressed the Protestant reformation. He didn’t want anyone wrecking his version of Christianity so he even stopped the printing and distribution of the Bible in English by destroying buildings and printing presses. If you didn’t agree with his beliefs, well he had no problem using violence against you. 

Saint Junipero

Saint Junipero was a Catholic missionary that founded settlements across what is modern-day California. He was a big fan of corporal punishment and slave labour. As he converted the indigenous community of the region he forced them to do hard labour in cramped and unsanitary conditions. He was recently canonized by Pope Francis, who should’ve known better.

Mother Teresa

A literal monster, Mother Teresa created shelters for the sick and dying in Kolkata, India. However, she believed that suffering was a gift from God and that people should accept their suffering like Christ on the cross. Her mission raised hundreds of millions of dollars, but none of the money ever went to help the poor beyond sheltering them. She also baptized people without their consent to increase the numbers of the Catholic Church. She openly admitted in an interview that she didn’t do her work to help people, but rather to help the church. Oh yeah, and she would reuse needles on patients. 

In addition to chatting about saints that should be saints, we discuss the process of canonization in the Roman Catholic Church and the difference between veneration and worship (hint, there isn’t any!)

Support us at Patreon and Spreadshirt

Join the Community on Discord

Learn more great religion facts on Facebook and Instagram

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Katie Dooley  00:12

Hi, Katie. How are you? Oh, great.

Preston Meyer  00:15

Excellent. Ready

Katie Dooley  00:16

to record another episode of

Preston Meyer  00:19

this the holy watermelon podcast? Absolutely, I am. Man, I've put a lot of work into studying this subject today actually

Katie Dooley  00:28

did so much and I've done so little. I'll just chime in with charming quips and and that's how I'll probably do this. I think I'll introduce it because I don't for it heart. Yeah. This is all person's idea. We're kind of going off of our path. We've we really thought methodically about what the next episode in the next episode next episode will be. And there's just so much content to cover on this topic. We didn't really know what to pick. So it's sort of throw a dart at a wall.

Preston Meyer  01:01

We used a couple of ideas here and there. And I feel like an episode or two ago, I teased what this one was going to be yes.

Katie Dooley  01:09