Welcome back to Truth Wanted, the weekly call-in show with the highest nutritional value on Youtube. Today, Dan is joined by an ACA regular, it’s Talk Heathen host and lover of video game recommendations Johnny P. Angel!

This week’s Patron of the Week is Garret AJ! May the Flying Spaghetti Monster extend his noodly appendage in your direction.

Our first caller is Wayde, and he wants to psychologically profile his favourite deity as part of a doctoral thesis. He gives us a few nebulous descriptions, but Dan and Johnny are less interested in what God is, and more curious about whether God is. We have an interesting exchange about competing religions, and Johnny asks questions about Wayde’s education in theology. I don’t know about you folks, but if I was to get a degree in magic, I’d prefer it be from Hogwarts.

Mark is calling back to share more of his deconversion journey. He’s come to realize that vampire tales have a lot in common with resurrection narratives in the Bible, and Dan offers are few more contemporary examples of visitors from beyond the grave that are equally silly. Johnny steers Mark towards finding activist involvement that doesn’t have a religious bent as a method of finding purpose without the agenda, and Dan gives Mark a few specific resources for finding secular community.

Next up is Alyssa, her father tragically disappeared when she was a child. Her family consulted mediums, and even as a skeptic, she finds the similarities in their stories to be compelling. After hearing the similarities, Dan points out that “being in water” is a very common image sold by psychic charlatans. Johnny talks about James Randi, and his lifetime of testing psychic claims with zero results in the clairvoyance column. We all agree that taking advantage of grieving families is disgusting.

Finally we have Tyler, who claims that there are empirical reasons to believe in God. Johnny drills down on Tyler’s notion of justice using the example of Hell. Tyler’s stumped, as he should be, because infinite punishment for finite crimes is wrong, and even Tyler admits this. He attempts to rationalize his position, but Johnny’s not having it. We get a scathing yet cogent contrast of free will vs. omniscience from our hosts, but Tyler’s having trouble seeing the point. Johnny tries to get through with analogies to Anne Frank/Hitler and his role as custodian of his adorable dog. Tyler seems like a nice guy, but needs to shake off the indoctrination.

Thanks for tuning in tonight everyone, we’ll catch you next Friday!

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