Is Belief a Choice? Deconstruction, Doubt, and Living Without Faith (BWAH Ep 10)

In this episode, the conversation centers on one core question, is belief something you choose or something you become convinced of over time? The discussion explores doubt, deconstruction, and why some people seek belief yet struggle to force it. Topics include fear-based religion, the difference between atheism and agnosticism, and how personal experience shapes conviction.

The episode also looks at real human challenges, family pressure, relationships across belief lines, emotional reactions to religion, and the search for peace after leaving faith. Listeners hear reflections on evidence, anecdotal belief, and why some people feel calmer once they no longer believe. This is a thoughtful exploration of belief, identity, and intellectual honesty.

💬 Viewer Question

Do you think belief is a choice, or does belief only follow when you are convinced by evidence or experience?

📑 Relevant Topics or Chapter Headings

Is Belief a Choice
 Wanting to Believe but Not Being Convinced
 Fear of Punishment and Fear-Based Religion
 Atheism vs Agnosticism Explained
 Faith, Evidence, and Personal Experience
 Religion and Relationships
 Family Pressure and Coming Out as Nonreligious
 Anger, Identity, and Deconstruction
 Finding Peace After Leaving Faith

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Transcript

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Michael Smithgall 0:00

Well, good morning and welcome to Breakfast with a Heathen. I am your favorite heathen. I am Mike Smithcall. And this is our Sunday morning chat show. Very laid back. Get yourself a cup of coffee. I'm going to have a sip of mine. We're just going to talk a little bit about atheism in terms of questions that I either get or I find online and just kind of go through them. This is just my perspective. It may not be your perspective. You may be an atheist or agnostic or a believer in some way. And this is just a way for me to kind of give you my perspective and maybe dispel some myths. Or for the people that are going through some level of deconstruction, maybe they have a question that I've already answered for myself and my opinion or my advice or the way I handled it might give them something to think about. They don't have to follow that, of course. But if it helps them, then even better. So without any further ado, let me take one sip of my coffee here. Ah, okay. Let's go ahead and get started. All righty. For the first question here, this is from OKCare 3459. Let's see here. They say, I would appreciate some perspective. Christianity is often presented as simple choice. Why not just believe? What's the downside? So that's Pascal's wager. That's kind of where they're coming from. They may not realize that, but that is a common Pascal's wager, which is you might as well just believe, then you have no risk and you'll still go to heaven. It's absurd and asinine, but that's what people say. But they go on to say, but is it really a choice? My position is that your actions are choices and living the faith is a choice, but belief is not a choice. You either do or you do not hundred percent agree with this person. What is it? Okay, okay, care 3459. And they're exactly right. I've said this many, many times. And it goes back to that Pascal's Wager thing. They say, you know, I've had if you're an atheist, you've had dozens of people make this point to you. Wouldn't it be safer to just believe? Well, first of all, I can't just believe anything. I always use the analogy of color. My favorite color is blue. I'm wearing a blue hoodie right now. I could put on a green hoodie. If I belong to the green religion, I could put on a green hoodie. It will not be my favorite color. I can wear it. I could buy a green car. I could paint my house green. You know, I could buy green, this, that, and the other. Little green stickers on the back of my car that says I am a proud member of the green religion, but I still like blue. Blue will still be my favorite color. It's the color I just like. I can't not like it just because you tell me I'm supposed to be part of the green religion. Same thing here. If I don't believe in God, I've logically gone through the process. Now, if I've not gone through a process either way, I've just sort of was raised maybe with no religion, or for the opposite side, people were raised with religion. They've never given it any great thought, then yeah, okay, go through that process. And maybe I haven't done it. So maybe my lack of belief isn't thought. It's not a logical conclusion. I'm just not aware of enough religion yet to have made a decision. Okay, that's fine. You may decide you like religion, it makes sense to you. Knock yourself out. But if you're like me and you've come to a conclusion and you've said, you know, I've I've seen all the various pieces and parts, and I've been told this and I've read that. And ultimately, it just doesn't make any sense to me. It's so logical to me, it doesn't work for me. Once you hit that logic button, so to speak, you can't undo it. You know, once you've done one plus one plus one plus one is four. So, you know, two plus two is four. Once you've done that math, you've counted on your fingers, and four is the number you keep coming up with, you can't tell yourself that there's five fingers. It's four. One, two, three, four, those are four fingers. I can't say this is five in my heart. Now I can say it to you. I can say, yeah, that's four, that's five fingers right there. I'm on the five-finger religion. But I know it's four. I know what it is, right? So to this person's point, yeah, if if you're being asked to go to church and to just believe and go along, you make your own choice if that's something you need to do. But can you just choose to believe something? I just don't think you can. Now, again, you can tell yourself over and over and over again, and you can start to discount your own logic and discount things people tell you, and you might eventually sort of trick yourself into believing it. If that's the case, fine. I mean, not fine in the sense that I think you're making the right decision, but yeah, that could happen. But if you've logically came to a conclusion of atheism doesn't make sense, it's going to be really, really hard for you to undo that because you have to undo all the logic. And despite the people that have told me throughout their life, oh, I used to be an atheist and then I saw the light. No, you didn't. No, you didn't. I I almost always discount those people. To me, those are people that probably weren't very religious, and they're claiming atheism, because that's the extreme side, because they're now super religious. You were probably not an atheist in the logical sense. You were a non-believer or a non-religious person, and then you went to church or wherever and you got very religious. But I can't imagine you came to that one, two, three, four conclusion, and then suddenly said, you know what? Now that I think about it, these four fingers, those are five fingers. It doesn't work that way. Not to me. I don't know, maybe you. All right. Next question is from Masaki 6. The title of her uh question is 20 years old. I'm sorry, 20-year-old atheist girl here. How do I survive this? All right, so we got a 20-year-old uh young woman. She says, Hello, female 20 here. I get really it gets really suffocating where I live. Religious people and religion are everywhere. I live in a very conservative and shitty country, her words, not mine. And my parents do not allow me to go outside. They forced me to wear a hijab. Okay, so now we know where she's coming from. And they cover my whole body head to toe. I can't even laugh or talk when I'm outside. When I was 14, I remember my family and I were eating outside, and I went to bring some yogurt by myself. After that, my father got so mad and offended and started threatening to drop me out of school. And I started crying, and he told me I shouldn't even cry in public, and he almost hit me. And she goes on to say, I hate Islam and I'm I certainly hate the life that I'm living. I wish I was born in the Netherlands instead with non-religious, uh, friendly, and cool parents. Well, two sides of your question there. Um, I think half the kids in the world have wished they were born to other parents at some point. So that's not particularly unique, but I'm not going to discount what she says here. She's born into a region and into a religion that is overly strict. You know, atheists often get accused, atheists in America, I should say, often get accused of not putting enough attention on Islam, to which I always say, I don't live around a lot of Muslim people. Islam is not a force in the United States. Some people are gonna say that it is, but stop. It's not. There are no, there's that the one woman in Michigan, that's the uh um, what is her Ilhan Il Ilhan Omar, I think her name is, uh, that is a Muslim, what is she, a Congresswoman, right? Um, other than that, I don't know uh any other um Congress or Senate, and certainly no president, that's Muslim. So when we talk about our laws and the the problem I have, say with Christian nationalism, the reason I'm saying Christian nationalism, because there is no Islamic nationalism in the United States. There are Islamists, you know, there are Muslims, but we don't deal with that. So, but this person, this is a good question. I thought it's it's a it's the same question. If she had said she was Christian, I'd respond to it the same way. Which is um unfortunately, you have to often get along to go along. And I hate that answer. I hate that I have to say that, but it's the truth. She lives in a country, she's 20, it sounds like she lives at home. In that country, I'm gonna guess, I don't know the country, but uh as we all know, in some of these strong Islamic countries, her going out and getting a job and moving out on her own, that is not gonna happen. It's a terrible, terrible situation. And it's easy for me to say move, because ultimately that's what I want to say. Move. Go some. She says the Netherlands, go to the Netherlands. Easy for me to say, I'm not a 20-year-old girl, woman, young woman in an Islamic country where I'm not even allowed to leave the house. I I feel for her and I don't have an answer for her because unfortunately, she is not dealing with sort of a Christian person's uh problems here in the United States. If you're a Christian and raised in a very strong Christian um household, and you've decided that you are not or you don't like the strictness of that religion, you're gonna get a lot of hassle. And it can be very upsetting and painful and in some ways dangerous. By and large, though, here in the United States, no one's going to kill you. Just laying it out there. No one's gonna kill you. Your parents might throw you out, they might shun you, your family may not talk to you. And if that's the case, move. Move here, move to Chicago, move someplace that is not so religious. Move away from your family and start your life. Same thing, same advice I give to young gay kids. Get through your school, get out of the house when you certainly can, move to someplace that you can fit in and you'll find your tribe. But for this young woman, I feel so bad for people like this. Because chances are she has no options. She just doesn't. And if you're a Muslim, if you're listening to this, I would love if you've avoided something like this, that you've gotten out of, you've escaped something like this, I would love to hear your perspective because I don't know what kind of advice to give her other than Masaki 6. I you know, I feel for you. I really, really do. And I I wish I had a way of helping you. All right. This next person's name, I can't even hug H-O-G-R-I-D-D-A-A-A-A. If I'm missing what that's supposed to mean, I don't know. Sometimes I feel like I'm too old. I don't get some of these references. Maybe it means nothing. Whatever. But their question, their question, I thought this was an interesting question. Are you scared of making fun of God? I am not, but let's see where they're going. This is like, I don't believe he's real, and I don't know if this is just part of deconstruction, but I've heard of some pretty bad stuff happening to people who said the wrong thing about him. And I guess his ego got hurt, so he punished them. Very loving, he puts in quotes. Do you ever feel like being careful about what you say about God in case he is real so that he doesn't punish you? He goes on to kind of down that line. Um, no, I do not. But um, I don't know how old this person is. They don't say. Um, and I don't know where they are on their journey, but I'm going to tell you they're further behind than I am because I don't fear offending and therefore being punished by something I absolutely do not believe exists. You know, if you can prove to me they exist, that's fine. But I live my life as if there's absolutely no God. Therefore, I'm not fearful of offending God. Now, remind, remember what I said, I'm not afraid of, I'm not afraid of offending God. I don't purposely set out to offend Christians. I'm not gonna go into a church and start saying, you all suck, there's no God. I'm not gonna do that. That's just offensive as a human being. It's just rude. I I wouldn't do that in any other circumstances either. I'm not that guy. I'm not the the protester kind of, it's just not my style. There are people that need to do that. I get it. It's just not me. But if I were to find myself in a situation where I I uh I mocked God, I wouldn't be bothered by it. You know, I can make jokes about God. It doesn't bother me. It's like making jokes about Spider-Man. Yeah, it's a common cliche, but me joking about Spider-Man, same thing. Spider-Man's not gonna come get me, Batman's not gonna come get me, the big Bigfoot's not gonna come get me, you know, Loch Ness Monster isn't gonna come get me, and neither is God. But this person's got a little bit of doubt. You hear what they're saying, right? Just they say this, uh, you feel like uh you feel like being careful about what you say just in case he's real. So I feel like you're not as far along on your journey as I am, and that's okay. We all start out someplace and eventually move your way to different phases. That is probably going to pass as you get older, or you just get more experienced, I guess, or further down the road in terms of your deconstruction. As you become more and more sure of your beliefs, uh and therefore less and less uh sure of your old beliefs in terms of you were a religious person, now you're just not. After a certain point, you're like, God's not watching me. Uh, I'm not having to answer to God, meaning I'm not answering to that guy's religion. Because remember, none of us have met God. All we've met is people who tell us what God says. So we're not offending a God because we don't know what would offend God if there was one. All we're really thinking is, well, that guy at that church told me this would offend God. Well, I don't need the second hand or third hand or whatever uh level of information. I don't need this proxy guy uh saying what God says. Let God tell me what he says. Let God come to me and say this is wrong and I'm offended. All right, well, if that happens, I'm gonna listen. In the meantime, I'm not worried about offending Pastor Johnson's opinion of what he thinks God meant in the Bible that was written and written and rewritten and interpreted and rewritten again. Do you see what I'm saying? Probably laying that on a little thick before Sunday morning, but you see where I'm going with that. So, no, I I'm not offended. I'm not afraid of offending God, I'm not afraid of his wrath, all these sort of things that that believers will tell me I should be. I'm just not. And I don't think you will either. Hugred Ah, whatever your name is. I you won't be either at some point if you continue down this road. But in the meantime, yeah, I get it. All right, so we have another one. Um, this is from Analogia Entis. I think I've said I've that name is familiar. I think I've read something from them before. Analogia Entis. This was a YouTube comment uh on my channel, so I know that that means I've I've dealt with them in some way. Um and they're cool, their uh comment is uh dear fools. I guess I'm one of the fools, dear fools, if I accept what you say because you said it, there is no critical thinking. Fools in capital F O O L S. Okay, Analogia, Entis. If I accept what you say because you said it, there is no critical thinking. Well, why would you do that? If you accept anything I say just because I said it, that would be foolish. That would be just ridiculous. I would hope you wouldn't do that. I would advise against that. You shouldn't accept anything anybody says, which ironically I'm gonna go with this person's religious, and I'm gonna go, as I just mentioned in the last comment, that everything they believe about God was told to them by somebody. I I'm 100% guarantee that what they believe about God and Christianity was told to them by somebody, and almost a hundred percent guarantee it was told to them by a man. So some guy, as I mentioned earlier, has read the Bible and he's come up with his own interpretation. Because remember, you put 17 preachers in a room, they're not gonna agree, they're gonna have differences. That's why we have 30,000 different versions of Christianity. We have umpteen number of books. I've got the the King James laying right here. I will pull it out. I've got the King James right here. That is just one version of the book, and this book was poured over and pieces added and taken out uh over the history before they actually came up with the King James Bible. So this person has accepted everything those people have told them, but then she looks at me on one of the videos, and I don't remember which video this was on, um, and says, if they accepted it, there'd be no if they have accepted what I said, there'd be no critical thinking. Well, in a weird way, yay, you've come to that conclusion that just purely accepting things on face value is not critical thinking. So I applaud you for that, but it's weird because you kind of ran headfirst into the point and yet still missed it. So analogia intus. Uh you have a great day. Thanks for checking in. All right, who we got an X on here? Aware Priority 1807. X-Christian, ex-Christian, Christian relationship. So an ex-Christian and a Christian relationship. I had to read that a couple of times. Uh so my Christian boyfriend of one and a half years wants me to convert back to Christianity so we can get married. Okay. He wants a Catholic wife and Catholic children, and he made it clear that even if he disregards my belief now and marries me, he would insist on me becoming a Catholic before we have children. Yeah, that's not gonna work, is it? It just isn't. First of all, uh, these are all kind of segueing completely accidentally. I think was what the first question I had today about the uh basically you can't fake belief. You either believe or you don't. This person could go through all the motions, they could put on the costume of a good Catholic wife, and they won't be Catholic. They just won't. They might be Catholic in deed, they might be Catholic in words, they won't be Catholic in belief. They just won't be. If they if they are at a point where they no longer believe in Christianity, then they are agnostic or atheist or something along this line, and they do not believe in Christianity or Catholicism at all, and their husband to be, I don't even they don't even say fiance, just boyfriend. If that person is insisting on them converting to something, yeah, I don't see that working out. I really don't. And I don't mean them any ill will or any harm, and they could be both just great, loving, lovely people. But the fact that he's insisting on her going against her own, and in this case, she used the word belief, um, the belief, say in in in there is no God, he's insisting that she she disregard all that and go back to his religion, it's gonna be a problem. I would say it's much easier to be uh to convert from a Catholic to a uh Christian or a Christian, from a Catholic to a Baptist, or even a Christian to a Jew, because at least the common denominator is you both believe in a God. But if you do not believe there's a God, you slice and dice how people believe all they want, call it all kinds of different religions. I just fundamentally don't believe there's a God, and you do, but you're insisting that I do before we get married, it's just it's it's not gonna work if you're that strong. Now, if the other person said, Well, you know, I'm a Catholic and I know you're not, I wish you were, but that's not a big deal. Fine, that'll work all day long. My wife was not an atheist um through most of the first half of our marriage. And it's just something she came to eventually. I don't care. It didn't bother me in the least. We never had any major discussions over it at all. I mean, she knew my beliefs, she knew my thoughts, I knew hers. She was raised Catholic. Didn't bother me. If I were to, you know, if I wasn't married now and I was out looking for someone to uh to date, and they said, you know, I go to church, I am casual about it, but I believe, fine. As long as you are okay with me not believing, we can get together and have a great time. That's fine. I can absolutely fall in love with somebody if I had to that was a believer. Not a problem with that. But this person's not giving her that option. He's insisting that she become religious, insisting that she become a Catholic and that she believe and that they therefore raise their children. Well, I would say good discussion to have now. You're uh, I think she said she was a year and a half into this relationship. Yeah. Good that you're getting it out of the out of the way now. Yeah. You might want to find out how big of a button this is, and you might want to start looking for the exit because I don't see them changing. You know this person better than I do, obviously. I'm just making broad strokes here, but yeah. I don't see it happening, man. So um, what is your name again? Uh Aware Priority 1807. I wish you good luck with that. I really do. I hope it works out for you. Um come back and report if it didn't. I'm afraid that's where it headed. Sorry. All right. So here we have uh this is actually, I thought, a good point. So this is from Impossible Youth 465. And they're the name of the title of this is How Christianity Influences Abusive Relationships. A little provocative on that one, isn't it? But here's what they say, and I thought this was actually a really good point. It says, replace everything people say about God with your partner. So, for example, you're nothing without your partner. If you leave your partner, you're doomed forever. If you're inherently a bad person, only your partner can't give you your worth. Without your partner, life is terrible. And they go on to say, see what I'm talking about? And they're exactly right. Uh, very often with the religious people, God supersedes any other context in which you would say that, right? People will not give other people the benefit of the doubt the way they do a God. Meaning, if a person hurts you continuously, you would never thank them. You would never say, you know what, my partner doesn't give me any more than I can handle. You would never say that. You'd just like, I'm getting the fuck out, right? That's just how you would do it. It's very interesting. It's always fascinating me, fascinating to me, where a person can say, you know, well, God controls everything. So thank God, and they truly mean it. Thank God, he only destroyed the seven neighbors around my house and not mine. God's looking out for me because I prayed. Screw those other seven neighbors. Obviously, didn't pray hard enough. You would never say that. If you said, you know, my partner burned down seven of my neighbors' houses, but thankfully my partner didn't say didn't burn down mine. So I love him. If you said that, you would be a psycho. They would be a psycho, but you would be a psycho for saying something like that. But God, God gets a pass. So Impossible Youth 465, I agree with you. That is a wacky kind of thing when you think about it in that context. Seemed wacky to me. I'm sure I'll get some pushback on that, but uh it's wacky. All right, so this one, this one's gonna hit me a little close to home on this one. So this is uh for boredom one, two, three. I see nothing wrong with the angry atheist. Well, I can tell you we're on the same, we're not on the same page already. But here we go. This is um, am I saying I would make it unhealthy to the point of random attacks? No. Well, thank you. Thank you for at least that. But this is fuel for us to change. I'm okay if you aren't driven, but I don't get why people are like the angry atheist stereotype is so lame. I don't know if I'd say lame. I would say it's not for me. Let's put it that way. It's just not for me. I'm just not an angry person by nature. I certainly can get angry, I can get riled up. There's a great many things that annoy me, but I'm not an angry activist type. I'm just not. By the same token, we do need people like that occasionally. We really do. Um I I've said this about a lot of things. Um I I think that atheism could take a good page or chapter out of the LGBTQ movement, meaning that when I was a kid in, you know, say the 70s, when I was a little kid in the 80s, um, there certainly was uh various gay movements, but your average person wasn't out. Meaning, you know, I didn't know any gay people when I was a little kid. I didn't know any gay people until my mid to late teens. I know kids that were gay in high school that didn't come out until later. I knew adults that I later found out were gay, but people weren't really out, right? But thankfully, there were people that did march and there were activists that did make a point, and there were people that that did fight for the rights that LGBTQ enjoys today. The fact that we have uh the uh the marriage act in what, 2015, is because people fought very hard to get those rights. I think atheists really should take a page out of that. But at the same token, that means some people will be activists, some people will fight in court, some people will do what I'm doing here and just trying to make people aware that I am just like your neighbor. I'm no better or worse than your neighbor. I just happen to not believe in God. That's why I do this particular podcast and this YouTube channel so that I can normalize it. Somebody else, like this person, for boredom one, two, three, if they want to make themselves an activist and make a big uh fuss and be the angry atheist, that's gonna turn off a lot of people, but it's gonna get some things done. So I don't think that's wrong. I just think it's an alternative way to go, and it's not the way that I would go. But for boredom, knock yourself out, man. If that works for you, yeah, man. Someone's gotta do it. Unfortunately, someone's got to do it. Nothing happens until people really push. Um, and the status quo generally doesn't change anything. So I admire people that are willing to do that. It's just not my style. So this was an odd one, I thought. What's going on with all the Christian magazines hitting the racks? Magazines? Are there still magazines? I didn't even are there racks. I I guess I need to go to a Barnes and Noble. Last time I was in, they had magazines, but there used to be like seven racks, like big racks full of magazines. Now there's like one. Um yeah, it says when in Sprouts today, um, like a Whole Foods. I've never been in a Sprouts, but I know what they are. It is like a Whole Foods for my guests. There were four magazines with Jesus plastered across the front, including Time. I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. Seriously, what the hell is happening? Now I'd have to see that Time magazine and to know why Jesus was on the front. Um, because they're their first part of it, why it's going, what's going on? All the Christian magazines. I thought they meant like, what is it, the watchtower from the Jehovah, a Jehovah Witness. If they're if Jesus is on the front, there might be a good reason for that in the sense that if I was making a magazine, I might put Jesus on the front because I talk about Christian nationalism. So you have to understand what the context is. But are there Christian magazines like that have come out and that people are buying? Okay, that's weird. I I'm fairly skeptical of that just because who buys magazines? That's a losing proposition. You're putting out a magazine now, maybe in a Christian circle because you know they tend to buy into everything, you know, like Amway, if you're old enough to know what Amway is. Um, maybe there are Christian magazines you can sell at the Joel Osteen, you know, uh gift store in the Joel Osteen church, you know, fine, okay, whatever. But if you're going to a Barnes and Noble and there's a bunch of Jesus magazines, all right, that's weird to me. Didn't know what they are. Let me know if you've heard it or if you've read anything like that, or you've seen it. I'm not familiar with that. That's odd. All right. So this next one is from Cat Crazy Jerry. All right, cat crazy. I am cat crazy as well. Uh, you can't see it in the camera, but I got a cat sitting on a chair that she sits there like seven hours a day doing absolutely nothing. So uh yeah, but I love her. She's a great cat. Uh, so cat crazy Jerry. Why do some theists think that personal experience and anecdotal evidence prove God and the afterlife exist? Yeah. I don't even know if I have to read their whole thing. Uh, this is my father told me that he believes in God because my grandmother told him things that happened while she was working as a nurse. And I think she was dying for uh caring for dying parent uh patients. Um then they believe in the other side because you know, these are these uh, what do you call them, near-death experience kind of stuff? When people die, or is that what they're called? I feel like there's another term I'm missing, but you know, when people die, they supposedly see the other side, and then they're you know jolted back to reality and and they say, Oh, I saw Jesus or I saw the light. Yeah, skeptical, color me skeptical on that. But yeah, your your anecdotal information, which is not even usually that dramatic. It's just that, you know, I I needed a job so bad, and and then I was on my last dollar, and I was about to jump off a building. And wouldn't you know it? Some guy sent me something through LinkedIn. Okay, God works mysteriously through LinkedIn, apparently, and that's their evidence that God exists. Or, or it's evidence that coincidences exist. Yeah. And you can interpret them as humans are very good at doing. You can interpret a pattern. Sometimes, when no patterns exist, you can interpret that to be God. You can interpret that as mass marketing by that company. That's why they sent you a job listing. You can interpret it by some guy started the you know company LinkedIn and you happen to join that site. I mean, there's a million things it could be. It's not God. Not in my opinion, it's not God. And your anecdotal evidence there isn't evidence. It's not duplicatable evidence, it doesn't follow any sort of scientific method. You can't reproduce that. So, yes, but it is super common. I can guarantee you, if you're an atheist, you have been told some example, and I've used a silly example, but you've been told something along that line that is supposed to prove to you beyond a shadow of a doubt that God exists because of this. And I'm just gonna say, no, it that's not it. There's probably a million explanations. And I always I I always go back to this to be a bit snarky, but you have to understand the point of where I'm going with this. A good sort of example people would use, like, you know, I had a brain cancer, I had a tumor in my brain, and and the doctors can't figure it out, but the tumor just went away. Okay, I I'm skeptical of that as well, but let's say it did. Well, the doctors don't know how it got there to begin with. So the fact that it went away doesn't mean that God took it away. It just doesn't. It it doesn't. The body does some odd things, things that defy what we understand. But the point is, what we understand. There are things that we don't understand. And I now that I've said that, I'm sure someone says, Yeah, but God could be one of those things you don't understand. All right, if that makes you feel better, fine. But what God never seems to do is grow that leg back. You know, I saw a girl the other day on TikTok. She was she was doing like a muscle, and then it's the camera moved over and she just had like a very small, basically what was left of a bone wrapped in skin. Is God gonna grow that arm back? Not a chance in hell is God gonna grow that back. Could he remove her tumor though? Yeah, tumors do go away sometimes on their own? Not often, but I guess they do. That arm is never, ever, ever in the history of humanity ever grown back and it's not going to grow back. So I'm a little skeptical of God remove the tumor, but God can't regrow an arm. Right? Again, color me skeptical, but uh yeah. So uh, so yeah, the anecdotal stuff, I just kind of ignore it. I mean, people tell me that and and they give me little silly stories like, oh yeah, if you look this up, I'm not looking it up. I've heard the story a million times, I'm not looking it up. But they'll tell me again, and I'll just like grin and bear it, depending on how how what how they present it to me. If they just say, Oh, you should look that up, okay, man. Thanks. I'll I'll I'll look into that. I'm not looking into that. They try to tell me that I'm basically you know completely wrong and I'm a moron because I haven't looked into this. I'm like, no, let me let me break it down for you as how dumb that is. But generally, that's not how I go. Say one or two more here. Okay, let's end on this one. This is from Alarming Safety 3200. Alarming safety 3200. Why is life so peaceful once you accept there is no God? Now, when I first read that, I kind of flipped it. I thought they were saying, why is life so peaceful with God? And then they were saying, no, they're saying the opposite here. Um, and this is interesting too. This is I'm nearly 17 and was a Christian until 2024. So if they're nearly 17 now, it was two years ago, right? I mean, there were 14, they were nearly 15, I assume. And I just realized it doesn't actually make any sense. The concept of there being a figure we never see or know of, but must trust him with everything. It didn't take me too long to figure out we uh that we invented God, not the other way around. Religion is a coping mechanism, and life has been so peaceful since then, realizing I can live now how I want to, and that I'm not being controlled by a story made by another man. Absolutely right, absolutely right. I do find it I don't know if peaceful is the right word, I find it reassuring that when life comes at me, as it does for all of us, that I will figure it out because I've figured it out in the past, and I will figure it out in the future. Now, the reason I'm kind of bringing this one up and using this one is because I think a lot of people find the opposite. They find if they can offload that worry onto God and say, you know what, I don't have to fight. God will take this for me and they will remove this from me and they will see it through for me. I would think that is very uh peaceful. It probably takes a lot of worry off of people's heads. I get that. You know, to me, it's a bit of them fooling themselves, but I understand why that's a a very uh appealing alternative. It's not that way for me. It just isn't. So it's interesting that this person said they found peace by not believing in God. Where I would say probably more people find peace by believing in God. But I'm on this person, this young person, what is her name again? Alarming seven alarming safety 3200. I'm on your side with this one. I do find that peaceful. Again, saying there's turmoil. There's there's turmoil, yes. And I have to fight through the turmoil on occasion, and um, that is not pleasant. And it would be nice to just say, I don't want to think about this. Just, you know, God, if you could, if you could make this all work out for me and just put my trust that God will do it. The funny thing is that most of those people still get up the next day and fight to get back to what they need to do, right? They've lost my job. What they don't do is sit at home waiting for some random recruiter to call them and offer them a job. They got to go apply for a job. You know, uh their spouse or whatever has walked out on them and they've broken up with them, they've they're brokenhearted. What they generally don't do is just sit in the house by themselves staring at a wall, waiting for God to send them a woman to the front door for them to start dating. They eventually got to put themselves back out there and go find a woman on their own, right? So they might have tried to offload those feelings, but the actions, most people have to take their own actions. And to me, you could skip the giving it to God sort of thought process and just start those actions right away, and you're gonna end up with the same results. That to me is actually more peaceful in the sense that I will get through everything. I may not like it, and it may be hard, and I may certainly wish that I didn't have to get through it, but I will get through it, meaning I will live to fight another day because my own wherewithal, right? I know what I can do and I will I will do it. That gives me some peace in the sense that I know that whatever has life has in store for me later, I'm gonna have to face it and I will deal with it and I will get through with it, and life will come out usually better on the other end until one day there's no more life on the other end. I just done and it stops. But that's okay. I can live with that as well. That's how we all end up at some point, right? So, yeah, alarming safety. Uh, very uh very uh good observation for a young person, almost 17. So, yeah, check back in with a few years from now. I'd love to know how that's working out for you because uh I think you're on the right track, man. Man or lady, whatever you are, at 17 years old, good for you. Anyways, I'm gonna get going. Uh again, this has been a pleasure spending my Sunday mornings with you. I hope you enjoy it. Make sure you like and subscribe to the channel, all that jazz. Um, if you have any comments or questions, I'm always happy. You see how I am. I'm I'm more than happy to talk with people and and give you my two cents. So if you have a question or you disagree with me, that's fine too. Just be civil. If you're civil and if we absolutely disagree, that's totally fine. I enjoy the conversation. I enjoy hearing people's perspectives. So uh, yeah. Anyways, take care, have a great rest of your day, and I will talk to you later. Take care.