Richard Moore and Ronald Martin

[00:04] RICHARD MOORE: My name is Richard Moore. I'm 61 years old. Today's date is Thursday, May 19, 1922 2022. I mean, I live in Fresno, California, but I'm currently on the central coast of California. My conversation partner is Ron Martin. And Ron is not a friend, but he's someone who I've met several times over the years in Fresno at various activities dealing with my atheism group.

[00:36] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: And I'm Ronald James Martin. I'm 73 years old. I live in Fresno, and my conversation partner is Richard Moore. And we both attended meetings of the Theophilus Fellowship, a monthly theology discussion group. And do I add more?

[01:06] RICHARD MOORE: No, Richard. Now, if you want to read Ron's bio. Okay, this is Ron's bio. He says, I'm a member of Fresno's First Baptist church, the Sierra Club, Fresno against fracking and reasons to believe, science and scripture organization. I earned a doctorate in philosophy after 21 years in the program, but only taught five philosophy courses, instead working for the Fresno County Public Library for ten years, then retiring. I just completed the first draft of my first novel, a christian romance. I never married nor had children, in part out of concern for world population.

[02:02] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Let's see now. The other bio is not on the screen. Oh, I'll be glad to read the bio as soon as I see it. Okay, here it is. Here's Richard's bio. I'm a longtime Central Valley resident who co founded the largest atheist and skeptic group in the Central Valley. My educational background is science and engineering, and I've worked on technology projects all over the US. Science and rational thought are central to my worldview, but it is a worldview shared by relatively few others in my community where faith and religion are the foremost, leading to many experiences in tolerance, bigotry, threats, hatred, and discrimination. Locally, well, we state why we want to do this interview to start.

[03:10] RICHARD MOORE: Sure. Yeah, sounds good.

[03:13] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah. Well, I was looking forward to an opportunity to express truth as I see it and find out how someone else sees the truth of the world and have a record of it for many other people to consult if they'd like to.

[03:38] RICHARD MOORE: Well, that okay?

[03:39] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah, probably the same for you.

[03:43] RICHARD MOORE: No, not so much arguing truth as I see it. Again, from my, from my background, truth is something that everyone sees because they can't escape the reality of it. Even they might believe something different. Truth remains. It's like I think Phil K. Dick said, reality is. Is what remains when you stop believing in it, you know? So anyway, what I like talking about nowadays, not so much as truth and things like that, is what I like talking about is there's a real schism in the United States right now. There's a schism in everyone's community. There's a real split now between an older generation that's highly religious and a younger generation for which religion is either non existent or just something they don't worry about too much. It's just they're spiritual, they practice a faith. And the United States is split. But at the same time, our laws are beginning to reflect religious viewpoints more and more. So we all have to live under a viewpoint that we don't share. And where, and my interest now is where does the United States, maybe the world democracies, where do they go from there? What does the future look like for the theists in the world? And what does the future look like for the atheists in the world?

[05:08] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Well, its division was present even at the founding of our nation. And the people who came here to occupy the indigenous peoples land, basically, they started coming for religious reasons, to practice their faith freely. But then others came because of the economic opportunities. And the people who signed the Declaration of Independence were both religious people and Unitarians who were moving away from faith. So this division has been with us from the beginning. And when you talk about the laws favoring the religious, you're talking, I suppose, about the republican party wanting to conform more of our laws to their view of how christians should live. And that's a very big division between progressives and the Trump followers in the Republican Party, which is a serious division that's threatening our democracy.

[06:19] RICHARD MOORE: So, I mean, what the fundamental, we talk about the founders, I mean, one of the fundamental principles that they discussed and that they codified was the separation of church and state. They did currently. Are we honoring that in our democracy? Has that principle been sort of thrown by the wayside?

[06:47] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Well, I guess a major way that's happening is with what the Supreme Court's about to do in making, opening the door to outlawing abortion, which seems like a religious and christian viewpoint, which is becoming law, and seems to go away from the separation of church and state. And I think America is known as a protestant nation because that's how we got our start, and it has its roots there. But we, there's still a lot of separation from church and state. Originally, all they meant was the separation of denominations. A state could choose to be Quaker or congregationalist or church of England.

[07:44] RICHARD MOORE: Yeah, but that changed with the war of 1812. After the war of 1812, the individual states realized that if you tried to operate that way, no one would come to your defense under a foreign attack. And so everything was changed in 1812. In 1812, church and the separation of church and state began to reflect the idea that everyone was free to have their religion and free to not be religious. So, I mean, there was, you know, saying, because, you know, a Quaker could not expect a protestant and next door state to protect his territory unless you had to agree that everybody's religions or non religion was on an equal basis when it came to the government.

[08:29] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: I remember a public television documentary. They say that the founders got it exactly right. And I agree that we should be free to choose our religion and it shouldn't be a governing aspect of government as it is in England, where the king is also the head of the Church of England. And our. Our principles are democracy, one man, one vote, the national welfare and so forth. And that's. That's christian, too. Whosoever will, may come to the kingdom of God. So we may be departing somewhat from that ideal of separation of church and state. Do you have more examples?

[09:15] RICHARD MOORE: Well, let's take locally our city council, against the objections of many local people, put in God we trust on the wall above them, behind them. And that was done explicitly according to the guy who initiated it, because he felt atheists were immoral and needed to be instructed when they went before government. So if I go to my city council right now, I have to stare at a religious message of a very specific viewpoint.

[09:54] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah, that I agree that steps over the line of the separation of church and state, although.

[10:01] RICHARD MOORE: Well, what's interesting is their argument is it no longer is, under their view, the Supreme Court. The current view of the Supreme Court is. It is allowing those sort of expressions. So, I mean, this isn't just a local thing. They're saying that, you know, they're supported by supreme court decisions in which religion specific? Well, I mean, very specifically, there's been some quotes. For instance, Justice Scalia, in one of his decision when Scalia was alive, said, the First Amendment does not apply to atheists. Atheists actually are second class citizens in the United States. Because this goes back to originalism. As you said, there were no atheists at the founding. Were there no atheist voices that were public at the founding? It also reflected in Alito's recent decision, again, going back to in his originalist viewpoint, since women were not considered citizens when the constitution written, they do not have rights other than as property rights. They are property today. And it's so strange to think that this viewpoint of over 200 years ago is now being considered by so many Americans. Is oh yeah, that's right. If the founding fathers didn't think about protecting your rights, then you don't have any.

[11:19] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Right. I'd like to think that our nation can grow and develop and better and better realize the ideal of the dignity of every human being, which they may not have had, even though they were an enlightenment government there at the start. One thing though, I am, I'll admit I'm islamophobic. We want to open the door not just to various christian denominations. Now we're opening it to Islam, and they have as their goal world domination. They'd like to take over this country and make it islamic. They may not.

[11:56] RICHARD MOORE: From my standpoint, it's a battle from a christian group which already did that.

[12:03] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Hmm. Yeah.

[12:04] RICHARD MOORE: Sorry to say from my viewpoint, I don't, I don't understand. The objection falls flat. Yeah, just 1 second. I'll just remind you about that one ground rule, not to speak for groups of people or make assumptions about groups of people. So whether that's islamic people or christian people. Yeah, I'll just ask you to keep that in mind while you're ahead having this discussion.

[12:33] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Now, you mean about christians taking over the country or about Muslims wanting to.

[12:41] RICHARD MOORE: I meant, yeah, I meant about both. Yeah.

[12:46] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Well, as long as islamic people will support the basic tenets of the constitution, the Declaration of independence, they can participate in government, and I hope they do. And immigrant. Immigrants are asked to pledge to allegiance to the flag and our national principles. Do they really do that? I hope so.

[13:11] RICHARD MOORE: Well, so I don't follow you that that's just a generalization. I mean, I have a personal viewpoint about all religions are equal. Yeah. And I don't understand the objections of one religion over another religion because they all seem to operate the same. Well, you know, possibly historically there may be different points in time, but for me, they're all equal.

[13:46] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah.

[13:47] RICHARD MOORE: Ron, I asked this question here, if you're comfortable with it, could you maybe talk a little bit about how youre specific faith influences your own specific political views and values?

[14:03] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Well, I want my faith to influence my political views and values. I want to subject my life to Jesus Christ and his word, the Bible. And so I study the Bible and seek to make my political activity biblical. And I think there's a problem there, that religion does overlap with politics. And the idea of the separation church and state is probably an unrealistic ideal that we can aim at but not attain because religions have political implications. So it's like a marriage. You have to agree on some things in order to be able to have a discussion and we have to agree on some politics. And if the religions are tearing us away to different political values, then that's a threat to national unity and democracy.

[15:02] RICHARD MOORE: So that's interesting. Okay, so from my standpoint, so as an atheist, I don't believe there is a God, therefore I don't have to do anything. In the same way, if I don't believe there's unicorns, doesn't affect my day. If I don't believe there's leprechauns, it doesn't affect my day. It therefore doesn't affect my religion, my, my politics. But I understand if you believe in a God, therefore you must do something. And that can, that carries, I guess it carries over into your political beliefs. You know, now that's a real schism because I have, I mean, because I'm trying to live my life freely and my religion does not influence my politics. My religious beliefs do not influence my politics. So I don't demand anything from anyone else. From a religious standpoint, when it comes to my politics, I have no expectations anyone would do anything. And I think that was where the secular concept of America came about, was you can practice your religion, but your religion should not become how someone else has to live. Or are you saying differently? Are you saying because your religion, that requires you to start thinking about how others have to live?

[16:19] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Probably most religions have something of that sort. I think about the Bible in terms of me being a progressive. In revelation 1118, it says, praise God, who will destroy those who destroy the earth. So I think my religion motivates me to support environment, pro environmental policies. So I'm called to get the government to do things that my faith is calling us all to do. And there are passages that condemn the wealthy for oppressing the poor. There's something in the christian faith that I think that all Christians should take note of and move the government away from oppressive policies.

[17:17] RICHARD MOORE: Well, those are ideals we could share and conclusions we can reach without religion. In your case, you're saying religion is. Forms the foundation for why you conclude that. I can conclude that without any religion whatsoever.

[17:32] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Right. And Isaiah says that, come, let us reason together. And I believe the biblical teachings are based on good reason. And like you say, we can arrive at these policies by reasoning. And that's what we ought to do. But then again, when the public schools come into play, if we have free public education, we could. How, to what extent are we going to remove religion totally from it, say, in teaching american history and world history, church history is a very important part of the history of Europe, which is our background. Those are possible points of conflict.

[18:28] RICHARD MOORE: We do teach religion in public schools from the standpoint of the history, that leads to why religious people believe certain things.

[18:37] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Right.

[18:39] RICHARD MOORE: And I think, you know, that's part of a historic history or maybe a literature course at some age in public schooling and of course, at universities, people can go into it in depth. What's interesting, though, is that the biases that happen, which is why most secularists push back, is they're not really pushing back against the idea of knowledge about religion in schools. They're pushing back against the biases religious people believe when they try to talk about such things, and it's hard to escape it. I know I couldn't. So.

[19:18] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: You mean the problem with failure to separate church and state is when the schools seek to persuade students about religion instead of just giving them knowledge about religious history.

[19:32] RICHARD MOORE: Yes. Well, for instance, in literature classes, they often use parables from the New Testament to illustrate the concept of a parable in an english class. Say, now, there's a lot of parables out there, and yet they always use parables from the New Testament because most of the teachers are familiar with, from their religious upbringing. With that, that's a bias. Children grow up thinking that parables come from the New Testament, not from, you know, there's lots of greek parables much earlier than the New Testament. And then because the relationship of the educator with the person being educated, you know, people begin to maybe think that there's more value to a New Testament parable than some other parable. In some inherent way, you know, the truth of the Bible exists for christians. It exists in the Bible itself. It's self closing. It just says, this is the word of God. So that's what makes it the word of God, because it says it's the word of God. And so people begin, you know, they be, you know, if you, if you, if you're biased in teaching secular things, but you're bringing in something and you're just assuming everyone's not going to agree this is the word of God. There, there's, it can be a problem. I'm not sure I really explained that very well. Sorry.

[20:56] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah, you said, I've had a lot.

[20:57] RICHARD MOORE: Of experience that with my own children and school in Fresno, my children were constantly under an onslaught of children being used as proxies by their parents to promote religion in school, because the parents are not allowed to come onto the school and promote religion. So they use their children as proxies to do that, and they organize groups for them. And in my case, when the children weren't being very persuasive, the adults that was with themselves stepped in and started harassing my children.

[21:32] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah, it shouldn't be harassment. It just should be spreading the gospel, which I guess they stepped over a line.

[21:40] RICHARD MOORE: Yeah. So where's the line? I guess that's, I guess that's back to my original point of the separation in the United States. Where's the line? Yeah, I don't think the line is where most of us, well, a lot of us thought it was. I mean, not where I thought it was. Let's be very specific there. The line is not where I grew up thinking it was.

[21:59] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: I am bothered by some Christians who will even lie about certain things in court, as was the case in some of the religious. The textbook discussions, anti evolutionary textbooks and so forth. That's not right. I mean, we've got to adhere to truth and we've got to adhere to love. And it sounds like a lot of christians are just not adhering to the tenets of their faith as they try to spread the gospel. They're getting too aggressive with it. I suppose you'd agree with that.

[22:35] RICHARD MOORE: Well, again, I completely understand the viewpoint of if you're religious, if you believe in a God, then you have to do certain things. I understand this completely. A lot of cases where, you know, if you firmly believe something, you know, Sierra club, your background. Right? Yeah. If you firmly believe our forests are being destroyed, that might then lead you to some sort of action group that blows up cars or something very, you know, very extreme environmental terrorism, as they call it, that occurs. I understand that completely. What I don't understand is this idea of then saying, and now we'll start writing it into the laws of our nation. So individual actions, I understand, tolerate, I'm compassionate for actions that are then encoded into law. That, to me, that's the line that has been crossed.

[23:41] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yes. And I suppose that in God we trust in the city council chamber was a legal action taken by a legal body.

[23:48] RICHARD MOORE: They voted on it. Yes. It didn't just appear overnight.

[23:53] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: So to take that down would be showing respect for the principle of separation of church and state and affirm the biblical principle that whosoever will may come, not whosoever gets coerced into it will come. Well, it sounds like we're kind of agreeing on all this, I hope.

[24:14] RICHARD MOORE: Yeah. Well, there is a lot of areas of agreement, though. I worry that not in your case, but from the experiences I have had, religious people will agree with me because when I talk with them, they understand it's their own privileges that are suddenly now susceptible to attack if they honestly think, if they honestly state what they view. Do you follow that? So I have someone who's very strident with me, and then I will turn the conversation in such a way that they realize that what they want to do to me can also be done to them. For instance, I told someone the other day who's an anti choice person on this abortion issue, I said, if the government can force you to give birth, it can force you to terminate a birth. You've given them that right. And they were thinking, no. And I go, yes, if you've given the government right over the autonomy of your body, you've given them right over the autonomy of your body. Yeah, they hadn't thought about that right. A lot of historical examples, China, for instance, of forcing abortions to keep populations low.

[25:37] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah.

[25:39] RICHARD MOORE: From what, you know, and I said, my viewpoint is the government has no right in that decision either way. I try to keep things, you know, simpler. And so, and I think, you know, you talk about truth, you know, I think we all lie to ourselves a lot. So it's a word that's bandied around. I'm more interested in policy. I'm more interested in what people do, do not, you know, I love talking to people about what they believe, but I, you know, I like people to believe what they believe. I like hearing it. But it's when the line is crossed, this line we've talked about, when suddenly laws are being changed, policies are being changed.

[26:21] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah, I suppose that the person who says that forcing women to give birth is giving the state control of their bodies, which they that this fetus is a person who has human rights and those rights should be protected. Protection of human rights is not just a religious value, but a social civic value. And the disagreement would come in the question of is the fetus really a person or is it just a DNA code that's a potential person? And if that's the case, then outlying abortion doesn't make any sense.

[27:05] RICHARD MOORE: Well, that's always an interesting discussion. I mean, it becomes quickly a discussion of how many angels can dance on the head of a pen. There's really, you get down to a certain level. It just becomes a matter of opinion. I have a different philosophy in life, and mine is much more basic. I try to cite issues on the reduction of human suffering or suffering in general. Could be animal suffering or anything. When I look at abortion, I weigh it, as you know, in which path do people suffer least?

[27:38] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah.

[27:39] RICHARD MOORE: And then I. So I don't. I don't have to then entangle myself and the other issues, you know? But then, of course, see, I don't. I don't have a religious viewpoint. I view human existence as we're one more animal at the end of a long line of evolution, no more special other than what evolution has created in us. So. And it's a planet of suffering. Once you have consciousness of it, you know, animals suffer, but do they suffer? You watch a wildlife film, and it looks pretty brutal when a lion attacks an impala or something. You know, we're not that far separated from that. And so I like to think of what can we do to reduce human suffering? And because I have empathy for the other species, you know, suffering for animals and everything, I don't worry about when it comes to those sort of things, too much about the details, because nature doesn't worry about the details.

[28:35] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah. Well, to get into more of a personal discussion, I can say that when I. People make religious decisions in junior high school and when I was in junior high and studied science, the nature of the theory of evolution hit me that one species can evolve from another, and maybe we don't need God as a creator. Nature is self creating. And I. I wondered about that and went through kind of a spiritual crisis. Do I go along with my family or do I go along what I think I learned in science? And I had great respect for Billy Graham. And I said, well, if Billy Graham believes that the Bible is true, then I will, too. Of course, it was an easy decision because that was what my family believed. But then later I heard that Billy Graham also went through a similar crisis of faith and wondered, why is evolution negating the need for a creator God and don't exactly know how it resolved it. He just decided to plant his flag in the kingdom of God. And as I did, and now that I'm part of reasons to believe, I believe that the science points toward God as a creator more than evolution points away from God as unneeded as a creator. So did you have similar conflicts and thoughts when you made your decision?

[30:16] RICHARD MOORE: No, and I've been to a number of reasons to believe meetings, and the most I can say about it is a their science is not science. There's nothing scientific about their reasoning or logical. You don't respect details. But the broader issue, though, is, let's hear, I think, where the real difference is. So you use the terminology of God does not negate evolution. From my viewpoint, God is not necessary for evolution. And there, and it's a very different way of looking at it, I think. And it's, for me, if something's not necessary, I don't say I don't know, therefore, to me, that that's, that's a bad way to think. So you're saying, I don't know what caused evolution, therefore I'll take God because it doesn't explicitly exclude him. I say I don't know, so I just don't worry about it.

[31:15] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah. If there's no good reason to believe that a God exists, and evolution seemed to say that, and it's real easy to just let go of that belief.

[31:23] RICHARD MOORE: But I or never have it in the first place. Yeah, there's a million things. You have no evidence for that. You don't believe in a billion things.

[31:33] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah. If there's no reason to believe it, we generally don't believe it.

[31:38] RICHARD MOORE: Right.

[31:39] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: But. Well, I respect the science of reasons to believe, and that gives me a reason to believe in a creator God. And we could go into why you don't think that RTB is real science. But then we've only got, what, eight minutes to go.

[32:00] RICHARD MOORE: Yeah, well, I've done that at the meeting, so we don't need to rehash it here. And this just, I mean, it's, it's an interesting group because when I bring up the real science, I get preached at.

[32:14] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Hmm.

[32:16] RICHARD MOORE: Well, and we all have our biases. I mean, the group forms for a reason, so. And let's say, so, you know, United States, we have groups, people believe things. And how are we all going to coexist?

[32:31] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Well, I guess separation of church and state.

[32:35] RICHARD MOORE: Well, it was the guiding principle.

[32:39] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah. We have to agree that one man, that the people should rule and that all men are created equal, including slaves and other races and so forth.

[32:52] RICHARD MOORE: And women.

[32:53] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah. They should all have a vote and have a big part in the shaping of national policy. And we're moving in that direction, I think. Are we moving away from that now? To some extent, possibly, and that's what.

[33:12] RICHARD MOORE: So, I mean, I've never believed in a God. I've never had any exposure to religion in depth. I see these battles as groups between religious people in which I'm caught up in it and trying to find my way forward and trying to find some future that I find acceptable for myself and my children. Almost like the 30 year war, a 30 years war in Europe, you know, where the Protestants and Catholics battled it out. And the only thing they could, they could agree on is every atheist had to be killed, huh, boy?

[33:49] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: No, I, we've gone beyond that, I hope. We certainly have. I was thinking before we started this conversation, I thought we'd get into more of the reasons of why we believe that it's reasonable to believe in a God and why not? And what experience has shaped that? And your short answer is science. Science takes away any good reason to believe in goddess, I suppose. But I think that abiogenesis and the fact that science has no clue as to how this first sale got started cast real questions on the rationality of atheism

[34:40] RICHARD MOORE: Again, see, you're saying, I don't know, therefore, which is not a position I accept. I don't know, I don't know. I don't engage and I don't know therefore type of statements. If I can avoid it, well, then.

[34:55] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: I add into that the bodily resurrection of Christ, which is, I believe, historically established, and then that adds more to that. So I do know something there which validates the Bible. So that's the steps I take to get where I am.

[35:18] RICHARD MOORE: So, I mean, I have a deep background in atheism. I could answer all these points that you're bringing up. And I mean, the beauty of here, before we close, is you and I can always meet for coffee, Ron, so if you want to discuss this stuff more.

[35:33] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Oh, I see there's a chat. Oh, wow. I think I have said how my faith influences my political views. Hmm. Hope for the political future. Well, we have a great history of democracy, and we've had a history of class struggle that ended in strong unions at one time. And if unions can be strengthened, people can regain faith in the idea that the nation works for them and they can enjoy some of the fruits of their labor. That gives me hope about our future.

[36:14] RICHARD MOORE: So I have hope because I started an atheist group in the early two thousands and it doesn't exist anymore because we decided there was no reason for it. The young people we were trying to reach were already converted to our point of view and didn't need to be harangued about it. And when I'm on Reddit, when I'm on other places, I see the next generation has really given a lot more thought about religion than my generation did. They're not accepting it as given as received knowledge, as Flaubert called it. They're looking into it and they're deciding what works for them. They don't accept the idea that your religion is the religion of whatever community you grew up in, and you, therefore all other religions are bad, as though God had something special about Topeka, Kansas or something. And so, yeah, that's my hope is everything's slowly going the way I would like to see it go, even though it's going to be very messy on the way.

[37:18] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Well, that's, that drains my hope.

[37:23] RICHARD MOORE: Yeah. I mean, I know, for example, that almost none of the churches have youth groups anymore in the Fresno area. They've all just fallen apart. They were very big and popular to point, and now they're not.

[37:35] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Huh. My church has a very small youth group, five kids. There's not much in campus ministry, which might possibly be because most of the students on campus are commuters and they don't get that involved with things on campus. I'm not sure exactly why. There is still some campus ministry on some campuses. Not so much a Fresno state, but us is about 100 years behind Europe and many things, industry and belief. And I guess Europe is ahead of the US in non belief and I suppose we're drifting in that direction. Yeah. Maybe we should meet casually at some point and you can tell me all those atheist arguments you have to answer what I said.

[38:28] RICHARD MOORE: You can find them in books, too. Anything special to say about the subject? I assume that you just really don't have a lot of interest in it. And just as much as I don't have a lot of interest in reading why believers believe, I have some interest because it does affect me. But, you know, the details of it are, they're often very personal.

[38:52] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Maybe so. Yeah. My ism would be to better refute it.

[39:00] RICHARD MOORE: Oh, well, there you go. See, now that's absolutely, now see, that's, I think that's a good viewpoint to have. I always ask people is, you know, if you disagree with me, you know, what are my, what are the best arguments I'm about to offer?

[39:12] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Hmm. Yeah.

[39:14] RICHARD MOORE: Because if you don't know those, then what do you, then you're not going to do well arguing with me. If you don't understand what your opponent believes, you're not going to be able to refute them very well.

[39:25] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yes. I could probably learn more about the roots of atheism.

[39:31] RICHARD MOORE: Yeah.

[39:36] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Well, it's been good to talk to you and.

[39:38] RICHARD MOORE: Oh, yeah. I guess I've never had a chance really to sit down and talk with you for an extended period of time. So we've always been in groups.

[39:45] RONALD JAMES MARTIN: Yeah. Right. So maybe if Scott Hatfield doesn't as a presentation, maybe you'll come to the theophilus group.