Keep yourself well, and we will be here

Please take care of yourself. We need you, but we need you to be healthy more!

Be well, take care of yourself, all the best!

You have a huge cheerleading squad behind you Brian.....some of us even being cancer survivors, so we get you!

Sending you love and best wishes for healing through the f-ed up necessity that is chemo.

So true!!!

Isn’t that just the perversity of it all? Why do I, an atheist, have ‘Good Samaritan’ empathy, but the so-called pious Christians don’t?

It is a blessing!

I am jealous.

NoSacredCowFla is not making that up. This is absolutely true!!! Compassion is weakness to them.

yup

@@misterdeity and yup

Isn’t it amazing!!! And today, we have Nikki Haley jumping on board. These people are lost!

Democracy is for Democrats. Authoritarianism is for Republicans, and they don't't want it any other way.

The rise of one-party autocracy would probably be delayed by democrats not trying to exclude popular candidates from running. "We have to put him in jail before the primaries, for democracy!"

Does Santa watch people in the bathroom?

Oh, yeah, that’s the money take. Well done. =Peace=

Thanks so much. You’ve made my fortnight!

Thanks so much. Blessings are headed your way!!!

This is part of my anti-theism. You are expected to have no faith inhumanity or reality and just believe the bible and the church as they speak for god. I couldn't stand the hypocrisy, the cognitive dissonance and the lack of empathy for life. It's all about death and what is supposed to come after. Thanks for the post.

Come to Canada......we're pretty cool here!

We all might be getting passports after the next election.

100% agreed!

Yes, that is absolutely fortunate. Well done! And thanks so much for the help. I'm sending blessings your way!

Space 1999 reference?

@@brunozeigerts6379 Um i dont think so (im so out of the loop🤣)- more cos i spelled deity wrong b4 & Brian commented about people calling him brain. Xoxoxo

I hope you find the good stuff and find a place where you can enjoy life. Sadly, that’s not open to everyone. If you find it, be grateful.

Selecting only the "positive messages" is cherry picking. In any event they were not new. As someone said not so long ago, what is good in Jesus' teachings is not new, and what is original is not good. Sorry, I had recorded a video of that but lost it.

what does a cabal of narcissistic, plastic-skinned, no-talent , artificial, dark-haired, socal based attention -seekers have to do with anything?

@@nedludd7622 Yes, it always is. What I'm saying is that by focusing in the positive teachings, they approach the gospel as a mostly philosophical discussion. Which is valid. The Bible is not only the blood spraying of the old testament. There are some good topics. Could they get the same lessons anywhere else? Sure. The Bible is not *the* source of morality. Socrates, Plato, Aristoteles, even Esopo's tales. It is our job to evaluate what is good, and disregard what is not valid, on every information we receive. Not mattering the source. Even because there is no thing like absolute truth, since we don't have absolute information to evaluate that.

I've just responded to two people who were free will advocates with basically this same point. I couldn't agree with this comment more. I wish I could like it a million times!!! I hope you're doing well now. And thank you for taking the time to comment - and for being so incredibly eloquent!!!

Amen!!!

I wish I could like and love this comment a thousand times!

LOL!!!

Yes I totally agree about the central importance of emotion and the dynamics of it really need more analysis. I would guess that fear is a major element that is being channelled and assuaged in various ways.

Bless you!!! Seriously. I’m sending you blessings!

@@misterdeity dude, seriously, that’s a lot, coming from you! You’re awesome!

Thanks so much, Katherine! I’m sending you endless indulgences! Sin away!!! Just don’t hurt anyone or steal anything.

I think that's a brilliant observation and spot on! He's so much easier to follow. So much more human!

Brother or Sister from another mother?

@@misterdeity Brother. And though my tribe is occasionally exclusive, we've also been around a while, covering a lot of ground. Plenty of strange places and people in the mix. So, Shalom!

Well, as a Formon (or Formorning?), you know that Mormons looked down on all kinds of people - homosexuals, women, Black people (even after the ban was lifted). And in general, they often preferred the harsh judgments of the Hebrew god to the more empathetic teachings of non-apocalyptic Jesus.

@@misterdeity I see a great deal of irony with how you are looking at members of the Mormon church. You have been one, so I would think you could empathize with how they were brought up and taught more than others can. I bet that if you look at yourself, and realize that you are still a product of what you were taught in that church, and that you weren't this empathy lacking person to those groups that you want to portray Mormons as being before you became an atheist, and it's likely that most other members aren't either. I could be wrong about you, but you come off as a kind and generally soft spoken person in your videos. I would be extremely surprised if you ever held any strong disdain of anyone who hadn't personally wronged you or someone else, but you were brought up in the LDS church. Did you drastically change after you stopped believing, or were you brought up to be the way you are? I say just think about it. You might find more empathy inside yourself than you thought you had already, and that empathy will help you understand that other people may have more empathy than you give them credit for.

@@poduck2 It’s not about some overt hatred towards any particular group. It’s about the underlying biases that are built into a religion which, for a century and a half, had champion the inferiority of Black people - and the holy book which called Black skin a curse from God; who had told you with their actions and who was allowed to hold power, that women were inferior; and that anyone who was not heterosexual was wicked and in defiance of all that was good and right - along with my masturbation LOL. Combine that with the Republican party I grew up with, and you have a powder keg of bias that looks down on a whole lotta people. Yes, I had to reorient my brain quite a bit. While keeping the good I learned as a Mormon. And there was a lot of good as well. I’m not saying there wasn’t.

@@poduck2 I remember one incident which had a tremendous impact on me when I was young. One of the girls in our ward married a Black man. The talk I overheard about that from adults and Church leaders as I listened to their conversations was atrocious looking back on it. But that’s not how I saw it at the time. I just thought ill of anyone who would marry a Black person. And their comments made it clear that being Black was a bad thing. My parents also owned the book, “The Church and the Negro,“ which I read later and bought into when I really got my testimony at 17.

@@misterdeity It appears our circumstances were similar in some ways and different in others. It would probably be very interesting to have a conversation with you, and compare the differences in how we were brought up in the church. It always fascinates me how different all of us ex-Mormons are from each other, when it comes to what we believe the church taught us, yet we are very similar in other ways. I don't think we will get anything magnificent sorted out here in the KZfaq comments, but I'll tell you that I had an entirely different experience than you did. I grew up with my two best friends being black while I lived in Texas, and never heard a snide remark come from anyone in my family. My mom became friends with their moms, and we all did all sorts of things with our families together. The teachings I did get about people of color were actually not given in a way that were made to make us white kids feel superior to other races. It might have helped that I was only 3 years old in 1976, so I was blissfully unaware of any controversy at that time. I always thought that the church put women on a pedestal. Often I thought that pedestal might be too high. Later, I found that to be a complete misconception, especially when it came to the church leadership, but that's too long of a story. I never found myself caring much one way or the other about homosexuals, probably because I never knew any homosexuals until after I left the church, and I really don't remember the subject coming up in church. My family was overall not political, which allowed me to choose my own path. I decided that I was a libertarian that was too cool for the Libertarian party, and I just felt that the government should never be legislating morality, because governments shouldn't exist at all. Nothing about that has to change if you don't believe in gods. All in all, I really didn't have too much to change about how I thought after I became an atheist. There was obviously some change, because I used to suffer greatly from depression. While there would be ups and downs, pretty much from the time I was 15, until I stopped believing at 28, I was always battling. As soon as I realized there wasn't a god out there that was ignoring my pain, and realized that I was on my own to make my life better, I stopped feeling depressed, and now, 22 years later, I love life, and haven't had another bout of debilitating depression since. Anyway Brian, thank you for your videos. I have enjoyed your sense of humor, common sense, and drama over the years, even when I disagree. I hope all the best for you sir.

I lost almost all my Mormon friends. Most of the others were Jewish or agnostic and didn’t care about my religiosity. Your situation sounds really difficult. My heart goes out to you.

Hilariously, I lost many of my friends when I stopped drinking. It was mainly because I realized I was hanging out with a bunch of drunk people. I've also had three relationships terminate, when the women figured out that they couldn't get me all Jesused.

Thank you for your reply! I am a big fun. Honestly it’s true, despite the sadness of losing a community. I do feel like I’m better off since I am being true to myself. It had got to the point where I started feeling like I was being annoying for asking questions, but the reason I kept asking questions was because every question I asked was never getting answers. Even my mentor seemed clueless. Always saying “ you just gotta tassel with the questions and trust god” just a bunch of nonsense 🤦🏾‍♀️

Howdy!

I will do that. My claim is simple: We don't freely choose anything that makes us who we are, or want what we want - genes (hair/skin color, predispositions, talents, intelligence, height, basic health, gender, sexual proclivities and interests, etc...), parents, time and place of birth, life experiences, etc... We didn't even freely choose to exist. And we now know just how much of our mental processes run in the background of the subconscious, giving us neither control nor even awareness. All of these things, over which we've never had any control or say, make us the person who wants x over y. All of those things determine who we are. Whatever choice you make is the end result of all these various forces which made you you. Can an unbeliever choose to become a believer? Can a strictly heterosexual man want the sexual attention of another man? Can a chocolate lover genuinely choose to prefer vanilla ice cream? We want what we want because of who we are. And who we are is not a choice we made freely.

@@misterdeity Right but the negation of doing as you please is the very definition of suspending free will. Therefore doing what we desire is exercising our free will. Often in philosophy you reverse it to see if the reverse still holds true. And if you're tied up and not allowed to leave, if you want to leave, that's the suspension of free will. Also, you mentioned talents. That's definitely an act of will. I'm a musician and there was a time in my life when I wasn't interested in music. I worked hard to learn music. I believe in natural proclivities somewhat. We see savants that can somehow just play music which is astounding. So it must be true to some extent. But it takes hard work for the rest of us. There was another time in which I decided to get more serious about practicing and becoming more of a pro. Btw, if you want you can check out my music channel. My stage name is Murphy Slaw but there's another guy with that name. My avatar is a hat and a harmonica.

@@misterdeity Here I am. That'll make it easier for you.

@@PaulTheSkeptic There's a deeper level for me. It's not free will if you didn't freely choose what you desire. And we don't. We are all simply machines of want and need. And those wants and needs are determined. As someone who taught guitar, I can tell you that there are people who desperately wanted to play guitar well, but would never be any good because they didn't have the raw ability. No amount of will would change that. Saw the opposite too - people with crazy talent who had no will to achieve the greatness they could have realized. Your tied up analogy is perfect! We're all tied up being us. We can't choose to be someone we're not. We can't choose to look different, have different talents, interests, have a different background, formative experiences... parents!!! - all the things that have made us who we are. We can't believe what we don't believe or want what we don't want. We are simply beings responding to stimuli based on a whole host of factors over which we had no choice or control. We didn't even get the choice to be or not to be in the first place. That it feels otherwise should not deter us from the reality. I really liked the "Ballad of Donald Trump." Very clever lyrics!

@@misterdeity Thank you. Arlo Guthrie is a huge inspiration and I think you can really hear it in that one.

I don't understand this comment. Perhaps you can use punctuation next time(?). It's a genuinely useful thing. Please try again.

You’re confusing making a choice with being able to freely make the choice. I can give consent for something realizing that I’m making the choice I’m making because of an infinite series of contingent events which caused me to make the decision I made, over which I had no say or control.

I agree with Mr Deity that one can have agency without having free will. They are related but not identical.

@@misterdeity I don't think there even is anything to confuse. A choice is inherently a free choice otherwise it's not a choice at all. I think what you're describing is coercion. If there is something over which you have no say or control which forced you to make a choice you didn't actually want then you didn't actually make a choice you were forced to respond in a way someone else wanted you to. To completely negate free will would mean that choice itself is an illusion we don't actually have. But again, I don't believe God gave us free will, I think that the idea of a God and free will completely contradict each other.

​@@RialVestro You think you actually choose to want what you want? LOL!!! If you're a strictly heterosexual man, can you choose to want the sexual attention of another man? More simply, if you prefer chocolate ice cream to vanilla, can you choose to prefer vanilla and genuinely prefer it? I hate to tell you this, but there is nothing about you that is free. You didn't even freely choose to be here. Life does not have your consent. And remember, where there is no consent, there is no freedom. Then, you didn't freely consent to any of the things that make you you. Your genes - which determine so much about you, from your skin and hair color, to your intelligence, to your temperament, to your height, proclivities, talents, etc... You didn't freely choose your parents, the time and place into which you were born (which greatly limits and directs your choices). The various experiences which mold you into the person you are - none of these things were freely chosen by you. You are merely a reactor. And you react based on how all of those various elements come together to make you the person you are. All of these things make you the person who wants x over y, who prefers a over b. You freely chose none of them. And we haven't even gotten to all the mental processes which run in the background in your subconscious, of which you're not even slightly aware. All of these things make you the person who makes choice x or y. If you want to call that coercion, that works for me. On a more day-to-day level, we even know that tangential things, like whether you've had lunch, or whether you're crazy hungry, will make you choose x over y. There's just so much that goes into making any choice, of which we have no conscious awareness, that the possibility of free will is not even on the table.

@@misterdeity You seem to be confused by the word "free" to mean without limitation or consequence but that's not what it means and it's literally impossible to have that unless you're the only person in the universe with any conscious thought and everyone else is just an NPC. So if that's what you mean by no free will then you're right it's not "free" in that sense. But that's not what it means to have free will. Without free will it's not possible to want or choose anything. If you were simply reacting then we could accurately predict the reaction before it happens. If you push a rock down a hill we know that the rock is going to move along a set path until it loses momentum or comes in contact with another object that stops it's movement. We know it's not going to make a U-turn and roll back up the hill because it's a rock, it has no agency with which to change direction like that. If you push a person down the hill you can't accurately predict the reaction because a person does have agency. You could get as many different reactions as there are people, that's what it means to have free will, without that, you can't want or choose anything, you'd by like the rocks because that's what no free will looks like. How do you think you left Mormonism if you don't have free will? I know the story behind it, I've heard you talk about it before, that's not what I'm asking. What I'm saying is that by your own logic because you were born into the Mormon religion of which you had no choice then all of the decisions you did make later in life that lead you out of that religion never could have happened and you'd still be a Mormon. Mister Deity wouldn't exist without your free will to make those decisions. A version of Brian Keith Dalton without free will would still be a Mormon and nothing could ever change that. God didn't give you free will, you gave yourself free will when you left Mormonism. It's ironic you think free will doesn't exist when you wouldn't be who you are right now without it.

Gotta love the Python boys!

What's so special about the cheesemakers?