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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to coast AM on

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Speaker 1: iHeart Radio. So I wouldn't be open lines, and we

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Speaker 1: didn't talk to Walt in Allentown, who's been on hold

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Speaker 1: for almost an hour. Walt be and uh, great to

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Speaker 1: talk to you. I'm glad you're I'm glad you're back

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Speaker 1: seven for George so soon I expect to you have

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Speaker 1: to wait over a month, but I'm glad. I'm glad

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Speaker 1: I'm talking to you again. So you're kind so well.

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Speaker 1: And for the people who think that you have a

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Speaker 1: special number that you can use a call in, I

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Speaker 1: just was stressing the fact that you've been on hold

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Speaker 1: for a long time, that you called early and you

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Speaker 1: were waiting to my fellow callers. My only if you

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Speaker 1: want to get on call early and call off and

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Speaker 1: here you go. All right, so it's open lines. Walt,

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Speaker 1: have at it. Well, you know you're I'm I'm intrigued

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Speaker 1: with your salutation line day stay a mod yes, And

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Speaker 1: if I were doing the show, my salutation line, as

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Speaker 1: you might expect, would be be good aide Okay, I

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Speaker 1: can I can accept that they're not they're not mutually

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Speaker 1: exclusive ideas. You know, I could exactly, h You know,

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Speaker 1: to me, Ian, when when you say Davis, you know

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Speaker 1: you're obviously people would obviously assume that you're talking about

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Speaker 1: Yahwagh Jehovah, the god of the Bible. But to me, uh,

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Speaker 1: in all of the gods, whether it's Yahweh Jehovah, Ala,

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Speaker 1: Buddha from and you know the Hindu, they're all answered formorphisms.

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Speaker 1: They were all created in our image. If you read

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Speaker 1: the Bible, How Ian, how could you possibly believe that

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Speaker 1: Yahway Jehovah is real? When he's he's a hypocritical ogre.

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Speaker 1: He says thou shalt not kill, and yet his solution

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Speaker 1: to everything is mass murder, whether it's the Great flood

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Speaker 1: Sadam and Gomore, you know, the Venerable Passover Tailor sends

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Speaker 1: the Angel of deaths down to kill the first Even

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Speaker 1: after the Israelites come out of the desert the forty

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Speaker 1: years of warnering and become into the promised land, Yahweh

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Speaker 1: Jehovah says that they can kill and enslave the native

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Speaker 1: inhabitants to Katonites. So Ian, how could I possibly believe

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Speaker 1: in the reality of Yahweh Jehovah. Well, So there's a

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Speaker 1: You've got a bunch of different concepts going and you've

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Speaker 1: kind of put them in a milage. So let's separate

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Speaker 1: out some of them. First of all, Um, Buddha is

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Speaker 1: not a god, so um, whereas he is an enlightened one,

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Speaker 1: he is not any sort of anthropomorphosized deity or anything.

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Speaker 1: So you've you've lopped Buddha into that. Let's go back

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Speaker 1: to the divine. So there's a big difference between the

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Speaker 1: divine and theology, and theology is always words about God,

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Speaker 1: and our theology is written by us from our human perspective,

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Speaker 1: with all of our human frailties. So when we look

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Speaker 1: at the history of theology, we also look at the

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Speaker 1: history of our humanness. They're they're inextricably linked. So when

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Speaker 1: you talk about mass murder, the God is a mass murderer,

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Speaker 1: you're what we would call that is is the odyssey.

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Speaker 1: It is the pursuit of God essentially in the course

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Speaker 1: of tragedy, where does God appear. That's the odyssey. It's

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Speaker 1: not odyssey is in the other word, but another version

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Speaker 1: of that. So what you are linking as you're supposing

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Speaker 1: that in these stories, when we talk about power grabs

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Speaker 1: and we use God as a way of justifying why

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Speaker 1: we get to claim an area. It's not a different

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Speaker 1: than it was in the United States, right, I mean

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Speaker 1: where if you're you're gonna have to go back to

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Speaker 1: the Bible. Just deal with our history. You live in Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: We you know there was this idea of manifest destiny.

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Speaker 1: This was our right to claim this land. This you

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Speaker 1: know that the United States was going to be a signing,

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Speaker 1: shining city on a hill, a beacon. And so again

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Speaker 1: we used the justification of we're doing this in the

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Speaker 1: name of God or Jesus, and that's why we get

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Speaker 1: to kill all these people and move them off their

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Speaker 1: land and claim it. So it's always it's been. It's

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Speaker 1: a it's a go to, it's a fallback. People use

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Speaker 1: it all the time to still use it in politics

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Speaker 1: to justify why they get to do something. So, if

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Speaker 1: it's true for us now and it was true for

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Speaker 1: the ancients, why are you blaming it on God? Well,

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Speaker 1: it's obvious that God is all right, God is the

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Speaker 1: excuse that we use. But yeah, it is obviously manufactured

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Speaker 1: in our imagination. No, Now that's the difference. Your God,

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Speaker 1: the God that justifies our horribleness is manufactured in our imagination.

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Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean there's not a divine And in fact,

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Speaker 1: it's one of the reasons why the commandment exists about

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Speaker 1: us not taking the Lord's name in vain. Is we

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Speaker 1: do that all the time. It has something to do

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Speaker 1: with swearing. It has to do with the idea of

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Speaker 1: appropriating God to justify why we get something, why we

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Speaker 1: get to invoke power over somebody else, why we get

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Speaker 1: to use it as sort of a magical thinking. And yeah,

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Speaker 1: that happens all the time. And if they don't have God,

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Speaker 1: they invent another reason why they get to take your water,

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Speaker 1: your gold, your oil, your land, your people, whatever. And

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Speaker 1: it's not just here, it's all over the world. But

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Speaker 1: that doesn't make it God's fault. Right, Well, it's not

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Speaker 1: Satan fall either, right, I didn't say it was. And

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Speaker 1: I think this is the interesting thing, is we go

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Speaker 1: back and forth, and there is that type of discussion

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Speaker 1: that goes on in the Bible itself, which you ess

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Speaker 1: to whether or not everything is God or is it

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Speaker 1: God does the good stuff and Satan does the bad stuff,

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Speaker 1: and both arguments get made. In fact, it's one of

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Speaker 1: the reasons why the Lord's prayer so interesting because it

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Speaker 1: seems to reflect a much older theology that God is

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Speaker 1: responsible for everything and not just the good stuff. So

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Speaker 1: we'll leave that there for now, but I hope that's

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Speaker 1: informative and gives you something to chew on until I'm

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Speaker 1: on again, and thanks for calling. Listen to more Coast

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Speaker 1: to Coast AM every weeknight at one am Eastern, and

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Speaker 1: go to Coast to Coast am dot com for more