Dolly Parton: Christian Humanist (A Tribute by Matt Dillahunty)

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1:00Shop vans and Albertsons for fresh savings every time you shop! This week at vans and Albertsons, get fresh boneless, skinless chicken breasts for 1.99 per pound limit 10 pounds, and locally grown grape-ary cotton candy grapes are 2.99 per pound with digital coupon. Plus, 24 packs of Canada Dry or 7-up 12-ounce cans are 4.99 limit 1 with digital coupon. Enjoy fresh and delicious savings for every meal! Hurry in, these deals won't last. Visit vans or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save! Okay, here we go! The Stabby! Three, two, one! The thinking atheist. It's not a person. It's a symbol. An idea. The population of atheists in this country is going through the rule. Rejecting faith. Perceiving knowledge. Challenging the sacred. If I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth. That's because I put my hand on a book and made a wish and working together for a more rational world.

2:00Take the risk of thinking, feel so. Much more happiness. Truth, beauty and wisdom will come to you that way. Assume nothing. Question everything. And start thinking. This is the thinking atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews. With the recent passing of country music legend and beloved icon Dolly Parton, there have been discussions online, especially about whether or not Dolly was a humanist. And I just find it kind of ridiculous. People are getting tripped up on this pebble. Are you kidding me? The point is Dolly Parton's life was defined by kindness, by charity. By accepting people across the wide wild, diverse spectrum of humanity.

3:01And she solved a lot of problems with her feet planted right here on Terra. Ferma, I think her values were humanist values, but people have argued and argued and argued about which label works and which one doesn't. That's just us. Any tribe, any group, especially in the skeptical community, we just find shit to argue about. Come on Dolly Parton was a lovely person to her bones. And at the age of 80, she left us and left the world a poorer place. Well, at the recent unholy trinity reunion event in Fort Worth, Texas, it was Matt De La Hunti me and R.N. Raw on stage. I just got the video back and I was able to grab Matt's speech. Is like 20 minute portion. It was a three hour concert, if I can call it a concert. It looks like the video came out. It's imperfect. We had some lighting issues with the venue, but I think the video cameras were able to compensate.

4:01That whole video is scheduled to release on September the 29th, but I wanted to get this 20 minute section out now because it is something we're all talking about. The life and legacy of Dolly Parton. And that's what Matt De La Hunti wanted to talk about. Dolly Parton, the humanitarian, the humanist question mark. I don't think it's a question mark and neither did Matt. So here in yet another bonus show with another live presentation. I've got the video version linked in the description box. I just wanted you to hear the inspiring and really moving words of Matt De La Hunti, as he honored someone who was a Jesus following Christian and yet represented the humanistic values that we should all aspire to have in our lives.

5:05When he first reached out to me, I had a brilliant idea and I was like, hey, it's been a few years since we've done this. Let me give a talk about what I've learned in the intervening years. Let's catch up with the folks that we haven't seen as much. I was going to talk about debates and how debates have changed, how there's fewer serious people who are willing to engage, how they seem to be the more sincere apologists, seem to be focused on Muslims and ex-Muslims because they can't make any headway with skeptics. Then I was going to talk about how there are Philbrose who are obnoxiously just calling into every colon show and how they're not real philosophers and not real apologists. Instead, I literally recorded that video last night for my atheist debates page around channel and it'll be up on YouTube. There's no reason to do that. Even how Jubilee and some others turn debates into sports, but sports entertainment, so they're WWE events that are just awful.

6:06And how there's so many bigots and the rise of MAGA has given them permission. Literally, Wednesday night on the show, where did a guy call in? I don't know, who saw it? Anybody watch the show Wednesday night? Thank you. He sat there and waited and when he realized that I had already caught onto him, he just went into the Hylh Hitler racist inward, K-word, everything. And how the focus on all of these conversations is political and it's exhausting and we're all tired. And I was going to talk about lessons I learned about trusting the wrong people or the wrong organizations and I realized this talk sucks. This is like, no, I wouldn't want to listen to this. I sound like just the whineiest person ever and the most frustrated and exhausted person and like, I have no hope. And then I went and talked to my therapist and realized that's because that's how it is.

7:09And I was trying to think of something better to do. And recently, someone suggested that maybe we're doing all this wrong and that we need to focus on something else entirely. And something happened this week that fundamentally changed everything about this talk. So you're welcome and I'm sorry. Imagine being so widely hated that every time anybody dies, the bulk of the world is disappointed that it isn't Euro-Bituary that they're reading. And then imagine that you're pretty much forced to order the flags at half-mast when the most universally loved being dies while you're president and you have to lie that she liked you. Apologists take note. The best argument for belief in God no longer exists. Dali Rebecca Parton-Deen died this last week at 80. If you type her name into Google right now in the search bar, click on the top result.

8:13There'll be a little butterfly that shows up and it spawns butterflies over and it says we will always love you. I don't know anybody who's gotten anything like that from Google. She was universally loved. This map shows that in the red stage she was revered statewide. She was beloved nearly by all in the blue states, deeply cherished in the green, warmly adored in the orange, and above all human beings in Tennessee. For those of you who are fans of the MCU, she was our anchor being so standby to be pruned. We are screwed. Her death might also be the new strongest argument against a loving God. She died after a quick fight with cancer as if we didn't need another reason to say fuck cancer. When she was born, the doctor was paid for her delivery with a bag of oats. She became the queen of country and perhaps the queen of this country. She made $10 million when Whitney Houston recorded, I will always love you.

9:18She didn't keep any of it. She took that $10 million and went to an impoverished black community and built a place that she called the house that Whitney built. She did not tell anybody that she had done this for 30 years. She had a trans man as a limo driver that even when they tried to get her to fire him, she kept him for 30 years and then she thanked him in the notes on one of her albums. She constantly gave money to people who were battled by storms, tragic victims of fires and floods. And she gave books to kids to inspire literacy. She was unapologetically queer-friendly at every opportunity. And the rumors around her never ended and never mattered. When asked about folks dressing up as her in drag, she noted that if she hadn't been born dolly-parten, she would have been a drag queen.

10:24She was kicked out of a hotel on her first trip to New York because they thought she was a hooker. An image that she had carefully cultivated intentionally by styling her entire image after the town tramp. She patterned kindness and generosity. She turned down the presidential middle of freedom three times twice from Trump because he's shit and once from Biden to avoid appearing political partisan. She was a songwriter, musician, a singer, storyteller, entertainer, businesswoman, collaborator, philanthropist. She probably could have been the first woman billionaire in the United States if she hadn't spent so much time just giving her away. She just gave and gave. I've loved dolly all my life. I mean, that doesn't surprise too many people because so did everybody else.

11:28I'm never going to be as good as she was. We all know that ship sailed, right? I'm just not going to. But I am going to spend the rest of the time that I have left trying not to be like her, but I help somebody else be like her. To create the sort of world that can find and foster the first secular version of dolly, or maybe the second, we'll see by the time I get to the end of this. The next universally loved person should be a godless, atheist, free thinking secular humanist who is kind and loving and who focuses on education and inspiration, on compassion and equality. We need a new universally loved person and they need to be, if possible, unshackled from religion. There are great religious people, but they're great despite the trappings and the dog of

12:30their religions. They cherry pick. They're the ones who focused on turn the other cheek instead of if a man lies with a man. They're the ones who focused on loved by neighbor and ignored the calls to enslave exterminating the victim. They're the ones whose god could never demand sacrifice, never tolerate slavery, never prescribe that a man be punished by having his newborn killed and his wife is publicly raped by his oldest son. These people have their own blinders. They're focused on a fictional ideal goodness that can never be compatible with the gods of the Torah, the Bible, or the Quran. And it's our job to show them that they can keep all of that good and that it is most compatible with humanism. Dolly Parton embodied the best principles of secular humanism and she tied it to the Christianity of her upbringing. I will not dishonor her preference by labeling her as a secular humanist, but a Christian

13:36humanist seems to fit very well. She was raised in a Pentecostal religion that she said had been crammed down her throat when she was a child and that she didn't want to portray her faith that way to other people. In 2018, Parton said that she believed in God and that he helps and guides her and that she talks to him every day. And she said that her faith is very important and that she believes Jesus loves her and that she's never ashamed of her religion. And she said she's not trying to cram it down to anybody else's throat, but that she just thinks everybody's got to have something to believe in. In an interview with the new humanist magazine in 2024, she said quote whether you believe in God or not, whether you call it Mother Nature or Father Time or higher wisdom, you need to believe in yourself and you need to believe there's a force that can push you and lead

14:36you on. And she added I'm not a religious fanatic. I wouldn't even say I'm religious though I grew up with that background. I'll honor Dali's actions or kindness by saying that the principles she had were not improved nor dependent upon Christianity. And it's our job to show the world if we survive the fascist regime, climate change, nuclear annihilation, the next pandemic and the AI disinformation age. Sorry, I call it like it is. That those values are the right ones no matter the label. She fought in literacy in honor of her father because he couldn't read. That's the best honor they father I could imagine. She fought for LGBTQ rights because of her friends and neighbors who she loved. She worked with Lily Tomlin.

15:37I like to imagine that they loved each other more than it was obvious. But I'm not trying to go down the porn route. I'm just saying. She helped foster art and amusement and charity to make the world brighter for the exact same reason because she loved her neighbor. She took seriously the idea that only God should judge. She donated a million dollars for COVID vaccine and publicly got vaccinated or to encourage others. I want a world where a map like that is drawn for an out atheist. We have a lot of things to work on. There's a disaster around every corner and we might not survive. But Dali decided when she was young that she wanted to be rich and famous and when it happened, she decided it would be bad form to complain. That's one of the reasons why nobody says anything bad about her.

16:39But she should never forget where she came from. When her town, I think it was severe, built a statue of her. She went to her dad all proud and maybe a little too proud. Her dad said that he was proud of her and loved her and he told her remember that while her fans would appreciate her as an icon to the pigeons, she was just another outhouse. We have to decide that we want a better world and we have to work for it. I won't be doing it for religion but I'll do it for the lessons I learned from Dali. Me more Dali less Donald. As a pastor named John Elder, I have to switch over because I'm going to read you what this guy said.

17:42I was really mad. John Elder said, Dali Parton is most likely in hell. She's a tragic example of what life looks like, claiming to be a Christian but never truly making Jesus Lord of your life. She described God less in strict theological terms and more as a universal energy, saying in a 1980 parade interview that God is a feeling within you and a greater higher energy present in everyone. Wrong. She was also a massive supporter of the Satanic LGBTQ plus movement. She was a universalist. Basically, she believed all humans would make it to heaven. Her worst belief was that there was an inherent good within humans.

18:42She embraced immodesty, liberal social justice movements and quit going to church decades ago. She found out today that Jesus is in fact Lord over all creation, including her. She had no excuse. She knew the gospel but chose to reject it. Jesus said these terrifying words, many will come to me and say, Lord, Lord, look what I did for you and I will respond and say, I never knew for you. May that never be you. Turn to Christ today and full repentance of your sin. Get plugged into a local church and start enjoying the fruit of true Christianity and a close relationship with God. True interpeace awaits you. Please don't repeat Dali's eternal mistake. That's the love of some Christians never cease to amaze me. I was shocked but not too shocked because from a biblical standpoint as the kid who grew

19:44up a Southern Baptist who was going to be a preacher. I know that from a doctrinal standpoint, he ain't wrong. Oh there's lots of disagreements and arguments, there's lots of different versions of Christianity. But I pointed out before the Westboro Baptist Churches awful as they are are our unfurmer biblical footing than any gay friendly queer rainbow church in the world. And yet I know who I'd rather be with. Her version of Christianity is demonstrably better than his by every measure, better for everyone and one whose principles we should strive to make true as his hateful version gets scrubbed from the hearts and minds of every person on this planet.

20:45And if there is a God who sides more with that pastor than with Dali Parton, we have a duty to everyone to struggle, to rise up and fight that monster even if it ends all of us. That pastor is free to enjoy his hate, his bigotry, his ignorance, his false sense of superiority, to preach and try to poison the world. Ask for me in my house, we will listen to Dali. Thank you. McDonald's is putting value back on the menu. Whether you're craving a Big Mac, McNuggets or sausage egg and cheese McGrittle's, make

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