Art Bell’s episode pits callers like Ronald and Cody against skeptic Ian Joyce, debating Planet X—a supposed rogue celestial body—claiming it’ll strike Puerto Rico on September 23rd, splitting the U.S., while citing NASA’s Ceres "city lights," 2013-2015 asteroid impacts, and military drills like Jade Helm. Meanwhile, atheist guest Matt dismisses divine judgment claims tied to Rosh Hashanah (Sept. 13th/28th) and a solar eclipse, arguing morality stems from human empathy, not faith. Callers challenge evolution’s complexity, comparing it to "designed" traits like the platypus, while Bell insists conspiracies need proof, rejecting pre-placed explosives in 9/11 but joking about Ceres resembling Los Angeles. The episode blends fringe apocalyptic theories with philosophical debates, leaving listeners questioning whether fear or reason drives belief. [Automatically generated summary]
I bid you all, good evening, good morning, and good afternoon from the globe, wherever you may be.
It's open wine.
Tonight, anything goes, and I mean anything, well, no bad language and only one call per show.
Those are the rules.
Otherwise, anything goes.
Let me repeat that.
No bad language and only one call per show.
Other than that, there are no rules.
Now, I am, well, I'll get to my level of disappointment here in a minute, I guess.
I wanted somebody, and I do want somebody right now.
Matter of fact, let me go ahead and get started on that.
I want somebody who believes we are about to be crushed like bugs by Planet X. I am so disappointed.
I put up a little Facebook post asking for somebody to call, and a few people called, but none of them were what I would call, I mean, I get emails here, folks.
You wouldn't believe the emails I get.
unidentified
Aren't, oh my God, get somebody on about Planet X fast.
So out of money and relegated once again to the back of the pack, former governor Rick Perry of Texas said, okay, that's enough.
I quit.
Technically, what they say is I suspend my operations.
But that's what it is.
He's out.
And so Perry is number one to go down, and they're going to be going down like bowling pins here shortly.
Let's see.
From NASA, we have received new pictures, and Ceres has very, very mysterious bright spots in it.
And there's a lot more detail now, and they do look intriguingly a lot more like they're completely inexplicable, a lot more like, frankly, city lights viewed from space.
Now, as you may or may not know, Richard C. Hoagland follows my program.
He will be examining all these in detail, and I'm sure he's pretty convinced we're looking at L.A. there on Sirius.
We've joked about that, but I don't think he's joking about that.
So that'll be coming up after my show.
My show is going to be, I don't know what it's going to be, it's going to be open lines.
Anything paranormal you want to talk about is fair game.
But I really am looking for, let me give out a special line.
If I can find one of those people who emails me and says stuff like, Blanx is coming hard, hurry, get somebody on.
And if I sufficiently believe you when you call, I will then put you on hold, and I will get a person who does not believe we're going to be crushed like bugs, and we'll have a little bit of a debate and see how that goes.
So again, the Planet X, we're all going to die.
People.
Area code 575-208-7787.
Have you seen the new Apple stuff?
It was all unveiled, and I don't know.
They have, you know, the Apple TV, all that stuff.
Interesting.
I'm always looking for big changes in the basic phone itself.
And it seemed like to me in the middle models, eh, you don't get that kind of change.
Anyway, as I mentioned, open lines, completely open lines.
And toward that end, I'll do my usual hated description of how to call the show with Skype, okay?
Here it comes.
We'll see how quickly I can do it.
If you have any kind of smartphone, you can download Skype.
It is free.
And all you do is put it on your phone, go to your toy store or whatever, get Skype, put it on.
Once you've got it, it's so easy.
You go to add a contact, not where you dial.
I get a lot of people emailing saying, I keep putting it in there and it wants numbers.
No, not there.
Add a contact, a little plus sign in the upper right-hand corner usually.
And you put our initials in.
Midnight in the desert, MITD.
That's all you do.
MITD 51 covers all of North America.
So you put in MITD 51.
And if you're outside of North America, you would, oh, we're already getting a candidate here.
Outside North America, the rest of the world, it's MITD55.
M-I-T-D-5-5.
And after that, you don't have to connect to me.
After that, you'll find us in the contact list.
You can press call, and you will indeed call us.
Let me check out a candidate here for Planet X. Hello?
Well, this is Sharon calling from Winnipeg, Canada, and I can't believe the luck I have in getting through to you, but I just want to take a minute and just comment.
You know, when you're talking about how people can use the smartphone to download Skype, right?
Sure.
Okay, well, you know how today, in 2015, the language used now is abbreviated and shortened.
And if you allow me, I just want to give you, you know how you introduce yourself and you're saying, I'm Mark Bell at Midnight in the Desert, right?
Mike, feel free to interrupt when he starts getting silly.
We're going to die on the 23rd.
So that's how many days from now?
That's not many, huh?
unidentified
No, not many.
In fact, my wife and I have been researching this for many months now, and we are getting out of Los Angeles, California, and heading up towards Mount Shasta on the 13th because we believe the window is going to be, well, it's going to hit on the 23rd, and on about the 25th or 26th, the dust is going to settle, and then things will kind of be back to normal around the 28th.
But the asteroid is supposed to hit Puerto Rico on the 23rd.
Well, I've been watching a lot of documentaries and videos on YouTube and reading a lot of different information that say that most of it agrees that the area that it's going to hit is going to be Puerto Rico on the 23rd, and it's supposed to split the United States in half.
Some conspiracy theorists think that it might be a Tesla Ray that's going to strike instead as part of a government, you know, whatever the global military industrial complex is doing.
But I think it's going to be an asteroid.
So does my wife, because one hit Russia in 2014 or 13 or last year, and then one just hit Iran this year.
So I think it's pretty much incoming debris as part of a larger two and a half mile wide asteroid that's going to impact.
Recently, though, you had someone on, I think it was you or Richard had someone on that was talking about asteroids and how we measure them and the chances of them hitting.
And they said that the possibility of us knowing where one's going to hit, even if we knew it was coming, would be virtually impossible until it got within the moon, which at that point, it's either going to be too late.
Consider this quote: The powers that be will teach you how to live in television and hide the truth in movies.
So I started doing research in some movies by major producers like Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams and started looking at the signs in these movies.
And we kept seeing, my wife and I kept seeing 923 showing up, like in Doomsday, 2012, Armageddon, Deep Impact, 923.
And we're going to be able to do that.
No, the reason for that is because it is one of the equinoxes.
It shows up in a lot of things just because it is traditionally an important day.
It's one of the four changes of the seasons.
Yeah, that's also true.
And it could also be predictive programming also where our consciousness actually leads to some kind of cataclysmic event.
And that could be true, but again, how does that lead to an asteroid or meteor or whatever?
Based on the research that I've been looking at, is that a large, there's a lot of people out there who really believe that it is an asteroid, especially since there's been two asteroid impacts very recently, and that this is just a little bit incoming debris from the larger asteroid.
So let me then go on to this question then, I guess, is what is the damage?
I mean, you said something about America being split in half.
Is there any casualty estimates here?
Are they saying, you know, millions and millions or everyone on Earth is going to die or what?
Well, this could be an extinction level event.
If it kicks up enough dust into the air to cloud out the sun to put us into a mini ice age, it could last up to two years where we would have to go underground.
The only people that are going to survive would be those in the deep underground military bunkers, like at Denver International Airport or Iron Mountain or Mount Weather, places like that.
So I think that we are, and the government and the military has been preparing for it for a while now.
In fact, they just reopened NORAD, I think, and there are a lot of – and now Jade Helm is going on in the United States, and that's not due to end until September 15th.
Other than shoot some giant laser at it or something?
I mean, the mobilizing, you know, doing drills.
Jade Helm is a major mobilizing force isn't going to do doodly squat for an asteroid, is it?
So how would that be really?
Well, Jade Helm is a military exercise that's been going on since July 15th out of Northern Command.
I don't know if you've ever heard of Northern Command.
Northern Command is...
It's managing civilians.
It's managing on-the-ground threats.
It's not, I mean, it's, you know, you could make the argument that it's revolutionary takeover kind of stuff, but it's not something that's going to affect an asteroid.
If an asteroid hits, it doesn't matter what kind of tanks or military or what you've got on the ground, it's gone, right?
So how does that affect that?
I don't think that they're in place to protect from the asteroid.
I think they're in place to handle the aftermath of the impact.
But if what you're saying is, you know, near extinction level ice age and all that kind of stuff, they're not going to do anything.
If they're the government and they know this is going to happen, what they're going to do is they're going to get their butt off the planet.
They're not going to fool around with Jade Helm.
How are they going to get off the planet?
Well, I mean, if we're going on these conspiracies and all this kind of stuff, that they know that this is asteroids coming and they're doing all this preparing and all this stuff, don't you think that they would, if all this is true, don't you think that they have some sort of method to get off the planet?
Oh, I certainly agree that they're 50 years beyond any of the technology that we know of.
I worked in the Department of Defense and the intelligence community for 13 years and held the top secret clearance, and I understand what's really going on behind the scenes.
That's why I'm going to go ahead and go to the next one.
Wouldn't it make sense instead of spending these vast amount of resources years in advance to do this big military exercise when you know that this Earth, this asteroid or whatever is coming, wouldn't it make sense to channel all your funds to just getting off?
Or getting, you know, even if it's a small group, you know, one of those, what was that?
You're looking at funding and financing from a civilian perspective.
I told her that she's looking at funding and financing from a civilian perspective.
The military government, they write the checks.
Money isn't really an issue to them.
Don't you know that the IRS just lost $11 trillion that they refuse to take any responsibility for?
It's money.
But I guess what I'm saying is that I don't see how Jade Helm could be connected to this.
Because it seems to me like if this is as big as everyone's saying, you know, you can kiss your butt goodbye.
Who cares?
There's no need for Jade Helm if what you're saying is going to happen.
Well, let's say Jade Helm is supposed to end on September 15th and President, and by the way, the Pope is coming to the United States to meet with the United Nations on the 23rd of September.
But let's just say the government does tell us, hey, we've spotted an incoming body that's an extinction level event type of an asteroid, and all hell breaks loose.
Now they have to, and a lot of people know that there are these deep underground military bunkers and safe places to go underground.
But do you really think they would tell us if they knew it was going to happen, if they knew it was going to hit and it was game over and there was nothing they could do about it, do you really think they would even bother telling us?
I think they would be forced to when basically novice astronomers and civilians start coming out saying, hey, we're spotting this in the atmosphere and it's heavy.
We're 15 days away or less.
Where are they then?
Where are the amateur astronomers and all that stuff saying it?
There are you can get.
Exactly.
Where else are we supposed to find them?
The news media isn't going to report them because they don't want to stir anything.
And the news is controlled by the government corporations.
These are billionaires that control all the news.
They're not going to let these amateur astronomers come on and start running those kinds of stories, even if we know and I know and whoever else knows is out there in the streets even picketing and holding up.
During the break, I did a little bit of research on this because I don't actually know a whole lot about it.
And the only thing that I could find that seems to be the source of this is a preacher named Efrien Rodriguez, I think it said, who has started this whole thing.
And then a lot of other people kind of jumped on it and tried looking for signs for it.
So that means that this is, of course, a biblical prophecy.
Now, in my view, of course, biblically, God says in the Bible that he would not destroy the earth by a flood ever again after the first one.
And if you look at the way it goes up to the end times, there seems to be no mention of any time where humanity is just going to get killed off.
I do have my prescription, by the way, but I do not smoke.
Oh, I don't even know where to go with that one.
Josh, so I guess my view is, you know, there's a little theory about how the universe changes itself based on our observations and that it's us observing it that seems to keep it going.
The consciousness seems to keep it going.
That's the theory of relativity.
Right.
Well, my question would be...
How could the universe even sustain that?
How could everything just die?
All of the consciousness will not be killed out because, like I said, there's those deep underground military bunkers that are controlled by the global military-industrial complex.
And those bunkers are two and a half miles underneath the Earth.
They work on a mercury isotope for their nuclear generators.
And I know that firsthand from one of the guys who built the Denver International.
Okay, so are you a religious person?
You know, I was raised Catholic, and I would say I have become more of a person who believes this.
Photons emitted by the sun carry the intelligence of our consciousness that interacts with our subconscious mind, and our subconscious mind, interacting with photons, creates an apparent physical reality that is not really physical.
I believe that.
And we can move, we can do anything we want with our subconscious as long as we can control it, but our subconscious is being controlled by the psychological operations program of the global military-industrial conflict.
Right.
That says a lot.
Okay, well.
It is a lot.
I was raised in a Baptist school for 13 years, and I heard nothing but doomsday prophecies ever since I was a kid.
And none of the ones that I heard ever came true.
I guess my thought is that even biblically, if you want to go by the Bible on this one, even biblically, this doesn't fall in line with the prophecies of the end times.
There's so many other things that would have had to have happened first and would happen after.
It doesn't seem to even fit that.
Well, you know, what would be the point of the completed document?
If you have first-hand evidence of anything, or if you don't have it, I'm sorry to say, if you don't have it, then you should not be packing your car and getting ready to haul your wife.
But yourself and your wife off to a place where you think you might survive this thing that's good.
How are you going to feel if it doesn't happen?
unidentified
Actually, I'll feel happy because I have an after plan, too.
And we'll treat it like a nice two-week vacation, and maybe we will get into sellout.
But at least I know I will give myself the best chance to survive.
I'm not tied down to a job.
I'm a writer, a movie maker.
I write books about this kind of thing and make movies about it.
There we go.
So you have some skin.
What about financially in this job?
Hey, I started out as a government intelligence operative and turned into a filmmaker who's trying to get rid of the global military-industrial complex.
So this isn't about anything, any kind of an agenda or pre-thought that I've had.
Well, it seems like, I mean, it seems like it couldn't be anything but agenda if there's no actual physical evidence for it, anything but just prophecy and some movies online that make money.
I can't think of anything else.
Okay, well, is there evidence that it's not going to happen?
Only if you believe we're about to be crushed by Planet X should you call that number.
Okay.
All right, thank you.
All right.
So that number is 575.
Eric, that's 575-208-7787.
If you think we're about to get crushed by Planet X, I'm almost done with this anyway because I don't think anybody has any evidence other than YouTube, which you can find anything up there.
The one thing I did learn tonight that I thought was interesting was that the telescope that they're using, the Catholic Church, has put in in Arizona, is called Lucifer.
And whether we're talking about an asteroid, whether we're talking about Planet X hitting us, whether we're talking about CERN, which, by the way, if you put 92315 into Google Maps, I've noticed it doesn't take you to CERN anymore.
So we're in the path of Planet X and we're all going to die.
unidentified
We're all going to die if we do not take cover, have some kind of protection, especially if there's not some kind of a metal shelter or storm drain that you can get into in a hurry, that's for sure.
If there's flooding underground, how do you expect to survive that?
If there's flooding underground, as I've told you, I've got multiple options for survival.
So if there's a flood, I've got the mountain.
If there's asteroids that start pelting us, I've got a cave that I can't.
How do you get out of a manhole when there's debris on top of it and make yourself into a mountain?
I don't need to go into a manhole.
A manhole would be a good suggestion for somebody who's in a city who doesn't have the means to get to a cave or something on a mountain that could protect them.
But it still doesn't explain a cataclysmic weather event wiping you out.
How does it not explain a cataclysmic weather event wiping you out?
Well, it's science.
There's so much evidence to show that we're on the cusp of something like that happening right now to say that that's not going to happen.
You've given me evidence yesterday on your talk show through talk telling me about these Inuits that are living up in the north who have noticed for the last three years that the sun has changed positions.
We've got the Vatican case.
The Pope and Obama are claiming that climate change is what's causing all these events to happen on the planet.
Why would I'm not going to trust Obama, who's standing there looking like it's a PR campaign on a glacier telling me that global warming is being caused by humanity when the Vatican has a telescope in Arizona that they had to fight very hard, named Lucifer, to build, that they've had for over 10, 20 years now.
It's the biggest infrared telescope in the world.
What are they looking for?
Are they telling us our fault and it's global warming?
Do you honestly think it's good advice to tell people to go into a manhole when there could be tsunamis coming over and the manhole would fill up real quick, right?
unidentified
Personally, it is good advice from evidence that I've heard from people.
Let's have you do that.
Let's have you test that out, and then I'll fill it full of water and to see how long you last.
We could do that right now.
You can laugh at it all you want.
I'm just saying that there were people who, in the 1950s, guys who came out trying to expose Planet X, who talked about how when Planet X was going to pass.
I saw ex-Mayor Giuliani was interviewed a number of times on CNN today, and he now states that New York is much safer than a lot of other places in the country, cities.
unidentified
Well, that may be true, but we've seen what happens when the lights go out in New York, and it's not pretty.
I'm here in Colorado Springs, where NORAD is, and I would much rather be here in Colorado Springs.
Well, since it's open lines, I first of all just wanted to, of course, you know, like everybody else, welcome back to the radio.
Thank you.
But what I was really wondering is, you know, over the years, we've heard so many stories on your show about alien encounters and, you know, of course, you're seeing the object above you.
Yes.
I was curious that have you ever been shown anything or been told a story that you felt that you could say it was 100% there has to be this story is true?
I mean, honestly, what else, you know, otherwise it's stories on the phone, right?
Whether it's from guests or callers or it's any secondhand knowledge is exactly that, secondhand or thirdhand knowledge.
When you see something and experience it yourself, then 100%.
unidentified
Well, you know, I can relate to that a bit because my wife and I recently moved up into, we're in Minneapolis and we moved up into a high-rise apartment.
And so we can see, you know, miles and miles out at this point.
I've said that for years and years, that if people would go outside and actually look up, I mean, you miss so much by not looking up.
So occasionally, at least, folks, look up at the stars.
Spend a moment looking at stuff.
You'll see a lot.
unidentified
Yeah.
We'll sit out on the balcony here, and I can't say that it's a nightly occurrence or anything like that, but I have multiple pictures and videos of just odd, strange things going on in the sky.
And the only reason that I'm seeing it is because we are just basically just sitting here scanning the sky at night, you know, when we're out smoking a cigarette on the patio.
Well, again, circling back, thank you very much for the call, circling back to what you said, the only thing that I can say 100% is what happened to me, what I saw, what I experienced, that I can guarantee you.
But, you know, you can't really take that to the bank any further than I can take one to the bank that is said to me.
I sort of judge them by the way they're told and how people, I don't know, the emotion in their voices or their, you know, the expression on their faces when they tell a story like that.
And I can assign a certain percentage of belief to it.
But the only thing that you can say you absolutely believe in is something you experience yourself.
This whole thing, if you I've watched a lot of these YouTube videos on the woman named Sierra Vana makes some, Lind Liaz, and the other woman's name is Renee M. There is a ton of pop culture references to this 923 date.
You believe we're going to get smashed on the 23rd, yes?
unidentified
Well, Jonathan Kahn is talking about A massive global a massive I am asking what you believe.
I don't know.
I see a lot of things coming.
I see the financial collapse and the possibility.
There is some talk about a meteor strike, but because the meteor strike thing comes from people, the government building these underground, the dumps, they keep underground military bases.
This is God's judgment on the United States for the sin that we've committed, the multiple sins that we've committed.
Which one?
Well, one is just turning away from God.
I think it starts with new prayer in schools, stuff like that.
And Jonathan makes the argument much better than I could, but what he says is that we – That's probably right in there.
Well, where he goes with that is that when you take something holy and you desecrate it, what's going to happen is they're going to take something good and they're going to make it evil.
Okay, but why would people of the same sex who get married be desecrating anything because they're actually in love?
They want to be married.
unidentified
Well, I have kind of mixed feelings about it because constitutionally I don't see a problem with it, but from a biblical perspective, it's just totally not what God taught.
I mean, it's not marriage was between man and a woman.
So you think we've turned away from all of that, and that is soon, and we are about to be judged somewhere between now and, what, the 28th?
unidentified
The 13th and the 28th are the dates that have people interested.
The 23rd being the one that people think that the elite are putting into movies and TV shows, The Simpsons, like all kinds of little references here and there.
So I'm still searching for somebody who wants to debate my atheist, but we're in open lines.
And so you're on the air.
unidentified
Hi, Art.
I'm just don't have the heart to try to debate an atheist.
That's just kind of pointless in my book.
What I would like to talk about is some methods to get to Mars very quickly.
And I did call at the end of the show last night and talked for a minute with Matt.
Oh, it was great.
And I love the idea of making some kind of warp drive.
But just on a very simple standpoint of a way to do a trip to Mars in a few days to a week, if we went and froze a perfect ice log in Antarctica and airlifted it to the Cape or to Wallace Island, which may be the preferred place to launch to Mars,
and had a rocket that just had this frozen icicle in the center of the core, and around that a low-energy nuclear reaction, which wouldn't involve any radiation, which would use plasmon-plariton physics, the new physics of generating energy not over unity, but within the confines of the laws of thermodynamics.
And suddenly it flash-heated that icicle to an infrared, very high temperature, and just use, instead of hydrogen and oxygen, which could explode, it's ice.
It's the same thing as the exhaust product, but it's pretty much perfectly safe.
Now, that could get you to Mars in a matter of, in a throttle boy.
You can restart it, make orbit corrections, do orbital insertions in Mars with the ice still staying frozen in space.
So it's a very practical idea.
Now, once you get to Mars, you could have the extra ice that's left over in orbit, in low Mars orbit, and use that to power shuttle vehicles to take you down to Mars.
Well, what I would say is if that's what you had, you would have somebody inside that was jelly.
Now, if they were a human, they would be just, you know, jelly.
You can't make sharp turns going really fast without turning biological mass, as we understand it, pretty much into, well, jelly is a rough term, but you get the idea, right?
Well, I mean, you know, I kind of tend to think sometimes the benefit of all this apocalyptic obsession may make people actually live like a more focused life if they think that maybe they only have a week to live.
Well, I mean, I think one thing I think is interesting is your last caller, when it got down to it, it seemed like he was convinced there was some kind of retribution from God coming down on us.
That's right.
Yeah.
Which, I mean, I'm surprised he also started off by saying he didn't want to talk to the atheist, but you would think that he was so convinced that we're about to, you know, all be destroyed, then that the atheist would cut at the core of those beliefs.
Do you want to take it to a level that we can say that the same story of Jesus Christ was told by Horus, Mithra, Krishna, and a lot of other pagan gods?
And maybe that's all based on Egyptian, ancient Egyptian allegory where you can actually talk about constellations in the sky?
Or what else do you want to talk about?
What part of actually, what foolish religion are you a part of, Mike?
You dump the trash down and it bangs on down to the basement where the bin is.
Okay.
And then the stalls are after that.
Well, I woke up at 3 o'clock.
Remember, I'm just a little kid.
3 o'clock in the morning, and I have to pee like a racehorse.
So I pad on out past the dorm, past the showers, across the hall, into the first stall next to the big bench chute, and sat down to do my business.
Well, when I was just about through, I heard this bang, bang, bang on the trash chute, and then I heard the flutter of cardboard and paper coming down.
And that startled me for a minute.
So I just sat there.
And not long after that, a moment or so after that, I heard footsteps coming down from the upper floors, down the steps.
And after it came down the steps, I heard it walking down the hall, step, step, step.
And it went right past the bathroom.
And to the immediate right are the stairs to the ground floor.
We were on the second floor.
And going down the steps, I heard this bang, bang, bang falling each footstep.
And I'm frozen.
I had to redo my business.
Anyway, okay, we're going to skip to the next night.
Wake up 3 o'clock in the morning and did the same thing.
Past the dorm, past the showers on the left, crossed the hall, sat down to do my business.
And sure enough, bang, bang, bang on the trash chute, flutter, flutter.
And moments later, come the footsteps down the stairs, tap, tap, tap, down the hall, patter, patter, patter.
Turns the corner, goes down the last flight of steps, and the bang, bang, bang after the footsteps.
And, well, I went past all the things, sat in the stall, did my business, and sure enough, the shoot, bang, bang, bang, and here come the steps, the footsteps down the stairs.
And this time I think, I'm going to find out what this is.
And as I heard it go around the corner and down the last flat of stairs, I got up and peeked around the corner.
There's a fellow dressed in khaki color janitor outfit with a little crushed head on his hat, just walking down the steps.
He was holding a push broom by its neck, letting the handle bang on each step as he went down the steps to the bottom floor.
I think this ghost had a sense of humor.
I talked to the nuns the next day, and I told them my story, and they looked at me, and they said, well, you were just dreaming.
I said, no, no, no.
And then I got one of those nun looks, like, no more, not going to ask anymore.
It is a sad state of affairs that one has to imagine Bigfoot resorting to dumpster diving, but okay.
unidentified
And I said, well, what did you do then?
He said, well, that's when I really broke out into a cold sweat and just, he said, I curled myself up into a tiny little ball and prayed that nothing was going to happen to me.
And he heard it, walk away, and he waited like 15 minutes and went running back inside the house.
And this was like at the time when I talked to him, he was, this was like 30 years before, I mean, 30 years ago.
And he said from that point on, he's never been out camping ever since.
He's been waiting patiently, probably pretty nearly ready to give up.
It's been so long.
So go ahead.
unidentified
Okay, my name's Don.
I'm calling from Amarillo, Texas.
And I'm a retired chemist, and I'm probably not the most qualified to speak from a religious point of view, but one thing.
But I think the best evidence that science has to offer about the creation of the universe is the Big Bang Theory.
And I used to be an atheist myself, but then I got to thinking one night, how is it any easier to believe that everything we perceive to come from an infantable quantum of infinite energy than it is to believe in a supernatural force creating the universe?
Well, about the Big Bang theory is, you know, I don't, you know, science is pretty accurate about what they are, but you're talking about this like color is saying that, oh, you don't have all the steps planned out, but that doesn't mean that science doesn't have an actual really good idea about how it is.
Just because they haven't landed every single rung of the ladder doesn't mean they actually have a ladder.
Like, you know what I mean?
Like, we can go ahead and talk about this if you want to talk about proving absolutes in a scientific manner.
You really can't.
However, I believe my atheism goes like this.
I'm a minute-to-minute atheist, like any reasonable atheist should be, because right now, at this very moment, I have no proof that I should believe in some sort of God or some sort of religion because, well, even on a scientific level, there hasn't really been any kind of evidence to state that.
Well, I mean, we're going to get into an obvious stalemate on that because what I'm guessing is going to happen is that if we go through the steps within the Big Bang Theory, you're going to reach a point, like many people who believe in some sort of religion where at the very last moment they say, well, I got my faith.
And my faith is going to be that one thing because faith is nothing more.
So if you don't believe in God at all, then you believe there's no moral plane that we live on, meaning that there's no consequences for anything we do at all in life.
Well, okay.
Number one, I never stated that.
You don't have to have morals to be anything.
Like, I have morals, but it doesn't come from religion.
I have morals from being a decent human being.
Like, I don't know how this works where some people, and I'm not saying you in particular, but some people will make the comment, well, if you're an atheist, what stops you just from raping, killing, and all that stuff?
Because I don't do that because I'm, you know, a Christian or whatever like that.
I don't have those thoughts.
I'm a very calm individual.
I have empathy for other individuals.
And there is consequences in what we do.
We have laws to justify those things.
And I think that inherently from what we see and how we get treated, we realize if you believe in some sort of, I guess, you know, what everyone calls, golden rule, or just from life experience, you'll go ahead and realize you shouldn't do some things.
You wouldn't want them done to you, would you?
No.
But that doesn't come from religion.
That just comes from a person not wanting a certain thing to happen to them in that way.
So to add to that, then you believe life has no meaning then?
No, I never said that either.
I mean, I choose to do with my life, which I believe I only have one of them.
I don't believe in reincarnation or anything like that.
I believe I should make the most of it.
And I do that.
I do some volunteer work.
I mean, I even donated a year of my life to AmeriCorps to go ahead and work with homeless people in North Dakota and help write some of their they had grants there for big oil projects that were happening there to help the homeless people and the Native American people who weren't really getting a fair shake out of life.
And I figured that I could at least, as a person, donate a year of my life to that.
And I just reached that conclusion just on, you know, myself because I think that, you know, I got a pretty good fair shake in life, and I want somebody else to maybe have one too.
But if we die and nothing happens of it, what good did that do?
Well, because I live in the present.
I don't live for, you know, tomorrow in some sort of sky fairy.
I mean, I live in a sense where I want to go ahead and make the most of this current life that I'm living right now.
So I want to go ahead and maybe be able to sleep at night because, you know, hey, an atheist still has a conscience.
That doesn't, like, reflect on any kind of religious belief.
Well, I mean, I think that inherently by what we experience in life and how we believe we want to go ahead and be treated, if you want to call that morals, sure, why not?
I just call that everyday expectancy and whatnot.
But go ahead.
What's your question?
Do you believe in the golden rule?
That's basically my last question, and then we can get on with this.
Oh, I explained to the last caller that I reference golden rule, but I think that we really wanted to be treated the way that we want to go ahead and treat others, and I think vice versa.
But some people, they are sociopaths.
They don't have that sense of empathy or compassion, and they lack that.
So you witness that in society.
And in reality, you should witness things like that because sometimes, you know, people won't think like you.
Yeah, I guess if you want to call it a golden rule.
So I take it you browse a lot of Reddit?
I don't really dig Reddit.
I mean, I've checked out a couple when my friends were on, but I've got it.
I don't really browse Reddit.
Reddit, hold on.
Reddit has a really big atheist community, and you just reminded me of that.
A lot of atheists are, you know, on Reddit, really?
In your face about it, you know.
Oh, well, you know, I mean, there comes a point in your life when you just get tired of hearing ridiculous stuff, and you get tired of watching people in your own society.
Let's even jump in and say even homosexuals, the way they get treated by people who so-called claim to be Christians.
The way they get treated.
I consider myself an agnostic or maybe even a little Christian.
I've been a huge fan of yours since you did a show on Mel's Hole way back when big time.
I'm pretty shocked to get on here, but I don't exactly want to be an opponent of what the guest is saying, but I, for one, have a huge, deep belief that there is something else out there based on experiences.
Yes, yes, sir.
Based on experiences that I personally have had within doing psychedelics.
Okay, so you're saying you believe in God based on the drugs you've done.
What are the experience, to be fair, the experience you had while on drugs?
unidentified
Mushrooms.
Certainly mushrooms.
I came to an understanding that we are the universe manifested into these beings for this experience.
And it is a godly experience.
I don't know if you've ever heard of Ken Wilbur, but I've done a lot of research when it comes to Ken Wilbur, Alan Watts, Ron Doss, a lot of Eastern mythology and Eastern religion.
And to me, in the experiences that I've had, I've come to the realization that we are basically the universe woken up to itself and having these conscious experiences.
Me personally, if I could ask Matt, what do you believe in?
Do you believe that there is no God, or do you not know if there is a God?
Well, I think that's a very fair question.
I mean, atheism in its sense is the disbelief.
You know, it's not necessarily unbelief in anything like that.
It's just that you might have doubt.
And in reality, I have doubt with all the other religions.
So what they've offered.
And even the people who are like, hey, I'm really spiritual or they believe in something kooky like astrology.
And that to me is just nonsense.
Like I said before, it's a caller.
I think two callers ago, I said, I'm an atheist minute by minute.
At this time, right now, there is no proof that's going to sway me into believing in any kind of religion or that there might be a God or there is a God.
So you believe in no God.
Okay.
So what do you believe in?
Do you believe in any concepts, anything that you're striving for so far as you personally achieving a goal such as bringing more anything into the world, such as more beauty, more truth, more goodness?
You know, helping in soup lines and all that kind of stuff.
The golden rule, I think we've heard most of it.
unidentified
Okay.
Okay.
Do you believe in a purely hedonist point of view to where you just want to achieve pleasure in life?
Well, I mean, pleasure by what?
Such as a service to greater humanity or a greater goal, such as serving the world, making it a better place.
I'm sorry, I don't mean to interrupt you, but if you listen to the prior calls of that, I said that I donated a year of my life to MariCorps, and I actually worked in providing for people who did that.
If you want to get even deeper in my life, I used to be a union representative in the United Auto Workers, and I actually fought for those who couldn't fight for themselves.
So I just think that you would take on these things just as a person, as a person that actually has compassion and sympathy.
And that doesn't come from religion.
That just comes from you would want the same to be done for you.
I mean, if you're a person who's not a sociopath or really greedy, I mean, you don't have to necessarily be a sociopath to be a real greedy jerk.
Okay.
I believe that anyone can be moral.
I don't believe that morality is particularly confined to a religious circle or a religious point of view.
Anyone can be moral because it comes from their heart.
And I believe that's a beautiful thing.
If you've served and you've done these things, that's wonderful.
So far as a goal now, what keeps you going day to day?
Is it something inside so far as serving others or is your job or what's your desire going day to day so far as you're not a religion or a God?
Okay, well, I mean, if you want to get into it, I can blame Art Bell for his intriguing radio over the years that actually got me to get a degree in radio broadcasting.
And yes, I do partake in working a steady job and such.
but I mean it's not like I'm not after a lot of money.
If you know anything about radio, you don't make a whole lot of money unless you're the top dog.
Like, you know what I mean?
You get bounced from place to place.
I mean, I can speak on this behalf on that.
If you search for radio as trying to make millions, man, you're SOL.
You know, I don't rule out the possibility that there are conspiracies because, of course, there are.
But I also don't look at everything as a conspiracy until it is proven to me that it is one.
And I suppose the Federal Reserve is a sort of a conspiracy if you look at how they operate.
9-11, I've said this many times, I disagree with these truthers.
To me, and this is a good day to be talking about it, what's left of it, a few minutes, I saw those airplanes hit the towers, and that seems like the truth to me.
unidentified
Yes, they did.
But let's take the tower in number seven, which collapsed like free fall speeds all by itself.
I mean, there must be some explosives put in there and set all of it.
Well, there is a big controversy about the man who said, pull it, you know, pull it, and that indicates bring it down.
And it may well be that after the nearby explosions, he decided that it was going to come down, or it had to come down, or that ultimately it was come down, so it was going to come down, so he might as well pull it and do it now.
I don't know.
That is an outstanding question to ask about 9-11.
But otherwise, when I look at 9-11, and I know this gets me in a lot of trouble, I saw the planes building.
And that's what I think happened.
Meaning, I think it was an outside job, right?
Not an inside job, an outside job.
I don't think there were pre-placed explosives.
I don't believe any of that stuff.
I think these guys were trained to fly the planes, take over the planes, fly the planes, and do the awful thing they did.
And I don't really look beyond that.
And I know that gets me in a lot of trouble, but Occam's Razor, right?
Live, somebody or another, 777.
Hello.
Hello.
unidentified
Hello there, Mr. Art.
Yes.
All right.
Thank you for accepting my call.
I understand.
Oh, and by the way, Minnie Rosswells.
I understand that Matt the Atheist is gone now, but I have a few things I'd like to call the atheist out there.
Well, I mean, it does appear to be something like that, yes.
unidentified
Well, you know, most of the dinosaur fossils they supposedly found, well, many of those species actually never existed, and it comes to find out years later that they actually kind of just put them together like a Lego set.
So I don't know if I trust many of these people, especially when I was affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute.
You're saying that you think dinosaurs never existed and that these things that we see put together with millions of bones are big fakes.
unidentified
It could very well be true that something like dinosaurs once existed, but all the crazy concoctions they come up with, I'm not exactly the first one to step in line in the, I believe everything they're saying in line.
But the big bunch of bones that would be a Tryanosaurus rex, for example, they're frequently put on display.
You just don't believe that.
You think it's concocted.
unidentified
Well, we know, actually, if you look back at the records of archaeologists and paleontologists, that many of the dinosaur species that are still popularly portrayed in, you know, like the Jurassic Arc movies, they actually never existed.
It supports my belief that on both sides of the fence, the religious and the atheistic, there are many concoctions, many smoke and mirrors, if you will.
And we don't have an accurate depiction of what's actually going on.
If he were here, I would like to ask him to hold out his hand and look at that handful of nothing and explain to me how that handful of nothing is going to create a universe out of itself.
Everything around us, the entire universe, it created itself from nothing.
Something had to create it.
And if he would say, well, it took trillions and trillions of years, then I was going to say, if I fly up in an airplane at 10,000 feet and throw a deck of cards out, what are the odds against that deck of cards at 10,000 feet landing back on the ground, perfectly stacked, neatly, all suits in order and numerical order?