Daniel Cartier (00:00)
I didn't come here to make friends. Let's start the show!
Hey everybody, it's Daniel, and welcome to the third installment of There Is No God and We're All Gonna Die. I am your host, Daniel Cartier. I'm a gay liberal atheist living in the Bible Belt, and I'm happy to be here.
first things first, I'm not here to make friends. So my partner Cory has this big wish that he wants to be on a reality show just so he can be the character that says that because
There's always that character on every reality show, the one that pushes everybody's buttons and starts all the drama. And at some point along the way, they usually say, I didn't come here to make friends. so, Corey really wants to be that character. And actually, Corey could probably pull it off because even according to him, like he can be a very judgmental bitch. His words, not mine.
I don't view him that way, but he has totally described himself that way. I think if I tried to be that character on the show...
I don't think I'd be able to pull it off because I'm such a people person. So I think if I tried to pull that off, I'd be like, hello, my name is Daniel. I didn't come here to make friends. my God, that top is so cute. What's your name? Vanessa. my God. BFFs Let's go to the mall. Let's buy shoes.
And I'd probably end up being a hated character, not because I was mean, but
because I'd be one of those annoying characters that got all spiritual and started talking about, you know, the universe and planets and how small we are and, you know, getting all metaphysical. And I think I would really drive everybody crazy. So it's probably good thing that I'm not on a reality
Anyways, let's get into the show.
Daniel Cartier (01:58)
first things first, can we just normalize not being fucking assholes? It seems like every week I come on here, and there's so much stuff I could say about the current administration that I don't really know even where to begin half the time because, whether it's Alligator Alcatraz and putting people in these, basically dog kennels down in the middle of the Everglades, and a lot of them are people who've never done anything wrong. just...
happened to come to America because they wanted a better life and so they need to be, put in these cages and then these gross...
Awful disgusting people are going and taking selfies with the alligator Alcatraz signs and they all look like all the people who are taking the selfies Against these alligator Alcatraz signs. They all look like the stereotypical woman who like can I speak to the manager like those type of people Yeah, it's just really disgusting
So like that's all going on. then the whole thing with Stephen Colbert and Donald Trump, you know, suing CBS over the 60 minute interview with Kamala Harris, where he said that they made her look competent. And that was his problem. Even though he quote unquote won the election, you know, I think maybe Elon Musk helped him. That's just me. That's me being a conspiracy theorist. I openly admit that I can.
totally fall down that rabbit hole, if you give me a chance. I wonder, I wonder if he actually did win. I wonder that all the time. But that's another topic for another day. I will just say that Elon Musk, he owns a huge technology company, a bunch of them, and yeah, I don't know. But anyways, Donald Trump won, as far as we know.
And still he has to go and bitch about this fucking 60 minute interview that happened before the election where he said the way they edited it made Kamala Harris look competent. And it's like, dude, you're fucking president. Who gives a shit? well, the reason why he cares, it's so corrupt, that he knew that CBS
had this upcoming deal that was worth billions of dollars with, think it's called Skylink media or Skyflame media, some frigging big thing. And so they wanted to make sure that that got approved. And so it behooved them to settle this stupid lawsuit
And then Stephen Colbert got on his show and he was like, yeah, that's bullshit. It's basically payola. It's like the biggest, bribe in American history. so CBS canceled his show and Donald Trump was never a big fan of Stephen Colbert because Stephen Colbert was very. Judgemental, rightfully so of Trump. and that may not seem like a big deal like, if you're a MAGA supporter.
and you probably don't like Stephen Colbert anyways, you probably are thinking, well, what's the big deal? Well, I'll tell you what the big deal is. It sets a really scary precedent
It's basically saying that if Donald Trump has a problem with the way anything's reported, whether it's a 60 minute interview or something on any of the other networks, he's basically now in the editing chair. He's become one of the people in the editing room saying, I'm going dictate how the news is reported. And if I don't like it, I can create a bogus lawsuit and
$16 million, you know, that may not seem like a lot of money in the land of Donald Trump. I'll tell you, for a normal person like you or me. That's more money than they will probably ever see in their life. So isn't that sad that somebody like Donald Trump, who's already worth billions of dollars, just got 16 million more dollars from a network for what? Because he didn't like the way an interview was edited. Think about that.
He made more money than some people, most people make in their entire lives just by bitching about an interview. And it was an interview that did not even affect the outcome of the fucking election. Dude, you're still in the fucking White House. So I think it's pretty sad. I think the whole thing's sad. And, you know, it gets, it goes to my problem with extreme wealth where I think once people get to be worth a certain amount of money,
It's like, they're not even living in reality anymore. They're living in this land where they can
demand whatever they want. And, these big corporations, they have selfish motives as well. So they'll settle with this asshole. This is the thing that's really scary about all of this is that
when people are being interviewed in 2026, like the midterms or the 2028 elections, it sets a really dangerous precedent because now all the networks, when they're reporting, it's gonna make people scared that, well, we're gonna probably get some bogus lawsuit, you know, because
Trump won't like the way we make the Democrats look or we make the liberals look. And so even if somebody, liberal is talking and they're making perfect sense, if they edited the interview for time, which is really common, like it happens all the time in news, like Trump's own interviews have been edited a zillion times over, you know?
But now it's like if they're interviewing some liberal person and they're doing really well in the polls, all Trump has to do now is be like, well, I'm going to sue that network because I don't like the way they made that liberal look competent. See, that's really fucked up. so I know for me, it really scares the hell out of me because the implications are huge. And
it's really sad. We'll see what happens. been on my mind. You know, the alligator Alcatraz thing. not to mention, defunding NPR, according to a lot of
conservatives, they look at NPR and they think NPR is this bastion of liberalism. I will tell you, I listen to NPR and it is not a bastion of liberalism. What they report is the facts. That's what NPR reports, is just the facts. When they talk about Donald Trump, they just mention his name. They don't start slamming him. They just report what he said. They report what he does.
And for some reason that becomes a liberal talking point because a lot of times he doesn't come across sounding very good because I mean he fucking sucks. And here's the thing about making Kamala Harris look competent.
Maybe it's because she is competent. Maybe it's because she's the self-made daughter of immigrants that she had to do that much better as a woman in a man's world to get ahead. And because of that, you know, people call her a whore and they say she slept away to the top and that she only got where she was because of diversity and DEI and all this stuff. And yeah, it's just all a bunch of bullshit because the reality is
I don't know, she's a lot more competent than Donald Trump, I'll tell you that much. So anyways, that's where my brain's been. But other than that, mean, things are going good. hey, let's do some self promotion.
Daniel Cartier (09:02)
All right, woo!
Okay, self-promotion. Well, my acoustic album is officially done. I've been working all week long on it. It was supposed to be done last week, and I just kept getting to the point where the mixes sounded kind of good, but then like the vocals would sound tinny in a little part, or like the acoustic guitar would sound muddy. And the reality is it...
went way past being an acoustic album. You know, I can't really leave well enough alone. And so me as somebody who just loves to be creative when I get in the studio, I started, you know, adding all these things because that's what I do. And so I was going to call this album and I even made t-shirts and people even got t-shirts. I was going to call it Daniel Cartier Acoustic Songs Volume One.
But now I'm actually I may give the album a title, which means that all the people who got t-shirts, I'll have to give them a second t-shirt because they ordered the t-shirts. then like, if I end up calling the album something else, I would feel like a total douchebag being like, well, you you have this t-shirt. I mean, the t-shirt would be a collector's item now because they would have a t-shirt for like this, album that doesn't exist.
But I'm actually thinking of calling it Patchwork Road, which is the song that opens it up. It's very mystical and very dreamy. And it's about getting lost in this magical day with somebody or just with yourself. And I just like the idea that life is kind of like this patchwork road. We're kind of going along this long highway and things are just kind of
patchwork together like different experiences different friendships memories sometimes our thoughts are in the past sometimes our thoughts are in the future So I don't know I like the idea of a patchwork road So I may end up calling it that and so if you pre-ordered the acoustic album You're gonna be getting it, but it may not be called the acoustic album and If you got a t-shirt you may be getting a second t-shirt
and then you'll have two t-shirts. But I won't charge you for the second t-shirt because that would totally make me an asshole. Thing number two,
music placements. I have been, for the last couple years, breaking back into getting my music placed on TV shows and movies. And it's been a big learning curve because I used to get music placed but the way people do it has changed. And so when I started doing music again a couple years ago, that was always the plan. I was gonna start getting back into doing music for TV and film because
Honestly, musicians don't really make any money on streaming or anything like that. I'm going to make a little bit of money on streaming, but most of the money is made by getting your song placed on like movie soundtrack or TV shows. I don't know. I've been really working hard at organizing all of my 800 songs into this searchable database. And so at some point this summer, I'm going to have this searchable database of
all my music and it'll be searchable by genre and by theme and by lyrical So if you're a music supervisor, I know it's a long shot, but if you happen to be hit me up contact form on my website, danielcardier.com and I can send you some music and maybe you can use it in your show.
And also if you want me to come speak at your college or anything you can hit me up on the contact form about that I love public speaking
Daniel Cartier (12:26)
And lastly, if you want to call into this show and leave me a voicemail that I can respond to, speakpipe.com slash there is no God and we're all gonna die. Speak pipe, like a pipe you hit somebody over the head with, dot com slash there is no God and we're all gonna, G-O-N-N-A, die.
That's where you go to leave me a voicemail and then I might play your voicemail on the show and respond to it. You can ask me a question, you can tell me you hate me and that you hate the fact that I'm a gay liberal atheist, you can tell me you love me, you can, I don't know, just talk about your life. You can even ask advice, like if
you're having girlfriend or boyfriend problems or you're questioning your existence. I'm not a trained professional, but I'll give you some advice. It might not be good advice, so that's where you go. Speakpipe.
And you might end up on the show.
Daniel Cartier (13:30)
Okay, now it's time for I'm kind of a douchebag when I'm dealing with assholes.
Yeah, okay, There's always a bunch of assholes in the world. The world will never stop producing assholes, unfortunately. every week I choose a different asshole, and I'm kind of a douchebag to them, but I do it with love, because I don't hate anybody, but I certainly am annoyed with a lot of people, and so on. I'm annoyed with somebody I can be kind of a douchebag. So, here I go. The asshole of the week is
named Mike Johnson. So he was giving some sermon at some youth camp and he asked them what the activities they had done that day. And in passing said, did you all do any soccer? And apparently they had not.
soccer was not one of the activities. And he was like, well, that's really good because soccer is for queers. And then he started mincing around and basically saying that any sport where a guy wears shorts and he runs around kicking balls is queer and it's gay and that here in America we play football.
So I just wanted to say something to this guy. Mike, first of all, you're talking to a bunch of kids and some of those kids might actually be gay.
I know this because I've met a lot of kids who grew up in the church and they even went to camps. so what you're basically telling them is that who they are, and they're probably in the closet because they probably come from super religious households and they're probably horrified knowing that there's feelings that they have inside that they can't really put a label on, or maybe they can put a label on it, but the label horrifies them. And so then they go to camp.
and they're at camp
and suddenly they're faced with the pastor.
basically prancing around, making fun of gay people, using terms like faggot and queer, saying that an entire sport, which if you saw this guy, I would wish him luck on a soccer field, because all the soccer matches I've seen...
are pretty rough. So I don't know what type of soccer he's talking about, but The thing that bothers me is that I'm always thinking about the audience and who might be in the audience. And so I'm sure for a lot of the kids there, if they were quote unquote straight, then maybe that didn't bother them. But that's kind of troubling too.
Because what you are also teaching the kids who aren't gay, what you're teaching them is, hey, I'm the pastor and using bullying language I'm supposed to be here teaching you how to be a member of society. Well, apparently,
In your world, a member of society can bully gay people and call them queers and call them faggots and make fun of them and do the little lisp thing. He started doing the little lisp thing and like holding his hands like this. Dude, honestly, I hope all your kids, if you have kids, I hope they all turn out gay. So then you have to deal with learning how to accept them. That's my hope. And maybe that's a douchebag thing for me to...
wish for, but that's what I wish for. I wish for all your kids to be gay. Yeah, and so on a non-douchebaggy note,
for all the kids who were there listening to that,
I just hope that.
They reach a point in life where they realize this guy mincing around on stage and making fun of the queers and saying that soccer is queer and that people who like it are queer I hope they reach a point in life where they can look back and realize that he was just a sad, pathetic man, just a sad, pathetic, small-minded, low vibrational
fucking asshole. I hope they reach that point. Because you know what? Some kids might not. Some kids may go home from that camp and think about all the stuff that that guy said and they may internalize it. And guess what they might do? They might kill themselves because gay teens kill themselves at a much higher rate than straight teens do. Why? Because of assholes like Mike Johnson.
So fuck you, Mike Johnson. Just go fuck yourself. I do have a second place asshole because there's always so many to choose from and this guy came up,
Okay, so this guy, Andrew Isker, he's some radio commenter. not gonna really say much about him. he was on a radio podcast, some Christian nationalist podcast, which is a thing now.
He basically was saying that when he goes to the airport, he will not go through the scanners because he's convinced that the scanners turn people gay and that it's a government plot and he calls it the gay beam. And so he would rather have a guy pat him down, even though that's really queer,
I don't know. So anyways, he was the second place asshole. I really don't have anything else to say about him because he just sounds like a fucking moron. But so anyways, those were the assholes I wish there wasn't so many assholes to choose from, but I think, you know, we're going to be talking about assholes probably for the rest of our life.
My whole point in doing this part of the podcast is not to be mean. I was one of those kids who internalized all the homophobia and the hatred. And I kept my head down and I saw bullies bullying other kids in high school. And was one of those people who acted like I didn't see anything, I didn't want to call attention to myself. And so now,
at the young age of 56, I've reached the point where it's really important for me to say something. It's really important for me to go in a public space. And when I see people needlessly just being fucking dicks, I need to speak up. I mean, I don't think any of those kids who were at the sermon where he was saying that soccer was queer, I don't think any of them are going to watch this podcast, but maybe some gay teenagers somewhere
will watch this podcast and if they do, want them to know, hey, a guy like Mike Johnson, don't pay any attention to him. He's just a miserable person. Be proud of who you are. Be proud of who you are because we're all supposed to be different. cutter version of somebody else. They're gonna be straight people.
There's gonna be gay people, there's gonna be bisexual people, there's gonna be transgender people, there's gonna be non-binary people, there's gonna be cisgender people, there's gonna be black people, white people, there's gonna be people all across the color spectrum. Short people, tall people, young people, old people. I mean, the ways that we are different, to me,
That's what makes life amazing. But I guess to somebody like Mike Johnson, he just wants everybody to be like him. And that's pretty sad. I'm very small-minded. Anyways, let's go on to 10 things.
Daniel Cartier (21:13)
every week I list off ten things that I just find intriguing They're not all connected there is no plot to this that's just totally random ten things that are on my mind thing number one a year ago this month Kamala Harris announced that she was running for president
I just want to take a moment to just honor the fact that she tried to run for president in a country where racism and sexism are still a big problem. I thought she was an amazing candidate.
but unfortunately America is still dealing with a huge toxic masculinity problem. hopefully someday if a mixed race woman, a daughter of immigrants, self-made runs for president, she won't have to deal with bullshit talking points about DEI programs or calling her a whore. I can't tell you how many times I saw her
being called a whore last summer by a lot of people who live right around here. And it was very upsetting. Apparently, you can't be a successful woman in this country unless you slept your way to the top. the idea that a woman could actually just accomplish things is so far beyond the scope of what some people are willing to accept that they're just more comfortable
voting for a sexual predator, a fucking rapist, a friend of Jeffrey Epstein's, then voting for a prosecutor who would prosecute people like that. It's just really sad. It's really sad and it's a huge missed opportunity. And now we have another three and a half years of the bullshit that we're dealing with right now. And Donald Trump's already kind of alluded to the fact that he thinks there's ways he could run for a third term. And you know what?
They're going to try to see how they can make that happen. Mark my word. Thing number two. It's OK to say I fucked up. This goes to all my friends who are Donald Trump supporters.
I'm gonna get really serious now.
If any of you ever want to Daniel, I know that I've been really pro-Trump and I've been MAGA this and MAGA that and every word he says I've been clinging to it like a life preserver in a storm.
But I've taken a step back and I've looked at all the bullshit that he's done.
and I'm realizing I fucked up. I realized that I chose wrong. I'm realizing that Donald Trump is actually a complete and total failure.
I would have so much respect for you. I really would.
if a MAGA supporter came to me and they finally admitted that he sucks, they finally admitted what the rest of the world already knows, that he's just a horrible, horrible human being, he's just so corrupt, he lies every time he opens his mouth. If a MAGA supporter came to me and finally said, you know what, I get it, and I was wrong, my vote was wrong.
I would give them a big hug. would give them a big hug and I'd be like, You know what? Ancient history. Come on over. Join our party. Let's fix this fucking country. You and I together. Because I don't hate MAGA supporters. I don't. As matter of fact, I feel sorry that they're getting such shitty information from places like
Fox News and all these other like right-wing talking points that are just so misconstrued and my wish is that they get better information. that's why I remain friends with people so they at least have one liberal voice in their life, So anyways.
If you ever wanna say, I fucked up, it's okay.
Thing number observable universe is estimated to contain two trillion galaxies. I just wanted to point that out because...
We're just so caught up in our lives and we're so caught up in the petty little dramas that happen throughout the day and throughout our personal lives or even in politics or religion, everything that we're dealing with on this planet right now, even global politics, we're so small. We're so small. And when I think about that, it's actually comforting because it puts things in perspective.
over two trillion in our observable universe. thing number four, each galaxy, including our own Milky Way, is estimated to contain billions to hundreds of billions of stars. So you think about our solar system. In our solar system, we have the sun and then we have the planets that go around it. And I think I said
last week that you could fit 1.3 million Earths in the Sun? Well, in the Milky Way galaxy, there's billions and billions and billions of Suns. Some of them are much bigger than our Sun, and that's just in our galaxy. And then there's trillions of galaxies in our observable universe. they're saying that in the observable universe,
There are more planets than grains of sand on the earth. Like that's just mind boggling. So I don't know, if you're dealing with a problem right now, that's just a bunch of vastness for you to consider. And I know for me, it actually gives me a lot of comfort because it puts my problems in perspective. So I'm just going to leave that there.
Daniel Cartier (26:15)
Thing number five, and this also has to do with the planet, we're not destroying the planet. We are destroying the planet for ourselves, but the planet's gonna be around here long after we're gone. Human beings have been here for, I don't know, two or 300,000 years, a drop in the bucket. And we are definitely affecting the planet. We are definitely heating up the climate and doing all sorts of things to the rainforests and, you know, it's just the list of things we're doing to
hurt the planet are endless, but the planet is much stronger than we are. I think the people who don't believe in climate change and they, it's all just about making money and like, how can we rape and pillage the planet? I don't think they actually care about destroying the planet. I think that some people are just so selfish that
Well, I'm alive right now. And so what can I get out of this world? like drill baby drill and you know, who gives a shit about wildlife But anyways, the planet, mankind could literally
go out of its way to quote unquote destroy the planet. could set off all our nuclear bombs and kill everything like wipe out life as we know it, The whole entire world decimated by nuclear weapons. Do you know what the earth would do if we did that? It would just keep spinning.
just keeps spinning around, spinning around, spinning around, spinning around. And I don't know, like a couple hundred million years from now, there'd be other life forms here that grew out of that, know, grew out of that radioactive toxic environment. Because that's the reality. The reality is we're just destroying the planet for ourselves. Like we're going to make the planet uninhabitable.
for human beings if we continue down the road that we're on right now.
the people who don't believe in global warming or they they're against, you know, environmental things.
they feel like they are more powerful than the planet and when you talk about the planet it seems like this liberal namby-pamby thing to talk about even though it's like way more powerful than any of us
When you say you're destroying the planet, it's like, you're talking about something that they don't care about. So when you rebrand it and you say, we're destroying the planet for us, suddenly it's about them. don't know. lately I've been saying it that way. We're destroying the planet for us.
Anyways food for thought
Thing number six, and this might surprise people, I do pray. I know I'm an atheist, but I do pray. I don't pray to a God because I don't believe in God, but I do believe in the moment that I'm in. So I basically, when I pray, what I'm doing is I'm actually just talking to the moment that I'm in and I'm setting my intentions. For me, sometimes,
There's really amazing prayers. just keep the God part out of it. For instance, like the serenity prayer, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. That's great advice for anybody,
I mean, I've broken that prayer down before and it's a very powerful prayer.
know, I don't believe that there's a God listening or anything, two of my favorite prayers are the St. Francis prayer and the serenity prayer. And the reason why is because I don't talk, you know, the God part doesn't mean anything to me, but the words in that, like where there's hatred, let me bring love. Where there's wrong, let me bring the spirit of forgiveness. Where there's discord, let me bring harmony.
Where there's error, let me bring truth. Where there's doubt, let me bring faith. Where there's despair, let me bring hope. Where there's shadows, let me bring light. Where there's sadness, let me bring joy. Grant that I may seek to comfort rather than be comforted, to understand rather than be understood, to love than to be loved. For it's by self-forgetting that one finds, it's by forgiving that one is forgiven,
what it's basically saying it's just talking about concepts it's principles if there's a situation that is full of despair can I bring hope to that situation as an atheist yes I feel I still can if there's hope that I can offer a situation of course I'm gonna offer hope
If there's hatred somewhere, can I bring love? I mean, I talk all the time about how I love everybody. know, even these crazy MAGA supporters that I choose to love them because it doesn't make any sense for me to hate them because it's not going to solve anything. A lot of times I get angry, but what I've come to realize, hey, and here, thing number seven, there's a difference between anger and hatred.
And I just came up with that. That wasn't even on my list, just made up made that up right now. But I'm to put it on the list. there's a difference between anger and hatred. I can be angry at you, but I don't need to hate you. I think nowadays we are so hell bent on hating anything that we disagree with or hating anything that gets us angry. That's so unhealthy.
I can find your views completely horrific and offensive, but I don't need to hate you. I can still send you love and hope that you see the light. Hope that something resonates with you and maybe something that you were vastly against. Like, for instance, a great example. I'm a big old card carrying homosexual.
I have had people living down south, say, you know what, before I met you, I did not like gay people. Now that I've met you and, got to know you, I love gay people now. I have had that happen. Now imagine if I had just cut those people out of my life.
they wouldn't have had the opportunity to change their views on gay people. So I take that attitude and I bring it into the rest of my life as well. I don't do it perfectly. As I've shared before, after the election, I was extremely pissed off and I was unfriending people and blocking people and I threw a chair across the room and I was so pissed off at America
for allowing Donald Trump to get back into the White House. I just, was horrified.
And so I needed to have a temper tantrum and I did and it lasted for a couple months. And then I realized that I needed to get back in the saddle and
not shut people out of my life just because they voted in a way that I didn't agree with. And so now a lot of the people that I had blocked or unfriended, I had to go back and like unblock them and friend them again and bring them back into my life because I want them to have a liberal person in their life. And because there were things about them that I liked. I had to realize that there was more to them than just their vote.
Anyways, and I know some of you who are liberal will hear me say that and you'll disagree and I respect that. I think we all have to be where we are at. I also live down south so it's kind of a weird situation. I'm surrounded by these people.
Speaking of which...
thing number eight. The sad atheist.
Let me explain what I mean by that. I was talking to somebody and they said, God, being an atheist just seems like it would be so sad. It would be so sad not to have this belief in something else. I have two things to say about that. One, the cool thing about being an atheist is that I might be wrong. And if I'm wrong, awesome. You mean there's more? You know, I get to go to an afterlife. I get I get to have this special friend in the sky that
is there and watching over me, that's great. Sign me up for that. I just, my brain doesn't work that way. But thing number two about that is, it's not really sad to be an atheist because it's actually for me, at least, and this is just me talking personally,
to think that there's like some universal thing,
rewarding some people and not rewarding other people. To me, that actually seems more cruel. so, I don't know, I get more comfort just thinking that it's random and that every moment of every day, I can show up to every moment and do my best. And sometimes things work out great and they do. And then sometimes I'm disappointed, like they don't work out and it's okay. It just means that I will show up again and I'll try again.
And to me, that just makes more sense. So it's not a sad existence. It really is not. But thank you for being concerned.
Daniel Cartier (33:55)
Thing number nine, can we normalize being disgusted at billionaires? Just like normalize that. I'm just going to read off some facts that I found on Google. The world's 2,000 wealthiest individuals possess a combined net worth of trillions of dollars, according to a Yahoo Finance article. Their wealth is so vast that it surpasses the combined wealth of almost 5 billion people, specifically.
The top 1 % of the global population holds more than twice the wealth, more than twice the wealth, of 6.9 billion people. This concentration of wealth is further highlighted by the fact that The 22 richest men possess more wealth than all the women in Africa.
So, you know, the reason why I bring that up is because...
I'm an atheist, but I think me being disgusted at that type of wealth is very spiritual. And what's weird to me is that the people who are
I don't know, shaking their pom poms and thinking that it's great that we have these billionaires are usually really religious people. And so I don't get that. I don't get how that would be considered something that a religious person would think was good. mean, think of all the problems we could solve if there was a cutoff on how much somebody could be worth.
I view extreme wealth the same way I view anything like drug addiction or alcoholism or you know people who will never be thin enough it's just like people who are just so broken inside and they have
such this huge hole inside that they need to fill it with billions and billions and billions of dollars and it's never going to be enough money. It's never going to be enough. Now some billionaires are altruistic and they choose to give away their fortunes. know I guess Bill Gates gives away a lot of money. I know a lot of them do give away a lot of their money. I know for me if I was worth billions of dollars and I'm not just saying this like I truly believe this.
If I could spend the rest of my life just giving my money away and solving people's problems, like just giving them money, putting people in homes that have never had homes or sending people to college or giving everybody health care, man, that would just make me feel like a zillion dollars. Forget a billion dollars. It would make me feel like a zillionaire, you know?
to just give it all away and just like see people's lives change and see, people actually have hope. Which brings me to thing number 10.
Desperate people do desperate things.
But hope solves everything. Like if there's hope, there's hope. When I see people going to prison, what I see is like desperate people did desperate things and I'm not saying that it's okay to, you know, go out and rob or steal or kill or anything. Obviously I'm not saying that.
But what I'm saying is that when people find themselves in a place where they are going to do desperate things in order to get ahead, well, they're coming from a desperate starting off point. And we don't do anything cutting social programs, cutting food stamps, making it harder and harder and harder for an average person to just get through life.
So what are people going to do when they run out of money? But yet we're giving more tax breaks to billionaires. Like what are normal people going to be doing when they run out of money? They don't have money to eat. They're saying right now because of Medicaid being cut, like the cost that people are going to have to like have health insurance it's just going to get harder and harder and harder to just be like just an average person surviving.
And so I worry what type of decisions are people going to be faced with? And, we're going to see a rise in crime, I think, because when it comes down to like, I don't have any money to eat, that's the type of thing I'm talking about. And so I don't know. It's just kind of a bummer. I'm going to do thing number 11.
Thing number 11, because this was kind of like a real bummer top 10. Thing number 11, every moment we show up to is a moment where we can choose to be part of the solution. Me doing this podcast, I don't think it's going to change anything, but at least I'm one more person shouting out into the void and maybe.
it will ricochet around somewhere and the message will end up where it needs to go. I don't know. All I can do is show up and do my part. And so doing this podcast, because I live out in the middle of nowhere, this is my way of communicating with the world and just letting the world know like, hey, this is what I think. you know, I think we all have our voices and it's our job to use our voices and it's our job to
to be part of the change we want to see in the world. so, I don't know, that's why I do this. And I love you all.
So that was a bunch of talking out of me. Let's hear from other people. Let's hear some voicemails.
Daniel Cartier (38:32)
Let's listen to some voicemails. Let's listen to some voicemails. Let's listen to some voicemails. hear? Okay.
Well, thanks for calling in. Speak to my experience that in all life there is struggle.
Daniel Cartier (39:03)
I think the best way I can answer that because that's such a loaded question in all life there's struggle. Yes, life is not fair. Life is it's not that it's fair or it's unfair. Life is just life. Life is going to happen. I think life is very impartial to what's going on with us. I think that we as human beings, because we have this really incredible brain that we were born with, it really bothers us to just think that, you know, it's all just random.
And so we place a lot of meaning on things. But the reality is life is just happening the way it's happening. And sometimes, yes, it will be a struggle for us. And then other times, things seem to be going great. The best way I can break that question down, because it is a wonderful observation.
I'm going to talk about a prayer, actually. And I'm an atheist. So here you go, folks. An atheist is going to talk about a prayer that they like. I know I mentioned the St. Francis Prayer. Another prayer that I absolutely love is the Serenity Prayer, because I think it actually puts the subject of struggle in perspective. Now, I'm not going to do the God part, because I don't believe in God. But when I pray, I just pray to the moment.
Like I pray to whatever moment I'm in because the moment is real. Like every moment is real. So I know that I'm in that moment. So I speak to the moment and I ask the moment, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. The courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
the first time I tried to get sober was way back in 1989. so I was trying to get sober for 30 years. Like I kept relapsing and like for three decades, like I was going in and out. went to a zillion AA meetings. And if you've never been to an AA meeting before, they start off every AA meeting pretty much with that prayer. It's kind of the universal recovery prayer.
So I've probably said that prayer, I mean, how many meetings have I gone to? Like thousands? So I've said that prayer thousands of times. Again, when I say it, I'm not really praying to God, I'm just praying to the moment.
so I've said that prayer many times and so when I got sober this time, it was about six and a half years ago, I would start off every day saying that prayer
And...
So one day I was doing that and I was like, whoa, whoa, let's slow down for a second. What am I actually saying? Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Okay. So I got out a notebook and I started listing off all the things I could not change. And man, I was pages and pages and pages. Turns out there's a lot of things I am powerless over. I'm powerless over the past because it's already happened.
I'm powerless over the future because it's not real. It will always be the future. It will always be out of my reach. I'm powerless of what other people think of me. Some people, I can be super nice to them and they'll still not like me. I'm powerless over, you know, what's happening in other parts of the world. I'm powerless over what's happening in other areas of the universe. I'm powerless even over simple things like my thoughts. Like that thing, don't think about elephants for the next minute. And so what are you going to think about elephants?
So it turns out like I can't even control my thoughts. Like they're going to happen, you know, whether I like it or not, powerless over outcomes, I can work really hard, to try to
Get people to think a certain way or to affect this or affect that or make this happen and sometimes it works out And then sometimes it doesn't it turns out I'm powerless over outcomes I just kept going on and powerless over the weather powerless over You know seasons changing. mean just like it was just endless endless things powerless over life and death You know people are gonna die My dogs are gonna pass away when they reach a certain age, like all this stuff
So when I was done listing off things that I could not change, then I looked at...
Courage to change the things I can.
And I was like, okay, well, what can I change? It seems like I can't change anything.
and I had to think for a long time about it because I truly could not think of anything that I actually could change. And I finally came up with one thing and then later on somebody told me a second thing as well. What I came up with was I can change my response to what's happening right here right now. What I mean by that is my actions.
My action at any given moment, I do have power over that. So every moment that I arrive at, I basically...
have power over my actions. That's basically it. And my response to life, life will be life and I have power over my response to it. How am I going to respond to life? And then somebody else told me, and he has since passed away, really amazing guy, very conservative guy that it became friends with down here we still were able to strike up a friendship and joke around about our differences.
⁓ this guy Dudley, he pointed out that, I could also change my attitude because there's a difference between your attitude is not your mood. Like I think people sometimes get confused and they think your attitude is your mood. No, I can be in a horrible mood, but I can still have a good attitude. My attitude is, my angle of approach. I can be dealing with tons of hardship. I can be.
Frustrated I can still have a good attitude I can still like do I have an attitude of willingness am I willing to show up and try to do my part? So when I think about hardship and I do I love that question I just keep thinking about that serenity prayer that there is going to be hardship There's going to be so much hardship and trust me as somebody who's been through all the stuff that I've been through and have seen
all the stuff other people are going through or have gone through. Absolutely. Life is full of suffering.
But every moment of every moment of every moment is a moment that I can show up and try to at least be the love I want to see in the world, the change I want to see in the world. And I can choose to take the actions that I wish I saw more of in the world. And whether or not it's effective or not, it's not up to me. It's going to play out the way it plays out. And
If I can accept that and still continue to show up, I'm probably still gonna have an okay existence, you know? And sometimes a beautiful existence, and sometimes I'll still be frustrated because things will still be horrible. And that's just part of life. Anyways, thank you so much for that question. That was a great Let's see what else.
That was rude.
Dang it. I think he got cut off. Hope you're having a good day. Oh.
Well, first of all, I didn't hear all your message I think it got cut off halfway through but I I understand what you're saying and You know, I absolutely love you and I'm sorry that you've been struggling. I trust me. I'm right there with you I've been very I get very frustrated which is why I'm doing this podcast this podcast is a way for me to get a lot of my frustration out because like you I walk around all day long trying to be a good person
But then I see all this corruption going on. And yes, can be a lot to absorb. I think I'm going to go back to what I said to the gentleman who called before you,
Yeah, I think it comes down to that serenity prayer. And again, I say this as an atheist, but the message behind that, which is that so much of this, I'm not going to have any power over, but I do have agency over my actions and my response to it. so every day I feel like it's a challenge to show up and still be part of the love, still be part of the the the communion.
with every moment and it's very hard to do I get it listen I am always sending you love for some of you who don't know I actually know who Big Gate Ed is he's a wonderful person he's a lovely man he is just such a beautiful soul and so
I'm always sending you love, even when you're feeling frustrated, even when you're feeling like you just want to like throw furniture across the room and break everything in your house because you can't believe how corrupt the whole system is. I just want you to know you are not alone feeling that way. And I think it's important for us to voice our frustration. I like to know that other people are just as frustrated as me. And it makes me feel like not such a freak of nature. I...
told people that when Donald Trump got elected, I threw a chair across the room. I literally was throwing furniture across the room of my house. My poor dogs hid from me because they were like, why is my owner throwing furniture across the room? then I had to go and give them a ton of love and reassure them that I was not mad at them.
I think that it's very important for us to find community with each other. And, I think over the next three and a half years, I mean, we have the midterms in 2026. We can't lose sight of how important those are. And then we have 2028 and then we have all the little local elections, which are so important. And we
have our voices, we have to keep speaking up and speaking up and speaking up and yes, it gets exhausting, but we have to just keep showing up. Or we can just choose to sometimes self care. And I think self care is very important too. And sometimes the best thing we can do is to retreat and give our mind a rest from all of it and then come back so we can be more powerful. So I think that it's kind of a mixture of showing up and being
the voices that we want to hear in the world, then also taking some time every once in a while to care for ourselves. Because self-care right now is really important too. Anyways, I love you. I hope that helped. I don't know, maybe it did, maybe it didn't, but I do love you. Let's see.
Yes.
⁓ that was my best friend in the whole world, Matt. And I've alluded to him before that, you know, my best friend is a Christian. He is. He's actually a deacon at a church. And he called up and he asked a question. think that's so awesome. And I love this question. And I know it's a question that probably it's a very loaded question. So what do atheists think of Christians? OK, so this is my Christian friend asking me, what do atheists think of Christians? Because I think there's a misconception that all atheists
think religious people are stupid or all atheists think that religious people just have rocks in their heads.
I'm not one of those people. I love everybody I said during my first podcast, the whole point of me doing this podcast was not to change anybody's religious beliefs. Like I'm not interested in doing that. I have friends who believe in all sorts of things. That's their business. My problem with religious people are when people take their
chosen religion and they use it to shove their views onto other people and affect other people's lives. instance, gay marriage is a perfect example of that, you know, marriage should be between a man and a woman because it says so in the Bible, and so now we're going to like make it impossible for gays to get married. That's a perfect example of
Religion going where it shouldn't go, But as far as what I think of Christians
Part of me is jealous. mean, part of me wishes that I had that type of faith. You know, it would be nice. I get it. I get why people would want to believe that there's something else after this life. The idea of that is so awesome. Like, ⁓ God, I get to go somewhere else. I get to go to heaven. I don't believe that that's what happens, but If I do...
a zillion of these podcasts, I will say this a zillion times. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong. It would be so awesome if I was wrong, if there was more than just, I die and it's lights out. Like if I get to go to heaven and see other people, you know, whatever, mean, sign me up for it. It sounds great. And if there was some deity up in the sky and they actually are watching over me.
I mean that part I kind of struggle with, I can understand why it's comforting as well. mean, I explained earlier in the podcast why I actually take more comfort in there not being a deity in the sky because then it's just like the randomness of life actually seems more fair to me. Like that actually seems more fair than, well, I'm singling this person out for good luck and I'm singling this person out for bad luck and I'm singling this football star out for a bunch of touchdowns, but I'm singling this child in this country.
out for starvation. It's like to me that just seems like if there was a god controlling all of that it would seem horrible. So I take more comfort in the fact that it's just life happening. But ⁓ I don't think that religious people are stupid and I don't hate religious people. I think it just comes down to
That is one aspect of their life, but I can see the whole person. And so I know in your case, because you're my best friend, I know that you are one of the most open-minded people I've ever met. And you are somebody who loves to have their mind challenged. You are somebody who is very intrigued. You lead an examined life. And anybody who leads an examined life is somebody I'm gonna find interesting, because I think that when you lead an examined life,
You are constantly questioning things. constantly, you you want to discover more about the world around you. And like, I know that you as a Christian, we've talked at length about our different opinions. And I know that there's things I talk about, like when I start talking about infinity or when I start talking about, the cosmic timeline, I know you find a lot of it fascinating. And so for me,
I'm grateful to be at a place in my life where I can be friends with people and have vastly different opinions about
the great beyond or if there is a great beyond or not a great beyond. So I hope that answered your question. You know, I love you to death and I'm always grateful for your friendship. I don't know what I think about Christians, but I know what I think about my friend Matt.
So, I mean, I know that I have my BFF and like, you know, it's like, who am I going to call up and quote movies to? You know, so. Yeah, that's all I know. And so thank you for calling with See what else?
Thanks.
Ruben, it's so nice to hear from you. Thank you. You had called up a couple of weeks ago as well. That's very cool. A repeat caller. Yeah, I love dogs. animals in general, put so much in perspective because their love is so pure.
It's like there's no ulterior motives behind it. It's just very pure. My first dog was named Banjo and she, I was living out in Los Angeles and I was, doing the whole music industry thing and I was dating some guy and like it was like,
crazy homeless guy out on the street and he had this puppy that he was selling. And so the guy I was dating at the time, this guy, Craig, saw this puppy and I guess wanted to get it away from the crazy homeless guy because he was like, okay, this puppy, I mean, was sunset stripped, was like cars everywhere and he was just worried about the puppy. So I think he gave the guy $50 or something and...
So then he brought the puppy into the Viper room and I was about to do my encore. I was doing this big show in the Viper room and I was about to do my encore and all of sudden Craig was on stage and I thought he was going to give me a stuffed animal, which was, you know, it's the Viper room. You want to be cool. You want to be like, you know, there's people with leather jackets and stuff and then your boyfriend's giving you a stuffed animal.
So he gave me this stuffed animal and it started writhing around in my hands and he's like, it's your new dog. And I was like, my God. We'd only been dating for about a month and a half at that point. So it was already a little mental that he gave me a dog. And we were also staying at a friend's house. We were staying at an actress's house. I won't say her name, she was a famous actress, but we were staying at her house.
And so suddenly we were there with this puppy and the puppy was chewing up all our furniture and ⁓ my God, it was such a crazy time. And so anyways, that ended up being my first dog and she taught me so much about unconditional love. you know, all the things that a dog teaches us, she taught me all those lessons I mean, before I got her,
I had been so consumed with my music career and succeeding and blah blah blah blah blah and I was so driven by all that stuff and then suddenly I had this little tiny creature that just wanted love and didn't want anything else from me and it really just changed me. It opened my heart. My heart blossomed. Such a queer thing to say but it did. My heart blossomed.
And it forever changed me. so she was my dog. She lived all over the country with me. She lived in Los Angeles. She lived in New York. She lived in Cape Cod. She lived in Nashville. She drove all over the country. And then I got a couple other dogs that were her siblings. And then in 2012, she lost the ability to walk. And so...
I was freaking out because I was like, my God, I'm going to have to put my dog down. And, and then I got her a doggy wheelchair. And then for a couple of years, she was this little rock star and she zipped around Nashville in her wheelchair and she chased tennis balls in her wheelchair and
She actually even got her picture in the paper. She won Nashville's most popular dog and they put her picture in the paper and there was an article about her. And so then little kids like knew who she was. I mean, it was so cool. And she was an amazing dog, Banjo. And when she died, I was heartbroken. I've never cried so hard in my life, but you know, that's one of the things that sucks about having a dog is that
You know, or a pet, you know, is that they don't live as long as we do. And it's one of life's cruelest jokes it's going to give us this beautiful, beautiful, beautiful animal. And we know that, you know, even the tiniest puppy, we know it's going to get old. And at some point it's going to be an old dog And I just went through that with my dog, Edison, my dog, Edison. ⁓ I got him in 2014 and
He was probably a couple years old at the time and I was dating this guy. And then when we broke up, Edison came with me and, very recently, his health was declining and, all through April and May, was all day by day, day by day. there were countless days where I was like, Maybe today's the day, but then he would have a good day.
It's just so hard and then finally, we had to make that decision that'll all pet owners You know a lot of you know I've never had a dog die at home, know, they I've always had to make that decision and it sucks It sucks making that trip like that, you know, you're going on a car ride, but you know They're not gonna come home. And so I always feel like I'm playing a joke on them like
That bothers me, but anyways, Miss Banjo was an amazing dog. so thank you for asking about her. actually do have a Miss Banjo tattoo I can show you guys. This is, I don't know if you can see it. That's my Miss Banjo tattoo. I don't know if you can see it. I'll post a photo, but anyways.
else?
Scott, Daniel, thank you so much for calling. It's so nice to hear from you. Great question. Why am I doing this podcast? Well, you know, because you're with me all the time. You know that I drive myself crazy with all these thoughts. And before I did this podcast, I thought about it all the time. was like this obsession that I have.
Not because I wanted to become famous or rich because I don't really know anybody who's becoming rich doing a podcast. Maybe Joe Rogan or you know, but for all the successful podcasts, there's a zillion podcasts that like maybe three people listen to. So that might be all that I do with this podcast. But for me,
I explained in the first episode and you were here because you were inside me. I had so much I wanted to express to the world and I try to express a lot of it in my music and my art. And I even did an entire political album called The Angry Album, which was all about my frustration with politics, allotted songs about Donald Trump.
I've done art about my feelings about existence and religion or no religion or God or no God. but there's only so much I can put in a song or a painting probably 1 % of my thoughts can actually make it in there. And then there's like 99 % more. There's like news stories, there's like antidotes, there's things I've heard other people say, there's just random things that come into my brain about all of it.
And I can't cram it into a song and I can't cram it into a painting. I can only put so much in. So then I'm still walking around with all these stray thoughts that didn't make it into the music or didn't make it into, you know, the painting. And yeah, I can rant about it on Facebook. And trust me, I've done that, you know, because you're with me 24 hours a day. You've seen me rant on Facebook and type these long status updates that are like a zillion.
you know, miles long talking about this, that, or the other thing. And granted, I mean, those things are great. And sometimes they get a great response or sometimes like one person will read them, you know, or sometimes nobody will react to them. And I don't know. I just felt like I needed to have a place that was just organized. That wasn't me just like randomly ranting or whatever, but like that it was like once a week, I was going to come on to this podcast and I was going to get a bunch of stuff out of my system.
And I gotta tell you, this has been very helpful for me. I'm discovering a lot about myself by doing this podcast. It's weird, it's almost like a therapy session for me. I don't feel bad saying that. Because first of all, I'm not forcing anybody to watch this. If you are reaching this point in the podcast, I gotta assume that you're either hating it so much that you wanna see what I'm gonna say next so you can be more pissed off, or you just love it. I don't think anybody who's indifferent got to this point in the podcast.
So if you're hearing this response to myself, then awesome. know, hopefully I'm saying something that's resonating with you or even if it is pissing you off, good, Maybe you'll be pissed off for a while, but then maybe later on you'll think about what I said and maybe you'll like rethink something. I don't know. It's really not up to me. The results are never gonna be up to me. All I can do is show up.
So that's why I'm doing the podcast. I'm just doing the podcast because there was stuff I wanted to express. And so there you have it. And with that, I am finishing up this episode. And I have to say I'm in a better mood now than when I started. When I started filming today, I was I was actually really tired because I been recording all day, been trying to finish that album. And I've been staring at a computer screen all day mixing music.
And then, oh, like, I gotta film the podcast now. So then I had to like get the lights out and do all this stuff, put the green screen up and yada yada bing bang. But now it's like, feel like, man, I just expressed a bunch of stuff. Awesome. So thank you for joining me. Again, if you want to call in and leave a question, please do. I don't wanna be like hounding people or like begging them to call up and leave a voice message, but I would love.
to get your voice messages. Speakpipe.com slash there is no God and we're all gonna die. Speakpipe.com slash there is no God and we're all gonna die. Or you can just go to danielcardier.com and there's a button right on the home screen that will take you to speakpipe.com and you can leave a message. You can also check out all my art while you're there and if you
Purchase any art, it all goes towards animal rescue and it goes towards the continued care of my dogs, the handicapped dogs that I take care of. yeah. So join me next week, I will be here who knows what I'll be talking about, but I guarantee you, whatever I talk about, it will be coming from the heart. anyways, love you guys and I'm wishing you a great week. All right.