Audio segment taken from The Deconstructionists Podcast episode 11: https://soundcloud.com/the-deconstructionists/ep-11-science-mike-mchargue-mysticism-resurrection-consciousness-and-more 

Transcript

We are all after the same thing. 
We all want to live a life that is as joyful and as peaceful as can be. 
We all want to leave the world better than we found it. 
We all want to create a safe world for our children. 
We all want to be a good friend. 

I believe with considerable conviction that if a Christian passed by, saw a man lying on the side of the road and knew by looking at him that he was an atheist, he would still stop and render aid in the same way that if an atheist was walking by and she saw a man lying on the side of the road, she would stop and render aid even if she knew that person was a fundamentalist. 

Why?

Because we recognize in each other something special. 
A spark of life and awareness and ability to love and to bleed. 
And so I would say maybe, maybe this fight over these propositional ideas about the existence of God or not, the nature or God or not is a distraction from our true potential that for the atheist is to be a good humanist. 
Is to invite everyone into the world of making the world better. 
And for a follower of God the best use of the image of God is to live a life of unimaginable love and grace towards other and the outcome of both of those approaches is the same thing: A better world. 

So where we can agree, let us work together. 
We all think it is a tragedy when a child goes to bed hungry. 
We all think it is a tragedy when someone sleeps on the street. 
We all think it's a tragedy when young children grow up in a home without a father because that father has been incarcerated. 
So let's work together on that. 

And on those things we cannot agree about, those issues of division like abortion or same-sex marriage or whatever creates a rift between traditional conservative Christians and humanists. 
Maybe we can acknowledge at least those shared goals: Treat each other civilly and with dignity and at the end of the day understand that we we truly are all the same.


Two Meter Man