This episode takes on the Genesis flood story and asks whether a loving, all-powerful God had to drown every living thing. Chris Mallard questions a Catholic caller from the Philippines about mercy, innocent victims and animals. The show then turns to leaving religion, the lingering fear of hell and a heated dispute over science.
Why did God drown everyone instead of changing people’s hearts?
Chris asks caller Marlin why God did not simply change people’s hearts, as the Bible says he did with Pharaoh. Marlin answers that God was furious, wanted to punish evil, and used the flood as a kind of reset. Chris counters that humans learn to control their anger, so a god who cannot do the same seems bound by emotion. He says it is odd that humans could offend an all-powerful being, and that a god worthy of worship should stand above petty behavior.
Was the flood fair to babies and people who were never warned?
The hosts point out that Noah could not have warned people in the Americas, Asia or the Philippines, so most of the world had no warning and no say. They stress that babies under a year old did nothing wrong, and they ask what the dogs and cats did. One host says that if the story is true, it amounts to genocide. Marlin eventually says he does not personally agree with the reasoning he was taught but accepts it as what the text says.
How did penguins and kangaroos get to Noah’s Ark?
The co-host, who lives in Norway, describes the common skeptic question of how penguins or kangaroos could travel from Antarctica or Australia to the Middle East and back again. He says he once put this to a very right-wing Christian friend, who replied that God teleported them. His takeaway is that it is hard to use logic with someone who believes in magic, because anything can be explained by magic once you believe. The argument went nowhere.
Why is the fear of hell so hard to shake after leaving Christianity?
Chris says the Christian hell is the one he still fears, though he feels nothing about the Mormon, Catholic or Muslim versions. He says the fear was drilled in to keep people in the fold, since the punishment is forever, and he asks how anyone knows their hell is the real one. A viewer says the fear took about six months to fade after forty years of belief. Chris compares it to a fear of spiders and says it usually fades, though not on the same timeline for everyone.
Why do people leave Christianity?
Ana, a caller who grew up in Russia as culturally Orthodox, says she opened her family’s Bible at about twelve. Its creation account, with plants made before the sun and a dome over the earth, could not be reconciled with what she learned at school, so she chose science over scripture. Chris says he asks nearly every ex-believer what first started their questioning. He also tells Marlin it is okay to walk away, and that friends who leave over it were not really friends.
Transcript highlights
Selected passages from the live stream, lightly edited for readability. Click a section time to jump to that part of the video.
Norwegian Trivia, Mythicism and Politics
Miss Non Secular just voiced my opinion on this. I’m agnostic about it, but I lean towards mythicism. I don’t believe there was ever one man that all the Christ myths are based on. I have that feeling too, that it might be an amalgamation of different people who were all active, maybe not even at the same time, but over the course of a few decades.
Okay, let’s see if we can get the little game going. You are going to tell me, is this Norwegian? IKEA. Is it Norwegian? If you know what country it is from, and it’s not Norwegian, you get bonus points. It is not Norwegian. It is Swedish.
Brunost. Is that Norwegian? Cheese. I’m going to say yes, it is. It is one of the most Norwegian things I could think of. I’ve actually had it before, but I wasn’t positive.
The cheese slicer. I think that might be Danish. No, it is Norwegian. We invented the cheese slicer.
I know trolls are big in Norway, so I’m going to go out on a limb and say yes, they are Norwegian. No, they are Finnish. Oh, I knew it. After I said it, I was like, would the Norwegians really make fun of trolls like that? I’m not sure.
Quick lunch. That’s how you pronounce that. Okay, you know, I’ve known you for a while, and I think you’re a little goofy. Nothing personal, but that spelling looks really goofy. So I’m going to go ahead and say Norwegian. It is Norwegian. I hope you didn’t take that personally.
The Bunad. Is that how you pronounce that? That picture looks German to me. You see the girl holding the beer mugs, and that dress-looking thing reminds me of that. I’m probably wrong, but I’m going to go ahead and say German. It is Norwegian. Oh, damn it. I am just
Genesis Flood, Park Overhaul, and Politics
Chris Mallard asks why God would need to drown everyone in the great flood. He says that if any theist can call in and explain that to him, he would love to hear it. He also says he wants to know why Noah’s Ark is seen as a relatable story that could actually be true, and he invites callers to explain why they believe it.
Chris then turns to a political issue he had on his list. He says there is a call to overhaul the national park system, and although it has not been made official, he has heard behind the scenes that the current presidential administration is ready to do it, as it did with the national forest system. He points to huge layoffs of rangers and land managers. “While we are losing our national forest to people who want to exploit it for the resources under them, it looks like we may even be losing our national parks for the same reason.”
The co-host, who lives in Norway, takes up the Noah’s Ark question and says some people in the chat are already discussing it. He describes how skeptics often ask how penguins or kangaroos could have traveled from Antarctica or Australia all the way to the Middle East and back to where they came from. He says he once put this to a very right-wing Christian friend, who did not hesitate. “Well, God teleported them there. Duh. Duh.”
He adds, “It’s really hard to use logic with somebody who believes in magic, I guess, is the point that I was trying to make. Anything could be explained by magic once you believe.” The co-host then jokes about the on-air mix-up with the hosts’ roles, but the point stands that the argument did not get anywhere with his friend.
The co-host says that as someone outside the American system, he was very happy with the election result. He notes that every county in Florida except one went blue. He then says he is a little worried, because he thinks people now feel backed into a corner. “And when you back a wild animal into a corner, it tends to lash out even more.” He says he hopes violence does not happen over the next couple of years, and even leading into the next election, but he feels it is kind of an American thing.
On the Democratic side, the co-host says he would like to see a good candidate, and he mentions that Jon Ossoff is now taking the lead as a possible presidential candidate. He admits he is not a big fan. He argues that voters tend to choose the candidate who looks best, but that a candidate’s looks are not what matters. He compares Trump with Biden, saying that Trump nurtured the idea that he was the best, the boldest, and the greatest, while Biden did not. He adds that many of Trump’s big promises were ones that anyone “halfway intelligent” should have known he could never deliver.
Chris explains why he cannot talk about the same things on his other show. He says he works for a 501(c)(3) on that show, so the organization cannot do politics because of its nonprofit status. “We can talk about issues that are happening in the country at the time, but we can’t talk about candidates. We can’t do any calls to action.” He says the DAM Show is where he can discuss these topics freely.
Chris then reads a comment from the chat, from a viewer named Billy Fivehead, who says, “Just keep saying MAGA is dead. Repetition is all MAGA responds to.” Chris agrees and says that when MAGA believers are interviewed, they all repeat the same talking points that pundits on TV and in the media are saying. “They talk in generalities. A lot of them can’t provide any details of what they’re talking about.”
Chris then suggests that since Trump has been such a fundamentalist, maybe the other side needs a fundamentalist too, someone who goes left, left, left and provides social care in America, such as health care. The co-host says that is already happening, pointing to candidates running on the Democratic side, including Mamdani, the mayor of New York, and Elissa Slotkin in Michigan. He hopes the country will see more Democrats talking about issues like these.
Finally, the co-host says he does not understand why so many Americans are afraid of socialism. As someone who lives in a socialist country, he says he never understood the big scare about it from a Nordic point of view.
Did God Drown Everyone in the Flood?
Chris opens by asking Marlin, a viewer calling in from the Philippines, whether God really had to drown everyone or could simply have changed people’s hearts and made them good. Marlin responds that God gave people time to prepare, pointing to the warnings Noah gave while others laughed at him. Chris presses him to answer the actual question rather than retelling the story, asking why God would not change the hearts of evil people, as the Bible says he did with Pharaoh.
Marlin suggests God became furious and wanted to punish people for their evil. Chris asks whether that means God is bound by human emotions, and points out that humans learn to control their anger to get along in society. He asks why a god who can control his anger would instead destroy an entire planet, including hundreds of thousands of innocent babies and millions of animals that had done nothing wrong. Marlin keeps returning to the idea of God being slow to anger and offers the Second World War as a comparison, which Chris challenges directly.
Chris points out that the Allies were humans fighting, while in the Exodus story God is said to change hearts, so the two cannot be equated. He notes that Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill could not change the hearts of the Axis leaders, but God supposedly could. Marlin answers that God was using his power as a kind of reset, and Chris again asks why God did not simply make everyone good instead of killing them. Marlin says he understands the Bible to mean God was offended, and Chris responds that it is strange to think human beings could offend an all-powerful being, and that he always thought God was better than petty behavior.
Chris adds that the story of the Tower of Babel, where God confused the languages, is another cruel act, and that one cruelty does not justify another. He argues that a god worthy of worship would stand above human emotions and make logical, perspective-based decisions, not act like the kings of old. Chris then asks Marlin whether he is Catholic, and Marlin says he is a Filipino Christian and a Roman Catholic. The conversation shifts briefly to the religious makeup of the Philippines, with Marlin noting the long history of violence between Christians and Muslims there.
Marlin closes by saying that God’s commands are a matter of obedience, that a Christian who disobeys God might be punished, and that he personally does not agree with the reasoning he was taught but accepts it as what the text says.
Flood Justice, Mercy and Leaving Religion
I also believed that God has the right to punish us because he created us, and that was my mindset when I was a Christian. I really thought that if there was a tornado in New Mexico that took 15 people’s lives, that was God’s will. But what Kelly is asking is, did he have to create this flood of water that drowned children and grown-ups, or could he have done it another way? Could God have shown mercy? The Bible says God is a merciful God, so why didn’t he show mercy?
Then we have to worry about whether God is in a bad mood someday, because he might just wipe the earth out because he’s angry. Is that what we have to worry about now, from now on? No, because he gave us the rainbow and promised never to do it again. Well, he promised never to flood the earth again. He could still destroy it by fire, right?
With the movie Evan Almighty, there’s a warning that a flood is coming, and everyone should listen to Noah and his family and friends. But everybody ignored him. Let me say this, though. When Noah and Evan in that movie were warning people, they weren’t talking to the whole world. Noah couldn’t talk to the people living in the Americas at the time, or the people in Asia, or even the Philippines. He couldn’t talk loud enough for the people in the Philippines to hear him.
They had the internet then, come on. So how could those people have been warned? They weren’t warned. They were just killed. They had no say in it. They were killed by a god they didn’t even believe in. A lot of those people could have been very good people. All the babies under a year old did nothing wrong, and yet they all died as well. So if this is a merciful God, where was God’s mercy the day that he killed everybody?
The movie Evan Almighty was more like a local flood, right? It was a comedy. Morgan Freeman was in it, and Steve Carell. I know the movie well. What about all the dogs and the cats? Did they have to drown because God was mad at humans? Of course not. Nobody had to die. So why did everybody die? What did all the dogs do wrong?
Well, the Bible does say that God, you know what, Marlin? I keep asking you to tell me what you think. I know what the Bible says. I’ve read the Bible. You don’t have to tell me what the Bible says. I want to know what’s in your head, Marlin, not what’s in the Bible. I want you to give us your independent thoughts, not what has been drilled into your head since you were a little child about what’s true. I want you to think about the logical effects of the questions I’m asking you.
I think that’s messed up. It’s evil. It’s wicked. It’s horrible. It could be classified as genocide, right? God would be committing genocide on every race in the world except one, if we believe the story. That’s evil. You’re a moral person, Marlin. Why are you not turning away from such a hateful, terrible creature? Why do you believe in a God that would do those things?
I grew up in the religion with tradition. Growing up in that religion, I also had to follow the belief in God in Roman Catholicism, or else I would be out of the family bloodline. I would lose family, friends, and relatives. I understand that. But you’re over 18 years old, right? You’re a grown-up. You can decide for yourself. As someone who believes in free will, you have the free will to give it up.
People might be offended by me saying this, but so what? It’s okay to walk away. It’s totally okay to walk away. I might not get to go to work, I might not get to socialize with friends, I might not get to meet new friends. So are you doing this for other reasons than that? Would you rather be in a religion that’s awful, or would you just like to feel free?
If your friends leave you just because you leave Christianity, they weren’t really your friends. If they were truly your friends, they would be your friends no matter what you thought, unless you were being evil to them. You can always meet new friends. There are a whole bunch of us atheists out there, and you can have a whole different community. Honestly, this has been the most loving, caring, friendly community I’ve ever been a part of. It’s the opposite of what Christians tell you it is.
As someone who has just walked away from his religion, I’m not dry behind the ears as an atheist, but I can tell you there’s nothing I regret less than walking away and telling my Christian friends I was leaving Christianity. I don’t regret it one single day, because now I can believe what I want to believe instead of what other people tell me to believe. Family tradition is irrelevant. Traditions are mostly the majority in a country, and that’s irrelevant.
I think you’re being caught up in ideas that have been beaten into your head as being true, when they might not actually be true. You’ve been told this by people you totally trust, and you believe it before you use reason. Your parents are telling you this, and the leaders of your community are telling you this is true, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s true.
Another reason is that I’m afraid of going to hell. I lost a lot of… Oh my god. Yes, hallelujah. I’m so glad you said that. I just thought about that today. It’s been one thing I’m almost beginning to cry about, because it’s very hard for me to talk about hell. Hell is something I’ve been scared of for so long, and I believed in it just because I believed in Christianity. But yeah, Marlin, it was very nice to talk to you.
[Commercial break]
Marlin just dropped, so we did Conspiracy and we did Pharaoh’s Curse. I’m going to let you pick the next topic.
Fear of Hell and Deconversion on The DAM Show
Chris Mallard talks about how the fear of hell can linger long after someone leaves Christianity. He says that, for him, the Christian hell is the one he still fears, even though he feels no such fear about the Mormon, Catholic, or Muslim versions. He notes that this fear is a common struggle for people deconverting, and that it was drilled in as a way of keeping people in the fold, since the punishment is not a day or a week but forever. He asks how anyone can know that the hell they were taught about is the real one.
Chris also describes his own back-and-forth journey between atheism and Christianity. He left Christianity at around 14 or 15, relapsed in his later teens, and even considered becoming a chaplain in the United States military for a few months. He says there are ideas and people that try to draw a person back into the church, so closing that door is not an easy struggle. He hopes the guest will take the discussion to heart, and he says he understands if the guest does not want to speak up because of the people around him.
A viewer in chat wrote that the fear of hell can and likely will go away. Chris agrees that it usually does, though sometimes it takes years and it does not happen for everybody on the same timeline.
Chris also discusses a common pattern he sees in conversations with theists, especially those from the Abrahamic religions. When he asks a question, he says, many give an answer to a different question. He says he would rather have a friendly conversation that goes somewhere than an argument, and that he tries to get people to think about what they believe rather than insulting or yelling at them. He admits he has offended people at times, but says he does not set out to do so and tends to match the energy he receives.
Later, a caller named Ana joins the show and says she is an atheist. Chris asks her about the flood and the drowning of the animals, and the two joke about the kittens. Chris then reminds Christians in the chat of First Peter 3:15, encouraging them to come up and give an answer about their belief and their hope.
Deconversion stories, Hare Krishna visit and goat candle ad
Ana describes how she grew up in Russia as culturally Christian, identifying as Orthodox without much devotion. At around twelve she opened the Bible her family had, and she found its account of creation, with plants made before the sun and a dome over the earth, impossible to reconcile with what she was learning at school. She felt she had to choose between the textbooks and the scripture, and she chose the science. She admits it is not the most argument-driven conversion story, but for a twelve-year-old she thinks it is good enough.
Chris thanks her and says it is a question he asks almost every atheist who has left Christianity or another religion, because it helps people understand what first started them questioning.
Ana then talks about visiting a Hare Krishna gathering the day before, with prayers, dancing, singing and a shared vegan meal. She says the members were very welcoming and not pushy about their faith, and that they gave her three books and a card with information. She also notices parallels between the Krishna stories and the Abrahamic ones, such as a divine appearance that Jews interpreted as Yahweh, and she plans to study the tradition further.
Chris shares that he was a hippie in his younger days and remembers Hare Krishna groups who cooked dinner for the crowds outside the Grateful Dead shows. He says they were always welcoming and that he never had one of them try to press their religion on him. Chris and Ana then joke about the taste of the goat cheese served at the meal, which one viewer disliked.
Chris reads out a parody commercial for Father Flanigan’s goat-scented flesh candles, which is meant to mock Old Testament burnt offerings.
[Commercial break]
Back in the live section, Chris welcomes a viewer who has been watching the channel and who praises the show and Chris’s knowledge. That viewer says he sees the goal as spreading empathy and critical thought, which he believes religion undermines, and calls those essential survival skills for the species. Chris says he is flattered and that these two aims are the core of what he hopes to do.
The viewer then talks about the fear of hell that lingers after leaving Christianity. He says that even after concluding Christianity was probably untrue, the fear took about six months to fade, since it had been part of his worldview for forty years. Chris compares the lingering fear to his fear of spiders, saying he still sometimes wakes in a cold sweat believing he is going to hell, and admits he does not really know how to get rid of it.
Carbon-14 Dispute and Keeping Up With Science
The discussion opened with a viewer, JCH, who had argued that carbon-14 data shows things turning into carbon through radiation. The host pushed back directly: “Things don’t turn to carbon through radiation. Water doesn’t turn to carbon, at least not that way. I don’t think you understand how carbon-14 works.” He added that the viewer had been told by another commenter that carbon-14 had nothing to do with radiation, and said that exchange showed “JCH has no idea how the science works on this.” He suggested JCH should go and learn more before making such claims.
The host then turned the point into a broader complaint about believers. “One of the things I really found a lot with theists is that they really don’t like science unless they think it’s proving that their god exists. So we can throw out all the scientific stuff, the stuff that I want to believe in, but all the rest of it’s garbage.” He argued that many believers do not keep up with new science, and that this is a problem because “we are jumping gaps so fast right now that it’s really hard even for scientists to keep up with the science, let alone Christians who don’t believe in the science.”
As examples of recent progress, he pointed to the synthetic cell that has now been created in the lab, which he said means the argument that life can only come from God can be set aside, because “we can make life in the laboratory. We have done it.” He also raised the indefinite causal order, which he said was confirmed last year, in 2025, and which shows that an effect can happen before its cause. In his view, “it’s making the gaps that your god lives in get smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.”
The host then invited Josh Williams, who had been challenged to call in and discuss Noah’s Ark. He said he had to be somewhere at noon and could stay until about 11:45, adding, “Josh, give me a call.” Josh replied that he was staying until the host threw him out, and the host joked that he might be the one to do it.
The conversation returned to the carbon question. The host asked whether oxygen breaks down into carbon, and answered his own question: “It doesn’t. The carbon molecule is way more complicated than an oxygen molecule. It can’t break down into something more complicated.” He said that anyone who understood basic physics would know this, and that JCH was “demonstrating in the chat that you have no clue about this science because you are so demonstrably wrong to those of us who do understand it.”
A co-host responded that he was a geologist and did understand some physics, including radiometric dating, which he used in his profession. The discussion then turned to how oxygen is converted rather than broken down. “It doesn’t break down the carbon dioxide. It converts into it. And it converts into it because we add something else, glucose, and the glucose is already within our bodies.” The host agreed: “The carbon gets added in. That’s the part you’re missing. Oxygen doesn’t break down into carbon. The carbon is added to the oxygen to make it carbon dioxide.”
Earlier in the segment, the co-host also shared a personal story about recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. He said he had once believed a supernatural force would help him get better, but realised he would only recover if he did it himself, and that he stopped believing in the supernatural as part of that change. He described how he quit drugs after his dealer shot up in his apartment despite a rule against it, and he said he had been clean for 22 years.
[Commercial break]
After the break, the host said the stream had lost signal briefly and that he had hoped for one more caller to stay late with. He thanked the viewers and callers and invited Josh Williams and JCH to call the following weekend. “I’m really a nice guy. I don’t really try to argue with people. I want to have a respectful conversation with both of you if you guys can handle doing that as well.” He then closed by pointing viewers to the next show and the Dam Show newsletter.
[Commercial break]
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