0:13 - Philosophy Live: An Evening of Ideas
1:34 - Reflections on Human Resources
3:03 - The Play That Inspired
5:49 - The Life of George Bernard Shaw
8:19 - The Blank Slate Argument
10:51 - Talent and the Pareto Principle
13:15 - The Nature of Productivity
13:58 - Lessons from Theater School
15:40 - The Challenge of Adaptability
20:58 - The Importance of Humility
21:13 - Opening the Floor to Questions
21:51 - The Question of Belief
24:32 - Exploring the Concept of God
28:58 - The Nature of Existence
34:50 - The Contradictions of God
39:45 - The Power of Belief
43:21 - Standards of Truth and Existence
45:55 - Personal Experiences of Faith
49:08 - The Journey to Conversion
52:55 - Understanding Christianity's Unique Claims
56:56 - Investigating the Miracles of Jesus
1:02:34 - Disproving Miracles
1:05:03 - The Rational Universe
1:07:26 - Faith vs. Reason
1:14:47 - Historical Evidence
1:26:27 - Personal Transformation
1:45:23 - Events of Divine Intervention
1:55:46 - Overcoming Addiction
We dive deep into profound discussions surrounding philosophy, personal struggles, and the complexities of belief systems. As I sit down to connect with the audience, I reflect on the essence of philosophy as a tool to tackle the myriad questions, challenges, and thoughts that individuals grapple with in their everyday lives.
The conversation begins by touching on my past experiences working in Human Resources and how I found the corporate world riddled with political challenges rather than productivity. I share my reflections on the evolution of HR, noting its shift in focus from practical corporate needs to ideological compliance. As I draw parallels between historical philosophies and modern-day ideologies, I question the impact of leftist ideologies on productivity and corporate functionality.
As callers begin to join the discussion, I recount my recent experience watching the play "Dear Liar," based on the correspondence between George Bernard Shaw and actress Mrs. Patrick Campbell. This leads us into a broader examination of Shaw's socialist beliefs, his plays, and the implications of the idea that individuals can be molded into whatever society dictates—a concept I challenge as fundamentally flawed. I emphasize how talent is unevenly distributed and how many social theories fail to account for this reality.
Venturing into deeper waters, the conversation shifts toward the topic of God and belief systems. With a caller expressing their strong conviction in God's existence, an intriguing dialogue unfolds. I articulate my stance as an atheist, exploring the basis for my beliefs through epistemology and the absence of empirical evidence for the divine. We discuss the limitations of feelings in establishing truth versus the necessity of logical reasoning and evidence.
As the dialogue progresses, we touch on the nature of victimhood and how society constructs narratives that enable a culture of blame. The importance of personal responsibility and self-awareness emerges as we dissect various life choices and their consequences. Throughout the episode, I aim to challenge listeners’ thinking, encouraging them to embrace humility and coachability in their pursuit of understanding and truth.
As the session comes to a close, our discussions include personal journeys of overcoming challenges, from addiction to insomnia, demonstrating the power of self-knowledge and the importance of confronting one’s own reality. I bring this latest episode to a conclusion by inviting more questions and thoughts from the audience, reinforcing the idea that philosophy is not just an ancient pursuit but a living dialogue that addresses the very real issues we face today.
Overall, I hope to inspire listeners to dig deeper into their beliefs, question societal norms, and seek their unique understanding of truth. Join me in this riveting exploration of philosophy and self-discovery, where every question leads to another path of inquiry, forging connections and fostering growth.
[0:00] Good evening, my friends. It is just after seven on the 20th of August,
[0:05] 2025, and I am here for you. I am here for you.
[0:14] And if you have questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems, whatever is on your mind that I can bring the juice of philosophy to bear on, I am happy to hose you down. That analogy may have gotten away from me a little bit, as they sometimes do. But it's time for Wednesday Night Live. Philosophy Live. The kind of philosophy that I think people in history only dreamed of being able to do. Can you imagine? I mean, Socrates being able to talk to the entire world and get questions and comments. Beautiful, man. Beautiful. And I really do appreciate you guys coming by. Of course, it's going to take a little while for people to come in.
[1:00] And I suppose I had a wee bit of a banger, a banger a lot, which was my tweet about HR. So I worked in HR for a couple of years when I was a student. So I would do like summers and I did time at Christmas when it was really busy and so on. So I probably worked a grand total of maybe a year, maybe 14 months in HR at a corporation that you'd all know, but which will remain delightfully unnamed.
[1:35] And yeah, it was pretty wild, man. It was pretty wild. Never quite figured out what anyone did. I know that I had a lot of work to do, but a lot of people seem to have a lot of meetings. And a lot of it, you know, frankly, was just trying to figure out how to get fewer white males hired. Oh, yes, it was a little bit of a challenge that way. So, and it is interesting to me that before women came into the workforce en masse, there really wasn't any such thing as HR. Now, HR, of course, is a lot trying to keep in America, like the rather lawsuit-happy people off your back and all this kind of stuff. But yeah, not super productive as far as I could tell. Very political. And it's usually a portal through which or in through leftist sort of ideology gets into corporations. Because leftist ideology is not particularly productive for making widgets or providing sort of objective goods and services and so on.
[2:35] And got to get it in there somehow. It's not going to go on its own. Got to get it in there somewhere. and generally it comes in through HR. Tend to be sort of very heavy leftists and very ideologically aligned, so to speak.
[2:55] All right. So let me just see here. Got questions, comments, issues.
[3:04] I did go and see a play, which is very good. I wanted to sort of mention that, but just while I wait for sort of people to kick in, I did go and see a play called Dear Liar. And it is taken, I think, verbatim from the correspondence between, obviously, the second to Shakespeare, world-famous playwright, George Bernard Shaw, and an actress whose name escapes me, who was at the time the most famous actress in the world. And let me just see here, just so I can get a little bit of background. It's a good, it's a good play. Sort of very well, very well acted. So it's a play by Jerome Kilty. Oh, first staged in 1957. Wow. Very interesting. I could do the play. Oh, yes. The play is based on the correspondence between famed playwright George Bernard Shaw and actress Miss Patrick Campbell.
[4:05] And it's very, very interesting. I didn't know that it was such an old play. I thought it might have been kind of new. But yeah, it's a very good play. It is very much an arc of life play. Of course, George Bernard Shaw. Interesting guy, for those of you who don't know. Of course, I studied him quite a bit in theater school, and I studied him quite a bit in the first half of the English degree that I later abandoned to study history when I was at York University at the Glendon campus. George Bernard Shaw, born poor and relatively poor, although it's interesting because he was born in Ireland of Protestant aristocracy. Hmm, why does this, like, long ago Protestant aristocracy kind of feels a little familiar. To me, the Molyneux clan was, and we go all the way back to the Battle of Hastings, 1066, came over with William the Conqueror, which is why we have a French name and are just universally loved by the local Irish people, no matter which way we turn.
[5:07] But he became a socialist. He became, originally he was a Marxist, spent a whole year reading Das Kapital, later went less from the sort of revolutionary stuff and more towards the gradualism. So gradualism is when you don't have a big violent revolution, but you just kind of infiltrate. And you just, you know, the slow march through the institutions that's been talked about by the communists and socialists for, well, I guess this would be, he died in 1950 at the age of 94. He was a vegetarian for most of his life, partly out of poverty and partly out of ideology.
[5:43] But he initially started George Bernard Shaw as a revolutionary and then became a gradualist.
[5:49] And part of his gradualism was putting forward socialist ideas in his plays, which is really, really interesting. Socialist ideas in his plays. This is the blank slate argument. And so one of his most famous plays is Pygmalion. And I see the request. I'll get to that in a sec. I appreciate that. Yeah. So one of his most famous plays is called Pygmalion with Professor Higgins is the guy who's really into fanatics. And he finds a woman who's got a real cockney accent and he turns her into a duchess by the rain in Spain. The rain in Spain falls mostly on the plane. You've got to get all kinds of smuggins and road to Burma, major general blah, blah accent. And he takes a Cockney course flower girl from the streets and turns her into.
[6:46] A duchess, a paragon of higher society. This, this, like the Trading Places argument with Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy that the two old guys said, well, we can take a guy who's a well-to-do upper-class stockbroker and we can put him out on the streets and we can take a guy who's a kind of trashy beggar and a con man and we can make him into a stockbroker. These things can't be done.
[7:13] And Shor's plays do a lot of this kind of stuff as well. It's the idea that everyone's a blank slate. Everyone's just a piece of undifferentiated plasticine goo and you can mold them into whatever you want. The blank slate argument that we're all basically the same. And therefore the only differences that arise from us are due to privilege and exploitation, right? This is the leftist argument where everyone's the same. And therefore the only differences in outcome would result from accident of birth, exploitation, coincidence, previous wealth, and having the right connections and being born in the right place because everyone's the same. They're all just this big plasticine goo, you know, like God in the old Gary Larson cartoon, God making snakes, like, hey, these are easy. Right? So that's the argument. Everyone's goo. Everyone's the same. And therefore.
[8:06] The only wealth that exists is coincidence, history, exploitation, cheating, lying, thieving. Everyone can become everything. And it is a recipe for absolute social collapse.
[8:20] It's a recipe. If you've ever managed people, you know that talent is very, very unevenly distributed in this world. And I've interviewed like a thousand people. I've hired like a hundred people over the course of my business career. But of course, I also, um, in two fairly significant occasions interviewed, or I guess, auditioned hundreds of actors.
[8:49] And boy, acting talent, like programming talent, like singing talent, like songwriting talent, like sports talent, 98% of the money goes to 2% of the people. There's this, there's sort of two flavors of the Pareto principle. A Pareto principle basically says that 80% of the output comes from 20% of the people. And boy, if you've ever been in one of those hellscape situations where it's like, let's make a group project. And I was always like, oh, please, can we not? Because, you know, I was like, I'm just a beast of burden. At that point, you can put me out on the street. Just a beast of burden. And you know that there's going to be a whole bunch of free riders, a whole bunch of tag alongs a whole bunch of people who swoop at the end and scoop up all the, praise and rewards and you're just going to get shafted and i noticed this when i was auditioning actors of course i noticed this when i was interviewing and hiring people that there are some people who are just it's magic it's absolute magic how quickly they can do things same thing is true in the podcasting world right 98 of the money goes to like two percent of the people, So the Pareto principle, you can look at it in two layers. Number one, the 80-20 rule. 80% of the productivity comes from 20% of the people. But of course, if everyone's a blob, if everyone's the same, how do you explain that 80% of the productivity comes from 20% of the people? How do you explain that?
[10:10] Coincidence, exploitation, cold, cruel, mean, like the Mr. Burns things. Why is Mr. Burns in The Sims' rich? Because he's an asshole. Because he's a bastard. Because he's a yellow-skinned, bald-headed, liver-spotted devil. He just exploits. And of course, it's a way of coping, of saying, well, the reason that I'm not successful is I'm just not willing to exploit my fellow man. I'm better. This is Nietzsche's slave morality and also a little bit of Christian stuff where he who is last shall become first, he who is first become last. It is richer, sorry, it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven. It's cope. What do you do with people who are just way more successful than you?
[10:51] What do you do? I mean, I tried singing in a couple of garage bands when I was in high school, and it was not my thing, to put it mildly. All the singers were like real tenors or countertenors, and I'm a fairly robust amateur baritone, and I just really couldn't sing that stuff. And yet, you know, a friend of mine just went up and started wobbling away, sounded like an angel. Look, I'm so happy for you, you bastard. It's okay. I found my groove. Stefan Stella got his groove eventually.
[11:26] But the first level of Parade of Principles, the 80-20 rule. How do you get the productivity from the 20% of the magic people if you don't pay them a lot of money? What incentive do they have to hit the gas, to put their skills to full use? That's number one. Number two is in any meritocracy, the square root of the people involved produce half the value. So if you've got 100 people in a company, 10 of them produce half the value. Right? It's wild when you think about it, right? The square root of people, if you've got 10,000 people in a company, 100 of them produce half the value and 10 of them produce quarter of the value. 10 out of 10,000 are producing fully 25% of the value. Man, it's something else.
[12:17] And you just, you can't get that magic productivity without paying people more. But because the undifferentiated blob, everyone's the same plasticine goo theory, means that anybody who makes more must be exploiting other people. Because if you don't have that capacity for magic productivity, the green thumb, the amazing singing voice, the, you know, the guy, the singer for Oasis, you know, would hear the song once or twice, go in and just absolutely nail the audition. When Morrissey recorded How Soon Is Now, two takes, boom, done. Comes up with the lyrics, guy comes up with the melody and just done. Amazing. You listen to Freddie Mercury, sort of rip off these riffs, these incredible vocal riffs at the beginning of the live versions of Somebody to Love, just tossing off these absolutely amazing, just little riffs and warbles and melinas and just incredible stuff. Incredible.
[13:16] I can't do it. Maybe you can, but I don't know many people who can. Or some people sit down, pick up the piano. Eric Wolfson, the songwriting partner of Alan Parsons for the Alan Parsons Project, was originally going to be an accountant. And he was told, you're a terrible accountant. If you can do anything else, please do. And so he ended up being a, he taught himself piano, I guess, like Owen Benjamin. He taught himself piano and just wrote like crazy. It was an amazing gifted writer of music and complex stuff go listen to i mean two of my favorite albums from alan parsons are pyramid and turn of a friendly card just wonderful stuff so.
[13:59] Some people just have this amazing productivity now if you don't have that amazing productivity it's tough because you're just a blob you know you're just kind of background i remember when I was in theater school, in theater school in Montreal. I went to the National Theater School for almost two years. And...
[14:20] They only take one out of a thousand. No, they take one out of a hundred people. They take 1% of the people who audition. So I was really good actor in my university. I was always given the lead role. I never had to audition and all of that. And I get to the theater school and I was like, I was kind of in the middle. I could look at the people and I still remember their names. You know, every single time I go to a play, theater school was like 40 years ago, right? Every time I go to a play, I check and see if anyone from my old theater school class is there. And I know one of them's at Stratford. I know another one who's done a bunch of work. But you could see some people were just like, they were just really good. Just so good in a way that I just don't think I could ever be. And so I did give acting a try. I enjoy doing my own audio books. I act for those. But if you don't, if you've never been in that situation where you've been humbled by somebody else just getting it, you know, you can see it in math class. Sometimes people do just get it. They get up there and they just puzzle through stuff and race through it. And like me for me, math is like the myth of Sisyphus, like just pushing this ridiculous rock uphill that continually rolls back down. I'm okay with, you know, business math and tax math and things like that and
[15:38] percentages and some ratios and so on.
[15:40] But anything beyond that, I, my brain just goes to pieces.
[15:45] So you just, you cannot get, without significant rewards, you just can't get that magic productivity out of people, and the economy is driven by like 12 guys. And it is guys, there's no billionaire women who didn't get their money either through inheritance or divorce or something like that. So...
[16:07] You just can't get that incredible, amazing magic productivity out of people without a real meritocracy. And battling with that basic reality that some people are just mind-bogglingly fantastic at stuff, which is why they get paid so much, right? Some people are just so good at stuff. It's incomprehensible to me how good people are at things that they do. Now, of course, I like to think, and I think I've got some pretty good reason to believe that I'm pretty good at philosophy and self-knowledge and communication and analogies and so on. I'm a good writer and so on.
[16:43] But, you know, so I think because I'm good at some things, I recognize when other people are really good at stuff, particularly if I'm not good at that stuff. It's just amazing. I mean, I remember when I was playing racket sports, some people would just start blaming the ball like they were sniping uh from a from a cliff just like serves like going through space-time like a comet's really hitting the ground like the big superman you know comet in the ground uh amazing i was never that way i never went some people if you've ever seen people pick up languages they pick it up so fast i do not pick up languages fast computer languages yes human languages no, so you just can't get that kind of productivity and so of course for sure the idea that you can just pluck some woman who's a cockney woman out of the street and then with some elocution lessons and some poise lessons and walk with the books on your head and and learn how to say the raid in spain falls mostly mainly on the plane and you can just become a duchess or a scion of higher society. You can't. I grew up with poor people. I was just talking about this with a friend of mine today. I grew up with poor people and they don't take coaching. They don't listen. They don't improve. They're vainglorious. Most people are poor.
[18:06] In partly, it's an intelligence thing, but it has a lot to do with rampant emotional immaturity. And if you've ever spent a lot of time around poor people, they're mostly terrible. I mean, I say this from very deep experience, having been poor in, let's see, one, two, three, four, five different cities and two different countries. I've had a pretty good education on growing up among the poor, and they're mostly terrible people. They mostly have substance abuse issues or they are full of vanity. Like they think they're just great when they're not. And they're full of resentment because they've often missed their own capacity for change and growth and perhaps even wealth. And they're just resentful and petty and often violent too. And certainly, you know, this is the one foundational thing that's very true about the poor that I've seen. Absolutely uncoachable. You can't tell them anything because they just know everything. It's like this, period. You can't tell them anything.
[19:08] And, you know, the one thing I've always tried to, you know, it's tough. Everybody has their, I mean, at least I do have my scraps of vanity, but to always focus on listening, to always focus on being coachable, to always focus on being willing to admit that you're wrong as hell. Really, really, really important. If you can switch your ego from being right to being accurate, to being true, to being effective, there's almost nothing you can't do. Like, you know, in sailing, you have to switch the sail around quite a bit, depending on the wind. I know I'm not being overly technical. I've been sailing like twice in my life.
[19:46] You have to adjust continually. It's the same thing when you're doing moguls while skiing. You have to adjust your legs and position. You have to adjust continually. In business, you have to adjust new technology, new opportunities, new regulations, new laws, new requirements, new customer bases, new tariffs. You just constantly have to adjust. And the people who can't process reality, can't process feedback, and are not willing to be nimble. It's like trying to sail across an ocean when you can't move your sails.
[20:17] And then just you blame the wind for being in the wrong place. You just you can't do anything in life without being nimble. Now I'm not talking about nimble in basic principles like morals. I'm talking about nimble in terms of new information. New information, better arguments and so on. Like I was studying philosophy for 20 years and I finally were like, I don't know what love is. I don't know what free are. And I sure as heck don't know what the correct or moral configuration of politics and society are, which is, you know, kind of important since it's politics that tends to define our lives in very foundational ways. Didn't know. 20 years, didn't know. Got to be humble. If you're not humble, you're not coachable. And if you're not coachable,
[20:57] you can't improve and you can't adjust.
[20:59] And when you can't improve and you can't adjust, you end up blaming your circumstances rather than your resistance to change and growth. And then you're truly stuck and your circumstances will only and forever change for the worse. All right.
[21:13] Thank you for your patience. Let us get to your questions and comments.
[21:19] App. App for social. App for social. Applesauce. What is on your mind, my friend? Don't forget to unmute.
[21:28] Yes. Can you hear me?
[21:30] Yes. Go ahead, sir.
[21:33] So you're a smart guy. I have a lot of questions for you, but I'll give you one. How can you not believe in God?
[21:39] I'm sorry?
[21:40] How can you not believe in God?
[21:43] I'm sorry. I don't quite understand the question.
[21:47] I believe you're an atheist, correct?
[21:50] That is correct.
[21:51] So my question to you is, how can you not believe in God?
[21:56] Are you asking me for the methodology? Because this feels like a bit of a leading question. like how could you not like chocolate so do you want me to lead you through the methodology by which I don't believe in God or is there some other thing.
[22:08] That you would like to talk about that's a good point that's fair, I don't have a follow up I just I feel so strongly that God exists so I don't hate you I actually love you just my question is, my question is uh, How do you not believe in God?
[22:35] Right. Okay, I got it. I got it. All right. And of course, if you would like to help out the show, freedomain.com/donate. I keep forgetting to say that, which is bad. Okay, so let me ask you this. One of the first things that we learn when we're kids is the difference between a wall, a door, and a doorway, right?
[22:56] Yes.
[22:57] And this is not because I don't think you're smart. I'm sure that you're very... I put everyone who listens to this show top 1% of intelligence. So this has nothing to do with thinking you're dumb, but the way that I sort of worked it out, and I think this is true for everyone, is a wall you cannot change, a door you can open, a doorway you can walk through. Does that make sense?
[23:18] It does.
[23:19] Yeah. So you don't try and walk through. And if the door is, you know, a push door or whatever, you can just, you know, elbow it. If you're carrying something, you can shoulder it or elbow it aside, right? So there's things that you cannot change, which is the wall. There's things which you can change which is the door so the doorway is where there is no door right we wouldn't say that the where there's no wall that's a doorway but the doorway is where there is no door right so you have the presence of a door and then you have the absence of a door right now when you were a kid how did you know that there was no door uh.
[23:57] Because there was no door. That's how I knew.
[23:59] Well, that's, I know that's a bit tautological, right? So how did you know there was no door? Well, could you see the door? If it was like right in the, if the door was closed, you could see it right in front of you. If the door was open, you couldn't see the door right in front of you. It was off to one side at an angle, right?
[24:16] Uh, yes. Yes.
[24:18] Okay. So you can't see the door.
[24:21] Correct.
[24:22] Can you, can you touch the door when the door is open? Like, Can you just, I'm talking about the door frame is the door. Can you touch it in the door?
[24:29] If I, if I can feel the door, then yes, yes, I can.
[24:32] Okay. So if you can't see the door and you can't feel the door, is it a doorway that you can walk through?
[24:45] This is, I have to think for a second.
[24:48] I'm not trying to trick you or trap you. I'm really not. I'm just, this is the basic for me. This is basic sort of epistemology, which is how do we know something's there?
[24:55] Yeah. I mean, I know epistemology is like trick questions, but I get your point.
[24:59] No, I'm really not. You're basically. It's not a trick question. Sorry, go ahead.
[25:02] I don't think you're tricking me. However, I do think some sorts of, you know, philosophy is a wrong way to talk about God.
[25:17] Well, okay, hang on, hang on, hang on. But you asked me as to my methodology, right?
[25:22] Correct. Okay.
[25:23] So for me, if I cannot... See it. I cannot feel it. I cannot taste it. I cannot smell it. I cannot hear it. Right. I mean, you could think of, and I'm sure you've done this. I know I did when I was a kid. You think that it's an open door, but it's a glass door. You ever have that and you bonk, hopefully you don't break it. Right.
[25:47] Yeah. I ran to my glass door, sliding glass door.
[25:50] Yeah. Yeah. I had a cousin who hacked up his arm, like just brutally, uh, because he was running, he wanted to run into the greenhouse and didn't realize that the door was closed. So, in that case, you don't see the door. Well, you didn't, but you sure as heck feel it, right?
[26:09] I felt it, but I didn't see it in the moment.
[26:11] And then it goes from being closed to being jaggedly open in a really dangerous and terrifying way, right? So, if it does not impact upon the evidence of the senses, that means that it does not exist in the material realm. Now, there are things that are valid that do not exist in the material realm, right? Such as the inverse square law or laws of mathematics or laws of logic. We derive them from the behavior of matter and energy in the material realm, but they don't exist. Like the concept of a forest doesn't exist in the way that a tree does, but the concept of forest is dependent upon the presence of a cluster of trees. Is that a fair way to put it?
[26:53] Correct. Yes, correct.
[26:54] So, I think it's fair to say that God does not exist in the detectable, sense-based material realm. Is that right?
[27:08] Uh, I, I might, I might, I have to think about that question, but, uh, if I could pose a question to you.
[27:15] No, no, no, no, no. Hang on. I'm happy to take your questions, but this is my, uh, you asked me to, you asked me to take the lead on the hike. So let me just, you know, take us a couple of steps. All right. So it is fair to say, I think, and I'm obviously happy to be corrected, but I don't think anyone's made the claim that we can detect the presence of God, at least through modern science and technology or our own senses, that we cannot detect the presence of God through the evidence of the senses or anything that translates the invisible to the visible. For instance, We can't see heat, we can't see x-rays or gamma rays, but we can translate those into things that we can see. We can't see sound, but we can translate it into sound waves, which we can do.
[28:03] Yeah, we can study the things and then they become things we can study. I get it.
[28:08] So there is no material way to test the existence of God. God is not a door, but a doorway in that there is nothing there that we can detect from a sense-based test. Is that fair to say?
[28:28] One more time. Can you say that again?
[28:30] Yeah. So God is not something that we can empirically test for the existence of using our senses or anything that translates some other energy form into something we can process through our senses. True. Okay, so an entity that does not impact at all upon our senses is the same as
[28:57] an entity that is not there.
[28:58] So, for instance, if I said, I have an invisible bird on my head, and you'd say, wow, that's a heck of a trick. Can I feel it? Nope. Okay, I can't feel it. I can't see it because it's invisible and I can't feel it. Okay, can I detect its heat signature? Nope. Okay, I can't see it, can't hear it, can't detect the heat signature, can't. Okay, can I, oh, can I shake baby powder on the invisible bird and then see the outline? Nope. Right, so at some point, there's no difference between the, quote, invisible bird and there not being a bird. Is that fair to say?
[29:39] Yeah, that's fair to say.
[29:40] Okay. So, if we accept that God does not exist in any way that is detectable in the material realm.
[29:50] Then we have to say that God exists as a concept or as an idea or as something within our heads that does not match something that is empirical out there in the world. And of course, I fully accept that God exists as a concept. God exists as an idea. But a concept does not prove the existence of something in the world. So, I mean, you could have a contradictory concept like a square circle, something is both a circle and a square at the same time, that would not mean that a square circle exists in the universe. You could imagine a dragon that was a carbon-based life form that breathed fire and also was able to fly between the stars, but we would not expect such a thing to actually exist because nothing can live, certainly that's carbon-based, in the depths of space. So we wouldn't need to scour the whole universe and find out if there was such a thing as a dragon that could fly between the stars. We can imagine things like time travel, but this does not mean that it's a real thing that we can actually do. And of course, science fiction, Lord of the Rings, magic, and so on are all things that we can imagine or create that don't actually exist in the world, but are vividly conveyed through acts of creation and description. Is that another fair way to put it?
[31:18] Yes, yes.
[31:19] Okay. So, if God does not exist in the material realm, in other words, if the material existence of God is exactly the same as something which does not exist, then we cannot look to the material realm to prove the existence of God. And therefore, we have to look at some other realm. Now, the fact that we have an idea of God, I know that there's a proof for God that says, well, we have this idea of God, and therefore there is a proof of God, I don't accept that as a whole. Because in general, the idea of God is humanity with characteristics taken away. So for instance, we live for 80, 90 years, sort of on average in the West, right? So we are mortal creatures. And so what we do is we say, okay, but we will take away the reality of mortality from a creature and we will make that creature immortal. So that is taking away a characteristic of humanity. We could also say that, well, all of our knowledge is limited. Our knowledge is a combination of eternal and infinite and temporal and transitory, right? So I had a dream last night, that's all gone, but two and two make four, it's true before I was born, it'll be true after I'm dead and that's eternal.
[32:37] But if we say human knowledge is all limited to some degree, but if we take away all the limitations of human knowledge in the same way as if we take away all the mortality of human life, we end up with eternal and all-knowing.
[32:53] And of course, we are born, and we live and then we die, but if we take away that, then we have eternal life and so on. And so God is more of a negation of a concept of what life is that we would understand, And God is a contradictory concept because if God, for instance, is all-knowing, then God knows everything that is going to happen past, present, and future, and has certain knowledge of everything that could possibly, but that will certainly happen in the future. But if God is all-knowing, then God cannot also be all-powerful. For instance, if I know that a small comet is going to hit Etobicoke tomorrow morning, I know this for absolute certain, then clearly I cannot change it. Because if I can change it, then my knowledge is not certain. So if God is all-knowing, he cannot be all-powerful. If God is all-powerful, he cannot be all-knowing. And so all-powerful and all-knowing is like a square circle. So if we put all these things together, and I'm sorry for the lengthy speech, and I'm happy to hear your thoughts about this or your rebuttal, of course, to this. So if God is not detectable in any way in the material realm.
[34:05] Then that is the same as not existing that is a doorway not a door, And if God has self-contradictory elements, such as being all-powerful and all-knowing, then that's like a square circle. Now, we cannot touch a square circle. We cannot ever feel or hear a square circle. There's nothing that can translate the existence of a square circle into our sense data. And a square circle is a self-contradictory concept. And so, very briefly, if we look at these things and put them all together, then God certainly exists as a concept. It's a very powerful concept for a lot of people. But as far as existence, we have to kind of torture the definition of existence to include God because we wouldn't take any other entity that was self-contradictory and showed up
[34:48] nowhere in the evidence of the census and say that it exists.
[34:50] So that's it. I appreciate your patience and I'm all ears.
[34:54] Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I appreciate you and I respect you a lot. But if I feel that God exists, is he real?
[35:03] No.
[35:05] Well, I feel he exists.
[35:07] No, no, but feelings are not tools of cognition, right? Lots of people feel lots of things. That doesn't mean that they're real.
[35:12] Well, to me, he does. To me, he does.
[35:15] No, but you can't say that. Logically. I mean, philosophically, you can't say, for me, something objective exists. So if you say that two and two make four, you can't say, only for me, did two and two make four? Because two and two make four is a universal definition.
[35:33] Okay, yes, but you're talking about math. I'm talking about a feeling and not logic. Like, logic is math. I'm talking about the feeling that I have.
[35:45] Okay, so let me ask you this. If it is the case that whatever we feel exists, exists, is that true for everything or just for a God that you believe in?
[35:57] That's a good point. I don't think that everyone, whoever feels something, I don't think they, I don't think that's true. However, why do, why do, my rebuttal would be, why do humans believe so, so strongly? Because we do.
[36:20] Okay. I mean, so that's a great question and there's lots of answers to it. Um, one would be that that's what we're taught, right? Because of course, you'll notice that if you're raised in a Hindu family, you believe in Hindu gods. If you're raised in a Muslim family, you would believe in the Islamic religion. If you're raised Christian, you believe in Jesus and so on. So that would be the case, uh, that it would be taught. If human beings had a universal experience of God, then we would expect the concept of God to be much more common. And we would say when the Australians, or when we first got to the Australian continent and we came across the Aborigines, if the Aborigines believed in Jesus, I mean, that would be pretty compelling evidence because it would be pretty hard to know that. But we find, of course, that people not exposed to particular contents of theology don't know about it, haven't heard of it to some degree. Now, the other thing, too, of course, is that as human beings, we do participate in the eternal.
[37:17] As I mentioned earlier, we participate in the eternal nature, in a sense, of our genes, which have been four billion years, depending on how you measure it. Four billion years evolution, we have a lot in common, of course, with our ancestors. There's been this whole process of growth and development. And of course, we hook into that which is eternal through the amazing capacity of our mind to generate universal concepts that are eternal, true across time and space. So the fact that our minds are capable of all knowing in sort of specific areas, two and two make four, inverse square law, second law of thermodynamics, whatever you want to say, these things are all true and they're true across time, across the universe. There is true on the other side of the universe as they are right here. There is true on the far side of the moon as they are here. and so we do participate in the universal and therefore the idea that there's a mind that exists that is universal.
[38:20] Is I think taking our fragmentary experiences of things that are universal and extrapolating them to the idea of a God. And the last thing that I'll say, of course, is that as children, as little babies and as toddlers, our parents strike us as all-powerful and all-knowing and so on, right? They're infinitely more powerful than we are. They know infinitely more than we know, and we don't really experience them as aging for the first part of our childhood. And so the fact that we have these experiences would make us, I think, more conducive to believing in the idea of God. And the last thing I'll say is that the idea of God is very powerful for victory in conflicts between tribes. Because if you believe that God has endowed us with the the righteousness of this cause, and God is on the side of us, then you'll fight.
[39:17] Usually more strongly, you may in fact fight to the death, and therefore you may conquer. You'd be more likely to conquer if you're willing to fight to the death, if death holds no particular fear for you, and if sacrificing your life for the cause of the religion gets you to heaven, to paradise. We've seen this, of course, in some religions in the modern world, but it's certainly true in the past with Christianity and other religions, then there are evolutionary advantages to it.
[39:42] And of course, there are cohesiveness advantages to it.
[39:46] And of course, we don't know, at least until my theory of ethics came out close to 20 years ago, we didn't have any way to prove secular ethics. So how do you get the ought from the is? How do you get the morals from the atoms and void and energy of the universe? Well, you say that God has commanded us to do this, and therefore you have morals, which we need to live, you have a way to explain where morals come from. Sorry, go ahead.
[40:09] Yeah, sorry. The paradox is, though, neither of us know. I don't know. And you don't know.
[40:15] No, I do know. I do know.
[40:17] You do know for sure?
[40:18] Yeah, I do know for sure. Yeah.
[40:20] Really?
[40:22] Well, and you do as well. I mean, you believe in one God and not the 9,999 other gods, right?
[40:28] Well, I do. I do. Yes, I do.
[40:31] I mean, you don't believe in Zeus, right?
[40:33] No, I do not.
[40:34] Are you 100% certain that there's no such thing as Zeus?
[40:41] I'm not 100% certain, but I'm pretty close to 100%.
[40:45] Right. So the reason that I'm certain is not because I'm arrogant, but because I'm humble. I know that's an annoying thing to say, so I apologize for being annoying and I appreciate the conversation, is that I have a standard for a truth, which is first requires logical consistency and secondly requires empirical verification. And this is how you and I navigate our entire lives. You know, if you're going to merge, you're driving along, right? You're going to merge from one lane into another. You check your blind spot, you check your mirrors and you check your blind spot indicator if you've got one. And if there's no car there, you go, right? You couldn't drive if you didn't know whether things were there or not there. You couldn't leave your room. I've got a door to the studio. I couldn't get out if I didn't know the difference between what was there and not there. And I do not want to create a special category in my mind.
[41:44] Of, well, there's these objective, rational ways to know if things are there or not there.
[41:50] I mean, if you order something from Amazon and it doesn't come, you call them and you say, hey, man, it didn't come. You don't sit there and say, well, I guess it came, but it came invisibly or it came and didn't come at the same time. Like you just know whether things are there or not. When you have to drive to work, you have a route, you GPS, or you remember it and you drive to work and you get there and you show up. And if the boss says you didn't show up, you say, no, no, no, I was there. I punched in, blah, blah, blah. Like, you know, when things are there or not, you know how to change lanes, you know how to get out of a room with a door. And so we know when things are there or not there. And we know whether things to a large degree are true or not true. Like if somebody points at a group of trees and says, that's a flock of birds.
[42:33] We say, that's not, that's not a flock of birds. I'm not like 99% sure that let's say there are no tree. There are no birds, right? You can see it's like winter, there's no birds. They point to the copse of trees and says, that's a flock of birds. You'd say, I don't know if you got some head damage or whatever, you've been reading Foucault, but that is not a flock of birds. That is a copse of trees or it's a little forest or something like that. And in the same way, if somebody holds up a bunch of leaves and says, I'm going to drink these, you would say, assuming the leaves are dry, right? You say, well, you can't drink those. Don't drink those leaves any more than you can swim in concrete, right? That's hardened. So we go through our whole lives with these standards of existence and non-existence and truth and falsehood.
[43:22] I just can't philosophically create a separate category where I throw all of that to the wind, if that makes sense, because they're universals. Hello? You're muted, I think.
[43:40] I'm here.
[43:40] Yeah, sorry, go ahead.
[43:43] Yeah, my bad. So, if I feel something very strongly, you know, like I feel it in my body, I feel it in my heart, I feel it in my mind, does that mean it's not real?
[44:00] Well, let's take it away from you. You would say yes. Well, let's take it away from you specifically, right? Now, when you dream at night, I had a dream about Ron Paul two nights ago. For some reason, he thought I'd moved to China. I don't know why I had this dream. I haven't really puzzled it out. But I had a dream about Ron Paul that I was having a conversation or watching somebody have a conversation with Ron Paul. That was very vivid. I absolutely believed it at the time. Was I in fact having a conversation with Ron Paul?
[44:33] No, you weren't.
[44:34] I wasn't, even though it was very vivid to me at the time. There are, of course, people who have schizophrenia. There are people who have psychosis. There are people who have hallucinations that are incredibly real to them. And again, I'm not calling you crazy, just so you understand. I mean, we're just looking at the extremes here, right? So it certainly is the case that people believe things that are false and people have very vivid experiences that are not objectively true and feels real for them. And of course, we go through this every night. You know, I'm writing a book at the moment where the characters are incredibly real to me and they speak to me and I just feel like I'm transcribing their thoughts and ideas and so on. So tell me, but listen, I don't want to make this all about me. Tell me about, and I say this, you know, open heart, open mind. Tell me about your feelings and your experience and what makes it so vivid for you. I really do want to understand that.
[45:29] Well, I, uh, I cried. I actually cried every time I see the crucifix. And, uh, it's really difficult. I mean, it's not, it's, it's not a, I'm not sad about it. Like I don't have sad feelings. It moves. I have, I'm also happy, you know, just because I'm crying doesn't mean I'm sad.
[45:55] I'm also happy. So I'm dealing with these feelings, And I'm wondering if they're real Or if I'm going crazy I'll be honest with you I think I'm like No, no, honestly, no, no I don't think I'm going crazy But, But sometimes I question myself If I'm losing my mind But either way, it doesn't matter I love Christ.
[46:26] Okay so you um feel very strongly about religious symbolism and by symbolism i'm not trying to say it's not real for you and i'm not certainly not trying to diminish what it is that you're experiencing but you're very strongly and passionately about that and i assume that you were raised a christian is that right i.
[46:43] Was not i was not.
[46:45] But you raised agnostic or atheist or something else.
[46:47] Uh well i apologize i actually i that was that was incorrect i was raised Lutheran, but I never cared about that shit.
[46:57] Okay.
[46:59] Like, I literally didn't care.
[47:00] So what was it that happened that was very powerful for you that made you into more of a... My conversion.
[47:07] My conversion to Catholicism.
[47:09] Okay. Okay, can you tell me a little bit more about that process?
[47:17] I could, yes.
[47:20] If you want. I mean, I'm curious and I'd love to hear people's experience. So if you don't want to, that's fine too. But I'm curious.
[47:29] No, that's well said. I appreciate your respect for me. No, no, it was good. I mean, I'd rather not talk about why I converted to Catholicism.
[47:42] Oh, come on. That's got to be the juicy one. I'm just kidding. It's fine. It's fine. Let me ask you this. was was there an element of personal desperation or catastrophe and you don't have to give me any details but was there anything to do with that.
[47:55] No actually no i you know when you said that when you were asking the question i was like there might be but no actually there wasn't there was i was in no crisis i was in the i was at the best time of my life like i was cooking, he's making a lot of money, so no I can confidently say no.
[48:25] Was it coinciding with the marriage or the birth of a child? Because I mean, that's a very powerful experience.
[48:31] Correct. Yeah, those are powerful experiences. But no, no, neither of those.
[48:36] Okay. Was it something that struck you or something you were exploring? Like, did you wake up and oh my gosh, I've had a vision or I've had an idea or something's entered my heart? Or was it something you were in pursuit of? Or how did it manifest? Or was there anything that Well.
[48:51] I'll say this. I'll say this. It's nothing I saw. I never had a vision at the time. It came from online behavior. It came from online behavior, if that makes sense. Like, whether it's...
[49:09] Dude, everyone's online, dude. So, I mean, I was online. I saw a few videos, and now I'm a Catholic. and I'm proud of it. I'm not actually scared of it. I'm proud of it.
[49:25] Well, I'd hope you wouldn't be scared of it and I hope you would be proud of it if it's something that you truly feel to be the case. Being committed to your belief system is very important.
[49:33] 100%.
[49:34] Okay. All right. I mean, I get that you don't want to go into many personal details. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention? I really do appreciate the conversation.
[49:44] Likewise, I do as well. No, I have no other questions read this time. Thank you.
[49:49] Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate having these conversations and thank you for calling in. All right. Patriot. Patriot. What is on your mind? I can't hear you as yet, but I'm sure.
[50:09] Stefan.
[50:10] Yes, go ahead.
[50:11] Stefan, are you there? Yeah. So I've been listening in. It's Patriot from your initial space back on Twitter. Now I'm going to bring this up. But before I bring this up, the religion topic, I want full disclosure. I'm not a theologian, okay? But I've read a lot about a lot over many years, okay? I'm not Thomas Aquinas. I'm not a priest, I'm not a brother, I'm not even a pastor, but I've read a lot. So I'm going to give you the lay version of the conversation. I'm going to turn my best.
[50:49] I'm sorry, which conversation?
[50:52] The previous conversation about religion. I agree with everything you said, but there's one part that's important to mention. You are correct that God is outside the realm of sense data, right? That you can't see God. You can't feel him. I mean, you can feel the Holy Spirit and things like that.
[51:22] No, but you can't use the senses.
[51:23] Right, correct, correct. But what I would say about that is I would pose the question to you, and you probably know this probably rather bad because of your time in philosophy. What is, do you remember what the main difference is between all of the Eastern religions and Christianity? What's the difference? There's one big difference.
[51:49] I mean, in general, I think Christianity is one of the few religions where you owe equal moral obligations to believers and non-believers alike. It's not an in-group preference. It is a universal system of ethics.
[52:02] That's similarity. There's one big difference though. Because every religion has their moral code. Christianity has Ten Commandments and so on and so forth, the Gospels, so on and so forth. Catholic social teaching, Buddhism, they have a code of ethics as well. But there's one big difference. And when we figure out what the difference is, that's where we can approach our assessment of the divine. Do you want to give another guess or do you want me to just tell you?
[52:38] No, if it's not universal, then I'm happy to hear.
[52:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the big difference between every Eastern religion and Christianity on the whole, because they all believe in this divine energy called God. right?
[52:55] The Buddhistic idea of family, which is spliced from Christianity, so on and so forth. The big difference is Christianity believes in Jesus Christ where all the other Eastern religions do not. Specifically...
[53:11] Sorry, I thought you were looking at something a bit more esoteric than Christianity is based on believing Christ.
[53:16] That's something in the name. Every religion has their moral code, right? Everybody and their dog which is something I stole from me by the way I like when you say everybody and their dog everybody and their dog if you're not like a psychopath or a serial killer has a code of ethics right, you know but the linchpin so to speak is Jesus Christ, that's first off second off, It's really, really—you are correct in everything that you're saying about the sense data. I totally agree with everything you're saying. But it's difficult because the way Christians approach God can only be attained through prayer and faith, right? There's a line in the gospel where Jesus is talking to the apostles, and he says that flesh and blood has not revealed this to you but my Heavenly Father. And so that tells us right off the bat that just because you can't see God or just because you can't feel him in the world doesn't mean he doesn't exist. Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father in heaven. What I'm saying is the access to God, whether you're a Lutheran or whether you're any kind of a Christian, actually, and even you could say Buddhist, the access to God does not come through the sense data in the world. It comes through.
[54:38] Yes, it does. No, absolutely it does. No, no, no, I can't agree with you there. Again, I could be wrong.
[54:44] It comes through prayer.
[54:45] No. Go ahead. No, no, the knowledge of God comes through the senses, at least the knowledge of Christianity, because Christ was evident to the senses. His miracles were evident to the senses. His walking on water was evident to the senses. His resurrection was evident to the senses. Because if we say, well, God is immaterial, then we would have no concept of God, because God would never interfere in the material. So, when you say God is only accessible through prayer, certainly in Christianity— No, no, I didn't say only. Okay, but you said God is not evident through the senses, but God is evident through the senses, just in the past. The people who saw Christ obviously saw him perform such a level of miraculous action that they were willing to die and be torn apart by wolves and lions in the amphitheater and so on. So God absolutely, in Christianity and of course in many other religions as well, God absolutely manifests. You've got Moses for the Old Testament, you've got Muhammad for the Muslims, that God absolutely impresses himself through people on the census. You get signs, burning bushes, tablets, a son of God, a resurrection. And so it is not the case to say that there's not any physical evidence for God. In fact, all of the major religions that I know of are founded upon someone who impressed themselves upon the evidence of the senses.
[56:11] So if there's physical evidence for the divinity of Jesus, then why not look into that? If someone came to earth claiming to be God, and this was Jesus' repeated claim for three years, because his public ministry was three years.
[56:33] He left the house, Mary's house, when he was 30, three years. For three years, he droned on and on that he was God. If it was me if I was a so called investigator and if someone said that to me I would want to know if that person was telling the truth and.
[56:56] That is the gateway, or let's say the door, which you previously spoke about, the analogous door. That is how you figure out who or what God is. Because if Jesus is claiming to be divine, if Jesus is claiming to be God himself, he says, when the Son of Man is lifted up, you will know that I am. I am is a term that was used in the Old Testament in Hebrew to denote God. I am the Lord your God, and I alone shall you worship. So over and over, Jesus is claiming to be God. So you can't access God through Jesus Christ. If Jesus Christ is telling the truth, very magnanimous, so to speak, and if he did rise, then there you have God. Either he lied or he was telling the truth. It can't be both. It can't be both. There are people throughout history who say that when he came out of the tomb, that people were experiencing a collective delusion. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not a psychologist and so forth, but I mean, I've done some reading. I don't think there's such a thing in medical psychology as a collective delusion. You can't have, multiple people cannot have the same delusion at the same time. The mind doesn't work that way. So either he was lying or telling the truth, in which case, if he was telling the truth.
[58:21] Well, no, I don't accept that either. I don't accept that either. I mean, people can genuinely and deeply believe what they're saying. They can pass lie detector tests. They may still be wrong, but I don't believe that Jesus was either lying or he was telling the truth. He may have absolutely fully believed what he was saying and have been incorrect.
[58:49] Well, there's where we take it a little bit further using investigation and so forth. You know him by the miracles he was performing. If the miracles are fake, you can test that. The miracles are the signs of the power of God on earth. If the miracles are fake, then Jesus is a fraud. If Jesus is a fraud, then Christianity is null and void. So again, either he was lying or he was telling the truth. It can't be both.
[59:17] Well, no, because he's not a fraud either, if he genuinely believes that he is.
[59:23] No, but if the miracles are fake, if the miracles recorded in the Gospels are fake, that's the truth that he was giving to his apostles and other people that he was God. Because only God can heal the blind. Only God can make the lame walk and so forth. So if those miracles are investigated to be fake, then he's a fraud.
[59:42] Okay, and of course, we have people who claim to have the ability to heal people in the present, and these claims are investigated on a regular basis and are found to be wanting.
[59:56] Yeah, so once again, you know, the evidence is the miracles. So like, for example, he says at the wedding of Cana that, you know, the evangelists, because it's in all four Gospels, they all say that he turned water into wine. If I go there, if I build a time machine, so to speak, and I throw myself back to early Samaria, early Galilee, Nazareth, so on and so forth, and let's say I'm a fly on the wall, and Jesus is saying, I'm going to turn water into wine, and he has two jars in front of him. He says he turns water into wine. If I look into those said jars and realize that, well, hey, you didn't turn this water into wine. You just lied to me. So the miracle's fake. Either the miracle's fake or it's not. Either he's a liar or he's not.
[1:00:54] Well, I don't accept those as the only dichotomies because they're people who genuinely could have believed they saw something. There could be people who trust someone else that they saw something.
[1:01:07] So how would you explain the water into wine? Either the water goes from wine or it doesn't. Either the water turns into wine miraculously or it doesn't. That you can use your senses. You can use your own eyes and say, well, hey, you didn't do that.
[1:01:23] I can't.
[1:01:25] You can't use your eyes to assess if someone's turned water into wine?
[1:01:30] I can't because I live in the 21st century.
[1:01:33] Well, let's say if you did. it.
[1:01:36] Well, obviously, if somebody was performing magic, or what would be the equivalent to magic, if someone had the ability to walk on water, to come back from the dead, to cure blindness with a touch, I would assume that they were either some super-duper space alien who had technology, you know, as the old saying goes, any sufficiently advanced technologies indistinguishable from magic, so I would assume that that would be the case, or I would assume that they had, what would be the equivalent of supernatural or godlike powers, if that makes sense.
[1:02:08] There you go. there is God. So the way you disprove the miracle of walking on water is if Jesus goes out into the Sea of Galilee, for example, and he says, I'm going to walk on water, and so on and so forth, and he gets out into the water, he gets out of the boat, and he gets into the water, and he sinks, ergo, he doesn't walk on water. So he's not God. He's a fraud.
[1:02:31] Okay. Either the miracles are true or they're not.
[1:02:34] For example, I mean, the biggest one, the biggest one in the sea.
[1:02:38] Okay, but hang on, hang on, hang on. I think you're repeating yourself, so I'm just going to have to move the conversation along just a smidge if you don't mind.
[1:02:44] Yeah, that's true.
[1:02:45] So, if we're going to say that all claimed miracles are true, why would they only be true for Jesus? Because there are many, many people across the world, across history, who have claimed to have performed miracles that have not been replicated, of course, by science. So this is the universal part of my thinking, which is to say, okay, so there's probably a thousand major historical figures who are parts of religions or whatever who claim to have been able to perform miracles. Why would it only be the case for Jesus and not others?
[1:03:21] Correct. Now, in that case, going down an avenue like that would require a more historical investigation. You're correct about that.
[1:03:30] You're correct about that. Let me just give a rebuttal that is not particularly philosophical. So forgive me for the emotionality of it.
[1:03:39] No, Stefani, go ahead.
[1:03:41] So... God himself, did he design human beings to be rational?
[1:03:53] You asking me or you're retortable? Yes.
[1:03:57] I mean, he gave me, I would say, more than my fair share of the capacity to process reason and evidence. So God created a universe of absolute and universal physical properties and rules. God created our senses to accurately process a universal and rational set of physical properties. God gave us the incredible ability to derive universal concepts from particular sense data experiences, right? It doesn't take you very long when you're a little kid, the ball rolls under the couch and like, oh, it didn't just disappear. It's there. We just have to go get it. And you see one chair and next thing you know, you're identifying chairs all over the place, even in cartoons where they're just, you know, 2D images of chairs. So God created a rational universe, gave us rational senses, a rational mind, and the ability to create universal concepts. And then he says, oh no, to believe in me, you got to do the exact opposite of everything that I've designed and everything I built you for.
[1:05:03] That is messed up in my head. And this is one of the things that I find annoying. And I just tell you purely emotionally, it's like, I've designed the universe to be sane. I've designed your senses to be rational. I've designed you to be rational and empirical. But then to believe in me, you got to do the exact opposite of the entire universe and everything that I've designed within you, which is like me delivering you a car and saying, well, now it has to be the opposite of a car. Now it's got to be a U-Bert and able to fly and travel backwards through time. And it's like, well, why did you make a car if it's got to do the exact opposite of a car. Why would you make a rational universe, rational senses, rational mind, empirical concepts, universals, and then say, oh, no, but to be good, you got to do the exact opposite of everything that's been designed in the universe and in your mind. That's kind of messed up for me. That's like teaching my kid, okay, here's what you got to do to survive in this world. Now, to obey me, you've got to do the exact opposite. It's like, what's that messed up? Sure.
[1:06:03] What I would submit to you in that case, you do raise a great point. I mean, I've talked to many atheists and agnosticians, even Protestants. Protestants are really, their theology is just very half-baked and ignorant, in my opinion. One of my best friends is a Protestant.
[1:06:20] Well, that's how I was raised.
[1:06:22] But what denomination do you feel about?
[1:06:24] Anglican.
[1:06:25] Oh, yeah. Oh, I forgot. You're a British background, right?
[1:06:29] Uh-huh.
[1:06:32] Yeah, okay. They are very genuine, but most of them I find to be very ignorant and annoying. You know, they'll literally go out there and say, I went out in a shame.
[1:06:44] Okay, let's not launch into insults about significant portions of people. I mean, I just wanted to share to you my frustration.
[1:06:51] No, that's fine, Stefan.
[1:06:51] It would be like somebody teaching me how to do something and then saying, okay, now go out into the world and do the exact opposite. It's like, well, why did you teach me all those things then?
[1:07:00] Sure. what I'll submit to you is this, you do raise a really important concern is that God did design us to be rational and we can't survive without it you can't live.
[1:07:14] Without being rational but then to be.
[1:07:16] Good you've.
[1:07:16] Got to be the opposite of rational.
[1:07:17] But just because God says to have faith in him doesn't mean to not be rational no.
[1:07:26] No, no no, no, no, no, no, no, it does It does. No, no, hang on, hang on. Hang on, hang on. I can't let you just say stuff, right? I mean, we've got to have a conversation here, right? It absolutely does. Because to be rational is to believe with reason and evidence. To have faith is to believe against reason and evidence. So you can't say that the thing and its exact opposite are the same thing. That can't be it.
[1:07:51] Well, what I was going to bring up was the reason why I was going to say that believing in God is rational, because there are proofs that point to God outside biblical theology.
[1:08:02] For example, are you familiar with— We don't accept hearsay in a court of law. Well, are you— Hang on. Is that fair to say?
[1:08:10] Yes.
[1:08:11] You don't accept hearsay from any other religion, right?
[1:08:14] Yes. Okay.
[1:08:15] So, we don't accept hearsay. We consider it unjust because you can't directly cross-examine. And if the entire founding of Christianity was based upon people seeing Jesus perform miracles, then God is saying, in order to believe in Jesus, you need to see Jesus perform miracles. Okay, then why just those people? Why just those people in the Middle East 2,000 years ago? Why can't other people also see these things? Because to found Christianity, people needed to see miracles. So why can't we see miracles? If that's what's needed, and God knows that that's what's needed to start the religion, then why does everyone else just have to go on faith when the people who founded Christianity got direct empirical evidence according to the census that they experienced at the time?
[1:08:57] Correct. Well, I mean, that's why we have the book. I mean, you don't— No.
[1:09:01] But they didn't have the book. They had Jesus performing miracles. They didn't have a book. They didn't have hearsay. They didn't have, well, 2,000 years ago, stuff happened that was never recorded by anyone, like in terms of video or audio, which she could have done, right? I mean, God can do anything. So, why is it that the religion starts on rational, objective, empirical evidence, but then has to be sustained by hearsay that we would never accept in any other circumstance of law or morality?
[1:09:33] Well, what I was going to bring up, one of the proves that could point to God, and this has been looked at over and over again, and I'm not a scientist, but one of the things that we look to is, are you familiar with what's called the golden ratio?
[1:09:49] I think so, but go ahead. I mean, I think it's the sweet spot.
[1:09:54] I'm not a physicist or a scientist by any means. My background in film and journalism, by any stretch, I'm not a chemist or anything like that. So I'm going to turn my very best. Basically, the golden ratio is something that shows up in all of cellular life perfectly, and it shows up in plants. It shows up in dogs. It shows up in cats. It shows up, I mean, this same exact mathematical ratio is in every piece of life. And that points to an order and an existence and design. And that's where we would get.
[1:10:38] But that's not how the religions were founded. If you look at the miracles in the escape from Egypt.
[1:10:47] The miracles.
[1:10:48] Hang on, hang on. Let me, I'll let you talk. So if you look at all the miracles that are in the Old Testament to people living to a thousand years and Job himself having conversations with God and Adam and Eve seeing both God and Satan in the Garden of Eden. I mean, we could sort of go on and on. Moses with the tablets and so on. Right. So if we look at the Old Testament, there wasn't like, well, you know, the shape of a galaxy is similar to the shape of a shell and blah, blah, blah. It was direct, vivid, empirical, factual, rational experience of the divine. And that was true for the Old Testament. That's true for the New Testament. That's true, of course, in Judaism. That's true in Islam and so on. And so if you say, well, this is a golden ratio and so on, but they didn't just, the religions weren't founded on the golden ratio. They were founded on direct empirical evidence. And if the religions, in order to be true, require direct empirical evidence, and if we accept that hearsay is not valid in, you know, I don't like repeating things that I haven't verified myself, right? And so, if we don't accept hearsay and the religions were founded on empirical evidence, then why would we also not need empirical evidence to be convinced now, because that's how the religion started?
[1:12:03] It i'm saying it requires both and the miracles are the starting point for the founding of christianity because like modern christians we can't like you said earlier right and you're correct about that modern christians cannot experience those miracles so the miracles and the bible were only the starting point okay certainly we can have modern day christians in the U.S. in 2025, right? So obviously- But why not?
[1:12:31] That's my question. Why does God withhold- the miracles from people and that this is a question i had as a kid like why why did the people who saw jesus see all this incredible stuff and therefore have certainty about his divinity, and we've gotta just not see any of that well.
[1:12:50] I mean i mean that goes into another deeper part of the conversation that i mean there have been eucharistic miracles i don't i mean you i don't know if you're familiar with those.
[1:13:00] Do you mean the stuff that they use to verify sainthood in the Catholic Church?
[1:13:05] The stuff they used to verify Jesus. There's the Shroud of Turin, there's multiple Eucharistic miracles.
[1:13:13] Okay, but we understand that it's very different from what happened 2,000 plus years ago, right?
[1:13:20] Correct.
[1:13:20] So, it's all inference and perhaps and possibility and expertise and so on, right? So, if the religions are founded upon evidence and the evidence is then withheld, the moment, and of course, as you know, the sort of famous saying that occurred when the scientific method was developed 500 or so years ago, was that the age of miracles is over. That as science and the requirements for proof went up, the miracles seem to sort of vanish. So I think it's, you know, I would not want to believe in a God, frankly, and I'm just a person also, I'm not saying some big theological argument, where he's like, well, the people needed proof for the religion to start, but you just don't need proof. It's like, God is perfectly willing to provide proof because he does, because that's why we know the nature of God and his commandments. God is perfectly willing to provide proof. I mean, Genesis starts with God walking and talking with Adam and Eve and giving them their instructions and their, you know, do not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and so on. And so God is perfectly willing to reveal himself. Except to us. And I don't know why.
[1:14:29] Well, I mean, the Bible, I mean, it's really difficult because it's not as many miracles in the early biblical times as you might think.
[1:14:43] I mean, they were also very rare, you know, to be fair.
[1:14:47] I mean, that's what a miracle is. A miracle is rare like a unicorn.
[1:14:53] Well, not for Jesus, though. I mean, there was a lot of miracles in those couple of years, right?
[1:14:58] Well, I mean, there's a whole gap in the Gospels. I mean, we hear mention of him getting lost in the temple at 12, and then there's a gap between 12 and 30.
[1:15:11] I would imagine if there were a lot of miracles, and of course, he was facing the challenges in that if he proclaimed himself Messiah, he would face the death penalty from Judaism, right? If I remember rightly so.
[1:15:23] Sure so.
[1:15:23] Yeah i just um.
[1:15:25] What what i will agree with you what i will agree with you on is that what what my friend applesauce said earlier is that i mean faith faith is very comforting to have and there is a there is an aspect of rationality to it golden ratio i can see the world and we believe that god made the world so on and so forth or order and design and St. Thomas Aquinas goes through all of this in Summa Theologica, very big devout Catholic. But what I will agree with you on, and you're totally correct about this, is that we can have all of that, we have all that stuff in front of us, biblical theology, so on and so forth, Summa Theologica, golden ratio. But at the end of the day, we will never really know until we die.
[1:16:13] But some people did know. Some people were granted that knowledge, and I don't know why. It would be only some people who were granted that certain knowledge of Jesus' divinity and God's divinity, and so on. I don't know why. It would just be some people, because it's not like a principle where God says, well, no, no, no, I'm like, to sort of take a cheesy example, like I'm like Star Trek. We don't interfere, we don't, right? We stay in orbit, you know, we don't come down. So God does not have a rule called don't inflict yourself on the senses of your creation, right? God is not like the deist idea that he just wound up the clock and then retreated to some other dimension and only watches from an unimaginable distance. God is down walking around. He is performing miracles. He is sending his son who performs a massive complex series of miracles in just a few years, at least that are recorded. And so God does not have a principle of non-interference. So if God is perfectly happy and willing and considers it good to interfere, and to interfere to enter his creation, right?
[1:17:22] Then why does he not do it? I mean, if that's what's necessary for people to be good, it's for God to reward, to punish, to provide miracles, to provide salvation from the Egyptian slavery and so on. And to send down a, I don't want to say a magician because that's really dismissive to Jesus, but somebody who's able to perform miracles that are empirically verifiable by everyone around, then God has no difficulty and has no rule against coming down and putting his fingers on the dice or fingers on the scale and giving people evidence of it. So why not now? There's no rule that says he can't. Why not?
[1:18:06] Correct. And that's the part where I divulge from, you know, respectfully non-believers. One of my best friends is atheist, so I totally respect where you're coming from. That's where I would divulge and say, that's where us Christians have faith. And, you know, it's something that can't be explained. It's something that can't be— But Christianity was founded not on faith.
[1:18:28] But on evidence. And why would you found a religion on evidence and then demand everyone else accepted on faith?
[1:18:33] That's my question. part of it, though. But faith is a part of it.
[1:18:36] No, it wasn't a part of it for the people who saw Jesus, or the people who experienced the miracles in the Old Testament.
[1:18:41] Well, I mean, I would beg to differ, because I mean, Jesus got into multiple arguments.
[1:18:48] No, but the people who saw the miracles, they did not need faith.
[1:18:54] Well, I mean, that's true, but...
[1:18:58] So why do some people get absolute facts and evidence and everyone else has just got to listen to hearsay and believe it without evidence? That's confusing, right?
[1:19:08] Sure, sure. And, you know, we're never really going to know everything. That's the unfortunate part. And that's where, you know, you can say all day long that, you know, it's unfortunate and, you know, that's not fair or whatever. But that's where me personally, because I've been in religion for many, many years. I was actually an atheist for a while as well. That's unfortunately where I would tell you that where my faith personally means a lot to me.
[1:19:37] No, and listen, I'm not at all trying to talk you out of your faith. So you understand that. I mean, we're having a good discussion. But I think there's a, and I'll tell you something else, two other things. And I really do appreciate the conversation. uh number one uh my mother was crazy as you probably know if you've heard my show before so she she believed in a whole bunch of mystical stuff and i had to like straight up survival i had to develop a robust methodology for truth and falsehood or i would have gone mad like she believed that she could uh knit together psychic helmets to protect people from ghosts and bad things she believed that the doctors had poisoned her and that's why she was abusive, and, uh, she, she, I mean, I won't, I could sort of all night tell you about all the crazy things that she believed. Um, I, I could not accept that things were true because she believed them. Is that fair to say?
[1:20:30] That's true.
[1:20:31] So I said, just because somebody passionately believes something does not make it true.
[1:20:36] Correct.
[1:20:37] And, uh, I, as I've sort of gotten older, I have much more sympathy for my mother and what she and so many other Germans went through, uh, after the, uh, during and after the Second World War, so I have much more sympathy for that. But nonetheless, in order to survive as a human being, as a sovereign consciousness, in order not to go mad, I had to develop a very strict and robust methodology, a take-no-prisoners focus on reason and evidence because otherwise that estrogen tsunami would have just drowned me completely. So, yeah, go ahead.
[1:21:09] You talked multiple times. I remember from years ago, you talked multiple times about how she would lie to CPS and literally, like, throw you under the bus and so on and so forth. And, you know, I do apologize that you went through that as a child. And I know that she was very vicious with you. I mean, I wasn't actually in the room, of course.
[1:21:28] No, no, yeah. I appreciate that. And of course, I did all of that. I went through all of this surrounded by Christians who could hear everything. That's important. I was surrounded by Christians, not so much on my mother's side. I don't know much about their particular religious belief, but certainly on my father's side, his family was all deeply religious. When I would go and stay with them, we would go to church more than once a week and grace and Bible stories and so on. And uh they of course knew my mother was dangerous because she'd been married to my father right so they all knew her and had met her and so on uh so for and i just tell you so for me uh the religion was not enough to uh save children of course i went to in boarding school we went to church multiple times a week and uh there was never any nobody ever said gee your mother seems kind of unstable because she would come up and sort of visit and take me out for the day and so on.
[1:22:24] And so that wasn't enough. You know, one of the big issues that I have with, I don't want to point out Christianity, but religion as a whole, is that if you sort of look at one of the great tragedies of the West as a whole was, you know, it's called the white man's burden, which came out of Christianity and some really good stuff came out of it, like the end of slavery and the development of the concept of universal human rights and property rights and so on. And that's all great and wonderful stuff. To me, it's not Judeo-Christian, it's Greco-Christian. But one of the big challenges was the idea, of course, and this drove a lot of imperialism, was, well, we'll just go to whatever continent and we will bring them to Jesus and they'll be just like us because everybody shares the same common human soul. And that was the hypothesis that drove Christianity really for the last couple of hundred years and still drives Christianity now, which is we all have this common substrate called the human soul, which means everybody's kind of the same, which means that if there are people who lack particular developmental, milestones as a civilization, all we have to do is teach them and train them, and they'll be just like us. How do you think that experiment as a whole is going?
[1:23:39] Correct.
[1:23:40] What I will say that— How do you think that experiment as a whole is going?
[1:23:45] What I will say that, what the church basically teaches on that is that I do really apologize for your mother from a spiritual standpoint. Because getting the faith from a false witness can be very, very damaging to someone. I mean I'm sorry that that's the case but it's the world that we live in but on the other side as well I know many many devout Catholic priests who keep their vows I know many many devout Catholics who follow the gospel That's not answering.
[1:24:22] My question and it's.
[1:24:23] Fine if you don't want to answer it Sorry what was the question?
[1:24:26] I did ask it twice.
[1:24:27] Wait sorry could you ask it one more time?
[1:24:30] Sorry Okay so the idea that everyone is the same, and therefore Europe or the West needs to just bring all the technology and concepts of rights and Christianity and so on all around the world and everyone will end up just like the West. How is that experiment going as a whole would you say?
[1:24:53] Oh, I mean it depends on which part of the world you're talking about. Here in America there's 250,000 adult conversions to the Catholic Church. I mean, so it depends on the part of the world you're talking about. Because there are violent parts of the world. I mean, I'd say it's up in the air, in my opinion. Depends on the part of the world you're talking about. And I don't support, I mean, because I'm a very, you know, devout Catholic. I believe in love and forgiveness. And just because you love someone doesn't mean you condone the evils that they do. I do not believe in genocide and so forth. I don't believe in...
[1:25:31] Well, no, of course, nobody believes in genocide. site. That's, yeah.
[1:25:34] So, well, for myself, yeah.
[1:25:38] So, all right. Is there anything, we got a couple other callers. Is there anything else that you want to mention? Really do appreciate the conversation, of course.
[1:25:44] No, no, no, Stefan, I just want to say one more thing just as a reminder. Again, I've had, just for the record book, and please, my apologies, but I've been a big follower for years, and you helped me a lot. I was going through stuff with my own parents, and I really enjoyed your call-in shows. You remember me from the last space, but I just want to reiterate, repeat you. In some sense you saved my life so to speak so I appreciate your dedication to philosophy and your respect for Christians one of the best things you ever
[1:26:23] said you'd rather live in a world full of Christians than atheists Amen.
[1:26:28] To that and I.
[1:26:29] Appreciate that I.
[1:26:30] Hugely appreciate your kind words about the conversations that we've had over the years and all that I've had with others and I I don't want to diminish your very kind words towards me, but please, please don't forget that you did it. All I did was say it. You're the one who actually had to do it, and I hope that you will take legitimate pride in that. All right. What do we got here? Something pills? Crime pills? Is that right? If you want to unmute, thank you for your patience. I'm all ears.
[1:27:02] Well, I'm more so trying to address what the previous caller brought up about the golden ratio and this would be proof of the divinity of God. And the golden ratio is really just the ratio, or it's the limit of the ratios of a Fibonacci sequence.
[1:27:23] Which I know, Stefan, you're a software engineer, maybe you're familiar with the Fibonacci sequence, but it's just a recursive growth model where you add two previous numbers together, and that's the next number. And so to see this in nature, this is a totally logical thing to see. It doesn't require a supernatural explanation because this is the way things would sort of grow naturally. But I think the more important point out of this is that when people buy into these sorts of superstitions, they're sort of replacing a module in their brain that is capable of understanding what process might cause this to arise. And they replace it with, you know, they have a desire for this evidence to explain something that they want to believe instead of something that's related to objective fact. And so I think you see that a lot with religion and superstition. And I think that, you know, maybe internet atheists in 2008 sort of pointed this out, and it's a little bit played out, but yeah. Okay.
[1:28:37] I appreciate that. And is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
[1:28:43] Uh, not exactly. I just kind of wanted to clear that up. And it's an important point to make, which is when you see these coincidences in nature and people are using them as explanations for the supernatural, you really need to turn on a part of your brain that's capable of looking for all possible explanations. That way you're able to come to objectivity. But yeah I don't really have I don't really have any specific bone other bone to pick with you or the previous caller I read UPV like a decade ago and it was a big, a big sort of moment for me in terms of I think that you should you should be more respected than you are today for that work because that's an amazing work but I do recall if you want me to draw out something to bring up. In UPB, you sort of draw a delineation in morality between something like a robbery and something like fraud, where the victim has complicity in the sort of action. I think in the book, you use an example of if you own a $100 bill and you leave it in a public place, your loss of that $100 bill is less sort of morally egregious than if some man comes up to you with a gun and robs you of a hundred dollar bill that you're like actively protecting on your person.
[1:30:11] And I'm sorry, there's, there's three things that you mentioned that one is carelessness, one is fraud and one is theft. And, uh, I just wanted to make sure we differentiate between those things. So the situation where you just, you leave a hundred bucks on a park bench, that would be an example of carelessness. Whereas if, uh, somebody says, give me a hundred dollars and I'll give you 200 bucks next week. And you participate in that, then you're voluntarily handing over your property. And it's fraudulent and wrong. And the third is some guy jumps out from the bushes, puts a gun to your head, says, give me the $100. So those three things are all wrong, but I would not put them exactly in the same moral categories, if that makes sense.
[1:30:50] Yeah, and I just wanted to, because like the state comes down very hard on fraud. Like fraud is something that the state takes very seriously. And I kind of was thinking about this, I was thinking like maybe the state cares about fraud more than it should because the state sort of engages in a form of fraud where, you know, you believe that, you know, Most people believe that the state is operating not out of a desire for power, but out of a desire to protect their rights or such copes like that. And in a completely anarchistic system where there is no regulation of fraud...
[1:31:34] Oh, hang on, hang on. What do you mean there's no regulation of fraud?
[1:31:39] Well, you don't have a police state and a sort of court system that's imposed on people.
[1:31:47] Oh, so I guess you've read UPB, but not The Future or Everyday Anarchy or anything like that, which is fine. I'm not saying everybody has to read it.
[1:31:55] No, I've read UPB and The Art of the Argument, so I haven't read those other works.
[1:32:01] So, hang on. So, your belief is that there would be no... Um, no sanctions against fraud in a stateless society. Is that right?
[1:32:13] That's not exactly my belief, because I believe you could create an anarchistic society where there are sanctions against fraud. But my point is more so that if there aren't sanctions against fraud and fraud is able to proliferate, people will develop the mental modules to identify patterns of fraudulent behavior. For example, somebody promising large returns on their investment that are unrealistic, not doing due diligence. And I think that maybe this is one of the reasons why the state comes down so hard on fraud. Because if you believe that everything in this society is sanctioned by the state and you're not really scared of fraud, and if you get defrauded, there's some recompense to it. You sort of shut down this part of your brain where you could, you know, use objective reasoning to identify things that are obviously fraudulent. And, you know, by atrophying that part of the brain, you're also atrophying the part of the brain that is able to identify the state as being this sort of power-hungry, you know, entity that wants to impose its will on you instead of, you know, do good for you or something like that. I guess that's sort of more so the direction I was going. I understand that.
[1:33:40] And from watching you, I understand there's like ways of creating a stateless society where these things are like sanctioned and regulated to an extent, although not by what we would call a state. But I do think that, you know, sort of the removal of the citizenry's, responsibility to identify these things is a tactic in is a tactic in reducing their ability to identify the state as sort of what it really is.
[1:34:13] Right. Yeah. I mean, I would certainly say that if you look at how the government, I've got a presentation kicking around in my notes somewhere about how bad the government was at detecting things like Bernie Madoff's fraud and also what happened with SFX and Bankman-Fried and so on, that they continually get people who say, oh, these guys are running a ponzi scheme or they're doing this that or the other that's bad and um they just uh, they're just really bad at it as a whole because of course you know they get a lot of i think politicians a lot of times get a bunch of uh money and donations from from from these kinds of guys so um i would say that.
[1:34:54] Fraud is something that is really tricky. It comes from a desire for the unearned. It comes from usually verbal abuse. Physical violence would come more from physical abuse, but it would be more verbal abuse, I think, that would produce something like fraud for people. And yeah, you definitely need protections against it. You don't get protections against it at the moment. I mean, the government seems to let people run pretty rampant when it comes to this kind of stuff. And even when they're, with Bernie Madoff, there were tons of people who were saying they kept calling the SEC, man. This is not working. This is impossible. You can't possibly have these returns. And nobody did anything until the whole thing collapsed for a variety of reasons that we can speculate on. But yeah, you don't get that protection now. You'd certainly want it in a free society. But of course, a free society would, we only get there when we have peaceful parenting. Peaceful parenting would not, would not generate criminals in the way that abusive parenting does at the moment, if that makes sense.
[1:35:55] No, absolutely. And I really do respect the way you're able to sort of draw these categories in UPB, because I do, like in my heart, sort of instinctually, not based off of anything external, like I do feel a lot less bad for somebody who sort of falls for some outrageous scheme versus is somebody who, you know, is robbed by, by, you know, some, some criminal or like no, no, um, There is no reasonable sort of ability to avoid that. And so I do enjoy that you went into that in UPB.
[1:36:37] Yeah, and it's still wrong, but I'm always concerned, not that you're suggesting this, of course, but I'm always kind of concerned when the more victim, the more victim, the more sympathy. That's sort of my thing, right? So a woman who is jumped in a park when, you know, sunset or some drags her into the bushes and rapes her and beats her, absolutely appalling, evil, terrible, whatever, right? But, you know, it's the old thing about the Me Too stuff, you know? Like, don't go to the meeting with the guy in his hotel room at 11 o'clock at night. There's no reason to go to that meeting. Whatever he does there is totally wrong. But philosophy, of course, is about prevention. And if people, you know, if you don't leave your wallet on the park bench for the whole weekend, like just don't do it. It's a bad idea. It's probably going to get stolen. And this peaceful parenting is about prevention, not cure. And so we can have sympathy for people, but the more victim, the less participation in their own misfortune, the more victim, the more sympathy I have. And the reason I do that is that you have to withhold at least some degree of sympathy for people who are to some degree the authors of their own misfortune because that will help other people understand that these are bad decisions, bad ideas, and they'll be less likely to make them and you'll have less crime to deal with overall.
[1:38:06] Well sort of and i think you've touched on this um you touched on this a lot sort of in the wake of the 2016 election with the sort of victim olympics stuff but i do think that like when people place their authority of morality in the state and in in laws and legislations they you know you will you will get people and and people rightly understand that in today's society with this sort of, slave morality like victimhood is a currency you'll have people who will almost seemingly intentionally get themselves into positions where they can view as being they can be viewed as being victims without sort of the horrible like consequences like they're not getting maimed or something but you know i do think that something like mattress girl to to the extent that that was a reality that person is attempting to trade in this like victim currency to gain social clout or some kind of social power in their community. And I think that like that itself, when talking about prevention, like preventing the sort of society that grants status to victims is like a way of almost preventing victimhood because, you know, if you're getting currency from it, then why would you go out of your way to avoid it necessarily?
[1:39:26] Yeah, I think it's a way for people to hook into the sympathy we have for children because children are not, I mean, they're victims, right? They don't choose their families. They don't choose their environment. They don't choose their society. And so children are victims. And so the more that you can pretend that you have no hand in your misfortune, the more you hook into people treating you like children and to imitate helplessness and no choice, in the matter and no mistakes were made. You know, I mean, nobody said to me, at least nobody's saying, has said to me, well, Stef, you should have just chosen a different family, right? I mean, that's not, you know, but you, and so this is one of the things that happens and women do this a little bit more than men. I think men do it in other ways, but when the women always say, if they end up with a really bad guy, they end up with a bad husband or whatever, right? And they're like, well, I had no way of knowing, uh, he completely camouflaged, uh, and, and there was no way to tell and the mask came off and, and all of that. And I just published a show for donors, uh, where this, I had this sort of confrontation because the more that you can say, I have no.
[1:40:31] Hand in my own misfortunes, the more sympathy you can generate from people. But unfortunately, then more people end up making those mistakes. So the more that people say there was nothing I could have done to prevent this, then they get more sympathy and the mistakes generally continue. I mean, imagine if nobody had figured out that smoking caused lung cancer, right? Now, if somebody says, I got lung cancer. Oh, were you a smoker? Oh, yeah. I smoked two packs a day for 30 years or 40 years. People say, well, I sympathize with the lung cancer, but you kind of did do it to yourself to a large degree. And if there was no way to know, then people just keep smoking. And there was this guy who just, I think he was just sent to jail for 54 years or something like that.
[1:41:23] I think one 14-year-old kid, one 13-year-old kid, they stole his car and he shot at them. He claimed that they were shooting back. I don't think they found much evidence of that. And then he shot one. I think he shot both of them. One died and one was injured and he went to jail. And so that's very tough, right? Because I think it was a female judge and I don't want to speak for her, but in general, what happens is women, they look at the 13-year-old, the 14-year-old with bullet wounds. Oh my gosh, this is a terrible thing. It's a terrible guy. And I get that. And I'm not saying he's in the right, but at the same time, if you can't use any force to prevent people from taking your property, they'll just take your property. And then if lots of people's property gets taken, productivity goes down and way more people end up being harmed. And so that is one of these challenges in society as a whole. And these kinds of balances between sympathy for people who are the victims or sympathy for people who end up being violently treated in acts of potential self-defense, sympathy for them, which is understandable, but also then sympathy for the property owners that, you know, if you can't use force to prevent people from shoplifting, and I'm not saying shoot people, but, you know, if you can't use force to prevent people from shoplifting, then people are just going to take everything, all the shops closed down, and the society gets completely wrecked. I mean, that's bad for everyone. So these are complex things. All right, is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
[1:42:47] Well, yeah, I think that's like touching on anarcho-tyranny. I think that's a concept, I don't know if Dave Smith, I don't know who coined that concept, but yeah, when the state has this sort of monopolistic use of force, sort of all violence and force in the domain of the state is the responsibility of the state. Either it has the ability to prevent that from happening because it has a monopoly on it or it's incapable, you know, which is worse. I'm not quite sure.
[1:43:15] Yeah, I think all, just about all crime is allowed these days. I don't think there's any crime that is, almost all crime is allowed these days. I mean, when was it the communist leader visited, I think it was Los Angeles, they totally cleaned up the streets, got rid of all the homeless people, the crime went down. Yeah, they can tidy it up and clean it up just about any time they want, but they don't.
[1:43:38] And I think touching on that idea is a really important toolkit to sort of lift the veil off of people's eyes to see that the state doesn't have necessarily your best interests in mind.
[1:43:57] Necessarily, yeah.
[1:43:58] Very, at least in the anarchist toolkit, is a really potent argument into waking people up. Because I know people have this sort of really deep connection with the state and deep belief through schooling and propaganda. They don't understand how it works, and it's difficult for them to understand that. I think that anarcho- just touching on that is a really strong way, especially for people who are more politically conservative or on the right, sort of see this?
[1:44:28] Yeah, I actually, I talked about this with regards to members of a community that if you want to join a community, it has to be, you have to be voluntarily accepted by the members of that community. And they can't be forced to subsidize or hire you or anything like that. And there can be no censorship about talking about the downsides. And if those three conditions aren't met, I don't really see how there's much justice in bringing people into a community and those standards as a whole really aren't being met these days for a lot of this sort of stuff. All right. I got another caller or two, but I really do appreciate your call. And thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. We got media, media saboteurs. Media. What is on your mind, man?
[1:45:18] Hey, good afternoon, Stefan. Can you hear me?
[1:45:20] Yes, go ahead.
[1:45:23] I wanted to circle back to your God not existing argument, you know, lack of evidence, miracles, how come we don't get to see these miracles and, you know, how come it's only available to a certain subset of people. But I want to come at this, though, from a different angle than what people – genuinely, I want to come at this from – because I'm of the same kind of, like, leaning. I need evidence to start believing things. I need to see something kind of like that's at least rooted in history rooted in documented historical events, and genuinely there's a there is a, I guess you might call it event that, that happened that I've been rather obsessed with over the last, I would say two and a half, three years.
[1:46:13] All right. And sessions are good. Hit me.
[1:46:15] Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, I'm actually hoping, uh, the way I'm coming at this is I'm genuinely hoping you could, uh, rationalize reason me out of, uh, out of being so obsessed with this.
[1:46:26] But, um, I'm not sure I'm going to be doing much to stop other people's obsessions, but I'll certainly do my best.
[1:46:32] All right. So, uh, well, first of all, do you agree on, can we, can we agree on a couple of things? Uh, can we agree that Augustus, uh, Roman emperor existed?
[1:46:43] Yes.
[1:46:44] Uh, can we agree that he had a grandson named, uh, named, uh, Julian and was later to be called Julian, the apostate, uh, who also existed?
[1:46:53] Yes.
[1:46:54] Roman emperor. Okay. Roman emperor rather. Um, so the event is, um, Well, this happened in 363 AD, and there was a temple that was destroyed in Jerusalem, depriving the Jews of the tabernacle, which they could keep the law of Moses for nearly three centuries at that point. But the attempt was thwarted not by man, but seemingly by God through an odd series of seemingly cataclysmic events. Fire burst forth from the foundations. There was a great earthquake. Some believe this may have been the 363 Galilee earthquake, preventing the workers from completing their work. Some accounts mention other strange phenomena and suggesting divine intervention, including the sign of the cross appearing in the sky as well as on the garments of the workers. Ultimately, the project was abandoned. Now, the project was abandoned.
[1:47:51] He's called the apostate because he's been raised a christian but became the first emperor post constantine to attempt to re-establish paganism in the roman empire while christianity had not yet been made the official state religion of rome it had nonetheless enjoyed the support of the roman government and julian changed all that uh briefly uh well so julian apparently believed that the rebuilding of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem would be the ultimate proof that Christianity was false, as Christ had predicted in its everlasting destruction. And, you know, there are a couple of Bible verses I can refer you to, Matt 24, 2, Mark 13, 2, Luke 1944, and 21, 6. And Daniel had likewise prophesied that its destruction would endure to the end of the world. Uh dan 927 he therefore provided public funds for the project he being julian which was according to various sources met with enthusiasm by the jews of the time um many of them rather.
[1:48:59] Now there are multiple ancient sources that speak about this event um from both pagans and christians, and uh many of them were either alive when these events took place when this event took place or within living memory of it. They speak of it as if it was broadly public knowledge and reference many living witnesses to convince potential skeptics such as yourself and even myself to a certain point.
[1:49:29] I'm diving into details of this event as part of an effort to...
[1:49:40] First of all, what was said to have happened here was he provided these funds. He provided these funds to rebuild this temple in Jerusalem. And upon attempting to build this temple, it said that subterranean fires broke out from underneath it and killed a good number of construction workers. Um and even after that you know julian basically sent more construction workers back to the site and told them to keep working i do need to do.
[1:50:15] Need you to get to a question if you don't mind.
[1:50:18] Yeah so what do you what do you make of what do you make of historical events like this um there are there is there is a harad um okay hang on so the question you can't ask.
[1:50:31] Me a question that's ill-defined and then go on to more speeches. That's not really how this works. So tell me, hang on, what does this event mean to you? And when I say, what does it mean to you? I'm not saying whether it's good or bad or right or wrong or important or unimportant. I'm sure it's important to you. But why do you think you said for the last couple of years, you've been really obsessed or focused on this particular event. What does it mean to you that this event occurred?
[1:51:02] Well, it suggests that perhaps maybe Jews are not God's chosen people, as we've been told, as I've been told throughout my life, and many other Christians have been told throughout their lives as well. Um it means that well it means ultimately what i what i referenced a little bit ago that you know this is in direct kind of support of these bible verses that apparently and i'm not a big bible thumper or anything but these bible verses apparently exist uh the ones that i referenced matt 24 2 mark 13 2 luke 19 so i.
[1:51:42] Still need to know what it means to you though What does it mean?
[1:51:45] Well, I'm telling you what it means. So as Christ predicted, it's everlasting destruction. So basically, this temple, he predicted, Julian apparently believed that the rebuilding of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem would be the ultimate proof that Christianity was false.
[1:52:00] Okay.
[1:52:00] So what it means to me is that someone apparently already tested this theory that Christianity was false, hence God would be, He kind of disproved God with that too, because Jesus Christ was the living embodiment of God on earth. And being able to build this, you would be able to disprove that. And in fact, it didn't happen because an act of God seemed to have apparently thwarted the entire construction of this temple. So this is, to me, evidence of God. So like I said, I'm relying on historical. I can, I can like list off and even list off their accounts. I could read word for word, some of the accounts of these, of these ancient, uh, historians.
[1:52:47] Okay. So, sorry, Tom, let me, sorry, sorry. Step me through how this is proof of God.
[1:52:55] Well, you're looking for evidence, right? I'm looking for evidence.
[1:52:59] But I'm not accepting hearsay.
[1:53:01] You're not accepting hearsay? Okay. But how do you accept the existence of even Augustus then as a Roman emperor?
[1:53:08] Well, because Augustus is not a self-contradictory entity. In other words, people who say Augustus existed, it could be an elaborate hoax, but it's not an impossible circumstance. It could be hearsay.
[1:53:22] Right?
[1:53:23] Yeah, well, I'll give you an example. So, if somebody says to me, dragons could exist in the universe, I'd say, okay, big giant lizards, maybe they breathe fire or whatever. Okay, that's not a completely self-contradictory entity. So, yeah, dragons could exist throughout the universe. It's not impossible. Now, we'll never know for certain because you go scouring all over the planets and by the time you've gotten to the end, they could have evolved at the beginning or whatever, right? So I don't believe that dragons, I don't have any proof that dragons exist, but I don't have any disproof. I'm agnostic about the existence of dragons. Now, if somebody says to me a square circle exists, I'd say, no, that doesn't exist because that's a self-contradictory entity. Now, if you say, well, a Roman emperor exists, it's like, okay, there's tons of evidence for it, and it's not a self-contradictory statement. However, if you said a Roman emperor exists who could fly unaided and shoot lasers from his eyeballs, I would say, no, that didn't exist, right? Because that's a self-contradictory, impossible sort of situation. So Augustus versus God is a different epistemological situation.
[1:54:32] Yeah, so how do you know Augustus existed then? I'm still waiting on that answer. How do you know he existed?
[1:54:37] Okay, that's a little rude, because I gave you an answer.
[1:54:40] No, not really.
[1:54:41] That's also a little rude. Hang on, hang on. How do you know I didn't give you an answer?
[1:54:48] Well, I'm looking for an answer that might sound something like, okay, well, I know that Augustus existed because of hearsay.
[1:54:55] Okay, so I didn't give you the answer you wanted, and then you just say, well, you didn't give me the answer. So, yeah, that's rude. I'm not doing that conversation. Yeah, I mean, that's just rude, right? So I did give you an answer. I'm not going to continue the conversation because that's just rude. So if I put the time, effort, and energy in to listen to a fairly lengthy question that could have been much more succinctly done, and then I provide an answer and I said, you know, there's three categories of things, right? Things that could exist, things that I know that exist, and things that couldn't exist. And I say, it could be an elaborate hoax, but I accept that he exists because not a self-contradictory entity, whereas a God would be a self-contradictory entity. Then saying I didn't answer the question when you didn't get the answer that you want is, uh, is kind of rude. And I'm not doing that kind of conversation. All right. Uh, what do we got here? Let's go to the end. Kale, uh, sorry, I just got to touch like one pixel here on this screen here.
[1:55:47] Uh, Kale Lake. Interesting. Oh, what is on your mind, my friend? How can I help?
[1:55:55] Hey, can you hear me okay?
[1:55:57] Yes, go ahead.
[1:55:59] Hey, so I don't know. I joined in late, so forgive me. So I don't know if this is a free-for-all or if this discussion is mainly predominantly over religion or whatnot. But if it's a free-for-all, I do have something I'd like to share that I tried to bring up on Sunday, but my connection got disrupted.
[1:56:15] Yes, go ahead.
[1:56:17] Uh yeah so i reached out on sunday and uh i was trying to explain before my connection disrupted that um um i wanted to shed some light on a private call between you and i uh probably about a year ago and it was in regards to my insomnia oh yes and there.
[1:56:35] Was something that you hadn't told me.
[1:56:37] Yes that's correct yeah okay so if now's a good time i'm very glad.
[1:56:42] You called back so go.
[1:56:44] Yeah, thank you. I'm glad I got my connection straightened out. So yeah, I want to first say, to get the record straight, I apologize to you for not being as forthcoming and candid as I should have been during that private call. So for all disclosure, yes, I was suffering from insomnia, as we talked about in our private call. What I did not share with you was my addiction to marijuana usage. And.
[1:57:22] And I have a question, of course, along with the insight that I'd like to share. And what really helped me conquer that, of course, addiction, that horrible addiction, was just the ability to pursue self-knowledge and a lot of the great insights that you shared with me during that private call, which just opened the door to more questions that I wanted to answer about myself. So I really thank you for, even despite me not sharing with you what I believe was causing the insomnia, you did open up a lot of great insights into my own personal life, which kind of led me to finally confront the truth of my reliance on the substance. So I know I'm rambling here, but I was able to finally kick it, the reliance on marijuana. And what I learned from a scientific, I guess, standpoint, and I'm probably going to butcher a little bit of it, but, and I kind of did this along with the help of a therapist. And they determined that my endoid cannabinoid receptors were so fried because they weren't naturally producing the cannabinoids that we use naturally or reproduce naturally in our body. Because I was relying on the marijuana to get those cannabinoids. And again, I could be butchering the science, so forgive me if I'm off here.
[1:58:50] So what I kind of found myself doing was When I tried to quit I.
[1:58:57] I would suffer from really bad insomnia, really bad, to where the symptoms of the insomnia were so terrible, the headaches, the lack of enthusiasm, the difficulty trying to do stuff, to where I would medicate with marijuana usage and it would perpetually create this cycle to where a point where enough was enough. So I had to endure even more insomnia to where I had to resist the temptation of self-medicating. And lo and behold, after a very long stretch, it finally felt like my body just finally waved the light flag and I finally had that natural feeling of tiredness and I conked out and finally crashed.
[1:59:51] And how long did that take?
[1:59:54] Oh the enduring of the insomnia no like.
[1:59:57] When you quit how long did it take for your natural sleep goo to kick in.
[2:00:04] Yeah good question it was i want to say about a about a week or two oh that's not.
[2:00:11] Too i mean it's not fun but it's not too bad.
[2:00:13] Yeah i want to say about two weeks yeah two weeks now that i'm thinking about a little bit more and i guess it was just a way from my body to start producing these hormones, these receptors naturally because they had just been so fried. They were getting it from an external stimulus and not internally. And then it finally happened. And then the dream started to reoccur and the sleep started to improve significantly. And when I was sharing with you about, you asked me, well, what's going on at night when you're trying to sleep. And I shared with you that my mind would just, play, just images, thoughts, just at random, just things that I couldn't even understand would come up. Like there was no rhyme or reason to the thoughts that were happening that kept me up at night. It was just out of control. I would go on these just thought tangents that would just go on for hours. So I have a theory as to what happened, and I would like to ask you this question, and I even proposed it to my therapist at the time who was kind of helping me go through this withdrawal phase. So they theorized, or we kind of theorized together. And I learned this through the Locals thread of one of your listeners in the comment section about how, of course, the dangers of marijuana usage is that it prevents REM sleep.
[2:01:42] Oh, that's for those who don't know, that's a community at freedomain.locals.com. But sorry, go ahead.
[2:01:47] Yeah, REM sleep, of course. I mean, that rapid eye movement sleep. And that was a huge pill for me to grasp. And I think, oh, man, that's terrible. If it's preventing that, that's awful. That's when your mind processes and tries to download the information that's been received and makes sense of the world and yada, yada, yada, and all that good stuff. So the fact that I wasn't doing that to myself must have been pretty terrible. So we kind of concluded that since the marijuana usage was preventing me from having REM sleep, it's almost like the mind still needs to process thoughts and images and ideas and what have you. So it was kind of like I was doing it consciously at night because I just couldn't control it. And I shared this in our private call. Like, I could not stop these thoughts even if I tried. Like, you know, I'd just sit there in the dark, and I'd just be going down Alice in Wonderland rabbit holes of thoughts. And we just concluded that, yeah, if you're not going to achieve REM sleep or REM rapid eye movement thought processing sleep subconsciously while you're asleep, then your body's going to do it consciously while you're awake. And that could explain the cause of the insomnia.
[2:03:15] Right, right. Yeah, it could also be, of course, that... In order to sleep, you have to relax. There has to be a certain level of security. And if you're using drugs to manage your anxiety, then you are not learning how to self-soothe. And then you need the drugs to sleep because you can't get to that state of relaxation or peace of mind without them.
[2:03:36] Yes absolutely and that was what we you you mentioned some great analogies about, processing or sensing threats or not being able to relax during our call it was very insightful of course and you made some great recommendations about cleaning house personally with some of the things in my own life and despite me doing those suggestions i was still succumbing to insomnia so So again, I just wanted to share that with you. So I know you always mention in call-in shows to keep me posted on how you're doing. So this is me. I don't know how many people actually try to keep in touch with you and keep you posted on how they're...
[2:04:12] I get a lot of good updates. Okay, listen, I appreciate that. I got to get to one more caller tonight, but I really, really appreciate that. And of course, if people want to sign up for a call, freedomain.com/call, you can either do public ones, which are free, or private ones, which are paid, freedomain.com/call. All right. All right. Well, thanks everyone. I appreciate your time tonight freedomain.com/donate to help out the show and freedomain.com/donate we will talk Friday night and then Sunday 11 a.m. We'll be back to our regular subscriber only show at freedomain.locals.com lots of love everyone thank you so much for a great evening's conversation take care my friends I'll talk to you soon bye.
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