In this X Space on 20 November 2025, philosopher Stefan Molyneux dives into deep discussions with callers addressing a variety of philosophical, moral, and existential issues. The episode opens with Stefan's typical enthusiasm, inviting listeners to engage and explore how philosophy can illuminate their struggles and dilemmas. He encourages callers to share their thoughts, promising a thought-provoking discussion about life and its challenges.
The first caller introduces a significant shift occurring within the Christian community, notably a surge towards classical learning as a reaction against modern educational standards, specifically citing the rise of the Classical Learning Test (CLT). This caller expresses hope that such movements could prevent societal collapse, akin to what happened in ancient Rome. Stefan passionately agrees, detailing his perspectives on the current state of Christianity in the West. He critiques its perceived decline, arguing that the church has veered away from stricter moral teachings which he believes are essential for society's survival.
As the discussion unfolds, the focus shifts to the implications of the modern church's stance on family dynamics. The caller shares profound insights into the changing attitudes towards fatherhood and the role of men within the family unit, indicating a troubling trend in societal values that seems anti-father and anti-masculine. Stefan responds with his characteristic rigor, underlining the importance of traditional family structures, authority, and responsibility in nurturing future generations.
Later, the conversation becomes increasingly philosophical as another caller questions the teachings of Christianity in relation to personal freedom and societal responsibility. Stefan articulates a compelling vision of moral obligation, framing the church's teachings in historical contexts, particularly reflecting on the effects of the Protestant support for state-controlled education. He explores the irony of surrendering educational authority to the government, which he argues has led to a decline in the sacred moral teachings of the Church.
As the episode progresses, the discussion takes a more personal turn with callers sharing their experiences and struggles within the church. One poignant moment arises when a caller expresses disillusionment with the current state of the church and its teachings against a backdrop of personal trials and societal upheaval. This caller articulates the challenge of raising children in an increasingly chaotic world and critiques the church's failure to assert a strong moral foundation.
Stefan emphasizes the necessity of articulating the truth boldly rather than watering down messages to cater to societal pressures. He encourages a return to fundamental moral teachings and a rejection of complacency within the church. The episode closes with passionate reflections on the state of Christianity and society, the importance of maintaining personal integrity, and the struggles of identifying and living out one’s moral beliefs in contemporary contexts.
Overall, this episode is rich in philosophical discourse, tugging at themes of morality, family structure, and spiritual authenticity within modern Christianity. Stefan challenges his callers—and by extension, his audience—to grapple with their beliefs in light of their experiences, advocating for a return to deeper, more rigorous engagement with the tenets of their faith.
0:05 - The Quest for Understanding
0:56 - Classical Learning and Christianity
4:03 - The State of Christianity Today
7:10 - The Hierarchy of the Family
8:39 - The Collapse of Society
19:51 - The Historical Context of Christianity
30:05 - The Consequences of Inaction
41:05 - The Role of the Church
45:45 - The Challenge of Collective Responsibility
54:31 - The Nature of Evil
59:35 - The Reality of Faith
1:12:11 - Supernatural Experiences and Belief
1:12:50 - The Haunting Begins
1:13:31 - A Prayer in the Dark
1:14:53 - The Confession
1:16:05 - The Weight of Guilt
1:16:41 - The Nature of Reality
1:26:56 - The Search for Evidence
1:34:56 - The Fall of Man
1:43:46 - Changes in Worship
1:50:11 - Disillusionment with the Church
2:01:16 - The Challenge of Truth
2:08:31 - A Personal Revelation
[0:00] Well, good evening, my friends. I hope you are doing well.
[0:06] And yeah, I had a little bit of time tonight and wanted to check in with you all, see how you're doing, what is on your mind, how philosophy can help you, how reasoned and evidence and all of the glories of objective rational morality can serve you like a glistening brain-laced slave.
[0:25] And I certainly have some, oh, a thought or two, or even two and a half, maybe even all the way up to pie. But I'm here for you. And if you have questions or comments, I'm happy to hear. Just raise your hand and we can chat. And I guess I wanted to let you know about shop.freedomain.com. I'm not going to do a big pitch here, but shop.freedomain.com. You can get your freedomain merch for Christmas. All right.
[0:56] Let us chat and listen in. And if you want to unmute, My friend, I am all ears.
[1:06] Hey, Stefan, Boy Crisis here. I got a question for you. I'm not going to identify what state I'm living in, but I think this is happening in multiple states. But there's a big push in the Christian community to get back to some of the basics and the classical Christian learning. They're actually setting up a new testing standard to compete with the SATs and the ACT called the CLT, the classical learning test. But they're really trying to get back to what made um the west great to begin with and to me it's kind of like the solution so we don't end up like rome and collapsing but i was wondering if you had any thoughts on the whole and the catholics have one um and they're expanding like crazy with a a model called the chesterton academy um it's popping up throughout all the cities in all 50 states and across the world. And the Protestants have a classical kind of learning program as well, but just wanted to see if you had any thoughts.
[2:21] Well, how do you think Christianity is going in the West at the moment?
[2:26] Oh, wow.
[2:28] Before we get into the details, which I think is interesting, how do you think Christianity is doing in the West at the moment?
[2:38] Dude, it's freaking weak. It's happy, clappy. It's love, grace, mercy, no rules, no discipline, whatever they identify as or whatever goes. Everything's gay. So no, it's not going well. I'm not happy with the Pope. There's a few protestants um and even even the catholics they have like some religious orders that are more conservative and more traditional and of course they're uh what do they call it their um um but basically the the the women's fertility fertility rate they're having five six seven kids uh per woman um so there's parts of the catholic church they're doing well but there like pre-Vatican II. But yeah, I mean, I can see the collapse happening. So yeah, it's not going well. And it's because we're not following the rules of the church. So
[3:41] You mean the church is not following the rules of the church? Sorry, I'm not quite sure I follow. Who's not following the rules of the church?
[3:47] Yeah, well, you're right. It's probably a little bit of both. I mean, the catechism hasn't really changed in like 2,000 years,
[3:59] but some of the stuff they kind of push is, you know. But, I mean, it doesn't matter if, you know, my local community, if you go to a Protestant church, it's just like they're wrapping jesus songs and it's just it's just what you know or it's sort
[4:14] Of there oh rapping jesus songs.
[4:16] Okay got it got it yeah or it's just you know they're targeting single mothers and it's just you know but it's just like it's everything is like anti-masculine um anti-family anti-father um so yeah it's it's yeah so it's i i'm looking for solutions but i wasn't sure if you're calling I've followed the whole, um, you know, homeschooling, um, growth and all that kind of stuff.
[4:46] So, Oh no, I've been following that. Why? Okay. When, when do you, when do you think the church was last, Muscular Christianity, masculine, robust. When did it have any rules at all? When was the last time for you the church had rules?
[5:02] Well, I did a deep dive into this, and I was like, and my question was, when did they change the biblical hierarchy of the family? And I've been working with different friends, different colleagues in different states. And right now we've got five states that have equal share parenting, and they're mostly red states. And my process with my state was just grueling because every time I'd go to my state capital, which was, you know, six, eight hour drive, all volunteer work, any of the people that were affected by it wouldn't show up to the meetings. And I was like, man, I guess I'm doing all this work by myself to make sure that if mother and father separated, that the starting point in family court would be, you know, that child should be, you know, split equally as far as time between the mother and the father. And it was just a wicked feminist. And I was like, man, I thought feminism was about equality. Um, and everything that they're doing, they don't want equality. They just want a paycheck and they want to use their child as a pawn. And I was like, this is, and I was super, super naive back then. I was like, I don't get it. Cause what they're saying is one thing, but what they're doing is another.
[6:29] So anyway, um, going back to like what your initial question was, was like, when do I think it started falling apart? Well, I took a look at what happened during Vatican II, what changes were being made. And that's when the Catholic Church went to this mutual submission. I was like, mutual submission and complementarianism, what is that? So I started looking that up. And next thing I know, it's like, there's no hierarchy of the family. The mother has just so much say as the father, but the father's ultimately responsible. And I was like, this doesn't make any sense. Could you imagine?
[7:05] Ah, yes, the old responsibility without authority. Yes, yes.
[7:10] Yeah, and I was like, okay, you know, when you're a pilot and you're flying a plane, it's the pilot in command. No matter what happens on a flight, He's ultimately, he's the one that gets the dings on his license. He's ultimately one responsible. He may follow the checklist and all that stuff, but ultimately he's the one that's responsible for getting the souls back on planet earth safely. And if he messes up, it's, it's on him. But yeah, I was like, that doesn't make any sense, you know? And that's, that's all, you know? And I was like, well, this, you know,
[7:46] So. So that's the watch. That's the one. and I appreciate that. What's the why?
[7:51] Yeah, the why, I don't, I mean, you know, I'm trying, and I did some research like what was happening, what happened in the 60s. We had the, you know, the war on poverty and the great society initiative, which is basically just pay everyone to kick the father out of the household. There's no man in the house. And, um, and then what happened in the early 1900s and I read a book called The Creature from Jekyll Island. And I was like, um, I did finance for a little bit, investment management. And I was like, yeah, this doesn't make sense during the 2008 crash. Like what's actually backing this? And back then we were $10 trillion of debt.
[8:34] And I was like, okay, this doesn't make sense. How many millions of Americans do we have? You know and you just start doing simple math and you're like dude like we all got to write a check to uncle sam for two hundred thousand dollars like where are they printing this money from and like how does this whole whole shell game work um so i mean you know i guess what i'm most disappointed in with the church and the church i'm picking on the catholic church but the protestants seem like they're even more confused than the catholic church but it's just it's just weak everything's gay um but um you know i don't know if you're if we're going to restore society the first thing you have to do is restore the family um and there is a rejection of this whole masculine you know anything that's you know the american psychological association like everything is just anti-man anti-father anti-boy and so you do have a lot of like weak boys growing up and just saying you know what i'm just gonna hang out my parents house my mom's basement until i'm 45 years old you know but i'm not going out there that that society things a mess so right
[9:48] Right now you are in america and i would say that america it was founded and is significantly protestant obviously there's other religions and catholicism is the second, but Catholicism came later, mid to late 19th century. So would you say that America, is founded on Protestantism?
[10:12] Yeah, I would probably agree with that for the most part. And I did a lot of research. There's some good channels that I've watched when it comes to separation of church and state and what the Protestants do and why these Confederate soldiers used to dress up and their full Sunday's baths when they went to go fight a war because they knew that it may not come back and they wanted to look good when they met their baker. But yeah, I would probably agree with that. Yeah.
[10:47] Okay. All right. So get a little comfortable, if you don't mind. I'm going to tell you what I think it is. And listen, this is an open discussion. We can have a whole panel in here if people want. Flame me out. Tell me I'm wrong. But this is the way that I see it. And I'll try not to be too long, but I tell you this will blow people's minds.
[11:07] All right, so when you are a christian now we're going to talk a little bit more about protestantism although this applies to all christianity when you are a christian you are walking through the world, like somebody in the 17th century with a full-on google-enabled encyclopedia phone in your pocket because you have access to divine knowledge you have access to omniscience now that's a pretty bold claim to make. It's like you had your own AI personal assistant that was never incorrect, never hallucinated that you had permanent access to throughout history. And this is, of course, one of the things that sells Christianity. And I don't mean that in a cynical way, like, oh, it's just selling it like a razor blade or something like that.
[11:58] But it is one of the things that makes people religious is you have access to the omniscience of almighty God, that's a hell of a thing to have access to. You can get on your knees, you can pray, and God will give you guidance. And that's an amazing, powerful thing. But it comes with a great price. Because if you say, I can get on my knees, I can pray to Almighty God, and I can get the wisdom of omniscience, then you better not faff up too much. You can't. If you had an AI that got things wrong, you'd go out of business. The two things that were the boom bing bang bomb nails in the coffin of American Christianity were the, the Protestant support for the takeover of schools by the government. As the Catholics flowed in, the Protestants ran to the government and said, oh, you do it. You take it over. You take over. We're going to hand our children over to the state to keep those subversive Catholics at bay. This is a Protestant place. We can't patrol and control everything. So we'll, I guess, have to let in those italians or the irish/south but by god we've got to keep the protestant character of america so we are going to turn education over to the state!
[13:36] America had the most amazing educational system really in the world with a 98 literacy rate in many places, with Americans being so literate that Moby Dick in the 1850s, which is a bit of a tough read, was incredibly popular, how many people these days are reading Charles Dickens or enacting Shakespeare on a regular basis? That was commonplace in America. Amazingly literate, incredible education. And then when the Catholics started coming in, the clergy all ran to the state. Ah, yes, the state, always a friend to Christianity, never persecuted any Christians, never nailed up the Savior.
[14:26] Just a beautiful ambulance of salvation. Now, we can assume, and I take this stuff very seriously indeed, we can assume that the Protestant leaders got down on their knees and prayed for guidance. And one of three things happened when they got down their knees and said, ooh, should we turn our children over to the government? Will that ever have any negative effects. If we turn our children over to the government, then parents lose control of the educational system, and there is one central choke point with which to kill the republic, which is the indoctrination of children through the state curriculum. So they got down on their knees, and they prayed to Lord God Almighty, and I say this with no cynicism whatsoever. They got down on their knees, and they prayed to the Lord God Almighty and said, God above! It is a turning point. It is a fork in the road in American history.
[15:31] What should we do? Jesus, God, give us guidance. What should we do? And one of three things happened. Either God told them the wrong thing to do, which is incomprehensible because God is all-knowing and all good, so that couldn't have happened, or Satan intercepted these heartfelt prayers and told them to turn their children over to the state. I do not believe that happened. I think that they would notice.
[16:01] Or God told them, listen guys guys render under caesar what is caesar's means give to caesar what he forces you to do not run to caesar for the education of your children do not run to the state which is a secular institution do not run to the state for the education of your christian children, and that's what i think god would have said because as we've seen it played out that which was supposed to protect America is now being used to destroy America, which is government monopoly on education. Oh, we got to keep it Protestant, so we give government control of education. Ah, well, then that just draws in all the power mongers who wish to destroy America, which is exactly what happened. And God would have seen that. I mean, I could see that. Anyone can see that run to the state. Are you crazy? So God couldn't have said, oh, yeah, hand your Christian children over to the state, it's going to work out beautifully. He couldn't have said that. I don't think Satan interceded, then there'd be more of a battle and a war. So either they prayed to God and God told them, whatever you do, do not hand your children over to the state, or there's no God and they were praying to nothing and they just did what they wanted politically.
[17:22] So when you have a clergy in charge of the spiritual, moral, an ethical soul of the nation, a nation founded on near infinite land, near infinite freedoms to create the smallest government that has ever existed, a specifically Christian state, a specifically Protestant religiously founded society, and the clergy have been responsible, and the Christians as a whole have been responsible for the salvation of the republic. Now, we could understand if all they had done is maintained the freedoms of the republic. So maybe they hadn't expanded them all over the world. Maybe they hadn't gone from a small government to maybe no government or a totally even smaller government. But let's say all they were charged with was just maintain the freedoms. Just hang on to the freedoms. That wouldn't be massive.
[18:24] I mean, if you inherit $10 million, you don't necessarily have to turn it into $20 million or $50 million. You don't have to invest it. You don't have to grow it, but don't blow it.
[18:35] All that was asked was to maintain the freedoms of the republic. And what happened? Number one, they turned their children over to the state. And that's not been dealt with. Number two, the Protestants in particular were quite fervent and pro-World War I, which was really the death knell of European civilization. So again, a war was breaking out in Europe. Now we know one-tenth of one infinitely tiny 1% of what God knew ahead of time how World War I was going to play out. So we look back and we say, that was an absolute catastrophe. World War I led to the surrender of a third of the world to soulless, atheistic, virulent, genocidal communism. It led to the death of 10 million of Europe's youngest and strongest sons. It led to the great, fever in the stock market of the 1920s, and it led to the 14-year Great Depression, which culminated in World War II,
[19:49] which culminated in the Cold War. It just went on and on. The dominoes that fell from the First World War were appalling. Now, this isn't, of course, just in America, because America was relatively unaffected relative to Europe, certainly relative to France by the First World War. But nonetheless, clergy all over the world prayed to God, There is a war starting. What should we do? And God, can you imagine if you and I could send a message back to the summer of 1914, and what we would do, we would beg and weep and wail and spend every time we had to warn people. We would run like madmen on fire through the streets to stop that war,
[20:39] and God knows infinitely more about the destructive effects of that war ahead of time, because he's omniscient, can see and know all things through time. So again, in the summer of 1914, when the storm clouds of war were gathering, the Christian leaders fell on their knees and begged God for guidance. And either God said, oh yeah, you should totally have that war. It will destroy Christendom, which he didn't do and wouldn't do. Or the Satan intervened to just about every single clergyman and every single writer and told them to back the opposite of what was good, which we can't imagine. We cannot imagine that religious leaders don't even know if they're getting advice from Satan or God, that would make things way too random.
[21:24] Well, not even random. It would mean that Satan could fool every single religious leader, almost every single religious leader in the West, which would mean that we would have no reliable access to the word of God. Or God said, whatever you do, don't start that war. That would be the beginning of the end. Can you imagine if somebody, your kids, right? I remember, I think I was seven or so. This is when I first became interested in history. And I said, mom, who started the first world war? And she said, Germany. And I said, and how long did it last? And she said, four years. And I said, and who started the Second World War? And she said, Germany. And I said, and how long did it last?
[22:14] And she said, about four years. And I was like, Huh, okay. That can't be just a coincidence, man. It's got to be something that some pattern here. So imagine if your kid comes to you and says, was World War I good or bad? Was it a good war or a bad war? And you have the Encyclopedia Britannica. You have Grok AI. You have, and you can say, hey, was it a good or bad war in general? And you can look all of this stuff up, but you don't. You get it wrong, and you say, oh, it was a great war. So totally great for the West. Fantastic. Couldn't be better. We'd do it five times over if we could, as opposed to just once again, but worse.
[22:55] So if we handed over the flames of liberty and freedom within the west not to the state which everybody understands is pretty predatory but to the clergy we handed our children's future our souls the defense of the realm the salvation of our ethics and the maintenance of our virtues to the clergy how are they doing they are the custodians we inherited a billion dollars a trillion dollars of sacrifice from our ancestors, and we gave it all to the clergy and said, listen, listen, man, you don't have to double it, but just don't blow it. Just don't blow it. That's all. That's all we're asking. You're in charge. You guys have access to omniscience. That's a pretty big claim. I personally would not argue with someone who had access to omniscience because you could never win. The clergy says, oh, no, we have access to omniscience. Okay, well, look, if you have access to omniscience, then you take care of this stuff.
[23:59] And they blessed all of the soldiers going to war, and they eagerly handed the nation's children over to the state. And for the past 50, 40, 50 years or so, they had been taking billions and billions and billions of dollars from the government to import everyone from other cultures, other worlds, other religions, and put them into the West.
[24:27] And there should be a crisis of conscience for the clergy, for Christianity. You know, if you make a prediction and you get things catastrophically wrong, I mean, geez, when I was in the business world, we did postmortems on every project. We say, okay, what did we get right? What did we get wrong? What could we improve? And I have not seen much soul searching. Have not seen the clergy saying, well, we had a job. And that job was to protect and at least maintain, don't have to expand, but at least maintain the freedoms of the West. And the last thing I'll say is colonialism. Colonialism was driven by Christianity. I mean, it was a certain amount of map painting from the various empires, but colonialism was largely blessed by Christianity because, of course, it was a way to bring Christianity to the benighted masses of the world, the what were considered at the time savages of the world, and turn them into Christians and make them good and tasty and holy. And while Christianity certainly spread through that, it has been a pretty unadulterated catastrophe for the West. You put together colonialism, turning over the children to the state and the two world wars.
[25:46] And I would say that the clergy, oh, and you combine it with importing infinity, refugees, migrants, and immigrants facilitated by the state and the church taking money from the state. And I think we have reason to say, oh, I'm not quite sure you guys do have access to omniscience. Maybe there is an omniscience out there, but I don't think you guys have access to it. Because if somebody says, hey, man, give me your $10 million, your family's blood and treasure for centuries, give me your $10 million because I can read the market perfectly. I know exactly when to buy, exactly when to sell. Well, okay. I mean, if somebody knows the market perfectly and knows exactly when to buy and exactly when to sell, you give them your money. And then what if they blow it? What if they lose all your money.
[26:39] Would you sit there and say, well, I still believe that you have access to perfect knowledge of the market. I would say, I do not think you have access to perfect knowledge of the market, because if you did, where's my money? I think there is a crisis of confidence. I think people view the church as increasingly irrelevant because it will not learn and reform, and it will not say, we got something wrong. And of course, Christianity completely accepts. In fact, it's founded significantly on the basic idea and argument that the human soul is prone to sin and corruption, as the church is as well. So. when the church get things significantly wrong. I mean, hey, let's bring infinity Somalians and put them in Minnesota, facilitated by the church, where they can run up massive bills by claiming that all their children are autistic and then sending money to fund terrorist organizations in Somalia. Maybe we got something wrong there. Nope. Double down, double down, double down. I went, And this is, I'll shut up here. So, but I went to a church service recently in a small town in Ontario. And it was the usual bunch of women and one low testosterone, half bearded priest. And he started off the ceremony with an apology to the natives for taking their land. Incomprehensible to me. but having been raised a staunch Christian myself at a time when the church still had some teeth and nails, a land dedication and an apology, and we recognize that we are resting on the sacred and hallowed ground of the Cheektowaga natives, I don't remember what it was, and it's just like, blah!
[28:37] I mean, according to Christianity, the natives were godless heathens. And they were sinning and going to hell, and Christianity saved them from all that. Why on earth would you be apologizing? If you were burning to death in your home, see, I worked the hell thing in there, but if you were burning to death in your home, and a fireman had to chop down the door because it was locked, had to chop down the door with a giant X in order to save you from a horrifying, horrible death, burning to death is just one of the ugliest ways to go, and a fireman had to chop down your door, would you demand forever and ever, amen, that the fireman apologize for breaking your door to save you from burning to death? And let's say that fireman was your brother-in-law. Every time you got together, you're like, hey, man, you need to kneel down and beg my forgiveness for you breaking down my door. It's like, bro, I saved your life. What are you asking me to apologize for? You started the fire yourself!
[29:45] You fell asleep with a cigarette in your mouth and you set fire to your duvet and you're burning. I don't understand. So I think that, I mean, this is one of the reasons I wrote UPB,
[29:56] was Christianity has not worked well to save the freedoms and integrity of the West. And the last, sorry, I'll do one last thing and then I'll shut up. Everyone else can jump in and tell me how mistaken I am, which I'm always quite happy to hear. But all of this is happening, all of this is happening, the shadow of eternal damnation burning in hell forever. Burning in hell forever. If you get it wrong, if you get it wrong.
[30:30] You burn in hell forever. If you praise and bless millions of men marching off to suicidal doom, then you go to hell. If you apologize for things that are not wrong, you threaten your soul. If you forgive people who have not repented, you threaten your soul. So even with the most immense punishment that can be conceived of, that the punishment of hell, and even if we say, well, look, hell is not literal fire and brimstone, it's just realizing how distant you are from God and the agony of distance from the good and the glory. Okay, let's just say it doesn't have to be a full-on James Joyce bubbling flesh and the stink of feces and all of that.
[31:13] Let's just say it's distance from God after you die, or limbo, or anything, but it's a long way from paradise. And you're aware of the paradise you've lost forever. Let's just say it's all that. Well, man claims to love his wife and he offends her mightily and refuses to apologize, we would say, oh, okay, he doesn't really love her that much. He doesn't. He doesn't really love her that much because he loved her that much and he genuinely wronged her, then he would apologize to her. But if he's too proud to apologize, then he's preferring the sin and vanity of his pride over the love that he claims to bear for his wife. And there is, I think, a very strong, I think it's unconscious, but I think there's a very strong suspicion in the West that the clergy don't believe in what they preach.
[32:04] Because if they did, they would be doing the right thing. Because you can't come up with a bigger punishment than an eternity of separation from God and knowing it. And if that's not enough to motivate the clergy to get it right, to apologize, to not be bribed by the state to not hand over their children to the state. I mean, the clergy should have been saying to Erica Kirk, again, I say this with great sympathy for her suffering, but nonetheless, they should have been saying to Erica Kirk, no, you can't forgive him. You can't forgive him. You can pray that he works to find forgiveness by admitting his sin, the murderer, Charlie Kirk's murderer, but you can't forgive him. Nope. They're all cheering. This performative forgiveness that is absolutely anti-biblical. Where's the condemnation? If people forgive those who have not sought forgiveness, who have not embraced contrition, then they are damning countless people's souls to hell. And if you condemn countless people's souls to hell, it really can't be conceivable that you yourself would not end up there as well. So they do it but they they do it anyway i have not uh you know i just i've not i've not known christians who have apologized and sought the forgiveness of someone they've wronged.
[33:33] I mean look, there were christians out there who called me uh racist and and so on for talking about iq now the studies just keep pouring out it's kind of incontrovertible so they did me great wrong They maligned my reputation. They harmed my capacity to reach people with the truth. They put me in a state of grave danger. And they were wrong.
[33:58] And this is just one of, I could pull out a half a dozen of these sorts of examples, right? And how many Christians... Have called me up or emailed me or messaged me and saying, I'm so sorry, I called you a bad person when you were in fact communicating the truth. I bore false witness. I publicly accused you of being a terrible person when you were in fact communicating the truth. How many Christians who participated in maligning my character for telling the truth have reached out to apologize to me because they broke a commandment. Thou shalt not bear false witness. And do not slander seems to be quite important, given that Jesus himself was put to death as the result of slander. It seems to be quite an important aspect of the religion. And the answer is zero. Zero. Now, I've had a few people apologize to me over the years. A couple of trolls from the early days have apologized, but no, I have not received that. Think that they believe in the commandments i don't think they believe in hell and i don't know what's changed but i think people are like eh i'm not seeing it.
[35:13] I, I think and especially if you can be bought off by the state to do things harmful to your community i mean that's not even a good business but it is just a business anyway those are my thoughts what do you think?
[35:26] Yeah no Yeah, you offered a few good things, but first, I would say that nobody has the knowledge of God. I think we can, I mean, the thoughts that I use or the analogies is we can apprehend, we can understand part of God.
[35:52] No, no, no, hang on, hang on. I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I never said we have the knowledge of God. I said, Christians claim to have access to the knowledge of God in such a format that God would present that Christians could understand. Obviously, our mortal brains cannot encompass omniscience. Of course. I mean, in the same way that I don't know everything that's on the Internet, but I have access to things on the Internet, if that makes sense.
[36:17] Okay. Yeah, and I was just going to do the apprehend versus comprehend. And the very, very first book of the Bible is, you know, I mean, it's the devil always tempts us with eat the apple. And who tells you you can't eat the apple? And you'll have all the fruits and all the privileges and access to the whole, you know, cosmos and beyond. But it's interesting because I went to public school as a kid. and like I was my parents sent me to a catechism and I was like alright someone's freaking lying to me here because this is you know the church is telling me that we came from Adam and Eve in this school across the street literally across the street is telling me that we came from multi cell or you know single cell organisms you know metamorphs into multi and then we became a gay fish and the gay fish climbed on a you know, became an alligator and the alligator became a monkey and the monkey became a human. And I was like, well, somebody's lying, but this institution has control over me. And eventually I'm going to have to go work for this, you know, thing and get a job. And, you know, they're the ones that I remember being, I don't know, 12 years old and going, whatever bullshit they're tell me i'm just gonna run with it because you know and then it's like at you know 40 years old i was like i don't know man like all this crap that i've been taught like i don't know if it's true and i started looking up stuff and it's like yeah this doesn't sound right so anyway um i'm at a point where I'm questioning everything and it's like, well, you know, what is the best way?
[38:12] And I'm the same way. It's like, if the rule book says this, and we're not enforcing the rule book, then why have a rule book? And it's just like, if the rule book says this, and we're flexing the rules for this group or that group. But when I take a look at World War I or World War II from a fresh perspective on things that I didn't have access to when I was going through grade school, whatever, and I was like, man, this is not what I was taught. I was taught that these people were evil, and I didn't realize that this was going on in their country, and there was transgenderism, there was prostitution, their country was owned by foreigners. And I was like, well, what was the end result of all this? Like, how did they get control? And, you know, it was generally through usury. It was usually through sexual degenerates. It was through all those impulses that we have as humans, as flesh.
[39:23] And I've always asked the question, too, Stefan, like, you know, So why didn't the church, what did the church do to push back on this? And said, no, no, no, no, this is from the father of hell. This is the, you know, Satan. It was one of those things that's like, you know, as you get older and, you know, of course, I've got a kid now. And it's just like, yeah, like, how do I teach him? How do I model this behavior for him? How do I get him to choose righteousness over worldliness? And it's not an easy thing to do as a father because it's like, Dad, it's so much easier just to, like, go along to get along, you know. But some of the stuff you're teaching me is not, you know, it's pretty prohibited.
[40:16] So it's, yeah. So, and I think sometimes it's, you know, do I think the church maybe got paid off or there are some things that they did to say, yeah, but, you know, and to me, it's like, okay, what's the role of the laity? What's the role of the common man to say, no, no, no, no, pastor, that's bullshit. And I'm pushing back on this and this is why, you know, and to me, it's always been the strong men, the masculine men that said, no, no, no, you know, this is not, this, this is not okay. So, but if you've got this happy, clappy Christian society where everything's gay and everything's, you know, it's, I don't know.
[41:02] It's, it's, it is, it is tough for me. Cause I'm like, well, what is the, the, who, who, who does have the, the truth that's preaching the truth. That's, you know, that's something that I can get behind because I certainly don't have all the answers and when I don't have all the answers. What books can I read to get me closer to the ultimate truth? So, but, um, but I can tell you this, it wasn't easy for me to be a father and they destroyed me. They took all my assets. First thing they made me do.
[41:36] Sorry, who is they?
[41:37] The family courts.
[41:39] Oh, I'm sorry to hear that.
[41:41] Yeah. The first thing they make you do is, you know, say, Hey, if you're the father, we need a financial affidavit for you. Well, where's the mother's financial affidavit? She doesn't need to fill one out. Okay, well, why do you need to know how much money I have and where my assets are located? How does that have to do with any bearing of me being a decent human being or father? And it was like, holy shit, man. And then two years later, after two years living, and this is after a welfare queen mom was just like, I'm just going to play the game or whatever he wants. I'm just going to resist it. I was like, holy shit. And then I was like, all right, this is bullshit. So I'm going to go to my state capital and, you know, get equal share of parenting. It took me 10 years, but I finally got equal share of parenting in my state.
[42:28] I, you know, did it because it was the right thing to do. But at the end of the day, I was like, man, like, how come I'm the one that's fighting this battle? How come there, where's my, you know, where's my brothers in arms to freaking like, you know, because you guys text me, call me, bitch at me, you know, and I hear your horror stories. But at the end of the day, it's like, I already got 50-50 for my son. Like, but what are you doing to like change the laws that caused us to begin with? So, and then I started looking into like, wow, man, this is weird. Like, what is Title IV-D? What is this Social Security Title IV-D stuff? Are you telling me that the federal government pays $1.60 for every dollar I pay to my son's mother? Like, where does this money go to? How is this money allocated? And I was like, Texas, Texas, the largest receiver of Title IV-D funds. And they've got the most organized team and the most passionate fathers out of all 50 states. And they've been doing this stuff longer than I've probably been alive. And it's like, oh, you're a men's right activist. You're one of those dudes. Yeah, sorry.
[43:45] I feel that we're on a different topic completely. And I really apologize for interrupting that. But yeah, I mean, so we can also look, of course, at the support for Israel, which is a political entity. but of course is considered by many evangelicals a requirement for the return of Christ. And that's not great. And also, there are these horrible natural enemies. Sorry, one's horrible, one's not. These natural enemies in the world, which is communism and Christianity. And I assume that the Christian leaders in the West, again, fall on their knees and pray to God to say, what is the greatest danger that we face? And what can we do about it?
[44:33] Now, the greatest danger that Christians face is communism. Now, that's not a theory. That's not a theory of the 70 million people killed just in Russia under communism. I mean, 100 million in total. I think the number is higher because there was lots of people, of course, starved to death under Mao's agricultural reforms. But let's just say, you know, 50, 70 million killed in Russia. The vast majority of them are Christians, and they were killed by communists who are atheists. And they're coming for the Christians in the West. And there will be gulags, concentration camps, mass starvation, all of the nuns nailed to the wall stuff that characterizes populist, secular, collectivist revolts, such as the French Revolution. It's coming. And I don't know if the Christian leadership wants to die or wants to serve up. Maybe it's a big martyrdom thing. I don't know. A friend of mine who's Christian says that Christians are at their best when they're being persecuted.
[45:36] Would you need to be? And of course, there are lots of children who are going to get persecuted as well.
[45:40] So I think that it is a very incomprehensible situation. I've got another caller, and I do appreciate your call. Thank you so much. And if we have the next caller coming in, yeah, of course, the Christian leaders should be thundering against communism from the pulpit every week, every week, and socialism. Of course, they should be thundering against the welfare state because the welfare state displaced the church. And again, when the welfare state was being considered, did the church leaders pray and say, dear God above, what is the gravest danger to our moral authority? Oh, it's the welfare state because it's going to render church charity irrelevant, and it's going to destroy the family, which is where church values get spread. So either they prayed, and God gave them the wrong answer, Satan interceded, or God gave them the right answer, and they didn't listen, or there's no God, and they don't really believe anyway. Because if I had access to omniscience And I kept getting things wrong I would have doubt as well Alright Yamnay Yamnay Are you with us? You will need to unmute
[46:47] Yes, I'm with you guys
[46:49] Alright, what's up?
[46:51] Um well first of all i guess i'd like to um apologize um you know obviously it all comes down to individuals um uh i wasn't involved in what you're speaking about but i am sorry on behalf of the christians who maligned you and chose not to apologize to you um sorry
[47:11] I'm not sure i mean i appreciate the thought, I appreciate the sentiment but can you do that?
[47:17] um. Well i'm not doing this in like a theological kind of christian way
[47:22] you can't you can't go to jail for someone else's crime can you?
[47:25] No and that's not what i'm saying i'm just uh i guess i'm saying this in this sort of like a poetic way like i'm just sorry that that happened to you man
[47:33] And uh i appreciate that and i don't want to be overly nitpicky but i appreciate i'm sorry that it happened as well but you i just you can't apologize on behalf of others because that is and this is you can't because they have to do it themselves otherwise they risk imperiling their souls right yes.
[47:49] That is correct
[47:50] I mean if i went around paying off everyone's debts then people would become more irresponsible in who they borrowed from right exactly yeah well um so it's not very theological to apologize on behalf of others because it reduces their need to apologize for themselves and again i'm stopping i'm sorry to be nitpicking but this is part of what i don't understand about christians and christianity genuinely it's like if you come down and you apologize on behalf of others, that is harming their souls, and why would you do that?
[48:19] Yes. Okay, so I guess I'm just apologizing to you as a Christian that Christianity, well, the people who to be Christians, at least, have been, well, yeah, so what am I saying, right? So, I'm sorry that that happened to you is what I should have said. Right. Okay. Yeah, and I appreciate that,
[48:43] And that I will absolutely accept, but I wouldn't, apologizing on behalf of others is too close to whites are responsible for the sins of slavery and things like that. I just, I can't do collective guilt or apologies or innocence. You're right. everybody's responsible for their individual actions. But so sorry, go ahead.
[49:02] Yeah, well, okay, well, yes. Yeah, everything's about individuals. We're all a sea of individuals, and that's kind of the idea of Christianity as well, is that, you know, it's not about, you know, your salvation is all individual. Your relationship with Jesus Christ and the whole idea that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world, it's like, okay, that's great. So everybody's saved it's like well no it doesn't just he didn't just immediately save everybody who
[49:32] Okay sorry i appreciate that i don't want to do theology 101 because my audience knows all of this stuff so if you have a question or a comment i'd love to hear it uh or i'd like to ask you some questions if that's all right but uh yeah i get this sort of introduction to theology stuff but sorry go ahead yeah.
[49:48] Yeah yeah no uh okay um well then yeah let me uh dive into some other things so um you were saying that you are, you think that, well, you're talking about access to omniscience, right? I don't think that the clergy or the Christians in general that we claim to have, well, I don't think that we have access to omniscience. We have, we are in God's good graces. We've been saved by Jesus Christ, but that we don't really have access to his Knowledge at all times You know
[50:22] We pray Hang on hang on hang on Hang on Okay At all times Is my first red herring That you're not debating In good faith Because when I say I have access I have access, it doesn't mean at all times. If I say I have access to a mall, it doesn't mean that I live 24-7 in the mall, right? So at all times is a straw man, because I don't know, I wouldn't even know what it means to have access to omniscience at all times. But Christians do pray to God for guidance, right?
[50:53] Yes, yes we do.
[50:53] Okay, so you have access to omniscience, but I don't know what it means to say at all times. And again, I'm sorry to be nitpicky, but that's kind of the job of philosophy. So, okay, so you have access to omniscience through prayer, right?
[51:08] Yeah, so...
[51:08] Sorry, why is that? I mean, isn't that foundational? You pray to God for wisdom and guidance?
[51:14] I do. I do pray to God for wisdom and guidance, yes.
[51:17] I mean, I did the Lord's Prayer every single day as a child.
[51:21] Yeah, yeah. So, to omniscience um well first of all yeah as far as the clergy the clergy and the church go like i said we're a few of individuals um
[51:34] Okay so so hang on if you have two people right one of uh you're asking a bunch of challenging questions and one person has the internet and the other person doesn't you would expect the person with the internet um to get let's just say it was wasn't even controversial stuff it was just like factual stuff. You know, what's the capital of this country? What's the general population of that country? And so on. So you would expect somebody who had a tablet connected to the internet and was able to use it to get more answers right than somebody who did not have a tablet connected to the internet that was able to use it, right? So wouldn't Christians as a whole get more things right than non-Christians.
[52:19] Yes. And then, of course, you know, history is showing that that's oftentimes not the case.
[52:27] Well, I sort of gave a whole speech about some really key things that Christians got wrong that haven't caused the clergy to sit there and say, gosh, we really, and they're getting more and more wrong as time goes forward.
[52:38] I listened to your whole speech, by the way.
[52:40] Yeah, no, no, but I'm just sort of pointing out that if you have access to omniscience and you make grievous mistakes, it's a little hard to square that circle. Sorry, go ahead.
[52:51] Yeah. So I would say, it's kind of, it sounds so cliche to say. So it's like, um, are immensely corrupt. And, you know, when you're dealing with people like, you know, who came to the New World and they claim to be Christians back in like the 1400s or whatever, and, you know, and then they committed crimes against the natives and did sinful things. Humans are incredibly...
[53:23] Committed crimes against the natives. What do you mean?
[53:27] Well, what I'm saying is that there were some rapes and there were some negative things that happened.
[53:34] Yeah, but the natives were doing that to each other at a far larger scale.
[53:37] Oh, yes. They were, but nonetheless, doing so as a Christian, if you're a Christian conquistador and you claim to come with the truth and with God on your side, you need to really be careful not to do these things. It's going to confuse the people, you know? And then, of course, then they have reason to gripe later on, you know, um, they're just,
[54:01] I don't know, I'm sorry to interrupt. I don't know the, the history behind all of this, and I'm, I'm sure that there were some rapes, but I mean, it wasn't like people were found guilty in a court of law. Some of the native women might've been so enthralled and entranced by these man gods in metal plate that they might've wanted to have sex with them. Uh, women do like a little bit of rough trade from time to time, but would you, uh, is it, is it established there was sort of mass rapes coming from the Christians? Again, I don't know the history of this in any particular detail.
[54:30] Well...
[54:32] Neither do I. And I don't know that there were any mass rapes. I know that oftentimes people accuse the conquistadors, including, you know, even the guy who discovered the new world, Christopher Columbus, of being sexually immoral. Honestly...
[54:48] Well, communists would do that but i i don't know i mean did did did were there a bunch of journals that the, the conquistadors wrote to saying oh i raped this person and i raped that person and i mean i don't know the history but um but of course there was uh when particularly in sort of central america the mayas the aztecs and so on uh absolutely evil evil group of human beings i mean mass rape genocide sexual torture the mutilation of children for the sake of appeasing their demonic gods. Absolutely monstrous. And one of the reasons, as you know, that the conquistadors were able to conquer these giant empires is because the local population loathed the Incans and the Mayans so much that they joined in. And so, please God, free us from these monsters. So it was in many ways a war of liberation. And I guess I'm just sort of curious, every invading army is going to do some bad things. You know, I mean, if you talk about the liberation of Germany, there were some awful things that happened with the liberation of germany, And, you know, terrible things happen when there's wars of rebellion and revolution and so on. So I'm just curious why you would go straight to the sins of the Europeans rather than the evils that they encountered in this savage continent.
[56:04] Oh, well, yeah, my position is probably quite similar to yours as far as, you know, I understand that the Aztecs committed an enormous amount of atrocities in the Mayans and many of these other people and that they weren't innocent. And I'm not claiming that there was some sort of noble, innocent savage that the, and then these ruffians, these, you know, sinful, wicked guys came in and ruined their peace. I understand that that's not the case. I was just, you know, using that as an example of Christians not acting quite Christian, you know?
[56:42] And there's been, so that's only one example, of course. You know, you can talk about, well, you're talking about atrocities of the church, or maybe not atrocities, but negative things that the church have done that have endangered, that have damaged the world, that have caused problems, that have made life on earth worse rather than better, right? And those things have happened, and I understand that. So that's why I was trying to use that example. But, yeah. I'm sorry, I just
[57:18] Wanted to shore up one of your things. I just had a quick look for this. Go ahead. There is contemporary evidence for the Spanish conquistadors raping indigenous late 15th to 16th centuries. Comes primarily from contemporary written accounts, eyewitness chronicles, letters, and official reports, Spanish legal records, and royal inquiries with indirect modern evidence from genetics and demography. so there was, There was definitely some evidence for this. And of course, terrible stuff. But it's just, I have a high alert system in my brain for people who talk about historical wrongs and only mention white people.
[58:03] Yes. Yes, I'm not one of those guys. And if I came across like that, that's not what I meant to, you know.
[58:08] No, that's what you said. You talked about the rapes of the white people and none of the crimes of the natives.
[58:15] Well, yes, that was my bad. I acknowledge the crimes of the natives. I acknowledge that there was some very demonic stuff going on with the Aztec Empire and a lot of basically all of the empires going on. They're the Mayans and the Incans as well. Yeah, so what I'm saying is that when it comes to the actions of Christian people and the church throughout history, the failures of the church are, in my mind, a reflection of sort of, not sort of, they are a reflection of the incredible corruptness of humanity rather than a failure of God. No, no, okay, sorry.
[59:01] I get that. I understand that for sure. Okay. But if you have one group of people who are getting a bunch of infections and you have another group of people who are getting a bunch of infections, but they have some antibiotics, who will do better?
[59:15] Well, yeah, the ones with the medicine, right?
[59:18] Right. So all human beings are corrupt, but Christians have access to divine wisdom, right? So saying all human beings are corrupt, yeah, okay, let's take that as a base statement, a basic statement for the sake of argument. But Christians should be less corrupt.
[59:34] Yes, yes.
[59:36] And how do you think the church has been doing over the last 100, 150 years, given the collapse of Western freedoms and, cultural longevity.
[59:48] Yeah. Clearly bad. Yes.
[59:51] Okay. So, so, so why? And again, I, I'm not like, why I'm not shaking you by the neck here. I'm genuinely curious. Why? If you have access to omniscience, how can you make so many mistakes? Not you, but how can leaders?
[1:00:06] I think the vast majority of Christians right now, and also throughout history, I would say at any given point, it's a fraction of what you would think that are actually right with Christ and have like a personal relationship with Jesus. The vast majority of Christians at any given era— But okay,
[1:00:29] But I'm talking about the actual leaders.
[1:00:32] Yes.
[1:00:32] I'm not talking about the vast majority of Christians. And if that's true— The leaders as well. —if that's true, then it doesn't work, right?
[1:00:38] Um well it's difficult to make it work because the human soul the human beings are so corrupt so it's like yes but
[1:00:46] But you should that's an i hate to sort of trivialize jesus but in the analogy jesus would be a handful of antibiotics right and so some people don't take the antibiotics some people miss them some people don't believe in them so it's not like everyone is perfect who gets antibiotics and sometimes the antibiotics might not work for whatever reason but in general, why is something like Islam growing and why is something like Christianity shrinking if Christians have access to omniscience?
[1:01:15] They should be getting the right answers. They should be praying to God, and God should be telling them, here's what you need to do, or you imperil your immortal soul. Here's what you need to do, or your children will grow up enslaved. I mean, I said multiculturalism wasn't going to work. I said this 20 years ago.
[1:01:32] I agree.
[1:01:33] And I was shouted down by a lot of Christians, and who apparently hadn't read the part in the Bible where the Tower of Babel is built. But anyway, I've shouted down as, you know, cold and heartless and so on. And I don't have access to omniscience. I'm just a humble philosopher, right? So how is it that people who have access to omniscience are getting a lot of things wrong and people who don't aren't?
[1:01:58] Yes. So, you know, on an individual level, I'm a Christian. Do I have access to omniscience? I pray to God and I know that he's real.
[1:02:13] And he gives you guidance.
[1:02:14] And he gives me guidance, yes. Correct.
[1:02:17] So that was foundational to my Christian evolution and prayer would make no sense if he didn't.
[1:02:21] Right? Yes. And so it's... It's difficult when it gets into groups of people, you know, because, well, why is it difficult? You're dealing with the church, you're dealing with large amounts of people, you're dealing with large amounts of individuals, and a vast majority of them are like cultural groups.
[1:02:41] Yes, and again, sorry to interrupt, but if you give antibiotics to a whole bunch of people, some people will still get sick. But the majority of them will get better. Yes.
[1:02:50] Well, yeah, so Jesus is a person, you know, he's not an antibiotic. And so, and of course, when it comes to— Okay,
[1:02:56] Please, please.
[1:02:57] I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
[1:02:58] Don't, don't, no, no, no, no. Let's not, let's not operate at that level. Well, I'm not trying to operate at that level. If I say, if I say love is like a rose, you'd say, well, love is not a rose. So let's not, let's not, let's not deal at that level. It's an analogy, right? I'm aware that Jesus is not an antibiotic. Let's not deal at that level with each other. Let's like, you're smart. I'm smart. We don't have to go there.
[1:03:23] Thank you. Thank you for saying I'm smart. Well, you're definitely smart. So, what I'm saying is that, you know, it's like a relationship between two individuals, you know, Christians with free will have to decide, okay, I'm really going to pay attention to this, and I really want a relationship with this ethereal individual. And a lot of them just don't do that. And they view Christianity as this, well, they view it as some sort of cultural identity.
[1:03:57] And then they just act like normal people,
[1:03:59] You know, as though they weren't Christian. And then just keep Christianity as like part of their identity nonetheless.
[1:04:07] So they're not really Christians then? Because to be a Christian, you have to worship Jesus and follow his guidance.
[1:04:14] Right? Yes, yes. So that's what I'm saying. Well, I guess, yes. I am saying that a small percentage of Christians are actually Christians.
[1:04:27] And it's disturbing. So it doesn't work for the most part, even with the threat of hell. Even if you raise people with the threat of hell and the relatively simple word of God, it doesn't work.
[1:04:40] Whether something works or not, well, okay. So, first of all, I'm coming from a perspective of understanding that Christianity is objectively real. The reason why I believe Christianity is objectively real is because I've had spiritual experiences that have convinced me of that, supernatural experiences. So, I'm kind of working backward in a way. It's like I kind of already know it's real from supernatural experiences.
[1:05:08] Okay, so, sorry. So are you saying that a lot of Christians have not had the supernatural experiences that you've had, and therefore they don't take it very seriously?
[1:05:17] Yes.
[1:05:18] Okay. But then why would God give you supernatural experiences that prove to you the power of Christianity and withhold from other people those supernatural experiences, which would give them the same dedication? That doesn't seem too fair, does it?
[1:05:34] Well, I asked for mine. I specifically...
[1:05:38] Well, no, Christians are constantly saying, give me a sign, give me a sign, right? And so a lot of Christians ask for it.
[1:05:45] I suppose, well, yeah, they say, give me a sign. But I think you can say something in words and not necessarily mean it in your heart. You have to genuinely, like, I didn't even pray to the Christian God. At the time I was an agnostic and I prayed, I was like, if you're listening, if there's anything listening, if there's a God, I was like, I want to know the true nature of reality. I want to know what's really going on. Could you please make it evident to me? And then I think it was like two or three months later that I started having supernatural experiences,
[1:06:20] You know? And what happened, if you don't mind me asking?
[1:06:24] Um, well, yeah, so it started, um, it was like three in the morning. I was in bed. I got poked in the forehead very like slowly and deliberately. Uh, I could feel the pulp of a finger in the middle of my forehead. And so I was horrified and I jumped up. Well, I didn't immediately.
[1:06:41] I'm sorry, you felt a poke in the forehead and then you said something very quickly. I didn't quite catch. Sorry.
[1:06:47] I felt a poke in the forehead I felt the pulp of a finger you know like the portion of a finger I was horrified and I I said that I got up but that's not true I didn't immediately get up I actually like froze up and kind of like just like waited to die for a second like I thought something was going to attack me so I kind of just like tried to play dead for a second and then and then I jumped up Okay.
[1:07:14] And, uh, sorry, what's it dark in the room? You couldn't.
[1:07:17] Yeah, it was dark.
[1:07:18] You felt the poke. It was dark. So you felt the poke, but you couldn't see anything, right?
[1:07:22] No, yeah. I sleep in the dark.
[1:07:24] Okay.
[1:07:24] And so then I, I jump up in the dark and I, and I looked around my room and I look around the house and I look in the closets and there's nobody else there. And, uh, there's no one in the house other than me. And, you know, uh, there was no animals in my room or anything like that. My door was closed. Um, somebody put me in the forehead. And then after that, things like that started to happen basically every night or every other night, something like that. And I would get tickled, I would get poked, I would get grabbed, you know, and it was like nice firm grabs, you could feel five fingers digging into your the meat of your thigh, you know. So I was having that sort of thing happen pretty frequently like I said mostly at night like when I'm trying to fall asleep or not when I'm asleep but when I'm you know laying down just you know hoping that nothing happens and what else happened I I I had a lampshade thrown off my lamp. I did not see it happen, but I heard it. And I heard a bang from my room. I went and checked, and it was there on the ground. And then a day later, the same thing happened. I heard a bang in my room. I went and checked, and it was on the ground. Difficult to pull off.
[1:08:34] Sorry, a lampshade fell off.
[1:08:37] Lampshade, yes. Sorry, I didn't enunciate that.
[1:08:39] Okay.
[1:08:41] And what else happened? Well, it went on for a period of about a year. So there was multiple things that happened. Sometimes things happen in the daytime. I'm laying in bed in the daytime, awake, laying on my back, you know, trying to take a nap. Somebody somersaults over me. I feel a small body, you know, the pressure of a small body kind of like somersault over top of me. I see a disembodied hand at one point. What happens is I have a dream, a nightmare, that I am being choked by a big pair of hands. In the darkness. I dream that I'm on my computer in the darkness. And then a pair of hands drapes down from the ceiling in front of me, you know, in the light of the computer and starts choking me. I fight them back. I'm fighting them off. And then I wake up. I said, oh, it was a dream, you know. I look to my left and there's a big white hand on my pillow. In real life, in the light of the morning, it's 8 a.m., you know. I strike at it and it disappears. It disappears.
[1:09:40] Um, and I, and I had a number of dreams like that, um, that would bleed into reality. Um, I was not high. I was not drunk. I don't do drugs. Uh, I do drink alcohol occasionally, but it doesn't make you hallucinate. And I wasn't drunk during this period, during those times. And of course they haven't, there was many experiences. So I wasn't drunk during, um, uh, every night of those experiences. Uh, ultimately, um, it caused me to become a Christian, uh, because I, uh, I connected the dots in my mind.
[1:10:08] I said, okay, what's going on? um some sort of spirit ghost okay um what does that mean why is it here why is it bothering me in a very unpleasant way um uh so i i was trying to connect the dots i figured i was like okay well what changed i realized that i had been kind of a bad person that i had um cheated on my girlfriend that i had you know kind of been an asshole for a while and uh then it starts to dawn on me i was like, okay, this might be associated with my bad deeds, which might mean that it's associated with sin, which might mean that it's associated with Christianity, which might mean that we're dealing with a demon and that there's hell. Oh my God. And, uh, you know, I became very frightened. Um, so I, um, uh, eventually I prayed, I prayed to God and, uh, and it stopped. And so, and so then I became Christian. What happened is that one night there was like a finale, there was a crescendo, right? And I don't know if that's the proper use of the word crescendo. It's probably not. But anyways, there's a finale.
[1:11:15] And I was in bed. I was on the futon. I had my girlfriend in my bed, and I was sleeping in the other room of the futon because I can't sleep with anybody else in my bed. Me or else it wakes me up but uh so i was sleeping on the futon and i had a by this time i had a whole protocol for keeping myself from being woken up by uh these like supernatural um harassments so i i had my feet covered my legs covered with um comforters with you know thick blankets and i had my ears plugged and i had uh a shirt or you know some cloth over my face not over my whole face over my eyes and forehead so that nothing could poke my forehead. And I was laying there, you know, okay, well, I'm going to have a good night's sleep. Nothing's going to be able to bother me. And then I think maybe after an hour or two of lying there, you know,
[1:12:09] maybe an hour, maybe I'm not, I'm still trying to fall asleep. I haven't fallen asleep yet. It normally takes me about an hour. I hear, or I don't hear, I feel as if somebody slapped the foot of my head with both hands. You know, somebody took both their hands and they just slapped the foot of the futon. and cause the whole bed to vibrate, you know? And so, you know, it figured out a way to bypass my protocols, right, the different things I was doing. And so I jumped up, I looked around, you know, there's nothing there, obviously I'm in the dark. But there is some light, the computer's on. Now the computer was not off, it was asleep before, it was dark. But somebody had like jostled the mouse or whatever, and now the screen had lit up.
[1:12:50] And so that was horrifying. So I'm sitting there, you know, clutching my heart and trying to figure out what to do.
[1:12:59] Sorry, the screen had turned on on the computer, like as if somebody had moved the mouse or something?
[1:13:04] Yes, that's what I mean. Yes. Okay. Okay. And so, yeah, I'm quite scared. I'm sitting there trying to figure out, okay, what am I going to do? What the fuck? This sucks, you know? And then I hear beep, beep, beep echoing throughout the house. All of the house phones, the landline phones throughout the house are low on battery at the same time. So I go around the house and I collect all the landline phones.
[1:13:30] Luckily, it hasn't woken anybody else up. I collect all the landline phones and take the batteries out just to shut them up. And once I do that, I go outside and I get in my driveway and I get on my knees and I pray. And I say, you know, God in heaven, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I cheated on my girlfriend who's lying in the house, has no idea right now. She's lying in bed. I'm sorry that I've done all these horrible things. I'm sorry I turned my back on you years ago. I was raised Christian. I was like a little kid. I stopped leaving when I was in my pre-teens, like 11 or whatever. And then this event was happening when I was 24. Um, so it had been, you know, over a decade. So, uh, over a decade of agnosticism is what I mean. But, um, I had this experience. I went outside, I got on my knees in the driveway. It was middle of the night and I said, God, please forgive me. I'm sorry. And please protect me from whatever this effing thing is, you know, this demon. And, uh, I'm going to turn my, turn my, uh, change my ways and turn myself over to you. And after that, everything calmed down. and it just calmed right down.
[1:14:40] Oh, you mean you didn't experience any of these visions again?
[1:14:43] No.
[1:14:45] And what did your girlfriend do when you told her about cheating on her?
[1:14:50] I didn't tell her. I just broke up with her.
[1:14:52] What?
[1:14:53] Yeah. No. Yeah. I should have told her.
[1:15:00] But that's a grave sin. Didn't you pray to God and God relieved you from the demon but God would also ask you to not lie to your girlfriend because you broke up with her and she didn't even know why.
[1:15:13] I broke up with her, and, yeah, she didn't know exactly the reason why.
[1:15:20] Well, don't get me exactly. You lied to her.
[1:15:23] I lied to her, yeah.
[1:15:24] And did you pray to God for guidance on whether you should tell the truth to your girlfriend?
[1:15:29] Yeah, yes, I did, and I should.
[1:15:31] And so what did God tell you to do?
[1:15:35] That I need to do it.
[1:15:37] Need to do what?
[1:15:38] I need to tell her the truth.
[1:15:40] Okay, so good. But so Almighty God is telling you, you need to tell the truth and see it doesn't work. You believed he had rescued you from a demon. He had revealed himself to you in all your glory. And you still couldn't man up and tell your girlfriend the truth.
[1:15:57] Yes.
[1:15:58] How long ago was that?
[1:16:00] It was a few years ago.
[1:16:02] You've had years to tell her the truth.
[1:16:04] Right? Yeah.
[1:16:06] So why haven't you?
[1:16:08] Shame.
[1:16:09] Well, it's still selfish then, right? Because, doesn't God tell you that you have responsibilities to others?
[1:16:14] yeah
[1:16:15] thou shall not bear false witness you lied to her about something absolutely essential
[1:16:20] yeah i did
[1:16:21] so why why wouldn't you tell her and i mean shame of course i mean but but that's it doesn't answer the question because the whole point of morality is to have you do things that are difficult.
[1:16:34] Yeah you got me you got me buddy yeah
[1:16:37] I'm not trying to get you i'm genuinely i'm genuinely when they're curious, you have these. Now, listen, none of this stuff happened in the real world. I mean, listen, I know that you could, I can't let that pass, right? Because I'm an empiricist and a rational philosopher. So none of this stuff happened in the real world. You weren't poked by anything. There weren't any demons because this stuff, you know, and listen, I'm sure you could pass a lie detector. I'm not telling you that you're lying to me. I'm not accusing you of lying to me. I'm sure you believe all of this stuff, but it didn't happen in the real world because that's an effect without a cause. That's something tapping you that isn't there. And there was no hand. I mean, I'm sure that you had these visions. I'm sure that they were very believable. I've had myself visions that are incredibly vivid, that I believe are real, but they're not. But they're not.
[1:17:27] I mean, there are many, many different ways. Everybody hallucinates from time to time. Almost everybody. Mild hallucinations at some point. And the fact that this all occurred while you were in bed or sleeping or whatever it is, or something, your lamp fell off or something like that could be any number of things. But I mean, not that I'm saying you have any of these, but there are psychiatric disorders like schizoaffective disorder, bipolar, severe depression with psychotic features, PTSD, there are neurological conditions, dementia, particularly Lewy body dementia, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, epilepsy, migraine auras can give you occasional hallucinations. Of course, there are brain tumors and strokes, and of course, it could happen with alcohol or alcohol withdrawal and a sleep deprivation, you could be really, really tired. And you can get delirium from infection, fever, ICU stays, organ failure, hypoglycemia, hypothyroidism, vitamin B12 deficiency, high fever can give you this sensory deprivation. So for instance, if you've been sitting there in bed trying to sleep for an hour, sometimes you can hallucinate extreme stress, can do it. And of course, you say, I'm just trying to get to sleep. So we've all had that situation where you try to fall asleep. And I remember when I was a kid, when I first learned how to skateboard, I would have dreams. When I was falling asleep, I had visions of being on the skateboard. I'd sort of jerk myself awake.
[1:18:55] Meditation can do it. And so, listen, I'm not saying that these things did not appear very real to you. And I'm not accusing you of lying or anything like that. But I can't let it be out there in the world on a rational, empirical way. Philosophical program that these things objectively happened in the world. And the fact that you got some relief from prayer is great, but it still hasn't solved some issues of selfishness with you. And again, I say this with great humility. I'm not always the most selfless person in the world, so we all struggle with this selfishness. But you have greedily taken this as a solution to this hallucinatory problem, but it hasn't actually given you obligations to tell the truth. So if you would pray to God And God tells you Yeah, God tells you to tell the truth And you won't do it Then I don't know what Christianity means to you Oh.
[1:19:48] You're right Well, it gives you the obligation You still have to listen to it We all have free will And some of us are capable of The
[1:19:57] Guy saved you from a demon And you won't listen And do it This is what I don't understand Genuinely, I do not understand, If somebody, like if I was burning to death in my house And somebody broke down the door and said Hey, I'll save you, but you gotta tell your girlfriend You cheated on her, I'll be like, I will Well.
[1:20:18] I guess part of it is that I was able to tell myself That the sin was cheating on her And I, you know, break up with her and all of that But I mean, the sin was cheating on her Okay,
[1:20:32] So hang on, hang on No, let's be strict here.
[1:20:36] Let's be straight
[1:20:38] You break up with your girlfriend She says, you say, I'm breaking up with you She says, why? Then you lie Right Because you know exactly why you're breaking up with her Because you cheated on her. So she says why are you breaking up with me? Which is something you owe to her, right? Because otherwise She ends up thinking it's her fault
[1:21:05] Right
[1:21:06] You're letting her, Take the prison sentence for your crime.
[1:21:11] Right Yeah yeah
[1:21:14] Oh, thou shalt not bear false witness. That's pretty clear, right? Don't lie about, I mean, obviously, I mean, a little white lie, who cares, right? But don't lie about important things. This was an important thing, right?
[1:21:25] Yes. I wasn't saying that these are things I believe. I'm saying that these are maybe lies that I told myself. You're asking me how I...
[1:21:34] Sorry, I don't know what that means. Sorry.
[1:21:37] Oh, I'm sorry. Well, you're asking me the question of, you're like, well, you know, how did you go so long as a Christian disobeying God by not doing this thing? Well, I know that initially, at least I told myself, I'm not saying that I believe this, I'm saying this is what I told myself. I was like, well, I don't necessarily have to tell her what happened, you know, and I was basically self-justifying, telling it to myself that it was like, well, the sin was that I lied to her and that I was cheating on her and that I was, you know, leading her on and all of this. Now I've let her go. Now she can go off and live her own life. And, you know, once again, this is not me saying what I believe. I'm saying this is what I told myself,
[1:22:25] At least initially, you know. No, but you would pray to God for guidance, right? You became a Christian.
[1:22:31] Now, did God tell you to lie to your
[1:22:32] Girlfriend when you broke up with her?
[1:22:35] No, he did not. God did not.
[1:22:37] Okay, so I assume that God would say, listen, you've got to tell the truth to your girlfriend, because otherwise she's going to suffer and blame herself, right?
[1:22:46] Yeah, God lays a weight on your conscience, and there has been a weight on my conscience, And I have selfishly ignored it out of cowardice and out of, yeah, shame and cowardice and just trying to hide.
[1:23:06] No, no, no, it's not due. Sorry, hang on. I've got to be strict with you, bro. It's not due to shame and cowardice. You have free will. So, of course, it's not fun to say to your girlfriend, I cheated on you.
[1:23:20] Yes.
[1:23:21] I mean, of course, that's unpleasant, right?
[1:23:23] Of course.
[1:23:24] So, God is commanding you to tell the truth and saying, well, I didn't do it because of cowardice. No, there's a choice there. There's a focus. Saying the cowardice is after the fact, and it's not even cowardice it's a lack of compassion because your girlfriend deserves to know the truth right right yeah she needs to know the truth she and she needed to know the truth in particular as well because you might have given her a sexually transmitted disease.
[1:23:54] Uh i didn't but yeah it you know that's always a
[1:23:58] Possibility i mean it could have happened how do you know some stuff can show up much later like herpes um.
[1:24:04] Yeah i listened
[1:24:07] You don't have to get into details right but i'm just saying that yeah it's uh it's it's a it's a possibility again there could be circumstances which you'd know but how long was the time frame between you cheating on your girlfriend and then breaking up with her.
[1:24:25] Um, a year.
[1:24:27] Oh, gosh. Oh, you lied to her for a year and then you lied to her in the breakup.
[1:24:35] Yes.
[1:24:36] That's rough, man. I really, that's rough. That's a rough thing to have floating in your head. And I have real sympathy for that. I have real sympathy for that. And you said that we don't have to get into the whole list, but you said that was just one of the many things that you did that were negative, right?
[1:24:53] Yes. you know I was well yeah it was part of a list sure so one thing that you mentioned is that you said that all of these supernatural experiences I was having were when I was in bed or getting ready to go to bed no and
[1:25:11] Listen I'm sure I remember that was the one with the lampshade and all of that, it doesn't matter none of them happened in the real world because the laws of physics are absolute. So you had these experiences. I'm not questioning that. I'm not questioning how vivid they were. I've had dreams that I absolutely would have given my left nut in certainty that they were real and then they weren't. But I have to be strict with myself and I have to be strict with the audience. There is no such thing as the supernatural. There is no such thing as magic. And there is not a real ghost finger that's poking you in the forehead. Again, I'm not saying that this was not a very real and vivid experience to you. It just didn't happen in the real world. And the reason I'm saying that is that if these things happened in the real world, it would have been proven by now. If God himself or demons or something intervened and poked people and things got knocked off and there were, like, everybody has cameras, like, all over their houses these days, right? Inside, outside, the ring cameras and security cameras, right? This all would have been recorded by now. This all would have been shown. Because if you can see the white disembodied hand, then there's a camera in the world that will see it as well and it will pass any kind of test to see if it was manipulated or cgi or anything like that so we have a literal recorded video billions of hours every day none of this stuff shows up as real no scientist has ever been able to reproduce any of this stuff it is and again i'm not look if it led you to a good place and it led you to be a better person fantastic i'm not trying to interfere with that journey but it didn't happen in the real world Right.
[1:26:56] So what I would say is that when it comes to, you know, evidence, talking about video evidence, things like that, there is actually a lot of video evidence of ghosts out there. But it's, you know, if you see a chair move, if you even if you see a chair, you know, slide across the room, it's very easy to say, well, there was somebody with a string. Well, then you can zoom in and say, well, there is no string. Well, you know, maybe it was AI. there's a lot of that that goes on and it and some of them are very compelling very compelling that go under the they just sort of go unnoticed because there's already uh an associated thing where it's like there's not going to be a group of scientists who are worth their salt it's
[1:27:36] Impossible no because it's impossible to have an effect without a cause well that is chairs don't move of their own way free will or because they're pushed by some ghost chairs do not move across the room it doesn't happen and i just i have to be and this fight fight me all you want that's totally fine oh i'm not trying to fight you because i don't want i don't want this soup i don't want to be a conduit of this superstition from you to my audience. And again, I'm not interfering with the vividness or the salvation aspect of it, but it's not real. We've had science running experiments for hundreds and hundreds of years. We have, everybody has a high definition video camera everywhere in the world. You know, it's like miracles stopped when science began, UFOs vanished when everyone got high definition cameras, and there ain't no ghosts. Because that would be to say, sorry, go ahead.
[1:28:22] But the universe itself has existed for 4 billion years. So we could have, you know, So many hundreds of years, you know, four or five hundred years of science doesn't necessarily mean that we've gotten to the bottom of anything when it comes to the nature of reality. I mean...
[1:28:35] Sure it does. No, it absolutely does. So science has been around for a couple of hundred years and the dead vastly outnumber the living, right?
[1:28:44] Yes, yes.
[1:28:45] And so there would have been experiments. There would have been like, it's very easy. What you would do is you would get a whole bunch of seances and you would go as a scientist, right? And people say they can contact the dead, right? So you would simply find out information about a dead person that the relative wouldn't know. And then you would, like, let's say that you found out that the guy who said, they said he died in a car crash, he actually died of syphilis. And they were ashamed of the STD or something. Like, you know, just make up something like you look up the medical records and so on, right? And then you'd go to the person who didn't know the guy died of syphilis. And you would say, ask the ghost what he actually died of. And then if if, if the person said oh no no he died of the ghost is saying he died of syphilis but that's not true ah well it is true and you would simply repeat this over and over again, until you had unmistakably beaten the odds and then you would have proof that people had access to a knowledge that was not uh available to them empirically and people have tried all of this kind of stuff and it doesn't work. It's not true. There's no such thing as consciousness without a brain. There is, that's like having a shadow without something blocking the light. It doesn't happen. Consciousness is an effect of the brain. It requires matter. And if consciousness is completely disembodied, then it wouldn't be able to push a chair. If it can manifest itself to the point where it can push a chair, then it would show up in some kind of scientific scan as an energy source. None of this has ever been proven. None of it is real. And you're wrong to believe that it is.
[1:30:31] Okay. So, one other thing that I wanted to mention is that you were saying that Christianity, you know, talking about the access to the omniscient, you know, and that, you know, why is God not giving us better advice to better the world and all of that? I know that, you know, in the Bible, part of the understanding of God's sort of goal with the world is that after the Garden of Eden, the fall of man, not just the fall of man, but, you know, the fall of the physical world, the fallen world, that we basically live in a fallen reality. We live in a damaged place. And that the idea is not to optimize this damaged place, but it is to, you know, a complete shaking up of the chalkboard or whatever, you know.
[1:31:30] Sorry, so you believe in intergenerational punishment, that the sins of the father should be visited upon the children, the grandchildren, yea, verily, into infinity, that we are all cursed because of what Adam and Eve did.
[1:31:45] I would say that we have been... So our souls have been...
[1:31:51] Is that just and fair, that people are cursed because of... Thousands or millions of years ago did?
[1:31:59] Is it fair that we were cursed by people thousands of years ago?
[1:32:04] Yeah, so if your grandfather was a murderer, should you be put to death?
[1:32:08] No.
[1:32:09] Okay, so why should children pay for the sins of their ancestors? Why should humanity remain cursed because of what Adam and Eve did? It wasn't our choice, it wasn't my choice, it wasn't your choice.
[1:32:22] So after the fall of adam and eve um right right right so the idea is that they um first of all it mentions the bible as well that the guilt of each individual person is you know on them it's it's based on what they did you know they're guilty of their own actions none of the actions of others you
[1:32:42] Know okay but you talked about a fallen world and a fallen man and because of Adam and Eve. So, you understand that's a bit confusing, right?
[1:32:49] Yeah, yeah, I do. So, the idea is that we have inherited a tendency towards corruption when we, as adult humans, you know, are cognizant people with agency.
[1:33:08] Sorry, but why would we have inherited a tendency towards corruption because of what Adam and Eve did? That's a blood libel. That means that my choices are diminished because of a bad choice made by Adam and Eve. Because now I am more susceptible to sin as the result of what other people did. That's not just, is it?
[1:33:30] Well, it's not good, but apparently it was not God's intention either. He did not want that to happen, but it did because there was other entities.
[1:33:40] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Come on. I've read Genesis, right? So Adam and Eve are turned out of the Garden of Eden. A flaming sword is barred to prevent their return. And God curses Adam with having to work to get food and shelter. And he curses Eve with childbirth. And so this is not something that happened. This is something that God actively did. And there's nothing that God can't do. So there's nothing that happens to God or God allows to happen in terms of that active punishment. I mean, I guess he gets free will and so on. But is it fair to say that Adam and Eve had free will and chose badly, and therefore everyone else now has a susceptibility to corruption, right? That's like saying, well, these guys can run without having to carry an anvil. But now everyone after them has to run carrying an anvil. That just makes it less fair, doesn't it?
[1:34:36] Make it less fair um
[1:34:38] So oh listen we've had a long chat we've had a long chat and i'm afraid i'm gonna i've got a lot of callers who want to chat so i really do appreciate that uh let us go with uh james because there is no answer and i don't want to pretend that there is there is no answer,
[1:34:52] to collective guilt and making me a bad guy because of what Adam and Eve did. uh James if you wanted to unmute i'm happy to hear
[1:35:00] hey boss
[1:35:01] hey how's it going we.
[1:35:02] Did we did the monkey bots It kind of
[1:35:04] Helped. I'm sorry?
[1:35:07] Yeah, I was the guy who called about the kid thing, kid eating. You did the monkey butt joke. Anyways, don't worry about it. If I'm not going to derail your conversation, I'm not really wanting to talk to you about Christianity. Is that what you're kind of talking about?
[1:35:21] No, it's your topic, man. Whatever's on your mind.
[1:35:24] Yeah, long and short, I wanted to get your thoughts. If we could put you in 30-year-old Stefan.
[1:35:31] Sorry, in 30-year-old? You mean 3-year-old?
[1:35:33] 30. 30-year-olds.
[1:35:34] 30-year-olds, yeah. Okay, sorry, got it.
[1:35:36] Would you still stay in Canada, or would you go stateside? So the reason I ask, I'm in Western Canada. I think you're in Eastern. I think the country's pretty much cooked. I think the only hope is Western Canada leaving. There's sentiment in Alberta, hooray, but I think it's just a matter of time before mass immigration kind of overtakes us. I feel like it's a race between the boomers who watch CBC and Mass Immigration and then Gen Z. So with that being said, do you think you should, would you stand and fight, try to get things changed? Or would you just say, you know, hope is lost, move stateside and kind of the last stand for off?
[1:36:17] I mean, I don't know where exactly people are supposed to go these days. So I would say that if you're in, say, Alberta, and there's a separatist movement, and you're interested in that, maybe work towards that. But yeah, certainly the immigration levels in Canada are the highest per capita by far in the world. And it's a pretty wild situation. So the pendulum does tend to swing. A lot of times people just wait until things get bad and then they react. So pendulum does swing the other way. But yeah, there used to be, of course, places to go where you had more certainty of something positive happening. So I really, I can't, I can't tell you that sort of down to if you have a particular talent for organization, public speaking, politics, and so on, then it may be worth staying to work on whatever political goals you feel are important. If you just want to, you know, go start a family and not get involved in that kind of stuff, then maybe hitting the road might be the way to go. So, but yeah, I can't give you anything more certain than that. Sorry.
[1:37:23] No, it's fine. What? Like you're in Eastern Canada, right?
[1:37:25] Uh-huh.
[1:37:26] You're in, like, you don't have to tell me exactly, but you're like, what? Like Ontario, Quebec?
[1:37:31] Yes.
[1:37:33] My whole thing is just, it doesn't, like, just the system that is Canada just seems parasitic. Just two promises control the seats. Just the fact that the feds control so much part of your lives, dominated by two regions, equalization just makes no sense. My thought, like, so to bring in a guy like Viva Lafray, if you've ever, like, talked to him. Oh, the lawyer.
[1:37:58] He's a jewish lawyer with the big hair who he moved from canada to florida do i have that right.
[1:38:04] Yeah then like yeah yeah like i bet you i'd have a great time with him i bet you we relate a lot and like probably agree to the same stuff but like man i just i just see him constantly black feeling canada it's like you son of a like you left you fled to florida which you know hey maybe i'm a little jealous and then you just constantly bash and it's like ah like so that's why i kind of like do i just you know do the but he like should we do what he did and just say screw it it's over bye i
[1:38:30] Think i personally my personal opinion is that it's worth fighting until free speech goes.
[1:38:36] Yeah okay uh
[1:38:38] Once like particularly i'm sure that you're in sort of my similar boat that it's worth speaking out until you can't.
[1:38:46] I lost you oh
[1:38:48] Sorry are you still with me.
[1:38:49] Yeah i Yeah,
[1:38:51] It's just saying, so it's worth speaking out until you can't, and then if you can't speak out, then it probably is time to set sail for sunnier climes, so to speak.
[1:39:01] Okay, there you go. I don't know. I wanted to figure it out since you live up here.
[1:39:06] Appreciate that. All right. Thanks, man. Good luck, and keep me posted. All right. Barcode. Barcode. I don't know why that suddenly got all kinds of tough, but it did. What the heck? What's on your mind? Yes, go ahead.
[1:39:21] Hi Can I just I'm sort of aligned with you On everything that's been said tonight Where like You sort of can't believe In some sort of supernatural
[1:39:33] Worldview No, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm such a nitpicker. But it's the job, right? No, it's not that I can't believe in it. It's not true.
[1:39:43] Yes, okay. So let me just make a materialist argument for the power of prayer real quick.
[1:39:53] Yeah, go for it.
[1:39:54] All right, so there are these patients that have these grand mal seizures where it strikes from one hemisphere of their brain into the other. And there's something between the hemispheres of the brain called the corpus callosum and they'll sever that in these split brain patients and it makes them cured. They no longer have these horrible seizures that debilitate them. So they put these split brain patients into a box where one eye could only see one object and the other eye would see the other object. And because of the way the hemispheres are split in the brain, one arm and one eye were basically assigned to each half of this box.
[1:40:45] So what's interesting about the human brain is like, there's Broca's and Wernicke's areas of the brain. And one of them is responsible for like speech, like producing speech and talking. And one of them is responsible for understanding speech. And the understanding speech is in both hemispheres, the brain, the right and the left. And the producing speech is only in the left hemisphere, I believe. When they had these split-brain patients who now have their corpus callosum severed, look into this box. They had, I believe it's the right hemisphere that only understands but can't speak. And the left hemisphere can do both. So they would tell the left hemisphere via like an iPad or something to like pick up a Rubik's Cube and pass it to the right hand. And the right hand, they would ask the right hand, why are you holding a Rubik's Cube? And then it would, the way it happened was like the language center of the brain would make up a reason and then firmly believe it, right? So from a materialist perspective, prayer and things like that seem to tap into this right hemisphere that understands language and is good at planning and things like that. Sort of that it like reaches into the future to Like produce a result I've sort of lost my train of thought But like It's just It's just It seems like a lot of this Like spiritual experience and stuff Is Yeah
[1:42:24] I think we lost him. All right. I think we lost him. Maybe his right brain took over. Jimmy James. What is Cyril Le Noggin? Oh, look at me being all Quebecois.
[1:42:35] Hey, hey, hey. What's up? So when you were talking earlier about going to this church stuff and the songs and stuff, and you mentioned a few other things as well, I started picking up on like, yeah, when did gospel music start to really, not gospel music, sorry, uh praise music the praise and worship stuff like the more contemporary music start to enter the church and i wonder if it wouldn't be an interesting kind of research topic because i've only done a little bit of looking because i mean you know i can't quite go deep in it but there's this thing called the jesus movement that started in the 60s and basically they were trying to get a lot of hippies into the church and it kind of i don't know if it's like a rabbit hole or if it's worth looking into, like, what happened to Christianity, if that makes sense. I know it doesn't quite get at what you're saying when it doesn't work. Like, I think that's, like, you talk about World War I and II, right? So the 60s obviously pointed it after that, but I'm wondering if that's worth digging into it all.
[1:43:36] Well, I think it would be interesting. I would assume that, like, all centrally organized, non-voluntary organizations get tokened over by leftists.
[1:43:47] Yeah, yeah, because I'm, like, okay. They said it was not organized and it was just basically a movement, a big old quote-unquote movement. I'm like, nah, if it's a movement, someone's driving. Right.
[1:44:00] And the other thing I think that happened in the American, society starting in the 60s, there started to be a worship of the black experience. And when I was in Florida, not too, too long ago, I went to a... Remember, we had the meetup, right? Yeah, yeah. So... Went to a church in America. And I mean, it was a mixed race and all of that. But I got, and I'm comparing it to my tidy whitey Protestant upbringing where things were very formal. Everyone was in suits. There was some respectful singing and so on. And you go into the American church and there's a band. No, no, you don't understand, James. There was a band.
[1:44:50] Oh, band, band. Okay, not just a guy with a guitar and drums and the piano But a band, a band, okay A band,
[1:44:55] Like, no, you can't understand how bizarre that is to me Okay I'm not saying it's wrong or anything I'm just saying it's a long way from where I grew up And the band played a song And then, you know what the band did?
[1:45:10] What did the band do?
[1:45:12] Played another song Right And then, believe it or not Anyway, spoiler They played like eight songs It went out forever and ever, amen. And everyone's got their hands in the air and that sort of pious staring up at the ceiling stuff and so on. And... Was a lot of music. And rightly or wrongly, maybe I saw the Blues Brothers too many times, but I just sort of view that sort of hyper-musicality stuff as coming out of the sort of Black Baptist Church stuff, or maybe the White Baptist Church. I don't really know much about the history of it, but there just seems to be a sort of very, a big focus on the Black experience in church. I think that's really moved over. It's happened, of course, a lot in music. It's happened in comedy. It's happened in other areas. And so with the black experience comes the matriarchy because, uh, right. Because in the black community, it's, uh, you know, again, maybe just a Lee Peterson, maybe too much Kevin Samuels, but there seems to be quite a strong, um, matriarchy in the black community that you don't cross the women and, and so on.
[1:46:21] And, uh, I think that's driven a lot of, um, because I think the blacks have retained a lot more Christianity than other ethnicities. And so I think that, yeah, a deference to the, you know, sort of tough-minded black females that I think has become kind of circular and has seeped over into other experiences. And it was, you know, it was a nice sermon and so on. But yeah, it's a lot of music, a lot of chanting, a lot of, you know, we're going to do this spiritual weekend, you know, for like 80 bucks. And, you know, again, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, just sort of, there was some business stuff and all of that. And then, yeah, it was a very mild, you know, try to be nicer to people kind of stuff. It wasn't like, you know, here's the absolutely tough moral crusade stuff that we have to do on. It's all just, you know, be nice to people and be thoughtful. And it just seemed kind of anemic in a way.
[1:47:15] Right, right.
[1:47:16] But yeah if you're interested certainly, certainly look into it
[1:47:20] Yeah, I think i want to go into it. Because um i just just these five bullet points i'll read off real quick uh the jesus movement bridge the gap between hippie counterculture of christianity which is okay um in the 60s and 70s contemporary music on worship styles casual attire informal gatherings communal living and social activism media and youth engagement and focus on experiential spirit um spirituality like ecstatic worship, speaking in tongues, spontaneous evangelism etc so when i think of like even even my experience in church was when i was a kid um not quite as formal it was more informal like we didn't have formal dress but we had hymns we had i don't think fire and brimstone sermons i'm not saying it's what you had but you know like serious moral sermons um but i recall i don't remember that much but you know some challenging stuff i think um but uh yeah i mean you know maybe a few praise songs here and there i grew up in a protestant church right not quite anglican but um i think i think that'd be interesting um i wonder how far back has go or just like focus on that because it does seem like as you mentioned like before like with the world war one well i sort of touched on this before actually now i think about it um you know going back to the seminaries with the orthodox church in uh you know in russia you know with the the socialists coming into the seminaries and stuff um and all that yeah
[1:48:46] I i don't want to overly blaspheme the catholics but It's hard for me to know how Catholicism would be different if the communists had taken over. So it's undifferentiated for me. I'm not sure what would be different. So, oh, the communists have taken over. It's like, okay, well, if there's an alternate universe where the communists took over the Catholic Church, how would it be different from what's going on right now? I can't really point to it. You know, when you see the, you know, the Pope washing non-Christian migrant feet, it just becomes a little hard to follow the theology, to put it mildly.
[1:49:24] Yeah. Recently, I heard tell of a pastor, a pastor of some church who was saying something. I think it must have been private. I don't think he was talking about this like a pulpit. But saying, yeah, if all Christians follow the Bible, then basically we live in a communist society. Like, oh, my God, dude. I don't think you're thinking, yeah. I think he's, yeah....
[1:49:44] Maybe that's the Garden of Eden fantasy. I don't know, but that seems very odd to me, given that communism is explicitly atheist. That seems very odd to me. Yeah, it's worth looking into if you're interested.
[1:49:57] Yeah, I think I will. I think I will.
[1:50:00] Anything else?
[1:50:02] No, that was one thing I wanted to share.
[1:50:04] I appreciate that. Thanks. Just for those of you who don't know, James and I work together. All right, Luke. Luke.
[1:50:11] Let's have someone in for whom there is a a Bible book. Yes, if you want to unmute, I'm all ears. Once, going twice. All right. Maybe a shortened version.
[1:50:22] All right. Kips, if you want to come in, I'm happy to hear. If you wanted to unmute, let me know what's on your mind. Going once, going twice. Look at that. I think we've lost everyone. Oh, we've still got a few more people. We'll survive. All right. Let us go with Lieutenant. I thought it was Lieutenant. it. I don't have my glasses on. Well, at least not my reading glasses. If you want to unmute. Yes, sir. What's on your mind?
[1:50:52] I just had a quick question. Do you know who Max Stirner is? And if so, what do you think about him?
[1:50:59] Max Stirner, a German sociologist? Do I have that right?
[1:51:04] I think, yeah, and a philosopher.
[1:51:07] Uh-huh. You know what? I would not be able to tell you anything remotely intelligent or interesting about Max Stirner. I have not read him or studied him in any way that I can particularly remember. So I'm afraid I'm not going to be of much use there.
[1:51:24] Okay, that's fine. That's all I was wondering.
[1:51:26] All right. Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. We've got JJ, if you are, unmute. Yes, sir.
[1:51:35] What's on your mind? Yeah, what you said earlier, so about the church and not really coming through for society, I echo that same point. So I grew up in a black Baptist church. There was some still strong male leadership. And as I grew up, I started seeing nothing materialize. Like I saw my mother praying, saw my grandmother praying, and all I saw was like these nasty, yucky things happening and so i was like eight or nine years old and i was like to hell with this right it doesn't work um obviously being you know black or african-american you're kind of the outcast in the community back in that like that time frame um but it's interesting how over the past couple decades like more people are open to being like agnostic or atheist from when i was a young kid. So, yeah, I mean, I think the challenge is that I want to have kids, right? But it's like, would I want to put them in a system that creates people that don't know how to fight back for what they believe in, right? It's kind of tricky because the principles that I got from Christianity, there are some really good things in there, but I would say by and large in terms of, here's how I would sum it up. Christianity prepared me for a world that did not exist.
[1:53:00] Huh, that's interesting. Yeah, yeah. Go on.
[1:53:03] Yeah, and so coming up, I mean, I'm not going to make it all about race, but pretty much culturally, I'm going to make it all about race. Lot of different cultures came into my area. I'm in a coastal city. Um, so we kind of get flooded with just different ethnicities and whatnot. And elementary is fine. Middle school is fine. We're kind of all culturally the same, no matter if the ethnicity is different, become college in particular, like hell into high school, college.
[1:53:35] I was like, huh, something's not really adding up. And then I got into the workforce, 1099 independent contract of selling. I'm banging my head against the wall. I can't relate to anyone, even if I am being professional, to the nine. And I'm learning from the best of the best, reading books, reading a book every week, going to little seminars, trainings and whatnot. Eventually, I kind of cracked through, had some success. But, yeah, I was prepared for a world that did not exist. And how you speak on, I want to make sure I get this right, is not being ethical with people that are unethical, how that sets you up to be taken advantage of. And that was kind of the story of my life until I said, all right, this isn't working. And for me, that realization began to materialize times. 100 was when I was in sales and I had nothing, at no salary. It was fewer commission. I had to eat what I kill.
[1:54:40] And I was like, you know what? All the thoughts I had when I was six, seven, eight, nine years old, I was right. That's kind of my experience with it. And growing up in a black church, yeah, the band is like, that's everything. I mean, it's a whole concert. Like it is. So the church I went to, it's kind of strange because it was a male pastor. Now his daughter took over after he passed away and people got upset about there being a woman but yeah the matriarchy and the like the the feel good the feel goodsies type of i don't know how to explain it um but like that whole emotional experience is just like as a guy you're like oh why am i here right it's it's so cringe just like no i can't come back and i tried to go back i was like you know what let me let me give it another shot and you Maybe this might be TMI, but I'm watching, you know, a family member of mine give 10% of their money to the church.
[1:55:44] And I'm like, this church owns like literally the next three blocks adjacent to the church. Like they don't, they have rental income. They don't need your money. You're sitting here with no money. Like you have nothing. You have no retirement, no assets. And you're thinking 10% a week is going to give you an eternal blessing. So for me, I mean, if someone asks me if I'm Christian, eh, I say I was raised Christian.
[1:56:14] Where's the don't carry before you marry thunder from the pulpit stuff in the black community? Yes, you know, three-quarters of the black kids are born without dads, without fathers, without husbands for their moms. Where's the fire and brimstone?
[1:56:30] Yeah, it's a whole—it's just contradictory to, like, the fullest. It's because a lot of the kids that I knew when I was a kid, I came back. I went back to this church maybe two years ago, and I was the only one, you know, clean-cut, well-spoken, nice car. Not that that matters, but everyone else is out of wedlock, overweight. They look defeated. And it's like they were raised in this church, and I left.
[1:57:01] Yeah. I mean, as you know, the average black woman is north of 200 pounds.
[1:57:05] Insanity.
[1:57:06] I mean, that's the defiling of God's holy temple of the flesh. I mean, if that's not the sin of gluttony, I don't know what is. And where is the, of course, you know, if you thunder from the pulpit and say, you know, you guys are sinning and all this bad stuff is going down and your kid's out of wedlock and sin of gluttony and the sin of sloth with the welfare dependence and all of that, it's like, what would happen? I mean, wouldn't he get tarred and feathered and hung up by the matriarchy by his, just the browns?
[1:57:36] Yeah and that's what you would hope because when i went back i felt like i was surrounded by just
[1:57:43] sorry, by what?
[1:57:44] I felt like i was surrounded by like this poverty squalor um and it was very uninspiring and for me like i've tried different you know churches out and it's yeah i mean growing up i'll tell you i can get emotional with a good band right there's something about hearing a good the choir and all that. Oh, yeah. But that, but it's, I mean, how would I say it? It's kind of like you're trying to, woo or lure your target in, right? You play the music, starts getting loud. You clap, say yes, put your hands in the air, and then comes an offering.
[1:58:20] Yeah.
[1:58:21] And so me and my brothers and my cousins, we would clown on that like all the time. Like how was it that, you know, auntie this, mom, that, they just fall for this stuff. And it's funny how they're all single with kids. It's like, how are you falling for this? Like how do you not see through this? And it was, I tell you, being a kid, kind of just like coming to that awakening, reading books, science, and I wasn't all on empiricism. I didn't know the word yet. But you're just reading. And it's like, how does anyone not see the obvious? Because blindingly obvious, everyone here is fat. Everyone here is broke, except for the people in the pulpit and their friends that are adjacent to them. And it's like they might talk about you know financial freedom and health when I come back a decade later you guys are still living in the ghetto ghetto's gotten worse you've gotten just like a torrential downpour of cross cultures in there and some of the cultures that have flooded in actually have like it's uh I guess for the audience they they have a thing where they actually have like not like a race war but they don't ally themselves with another race, the blacks, all right?
[1:59:40] And so, interestingly enough, there'll still be black people that say, oh, we stand by them and we this and that. Meanwhile, their gang members are like, no, we kill these type of people. All right? It's called NK. The N stands for something and the K stands for killer. All right? So that's, it's a, yeah, it's a known thing. And so.
[1:59:59] Listen, man, you can say the word nougat on this show. Just kidding. All right. All right.
[2:00:04] Yeah, but my whole experience is that it prepared me for a world that did not exist.
[2:00:10] And listen, it's always a big challenge when you're publicly talking about truth, virtue, goodness. It's basically the philosophical or the theological question. Do you hammer the truth no matter what? Or do you say, well, you've got to meet the congregation where they are. If we condemn them too much, they won't come back. Do you adjust the message because of the audience? or do you thunder the truth and see who wants it? And, you know, I mean, listen, I get that if you're running a restaurant, sorry to trivialize it, like if you're running a restaurant and nobody's ordering the seafood pasta, okay, you drop the seafood pasta because nobody wants it, right? They don't care. So I get that. But this is the eternal salvation of the soul. This is the most foundational moral argument that can be made in all of existence. Surely you should focus on telling the truth and actually saving souls rather
[2:01:15] than moderating the message. Well, you know, we don't want to annoy the women who had children outside of wedlock because of X, Y, and Z. And it's like, but then what are you? What are you then if you're not, if you're sort of knocking down the 10 commandments, if you're knocking those down, if you're just, oh, you know, well, we'll, will adapt to where people are and so on. It's like, well, what are you then? If you're not doing any of that stuff, I don't, I don't, I don't know what it is anymore. I don't know what it's standing for. And I guess maybe the cynicism is, well, they, you know, they, they need their income. And if they drive people away, they're, they're broke.
[2:01:53] My whole kind of, I guess, response to it, I've been listening to you for about, I want to say, a solid, close to a year. And you talk about just ostracism kind of being away and not necessarily professing the truth because I'm dealing with this now in my family of origin. It's like, yeah, I don't really want to be around this. It's nothing. I won't say it's nothing positive. It's just growing up, typical story, nothing out of the ordinary. Everyone knows what's going on. And it's like no one said anything or stood up. And yet you guys are all Christians. And you guys had the quote-unquote antibiotic, but you guys are all, I guess, either doing the church a disservice by representing it wronged, or that's just the product of the faith. And so you speak on credibility. I heard you speak on that before. Or if you want to, I guess, influence someone, you have to have credibility. And most, I mean, I'll tread softly with the statement. With the Christians that I have known, black, white, Korean, Japanese, Latino, Mexican, Central American, a lot of good-hearted people, but I think under pressure, they tend to just conform to the masses.
[2:03:19] Right. And we can understand that, of course, we are herd animals and we've got to get along in order to survive in a tribe and all of that. But Christianity is supposed to be above all of that. Christianity is supposed to put divine concerns above. And, you know, I remember reading about how the Christian churches were absolutely instrumental in taking tons of money from the, So I did a whole show, I won't go into the details of it, called The Truth About the Crusades, that the Crusades were the result of hundreds of years of the slaughter of Christians by Muslims in the Middle East. And when I was reading about the churches, Lutherans, the Protestant denominations, and some Catholics, I was like, hang on, I mean, I don't want to obviously condemn every individual as part of a belief system, I get all of that, but I mean, that seems like a pretty wild stance to take from a religion that has persecuted, and it's currently still persecuting and murdering Christians, for the Christian churches to take massive amounts of money from the government to import and settle Somalians in Minnesota, which is why there's Obamacare, because that was the deciding vote. And I just was like, I don't know what this means. I don't know what this means anymore.
[2:04:50] I don't know what it means that American Christians are just absolutely no question, can't even debate it, rabidly pro-Israel. I don't know what that means because that seems very political and separation of church and state. I know it's not a formal doctrine, but they should be focused on the things. And I know they say, well, it's required for Jesus coming back and so on. But so, you know, and then, you know, settling the, from a religion that has a long history of persecuting Christians into a very Christian neighborhood, I don't understand the church anymore. And look, I'm not saying that this can't ever happen. I'm just like, where's the debate? I mean, are there no concerns that the church might be taking too much money from the government? And yeah, so anyway, I just find it kind of confusing and it's not really doing its job to protect the West. Sorry, is there anything else that you wanted to mention i appreciate the the conversation.
[2:05:50] Yeah i'd say one more thing this you said this i believe it was a other one of your other live streams the other day how when you would go outside there will always be kids outside to play um back on that point about preparing you for a world that doesn't exist um what has deterred me in the past until listening to you from having kids it's like i live in a city and there is no way i would have kids and let them just be out riding their bikes around town. Look at how people drive. It is like, it's pretty scary out here.
[2:06:24] Like, how would a seven-year-old boy or girl know how to avert these crazy people that don't you know drive with caution right yeah it's crazy and then there's no there's no kids really out and then you know you got child predators and different cultures you don't know what they believe and it was crazy but thank you for your truth about marriage show that's a kind of turn my whole ideas around, but everything you say is true. I believe it. And you have taken one man out the ghetto indirectly.
[2:07:02] Well, listen, brother, I really appreciate that. And I'm thrilled that you're becoming a dad. I'm thrilled that you're interested in focusing on marriage and kids. I think that's absolutely wonderful. And that is the very best thing I think that the show does in the short run is try to convince people to become parents, and to get married. All right. I'm going to throw the last two people in, See if they're around Otherwise we will shut things down for the night Luke Kip Going once.
[2:07:30] Going twice How you doing? How you doing, Stefan? Hey, to your point earlier about Where are the churches When it comes to protecting their flock I believe it was about two weeks ago Someone from Israel Had to register with the Pharah Because they were Geofencing Christians In four western states to give them propaganda messages. Sorry, what?
[2:07:56] Geofencing? I'm sorry if this is a term. I'm sure other people know what it is, but I don't know what it is. What does that mean?
[2:08:03] It means capturing all their electronic data as they enter the premises of their houses of worship, and then giving them October 7th experience messages, and then repeatedly, I guess, giving them follow-up messages. So, I mean, I just thought that just seems so over the line,
[2:08:25] but that's something for you to look into would be geofencing of Christians in four Western states. So it's like they feel like they've got a foothold out there somewhere and they're going to protect it by any means necessary, sir. But I just remember it probably was about seven or eight years ago that you were apparently tugging at some threads that were like over the line, apparently. And I never could figure out what it was. I never could figure out what it was. But it was just a lesson that it doesn't matter. You can be out there and just as honest as truthful. You know, you were talking earlier about where do you draw that line. And, you know, we found with politics, you better be real careful when it comes to your friends, neighbors, and relatives. And I'm sure you've been coaching people up on that. But I just, I just, I'm new to these spaces and found you tonight. I wanted to mention to you something that had happened to me in California. 2007 that I think sort of fixed me. But, you know, I would love your analysis on what it could have been because. All right.
[2:09:28] Just don't give me ghostly pokes in the night.
[2:09:32] I know it. I know it. I'm still sort of reeling from that story. Sorry, but I had become sort of disillusioned.
[2:09:39] I hate doing that to people. I really do. I hate it. I hate it because, you know, this means a lot to the guy. It's part of his identity. It's what makes him feel special and and precious. And I just I feel like I'm taking kid away from a candy away from a kid. And I just I hate doing it. But we got to do the right thing. But sorry, go ahead.
[2:09:57] Well, I'm close to your age, 57. The experience I'm going to describe happened to me. 57? Damn, you're old. Yeah. And it happened to me closer to 37. So feel free to be brutally honest, because after the experience, I had to try to reverse engineer had I lost my mind or had my own mind saved myself or some, you know, or see, you know. So anyway, I'd gotten very disillusioned. If you'll remember about that time, the mortgage industry was imploding. So here I was, I thought I was settled into an industry 15 years and all of a sudden it was blown.
[2:10:34] I just quit my entire career to start podcasting and the economy cratered and I got attacked by the media. It was a joyful time, let me tell you.
[2:10:43] You sort of know what I'm talking about here. So anyway, I was sort of searching for answers. And I can remember probably a dozen times being under the shower in the morning, you know, with the water just pouring on my head going, oh, man, is this what it was all about? You know, is this, had I constructed a blessing or a curse for myself? You know what I mean? So I want to tell you, going into what I'm going to say, you could see I was at a point there where there was a transition period. I was looking for something, wasn't I, Stefan? There was something there. So anyway, what had happened? Long and short was I was working on my computer trying to salvage what was left of my career. And a little thought came across my head that said, go tell Digger he can go now. Now, Digger was my dog. And, of course, I was a hardcore atheist, so I didn't really believe in such things. But maybe it was because I was in like some...
[2:11:44] Wait, what do you mean? You didn't believe in like dogs? You didn't believe in dogs?
[2:11:48] No, no, no. I'm just saying. You're not supposed to
[2:11:50] Believe in God. Dogs are fine. Anyway, sorry. Go on.
[2:11:53] Sorry, Stefan, I just didn't really believe in anything supernatural. But I could not explain my own voice, you know, the way something would tell you to go cut off the oven, telling you to go tell Jigger he can go now. So I swung my chair around because the dog was right behind me. And I said, basically told him I loved him, told him he'd been a good dog. And, you know, if he was hurting, I would rather have him gone and not hurting than here and hurting. Don't you know that dog took one breath on me and died? And it just, it broke my heart, Stefan.
[2:12:25] So for about two weeks, I was tore up about him. So now, you know, so now I'm putting that thought to bed. And then a thought come across my mind. I said, how'd you know? You know, how'd you know something was wrong with the dog? Because he hadn't given any visible signs of anything. So, you know. Anyway, what I'm getting ready to describe to you is a daemon. You know, if you remember old Greek thinking they had this thing called a daemon that would be their helper. Or maybe it was my own unconscious, but I was captured by something, man. Truly captured. And it took me down into the abyss and began to sort of strip away.
[2:13:03] You've gone all analogy on, I don't know what that means, captured down into the abyss. What do you mean?
[2:13:08] Well, no, no, I said I was captured by something that I basically was, you know, in that what's it really all about, you know, and that same.
[2:13:21] Oh, you mean you were like depressed or?
[2:13:23] No, no, no, no, I was just sort of searching. I had realized that sadness had sort of decided about losing the dog, but I was curious about what was that one in a million, how did I know to go tell him goodbye at that moment where he was going to take his last breaths? That was still messing with my mind a little bit. You could see how that would mess with your mind a little bit. Well, okay, but hang on.
[2:13:47] But I mean, there's ways to explain that, obviously. I mean, first of all, you'd probably thought about him dying a whole bunch of times, number one, and he hadn't died. But also, unconsciously, you may have heard a change in his breathing. He may have just suddenly collapsed. His breathing may have stopped for a little bit and you didn't notice it consciously. And so there's this. I mean, if you'd known the dog for a long time, the dog's at the house. It's kind of quiet. There's a whole rhythm of exploration and dying that we are kind of attuned to, particularly, you know, the European history with animals and their protection and so on. So there's lots of ways in which…, explainable, if that makes sense. But you're saying.
[2:14:29] I may have been more attuned to him than I realized. That's what you're sort of saying. I get that. But anyway, I sort of had that same voice that had told me to go tell him he could go now. It said, basically, do you really want to know? And I was like, shoot, yeah. And there again, at this point, I'm still probably considered an atheist, but I had this unconscious or daemon or whatever you want to call it tell me that I had sort of been led astray, that I had been trying to maybe please too many people along the way and try to fit the mold of what everybody else wanted and sort of lost my own essence or whatever. And I needed to go down and kind of strip a bunch of stuff away, down and down deep into the abyss and kind of start from scratch.
[2:15:27] And, uh, I just remember without going into too many details, I just remember like at some point being instructed, uh, about a concept that I wasn't familiar with and saying, well, why don't you just fast today? Don't eat anything. We'll pick it up tomorrow. Well, I did that and, you know, followed the advice or whatever, but that's not something, you know, that I would have regularly thought of. I remember another, occasion that I was being pushed basically more towards an androgynous state, as if I would have been built up my masculine side too much and didn't have a feeling or intuitive side to me at all. And I kind of need to get straightened out a little bit. And that sort of reminded me of what you might want to call, you know, Jungian psychologists, where they feel like they're, they need to be 50-50 when the Lord flips the switch on them or something. And then, um, and instructed, you know, basically what you might want to call Buddhist kind of thoughts of right thoughts lead to right words, lead to right actions, and basically how you can, you know, power up maybe the inside of yourself in the same way you can build up your muscles on the outside.
[2:16:38] But this thing seemed basically concerned with the ego and desires and fears and basically transcending those, you know, just trying to get above that base level. And I just remember afterwards having this God-awful messianic complex that I had to get rid of, you know what I mean? Because I could see the parallels with people like Jesus and people through history that just, you know, had been, I guess, gotten themselves straightened out and was kind of preaching what they'd been taught. So I kind of quickly tried to keep that to myself because I caught on to what was going on there. And I just remember there was sort of like a dangerous fearlessness that I had to sort of reel in because when the fears were gone, they were really going. And then I remember sort of some sort of connection to sort of everything in the universe, maybe not to the point of a Janus to where they would put cheesecloth over their face to keep from, you know, taking in bugs or whatever. But I could tell that there was some sort of connection to everything that wasn't there before. And all of a sudden I had this, I could tell that me and materialism was totally incompatible.
[2:17:54] Yeah, sorry. I've had a similar experience where I had, I don't know, 16 months of insomnia. And it turned out that it's because I was not having reciprocity in my relationships that I was giving to other people, but they weren't giving back. And you can do that for a while. And that's, you know, the pendulum of life is sometimes you give to others and sometimes they give to you, but it was just had a bit of one-sided thing. And those relationships were blocking me from achieving my potential and so um i ended up you know i did a lot of journaling i went to therapy and so yeah there's times when you're unconscious it's like yeah things are not going well i think that the the approach that we're taking the world the world that we're taking the we're sacrificing too much we are living too much for others we're not living with integrity we're not being because sacrificing is kind of dishonest if it's too much too long because you're not expecting or asking reciprocity. And if you get pleasure out of helping others, you wouldn't want to deny them the pleasure of helping you. And so I think that there's kind of an unconscious counter that goes on in our minds, which is there to make sure we don't get exploited in the long run. And so I would imagine that that kind of kicked in after a while for you.
[2:19:08] And the pendulum occurs psychologically in the world as a whole. So I would say that that probably had something to do with it, but I wouldn't say that it was anything supernatural. Because supernatural is isolating. Because.
[2:19:24] When you talk about supernatural things, they're unreproducible for others. If I say, hey, I just wrote a great book, which I think I did. I wrote a great book called Dissolution. So I can share that book. I can say, hey, here's what I wrote. And people can give me feedback on it. I can tweak or change or whatever, improve. And we're having a conversation here in an objective medium. But if you think supernatural things have happened to you it's very isolating because you can't share it with other people you either just have to have people around you who believe you no matter what, or they're not going to be around you because they don't they don't believe you and so i try to stay away from experiences that isolate me and i've never met somebody who's not sorry i've never met somebody who's really into the supernatural stuff who's not foundationally isolated because they cannot reproduce their experiences with others and that's my concern that with social animals we have to meet in reality. Sorry go ahead
[2:20:21] Yeah yeah there's no analogy you know in this world and and you can't live in that you know and some of the hardest things is going to be to like come down from that you you got you got to come back down there because everybody else lives here you know you know what i mean
[2:20:35] Well we we can only connect with each other in the real in in the empirical in the factual uh you and i can't meet in my dreams tonight um unless you've ordered a stripper gram uh but yeah so so we the more that we focus on the supernatural and the subjective the less we can connect with others the more isolated we'd become and we need sanity is a social thing we need people checking over our thoughts and our ideas and if they're just singular to us then we tend to end up isolated all right well listen i appreciate that thank you everyone I'm sorry, Michael, I didn't get to you, but I have to return a phone call tonight. I appreciate everyone dropping by, freedomain.com/donate, if you love these conversations, and I know that you do. Please help out the show, freedomain.com/donate. We will talk to you tomorrow night for Friday Night Live, and have yourself a glorious evening. Bye-bye. Tomorrow's. Okay.
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