Based Camp - September 14, 2024


Tract 8： Is Baalite Worship Being Mistaken for Christianity？ (How Techno-Puritans Define Good)


Episode Stats

Length

2 hours and 52 minutes

Words per Minute

173.26093

Word Count

29,842

Sentence Count

1,650

Misogynist Sentences

16

Hate Speech Sentences

104


Summary

In this episode, we re-visit a classic from the late 1800s: The New Covenant, a tract written by a group of young men called the "Techno-Puritans." They rewrote the Old Testament and re-wrote the New Testament, and they re-examined the truth about sex and sin.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed.
00:00:05.640 What is the kingdom of God?
00:00:08.480 That's heaven.
00:00:09.800 That's what's being described here.
00:00:12.080 Heaven is a time.
00:00:13.580 You don't become one flesh with someone by having sex with them.
00:00:16.860 Is that two people having a child together does literally make two people one spirit.
00:00:23.580 That makes a lot more sense.
00:00:25.640 Yeah.
00:00:25.860 What is being talked about here isn't sex.
00:00:30.520 It's the creation of a new person.
00:00:34.520 When I read it with the techno-puritan framing, it makes so much sense to me.
00:00:39.320 When I read it with traditional Christian framing, it makes a bunch of weird claims where you need to get all metaphorical and everything.
00:00:47.840 It feels like you're bending over backward to make it work.
00:00:51.920 And this is just correct.
00:00:55.860 It just seems correct.
00:00:57.140 Of course.
00:00:57.740 Real worship is not done through masturbating emotional states.
00:01:01.660 Even if they include feelings of grandeur and awe, they are still basal emotions.
00:01:06.380 Of course they feel good.
00:01:08.260 That is what masturbation does.
00:01:09.980 It makes you feel good.
00:01:11.240 That is not a sign that it is good.
00:01:12.940 As a side note here, people will use the story of the gold used in the tabernacle from Exodus as an excuse to worship in lordly decorated buildings.
00:01:23.000 However, it is important to remember that we believe some policyistic stories and tales worked their way into the religious texts like the Bible, especially when you're talking about older texts like Exodus, but that God loudly and explicitly marks where this has happened.
00:01:37.340 So anyone paying even the littlest bit of attention will notice what's being done in this tabernacle.
00:01:42.940 Imagine you go up to a place of worship and you saw this ceremony being carried out.
00:01:47.680 It is not like any of this is subtle.
00:02:11.900 But it does mean that God expects you to actually be paying attention when you read it and use the smallest amount of discretion when doing so.
00:02:21.160 It's like someone saw that scene.
00:02:23.620 And they walk away and they go, yeah, that was definitely a bunch of good Christians.
00:02:45.100 That's what this story is meant to teach us is what ballite worship looks like.
00:02:47.820 That this ballite sin transference ritual doesn't work is also recorded for us in the Bible.
00:02:52.500 If it did work, both Moses and the other Israelites would have been able to go into the promised land.
00:02:57.600 When I look at Christians who pray to a God of precious metals and animal sacrifices,
00:03:01.820 the God that gets off to humans ripping apart birds as an act of worship, I am reminded of...
00:03:06.800 All will be well and you will know the name of God.
00:03:10.440 The one true God.
00:03:13.100 Be a Makoital.
00:03:15.440 Be a what?
00:03:16.880 Be a Makoital.
00:03:18.840 He's here.
00:03:20.220 He's everywhere.
00:03:20.980 Come on.
00:03:24.340 He's talking about a bug.
00:03:26.540 He thinks God is a bug?
00:03:28.380 He's got religion.
00:03:30.720 Maybe we should kill him.
00:03:33.220 Why?
00:03:33.760 Because he believes in God like you.
00:03:36.780 It's the wrong God!
00:03:39.180 Would you like to know more?
00:03:41.020 Hello, Simone!
00:03:42.140 We're going to be doing another Tracked episode.
00:03:43.860 For people who are new watchers and not familiar with these, we mark them with a different color gear logo just so you know that you're going to get into some real weirdness.
00:03:54.840 It's on our personal religious beliefs and reengaging with the Abrahamic tradition for us and finding an iteration of it that I think is true.
00:04:04.540 And you can think of it like an outline for another denomination of Christianity that we call Techno-Puritanism.
00:04:11.360 And I'm just going to jump right in because I like that.
00:04:13.940 I like the active theological conversation.
00:04:15.920 But there's also some risk to that because when you're having an active theological conversation about what you believe, that really opens you up to criticism and can make you look kind of foolish.
00:04:23.540 Especially if it includes, well, any sort of religious component, right?
00:04:28.320 If you don't have a big community to back you and you say something like, oh, well, this guy was walking on water.
00:04:32.620 People are like, oh, you must be in a cult, you know?
00:04:34.820 So as Nigel says in the opening scene of The Devil Wears Prada.
00:04:38.380 All right, everyone, gird your loins.
00:04:42.260 Did someone eat an onion bagel?
00:04:44.260 All right.
00:04:44.940 How do Techno-Puritans define good?
00:04:47.900 Although this one could also be called the New Covenant.
00:04:50.760 I save this tract for later because I suspect it is going to anger more people than our other tracts.
00:04:56.200 Most because it has much more radical reinterpretations of classical biblical stories than we have gone into before this.
00:05:03.520 Like the tabernacle as well as Nebuchadnezzar's dream.
00:05:07.460 And it regards sin and telling people that they are sinners, which is never popular.
00:05:13.260 But as Galatians 1.10 says,
00:05:15.320 Modern Christians have narrowed their concept of sin by focusing on the sins of others that cause disgust in them.
00:05:32.260 They say, that person has gay sex.
00:05:34.780 That's a sin.
00:05:35.960 And that person masturbates.
00:05:37.480 That's a sin.
00:05:38.280 And it's like, yes, that is true.
00:05:41.760 But you should be more focused on your own sins than those of others.
00:05:45.500 What does the Bible tell us about how we should live our lives?
00:05:48.660 Let's go over a few lines here.
00:05:50.400 Corinthians 10.31 instructs,
00:05:53.640 Whether therefore you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
00:05:58.940 End quote.
00:05:59.860 Corinthians 5.10, which states,
00:06:02.160 And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again.
00:06:10.540 Galatians 3.23 states,
00:06:12.840 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not unto men.
00:06:19.500 Romans 14.23,
00:06:21.780 But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it.
00:06:26.580 For you are not following your convictions.
00:06:28.720 If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.
00:06:32.220 The Bible is pretty clear about what is sin.
00:06:35.460 Sin is anything you do, not for God.
00:06:38.200 Whether that's listening to music, watching a sports game, playing video games, looking at art, or gay sex.
00:06:44.540 If your response to this is,
00:06:46.920 But no one can live a sinless life then.
00:06:50.320 Congratulations, you just found out you're not a God.
00:06:52.680 In this tract, we will focus on Technopuritans' conceptions of good and evil.
00:06:57.900 But before we talk about what I think the traditional interpretations of Christianity get wrong about sin,
00:07:03.280 let's talk about what broader society thinks about good and evil, and how it got there.
00:07:08.660 So what are your thoughts so far on what the Bible says sin is?
00:07:12.520 Does that sound right to you?
00:07:13.520 I mean, I like the focus, at least in the quotes provided, on the spirit of the law rather than the letter of the law.
00:07:25.400 Though I imagine that there's plenty in the Bible that could probably shove people toward the letter of the law instead.
00:07:32.500 You know how people select things from the Bible very advantageously toward their goals.
00:07:36.520 Because I think you are right, but I also think clearly and repeatedly throughout the Bible, as I have shown here,
00:07:43.780 it states, sin is anything you do not for God.
00:07:47.560 So while there's a bunch of specific rules that are mentioned in the Bible,
00:07:51.300 I'll go over why I don't think those are as relevant in modern times.
00:07:55.000 And this broader, stricter definition of sin is probably right.
00:07:59.360 But then you need to consider, which we'll go into later in this,
00:08:01.980 well, if you're doing it for God, what does that mean?
00:08:03.880 Like, what is the nature of God?
00:08:05.140 How do you know you're not doing it for a false God, right?
00:08:09.180 So now we're going to go into the way sin is conceptualized in secular society.
00:08:13.780 I would just add, though, I really love that passage about if you think a food isn't right to eat, then don't eat it.
00:08:21.580 Like, if you, if you, I think, let's just, yeah, let's put it this way.
00:08:28.220 Sinning, I think, is a lot like porn.
00:08:30.380 You know it when you see it.
00:08:31.520 So if you're like, well, this seems a little sinful, it probably is.
00:08:36.020 And so what is sinful can differ between individuals.
00:08:38.800 And that line shows that because not everyone's going to have the same reaction to something.
00:08:42.800 And I think that the strength of your reaction to something is correlated to your individual susceptibility to that form of sin.
00:08:50.020 When I talk about susceptibility to a form of sin, it's how much is that sin going to pull you away from God?
00:08:55.840 And so you think of something like drinking, right?
00:08:58.080 Like to one individual, drinking might not be much of a sin at all because they can drink and it doesn't affect their ability to work or to worship or anything like that.
00:09:05.940 Another person, they engage a little bit with a drink.
00:09:08.400 And now all of a sudden it's the entire focus of their life.
00:09:11.120 Or it's the same thing with certain types of sexuality.
00:09:13.660 Some people can engage with it without consuming their entire lives.
00:09:16.460 And for them, it's less of a sin.
00:09:18.080 While for other people, it's more of a sin because of the temptation involved in it for them.
00:09:22.660 But like pain, sin is very context dependent.
00:09:27.440 Yes.
00:09:28.400 To your average member of society, good and evil are determined by what, if widely believed, would help the average person maximize their own emotional state, e.g. general utilitarianism.
00:09:37.600 However, general utilitarianism, maximally distributing positive emotional states among humans, is on its face stupid.
00:09:44.560 And those emotional states are just the things that, when felt in response to certain environmental stimuli, led to some of our ancestors having more surviving offspring than others.
00:09:53.240 They are things that we were serendipitously pre-coded to react to based on environmental conditions that haven't existed for thousands of years.
00:10:00.040 As we have said ad nauseum, humans coming up with a utilitarian value system is like a society of paperclip maximizers coming together and building an ethical system based on the number of paperclips in the world.
00:10:14.220 Your programming is just that.
00:10:15.720 Your programming.
00:10:16.500 Not a sign of intrinsic value.
00:10:18.420 However, society does not tell us that utilitarianism is a politically correct value system to signal because most people genuinely hold it as their value system.
00:10:25.560 It chooses to follow it because most people are, at their core, hedonists.
00:10:30.640 And when you ask a hedonist what you should value, it is in their best interest to tell you not to be a hedonist, but to be a utilitarian.
00:10:37.120 The secular world is a world of hedonists trying to maximize a combination of their emotional state and their self-perception as a good, high-status person, all while trying to reduce any in-the-moment suffering.
00:10:47.180 However, because perceived status and being a good person are in part determined by an individual's ability to loudly signal they hold a utilitarian value set, the secular world has become a world of hedonists constantly signaling to each other that they are utilitarians.
00:11:02.860 It's a pathetic masquerade.
00:11:05.320 Yeah, checks out.
00:11:06.180 Consequentialist ethical systems are those systems interested in the consequences of one's actions with some goal in mind.
00:11:15.920 Deontological ethical systems are those based around a set of rules.
00:11:19.500 In a broader sense, deontological ethical systems are kind of dumb.
00:11:23.120 Quote, lying slash stealing slash cheating are bad and always evil, end quote.
00:11:29.140 Quote, okay, well, what if someone has a gun to a kid's head and will shoot if you don't lie slash cheat slash steal, end quote.
00:11:35.500 Almost every deontologist I know caves in this scenario about what the right thing to do is, because they are really consequentialists who are just using deontological systems to make daily decisions.
00:11:46.780 So while it is dumb to believe deontological systems are absolutely right or wrong, it is actually quite smart to build a deontological system to follow for your daily life,
00:11:55.860 as it is easier to create a set of rules about right and wrong than thinking through the long-term consequences of every little decision you make.
00:12:03.020 This is especially true if you are of average or below average intelligence.
00:12:08.180 Thus, at the level of a population, it would always make sense for God to reveal deontological ethical systems,
00:12:14.320 especially to the philosophically less sophisticated man that existed thousands of years ago.
00:12:19.380 If God was operating on a consequentialist ethical system,
00:12:22.300 he would have revealed varying deontological value systems to early man tailored to that iteration of man's time and context.
00:12:29.960 This is exactly what he did.
00:12:32.100 Most of the true Abrahamic traditions have a collection of varying deontological ethical frameworks given to them by God based on their time, technology, and social circumstances.
00:12:43.080 This is why many of the true revelations of God have prescriptions around things like slave treatment,
00:12:48.600 even though we know that owning slaves is wrong.
00:12:50.960 In a world where slavery was the norm, God was able to ensure more mass good action for his people by giving specific prescriptions on how to treat slaves than outright banning slave ownership,
00:13:03.480 because if he had done that and the harsh reality of our ancestors, his people would have been out-competed by their neighbors.
00:13:09.820 However, we can clearly see that God is not a deontologist through the fact that the deontological ethical systems he gifted man across time differ.
00:13:18.720 If God was using these systems because they were his actual ethical framework, he would not have buried them.
00:13:24.660 But if he was using them to drive specific consequentialist outcomes, then he would have.
00:13:30.860 And let's be honest here.
00:13:32.280 Anyone who claims God really believed those earlier deontological value systems has to bite the bullet and admit that God thought slavery was a good or okay thing.
00:13:43.040 So before I go further, do you have any thoughts?
00:13:44.920 I think about things analogously with children a lot.
00:13:47.880 So when I think about deontological rule following sets, I think of parents saying, because I told you so.
00:13:54.600 But then I also think about how that degrades really quickly with our children.
00:13:58.700 If we just give them a rule and they don't know why the rule's there, they're just going to break it.
00:14:04.280 And I kind of feel like that happens a lot.
00:14:06.400 Sometimes with religions like Catholicism, there are rules that are almost expected to be broken, but then you just ask for forgiveness.
00:14:12.500 But then just please keep following the rule and asking for forgiveness.
00:14:15.460 And I just personally much prefer explaining to our children, for example, here's what's going to happen if you do this thing.
00:14:24.400 Here's the consequence.
00:14:25.580 Here's in general what we value and hoping that they'll make the right decision.
00:14:31.160 But it doesn't always work.
00:14:34.320 And I can understand why sometimes trying to explain to our children why, for example, like their safety or being nice to a sibling and learning how to share is important because they're just not going to get it.
00:14:45.720 So sometimes we just have to say, you have to do this thing because I said so right now.
00:14:51.240 And they're just not going to be able to, they have to follow the letter of our law.
00:14:54.920 And I feel as though you could say God is doing the same thing.
00:14:59.240 Sometimes he wishes he could explain to us why something is in our better interest, but we just don't have the capacity of that time.
00:15:05.540 Yeah, I completely agree with you.
00:15:07.520 And for people who don't know how bad these deontological systems are within a modern time period, you can go to our YR Catholics Going Extinct video.
00:15:13.940 But in that, you can see things like Catholics, which have strong religious prohibitions against things like terminating fetuses, use things like Plan B at almost the same rate as a secular person does or non-Catholics do and uses other types of contraception and abortion related things at very similar rates to the secular world.
00:15:33.160 So it just doesn't hold that well.
00:15:34.900 I don't feel like this was true historically.
00:15:36.760 I mean, if you look historically, like, and when I say even recent history, like 70s, 60s, these deontological value systems in Catholics really did keep them from using early contraceptive techniques and did keep their fertility rates really high.
00:15:48.400 But I suspect that this is just an evolving society thing in the same way that like kids mature over time and need different explanations for why they need to do something.
00:15:57.360 If you're going to actually have them follow it, humanity has sort of grown up.
00:16:00.920 And I think these deontological ethical systems are actually probably not hard for people of our distant past to follow.
00:16:07.760 They're just hard for people of this era to follow, given our philosophical maturity and the level of information that we have access to.
00:16:14.920 Just do it because X book says so isn't as strong a motivation for people anymore.
00:16:21.940 And so it's not driving the outcome.
00:16:24.740 You know, so you talk about something like prohibitions on contraception.
00:16:28.500 You know, these are probably made to increase the number of kids people are having.
00:16:31.740 And if you create arguments like, well, you know, you're preventing a human being from coming into existence.
00:16:36.480 That is a more powerful argument than because I said so these days.
00:16:40.800 Well, I also think deontological systems or following the letter of the law really only works in societies where enforcement is very strong, either through social shaming or through like a caliphate that is capable of enforcing those values.
00:16:56.100 When you can't enforce some kind of punishment for rule-breaking.
00:17:03.340 I think non-community-based enforcement weakens a religion over time.
00:17:09.320 This is what we've seen in governments that try to enforce.
00:17:11.520 Oh, no, sure.
00:17:12.460 Outsourcing is totally broken.
00:17:14.540 You need a person's community to do the shaming.
00:17:16.740 So, like, when you get a divorce, you need nobody to want to marry someone who's gotten divorced before and then people don't get divorced again.
00:17:22.720 But if you create, like, government laws around this, people always find a way around it.
00:17:26.360 I mean, that's what we learned from the prohibition, right?
00:17:27.980 Like, you cannot enforce morality.
00:17:30.580 And prohibition is a great example of this because it was during – it wasn't really a religious thing.
00:17:35.140 You know, Jesus turned water to wine.
00:17:36.700 You know, he's not intrinsically against alcohol.
00:17:38.860 So, this was the government trying to enforce morality and it caused more immorality of the type it was trying to enforce.
00:17:46.240 But the point I'm making also is that when people don't understand the spirit of the law, they'll only follow the letter of the law if they know that they have to, if they're being punished very consistently and severely.
00:17:59.600 Well, socially punished, punished in terms of status, not punished by a governing entity.
00:18:03.660 Because the punishment that people actually react to is status punishment.
00:18:09.200 So, for example, people didn't react to prohibition by drinking significantly less.
00:18:13.640 They actually started drinking more, or at least the individuals who were susceptible to that individual sin.
00:18:18.060 And we'll go over this in other sins where you see people actually doing it more when it's prohibited on a top-down level.
00:18:23.580 But if drinking decreased the status of an individual, then they would stop drinking.
00:18:28.460 People are very sensitive to community-enforced status norms, which is what these deontological systems used to have on their side.
00:18:36.980 And that armor has sort of been removed from humanity and you need to figure out ways to enforce this yourself, even though following the rules may even hurt your status.
00:18:47.260 Same with your kids.
00:18:48.620 How do you pass this down to your kids when the rules that you're passing down to them may hurt their status?
00:18:53.000 I.e. don't sleep around with a lot of girls while you're in high school.
00:18:55.260 That's certainly going to lower a kid's status.
00:18:56.640 How do you pass that down to them if that's an option for them?
00:19:00.300 How do you address the conundrum of erotic material consumption then in conservative states, for example, where it is shamed to consume?
00:19:10.680 But it's not shamed.
00:19:12.080 It's not shamed because people don't know about it.
00:19:15.000 It's a sin that someone can do in private, the top-down.
00:19:18.360 So what she's referring to, and we actually get to this later in the track, but if you look at the U.S., like which state consumes the most porn?
00:19:25.380 Utah.
00:19:25.960 The state with the highest prohibitions against pornography.
00:19:28.340 Mormons are not supposed to masturbate at all.
00:19:30.440 If you look by zip code and you look at the level of religiosity of zip code, you see more engagement with pornography in those districts.
00:19:36.860 Why is this happening?
00:19:38.840 I think it's because there isn't actually a social consequence to these people for masturbating.
00:19:44.020 So that's another thing.
00:19:45.280 It can't be a sin that someone can do in private.
00:19:47.920 I remember, you know, in Muslim countries, one of the things I would always find, like, walking down the streets was, like, hidden hard alcohol bottles in, like, alcoves and stuff like that.
00:19:56.640 It doesn't prevent somebody, you know, social shaming around drinking, doesn't prevent somebody from not drinking.
00:20:02.800 It prevents them from not drinking at home.
00:20:04.520 It prevents them from not going to bars to drink, right, which may make it harder for them to drink overall.
00:20:09.600 But the way people relate to sin, it's important to, like, psychologically understand this and build self-mastery over sin.
00:20:16.480 But that's what a lot of this tract is going to focus on.
00:20:19.540 All right.
00:20:20.240 These systems were given to man to achieve some consequentialist outcome, but what?
00:20:25.800 What is the thing we see in the communities around the world that followed one of God's true revelations?
00:20:32.900 A period of technological and cultural flourishing.
00:20:36.020 For more on this, C-Track 6.
00:20:38.140 God's deontological ethical systems were gifted to man in order to help us intergenerationally expand humanity's potential.
00:20:45.920 And I really want to note here that people can be like, no, God's about happiness.
00:20:49.360 But those regions didn't really have more happiness than their neighbors, so that couldn't have been what he was motivating for.
00:20:53.900 Or it's about peace, but those regions weren't more peaceful than their neighbors.
00:20:57.680 So what did those regions have that their neighbors of other types of faith systems, incorrect faith systems, I believe, not have?
00:21:04.840 It was unique periods of technological and cultural flourishing.
00:21:08.360 However, now that we are under the new covenant, we are expected to accept responsibility for thinking through the consequences of our actions ourselves.
00:21:16.120 What do we mean by the new covenant, and what signaled man's transition into it?
00:21:22.220 We categorize God's revelation with man existing in three stages that we know of so far.
00:21:27.500 These stages are, one, primordial man.
00:21:30.080 Biblically speaking, this is before man was cast out of the garden, which, as we go over in this video on the Garden of Eden,
00:21:37.120 we believe to be a story about man building the first permanent settlements and ethical systems man created in opposition to God's ethics to govern those settlements.
00:21:47.280 God did not really have a connection to man at this stage of history, given that we were too developmentally simplistic to understand him or intergenerationally transmit that understanding.
00:21:57.700 Two, transitional man.
00:21:59.020 Transitional man is marked by the quote-unquote curses God gave man as he transitioned into the age of settlements and early civilization.
00:22:08.380 Having to work the land for food, pain in childbirth, and women existing beneath men slash having an irrepressible attraction to men.
00:22:17.300 Again, death was clearly not one of these curses.
00:22:19.760 See, track six.
00:22:20.480 God built very simplistic deontological frameworks to help the flourishing of civilization for this natal version of humans and largely related to the transitional man in the way we now relate to children, as you were saying earlier.
00:22:35.700 The religions God gave to this form of man are analogous to us giving our children stories of Santa.
00:22:40.880 We see that these stories delight them and help teach them valuable lessons, but also that one day they are going to have to grow out of them.
00:22:49.040 Three, realized man.
00:22:51.140 Realized man is marked by a period after which God, through humanity's ingenuity, lifted the curses he placed on transitional man.
00:22:58.780 In relieving these curses, he marked the coming of a new covenant and revealed that they were never in fact curses, but more like training wheels, as without them most of humanity lacked the will to resist temptation and continue the species.
00:23:14.440 Realized man is expected by God to seek understanding himself rather than be told right from wrong, to keep himself disciplined without simplistic rules, and master his own nature without the assistance of fairy tales.
00:23:27.180 In the transition from the era of primordial man to transitional man, many human groups were unable to make the leap.
00:23:34.820 These groups were, to use a euphemism, out-competed by transitional man, because transitional man was different from primordial man, as primordial man is different from the beast.
00:23:45.300 The same is true for realized man.
00:23:47.140 When looking at use deconversion rates to the urban monoculture, it is easy to see those who cling to the transitional frameworks as being like an overly sentimental captain going down with his ship.
00:23:59.160 But this, too, is too harsh a reading.
00:24:01.820 They are simply not like realized man.
00:24:04.260 They are the bronze man in an iron world.
00:24:06.860 Their traditions cannot save them from the temptations of the Valley of the Lotus Eaters.
00:24:11.000 In the final stages of the transition from primordial man to transitional man, we were told a story of God sending a flood to clean the world of those not ready for the age, those too sinful for it.
00:24:25.040 After this act, God promised he would never again genocide humanity in flood.
00:24:30.220 And that is why the genocide we are living through represents a perfect inversion of the last.
00:24:36.200 It is done not by God, but by man himself.
00:24:38.860 In this cleansing of the earth, it is the unworthy themselves who, possessed by their own passions, do not drown, but march with lifeless eyes to burn in a bonfire of their own vanity.
00:24:51.780 And this is one of the things that gets me.
00:24:54.180 It's almost like, you know, we're living in a society right now where people are like randomly running off and stabbing themselves in the neck with like scissors, genetically speaking, at least.
00:25:04.160 It's like a world of mass suicide.
00:25:05.840 It's like we're living through that movie, The Happening, where like everybody starts randomly killing themselves and people like don't see this as like a cosmic or biblical event.
00:25:13.840 They're like, oh yeah, this is normal.
00:25:39.700 It makes sense for people to be like throwing themselves into genetic wood chippers right or left and then the mainstream society being like, that's good.
00:25:49.080 Way to go.
00:25:50.200 I mean, what do you do?
00:25:50.880 Like, do you feel the weight of this period of history?
00:25:55.820 Don't.
00:25:56.660 Well, we don't.
00:25:58.420 I think we can logically know it and not feel it.
00:26:00.880 And this is along the lines of a very common human fallacy that I think is never discussed, which is that I think we feel the need to get permission or to get a very clear sign to do a lot of things.
00:26:16.640 Now, if we you keep talking about the demographic collapse, apocalypse, essentially, as it's going to play out, everyone is picturing road warrior.
00:26:26.860 And what you're trying to tell everyone is that, no, really what you can more expect is what South Africa is like today.
00:26:31.720 These things will happen or there could be an American Revolution or a complete failure of democracy, but it's not going to look like that.
00:26:40.640 It's going to look like, you know, election sort of losing integrity and we won't really know it necessarily.
00:26:49.480 So I think what's happening is that we expect war.
00:26:54.040 We expect mass death.
00:26:56.340 We expect all sorts of crazy, dramatic things to be happening.
00:26:59.360 We expect cinematic drama and because we don't see it, we're assuming that, OK, well, the alarms haven't gone off, like the fire alarm isn't going off and therefore we don't need to take action.
00:27:09.860 And this was something else, like when people are thinking about, should I have kids or when you and I were doing our search for a company and trying to decide what company to acquire?
00:27:18.500 We expected someone to kind of come out of the bushes and say, yes, buy this one as though one of our investors would say, yeah, go ahead, buy it.
00:27:25.780 I think it's a good thing instead of them just saying, well, who else is invested?
00:27:28.880 I don't know.
00:27:29.360 What do you think?
00:27:30.560 In the end, it is the responsibility of each individual person to recognize a threat or an opportunity or their capacity to take something on and then to do it.
00:27:43.060 And I think the biggest risk to many people, especially people with privileged backgrounds who are lucky enough to be born in developed nations like the United States, like many European countries, like many Asian countries all over the place now.
00:27:58.440 The responsibility falls to them to recognize these things.
00:28:01.960 No one's going to give you a warning or give you permission.
00:28:04.580 And it's very hard to know what's true and what's false these days.
00:28:07.180 Because you have to judge for yourself and you have to make that call because no one's going to make it for you.
00:28:12.400 Yeah, no, I actually think that you're right about this.
00:28:15.520 And I would say that some events in biblical history, I believe, are meant to foreshadow other events that are going to happen and teach you lessons about it.
00:28:24.700 You know, as I've said, like the story of Abraham about to sacrifice his kid and then God saying, like, it's not the type of God I am, I think reflects, you know, the misunderstanding of the story of Jesus as we see it.
00:28:37.140 And you can read about this in, like, track two or one.
00:28:39.200 We go over this.
00:28:40.200 But I think that this is what the story of Noah is.
00:28:42.380 You know, it's a story about man going through a specific era, a transitional era, you know, transitioning from the primordial to the transitional man.
00:28:50.680 And it's being mirrored in this new transition.
00:28:53.700 And you are experiencing, I believe, our generation is experiencing the events that the story of Noah being recorded was supposed to warn us about.
00:29:03.920 The world is flooding.
00:29:05.920 Everyone is dying around you.
00:29:08.180 You have people out there warning you and everyone is scorning them for warning you.
00:29:13.100 You know, they look like crazy people to everyone else, even though we can all see the rain.
00:29:17.820 We can all see the lowlands filling with water at this point.
00:29:21.480 You know, I think that we're beginning to get to that point in the Noah story where people are whispering, like, hey, you know, maybe we should be building boats too.
00:29:29.500 But people aren't, right?
00:29:31.860 And also, you can think of the story of Noah.
00:29:33.400 Like, what was it meant to signal to us the importance of maintaining diversity through the flood?
00:29:39.500 That's what the story is.
00:29:40.500 You only need to maintain one family from each tradition to maintain that tradition.
00:29:44.960 But you should make an effort to maintain as many traditions as you can.
00:29:49.740 That is what the story of Noah is telling us if we are trying to take lessons from it in this modern context.
00:29:54.800 If we believe that it was meant to warn us about the world we're going into right now.
00:30:00.120 Any thoughts on that before I go crazier?
00:30:01.840 I love it when you go crazy.
00:30:04.660 Just go straight into that.
00:30:06.200 As an aside here, let us speak of the dream of Nebuchadnezzar, as interpreted by Daniel.
00:30:11.580 For context, the king had a recurring dream he believed was a vision and decided to kill all the wise men in the kingdom because they could not guess what the dream was and interpret it.
00:30:22.460 And here I'm going into it because I said we're transitioning from the age of bronze into the age of iron.
00:30:27.160 And I mean this biblically speaking.
00:30:28.880 I mean this from the dream of Nebuchadnezzar.
00:30:30.900 So Daniel replied,
00:30:32.040 No wise man, enchanter, magician, or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he asked about.
00:30:38.960 But there is a God in heaven who reveals many mysteries.
00:30:42.020 He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in the days to come.
00:30:45.760 Your dream and the visions that pass through your mind as you are lying in bed are these.
00:30:50.620 First, it's important to note here that he clearly laid out how prophecy is meant to be done.
00:30:56.400 Magic, witches, rituals, chanting, etc. are not the way God communicates and should be avoided.
00:31:03.600 So it's very good here on like how to do like true interpretation of things.
00:31:07.360 Don't, none of the rituals, none of the chanting, everything like that.
00:31:09.920 Just like get into it immediately.
00:31:11.100 As your majesty was lying there, your mind turned to things to come.
00:31:17.280 And the revealer of mysteries showed you what is going to happen.
00:31:21.120 As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me not because I have greater wisdom than anyone else alive,
00:31:27.520 but so that your majesty may know the interpretation and that you may understand what went through your mind.
00:31:34.340 Your majesty looked and there before you stood a large statue, an enormous dazzling statue, awesome in appearance.
00:31:42.140 The head of the statue was made of pure gold, its chest and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of bronze,
00:31:48.400 its legs of iron, and its feet partly of iron and partly of baked clay.
00:31:53.520 While you were watching, a rock was cut out, but not by human hands.
00:31:57.680 It struck the statue on the feet of iron and clay and smashed them.
00:32:01.420 Then the iron, the clay, the bronze, the silver, and the gold were all broken to pieces
00:32:08.340 and became like chaff on a threshing floor in the summer.
00:32:12.520 The wind swept them away without leaving a trace,
00:32:15.480 but the rock that struck the statue became a huge mountain and filled the whole earth.
00:32:21.460 This was the dream, and now we will interpret it to the king.
00:32:25.460 Your majesty, you are the king of kings.
00:32:27.760 The God of heaven has given you dominion and power and might and glory.
00:32:32.740 In your hands, he has placed all of mankind and all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the sky.
00:32:38.360 Wherever they live, he has made you ruler of them all.
00:32:41.200 You are the head of gold.
00:32:42.760 After you, another kingdom will arrive inferior to yours.
00:32:46.300 Next, a third kingdom, one of bronze, will rule over the whole earth.
00:32:50.540 Now, this line is often bizarrely misinterpreted.
00:32:53.100 People are like, oh, the bronze kingdom was Greece or Rome or any number of other ancient kingdoms,
00:32:58.460 but it clearly was not.
00:33:00.380 As it stated, the kingdom of bronze ruled over the whole world, and none of them did.
00:33:05.180 The first culture to ever rule over the whole world was the urban monoculture.
00:33:10.280 The kingdom inferior to the high classical age was Rome and the dark ages,
00:33:15.260 a period of human history that mostly just copied the classical age.
00:33:18.840 So right here, just as a note, what we're saying is the gold age is the classical age.
00:33:24.300 Then you have the silver age, which is the dark ages, Rome, that general period of history.
00:33:30.940 Then you have the bronze age, which is the lead up to the urban monoculture in the urban monoculture,
00:33:36.420 one group that's ruling over the entire world.
00:33:39.420 So what happens after the urban monoculture conquers all of earth?
00:33:42.800 That is when we move from the world of transitional man to the world of realized man.
00:33:48.840 Finally, there will be a fourth kingdom, strong as iron, for iron breaks and smashes everything.
00:33:53.720 And as iron breaks and smashes things to pieces, so will it crush and break all the others.
00:34:00.380 Just as you saw the feet and the toes were partially of baked clay and partially of iron,
00:34:05.540 so this will be a divided kingdom.
00:34:07.480 Yet it will have some of the strengths of iron in it.
00:34:09.960 Even as you saw iron mixed with clay, as the toes were partly of iron and partly of clay,
00:34:16.640 so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle.
00:34:19.920 And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture
00:34:24.380 and will not remain united any more than iron mixes with clay.
00:34:28.580 The kingdom of iron in clay is describing the covenant of the sons of man,
00:34:33.040 a kingdom made up of multiple types of man living among each other,
00:34:36.400 a world of AI and augmented man.
00:34:39.020 I would note here that the primary component of clay is silicon.
00:34:43.940 If I wanted to describe a world of silicon to a king in the classical age, how would I do it?
00:34:50.640 I would call it clay.
00:34:53.300 In the time of kings, the god of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed,
00:34:58.820 nor will it be left to another people.
00:35:01.980 It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end,
00:35:05.480 but it will itself endure forever.
00:35:07.440 This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of the mountain,
00:35:11.720 but not by human hands, a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold pieces.
00:35:17.180 The great god has shown the king what will take place in the future.
00:35:21.260 The dream is true and its interpretation trustworthy.
00:35:23.820 Here we see that in the ultra-pluralistic world of the covenant of the sons of man,
00:35:28.840 the kingdom that eventually becomes God will be generated because of the conflict between the groups.
00:35:35.060 But that conflict is necessary for the creation of, quote,
00:35:38.660 the kingdom that will never be destroyed, end quote.
00:35:41.300 It also makes it clear that realized man, the men of iron, will be one of the players in the conflict
00:35:47.480 and is pivotal to setting up the kingdom that will never be destroyed, the kingdom of God.
00:35:52.840 This is also a reminder that even if we live through times of peace,
00:35:57.080 we should never falter in our advancement of military technology,
00:36:00.360 as it is through a great conflict yet to come that the kingdom of God is created.
00:36:04.900 Actually, I'm going to not go into this yet.
00:36:07.420 I wanted to go into a slight aside here, which is in the Bible, like the way that we interpret the Bible,
00:36:13.620 whenever you read the word heaven, that has traditionally been interpreted as a place.
00:36:18.620 People hear that and they're like, oh, that's a place.
00:36:20.820 And because we can look out into the cosmos and not see heaven, we assume it's a supernatural place,
00:36:26.160 i.e., I think in a big way, less than natural in many ways.
00:36:30.420 Yeah, it says supernatural, but it's like kind of different than the type of things we can study
00:36:34.480 and examine in the real world.
00:36:36.920 And that's why when I call, you know, techno-puritanism a secular religion,
00:36:42.220 what I mean is we don't assume any supernatural things.
00:36:45.440 We don't need to assume these supernatural places because I think it undermines the message of God,
00:36:49.760 that God is absolutely real, as real as the table I'm touching right now.
00:36:54.540 And heaven is absolutely real.
00:36:56.380 But heaven is not a place, it's a time.
00:37:00.200 So whenever you read heaven in the Bible, you can read that as in the future.
00:37:04.480 And it's actually very clear in this prophecy that heaven is a time.
00:37:08.660 So I'm going to read this last part again.
00:37:13.020 In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed,
00:37:18.680 nor will it be left to another people.
00:37:21.660 What is the kingdom of God?
00:37:24.060 What is the kingdom of God that is never destroyed?
00:37:27.160 That's heaven.
00:37:28.320 That's what's being described here.
00:37:30.760 Heaven is a time.
00:37:32.100 But I am going to go to the summary here now.
00:37:36.300 To summarize what we just went over, man is transitioning from his childlike transitional state
00:37:41.200 where he understands God through simplistic fairy tales the same way we tell children about Santa
00:37:46.720 and gives them strict rules to an adult-like state.
00:37:50.280 With adulthood came additional responsibilities,
00:37:52.860 such as developing a clear understanding of reality
00:37:55.140 and taking responsibility for the consequences of our actions.
00:37:58.320 Quote,
00:37:58.580 I was following the rules, end quote,
00:38:00.800 is no longer an excuse for men of iron.
00:38:04.620 So any thoughts on that?
00:38:08.540 I just, it makes, it's one of those things where it makes so much sense for heaven to be a time and not a place.
00:38:13.860 And heaven, even when described in very famous pieces,
00:38:17.600 like in Dante's Defined Comedy as a place,
00:38:19.740 just feels so forced and contrived and not, also not good,
00:38:25.260 that I love finally coming across an explanation for heaven that resonates,
00:38:32.500 but in a very relaxing way.
00:38:34.140 As in, oh, of course.
00:38:36.500 Yeah, it doesn't force me to, to, to like swallow,
00:38:38.900 like big things that, that go against my current understanding.
00:38:43.300 No faith, no leap of faith is required here.
00:38:46.540 Yeah, and that's also very interesting.
00:38:48.280 We talk about this in other things.
00:38:49.520 There isn't like, I don't have that much faith in this system.
00:38:53.300 I believe it because it seems logically true.
00:38:55.480 And a lot of people consider that to be like a,
00:38:57.380 a lesser form of religion,
00:38:58.980 one that doesn't cause you to like bite the bullet on a lot of logical inconsistencies.
00:39:04.140 And I think that a lot of people have taken faith to mean that,
00:39:06.480 like I'm willing to,
00:39:07.540 but, but I like this because it just makes sense.
00:39:10.240 It explains so much.
00:39:11.540 And then I'll read other parts of the Bible,
00:39:13.160 parts that I haven't read in ages.
00:39:14.500 And I read the word heaven as in the future.
00:39:17.560 And just the passage makes a lot more sense and will seem a lot less insane.
00:39:21.300 Like, it's really interesting.
00:39:23.200 Like you will, you will, you know,
00:39:25.020 your ancestors again in the future.
00:39:27.120 Oh yeah, that makes sense.
00:39:28.680 You know, our bodies will be recreated in heaven in the future.
00:39:31.900 Oh yeah, that makes sense.
00:39:33.420 You know, you, you, you, you see all these lines
00:39:35.360 and they're no longer like insane things.
00:39:37.380 They're like, oh yeah,
00:39:38.200 that seems probable at the current level of technological development.
00:39:40.980 But I just find it fascinating that all of this is in the Bible,
00:39:44.060 but in the Bible, in that it says the kingdom of God is a time.
00:39:47.620 It's a time in the future.
00:39:49.320 And it's a time.
00:39:50.320 And, and all of this crazy stuff,
00:39:51.940 the men of iron after the men of iron live alongside the men of silicon,
00:39:56.600 like what?
00:39:57.640 And there will be division between them because those two things don't go together.
00:40:01.700 Like how did they, how did they, but they need to try,
00:40:05.260 they need to try to create this kingdom because it is through their conflict
00:40:09.100 that the kingdom of heaven is created.
00:40:11.140 And I believe that it is through their conflict that some better form of the men of iron is created.
00:40:17.760 The post men of iron people, the transcendent man.
00:40:21.700 So I'm going to keep going here.
00:40:25.020 So what did the consequential list life dedicated to the expanding of human potentiality look like?
00:40:29.120 Wyn Wyn Reid lays this out eloquently.
00:40:31.520 Up until now, I have been heavily censoring his writing to keep the quotes short and tight,
00:40:37.220 but we'll go long with this one to give you a full context of some of the quotes that we have been using often.
00:40:43.180 The reason I have been reading around these quotes will become obvious given that many in our audience are traditional Christians.
00:40:50.420 I will note here that as I believe in iterative prophecy, I believe the prophets to be imperfect.
00:40:55.840 And I think at the time, Reid was unable to see the potentiality of Christianity to evolve.
00:41:01.940 Oh, I should note here for our audience, we see Wyn Wood Reid as a divinely inspired text
00:41:06.740 and see it as sort of canonical within our larger biblical canon.
00:41:11.140 If you want to see why, see track six.
00:41:13.180 You blessed ones who shall inherit that future age of which we can only dream.
00:41:19.060 You pure and radiant beings who shall succeed us on the earth.
00:41:21.920 When you turn back your eyes on us, poor savages, grubbing in the ground for our daily bread,
00:41:27.520 eating flesh and blood, dwelling in vile bodies which degrade us every day to a level with the beast,
00:41:34.300 tortured by pains and by animal propensities, buried in gloomy superstitions,
00:41:39.240 ignorant of nature which yet holds us in her bonds.
00:41:42.360 When you read of us in books, when you think of what we are and compare us with yourselves,
00:41:48.060 remember that it is to us you owe the foundation of your happiness and grandeur.
00:41:52.620 To us who now in our libraries and laboratories and star towers and dissecting rooms and workshops
00:41:57.880 are preparing the materials of human growth.
00:42:00.360 And as for ourselves, if we are sometimes inclined to regret that our lot is cast in these unhappy days,
00:42:06.440 let us remember how much more fortunate we are than those who lived before us a few centuries ago.
00:42:12.240 The working man enjoys more luxuries today than the king of England did in the Anglo-Saxon times.
00:42:17.540 And at his command are intellectual delights, which but a little while ago only the most learned in the land could not obtain.
00:42:25.300 All this we owe the labors of other men.
00:42:27.900 Let us therefore remember them with gratitude.
00:42:30.420 Let us follow their glorious example by adding something new to the knowledge of mankind.
00:42:35.220 Let us pay to the future the debt which we owe the past.
00:42:38.520 All men indeed cannot be poets, inventors, or philanthropists, but all men can join in that gigantic and god-like work in the progress of creation.
00:42:47.940 Whomever improves his own nature improves the universe which he is a part.
00:42:52.560 He who strives to subdue his evil passions, vile remnants of the old four-footed life, and who cultivates the social affections.
00:42:59.980 He who endeavors to better his condition and to make his children wiser and happier than himself,
00:43:05.000 whatever may be his motives, he will not have lived in vain.
00:43:08.880 But if he act thus not from mere prudence, not in the vain hope of being rewarded in another world,
00:43:16.240 but from a pure sense of duty as a citizen of nature, as a patriot of the planet on which he dwells,
00:43:22.460 then our philosophy, which once appeared to him so cold and cheerless, will become a religion of the heart,
00:43:28.740 and will elevate him to the skies.
00:43:30.880 The virtues, which were once for him mere abstract terms, will become endowed with life,
00:43:37.780 and will hover around him like guardian angels, overseeing with him in his solitude,
00:43:43.740 consoling him in his afflictions, teaching him how to live and how to die.
00:43:48.720 But this condition is not to be easily attained,
00:43:51.860 as the saints and prophets were forced to practice long vigils and fastings and prayers
00:43:57.880 before their ecstasies would fall upon them and their visions would appear.
00:44:02.080 So virtue in its purest, most exalted form can only be acquired by means of severe, long-continued culture of the mind.
00:44:12.140 Persons with a feeble and untrained intellect may live according to their conscience,
00:44:16.660 but the conscience itself will be defective.
00:44:19.700 To cultivate the intellect is therefore a religious duty.
00:44:22.880 And when this truth is fairly recognized by man,
00:44:26.880 the religion which teaches that the intellect should be distrusted
00:44:30.500 and that it should be subservient to faith will inevitably fall.
00:44:35.660 So, I love how much he predicted there,
00:44:38.700 that the religion would look cold and unfeeling to outsiders,
00:44:42.700 but once you get it and begin to adopt it,
00:44:46.620 you realize it's exactly the opposite.
00:44:48.660 It is like a constantly warm blanket of angels around you every day.
00:44:54.340 It is your spiritual armor.
00:44:56.320 But to an outsider, they're like,
00:44:57.600 that's an overly harsh interpretation of things,
00:44:59.760 or that's an overly, what's the word I'm looking for?
00:45:03.020 Like, joyless interpretation of things, as he points out.
00:45:05.700 But what were your thoughts?
00:45:08.160 I find it all incredibly optimistic and encouraging.
00:45:14.060 It's not, what makes it more warm and full of love and happy
00:45:20.220 also is how much this is about sacrificing for the future,
00:45:24.060 but also riding the wave,
00:45:26.740 surfing the wave of everyone who came before you.
00:45:29.640 So, it's though you understand that everyone who came before you
00:45:33.360 has sacrificed and pushed and participated in this game,
00:45:38.600 this relay race, essentially, that was very difficult.
00:45:41.700 All the steps before you were way more difficult than your step.
00:45:45.180 And you're just trying to carry the baton to the next phase, right?
00:45:49.560 Yeah.
00:45:50.460 And that it's all for a future.
00:45:52.940 This is so much better than the interpretations of heaven or goodness
00:45:56.720 that you get from many other classic interpretations of Abrahamic religions,
00:46:01.280 where it's about you getting into heaven.
00:46:05.020 And I want my hedonic, eternal pleasure in the special place.
00:46:10.600 You know what I mean?
00:46:11.660 Instead of, let's bring this vision.
00:46:14.500 Let's all be a part of this amazing race toward the perfection of humanity,
00:46:20.080 toward the ascendance.
00:46:21.940 It's cool.
00:46:22.740 That makes sense.
00:46:24.920 However, this concept can be hard to convey to children
00:46:28.420 when contrasted with traditional systems of good and evil.
00:46:30.920 For that, we are fortunate God crafted perfect child-friendly propaganda
00:46:35.640 for this concept in the anime Gurren Lagann
00:46:38.100 and its presentation of the concept of spiral energy and anti-spiral energy,
00:46:42.500 an easy-to-understand representation of good and evil
00:46:45.200 from a techno-puritan religious standpoint.
00:46:47.520 Spiral energy is represented by a constant spiral expanding,
00:46:50.860 something that increases its size exponentially with each turn,
00:46:54.000 just as human potential does.
00:46:55.760 This anime is also an exemplar of the concept of anti-spiral energy,
00:46:59.360 the personification of God's reflection, of the basilisk,
00:47:03.000 those forces that would temper and constrain man's spirit and potential.
00:47:06.780 Spiral energy is the subjugation of reality,
00:47:09.280 what is possible to man's will.
00:47:11.120 Anti-spiral energy is the subjugation of man's will to reality.
00:47:15.120 Below is a list of concepts captured in either spiral and anti-spiral energy
00:47:19.440 as they relate to each other.
00:47:21.080 So first I will read the spiral energy concept,
00:47:23.400 then I will read the anti-spiral energy inversion of that concept.
00:47:27.440 Ambition, harmony.
00:47:29.360 Improvement, balance.
00:47:31.520 Industriousness, rest.
00:47:33.640 Invention, tradition.
00:47:35.520 Human industry, the natural world.
00:47:38.060 Discipline, tranquility.
00:47:39.880 Vitality, calm.
00:47:41.880 Logic, spirituality.
00:47:43.980 Striving and persistence, innate ability.
00:47:47.100 Complexity, simplicity.
00:47:49.020 Diversity, unity.
00:47:51.060 Capitalism, communism.
00:47:53.060 Evolution, spontaneous creation.
00:47:55.680 Passion, detachment slash overcoming attachment.
00:47:59.260 Pronatalism, life extensionism, biome seeding, conservation.
00:48:03.280 Descendant worship, ancestor worship.
00:48:05.780 Now here it is important to note that while the basilisk is a pure manifestation of anti-spiral
00:48:10.280 energy, he is also part of God and never acts outside of God's will.
00:48:14.680 If God wanted to, he could erase the devil with virtually no effort.
00:48:19.300 Man faces temptation because God wills it.
00:48:21.740 And as a mirrored reflection of God, we are commanded to not interfere with temptation as
00:48:27.200 removing temptation from man weakens man.
00:48:29.580 It does not strengthen man to remove the trials God intended him to overcome, except where the
00:48:35.380 removal of temptation comes through humanity's own industry.
00:48:38.520 For example, it would be sinful for a government to ban pornography, ensuring a human never
00:48:43.940 encounters it, but blessed for humanity to develop neural implants or genetic technology
00:48:48.280 that removes arousal completely from man.
00:48:50.520 It is the motivation created by the temptation of something like porn that helps motivate man
00:48:57.100 in uplifting himself by developing this type of technology, removing sin, our animal instincts,
00:49:03.600 and bringing us closer to God.
00:49:05.180 If we remove the temptation created by sin, we slow the progress of overcoming it.
00:49:11.140 The new covenant demands we move to a consequentialist ethical system because consequentialist ethical
00:49:16.760 systems do not have strict rules, but must be thought through.
00:49:21.500 They are much harder to follow faithfully.
00:49:23.660 And this is why God waited so long to expect this transition from man.
00:49:29.380 However, they also allow for things that would have been banned in deontological ethical systems.
00:49:34.120 Let's return to the pornography example.
00:49:37.080 Pornography nor masturbation is banned explicitly anywhere in the Bible, but lustful thoughts
00:49:41.680 are named as a sin in a few areas, as is looking lustfully at a woman.
00:49:46.020 However, most of the successful branches of the Judeo-Christian tradition do have prohibitions
00:49:51.520 against pornography and masturbation.
00:49:52.980 Why?
00:49:54.020 Because it wastes time and lowers the fertility rates among those communities.
00:49:58.080 I agree.
00:49:58.880 For these reasons, pornography is sinful.
00:50:01.400 Anything you are not doing for the glory of God is a sin, even if it's not explicitly
00:50:06.560 banned in the Bible.
00:50:08.420 Apparently, Simone and I are called the Cronwell twins in fundy circles.
00:50:12.440 Likely, this is because I am a Puritan extremist and a descendant of him, though I am also descended
00:50:17.760 from John Knox, who they probably hate just as much.
00:50:19.980 They may think I would take this as derogatory, but I quite like Cronwell, and while he was
00:50:25.220 wrong-headed in a few areas, I think America could use a figure like him.
00:50:28.940 These milquetoast, quote-unquote, fundamentalists, make fun of him for banning things like theater,
00:50:34.020 sports, and makeup.
00:50:35.040 People who would ban porn have given the choice.
00:50:38.160 But Cronwell was right.
00:50:39.560 Porn is bad because it wastes time that could be dedicated to God and industry, as well as
00:50:45.060 lowering the desire that should be directed to one's spouse.
00:50:48.220 But sports do the same, as do movies, theater, video games, dancing, art, music.
00:50:53.740 In fact, wasting time in watching a sports game is multiplicatively worse than masturbation
00:50:59.300 because it takes more time and has fewer positive externalities.
00:51:03.100 Wait, sin can have positive externalities?
00:51:05.500 Yes, almost no sin is purely bad.
00:51:07.380 Playing video games can help masturbate some of a young man's pre-evolved desire for conquest.
00:51:11.740 Music can help a person work harder.
00:51:13.440 And at the societal level, in countries where porn was made illegal and then it was legalized,
00:51:20.100 rates of child grape dropped dramatically.
00:51:23.460 Dramatically.
00:51:24.340 So you are, when you ban something like this, condemning children to be great.
00:51:28.640 And I find that horrifying that someone could knowingly do that by the data.
00:51:32.620 Even at the individual level, something as lurid as porn can be efficacious.
00:51:38.020 Consider masturbation being used to lower sexual desire and prevent you from making a move
00:51:43.160 on someone during a date that you otherwise would have known better not to.
00:51:47.900 If used judiciously, masturbation can increase the probability of a relationship that leads to kids.
00:51:53.400 Older traditions banned it because if it was ever allowed, those with low mental fortitude
00:51:58.240 would not be able to restrict themselves.
00:52:00.680 But now the training wheels are off.
00:52:02.860 The entire world has been flooded in sin and lasciviousness.
00:52:06.620 Telling your kids to avoid their sexuality is a display of futility at best and reckless naivety
00:52:12.520 at worst as it makes them easy targets for peeling off the path of righteousness.
00:52:17.140 Teaching them the discipline to engage with their sin judiciously is the only path through.
00:52:23.840 Cronwell was right about what he banned, but wrong to have banned it.
00:52:28.520 Judiciously engaging with sin is what builds spiritual discipline.
00:52:33.080 Having a child grow up in an environment where they can never fail nearly ensures a feeble spirit.
00:52:41.720 The same is true with sin.
00:52:43.540 You should note earlier I mentioned spirituality as being the opposite of spiral energy.
00:52:47.200 That is not the definition of spirituality I'm using here.
00:52:49.780 You all know the definition of spirituality I meant there.
00:52:52.320 So you're arguing though that Oliver Cromwell was the moral equivalent to a helicopter parent.
00:52:58.060 Yeah, he was the moral equivalent to a helicopter parent.
00:53:00.860 And I believe if you look at his victories, he should not have had all the victories he had.
00:53:04.800 He shouldn't have come to rule over England.
00:53:07.000 He clearly had divine help in his journey.
00:53:10.600 Like he just stopped literally anyone he came into contact with.
00:53:13.260 So if somebody has divine help and fails, like they never should have achieved the success they achieved but failed,
00:53:20.080 God was using that person to teach us something today.
00:53:23.540 In the same way that I think like the Akhenaten god, the early Egyptian pharaoh who tried to create a monotheistic tradition that didn't anthropomorphize god,
00:53:31.400 God divinely inspired that and helped him through that to show us the people at those earlier ages couldn't learn about a non-anthropomorphic god and believe it, right?
00:53:40.180 Like he needed to give them a simpler explanation.
00:53:42.340 With Cromwell, what he was teaching us is you cannot at the government level legislate sin.
00:53:48.960 He legislated the right sin.
00:53:50.840 Yes, you should have banned music and porn and everything like that.
00:53:52.820 But if you're banning that, but you can't legislate sin.
00:53:55.700 It doesn't work that way.
00:53:56.680 And everything falls apart if you try to do that.
00:53:59.020 And I think that that is the lesson that he was meant to teach.
00:54:00.640 Yeah, it's a point you've made multiple times that you strongly believe that the state cannot mandate morality.
00:54:08.340 It has to happen at the level of a society and through social shaming, not through legislative.
00:54:14.260 Well, not just that, but through your own spiritual discipline.
00:54:16.980 I think historically in the old deontological cultures, social shaming is what did it.
00:54:21.360 But there aren't large enough communities to get away with doing that anymore.
00:54:24.560 Well, so what are your thoughts on Islamic caliphates?
00:54:26.640 I feel like they combine that.
00:54:28.320 They legalize social shaming, but there's also strong social...
00:54:32.920 Yeah, and we have seen that the Islamic caliphates have been unable to transition from transitional man to realized man.
00:54:39.740 The Islamic caliphates are not enormous...
00:54:41.540 The modern ones are not enormous centers of culture and technology.
00:54:44.680 They are clearly going to be left behind in the flood.
00:54:48.080 You know, they may be left behind in a different way than those that are just succumbing to hedonism, but they're still being left behind.
00:54:55.640 And therefore, we must come up with an even harder system, which is not social shaming, but self-discipline.
00:55:03.300 We need to learn self-discipline again and how to teach self-discipline again, which is harder than any of these other systems.
00:55:12.420 However, it is important to know yourself.
00:55:14.880 The mental fortitude we have to resist different sins varies between individuals.
00:55:18.980 And sometimes you will need deontological rules for yourself within certain areas.
00:55:22.980 For example, we have pointed out simply banning yourself from engaging with a thing requires much less mental fortitude than engaging with the thing in moderation and with discipline.
00:55:32.280 Consider something like alcohol.
00:55:33.640 If you know you cannot engage with alcohol with discipline, it is better just to create a deontological rule for yourself around it.
00:55:39.960 All or nothing is easy, but learning to drink a little bit responsibly, that's a discipline.
00:55:45.200 Discipline comes from within.
00:55:47.080 Here, I would note that some Christians will say, no.
00:55:49.880 I want to note on this previous point that I was making here, I really mean this.
00:55:54.600 Sins are not the same across people.
00:55:56.400 How sinful a thing is, how tempting that thing is to you.
00:56:00.120 When I say how tempting it is to you, how much, if engaged with, will it overturn your life?
00:56:06.840 You're human because we're not God.
00:56:08.260 We're not sinless.
00:56:08.920 We can't avoid all sin.
00:56:09.940 We have to choose the sin that we're going to build deontological rules around.
00:56:12.820 And in doing that, we can avoid the sin that is going to be most tempting to us while offering us the least potential benefits.
00:56:21.480 Any thoughts on that before I go further?
00:56:23.960 I agree.
00:56:25.100 This is, everything's so different for different people.
00:56:29.900 So, yeah.
00:56:31.560 I think that this is similar to moderation being the right answer for so many things, when people really just want a black and white rule.
00:56:40.840 I would say consequentialism is much harder to pursue than...
00:56:45.220 Oh, no, absolutely.
00:56:46.140 It's true.
00:56:46.340 And that's why God didn't demand this of us until now.
00:56:48.940 Yeah.
00:56:50.320 Until the new covenant.
00:56:51.300 Anyway, here I would note that some Christians will say, no, some sin is worse than other sin.
00:56:59.080 What about, quote, flee from your sexual immorality.
00:57:02.500 All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually sins against their own body, end quote.
00:57:08.900 This is from Corinthians.
00:57:10.160 Except it is very clear in context that this is not talking about all forms of sexual impropriety, but prostitution specifically, as it comes immediately after the line, quote,
00:57:19.460 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?
00:57:23.500 Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute?
00:57:27.420 Never.
00:57:28.520 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her body?
00:57:34.240 For it is said, the two will become one flesh, but whomever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
00:57:41.180 And yes, prostitutes are a unique form of sin, especially in ancient times, because you risk getting them pregnant and creating an unwanted child.
00:57:49.760 When you take a techno-puritan framing of the above line, what is really being said when they say, quote,
00:57:55.820 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself?
00:57:59.220 End quote.
00:58:00.360 How does that line work in traditional Christian interpretations?
00:58:03.700 Your body is not Christ's body.
00:58:05.620 But if you take the techno-puritan framing that the martyr Christ describes all movements where humans are martyring themselves, sacrificing for the future generation, it makes perfect sense.
00:58:18.780 And I always love how, like, I'll read this with this new framing, and a line that didn't make sense was just, we are not the same body as Christ.
00:58:24.700 Like, what?
00:58:25.320 That's not elsewhere in the Bible.
00:58:27.400 But if you take this interpretation, you're like, oh, yes, of course.
00:58:29.540 That's what it's talking about.
00:58:30.680 Right.
00:58:31.000 No logical leap is necessary.
00:58:32.580 No, like, fudging what's being said is necessary.
00:58:35.200 Also consider the second line, quote,
00:58:37.620 Do you know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her body?
00:58:42.480 For it is said the two will become one flesh.
00:58:45.000 But whoever is united with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
00:58:48.660 End quote.
00:58:49.420 In traditional Christian interpretations, is it really possible for sex with a prostitute to be one with God in the act of sex with a prostitute?
00:58:56.900 That they really become one spirit through sex?
00:58:59.880 No, that's silly.
00:59:01.700 You don't become one flesh with someone by having sex with them.
00:59:06.120 It is that two people having a child together does literally make two people one spirit.
00:59:13.000 That makes a lot more sense.
00:59:15.020 Yeah.
00:59:15.500 What is being talked about here isn't sex.
00:59:19.880 It's the creation of a new person.
00:59:23.260 One flesh.
00:59:24.200 In addition, this helps better flesh out the nature of the martyr.
00:59:28.940 The martyr is literally the act of intergenerational procreation to make humans better than ourselves.
00:59:35.600 An act where two people become one, but that also unites us with the Lord in one spirit by encoding us in the blockchain of humanity.
00:59:43.900 The sacred act is two people becoming one flesh, whether that happens in a lab or through a human having sex.
00:59:51.660 That just, like, when I read it with the techno-puritan framing, it makes so much sense to me.
00:59:56.960 When I read it with traditional Christian framing, it makes a bunch of weird claims where you need to, like, get all metaphorical and everything.
01:00:04.740 And, yeah.
01:00:06.140 It feels like you're bending over backward to make it work.
01:00:09.920 And this is just correct.
01:00:13.500 It just seems correct.
01:00:14.800 Of course.
01:00:15.360 Yes.
01:00:15.860 Yeah.
01:00:16.380 When you have sex, you may produce a human from that.
01:00:20.640 In this case, like, you are, if you masturbate to not engage with a prostitute, like, if that helps you not engage with a prostitute, while it's a sin, it's a lesser of sins because the highest of all sins in this system is creating an unwanted child.
01:00:34.640 A child who isn't going to be better off than the last generation.
01:00:37.920 Here we need to highlight, banning yourself from engaging with all acts that contain elements of sin, sports, theater, movies, porn, music, dancing, etc., is impossible in the modern era.
01:00:49.660 Nor is it a maximally efficacious way to live life.
01:00:52.100 Man, as he exists today, is fallen and a creature of sin.
01:00:55.760 To believe oneself capable of living a sinless life is itself the sin of pride.
01:00:59.900 Whether it is expected of us is merely not to confuse sin with virtue.
01:01:03.520 Here we can think of Cronwell's banning of church music.
01:01:07.280 He was right.
01:01:08.140 Few things are more genuinely perverse as worship through sin.
01:01:11.860 To decorate a church in human fineries, like gold in music, is to worship through an act of sin.
01:01:17.420 It is but a degree from projecting pornography on the walls of the pulpit or considering the act of non-reproductive sex sacred.
01:01:24.200 When we see people worshiping alongside human indulgences meant to masturbate man into positive emotional states like music, art, or gold, this is what we see.
01:01:33.520 In this way, I see people who succumb to or indulge in basal human emotions during worship.
01:01:50.460 So yeah, as Lover Cornwell said, the goal is to move away from basal human emotions, to evolve paths of those.
01:01:56.900 And these are ways to descend into them within your worship.
01:02:02.180 I mean, it is but a degree from the naked people dancing around a fire in ecstasies.
01:02:07.840 You know, when I see people worship through, you know, these displays of fervor and ecstasy and other sorts of like talking in tongues.
01:02:17.400 Real worship is not done through masturbating emotional states.
01:02:21.380 Even if they include feelings of grandeur and awe, they are still basal emotions.
01:02:26.060 Of course they feel good.
01:02:27.940 That is what masturbation does.
01:02:29.660 It makes you feel good.
01:02:30.780 That is not a sign that it is good.
01:02:32.980 Real worship is only done in a state of industry.
01:02:36.540 Only in our moments where we have pushed ourselves past our limits in service of his mission for us are we truly aggrandizing him instead of just masturbating in a fancy room.
01:02:47.040 When you are so exhausted, you could pass out, but you keep pushing through when you stay at the lab until 3 a.m.
01:02:54.500 Or you push yourself to go talk to that potential partner who is likely to reject you.
01:03:00.280 That is when you are truly in service of God.
01:03:03.080 As a side note here, people will use the story of the gold used in the tabernacle from Exodus as an excuse to worship in lordly decorated buildings.
01:03:13.040 However, it is important to remember that we believe that given their proximity to some polyseistic stories and tales, some polyseistic stories and tales worked their way into the religious texts like the Bible.
01:03:25.040 Especially when you are talking about older texts like Exodus.
01:03:27.920 But that God loudly and explicitly marks where this has happened, so anyone paying even the littlest bit of attention will notice.
01:03:34.480 So first, let's look at the worship that was practiced in the tabernacle, and let's look at what happened to the people who built it.
01:03:43.320 So first I want to say here, you've got to keep in mind how we're reading these early stories like Exodus and stuff like that.
01:03:48.260 We're reading them as God beginning to try to reveal to a primitive, primordial man who is still practicing these polyseistic faiths.
01:03:56.980 You can see our three-faith track video if you want to get more understanding of this.
01:04:00.480 A true monoseistic tradition.
01:04:02.720 A true understanding of God.
01:04:04.560 But they still do some of the basal things.
01:04:07.280 When those things are still recorded, it's just loudly marked in the Bible whenever they're recorded.
01:04:12.480 So, what did worship look like in the tabernacle?
01:04:14.900 Tell the people of Israel,
01:04:44.900 If you heard about a group of people who practice a ceremony where they transferred their sins to animals, killed those animals, then splashed the blood about where they were worshiping,
01:05:04.120 would you think that they were Baalites slash witches or Jews slash Christians?
01:05:09.680 For some other parts of this ritual, you have,
01:05:12.500 Slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and bring its blood behind the veil.
01:05:18.180 And with its blood, he must do as he did with the bull's blood.
01:05:21.720 He is to sprinkle it against the mercy seat and in front of it.
01:05:26.260 Dot, dot, dot.
01:05:27.320 He is to take some of the bull's blood and some of the goat's blood and put it on all the horns of the altar.
01:05:32.400 He is to sprinkle some of the blood on it with his fingers seven times to cleanse it and consecrate it for the uncleanliness of the Israelites.
01:05:40.000 When Aaron has finished purifying the most holy place, the tent of meeting, and the altar, he is to bring the live goat.
01:05:46.580 Then he is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the iniquities and rebellious acts of the Israelites in regards to all their sins.
01:05:56.420 He is to put them on the goat's head and send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a man appointed for the task.
01:06:03.580 The goat will carry on itself their iniquities into a solitary place and the man will release it into the wilderness.
01:06:10.900 Now, what is really interesting to note is the animals used in this ritual, specifically a bull and a goat.
01:06:19.200 Bulls and goats were the two primary animals associated with the worship of Baal.
01:06:24.760 This is why Satan is traditionally depicted as having a goat's head.
01:06:29.200 And I think that this is, you know, the Bible and God loudly signaling to us,
01:06:33.440 hey, this is one of these examples of these old polytheistic rituals that you guys are supposed to stay away from.
01:06:39.460 Now, if you are here thinking I am going too far in suggesting that ancient Israelites practice a worship of Baal alongside the worship of the deity we know as Yahweh or the real God,
01:06:54.700 I would point you to an event 800 years after this.
01:06:59.820 So just do you get an idea of how long this had been happening.
01:07:03.040 Kings 2, 23, 4, where the Bible states that the king commanded Hiakai, the high priest, the priests of the second order and the keepers of the threshold to remove all items made for Baal, Asheriel, and the starry hosts from the temple of the Lord.
01:07:20.760 The king then ordered those items to be burned outside Jerusalem in the Kedorn Valley fields and that the ashes be taken to Bethel.
01:07:28.400 So, it's important to note here, this is not a temple, this is the temple.
01:07:36.360 This is the temple in Jerusalem, the most holy place in the religion of the time.
01:07:42.300 Baal had a separate shrine there 800 years after Moses.
01:07:47.540 It is not wild to think that some of the rituals being recorded in these early books were Baalite rituals.
01:07:56.640 And I need to point out here that this wasn't a one-off thing.
01:07:59.720 You know, we can see the worship of Baal alongside Yahweh in Israel to the very early periods.
01:08:06.360 For example, in the book of Judges, it mentions Baal worship occurring during the time of the Judges, which predates the monarchy.
01:08:13.140 We can also see Baal worship had become particularly widespread during the reign of Ahab in the 9th century BCE,
01:08:21.600 who married Jezebel, a Phoenician princess and a devoted Baal worshiper.
01:08:26.300 In addition to that, we see Baalite names throughout Israeli history.
01:08:30.820 So, some early Hebrew figures that had Baalite names, like the judge Gideon, also called Jerob Baal, or King Saul's son, called Isha Baal.
01:08:41.500 And if you want to accuse me of being anti-Semitic or anti-Christian by pointing these things out,
01:08:47.000 I mean, these things are, these are in your own Bible, okay?
01:08:51.200 Judges 3.5-6,
01:08:53.940 And even if we look outside the Bible, we can look at DNA evidence and find that the ancient Israelite population was about 50% Israelite and about 50% Canaanite.
01:09:17.980 This is not, like, some insane conspiracy theory.
01:09:22.360 This is very clearly written out in the Bible.
01:09:26.720 And we should note that archaeological evidence suggests that Baalite worship didn't end with the reforms of Josiah,
01:09:32.760 but continued up until the Babylonian exile in the 6th century BCE.
01:09:37.540 And I would note here that, you know, if the writers of the Bible had been less scrupulous,
01:09:42.060 they could have chosen to leave all this out.
01:09:44.960 God didn't need to allow all of this to happen and be recorded in the Bible.
01:09:51.240 That this is recorded in the Bible is intentional and a sign to us that we need to continue to be vigilant about it.
01:09:59.380 And this is why it's very important, actually, whichever of the Abrahamic faiths you follow,
01:10:03.420 that you, when you are reading something from one of your texts, use your critical thinking skills,
01:10:09.740 use your knowledge of what Baalite worship looks like and what worship of the real God looks like,
01:10:16.460 to note where you see Baalite incursions into these texts.
01:10:20.840 And just like we see in kings, it is up to us to not say that the antiquity of a tradition,
01:10:27.920 you know, that these Baalite shrines had been in the temple for 800 years.
01:10:32.000 Somebody could have been like, well, this is a part of our religion.
01:10:33.840 It's always been here.
01:10:35.260 You don't get to say that, okay?
01:10:36.780 It's responsible for you to be able to use critical thinking skills.
01:10:39.820 A great example of this, a Jewish friend brought to me a stand from the Hagiga, or Hagia,
01:10:46.500 I don't know, I can't pronounce things in other languages, but anyway.
01:10:49.400 And he was like, well, this comes off as very polytheistic, because you remember my three religion thing.
01:10:54.200 And he goes, how do you address this?
01:10:56.680 And so I will read the passage to you and use your critical thinking skills.
01:11:00.480 Remember, okay, what it's associated with Baal is a storm god that is worshipped through bulls and goats
01:11:07.000 and is basically a random Mesopotamian old-timey polytheistic god,
01:11:13.560 and it was a random old-timey Mesopotamian polytheistic religion,
01:11:17.160 whereas Yahweh is the god that helps explain to us the true nature of reality in the universe.
01:11:25.520 So when you're reading this, think, hmm, which does this sound more like?
01:11:28.980 All right, so here's the quote.
01:11:58.980 And then it gives a bunch of random names here.
01:12:17.980 Now, if you are...
01:12:47.960 You know, just not completely brainwashed, and you read this, you're like,
01:12:52.080 oh, that's a polytheistic religious framework for how the world is structured.
01:12:56.760 You know, it's talking about the world standing on pillars and all sorts of numerology
01:13:02.180 and all sorts of other mysticism.
01:13:05.000 And you could then see that in the Bible and say,
01:13:07.300 oh, well, this supports...
01:13:08.540 That the Bible is supporting a polytheistic framework.
01:13:10.940 But again, you have to remember that the Bible says that
01:13:12.880 when stuff like this was written,
01:13:14.440 ballite practice was happening alongside the practice of the true God, Jehovah.
01:13:19.440 And then you need to just search these words really closely.
01:13:21.980 What is the god that's being described as the Holy One here?
01:13:25.600 It is a god that holds up the world using a storm.
01:13:29.840 This is ball that's being described here.
01:13:32.220 But fortunately for us, by the grace of God,
01:13:34.720 these incursions are, one, intentional.
01:13:39.100 God leaves these things in the Bible.
01:13:41.600 He allows ball to be worshipped in the temple for a period, for a century,
01:13:46.440 so that we can learn from these.
01:13:50.160 All right?
01:13:50.480 This is not accidental that these things make their way into these stories.
01:13:54.240 They are very, very loudly signposted,
01:13:56.440 as we'll see in a second with the tabernacle
01:13:58.720 being a very loudly signposted case of ballite worship being within the Bible.
01:14:04.560 And you can say, like, well, there's no way it can make it into the Holy of Holies,
01:14:07.520 the Bible, our core central text.
01:14:09.320 But it was happening in the temple.
01:14:11.360 And God had to allow it to happen in the temple
01:14:13.580 so that it could be recorded in the Bible
01:14:15.560 so that we could know, yes, even in our most holy of texts,
01:14:19.060 you will find this stuff.
01:14:20.160 But fortunately, it will always be very loud.
01:14:23.060 It will always be very clear that this is not normal monotheism
01:14:26.600 and that it was maintained within our texts
01:14:29.600 so that even within modern times,
01:14:31.860 we could look around and find where ballite worship was happening.
01:14:35.860 Just as a final side here before I go further,
01:14:38.720 if you are wondering how something so obviously polytheistic
01:14:42.740 ended up in the Bible,
01:14:45.300 ended up in Jewish texts,
01:14:47.660 you can tell by looking at the way the story is written
01:14:51.100 likely what happened.
01:14:52.300 Whenever it is citing stuff that we know from Genesis,
01:14:57.840 it will use copious citations.
01:15:00.820 But whenever it is citing stuff that appears polytheistic,
01:15:04.880 it will not use citations,
01:15:06.700 which to me implies that
01:15:09.660 when it is citing stuff that is polytheistic,
01:15:14.060 it is assuming that this stuff is common knowledge.
01:15:16.740 But when it is citing stuff that is real,
01:15:20.700 coming from Genesis,
01:15:21.920 it is citing stuff that is more obscure,
01:15:25.440 which implies to me that this was an instance
01:15:28.340 in which an individual was preaching
01:15:31.880 a fairly unknown religion,
01:15:33.820 i.e. the monotheistic tradition,
01:15:35.840 to an audience which had more familiarity
01:15:38.940 with these polytheistic stories
01:15:40.540 and was trying to merge the two.
01:15:43.860 You can almost think of it as somebody today
01:15:47.100 trying to merge Christianity with science
01:15:52.020 and talking about like photons and electrons
01:15:55.160 and everything like that in a sermon.
01:15:58.760 And then, you know, 5,000 years from now,
01:16:01.400 we no longer believe in photons and electrons
01:16:04.020 and everything like that.
01:16:05.600 And yet we find them in this ancient text.
01:16:07.740 And so we assume they are a Christian thing
01:16:10.140 instead of something that randomly got inserted
01:16:13.280 into a Christian thing
01:16:14.280 when we were trying to preach to somebody
01:16:16.140 that believed in these things about Christianity.
01:16:18.480 Now, before I go further,
01:16:19.460 because it gets even crazier than this,
01:16:21.120 you, when I mentioned this to you,
01:16:22.520 you're like,
01:16:23.560 that does not sound like a true God.
01:16:26.000 That people can transfer their sins to animals?
01:16:29.840 Like, can you go over like what your thoughts were
01:16:31.700 when I read to you
01:16:32.460 that that's what's being done in this tabernacle?
01:16:34.480 It's mighty convenient.
01:16:35.800 Well, it's not just convenient.
01:16:36.860 It's deeply unfair.
01:16:37.960 Why is the animal being punished for my sin?
01:16:40.720 Like, why?
01:16:41.320 And then worse than that,
01:16:42.540 why did Jesus get punished for my sin?
01:16:44.260 Because clearly,
01:16:45.220 I think the misunderstanding of this
01:16:47.100 causes this misunderstanding of Jesus
01:16:48.800 as maybe someone who we are-
01:16:51.120 Sacrificial animals, yeah.
01:16:53.040 Yeah, a sacrificial animal
01:16:54.140 that we're transferring our sins into.
01:16:56.400 Like-
01:16:56.620 Jesus died for your sins, et cetera.
01:16:58.740 That would be a very unfair interpretation
01:17:00.940 instead of we are martyring ourselves for our-
01:17:03.380 But keep in mind,
01:17:04.160 most people's interpretation of God
01:17:06.220 is that God is deeply unfair.
01:17:07.960 But unfair is the wrong word.
01:17:09.580 I wouldn't say unfair.
01:17:10.380 It's just like obviously like a polytheistic ritual.
01:17:12.840 Like, I don't think like the God of the universe
01:17:14.960 was like, okay, I made it so the man can sin,
01:17:17.640 but I came up with this trick
01:17:18.540 where you can transfer your sins.
01:17:19.520 God isn't like the IRS
01:17:20.880 where a bunch of people lobbied him
01:17:22.680 to make a bunch of loopholes.
01:17:24.520 Like, yes, okay, that-
01:17:26.120 Don't sin, right.
01:17:27.000 But just bear with me, God.
01:17:28.700 Just let me-
01:17:29.500 If I touch a bull's head and then I kill him,
01:17:31.800 then-
01:17:32.160 Then, okay, just-
01:17:33.460 I will know this.
01:17:34.140 No one else needs to know this.
01:17:35.640 Then I have no sin, right?
01:17:36.580 Yeah, and then we'll splash blood
01:17:38.260 all around the place of worship.
01:17:39.860 Like, it's just obviously,
01:17:41.520 like the scene is obviously demonic to me.
01:17:45.480 Like, I am-
01:17:46.580 It is very clear to me.
01:17:47.700 Like, God was not like mixing things here
01:17:50.060 for like a true monotheistic audience.
01:17:53.280 The whole animal sacrifice thing,
01:17:55.260 very clearly, like bad mojo Jojo.
01:17:58.040 This is the-
01:17:59.580 But I'll go further with this
01:18:00.760 because it gets wilder.
01:18:02.420 Still not convinced.
01:18:03.260 Imagine you go up to a place of worship
01:18:05.780 and you saw this ceremony being carried out.
01:18:08.900 Quote,
01:18:09.540 It must be a dove or young pigeon.
01:18:11.860 The priest will bring it to the altar
01:18:13.220 and pull off its head,
01:18:14.880 which he will burn on the altar.
01:18:16.680 And it does appear that this was supposed to be
01:18:18.700 a living bird at the time.
01:18:20.240 So the priest was ripping off a living bird's head
01:18:23.060 and then throwing that head into a fire.
01:18:25.620 And not just any bird,
01:18:28.200 but a dove,
01:18:29.700 the symbol of peace,
01:18:31.720 of God's love of humanity
01:18:33.780 that was sent to Noah
01:18:36.280 to allow him to know
01:18:37.980 that there was still hope for the world.
01:18:40.460 The bird's blood must be drained
01:18:41.800 out the side of the altar.
01:18:43.640 The priest must remove the board's crop
01:18:46.040 and its contents
01:18:47.340 and then throw them on the east side of the altar
01:18:49.500 where the ashes are.
01:18:50.840 Then he must tear the bird open by its wings
01:18:53.660 without dividing it into two parts.
01:18:56.560 He must burn the bird on the altar
01:18:58.720 on the wood which is on the fire.
01:19:01.480 End quote.
01:19:02.540 It is not like any of this is subtle in the Bible,
01:19:05.480 but it does mean that God expects you
01:19:07.560 to actually be paying attention when you read it
01:19:10.300 and use the smallest amount of discretion when doing so.
01:19:14.580 It's ironically like someone saw that scene
01:19:17.740 in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
01:19:20.840 And they walk away and they go,
01:19:43.220 yeah, that was definitely a bunch of good Christians.
01:19:45.720 I hadn't read this story in ages.
01:19:52.100 So coming back to it,
01:19:53.140 I was kind of shocked to see how plain and clear it was
01:19:56.240 that this was not the real God talking to Moses
01:19:58.520 in these scenes,
01:19:59.400 but that this is a story about how the devil
01:20:01.340 uses the way we relate to God
01:20:03.360 to trick an otherwise godly
01:20:05.480 and well-intentioned people into worshiping him.
01:20:07.960 I mean, come on, bro.
01:20:09.480 Ripping a living bird's head off,
01:20:11.960 splashing its blood around,
01:20:14.720 then ripping it in half?
01:20:17.240 Like, yikes.
01:20:18.820 The God I worship ain't about stuff like that.
01:20:22.380 And I mean, just imagine,
01:20:23.660 like, thinking the God of the universe.
01:20:27.100 Like, the God that created the universe
01:20:29.360 is like, I want birds ripped to half.
01:20:32.640 That's the God.
01:20:33.480 It's the God of ripping up animals and gold.
01:20:36.780 And no, I think that the story of the gold
01:20:40.060 being used in the tabernacle
01:20:41.600 was meant as a sign
01:20:43.220 that these are the types of things that sinners do.
01:20:46.320 That's what this story is meant to teach us
01:20:47.620 is what ballite worship looks like.
01:20:49.400 It looks like worshiping was gold
01:20:51.180 and ripping apart animals
01:20:52.520 and doing chants
01:20:53.520 and throwing blood around the place of worship.
01:20:56.260 It looks like, and we see this, you know-
01:20:58.680 It's like a heavy metal concert.
01:20:59.820 Go, go, go!
01:21:03.480 Yeah, it looks like worshiping a golden calf.
01:21:09.040 It looks like worshiping gold
01:21:10.380 or calves or animals or nature or animals.
01:21:14.260 Like, it's all very clear here.
01:21:16.100 Now, as an aside here,
01:21:18.720 I want to talk about the idea-
01:21:21.060 Well, we already talked about the idea
01:21:22.680 of sin transformance,
01:21:24.920 but another aside here
01:21:26.740 that I wanted to note here
01:21:27.960 that while this is obviously
01:21:30.940 the sacrificial animal metaphor
01:21:32.280 was what was used to help early Christians
01:21:35.440 understand the story of Jesus.
01:21:37.640 But this is obviously not the way
01:21:38.920 techno-Puritans interpret this story.
01:21:40.680 But I suspect the reason
01:21:42.200 that this obviously heretical practice
01:21:44.700 was kept in the Bible
01:21:46.000 was to make it easier
01:21:47.720 for early Christians
01:21:48.920 before they understood
01:21:49.840 the true revelation of Jesus
01:21:51.720 to accept Jesus
01:21:53.380 as this sort of polytheistic
01:21:55.840 sin transference practice.
01:21:57.900 Oh, so you think Jesus
01:21:59.700 as sacrificial lamb
01:22:01.180 was a sort of short-term...
01:22:03.260 Yeah, this is your kind of thing, right?
01:22:04.980 You love sacrifices.
01:22:07.360 Yeah.
01:22:08.000 So, and I think you see this a lot
01:22:09.780 in the Bible
01:22:10.240 where you see, like,
01:22:11.380 temporary rituals
01:22:12.260 that were obviously misinterpreted.
01:22:14.060 So, like, a great example here
01:22:15.700 would be, like,
01:22:16.960 how easy it is to pick out,
01:22:18.260 obviously, heretical ideas
01:22:19.140 from pretty clear stuff in the Bible.
01:22:20.340 Like, Jesus telling us
01:22:21.780 to remember him
01:22:22.540 at Jovial Feast.
01:22:23.880 Feast was eating
01:22:24.740 and drinking of alcohol
01:22:25.800 through the metaphor
01:22:26.860 of the food
01:22:27.480 representing his body
01:22:28.440 and the alcohol, his blood.
01:22:29.980 A completely sensible thing.
01:22:32.100 And then some nutjod
01:22:33.200 deciding that Jesus
01:22:34.060 was commanding us
01:22:34.880 to eat his literal body
01:22:36.680 and his literal blood.
01:22:38.740 Like,
01:22:39.700 that sounds insane to me.
01:22:43.440 But I get it now.
01:22:44.940 I'm like, oh, okay.
01:22:46.080 Well, so he needed, like,
01:22:47.140 some simpler saying
01:22:47.900 when the true method
01:22:49.160 of the Eucharist is
01:22:50.960 when you are enjoying
01:22:52.820 with your friends and family
01:22:54.480 a party with alcohol and food,
01:22:56.900 remember Jesus in those times.
01:22:59.080 That sounds like
01:22:59.720 a very reasonable request
01:23:01.500 instead of
01:23:02.820 eat my body.
01:23:05.400 Whoa, is that really
01:23:06.460 the blood of Christ?
01:23:07.880 Yes.
01:23:08.580 Man, that guy must have been
01:23:09.840 wasted 24 hours a day, huh?
01:23:12.180 It's literally insane
01:23:13.500 from what the Bible actually says
01:23:14.980 that somebody read that
01:23:15.920 and they're like,
01:23:16.800 yeah, we're supposed
01:23:18.460 to eat Jesus.
01:23:20.180 And it's literally
01:23:21.260 turning into Jesus
01:23:22.260 in my mouth.
01:23:23.700 Oh, Malcolm, we've got to go.
01:23:24.920 Okay, I'll go.
01:23:25.640 Love you.
01:23:26.300 I love you too.
01:23:26.840 I'll be downstairs.
01:23:28.200 Thoughts on the Eucharist
01:23:29.020 while I go pick up the kids?
01:23:30.980 It mostly just kind of
01:23:32.300 reminds me of
01:23:33.420 sympathetic magic.
01:23:34.520 And I think the reason
01:23:35.480 why we're into the Eucharist
01:23:36.900 is because
01:23:38.060 humans have,
01:23:40.740 when they devolve
01:23:41.880 into what we call
01:23:42.640 in the Pragmatist Guide
01:23:43.420 to Crafting Religion,
01:23:44.520 a super soft religion,
01:23:45.880 they devolve
01:23:47.320 into this concept
01:23:48.560 of sympathetic magic.
01:23:49.600 And you see it show up
01:23:50.960 in anything from
01:23:51.800 like the witch doctor
01:23:53.420 or markets
01:23:54.140 of the townships
01:23:55.840 in South Africa
01:23:56.560 that we walked through
01:23:57.760 at one point
01:23:58.720 to like literally
01:24:00.920 intuitive stuff
01:24:01.940 that you might have
01:24:02.480 come up with
01:24:03.200 as a kid.
01:24:03.780 Like when I was
01:24:04.600 in preschool,
01:24:05.100 we always got to choose
01:24:07.160 the cake
01:24:08.780 that our amazing
01:24:10.460 preschool director
01:24:11.300 would make for us,
01:24:12.620 Eunice Cadwalder.
01:24:13.400 She was the best
01:24:14.120 woman ever.
01:24:15.000 And I always
01:24:15.980 asked for a swan cake
01:24:17.500 because I intuitively
01:24:18.960 thought as a child
01:24:20.520 that if I consumed
01:24:21.920 a cake
01:24:23.400 that was shaped
01:24:24.240 like a swan,
01:24:25.440 I would become a swan.
01:24:27.420 And how cool
01:24:28.100 would that be?
01:24:29.240 And I think that
01:24:30.180 the reason why
01:24:31.480 a bunch of people
01:24:32.400 just decided
01:24:33.280 to conclude
01:24:34.440 that
01:24:35.120 the Eucharist
01:24:37.200 is just eating
01:24:38.440 and drinking
01:24:39.800 bits of,
01:24:41.920 in some cases,
01:24:42.720 transubstantiated
01:24:43.900 Jesus
01:24:44.580 is because
01:24:46.020 we have that
01:24:47.800 super soft tendency.
01:24:49.800 So in other words,
01:24:50.600 the Eucharist
01:24:51.320 is a sign
01:24:52.180 of a lack
01:24:52.640 of religious discipline
01:24:53.680 and not
01:24:54.860 a sign
01:24:55.880 of any sort
01:24:57.100 of meaningful
01:24:58.180 or helpful
01:24:59.160 religious conclusions.
01:25:00.680 And the fact
01:25:01.600 that it was
01:25:02.220 included
01:25:02.740 is a sign
01:25:05.020 of degradation
01:25:05.640 in the religion
01:25:07.380 and not a sign
01:25:08.460 of religious fidelity
01:25:09.500 or dedication.
01:25:11.120 That's my
01:25:12.100 very offensive
01:25:13.720 to Christianity
01:25:14.540 take, I guess.
01:25:16.440 Or at least
01:25:17.160 to Catholicism
01:25:17.960 take, I'm sorry.
01:25:19.860 Catholics, I love you.
01:25:21.440 I do.
01:25:23.540 What fun is it?
01:25:25.100 You must choose.
01:25:27.460 But choose wisely.
01:25:29.520 For as the true grail
01:25:30.900 will bring you life,
01:25:33.360 the false grail
01:25:34.260 will take it from you.
01:25:36.140 I'm not a historian.
01:25:38.300 I have no idea
01:25:39.020 what it looks like.
01:25:40.140 Which one is it?
01:25:42.720 Let me choose.
01:25:44.020 Oh, yes.
01:25:51.340 It's more beautiful
01:25:52.460 than I ever imagined.
01:25:54.400 This certainly
01:25:55.080 is the cup
01:25:55.780 of the king of kings.
01:26:00.380 Eternal life.
01:26:01.360 What is happening
01:26:07.020 to me?
01:26:11.060 He chose
01:26:12.060 poorly.
01:26:18.860 It would not be made
01:26:20.060 out of gold.
01:26:21.580 That's the cup
01:26:22.300 of a carpenter.
01:26:22.980 That's the cup
01:26:23.040 of a carpenter.
01:26:23.060 You have chosen
01:26:39.300 why.
01:26:40.480 Hello, Drew.
01:26:46.260 Yeah, but I, okay,
01:26:47.340 so I'm getting the impression
01:26:48.300 that you're kind of,
01:26:48.980 you're saying
01:26:50.720 that God
01:26:51.500 is like
01:26:52.440 the husband's
01:26:54.420 parents
01:26:55.020 in my big
01:26:55.720 fat Greek wedding
01:26:56.580 when they tried
01:26:57.140 to give a bunt cake
01:26:58.140 to the Greek family
01:26:59.320 and they were so confused
01:27:00.940 and they're like,
01:27:01.960 a bunt cake?
01:27:03.720 And then they put
01:27:04.180 flowers inside it.
01:27:05.760 They thought
01:27:06.320 it was for like
01:27:07.040 a vase
01:27:07.480 and they're like,
01:27:07.980 okay,
01:27:09.280 fine.
01:27:10.060 Just, yes,
01:27:10.860 take the cake.
01:27:11.480 Sure, it's for flour.
01:27:12.280 The hole's for flowers.
01:27:13.440 But just,
01:27:14.040 they took the cake
01:27:14.700 and that's what matters
01:27:15.460 for that point.
01:27:16.100 He gave them
01:27:17.620 the bunt cake
01:27:18.200 with the instructions
01:27:19.060 on what it means
01:27:19.840 and they just decided
01:27:20.720 to throw out
01:27:21.220 the instructions.
01:27:22.200 And just put flowers
01:27:22.920 in the center.
01:27:23.660 Like, that's why.
01:27:24.140 Oh, yeah,
01:27:24.740 the place was all
01:27:25.420 the heavy metals
01:27:26.480 and the animal
01:27:27.840 ripping apart.
01:27:28.520 That is definitely
01:27:29.260 not meant as a sign.
01:27:30.460 And I actually think
01:27:31.100 that this is why
01:27:31.660 the Jewish temple
01:27:32.340 hasn't been rebuilt.
01:27:33.400 Because if the Jewish temple
01:27:34.960 was rebuilt,
01:27:36.660 the majority
01:27:37.820 of the major
01:27:38.760 conservative Jewish texts
01:27:39.740 today would restart
01:27:40.960 animal sacrifices.
01:27:42.120 The only reason
01:27:42.840 they're not doing
01:27:43.460 the animal sacrifices now
01:27:44.660 is because they don't
01:27:45.540 have the temple
01:27:46.120 and that's where
01:27:46.940 the animal sacrifices
01:27:47.720 were supposed to happen.
01:27:48.800 I think that is why
01:27:50.140 God had the temple
01:27:51.120 destroyed in part
01:27:52.280 because it is what
01:27:53.260 allowed Jews to move
01:27:54.620 to a more sophisticated
01:27:55.600 version of their religion,
01:27:57.400 i.e. get away
01:27:58.560 from the old
01:27:59.060 polytheistic animal sacrifices
01:28:00.640 and nothing else.
01:28:01.980 Just remove the venue
01:28:02.880 where the problem
01:28:03.640 happens in the first place.
01:28:05.320 Yes, and I think
01:28:06.040 just like in major cities
01:28:07.280 sometimes where
01:28:08.020 a crime-ridden
01:28:09.120 neighborhood exists,
01:28:10.360 if you just
01:28:11.000 zero out the neighborhood
01:28:13.420 and build a mall there
01:28:15.300 or a hotel,
01:28:16.280 suddenly all the crime
01:28:17.780 is gone because
01:28:18.360 there's just no place
01:28:19.420 for it anymore.
01:28:20.600 Yeah, I mean,
01:28:21.100 getting rid of the temple
01:28:21.800 was a pretty big thing
01:28:22.680 to do and that it's
01:28:23.840 not rebuilt today
01:28:24.640 is kind of a miracle.
01:28:26.120 And I think that
01:28:27.480 it's there for a reason.
01:28:29.100 I think once the majority
01:28:30.080 of the Jewish population
01:28:31.380 accepts and builds rules
01:28:34.000 around not doing
01:28:34.880 animal sacrifices
01:28:35.840 at the temple...
01:28:36.860 Essentially,
01:28:37.740 my extremely offensive take
01:28:39.480 from actually reading
01:28:41.380 the Bible is
01:28:42.280 what is being asked
01:28:43.400 of the Jewish people
01:28:44.280 is a second
01:28:45.120 Josiah reform-like period
01:28:48.020 where their religion
01:28:49.640 is combed through
01:28:50.860 for ballite practices
01:28:53.000 and these are removed
01:28:54.680 so a sanctified temple
01:28:56.300 can be rebuilt
01:28:57.380 without it again
01:28:58.700 being used for
01:28:59.500 ballite worship.
01:29:00.780 And again,
01:29:01.880 you guys have done this before.
01:29:03.380 You did it with the first
01:29:04.300 Josiah reforms.
01:29:06.240 It's not an impossible
01:29:07.640 thing to do.
01:29:09.120 And again,
01:29:10.020 it is recorded
01:29:10.880 in the Bible
01:29:11.900 that the temple
01:29:13.300 was being used
01:29:14.300 for ballite worship
01:29:15.340 in the past
01:29:16.100 and that this required
01:29:17.720 pretty significant
01:29:18.920 and extreme action.
01:29:20.740 This isn't me saying
01:29:21.680 some like random
01:29:22.560 anti-Semitic nonsense.
01:29:24.220 Do you think
01:29:24.980 that the Jewish population
01:29:26.260 if suddenly we just...
01:29:28.360 Okay, now everyone
01:29:29.340 wakes up
01:29:29.820 a wild temple
01:29:31.020 has appeared.
01:29:32.680 They would do
01:29:33.060 animal sacrifices there?
01:29:36.360 Geopolitical events
01:29:37.200 would shift
01:29:37.580 in a way
01:29:37.840 that makes it possible.
01:29:39.340 Right, but would they
01:29:42.060 if there was just
01:29:42.780 a temple there tomorrow
01:29:43.860 randomly
01:29:44.720 and no problem
01:29:46.080 accessing it?
01:29:46.320 Oh yeah, they absolutely would.
01:29:47.480 Yeah, they still believe
01:29:48.360 that the animal sacrifices
01:29:49.280 are commanded of them.
01:29:50.020 The only reason
01:29:50.420 they don't do it
01:29:51.040 is because there's no temple.
01:29:52.120 No, no, what?
01:29:53.260 Really?
01:29:53.660 That's why Jews
01:29:54.200 don't do animal sacrifices
01:29:55.060 because they don't have a temple
01:29:55.860 not because it left there.
01:29:56.560 But they would...
01:29:57.340 Oh.
01:29:58.560 Well, maybe...
01:29:59.460 Even from a God's perspective
01:30:00.960 you get it now.
01:30:01.660 If they had a temple tomorrow
01:30:02.900 they'd have maybe
01:30:03.980 a conversation.
01:30:05.180 Do we really want
01:30:05.880 to do this?
01:30:07.260 They wouldn't have
01:30:07.800 a conversation.
01:30:08.440 It would happen.
01:30:09.080 Jews, comment in the comments below
01:30:10.580 especially those who know
01:30:11.460 the Hariti communities
01:30:13.000 because yeah,
01:30:13.980 they would be all about
01:30:14.880 those animal sacrifices.
01:30:16.680 Blood would be streaming
01:30:18.000 from the temple.
01:30:18.980 Baal would take great pleasure
01:30:20.540 in the new sacrifices
01:30:21.740 being made to him.
01:30:24.680 We'll...
01:30:25.240 Yes.
01:30:26.200 Let us know.
01:30:27.680 But anyway,
01:30:28.140 I'm going to continue here.
01:30:28.940 When I look at Christians
01:30:29.860 who pray to a God
01:30:31.020 of precious metals
01:30:31.840 and animal sacrifices,
01:30:33.320 the God that gets off
01:30:34.160 to humans ripping apart birds
01:30:35.540 as an act of worship,
01:30:37.080 I'm reminded of this scene.
01:30:38.200 Never doubted it
01:30:38.940 for a second, sir.
01:30:41.420 If I didn't believe before,
01:30:42.820 I do now.
01:30:44.480 Honey, everything's
01:30:45.220 going to be okay.
01:30:46.480 All will be well
01:30:47.280 and you will know
01:30:48.200 the name of God.
01:30:49.940 The one true God.
01:30:52.820 Be a Makoital.
01:30:55.220 He a what?
01:30:56.620 Be a Makoital.
01:30:58.580 He's here.
01:30:59.940 He's everywhere.
01:31:00.720 Come on.
01:31:04.700 Well, they say God
01:31:05.580 has many names,
01:31:06.460 but I've never heard
01:31:07.400 that one before.
01:31:08.240 Oh, he's talking
01:31:09.040 about a bug.
01:31:10.600 He thinks God is a bug?
01:31:12.400 He's got religion.
01:31:14.460 What do we do now?
01:31:17.420 Maybe we should kill him.
01:31:19.900 Why?
01:31:20.440 Because he believes
01:31:21.040 in God like you.
01:31:26.100 It's the wrong God!
01:31:27.680 From his fruits,
01:31:30.620 you will know him.
01:31:31.460 And what happened
01:31:32.000 to the people
01:31:32.400 who brought this
01:31:33.020 very obviously
01:31:33.840 policyistic practice
01:31:34.680 into the Jewish tradition?
01:31:36.060 Quote,
01:31:36.780 In this wilderness,
01:31:37.560 your bodies will fall.
01:31:38.560 Every one of you
01:31:39.400 20 years old or more
01:31:41.220 who has counted
01:31:41.900 in the census
01:31:42.400 and who has grumbled
01:31:43.500 against me,
01:31:44.340 not one of you
01:31:45.120 will enter the land
01:31:46.120 I swore with an uplifted hand
01:31:48.000 to make your home.
01:31:50.080 End quote.
01:31:50.820 And I should note here
01:31:52.440 that this event
01:31:53.700 proves irreconcilably
01:31:55.820 that the sin transference ritual
01:31:58.560 that took place
01:31:59.620 in the tabernacle
01:32:00.400 was not divinely ordained
01:32:03.880 because it did not work.
01:32:07.800 If there was a working ritual
01:32:10.480 for transferring
01:32:11.600 an individual's sins
01:32:12.900 into an animal,
01:32:14.460 both Moses
01:32:15.660 and the other Israelites
01:32:17.860 who became fearful
01:32:19.340 when they were scouting
01:32:20.300 the land of Canaan
01:32:21.160 would have had that sin
01:32:23.520 transferred to the animal
01:32:24.720 and would have been able
01:32:25.580 to go into Israel.
01:32:26.640 Yet they were not able to.
01:32:29.000 The Bible records for us
01:32:30.820 in no uncertain terms
01:32:32.960 this ritual
01:32:34.840 does not work.
01:32:37.420 But if this ritual
01:32:38.520 didn't work,
01:32:39.800 then how did the Israelites
01:32:41.200 have their sin cleared
01:32:42.660 for them
01:32:43.020 so that they could
01:32:43.920 enter the promised land?
01:32:44.860 Even in the Old Testament
01:32:46.560 we see
01:32:47.380 the techno-puritan understanding
01:32:49.860 very clearly laid out.
01:32:51.860 It is through
01:32:52.700 intergenerational martyrdom.
01:32:55.620 Their kids were able
01:32:56.980 to enter.
01:32:57.660 Through their parents'
01:32:59.220 sacrifice,
01:32:59.880 through the parents'
01:33:00.920 martyrdom
01:33:01.320 to build a generation
01:33:02.480 that is better
01:33:03.220 than themselves,
01:33:04.980 their sin was cleared.
01:33:07.200 They themselves,
01:33:09.180 no individual,
01:33:10.980 can sacrifice another
01:33:12.440 to relieve themselves
01:33:14.320 of their own sin.
01:33:16.220 Only in your own martyrdom,
01:33:18.400 in your own sacrifice,
01:33:19.660 can your sin be forgiven?
01:33:22.340 Can your sin be alleviated?
01:33:25.140 Can you find ascension?
01:33:26.760 It is only through
01:33:28.060 intergenerational improvement
01:33:29.820 and sacrifice,
01:33:31.420 as is seen in one of
01:33:32.780 this earliest of biblical tales,
01:33:34.540 that humanity
01:33:35.440 can become closer to God.
01:33:37.280 And that is then retold
01:33:38.800 in the story of Christ
01:33:39.960 as we have gone over
01:33:41.340 in our other tracks.
01:33:42.820 Scapegoating doesn't work.
01:33:45.120 You must take responsibility
01:33:46.420 for your own sins.
01:33:47.920 So, yeah,
01:33:49.660 they didn't get nice things,
01:33:51.220 the people who started
01:33:52.360 this form of worship.
01:33:53.740 The transition between
01:33:54.760 primordial man
01:33:55.820 and transitional man
01:33:56.880 was not an instant,
01:33:58.400 like a snap of the fingers
01:33:59.680 with a single revelation.
01:34:00.920 It happened over time.
01:34:02.660 I think this story
01:34:03.460 was preserved for us
01:34:04.320 as a warning
01:34:04.880 of how the deceiver
01:34:06.080 will infiltrate
01:34:06.900 otherwise holy movements
01:34:08.080 and infect them
01:34:09.180 with ideas
01:34:09.900 like the worship
01:34:10.780 of precious metals
01:34:11.660 and animal sacrifice.
01:34:12.840 It seems clear,
01:34:14.360 even in the story,
01:34:15.940 Moses had a,
01:34:16.880 quote,
01:34:17.500 oh, I fucked up,
01:34:18.600 end quote,
01:34:18.980 moment,
01:34:19.720 where we are taught
01:34:20.720 why churches
01:34:21.680 should not make demands
01:34:23.020 for precious metals
01:34:23.920 because too much stuff
01:34:25.280 was being donated.
01:34:27.340 Quote,
01:34:28.020 from what you have,
01:34:28.840 take an offering
01:34:29.440 for the Lord.
01:34:30.200 Let everyone who is willing
01:34:31.240 bring this offering
01:34:32.160 to the Lord,
01:34:33.340 gold, silver, bronze,
01:34:34.540 end quote.
01:34:35.240 Quote,
01:34:36.020 then Moses sent
01:34:37.020 this commandment
01:34:37.760 throughout the camp.
01:34:38.700 No man or woman
01:34:39.420 should make anything else
01:34:40.780 as a gift
01:34:41.320 to the holy tent.
01:34:42.460 So the people
01:34:43.200 were kept from giving more,
01:34:44.540 end quote.
01:34:45.520 So even Moses
01:34:46.260 seemed to have realized
01:34:47.440 this was kind of a mistake
01:34:49.060 but, you know,
01:34:49.940 sort of too deep
01:34:51.040 at that point
01:34:51.640 is what I take from this.
01:34:54.320 And people here are like,
01:34:55.480 no, I'm not worshipping
01:34:56.440 the gold.
01:34:57.140 I'm worshipping God
01:34:58.040 through the gold.
01:34:59.500 But that's the very point
01:35:00.800 of being commanded
01:35:01.460 not to make idols.
01:35:02.700 Of course you're going
01:35:03.380 to try to worship God
01:35:04.280 or the Jesus
01:35:04.940 through the gold
01:35:05.680 or through the act of sex
01:35:06.920 or through ripping apart
01:35:07.820 an animal.
01:35:08.480 But you're not supposed
01:35:09.460 to do that.
01:35:10.760 But again,
01:35:11.440 all I can do
01:35:12.400 is ask you
01:35:12.960 to search your heart.
01:35:13.740 Do you really believe
01:35:15.000 the God of this reality
01:35:16.440 is one who is gratified
01:35:17.820 by the suffering of animals
01:35:18.980 and precious stones
01:35:20.180 or is the entity
01:35:22.060 of gold
01:35:22.880 and animal slaughter
01:35:23.740 more likely
01:35:24.580 to be that
01:35:25.480 which you call
01:35:26.220 the devil?
01:35:27.480 But while worshipping sin
01:35:29.020 is the height of evil,
01:35:30.480 we are commanded
01:35:31.020 to overcome sin
01:35:32.100 not just avoid it.
01:35:33.420 Simply avoiding sin
01:35:34.400 is no longer an option.
01:35:35.820 Transitional man
01:35:36.640 was able to just avoid sin.
01:35:38.660 If God told everyone
01:35:39.560 to overcome water,
01:35:40.680 they did it
01:35:41.180 by avoiding streams.
01:35:42.060 But realize man,
01:35:43.540 the man that must travel
01:35:44.540 through this valley
01:35:45.640 of the lotus eaters
01:35:46.480 lives at the bottom
01:35:47.540 of an ocean of sin.
01:35:48.800 For us,
01:35:49.260 overcoming sin
01:35:49.880 means something
01:35:50.520 quite different.
01:35:51.500 It means that we need
01:35:52.300 to develop an immunity
01:35:53.600 to sin.
01:35:54.480 We must learn
01:35:55.140 to breathe sin
01:35:56.140 and allow it
01:35:56.740 to pass through us
01:35:57.780 without possessing
01:35:58.820 our hearts.
01:35:59.600 You can live a life
01:36:00.600 avoiding pain
01:36:01.460 or learn to be
01:36:02.520 the master of pain.
01:36:04.060 Put your right hand
01:36:05.480 in the box.
01:36:06.500 What's in the box?
01:36:07.900 Pain.
01:36:08.340 I hold at your neck
01:36:10.040 the Gomchabar.
01:36:11.720 This one kills
01:36:13.060 only animals.
01:36:14.680 Are you suggesting
01:36:15.380 a duke's son
01:36:16.000 is an animal?
01:36:16.760 I suggest
01:36:17.520 you may be human.
01:36:19.040 Your awareness
01:36:19.620 may be powerful enough
01:36:20.620 to control
01:36:21.260 your instincts.
01:36:22.620 Your instinct
01:36:23.320 will be
01:36:24.060 to remove your hand
01:36:25.360 from the box.
01:36:26.200 If you do so,
01:36:27.020 you die.
01:36:27.660 I must not fear.
01:36:29.480 Fear is the mind killer.
01:36:31.480 Fear is the little death
01:36:32.440 that brings
01:36:32.960 total obliteration.
01:36:34.740 I will face my fear.
01:36:36.520 I'm prepared
01:36:37.100 to pass over me
01:36:38.220 and through me.
01:36:39.920 Take your hand
01:36:40.600 out of the box
01:36:41.280 and look at it,
01:36:41.980 young human.
01:36:44.340 A human can resist
01:36:45.400 any pain.
01:36:46.300 Our test is crisis
01:36:47.240 and observation.
01:36:49.720 I see the truth of it.
01:36:51.500 You are an animal
01:36:52.580 if you cannot subjugate
01:36:53.780 your lower instincts.
01:36:55.080 And it is learning
01:36:55.940 to subjugate
01:36:56.520 those lower instincts.
01:36:57.520 What God has done
01:36:58.520 is basically put our hand
01:37:00.120 in one of those pain boxes,
01:37:02.440 but it's a box of pleasure.
01:37:03.880 And then put the Ganjabar
01:37:05.400 at our throats
01:37:06.140 and said,
01:37:06.900 can you still motivate
01:37:07.940 having kids?
01:37:08.900 Can you still motivate
01:37:09.980 passing down your traditions?
01:37:12.460 If you had been unable
01:37:13.680 to control your impulses
01:37:15.340 like an animal,
01:37:17.360 we could not let you live.
01:37:19.580 You inherit too much power.
01:37:21.140 The same is true of sin.
01:37:22.880 Avoiding it is no longer
01:37:23.920 a choice for man.
01:37:25.040 We must master it.
01:37:26.780 So any thoughts?
01:37:27.700 Yeah, it sits right with me.
01:37:28.880 I always found
01:37:30.240 the rules associated
01:37:32.640 with many religions
01:37:33.580 to be quite weird
01:37:36.660 and draconian
01:37:37.500 and in many ways arbitrary,
01:37:39.100 but they make a lot of sense
01:37:41.760 for some people.
01:37:43.820 So when you look at rules
01:37:45.600 in a consequentialist
01:37:46.780 rather than deontological context,
01:37:49.340 they make a lot more sense.
01:37:51.440 Because for some people,
01:37:52.840 they're very necessary.
01:37:54.100 For other people,
01:37:54.940 they're not.
01:37:55.900 Like the rules around slavery.
01:37:57.940 And if you actually read
01:37:58.720 the rules in the Bible
01:37:59.380 around slavery,
01:38:00.420 they are extremely progressive
01:38:02.080 for the time period
01:38:02.920 that they were put out there.
01:38:04.080 And when I say progressive,
01:38:04.820 I don't mean in like
01:38:05.360 a modern progressive sense.
01:38:06.720 I just mean that
01:38:07.320 they were very forward thinking.
01:38:08.580 They were very kind to slaves
01:38:10.620 and gave people
01:38:11.580 a lot of instances
01:38:12.440 in which they had
01:38:13.020 to release slaves
01:38:13.900 that other cultures
01:38:15.000 around them wouldn't have had
01:38:16.240 and limits on how
01:38:17.420 they could have slaves
01:38:18.260 and how badly
01:38:18.960 they could treat slaves.
01:38:20.400 And so they were
01:38:21.480 very obviously,
01:38:22.580 I think,
01:38:22.780 leading to a positive outcome
01:38:24.520 for the average person
01:38:27.580 in those cultures
01:38:28.240 if those cultures
01:38:29.000 could survive.
01:38:30.060 But I don't think
01:38:30.600 that they would have
01:38:31.000 been able to survive
01:38:31.760 had they removed
01:38:32.740 all the slavery laws
01:38:34.280 because slavery was a part
01:38:36.220 of the economy back then.
01:38:37.360 You can't not have it.
01:38:39.020 And I think that,
01:38:40.020 yes,
01:38:40.260 you see the laws
01:38:41.240 that God has given us
01:38:42.060 over time have changed.
01:38:44.560 The question is,
01:38:45.140 has their intent changed?
01:38:47.980 And we can tell
01:38:48.800 their differential intent,
01:38:50.820 differential when contrasted
01:38:51.920 with untrue religious systems,
01:38:53.800 by the fruits of the societies
01:38:55.520 that followed them.
01:38:56.580 And again,
01:38:57.500 there it is
01:38:58.140 the advancement of humanity,
01:38:59.700 not times of peace
01:39:01.700 or times of extra amounts
01:39:03.300 of love
01:39:03.940 or times of,
01:39:05.260 you know,
01:39:05.520 all of these hippy-dippy ideas
01:39:07.900 around God,
01:39:08.520 times of extra hedonism.
01:39:10.340 No,
01:39:10.480 the times of God
01:39:11.060 are very rarely times
01:39:12.140 of additional hedonism.
01:39:13.900 So,
01:39:15.060 yeah.
01:39:16.160 And I love you to death,
01:39:17.640 Simone,
01:39:17.940 and we'll get to this
01:39:19.060 soon
01:39:20.460 to finish off.
01:39:21.960 I'm sorry
01:39:22.440 to waste your time
01:39:23.240 with this.
01:39:24.520 You're not wasting
01:39:25.420 my time with this.
01:39:26.340 I love this stuff.
01:39:27.680 These are really fun,
01:39:29.120 thoughtful conversations.
01:39:30.580 You know,
01:39:30.760 we both get up
01:39:32.120 super early
01:39:32.820 to start work
01:39:33.740 so that we can finish
01:39:34.500 early enough
01:39:35.080 to get these in.
01:39:36.040 This is what
01:39:36.660 all that work is for.
01:39:38.980 Well,
01:39:39.300 I want to keep them
01:39:40.000 high quality.
01:39:40.740 And I know that,
01:39:41.420 like,
01:39:41.500 my crazier takes
01:39:42.360 are things like,
01:39:43.040 actually,
01:39:43.500 the tabernacle to me
01:39:44.680 seems to be,
01:39:45.680 and this is when
01:39:46.140 I kept checking
01:39:46.700 with myself,
01:39:47.240 that really feel
01:39:49.100 right to say
01:39:49.780 that this is not
01:39:51.260 the God of our universe
01:39:52.380 who is telling people
01:39:53.280 to rip apart animals.
01:39:55.140 And I,
01:39:55.580 like,
01:39:55.840 when I think about it,
01:39:56.420 because this is quite
01:39:56.940 a heretical thing to say,
01:39:58.340 that one of the things
01:39:59.360 that Moses thought
01:40:00.200 that God had told him
01:40:01.180 was actually the devil.
01:40:02.800 And just to me,
01:40:03.400 I couldn't get
01:40:03.960 a louder message.
01:40:05.280 They were worshiping
01:40:06.220 through precious metals
01:40:07.500 and they were ripping
01:40:08.120 apart animals
01:40:08.740 and spraying.
01:40:09.620 If I walked across
01:40:10.480 that ceremony
01:40:10.920 in the woods,
01:40:11.500 I'd say witches.
01:40:13.840 I'd be like,
01:40:14.460 this is obviously witches,
01:40:15.900 right?
01:40:16.120 Like,
01:40:17.100 and it's in the Bible.
01:40:18.140 Like,
01:40:18.360 I don't,
01:40:19.400 it doesn't seem vague
01:40:20.800 to me what was meant
01:40:21.500 to be conveyed by that,
01:40:23.040 but it is quite
01:40:23.800 a heretical thing
01:40:24.460 to point out.
01:40:25.640 So at the end
01:40:26.420 of this track,
01:40:26.920 there's now quite
01:40:27.560 a long addendum
01:40:28.360 on this,
01:40:28.840 because as I
01:40:29.780 researched further
01:40:31.660 on this particular topic
01:40:33.100 and looked up
01:40:34.600 different translations,
01:40:35.820 because this has
01:40:36.200 actually been removed
01:40:37.100 from most of
01:40:37.860 the English translations,
01:40:39.000 but it's very clearly
01:40:39.880 in the Hebrew edition
01:40:41.760 of the Bible
01:40:42.560 and it's in some
01:40:44.560 of the English translations,
01:40:46.120 which is to say
01:40:47.100 this ritual
01:40:47.740 that we're talking
01:40:48.420 about here,
01:40:49.240 it actually says
01:40:50.320 that it is not
01:40:51.160 for God,
01:40:52.100 it's for Azazel,
01:40:53.300 the goat,
01:40:54.160 the sin-transference goat,
01:40:55.800 that was sent
01:40:56.520 to Azazel.
01:40:57.820 Most scholars
01:40:58.440 see Azazel
01:40:59.000 as a demon.
01:40:59.960 In the text,
01:41:00.600 Yahweh and Azazel
01:41:01.300 are paralleled,
01:41:02.180 a goat is given
01:41:02.880 to each of them.
01:41:03.920 Since the name
01:41:04.480 Yahweh is used here
01:41:05.620 and is paralleled
01:41:06.400 with Azazel,
01:41:07.140 many see Azazel
01:41:07.940 as a name as well,
01:41:08.940 rather than a generic term.
01:41:10.260 Jewish interpreters
01:41:10.980 and writers
01:41:11.380 also understand
01:41:12.400 Azazel as a demon,
01:41:13.380 or at least
01:41:13.900 a malevolent
01:41:14.480 a supernatural personality.
01:41:16.200 In Second Temple literature
01:41:17.120 like First Enoch,
01:41:18.400 Azazel appears
01:41:19.040 as not just any demon,
01:41:20.540 but a chief of demons.
01:41:22.280 In First Enoch,
01:41:23.340 Azazel is something
01:41:24.020 like the commander
01:41:24.780 of Satan's armies,
01:41:25.760 or maybe even equated
01:41:26.840 with Satan himself.
01:41:28.660 In one of the Dead Sea Scrolls,
01:41:29.960 Azazel is the leader
01:41:30.840 of the angels
01:41:31.360 that sinned
01:41:31.860 in Genesis 6.
01:41:32.660 So it's actually recorded
01:41:35.240 in the Bible
01:41:36.280 very specifically,
01:41:37.880 and that kind of chilled me.
01:41:39.520 It's one of these crazy things
01:41:40.780 where, like,
01:41:41.900 I started reading
01:41:42.860 biblical stuff seriously,
01:41:45.340 like looking for truth
01:41:46.740 in the Bible,
01:41:48.240 in that,
01:41:49.340 one,
01:41:49.760 it's been incredibly compelling
01:41:50.800 to me that there does
01:41:51.880 seem to be some sort
01:41:53.120 of supernatural inspiration
01:41:54.520 behind these stories
01:41:55.800 as I go through them,
01:41:57.140 but very unfortunately,
01:41:58.540 the intent of that inspiration
01:42:01.500 seems to be orthogonal
01:42:03.560 to what many
01:42:05.280 of the traditional
01:42:06.280 Abrahamic faiths
01:42:07.760 read that intent to be,
01:42:09.600 and it's very clear
01:42:11.760 what the intent is
01:42:12.900 when I'm reading it
01:42:13.900 to an extent where,
01:42:15.680 you know,
01:42:16.260 it's easier for me.
01:42:17.780 It was easier for me
01:42:18.480 when I didn't believe
01:42:20.180 that these stories were real
01:42:21.260 because then I could just say,
01:42:22.440 okay,
01:42:23.200 well,
01:42:23.520 I just need to create,
01:42:24.560 you know,
01:42:25.440 beliefs for my kids
01:42:26.400 that are broadly
01:42:27.300 inoffensive
01:42:28.840 and that will guide them
01:42:29.880 towards positive action,
01:42:31.420 and I can do that
01:42:32.840 without offending
01:42:33.620 any of the established
01:42:34.620 religious players.
01:42:36.760 Yet,
01:42:37.300 when I actually read
01:42:38.480 these stories
01:42:39.120 and it's,
01:42:39.700 you know,
01:42:40.060 ripping apart the sign
01:42:41.160 of God's love
01:42:42.080 like a dove,
01:42:43.300 I'm like,
01:42:43.760 okay,
01:42:44.580 very obviously,
01:42:45.860 this is not,
01:42:47.200 this is meant to be
01:42:47.820 a warning of what
01:42:48.540 we're not supposed to do,
01:42:50.180 and then that everyone
01:42:50.840 who was involved
01:42:51.680 with the creation of that
01:42:52.880 wasn't allowed in Israel
01:42:54.040 and was punished
01:42:54.840 very severely,
01:42:55.860 okay,
01:42:56.340 very obviously,
01:42:56.960 you know,
01:42:57.340 from his fruits,
01:42:58.360 and then I'm like,
01:42:59.120 well,
01:42:59.540 you know,
01:42:59.760 and I know some people
01:43:00.700 with a more traditional
01:43:01.680 take on the Bible
01:43:02.420 are going to see this
01:43:04.280 and be like,
01:43:04.800 wow,
01:43:05.440 you know,
01:43:05.800 your takes are very deviant
01:43:08.020 from mainstream,
01:43:09.120 you know,
01:43:09.360 Christian,
01:43:09.900 Jewish,
01:43:10.940 et cetera,
01:43:11.640 takes,
01:43:12.220 and so I'd ask you,
01:43:13.420 you know,
01:43:13.900 if you have to choose
01:43:15.760 a side here,
01:43:16.860 you know,
01:43:17.020 if you're gonna condemn me
01:43:18.400 for these,
01:43:19.300 I am here reading
01:43:20.460 what's in the Bible
01:43:21.980 and thinking,
01:43:23.080 does the God of the universe
01:43:24.320 want us ripping apart
01:43:25.900 live birds?
01:43:28.000 Like,
01:43:28.160 is that something
01:43:29.900 that he sees
01:43:31.560 as a,
01:43:31.940 like,
01:43:32.980 intrinsically good,
01:43:34.780 sanctified thing
01:43:36.020 that,
01:43:36.420 does he want us
01:43:37.140 transferring our sins
01:43:38.320 to animals?
01:43:39.320 Like,
01:43:39.480 is that something
01:43:39.880 the God of the entire universe
01:43:41.980 of reality?
01:43:43.760 I don't,
01:43:44.360 I just can't take that position,
01:43:46.060 and the question is,
01:43:47.020 is that if you are,
01:43:47.800 if you are condemning me,
01:43:50.640 is that the position
01:43:52.260 you're taking?
01:43:52.920 Is that the deity
01:43:53.820 you are siding with,
01:43:54.820 the one that rips the head
01:43:56.220 off of live doves,
01:43:59.280 the sign of God's love
01:44:00.340 for humanity,
01:44:01.120 and throws them in a fire,
01:44:02.400 then rips the dove apart
01:44:04.000 and sprinkles the sight
01:44:06.180 with blood?
01:44:06.900 And don't say,
01:44:08.420 well,
01:44:08.480 it's preserved in our traditions
01:44:09.700 because we know
01:44:10.460 that those traditions
01:44:11.140 have been infected
01:44:11.900 with Baalite worship before.
01:44:13.500 We don't,
01:44:14.240 we don't get to use that
01:44:15.220 as an excuse.
01:44:16.340 We are in an active
01:44:17.420 religious time.
01:44:18.460 The Bible isn't closed.
01:44:20.200 New ideas are added
01:44:21.580 all the time.
01:44:22.440 I think that that's
01:44:23.080 what's expected of us.
01:44:24.680 Do we treat our religions
01:44:26.180 as living things
01:44:27.280 or as dead things?
01:44:28.420 As books that are sealed
01:44:29.740 or as books that are meant
01:44:31.120 to be engaged with,
01:44:32.900 with a living heart?
01:44:34.200 I think that's the core
01:44:35.440 of what makes
01:44:36.140 Technopuritanism
01:44:37.260 different from some
01:44:38.540 other traditions,
01:44:39.100 is it's meant to be
01:44:40.120 an always living tradition.
01:44:42.220 The heart is never
01:44:43.140 meant to stop beating.
01:44:44.260 So it's not good?
01:44:45.160 I don't know.
01:44:45.920 A lot of it comes down to,
01:44:48.500 I think that that's,
01:44:49.260 that's why Protestantism
01:44:51.000 is so scary
01:44:53.680 and revolutionary
01:44:54.440 that the interpretation
01:44:55.660 has been left up
01:44:56.580 to the individual
01:44:57.240 reading the Bible
01:44:58.240 instead of the church
01:44:59.900 deciding for you.
01:45:01.640 One thing I'd also love
01:45:02.520 to hear from listeners
01:45:03.640 that have left
01:45:04.480 a traditional face
01:45:05.560 and are now atheists.
01:45:06.980 Would you have left
01:45:07.980 this tradition?
01:45:09.580 Would it have tripped
01:45:10.760 whatever the trip lines were
01:45:12.280 that caused you
01:45:12.780 to leave your other faith?
01:45:14.040 Oh, you mean
01:45:14.640 the animal sacrificing tradition?
01:45:16.780 Well, no, not that.
01:45:17.680 I'm asking whatever
01:45:18.480 their old faith with.
01:45:19.480 If somebody's staying up
01:45:20.160 with a tract tradition,
01:45:20.940 I imagine a number
01:45:21.600 of them are atheists
01:45:22.380 who left traditional
01:45:23.120 Abrahamic frameworks.
01:45:24.780 Would you have left
01:45:26.240 had you been raised
01:45:27.160 in this tradition?
01:45:28.660 Which tradition?
01:45:30.080 This one,
01:45:30.660 the one I'm reading
01:45:31.640 about here today.
01:45:33.540 Techno-Puritan tradition.
01:45:35.380 Note that this was recorded
01:45:36.920 over two days,
01:45:37.820 so you had a bit
01:45:38.460 of an ending amble there
01:45:39.840 before we go back
01:45:41.200 into the rest of this stuff.
01:45:42.400 As a reminder
01:45:43.260 to what I was talking about
01:45:44.360 in the text
01:45:45.120 immediately before,
01:45:46.160 this was right after
01:45:46.780 I was saying that
01:45:47.580 we need to learn
01:45:49.020 to relate to sin differently.
01:45:50.820 We need to learn
01:45:51.520 to build immunity
01:45:52.900 to sin,
01:45:53.620 immunity to temptation,
01:45:55.020 and not just
01:45:56.400 avoid it anymore
01:45:57.960 because we are now
01:45:59.520 living in it.
01:46:00.340 We now need to breathe it.
01:46:02.220 We are like
01:46:02.880 one of those
01:46:03.860 little mice
01:46:05.540 from the abyss.
01:46:07.800 Fluid breathing system.
01:46:09.000 We just got them.
01:46:09.880 Anyway,
01:46:10.240 you breathe liquid
01:46:10.680 so you can't get compressed.
01:46:11.720 The pressure doesn't get you.
01:46:12.840 Check this out.
01:46:13.700 Can I borrow your rat?
01:46:14.280 What are you doing?
01:46:15.260 The killer!
01:46:16.120 It's okay.
01:46:16.520 I've done this myself.
01:46:17.440 Oh, man!
01:46:17.900 He's gonna be fine.
01:46:18.780 Look, she's freaking out.
01:46:19.940 She's going through
01:46:20.480 a normal adjustment period.
01:46:21.400 She's gonna drown!
01:46:22.860 He's taking the fluid
01:46:23.740 into his lungs.
01:46:25.360 So there's a bit
01:46:26.040 of anxiety here.
01:46:26.940 Damn rat's breathing
01:46:28.720 that shit.
01:46:30.340 That is
01:46:31.020 the goddamnest thing
01:46:32.260 I ever saw.
01:46:33.300 See, the fluid's harder
01:46:34.040 to push in and out
01:46:34.820 than air.
01:46:35.340 It's a little more
01:46:36.060 work to breathe.
01:46:38.460 She's digging it.
01:46:39.780 She's doing it.
01:46:40.640 She ain't digging it.
01:46:41.460 If the only way
01:46:42.560 you or those
01:46:43.500 of your tradition
01:46:44.240 can defend against sin
01:46:45.740 is avoiding it,
01:46:47.120 you will drown
01:46:48.060 in the Valley
01:46:48.940 of the Lotus Eaters.
01:46:50.060 There is no longer
01:46:51.420 avoiding sin anymore.
01:46:54.260 What is expected
01:46:55.140 of us is more
01:46:56.660 difficult than
01:46:57.840 what was expected
01:46:58.600 of our ancestors.
01:47:00.160 It is not as easy
01:47:01.320 to breathe water
01:47:02.240 as it is to breathe air.
01:47:03.860 It is not easy
01:47:04.800 to live among sin
01:47:06.380 yet not let it
01:47:07.500 control you.
01:47:08.340 But we don't
01:47:09.000 have a choice
01:47:09.920 anymore.
01:47:11.020 It's the only path
01:47:12.400 through the Valley
01:47:13.160 of the Lotus Eaters.
01:47:14.600 However,
01:47:15.180 there are advantages
01:47:15.820 to this.
01:47:16.280 First, it allows
01:47:16.780 techno-puritans
01:47:17.440 to unlock worlds
01:47:18.540 that traditional
01:47:19.460 Christians have
01:47:20.220 no access to.
01:47:20.920 The world
01:47:22.340 of the debauch
01:47:22.880 and the depraved
01:47:23.500 is caustic to them.
01:47:24.840 It burns away
01:47:25.560 their skin,
01:47:26.480 but to us
01:47:27.340 it is a mild
01:47:28.100 inconvenience at best.
01:47:29.620 This allows us
01:47:30.280 to proselytize
01:47:31.100 to communities
01:47:31.640 with the language
01:47:32.400 traditional Christians
01:47:33.340 cannot effectively
01:47:34.340 minister to.
01:47:35.100 We know the truth.
01:47:36.160 There is no more
01:47:37.100 sin in something
01:47:38.100 like hentai
01:47:38.920 than there is
01:47:39.580 in video games,
01:47:40.600 music, or sports.
01:47:41.900 Human sexuality
01:47:42.580 is just another mystery
01:47:43.780 to be dissected
01:47:44.780 than sorted
01:47:45.520 in a quest
01:47:46.240 for useful tools.
01:47:47.560 Tools that improve
01:47:48.580 our efficiency,
01:47:49.280 mental discipline,
01:47:50.680 and ability
01:47:51.080 to prevent
01:47:51.520 our children
01:47:51.940 from falling
01:47:52.500 to the madness
01:47:53.120 that exists
01:47:53.740 outside the
01:47:54.400 protective walls
01:47:55.000 of our home.
01:47:55.900 The urban monoculture
01:47:56.940 uses the fact
01:47:57.880 that traditional
01:47:58.620 Christianity
01:47:59.180 has engaged
01:48:00.240 with sexuality
01:48:01.180 through simply
01:48:02.160 attempting to
01:48:02.860 build a moat
01:48:03.480 around it
01:48:04.020 as an easy
01:48:04.740 pathway to attack
01:48:05.680 and inject
01:48:06.380 self-replicating
01:48:07.280 memetic structures
01:48:08.000 into your children's
01:48:09.460 brains.
01:48:10.180 Our children
01:48:10.760 will be immune
01:48:11.360 to this
01:48:11.740 because they
01:48:12.500 will have
01:48:12.820 a truer
01:48:13.280 understanding
01:48:13.780 of human sexuality
01:48:14.600 and its place
01:48:15.860 in their lives
01:48:16.480 than the cult
01:48:17.480 can provide.
01:48:18.060 They will have
01:48:19.120 nothing to tempt
01:48:19.820 them with
01:48:20.200 because they
01:48:20.880 know whatever
01:48:21.520 form of sexual
01:48:22.340 gratification
01:48:22.960 they shun,
01:48:23.940 they have
01:48:24.200 personally chosen
01:48:24.940 to shun
01:48:25.380 that specific
01:48:26.280 negative
01:48:26.800 for the effects
01:48:28.020 it has on
01:48:28.620 their lives,
01:48:29.280 not because
01:48:29.960 it is simply
01:48:30.440 banned.
01:48:31.180 They will be
01:48:31.660 able to turn
01:48:32.360 the poor
01:48:33.000 and twisted
01:48:33.540 understanding
01:48:34.060 of human sexuality
01:48:34.840 contained within
01:48:35.800 the cult
01:48:36.320 back at their
01:48:37.560 attackers
01:48:37.940 and use the cult's
01:48:39.160 most frequently
01:48:39.820 cheesed attack
01:48:40.640 vector as an
01:48:41.220 opportunity for
01:48:41.920 ministry.
01:48:42.600 This is,
01:48:43.520 I believe,
01:48:43.980 the core transition
01:48:44.620 that is needed
01:48:45.320 to be made
01:48:45.980 to make it
01:48:46.780 through the
01:48:47.360 Valley of the
01:48:47.800 Lotus Eaters
01:48:48.300 for any
01:48:48.860 tradition,
01:48:49.800 a transition
01:48:50.320 from an
01:48:50.780 aesthetic
01:48:51.080 or deontological
01:48:51.900 ethical system
01:48:52.460 to a
01:48:52.780 consequentialist
01:48:53.420 one.
01:48:54.200 Sin is
01:48:54.560 inevitable.
01:48:55.360 Just learn
01:48:55.880 to engage
01:48:56.400 in it in a
01:48:57.000 way that does
01:48:57.540 not corrupt
01:48:58.000 your heart
01:48:58.620 where corruption
01:48:59.420 is defined
01:49:00.120 as spending
01:49:00.900 significantly
01:49:01.460 less time
01:49:02.060 on industrious
01:49:02.700 activities
01:49:03.120 or less
01:49:03.980 focus on
01:49:04.500 your spouse
01:49:04.900 and kids.
01:49:06.060 Having a
01:49:06.460 sports game
01:49:06.960 on in the
01:49:07.420 background
01:49:07.680 while cleaning
01:49:08.140 your house
01:49:08.580 or masturbating
01:49:09.500 to save
01:49:09.920 the time
01:49:10.340 of sex
01:49:10.820 are not
01:49:11.440 signs of
01:49:11.900 being an
01:49:12.240 unvirtuous
01:49:12.720 person.
01:49:13.560 The key
01:49:14.000 is to not
01:49:14.460 allow sin
01:49:14.880 to capture
01:49:15.260 your heart
01:49:15.720 and pull you
01:49:16.460 from the
01:49:16.740 righteous
01:49:16.980 path
01:49:17.400 to worship
01:49:18.180 sin.
01:49:18.760 For example,
01:49:20.260 treating sex
01:49:20.920 as a sacred
01:49:21.380 act.
01:49:22.180 Do not be
01:49:22.560 seduced by
01:49:23.120 those who
01:49:23.460 would worship
01:49:23.840 the flesh.
01:49:25.000 Outside of
01:49:25.520 the chemical
01:49:25.820 bonding
01:49:26.220 facilitated
01:49:26.880 by it
01:49:27.420 and any
01:49:28.140 efficiency
01:49:28.540 gains
01:49:28.920 from a
01:49:29.320 mood
01:49:29.540 and self
01:49:29.940 perception
01:49:30.320 boost,
01:49:31.020 marital
01:49:31.300 sex
01:49:31.700 that cannot
01:49:32.460 produce
01:49:32.880 children
01:49:33.200 is just
01:49:33.840 using
01:49:34.140 your
01:49:34.300 partner's
01:49:34.740 body
01:49:35.020 and time
01:49:35.800 for
01:49:35.980 masturbation.
01:49:36.960 Non-reproductive
01:49:37.520 sex is a
01:49:38.300 fetish where
01:49:39.140 fetish is
01:49:39.640 defined as
01:49:40.400 a misfiring
01:49:41.280 or circumvention
01:49:42.580 of arousal
01:49:44.080 pathways to
01:49:44.860 receive pleasure
01:49:45.640 from them
01:49:46.560 in an act
01:49:47.220 that will
01:49:47.660 not lead
01:49:48.120 to their
01:49:48.380 intended
01:49:48.640 function.
01:49:49.180 The Bible
01:49:49.560 makes it clear
01:49:50.140 on multiple
01:49:50.540 occasions the
01:49:51.340 body is a
01:49:51.880 vessel for
01:49:52.340 what is sacred
01:49:52.940 and any
01:49:53.760 divinity the
01:49:54.580 body has is
01:49:55.740 only a result
01:49:56.540 of what it
01:49:57.020 carries.
01:49:57.920 What about
01:49:58.420 man being
01:49:58.960 made in God's
01:49:59.540 image?
01:50:00.080 Well, it
01:50:00.560 explicitly does
01:50:01.220 not say that
01:50:01.600 man's body
01:50:02.140 was made in
01:50:02.620 God's image.
01:50:03.500 And let's be
01:50:03.940 serious, do
01:50:04.620 people actually
01:50:05.220 think that God
01:50:05.920 is some giant
01:50:06.620 naked human
01:50:07.340 floating in the
01:50:07.980 ether?
01:50:08.220 reports from
01:50:09.840 all over the
01:50:10.620 country have
01:50:11.300 been coming in
01:50:11.940 about what
01:50:12.460 appears to be
01:50:13.400 a giant naked
01:50:14.580 man over the
01:50:15.480 continental United
01:50:16.560 States.
01:50:17.100 Well, the eyes
01:50:18.120 aren't twinkling
01:50:18.840 and the dimples
01:50:19.620 aren't merry,
01:50:20.560 but I'm standing
01:50:21.480 under a nose
01:50:22.500 like a 70-mile
01:50:23.720 cherry.
01:50:24.500 We've got feet
01:50:25.520 here on the
01:50:26.040 West Coast, Bill.
01:50:27.260 Giant feet even
01:50:28.440 relative to the
01:50:29.360 giant man's size.
01:50:30.960 The human body
01:50:31.620 and its functions
01:50:32.560 are in no way
01:50:33.720 sacred in and of
01:50:34.560 themselves.
01:50:34.980 Those who claim
01:50:36.140 it is are but
01:50:37.100 a step from
01:50:38.340 the Satan
01:50:38.880 worshiper who
01:50:39.740 holds their
01:50:40.200 services using
01:50:40.900 a naked woman
01:50:41.640 as their
01:50:42.160 podium.
01:50:42.900 That said,
01:50:43.840 the naked human
01:50:44.500 form is not
01:50:45.820 inherently sinful
01:50:46.760 either.
01:50:47.380 It is a tool,
01:50:48.220 a vessel,
01:50:49.060 and no more
01:50:49.840 worthy of
01:50:50.460 veneration or
01:50:51.160 fear among the
01:50:52.480 righteous than
01:50:53.340 animated clay.
01:50:54.520 For now, it is
01:50:55.680 also the only
01:50:56.600 vessel we get,
01:50:58.040 and for that
01:50:58.840 reason, our own
01:50:59.960 bodies must be
01:51:00.760 treated with an
01:51:01.580 amount of
01:51:02.100 restraint and
01:51:02.880 respect.
01:51:03.680 This is why
01:51:04.200 any activity
01:51:05.060 that puts your
01:51:05.640 body at risk
01:51:06.580 for the sake
01:51:07.520 of masturbating
01:51:08.260 some emotional
01:51:08.960 state is
01:51:09.480 extremely sinful.
01:51:10.620 Here I am
01:51:11.020 speaking of
01:51:11.420 activities like
01:51:11.980 free climbing,
01:51:12.680 crew, cheerleading,
01:51:13.700 kickboxing, etc.
01:51:14.760 So any activity
01:51:15.840 where you are
01:51:17.040 putting your life
01:51:18.040 at risk, like
01:51:18.660 your body's
01:51:19.780 wholeness and
01:51:20.960 function at risk
01:51:22.080 in order to
01:51:23.060 masturbate some
01:51:23.740 emotional subset,
01:51:24.640 like free climbing
01:51:25.360 is probably the
01:51:26.020 best example of
01:51:26.640 this, is
01:51:27.660 extremely sinful,
01:51:29.140 much more sinful
01:51:29.980 than something like
01:51:30.840 non-reproductive
01:51:31.780 sex.
01:51:32.700 And we'll come,
01:51:33.080 many people will
01:51:33.380 be like, oh,
01:51:33.740 but doesn't the
01:51:34.240 Bible say that
01:51:35.240 like when you
01:51:35.980 come together
01:51:36.620 and then you're
01:51:38.020 one person and
01:51:39.120 that's a divine
01:51:39.780 thing to do?
01:51:40.280 And it's like,
01:51:41.040 yes, but you're
01:51:42.040 not one person
01:51:42.860 when you have
01:51:43.280 sex.
01:51:44.140 You're one person
01:51:45.160 when you create
01:51:46.900 a child through
01:51:48.380 the act of sex.
01:51:50.100 Two people having
01:51:50.880 sex, like God
01:51:51.420 isn't stupid.
01:51:52.120 He's not like
01:51:52.480 confused like, oh,
01:51:53.680 my penis touched
01:51:54.480 someone, now we're
01:51:55.160 one person.
01:51:56.080 Now this makes so
01:51:57.020 much more sense.
01:51:57.680 This definition of
01:51:58.460 one flesh being
01:51:59.460 like literally the
01:52:00.600 one flesh that you
01:52:01.860 create by creating
01:52:03.200 a human, now I
01:52:04.620 get it.
01:52:05.160 Okay.
01:52:05.740 Yeah.
01:52:06.000 Before it was like,
01:52:06.760 well, I don't know.
01:52:07.480 I mean, does that
01:52:08.100 mean that when you
01:52:08.620 hug someone, you're
01:52:09.540 one flesh or when a
01:52:11.060 surgeon puts their
01:52:11.820 hand inside you
01:52:12.560 during surgery, you're
01:52:14.300 one flesh.
01:52:15.100 Like none of that
01:52:15.800 really made sense to
01:52:16.780 me.
01:52:17.240 Oh, no, it's when
01:52:18.320 you're married that
01:52:18.980 makes the act extra
01:52:19.880 sacred.
01:52:20.420 And I'm like, but
01:52:20.900 like, why?
01:52:22.060 I also love this
01:52:23.340 idea where people
01:52:24.080 will be like, man
01:52:24.700 was made in the
01:52:25.220 image of God.
01:52:25.800 And they're like,
01:52:26.300 okay, there's like a
01:52:26.980 giant naked dude
01:52:28.300 floating in space, I
01:52:29.440 guess.
01:52:30.060 Like what?
01:52:30.740 Like, they don't
01:52:31.440 mean like, like the
01:52:33.480 body.
01:52:33.980 They would have said
01:52:34.360 man's body was made
01:52:35.840 in the image of God.
01:52:36.640 They meant, well, you
01:52:38.740 can tell very much
01:52:39.900 from our belief system
01:52:40.700 when we say man was
01:52:41.500 made in the image of
01:52:42.100 God, we believe that
01:52:42.820 literally God comes
01:52:43.860 from man eventually.
01:52:45.620 So yes, we are made
01:52:46.940 in the image of God.
01:52:48.760 So as a reminder for
01:52:50.040 people who haven't
01:52:50.600 watched our other
01:52:51.100 tracks, we think
01:52:51.760 millions upon millions
01:52:53.180 of years from now,
01:52:54.100 mankind eventually
01:52:55.180 becomes the entity
01:52:56.420 which is recognized
01:52:58.420 as God in the
01:53:00.420 Bible and is being
01:53:01.760 influenced to become
01:53:03.320 that entity by this
01:53:04.720 God who lives within
01:53:06.040 the future.
01:53:07.340 But if you actually
01:53:08.460 read the part where
01:53:09.420 it says that man was
01:53:10.300 created in the image
01:53:11.060 of God, this line
01:53:12.500 takes on a new
01:53:13.220 meaning when you're
01:53:13.920 interpreting it through
01:53:15.000 this lens.
01:53:16.560 God created humankind
01:53:17.880 in his own image.
01:53:19.800 In the image of God,
01:53:21.200 he created them.
01:53:23.000 Male and female,
01:53:24.220 he created them.
01:53:24.960 So while the Hebrew
01:53:25.800 word used here,
01:53:27.680 bara, is used to
01:53:30.180 represent a completed
01:53:32.100 action, it is not
01:53:34.000 strictly a past tense
01:53:35.800 word.
01:53:36.420 It can also be used to
01:53:38.500 describe a future
01:53:39.580 action that is certain
01:53:41.220 to occur.
01:53:42.360 Prophetic perfect action,
01:53:43.960 you could call it.
01:53:44.620 So it can actually
01:53:46.340 grammatically correctly
01:53:47.540 be read to mean God
01:53:50.000 is in the process of
01:53:52.580 creating man in his own
01:53:55.340 image.
01:53:56.120 But I always found this
01:53:56.800 idea of like a giant
01:53:57.660 naked dude in space
01:53:58.860 really weird.
01:53:59.840 I mean, does he have
01:54:00.220 clothes?
01:54:00.820 Naked dude in space.
01:54:02.320 Yeah.
01:54:03.100 No, it's true.
01:54:04.640 This is again where I
01:54:05.980 differentiate like a
01:54:07.460 secular perspective
01:54:08.520 versus a non-secular
01:54:09.460 perspective where I would
01:54:10.960 say, what do people mean
01:54:11.620 when you say you have
01:54:12.140 like a secular theology?
01:54:13.220 And I mean, like, well,
01:54:14.060 we believe that God
01:54:14.620 like literally exists.
01:54:16.280 And they're like, well,
01:54:17.760 like I believe he
01:54:18.500 literally exists.
01:54:19.120 And it's like, well, I
01:54:20.260 mean, you believe he
01:54:21.100 exists in like a
01:54:21.740 different type of
01:54:23.380 reality than our
01:54:24.620 reality.
01:54:24.940 You don't believe that
01:54:25.660 there is a literal God
01:54:27.260 somewhere in this
01:54:28.520 universe, whereas we
01:54:29.680 believe there is a
01:54:30.440 literal God somewhere in
01:54:31.420 this universe and he is
01:54:32.400 in the future.
01:54:33.740 But anyway, I'll keep
01:54:34.580 going from here.
01:54:35.720 And I do think that
01:54:36.280 religion should be,
01:54:37.580 especially modern
01:54:38.220 religions, need to be
01:54:38.900 much more strict when it
01:54:40.160 comes to things that can
01:54:41.420 damage your body for no
01:54:42.460 reason other than
01:54:43.380 masturbatory.
01:54:44.620 And this is really
01:54:45.520 where it comes to like
01:54:46.200 this consequentialist
01:54:47.080 framing, right?
01:54:47.740 Where it's like, well,
01:54:49.440 I mean, you might be
01:54:50.100 over-focused on
01:54:50.920 masturbation and
01:54:51.780 under-focused on
01:54:52.700 free climbing, which
01:54:53.860 is going to, for the
01:54:55.540 sake of masturbating
01:54:56.360 some emotional pathway
01:54:57.220 within your body, be
01:54:58.440 more deleterious to
01:54:59.620 your ability to live
01:55:00.600 out the life plan that
01:55:01.860 you're supposed to be
01:55:02.780 living out.
01:55:03.440 Like, anyway, I'll
01:55:04.820 continue.
01:55:06.040 All this comes with a
01:55:07.220 huge caveat.
01:55:08.140 While non-reproductive
01:55:08.860 sex with your spouse is
01:55:09.940 just a form of mutual
01:55:11.060 masturbation, sex
01:55:12.180 does help us
01:55:12.980 chemically bond with
01:55:13.600 our spouses, and many
01:55:14.780 people require some
01:55:16.080 amount of it to feel
01:55:17.300 satisfied.
01:55:18.100 As Christians, our
01:55:19.080 highest duty, after our
01:55:20.840 children and God, is our
01:55:22.000 spouse.
01:55:22.580 To ensure that they
01:55:23.620 maximize their potential,
01:55:25.180 ensure that they are as
01:55:27.180 sexually satisfied as we
01:55:28.280 can make them with the
01:55:29.800 minimum amount of daily
01:55:31.000 time investment is part of
01:55:32.680 that duty.
01:55:33.540 In this task, it is our
01:55:35.420 duty to, without judgment,
01:55:37.000 learn as much about our
01:55:38.100 spouse's unique sexual
01:55:39.300 profile and dedicate our
01:55:41.500 actions to maximizing its
01:55:43.040 fulfillment.
01:55:54.940 So, yes, a wife does have
01:55:57.000 a conjugal duty, but this
01:55:58.440 duty extends far past
01:55:59.920 simple sex and is not
01:56:01.060 limited to the woman.
01:56:02.540 It extends both ways.
01:56:03.920 Both the husband and the
01:56:04.920 wife have a duty to their
01:56:06.120 partner to give them the
01:56:07.200 best life they can and
01:56:09.100 fulfill the sinful desires
01:56:10.680 the partner chooses not to
01:56:12.080 suppress.
01:56:12.900 Here, I would note that
01:56:14.520 those sinful desires may
01:56:16.500 not be sex, but might be
01:56:18.080 something like jewelry or
01:56:19.600 indulgent travel.
01:56:20.860 Absolutely.
01:56:22.380 You are not living for God
01:56:23.340 if you live a life where
01:56:24.280 the satisfaction of your
01:56:25.060 partner is not chief among
01:56:26.800 your concerns.
01:56:28.000 Your life is part of a
01:56:29.980 LARP to satisfy your
01:56:31.320 partner's deepest fantasies.
01:56:32.700 However, this duty towards
01:56:33.900 ensuring your partner is
01:56:35.620 satisfied never supersedes your
01:56:37.840 duty to ensure their
01:56:39.600 continued self-improvement
01:56:41.000 in industry.
01:56:42.360 So, here, what I'm saying
01:56:44.520 is in relation to your
01:56:45.480 partner, the highest duty is
01:56:47.180 ensuring that they continue
01:56:48.080 to improve to become a
01:56:49.580 better version of
01:56:50.320 themselves.
01:56:50.980 But under that duty, you
01:56:54.340 have a, I'd say, like a
01:56:57.780 moral obligation to
01:57:00.120 masturbate specifically what
01:57:02.340 it needed for them to feel
01:57:03.980 satisfied with their lives.
01:57:05.020 And that may not be through
01:57:07.600 non-reproductive sexual
01:57:08.820 encounters with you and
01:57:09.880 them.
01:57:10.200 It may be through buying
01:57:12.360 them fancy clothes, which is
01:57:13.940 a sinful act.
01:57:14.780 It may be through going to
01:57:17.420 sports tournaments with them
01:57:18.780 or playing video games with
01:57:20.200 them or all of these things.
01:57:21.980 It's just important that you
01:57:23.300 understand that you not
01:57:25.080 attempt to sanctify the
01:57:27.080 sinful acts.
01:57:27.860 That you not attempt to say,
01:57:28.880 well, I'm doing it with my
01:57:29.840 wife.
01:57:30.500 Well, what you're saying is I
01:57:32.120 have a duty to give them the
01:57:33.080 best life possible while
01:57:34.300 ensuring they spend the
01:57:35.040 lowest amount of time on
01:57:36.100 this stuff.
01:57:36.400 But if you, for example,
01:57:37.180 decided, started to get
01:57:38.680 addicted to something and
01:57:39.860 it started to prevent you
01:57:40.980 from spending as much time on
01:57:42.840 industrial activities as we
01:57:44.460 would want or industrial
01:57:45.140 activities, I would also have
01:57:46.560 an obligation to lead you
01:57:47.580 away from that, to let you
01:57:48.420 know and work to lead you
01:57:50.180 away from that.
01:57:51.720 Yeah.
01:57:52.620 So I don't think that there's
01:57:53.900 really anything sort of off
01:57:55.160 limits in a marriage.
01:57:56.160 It's just don't sanctify it.
01:57:58.040 And not only is nothing off
01:57:59.640 limits, but you have a bit of
01:58:00.780 a duty to learn what your
01:58:02.160 partner wants, because you
01:58:03.360 might be able to, for
01:58:05.060 example, sexually satisfy
01:58:06.040 them in using far less time
01:58:08.540 and make them far more
01:58:09.920 satisfied by doing something
01:58:11.580 outside of normal sexual
01:58:12.940 mores.
01:58:14.260 Yeah.
01:58:14.540 Do you have any thoughts on
01:58:15.100 that or?
01:58:16.340 No, it's just with your
01:58:18.160 tracked stuff, I think my
01:58:20.000 problem is that it just is
01:58:21.660 so intuitive to me that I'm
01:58:22.800 just like, yeah, okay.
01:58:24.480 Absolutely.
01:58:26.040 That's how it is.
01:58:27.800 Yeah.
01:58:28.480 Because it is.
01:58:29.180 And this drive towards
01:58:31.960 efficiency is also how you
01:58:33.240 should relate to sin in your
01:58:34.800 own life.
01:58:36.060 Does music help you work more
01:58:37.220 efficiently?
01:58:37.840 Does masturbation clear your
01:58:38.880 mind before a meeting or a
01:58:40.080 date?
01:58:40.680 Does indulging in watching
01:58:41.760 sports every now and then
01:58:42.920 help you stay motivated during
01:58:44.440 a boring work week?
01:58:45.760 That is for you to judge.
01:58:48.260 We used to live in a world of
01:58:50.380 simple rules, but now you are
01:58:51.780 burdened with making these
01:58:52.740 judgments yourself and being
01:58:54.420 honest about them.
01:58:56.000 When making these judgments,
01:58:57.140 it is crucial to not make the
01:58:58.960 mistake of assuming a sin's
01:59:00.560 severity in the eyes of gods
01:59:02.100 is in any way modulated by how
01:59:04.220 severely it is judged by our
01:59:05.300 society.
01:59:06.220 In fact, it is those sins which
01:59:07.900 can not be used for positive
01:59:09.960 social signaling that are less
01:59:11.580 severe than those which society
01:59:13.380 sees as a sign of status as
01:59:15.120 they become amplified by pride
01:59:16.620 and vanity.
01:59:17.700 Worse, they are much more likely
01:59:18.960 to blind you to their sinful
01:59:20.300 nature because those around you
01:59:21.880 will affirm you for engaging in
01:59:23.140 them, leading you to spend time,
01:59:24.940 resources, and other proximate
01:59:26.560 for industry on them.
01:59:27.940 It is for this reason that
01:59:29.760 something like watching a
01:59:31.120 pervy anime or reading a
01:59:32.780 slash fanfic is magnitudes
01:59:34.780 less sinful and less dangerous
01:59:36.900 than enjoying a night watching
01:59:38.640 a symphony or reading classical
01:59:40.380 literature for entertainment.
01:59:41.820 The pain purifies my
01:59:43.620 predilection for pleasure.
01:59:45.140 Your alliteration sounds
01:59:46.700 dangerously like poetry.
01:59:48.800 My apologies.
01:59:50.320 Strike me silence.
01:59:52.460 But yeah, do you have any
01:59:53.720 thoughts on that?
01:59:54.320 I love that and I love
01:59:57.520 emphasizing that because I think
01:59:59.520 most religions evolved in an era
02:00:02.460 in which people lived in religious
02:00:05.180 communities, meaning that if the
02:00:06.560 community wasn't okay with it, it
02:00:08.320 was probably not okay per the
02:00:11.260 religion.
02:00:12.460 Now we live in a largely secular
02:00:14.480 society or in a very heterogeneous
02:00:16.860 religious mix, at least in the United
02:00:19.560 States and many open
02:00:22.800 to immigration cultures.
02:00:24.760 I mean, even Japan has seen record
02:00:26.560 levels of immigration in the past few
02:00:28.480 years.
02:00:29.020 So, yeah.
02:00:29.940 Right.
02:00:30.500 Meaning that you can no longer rely on
02:00:32.860 society to be a good
02:00:34.500 litmus test for alignment with your
02:00:37.300 values.
02:00:37.700 And I totally agree that even to the
02:00:41.060 extent that TikTok is a weapon of
02:00:43.740 China, right?
02:00:44.840 To a great extent.
02:00:46.220 Yeah.
02:00:46.640 A lot of the things that are being
02:00:47.980 celebrated are quite literally meant
02:00:51.780 to hurt and destroy us.
02:00:54.020 They can use these old systems like
02:00:56.000 don't engage with TikTok with their
02:00:57.540 kids, but then what happens?
02:00:58.320 The kid leaves the house, he engages
02:00:59.400 with TikTok and it's over, right?
02:01:00.900 Yeah.
02:01:01.320 You need to train.
02:01:02.060 And TikTok is the basilisk.
02:01:03.780 It is so perfect.
02:01:04.900 Yeah, you need to train them in the
02:01:06.860 spiritual discipline to resist a
02:01:09.020 temptation like TikTok.
02:01:10.140 Yeah.
02:01:10.700 So we're not in ban TikTok team.
02:01:13.720 We are in the...
02:01:14.640 Well, I actually am from a geopolitical
02:01:16.740 perspective.
02:01:17.200 I think it's bad that we're allowing
02:01:18.400 China to use this to dumb down our
02:01:20.300 population.
02:01:20.680 Yeah, it's not fair, but I don't know.
02:01:22.800 Like, religiously, we are not against
02:01:25.240 it.
02:01:25.860 Yeah, religiously, I'm not against it.
02:01:27.100 I think there's a big difference
02:01:29.340 between our own citizens, like, going
02:01:31.260 out and engaging with some sinful
02:01:34.440 activity, like, you know, music or
02:01:36.860 something like that, and a foreign
02:01:38.180 power intentionally putting music
02:01:39.880 into our communities that is all
02:01:41.180 about, like, gang violence.
02:01:42.500 I'm like, okay, that's, you know,
02:01:44.300 clearly they're trying to mess us
02:01:45.820 up, right?
02:01:47.980 Anyway, back to this.
02:01:49.040 But again, and this is the single
02:01:50.860 most important thing to be vigilant
02:01:51.840 of, never confuse a sin with a virtue,
02:01:54.180 or even worse, with an aspect of your
02:01:55.980 identity.
02:01:56.300 It is okay to exercise a little more
02:01:59.100 than you need to for health purposes
02:02:01.300 because you want to look good or get
02:02:03.380 really into the lore of one of your
02:02:05.280 favorite video games.
02:02:06.380 But don't confuse this with a virtue,
02:02:07.940 or even worse, attempt to sort
02:02:10.160 yourself above others based on a sin.
02:02:12.900 So, what do I mean by sort yourself
02:02:14.640 above others based on a sin?
02:02:16.020 That means that you are using a sinful
02:02:18.360 activity for social hierarchy
02:02:20.460 signaling.
02:02:21.180 And this is very important that you
02:02:23.120 never, ever, ever do this.
02:02:25.300 And with our kids, this will be one of
02:02:26.280 the things that I emphasize the most
02:02:28.020 to them.
02:02:28.600 So, if something was done for
02:02:30.000 indulgent purposes, like not for health,
02:02:31.720 like you are way buffer than you need
02:02:33.120 to be for health reasons, or for
02:02:34.860 attracting any mate reasons, then you
02:02:36.600 are using that to social signal within
02:02:37.960 that community, and that's a sin.
02:02:38.860 Or you spend a lot of time learning
02:02:40.300 about the lore of a game, or obscure
02:02:42.300 music artists, and you try to use that
02:02:44.860 to, within communities that are
02:02:46.380 dedicated to these things, signal
02:02:48.180 superiority to another person.
02:02:50.080 That is an incredibly sinful thing to
02:02:51.960 do, because you are sorting your
02:02:53.960 identity, like you are building the sin
02:02:56.280 into your identity and sense of self-worth.
02:02:58.920 Yeah, absolutely.
02:03:01.500 And you've seen people do that, you
02:03:02.600 know what I'm talking about, right?
02:03:03.900 Mm-hmm.
02:03:06.160 Well, but this is very related to getting
02:03:09.180 caught up in the governance trap of
02:03:12.940 dominance hierarchies within any
02:03:15.020 insulated social group, right?
02:03:17.060 So, I think it's very easy when you're in
02:03:20.040 an insulated social group, be it like a
02:03:22.180 forum, or your office, or your D&D
02:03:25.280 group, whatever it might be, to start
02:03:27.080 to just think that more equals
02:03:29.520 better, because in that dominance
02:03:32.160 hierarchy battle, it is, but that's
02:03:34.000 not the same as your values and
02:03:36.120 virtues.
02:03:36.740 And another thing about having a
02:03:37.380 mandate around this is it will make
02:03:38.580 you a much more pleasant person to be
02:03:40.160 around.
02:03:40.760 Mm-hmm.
02:03:41.200 Yeah.
02:03:41.600 Nobody likes the people that do this.
02:03:43.120 Oh, no, yeah, who's like, well, I did
02:03:44.880 this, and who's always trying to one-up
02:03:46.440 you.
02:03:46.800 Yeah, no one likes that person.
02:03:48.420 No one wants to be around that person.
02:03:50.400 Yeah, so just don't, you know, it's
02:03:52.180 okay to know, like, for example, you
02:03:53.640 might be really into, like, gun stuff,
02:03:56.500 right?
02:03:57.300 And there are two ways you can engage
02:03:58.720 with somebody who knows less than you.
02:04:00.260 One way is designed to assert your
02:04:02.640 dominance, and the other way is to
02:04:05.040 enjoy the hobby with them, because
02:04:07.520 they mutually care about the same thing
02:04:10.120 you mutually care about.
02:04:11.520 And all of us have interacted with
02:04:13.100 people in these two camps, and I think
02:04:14.580 that you have a religious mandate, not
02:04:16.760 just that it's preferable, not just
02:04:18.020 that it's good, but you have a
02:04:19.280 religious mandate to not glorify the
02:04:21.280 sin.
02:04:22.220 Yeah.
02:04:22.680 And just enjoy what you enjoy with
02:04:24.520 your friends, okay?
02:04:25.760 Now, it is not to say that we lower
02:04:27.720 the status of sin in things designed
02:04:30.260 to masturbate human arousal
02:04:31.380 pathways without producing their
02:04:33.140 intended outcome, a child.
02:04:35.020 It is just to say that we also see
02:04:37.860 the sin in things designed to
02:04:39.180 masturbate the other types of
02:04:40.340 emotional and arousal pathways in
02:04:41.760 humans without producing their
02:04:43.280 intended outcomes either, like
02:04:45.040 theater, music, art, and sports.
02:04:47.440 Puritans have always been known for
02:04:48.680 engaging more with their sexuality
02:04:50.580 and sexual topics than other groups,
02:04:52.180 as we see in Albion Seeds for
02:04:54.160 British folkways in America.
02:04:56.740 Many of their writings had to be
02:04:58.120 heavily censored until the 21st
02:04:59.500 century.
02:05:00.500 This can seem very confusing to
02:05:02.680 outside groups, given how strict
02:05:04.200 they are about sin.
02:05:05.680 The reason for this apparent paradox
02:05:07.340 is we simply see the truth.
02:05:09.360 Sins associated with sexuality are
02:05:11.280 not worse or a different category
02:05:13.260 than our other sins.
02:05:14.420 And in this new world, drowning in
02:05:17.260 lasciviousness, we must learn to
02:05:19.420 breathe temptation without succumbing
02:05:21.600 to it.
02:05:22.760 Finally, it is critical to remember
02:05:24.500 that you have significant influence
02:05:26.300 over the emotional state you
02:05:27.840 present to other people, and you
02:05:29.460 are responsible for that state.
02:05:30.740 To lower the efficacy of those
02:05:32.360 around you, particularly loved
02:05:34.340 ones, by allowing yourself to
02:05:35.760 enter a negative mood is a fairly
02:05:37.620 severe sin.
02:05:38.720 Happiness, high energy, and an
02:05:40.460 upbeat mood are not just a
02:05:41.860 choice, they are a responsibility
02:05:43.280 and a duty to every parent who has
02:05:45.940 asked their child to stop crying,
02:05:47.780 but then acts as if their own
02:05:49.920 emotional state is totally out of
02:05:51.140 their control.
02:05:51.920 Are you lesser than a toddler?
02:05:54.120 This is something I see all the
02:05:54.960 time.
02:05:55.620 Redults are like, I can't help it.
02:05:57.060 It's just, I feel this way.
02:05:58.500 And then they're like, shut up.
02:05:59.580 Stop crying.
02:06:00.620 Like, well, do you not have the
02:06:03.880 ability to do that?
02:06:05.240 And it's like, why do you want them
02:06:06.220 to stop crying?
02:06:06.720 Because it's not efficient.
02:06:07.440 It's not helping the family, right?
02:06:09.040 I don't get mad at my kid for
02:06:10.620 crying when they're like genuinely
02:06:11.740 hurt and need to alert me.
02:06:14.500 Right?
02:06:14.860 Yeah, yeah.
02:06:16.740 There are no caveats or special
02:06:18.640 exceptions to this expectation of
02:06:20.360 us, especially as we relate to
02:06:22.240 those counting on us to be their
02:06:24.040 foundation, like our children and
02:06:25.540 spouses, except, of course, where
02:06:27.580 emotional displays could be used to
02:06:29.680 motivate another person to help you
02:06:31.360 towards God's plan.
02:06:32.800 Your parents died?
02:06:34.420 How does crying bring them back?
02:06:36.020 It just hurts the living family.
02:06:38.000 You lost your job?
02:06:39.180 Is crying going to get you a new
02:06:40.220 one?
02:06:40.860 Crying and sadness are emotions we
02:06:42.420 evolve to signal to parents that we are
02:06:44.660 distressed before we are verbal.
02:06:46.820 They are vestigial in adults, but you
02:06:50.180 will look foolish.
02:06:51.620 Fine.
02:06:52.400 Then look foolish and own how you are
02:06:54.980 different from this sad and dying
02:06:56.560 world.
02:06:57.300 When people look towards techno
02:06:58.880 Puritans, they should see an
02:07:00.880 unflappable vision of the future of
02:07:03.540 humanity and gratitude for the gifts
02:07:05.720 of our lives.
02:07:06.980 And you hear what I mean?
02:07:07.920 You know, when I didn't put up a big
02:07:09.260 fuss about my mom dying because we had
02:07:11.040 an author who was writing a book on
02:07:12.380 genius who was like living with us at
02:07:13.820 the time, he was really surprised and
02:07:15.960 kind of like, what?
02:07:18.400 And you can watch our episode on like
02:07:19.680 we have a weird relation to death in
02:07:21.260 this society.
02:07:22.040 I was like, how does it help?
02:07:23.040 How does it help my family?
02:07:23.860 How does it help my kids?
02:07:24.780 Like, do my kids need to see me crying
02:07:26.160 about this?
02:07:26.780 Like, would that make them better
02:07:28.640 people?
02:07:30.480 Anyway.
02:07:32.060 Many churches today get people in their
02:07:34.260 door by draping their walls in various
02:07:35.960 forms of man-made vulgarities, literally
02:07:38.080 making sin their primary advertising
02:07:40.100 point, but saying it's okay because it's
02:07:42.280 sin about Jesus.
02:07:43.600 It sickens me when I see mega churches
02:07:45.480 ban their kids from listening to
02:07:47.340 secular rock, but then love when those
02:07:49.620 same kids listen to Christian rock.
02:07:51.480 Christian rock might as well be abortions
02:07:53.080 for Christ.
02:07:54.380 We need to get back to owning our sin.
02:07:57.420 When the sin and idolatry become the
02:07:59.860 primary advertising mechanism of your
02:08:01.740 church, then the church becoming a den of
02:08:04.200 sin is the inevitable result.
02:08:06.520 Is it any wonder that so many mega
02:08:08.120 church founders cheat old people out of
02:08:09.840 their savings through promises of
02:08:11.580 salvation, or that indulgent St.
02:08:14.200 Peter's Basilica meant to seduce people
02:08:16.360 into a state of simulated piety was
02:08:18.900 bought and funded with indulgences?
02:08:21.180 The parishioners you lure by making your
02:08:23.720 worship sexier corrupt the souls of your
02:08:26.940 leaders.
02:08:27.900 Jesus said we will know them by their
02:08:29.820 fruit, and yet many feel they can sweep
02:08:32.660 the evangelical and Catholic sex scandals
02:08:34.960 and systemic cover-up under the rug.
02:08:36.860 You will know them by their fruit is not
02:08:39.200 an idle statement.
02:08:40.380 Don't attempt to revive your traditions
02:08:41.960 by sexing up your worship, returning to
02:08:44.520 nature worship, or worse, worshiping human
02:08:46.960 flesh.
02:08:47.700 Return to the simple pragmatic tradition of
02:08:49.420 work, discipline, austerity, and industry.
02:08:52.240 I see.
02:08:52.800 Roses are red.
02:08:53.940 Violets are blue.
02:08:54.820 Both are useless.
02:08:55.700 Plant some wheat.
02:08:56.480 The best ministry a belief system can have is
02:08:58.760 to be the type that creates the kind of
02:09:00.340 people who, when people first see them, they
02:09:02.580 laugh at you because of how different you
02:09:04.600 are, then keep watching you because you make
02:09:07.540 them feel good, then begin to become envious
02:09:10.320 of you and realize it is something they want.
02:09:13.320 The last Puritan movement ultimately fell
02:09:16.240 because it became a virtue spiral around
02:09:18.380 signaling sobriety and somberness, and yet
02:09:21.980 that was not even the most efficacious emotion
02:09:24.960 to signal.
02:09:25.420 We will learn from the mistakes of our
02:09:28.160 ancestors and build the city on a hill that is
02:09:30.940 mankind's manifest destiny.
02:09:33.080 And by the way, I said here, and I'd love a
02:09:34.900 fan to draw this because I want to have this
02:09:36.380 in there.
02:09:36.680 I've tried to get AI to draw it, but I can't,
02:09:38.540 so we'll see if I can, which is to have joy in
02:09:41.360 Inside Out just be like a fascist dictator of the
02:09:44.120 brain.
02:09:45.220 I think that that's the way it's supposed to look.
02:09:47.140 It's interesting that in Inside Out they don't
02:09:48.220 have like a logic thing, but you need a
02:09:50.820 partnership.
02:09:51.300 Logic and joy as a married couple who are fascist
02:09:54.400 dictators of the brain's household.
02:09:56.640 Everyone else is a child and does what the
02:09:58.980 husband and wife, logic and joy, tell them to
02:10:00.820 do.
02:10:02.080 That sounds ideal.
02:10:03.860 The fact that the last time people tried to
02:10:06.860 create a movement like this, the last Puritan
02:10:09.760 revival, was killed by virtue spirals tied to
02:10:15.720 somberness and seriousness that aren't even,
02:10:19.240 again, as we've said, particularly efficacious.
02:10:21.880 It has been important for us from the very
02:10:23.960 name that we chose, Techno Puritan, to instill the
02:10:27.440 tradition with an element of lighthearted goofiness
02:10:30.920 and non-seriousness, because that is the best defense
02:10:36.140 against another similar virtue spiral.
02:10:39.500 So in this effort, we frame things like somberness as a
02:10:44.120 sin, being overly serious as a sin, and instead would
02:10:48.780 encourage individuals to do everything they can to foster and
02:10:55.040 kindle a light heart.
02:10:57.120 Because when an individual, and I'm not saying I've achieved this
02:11:00.400 state at all, but when an individual achieves a state of
02:11:03.480 pridelessness, and let's talk about what pride means in this
02:11:07.420 context.
02:11:08.060 Pride isn't knowing or not knowing you're better than somebody or
02:11:12.000 believing yourself to be better than someone.
02:11:13.780 That's a question of truth.
02:11:16.400 Pride stems from a desire to signal that to both them and to
02:11:23.540 yourself for non-efficacious reasons.
02:11:26.220 Now, there's efficacious reasons to signal to somebody, for
02:11:28.520 example, I am an expert in Y subject, therefore you should
02:11:31.360 listen to me when I'm talking about Y subject.
02:11:33.260 That's not pride.
02:11:34.320 Pride is when you are signaling to them something that you think
02:11:38.880 gives you status as a form of masturbating, this feeling of I am
02:11:42.760 better than you.
02:11:44.520 And when you are able to genuinely let go of that entirely, two things
02:11:49.800 happen.
02:11:50.360 First, achieving a state of true lightheartedness becomes much
02:11:54.820 easier.
02:11:55.700 And the second is that when you have no pride, nothing can offend you
02:12:00.000 anymore because you have no insecurity.
02:12:02.500 So this isn't to be a person without things to be proud of.
02:12:06.620 It's that you don't care about signaling those things to other
02:12:10.660 people.
02:12:11.440 But yeah, I mean, do you have any thoughts on this?
02:12:15.760 I like it.
02:12:16.760 It's just straightforward.
02:12:17.880 And I think the overarching theme in all of this is look at the
02:12:24.900 results, look at the outcome, not at the act.
02:12:28.980 Yeah.
02:12:29.160 So that's it.
02:12:30.920 Just be hyper-focused on, are you achieving the outcomes that matter to
02:12:36.180 your objective function or your values?
02:12:38.460 So after I recorded this tract, I shared it with one of my Jewish
02:12:43.460 theology nerd friends.
02:12:45.040 And I was like, okay, like how offensive theologically are these
02:12:50.020 concepts that I'm bringing up here?
02:12:51.640 And he responds, oh, actually, Maimonides had a very similar idea, and
02:12:56.940 here it is, which would make it, because Maimonides is very well
02:13:00.620 respected among Jewish theological circles, which would make it very
02:13:03.780 non-offensive from a Jewish perspective, which I was grateful for.
02:13:08.520 But I want to go into Maimonides' ideas here as sort of an afterthought to
02:13:13.120 this tract, as well as where I disagree and agree with Maimonides, as well as
02:13:18.480 a few just points to get into that I thought about in terms of reactions
02:13:23.460 people may have as they're going through the tract.
02:13:25.880 So first is one of the pushbacks somebody may have from the tract, that they
02:13:30.860 would say, well, actually, the sin transference ritual did work, but it only
02:13:36.700 works for little sins and not big sins, and that's why the Israelites weren't
02:13:42.560 allowed in the Promised Land, even though they performed the sin
02:13:45.260 transference ritual.
02:13:46.240 And then the unfortunate response to this is, when you're contrasting between
02:13:51.580 little and big sins, you put God telling you, hey, go kill that country full of
02:13:58.520 people, and you being like, hey, I've got some thoughts on that.
02:14:02.560 You know, one, they do look like they outnumber us extremely, and two, you know, it is a
02:14:08.080 country of people.
02:14:09.660 Maybe mass murder and turning it down isn't in the category of absolutely
02:14:15.380 unforgivable sins.
02:14:16.720 The second one is somebody will, you know, they'll read one of our tracts and
02:14:21.420 they'll be like, oh, no, here, look, it says, here's one of the rules that God gave
02:14:25.800 us in the Bible, and your teachings go against this particular rule.
02:14:30.420 And again, this is where it's very important to move from the deontological to
02:14:34.480 consequentialist framing of the purpose of these rules and why they were there at the
02:14:39.180 time, because here, you know, you are looking at things like rules around slavery.
02:14:44.760 You know, I could point to those rules and be like, what, so, you know, God wants us to
02:14:47.920 do this with our slaves, right?
02:14:49.860 These rules were for a different time and cultural framing, and what's expected of
02:14:54.920 us is to use the intelligence God has gifted us with to interpret what he meant by them in
02:15:01.780 that context.
02:15:02.660 Also, before I get into Maimonides, I'd point out that when you interpret the story of the
02:15:08.600 tabernacle the way that I have, it makes a lot more thematic sense when you're considering
02:15:14.860 it alongside the various other stories from the wilderness period, where I believe that
02:15:21.620 what is trying to be conveyed and discussed in this section of the Bible is the period where
02:15:28.780 the Jewish people were transitioning between more polytheistic religions and the monotheistic
02:15:36.800 religion that they came to adapt, and the constant backsliding that was part of that process that
02:15:42.560 you see in things like the story of the golden cow.
02:15:45.320 Essentially, I'm arguing that what the Jewish people were doing during this period was they
02:15:51.120 were pulling something of a bennie from the mummy.
02:15:58.780 They were trying different gods and seeing which ones worked and being punished when they
02:16:16.840 were worshipping the wrong ones, to incrementally move them towards a truer understanding of the
02:16:23.700 real god.
02:16:24.420 And yes, I am very confident in my stance that the god of blood magic and animal sacrifice
02:16:33.120 and gold and gemstones and all of that hukum is not the real god or a benevolent entity.
02:16:43.120 And I would also say here is that in some places when this sin transference ritual is talked about,
02:16:49.360 it's specifically talked about as a ritual that is being done for a different deity named Azazel,
02:16:58.980 a demon or a fallen angel, depending on which interpretation you're looking at.
02:17:04.300 Some Jewish interpretations have tried to argue that Azazel is the name of a cliff,
02:17:09.980 and so it wasn't actually a different god that this ritual was being done for.
02:17:13.200 But the problem is, in context, it's very clearly not a cliff.
02:17:18.760 So you can look at it here, and Aaron shall cast lots over the two goats, one for the lord
02:17:24.440 and the other lot for Azazel.
02:17:26.540 How is that a cliff?
02:17:27.800 It's being contrasted with one's going to God and the other's going to a cliff?
02:17:32.100 No, this is like a parallel entity to God that's being discussed here.
02:17:35.700 It's very clearly a specific other entity.
02:17:38.360 Welcome to Beneath the Bible, where we're helping you dig deeper and uncover the world
02:17:42.140 beneath the sacred book.
02:17:43.920 Most scholars see Azazel as a demon.
02:17:46.020 In the text, Yahweh and Azazel are paralleled.
02:17:48.220 A goat is given to each of them.
02:17:50.040 Since the name Yahweh is used here and is paralleled with Azazel,
02:17:53.180 many see Azazel as a name as well, rather than a generic term like scapegoat.
02:17:57.820 The wilderness, the place where Azazel clearly resides in the text,
02:18:00.800 was a place associated with malevolent supernatural forces in Israel and the wider ancient world.
02:18:05.320 Jewish interpreters and writers also understand Azazel as a demon,
02:18:09.420 or at least a malevolent supernatural personality.
02:18:12.240 In Second Temple literature, like 1 Enoch,
02:18:14.380 Azazel appears as not just any demon, but a chief of demons.
02:18:18.360 Some have even suggested the name means something like fierce god or angry god,
02:18:22.500 and no one's quite sure what the name Azazel actually means,
02:18:25.300 so other suggestions include mighty one of El, El is strong, or even mighty goat.
02:18:30.920 Okay, so some of that needs unpacking.
02:18:32.580 First, let's look at the wilderness as a place of demons.
02:18:35.300 The scholar Chaim Tawil surveyed Mesopotamian literature and showed that in Mesopotamian
02:18:39.400 demonological texts, malevolent spirits were believed to come up from the underworld
02:18:43.500 through fissures and cracks in the earth.
02:18:45.560 And once they had entered our world, they most frequently lived in the steppe land,
02:18:48.860 or the desert, which is often called the wilderness in the Hebrew Bible.
02:18:52.800 Mesopotamian incantations and magical texts tell magical practitioners and exorcists
02:18:56.860 how to drive demons out of human environments and back to the desert where they belong.
02:19:00.960 Chaim Tawil demonstrates that the language of Leviticus 16 and even the later texts that discuss
02:19:06.860 Azazel like 1 Enoch are influenced by the language of Mesopotamian demonological and exorcism texts.
02:19:12.720 In 1 Enoch, Azazel is something like the commander of Satan's armies, or maybe even equated with
02:19:17.820 Satan himself.
02:19:18.640 In one of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Azazel is the leader of the angels that sinned in Genesis 6,
02:19:23.500 that weird story about the sons of man who sinned with human women and made them Nephilim.
02:19:28.780 That story is incredibly important for the development of Judeo-Christian ideas about angels and demons,
02:19:33.060 and it features prominently in Second Temple literature about the subject.
02:19:36.040 But for now, all we'll say is that by this period,
02:19:39.960 Azazel was thought to be the leader of the group of watchers in Genesis.
02:19:43.860 All this evidence together is why most scholars see Azazel in Leviticus 16
02:19:48.260 as a personal name of a supernatural entity that resided in the desert.
02:19:52.180 This figure is opposed to Yahweh, and early interpreters understood it as Azazel to be not only a demon,
02:19:57.400 but a leader among demons.
02:19:59.020 Or look for the other places Azazel entity is mentioned, where it says,
02:20:02.840 And Aaron shall present the goat on which the lot fell for the Lord,
02:20:06.800 and use it as a sin offering.
02:20:09.320 But the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel shall be presented alive before the Lord
02:20:13.920 to make atonement over it, that it may be sent away into the wilderness to Azazel.
02:20:19.120 So, what, the goat itself is leaping off a cliff?
02:20:23.120 No, they'd say, like, the ones who take the cliff interpretation are like,
02:20:25.700 well, then you would take it to the cliff and then push it off the cliff.
02:20:28.540 But that's not what's being talked about here.
02:20:30.980 Like, if it wanted you to take it to a cliff, it would have said a cliff.
02:20:33.640 It doesn't say a cliff.
02:20:34.960 It says to Azazel, which appears to be a different deity.
02:20:38.420 And it also explicitly says that the goat is being offered to this entity.
02:20:43.100 I think in both the text and to many modern scholars of the text,
02:20:48.640 that Azazel, who the goat was being sacrificed to in the sin transference ritual,
02:20:53.960 was either a polytheistic entity of a different religion,
02:20:58.720 specifically, it may have been the Canaanite deity tied to plague and war,
02:21:04.120 or he may have been a combination of two names,
02:21:08.420 Uzzah and Aziel, two fallen angels mentioned in the Babylonian Talmud.
02:21:13.700 It could be Azel, one of the fallen angels mentioned in the Book of Enoch.
02:21:18.740 It could be Azios, an Arab god associated with the morning star worshipped in Syria.
02:21:24.260 It could be Az, a demon in Zoroastrian mythology associated with greed and lust.
02:21:31.160 Or it could be Therim, goat demons mentioned in the Hebrew Bible
02:21:35.480 and that are often associated with Azazel in some traditions.
02:21:39.260 Now, who do I think Azazel is?
02:21:41.520 I think it's pretty clear when I read the Bible who Azazel was.
02:21:45.180 Azazel was the deity that elsewhere in the Bible is spoken of as Asherah.
02:21:51.320 The names sound very similar to each other.
02:21:55.640 Asherah, for those who don't know,
02:21:57.360 when the temple was being cleared out of polytheistic, ritualistic implements,
02:22:02.860 the two gods that were specifically named as having worship of them
02:22:07.760 still happening in the Holy of Holies, the temple in Jerusalem,
02:22:12.500 were the gods Baal and Asherah.
02:22:14.820 What I'm pointing out here is we know that worship to the god Asherah
02:22:19.040 was performed alongside worship of the god Yahweh for hundreds and hundreds of years.
02:22:26.200 So it would make perfect sense that it would be included in this early ritual
02:22:29.260 and it would make perfect sense that the name would change a little bit
02:22:32.140 over those hundreds of years.
02:22:33.460 So I'm not particularly, or maybe it was a local variant
02:22:36.680 or maybe it was, you know, we don't know,
02:22:38.680 but the names are very similar to me.
02:22:40.060 It seems to be the same entity.
02:22:41.340 This ritual is actually known in other forms in the ancient world.
02:22:45.120 Texts from the site of Ebla in Syria, dating back to the 24th century,
02:22:48.740 over 4,000 years ago, describe a similar ritual,
02:22:51.820 though there are important differences.
02:22:53.680 The Greeks practiced a similar scapegoat ritual
02:22:55.760 and these were a kind of elimination ritual,
02:22:58.500 wherein something that causes contamination or pollution, like sin,
02:23:02.240 is transferred onto the goat in order to physically remove it from the community.
02:23:06.520 Scholars have theories that this kind of scapegoat elimination ritual
02:23:09.080 originated in southern Anatolia or northern Syria
02:23:11.540 and spread from there to Greece and Israel, among other places.
02:23:15.180 This would explain why similar rituals appear in very different places
02:23:18.440 with very different religious traditions.
02:23:20.660 But you're like, okay, well, then who is this Asher character?
02:23:23.460 Asherah was the Canaanite goddess that was known as the consort of Baal.
02:23:28.220 So this was a, even recorded in the Bible, a demonic ritual.
02:23:32.720 So the questions can be, well, if it's recorded in the Bible
02:23:35.660 that it's a demonic ritual, sin transference,
02:23:38.380 why do people treat it so positively?
02:23:42.780 And there's different interpretations here.
02:23:44.900 I'll give one from a contemporary Jewish scholar called Milgram,
02:23:48.540 who argues that the Torah's mention of a semi-divine being
02:23:51.640 and the association of that being with the ritual death of an animal
02:23:54.620 do not actually cause a theological problem because, quote,
02:23:57.760 Azazel himself is deprived of an active role.
02:24:02.480 He neither receives the goat nor acts on it, regardless of his origins.
02:24:06.720 In pre-Israelite practice, he surely was a true demon, perhaps a satyr.
02:24:11.900 And here he's looking at Ezra on 1, 6, 8, who ruled in the wilderness.
02:24:17.140 In the priestly ritual, he is no longer a personality,
02:24:20.540 but just a name designating the place to which impurities and sins are banished.
02:24:25.960 As for the survival of the name Azazel, demons often survive as figures of speech,
02:24:31.900 e.g. gremlins, long after they have ceased to be figures of belief, end quote.
02:24:37.100 Now, I look at this, and I read this so that you know
02:24:41.000 that many modern biblical scholars and modern Jewish scholars are like,
02:24:44.640 oh, yeah, obviously Azazel was a demon or a different polytheistic entity,
02:24:48.620 but the ritual was okay because we're giving the sacrifice to the demon, to Azazel,
02:24:57.500 who himself is one of God's servants,
02:25:00.920 and therefore it's like we're giving the sacrifice to God.
02:25:04.100 Whereas I think the much easier interpretation of all of this is just to say,
02:25:09.020 oh, this is a demonic ritual that is from an older tradition,
02:25:12.600 and we're not supposed to be performing it,
02:25:14.540 and it is meant as a warning of the type of thing we are not supposed to do.
02:25:18.040 And as an example of what demonic rituals or Canaanite or Baalite or Azazel worship looks like.
02:25:25.260 Now to Maimonides.
02:25:27.480 Specifically, the sections of Maimonides that we're going to be referencing here
02:25:31.280 is Maimonides' Guide to the Perplexed, 329-31.
02:25:36.240 So first, I'm going to start with a quick summary of what Maimonides appears to have thought God did.
02:25:41.400 Maimonides thought that God took an early polytheistic people
02:25:45.580 and gradually, because they couldn't quickly shift their belief practices to the true belief practices,
02:25:54.120 gradually helped them move to truer and truer practices
02:25:57.820 while allowing them to worship him through their polytheistic rituals
02:26:03.740 by changing sort of the names and intentions of the polytheistic rituals
02:26:08.200 to focus on himself rather than the polytheistic God
02:26:12.400 with the belief that eventually they would come to just wholly worship him.
02:26:16.860 Now to give exact quotes here,
02:26:19.000 For a sudden transition from one opposite to another is impossible,
02:26:23.580 and therefore man, according to his nature,
02:26:25.360 is not capable of abandoning suddenly all to which he is accustomed.
02:26:29.180 As therefore God sent Moses, our master,
02:26:32.020 to make out of us a kingdom of priests and a holy nation,
02:26:36.040 through the knowledge of him may he be exalted according to what he has explained,
02:26:40.760 saying,
02:26:41.580 Unto thee it was shown that thou mightest know, and so on.
02:26:46.160 Know to this day and lay it on thy heart, and so on,
02:26:49.500 so that we should devote ourselves to him shall ye serve.
02:26:53.200 And at that time, the way of life generally accepted and customary in the whole world
02:26:59.300 and the universal service upon which we were brought up
02:27:02.720 consisted in offering various species of living beings in the temples
02:27:07.120 in which images were set up in worshipping the latter
02:27:10.980 and in burning incense before them.
02:27:13.220 The pious ones in the ascetics being at the time, as we have explained,
02:27:17.420 the people who were devoted to the service of his temples consecrated to the stars,
02:27:21.340 his wisdom, may he be exalted, and his gracious ruse,
02:27:25.080 which is manifest in regards to all his creatures,
02:27:28.320 did not require that he give us a law prescribing the rejection, abandonment,
02:27:32.980 and abolition of these types of worship.
02:27:35.060 For one could not then conceive the acceptance of such a law,
02:27:40.000 considering the nature of man, which always likes that I too,
02:27:44.160 which it is accustomed,
02:27:45.820 and at the time this would have been similar to the appearance of a prophet in these times,
02:27:50.660 who calling upon the people worship God would say,
02:27:53.880 quote,
02:27:54.460 God has given you a law forbidding you to pray to him,
02:27:57.540 to fast, to call upon him, to help in misfortune.
02:28:01.180 Your worship should consist solely in meditation without any works at all, end quote.
02:28:06.000 Therefore, he may be exalted and suffered the above-mentioned kinds of worship to remain,
02:28:11.480 but transferred them from created or imaginary and unreal things to his own name,
02:28:18.060 may he be exalted, commanding us to practice them with regards to him,
02:28:22.720 may he be exalted.
02:28:23.680 All right, so essentially he's arguing that all of this was a ruse by God,
02:28:27.620 and it was a ruse by God in the same way that somebody,
02:28:30.500 I guess kind of like I have,
02:28:32.480 couldn't come down and be like,
02:28:34.000 well, I mean, actually God doesn't want you doing this sorts of, like,
02:28:37.060 worship that right now you're doing in cathedrals and temples.
02:28:40.560 That is not worship to the true God.
02:28:42.920 That's, you know, tinged with all our polytheistic stuff.
02:28:45.560 And he's right about that.
02:28:47.600 It is a hard message to swallow.
02:28:49.460 I just take a much harder stance than him
02:28:51.480 and think that by now, you know, 2,000 years later,
02:28:56.600 God expects us to get the message at this point
02:28:59.820 and have advanced enough.
02:29:02.920 So while I see the logic in his perspective,
02:29:06.440 the reason why I am so hostile to it
02:29:10.620 is that if it had been the perspective
02:29:14.400 that was held during the Josiah reforms,
02:29:17.040 they wouldn't have removed the statues
02:29:19.880 to Baal and Asherah from the temple.
02:29:23.540 They would have said,
02:29:24.480 well, you know, God's allowing us to worship him through these
02:29:27.540 and some of the people need it
02:29:29.220 and you can't change too quickly.
02:29:31.020 No, we need to always be attempting to purify our beliefs
02:29:34.060 and look for the improprieties and imperfections
02:29:37.400 that came from the mistakes of our ancestors.
02:29:41.240 Now, if I continue with this quote,
02:29:42.760 he gets even more specific here.
02:29:44.980 Quote,
02:29:45.420 Through this divine ruse,
02:29:46.740 it came about that the memory of idolatry was effaced
02:29:50.420 and that the grandest and truest foundation of our belief,
02:29:53.400 namely the existence and oneness of the deity,
02:29:55.920 was firmly established,
02:29:57.480 while at the same time,
02:29:58.720 the souls had no feeling of repugnance
02:30:01.040 and were not repelled because of the abolition of modes of worship
02:30:04.120 to which they were accustomed
02:30:05.560 and than which no other mode of worship was known at the time,
02:30:10.660 basically saying,
02:30:11.480 well, we didn't know another way to worship to God at the time
02:30:13.720 and so we were using these polyseistic practices.
02:30:17.000 So basically, Maimonides sees these rituals being done
02:30:19.580 and his take on it is,
02:30:21.740 yes, these are polyseistic rituals
02:30:23.820 in the same way that I think that they're polyseistic rituals,
02:30:25.920 but that God had sanctified them
02:30:28.820 and transformed their meaning
02:30:30.860 to be focused on himself.
02:30:34.100 Whereas, I do not believe that.
02:30:37.080 I believe that these are purely demonic rituals.
02:30:40.200 These were not sanctified by God
02:30:41.980 and I see as proof that they were not sanctified by God
02:30:44.380 through the fact that,
02:30:46.760 one, defenseless animals were being tortured,
02:30:49.680 and two, they didn't work.
02:30:51.880 The sin transference ritual didn't work.
02:30:54.600 It's still recorded in the Bible
02:30:56.760 that this ritual is a ritual done for demons,
02:31:00.920 for Satan.
02:31:02.940 That is what sin transference is.
02:31:05.520 And obviously, this isn't gonna,
02:31:07.080 you know, Jews are like,
02:31:08.340 oh my gosh, how dare he say this?
02:31:09.720 Consider this doesn't sit well
02:31:10.700 as mainstream interpretations of Christianity either,
02:31:13.260 if I am right about this.
02:31:14.580 And it's a much stronger and harder stance than Maimonides
02:31:18.920 rather than saying that,
02:31:20.880 oh, well, this was just a period of transfer over,
02:31:24.600 instead what I see as the foundation of the Jewish tradition
02:31:29.500 and later the Christian and Muslim traditions
02:31:32.660 as not being a holistically pure monotheistic foundation,
02:31:37.360 but instead the intertwining
02:31:40.400 of a predominantly Cainite religious polyseistic system
02:31:44.980 and the, i.e., Baalite worship, as I call it,
02:31:49.320 and the true monotheistic practice,
02:31:52.500 one practice representing a form of true evil
02:31:55.500 and the other practice representing true monotheism
02:31:58.460 and a form of true good,
02:32:00.320 and that we are, you know,
02:32:02.660 like in the Josiah reforms,
02:32:05.760 and in a way through the fact that the Josiah reforms
02:32:08.920 are recorded, commanded to always be vigilant
02:32:13.220 and on the hunt within Scripture,
02:32:16.520 within our traditional teachings
02:32:18.040 for these demonic teachings.
02:32:20.320 And the demonic teachings aren't there by accident.
02:32:22.080 They're there for a reason.
02:32:23.000 They're there to teach us things.
02:32:24.460 For example, this one is there to teach us
02:32:27.020 what a demonic ritual looks like and how to avoid it,
02:32:30.360 and it's very clearly marked to us as a demonic ritual
02:32:32.920 because, well, the Bible says it's being done
02:32:35.240 for the demon Azazel, basically,
02:32:37.820 and because it doesn't work,
02:32:40.380 and because it involves animal sacrifice,
02:32:43.000 and because it involves idolatry,
02:32:45.100 and because it involves the worship of earthly metals,
02:32:47.960 and, you know, a lot of reasons.
02:32:49.700 It's pretty clearly, to me, marked as demonic.
02:32:52.640 But it's not an accident that it's there.
02:32:55.220 You just need to, you know,
02:32:56.700 be actually paying attention when you're reading.
02:32:59.840 Oh, it says this is a ritual done for demons.
02:33:02.800 Okay, let's not do that ritual.
02:33:05.320 Let's not have Jesus be a stand-in for that ritual.
02:33:08.280 A note, I was talking about this with one of my friends,
02:33:11.200 and he was like, wait, so do you not believe
02:33:12.820 that Jesus was the Son of God who martyred himself,
02:33:16.380 you know, to save mankind?
02:33:17.780 And I was like, no, of course I believe that.
02:33:19.740 It's just that all of those words
02:33:21.780 mean something different to me.
02:33:23.440 I believe that Jesus was a representation
02:33:25.540 of what's expected of us as humans
02:33:27.780 in our moments of martyrdom,
02:33:29.380 which is to say that we are the Son of God
02:33:32.500 and that we will eventually,
02:33:35.020 through intergenerational martyrdom,
02:33:37.400 alleviate the deficiencies or sins of mankind
02:33:40.360 and allow mankind to elevate itself
02:33:42.680 to the point where it can rejoin God.
02:33:44.400 But what I definitely don't believe
02:33:46.980 is that Jesus, the Son of God,
02:33:50.040 was sacrificed to Satan
02:33:51.600 to save man from his sin.
02:33:54.060 No, that seems wrong to me
02:33:56.240 because we know from the Bible
02:33:57.740 that sin transference,
02:33:59.220 the only place we find it happening
02:34:00.980 is when the sin transference
02:34:03.380 is being sent to Azazel.
02:34:05.480 It's never sent to God.
02:34:06.900 There is no sin transference ritual for God.
02:34:10.280 And why would there be?
02:34:11.380 It's so obviously an immoral thing
02:34:13.760 to attempt to do.
02:34:15.480 And consider what it means
02:34:17.920 if you take this other interpretation.
02:34:20.180 We know from the line,
02:34:21.500 my Lord, my Lord,
02:34:22.240 why have you forsaken me?
02:34:23.740 That Jesus would have been
02:34:24.780 a non-voluntary sacrifice.
02:34:27.360 I love that many Christians pretend
02:34:28.520 he was a voluntary sacrifice.
02:34:30.260 When we know, no,
02:34:31.880 this was a non-voluntary sacrifice.
02:34:33.960 So what we took a guy,
02:34:36.480 like the one sinless guy,
02:34:39.040 and then God had him
02:34:40.380 unvoluntarily sacrificed
02:34:42.540 for your sins,
02:34:44.780 that's effed up.
02:34:47.080 That is like,
02:34:48.160 if you're like,
02:34:48.800 that's the God I worship,
02:34:50.820 I'm like,
02:34:51.280 that sounds like a malevolent entity to me.
02:34:54.220 And I can see why
02:34:55.840 sin transference was done for Azazel
02:34:58.000 and why the Bible clearly marks that for us
02:35:00.540 so we don't make this mistake.
02:35:02.080 Now, if you want to get really deep here,
02:35:03.640 we're going to go into
02:35:04.400 a different famous Jewish scholar.
02:35:07.220 This is a man called
02:35:08.700 Nechmanides or Rambin.
02:35:12.540 He was a prominent Jewish scholar,
02:35:14.900 rabbi,
02:35:15.380 a philosopher and physician
02:35:16.300 who lived in the 13th century.
02:35:18.620 So again,
02:35:19.860 prominent figures here.
02:35:21.160 I'm really going into this
02:35:22.120 so people are like,
02:35:23.000 your ideas are not anti-Semitic.
02:35:25.000 I don't want to get called like,
02:35:26.300 because some people can say
02:35:27.840 that this is a pretty anti-Semitic take,
02:35:30.320 that these rituals,
02:35:31.700 which are key to early Jewish history,
02:35:34.300 were in fact polytheistic rituals.
02:35:37.360 So what does he say about these rituals, right?
02:35:39.460 Does he also agree with me?
02:35:41.080 So he says,
02:35:41.560 quote,
02:35:42.280 this is the secret of the matter.
02:35:43.580 They used to worship gods,
02:35:45.100 which are the angels making offerings to them,
02:35:47.440 which were pleasing aroma to them.
02:35:49.540 As it is said,
02:35:51.100 basically dot, dot, dot.
02:35:52.280 He reads a line from the Bible here.
02:35:54.020 And you need to contemplate the verse
02:35:56.240 and the text in the tradition.
02:35:57.800 Then dot, dot, dot.
02:35:58.740 The intention of the scapegoat
02:36:00.020 is not that it should be an offering from us to him,
02:36:03.580 Azazel,
02:36:04.280 God forbid,
02:36:05.400 but that our intention should be
02:36:07.340 to do the will of our creator who commanded us.
02:36:10.620 The analogy for this is like
02:36:12.340 one who made a feast for our Lord
02:36:14.240 and the Lord commanded the one making the feast,
02:36:16.720 give one portion to my servant as so and so.
02:36:19.700 The one making the feast
02:36:20.780 is not giving anything to that servant,
02:36:22.580 nor is he doing it in his honor,
02:36:24.580 but everything is given to the Lord
02:36:26.100 and the Lord gives a reward to his servant.
02:36:28.900 This one kept his commandment
02:36:30.440 and did for the honor of the Lord
02:36:32.200 all that he commanded him.
02:36:33.760 Indeed, the Lord in his compassion
02:36:35.220 for the one making the feast
02:36:36.500 wanted all his servants to benefit from it
02:36:39.100 so that he would speak of him favorably
02:36:41.920 and not unfavorably.
02:36:43.620 This is the reason for the lots.
02:36:45.660 For if the priest had sanctified them verbally
02:36:48.780 to the Lord and to Azazel,
02:36:50.400 it would have been like worshiping him
02:36:52.020 and vowing in his name,
02:36:53.660 but he would place them before the Lord
02:36:55.380 at the entrance of the tent of the meeting,
02:36:58.080 for both are a gift to the Lord.
02:37:00.240 And he gave from them to his servant
02:37:03.300 the portion that would come from him for the Lord.
02:37:06.900 He cast lots for them
02:37:08.620 and his hands divided them as it is said,
02:37:11.560 quote,
02:37:12.080 this lot is cast into the lap,
02:37:13.940 but the whole disposing thereof.
02:37:16.120 The Lord, end quote.
02:37:17.240 Even after the lot,
02:37:19.320 he would place it before the Lord
02:37:21.600 and say it is his,
02:37:23.200 and we do not intend in sending it
02:37:26.200 except for the will of his name,
02:37:28.580 as it is said in verse 10,
02:37:30.020 quote,
02:37:30.380 But the goat on which the lot fell for Azazel
02:37:32.800 shall be set alive before the Lord
02:37:34.900 to make atonement over him,
02:37:36.420 to send him away, etc., end quote.
02:37:38.980 Therefore, we do not slaughter it at all.
02:37:41.520 Onclus translated, quote,
02:37:42.980 the name of the Lord and to Azazel, end quote.
02:37:46.840 For one is the name of the Lord and not to him.
02:37:50.080 The second is to Azazel and not the name of Azazel.
02:37:54.020 So basically, he's arguing here
02:37:55.900 in a way that is really, really Jewish in argument
02:37:58.740 and isn't going to make sense to most Christians,
02:38:01.180 which is to say he's arguing
02:38:02.780 in very, very specific technicalities,
02:38:05.600 which is a unique part of the Jewish faith,
02:38:08.460 I have found.
02:38:09.120 Catholics do this too sometimes.
02:38:10.660 Orthodox do this too.
02:38:11.540 But you don't see this as much in the low church faith
02:38:14.040 versus the high church versions of Christianity.
02:38:16.340 Like most of the Protestant groups don't do this.
02:38:18.400 And this that I'm talking about is he's like,
02:38:21.140 well, God got out of having us sacrifice a goat
02:38:24.260 to a demon using a technicality
02:38:27.560 in the way he was choosing the goat
02:38:29.140 in the way that he was doing the wording.
02:38:31.860 And with low church stuff,
02:38:32.980 you just don't really believe in technicalities.
02:38:34.620 Like why would the God of reality
02:38:36.720 need to work in like IRS style technicalities
02:38:40.420 to get us out of worshiping demons?
02:38:42.960 He could have just told us,
02:38:44.120 don't worship the demon, right?
02:38:45.840 What is the more logical interpretation of this story?
02:38:49.080 Oh, we actually are supposed to be worshiping a demon,
02:38:51.600 but you know,
02:38:52.780 we're actually worshiping God through the demon
02:38:55.100 and there's all sorts of technicalities
02:38:56.860 to prevent us from accidentally worshiping the demon.
02:38:58.640 When I talk about Jews and technicality,
02:39:00.480 I mean, I think nothing better shows
02:39:03.920 this Jewish technicality thing
02:39:05.900 than that the line that they spend like a million dollars a year
02:39:10.060 to keep up around New York.
02:39:11.540 It's this little line that goes around the city
02:39:13.500 and it's used so that all of the city counts
02:39:17.140 as one place on the Sabbath
02:39:18.740 because otherwise,
02:39:20.120 and I'm probably mis-explaining this a little bit,
02:39:22.900 but Jews can explain it better.
02:39:24.180 But basically, if you're an Orthodox Jew,
02:39:26.960 taking items from one location to another location
02:39:30.380 can count as labor,
02:39:31.620 which can make it very hard to live during the Sabbath.
02:39:34.060 So some Jews believe that you can get around this
02:39:36.800 by putting up these lines
02:39:39.280 and everything within one of these lines
02:39:41.860 is technically considered the same place
02:39:43.680 so you can go and move things more broadly
02:39:46.700 during the Sabbath because of this.
02:39:48.680 And then there's me,
02:39:50.640 you know, a Protestant who's like,
02:39:51.580 I'm pretty sure God doesn't care about the fishing line.
02:39:55.520 I'm pretty sure that God is interested
02:39:58.040 in more sort of consequentialist outcomes
02:40:00.100 than very specific,
02:40:01.820 oh, we had sex through a hole in the sheet,
02:40:03.780 so therefore it doesn't count.
02:40:05.380 So I'm pretty sure that when God was like,
02:40:07.820 hey, rest on the Sabbath,
02:40:09.880 what he meant was,
02:40:11.560 hey, don't work every day of the week,
02:40:14.000 you know, maybe take one day off.
02:40:15.360 That seems like a reasonable thing
02:40:17.220 for God to want from us
02:40:18.540 and a reasonable request
02:40:20.080 that would have improved people's quality of life.
02:40:22.540 And again, I note that not all Jews do this.
02:40:25.260 This is a sub-faction of Jews
02:40:26.760 who go into these weird, really specific arguments,
02:40:29.320 but there is almost no group of Christians
02:40:32.020 who does this in the same way groups of Jews do this
02:40:34.100 or make these types of arguments.
02:40:36.260 Another thing that Rabbi Eliezer does here,
02:40:38.700 which is really interesting,
02:40:40.280 is, well, quote,
02:40:41.640 and they shall no more sacrifice their sacrifices
02:40:44.860 unto the goat demons.
02:40:46.260 The word is compound,
02:40:47.680 and it has many companions.
02:40:48.660 By the way, he doesn't use the word goat demons,
02:40:50.140 he uses the word serim.
02:40:51.440 The matter is clear,
02:40:52.640 except if you investigate
02:40:53.880 what is the matter of the separate intellects
02:40:56.180 and spirits in the sacrifice,
02:40:57.960 and this is known regarding the spirits
02:40:59.760 in the wisdom of necromancy,
02:41:01.500 and is also known regarding the intellects
02:41:04.280 in the hints of the Torah
02:41:06.040 for one who understands their secret,
02:41:08.760 and I cannot explain.
02:41:09.900 For we would need to muzzle the mouths
02:41:12.280 of those who are wise in nature,
02:41:14.260 who follow the Greek,
02:41:15.820 who deny everything except what is tangible to him,
02:41:18.900 and who, arrogant in his opinion,
02:41:21.200 he and his wicked disciples,
02:41:22.980 thinking that any matter that he did not comprehend
02:41:25.780 with his reasoning is not true.
02:41:27.740 So, let's talk about what he's talking about here,
02:41:29.620 because this is really interesting.
02:41:32.480 He's saying that we should actually be looking
02:41:35.140 into these rituals,
02:41:37.360 different from the way I look into them.
02:41:38.960 See, I look at these rituals,
02:41:40.160 and I see them as very clearly marked
02:41:42.000 as demonic and satanic,
02:41:43.440 and just, like, labeled that way.
02:41:44.600 This is a ritual for a demon.
02:41:45.980 Don't do this stuff.
02:41:47.060 And he looks at them,
02:41:48.340 and he goes,
02:41:48.740 no, the reason that they're recorded
02:41:50.560 and they're part of our tradition
02:41:52.100 is not as a warning,
02:41:54.660 but as something that we are supposed
02:41:56.800 to investigate
02:41:58.840 to understand certain types
02:42:01.840 of supernatural phenomenon
02:42:03.620 and forces
02:42:04.900 essentially
02:42:06.000 investigate this thing,
02:42:08.040 which he recognizes
02:42:08.840 is associated with the demonic,
02:42:10.900 or what I would call the demonic,
02:42:12.340 and we can
02:42:13.220 get a better understanding
02:42:14.680 of, like,
02:42:15.100 the true nature of reality
02:42:16.700 and spirits of the world,
02:42:18.240 where I'm like,
02:42:19.080 no, no, no,
02:42:19.740 just,
02:42:20.140 if it's demonic,
02:42:20.920 it's bad.
02:42:21.420 Stay away from it.
02:42:22.160 And I'm like,
02:42:22.940 very, very different way
02:42:24.400 to approach things.
02:42:25.780 I, you know,
02:42:26.620 when I reflect on
02:42:28.000 which am I more comfortable with,
02:42:30.440 like,
02:42:30.740 who,
02:42:31.220 what do I feel like
02:42:32.220 in my heart of hearts
02:42:32.860 is probably right.
02:42:34.700 If the Bible's recording something
02:42:36.020 and it's recording it as demonic,
02:42:37.700 do I think it wants us to,
02:42:39.260 like,
02:42:39.900 try to investigate it
02:42:41.240 and understand it
02:42:43.020 and empathize with it?
02:42:44.600 Or do I think it wants us
02:42:46.180 to see it as emblematic
02:42:48.720 of the way that people can use
02:42:50.700 even true faith systems,
02:42:53.420 like the Christian system
02:42:54.360 and stuff like that,
02:42:55.040 to manipulate us
02:42:56.520 into demonic acts
02:42:57.920 and worship?
02:42:59.100 I think the latter,
02:43:00.060 for sure.
02:43:00.600 And do I think that it shows
02:43:01.920 this intertwining
02:43:03.180 of sort of original sin
02:43:05.140 into the Abrahamic tradition?
02:43:06.720 Yes, as well.
02:43:07.640 But it also gives us
02:43:08.660 an easy way to spot
02:43:10.120 and disintermediate
02:43:11.840 this original sin
02:43:14.600 within the Abrahamic tradition.
02:43:15.860 And I know,
02:43:16.380 it's not just here.
02:43:17.540 It's not like I'm just,
02:43:18.320 like,
02:43:18.580 taking one line
02:43:19.740 and then building
02:43:20.500 a whole idea out of this.
02:43:22.300 You see this across
02:43:23.800 early Jewish literature.
02:43:25.140 So you can look at,
02:43:26.700 like,
02:43:26.920 the tractate Gittin,
02:43:28.140 68a and B,
02:43:29.800 which records that
02:43:31.240 when Solomon was building
02:43:33.160 the first temple,
02:43:34.740 he used the help
02:43:36.020 of the king of demons
02:43:37.640 called Asimodius
02:43:39.500 to,
02:43:40.800 or Ishmadi,
02:43:42.140 depending on
02:43:42.780 how you say it.
02:43:43.780 Anyway,
02:43:44.120 look,
02:43:44.300 the point being,
02:43:44.940 king of demons
02:43:45.620 helped obtain
02:43:47.340 the instrument
02:43:48.080 that cut the stones
02:43:49.820 that the first temple
02:43:51.360 was built out of.
02:43:52.440 this idea
02:43:53.900 of the very,
02:43:55.460 very early church
02:43:56.780 having an element
02:43:58.420 of the demonic
02:43:59.620 woven into
02:44:02.360 an element
02:44:03.240 of the holy
02:44:04.000 because they were
02:44:04.800 coming out of
02:44:05.320 a polyseistic tradition
02:44:06.320 and they couldn't just
02:44:07.340 snap over like that,
02:44:09.500 you know,
02:44:09.880 to a fully new
02:44:11.040 type of worship
02:44:11.700 is throughout
02:44:13.120 these early traditions.
02:44:15.540 And a final note,
02:44:16.440 because somebody
02:44:16.940 was mentioning this
02:44:17.520 in one of our other comments
02:44:18.380 and I was like,
02:44:18.840 we should probably clarify
02:44:19.680 our stance in this,
02:44:20.600 which is to say
02:44:21.620 in Christianity
02:44:22.500 is salvation achieved
02:44:24.420 through works
02:44:25.160 or through faith alone?
02:44:26.860 And I think that
02:44:27.960 this is a false dichotomy.
02:44:29.780 I think salvation
02:44:30.640 is only achieved
02:44:32.000 through providence.
02:44:33.220 The elect
02:44:33.900 who is among the elect
02:44:35.280 is something
02:44:35.760 that is decided
02:44:36.860 by providence.
02:44:38.300 Your actions
02:44:39.100 are determined
02:44:40.000 both by your genetics
02:44:41.440 and the events
02:44:42.700 of your life.
02:44:44.200 There is no
02:44:44.900 independent you
02:44:46.120 that's controlling you
02:44:47.180 other than the things
02:44:48.280 that you have experienced
02:44:49.440 in your life
02:44:50.260 that make up
02:44:50.820 who you are,
02:44:51.420 the thoughts
02:44:51.860 that you've had
02:44:52.460 in the past
02:44:52.980 that were influenced
02:44:53.640 by those things
02:44:54.480 that happened to you
02:44:55.760 which led to your actions.
02:44:57.140 Also,
02:44:57.660 we don't believe
02:44:58.640 in a persistent
02:44:59.640 individual entity.
02:45:01.500 So,
02:45:01.880 by that what I mean
02:45:02.920 is
02:45:03.460 you cannot
02:45:04.880 offload your sin
02:45:06.180 to another being.
02:45:07.520 I can't force my sin
02:45:09.060 onto
02:45:09.900 an unwilling
02:45:11.260 human sacrifice,
02:45:12.800 okay,
02:45:13.100 or a goat sacrifice.
02:45:14.780 I am always
02:45:15.780 responsible for that sin
02:45:17.040 and it is only
02:45:17.580 through my own martyrdom
02:45:18.760 that that sin
02:45:19.340 can be alleviated
02:45:20.360 but the iteration
02:45:22.360 of me
02:45:22.860 that sin
02:45:23.720 to me
02:45:24.140 when I'm sinning
02:45:24.960 that time
02:45:25.880 is always lost
02:45:26.760 to humanity.
02:45:27.520 I can't make up
02:45:28.740 for that time
02:45:29.320 being lost.
02:45:29.860 It's always lost.
02:45:31.320 The day
02:45:31.940 that I spent
02:45:32.880 playing video games
02:45:34.360 or watching
02:45:35.360 a sports game
02:45:36.840 or indulging
02:45:38.520 in something else
02:45:39.500 that's time
02:45:40.360 that I can never
02:45:41.120 get back
02:45:41.760 and I can never
02:45:42.420 recontribute
02:45:43.060 to humanity
02:45:43.640 and I am
02:45:44.860 holistically
02:45:45.680 lost
02:45:46.540 to being
02:45:47.300 a meaningful
02:45:47.920 contributor
02:45:48.660 to the
02:45:49.520 act of salvation,
02:45:50.920 the act of
02:45:51.440 the uplifting
02:45:52.020 of humanity
02:45:52.620 during that time period.
02:45:53.980 I will never
02:45:54.380 be able to turn
02:45:54.960 the iteration
02:45:55.520 of myself
02:45:55.960 that was indulging
02:45:56.620 in sin
02:45:56.980 into a meaningful
02:45:58.320 iteration of humanity.
02:45:59.720 It's completely gone.
02:46:00.980 However,
02:46:01.520 the iterations
02:46:02.100 of me
02:46:02.660 in the moments
02:46:03.400 where I am
02:46:04.160 being productive
02:46:05.560 in a way
02:46:06.140 that ends up
02:46:06.660 contributing
02:46:07.040 to the grand
02:46:07.840 scheme of humanity,
02:46:09.820 those iterations
02:46:10.920 of martyrdom,
02:46:11.940 those iterations
02:46:12.460 of my individual
02:46:13.620 sacrifice
02:46:14.340 for the betterment
02:46:15.940 of mankind,
02:46:16.840 those iterations
02:46:17.480 are always doing that
02:46:19.100 and they are
02:46:19.980 truly saved.
02:46:21.500 And this is what
02:46:22.140 we mean when we
02:46:23.060 say something like
02:46:24.160 your past sin
02:46:25.360 is made irrelevant
02:46:28.560 when you turn
02:46:30.140 to Christ.
02:46:30.860 By that,
02:46:31.240 what I mean is
02:46:32.380 there's nothing
02:46:33.240 you can do
02:46:34.140 about those moments
02:46:35.000 in the past anymore.
02:46:36.180 So there's no need
02:46:37.200 to dwell on them.
02:46:38.580 The only thing
02:46:39.320 you have control over
02:46:40.400 is the things
02:46:41.020 that you do
02:46:41.540 in the future.
02:46:42.780 Therefore,
02:46:43.340 it is a useful
02:46:44.240 mental framing device
02:46:45.500 to see your past sin
02:46:47.400 as being something
02:46:48.920 that is wholly irrelevant.
02:46:51.120 Finally,
02:46:51.680 I'd note
02:46:52.080 if you're like,
02:46:52.960 I really like
02:46:53.440 what you guys are doing.
02:46:54.320 I want to donate
02:46:55.180 to something.
02:46:56.180 We are getting
02:46:56.800 the church registered.
02:46:58.300 The Technopuritan Church
02:46:59.640 is what it's called,
02:47:00.240 right?
02:47:01.000 Yeah,
02:47:01.160 the Technopuritan Federation.
02:47:03.320 The Technopuritan Federation.
02:47:04.680 I love it.
02:47:05.020 Because we were looking
02:47:05.820 at a few other,
02:47:06.500 what was the few other
02:47:07.440 names that it could have been?
02:47:08.580 Jewish Federation.
02:47:10.300 One of the Jewish groups
02:47:11.300 was called the Federation.
02:47:11.920 And I was like,
02:47:12.420 I like that so much more
02:47:13.280 than like Congregation
02:47:14.240 or something.
02:47:15.260 The Technopuritan Federation.
02:47:16.640 Young people
02:47:17.240 from all over the globe
02:47:18.500 are joining up
02:47:19.340 to fight for the future.
02:47:20.740 I'm doing my part.
02:47:22.180 I'm doing my part.
02:47:23.380 I'm doing my part.
02:47:24.340 I'm doing my part too.
02:47:28.460 But if you want to donate,
02:47:30.420 one of the things
02:47:31.000 that you can do
02:47:31.700 instead of actually,
02:47:32.660 because like,
02:47:33.320 we don't want your money
02:47:33.820 right now, right?
02:47:34.540 It's nice.
02:47:35.240 It helps.
02:47:35.820 But, you know,
02:47:37.160 is write us into your will.
02:47:39.200 If you don't have
02:47:40.080 any descendants
02:47:40.720 and you want stuff
02:47:41.940 like our stuff
02:47:43.080 to work out
02:47:44.020 or our goals
02:47:44.560 to work out,
02:47:45.400 that's where the real
02:47:46.500 advantage could be.
02:47:48.120 But obviously,
02:47:49.080 only if you do not
02:47:50.060 have any descendants.
02:47:52.400 We are not.
02:47:52.920 This is more of the money
02:47:53.960 that's going to
02:47:54.480 the U.S. government.
02:47:56.580 Fine.
02:47:57.280 Other than that,
02:47:58.380 it should go to people
02:47:59.360 who you personally care for.
02:48:02.080 Yeah.
02:48:03.000 We just noticed that,
02:48:04.280 for example,
02:48:05.620 the Audubon Society,
02:48:06.860 which is right
02:48:07.420 by where we live,
02:48:08.740 is...
02:48:08.900 That's money from Wills.
02:48:10.120 So many old birdwatchers.
02:48:10.760 It's insanely well-funded.
02:48:12.460 Yeah, I guess there's a lot
02:48:13.440 of childless birdwatchers
02:48:14.660 out there.
02:48:15.100 So they just wrote in
02:48:16.580 the Audubon Society
02:48:17.620 and they're doing well.
02:48:19.580 Oh, it's beautiful.
02:48:21.480 Beautiful.
02:48:22.640 It tracked.
02:48:25.240 It tracked.
02:48:28.660 Our family is going to have
02:48:30.100 so many inside jokes like that.
02:48:32.000 And I can't wait.
02:48:33.420 I can't wait.
02:48:34.880 Yeah, I really think
02:48:35.700 that people underestimate
02:48:36.540 and this was clear to me
02:48:37.740 when we were spending time
02:48:39.400 with the family recently.
02:48:41.020 When you create a kid,
02:48:42.700 you're creating an adult
02:48:43.960 who's going to live
02:48:44.600 a full life.
02:48:46.040 Yeah.
02:48:46.340 Because I was around
02:48:47.000 all my cousins
02:48:47.680 who I feel like just,
02:48:48.920 you know,
02:48:49.160 10 years ago,
02:48:49.760 I saw them
02:48:50.180 and they were little squidges.
02:48:51.340 And now they're all
02:48:52.340 in like college and stuff
02:48:54.060 and dating.
02:48:55.600 And I'm like,
02:48:56.520 oh, you guys are like
02:48:57.340 fully developed human beings
02:48:59.240 that I saw in like
02:49:00.760 three slices
02:49:01.900 throughout my life.
02:49:03.420 When people talk about
02:49:04.660 bringing a new life
02:49:06.140 into the world,
02:49:06.740 it's typically,
02:49:07.440 they use words
02:49:08.180 along the lines of,
02:49:09.700 would you like to have a baby?
02:49:11.220 Should we have a kid?
02:49:12.640 So you're just picturing
02:49:13.540 this low agency,
02:49:14.880 dependent,
02:49:16.940 small being
02:49:17.920 instead of a full human life
02:49:21.040 with the full range
02:49:21.920 of human experiences
02:49:22.900 who will have an impact
02:49:24.200 on the world,
02:49:24.840 who will feel joy and pain.
02:49:27.660 And yeah,
02:49:28.200 one of my cousins
02:49:29.020 was trying to convince me
02:49:29.980 to not have a kid
02:49:30.840 and they were like,
02:49:31.440 well, you know,
02:49:31.840 you already have four
02:49:32.700 and you're not going
02:49:33.500 to be able to do things
02:49:34.280 with them that are like
02:49:35.040 big life experiences
02:49:36.260 because, you know,
02:49:37.480 you're having so many.
02:49:38.800 And I was like,
02:49:39.360 yeah,
02:49:39.480 but like,
02:49:40.040 that's another kid
02:49:40.860 that's not going
02:49:41.320 to get to exist.
02:49:42.060 I should have been like,
02:49:42.620 no,
02:49:42.720 that's like another person,
02:49:44.080 another family member,
02:49:45.280 another cousin of yours.
02:49:46.340 Another adult, yeah.
02:49:47.500 Who you have denied existence
02:49:49.400 so somebody else
02:49:50.300 can go on more vacations.
02:49:53.980 Like.
02:49:55.240 But that's,
02:49:55.980 you know,
02:49:56.160 prenatalism is for the super fans.
02:49:58.700 It's for the people
02:49:59.300 who are really into
02:50:00.220 having a lot of kids
02:50:00.940 and want to have a lot of kids
02:50:01.840 and are set up to do that.
02:50:02.800 I don't think prenatalism
02:50:03.620 is for people
02:50:04.080 who want to have small families.
02:50:05.900 So it's not about
02:50:07.360 shaming people
02:50:08.260 for making the decision
02:50:09.800 to choose
02:50:10.540 a non-scalable family model.
02:50:14.400 Pernatalism is just
02:50:15.240 for the people
02:50:15.740 who want to scale,
02:50:16.800 who,
02:50:17.060 who like the economies of scale
02:50:18.960 that kick in
02:50:19.460 after child number four.
02:50:21.740 Yeah, sorry.
02:50:22.380 I'm trying to find
02:50:23.340 which number we're on.
02:50:24.360 I think we're on number nine.
02:50:25.260 I'll just trust myself on this.
02:50:27.180 Right.
02:50:27.720 Sorry about Hiccups McGee
02:50:28.960 over here.
02:50:29.820 She's going hard.
02:50:31.840 I never need to apologize
02:50:32.680 for a cute little baby.
02:50:33.820 She's the cutest.
02:50:37.980 Yeah, you see your dad.
02:50:39.680 And this one's going to be
02:50:40.360 longer than others,
02:50:41.100 so I will just jump in pretty quick.
02:50:43.140 Power through, friend.
02:50:43.960 Power through.
02:50:45.900 Just know, Malcolm,
02:50:46.920 that I love you.
02:50:49.060 Because if you're editing this
02:50:50.560 and you're watching this,
02:50:52.120 you are probably finding out
02:50:53.800 that this is my secret message
02:50:55.060 to you,
02:50:56.140 that while I'm still asleep
02:50:58.120 and you're waking up
02:50:58.920 at 2 a.m. in the morning
02:51:00.080 to put together these episodes,
02:51:03.680 I deeply love you
02:51:05.120 and really appreciate
02:51:05.980 the hard work that you're doing.
02:51:08.020 Because I know that it's a lot.
02:51:09.480 And I know you put a lot
02:51:10.340 into making this podcast work
02:51:11.860 in addition to maintaining
02:51:14.040 your full-time job
02:51:15.040 and everything else that you do.
02:51:16.600 So just know
02:51:19.880 I'm very grateful to you.
02:51:21.540 And I love you
02:51:22.100 and I admire you a lot.
02:51:25.040 You're very special.
02:51:26.920 And your kids are amazing too.
02:51:29.240 Which is a testament
02:51:30.340 to you as a parent
02:51:31.180 because kids are the equivalent
02:51:33.600 to like human versions
02:51:35.360 of a drunk you, right?
02:51:37.520 You can't hide all of your flaws
02:51:40.100 with your children.
02:51:41.440 They show up in your children.
02:51:43.960 And so if your children,
02:51:45.120 especially in their toddler format,
02:51:47.240 turn out to be okay people,
02:51:49.160 it's probably a sign of your quality,
02:51:51.860 both from a genetic
02:51:52.740 and a behavioral standpoint.
02:51:54.740 So also it is not just my opinion
02:51:57.980 that validates the fact
02:51:59.200 that you are a fantastic
02:52:00.760 and brilliant person.
02:52:01.980 It is the fact
02:52:02.700 that our kids
02:52:04.480 are pretty solid,
02:52:06.520 fantastic people.
02:52:08.080 So thank you, Malcolm.
02:52:10.380 I'm going to stop recording now,
02:52:12.900 but know that I love you.