The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - You Cannot Avoid Having a God. Here Is What That Actually Means.

00:00:00.000 Hi everybody. Welcome to the release of the second lecture for my extensive tour archives.

00:00:05.780 We've been working late at night when my symptoms recede enough so that I can finally concentrate

00:00:10.620 to make this release a possibility. At the same time recently I've been able to write a little

00:00:15.840 bit and I'm working on three essays which I hope to finish and release in the near future. One deals

00:00:22.440 with the climate lies propagated by the socialists and the leftists. Another deals with the issue of

00:00:28.680 the alphabet mafia and the associated pride movement and the final one deals with the so-called 0.99

00:00:34.980 rape gangs in the uk asking whether the terminology rape gang which is definitely an improvement over

00:00:41.760 grooming gang is sufficient to accurately describe the magnitude of the crimes that are being

00:00:46.380 committed in any case i'm working on these now hoping to contribute something to the ongoing

00:00:52.800 public debate about these crucially important issues. I'm unhappy with my silence, however

00:00:58.300 necessitated it might be by the conditions of my illness. I'd like to get back to my work, you know.

00:01:06.280 Anyways, that's the update. Thanks for your time and attention, and I hope you enjoy listening to

00:01:11.680 this second lecture as much as I enjoyed delivering it. Bye-bye.

00:01:22.800 Thank you very much

00:01:37.900 It's very good of you to come

00:01:40.760 I'm looking forward to tonight

00:01:42.720 What does it mean that we wrestle with God

00:01:49.480 Well Tammy made some introductory comments

00:01:52.240 one of the things I've learned from writing the book

00:01:58.680 that this tour is promoting

00:02:00.960 let's say or discussing

00:02:02.120 is that

00:02:04.840 what God is in some manner

00:02:10.560 is a matter of definition

00:02:12.480 so here's a definition

00:02:16.400 your God is whatever you put first

00:02:20.960 that's a definition and you might ask well why do you have to put something first and the answer is

00:02:29.000 well do you put one foot in front of the other when you go somewhere and and i really mean that

00:02:34.740 specifically because in order to do anything you make that thing first

00:02:38.320 if you can't do that then you're confused and aimless and i suppose that's something too but

00:02:45.620 it's not productive and it's anxiety provoking because anxiety actually signals that you're not

00:02:51.980 aimed in a single direction that's its technical definition it's a good way of thinking about it

00:02:58.980 so you have to put something first you put something first with every glance that you take

00:03:04.980 because there's a myriad of things that you could focus your attention on but when you focus you

00:03:12.200 focus on one thing and you focus on one thing for a reason the highest reason that you could focus

00:03:24.300 on one thing would be god that's a good way of thinking about it and something is going to

00:03:30.540 occupy that position of priority let me give you an example we've actually been experimenting with

00:03:38.980 this idea with large language models so you know they're like the models that that you see now

00:03:46.040 coming out in computer platforms like chat gpt or or elon musk's croc i used to ask my students

00:03:55.440 for example in my classes why they why they were handing in an essay why they were writing a test

00:04:04.620 and people's answers differed in depth depending on how well they had thought things through

00:04:12.940 which is in some ways equivalent to saying dependent on how conscious they were

00:04:18.120 why are you here in this class well i need to take the class to to get a grade well why do

00:04:25.500 you need to get a grade well i need to pass the course why do you need to pass the course

00:04:32.100 well i have to get my degree well why do you want to get your degree he says well

00:04:38.180 people would start to stumble at that point but why do you want to get your degree well i want

00:04:44.480 to get a job i want to i need to make some money it's not a great answer because there's lots of

00:04:51.020 ways of making money right so it's starting to get somewhat loose but that's the next aim let's

00:04:58.400 say well what why do you think you should get a job and make money well to live but you can live

00:05:04.740 on handouts for example you can live on social services why would you get a job well i want to

00:05:10.600 be a good citizen well why why do you care about that well i want to be a good person

00:05:14.900 well how is it that you're a good person you see what you're doing in some ways is in in a series

00:05:21.480 of questions like that you're you're leading people to either the apex of their value structure

00:05:27.600 Or downward to its foundation

00:05:29.660 You can use either metaphor

00:05:31.820 And

00:05:33.060 You might say that

00:05:35.600 The highest value

00:05:37.640 Or the most foundational value

00:05:39.400 In that broadening

00:05:41.960 Hierarchy of values

00:05:43.220 Is also equivalent to God

00:05:45.060 One of the things I've learned by walking

00:05:47.760 Through the biblical corpus is that

00:05:49.420 Each of the stories that's associated

00:05:51.820 With the characterization

00:05:54.140 Of God is a

00:05:55.600 snapshot or a dramatization of another aspect of what should be put in the highest place

00:06:02.960 once you understand that you have that you inevitably put something in the highest place

00:06:08.300 no matter how fractionated that might be no matter how confused you are once you understand

00:06:13.780 that you have to put something in the highest place even to perceive even to look then the

00:06:20.660 next question becomes well what if anything can be properly put in that place and i would say

00:06:29.240 that's been the eternal question that's faced the human race since we became conscious what is it

00:06:37.000 that should be put in the highest place the story i'm going to tell you tonight which is the story

00:06:41.180 of cain and abel is a brilliant exposition of that problem it's it's a very short story it's

00:06:48.200 really about 12 to 15 lines long depending on what you count it's there's nothing to it in terms of

00:06:54.640 length and yet it's it's inexhaustible in its significance and that's that's a very interesting

00:07:01.960 that's a very interesting fact as well you might ask yourself how stories like that can be so dense

00:07:10.020 i would say well it's a consequence of a variety of factors a very old story and the story of

00:07:18.640 ken and abel is a very old story at least multiple thousands of years old and likely older than that

00:07:24.420 because the older a story is the higher the likelihood that it's even older than that

00:07:29.600 because the farther back you go in time the less rapidly things change so something if a story is

00:07:35.660 10 000 years old it's probably 50 000 years old right i mean it vanishes into the sands of time

00:07:41.060 so you can't be sure but but you can be reasonably sure

00:07:44.700 what is it what happens when people tell stories across a very long period of time

00:07:55.100 a lot of people observe a lot of people and they compress that into an account of the fundamental

00:08:05.200 elements of the human drama and then they tell that in a manner that if remembered has to be

00:08:15.320 memorable right so it has to attract the attention of its listeners and then it has to be remembered

00:08:22.200 and then it has to be remembered and transmitted across the centuries let's say that's a very long

00:08:26.560 period of time so then you could imagine as well that not only is a story that's abstracted

00:08:33.100 and foundational and remembered compelling and interesting but it also modifies itself so that

00:08:40.860 it's it fits in the psyche that's a good way of thinking about it it adapts itself across time

00:08:47.940 so that it can be remembered and so it reflects the structure of memory itself and you could

00:08:54.120 imagine even if you're biologically oriented let's say that our memory is adapted to remember

00:08:59.660 what's important and so a story that fits in the structure of memory is going to be a story that

00:09:06.060 only concentrates on what's important because everything else will get forgotten no one will

00:09:09.960 pay attention to it it'll just drift away now a highly abstract story like the story of Cain and

00:09:16.380 Abel is memorable but that doesn't necessarily mean that we understand it now that's not necessarily

00:09:21.860 precisely a problem you go to lots of movies that you don't necessarily understand you do lots of

00:09:27.000 things you don't understand you probably don't really understand why you put up a christmas tree

00:09:31.640 for example well it's a very old ritual right and it it predates christianity that ritual and

00:09:40.560 it isn't obviously linked in any way to christianity and yet it's something we do in

00:09:46.680 celebration of christmas and i'm just telling you that not to pick on you because you don't know

00:09:52.120 why you put up a christmas tree and everyone else is doing it isn't a good answer but but

00:09:58.340 it's to celebrate rebirth right it's to celebrate the birth of the light which is why you decorate

00:10:04.140 the tree with light the tree is the tree of life the crucifix is a representation of the tree of

00:10:11.160 life those things are all tangled together in that ritual and we're act we act that out even

00:10:17.780 though we don't necessarily understand it and it's meaningful to us even though we don't necessarily

00:10:22.040 know why and so like our dreams can contain more information than we understand our stories the

00:10:29.080 stories that we tell and the stories that we live by contain can contain wisdom that we don't fully

00:10:34.840 realize i mean if we fully realized all wisdom we would be omniscient we certainly don't understand

00:10:44.260 ourselves and we don't understand the drama that we're involved in even though we acted out

00:10:48.420 and represent it in image and in drama and in a narrative in story and then as we do that

00:10:57.740 as we act it out and we represent it and we come to tell it we do come to develop more and more

00:11:04.640 understanding and i would say in the 20th century there's actually been substantial progress

00:11:11.380 in making the meaning of the deep myths

00:11:15.480 upon which our culture is founded more conscious.

00:11:19.440 Now, what I would say,

00:11:21.680 enlightenment minds tend to equate myth

00:11:27.300 with falsehood and superstition.

00:11:30.360 But that's a big mistake.

00:11:34.200 Because it fails to grapple with the centrality of the story.

00:11:38.380 I mean, you can be cynical and you can say,

00:11:40.240 we were compelled by stories because they're entertaining but that's a foolish observation

00:11:45.180 because the mystery is why they're entertaining right because to say something like a story is

00:11:51.920 entertaining entertaining enough so your children will torture you to tell them stories right

00:11:56.680 entertaining enough so that you'll pay to go see them right um gripping enough so you'll even go

00:12:02.640 to pay them you'll even pay to go see them if they take the form of horror or if they're upsetting

00:12:08.300 right there and compelling enough so that children can learn and be engaged in the

00:12:16.100 learning process if what they're learning is encapsulated in a story they don't have to

00:12:20.380 struggle with that it's it grips them and compels them story is a very important thing and

00:12:26.380 a story is an abstraction like we tend to think of story as fiction and fiction is the opposite

00:12:33.020 of fact but that's that's not very wise i mean think about it this way you know you've read some

00:12:39.740 shallow books in your life no doubt and seen some movies that were basically tripe and sometimes

00:12:45.040 there's a place for that because maybe you've worked hard all day or all week or for a year and

00:12:50.220 you know you're at home and you're tired and you just want to put on like barbie and zone out for

00:12:56.600 an hour and a half right you're not interested in wrestling with god let's say at that moment

00:13:02.100 but you know perfectly well that what you're watching is shallow and you don't do it necessarily

00:13:07.820 with any pride it's just it's a form of of effortless relaxation but then you also know that

00:13:17.080 now and then you read something a work of fiction or you watch a movie another work of fiction and

00:13:23.240 strikes you very deeply it which is an interesting metaphor you know that you're moved and you're

00:13:29.160 move deeply something stirs within you there's something to the story that's compelling and

00:13:34.280 transformative it might it might make you tear up it might it might even change the way you look at

00:13:40.580 the world if the story is deep enough and we do presume that great literature has that capability

00:13:46.480 and it does have that capability i mean i was i've been struck to the core by well by many things

00:13:54.100 i've read but i would say there's a cardinal dozen books that i've read that really changed the way

00:13:58.540 that i looked at everything for me dostoevsky the russian novelist sort of top of that list

00:14:04.180 his books the brothers karamazov and crime and punishment and notes from underground the devils

00:14:09.780 are unbelievably compelling works of fiction and they're deep now they're not fact so does that

00:14:17.640 mean they're not true and they aren't true in a way because the events that dostoevsky details

00:14:23.780 for example in crime and punishment never happened or or wait or did or is that accurate

00:14:31.700 it's not that easy to tell what's happening it's not that easy to tell what's happening you know

00:14:40.520 you know this you know this if you're married or or in a long-term relationship you know perfectly

00:14:45.820 well that you can exchange a few casual words with your wife or husband and feel things moving

00:14:52.120 underneath the surface right and you can exchange the wrong words casually about nothing and and

00:14:58.120 not be able to look each other in the eye for a week right because something something in that

00:15:04.080 exchange moved something that was way under the surface and maybe it's something under the surface

00:15:08.220 you bloody well both know is there and the last thing you want to do is admit it or talk about it

00:15:13.420 right and so and then you might say to your wife well what's wrong and she says well nothing and

00:15:20.700 and you both know that that's a lie and and you know that the exchange pointed to something deep

00:15:30.520 you know that it's part of us a much a story that has not yet been told and that maybe needs to be

00:15:38.760 told and so maybe you delve into that and you try to get to the bottom of it and it's it's pretty

00:15:46.740 awful, you know, to sort out

00:15:49.040 exactly what was said

00:15:50.960 and what wasn't said in a situation like that.

00:15:53.600 What's it called?

00:15:54.640 Peterson Academy. Peterson Academy.

00:15:56.680 Peterson Academy. It's called Peterson Academy.

00:15:58.840 Peterson Academy. If you want an

00:16:00.840 actual education. With hand-selected

00:16:03.120 professors from top universities

00:16:04.880 around the world.

00:16:07.000 Bringing the best professors together, making

00:16:08.820 sure they're not censored in any way, giving them the

00:16:10.780 audience and the remuneration and appreciation they deserve.

00:16:13.080 And you were true to your word. You gave me absolute

00:16:14.980 intellectual autonomy.

00:16:16.300 I have had it through every course.

00:16:17.900 We figure we can offer people

00:16:19.260 a high-quality university-level education

00:16:21.920 for under $2,000.

00:16:23.500 Well, congratulations, Jordan.

00:16:24.740 It's honestly brilliant.

00:16:25.700 Can't wait to enroll myself.

00:16:26.940 I'll be doing that straight after this.

00:16:29.480 Fun, Joe.

00:16:40.480 If you're a great storyteller,

00:16:42.080 what you do is...

00:16:44.980 So you watch a lot of different people act in a lot of different situations, and you start to extract out regularities of action and attention.

00:17:00.380 And so if you go see an action-adventure movie, like a James Bond movie, let's say, what you get is a distillation of romantic adventure, right?

00:17:10.280 everything that isn't romantic or adventurous is edited out and you might say well that's

00:17:14.920 unrealistic it's like well not exactly it's not exactly unrealistic it's more like hyper realistic

00:17:20.660 it's like the the writer and the filmmaker decided to watch a thousand people and pull out the most

00:17:28.100 exciting elements of their life the most exciting and romantic elements of their life you might say

00:17:32.320 and then amalgamate all those into something that's super romantic and super exciting to get

00:17:37.680 to the core of what constitutes romantic adventure itself and then you're pretty interested in that

00:17:42.680 you'll go you'll go watch that movie partly to be entertained but also partly maybe to live the life

00:17:49.460 you haven't lived that's a good way of thinking about it but also maybe to get to the core of

00:17:53.980 what constitutes a romantic adventure to learn and so it's a distillation now

00:17:59.500 here's a question for you is an abstraction more or less real than the thing that it's

00:18:06.840 abstracted from right because if you make this fact fiction separation you say fiction is

00:18:13.320 falsehood it's not true it never happened you you're you're left with a problem that

00:18:20.020 you could make the same criticism of abstraction per se like we abstract out numbers for example

00:18:26.760 from a multitude of different amalgamations to fruit, to cars, to people.

00:18:37.300 What's common across them is two.

00:18:39.740 And you might say, well, that's less real.

00:18:41.660 Two has a number is less real than the things it represents.

00:18:44.420 But I would say, well, why are you so sure about that?

00:18:46.960 Because if you can manipulate the abstractions,

00:18:49.700 you're more powerful than you are if you manipulate the actual things.

00:18:54.440 the abstractions in some ways you could make a case that the abstractions are more real

00:18:58.560 you could make a case that they're hyper real words are abstractions and yet they have motive

00:19:04.820 force in the world what's what's the reason what's the possible rationale for presuming that an

00:19:10.980 abstraction isn't real well a great story is an abstraction a story about a great man is an

00:19:16.920 abstraction about what it is about men that make them great and a story about the greatest of all

00:19:22.480 possible men would be the ultimate abstraction of greatness itself and why how is that not real

00:19:28.740 you might say well it's not about anybody in particular well it might depend on how great

00:19:33.360 the man was right how well that man played out that pattern it could be about someone in particular

00:19:39.100 could be about a genuinely great man who acts out or embodies or incarnates the pattern of greatness

00:19:45.120 as such say it's about you too insofar as there have been there have been times in your life where

00:19:51.160 you made that pattern manifest we understand these things because we understand for example

00:19:56.020 if we're men that we can be fathers and being a father is to participate in a pattern and we know

00:20:01.040 perfectly well that we can be better or worse fathers and we generally even know if we are

00:20:06.040 being better or worse fathers and so we understand that the abstraction represents a mode of being

00:20:11.880 and it's something that we can participate and should participate in and don't participate in

00:20:16.760 well to our great loss and also the loss of our children we can abstract out stories and great

00:20:22.840 storytellers abstract out great stories and the greatest stories we abstract out are myths

00:20:28.680 they're religious stories and they're hyper true they're not true like ordinary truth is

00:20:35.540 true they're they're true in the way in a way that reveals to you what truth itself is

00:20:41.140 that's a strange way of thinking about things well here here's a here's a hypothesis

00:20:51.760 i think it's true i think the scientific data suggests this by the way i mentioned at the

00:20:57.860 beginning of this lecture that in order to even perceive you have to prioritize right

00:21:02.820 to prioritize means to value so if i if you're out on first date with a with a woman that and

00:21:09.740 you want the date to go well and you're in a busy restaurant there's 50 conversations going around

00:21:14.380 you and you could attend to any of them but you don't you you you you you eliminate from

00:21:21.640 consciousness all the con all the conversations you could be attending to even the one that you

00:21:27.320 could be having with yourself in your own mind you ignore that and you prioritize what it is that

00:21:33.360 she's saying and how she's acting and you elevate that above everything else right and you do that

00:21:38.460 because you're for well god only knows what your reason is but you know it could be you're going to

00:21:45.600 have a reason right and it could be the reason you're all thinking of or it could be or it could

00:21:52.760 be a higher order reason because maybe you're a serious person and you're looking for a long-term

00:21:56.560 relationship and the way that you're going to structure your attention while you are listening

00:22:02.040 is going to reflect that aim and she's going to be watching you like a hawk also depending on

00:22:07.340 what it is she's aiming at to see just exactly how it is that you're directing your attention

00:22:12.060 moment to moment in that interaction right and if you both are out for nothing but a night of fun

00:22:18.360 well the conversation is going to go one way and if you're actually looking for someone to share

00:22:22.840 the rest of your life with and you think the possibility is there in that moment then you're

00:22:27.460 going to interact and attend and focus your attention and prioritize in a completely different

00:22:31.980 way and all of that is going to be dependent on what it is that you're aiming for and that aim is

00:22:37.920 actually going to structure the way that that person makes themselves manifest to you and that's

00:22:43.520 something to know too because one of the things you could hypothesize this is a terrifying notion

00:22:49.420 is that people make themselves real to you in direct relationship to your aim and i think it's

00:22:57.420 worse than that i think that the world does that now we kind of know this even as scientists of

00:23:03.480 perception because your senses are actually navigation equipment right the reason you

00:23:09.380 have senses is so that you could move from one place to another successfully and so when you

00:23:15.000 and when you're moving from one place to another you have an aim the aim is to get to the next

00:23:20.120 place right to get to the promised land archetypally to get to the best place possible

00:23:25.600 in in in the short variations of that or over the long run right and when you make that aim then

00:23:31.520 the world lays itself out for you this is how your perceptual systems work as a pathway to that end

00:23:37.420 accompanied by obstacles that make you that produce negative emotion and facilitators or

00:23:44.640 tools affordances that produce positive emotion so the facts of the world make themselves manifest

00:23:52.580 to you in relationship to your aim and the emotional valence of things is determined by

00:23:59.240 the relationship between those facts and where it is that you're headed and so that's an amazing

00:24:05.120 thing to know because one of the things it suggests is that if if the world keeps kicking

00:24:10.060 you in the face it's possible that your aim is wrong and so one of the well it's either that

00:24:16.840 or god made an arbitrary world that's designed to torture you right and that is the story of

00:24:22.140 cain and able because that's cain's conclusion right and so we'll delve into that and so that's

00:24:29.460 an exciting possibility and then another hypothesis that you might derive from that set of notions is

00:24:36.460 that the aim that would reveal the beauty of the world the beauty and the significance of the world

00:24:45.480 to you in the highest degree that aim there's no difference between that aim and aiming at god

00:24:51.140 That's a definition.

00:24:53.220 So you can imagine that you could organize your perceptions so that the best of all possible worlds could make itself manifest to you.

00:25:01.060 Right? 0.85

00:25:01.600 Hypothetically. 0.84

00:25:02.200 Imagine that was hypothetically the case.

00:25:04.960 And that a certain aim would have to go along with that.

00:25:08.260 Well, I can give you an example of that.

00:25:09.820 So one of the insistences in the gospel text is that you should treat other people as you would like to be treated.

00:25:18.720 it's actually quite a complex moral directive because it doesn't mean be nice to other people

00:25:23.360 because you know perfectly well sometimes nice isn't what you need you need a slap on the side

00:25:28.940 of the head you know you need to run into the obstacle you deserve to run into you know

00:25:33.620 perfectly well if you have children and you love them that just doing what makes them happy right

00:25:39.880 now is not the right thing to do you you want to take your son or your daughter and you want to

00:25:44.100 think i want this person to thrive in the world and their behavior at the moment is not in

00:25:49.180 accordance with that aim and they need a certain degree of correction and if i was that child and

00:25:54.980 someone who loved me was interacting with me they would stop me if i was eric right so treating

00:26:00.960 people as you would like to be treated doesn't imply that you should go out of your way never

00:26:06.820 to make them uncomfortable emotionally it means you should put yourself in that in their position

00:26:11.920 you should assume that what you're trying to do is to help them live in the world in a manner that

00:26:19.960 reveals the beauty and the significance of the world to them and then you should decide how it

00:26:25.000 is that you would interact with them so that that was possible so that they became increasingly

00:26:29.760 possible and then you might say well imagine you did that to everyone you came in contact with

00:26:36.060 there's immense emphasis for example in the old testament on hospitality it's a sacred duty

00:26:41.780 hospitality well you invite people to your house and you're you you're generous and you you're

00:26:48.520 productive so your house is well apportioned and you're generous and you share everything you have

00:26:53.580 and you do that wholeheartedly and in a genuinely generous spirit well imagine that you're hospitable

00:26:58.940 in everything you do which is the same thing it's an earlier version of treating other people like

00:27:03.360 you would want to be treated imagine you do that with everyone you meet all the time with every

00:27:07.700 word and gesture well then you might say well what's going to be the consequence to you well

00:27:14.040 you know now and then someone's going to take advantage of you but i would say to their own

00:27:18.380 detriment it's not a reasonable way of reacting to someone who's being productive and generous

00:27:24.920 people who do that their reputation suffers very very rapidly everyone understands and notices

00:27:31.560 no one wants them around no one wants to cooperate with them or trade with them or

00:27:36.420 and it's impossible to build a productive relationship but if you're this sort of so now

00:27:41.420 and then you know you may encounter someone who's going to play a short-term manipulative game with

00:27:46.580 you if you are productive and generous but by and large especially if you're good at doing it

00:27:51.720 especially say when people are suffering or lost and you can offer them a hand and it's genuine

00:27:56.840 they're going to remember that and there's a lot of people in the world that aren't you

00:28:00.720 like eight billion of them and you're going to interact with at least a thousand of them in some

00:28:06.240 real detail in your life you could store up goodwill in their hearts you know and then what

00:28:13.460 would happen if a thousand people are happy with you what's your life going to be like especially

00:28:18.620 if you went out of your way you know and most people this is god's honest truth it's we know

00:28:24.220 this we know this scientifically it as well as practically almost everyone who's vaguely sane

00:28:32.180 has a ledger you know if someone does a favor for you there's part of you that thinks you know

00:28:39.140 some reciprocation is in order right that's the basis of the turnabout that makes fair play

00:28:46.220 it's the definition of fair play it's certainly something you want in a marriage is that you know

00:28:50.660 i mean not like you're exactly keeping track because that's petty but but there is an expectation

00:28:56.800 that that kindness should be met with kindness and and and vice versa no and so and then you

00:29:03.760 could imagine so that if you were productive and generous even to a fault not not that you should

00:29:09.740 allow yourself to be taken advantage of that's not what i mean but if you're productive and

00:29:13.720 generous to a fault and you made that manifest to a thousand people the probability that that

00:29:19.580 would return to you in spades is exceptionally high no so so that the reason i'm telling you

00:29:26.200 that is because for example that's one of the injunctions in the ser in the sermon on the mount

00:29:31.180 that you should aim high and then you should treat other people like you would want to be treated

00:29:35.140 well why well because that's the aim that will best reveal the pathway the golden pathway forward

00:29:42.020 to you it's absolutely the most practical possible it's interesting advice because it's practical as

00:29:48.260 hell but it's also deep it's theologically sound it essentially means that if you aim up

00:29:54.620 and you act generously and productively and you're wholehearted about that that the the jacob's ladder

00:30:01.600 makes its appearance right and you can start ascending the what would you say the the endless

00:30:07.260 spiral upward to the place that gets better and better right and that's an that's a game that

00:30:14.260 improves as you play it that's a good definition of the kingdom of heaven now it's certainly

00:30:19.160 something that characterizes a very deep friendship for example because a friendship can become

00:30:23.200 if it's if it's well played let's say or marriage can become better and better across time richer

00:30:29.640 and deeper across time and so so one of the things you see in the biblical corpus is that

00:30:36.080 there's a characterization of whatever god is as the thing that should be put in the place of

00:30:44.460 highest value right it's something that you establish a relationship in with in some ways

00:30:49.880 and you see this in the story of Cain and Abel and so we'll talk about that story directly

00:30:56.400 now I'll give you a little setup to the story because you need to know what happened up to

00:31:01.940 this point now Cain and Abel are actually the first two human beings right because Adam and

00:31:08.260 Eve they're made by God and so they're not born they're not ordinary people they're born in

00:31:12.880 paradise they're the eternal primordial ancestors gain and able they're they're born in profane

00:31:20.580 history right so from the perspective of the biblical narrative history begins with the fall

00:31:27.420 of adam and eve and it means something like it means a lot of things but it means something like

00:31:31.980 the dawn of self-consciousness among human beings it means many things but that's one of the things

00:31:37.800 it means self-conscious human beings realize that there's a future that's part of being

00:31:43.480 self-conscious you're self-conscious and you know yourself as a bounded entity in time you know your

00:31:48.860 borders and you're and you know what you are and what you aren't but you also know i mean you know

00:31:54.560 yourself in place sorry in space you know your borders your bodily borders and you know yourself

00:32:01.320 in time you know that you were born at some point and that you're going to age and there'll be a time

00:32:06.340 when you aren't and so we're human beings are conscious as no other animal is of the entirety

00:32:12.320 of our span of life and there's a tragedy that goes along with that because being self-conscious

00:32:18.680 in that manner means that we're aware of our own finitude and our mortality in a way that other

00:32:23.120 animals aren't we're aware of our own vulnerability like zebras are perfectly happy grazing where

00:32:29.840 there's lions if the lions are asleep well it's not very bright on the lion the zebras should be

00:32:35.680 getting together and thinking why don't we just go stomp those lions while they're sleeping and

00:32:40.060 and there won't be any problem with lions in the futures but the zebras think to the degree they

00:32:44.600 think sleeping lions they're no problem they don't think about the future lions right those are

00:32:50.640 completely different creatures but not us like no matter how calm you are in the present there's

00:32:55.600 something you have to worry about in the future right and that's because you're conscious of the

00:32:59.640 future you're conscious of your extension across time that's part of what makes you self-conscious

00:33:04.940 And Adam and Eve, well, in the story of Adam and Eve, they become self-conscious.

00:33:10.320 They know they're naked.

00:33:11.920 The scales fall from their eyes.

00:33:13.740 They become aware of themselves.

00:33:15.460 And the consequence of that, there are many, but one of the consequences is they have to work.

00:33:22.100 Now, this is an unbelievably profound realization and characterization.

00:33:33.340 What does work mean?

00:33:34.940 well let's say we could distinguish it from play play play might have a productive end but it's

00:33:42.160 enjoyable right now right if you're playing you're not exactly sacrificing anything right

00:33:46.900 if you're playing if you're enjoying yourself you're doing what you want in the moment well

00:33:53.120 what's the opposite of play work or more accurately the work you have to do well why do you have to do

00:34:00.600 it why do you work and what is it about human beings that makes us work unlike other creatures

00:34:07.080 and the answer to that is well we're aware of the future and so what have we learned to do

00:34:14.100 well we've learned to work well what do you do when you work you sacrifice the present to the

00:34:18.400 future right that's like the definition of delayed gratification if you want to be gratified right

00:34:24.760 now you get what you want right now if you're going to work and store and save and toil and

00:34:30.540 labor what you're doing is you're sacrificing the pleasures of the moment for your long-term

00:34:36.140 continued security and opportunity or more than that more than that because it's not just about

00:34:41.240 you right if you're working you're also working for your family you're working for others and so

00:34:46.320 it isn't just your medium to long-term security and opportunity it's the medium to long-term

00:34:51.980 security and stability and opportunity of your family and those you love and you sacrifice the

00:34:58.380 present to that. Okay. Now we've done something useful. We've drawn a relationship. We've

00:35:05.600 established a relationship between work and sacrifice. And that's useful because once you

00:35:11.780 know that connection, you can understand much of what happens, especially in the most archaic

00:35:16.600 stories in the Bible, because they're all about sacrifice. Okay. So let's try to bring that down

00:35:21.700 to earth. You have to sacrifice. Well, why? Well, let's say you just pursued the pleasures of the

00:35:29.680 moment. Well, then you sacrifice the future for the present, right? To do anything, you give up

00:35:36.500 a multitude of other things that you could be doing, right? So the human mode of existence

00:35:41.900 is sacrificial. And that's in some ways why work enters the world. Now God condemns Adam and Eve

00:35:49.980 to work and that's partly a consequence of their pride they sin and that's why they fall out of

00:35:55.860 paradise and one of the things you might ask yourself is if your work is utterly miserable

00:36:00.580 how much of that is a consequence of the mistakes in perception that you make and keep on making

00:36:05.940 you know i know people have to do difficult things to get by but there isn't exactly

00:36:10.720 just because things are difficult doesn't necessarily mean that they're intolerable

00:36:16.100 and embittering it might depend on what attitude you bring to bear on the sacrifices that you have

00:36:22.580 to make and so another mystery might be once the human race had established the fact that

00:36:28.860 work was necessary and work was sacrificial that a question immediately observed emerged which was

00:36:36.100 well what what work works best which which is the same thing as saying what sacrifice is most

00:36:42.780 pleasing to god it's the same thing what pattern of sacrifice do you have to engage in to maximize

00:36:49.860 the return in the future all things considered for you and the people that you love in consequence

00:36:56.460 of giving something up or investing now right you have to do that you're going to sacrifice one way

00:37:02.880 or another okay we accept that now the question is what pattern of sacrifice is most effective

00:37:10.180 the entire biblical corpus is an attempt to answer that question right it's it's a continual

00:37:19.540 investigation into the covenantal relationship between the spirit of being itself and humanity

00:37:27.160 so how what does that mean well look think about what you're doing when you work

00:37:32.080 because the gratification is deferred you don't get what it is that you're working for right now

00:37:39.120 you're saving up for the future you're basically engaging in a contractual relationship

00:37:44.420 your assumption is is that if you put in the time and effort now

00:37:47.920 there'll be a return at some point in the future there's no difference between that and a contract

00:37:54.620 it's the same idea and that's why the relationship with god in the old testament is construed as

00:38:01.100 covenantal it's a deal it's a deal you make the deal is you put in your time

00:38:07.100 the payoff is you benefit in consequence so that brings up another question how do you best

00:38:14.300 guarantee the proper future return as a consequence of your work and that's a perfectly practical

00:38:19.920 question that's exactly the question that's addressed in the story of cain and abel so what

00:38:24.400 happens is we we end the story of adam and eve with the revelation that human beings are destined

00:38:29.940 to work to toil and then eve has the first two brothers they're a pair they're a pair of opposites

00:38:36.580 they're the eternal warring hostile brothers right they're batman and joker that's a good

00:38:42.380 way of thinking about it or superman or like and lex luther they're they're they're thor and loki

00:38:49.180 right they're christ and satan there are two paralleled patterns of being and sacrifice

00:38:56.300 and one works another fails and they're at war and they're always at war and they're at war in

00:39:04.440 the world and they're at war in your soul and you understand that because if you didn't understand

00:39:09.460 that you couldn't go watch batman and the joker and understand it you remember in the dark night

00:39:16.280 with heath ledger remember the joker very very interesting character this evil clown

00:39:22.080 remember he surrounds himself with people from the mafia and they they steal money from banks

00:39:28.580 and the mafia guys they're kind of like you and me they're pretty happy about the money

00:39:32.540 right and so you can understand them criminals though they are they sort of abide by the same

00:39:37.820 rules you do they like money you like money you can understand each other the joker takes half

00:39:43.480 the money that he steals and what does he do with it he burns it right and that's a very accurate

00:39:51.320 observation about what would you say the pattern of sacrifice that's almost that's entirely

00:39:59.580 antithetical to the proper pattern of sacrifice it's the creation of misery for its own sake the

00:40:05.720 the destruction of accrued wealth for the demonstration of its futility it's the ultimate

00:40:13.840 form of destructive nihilism and and we find characters like that compelling because that

00:40:20.340 is a temptation that presents itself to all of us right because we suffer and because we suffer

00:40:28.600 unfairly and unjustly it's very easy for us to turn against the covenant that unites the present

00:40:38.540 with the future and to wish in our heart of hearts that everything burned and suffered

00:40:44.560 adam and eve eve gives rise to cain and abel right the first two human beings so now they're

00:40:52.160 they're paired off in an eternal struggle and and the struggle most accurately characterizes

00:40:58.020 not only the world but the struggle in people's soul right you could say that two spirits war

00:41:03.780 within your breast that's part of the eternal battle between good and evil that's part of

00:41:08.460 wrestling with god when whenever you're making a judgment you're making a moral judgment

00:41:12.200 right and sometimes it's a judgment between two relative goods but sometimes it's a judgment

00:41:17.620 between what you would like to do especially if you're bitter and resentful and hedonistic and

00:41:22.580 what you know you should do right and every decision you make is a reflection of that

00:41:27.680 fundamental decision at some micro level you know there are venal sins there are small ways you can

00:41:33.040 miss the mark but they're generally embedded in a much larger pattern of missing the mark right that

00:41:38.740 that has as its archetypal foundation something like the battle between good and evil the fact

00:41:44.980 that we have to value even before we can see right even before the world reveals itself as fact

00:41:51.040 means that everything we do is conditioned

00:41:54.060 by the desire to aim up or down

00:41:56.640 and vacillating between the two

00:41:59.660 is the same as aiming down

00:42:01.200 or perhaps worse.

00:42:04.220 And Adam knew Eva's wife 0.84

00:42:05.340 and she conceived and bare Cain 0.85

00:42:06.880 and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord.

00:42:10.540 And she again bare his brother Abel.

00:42:13.160 And Abel was a keeper of sheep,

00:42:14.960 but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

00:42:18.020 so they picked two different occupational pathways now

00:42:24.320 both Cain and Abel make sacrifices now this is a mysterious part of the biblical stories because

00:42:32.060 modern people can't understand what archaic people were doing when they were offering

00:42:37.060 sacrifices but imagine this imagine this is that in order to understand something you have to act

00:42:44.140 it out okay so let's make that concrete that's what children do when they play right it's like

00:42:51.800 before a child can become a father before a daughter can become a mother she has to play

00:42:57.020 at being a father she has to play at being a mother just like the son has to play at being

00:43:02.380 a father and to play is to embody right to play is to represent with your ritualized actions

00:43:10.640 some pattern that you're striving to understand that's what people do when they're in a play

00:43:15.860 that's what people do when they're in a movie they're acting out a pattern and they're they

00:43:21.540 like their audience are trying to understand the nature of that pattern maybe well enough to

00:43:26.460 describe it explicitly by enacting the drama you know and as i said maybe you go see a hundred

00:43:32.760 action adventure movies romantic action adventure movies so you can extract out the pattern of

00:43:37.880 romantic adventure and embody it in your own life and maybe you could do that merely as a

00:43:43.380 consequence of imitation rather than explicit understanding and the imitation would be acting

00:43:49.580 it out so what are archaic people doing when they sacrifice when they make a sacrificial gesture

00:43:55.000 when they offer something on an altar well they're acting out the principle of sacrifice

00:43:59.900 they're trying to they're dramatizing the investigation into what it is that you have

00:44:07.040 to let go of and offer so that the spirit of being itself will be pleased with you

00:44:13.840 and maintain its contract now it's archaic

00:44:17.420 conceptualization why do you burn something on an altar well that definitely you're definitely

00:44:24.880 offering it because it's destroyed but you burn something on an offer and the smoke rises and

00:44:29.860 god hypothetically is an aerial spirit and you might say well why is that it's like well it's

00:44:35.780 for the same reason that you're struck by awe when you look into the night sky i mean archaic people

00:44:41.020 like modern people were capable of being odd let's say and certainly the awe that characterized the

00:44:49.020 heavens is a primordial form of awe and it's reasonable to assume and maybe it's it's literally

00:44:55.960 reasonable to assume that there's some concordance between the infinite expanse of the heavens

00:45:01.780 and the spirit of being and becoming itself and to know and to have that notion that

00:45:07.840 god is akin to that which dwells in the heaven is not an unreasonable hypothesis and given that god

00:45:15.780 is an aerial being while smoke is a reasonable way of communicating with them and so god is the

00:45:22.200 spirit that can evaluate the value of your sacrifices as a consequence of the rise of

00:45:28.520 the smoke. Now, there's an element of primitivistic thinking in that, but

00:45:34.160 these people weren't stupid. There's many of the things we know today that they don't know, 0.53

00:45:42.100 just as there are many things they knew that we don't know today. But that doesn't mean that

00:45:47.140 what they were doing was without significance or meaning and the notion that first of all the

00:45:53.900 notion that you have to offer something of value to take your place properly in the world that is

00:45:59.640 a major realization there's no difference between that and maturity there's no difference between

00:46:04.780 that and the rise to self-consciousness of the human race there's no difference between that

00:46:09.220 and our ability to build culture because our cultures are actually a storehouse of value

00:46:14.680 to be drawn on in the future right and so the the fact that our ancestors were compelled to

00:46:23.780 act out what constituted the appropriate sacrifice is a testament not to their foolishness but to

00:46:29.080 their genius and so well what do they offer well they offer the fruits of their work

00:46:36.240 well that is what that's what you offer that's what you offer that's what you offer to your wife

00:46:41.600 that's what you offer to yourself in so far as you're a provider that's what you offer your

00:46:47.700 children if you're a mother you sacrifice your time to your children right you're offering

00:46:53.840 something okay so what should you offer and then also in what spirit should you offer it well if

00:47:02.460 you're a child and your mother's affection is doled out begrudgingly how's that going to work

00:47:07.520 for you. Or if you're a husband in a relationship and your wife's affection is doled out begrudgingly

00:47:12.700 or vice versa. Right? That's not a gift that's going to give back. It's a gift that's going to

00:47:22.940 engender a corresponding resentment in all likelihood. And so there's an idea lurking

00:47:29.060 there and you can you can evaluate this idea for yourself imagine that now you're

00:47:37.720 you're you're conversing with your conscience you're it's at night and you're taking yourself

00:47:44.100 apart because you're guilty and you're trying to scour your imagination for some time when you

00:47:49.200 acted in a manner that was sufficiently admirable so that you maybe have something to cling on to

00:47:56.000 in the wreckage of your self conceptualization and what do you remember if you're fortunate

00:48:00.800 what do you remember you remember some time in your life where what you offered was the best you

00:48:04.980 had right and if you're fortunate not only did you offer what was best that you had but it was

00:48:11.720 received as the best and the consequences were positive and then you can calm your debate with

00:48:18.420 your conscience at least to some degree by saying well at least there was something that i did right

00:48:23.080 and because you know you know perfectly well in your heart of hearts that you're called upon to

00:48:29.940 offer your best that's why it says for example in the gospels that you're not to hide your light

00:48:35.120 under a bushel but to but to shine like the city on the hill and then there's an idea there it's

00:48:40.920 a deep idea an idea is if you did your best you'd be accepted and that's exactly what god tells cain

00:48:47.540 So Cain and Abel make sacrifices.

00:48:50.920 Abel, he brought the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. 0.87

00:48:55.040 Okay, so what does that mean?

00:48:57.220 This is a complicated thing.

00:48:59.500 There's an idea in the biblical corpus that the firstborn should be consecrated to God.

00:49:06.140 It's a very complicated idea.

00:49:11.120 First impression.

00:49:13.320 That's the most important impression.

00:49:15.360 Why?

00:49:15.620 because it sets the frame for the interactions after that if you read people a list of words

00:49:21.560 and then you ask them to repeat them back they're much more likely to repeat back the first and the

00:49:26.260 last word the first of something sets the frame so what does it mean to offer the firstlings it

00:49:35.100 means when you embark upon something you bloody well better make sure that what you're aiming at

00:49:40.140 when you begin is correct right first things first well that's what abel does is that the sacrifices

00:49:47.160 he made makes are from the first moment of the highest quality and in the proper spirit

00:49:53.460 right so they're not narcissistic or psychopathic or machiavellian or self-serving or short-term

00:49:59.760 or hedonistic or power-oriented none of that they're aimed up right they're aimed at establishing

00:50:06.320 psychological stability and harmony and extending that out to the family and extending that out to

00:50:13.480 the broader community right and then he offers up the fat well why the fat the fat's the highest

00:50:18.980 quality food and the fat of the lamb is the highest quality of the fat and so what and so

00:50:25.500 what does all this mean if you strip it of its archaic terminology well first of all livestock

00:50:30.680 was very valuable to archaic people because they weren't wealthy in the manner that we're wealthy

00:50:36.260 their wealth what they had was literally embodied in their in their flock and to offer to god

00:50:43.220 the choices cuts of the flock was absolutely equivalent to offering your best in the world

00:50:48.520 it's a it's a demonstration of sacrificial intent now it turns out and this is the optimistic part

00:50:56.260 of this story because fundamentally it's a very optimistic story and the lord had respect unto

00:51:01.840 abel and to his offering okay so so let's think about this you know we have lots of reasons for

00:51:07.260 assuming that the world isn't just you know i was re-watching a debate i had with stephen fry

00:51:12.820 great englishman who's an actor and very interested in mythology and he uh part of what we discussed

00:51:20.660 was an interview he did where he mentioned how he would call god out if he ever had the misfortune

00:51:27.080 to meet him now fry claims atheism but he got quite heated when he was discussing the centrally

00:51:33.180 evil nature of god and he said how is it that we're supposed to proceed in a world under the

00:51:39.680 assumption that the created order is good when innocent children die horribly of bone cancer

00:51:45.620 and that's a perfectly reasonable question you're going to ask yourself in your own life

00:51:50.020 how it is that you can cope with the fact of being alive given the unjust suffering that

00:51:57.060 you're being put through or that someone you love is being put through.

00:52:04.760 Well, what's the counter position to that? Well, this statement, and the Lord had respect unto

00:52:09.980 Abel and to his offering. So there's a proposition here. It's a proposition about the nature of man

00:52:14.780 and God. And the proposition is this, regardless of the circumstances, if you offered your best,

00:52:20.540 that offering would be gratefully, that offering would be incorporated into the covenant in a

00:52:26.580 productive manner and then you think we can we can think this through let's say you have a

00:52:31.740 daughter and she's diagnosed with a terrible illness and that's enough to make you shake

00:52:36.800 your fist at god in the world well how how should you respond to that in a manner that's going to

00:52:43.640 be best for her are you going to become bitter and resentful and nihilistic and turn against the

00:52:47.840 world is that going to be useful to her maybe she's eight she needs you what are you supposed

00:52:54.300 to do aim up offer your best no excuses and and that that idea is echoed continually through the

00:53:04.060 biblical works job for example job is literally the target of a bet between god and satan and

00:53:11.400 job is a good man and satan comes along to god and says i don't think he's that good you let me

00:53:16.300 have adam for a while and he'll turn against you and god says yeah i don't think so do your worst

00:53:22.480 and so you'll feel like that at times in your life and job's answer is twofold answer number

00:53:30.420 one is he's good enough so he doesn't have to take himself apart just because he's suffering

00:53:35.040 because one of the questions you'll ask yourself if undue suffering visits you is are you the sort

00:53:39.900 of corrupt entity that deserves this right it's just what you had coming to you now that's what

00:53:45.380 job's friends tell him by the way well he's you know nursing his disfiguring illness in the ashes

00:53:51.700 his friends come along and say well this wouldn't have happened to you if you would have had your

00:53:55.160 act together you know and they're kind of happy about being able to say that which is a bit of

00:53:59.660 misery little excess misery for Job just when he could use it the least and he also refuses point

00:54:05.940 blank to do what his wife says shake your fist at God and die that's what you've got left and

00:54:13.140 Job's answer is no matter what happens to me I will maintain my faith no matter what and then

00:54:19.620 you think well there's an there's an element of that that's unreasonable obviously because

00:54:23.680 you can certainly imagine and no doubt experience being tortured to the point where your faith is

00:54:28.980 sorely tested and you feel entirely justified in in cynicism and bitterness in fact you might even

00:54:35.180 regard it as a form of justice but then you can ask yourself a question in consequence like

00:54:41.380 how's that working for you and then you can see too when you encounter people who are suffering

00:54:47.360 unduly and you see them bearing up under that nobly and they're still aiming up and maintaining

00:54:52.940 their faith and their integrity and their honesty and even their willingness to be of service to

00:54:56.900 others that's someone you admire like instantly that's the sort of person you want to have around

00:55:01.200 when the waves rise and the winds blow a little bit too roughly and so there's a promise here

00:55:07.620 it's one of the first promises it's the first promise in some ways that god makes to

00:55:13.380 to the men who are born rather than created and the promise is

00:55:18.460 if you offer your best it will be accepted and so and this is something that requires

00:55:27.580 immense soul searching because you could well ask yourself always always if the world is not

00:55:35.800 laying itself out for you in the manner that you deem acceptable maybe your definition of what

00:55:40.880 constitutes acceptable could use a little work but maybe there's something that you still have

00:55:45.060 been unwilling to part with or maybe there's some manner in which you are still not offering your

00:55:49.200 best because the best is that's a lot to ask especially under dire conditions it's an all-in

00:55:55.700 full commitment right in every second that's why christ says in the gospels that you're to be

00:56:03.740 perfect like your father in heaven is perfect right that's why the doorway to paradise is barred

00:56:10.300 by cherubim who wield swords that turn every which way and burn and what does that mean it means that

00:56:17.680 everything that isn't worthy will be cut away it means that nothing that is unworthy will be allowed

00:56:24.280 to pass into paradise well by definition obviously because it wouldn't be paradise if everything that

00:56:30.740 was unworthy wasn't cut and burned away before entrance and so you can ask yourself too if you're

00:56:35.980 suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are there still things that need to be

00:56:40.400 cut and burned away and is that a sacrifice that you're willing to make and that's going to be

00:56:45.100 dependent to some degree on your faith right are you willing to stake yourself on the presumption

00:56:50.860 that if you let everything that was in you out that the world would lay itself out properly at

00:56:55.020 your feet or are you going to hold back right are you going to keep something in reserve are you

00:56:58.760 going to do what cain does and offer what's second best well what goes along with that well first of

00:57:04.160 he's fooling himself because every one of us knows perfectly well that life is far too difficult

00:57:08.720 for you to be successful with a second rate effort like you can just forget that getting

00:57:14.420 through this properly is going to take not only everything that you have but everything you could

00:57:19.880 become if you gave everything you have and everyone knows that and so the notion that

00:57:25.920 you can cut corners here and you can offer what's second rate there it's like do you believe that

00:57:30.680 And if you do, who the hell do you think you are?

00:57:33.800 You can't, you think you can fool yourself with that presumption? 0.90

00:57:36.600 You think you're going to fool other people?

00:57:38.660 And more importantly, you think you're going to pull one over on the source of being itself, do you?

00:57:44.520 That's a Luciferian presumption, right?

00:57:47.280 And that's exactly what God tells Cain, by the way.

00:57:56.620 But unto Cain and his offering, he had not respect.

00:57:59.280 and Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell countenance facial expression right Cain becomes

00:58:05.880 depressed and bitter and angry well why do people become depressed and bitter and angry well

00:58:11.760 obviously because their sacrifices aren't rewarded clearly like that's the embittering

00:58:19.260 pathway Cain's thinking I break myself in half every day you know to please myself and other

00:58:27.000 people and God. And all I get in response is a lack of respect.

00:58:34.600 And underneath that is the presumption that Cain can offer his second rate

00:58:40.640 sacrifices and that's okay.

00:58:41.980 And that other people are at fault for not accepting them as if they're the

00:58:46.600 real thing.

00:58:47.320 And even more that God himself is to be called out for the reality of

00:58:52.700 creation because God won't allow himself,

00:58:55.400 won't allow himself to be fooled by second-rate sacrifices you can't possibly imagine anything

00:59:01.540 more self-centered psychopathic and narcissistic than that proposition right job one of the things

00:59:09.900 god tells job when job is working through his suffering is that human beings have no right to

00:59:16.860 judge the cosmic order.

00:59:20.580 We don't have the wisdom.

00:59:23.740 We don't have the perspicacity.

00:59:26.620 We don't have the humility.

00:59:30.620 If we set ourselves up as judges of the cosmic order,

00:59:34.400 there's no difference between setting yourself up as a judge of the cosmic

00:59:38.080 order and acting as an agent of the spirit who eternally conspires to

00:59:43.000 overthrow God.

00:59:44.000 That's the same story.

00:59:46.340 That's Luciferian presumption.

00:59:48.600 That's the Luciferian presumption of the intellect more technically.

00:59:52.780 And Cain is in alignment with that because it's the person who makes false

00:59:56.440 sacrifices, who always thinks that he's smart enough to get away with it.

01:00:00.000 He's smart enough to fool himself.

01:00:01.420 He's smart enough to fool his partner.

01:00:02.780 He can pull the wool over the eyes of his friends and the people in the

01:00:05.960 community.

01:00:06.700 And in the final analysis, if it was down to a showdown between him and God,

01:00:10.320 he'd be on top and wants to be.

01:00:12.740 And the Lord says unto Cain, why are you angry and upset and miserable and disappointed and bitter?

01:00:19.760 And why is your face fallen?

01:00:21.580 Why are you viewing the world in a sour manner and bitter and resentful and angry?

01:00:27.480 Why is that?

01:00:32.860 Sitting in the shadows.

01:00:34.340 stewing in misery not least because of failure self-induced but because of the painful example

01:00:45.980 of Cain of Abel's counter example because you might ask yourself well if you are bitter and

01:00:51.520 resentful because your second-rate sacrifices have been rejected does that instantly make you

01:00:56.420 jealous of everyone who's done the right thing and worse does that make you hate them and worse

01:01:02.520 Does that make you murderous towards them?

01:01:04.780 Even if they constitute your own ideal,

01:01:06.940 even if in destroying them,

01:01:08.880 you would destroy what was best in you.

01:01:12.580 Well,

01:01:13.140 why do people become murderous?

01:01:16.300 And people certainly do.

01:01:19.100 Fratricidal.

01:01:19.720 That's Cain's sin.

01:01:20.780 He kills his brother,

01:01:21.720 not just his brother, 0.82

01:01:22.960 the brother who's an ideal,

01:01:24.780 right?

01:01:25.000 That's an echo of the eventual crucifixion.

01:01:28.580 The death of the ideal,

01:01:30.160 the resentful jealous bitter nihilistic murder of the ideal

01:01:35.160 there's a movie i'd recommend you could watch this if you want it's a very deep

01:01:42.700 analysis of this conundrum it's a movie called crumb and these are the crumb brothers and as

01:01:49.600 you can tell their countenance has fallen and the man on the right charles he commits suicide six

01:01:57.020 months after this documentary is filmed by drinking furniture polish it's the sixth suicidal

01:02:02.220 attempt he made the person on the left max he's a serial sex offender with an iq of about 160 and

01:02:12.680 a hyper creative person and all three of these brothers robert crumb is the middle a famous

01:02:19.240 underground cartoonist they're exemplars in their countenance of the spirit of cain

01:02:26.480 there's nothing heroic about that second grade sacrificial offering it's not the noble lucifer

01:02:34.060 or loki who rebels against god in the spirit of what noble revolutionary fervor it's exactly this

01:02:42.720 and that absolute miserable hating pathology that goes along with it god says if thou doest well

01:02:50.500 shall thou not be accepted well that's that's a tough one right because like do you believe

01:02:59.300 and you have you have to believe one way or another here do you believe that if you did 0.94

01:03:04.180 your best you would be rewarded and you might say well a fool would take that bet but i would say 0.99

01:03:09.020 well have you got a non-foolish bet you're going to lay your life's on the line anyway so you're 0.99

01:03:14.120 going to bet on something you're going to bet that you can hedge your bets and thereby attain

01:03:18.900 the final victory how could you make a bet like that how could you presume that any reward worth

01:03:25.800 attaining wouldn't exist in proportion to the effort that you expended in attaining it even

01:03:31.040 if you made halfway half rate sacrifices second rate sacrifices and you accrued some reward

01:03:36.400 doesn't that merely imply that if you had done better that the reward would have been greater

01:03:40.580 and then like what's the limit to that you know perfectly well in your own life when you serve

01:03:45.900 the people around you and yourself in the most wholehearted manner that things turn out for you

01:03:51.040 the best way they could turn out and that might be even true in the midst of your suffering

01:03:55.180 and if thou not doest not well sin lies at your door and unto thee shall be his desire

01:04:05.520 and thou shalt rule over him well this is one brutally miserable bit of

01:04:10.360 correction from god so basically what's happened here is cain's bitter and he's angry and so he

01:04:19.400 goes and has a chat with god and he says something like what the hell's going on here what kind of

01:04:25.840 planet did you make i'm like breaking myself in half here with my second-rate sacrifices and

01:04:30.860 it's just not working out and that doesn't seem fair and what about this able character

01:04:34.880 like everything he does turns to gold and you know how dare you make a universe this corrupt

01:04:40.640 and there's a fair bit of presumption in that you might say and so and what does God say the last

01:04:47.940 thing Cain wants to hear the last thing anyone wants to hear when they make a proclamation like

01:04:51.580 that he says sin lies at your door and he wants you and you could rule over him but you chose not

01:05:03.440 to and you invited them in you know there's an idea in vampire movies that when they tap at your

01:05:08.240 window you have to let them in right it's the same idea it's exactly the same idea and this is

01:05:13.760 exactly right and i know this from my clinical practice let's say you want to get bitter enough

01:05:18.800 to shoot up a school well i'll tell you how to do that it's like first of all accumulate all the

01:05:25.620 evidence that the sacrifices that you're offering aren't paying off and allow yourself to become

01:05:30.920 bitter enough so that you believe that the world is unfair and turned against you and that

01:05:38.220 the only pathway to justice is your revenge all right now start fantasizing about what

01:05:45.980 you could do okay so what do you do when you fantasize well you take that spirit of bitter

01:05:51.280 resentment and you ask it what do you want what do you want exactly maybe you're angry at someone

01:06:00.100 who turned you down at school if you're a high school kid someone you would respect and admire

01:06:06.200 that someone you would rather have on your side some girl you admire some guy you'd like to have

01:06:11.120 been your friend and you get turned away and so now you're bitter about that and you're angry

01:06:16.220 and you think what would i like to do to that person if i had them alone right if i had them

01:06:22.260 alone for an hour if no one ever knew and then you have a little fantasy and why because you

01:06:27.400 invited it in and so then what do you do you do that 10 000 hours in your basement and you let

01:06:33.680 that fantasy go wherever it will you 10 000 hours of that and you'll you'll be there with your

01:06:41.700 with your automatic rifle shooting elementary school kids and thinking that you're doing a

01:06:47.640 pretty fine job while you're doing it and that's a consequence it's a very deep line and it has

01:06:54.540 many precursors and other mythological stories.

01:06:57.940 The notion is that sin is something that's a collaboration between the spirit

01:07:02.620 of evil itself.

01:07:03.540 That would be the bitterness and resentment that makes it self manifest when

01:07:07.820 your sacrifices have been rejected and the creative power of your own

01:07:12.640 imagination.

01:07:13.500 It's a collaboration.

01:07:17.440 So what God actually says is sin lies at your door, 0.95

01:07:19.760 like a sexually aroused predatory animal,

01:07:22.020 and you've invited it in to have its way with you right to brood to sit on the fantasies and

01:07:29.540 to nurse them and as a consequence they've taken you over and that's exactly right and god says

01:07:36.140 worse he says not only that means not only are you at fault because you invited this thing in

01:07:44.400 but you're at fault because you could have resisted it even though you had your reasons to be upset

01:07:49.500 you could have resisted it and you voluntarily and consciously chose not to and that's the last

01:07:55.180 thing Cain wants to hear right he wants to hear God say well you know I made a mistake when I was

01:08:01.140 laying the foundation of the world and things didn't turn out in your favor despite your second

01:08:05.860 rate sacrifices because there's something not wrong with you heaven forbid but something wrong

01:08:11.420 with the cosmic order itself and God does exactly the opposite he says he says this is on you

01:08:16.880 you knew it all along you played along you dug the pit that you fell into you know it

01:08:24.720 you're lying about it now and you you could change and you should change

01:08:30.380 and go and cain of course does what tyrannical possessed spirits always do like the pharaoh in

01:08:39.500 the egyptian story of the plague like you when you're at your most stubborn and instead of

01:08:44.880 letting go and sacrificing say the pathological attitude that brought about the catastrophe

01:08:50.880 he doubles down and Cain talked with Abel his brother and it came to pass when they're in the

01:08:58.320 field that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him so what does this mean well it means

01:09:03.300 essentially that Cain invited Abel to go work with him in the field right inviting him along like

01:09:10.600 he's his brother and then when he got out in the field he decided that he had enough of his

01:09:15.320 successful brother and kills him and then you might say well why does he kill him and one

01:09:22.020 answer is well because his example is intolerable to him that's a good that's a good reason because

01:09:28.860 it's a form of vengeance against Abel for the pretension of his success but more it's to get

01:09:35.140 revenge against god because abel is god's ideal right it's god's chosen is the person who's

01:09:42.800 walking the divine path and the best way that cain can determine to shake his fist at the almighty

01:09:48.460 who's torturing him by not accepting his second right sacrifices is by destroying god's ideal

01:09:54.740 itself if you ever wonder by the way why high school shooters shoot everyone and then themselves

01:10:00.700 well now you have your answer because you know they can save themselves a lot of trouble and

01:10:04.960 everyone else just by committing the suicide lack first but no they can wreak the most havoc by

01:10:11.060 distributing the most misery and then cap it off with a demonstration of their lack of worth even 0.94

01:10:15.740 to themselves it's a much more effective way to shake their fist at god and die

01:10:20.500 it's a dark story and the lord says unto cable where is abel thy brother and cain says well

01:10:30.720 how would i know am i my brother's keeper well there's an implicit answer to that question which

01:10:37.240 is supposed to be yes right and that's an echo right there of the notion that you are in fact

01:10:42.360 your brother's keeper and not because you should be nice to him but because by acting in that

01:10:49.180 manner you partake in the eternal proper cosmic order you sacrifice your own pretentious desires

01:10:56.560 let's say to the well-being of the people around you and that that is the most effective possible

01:11:01.680 form of sacrifice practically and theologically and god says what have the what have you done

01:11:07.880 what have you done what hast thou done the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the

01:11:12.180 ground no crime goes unmarked not least by the person who commits it 0.79

01:11:21.760 and now you're cursed from the earth which has opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood

01:11:28.240 from thy hand when thou tillest the ground it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength 0.91

01:11:33.660 and cain said unto the lord my punishment is greater than i can bear behold thou hast driven

01:11:38.820 me out this day from the face of the earth and from thy face shall i be hid and i shall be a

01:11:43.760 fugitive and a vagabond in the earth and that it shall come to pass that everyone that finds me

01:11:49.000 shall slay me my punishment is greater than i can bear what happens when you destroy your own ideal 0.98

01:11:56.160 what's left what's left for you then right you've destroyed the very concept of up itself

01:12:04.680 and that's what cain comes to realize in the aftermath of the murder it's like there's nothing

01:12:09.440 for him now and he thinks as well that everyone will kill him given what he's done and god marks

01:12:15.060 them for a very particular reason and the reason is to stop a cycle of vengeful counter slaying

01:12:20.320 right to stop tit-for-tat revenge

01:12:23.480 and the lord said whoever slays cain vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold and the lord

01:12:33.400 set a mark upon him lest any finding him should kill him and cain went out from the presence of

01:12:38.160 the lord and dwelt in the land of nod on the east of eden the land of nod that's where you drift off

01:12:43.480 when you're asleep right off to the land of nod what does that mean cain goes and lives an

01:12:49.200 unconscious life on the margins right which is exactly what happens to people when they slay

01:12:54.780 their ideal and cain knew his wife and she conceived and bare enoch and he built in a city

01:13:01.420 and called the name of the city after the name of his son enoch

01:13:05.280 the story branches out in complexity from here

01:13:10.960 cain's sons are the first builders they eventually build it's cain's descendants

01:13:20.260 that build the tower of babel it's cain descendants it's cain's descendants the

01:13:25.260 descendants of the bitter spirit of cain who are the builders who attempt to supplant the divine

01:13:32.380 with technology right and they do that as a consequence of their their intellectual pride

01:13:39.800 in their in their in their technological pretensions and if you don't think we've been

01:13:46.180 building towers of babel recently of of a of a gigantic size unparalleled in human history

01:13:53.600 you haven't been paying attention and if you haven't noticed that it's the engineers who

01:13:57.920 are doing it you also haven't been paying attention and cain knew his wife and she

01:14:05.180 conceived in bare enoch and he built a city and called the name of the city after the name of

01:14:09.280 his son Enoch there's nothing wrong with technology except when it's its pretensions are to supplant

01:14:17.360 the divine order how are we doing that now well how about pornography how about the fact that

01:14:26.920 we've taken a single woman and transformed her into a million images of women that can invade

01:14:34.020 every corner of every house in the world to supplant the divine order how about we're trying 1.00

01:14:41.020 to do the same thing with robots female robots even sex robots even

01:14:47.740 more children of cain his brother's name was jubal he was the father of all such as handled

01:14:56.460 the harp and the organ the technological society has its dawn in the children of cain tubal cain

01:15:05.940 grandson of cain instructor of every artificer and brass and iron

01:15:12.020 he's the first person who makes weapons of war and so what does that mean

01:15:17.400 it means the true cause of the terrible genocidal battles that

01:15:27.740 plague humanity is their origin in the resentful spirit of cain brought about by his refusal to

01:15:37.580 make the proper sacrifices right so there's a notion in this story that the consequence of

01:15:43.860 that individual sin and this is a terrible thing to think about in your own life it's terrible

01:15:48.240 multiplies as it extends itself across the generations and across the broader social

01:15:53.120 community that the sin of cain is not isolated to the effects on his own soul right that the

01:16:00.100 descendants of that spirit are are the perpetrators of genocidal murder

01:16:11.140 hitler was bitter stalin was bitter mao was bitter and what was the consequence of that 0.83

01:16:23.000 what was the consequence of that bitterness spreading across the totalitarian landscape 0.68

01:16:28.140 the provision of opportunity for people who were sons of cain to wreak havoc on the innocent people

01:16:37.460 in the prison camps who are under their dominion how about that for an ugly story

01:16:44.700 and what does that mean psychologically here's what it means this is a horrifying thing

01:16:50.020 i think there's a direct link between your refusal to make the highest of sacrifices and

01:16:57.960 the probability that society will deteriorate in a murderous and genocidal direction it's that

01:17:04.040 close together way closer than you think merely if for no other reason than merely because your

01:17:10.600 failure to make the light within you shine as brightly as it possibly can disheartens you

01:17:15.620 and others and turns them against the cosmic order as you all know the technological spirit

01:17:25.720 we'll close with this

01:17:30.480 another one of

01:17:32.080 Cain's

01:17:34.000 descendants 1.00

01:17:35.440 Lamech

01:17:37.500 I have slain a man to my wounding

01:17:43.580 and a young man to my hurt 1.00

01:17:44.780 Cain's descendants

01:17:47.380 are literally murderous 0.86

01:17:49.060 but they're murderous in a manner that multiplies

01:17:51.620 so

01:17:52.840 Lamech says

01:17:54.420 if you hurt me

01:17:57.500 seven people will suffer as a consequence

01:18:01.800 Cain says that

01:18:03.040 and Lamech says

01:18:04.640 it'll be

01:18:06.560 seventy and seven

01:18:08.420 is that that

01:18:09.320 that desire for revenge

01:18:11.320 manifested in the social order

01:18:14.560 multiplies exponentially

01:18:17.680 right

01:18:19.040 and if you're ever asking yourself

01:18:21.260 because this is a good question

01:18:22.860 it's like why do things go so dreadfully wrong you can look at other people and you can say well

01:18:29.640 what did they do that they shouldn't have done or what did they fail to do that they should have

01:18:33.460 done and you can point fingers and you can understand that there are times where justice

01:18:41.580 itself requires the identification of transgressors but there's a more fundamental issue at stake here

01:18:47.240 which is what is it that you're bringing to bear on the situation or failing to bring to bear

01:18:52.380 and that's the fundamental question of conscience because you could say that if everything around

01:18:59.680 you isn't proceeding in the optimal possible manner then your shortcomings are linked to

01:19:06.660 that failure in some way that you've yet to become conscious of and that's a terrible thing

01:19:12.600 it's a terrible thing to contemplate but it's an amazing thing to wonder because

01:19:16.460 it does mean that just as there's more resting on your shoulders on the side of sin than you think

01:19:22.340 there's way more available to you on the side of opportunity than you could possibly dream of

01:19:26.740 and that willingness to own the the malformed aim that's no different than learning to take

01:19:36.740 advantage of the opportunity and i would say just as the abyss that lies underneath all of us is

01:19:44.660 infinite in its depth the opportunity that lies at our hands is infinite in its scope

01:19:49.400 and the proper sacrificial attitude attitude brings you away from the abyss and

01:19:56.980 moves you towards the realm of infinite opportunity that's the kingdom of god that

01:20:03.160 spread upon the earth that men do not see or will not see very stark division of choice right

01:20:09.840 it's a place where you have the landscape of heaven and hell laid out cleanly and clearly

01:20:15.260 Related to individual conduct

01:20:17.720 In the essentially

01:20:19.460 The third story of the biblical corpus

01:20:21.920 It's absolutely

01:20:23.460 In twelve lines

01:20:24.440 It's absolutely

01:20:25.620 Inconceivable

01:20:28.480 And Adam knew his wife again

01:20:33.240 And she bare a son and called his name Seth

01:20:35.040 For God said she 0.98

01:20:37.120 Hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel

01:20:39.240 Who Cain slew

01:20:40.020 And to Seth to him there was also born a son

01:20:43.640 And he called his name Enos

01:20:44.740 and then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.

01:20:47.280 Well, Abel is dead to the terrible grief of Adam and Eve,

01:20:52.980 but he represents a spirit that's not mortal.

01:20:57.740 That's a good way of thinking about it.

01:20:59.140 That can't be finally killed.

01:21:00.840 And if it's killed in any of its incarnations,

01:21:04.360 Abel, let's say, then it reappears in another guy's.

01:21:07.260 And that's what happens to Eve is that the spirit of good

01:21:10.860 cannot be overcome permanently by the spirit of evil.

01:21:14.740 That's another optimistic element of the story.

01:21:20.720 So that's the story of Cain and Abel.

01:21:24.200 I don't think there's a more terror.

01:21:25.780 I don't think there is a more terrifying story than that story.

01:21:28.680 Actually, there's,

01:21:29.460 I don't think there's a more terrifying story in the biblical corpus,

01:21:32.520 but properly understood.

01:21:34.100 I don't think there's a more terrifying story,

01:21:36.040 especially if you take it with some degree of seriousness,

01:21:38.660 because it ties,

01:21:39.760 like i said it offers this terrible stark representation of the reality that's at hand

01:21:48.120 for you it's like when you make a moral error when you fail to make the proper sacrifices

01:21:54.000 when you refuse to aim up you are by definition aiming down and hell is a bottomless pit for a

01:22:00.540 reason and what that means is that the degeneration of societies into totalitarian hell

01:22:07.600 is a sin that can be placed on the shoulders of every person who's a denizen of that state

01:22:14.400 it's a process you participate in every time you're called by your conscience to stand up

01:22:21.160 and say something you know you should say and you refuse and by the same token the words that

01:22:28.160 you could bring to the world that ring of truth and noble aim they are literally the salvation of

01:22:35.360 they're literally salvation and redemption itself and you want to know what the meaning

01:22:42.460 of your life is that's the meaning of your life

01:22:46.120 dreadful as it is promising as it is stark as it is adventurous as that is

01:22:56.060 it's not for nothing you know that our society is predicated on the notion that human beings

01:23:02.340 are to take up their crosses and bear them right more cataclysmic demand can not possibly be

01:23:10.560 imagined and yet the proposition that lies at the base of our culture is that you're the sort of

01:23:19.900 person that can do that that's your core that's the core of your being that capability to face

01:23:27.540 the catastrophe of the world full frontal eyes open no reservation and to transform it into

01:23:38.140 the glorious resurrection thank you very much

01:23:57.540 Hey, Tim.

01:24:13.960 How's it going?

01:24:17.800 How does one keep focused on the day-to-day processes of goals

01:24:22.180 instead of being overwhelmed by the big picture of achieving them?

01:24:27.540 if the spectacle of you achieving your goals is too overwhelming you're biting off more than you

01:24:41.740 can chew right you're taking on to yourself more than you can bear if if your ambitions demoralize

01:24:50.540 you then they should be scaled back they should be scaled back to the point where you feel

01:24:58.080 challenged by them but that but that with some effort you could do them

01:25:03.280 and you look at that and you ask yourself if there's a sin of pride embedded in it

01:25:10.480 presumptuousness right adam and eve get thrown out of paradise because they bite off more than

01:25:15.440 they can chew right that's the eternal fall of man really that's that's that's that's really the

01:25:22.040 the moral of the story pride goes before a fall that's the same moral if if your ambitions

01:25:30.700 are so daunting that they paralyze you you've picked a dragon bigger than you can fight

01:25:36.860 and you should pare back now you might say well why should i pare back i i hope to be ambitious

01:25:43.060 and i would say well everything in its proper place you have to to use a terrible cliche you

01:25:48.860 have to walk before you can run you know if you're if you want to do one-on-one pickup

01:25:54.900 basketball you probably don't want to play michael jordan right because you're just going to get

01:26:00.140 crushed and you don't want to play your three-year-old nephew either because you're just

01:26:04.020 going to stomp him you want an opponent that's matched to you and it's the same with your

01:26:08.640 ambition now i would say what's positive in that regard is that if you choose an ambition that's

01:26:14.620 well suited to your abilities as they actually are then as you pursue that your scope of vision

01:26:20.480 will broaden and so you don't have to sacrifice your high ambitions if you replace them with a

01:26:27.900 more proximal ambition that's more properly matched to your time and place and that's really

01:26:33.100 what humility is i would say humility is the proper matching of challenge to ability

01:26:37.540 right and and you you can tell that by the way and this is something very important to know

01:26:42.620 you can tell that because if your challenges match to your ability optimally you'll proceed

01:26:49.720 in the spirit of play right because play is the marker of optimized challenge you know if you if

01:26:57.580 you if you're playing a good game you want to play against someone who could beat you right

01:27:01.820 not someone who will certainly beat you but someone who especially could beat you if you

01:27:07.580 don't do your best and your your challenge your ambition should be a partner of that sort

01:27:12.600 something you wrestle with that's an angel of god that's a good way of thinking about it

01:27:16.540 right you want to pick the right size avatar of the highest to wrestle with

01:27:22.280 and and you'll improve in the wrestling so it doesn't mean you'll forego your ambition

01:27:27.540 so scale back this is another thing that's really useful to know too if you find that you're

01:27:34.840 you have an ambition and you continually fail to implement it one of the things you could ask

01:27:40.200 yourself is well possibly you're demanding too much of yourself at the moment what if you what

01:27:45.300 if you scaled back by half and if that doesn't work half again here's a hint scale back till you

01:27:51.160 do it really like that's what you do as a behavior therapist if you're if you're setting someone off

01:27:56.620 for example i'll give you a i'll give you an example so i had this client who

01:28:05.160 he got some girl pregnant and she decided to keep the baby and he was going to be a father

01:28:12.540 and he was completely immature he's about 30 and he lived at home in his high school bedroom

01:28:17.780 which he hadn't cleaned up since he was like born and and uh he came to see me because he

01:28:25.300 he knew he was immature and he felt he should get his act together so he didn't doom his new son

01:28:29.980 which was you know a noble ambition and uh we decided we're going to start by cleaning up his

01:28:36.460 room and so what do you do is a what you do as a behavior therapist is you you pick a fairly

01:28:41.320 concrete task that's aligned with some reasonable goal you know like if you're going to get your act

01:28:46.420 together you live at home in your high school bedroom under the care of your parents and you're 0.83

01:28:52.980 so useless you don't even keep the room clean well cleaning it up isn't exactly a heroic struggle

01:28:58.820 although it's more heroic than you might think because there's many things that stop a room like

01:29:03.580 that from being cleaned up there's many devils guarding the mess you could say but you have to

01:29:09.500 scale back until you find a starting place and we decided he was going to vacuum his rug

01:29:14.860 probably need like a dumpster and a and a front end loader to do that but

01:29:20.800 so what he did he went got the vacuum cleaner it was this upright vacuum cleaner and he got it all

01:29:26.400 the way to the door of his bedroom and then he left it in the door propped at 45 degrees for a

01:29:33.320 whole week and walked over it and then he came to me and he was embarrassed about this as he should

01:29:38.760 have been and and what it was it was an indication of the fact that he knew that he was risking all

01:29:47.840 hell breaking loose by cleaning up that room god only knows what sort of revenge his parents would

01:29:52.600 have taken on him for having the unmitigated gall to move towards maturity at the age of 30 0.99

01:29:59.820 so he left the damn vacuum cleaner you know on the on the threshold 0.98

01:30:04.640 so we reconsidered the task you know i said what sort of shape are the drawers in your cabinet 0.99

01:30:14.280 you know where you keep your clothes said well you can imagine i thought yeah i've seen drawers

01:30:18.800 that haven't been that are stuffed with the chaos of a wasted life that's for sure you think you

01:30:26.440 could clean up half of one drawer and that's pretty humiliating right that's the thing you

01:30:31.740 have to do on your knees if that's where you got to start that's a dismal realization you know but

01:30:37.760 he came back the next week and he'd done that you know and well then it was a whole drawer and then

01:30:42.840 it was the the bureau and it wasn't that long before it was the room but he had to start where

01:30:49.040 he could start and that meant he had to face who he was and he was a man who at 30 was too terrified

01:30:55.880 to vacuum his rug and that's a lot more common than you might think and it is a it is a humbling

01:31:02.660 experience to take yourself as you are but man there's another rule to those who have everything

01:31:09.640 more will be given from those who have nothing everything will be taken that's an economic law

01:31:14.860 by the way the economic economists call that the matthew principle even though it's derived from

01:31:18.860 it's derived from a gospel saying what it means is that if you start moving forward you start moving

01:31:23.940 forward more rapidly right the mirror the first step you take increases the probability of the

01:31:29.760 second step and the first two increase the probability of the next two and so you don't

01:31:33.880 improve like this you improve like this and because of that it doesn't really matter where you start

01:31:39.520 and that's something extremely useful to know because no matter what skill it is that you're

01:31:43.840 lacking if you're willing to face that lack squarely and start where you are and and begin

01:31:49.360 to practice and to make the appropriate sacrifices you can learn far faster than you might imagine

01:31:54.980 and because it's an exponential increase it doesn't really in some ways it doesn't matter

01:32:00.700 where you start it matters that you start so if you're biting off more than you can chew and the

01:32:06.860 result dragon terrifies you into paralysis you know swallow your pride man and then start where 0.98

01:32:15.000 you are, and that's why Jung said, Carl Jung said, the fool is the precursor to the savior, 0.98

01:32:23.480 right? The fool is the person who's willing to be wrong, honestly wrong, because the person 0.99

01:32:30.580 who's willing to be honestly wrong, and to reveal that, that's a fool, that person can 1.00

01:32:35.120 learn. It's always the fool who learns. So the honest fool. A good man is an honest fool. That's 0.99

01:32:48.300 a good way of thinking about it. Do you have any regrets with regard to parenting? Or one piece of

01:32:57.320 advice you'd offer to parents of older teens slash young adults? Thank you.

01:33:05.120 i have things i wish would have been otherwise

01:33:17.900 i have things i wish i would have had the luxury of having otherwise i would say one of the things

01:33:28.560 that Tammy and I determined to do when our kids were teenagers was to take a trip with each of

01:33:35.180 them separately once every year or two. And you might say that's not very often, but it's way

01:33:42.040 more often than it usually happens. And you're bloody fortunate if you get to manage it. And

01:33:46.680 I took one trip with Julian only, my son. And then my daughter, our daughter, got very, very

01:33:53.720 ill. And that was the end of that. And so you took a trip with her to New York.

01:33:57.540 i took a tree i did i took i took a trip with michaela yes definitely but we didn't get to

01:34:02.700 take those trips with the frequency we would have wanted now you know generally if you lose

01:34:09.680 something if you're fortunate you can gain it back not necessarily in exactly the same manner but

01:34:17.660 in a in a manner that

01:34:19.520 that that fills the gap you know and i have done many things with my children

01:34:27.460 later with my daughter when she became healthy again and and i would say too the fact that i

01:34:36.200 did learn that that time with my son was so precious and so fragile we don't take that for

01:34:43.040 granted i can tell you that so if i am with him i'm very happy about it and i do everything i can

01:34:48.340 to make the most of it i don't take it for granted here's something you can do this is a good thing to

01:34:52.720 do some of you most of you are adults most of you be 30 or over most of you have parents who are

01:35:00.380 living um count how many times you're likely to see your parents for the rest of your life

01:35:06.080 so my dad's 85 i'll probably see him five more times you know when my dad was about 65 i figured

01:35:13.880 i'll see him 20 more times 20 times right if you're aware of these things you don't take them

01:35:20.760 for granted you know and people don't like to think that way because it's morbid it's like

01:35:24.520 it's not as morbid as a as a lost opportunity i'll tell you and you know if your dad's 65

01:35:30.800 and you see him once or twice a year you know maybe you live around the corner but even then

01:35:36.160 people often don't see their parents that often 20 is a pretty finite number but you're lucky if

01:35:42.500 you're going to get it so maybe you don't want to muck it up since time is fleeting as they say

01:35:48.300 you know and i think if you had the proper attitude virtually every moment you spent

01:35:54.700 would be spent in that state of apprehension right i mean people insist to themselves

01:36:02.720 that their faith would be buttressed if they were only privileged to apprehend a miracle

01:36:07.600 if god suspended the rules that govern the cosmic order for their convenience they would be

01:36:14.560 transformed in a moment and I would say there's miracles unfolding in front of you every second

01:36:20.200 and if you can't see them it's not because they're not there it's because you're blind

01:36:24.320 and so don't waste time tick tock right and you'll be judged not least by yourself for every moment

01:36:37.640 you waste.

01:36:43.320 John Deere is headquarters here and its executive team has become laser focused on

01:36:50.200 DEI and wokeness. How do the employees fight back?

01:37:06.600 Well, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to tell you a little story first

01:37:09.620 about what will happen to you if you don't fight back.

01:37:13.520 Because you need to be afraid of the right thing.

01:37:16.900 You know, people have complimented me fairly frequently on my bravery.

01:37:22.540 And that doesn't sit well with me because I'm not brave.

01:37:27.900 I'm afraid of different things than most people, I would say.

01:37:32.080 You know, you need to know what to be afraid of.

01:37:34.260 if you know what to be afraid of you'll be you'll be courageous if you know what to be properly

01:37:38.900 afraid of you'll be courageous so jonah the story of jonah jonah is this i don't know he's just some

01:37:47.880 middle-aged guy wandering around a few thousand years ago we don't know anything about him until

01:37:53.040 god shows up one day and says i i got something for you to do you got to go there's a city north

01:38:00.480 of here and you don't like the people that live there they're actually your hereditary enemies

01:38:06.880 but doesn't matter i'm kind of annoyed at them i'm thinking about wiping them out and so i'd like

01:38:12.100 you to go there and just remind them that they've wandered off the beaten path and and uh you know

01:38:18.560 maybe then they'll straighten out and i won't have to like go all sodom and gomorrah on them and

01:38:25.760 and this is a city of about a hundred thousand people it's Nineveh and Jonah thinks yeah I don't

01:38:32.540 think so I don't like these people they deserve what's coming to them um there's a hundred thousand

01:38:40.080 of them there's one of me I don't like those odds why would they listen to me anyways because

01:38:45.920 I'm part of a tribe they regard as an enemy and and like up yours and so and so he thinks I'm

01:38:55.740 out of here and so Jonah

01:38:57.600 decides to ignore God

01:38:59.400 to ignore the

01:39:01.760 voice of his own conscience

01:39:03.240 because it's well established in the biblical

01:39:05.800 corpus by this time that

01:39:07.160 one manifestation

01:39:09.840 of God is the still

01:39:11.380 small voice conscience

01:39:14.000 so it's

01:39:15.400 Jonah's conscience that comes calling and says

01:39:17.700 you got something to say there buddy

01:39:19.760 and Jonah thinks not me

01:39:21.800 and so off he goes and he

01:39:23.580 he takes a boat and he's going to get as far away from Nineveh as he can

01:39:27.360 possibly manage, right? 0.75

01:39:28.560 He's going to go hide and the waves rise and the wind blows and the ship is

01:39:32.880 threatened and the sailors are all shorting out.

01:39:35.560 And they think someone on this boat is not right with one of their gods.

01:39:39.500 And so they go around to everyone on the ship and they find Jonah and he's

01:39:44.160 asleep because people who are doing this are asleep and they wake him up and

01:39:48.280 they say,

01:39:49.440 we're trying to find out who has not been attending to the dictates of their

01:39:54.460 God, because this storm ain't good. And, you know,

01:39:56.840 we'd like to do something about it. And Jonah says, yeah, that's probably me.

01:40:01.520 And they say, well, what God do you worship? And Jonah says, well, you know,

01:40:06.120 he's the God,

01:40:07.020 he's not some like God of the kitchen table or God of the local bar.

01:40:10.960 He's like the God that created everything. And the sailors go, you just,

01:40:16.000 you disobeyed a direct order from your God and your God is the God who created

01:40:20.580 everything said that's not a good idea. And there, that's not a good idea.

01:40:25.700 And, and they feel they have to throw them overboard,

01:40:31.020 but they're good guys. And so they try to get to shore so they can just get rid

01:40:34.300 of them. They try not to throw them overboard, but God doesn't have no,

01:40:37.780 he's not having none of that. And the waves get higher.

01:40:39.540 And like the ship's going to founder and Jonah finally says like, it's me,

01:40:44.040 like just throw me over you know we're all going to die anyways throw me over so they throw him

01:40:48.320 over and you think well that's pretty bad so what's the moral of the story disobey a direct

01:40:52.660 order from god and drown die but that that's nothing that's nothing because there are lots

01:41:03.360 of things worse than death and disobeying a direct order from god death is just where the fun starts

01:41:09.800 so what happens to jonah a creature comes up from the abyss itself right a whale and takes

01:41:18.760 him in his jaws and pulls him all the way down to the bottom of things right three days in hell

01:41:23.700 right that's worse than death if you don't know there are worse things than death you're a very

01:41:30.100 fortunate or a very blind person and so jonah jonah's now in the grip of hell itself because

01:41:37.640 he failed to say what he was called upon to say and after three days he repents

01:41:43.060 and the whale spits him out and he goes to Nineveh and he tells the people that they're

01:41:49.440 sinning and he tells them why and they listen and they repent and God just decides to spare the city

01:41:57.060 that's your job that's everyone's job that's the job of a sovereign citizen

01:42:03.420 every single one of you you know your entire culture is predicated on the idea that you have

01:42:09.640 intrinsic value and intrinsic responsibility that your integrity is the foundation of the state

01:42:15.180 and that's no joke that's not some casual statement it means something very literal

01:42:21.320 abdicate your civic responsibility and watch your society decay and when you ask why just remember

01:42:30.840 you were called upon to say something and you remain silent right it's on you okay so so now

01:42:38.820 you know what to be afraid of it's like you could be afraid of losing your job you could be afraid

01:42:43.320 of being called out by the woke mob or you could be afraid that the ship will sink and that you'll 0.91

01:42:49.240 end up in hell just like the soviets did just like the maoists did just like the nazis did when they

01:42:56.640 held their tongue when they should have said something and if you don't think that could 0.95

01:43:00.300 come your way well then why are you worried about the dei people at john deere okay now having said

01:43:06.800 that and so harshly i would say something else you can't do this foolishly right when you when

01:43:14.820 you're called upon to speak you have to speak wisely and you might not be in a position there's

01:43:19.700 no sense burning up your bridges with a what would you say with a casual outburst at work because

01:43:26.580 you've been pushed too far if you've decided that you're going to do something about this

01:43:30.660 if you've decided that it's something that needs your attention then you have to give it your

01:43:35.320 attention you have to start to prepare for the battle or for the war even and i don't mean the

01:43:42.400 war that will be fought with guns because we bloody well hope it won't come to that although

01:43:46.400 it often does i mean the war that you'll have to undertake in order to set to set the society

01:43:53.660 around you right and i don't know what that'll mean for each of you individually ask yourself

01:43:58.580 ask yourself it's like and i mean this literally you know they say you knock and the door will

01:44:04.140 open if you ask you'll receive and if you seek you'll find it's like okay you've got a problem

01:44:08.180 you know something's rotten what should you do about it sit on your bed sit on the edge of your

01:44:14.360 bed and ask yourself you know get your aim straight i would like to do something about

01:44:19.040 this i would like to do it wisely and carefully and judiciously i'd like to do it in a manner

01:44:23.520 that doesn't expose myself and my family to undo careless risk i'd like to find the right pathway

01:44:29.280 forward is there anything that i could do that i would do you know maybe it'll take you a month to

01:44:37.640 to for the revelation to make itself manifest maybe i've talked to your wife maybe i've talked

01:44:42.880 to your friends you got to be wise as serpents right that's the injunction this is no casual

01:44:48.340 thing but if it's bothering you people say how do i find the meaning in my life what bothers you

01:44:55.520 that's your problem that's god offering you an opportunity that's so strange you know because

01:45:02.980 maybe it will be that you'll be like moses moses was thick of tongue he couldn't speak well and

01:45:08.780 maybe you're in the same situation you think i don't have a political bone in my body it's like

01:45:12.860 well grow one you know and i'm dead serious like this this problem that you're seeing could be the

01:45:19.700 greatest opportunity of your life because in confronting it you could turn yourself into

01:45:24.880 what you are not yet but that happens to people all the time they find the adventure in their

01:45:30.720 life in confronting the problems that beset them because you could ask yourself here's a question

01:45:36.220 for you why does it bother you anyways like why can't you just ignore it and if you can't ignore

01:45:43.640 it it's like well what is it that you can't ignore is that you or is that something reminding you of

01:45:51.520 who you are you know and i mean this as practically as possible if it was just you well then why can't

01:45:58.900 you control it we don't control our conscience we can listen to it or not but we certainly

01:46:06.100 don't control it it speaks to us and i would say a wise man listens or else and i like and i mean

01:46:16.480 or else i spent a lot of time studying the development of totalitarianism totalitarian

01:46:22.980 totalitarianism starts with lies it starts with some lies and then it's many lies and then

01:46:30.200 once it's total everyone lies about absolutely everything everything they do everything they

01:46:39.660 imagine everything they say all the time to themselves and everyone they love and the grip

01:46:46.660 of the lie that's the totalitarian state you think it's the dictator it's like no everyone in the

01:46:53.820 totalitarian state is their own dictator so if you don't want that don't do it and that doesn't

01:47:02.920 mean to act unwisely right there's no sense cutting off your arms so you can bleed on your

01:47:09.940 opponent right and i mean this like i i help lots of people in my clinical practice stand up to

01:47:15.700 bullies at work like that's you have to get your act together to do that it's it's you got to make

01:47:24.020 the decision you got to talk to your wife you got to talk to your kids you got to talk to your family

01:47:28.200 and your friends you got to think are we going to do something about this like or can we you know

01:47:32.940 can we nurture our little family and continue in the shadows you know without taking on this

01:47:38.980 additional responsibility or has push come to shove and if you decide that you're in it's like

01:47:43.800 okay wake the hell up get your words in order get your forces around you muster up your friends

01:47:51.200 figure out what you have to say and do it wisely and maturely and with forethought

01:48:00.120 right what you'll find is that those who insist that you swallow the lie are weak

01:48:06.520 how can they not be they're living in they're living on a lie that's the definition of weak

01:48:17.000 now couldn't they make things hot for you for a time not as hot as they'll be made if you hold

01:48:22.940 your tongue and that's for sure so so that's why you have to be afraid of the right thing you know

01:48:29.600 there's nothing you should be more afraid of than losing control of your tongue you know that's the

01:48:35.000 divine word that produces the cosmos that's good and you're made in that image you lose that you're

01:48:41.720 done so nothing that nothing that earthly authorities can do to you has that cataclysmic

01:48:52.180 consequence maybe you have to prepare to find another job who knows what that would mean maybe

01:48:58.940 you have to get your resume in order maybe it's time for you to make a move anyways who knows

01:49:04.060 right fortify your walls and gird your loins and don't let people don't swallow the lie folks

01:49:13.960 that's a very bad idea that that's

01:49:18.800 every time you lie by omission or commission you move the world closer to hell and we can produce

01:49:28.140 quite the hell now with the tools we have so if that's what you want for your kids then

01:49:33.300 remain silent when you're called upon to speak

01:49:36.640 that's it

01:49:43.800 all right everyone

01:49:48.060 thank you very much for coming

The Jordan B. Peterson Podcast - June 28, 2026

You Cannot Avoid Having a God. Here Is What That Actually Means.

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