SPEAKER_01: 0:25

Well, howdy, Ben. How are you today? Dude, we've been talking, we've been debating religion, we've been debating text, and we had a very spirited conversation. And I said, Why the fuck aren't we recording this?

SPEAKER_02: 0:38

Yeah. So we figured we record it. So this is a out-of-sequence or out of what's the phrase? Out of something uh recording. Context. Not our normal time. But we're gonna stick it up. And the the main topic that we decided to that we were talking on that we decided to start recording on is actually a religious. So if you're not interested in the Bible, Christianity, religion, non-Christianity, skip this episode. We'll be back to guns and politics and Texas stuff, and we'll probably talk about Ireland on the next actual.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14

We will definitely be talking about Ireland, dude. They are aflame right now, they have Calvary.

SPEAKER_02: 1:20

Maybe it'll be more than just Ireland by the time we record the next episode. We'll see. But anyway, your mouth together topic. So we were talking about well, uh, I guess by the time this comes out, this stuff will be published. So I had sent you a few songs that I had put together using AI.

SPEAKER_01: 1:39

And very good songs, by the way, musically. Well, thank you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02: 1:44

So what I've done is actually do a musical rendition of James, the book of James, and it is it is sung by an avatar, somebody that I created, generated, whatever you want to call, who is a mid-20s Christian musician. And it it basically just breaks down uh a lot of the chapters into songs.

SPEAKER_01: 2:12

Go on and tell the listeners my first reaction to the lyrics.

SPEAKER_02: 2:16

Your your first reaction is this is wrong.

SPEAKER_01: 2:20

My first reaction was this was written by a Jew more than a Muslim.

SPEAKER_02: 2:23

Yeah, you said that, which I thought was hilarious because the whole Bible's written by Jews. I mean, that's literally who wrote the Bible, the New Testament, not just the Old Testament. All right, but anyway, but when I said, Well, what'd you think about the actual song? Not like arguing with the message, then you thought it was pretty good.

SPEAKER_01: 2:43

Oh no, the so musically, as someone who plays an instrument who has somewhat of a musical ear. No, I I I'm shocked that AI can do that.

SPEAKER_02: 2:56

And I'm sure people are curious what you played. It's a fiddle, right?

SPEAKER_01: 2:59

Violin, yeah. Right. So my I wanted to play the fiddle. So if anyone's curious, Doug Kershaw, uh who I've seen in person play was my hero as a child, and I wanted to play like Doug.

SPEAKER_02: 3:17

Not Lindsay Sterling, you're a long one.

SPEAKER_01: 3:19

No, no, no, no, no. Doug Kershaw, dude, look him up from the hip. You know who Lindsey Sterling is, though, right? I do, I do, I do. Fantastic fiddle or violinist. My mom said to me, You have to anyway. My mom said to me, you know, you've got to learn to play classical violin, then you can do whatever you want. So I'm I'm a violinist.

SPEAKER_02: 3:44

So you started off by playing Della went down to Georgia. Is that is that no?

SPEAKER_01: 3:48

I started by playing the Suzuki method with Huckleberry Cherry.

SPEAKER_02: 3:53

I've heard of that.

SPEAKER_01: 3:55

Twinkle twinkle little star, you know, and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02: 3:58

Screech, screech, screech, screech, screech, screech, screech.

SPEAKER_01: 4:01

More or less. But I I I evolved into a pretty decent classical violinist, and then I took on stuff like Devil Went Down to Georgia or many of Doug Kershaw's. Like I I can never match him. I mean, he can sit there and play from his hip in a way that I never can or could. From his hip. Like uh like literally the the butt of the violin is in his hip and he's sitting there sawing on it.

SPEAKER_02: 4:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 4:32

And Doug Kershaw is an extremely talented self-taught musician.

SPEAKER_02: 4:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've never played any instruments that didn't have buttons or keys.

SPEAKER_01: 4:45

Well, and that's the thing is so I tried to learn in college, I tried to learn to play the guitar. Yeah. And going from a fretted to a fretless instrument, or from a fretless to a fretted instrument, yeah, was beyond destructive to me because in on a violin, you're playing a two keys that are there by fret. So your finger position doesn't matter as much. If you're halfway between or whatever, it it's less impactful. The other thing is you're playing only two notes at once on a violin because of bow position. You cannot play more than two notes at once, versus on a six-string guitar, you're playing up to six. It it is a mind fuck beyond all belief from a technically harder instrument to a simpler instrument. It's it's crazy.

SPEAKER_02: 5:39

Yeah, it's uh I I could totally imagine that. I I tried guitar in when I was in high school, and I just found it too frustrating and I gave up. Um you know, my background is piano, organ, accordion, things with buttons or keys.

SPEAKER_01: 5:55

Well, and I I played the accordion and a little bit of piano, very little. I have I have a six-octave reach. I'm I've got big hands with a wide palm, so I can I can reach. And those were natural instruments for me, but well, you know what they say about having big hands. Yeah, big gloves and big hands. At least you got something big.

unknown: 6:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 6:21

Anyway, but regardless, back to your music. The point of contention and what I brought up was hey, this was written by a Jew, a Muslim, or a Mormon. And the reason why is because you're focusing on works versus faith. And we kind of got into a little bit of tiff over what James Book of James says, which is written by Paul.

SPEAKER_02: 6:48

I mean, I'm you know, I'm just taking what's in the book of James, which is part of the official New Testament Christian Bible. So my my take is if you don't like it, take it up with the Vatican for why they included it.

SPEAKER_01: 7:00

And my take is cool going through the gospels, Christ's words matter more to me than anything Paul or anyone else would say.

SPEAKER_02: 7:12

I'm not discounting so you you're basically throwing away a third of the Bible.

SPEAKER_01: 7:18

Two-thirds of the New Testament, if I threw away everything that Paul said, but that much, I thought it was about a third to half.

SPEAKER_02: 7:24

So it's actually two-thirds. Wow.

SPEAKER_01: 7:26

Oh, easily, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 7:27

So you know, I've often Christianity.

SPEAKER_01: 7:30

If you follow the books of the New Testament to their end, it should be Paulism, not Christianity.

SPEAKER_02: 7:37

Yeah, and then there's there's one really good book that I read years ago that's called Paul the Mythmaker. And it there, like it's not anti-Christian, but it basically puts on a historical hat rather than a religious hat in interpreting who was Paul, what did Paul do, what how did he do it, what were the individuals, and what Paul was was a marketing guy, he was a good PR guy, and uh he latched down now. And I'm not gonna argue whether he was a true believer or not, that I I can't know that, right? But clearly he presented himself as a true believer, and then he took what would have been a fairly smaller offshoot. Right, but it would have been a small offshoot of Judaism, you know, like reformed Judaism or something, and instead turned it into this worldwide religion, starting with his travels around the Mediterranean and into Rome itself.

SPEAKER_01: 8:43

Um well, one of the things I would disagree with you on there is I think without Paul, Christianity would still be what Christianity is today. And the reason why because Christ went around the Mediterranean and did what he did.

SPEAKER_02: 9:01

Christ didn't stay in Judea, he went out, he proselytized, he showed his, but he didn't go anywhere near as far as Paul did, and he certainly didn't do all the activities that Paul did in having charitable organizations collecting money literally from multiple countries in the Mediterranean to go off into other countries in order to proselytize.

SPEAKER_01: 9:30

I think the gospels stand alone and stand by themselves well enough that that's a thing. I I I history played out differently, so I can't prove my point. But regardless, what it comes down to is you know, I'm what we talked about last episode, and you and I had a disagreement whether I said James or John.

SPEAKER_02: 9:58

Yeah, I thought you said James, which is why I went and read the book of James, because I thought you said James, and I'm like, all right, I'll read it. It's short.

SPEAKER_01: 10:05

And perhaps I misspoke. I 100% could have. But the the gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Yeah, yeah. And you know, Mark being my favorite, and for many reasons. One being the shortest, and uh two being the most verbose. Mark's use of language there is to me a very key thing, and this is something we keyed in on our conversation earlier that the audience sadly didn't hear.

SPEAKER_02: 10:39

Yeah, well, you can kind of summarize or repeat a little bit, but which is which goes to the idea of since we don't have original texts, what do you want to rely on as the most accurate text? And you brought up the which one? The James.

SPEAKER_01: 11:00

Well, I I like the King James because it uses very specific language, and the example I brought up is you know, really around modern and I'm pulling it up, modern marriages, where I hear love is patient, love is kind, where when we read the King James, it is charity is patient. Charity is kind, charity is not self-serving. And when we look at the strong concordance, or we look at quite frankly, any concordance of the era, what you see is agape. So the Greek word that is used there is agape. Well, and that that's the entire thing is that we're not talking about romantic love. We're talking about a love that is pure, that is God's love, that is forgiving, that is a very different type of love that when we hear the word love in the English, like lexicon at least, is drastically different. And we have to recognize that because what we're saying is when I love you, woman, I am patient, I am kind, I am this, I'm that. No, that is not what we're saying. We're saying when I have unconditional love for you as God has for us, I am patient, I am this, I am that. That is a drastically different message.

SPEAKER_02: 12:46

And the guys that are actually saying this are neither. No, they're usually really, it's not about the love at that point, it's about the lust. Let's be honest here. You don't get married to somebody you're in love with, you get married to somebody you're in lust with.

SPEAKER_01: 13:11

So First Corinthians 13, 4 through 7 in the KJV reads Charity long suffering and is kind. Charity envieth not. Charity Anyway, the point is, sorry, distracted. The point is charity being the operative word here, of a selfless love, which I think is more accurate, which again, if you're in a Bible study and you're not going to a concordance, and you're not dropping into the Greek and the Aramaic and the Hebrew, and really looking at what those words can and should mean in context, you're being lazy and you're doing yourself a disservice.

SPEAKER_02: 14:10

Well, that's fine. And then my my point was okay, well, I don't disagree with you that it's important to have as close a meaning as possible. I I think it gets in the way to have old-timey English language from the 1600s being used because what one of the knowing human psychology, one of the things that happens when people kind of understand what the language says, but they're not sure about it, which is often the case if you read Shakespeare or certainly the King James version of the Bible, it's what they look for is interpretation of that from somebody standing on a stage, and I think that leads to a potential for abuse, for manipulation, for even just innocent misinterpretation, and all these things ideally are avoided by having a modern translation using modern language, but being faithful to the original sources. Now, when I said that, you you thought no such thing exists, and I'm maybe it doesn't, but I would be shocked if it doesn't because of how how many people have obviously taken a stab at updating and tweaking different versions of the Bible. Now the version I used was what I don't even remember. It was the new what was it called? It is yeah, I closed the page right here. I can't remember what it is. But it it's basically a fairly modern version. But it it I checked the 1 Corinthians that you mentioned there, 1 Corinthians 13 or 14, and it does just say love, it doesn't clarify the type of love. And I I think that it would be super easy to have a version you like you don't need to translate word for word, you need to translate idea for idea, and in that scenario, you you can use more than one word to well but hold on say instead of agape.

SPEAKER_01: 16:27

Hold on for a second, yeah. Because the purpose of monks for a long time was to translate word for word, not idea for idea.

SPEAKER_02: 16:44

Yeah, but the again, here's the problem is that first of all, most monks shouldn't really read more than one language, their main goal was transcribing, not translating. But the ones that did the translation, I don't know if they attempted to translate, you know, maybe the word love meant something that was closer to the word charity at some point. I don't know, but certainly if we can agree, and uh whether it's the two of us or just collectively, as people that are studying this, that the the word closest to what was meant by Paul and Corinthians was the Greek word agape. And again, we don't know if that's the case because you know he may have meant something even different than that, but let's say that's what he meant.

SPEAKER_01: 17:36

In Corinthians is a direct letter, right? We have evidence of that in the Dead Sea Scrolls and everything.

SPEAKER_02: 17:42

Right, but but what was it written in?

SPEAKER_01: 17:47

Greek.

SPEAKER_02: 17:49

What was it written in Greek? So Paul was writing this letter in Greek. Yes, and he said agape. Yes, okay. Well, that's that's fairly definitive, then. Then what we need to do is make sure that if there's a modern version, that it accurately translates, even using multiple words if necessary, the meaning of agape as was considered the meaning at the time of Paul. Because also words change meanings. I'm annoyed to no end by this in my life, which isn't nearly very long, but nonetheless, there have been a number of words which have seemingly changed meaning since I was a kid and are now used in completely different meanings. I was like, this is ridiculous. Words have meanings, why don't we just stick with them and keep using them? And if you want to invent a new word, invent a new word. I have no problem with that. But why do we need to change the meanings of words just because one generation following another, you know, didn't really read enough to understand what people used to mean by that?

SPEAKER_01: 18:54

Well, and that's what it comes down to is people who read versus people who don't. But what I would say is this is a great example of where I would prefer transliteration versus translation. So when I say agape, the English word is love. But the meaning is God's unconditional love.

SPEAKER_02: 19:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01: 19:22

So let's transliterate that into God's uncondition unconditional love for you.

SPEAKER_02: 19:31

Yeah, but I I don't think it's tra transliteration, is what you're thinking of here.

SPEAKER_01: 19:36

Well the problem is that all the weddings would sacrifice, right? Yeah. And no, transliteration is literally what I mean. I'm not wrong on that one.

SPEAKER_02: 19:56

Transliteration is is converting one text into another text. Yes, mapping a symbol to a symbol. Translation can involve not one word to one word, but meaning to meaning. So I don't I I get what you're trying to say, but I I don't think translation transliteration is the right word for it.

SPEAKER_01: 20:46

So my understanding, and I could be wrong, but I don't think that I am, is that translation is literal meaning to literal meaning versus transliteration is actual meaning to actual meaning.

SPEAKER_02: 21:00

It's not though. You can look it up. That's not what transliteration means. But I I think we all understand what you're what you're getting to, and this is where we're in violent agreement with each other, is that keeping the meaning is more important than keeping the number of words the same. A thousand percent Yeah, it it is it is the this is the difficulty, right? In you think about pre-printing press world, Europe, is how do you maintain knowledge knowledge not mathematical knowledge or you know arbitrary, but knowledge of stories that are the most powerful stories of your people? How do you maintain those even though the language changes? So I think a decision was made along the way in the uh the Catholic Church to basically say our method of preservation is simply to keep the language the same forever. So it's gonna be in Latin. And you don't have to understand Latin, we'll interpret it for you, we'll read it and as the the priests, and we'll tell you what it says. You, as the lay person who doesn't even know how to write his own language, sure as hell, isn't gonna know how to read or write Latin. But Latin is the codex that we can go back to because we can simply have monks going through and rewriting with identical characters without even necessarily those monks being able to read, like they just have to be able to copy pictures from one book to another book, and they don't technically have in fact it's probably better if they don't know how to read because then they're not going to ask questions like, well, shouldn't this really say this? Was that a mistake that a previous generation made? So effectively you have a a part of the part of the job of the church is to have copy machines, human copy machines, whose job is simply to reproduce something that was frozen and fixed. Now, you can also go back to the time before it was fixed and and then argue whether the correct interpretation in Latin was recorded or not, or maybe those mistakes were made. But certainly English is adding one further translation, and my point is going from Latin to old English to modern English adds the broken telephone game too many times. What you should have is a version that goes back to original text.

SPEAKER_01: 24:01

Well, and this is why I like the KJV, is because they went back to the they didn't go to the Latin, they went to the original Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew.

SPEAKER_02: 24:10

Yes, but we don't speak KJV. That's the issue. Is that like you don't?

SPEAKER_01: 24:15

I do.

SPEAKER_02: 24:15

No, you don't. This is where I I heard you're reading it, dude. Believe me, you don't. Where where this made total sense was at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_01: 24:25

So this is where you're making fun of my dyslexia.

SPEAKER_02: 24:28

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm making fun of. Deal with it.

SPEAKER_01: 24:32

Cool. I I and I will, but what I would say is my reading of it and my comprehension of it are two different things. Yeah, yeah. Because again, I grew up.

SPEAKER_02: 24:41

I can give you a shit because I I know I know you're a smart dude, so I can give you we're we're good, dude.

SPEAKER_01: 24:46

Yeah, you'll you will never offend me.

SPEAKER_02: 24:49

Yeah, what it what it comes to trying, but okay.

SPEAKER_01: 24:52

What it comes down to is I grew up going to that strong concordancy, going back to the Hebrew, going back to the Greek, going back to the Hebrew.

SPEAKER_02: 24:58

And what percentage of the population does what you do?

SPEAKER_01: 25:01

Don't care.

SPEAKER_02: 25:02

I do relevant. I do, I care. Most of the people about Christianity, apparently.

SPEAKER_01: 25:09

No, no, no. Here's what it comes down to: a government for the people, by the people of the people. Government by the retarded like that. That is what it comes down to. Yes, most of the population is.

SPEAKER_02: 25:23

To me, I will happily take it because I I love that guy. I followed him when I was a kid. Me too. I not followed, followed, but like I read everything I could that dealt with him because it was fascinating. His backstory fascinating, his you know, his very pro-capitalist stance in his teachings. Fascinating. You don't usually see that in monks or priests. Uh, the fact that he had a master's degree and not in religion. Uh, he was actually a philosophy student and he dropped out before he finished his PhD, but he was finished, he was work, he's basically past master's level working on his dissertation for his PhD when he dropped out, right?

SPEAKER_01: 26:10

Um fascinating. I I agree with that man a lot.

SPEAKER_02: 26:15

Yeah, and I don't mind the fact that he had a Rolls-Royce for every birth year of his life, nor do I. I don't care.

SPEAKER_01: 26:23

He earned it as far as I'm concerned. Well, they were gifts, but now they're buying, they were gifts, but the but the point is the majority of the public can do whatever the majority of the public wants to do. I do not give a damn. Yeah, what I give a damn about is what is the actual meaning. And right, if I, as a fairly intelligent person, can discern that, can read, can look at the meanings of the word that was used and say what fits best here, that is important to me.

SPEAKER_02: 26:58

And that's I can see why you like James or why you like John more than one than James or aka Paul.

SPEAKER_01: 27:08

Paul had to do the heavy lifting to make it. One is the word of Christ to one is the world. Paul's interpretation.

SPEAKER_02: 27:13

Right. But again, my point is like Paul was the guy out there schlepping around and making sure that Christianity spread.

SPEAKER_01: 27:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 27:23

And well, you know, you gotta give him credit for that.

SPEAKER_01: 27:31

Sure, credit where credit is due.

SPEAKER_02: 27:36

Yeah, it's it is interesting stuff, for sure.

SPEAKER_01: 27:44

And I think it's uh I necessarily regardless, you've got some music out. I do, I yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 27:51

It should be out by the time this episode's published or thereabouts. It all depends. It depends how long, well, let's put it this way it will have been submitted. So I don't know how long Spotify takes, I don't know how long Apple Music takes, I don't know how long any of these music services take once you've submitted. But I've got a I'm working with a publisher, it's gonna be fully legit, published to all these services from a publisher, and you know, available for real money. And hopefully people enjoy it. And I've got obviously tons more of the books of the Bibles to keep making more music from.

SPEAKER_01: 28:30

So again, this this entire episode spawned out of me listening to it and going, hey dude, you've got some physical philosophical issues here. But regardless, musically, it's very good, and everyone should check it out and push it out there. Like this is a great gateway drug to the podcast, right?

SPEAKER_02: 28:55

Well, it's a good gateway drug to the podcast, and and then honestly, good good gateway to like you know, Gene and Ben do other stuff too. We're not we're not just guys that sit and talk about guns and politics. Although we do spend a lot of time doing that.

SPEAKER_01: 29:16

I mean, you're not, I pretty much am. I work and I do this, so but regardless, I play video games as well, yes. Yeah, yeah. Put it out there, hit people in the mouth, like say, hey, Sir Gene and Sir Gene put this together, you should check out their podcast, do things like that. But the point is, musically, dude. Uh I think you hit the you know between a 4.4, 4.5 out of five musically on the AI. And I I was I was I was shocked. Like I was shocked at the verbato use, I was shocked uh at the tonal use.

SPEAKER_02: 30:01

It it I've got much finer levels of control now, and I I mentioned this to my other co-host, Darren, that I kind of accidentally clicked on the buy button that I didn't really mean to. I was just trying to check out a product, and and it instantly billed me 300 bucks, and now I'm like, Well, shit, I better use it. I paid for it.

SPEAKER_01: 30:25

And dude, you're looking at Mozart level perfection on tonal use. Yeah, I was great. Yeah, I would challenge any musician to tell me otherwise.

SPEAKER_02: 30:37

Yeah, well, there and there's been a few, and I've also gotten a number of people, Adam Curry included, that have now requested that I start making some. End of show mixes as well, which you know. I mean, it's kind of cool when people actually want to hear stuff that I do. You're it's mostly been you and your mom that I've been making stuff for.

SPEAKER_01: 30:59

No shit, dude. But the the vocabulary use, the the tone use, like musically, rhyming scheme-wise, it is it is shocking to me. Yeah, AI can produce that.

SPEAKER_02: 31:16

Well, and again, you know, the the lyrics for all this stuff. I certainly used AI to help me do shit really fast, like rhyming things and whatnot. But the lyrics are basically just mine based on the Bible.

SPEAKER_01: 31:31

Well, I think you've hit on a winning structure and you should pursue it.

SPEAKER_02: 31:36

Yeah, and it's it's really in a uh a poetic structure that I don't I don't think is very popular. I'm not gonna say nobody uses, I think people do use it, but it's not a popular one, and that it's very Shakespearean in the majority of the you will you will feel something just feels a little it it doesn't sound like top 40, it doesn't sound like comedy. There's something a little off on the patterns and it's damn near ambic phameter, dude. But it's not.

SPEAKER_01: 32:05

It it's not it's not, it's slightly off. Yeah, you're right, but but it's da da da da da da da da da. I it it it's very methodical in that way.

SPEAKER_02: 32:22

I'll convert more Christians to Christianity. You just watch.

SPEAKER_01: 32:28

From your mouth to God's ears, dude. Do it.

SPEAKER_02: 32:31

Yeah, it takes a Jew to do that, you know.

SPEAKER_01: 32:35

What was that you broke up?

SPEAKER_02: 32:36

I said it takes a Jew to convert more Christians.

SPEAKER_01: 32:40

Well, you know, there there is an irony and a uh a full circle there that I think is good.

SPEAKER_02: 32:53

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. All right, dude. Well, let's wrap it up because this is like said an out of spec or whatever episode. So we'll make it short, but it was something that we were talking you know, like passionately enough about that Ben said, yeah, let's record this. And I totally agreed. I think this is a fun thing to put out there, and uh hopefully you all enjoy it. And obviously, if you're listening all the way to the end here, you weren't one of the people that say I don't care about religion, I'm gonna skip this one.

SPEAKER_01: 33:26

So well, and what I would also say is fucking Ireland, my Celtic people standing up, doing what they need to do.

SPEAKER_02: 33:37

Very good. All right, we'll talk more about that that portion of stuff later. Yeah.