SPEAKER_00: 0:25

How are you, Ben? How are you today? I'm good, Gene. Yourself?

SPEAKER_03: 0:30

I'm doing pretty good. That's you know, midweek. Halfway to the weekend, right?

SPEAKER_00: 0:38

Yeah, it's been a long two days.

SPEAKER_03: 0:40

Yeah, a long two days, exactly. Yeah. I'll agree with that. So we uh we are once again doing kind of a special episode, not our normal one.

SPEAKER_00: 0:51

Yeah, you you you've gotten on this religious kick right now. I know.

SPEAKER_03: 0:55

What the hell, man? I don't know. Isn't it annoying to have friends that are like getting all into religious kicks?

SPEAKER_00: 1:03

No.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04

All of a sudden they're they're just talking about that and nothing else with you.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08

And we'll be honest, we got some good listener feedback. We did get good feedback. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13

Exactly. So, and honestly, as far as I'm concerned, the the good feedback just makes sure that we actually release these as episodes instead of just chit-chat amongst ourselves about the same topics for a while.

SPEAKER_00: 1:27

Which is kind of the premise of our show.

SPEAKER_03: 1:30

Yeah, exactly. You guys get to listen to our conversations with each other that we'd be having anyway. And uh we appreciate people that enjoy listening to them. And uh certainly the ones that are willing to uh help pay for the whole thing, because there is certainly a cost to putting this stuff online. And I actually off topic of religion, I don't know if you saw Apple just introduced three features, including automatic transcripts for all podcasts.

SPEAKER_00: 2:04

Yeah, and auto chapters and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03: 2:07

Yeah. So now it's like whether you want it or not, you guys are gonna have them because Apple's gonna do them for any podcast that's on there. Uh, which is pretty cool. And I think even people using Android will use the search capabilities of finding podcasts on Apple.

SPEAKER_00: 2:26

Well, I mean, you don't have to do it that way at all. You can still use podcast index as long as the owner of the RSS feed points to those cloud chapters that that you know, if they list on Apple as well.

SPEAKER_03: 2:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:41

And it's like it can still be decentralized.

SPEAKER_03: 2:43

You can, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 2:44

But it it's and you should be.

SPEAKER_03: 2:46

But if you are listed on Apple, their version of the RSS will contain that information.

SPEAKER_00: 2:54

Right. And you can post that to somewhere else. Post that to, you know, podcast index demos blanking, Adam Curry's thing. Or what you can do is just take the link that you know is going to be generated for the chapters and put it in your own RSS feed.

SPEAKER_03: 3:10

Yeah. And there is an option on Apple to disable the automatic generation. Like if you prefer to use your own, you can do that. If you prefer to not have it generating or it's AI figuring out where your chapters are. We've been kind of letting the AI decide on what what chapters are where for quite a while. I found that when I was doing it manually, it's uh it it it takes a while because you have to actually listen to it, re-listen to your own show, and then find where the where those natural breaks are manually. And it it I think the AI is pretty accurate.

SPEAKER_00: 3:49

You're far more likely to listen to your own voice than I am. Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 3:53

Yeah. But even still, it's like doing it at for multiple shows every week just got old. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 3:59

But anyway, we wanted to have the debate.

SPEAKER_03: 4:03

Well, I don't consider it a debate. I I I think this is an informative conversation because it's a you know, it it's me asking questions and then coming back with, well, what about this? How does that fit in? So not really what I would call a debate. But my sort of primary question for this episode is the topic of Well, I guess it's really two topics about. But it's it's tied to the question of that came up when I was doing my music, which is can you be a Christian and then not act like a Christian and still be saved? And that comes from the idea that you brought up, and I've since read myself in the New Testament as well, of it's actually a very central one to most Christian modern sects, is do you have to do anything or not to be saved? And and the idea is that you are saved through faith and grace alone. Is that relatively accurate?

SPEAKER_00: 5:28

What?

SPEAKER_03: 5:31

I said, and so you are the idea that you're saved through faith and grace alone.

SPEAKER_00: 5:38

So there are a couple things here, and I would say what you have to figure out is that it's not salvation that is the issue here. So if you look at Ephesians chapter two, verse eight, for by grace are you saved, not through faith, uh through faith, not of uh your own selves, it is a gift of God, verse nine, not of works, lest any man should boast. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto God's works, which God hath before ordained. We should walk in them. So we should walk in them. And then if you go to Galatians 5 through 22, 23, somewhere there, you've got the fruit of the spirit. What is the fruit of the spirit? Jesus said that you will know you will know my disciples by the fruit of their spirit, right? And love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. So one of the things you and I talked about earlier was, you know, hey, could you commit a whole bunch of crimes, do a whole bunch of bad stuff, and then on your deathbed repent?

SPEAKER_03: 6:50

Well, and that not even that extreme a version, although that's the extreme question that's always been brought up, sort of challenging the idea.

SPEAKER_00: 7:00

Yeah. So I would say if it's a true repentance, yes. But you know, is it gonna be a true repentance?

SPEAKER_03: 7:12

Well, uh, that's who knows, right?

SPEAKER_00: 7:16

We're not gonna only the person and God. Right. Right. God's not gonna be mocked, right?

SPEAKER_03: 7:25

But But there is a there is a way to salvation for a wicked person literally in the last minutes of their life.

SPEAKER_00: 7:39

Yeah, but I would say if you're waiting to the last minutes unless you have some revelation and really confess your sins and fall down on your knees and beg God for forgiveness for what you've done, then you know that's if you're a truly wicked person, that's probably just not gonna happen. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 7:57

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 7:58

So here's here's the other thing that I would say this is why I don't believe in singular salvation. So some Christians believe you ask God's forgiveness once, you're good, you never have to again. Well, I don't think I don't feel that. So we we can make some theological arguments back and forth on well, at that moment of your confession, God knew all your sins before you committed them, so on and so forth. But my my immediate retort would be, but I didn't. So I didn't know what I was trying to unburden myself from. So to me, this is where we're called to be continuously in prayer and continually trying to, you know, pull out the fruit of that spirit and pull out those good works, but we all fall short, we all sin. And the for the wages of sin is death, and it doesn't matter what sin. And this is where the holier than thou's and people really kind of become problematic because if you tell a lie and you murder someone in God's eyes, it's the same.

SPEAKER_03: 9:12

Well, let's start with that phrase, right? For the wages of sin is death. That who's gonna put you to death?

SPEAKER_00: 9:23

Well, God and time. Yeah, it doesn't do that.

SPEAKER_03: 9:27

You you have free will.

SPEAKER_00: 9:28

Yeah, he does. Right, but he's going to not like murder you here on this earth, but what he's going to do is allow you to die, and instead of having everlasting life, you will be dead. That's that's the implication there.

SPEAKER_03: 9:44

I mean, death, the the wages of life is death.

SPEAKER_00: 9:48

Right, that's the point. Death is inescapable, right? But the idea is if you are saved, you can escape the wages of life. You end up in heaven, and in my father's kingdom, there are many rooms, and you know, da-da-da-da.

SPEAKER_03: 10:05

So there's everybody up there. So then to then extrapolate from the thing.

SPEAKER_00: 10:14

Anyway, go ahead.

SPEAKER_03: 10:15

To extrapolate from that, and then really the the wages of sins is just being up in heaven. It's not really death, it's it's being in heaven.

SPEAKER_00: 10:27

Well, it is because it's the death of your eternal soul versus just the death of your body.

SPEAKER_03: 10:31

Well, is your eternal soul dead, though? I mean, if you go to hell, you're not dead. Otherwise, what's the point of having suffering for eternity if you're not if if you're not if you die as soon as you get there?

SPEAKER_00: 10:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Here's the thing. Dead to God, right? And all the things.

SPEAKER_03: 10:51

That's a completely different meaning of dead.

SPEAKER_00: 10:53

Not really. And here's the thing: most what most people think of hell isn't in the Bible. It's in the inferno by Dante Novba. That's true. That is a good point. Or Dante Albre. Yeah. So, you know, the seven circles of hell and all that is not found anywhere in the Bible.

SPEAKER_02: 11:11

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03: 11:13

Alright. So and where I'm going with all this is like what is to keep somebody from actually acting wicked? So one of those things is the fear of what happens after I die, right? Correct. So what are the other things?

SPEAKER_00: 11:34

Well, there's societal pressures, right? Well, I mean religiously. Well, I would say that societal pressures are based off of religious morality. You know. So, but beyond that, you know, in Acts, Paul says, brothers in Christ do not use your freedom in Christ as a cloak of maliciousness.

SPEAKER_03: 11:54

Okay. So what is the penalty for doing that?

SPEAKER_00: 11:59

Again, a person who would do that purposefully has not truly accepted Christ into their heart. Because if you are truly saved, you could never think of taking the gift given to you and spitting on it in such a way. Do we all fall short? Do we all sin occasionally? Yeah, but you're not going to be consciously going, Well, I can get away with this because I'm saved.

SPEAKER_03: 12:26

Unless you're Catholic.

SPEAKER_00: 12:29

Okay. Yeah, and I don't believe in Catholic penance. And I I am I am not a Catholic. I am firmly in the Protestant realm.

SPEAKER_03: 12:45

Yeah. And and so given that only the person and God would know if someone is wicked and pretending to be Christian, or if they're actually truly acting in the in the way that well, in trying to emulate Christ, right? Because that's that's ultimately what you should be doing.

SPEAKER_00: 13:14

Well, and I'll tell you that the people who are out there making a big show of their works, yeah, you know, they're I won't I won't call them not Christian, but I I I would say the people I admire most are the people who are quiet about it, that you know, they you know take canned goods that they're not going to use to the food bank. You know, they think of others, they stop on the street when someone's got a flat tire and a help, you know, that play the Good Samaritan and don't seek fame or credit for it. They just quietly do. And this is part of why, you know, you're you know, judge not lest you also be judged. We're not it's not our place to judge. It's God's.

SPEAKER_03: 14:05

Well, yeah, I I would I would disagree with that. I think it's not our place to judge on behalf of God.

SPEAKER_00: 14:12

Well, that's my point.

SPEAKER_03: 14:13

It is our place to judge our relations.

SPEAKER_00: 14:17

In in the earthly sense, yes, society has a right to pass judgment on a criminal. Yeah. In a religious sense, saying to someone you're not a Christian, that's not a judgment call you should ever be thinking of making.

SPEAKER_03: 14:32

Okay, so if you see someone acting wickedly and very anti-Christian, and they're they're telling everyone that they're a Christian, what is your response? Or what's a Christian, not not yours per se necessarily, but what's the what is the prescribed Christian response?

SPEAKER_00: 14:52

Is there brother? I don't yeah. Well, I would I wouldn't say there's a prescribed one, but what I would say is, brother, what are you doing? This is not how you should be behaving. And what can I do to help you? Christianity is all about servant leadership, right? It is not about power or authority or authority over one another. It is truly a non-hierarchical religion. And this is where I disagree with. No, this is that's what I was about to say. This is where I disagree with Orthodox and Catholicism, because they would say that they're the only true church because they their ministers are ordained, da da da da da da. And I I again this is why you need a priest to absolve you in Catholicism.

SPEAKER_01: 15:47

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 15:48

But my Protestant reading of the Bible is very different.

SPEAKER_03: 15:55

So if there's a process in Catholicism, which you know they would say they are the the church of Peter and Paul, and you all are just reading books, if you don't have that type of hierarchical authority, then how do you simply keep people from acting in the name of what you believe very contrary to what your actual beliefs are?

SPEAKER_00: 16:29

You don't.

SPEAKER_03: 16:32

Well, and I I mean, Christianity. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 16:36

Yeah, and so many cults of Christianity. Right. You know, Christianity has more cults than any in the the word a cult is used derogatory these days, right? But a cult just means a branch off of a religious body. I mean, Christianity itself is a Jewish cult.

SPEAKER_03: 16:56

Right. Yep. I've never heard a Christian say that, but uh plenty of Jews have said that.

SPEAKER_00: 17:06

Well, it's it again, going by the actual meaning of the word, not the emotional context that it carries in our society today. Like another great example of this that I truly, truly like is the word meek. You know, so when Christ says, Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth, yeah. Today we hear demure, we hear, you know, wimpy, right? But that's not the historical meaning of the word that was used there. The word that Christ used, and I don't have my concordance in front of me to look up the exact word, but the word that he used is blessed are those who stand ready to fight, sword in hand, but hold back violence until called upon.

SPEAKER_03: 17:52

Yeah, it's in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5, 3 through 12.

SPEAKER_00: 17:56

Right. But it it it's really I I know where it's at, but I don't have my concordance in front of me to look up the actual word that he used there.

SPEAKER_03: 18:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:03

And the point is coming from you're very capable of violence, you just won't use it unless you m are forced to.

SPEAKER_03: 18:11

Yeah. The Greek word is uh praeus, which is a sort of a strength under control and humility.

SPEAKER_01: 18:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 18:21

Not there you go. Not weakness in the typical sense of the word meek.

SPEAKER_00: 18:27

Correct. That's my entire point. Yeah. Is again the man who carries a pistol everywhere he goes and doesn't want to have to use it, but if a bad guy's doing something, we'll step in and do something.

SPEAKER_03: 18:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 18:39

That is a meek person in that sense.

SPEAKER_03: 18:42

Yeah. And and there are plenty of words that I think um either the words have changed meaning or they were erroneously translated or applied. One way or the other, there certainly is quite a bit of difference between early representations of the New Testament and Old Testament for that matter, and the way that the average Christian that goes to church perceive that to actually mean.

SPEAKER_00: 19:15

Yeah, and here's the thing: we, as Christians, we're not called to be weak, we're not called to be ineffectual. Christ said to his disciples that if you do not have a sword, go out and sell your cloak and buy a sword. He wanted his disciples armed and capable of fighting if need be. You know, people criticize the crusades, but the crusades were a response to an Islamic invasion of Europe. So it it's it's a it's a different sort of thing here that you have to understand. I like the way Jordan Peterson says it. You know, if you're not capable of extreme violence and you're nice, that's no virtue because you're not holding anything back. Right. Only those who are capable of extreme violence yet refuse to engage in it unless duty bound to it are actually good people because they're they're actually controlling something.

SPEAKER_03: 20:18

Yeah. Jordan's always, to me, seemed like the kind of guy that you don't want to get him off his kilter.

SPEAKER_00: 20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 20:26

Because he'll fucking explode.

SPEAKER_00: 20:28

Yeah. And you know, one of the things I would say is you really ought to read We Who Wrestle With God. I think you would really enjoy it.

SPEAKER_03: 20:39

Yeah, didn't I didn't I buy this thing already? I think you bought it. I know you haven't started it. No, well, I there's a lot of books I've bought that I haven't started. I'll get around to it. Yeah, it's interesting. I I've kind of accidentally fell into a conversation with a dude on X for a totally separate topic. It's I had mentioned something about that. There's a study done that mentioned that concluded that the overuse of M dashes was related to AI use. And he said, well, no, it's that plenty of us use M-dashes who are professional writers. And I thought, alright. Fucker. I've got a few books that I've published. What do you mean by professional writers? And so he is actually a a professor at one of the I can't remember the name of the university, some university in Tennessee. And no, I think it's a smaller one. But he's in the early Christianity department. And and so he is you know, he's talking about a lot of stuff you and I have been talking about. Anyway, long story short, so I was having uh an argument with him basically about not yeah, a typical ex argument where we just try and show the other person's wrong.

SPEAKER_00: 22:30

Yes. Uh a pedanticness.

SPEAKER_03: 22:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally, totally, right? And and I said, alright, alright, I'm gonna buy your book, and then I'll see just how often you use it to prove my point that there it's not used very much. So his book is called Paul and the Resurrection of Israel. Guy's name's Jason Staples, and you know, he's got his PhD and everything. So interesting guy, and so again, this is one of those sort of funny connections where you end up starting to talk about a completely different topic, and then you you find something that you have both have an interest in that kind of ends up being the more interesting connection therein. So I've I've now got another book that I'm gonna be reading, which is from this guy that talks about the first you know, hundred and years of Christianity or so.

SPEAKER_00: 23:26

So for for the record, I use dashes, colons, and semicolons very regularly, which are all attributed to AI em writing. But I also use the word, you know, ameliorate.

SPEAKER_03: 23:39

Do you do you use m-dashes, though? That's the question. Um in the context. I use a lot of dashes. Here's the problem with m-dashes, and people don't know. I assume everybody knows, but if you don't know, the m-dash is a it's a long dash. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 23:53

It's to separate a clause.

SPEAKER_03: 23:54

Yeah, it's it's meant to separate a clause. However, neither old school typewriters nor modern keyboards have a key for an M-dash. So the idea the M-dashes were only I know I'm getting to that. M-dashes were only used by typesetters in the past. So these would be people that would actually typeset books or manuscripts or anything printed. And it wasn't until 1985 where Microsoft Word 1.0 introduced a macro to where you type a single dash or what's the other name for it? Hyphen. If you do two hyphens in a row, it would automatically replace it with an M-dash.

SPEAKER_00: 24:38

Mm-hmm. If you look at old manuscripts, anytime someone would put in an M-dash, that's what they would do. Yeah. And then the typesetter would go into correct it.

SPEAKER_03: 24:47

Exactly. You could also just do it based on context. And my point was that yes, it is used. However, the academic writing style that uses M-dashes on a regular basis represents a tiny fraction of books and literature that are written. And I'm not even including anything done on people's phones or just bullshit conversations. I'm just strictly talking about of all the books published that you could buy at Amazon, the number of them that use more than one M-dash per page is tiny. And this whole argument came out of having a one-page press release that had five M-dashes. And then somebody else, not me, said, way to go using AI to write this next time have a human re review it. And I, of course, chimed in with that study. And then this guy chimed in saying, Well, plenty of us use M-dash as well.

SPEAKER_00: 25:46

Well, I think you'd be more likely to see an M-dash either in a technical writing scenario or a scenario where someone's writing a press release and calling out specific things.

SPEAKER_03: 25:57

Yeah, or just people who are not very good at organizing their thoughts coherently.

SPEAKER_00: 26:03

I don't know, man. I I a semicolon and a colon are great excuses for a run-on sentence, if you ask me. Absolutely. I agree.

SPEAKER_03: 26:12

And dude, I use I use hyphens all the time. I don't even bother doing two of them to, but I use hyphens like m-dashes. If you look at a lot of my writing, it's it's probably in about a quarter of my sentences. I'll have a dash, which is really an M-dash or should be an M-dash if it was done properly. I just don't do it properly. But my point is just about AI doing it, because for humans to do it, you have to go out of your way to do it. You have to do two hyphens, not just a single hyphen. And most people don't bother doing that. And hence, if you see a document that has a whole bunch of M dashes, it's a high likelihood that was done or at least rewritten via.

SPEAKER_00: 26:58

Well, that's what I was about to say is if you're using the latest version of Word through Office 365, it's got to be built in. Exactly. And it's doing that.

SPEAKER_03: 27:05

So and again, this is like a throwaway thing, a throwaway conversation. I'm not there, there's nothing that I really care about. This it's just a typical internet, I'm gonna prove my point kind of argument. But I'm hoping, and I haven't started reading the book yet, but I'm hoping this if this has led me to a actually an interesting book about religion, about you know, Judaism transmorping into Christianity 2,000 years ago, then that whatever the argument is well worth it, right? Because we we get from A to B. And that's it's it's not necessarily in the straight path that you get from A to B. Sometimes the shortest path is curved.

SPEAKER_00: 27:48

What so what uh was the other religious topic you wanted to bring up and talk about?

SPEAKER_03: 27:52

Well, I'm not done with this one.

SPEAKER_00: 27:54

Okay. We're on a hell of a tangent.

SPEAKER_03: 27:58

Well, we are totally on a tangent, absolutely. And I apologize for that, but I I do tend to go on those. That uh tangents, by the way, sign that it's a human, not an AI. Just letting that drop there. So here's let me let me broaden, I guess, the question for you is let's say you have a person who I don't know if he's necessarily breaking the Ten Commandments, but let's say he's just breaking general tenets of Christianity. He's very he's acting very not Christ-like. But he wraps himself up in Christianity in that anytime you attack something about him, he says, Well, you know, as a Christian, I take great offense to that, and I'm not gonna continue this conversation.

SPEAKER_00: 28:57

I don't know of a Christian who would do that.

SPEAKER_03: 28:59

His initials are TC, and he used to be on Fox. Oh, well. So Tucker Carlson, obviously who we're talking about, has been using, in my opinion, for even before the De Fuentes thing. If you look at his last few appearances, like he did at TP USA, and then there's another one prior to that, he is absolutely what I would describe as wrapping himself in a blanket of Christianity to distance himself from people that he doesn't like, has no answers for questions that they're bringing up, or in some other way just wants to get rid of them.

SPEAKER_00: 29:47

Yeah, and this is where I would go back to Paul in Acts saying, brothers, do not use your freedom in Christ as a cloak of maliciousness.

SPEAKER_02: 29:55

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03: 29:56

And do you think that that's something that would be fair to point out to him?

SPEAKER_00: 30:02

In a loving, brotherly way, yes.

SPEAKER_03: 30:05

Yeah. Yeah. And it it also seems, based on some research I've done, that his particular branch of Christianity is one that is considered heretical. But I don't know that that really matters to anybody other than Catholics.

SPEAKER_00: 30:23

Well, uh Catholics would consider. Consider me heretical.

SPEAKER_03: 30:26

Yeah, maybe for good reason. But nonetheless, it's it's one of those things where if you if you pick and choose the areas for any religion, but certainly for Christianity, that you like or you dislike, and you use you utilize the ones you like, you ignore the ones you dislike, and then you use this cloak of Christianity and and saying, well, as a Christian, I blah blah blah. My Christian faith, yada yada yada. It seems like it's a very good way for people that are disingenuous to utilize this as a cloak or even a club, and there's not really anything that true believing Christians can do about it. Correct? So somebody else has to.

SPEAKER_00: 31:25

Well, what I would say is I I actually would like more Christians to say, as a Christian, I believe I must do this or I should do that, or we cannot, as a society, go down this path because it is evil. Christians, in the especially in the United States, have become weak and ineffectual in that they shy away from their faith as a reason for action. And I don't think that should be the case. I think it should be a massively deep part of who you are and why you act and why you choose to act the way you do.

SPEAKER_03: 32:00

Yeah, and and an example, too, is I'm sure you've heard, although I shouldn't assume because as I found out uh recently, and it made me quite happy, is the number of people that actually are on X 24-7 like I am, and are like reading all this shit non-stop. It's teeny. He's teeny. Most people are like, who's Nick Fuentes? I've never heard of that guy.

SPEAKER_00: 32:22

They barely know who is followed his you've followed Nick Fuentes' stuff. I haven't.

SPEAKER_03: 32:28

I've followed Nick Fuentes' stuff. Two years ago.

SPEAKER_00: 32:32

Right, but I and I I I've been aware of who Nick Quintes is since he came on the scene. Yeah, yeah. But I I have already written him off as a Kook. Uh a Oh, what's the word for? I want to say shyster, but well, he'd appreciate you calling him Shakespeare, I'm sure. Why? Oh, because of Jewish terms. Yeah. Anyway, the point is I don't think he's a genuine person. I don't think he's showing genuine beliefs.

SPEAKER_03: 33:05

I think he's he's acting as a persona.

SPEAKER_00: 33:09

Right. He he is doing this to you know make things better for Nick Fuentes. Not in any real and I and I'm saying it's not about his religious beliefs, but his political beliefs.

SPEAKER_03: 33:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 33:26

You know, I I don't think he has some truly deep-seated belief that Hitler was a good guy. Now he may, but if he does, then it's I don't know, man. It's it it it's it it seems disingenuous to me.

SPEAKER_03: 33:45

Yeah. I I definitely think that there's a part of that that's true. But you know, the old saying, if you stare into the abyss long enough, you discover the abyss is staring back at you. And I think that's the danger for not just Nick but all these grapers. Which how do you come up with a self-identifying name that both sounds like groping and rape? Like, how how is that a name you want to have? I don't get it.

SPEAKER_00: 34:18

I don't know, man.

SPEAKER_03: 34:19

Yeah. But then again, this comes from a you know, a a brown-eyed, brown-haired Mexican dude. And we don't have to go back a whole lot of generations, his dad's 100% Mexican. That is a white supremacist. I mean, it just makes me think of that that skit from the first season of uh Chappelle Show.

SPEAKER_00: 34:43

Oh, yeah, where he's the black white supremacist.

SPEAKER_03: 34:45

The black white supremacist skit, exactly. And and he's so good at it. When he found nobody's willing to tell him.

SPEAKER_00: 34:51

He divorced his wife for being uh for for marrying him, exactly. I remember I remember, well, there's a phrase used there. I remember watching Chappelle's show in college and laughing my ass off. No, Chappelle was that show could not get made to be.

SPEAKER_03: 35:07

No, no way, no way, Mel. Not made, not broadcast. You'd be even hard pressed to have it be running off YouTube. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly right.

SPEAKER_00: 35:17

You'd you you you're gonna have to go to Rumble or somewhere like that to do that today.

SPEAKER_03: 35:24

Yeah. So but but getting, you know, more so to Tucker than Nick, Tucker really has dived into this, like not just you don't understand, but more of like because I'm Christian, I'm doing what's right, and you're not, kind of attitude.

SPEAKER_00: 35:48

Well, and I so I I have a personality trait where I could never be so, first of all, I don't know God's plan for me. I just hope that it'll be revealed and I can follow it the best I can. But the other thing I would say is I'm a very introspective person. I don't assume what I think to be correct. I constantly look at what is my beliefs, and I look at any new information that comes in, and I ask myself, how does this change or challenge my beliefs? And I steel man the arguments against my beliefs, because if I can't steel man the arguments against my beliefs and then stand up, then maybe I shouldn't have those beliefs. I feel like, and this is what I've seen in Tucker is he will have a revelation and what I would say flippantly change his beliefs. Like over the years that I've watched Tucker and everything else, he's shifted on topic a lot.

SPEAKER_03: 37:16

Yeah, he's shifted on quite a few topics for sure. Uh-oh. Did we lose Ben? We may have lost Ben. This this is annoying because we're actually using a different system. And I was just about to get onto a different oh, you're back. Okay, we lost you there for about 20 seconds.

SPEAKER_00: 37:42

Yeah, I don't know what it is. Uh anyway.

SPEAKER_03: 37:46

Yeah, well, it is what it is what it is, but we are using a different system today. But we're on clean feed, which is what I use for unrelenting, which seems to always work. Then again, Zoom always worked too. So you never know. So the second related question here, and you can ask this, answer this personally if you want first, and then we can talk about what does this mean and how does it work? And the and this stems from the idea that again, where this came from is these guys like Tucker and like like Fuentes keep saying America first, America first, everybody else last. So let me ask you this America first or Christian first? And it's not Ben thinking, Ben is trying to reconnect here, so for anyone listening. And I don't think I have the ability to pause in here, so I'm gonna just talk until it re-reconnects. Ben There we go. You should be reconnected. Can you hear me again? It's showing Ben is connected now. Okay. So did you hear the question, or I can repeat it?

SPEAKER_00: 39:09

No, I didn't. It went and said waiting under your name.

SPEAKER_03: 39:13

Oh, really? So yeah. So the question is this. And it it stems from what Tucker and Nick and others have been saying. American first or Christian first?

SPEAKER_00: 39:27

As far as loyalties?

SPEAKER_03: 39:29

Well, I mean, and then people say America first. Okay. Are you um are you American first or are you Christian first?

SPEAKER_00: 39:36

And I'm asking America Okay, so let me say this. Yeah. If you're asking about loyalties, I'll s I'll lay out my loyalty hierarchy. If you're asking about political, and do I think that we should, as Americans, should be putting our own country first of those countries around the world? Absolutely. Yeah. Now, if you're saying, what are my loyalties? It would be God, family, and then country.

SPEAKER_03: 40:07

And that's kind of what I would expect. I I was watching a uh a guy that is on YouTube, he was a minister talking, and he basically said the same thing. Is that idea that America is obviously where he lives and he wants America to have the highest priority from a political standpoint, but America's not even in his top ten when it comes to his ultimate allegiances.

SPEAKER_00: 40:43

Yeah, I I I would agree with that. Like to me, my relationship with God comes first, and then you know, relationship with, you know, my my wife would be second, even over my parents or anyone else in my life.

SPEAKER_02: 41:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 41:01

And sometimes that's a very hard thing to do, but you know, um a man is called to leave his parents' home and go cleave to his wife, creating a very clear priority there.

unknown: 41:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 41:15

I mean, you're supposed to be one body, right?

SPEAKER_03: 41:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00: 41:18

One flesh.

SPEAKER_03: 41:21

And I I think that there's a and you kind of said it, you know, family next, and then you can extract extend that hierarchy, and I think this is why America's tenth for him, is that between the country as an abstraction and not even your relatives, but your close friends, your close friends are higher.

SPEAKER_00: 41:45

Right. That's all in family. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and and this is what I would also say, I would say any other Christian is in that as well, right? When we as Christians say brother, there's a more literal meaning in that than people realize. You know, the old saying, well, blood is thicker than water. Well, the blood that we share as believers is Christ's. And it's it's something that binds us together in a very familial way.

SPEAKER_03: 42:15

Yeah, and it's not exclusive to Christianity either. I mean, most religions have a very similar kind of attitude to where people that are part of and not even religions, like Masonic Order, same thing.

SPEAKER_00: 42:26

Yeah, and don't don't forget in John when Christ said, Greater love hath no man than this, that he go down and lay uh lay down his life for his friends.

SPEAKER_02: 42:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 42:35

Yep.

SPEAKER_03: 42:39

So that that's another issue where I think when you watch these guys like Tucker talking about America first is America first, I don't think anyone's really debating that who's American. I just think that in Tucker's mind, that means that anyone who lives outside America isn't first.

SPEAKER_00: 43:13

That's fine.

SPEAKER_03: 43:15

And for a lot of people for a lot of people, and not well, it it what I'm where I'm going with it is for Jews, but not necessarily Jews, for a lot of people, that family that sits ahead of the country includes people that don't live in this country.

SPEAKER_00: 43:36

Well, and we saw that with Ukrainians.

SPEAKER_03: 43:39

We saw that when the uh Russia attacked you.

SPEAKER_00: 43:41

As it should. Right, right. If I have family in some other part of the world, then yeah, I should I I should be caring about them over this country.

SPEAKER_03: 43:56

Well, not necessarily over this country, but it's gonna be a fairly substantial interest. Like you're certainly not gonna want this country to do something that'll make their lives more miserable. Right? So if the US decides to basically, you know, stop funding Ukraine and agrees with Russia and says, yeah, we think Russia should get the eastern part of Ukraine, there'll be a whole ton of Ukrainians living in the US that are going to become very hostile to what the US government is doing immediately. And I don't think that would be an unexpected thing.

SPEAKER_00: 44:36

No, and I don't I don't think it should be.

SPEAKER_03: 44:38

No, no.

SPEAKER_00: 44:39

And this is where if you're if your entire family now here, let me make this caveat.

SPEAKER_03: 44:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:44

If your entire family, everyone you knew in Ukraine has moved out, yeah, and they're no longer there, but you still have an affinity and a patriotism for the country, yeah. My question would be, well, why aren't you still living in that country? Yeah. Um you're you're loyal, you you have divided loyalties at the country level that you should not have. Now, if your grandma is over there and getting bombed, yeah, I'm gonna let you have it's gonna be pretty reasonable for you to have some pretty strong feelings there. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03: 45:14

And I I think that's where we have some issues with the Somali and out there, the Somali population, because in theory, at least, the ones that ended up in Minnesota were supposed to have all been fleeing Somalia, but they certainly seem to be acting as though they're an extension of Somalia. Even more so than like Mexicans that cross over for essentially economic reasons, right? So at least those Mexicans crossing over for economic reasons never never said, oh my god, this country is so horrible that you need to save us from Mexico. But the Somalis absolutely said that. Otherwise, they wouldn't have gotten the uh you know, the I guess visas, but whatever whatever method was used, it was based on asylum status from a country they were fleeing where they would likely end up dead.

SPEAKER_00: 46:12

So get back to the religious topic of how we're doing the show.

SPEAKER_03: 46:16

So yeah, so the the religious topic here being that you know, if a person doesn't have a faith-based component as a higher component within the hierarchy, like can somebody and I guess this goes back to like there's no mechanism for you to do anything about it, but you could potentially end up with a person who considers themselves Christian, talks about it being Christian, says that in their hierarchy nothing is higher or greater than the United States.

SPEAKER_00: 46:56

Like they're religious and I think a lot of people would say that out of ignorance.

SPEAKER_03: 47:00

They potentially would, yes. Yeah, I agree. But again, it's it's like where everything gets lost is the nuance.

SPEAKER_00: 47:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 47:10

Because people like to make grandiose statements that project a certain viewpoint, and then they don't want to backpedal on their statement when somebody presents them with, well, what about this? What about that? And they would just stick to it and say, Yeah, no, my statement stands.

SPEAKER_00: 47:32

Well, and I would say that would show what their religion truly is. And you know, and as far as the nuance goes, you know, the nuance is where, and you may you not being a native Texan, may have never heard this saying before, but the nuance is where the nut cutting is, right? Just have to rub that in, didn't you? That's where the detailed work has to happen, and that's where precision kind of matters. Yeah. And go ahead. No, I'm disagreeing with you. So in any argument, especially when two people are closer than they are apart, the fine strokes are what matter, not the broad strokes, right? And in in our society today, all we see on Twitter and everywhere else is nothing but broad strokes. And it's absolutely ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03: 48:22

Yeah, that's what gets views.

SPEAKER_00: 48:25

Yeah. So, yeah.

unknown: 48:27

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00: 48:34

And then realize that half the population is dumber than that.

SPEAKER_03: 48:42

Or more than half. Yeah, so I guess to kind of combine both of those topics is I think meekness can be applied to what you say as much as what you do.

SPEAKER_00: 48:59

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03: 49:01

And there's a lot of people that are absolutely not meek about what they claim to believe, but don't actually act. And that kind of gets to my high-level questionslash argument is since we're not God and we can't look into people's minds, the only way that we can see whether someone is who they claim to be is looking at their acts.

SPEAKER_00: 49:43

So I think it's pretty easy to look at someone and see the fruit of the spirit that dwells in them. Now, what I would caution everybody with is the that only happens on the extremes. Like if you see someone being good and kind and doing the things you would think of as Christianly works, that's probably a pretty good indicator. If you see someone going out and raping, pillaging, and murdering, that's probably a good indicator in the other direction of the type of spirit.

SPEAKER_03: 50:17

Yep.

SPEAKER_00: 50:18

But if you don't see either and you just don't know, well, it could be it could be an absence, but I would tell you that you're filled with one sort of spirit one way or the other. And even if you haven't accepted Christ into your life, you have, for example, Eugene, have the very similar moral foundation that is in there, that is the basis of Christianity. Yeah. And this is what I was would say to Bill Maher and everybody else is you cannot separate your upbringing and the moral foundation that was instilled in you from who you are or how you think about morality. You cannot have a purely humanist morality, it does not work. And the reason why is because religions and moral codes have been built up over, you know, even if you take Peterson's look at it and just look at it as the mimification of a moral code over a long period of time, yeah. You are you are the you are the forebearer of everyone who came before you and the lessons they learned about how to behave and why.

SPEAKER_03: 51:26

Well, only if somehow that got passed on.

SPEAKER_00: 51:29

Well, but it has to, through oral traditions, through written stories, through everything that we see. I mean, you look at the epic of Gilgamesh, and you can see a moral code in there even today.

SPEAKER_03: 51:41

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, it there are moral codes in any successful story. Like stories that people connect with. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 51:54

And that's why I'm very frilled for for our society at this point, is because I see such a shrugging off and breaking down of that moral code. And it's like you get rid of that at your own peril.

SPEAKER_03: 52:04

And and I I'm less optimistic, surprise, surprise, about our society, because while you say, well, you're gonna you're gonna get that the moral codes passed on, even in the humanist type environment, I'm not so sure because there are children that barely interact with their parents, and they're taught by blue hairs in their public schools, they're sitting on their phones playing video games made mostly in China these days, and the amount of moral code that is passed on from their parents is going to be a fraction, but their parents weren't the whole lot better because if we look at your generation, you know, a lot of and you're obviously a huge exception, you don't count for any of this because of the way your parents brought you up, but the average millennial was brought up a lot more in a not necessarily a religious, but in a religion-light type environment in this country. And it was a much more leaning towards the side of acceptance and letting letting people with opinions that may not be traditional or conservative have equal say. Like me being a little bit older, I've seen that change happening in real time between when I was a a little kid running around and then when I was a teenager and when I was in my twenties and thirties. Like that, it's it's an overton window, right? It's a moving target.

SPEAKER_00: 53:55

But we're seeing that move back. Well, with Gen Z.

SPEAKER_03: 54:00

We may or may not be. I'm not sure yet. Because I think what what we have for sure seeing is Gen Z is more extreme, but I think they're more extreme in both polarities.

SPEAKER_00: 54:10

So here's the thing. In the millennials, the religious millennials were more likely to be female than male. In Gen Z, the religious Gen Zers are more likely to be male than female. Okay. So Gen Z men have very much shifted to religion and conservatism. Gen Z women are split. And what I think will happen is men lead, whether society likes to see us as that or not. And when we fail to lead, bad things happen, aka Gen Z women, you know, the millennial men didn't really go to church and the Gen Zers, the you know, the dating pool shifts and so on. But what's going to end up happening is and man, I hear a lot of Gen Zers, you know, talking about the in younger millennials, the juices and work to squeeze and everything else, and how bad the dating pool is right now. And I I think it depends on a who you are and what you're looking for, and do you have too high of standards for yourself or you know, and the people around you have do that have what are their standards? But what it comes down to is I am very encouraged by more Zillennials going to Z or Zed's, I don't know. Zoomers Gen Z men, Zoomers, there we go. Going to church. Because I think what's going to end up happening is there is going to be a shift back towards back towards the church, because I think Gen Z men are going to stand there and go, nope, I'm over here. Are you going to come to me or not?

SPEAKER_01: 56:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 56:13

Yeah, and it I think that makes sense, and there there definitely is a measured uptick in that. Pew Research and a few other organizations are showing that. It's it's still only 25% going to regular services affiliated with the church, so it's still a fairly small number, but it's an uptick from what it was for millennials.

SPEAKER_00: 56:40

Well, but it's also just an overall increase of people like me. I I don't go to church as regularly as I should. And that's not to say I think you have to go to church to be a Christian, because I don't. Yeah. But I think there's value in the fellowship and getting to be part of the community and knowing people and having people who you can reach out to and have a support group as you would. But I think in our online world, a lot of people are doing that in forums today. Do I think that's the best way to do it? No.

SPEAKER_01: 57:15

No.

SPEAKER_00: 57:15

But the, you know, the religious subreddits and things like that, they're kind of pretty big, you know? They're not teeny.

SPEAKER_03: 57:23

Yeah, no, tech techno religiosity has definitely been gaining steam for 20 years. That's continuing to it.

SPEAKER_00: 57:32

It's uh I dare you to find a church that doesn't put their sermons out on the internet.

SPEAKER_03: 57:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. No, I I agree, and I think that it's a it's making it easier to find a place where you feel like you belong, which is gonna be the key to long-term engagement. Yep. I hate to use all these marketing words, but that's kind of what it is.

SPEAKER_00: 58:01

That's that's what a church is.

SPEAKER_03: 58:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:03

Yeah. I mean, lit literally, church is marketing for Christianity. Right. It's what it's meant to be, right? Yeah. Now, as Christians, if you believe the Bible, you know, wherever three or more you gather in my name, I will be with you. You know, there there is a different power there than just general marketing. But we're, you know, Christ called his disciples to go out into the world and become fishers of men. And, you know, if you think of the parable of the the the mustard seed, right? Some is gonna fall on rocks and deaf ears, right? Some is gonna find a nook and sprout up briefly and then wither away. And I think a lot of the people who call themselves Christians, but you don't see Christian acts from them, that's the category they fall into because they've ascribed this label to themselves, and their faith was genuine in the beginning, but maybe it's lost its root, right? Yeah, and some will fall on fertile ground.

SPEAKER_03: 59:05

So, relating to what you just said, I I just ran across something interesting here that ties in with the first part of the conversation, which is well, what can you do as a Christian if someone's just acting in a way contrary to what Christianity teaches, but is wrapping themselves in the blanket of Christianity. And in Matthew 18, 15 through 20, we have the prescription for that. If your brother or sister sins, go and point out their fault just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have one of them over. If they not listen to you, take one or two others along, so that every matter may be established by the testimony or two or three witnesses. If they still refuse to listen, tell it to the church. And if they refuse to listen even to the church, treat them as you would a pagan or a tax collector. Now, I I had to laugh at the tax collector part here, of course, because the attitude towards tax collectors certainly seemed to have not changed in 2,000 years.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:05

Well, I would disagree, because what Christ would call you to do is to pay the tax collector his due and nothing more. You know, give them what you have to give them, but don't associate. Don't be buddy buddy. And that that's kind of the call there, and this is reiterating what I already said. I would go to them and you know, bring it up to them. But the point is, and I'm interested to r see what translation you're using there, and then go back and look at the actual words, but but but the point is And I you know Yeah, anyway. Yeah, the NIV love is patient, love is kind. Anyway, and I'll get onto that tangent in a second. But what I would say though is yes, you are to you're not to closely associate with them. You're not supposed to feel to them the way you would others. You're basically to treat them like they're not Christian. But the key thing there is you're not going out and denouncing them saying you're no Christian. I'm not gonna you're not doing that. You're just politely removing yourself from the situation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:16

Yep. But that's still something. That's still a prescriptive action. And that's kind of what I was looking for is because with no prescriptive actions, and then it you're leaving it up to either I mean, if you're on the Catholic side, you're leaving it up to the church hierarchy. Or you're leaving it up to the city. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:46

And so do Mormons have excommunication, by the way.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:49

Yep. I think most religions have that, uh or modern religions, I should say. Like the the what's Tom Cruise? Scientists. Scientologists, they they have that. Yeah. Islam definitely has that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:04

Yeah. And I would say I the problem I have with excommunication is again, we're supposed to be called to be fishers of men. And while you're not supposed to, and the tax collector part is a key thing there, and this is part of the reason why I don't like the NIV, is it uses very imprecise language. And I use the example everybody's heard of love is patient, love is kind. Well, the King James uses charity there, charity is patient, charity is kind. And the Greek word in that sentence is actually agape, which is unconditional love. It's God's love. So I don't think the way people use that verse because of the NIV and every effing marriage you've ever seen is an accurate way to use it because romantic love isn't that. It can't be. Yeah, of course. But that's the way people interpret it. So, but one of the things I was gonna tie this back to this is the reason why I have a problem with excommunication is because you're telling the church to stop trying to save that soul. You're not going to communicate with them, you're gonna have nothing to do with them, but they are dead to you. That is not a Christian reaction to me. If I saw someone like that have the conversations I would have with them, you know, potentially bringing up to the church, whatever, but I would never want the church to close their doors to that person because that person can always change. And this goes back to our first part of this conversation is there is always a path to salvation. It is whether or not the individual chooses to accept it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:43

Yeah. Yeah, they'd have to repent, though.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:48

Yes, and meaningfully and you know, to themselves. Like one of the things we talked about.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:53

But that's always been part of excommunication, is that that is the path back is repentance.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:58

Right. But my point is they are more likely to repent when exposed to the right things and given good examples.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:07

And by right things you mean whippings.

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:10

No.

SPEAKER_03: 1:04:10

How I how iron?

SPEAKER_00: 1:04:13

Uh Gene. No. Kindness, love, those are the things that soften the hard heart. You know, you when you meet force with force, the instinct of the other person is to double down. Yeah. When you meet it with kindness, it calls it it calls them out in their own question. And oh yeah, it's very hard to do. I struggle with it in my own personal life plenty. And, you know, there is this idea of reactive abuse. Someone harms you, so you react and harm them. And that that is a real thing, and it is a real part of the human condition, but it's something we have to fight against. Because when here here's what ends up happening. When someone is behaving in a bad way, and you talk to them about it calmly and lovingly, and you still continue to try and give them their due and be an example to them, it highlights their bad behavior.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:25

Absolutely. There was an interesting thing that I saw on X with Ox Jones. So I can't remember what the actual beginning of the conversation was, but somebody had replied back to Alex's comment with a meme of him hugging and embracing who's that British guy? That's like the British comedian Pierce Morgan. No, no, no. Comedian. Kind of a rock and roll type dude who's gotten Christian lately. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I sent I sent you the little video of that. And Pierce God, I can't. Yeah, I know. He's on the tip of my tongue.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:10

Russell Brand.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:11

Brand, yeah, Russell Brand. So Alex Jones and Russell Brand was on Alex's show, and they they were all gung-ho, and you know, very they were very friendly with each other.

SPEAKER_00: 1:06:24

I'm a little worried about Alex. I mean, it started with Blair White, and then you know, Russell Brand's getting on top with Alex. And so somebody posted if y'all haven't seen the video, just Google Russell Brand announce Alex Jones, and you'll see what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_03: 1:06:42

So somebody shares the video and and kind of says, Well, you guys are uh perfect for each other. And Alex Jones, you would think his reply would be like, fuck off, or something, right? But he's like, Yeah, I know. And you're like, What? I you know, that's not the response you were expecting. It's not the response that pushes back. It's it's a very diffusing response of like, yeah, you guys make a cute couple. Yeah, I know. Okay, how am I supposed to keep insulting you?

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:16

Exactly. It's a response of someone who is I think we've seen Alex grow up a lot over the last decade. Yeah. And it's a response from someone A who has matured, but B is either secretly a homosexual or very secure in his sexuality in itself.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:37

Yeah, I I did there's a lot of guys that I would question. Alex is not one of them. I think Alex is very much attracted to breasts and not any other bodily parts.

unknown: 1:07:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:50

Yeah. And that's where he's confused with Blair White. He's like, but my eyes are telling me one thing. Oh it's like all woman. Jesus Christ. Yeah, he's a fun character.

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:08

Which, by the way, a lot of people, a lot of Christians and fundamentalists would say, then you're taking the Lord's name in vain by saying Jesus Christ. Yeah. That's not what that means. Oh, and by the way, the Lord's name in vain is saying, I am doing this in the name of God. I am doing this because God has commanded me when I know that is not true.

SPEAKER_03: 1:08:28

Well, it's false. Yeah. And this is you're literally pointed out to one of the incidents with Tucker that I kind of alluded to, which is he was at TPUSA, and as per the tradition, you got young people, students, etc., asking questions, and somebody was asking him on something, I don't even remember the question, but it was something related to Palestinians or something else. And and he had mentioned that, you know, well, your dad was in the CIA, which pissed off Tucker. Why would that piss him off? It's a fact, it's a well-known fact. It's not an arguable thing. Like, we know his dad was in the CAA. Why would you be offended by that? But he came back at the kid saying, Well, you know, I don't see why you're bringing my family into it. That's really rude. And the kid said, Well, Jesus Christ, come on. Everybody knows he was in the CAA. At which point, then, Tucker said, You know what? We're done. You just took the Lord's name in vain. I'm not going to have this conversation as a Christian. I have no interest in talking to somebody that takes the Lord's name in vain. Now, I'm not a Christian, but that to me sounds extremely unchristian.

SPEAKER_00: 1:09:42

It's disingenuous.

SPEAKER_03: 1:09:43

Right? Right. And I left a gaming group for a similar thing when guys that told the raunchiest racist stories of their activities back in the 60s and 70s and beating up people whose skin was darker than them, blah blah blah. Guys I was playing World of Warships with.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:16

And World of Warships, really.

SPEAKER_03: 1:10:19

Yeah, World of Warships. In a Texas clan. And then I was told that I shouldn't say Jesus Christ and take the Lord's name in vain, you know, being one of them Jews and all. I'm like, you know what? Fuck you. I don't need to play with you guys. I'll I'll say Jesus Christ whenever I want. He was a Jew, just like me. Fuck off. So that was my take. And it's and I think you're absolutely right in that you concur with my opinion. It's like the phrase, do not take the Lord's name in vain, which incidentally is from the old testament, not the new one. There is a specific meaning to what taking a name in vain means. And it's not just saying Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:13

And it's not to be go ahead. To be clear, Christ came not to abolish the law, but to fulfill the law. And you know, I would say that there are plenty of things that would that Christ has said that would lead to the same conclusion.

SPEAKER_03: 1:11:30

Yeah. Yeah, well, now, granted, like I said, it's been a damn long time since I've fully read the uh New Testament. I'm in process of doing that again. But there is one thing I can say is Christ did not come down to abolish the Ten Commandments. No. He lived by the Ten Commandments. In fact, he lived by more than that. He lived by the what is it, six hundred and thirteen commandments.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:07

Yeah. So anything else we want to cover, Gene, or I want to close this out with one thought.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:14

Yeah, you can go ahead and close it out. I think I think this is probably a long enough episode at this point.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:19

Especially if you're editing your other conversation in.

SPEAKER_03: 1:12:23

No, I'm not gonna just this one.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:26

Okay. So everybody should look this up in whatever version you prefer. But John fifteen, verse seven starting with verse seventeen. These things I command you that ye love one another. If the world hateth you, know that it hated me before it hated you. If you are of the world, the world would love his own, but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. Remember the word I said unto you, the servant is not greater than his Lord. If they have persecuted you, if they if they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have kept my sayings, they will also keep yours. So that has always been a very comforting verse to me when stand and maybe this is why part of the reason why I can stand outside the world and say you're all wrong, and I know I'm right, because the world does not love something that is not of itself and its own. It is human nature to other and to outly. And when you are, whether it's a religion or any thought process, that is a normal thing that happens in this world. And you have to take comfort in knowing if it's because you're a Christian that you believe in God and that there is a rational reason why you believe this. If it's a political view, you better have a very good basis for that political view. You you have to have a solid foundation to withstand the world. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:21

And then he's saying this on the the eve before his execution.

unknown: 1:14:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:29

His crucifixion.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:30

So well, yeah. I mean, there's the whole garden of Gethsemane and all that, but yes.

SPEAKER_03: 1:14:37

Yeah. So it's it's meant to be a When I'm not here, keep this stuff in mind, kind of a thing.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:48

It's a they're gonna come after you. This is why they're gonna come after you. It's okay.

SPEAKER_01: 1:14:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:59

Don't be afraid. Be strong in your convictions. Take the lashings in the storm that comes and you know, hold on.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:10

Easy for him to say. Well, I mean, for multiple reasons.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:16

I don't know, man. I I I think if you read You know, The Temptation of Christ, and I think if you read through his faith never wavered, but he questioned. And that was his human part.

SPEAKER_02: 1:15:38

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:42

Alright, Gene.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:43

Alright.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:44

Another special episode.

SPEAKER_03: 1:15:45

There we go. There's a special episode for you guys. Let us know. You can always write back to us. There's a link in the in the thing. If you want to support us, we have different levels that you can sign up for, and it'll automatically hit your credit card. One thing I didn't want to point out is that we used to only have the option of different amounts for monthly support, and then they introduced a different category, which I put at the exact same level as one of the support tiers, which is called subscriber or subscription. And the difference between subscription or donation, and I wish it was more easily clarified right in there, but the difference between the two is that the subscription is for people that basically, if you want to have access to our all our old episodes, our full catalog, our 150, 145, whatever it is now, past episodes. You want to look anything up, you want to re-listen to them, anything like that, they're available to subscribers. For convenience sake, and it's something that I've noticed many other podcasts are starting to do now as well, the and because we do talk about current topics specifically, most of our episodes will be up for one month, and then after a month, they'll roll off the RSS, and they'll only be a part of the full RSS feed, which is for subscribers. So basically, if if you recommend to somebody that, hey, you should check out these guys, listen to a podcast, they're not going to be directed to go listen to an episode from two years ago. They're not going to need to download a whole bunch of episodes. They're going to go back to an episode from no further back than one month ago.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:31

What'd you say, Ben? I just, I don't know. I don't like that being behind a paywall, but we can discuss it.

SPEAKER_03: 1:17:37

Well, I mean, it's it's behind the paywall, it's it's not really behind the paywall. No one's ever, literally, no one's ever expressed an interest in this. It's just something that I think makes it less likely that somebody's going to listen to an old episode unless they're specifically looking for something that is from an old episode from us. And we already have plenty of people at the donation level anyway, who are just contributing. They're donating, but if they wanted to switch from donation to subscriber, it's literally the same amount of money, it's just a difference in terminology, and then you get access to all the old stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:16

And I will say there you don't want an overly long RSS feed, but I might have to throw something up on nameben.com of like an archive or something.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:29

Well, yeah, I mean, we can have the full archive. We've got, I think we've got the uh transcripts from probably all but the first nine months. I don't think we did them in the first nine months. But after that, we've got transcripts. Actually, no, no, we've got those we don't have, we may not have chapters for the first nine months or so. But either way, I just wanted to mention it because it is something that's been the case for about two months now. And again, no one said anything for the last two months about hey, where'd all your old episodes go? Because no one listens to the old stuff.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:01

I think that's just really mainly topical. But I would say that as we're doing more, if we continue to do like these little specials.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:08

Oh, uh, all the specials I mark as always available. Okay, cool. Like the Christmas one and our first religious one, those should never get rolled back into anything.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:20

Yeah, I'm I'm cool with the topical ones rolling off.

SPEAKER_03: 1:19:22

Okay. Because they're mostly like, what'd you buy? What kind of gun did you get? Oh, I got this. What the wood? Did you get that new night vision thing? Did you check that out? Oh, politics suck. You know, I mean that's mostly what we talk about. Until you get a new car, then we'll talk about a new car. Alright, Ben, let's wrap her up.