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Well, you know, Russell Moore
stood out in the evangelical circles for criticizing

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Trump. He was also critical to
Southern Baptist conventions, handing of sexual abuse,

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and white nationalism, and this resulted
in his department. He now had.

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Christianity Today magazine more recently addressed a
crisis and American Christianity. You think

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society's divisions have infiltrated the church.
In reality, it's the other way around.

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More glosses over the role of the
evangelical leaders. They have fanned the

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flames in the name of their own
self interests for decade. He was a

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top church official. When he did
condemn them, he says. Christianities and

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christis MPR dot Org by Scott Detro, Gabriel Sanchez and Sarah handel And August

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twenty twenty three, and also this
article another articles Evangelicals are now rejecting liberal

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teachings of Jesus and Newsweek by Elis
Leisco, August nine, twenty twenty.

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Now I was wondering, Cynthia,
what did you have? Well, you

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know, we covered Russell More a
few times on the nonprofits. I think

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the first time that we covered Rust
Moore is when him and Bethmore departed the

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SBC no relation back in April of
twenty twenty one. But it's for the

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same reasons that you mentioned previously in
the article, being I believe the specifically

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left because of the misogyny that was
rampant in the church, and also she

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was a outspoken critic of Trump as
well. Now, not to be fair,

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when Moore described to convinced the conversations
he was having with the other ministers

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on how they're congregants who are MAGA
supporters and calling Jesus the sermons, the

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sermon on the Mountain one, uh, the turney of the cheek week,

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these are antidotes. Okay, there
was no survey monkey that was like conducted

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in order for us to get like
an actual approximation of the percentage of MAGA

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people who were saying that Jesus is
weak or what have you. But I

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do have to say that there seems
to be a proclivity of those who are

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MAGA Christian nationalists to be a bit
more reactive in action to making sure the

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country that is bending to the MAGA
will. And if this was not the

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case, we would not have had
January sixth, Can I get an amen

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from all the atheists on the pannel. But thank you, thank you,

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and I'm so glad that you all
said that, and we did not rehearse

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that. But I am curious to
know what you all have to say.

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And I'm coming to you first,
Phil, because you are on the outside

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looking in on the American politic.
What say you? Yeah, well,

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I this this is makes me laugh
in the sense that this person is being

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hypocritically. On one hand, yes, is against do you know what Trump

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is not any all right? And
the and he has played to the evangelicals

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and so on, he called them
out. This guy called called Trump and

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the people that are supporting Trump,
the Christians are supporting Trump. But then

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on the other hand, then we
really dig the we realized. But this

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guy still supports pro life. He's
against abortion. Is also oh against alb

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g t Q right, which is
very problematic with him. So and oh

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he's awesome misogynists supports some misogyny.
Yeah, yeah, woman is the man

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is the head of the house,
and the woman have to be submissive to

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ones, etcetera. All that hierarchy, hierarchy crap, crap. So I

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it's like, okay, sir,
I can applaud you on calling out Trump

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and the Christian nationalists who are trying
to take a COVID the country. But

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on the other hand, you are
still problematic, sir, You're still problematic.

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You are against marginalized group, all
in the name of religion, all

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in the name of a daw that
you can't even show to exist, right,

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and and and in that case,
you are also demonstrating, hey,

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you're doing the same thing basically as
the Christian nationalists who are against these same

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things that you are. Again,
so all they all are you saying about

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same hit speech, same hit,
no different right, and it is is

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is not really surprising because you know, I find that Christians tend to say

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from one denomination, say, oh, the other denomination is not Christian,

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and you know, they play these
sort of games. So he's calling out

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his the church that I used to
belong to, the denomination, the Southern

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Baptist Convention for Sexual Abuse not handling
sexual abuse cases the way that this should

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handle him. But then on the
other hand, he is trying to say,

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oh, but the ILBGTQ, there's
a problem with them, There's a

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problem if women needs to U know, the place baustly because that's why that's

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what he's saying. And also I
find me he's kind of being hypocritical.

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But what what you say about dot
John Well, yes, I agree,

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this is a bit a bit the
pot calling the kettle black. It's just

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the friendly atheist had a breakdown on
brussel Moore that was rather enlightening. His

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only real gripe with Trump or Maga
appears to be that this whole thing about

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them calling out Jesus is weak.
Other than that, he kind of toes

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the line right down with the same
crap that everybody else in that evangelical vein

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uses. And I'm part of at
least two of those minorities, and I

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know that other people on this panel
are a part of two or more of

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those minorities that they don't like and
want to just take us from being marginalized

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to not extant, which to me
is a scary proposition given some of the

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idiots that they have following them.
I just don't think at this point that

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we should entertain any applause for a
man who just says, you can't talk

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about the guy in my Bible,
but it's okay not to do what he

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says, it's just kind of like
like you said, it's just a big

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hypocritical mess. Their theology is so
fractured and so convoluted and tied into such

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a big Gordian knot that eventually it's
going to have to give and they're just

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going to end up in a very
bad place. And I don't want to

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see that because it usually ends up
in violence. But we'll see what happens.

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And Infidel, what do you have
to say on this? Well?

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You know this subject more reminded me
of a famous civil rights leaders comments after

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the assassination of JK. He said
that this was the chickens coming home to

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roost. I really thought that was
a perfect answer to Russell Moore. This

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politicalization of the movement has been going
on for over fifty years. They spent

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trillions of dollars. They wanted their
vote, but it was just a ploy.

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The dog caught the bus again.
They got ahead of themselves. Wasn't

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preaching turned the other cheek with his
ANTILBGT rhetoric or as promoting subjugating women.

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Military and Holy war rhetoric have been
the norm forever. God's Army spiritual warfare,

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battling the devil, they all come
to mind. I don't know why

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more is surprised when people actually expect
a holy war when you use in those

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type of terminology. Now, what
we are seeing is qann has coopted Christianity

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borrows and it shares their themes.
Preachers recently been inciting violence against others for

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simply existing. I don't know what
more could expect other than that they make

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their enemies to be up here,
not even human though. He's just another

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closed minded bigot upset that his guy
drivel wasn't popular with the cool kids of

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the radical eyes Evangelical. The Bible
says that one reads as they also show,

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so as they so they also show
read. But that is a lot,

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because we're going to all pay the
price for this. We're going to

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all pay the price for their hate
again. So Cynthia, what do you

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think about this over Well, you
know, when I was reading the NPR

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article, something that they quoted Russell
Moore saying was fairly intriguing to me.

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He said, I think that the
roots of the political problem really come down

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to disconnection, loneliness, sense of
alienation. Even in churches that are still

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healthy and functioning. Regular church going
is not what is what it was a

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generation ago and which the entire structure
of the week was defined by the community.

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And I'm curious to know from you
guys. Do you agree with him

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and why or why not? And
Jonathan, I would like for you to

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start. We had a pandemic.
Everybody was stuck at home. They saw

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their religious services on the internet or
just didn't see them at all. They

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were isolated from their friends and family, unless they just happened to get caught

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with their family in the same household. Usually that's the case, and that

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kind of loneliness, that kind of
when you put any primate, but especially

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humans in a non social context,
we literally drive ourselves crazy. And so

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it's I hate to use that word, I shouldn't, but we drive ourselves

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over the edge. And the whole
idea was that they were first. It

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started with the anti vaxers right during
the pandemic. Those morphed into things like

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you know, Mom's for Liberty,
you know, other hate groups because they

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wanted to feel part of something.
And that drive for us to be part

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of another group is instinctual. It's
buried in our DNA. It's got a

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lot of stuff that contributed to it, and I don't think there's a way

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for us to deal with the fact
that these people found the wrong groups to

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be with and they they agree with
them, not because they necessarily believe what

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they're saying, but because they want
to stay in the group and they want

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to feel like the group likes them
and that they're there. This is this

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is just something you see time and
time again in the bite model. You

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know of, of domination, you
know of you know, cults and things

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like that. They created a cult
out of people who were desperate to have

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social interaction. And I'm not blaming
the people who necessarily who fell for it.

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I'm blaming the people who perpetrated it. So anyway, I would like

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to let Infidel weigh on us.
I'm sure you have a few choice comments,

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you know. I've got to say
that. I think what if I

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can translate for more, what he's
saying is is because we lost a little

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bit of our grip on you,
you're not doing what we want you to

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do. That that's what I heard
there. Maybe maybe my Google Translate doesn't

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work well on Morihism, but that's
what I'm hearing, because I mean,

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he doesn't mind the hate. I
mean, Cynthia, I mean you should

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need to be talking silence, remember, but you know, And then the

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truth is is that every one of
us here, you know, we're all

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you know, we all fit this. We don't fit their bill. So

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well, Infidel, we're not in
church, so I can't talk. Yeah,

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I wouldn't expect you to do it. Then I hope I'm counting on

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it. There's no but this,
this is all back to what I said

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of you know, he's not part
of the cool kids club anymore, and

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that that's part of it. You
know, Phil, you you hit it

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on the head with your golf clap
of Yeah, okay, I hate Trump.

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Yeah, I'm you know what.
You hate Trump because he's not doing

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something you want him to do,
or he's or he doesn't fit your preconceived

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notion of what you want him to
be. Because you're happy with this message

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of hate. Hate is fine,
it does. It's big business. We

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can hate on all the vulnerable people
available. So is he mad about Oh,

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we're getting away from our Christian values? No? Well, you know

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what, I hope we are.
I hope we are getting away from some

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of those suld be good. But
you know, what, I don't blame

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society on where the church is.
We know where the church is, and

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we know how they got there.
They drove the bus. They just didn't

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realize that the other people were going
to finally get in the driver's seat and

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be more unhinged than they possibly were. But you know, I could ran

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about the weaknesses of an organization that
only exists because well, they wanted to

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defend slavery in the Civil War era. Let's not forget that. So the

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Baptist Church, the phil what do
you think on this awesome guy in his

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organization he used to belong to this
the A agree. I agree with what

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y'allogist say. On top of that, right in audition, we also see

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he's talking about trade bialism. He
thoughts about trade balizm and fractionalization outside in

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society community church, which already there
were They had these communities, these close

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knit communities and exclude everybody else,
and tribalism and fractionalization as always being part

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of church. You have these,
that's why we have from many denominations for

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five So he as I said,
he's a hypocrite and he is trying to

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point fingers elsewhere but remember what they
say, men, you point at someone,

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how many fingers pointing back? Yeah? Right, So they and even

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befin is even within the particular denomination, you also have tribalism, fractionalization,

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you know. And because people have
different types of interpretations, even though they

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have the church as a general a
general base, but some persons in within

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church interpret there was things differently.
So that's always been the case. And

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yes, as Jonathan correctly said,
because of the isolation during that period of

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time, it's kind of like they
felt that they lose grit, some grit

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on the church because a lot of
people stopped going to church after COVID because

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they starting to realize they were separated
from the constant indoctrination from the preachers,

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and so they had time to sit
back and think and then realize. But

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look look at how some of these
preachers are behaving, you know, how

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what they how they are getting on. They're they're telling people don't take the

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vaccine. And then some of them
being made on the live and people start

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to vehicup. People started to vehicup. So he's just complaining, just complain

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and complaining because they are losing He
and them are losing grit on people,

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and people are not drinking that holy
kool aid as they used they say,

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you know, correct, So yeah, they're not drinking the kool aid,

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you know, or they probably gonna
get poisoned and then next thing, you

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know, they did, which actually
happened, but you know, just to

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kind of like piggyback on what you
said feel about how a lot of these

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pastors were carrying on during COVID and
also how as as you Jonathan and you

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Infidel pointed out about preachers losing their
grip on their congregations. I remember,

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and I think Phil you can remember
this too. There was a pastor I

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want to say he was in Nigeria
who is a mega pastor. I don't

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I don't know his name, but
I remember him saying that he bought I

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believe two planes jets, two jets. Yeah, personal jets jets during COVID,

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yes, And and then the congregation
was like, whoa, look at

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Jesus. And then he said after
that, I hope COVID never ends.

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And I think that some of the
people who were actually going to church will

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listen to some of this rhetoric and
hearing some of the pastors coming on to

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their different social media's and television programs
and and saying things like this about don't

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take the vaccine, Jesus was going
to heal you. Blah blah blah blah

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Blooh. I think the Jim Baker
was selling some type of silver solution that's

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supposed to cure COVID. They even
had like doctors who were also Christian nationalists

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that were co signing on this particular
rhetoric. One doctor tenpenny. Yeah,

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I think it was thank you.
Our crew just mentioned and I'm going to

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try to read this the co the
colloid dial silver colloidal thank you. Yes,

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that what my panel just said,
because obviously I have a problem reading.

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But regardless it was, he was
made to stop because it was not

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something that was like backed up empirically. There was no peer of youth.

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It was an FDA approved He was
just saying stuff, right, and and

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and a lot of this particular stuff
is dangerous. But regardless of that,

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I think that's a lot of people
was probably thinking what I was thinking.

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If your God is so damn good, then while over a million people United

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States alone died during the COVID nineteen
pandemic, he wishes it will last forever.

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It's going to Yeah, I have
to get a new vaccine every year,

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every year, every year, kind
of like the food shot, you

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know. So, I mean so
like when I when I hear Russell Moore

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saying that even churches that are still
healthy and functioning regularly, church going is

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not what it was the generation ago. We just covered on this show a

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couple of times how church attendance is
dwindling exponentially and it's because of problematic creatures

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like this and not being able to
prove that God exists empirically, and not

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having any supernatural thing comporting to reality, and realizing that we don't need any

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type of moral compass from a deity
that we cannot prove exist. We can

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do it on our own. But
one thing that you can do, dear

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viewer, on your own is look
at more content if you click here