Speaker 1: Guys. I always think, how much of my mind is
Speaker 1: located in this space of like, but what about this
Speaker 1: and this and this? Today that mind is in some
Speaker 1: ways on display because I invited Jay Dyer to come on,
Speaker 1: who's not only really good at debate, but he's also
Speaker 1: a kind of mind that captures ideas and then sort
Speaker 1: of fortifies them and then gives them back to us
Speaker 1: in ways that you have to think about. He's not
Speaker 1: always beloved for this, He's not always beloved for his debates.
Speaker 1: He's not always beloved by all aspects of culture. But
Speaker 1: I think today we have a good talk about why
Speaker 1: that is, why that might be true, or why that
Speaker 1: might be false, and we get into the litometer and
Speaker 1: we talk about the role of humor in life and
Speaker 1: how one should go about addressing those with whom they
Speaker 1: speak on heavy things. Not mean Jay Dyer. My phone's
Speaker 1: not going to start ringing if I talked to Andrew Jay,
Speaker 1: if he's our editor guy, he's out there doing the
Speaker 1: thing with us. I got jaydyar here. It's been a while.
Speaker 1: I've always thought about having you come on here. Man.
Speaker 1: How you doing. I'm doing great.
Speaker 2: You were at my wedding, so I'm glad to reconnect
Speaker 2: and should have this conversation with it.
Speaker 1: We said it. I don't know if you remember, we
Speaker 1: sat at the table. Everything he just happened in your life.
Speaker 1: You had this, you know, this event of wonder and
Speaker 1: then we sat at the table and like a bunch
Speaker 1: of like twenty two year old author bros. Started talking
Speaker 1: about like some theological moment. It was hilarious. I was like, Oh,
Speaker 1: this is what Jay, this is Jay's life, even.
Speaker 2: At his wedding, Even as wedding you get a bunch
Speaker 2: of questions about essence centergization. And I think there was
Speaker 2: even like atheist relatives later that night trying to you know, argue.
Speaker 1: Trying to rape it out with it, trying to be
Speaker 1: atheist so bright the way that was kind of COVID associate.
Speaker 1: I think it was. It was COVID, wasn't it. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it was.
Speaker 2: It was right in the middle of it right, maybe
Speaker 2: even write at beginning.
Speaker 1: But we don't we don't know each other like besties.
Speaker 1: But it was nice. My wife basically was closer I
Speaker 1: think closer with your with your wife, and so they
Speaker 1: I got pulled in and it was wonderful. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: blessed to have been there.
Speaker 2: Bro, that's right, because they were. Yeah, they were at
Speaker 2: the same parish for a good while.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, So talk to me about this. So what
Speaker 1: we do on this part is try to figure out, like,
Speaker 1: aren't there some lessons from before the Enlightenment that we
Speaker 1: should actually be paying attention to? Uh? And how does
Speaker 1: that work? So what's the Enlightenment to you? Because you
Speaker 1: wrote like an enlightened guy, I mean, you're using rational
Speaker 1: arguments to try to help people understand things. So what
Speaker 1: is the Enlightenment to How do you see it? Well?
Speaker 2: I think the best way to describe it would be
Speaker 2: the excesses that you see with the French revolutionaries, who,
Speaker 2: for example, make and make reason into a goddess. And
Speaker 2: I don't think they actually thought it was an actual entity,
Speaker 2: but reason became the new deity of that time, and
Speaker 2: that led to a lot of bloodshed, a lot of revolutions.
Speaker 2: You know, after the Enlightenment you get the Voltaire and
Speaker 2: the philosophs. So I think that reason as a tool,
Speaker 2: it's a faculty that can be used because you know,
Speaker 2: in Christology, for example, Jesus has a rational soul that
Speaker 2: means he has as part of his human nature the
Speaker 2: faculty of reasoning, and that was declared early on, even
Speaker 2: against the Apollinarians, that if you denied that rational aspect
Speaker 2: of christ soul and replaced it with the divine person
Speaker 2: of the logos, that was a heresy because it was
Speaker 2: detracting from him assuming a full human nature. So Christ
Speaker 2: heals and restores the faculty of reasoning, just like all
Speaker 2: of our other faculties, our will, our body, et cetera,
Speaker 2: and so our mind.
Speaker 1: And so I've always seen it as a tool.
Speaker 2: Definitely, the Enlightenment and Protestant Reformation exalted it out of
Speaker 2: its due place. But you know, even some of the
Speaker 2: most quote mystical of the Orthodox Saints, like said Gregor Palamos,
Speaker 2: he wrote apidictic Treatise on the Holy Spirit, and APPDICTI
Speaker 2: refers to Aristocean logic. So he utilizes the risktrain logic
Speaker 2: to disprove the Filioquist position. So you know, in his
Speaker 2: mind there was certainly no natural antipathy between theology and
Speaker 2: the faculty of reasoning.
Speaker 1: It just can't be.
Speaker 2: Put in this, you know, goddess position.
Speaker 1: Here's an idea that I keep having, you know, as
Speaker 1: a history guy. On some level, I studied it and
Speaker 1: as a as a graduate student. Maybe it's that they're
Speaker 1: anti Christ thing they're substituting it. If the pre supposition
Speaker 1: is that Christ is God, then't reason kind of makes
Speaker 1: sense as you go and stretch it out right into
Speaker 1: an argument. But I feel like there was a substitutionary
Speaker 1: thing going on with the enlightened philosophers. Would you agree
Speaker 1: with that where there's substituting reason for Christ and someone.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I think there was genuine reaction, legitimate reaction against
Speaker 2: the corruptions in the papal church and the Franco papal
Speaker 2: system that people in the know pros and Reformation or
Speaker 2: the Enlightenment saw as a problem. But they had bad solutions,
Speaker 2: so they went to this opposite extreme and reacting against
Speaker 2: the papacy and some of them, you know, when the
Speaker 2: direction of Protestanism, someone went the direction of atheism and deism.
Speaker 2: So yeah, logos theology, as you noted itself, is situated
Speaker 2: within the milieu of the wisdom texts of the Old
Speaker 2: Testament like Proverbs, Book of Wisdom, and so when John
Speaker 2: talks about Jesus as the logos or the logic of God,
Speaker 2: I don't saying he's equating him to logic. He's the
Speaker 2: second person of the trinity. But there is an element
Speaker 2: of logos logic or reason that goes along with that,
Speaker 2: which is an appeal to the best elements of Hellenic
Speaker 2: and Greek culture to try to convince them of the
Speaker 2: deed of Christ and him being the son of God.
Speaker 2: And again, you're absolutely right to replace logos the divine person,
Speaker 2: and that truth is therefore ultimately located in a divine person,
Speaker 2: with the human faculty of reasoning, which is a pale
Speaker 2: reflection of divine logos, is absolutely a replacement idolatry.
Speaker 1: Is that is that the problem with scientism? That's it, right,
Speaker 1: I think that's what it is, right, That's the root
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 2: Scientism also has, i think few people know it, kind
Speaker 2: of has a hermetic alchemical origin as well. If you
Speaker 2: go back to the even some of the who we
Speaker 2: think of as Enlightenment rationalist thinkers, they also were very
Speaker 2: infected by a lot of esoteric cabalistic and so there
Speaker 2: can even be a cabalistic element to scientism where that
Speaker 2: dead matter comes alive and you know, you can go
Speaker 2: within to find the principles of you know, the spark
Speaker 2: of divinity within you, and that man is trying to
Speaker 2: fix nature the you know.
Speaker 1: Francis Banking man. So we're going to take a test.
Speaker 1: It's our little test on here. It's called the letometer.
Speaker 1: I want you to take it with me before we
Speaker 1: hang up. So people who are are, We're gonna it's
Speaker 1: just like five question. It's it's highly sack. It will
Speaker 1: It'll affect you because for rest of your life now
Speaker 1: you'll have this moniker hanging around. It'll tell you about
Speaker 1: your actual being in a way that I'll ruin your life.
Speaker 1: But just work, just work with it, Just work with it.
Speaker 1: I promise it's coming, guys, it's coming, the lightermeter. But uh,
Speaker 1: before we get there, do this with me. So how
Speaker 1: do you how do you know yourself on the on
Speaker 1: the on the media's on the on the interwebs, Like
Speaker 1: are you an entertainer? Because I think you're attracting the
Speaker 1: guys who liked that part that that that mystical part
Speaker 1: of the earliest Enlightenment thing is we are like something's
Speaker 1: off here, let's fix it. But they didn't know how
Speaker 1: to do it. The guys I hear coming onto your
Speaker 1: shows and listening and making comments on X and all
Speaker 1: that stuff. I feel like they want something that's deeply
Speaker 1: mystical and spiritual and alchemic, alchemically inclined, and I feel
Speaker 1: like give it to them. But I don't think they
Speaker 1: understand it. Sometimes I think they think you're doing some
Speaker 1: fun stuff that's not Christick. I don't know, what do
Speaker 1: you think about this class of guys that sort of
Speaker 1: love your work? I would are they Christian or how
Speaker 1: do you? How do you how do you categorize these characters.
Speaker 2: I think we have a wide array now of people
Speaker 2: who like what we talk about in niches, so there's
Speaker 2: kind of different sectors. For example, when we do live events,
Speaker 2: we can kind of see the you know, schematic breakdown
Speaker 2: of this because we don't have huge live events, but
Speaker 2: anywhere from one hundred and one hundred twenty people at
Speaker 2: most of our live events, and you know, everybody always
Speaker 2: kind of talks about what aspects of what we talk
Speaker 2: about they're interested in. So some people are there. I
Speaker 2: send the you know, I saw you on you know
Speaker 2: Alex Alex's show. I really like what you talk about
Speaker 2: with geopolitics, and then we get a faction of the
Speaker 2: people that are like, oh, I really love all the
Speaker 2: Hollywood stuff, because really a lot of what I started
Speaker 2: blogging about was was movie analysis. Film analysis. It's about
Speaker 2: like breakdowns of films, and I wasn't really even thinking
Speaker 2: about talking about theology at the time. That actually happened
Speaker 2: kind of accidentally. Somebody said, Hey, would you debate this
Speaker 2: atheist guy. This is back in twenty seventeen, and he
Speaker 2: was a pretty prominent atheist at that time, and then
Speaker 2: that led to, oh, here's another atheist guy, when you
Speaker 2: want to bate this other prominent atheist, and that kind
Speaker 2: of snowballed into doing debates, which is not something I
Speaker 2: really thought I would be doing on the internet. And
Speaker 2: then that attracted its own kind of you know, crowd
Speaker 2: of people who really really liked to see debates, and
Speaker 2: the majority of that in the last six years ended
Speaker 2: up focusing on debating prominent atheists and Muslims.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know.
Speaker 2: Much about Islam in twenty seventeen or even twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: and then I started to learn, you know, a good bit,
Speaker 2: so that kind of just happened on its own. It
Speaker 2: was again, it wasn't something planned, but I never stopped
Speaker 2: doing the other things that we did, like the movie
Speaker 2: analyses and writing the books on the hollywod would symbolic
Speaker 2: breakdowns and you know, doing the geopolitical content. So kind
Speaker 2: of what happened was I just sort of would introduce
Speaker 2: more of my own interests into the public work that
Speaker 2: we were doing, just to kind of test the waters.
Speaker 2: And so that led to me kind of doing more
Speaker 2: comedic stuff. I always wanted to do that, always had
Speaker 2: that element of what we did, and I wanted to
Speaker 2: lean more into that, and so that led to a
Speaker 2: lot more openings in that realm. And then I think
Speaker 2: what happens is that people see one aspect of what
Speaker 2: I do and they kind of think, oh, he's that
Speaker 2: guy that does this are aren't.
Speaker 1: You the Hollywood guy? Or I thought you were the
Speaker 1: debate guy. I know you as a debate guy for
Speaker 1: whatever reason. That's how I know you.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I don't like to you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I think debate is interesting and it can be fun.
Speaker 2: But I think probably people will think I like it
Speaker 2: more than I actually do.
Speaker 1: That's my question. Which one you got an hour You're
Speaker 1: going to do some media and it's going to be
Speaker 1: the hour you love the most. What are you doing
Speaker 1: in that hour? I've had the most.
Speaker 2: Fun in the last ten years on the big comedian
Speaker 2: podcast that we've been on, which is two or three
Speaker 2: of those, and you know, doing the geopolitical breakdowns, those
Speaker 2: are the most fun.
Speaker 1: I y I enjoyed the most.
Speaker 2: I have to admit, like you know, when it's if
Speaker 2: it's if it's a huge Muslim debate, those have been
Speaker 2: really Like we did we debated the two of the
Speaker 2: top Muslims on a huge outlet a few months ago
Speaker 2: as me and Sam schmun and we debated Daniel Hikikachu
Speaker 2: and e Jaws on freshen Fit podcast and that got
Speaker 2: three four million views, So that that was enjoyable to
Speaker 2: be able to speak to that many people. But it
Speaker 2: wasn't the most fun debate because a lot of times
Speaker 2: debates that kind of become really repetitive. It's all it's
Speaker 2: the same stuff over and over and over. And if you've
Speaker 2: been doing debates since college like I have, like you're
Speaker 2: pretty much going to be hearing the same arguments over
Speaker 2: over and over. So I really enjoy the creativity, you know,
Speaker 2: comedic side of there's a lot more than just here
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yes, he he can't. He got in front of us
Speaker 1: Andrew Editor and a guy named Simeon Rich Rich Summers,
Speaker 1: I think you know, I think you know Rich, But
Speaker 1: I so I want to do that on some level
Speaker 1: sometimes with our inter nicene Orthodox stupidness that happens. I
Speaker 1: want to do what he's doing sometimes with some of
Speaker 1: what we're doing, because a lot of the times in
Speaker 1: the Orthodox wrote we bited each other, and I'm not
Speaker 1: I'm not that guy. I'm not the boomer who's also like,
Speaker 1: why can't we all get along? That's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: There's something about the argument that at some point crosses
Speaker 1: into hilarious you know what I'm talking about, where you're like, ah,
Speaker 1: not this again? Is this needs to be torn down
Speaker 1: through something funny or cynical or something. And that's where
Speaker 1: my brother and I have this crossing of paths on
Speaker 1: the internet. I think like a Orthodox version of Battle
Speaker 1: on b or something like that. Yeah, something something where
Speaker 1: we go. And also you don't really know it. I
Speaker 1: don't really know in the end, because it's going to
Speaker 1: flesh out as all things flesh out, you know, they
Speaker 1: It's gonna flesh out as real beyond my own intellect,
Speaker 1: and people I don't know if they can do that
Speaker 1: sometimes or they feel like they're giving up the fight
Speaker 1: or something. I don't know, what do you think about that?
Speaker 1: Is there a place for that kind of humor?
Speaker 2: I mean, I've always felt there's a place for levity
Speaker 2: because not everybody is called to the same thing. Like,
Speaker 2: you know, people that are in the role of clergy,
Speaker 2: that's more appropriate for them to be involved in the
Speaker 2: doctrinal stuff.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So, actually, you know, kind of what we ended up
Speaker 2: doing in the last six or seven years was again
Speaker 2: somewhat accidental, but there wasn't a lot of clergy presence
Speaker 2: online in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, twenty twenty. Nowadays twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five, there's way more orthodox clerical presence online. So
Speaker 2: I feel like that's kind of a little bit of
Speaker 2: freeing because there's a less of a you know, it's
Speaker 2: not like I'm the only voice defending orthodoxy against the
Speaker 2: papacy or you know whatever. There's other people out here
Speaker 2: doing it now, which is kind of what it ought
Speaker 2: to be, and that I think should be maybe a
Speaker 2: freeing up thing where we who are laity can focus
Speaker 2: on and speak to culture, which.
Speaker 1: Is what we're becoming. That's what we're good at. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're in it, so not that makes sense to mcgracor
Speaker 1: that makes sense to me for a while. Did you
Speaker 1: figure a question? What you I heard you at one time?
Speaker 1: We're doing some stand up stand up in New York
Speaker 1: City for infant Okay, but this is this is two
Speaker 1: thousand or this is No. Nineteen. It was right in
Speaker 1: the year before I decided I probably should get married.
Speaker 1: In fact, my wife came to a couple of my shows. Okay,
Speaker 1: I was pretty crass. I was just becoming orthodox, and
Speaker 1: I was making light of well, I don't want to
Speaker 1: get into it. We could have fun with it, though,
Speaker 1: but I was making light of myself. That was sort
Speaker 1: of my routine. Okay, cool guy who's not that cool?
Speaker 1: Self depreciating. Okay, yeah, I prefer that. What do you
Speaker 1: prefer if you're gonna go down the rabbit hole of comedy?
Speaker 1: I don't you know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not opposed to stand up, but a
Speaker 2: lot of what we do is a little more kind
Speaker 2: of sketch oriented, you know, impressions.
Speaker 1: Kind of goofy wassus. Yes, it's stilly.
Speaker 2: Stop it's you know, I vibed a lot more with
Speaker 2: the style of stuff that Samhai does as opposed to,
Speaker 2: you know, as opposed to like a Bilberg kind of
Speaker 2: stand up. That's yes, I'm just not that kind of
Speaker 2: a a person.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's almost that's acting. I mean, the stage is
Speaker 1: different when you're on there, up there by yourself. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know what you mean. How about our friend Scooter
Speaker 1: Downey who did Hoax and the You know him pretty well, don't.
Speaker 1: He really loves you, man, he speaks highly of you. Yeah.
Speaker 2: We got to be good friends with him through well
Speaker 2: he eventually moved to the Tennessee area, but yeah, we
Speaker 2: spent multiple evenings and days with Scooter. He's the one
Speaker 2: that sort of got me on that last episode of
Speaker 2: The Tucker Show on Fox where we were covering Eat
Speaker 2: the Bugs and I was dressed up by kloles And
Speaker 2: that's the kind of stuff I like to do, Like
Speaker 2: I dress up as somebody and go, you know, there's
Speaker 2: something silly rather than just standalone stand up.
Speaker 1: But did you see our trailer we're doing Christianities? Yes, yes, uh.
Speaker 2: Scooter sent me that when he had when he had
Speaker 2: made the first rower.
Speaker 1: I feel like we're obviously sort of Christian heavy right now,
Speaker 1: I'm not Christian sorry, orthodox heavy. We've got a lot
Speaker 1: of insight, We've got a lot of invitations to some
Speaker 1: really cool guys. I think you would be great on there, man,
Speaker 1: But I got to how about a little beef. Let's
Speaker 1: do a little beef. Do you ever feel like there's
Speaker 1: a moment when you're losing your soul within the confines
Speaker 1: of a debate, not because of the words you're saying,
Speaker 1: just because of the nature of the thing itself. Do
Speaker 1: you feel like your soul sometimes ebbs away and you
Speaker 1: wish you could not ever do that again, and that
Speaker 1: maybe it's not worth it straw, you know, burnt up
Speaker 1: at the end, sort of like Aquinas talks about. Do
Speaker 1: you ever feel I think again?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, debate has its limits. Anybody who does a
Speaker 2: lot of debates will get tired of it. You'll get frustrated.
Speaker 2: Even especially if you're doing multiple four or five six
Speaker 2: hour online open forums, you're going to hear all the
Speaker 2: craziest stuff that you've ever heard. You know, people are
Speaker 2: going to go at you from all angles. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I think there have been definitely sometimes where I lost
Speaker 2: my patients and you know, got angry or something like that.
Speaker 2: But I would add that there's a lot more times
Speaker 2: where there was the demonstration of patients, which is by grace.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to say, oh, look at look at
Speaker 2: my good works, but I think those are way more
Speaker 2: in the minority versus the rest of the times that are.
Speaker 1: Not you know, in.
Speaker 2: Extreme examples of nasty exchanges. But you know, sometimes people
Speaker 2: that don't do debates are not involved in that kind
Speaker 2: of a exchange if you haven't done it for a
Speaker 2: long time. Like I can recognize when people are disingenuous
Speaker 2: most of the time pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: And also we have different styles. So when it's an open.
Speaker 2: Forum, the assumption is that you're you're not at the
Speaker 2: level of a formal debate opponent, right, So when we
Speaker 2: do formal debates, of which we've done many, if it's
Speaker 2: a very prominent person, there's going to be a moderator,
Speaker 2: there's time to exchange and responses, whereas open form is
Speaker 2: just kind of like any Joe Schmo. It would be
Speaker 2: like any jo walking into a dojo and saying, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm ready to fight, right, I mean, they're going to
Speaker 2: have to learn that you're violating you know, the rules
Speaker 2: of critical thinking, the laws of logic. That's a bad argument.
Speaker 2: So that's why there's interruptions and this kind of stuff
Speaker 2: at that level.
Speaker 1: And then the formal debates are a lot more kind of.
Speaker 2: Manicured and curated and you know controlled. I guess so,
Speaker 2: but yeah, and that's a long answer to your question.
Speaker 1: No, no, it is a vague question. Here's another way
Speaker 1: we do these dinners. So there's this thing called the
Speaker 1: timid and the time of takes people through this Georgian
Speaker 1: tradition from the Georgian Republic. It's called the effort of
Speaker 1: those Yeah, and it's becoming something like a refuge for worthodoxy,
Speaker 1: non and just secular people. They're like, I want to
Speaker 1: be at that table and I'm seeing something. I could
Speaker 1: go on and on about it. I'm seeing something quite beautiful.
Speaker 1: And what happens at the end of the night, though,
Speaker 1: is the Tamada has done a lot of talking and
Speaker 1: also present a lot of ideas that at a restaurant
Speaker 1: with a whole you don't know who's coming to your
Speaker 1: sit At these twenty seaters, you know, you get a
Speaker 1: lesbian couple who consider themselves married and you'll get like
Speaker 1: two Baptist guys and can't even like look at them,
Speaker 1: you know, like like do you get wacky people all
Speaker 1: sitting at the same table and the tamada's job is
Speaker 1: to unite them. But inevitably you wake up the next
Speaker 1: days are like four hour events. Oh and you have
Speaker 1: a tamada regret. It really has not never failed. And
Speaker 1: I've done hundreds sort of like you do a lot
Speaker 1: of debates. I do a lot of tables, but I
Speaker 1: inevitably have a tamadai regret where I'm like, h do
Speaker 1: you have that I think you must or not. I
Speaker 1: mean there have been exchanges.
Speaker 2: Where I regret the you know, where it went, or
Speaker 2: maybe if I said, you know, something insulting or something
Speaker 2: like that. And I get tired of doing debates because
Speaker 2: they're somewhat tedious and laborious. But I never have a
Speaker 2: problem with the art form itself or with the notion
Speaker 2: of rhetoric. I mean, yeah, we're at this era where
Speaker 2: people are uneducated. They don't know that it's a part
Speaker 2: of classical pedagogy to have this ability to have, you know,
Speaker 2: formal exchanges, and they don't even realize that if you
Speaker 2: go watch Oxford Union debates with people like you know,
Speaker 2: Hitchens or whoever. They'll include jokes and jabs.
Speaker 1: As part of the rhetoric.
Speaker 2: So, but if your arguments are all rhetoric in that hominems, well,
Speaker 2: that would show that you know, you don't have any
Speaker 2: actual arguments. It's all just hot air and insults. But
Speaker 2: the idea that you can't have any jabs or whatever
Speaker 2: is is just kind of weak. And we're in this
Speaker 2: idea of postmodernity is premised on there's no such thing
Speaker 2: as truth. There's just competing power narratives. So a lot
Speaker 2: of people already from the outset think that debates bad
Speaker 2: because there is no such thing as truth. So date
Speaker 2: have just just exercising your oppression over me.
Speaker 1: That's all that it is.
Speaker 2: It's just a power exchange. And so also people think
Speaker 2: that there's the debate is arguing. Those are different things,
Speaker 2: and the debate has rules, it has structure to it.
Speaker 2: So one of the things that we're trying to do
Speaker 2: is also explain and help people understand that diological, dialectical
Speaker 2: discourse of what debate is. I don't mean dialectics in
Speaker 2: the bad way. I just mean in the sense of sure,
Speaker 2: answer question, answer what Plato talked about? So so anyway,
Speaker 2: but yeah, but last last name acts seventeen, right, Paul
Speaker 2: goes into the synagogue and debates daily with the Jews.
Speaker 2: God said, come let us reason together at Isaiah. So
Speaker 2: you know, these things can't be inherent inherently wrong. It's
Speaker 2: just difficult to always do them perfectly. So you know,
Speaker 2: I waited in I didn't we met at your wedding whatever.
Speaker 1: And then my brother, you know, during COVID and thereafter
Speaker 1: he started to gain a large audience. And then you guys,
Speaker 1: I would just go to an Orthodox church to visit
Speaker 1: or something, and then inevitably, Father Peter J. Dyer somehow
Speaker 1: they were always the same idea and the same person,
Speaker 1: and I would just be having a coffee and then
Speaker 1: I'd be I didn't really get it, so I started,
Speaker 1: of course, I looked at his website and I waded
Speaker 1: in and said, okay, what's Jay doing? Because dude, everywhere
Speaker 1: I went there was this thing twenty twenty one and
Speaker 1: twenty two twenty three right in there. And what I
Speaker 1: started to realize is is people are soft, Like, how
Speaker 1: else do you said it? Just now I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: They're just this is an actual thing that's taking place.
Speaker 1: It's not just some guy screaming in somebody because of
Speaker 1: a post. That's not what's happening. There's rules and there's
Speaker 1: a way to be and then we all sort of
Speaker 1: gain from it or not or just turn it off.
Speaker 1: And I started to get frustrated with the notion that
Speaker 1: to be to be a Christian was to somehow just
Speaker 1: let everyone say whatever they wanted then hang up the phone.
Speaker 1: I don't really get that. I don't even get that
Speaker 1: as a concept in general, and so it wasn't what
Speaker 1: I thought it was. I just want you to know that,
Speaker 1: because I tend to be the empathetic version of my brother,
Speaker 1: like I tend to be on the love true spectrum
Speaker 1: of the fetal version, I'm the sentimentality guy. When I
Speaker 1: fall down, it's because I'm too sentimental. I think when
Speaker 1: my brother falls down, it's because his razor edge is
Speaker 1: real sharp, and you're like, dude, back off a little. So.
Speaker 1: But then when I saw what you guys were actually doing,
Speaker 1: I didn't. I didn't like the characterization of it all.
Speaker 1: I think it's changed now for you. Would you agree
Speaker 1: that it's changing in terms of how people see you
Speaker 1: in the orthosphere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I honestly, I haven't paid a lot of attention
Speaker 2: to it, to be honest with it, because I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, when we, like I said, we do a
Speaker 2: live event, we kind of get a cross section of
Speaker 2: the audience. I can look on YouTube and see, you know,
Speaker 2: my audience is ninety percent guys aged twenty to forty five, So.
Speaker 1: That's who I'm speaking to.
Speaker 2: And I think even back in you know, twenty eighteen,
Speaker 2: nineteen twenty, you know, I wasn't really thinking about what's
Speaker 2: my demographics? Who am I speaking to? But you know,
Speaker 2: when we go, when we do the live events, obviously
Speaker 2: a significant portion probably thirty, maybe even fifty percent in
Speaker 2: some cases are people who are young guys inquiring Orthodoxy
Speaker 2: or who have converted. Many of them, by the way,
Speaker 2: are married and have wives, so it's not just y,
Speaker 2: you know, eighteen year old in cell guys who are
Speaker 2: who are extremely risk or whatever. But I didn't even again,
Speaker 2: I guess I just didn't think about who my cross
Speaker 2: section audience was when I was talking about stuff back then,
Speaker 2: and you know, putting up videos, and I don't think
Speaker 2: you just don't think about where is this going to
Speaker 2: be and you know, five years, what will the size
Speaker 2: of the audience be then, how many people are going
Speaker 2: to be listening. You just kind of talk about stuff
Speaker 2: and respond to stuff and you just don't think about it.
Speaker 2: So you know, I just didn't have any plans of
Speaker 2: any of those.
Speaker 1: Well, you're brilliant at that stuff, at responding, talking and
Speaker 1: being present in the conversation. Like that's really clear. What's
Speaker 1: the hardest part about it all? Like what part it's
Speaker 1: difficult as you're you know, as a person online doing
Speaker 1: this work.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, obviously I'm sensitive to my own sins
Speaker 2: and my own failings and flaws and areas of lack
Speaker 2: So you know, I don't want my I what I
Speaker 2: talk about to be the face of orthodoxy, you.
Speaker 1: Know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And I never had any interest in being that, which
Speaker 2: is why I'm happy to see many clerics making content
Speaker 2: and uh, you know that's they're really the ones that
Speaker 2: should be should be that. It's not it's not to
Speaker 2: say you can't have laity doing that, but so that
Speaker 2: that's a difficulty. Obviously, there's difficulties that we all deal
Speaker 2: with within the church. We deal with difficult people, we
Speaker 2: deal with challenging people, difficult clergy relationships, you know, all
Speaker 2: kinds of difficulties are are tough in the world of
Speaker 2: Orthodoxy as well. I wouldn't be anywhere else, but you know,
Speaker 2: there's still difficulties in this world.
Speaker 1: But well it's from the outside it looks like you
Speaker 1: were led, meaning you're following something that's being you're invited into.
Speaker 1: I think it's Look, I always tell everybody you know this,
Speaker 1: You've said this. The hand can't judge the eye. But
Speaker 1: it's all part of the same. Everyone needs to calm down.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to understand each of ver. Now the
Speaker 1: question is your disposition, right, are you actually caring about
Speaker 1: these things? And do you care about Christ? And are
Speaker 1: you trying to live that like that that that that's
Speaker 1: all that When someone's trying to do that online, I'm like,
Speaker 1: right on, bro, Like, what's the problem?
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I think the difficulty also is balancing doing
Speaker 2: that without uh, you know, making that something that you're
Speaker 2: that's not a display, you know what I mean. You're
Speaker 2: not look at me for my you know, my online piety.
Speaker 2: And I think a lot of people fall into that
Speaker 2: where a lot of laity, you know, maybe they get
Speaker 2: interested in Orthodoxy, they convert and immediately they have a
Speaker 2: lot of zeal, which is good. But when you try
Speaker 2: to make that your online persona, and then you put
Speaker 2: up a PfP image of a saint and you're quoting
Speaker 2: the saints every day and this and that, which it's
Speaker 2: not that it's wrong to necessarily quote a saint, but
Speaker 2: that a lot of people do this performative online stuff
Speaker 2: and they post their prayers and they post how they're
Speaker 2: praying and all this.
Speaker 1: Kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: And I've always just found that to be in bad
Speaker 2: taste and usually in our experience, and we've dealt with
Speaker 2: these people like this for many many years, going back
Speaker 2: to twenty seventeen, sixteen, eight nine years now. I mean
Speaker 2: a lot of these people don't remain Orthodox very long.
Speaker 2: That happens really extreme positions, and so I just always
Speaker 2: felt that it was, you know, when Jesus says, don't
Speaker 2: go into the market and pray and try to get
Speaker 2: everybody seeing you. So you know, that's why a lot
Speaker 2: of my online content, I might talk about orthodox stuff,
Speaker 2: or I might be on somebody's podcasts, but you don't
Speaker 2: see me doing a lot of that posting wise, because
Speaker 2: it's just you know, it's like I remember talking to
Speaker 2: your brother some of years back, and he was kind
Speaker 2: of making the point like, you know, you're probably out
Speaker 2: a fork in the road.
Speaker 1: You're going to have to choose do you want to
Speaker 1: go in.
Speaker 2: A holy, completely Orthodox direction and you know, right orthodox
Speaker 2: theology books and not deal with culture, or do you
Speaker 2: want to focus more on culture? And so I think
Speaker 2: one of my friends put it that, you know, some
Speaker 2: people are Orthodox concrete content creators who work in media,
Speaker 2: and some people are you know, just Orthodox media. And
Speaker 2: I felt like, you know, I didn't want to give
Speaker 2: up all the avenues and things that I was interested in,
Speaker 2: the comedy, the Hollywood stuff, you know, the live events
Speaker 2: and all that.
Speaker 1: I enjoy doing that.
Speaker 2: So I'd rather be an Orthodox person who works in media,
Speaker 2: if that makes sense.
Speaker 1: In fact, the Internet it doesn't allow. What's the best
Speaker 1: way for me to say this?
Speaker 2: Religious stuff is very difficult via the Internet because it's abstracted,
Speaker 2: divorced from you know, the here and the now, that
Speaker 2: the physical the incarnational, and that that causes problems.
Speaker 1: Guys. One quick break. There's a store. It's an eBay store.
Speaker 1: It's the First Things Foundation Ebayed store by Nikola. Nikola
Speaker 1: is my daughter. Nepotism alert. She's helping with First Things.
Speaker 1: Is one of our beloved volunteers running the First Things
Speaker 1: Foundation eBay store. You contact her, send her a picture
Speaker 1: of the thing you want to sell. She takes does
Speaker 1: all the work to get that thing sold and then says, hey,
Speaker 1: you send it. You send it. You donate all of
Speaker 1: that cash to First Things. So your garage is stuffed
Speaker 1: with stuff. Unstuff it, send it to people who want
Speaker 1: to buy it, and then First Things gets a donation.
Speaker 1: This is for people who say they don't have cash.
Speaker 1: But if you're an American, I know you've got stuff.
Speaker 1: Sell it for more. Check the link in the pod
Speaker 1: notes back to the show.
Speaker 2: A lot of Orthodox you know priests have not perhaps
Speaker 2: spent a lot of time in Protestantism or Calvinism or
Speaker 2: Orthodox I mean, or or Catholicism. You know, I've been
Speaker 2: in those worlds, those realms. I live lived those worlds
Speaker 2: in realms, so you know I can answer those kinds
Speaker 2: of questions I think pretty proficiently. So in that regard,
Speaker 2: it's helpful to people. But we always say and we've
Speaker 2: been you know, we have clergy on our discord that
Speaker 2: I've been saying for years, this is not catechisis. This
Speaker 2: is answering your questions. And so apologetics is not orthodoxy.
Speaker 2: It's just like a sign that points you in the direction.
Speaker 2: And that's that's really all the internet can do it,
Speaker 2: can't you really have to go and actually be in bold.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's one of the things we're
Speaker 1: trying to do with first things is hey, okay, great job,
Speaker 1: well done, well said. And also you want to go
Speaker 1: work with Africans in a really cool setting that will
Speaker 1: actually teach you a lot about who you are because
Speaker 1: you live in a mud hut. Let's go. But most
Speaker 1: people don't want to go down that road. But it's
Speaker 1: a real deep embodiment. And we ended up throwing dinners
Speaker 1: for the same reason, because the Georgians taught us how
Speaker 1: to be actually present in a way where you can
Speaker 1: talk about hard at the high things we call them
Speaker 1: the high things at the table, you know, the universal
Speaker 1: themes by also but also you can laugh and just
Speaker 1: toast to humor. You know, there's not a few dirty
Speaker 1: words now. And then the whole thing is is, in
Speaker 1: other words, you're really experienced the entirety of the cosmos,
Speaker 1: like at a table, because the table was a representation
Speaker 1: of that. And so yeah, we're all gonna do it anyway, right, Jay,
Speaker 1: We're gonna embody something like you're only gonna do this
Speaker 1: thing for so long where you talk to people on
Speaker 1: the interwebs, you're gonna have a life outside of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's got to look like something.
Speaker 2: Well, it's just like you know, think to stand end up,
Speaker 2: you know, and I've done stand up before, but like that,
Speaker 2: you can't replace uh, the you know, interaction that you
Speaker 2: have in a club with the audience, if you're doing
Speaker 2: crowd work and you're making fun of people in the
Speaker 2: audience and joking that, you can't replace that with something
Speaker 2: you know online.
Speaker 1: It's just it's just.
Speaker 2: An irreplaceable kind of existential you know, encounter. And the
Speaker 2: same goes for you know, what you're talking about with
Speaker 2: what the toasts that you do, and you know, it's
Speaker 2: the same for the liturgy and going and spending time with.
Speaker 1: The guys at your church. Yes, so you know internet stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and thank god, thank god, I'm gonna I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask you some questions. But here's the thing, just as
Speaker 1: I was about to ask you. You gotta bear with
Speaker 1: me because I'm going to go find it on my
Speaker 1: on my phone. What's a boomer? Because I can tell
Speaker 1: when I'm online with my friends who are much younger
Speaker 1: I do with all these young guys, right, it's bad
Speaker 1: to be a boo boomer, it seems. How would you
Speaker 1: define boomer or norm me? Will you just do the
Speaker 1: Jay Dyer definition of those things? Well, you're I can.
Speaker 2: I can already look at you and see your gen
Speaker 2: X right so racked.
Speaker 1: You can.
Speaker 2: Usually determine that via the degree of the gray. So
Speaker 2: if you've got like this Spaltan pepper, that's like gen
Speaker 2: X for sure. But I'm in a unique position being
Speaker 2: elder millennial right on the cusp of gen X and millennial,
Speaker 2: so I can kind of bridge that world.
Speaker 1: But the joke of.
Speaker 2: You know, boomers and kind of being lampooned began probably
Speaker 2: fifteen years ago on the Internet. I like to take
Speaker 2: credit for it because I wrote an essay back then
Speaker 2: that was just kind of a satirical thing that went
Speaker 2: mini viral back then about it. I can't prove that
Speaker 2: I literally created the boomer meme, but I wrote some
Speaker 2: essays making fun of boomers at the time, and just
Speaker 2: hostilly kind of that generation was from certain perspective, because
Speaker 2: it doesn't mean that I hate boomers, it was just
Speaker 2: intended to be a satirical, you know for sure kind
Speaker 2: of critique, and it's a critique of the attitude of
Speaker 2: you know, just sort of high rates of divorce, you know,
Speaker 2: preferring and bragging about monetary gain for a one k
Speaker 2: is over you know, the children over inheritance, these kinds
Speaker 2: of things, blowing the money and not having an inheritance
Speaker 2: for the children.
Speaker 1: You know, boomerisms like automatic deference to.
Speaker 2: Worshiping the nation of Israel from like a Christian Zionis perspective.
Speaker 1: Boomerisms like.
Speaker 2: You know, gambling casinos, you know that kind of just
Speaker 2: just the things that that generation were really sort of
Speaker 2: wrapped up in sports, idolization and worshiping of sports in
Speaker 2: a really naive attitude towards politics that you know, it's
Speaker 2: GOP versus Democrats. Not understanding uniparty.
Speaker 1: We'll get our guy in and it'll be better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, not understanding you know, anything to do
Speaker 2: with conspiracy stuff or you know, deeper geopolitical issues. You know,
Speaker 2: those are all boomerisms, and then it kind of became
Speaker 2: its own a lot as you know, you know, memes
Speaker 2: kind of take on a life of their own, and
Speaker 2: so you kind of get the meme growing and becoming
Speaker 2: not just an age group, but people having the attitude.
Speaker 1: Of a boomer.
Speaker 2: So you could be a gen X person who if
Speaker 2: you're repeating very kind of normy attitudes of politics, you know,
Speaker 2: you might be called a boomer. Yeah, so it kind
Speaker 2: of just took on a life of its own, as.
Speaker 1: Many memes do.
Speaker 2: But that's what it's intended to characterize, and I've never
Speaker 2: ceased characterizing it and.
Speaker 1: Kind of con sing with that joke.
Speaker 2: Some people gotten offended by it, but some of my closest,
Speaker 2: you know, best sorts of people. My my godfather is
Speaker 2: a boomer. Jim Jotras is a boomer. So not all
Speaker 2: boomers are bad. It's just it's also part of the
Speaker 2: attitude of you know this from stand up you know,
Speaker 2: back in the day, you know, in this in in
Speaker 2: the comedy world, you could make fun of anything and anybody,
Speaker 2: and it was just kind of understood that, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, white people make fun.
Speaker 1: Of black people.
Speaker 2: Black black comedians make fun of white people all the time,
Speaker 2: and uh, you know it would just so my attitude
Speaker 2: towards that was always just kind of the same audience
Speaker 2: as like a comedy club, just kind of making jokes
Speaker 2: about generations. And by the way, I've always thought boomer
Speaker 2: jokes about millennials are funny because our our age group
Speaker 2: has its flaws and its problems, and they're all pretty funny.
Speaker 2: You know, being lazy, not wanting to work, Yeah, all funny.
Speaker 2: So I think that the generation should laugh each other
Speaker 2: and not get into this hyper politicized attitude. But as
Speaker 2: you know, like after I don't know, it seems like
Speaker 2: after the period of Bruce Jenner being Woman of the Year,
Speaker 2: all of this stuff got hyper moralized and hyper politicized
Speaker 2: to where everyone's jokes now became cancelation offenses, to where
Speaker 2: anything people are looking for a way to say, oh,
Speaker 2: he made this joke, he needs to be canceled.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's what you've done really well, is
Speaker 1: describing really that's the I would call it like something
Speaker 1: like the last eight, nine, ten years. I think your
Speaker 1: stuff does a really good job of saying I'm going
Speaker 1: to use this word boomer to demonstrate something like naivete
Speaker 1: and it's really helpful to me. I use the term
Speaker 1: light people. So coming up as an older guy, a
Speaker 1: little bit older, I'm fifty eight, this idea, if I
Speaker 1: see one more older person tell me about their lawn,
Speaker 1: I can't do it.
Speaker 2: In that's the perfect Boomers and lawns. That was actually
Speaker 2: part of the original boomer mean, was the lawn?
Speaker 1: Oh? Was it so there? It is? But I had this,
Speaker 1: you know, in the eighties, and I'd be like I
Speaker 1: had come back from Africa a peace corps. I'm like,
Speaker 1: there's something wrong with this lawn fixation. And then it
Speaker 1: turned into like the people I know in Europe and
Speaker 1: other places in the old World, they don't have lawns.
Speaker 1: That's not really a concept. And I started to realize
Speaker 1: this was about this wasn't about lawns. This of course,
Speaker 1: is about outward facing wealth. This is yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: kind of a weird competition within the neighborhood of and
Speaker 1: all that. All that and all that. Then you start
Speaker 1: to realize there's actually reality to it. And then of
Speaker 1: course what I think is really good that's going on,
Speaker 1: and I saw that you've been reading is something like
Speaker 1: the government is also like the lawn. It's the same
Speaker 1: naivete is going on with the lawn will show people
Speaker 1: that I'm great and the government's playing this game too,
Speaker 1: where like, don't look at this, actually just look at
Speaker 1: the law and I've created for you to understand. And
Speaker 1: so now you're reading these documents, just tell me because
Speaker 1: I'm not reading them. But I saw the last couple
Speaker 1: of days you're digging down into sort of the new
Speaker 1: files that are being let out. What's going to happen
Speaker 1: with these files? Are they going to become quote mainstream?
Speaker 1: Are people going to be able to finally say that
Speaker 1: what's a conspiracy theories thought of as a conspiracy theory
Speaker 1: is just actually a good theory. Because I'm troubled by this, well,
Speaker 1: you know, to the.
Speaker 2: To be fair to the boomers, I think that that
Speaker 2: generation was subjected to a lot of really intense social
Speaker 2: engineering and brainwashing from the establishment, and I think that
Speaker 2: it's just sort of the there's just limitations in certain
Speaker 2: generations as to how much that generation is able to
Speaker 2: decode and understand from younger generations. And so for example,
Speaker 2: you know, you could you can be an eighteen year old,
Speaker 2: fifteen year old on the internet and you immediately you
Speaker 2: have more access within five minutes to what people who
Speaker 2: were CIA directors had under Carter. So that's how crazy
Speaker 2: the information the speed of you know, immediacy doesn't mean
Speaker 2: it's all right, there's a lot of disinformation, but still, like,
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of people in that generation
Speaker 2: just just can't really fathom or function with that level
Speaker 2: of revolutionary information feed Does that make sense, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 2: And so in other words, you know, you can be
Speaker 2: eighteen and understand false flags seventeen, and you know, you've
Speaker 2: got people who are baby boomers who don't even and
Speaker 2: still don't understand what that is and.
Speaker 1: Still can't grapple with that.
Speaker 2: And so I think with the JFK stuff, even though
Speaker 2: it's kind of an you know, JFK and UFOs, that
Speaker 2: was like the only two quote conspiracies that the baby
Speaker 2: boomer generation was able to entertain, or you know, Cold
Speaker 2: War communism as a perhaps a conspiracy theory they entertained,
Speaker 2: But really understanding the way the world works is just
Speaker 2: a lot easier for people to decipher now because of
Speaker 2: the prevalence of information, and you know, just this is
Speaker 2: just yet another trove of you know, admissions, I guess,
Speaker 2: but I don't know that it's going to affect that
Speaker 2: generation anymore than any of the other rights.
Speaker 1: That's I think that's brilliant that generation and mind to
Speaker 1: an extent. It's going to be hard to unpack that
Speaker 1: stuff unless you've had some really wild experiences. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: like you were talking about on your feed, lemurs were
Speaker 1: being trained to use matches, lights, fire, Well, they were
Speaker 1: dosing dolphins with LSD.
Speaker 2: They were, you know, experimenting with animals. Jahlly and West
Speaker 2: used to give LSD to elephants as part of the
Speaker 2: N culture experiments. So they were doing all kinds of
Speaker 2: crazy stuff. That doesn't mean it res alt successful or profitable,
Speaker 2: but I mean, yeah, they were doing all kinds of stuff.
Speaker 1: But most people can't hear lemurs with matches and then
Speaker 1: hear the next sentence you say, they bail out of
Speaker 1: the whole idea at that point. But I don't think.
Speaker 1: I think leaners with matches is going to become more
Speaker 1: and more normal, Like I think the crazy stuff's going
Speaker 1: to become real stuff. I've always said this, Jay, tell
Speaker 1: me what you think, and then I'll give you this quiz,
Speaker 1: because I think the guys that I know, really want
Speaker 1: you to take it. It's fun. It's fun. It's not
Speaker 1: don't worry, it's fun. But I think this tell me
Speaker 1: what you think. There's no such thing as a conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1: There's just theories that lean toward good and true and
Speaker 1: theories that lean toward bad and wrong. Like I just
Speaker 1: think everyone has a theory, and then the question is
Speaker 1: is tell me, okay, now tell me about it, and
Speaker 1: pretty soon you'll find out that that's pretty dumb. I
Speaker 1: don't know what a conspiracy theory is. I don't know
Speaker 1: what they're talking about.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a weaponized term from the JFK era. It's
Speaker 2: a CIA term that they explicitly mentioned would be a
Speaker 2: good way to discredit people that question the findings or
Speaker 2: the assessment of the warrant commissions. So the term itself
Speaker 2: was loaded and weighted to scandalize or to demonize anybody
Speaker 2: great questions about the government.
Speaker 1: But here we are.
Speaker 2: The declassification of the documents pretty much vindicates the so
Speaker 2: called conspiracy theorists. When I was back in the undergrad
Speaker 2: or semi grad school, I realize that a lot of
Speaker 2: what we're talking about is really just espionage theory because
Speaker 2: espionage is real.
Speaker 1: Everybody knows that goes on.
Speaker 2: We all have heard since twenty sixteen endless nonsense from
Speaker 2: the Establishment that Donald Trump was a secret agent of
Speaker 2: Putin and a Russian operative, all of which has been
Speaker 2: dealt and discredited. So the establishment itself engages in conspiracy
Speaker 2: theorism when it's amenable to their perspective. So yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: that's that's really what it is. And a lot of
Speaker 2: the focus from my side of stuff geopolitically the last
Speaker 2: early years has been about espionage stuff because I inadvertently
Speaker 2: gotten interested in that through studying Hollywood and studying the
Speaker 2: history of people like Ian Fleming and their life story
Speaker 2: and you know, his role and real operations that he
Speaker 2: put into, you know, Bond stories. So if you think
Speaker 2: about it in that way, And I always say this
Speaker 2: because you know, every boomer I know loves war documentaries
Speaker 2: and war stories, and they love World War Two and
Speaker 2: Normandy and d Day, and they love hearing about the
Speaker 2: Civil War and read this and I'm like, well, not
Speaker 2: a much of conspiracy theorizing and espionage by much of
Speaker 2: the operatives and deception and the war and a mascale.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, but don't exist no more. I was doing.
Speaker 2: Well, what you mean does governments are still doing this
Speaker 2: now what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: So Sam, like, you don't love America that's your problem. Well,
Speaker 1: I don't love.
Speaker 2: I mean, look at what dose is uncovered, right, I
Speaker 2: mean massive amounts of corruption, money laundering with just one
Speaker 2: cut out USA I D. I mean there's many more.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, they're leaning hard on USA D. Although
Speaker 1: I did a pod where I talk about I hope
Speaker 1: people go watch it where I've been on USAID contracts
Speaker 1: in various places overseas when I was doing this work,
Speaker 1: and I didn't see super nefarious stuff, but I saw
Speaker 1: a lot of really politically motivated, dumb stuff just like
Speaker 1: they're talking about. And it's real. I've said it for
Speaker 1: twenty five years doing this work. But USAID, you know whatever.
Speaker 1: By the way, it was not by luck that they
Speaker 1: came up with United States Aid and it's got absolutely
Speaker 1: nothing to do with that, so that itself is a
Speaker 1: move right.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, look, you know, tens of millions of
Speaker 2: dollars given to in one case, the most liberal Lutheran organizations,
Speaker 2: the ones that push skills, women, bishops, this kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: I mean, I can keep going on this subject. But
Speaker 2: like you know, you go into the Cold War stuff.
Speaker 1: This is one of the.
Speaker 2: Ways in which the Cia went and made alliances with
Speaker 2: the Papacy during the Cold War, under the guise of
Speaker 2: finding the Soviets, well, we gotta have these alliances or
Speaker 2: else we can't win. But the problem is that when
Speaker 2: you come out of the Cold War, you're now tied
Speaker 2: at the hip to these new masters, right, and they're
Speaker 2: going to be telling you, you know, we'd like you
Speaker 2: to go along with Davos, We'd like you to go
Speaker 2: along with worldlock Economic Forum, we'd like you to go
Speaker 2: along with UNESCO, all of which are horrible institutions. And
Speaker 2: that's kind of where you see from Francis in the
Speaker 2: Vatican to you know, superstructure going. So that's the downside
Speaker 2: of it is that I understand the logic of the
Speaker 2: Cold War, but you know, the state is always going
Speaker 2: to have a desire to influence and change the Church.
Speaker 2: They've always tried to do that, back to the Aryan emperors,
Speaker 2: to Iconoclass emperors, you know, Charlemagne. You know, you've got
Speaker 2: these people in the state who want to create a
Speaker 2: state church, and that's the Soviets. Did the same thing,
Speaker 2: so you know, it's just church really, it's not really
Speaker 2: conspiracy theory.
Speaker 1: That's church history. Well, I think Paul kings North he
Speaker 1: recently did that talk essentially to Catholics at first things
Speaker 1: the magazine, and he kind of was saying Christianity is
Speaker 1: martyr Martyrham is not civilization building. In the end, you'll
Speaker 1: build your civilization through the blood of the martyrs. It's
Speaker 1: not a plan.
Speaker 3: That you're going to fulfill. And you know you just
Speaker 3: need one more big billionaire. It's not going to work
Speaker 3: right now, is what you do? Is that the same
Speaker 3: as the magazine? Are those connected?
Speaker 1: No? Unfortunately, when Ryan and I the founder eight years ago,
Speaker 1: came up with our name, we knew about the magazine,
Speaker 1: but I just thought I would just overcome the magazine.
Speaker 1: But it didn't work like that. It's not gonna But
Speaker 1: on some level, no, we're not connected at all. So
Speaker 1: on some level, there is no level on which we're connected.
Speaker 1: But although I'll go talk want to maybe maybe this
Speaker 1: will get them to let me go talk it first
Speaker 1: sex all right, you ready for this. It's called the
Speaker 1: Lito meter. I'll record your number and then at the
Speaker 1: end you're going to have a number, and the number,
Speaker 1: like I said, it would be tattooed on your soul.
Speaker 1: And I can't help you at that point. You just
Speaker 1: have to work with it. Okay, Well, what does this
Speaker 1: stand for? The LTO meter is a test that tells
Speaker 1: you how new world, how enlightened you are, as per
Speaker 1: the enlightenment itself. And I'm assuming that's a bad thing
Speaker 1: about Well, it could be good, it could be bad.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's it's just as you would like
Speaker 1: to know, Jay, I have a number. I'll share it
Speaker 1: with you after I'm done, and it changed my life
Speaker 1: or wherever. Here's your you're your answer. It's five questions
Speaker 1: and then we'll get a number for each and then
Speaker 1: i'll tell you the categories and then i'll reveal who
Speaker 1: you are and so you can continue your life. When
Speaker 1: you die, Jay, you won't really die all the way.
Speaker 1: It's more like you'll be asleep waiting for a next
Speaker 1: world of some sort. So that's the question. I'll read
Speaker 1: it again. You're going to answer three strongly agree, two
Speaker 1: I agree with that, one disagree, or zero strongly disagree,
Speaker 1: zero I strongly disagree, three I strongly agree, and one
Speaker 1: or two are sort of in the middle, and so
Speaker 1: you could tell scientific this is. We ran this through. Mit,
Speaker 1: they're cool with it. We're ready to roll. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to read the question again and you give me
Speaker 1: a number. Sound good? Okay, Look, I can tell it's
Speaker 1: hurting your brain right now because it's it's complicated. Ready, yep, Okay,
Speaker 1: don't be nervous when you die, Ja, You won't really
Speaker 1: die all the way. It's more like you're asleep or something,
Speaker 1: waiting for a next world of some sort. To one, zero,
Speaker 1: A one because that's ambiguous. The question is phrased ambiguously
Speaker 1: because that could suggest soul sleep, which is a hare sit,
Speaker 1: but it also could suggest continuing on and the soul
Speaker 1: after death. In terms of toll houses, it could suggest
Speaker 1: different things. So I'm gonna say I'm attempted with zero,
Speaker 1: but I'm gonna say one good one. You generally disagree,
Speaker 1: and also you have exhibited problems with the question itself
Speaker 1: with the test makers. I like that. That's a very
Speaker 1: very new world of view. Here's the second question. Don't
Speaker 1: question the test makers, Jay, come on, buddy, all right.
Speaker 1: Two the best way for me for you or I'll
Speaker 1: read it in the first person. The best way for
Speaker 1: me to know myself is to ask someone else about me.
Speaker 1: So the best way for you, Jaya, to know yourself
Speaker 1: is to ask someone else about yourself. Three strongly agree,
Speaker 1: zero strong disagree. One in two in the middle, I would.
Speaker 2: Say three because that aligns even with Plato's apology, helenic
Speaker 2: was done an alignance with the orthodox ethos of having
Speaker 2: a spiritual father to bounce your assessments off of, so
Speaker 2: you don't just rely on yourself.
Speaker 1: I like that, So not as much of an issue
Speaker 1: with the question that time. You were happy with that question. Okay,
Speaker 1: this is a big deal for me to test this
Speaker 1: against you, a sharp minded gentleman like yourself. Number three,
Speaker 1: we're almost done well closer when again, I'll read it
Speaker 1: in a second party, when you carry a picture around
Speaker 1: someone that you love, Jay, maybe your wife, and it's
Speaker 1: let's say it's in your wallet or something, and that
Speaker 1: carrying around of that picture is actually kind of carrying
Speaker 1: that person around with you. It's they're there in some way,
Speaker 1: they're actually close to you when you carry that picture around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I strongly agree with that. That's our principle behind iconography.
Speaker 1: See, guys, when I give this to non. When it's
Speaker 1: the secular people, as we do on the show, they
Speaker 1: don't do those cool little insights like you do. They
Speaker 1: mostly go, what is this about? Here's number four. Respect
Speaker 1: isn't earned. Respect is owed by me to others, me
Speaker 1: j diar to to others. Yes, correct, strongly agree is three.
Speaker 1: Two is agree, One is disagree, zero is strongly disagree.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have to say this is an ambiguous one
Speaker 2: because in some cases it just depends on what we
Speaker 2: mean by respect. I mean, I'm not For example, if
Speaker 2: someone breaks into my house, you know they're trying.
Speaker 1: To take my wife, they do not.
Speaker 2: They facto immediately deserve respect. If I'm talking to them
Speaker 2: the person in a conversation, they probably de facto deserve respect.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to say agree, I don't know.
Speaker 2: I strongly agree.
Speaker 1: Two. I like what you're doing there. Well, this is
Speaker 1: a philosopher's thing.
Speaker 2: They look for the ambiguities and the questions because the
Speaker 2: ambiguities might suggest a trap in a debate or something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's nice. I won't give this away except for
Speaker 1: to give it away for a second. When people are
Speaker 1: really interested in the what's the right word for it,
Speaker 1: the mechanics of the question or as you're saying the ambiguities,
Speaker 1: they tend to score lower. By lower here, I mean
Speaker 1: their number is smaller because they're doing a type of
Speaker 1: philosophical investigation, which we'll get to in a second number five.
Speaker 1: Last question, you fully hope and expect to take care
Speaker 1: of your parents and take them in as they get older,
Speaker 1: and to take care of them when they get older
Speaker 1: and infirmed. Or if your parents aren't with you now,
Speaker 1: then you fully expect your kids to take you in
Speaker 1: when you get older and infirmed, and to live with you,
Speaker 1: preferably in the same house that vision of life. Do
Speaker 1: you strongly agree, agree, disagree, strongly disagree.
Speaker 2: Agree, And the reason I wouldn't say strongly agree is
Speaker 2: that not in every situation does that person want to
Speaker 2: live with you. For example, my dad has illnesses, he
Speaker 2: doesn't want to live with me, but we do participate
Speaker 2: in helping him. So his answer on that would be
Speaker 2: like a strongly disagree in terms of his own person
Speaker 2: living with you, No.
Speaker 1: He would not.
Speaker 2: He's a very independent minded military per He does not
Speaker 2: want to live with me or my brother. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: we do help him out and I think that absolutely,
Speaker 2: you have a biblical duty to help your family members.
Speaker 1: There they become old. There it is, here's your We
Speaker 1: added it all up. It happened, you know with Ai.
Speaker 1: We did it and added it up while you were talking. Right.
Speaker 1: Then your score is eleven. So I'm going to just
Speaker 1: grab this here as we tend to do on this show,
Speaker 1: and you can see I don't know if you can
Speaker 1: see it, but there's an actual You can go to
Speaker 1: the website, Jay, and I can actually see that there
Speaker 1: is a lighter, major proven science money back guarantee. Now
Speaker 1: I'm going to read from it. You can find this
Speaker 1: on the website. I'm going to read what you're not.
Speaker 1: First of all, at eleven, you are not the high nooner.
Speaker 1: I can I share with you what you're not. If
Speaker 1: you had scored between a two and a four, then
Speaker 1: you would have been you know well, as it says here,
Speaker 1: the shining down like a halo from a perfectly engineered drone.
Speaker 1: Science illuminates your every move, Jay, But you're not this.
Speaker 1: You're not the high nooner. You probably know exactly how
Speaker 1: the drone works. You love manuals, You trust your brain
Speaker 1: more than your mother. This is not you. You're not this person.
Speaker 1: You're silly. So I'm not Voltaire. I mean correct, you're
Speaker 1: not Voltaire. It's been proven. Okay, you're not. Also the
Speaker 1: shining city dweller on the hill. You're not this person, Jay,
Speaker 1: You're you. You have lots of hope for the modern
Speaker 1: world because you trust spreadsheets and Reddit. That's not you.
Speaker 1: If people would just follow a reason, we could have
Speaker 1: all we could all have more stuff. That's not you.
Speaker 1: That's not you. You think Columbus was heavy handed, but
Speaker 1: also if you think about it for a minute, he
Speaker 1: was kind of a badass. That's not you. That's not you,
Speaker 1: j You are, in fact a villager. You scored an eleven,
Speaker 1: so you're a We call you a cuspy villager. And
Speaker 1: here's where you are, Jay, And I want you to
Speaker 1: take this. I'm you're happy to. I'll send you the
Speaker 1: actual words if you'd like, you can. I can send
Speaker 1: you a plaque if you want one. Uh, there's there's
Speaker 1: a good chance, Jay, that you hate mals. No one
Speaker 1: in your family likes your Spotify collection, mostly because it
Speaker 1: includes discordant chants from places no one can identify. You
Speaker 1: always eat the one menu item that makes people nervous.
Speaker 1: You obey pedestrian traffic lights incessantly. Jay. You do that
Speaker 1: and you're told you look and act just like your
Speaker 1: aging father. But somehow that's a compliment. That's you, Jay.
Speaker 1: Outhouses make you happy. Ladies and gentlemen. We've identified j
Speaker 1: and now you can go out into the world Jay,
Speaker 1: and you know who you are? Okay.
Speaker 2: Now, the irony of this test is that if you're
Speaker 2: running it through algorithms and mit, it's completely modern.
Speaker 1: Correct. That's a little ironic. I mean we're even taking tests.
Speaker 2: You have an AI test that will tell you how
Speaker 2: trad and vase you are.
Speaker 1: Okay, come on, man, how else are we going to
Speaker 1: get along in this world? I just feel better. I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of people were wondering where you
Speaker 1: You know who you were? Jay, and now we know? Uh,
Speaker 1: will you come back sometime and keep doing what you're doing?
Speaker 2: And there are any time about It was a great,
Speaker 2: great podcast, a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Thank you man, that's Jay Barred. Guys. Hey, what's what's up?
Speaker 1: What's going on with you? Anything you want to share
Speaker 1: before we hang up? What's going on with you out there?
Speaker 1: Just usual stuff? On YouTube?
Speaker 2: You can find me live streaming regularly, everything from geopolitics
Speaker 2: to film analysis, to open debates to even we've been
Speaker 2: doing more literary analysis lately. In the last six eight months.
Speaker 2: We've done a lot of books Joseph Conrad, We've done
Speaker 2: William Golding. Yeah, we've we've expanded.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So that's there, and you can find me on all
Speaker 2: the social media outlets under my name.
Speaker 1: Are you far from us at the restaurant? Now? I
Speaker 1: were in Greenville? Can you come to the restaurant sometimes
Speaker 1: if you ever, if you're ever in the South? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean we'll invite you.
Speaker 2: We're between you know, Florida, Tennessee, so okay, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I'd love to do that. And then I got my
Speaker 2: third book, Ester Collegwood three. I just completed that a
Speaker 2: few weeks ago, so that'll be available in the next
Speaker 2: couple of months. Beautiful, So looking forward to to getting
Speaker 2: that out there.
Speaker 1: It was a lot.
Speaker 2: It was a little a little challenging because I hadn't
Speaker 2: been in the mode of writing. I've been doing so
Speaker 2: many videos and podcasts that, you know, going back to writing,
Speaker 2: if you haven't been heavy on that for five or
Speaker 2: six years, it's kind of a kind of get back
Speaker 2: in the mindset of writing, so and then I write
Speaker 2: for the Sam Hide Show, so you can find me there.
Speaker 2: I think the episode four will be coming out pretty soon,
Speaker 2: so that's usually on all the social media outlets as well.
Speaker 1: Are you writing for Sam Hid right on? That's nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I couldn't believe it.
Speaker 2: But that first episode, which I contributed a decent amount
Speaker 2: to a viral, So we got about twenty million views
Speaker 2: on that first one between between Twitter and YouTube, and
Speaker 2: I loved it.
Speaker 1: It was crazy. I loved it all right, I'll share,
Speaker 1: we'll link and you know, and maybe I'll send you
Speaker 1: some of our stuff every now and then and hopefully
Speaker 1: it makes it into your world, but mostly pray for us. Okay.
Speaker 2: Likewise, yeah, you should come on my podcast sometimes too.
Speaker 2: We have a good conversation about you and your past.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you can message me anytime, and you got
Speaker 2: my number and you let's stay in touch with left link.
Speaker 1: There's a cool connection with the film we can make
Speaker 1: and we could talk about that forever and ever.
Speaker 2: Oh, the Christianity film. I got one question before I go,
Speaker 2: is that is that separate from where Tucker was talking
Speaker 2: about the experience of the demonic or.
Speaker 1: Thanks you're asking. So that is in the film, and
Speaker 1: that's a longer We spent all day talking to him.
Speaker 1: That's a there's a much longer piece to that where
Speaker 1: we sit and interview him about Christianities. What does a
Speaker 1: Christian how does it all work? That was a teaser
Speaker 1: so that we could continue the fundraising, which is going
Speaker 1: very well. So we're working on that. Okay, yeah, gotcha.
Speaker 1: Why don't you come on and we'll talk.
Speaker 2: Maybe I'll get Scooter come on too with you and
Speaker 2: we'll talk about we can talk about that film.
Speaker 1: Oh, why don't we that's a that's a no brainer.
Speaker 1: So I'll hit you, I'll hit you up on the
Speaker 1: phone and then we'll just spoke of time. Scooter would
Speaker 1: love that. Man. Yeah, okay, thank you God bless men.
Speaker 1: Take care. Likewise, we'll see you too, guys. That's it.
Speaker 1: That's it. Jay is a villager. You know, we've gotten
Speaker 1: away from the ladder Meter and now we're back in it.
Speaker 1: I think we're going to give it to everybody. By
Speaker 1: the way, what was it? Part of Jay's lighter Meter
Speaker 1: test is that he was critiquing the test itself and
Speaker 1: then at the end he saw the actual problem with it.
Speaker 1: See this is what happens when you bring a debater,
Speaker 1: guy on, we can bring a When you bring a mind,
Speaker 1: it's ready to clap trap stuff. What happens is the
Speaker 1: clap trap your test and turning it into a ludicris
Speaker 1: a ludicrous test because obviously there's a lighter media test
Speaker 1: is a light person test, the Lightenment test to try
Speaker 1: to test and see how and lighten draw. If you
Speaker 1: go to www dot first things dot org you can
Speaker 1: find the test. It's in it's under discover somewhere Andrew
Speaker 1: link it. If you take the test. When you're done,
Speaker 1: then what will happen is you'll be like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is who I am, and then you don't have to
Speaker 1: do anything else. Maybe confession. It's not a bad idea,
Speaker 1: but I mean, you can't really just skip out of
Speaker 1: all the things the church asks you, or if you're not,
Speaker 1: if you're not a religious person listening to this, you
Speaker 1: can't just skip out of life because you have the
Speaker 1: number now. But what you can do is sleep profoundly well.
Speaker 1: Once you have your number, you sleep like a baby.
Speaker 1: You just sleep, you just just like I'm sleeping, because
Speaker 1: it will be so wonderful to know who you are,
Speaker 1: you won't have anxiety. Goodbye, doing in next time. Who
Speaker 1: loves you on heavy things lightly,