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Speaker 1: But only in I think only in Divinity School are

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they least approaching the text by saying, I'm not trying

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to destroy it. I need to love it, and I

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don't know how to love it.

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Speaker 2: Ask not what your country can do for you, Ask

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what you can do for your country.

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Speaker 3: Mister Gorbucha, tear down this wall.

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Speaker 4: It's the Ricansirat Podcast with Stephen Hayward, who myself, James Flllingx,

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and Rob Long is back because we're going to talk

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to Ross Doubtfuit about his new book, Why You Should

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Be Religious. So let's say reselves a podcast.

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Speaker 5: The threat to democracy, Indeed, the existential threat to democracy

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is the unelected bureaucracy of lifetime tenured civil servants who

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believe the answer to no one, who believe they can

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do whatever they want without consequence, who believe they can

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set their own agenda no matter what Americans vote for.

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Federal bureaucrats who are defying democracy by failing to implement

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his lawful orders, which are the will of the whole

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American people.

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Speaker 4: Welcome everybody. It's the Ricochet Podcast, number seven and twenty nine.

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I'm James Lylyx here in CRISP Bright Minneapolis, Stephen Hayward

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probably somewhere out there on the West coast, and Rob

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Long is back with us, not to say yeah Stephen, right, okay,

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but Rob James, how are you?

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Speaker 1: I'm doing well. How are yourself? How are you James?

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It's the most important question, how are you well?

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Speaker 4: That is a fraud question at the moment, with many

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facets glinting dully in the dark cave of night.

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Speaker 1: But you are the same basically from that's actually where

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where I, uh, where I left, and.

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Speaker 4: You are in You are in New York right now,

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and you are where the last time we met you.

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Speaker 1: Of course I am not in New York. You're not Princeton,

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New Jersey.

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Speaker 4: Oh right?

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Speaker 1: Is that where you were conducting your your Yeah, that's

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where I'm conducting my certain my studies.

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Speaker 4: I don't know how to quite a describe How would

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I describe it exactly? Your your studies, your theological studies, James,

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so that you can call that anything you want. An

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m D.

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Speaker 1: Mastered Divinity, which I have always secretly been, but now

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I really am gonna I'm going to have the license.

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Speaker 4: What is the step below master of Divinity? Because Master

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of Divinity really does sound like a commanding position from

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which you can do all sorts of things. You've been invested,

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You've been imbued that you are a master of divinity, mastery.

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What's below that, acolyte of divinity?

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Speaker 1: I don't think there is. I think you're either a

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master or you're just nothing.

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Speaker 4: Okay, so we're all just here, journeyman of light, Stephen,

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how are you today?

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Speaker 3: I'm just fine, James Good and Dandi.

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Speaker 4: Well, we have a world to discuss. We could take

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a couple of angles about it. We could talk foreign affairs, ivault.

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But I would almost like to reserve Ukraine for another

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day because it's big and thorny, and I want to

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see how it all shakes out. And I'm reading all

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sorts of things, and I understand, of course, why the

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president would want some mineral rights, because Ukraine provides seventy

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percent of the neon gas to the world, and if

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we're going to make America great, that means a lot

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of neon signs over you know, main streets and Hambiger

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shops and the rest of it. But the rest of it,

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I'm still trying to figure out what is going on

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beyond the obvious talk about Israel, if we want to

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put our heart in the gutter because it seems to

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be an extraordinarily unfathomably amoral situation on the part of Mamas,

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or we could find something that gladdens the heart of all,

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and that is the complete and total realignment of the

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deep state, the swamp, and the federal government. I don't

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know if you guys saw this yesterday. In the flurry

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of executive orders that came out, there was one implementing

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the President's Department of Government Efficiency Workforce Optimization Initiative. Sounds good,

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DC ish, Are either you guys familiar with this latest

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EO about how they're going to completely completely transform the

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federal government.

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Speaker 2: No, I've completely missed this, although it fits into the

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larger piece. I think that what the Trump administration is

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determined to do is restore presidential control over the entire

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executive branch, meaning the ability of the president of fire

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essentially anyone. And this will evolve over earning at least

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one old Supreme Court case, the you know, famous Humphreys

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executor from the nineteen thirties, and won't get off into

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the legal swamp there. But I think they have a

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grand strategy involved here, and I think they're likely to

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win many of these battles.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, the administration, you mean, yes, yeah, yes, I think so, Toru.

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And I actually I think it's I mean, you know,

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as you know, I'm a I have a feelings, but

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it is in fact a good idea for the executive

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branch to be allowed to execute and for the legislative

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branch to be allowed to appropriate and legislate. I mean

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that that's kind of how it's set up. And we've

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you know, the most interesting about DOGE has been not

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the waste in the fraud of debut. I mean the

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waste of the fraud. Maybe I don't know. I've been

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hearing that story forevery now right. It's fine, if that

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floats your boat, fine, go ahead. But what's been amazing

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to me is just how much it's been, how much

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the federal government's doing, how huge that Leviathan has become.

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And I mean I was just driving here, as you know,

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I was driving around and I was listening to NPRS

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is my want during the day, and it's a big

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SOB story on NBR about people complaining about the scientific research,

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scientific research, and you know, they're going to cut the

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scientificgure in Columbia and at Coloya University, I mean not

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the country. And I came home and I didn't quite

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get it yet, but I'm going to get it because

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I thought, Okay, Columbia, big university. What is the endowment

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for Columbia University? And the endowment it's popping up right

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now is going to be as of June thirtieth, twenty

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twenty four, so as of you know, six months ago,

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basically fourteen billion dollars.

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Speaker 4: That's a rainy day fund though.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's actually small, right, I mean, Harvard's bigger,

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at Yale's bigger. Universities are bigger. So there is there

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is this giant, vast pool of money that you used

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to be used by in universities to engage in research.

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Uh and all the things that they think are very important,

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all the all the great scientific discoveries that we have

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that we're you know, people have been talking about, certainly

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on the NPR uh uh show I was listening to

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happened outside the realm of the federal government and federal

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ar jests. So there is an argument to be made

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that you know, a little bit of you know, breaking

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some glass and shaking things up may not be a

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bad idea, and and and that, and that the and

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that the fact that the American people, although not the

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majority of them, but the huge plurality of them, seemed

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to be supporting This suggests that the problem has been

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lying in the universities and the research organizations and the

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medical and scientific establishment, which have been telling us all

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sorts of things for years and years and years and years,

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like we're all going to die in climate change, or

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we're all going to die if you don't wear the mask,

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and schools that we call all that stuff. Right, Yeah,

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that's credibility they lost. They can't come crying now about it.

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Speaker 2: Well, so here's here's an odd bit of trivia that

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is unknown to just about everybody. Is that for decades,

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science funding from the federal government has actually risen faster

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under Republican administrations than democratic administrations. Lots of reasons why

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that turns out to be true, and there's lots of problems.

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Speaker 3: But two things right now jump out of me.

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Speaker 2: One is you mentioned the discrediting of the scientific establishment

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from COVID and whatnot. And I have a headline I

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found this morning from inside Higher Ed and I'll just

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give you the headline Voodoo doll study explores why scientists

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get harassed? So that was probably for it by a

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federal grant.

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Speaker 1: Okay, well, I'm in favor of that. We need more

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research on voodoo, you know, right well, or voodoo economics, right,

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I mean.

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Speaker 6: Of course that's the subject for a study. Who you

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do doll study? As much as I love to say it,

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I want to know where this was conducted. Was there

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somehow a USA idea.

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Speaker 4: Creation to the Vanderbilt University, which then gave two million

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dollars to Tides Foundation, which then gave on twenty thousand

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dollars to a Haiti group which I went out and

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asked a bunch of people about which kinds of knives

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and pins they particularly use. Who who did the voodoo study?

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Speaker 1: That voodoo study you do? So well, yeah, I'll have

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to pull.

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Speaker 3: It up again because I don't have it handy.

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Speaker 2: But it was some university where they actually had they

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actually had people in a room saying, you know, pok

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a voodoo doll to give in response to questions about

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scientists and science. I mean, it sounds perfectly preposterous, but

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beyond the sort of the frivolous things you can point

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to which you know we can.

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Speaker 3: We've done that forever, right.

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Speaker 1: Uh.

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Speaker 2: The other thing going on is the Trump administration saying

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we're going to cap overhead on federal funding for science

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at I think fifteen percent fift The great scandal here

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is most universities take forty percent. Some take as much

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as fifty percent. I've seen sixty Yeah, I know one

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university where it's fifty six percent. And and the point

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is is that this has become a slush fund to

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cross subsidize universities. The universities say, oh, we need that

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to provide the labs and equipment and administer the grants. Well,

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the labs are mostly built and any new lab equipment

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would be part of the grant that goes to the researcher.

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Speaker 3: So I love this.

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Speaker 2: I think that this is an absolutely solitary development by

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the government to say, no, you can't you have universities,

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We're not going to cross subsidize your bloated administrations.

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Speaker 4: But before I toss it to Rob again, I have

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to note that one of the things that this administrator,

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this executive order says is that there is dose is

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going to go through Rooten branch and look at all

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of the regulations and they have to I mean the

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man hours required to look at that as extraordinary that

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have been promulgated by agencies outside of their specific congressional mandate.

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In other words, you guys don't get to make that

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rule up. That's the job of the legislature. And the

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number of encumbrances that have been placed upon innovation and

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business and the rest of these things, because the guys

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are just throwing these rigs out everywhere that if they

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have no statutory basis, they've got to go. And I

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seem to remember that there was a reason Supreme Court

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kurd fluffle about this. So this when people talk about

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the intractability of the deep state, I mean they're essentially

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referring to a civil service that regarded itself as being

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a permanent overclass that you know, does the work of

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governance no matter who's in the White House. Well, this

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changes that, and if they move fast and swift enough,

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we may see the most consequential change actually to American

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governance since I don't know, since FDR started, like you know,

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draping this stuff and doing what he did back in

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the thirties, Rob, what's the.

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Speaker 1: Use well maybe. I mean the problem is that everybody

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thinks that the government spending stupid money on everybody else,

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but everybody thinks the government spending really good money on them.

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Speaker 4: I don't.

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Speaker 1: And so there's a lot of this, Like you know,

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you can go back and forth on all of this stuff,

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but you know where the money is is in entitlements

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and we're not going to touch those. And you know,

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Republicans have been flinty and mean about this for years

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and we get nowhere with it. But if you're under forty,

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your social security is going to be different from mine.

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And if you're under thirty, it's going to be vastly

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different from if you're under forty, and your retirement age

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is going to be seventy or seventy five, it's not

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going to be sixty whatever. And that is just the truth.

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And nobody wants to tell anybody that, but just hoping

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it kind of seeps into the groundwater so that everybody

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under thirty, which I think is kind of true. Any

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smart person under thirty, if you ask them, they know

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it's not going to be there. But nothing's going to

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change until that happens, until we accept that, and really

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sort of internalize that and stop lying to people about

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how if you're on a left, if you're a Democrat,

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how it's all going to be fined. All we have

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to do is raise the text on the ridge, or

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if you're a Republican this current present, lying to people

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saying no, we don't have to touch it. I'm never

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going to touch it, because that's just simply a lie.

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And as long as we're not doing that, we're just

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going to be firing some scientists and listening to outrageous

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but basically financially economically trivial story on talk radio and

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on Twitter. But we're not actually going to be changing

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the future direction of this country in a way we

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deploy resources because we're still going to be spend a

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lot of money on entitlements. And then the second thing is,

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I mean, the other big giant pot when Stevie chime

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in here is is defense. And we on the one hand,

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we have an America First policy right now, which is

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we agree with the disagree with it, is a policy

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that argues for a much much much smaller armed forces.

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If we're America First, we don't have to go overseas.

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We just have to protect our borders. So we should

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be shrinking. If we're going to be America first, we

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should shrink. If we're not going to be America first,

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we should stop saying because the worst thing in the

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world to be is America first. But except for some

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foreign and tendments, that is, that's a recipe for disaster.

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So we have to as a country and as a policy,

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we have to sort of unify those two things.

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Speaker 3: Well at two quick points.

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Speaker 2: One, Rob, I take your point about the waste, fraud

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and abuse theme has been overdone over the years. You know,

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the Reagan people made a big deal of that, and

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they found there wasn't very much in nineteen eighty one,

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and that's why seriously cutting spending then involved changing eligibility formulas.

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Speaker 3: However, I do think that that is less true today.

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Speaker 2: I mean even the Biden administration GAO found what last

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year sometimes that potential fraud in Medicare and Medicaid was

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between two hundred and fifty and five hundred billion dollars,

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I mean real money now, So I think there is

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more going on. And I have a theory on this

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that if we do a full scale forensic examination of

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the last fifteen years, I think we're going to find

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that the kind of things that just have dripped out

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now from doges about USAID and so forth, We're going

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to find that that kind of you know, frivolous spending

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and subsidies for liberal client groups and all kinds of

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crazy things. But that exploded under Obama and especially you

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know that that eight hundred billion dollar package, and it's

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only grown bigger during uh, the Biden administration. I don't

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think the first Trump administration was looking hard at this, uh,

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and so I think that they're actually, if this works,

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that's a big if. I think we're going to find

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substantial savings that then might make possible the conversation about entitlements,

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because you're right that it won't get us close to

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where we need to be.

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Speaker 3: Uh. But okay, that's point one. Point two.

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Speaker 1: I have sorry about Medicare before we talk about defense.

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I mean, the Medicare is true, but the Medicare rises

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in Medicare costs and waste, broaden, use, all those things.

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I mean, I mean, they accelerated under a bomb obviously,

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but they always go up because price controls do not work,

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and Medicare is a price control program. So every time

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by the you know, it takes five years for this

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big Medicare review because obviously the health care business is

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really be huge. So we have this five year review

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on procedures and what will pay for a procedure. Meanwhile,

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the procedures become redefined and one procedure is now three

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small procedures or six procedures. And then the costs always, always,

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always go up because Medicare is a is a single

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payer program, whether you like it or not. It's socialized medicine,

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whether you like it or not. And we have a

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federal government, a behemoth trying to control prices and that

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it's only one system in the world that ever accurately

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and efficiently controls prices, and that is a market. And

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if you don't have a market, it doesn't matter. You

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can have you can give Elon Musk the keys to

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the kingdom, and dose could be given, you know, app

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carte blanche. It's never going to happen, and because people

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don't want it to have. Look a lot of elderly

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people who work walking around with maga hats, driving around

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in their golf carts. The villages are going to get really,

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really a pissed when they discover that medicare is going

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to cover this or that procedure that they think they want.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, oh, I mean he did agreement with you about that,

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just quickly.

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Speaker 2: On defense, a lot to be said there, But one

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place where I think we need to think hard is

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whether we have in America first posture or not. Is

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I wonder if we can continue to afford having a

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gold plated military. By that, I mean, we seem to

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build the most expensive fighter planes, the most expensive ships.

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And we've always thought and this goes back to the

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Cold War years when we countered the superior numbers of

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the Soviet Union in terms of troops with better technology,

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and you know, I, you know, I don't really have

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a firm grasp on that, but I know there's lots

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of intelligent criticisms of things like the F thirty five

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fighter plane. It's unbelievably expensive, and you know, I don't know,

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maybe drones are better, but I think there needs to

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be a top to bottom review. And by the way

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heg sathas seemingly indicating that he's open to some of

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that inquiry.

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Speaker 1: You know, I was actually, I mean, I disagree with

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the policy, but I believe that the policy itself has ramifications,

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and I think that it is one thing to be

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America first, and that is a completely legitimate policy. You

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can't be America first unless that is your that's the

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primary h P, a foundational point. As you're gonna if

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you're going to rebuild or remodel the US military, we

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are not going to be protecting You're not going to

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be protecting Ukraine. We are not going to be in Taiwan.

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We're not going to be doing any of that. That's

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that's not America first, America versus the opposite of that.

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All that's fine, but that means that we don't need

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a lot of things. What do we really need? We

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need to protect our shipping lanes. I guess we need

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to protect our borders and then we're done. And if

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you if the waiver on that, then you gotta then

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you're on a very slippery slope. The one thing about

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Reagan said is that we are there to protect the world,

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So we're going to build, build, build. If we're not

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there to protect the world, we're just here to protect

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our borders in our country, then we don't need half

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the things that we buy. We just don't need them.

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And that you can't have it both ways. The worst

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thing for us to be is have an interventionist, even

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a quasi interventionist posture in the world, and also so

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have a military that can't handle that. That's just having

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a big mouth with no follow through, And unfortunately, I

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believe that describes our current president. But it's a very

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dangerous position to be in. It's one thing to say, world,

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you're on your own. It's something to say, world, you're

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kind of on your own. And we're going to reduce

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our military, but we're also going to when we want to,

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we want to get involved in something, We're going to

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get involved in something. I mean, what do we care

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if Russia takes over Ukraine? What do we care if

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China takes over Taiwan. If we care, then we need

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to prepare and spend. If we don't care, then we

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don't have to prepare or spend.

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Speaker 4: Well, it's remarkable it took six minutes to go from

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my original point, which was how this is going to

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impact the housing values in McLean, Virginia to a projection

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of power and Rob, You're absolutely right. My point put

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a boa and the whole thing is that not that

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I expect any of what is DOJA is doing or

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the executive orders in reshaping the bureaucracy is going to

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necessarily get us out of the spending problems that I mean,

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the deficit is what it is, and you're right, entitlements are.

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Speaker 3: What they are.

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Speaker 4: But it will, in the future, I think, result in

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a leaner government that has less control and less intervention

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and less invasive tentacles into the body politic and body,

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economic and social and whatnot. And that's a good thing,

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and it's going to be hard to rebuild if they

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want to do it well the next time they get

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their hands on the levers of power. But maybe perhaps

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there is but one lever of power, and it is

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in the grasp of things way beyond our ken and

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we small little ants here struggling in the muck trying

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to comprehend our place in the universe, oftentimes turn to

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things that can't be necessarily empirically quantified. And that is

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why we're going to talk to Ross Ross Dout, the

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columnists from The New York Times, host of Matter of

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Opinion podcast, author of many books, and most recently, as

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of just last week, believe why everyone should be religious.

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Russ Welcome back.

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Speaker 7: It's great to be back, and I'm here. I'm here

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to unlock the mysteries of the universe.

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Speaker 4: Good. Good, it took you so long. Rob is going

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to grapple because Rob is a grappler of these We're

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all grapplers of these things here, and so I know

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that I'm going to you don't have to defer to him,

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almost immediately. But let me ask you this why everyone

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should be religious. It matters what the religion is, doesn't it.

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I mean, if you're, you know, the devotee of some

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some Pithy and Death cult, that's not the same as

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being somebody who's a shaker in Iowa.

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Speaker 7: I mean it depends. You know, what does the Pithy

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and Death Cult really ask of you? You know, how

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does it? Does it help your marriage? It's good for

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American politics? Is there a Tokvillian defense of the Pithy

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and Death Cult? I mean, I think, you know, I

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think we have to be open minded. But yes, obviously

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it matters. It matters what religion you are. What I'm

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trying to do in the book, though, is two things. First,

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I do think that there is a general religious personspective

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on the world that is shared by most, if not all,

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of the entities and institutions that we call religions. And

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it's not a complete perspective. It, you know, doesn't get

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to all the details about who God is and what

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God wants of you and so on. But the major

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world religions tend to agree that, you know, the world

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exists for a reason, humans exist in some kind of

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relationship with a higher power. You should probably be preparing

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for whatever judgment or transformation awaits you after death, these

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kind of things. Right, So there is I think there

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is something called religion, even if it is a very

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general category. And then part of what I'm doing in

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the book is essentially taking people to the threshold of

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what I would consider the sort of more specific questions

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that you ask when you're deciding which religion to join.

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But a bunch of the book is arguing for why

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it makes sense. You know, people talk about being spiritual

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but not religious. Right, that's a pretty broad, a pretty

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broad category in American life right now. And part of

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the book is a lecture to atheists on why they

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should be spiritual, and then having persuaded them to be spiritual,

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I proceed to the lecture on how the spiritual person

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should really join an institutional religion, ideally a big and

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old one. And then you know, at the very end

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I talk about my own Christianity. But I do think

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that there is a valuable case to be made before

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you get to the specifics of religious doctrine, before you

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try and solve the problem of evil or litigate the

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incarnation of Jesus, just about you know, does it make

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sense to believe in God? Is the universe made for

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a reason? Are we an accident? What are we doing here?

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Those kind of things? And I think you can get

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some distance on those questions, further than a lot of

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people nowadays tend to think.

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Speaker 4: And you answer all those questions in your book a

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chapter for each.

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Speaker 7: I do believe a chapter that's right every question, every

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question answered. No, I mean, I don't answer every question,

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but I do think that it is you know, there's

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a slightly apocryphal, maybe not quote from the polymath scientist

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John von Neuman something to the effect of, there probably

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is a God. A lot of things make more sense

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if there is one, And that's a pretty good summary

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of the first few chapters of the book. There's a

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lot of things about the universe about our consciousness about

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religious experience. That just make a lot more sense if

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you assume that there is some form of God or

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Divinity out there.

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Speaker 1: Hey, Ross, I'm sitting here in Prince, New Jersey, or

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I'm a student at the Prince of Theological Seminary getting

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an MDiv on my way to ordination. I hope in

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the Episcopal Church. So I totally disagree. Obviously, they write

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the joke, right.

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Speaker 7: The joke is that, you know, at Harvard Divinity School

475
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:08,480
they are shocked if you believe in God and Prince,

476
00:24:08,640 --> 00:24:13,160
but Princeton is actually known for, you know, for its

477
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:15,240
relative robustness.

478
00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:19,000
Speaker 1: So that's one of those weird things about divinity schools

479
00:24:19,000 --> 00:24:22,240
that you stand out if you kind of believe in God.

480
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:26,480
Mostly the default setting is I'm not so sure. But

481
00:24:26,559 --> 00:24:29,559
I mean the upside is I get to spend all

482
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:31,359
day thinking about these things. The downside is I have

483
00:24:31,440 --> 00:24:35,920
to spend all day reading the Elogians, which is incredibly

484
00:24:35,920 --> 00:24:39,039
difficult for me because it's incredibly hard writing and it's

485
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:43,440
very boring except for the really great ones like Augustine.

486
00:24:44,039 --> 00:24:46,680
But there's a French one named Julia Christeva, and she's

487
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:50,319
a psychoanalyst and she's only a French person could be

488
00:24:50,359 --> 00:24:53,240
a psychoanalyst and a theologian. And she says that the

489
00:24:53,319 --> 00:24:57,079
atheists are people who believe that they do not believe.

490
00:24:58,759 --> 00:24:59,279
Do you buy that.

491
00:25:00,599 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 7: I think there's a lot of different types of atheist.

492
00:25:05,839 --> 00:25:08,799
I certainly think that there are there are atheists who

493
00:25:08,960 --> 00:25:15,759
are in a posture of functional rebellion. I think where

494
00:25:16,079 --> 00:25:20,200
atheism is chosen sort of the way you know, in

495
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:24,519
The Brothers Caramelzov, the brother says, you know, even if

496
00:25:24,599 --> 00:25:27,640
even if God reconciles everything, I still have a moral

497
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:31,839
objection right to his creation. And there's there's certainly versions

498
00:25:31,880 --> 00:25:33,839
of that style of atheism. I think if you read,

499
00:25:34,599 --> 00:25:39,440
you know, someone like Christopher Hitchins at his peak, at

500
00:25:39,440 --> 00:25:43,480
the peak of his powers, he's really rebelling against God,

501
00:25:43,640 --> 00:25:46,599
not proving his non existence. He's really saying God is

502
00:25:46,599 --> 00:25:50,240
a dictator and I, you know, I reject his authoritarian rule.

503
00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:53,880
So that's one category of atheist that partially fits. I

504
00:25:54,319 --> 00:25:57,960
used to say that Chris hit wasn't wasn't an atheist.

505
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:03,000
Speaker 1: He was a Testament Jew right right, he was.

506
00:26:03,119 --> 00:26:06,400
Speaker 7: He had a long list of complaints, not only the

507
00:26:06,400 --> 00:26:10,960
Old Testament Jews, right the long list of complaints. But

508
00:26:11,079 --> 00:26:13,680
then you know, then there are other types. There are

509
00:26:13,680 --> 00:26:17,920
people who you know, believe in something else right as

510
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:21,039
a substitute for God. There's that style of atheism that

511
00:26:21,079 --> 00:26:23,599
I think we're very familiar with. I do think, though,

512
00:26:23,640 --> 00:26:30,079
that there is a category of atheists who who sincerely

513
00:26:30,839 --> 00:26:34,960
sort of has you know, if there is a if

514
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:37,799
you're reading theology right, you're hitting the people who argue

515
00:26:37,799 --> 00:26:40,200
for a census divinitas right, the idea that all human

516
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:42,680
beings said have a sense of God's presence. I do

517
00:26:42,759 --> 00:26:44,240
think that there are people who have found a way

518
00:26:44,279 --> 00:26:48,000
to turn that off, whether it was always off, whether

519
00:26:48,000 --> 00:26:51,039
they've made certain choices and gone down certain paths that

520
00:26:51,079 --> 00:26:53,759
have taken them pretty far. But you know, I wouldn't

521
00:26:53,799 --> 00:26:57,240
say to every atheist, oh, at some level, you really

522
00:26:57,279 --> 00:26:59,680
believe in God, and you know, and you're just sort

523
00:26:59,720 --> 00:27:02,400
of you've sort of constructed. I think there are people

524
00:27:02,400 --> 00:27:05,440
who go pretty far, I guess in their in their

525
00:27:05,519 --> 00:27:07,359
not in their non belief, in the non belief. I

526
00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:08,640
know Steve wants to jump in. I just wanted to

527
00:27:08,799 --> 00:27:11,920
read one more quotation to you, because I'm letting you

528
00:27:11,960 --> 00:27:14,880
push your seminary education to good. Yeah, from my reading

529
00:27:14,920 --> 00:27:17,039
this week. So how many thoughts you just send them?

530
00:27:17,079 --> 00:27:20,200
Speaker 1: Just jot them down and all of Uh a slav

531
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:25,799
Zizek sort of very interesting theologian, but he's a great

532
00:27:25,799 --> 00:27:29,759
it's a great, great pithyphrase. If once upon a time

533
00:27:30,279 --> 00:27:34,880
we publicly pretended to believe while privately we were skeptics

534
00:27:35,279 --> 00:27:38,240
or even engaged in obscene mocking of our public beliefs.

535
00:27:38,839 --> 00:27:44,519
Today we publicly tend to profess our skeptical, skeptical, hedonistic,

536
00:27:44,599 --> 00:27:48,960
relaxed attitude, while privately we remain haunted by beliefs and

537
00:27:49,000 --> 00:27:52,039
severe prohibitions. Do you think there was a switch there

538
00:27:52,039 --> 00:27:54,079
at some point where we went from being sort of

539
00:27:54,119 --> 00:28:02,519
publicly observant now the public face that many of us

540
00:28:02,559 --> 00:28:09,240
have as well. I don't believe that. That's just I'm

541
00:28:09,279 --> 00:28:10,799
a rationalist. I don't believe this.

542
00:28:11,759 --> 00:28:17,880
Speaker 7: Yeah, there was a switch. It seemed to sort of

543
00:28:17,960 --> 00:28:21,519
it seemed to somewhat happen in stages, right you get,

544
00:28:21,839 --> 00:28:24,519
you know, one stage at the end of the Wars

545
00:28:24,559 --> 00:28:28,079
of religion, maybe a second stage with the Enlightenment and

546
00:28:28,119 --> 00:28:32,359
sort of the peak of Voltaire, another stage somewhere with

547
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,720
the Victorians. When Matthew Arnold starts writing about the see

548
00:28:35,759 --> 00:28:38,960
of faith receding, and then maybe a final turn of

549
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:42,160
the dial somewhere after the nineteen sixties. So it's not

550
00:28:42,200 --> 00:28:46,640
an all at once process. But yes, that the language

551
00:28:46,640 --> 00:28:51,720
of haunting is appropriate, right, because I'm definitely a disbeliever

552
00:28:52,039 --> 00:28:58,720
in true disenchantment, true secularization, in the sense that I

553
00:28:58,759 --> 00:29:01,400
think that all of the events that people described as

554
00:29:01,559 --> 00:29:04,680
enchanted in the Middle Ages or you know, the Roman

555
00:29:04,680 --> 00:29:07,200
Empire and so on, a lot of that stuff just

556
00:29:07,279 --> 00:29:08,079
keeps on happening.

557
00:29:08,359 --> 00:29:08,519
Speaker 4: Right.

558
00:29:08,839 --> 00:29:11,839
Speaker 7: The modern world is filled with people, many people I know,

559
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:15,160
who have religious experiences that would by no means be

560
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:18,880
out of place in the enchanted cosmos of thirteenth century

561
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:23,079
France or wherever else. What has changed is not disenchantment

562
00:29:23,119 --> 00:29:25,799
of experience, but disenchantment of official knowledge.

563
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:26,079
Speaker 1: Right.

564
00:29:26,119 --> 00:29:29,079
Speaker 7: If you go on Wikipedia and read Wikipedia pages on

565
00:29:29,759 --> 00:29:33,079
miracles and alleged miracles, you don't get to write a

566
00:29:33,079 --> 00:29:37,480
Wikipedia entry unless you have a materialist default.

567
00:29:37,640 --> 00:29:37,799
Speaker 1: Right.

568
00:29:37,839 --> 00:29:39,559
Speaker 7: And you know, if you hang out I live in

569
00:29:39,599 --> 00:29:41,559
New Haven, you're in Princeton, right. You go hang out

570
00:29:41,559 --> 00:29:43,960
at the law school or the business school, you know,

571
00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:47,440
hang out with the people who are not professionally anti religious,

572
00:29:47,480 --> 00:29:51,920
but take themselves there seriously. Their view is the rational

573
00:29:51,920 --> 00:29:55,119
person's default is atheism. Whatever may happen to you in

574
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:59,160
perfect personal experience, and that is you know, I think

575
00:29:59,160 --> 00:30:01,680
that religion. I think there's a limit to how far

576
00:30:01,759 --> 00:30:06,799
any religious revival can go unless you, at some point

577
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:10,880
deconstruct that sensibility. I think every pendulum swinging back towards

578
00:30:10,920 --> 00:30:15,400
religion in the modern age is limited by the inability

579
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:17,720
to persuade let's say, the typical reader of the New

580
00:30:17,799 --> 00:30:21,640
York Times, that religion, you know, might be well and

581
00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:24,920
fully true as a description of reality, which is you

582
00:30:24,920 --> 00:30:26,680
know why I've written this book, right, you know I'm

583
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:28,279
going to I'm going to solve.

584
00:30:28,079 --> 00:30:31,319
Speaker 4: That problem, right, and everyone should buy the book, of course,

585
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:34,839
to say again believe while everyone should be religious, for us,

586
00:30:34,920 --> 00:30:36,160
I just want to get back to something you said

587
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:39,000
about the last the last turn of the knob being

588
00:30:39,000 --> 00:30:41,279
somewhere in the sixties. It's so true. I spent a

589
00:30:41,319 --> 00:30:44,319
lot of time looking at old newspapers, and in the

590
00:30:44,359 --> 00:30:48,920
fifties ther early sixties, Easter would be a big event

591
00:30:49,160 --> 00:30:51,319
for a small town newspaper because they would get everybody

592
00:30:51,319 --> 00:30:54,640
to buy an ad. The gas station, the dry cleaners,

593
00:30:54,640 --> 00:30:57,079
the shoe guy, and they would all use clip art,

594
00:30:57,200 --> 00:30:59,920
which there was an abundance of a happy family going

595
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:02,359
to a church with a very tall steeple, and so

596
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:05,519
the newspapers would be crammed with this imagery of specific

597
00:31:05,559 --> 00:31:10,000
religious activities and obligations and duties and Eastern itself. It's

598
00:31:10,160 --> 00:31:14,160
gone by about nineteen eighty or so, it's just gone.

599
00:31:14,480 --> 00:31:16,799
And everybody who grew up in that era, if you,

600
00:31:17,200 --> 00:31:19,519
even if your family did not go to church, ours did,

601
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:23,319
and then if you fell away from it. Even now,

602
00:31:23,720 --> 00:31:28,160
all these decades later, Easter and the few commercial trappings

603
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:31,599
that we get still strike a tuning fork inside of you.

604
00:31:32,400 --> 00:31:35,359
Now you can say that's cultural, that's Memori's sociological, or

605
00:31:35,400 --> 00:31:38,000
that is that sense of divine awareness that you're talking about,

606
00:31:38,039 --> 00:31:42,920
but you're absolutely right on. It was a distinct decision

607
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:47,839
to get rid of this old kind of weird stuff

608
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:51,200
because it was our parents. And I'm convinced that so

609
00:31:51,279 --> 00:31:54,920
much if this just is simply a base rejection of

610
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:57,880
what our parents happened to believe in, until we abashedly

611
00:31:57,960 --> 00:31:59,519
crawl back to it and say, you know, maybe those

612
00:31:59,519 --> 00:32:01,799
folks did a point.

613
00:32:02,000 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 1: And you can see this.

614
00:32:02,960 --> 00:32:05,559
Speaker 7: You can see this at that point in data in

615
00:32:05,599 --> 00:32:09,839
the places where secularization went fastest. It happened faster in

616
00:32:09,880 --> 00:32:13,279
Western Europe than here, right, And so there was you

617
00:32:13,279 --> 00:32:17,359
knowata data from Ryan Burge, who's one of the best

618
00:32:17,359 --> 00:32:22,160
sort of data analysts of American religion and recently on

619
00:32:23,400 --> 00:32:26,680
you know, spiritual and religious belief in Great Britain, and

620
00:32:26,799 --> 00:32:29,720
it's very clear that the Baby Boomers are the most

621
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:32,960
secular generation in Britain. Now that isn't fully true here.

622
00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:35,400
I think the Millennials are the most secular generation in

623
00:32:35,440 --> 00:32:38,880
the US, But in Britain, secularization goes all the way

624
00:32:38,920 --> 00:32:42,640
with the Baby Boomers, and then subsequent generations culminating in

625
00:32:42,680 --> 00:32:46,839
gen Z get progressively a bit more interested in spirituality

626
00:32:46,839 --> 00:32:49,960
and there. What's interesting is that some of the turns

627
00:32:49,960 --> 00:32:52,039
of the dial had to do with you know, sort

628
00:32:52,079 --> 00:32:57,200
of scientific argument and debate. So Victorian atheism was shaped

629
00:32:57,240 --> 00:33:00,000
by Darwin in a profound way. I think the sixties

630
00:33:00,079 --> 00:33:02,440
turn had, Yeah, it had a lot more to do

631
00:33:02,519 --> 00:33:08,039
with a cultural rebellion based primarily around changing sexual behavior

632
00:33:08,599 --> 00:33:11,680
against you know, against the old the old order. It

633
00:33:11,759 --> 00:33:15,440
wasn't about discovering a new philosophical argument against the existence

634
00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:18,559
of God. It was that, you know, traditional religion strictures

635
00:33:18,599 --> 00:33:20,880
no longer seem to make sense, and it was time

636
00:33:21,000 --> 00:33:22,279
to let it go.

637
00:33:22,720 --> 00:33:24,880
Speaker 1: As they say in Arundel.

638
00:33:26,720 --> 00:33:30,319
Speaker 2: Ross, it's Steve Hayward out in California, where as Walker

639
00:33:30,359 --> 00:33:33,519
person used to say, has its own peculiar sunshine version

640
00:33:33,559 --> 00:33:34,319
of Christianity.

641
00:33:34,440 --> 00:33:39,119
Speaker 1: Right, and and other faiths as well. Yeah, right, exactly.

642
00:33:38,799 --> 00:33:39,599
Speaker 3: Right, right.

643
00:33:40,400 --> 00:33:42,079
Speaker 2: So look, I have to gush about your book and

644
00:33:42,079 --> 00:33:45,039
give you dust Jack a blurb. It is rightly being

645
00:33:45,039 --> 00:33:48,039
compared favorably to C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. That was

646
00:33:48,119 --> 00:33:52,720
my friend Frank review, which I yes, well, but I think,

647
00:33:52,799 --> 00:33:55,200
but I mean, what I'd add to it is, uh,

648
00:33:56,039 --> 00:33:57,720
it brought back a whole lot of things I haven't

649
00:33:57,720 --> 00:34:00,319
thought about for a long time. You know, about problems

650
00:34:00,319 --> 00:34:04,160
of cosmology, the limitations of Darwinism, the riddle of consciousness,

651
00:34:04,359 --> 00:34:07,839
the whole domain of what we call natural theology. And

652
00:34:08,440 --> 00:34:10,440
the writing is I'll put it, this has meant his praise.

653
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:13,199
The writing is so gentle. I would have, especially in

654
00:34:13,239 --> 00:34:15,239
criticisms of scientists, I would have written a lot of

655
00:34:15,239 --> 00:34:17,199
things that would make them mad. But your book on

656
00:34:17,280 --> 00:34:20,639
every page invites the skeptical reader to keep going. You

657
00:34:20,719 --> 00:34:23,639
have a nice respect and generosity towards them, which I

658
00:34:23,679 --> 00:34:27,320
think is a remarkable writing achievement. I just really have

659
00:34:27,360 --> 00:34:29,519
two I could talk all day or hours for you

660
00:34:29,559 --> 00:34:32,599
about this, but I have two questions of curiosity and

661
00:34:32,679 --> 00:34:35,199
maybe just one. I do think there's a dog that

662
00:34:35,280 --> 00:34:38,440
doesn't bark in the book. And here I'm going back

663
00:34:38,480 --> 00:34:40,679
to when I was a young man finding my way

664
00:34:40,679 --> 00:34:43,400
in Christian faith, and one of the big things going

665
00:34:43,400 --> 00:34:45,719
on in the world was, for lack of a better term,

666
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:49,719
was existentialist Christianity. It was, you know, people like Rudolph

667
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,679
Boltmann and Paul Tillick and Harvey Cox and process theology.

668
00:34:53,800 --> 00:34:56,639
Hopefully things rob is not having to suffer through. And

669
00:34:56,679 --> 00:35:00,559
we all remember if you ever finding do have it,

670
00:35:01,519 --> 00:35:04,239
And we all remember the famous Time magazine cover is

671
00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,000
God Dead from nineteen sixty six, and all this I

672
00:35:07,039 --> 00:35:12,480
thought was just an attempt to try and reform religion,

673
00:35:12,559 --> 00:35:17,559
and specifically Christian religion to modern scientism as opposed to science,

674
00:35:18,639 --> 00:35:22,000
and I think an unsuccessful and defective attempt. And so

675
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:24,760
I'm kind of interested if that ever came on your

676
00:35:24,800 --> 00:35:26,960
radar screen or am I right, that that has receded

677
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:29,039
because of its sheer implausibility.

678
00:35:29,599 --> 00:35:32,599
Speaker 7: Yeah, I think a lot of that material has receded.

679
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:36,400
I wrote about that. I wrote a book, you know,

680
00:35:36,480 --> 00:35:39,440
ten or fifteen years ago about sort of about the

681
00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:44,440
decline of American Christianity, and that particular moment featured as

682
00:35:44,840 --> 00:35:50,519
a cautionary tale on how Christianity can think that it's adapting, right,

683
00:35:51,039 --> 00:35:53,639
that it's sort of adapting successfully to a new world.

684
00:35:53,960 --> 00:35:57,760
And then suddenly, you know, that style of spirituality is

685
00:35:57,800 --> 00:36:00,480
sort of like you know, high modernist architecture or even

686
00:36:00,559 --> 00:36:03,679
brutalist architecture, that was the architecture of the future, and

687
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:07,440
now we're in the future and nobody likes it anymore, right,

688
00:36:08,639 --> 00:36:11,880
And it was an attempt to sort of in a way,

689
00:36:11,920 --> 00:36:14,519
to evade some fundamental questions.

690
00:36:14,679 --> 00:36:14,840
Speaker 1: Right.

691
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,079
Speaker 7: So one of the things I do in the book

692
00:36:17,159 --> 00:36:19,440
that you know, goes a bit beyond some of the

693
00:36:19,519 --> 00:36:22,760
usual arguments for design and so on, is I make

694
00:36:23,079 --> 00:36:26,639
a real defense of supernatural experience as a you know,

695
00:36:26,760 --> 00:36:28,760
real part of human life that has to be reckoned

696
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:30,079
with as an evidence for God.

697
00:36:30,199 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 3: Right.

698
00:36:30,760 --> 00:36:32,920
Speaker 7: And if you go back to Boltman and Tillek and

699
00:36:32,960 --> 00:36:35,320
a lot of those guys. You know, they had sort

700
00:36:35,320 --> 00:36:38,599
of an ineffable concept of like some encounter with the divine,

701
00:36:38,599 --> 00:36:41,760
but they really wanted to move away from questions like

702
00:36:42,039 --> 00:36:45,800
you know, I mean obviously the most basic one being okay,

703
00:36:45,840 --> 00:36:48,280
you're a Christian, you know, was the too empty? Did

704
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:52,320
Jesus actually for you know, did Thomas actually put his.

705
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:53,119
Speaker 1: Finger in a wound?

706
00:36:53,159 --> 00:36:53,679
Speaker 4: And so on?

707
00:36:54,599 --> 00:36:57,400
Speaker 7: And in a way, my book is is actually quite

708
00:36:57,679 --> 00:36:59,960
liberal in a certain sense. Like I am, I think

709
00:37:00,119 --> 00:37:03,760
you described it well. I am trying to be very gentle,

710
00:37:04,000 --> 00:37:07,599
and I'm not telling people to become Latin Mass Catholics tomorrow.

711
00:37:07,599 --> 00:37:09,639
I'm saying, you know, if you're if you're drawn to

712
00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,559
your local Unitarian church, if that's all you can do,

713
00:37:12,599 --> 00:37:13,199
you should do that.

714
00:37:13,519 --> 00:37:13,679
Speaker 4: Right.

715
00:37:13,800 --> 00:37:14,280
Speaker 1: So I am.

716
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:18,639
Speaker 7: I'm not unsympathetic to a certain kind of mode of

717
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:22,000
liberal faith, but I do think the mode that trying

718
00:37:22,039 --> 00:37:28,119
to just sort of efface like or obscure fundamental questions

719
00:37:28,199 --> 00:37:31,119
in order to preserve some kind of you know, modern

720
00:37:31,159 --> 00:37:34,519
friendly Christianity clearly just failed. It just failed, and we're

721
00:37:34,559 --> 00:37:35,840
living in the aftermath.

722
00:37:36,559 --> 00:37:36,840
Speaker 3: Yeah.

723
00:37:36,920 --> 00:37:39,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, So one more question that maybe is too broad,

724
00:37:39,960 --> 00:37:41,960
but you'll know how to sort it out. James mentioned

725
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:43,480
a moment ago that you know, some of what we

726
00:37:43,559 --> 00:37:46,559
saw the last couple generations was youth will revolt against

727
00:37:46,599 --> 00:37:48,840
their parents' generation. And I think, of course that's always

728
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:52,400
a social factor to be pondered with. But I also

729
00:37:52,440 --> 00:37:57,480
wonder if, especially the decline of mainline Protestant churches is

730
00:37:57,480 --> 00:37:59,760
connected in a deeper way with the whole problem of

731
00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,920
the effects of the liberal tradition, which is the emphasis

732
00:38:02,920 --> 00:38:08,159
on individual autonomy. And I mean, you've written about that previously,

733
00:38:08,239 --> 00:38:10,440
but I've often want and you do see by the

734
00:38:10,480 --> 00:38:12,519
way that some of the growth in churches right now,

735
00:38:13,639 --> 00:38:17,480
especially young man is for things like Eastern Orthodoxy, really

736
00:38:17,480 --> 00:38:20,880
traditional faiths, And so I don't know, I keep thinking

737
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,800
that the traveils of the Protestant church is at some

738
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:26,360
level connected with the problems of liberalism.

739
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:29,840
Speaker 7: I think I think that it is, and I don't

740
00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:33,719
think it's a coincidence. Like right now, like I'm trying

741
00:38:33,719 --> 00:38:35,639
to write the book into a moment where I think

742
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:41,000
generally the culture is more interested in religion right now

743
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:43,559
than it was ten or fifteen years ago at you know,

744
00:38:43,559 --> 00:38:45,559
in the heyday of Dawkins and so on. And I

745
00:38:45,599 --> 00:38:47,679
don't think it's a surprise that there's this sort of

746
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:51,440
interest in religion at a moment when liberalism itself seems

747
00:38:51,480 --> 00:38:55,039
to have either sort of run, you know, run into

748
00:38:55,119 --> 00:38:58,679
a wall or been ensnared by its own contradictions, you know,

749
00:38:58,679 --> 00:39:01,400
whatever metaphor you want to use. Right, that sort of

750
00:39:01,800 --> 00:39:05,239
whatever lies beyond liberalism, it might be some kind of

751
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:10,239
return to religion. With that said, it's really hard to

752
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:15,920
get away from the individualism of modern life, right. So, yes,

753
00:39:16,760 --> 00:39:20,440
the mainline churches did end up becoming too individualistic and

754
00:39:20,480 --> 00:39:24,840
sort of you know, individualizing themselves out of existence. But

755
00:39:24,960 --> 00:39:27,480
you know, the most successful forms of Christianity in the

756
00:39:27,599 --> 00:39:32,400
US today are non denominational forms of Evangelical Protestantism, which

757
00:39:32,400 --> 00:39:35,519
are conservative in some way, but really, you know, compared

758
00:39:35,559 --> 00:39:40,119
to like the sturdy Presbyterians of your quite seeker sensitive

759
00:39:40,199 --> 00:39:43,159
and personalized. My own book, as you said, is very

760
00:39:43,480 --> 00:39:46,719
seeker sensitive in spite of my own traditional commitments. And

761
00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:50,280
even something like you know, the vogue for Eastern Orthodoxy

762
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:53,639
or Latin mas Catholicism. Right, It's like, Okay, you have

763
00:39:53,800 --> 00:39:58,440
people embracing tradition, but are they embracing you know, a

764
00:39:58,599 --> 00:40:03,360
fully existent, high hierarchical institution that they're submitting to. Not

765
00:40:03,519 --> 00:40:06,760
exactly right, They're like Latin mask Catholicism is kind of

766
00:40:06,760 --> 00:40:10,960
in rebellion against the pope right now, Right, Eastern Orthodoxy

767
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:13,360
you're joining. Eastern Orthodoxy is great because you can join

768
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:15,639
this really deep, rich tradition and no one can even

769
00:40:15,679 --> 00:40:16,840
agree on who's in charge of it.

770
00:40:16,960 --> 00:40:17,159
Speaker 4: Right.

771
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:19,840
Speaker 7: So even even in it's like, oh, I'm a you

772
00:40:19,880 --> 00:40:23,880
know the right right, well, right, it's like, but I'm

773
00:40:23,880 --> 00:40:27,639
in the Ruthenian branch of the Moldovan Orthodox You're a

774
00:40:27,719 --> 00:40:30,679
heretic then, right, So, like, there is this I just

775
00:40:30,719 --> 00:40:34,239
think there is as much as we like to critique individualism,

776
00:40:34,400 --> 00:40:36,519
or at least I do, right, there is this way

777
00:40:36,519 --> 00:40:40,599
in which any religion that succeeds in this dispensation has

778
00:40:40,639 --> 00:40:45,400
to be adapted to some degree to pluralism and individual

779
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:48,599
agency in a way that was never true in you know,

780
00:40:48,800 --> 00:40:50,519
the antique or medieval past.

781
00:40:51,480 --> 00:40:54,280
Speaker 1: And also I just I know I got to wrap

782
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:55,639
it up, but I wanted to talk a little bit

783
00:40:55,639 --> 00:40:58,800
about the mystery, right. I mean, we say the mystery

784
00:40:58,800 --> 00:41:00,440
of faith, but also there's a myst tree to the

785
00:41:00,519 --> 00:41:02,920
Latin mass, there's a mystery to the if you're not

786
00:41:03,159 --> 00:41:06,440
Eastern Orthodox. To Eastern Orthodox Church, I went. I sat

787
00:41:06,519 --> 00:41:09,719
in a lot of them when I was in Jerusalem

788
00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:12,559
a few years ago, and and there was way. I

789
00:41:12,559 --> 00:41:15,239
had one experience, which is sort of about the mystery,

790
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:18,360
is that I was somewhere outside and there's this Korean

791
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:23,039
group turned out their Korean Pentecostals. They're kind of wandering around,

792
00:41:23,360 --> 00:41:26,280
and then that at some point they really got overcome

793
00:41:26,320 --> 00:41:28,960
with the spirit and they started to speak in tongues.

794
00:41:30,199 --> 00:41:32,119
And I turned to our guide and I said, does

795
00:41:32,159 --> 00:41:34,800
this happen a lot? He says, does what happen a lot?

796
00:41:34,840 --> 00:41:36,760
I said, does people? Do people come and start speaking

797
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:38,639
in tongues? And he said, is that what that is?

798
00:41:38,679 --> 00:41:41,199
It just sounds Korean to me? He said, of course,

799
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,559
you know, anybody else's language sounds like tongues, right, because

800
00:41:45,559 --> 00:41:49,039
you don't understand it anyway. And I just feel and

801
00:41:49,079 --> 00:41:53,119
when I tell people that I am I'm doing what

802
00:41:53,159 --> 00:41:56,679
I'm doing, they're they're the what I was prepared for

803
00:41:56,760 --> 00:42:00,519
were people to say to me like, really, I mean,

804
00:42:00,519 --> 00:42:05,199
you ran TV shows, really, And instead what most people

805
00:42:05,199 --> 00:42:08,559
have said is, oh, man, of course, yeah, let me know,

806
00:42:10,199 --> 00:42:13,639
let me know what you find out, right, so the

807
00:42:14,079 --> 00:42:18,960
longing that we have, I think, uh is just no

808
00:42:19,039 --> 00:42:22,679
longer filled by a culture that has told us that

809
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:25,800
all the longings we have can be satisfied by, you know,

810
00:42:26,119 --> 00:42:29,679
a million of different things. There's still this empty longing

811
00:42:29,760 --> 00:42:33,119
that we have that brings us back to this mystery

812
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:35,039
that isn't really going to give us an answer, but

813
00:42:35,079 --> 00:42:37,000
at least it's going to address the part of us

814
00:42:37,039 --> 00:42:42,320
that is desperately wondering what it is that we're missing

815
00:42:42,360 --> 00:42:43,719
and how we can behole again.

816
00:42:44,199 --> 00:42:47,760
Speaker 7: Is that I feel like that's that's such a powerful statement.

817
00:42:47,800 --> 00:42:50,519
Speaker 1: How can I possibly add at anything we don't?

818
00:42:50,920 --> 00:42:51,239
Speaker 3: That's me?

819
00:42:51,599 --> 00:42:54,280
Speaker 1: I think, I think that's I think that's right.

820
00:42:54,480 --> 00:42:57,119
Speaker 7: I think there is a way in which things do

821
00:42:57,239 --> 00:43:00,519
move in cycles, and you get you know, a culture,

822
00:43:00,559 --> 00:43:05,840
sort of religion can only decline so far before people

823
00:43:05,920 --> 00:43:09,880
start to have exactly the feelings you've described and turn

824
00:43:10,000 --> 00:43:12,559
back towards it. But in a way, the turning back

825
00:43:12,559 --> 00:43:15,480
towards it is easier because of the decline. Right, It's like, oh,

826
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:19,639
you're not threatened by the big institutional religions anymore.

827
00:43:19,679 --> 00:43:21,760
Speaker 1: I mean some people are. You can watch the Handmaid's Tale.

828
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:24,440
Speaker 7: Obviously those fears have not gone away, but a lot

829
00:43:24,440 --> 00:43:27,880
of people I think regarded like Roman Catholicism as a

830
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:31,639
much more intimidating thing in even in like nineteen ninety

831
00:43:31,639 --> 00:43:34,280
seven than today. So there's there's a way you turn back.

832
00:43:34,280 --> 00:43:38,639
The last thing I'll say, though, is just about mystery. Yes,

833
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:42,400
we're now we turn back to mystery, and the old

834
00:43:42,480 --> 00:43:46,119
religions especially are steeped in mystery, and you're never going

835
00:43:46,199 --> 00:43:49,760
to get definite, you know, definite, perfect answers out of

836
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:52,280
that mystery. But I do want to insist that like

837
00:43:53,079 --> 00:43:55,679
the point of turning back is to find some kind

838
00:43:55,679 --> 00:43:56,159
of answer.

839
00:43:56,679 --> 00:43:56,920
Speaker 1: Right.

840
00:43:57,039 --> 00:44:00,800
Speaker 7: It's like you know, in in in the Mist, like

841
00:44:01,159 --> 00:44:03,440
you're trying to decide how to live your life. Right,

842
00:44:03,480 --> 00:44:05,320
I'm trying to decide how to live my life, and

843
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:07,719
in the mystery, maybe we don't get the perfect answer

844
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:10,119
to you know, why is there suffering in the world?

845
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:13,039
Or why did God make the cosmos this particular way?

846
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:16,679
But I do think for religion to make good on

847
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:19,760
its promises, it does need to provide people with a

848
00:44:19,800 --> 00:44:22,800
sense of again that individualism again, right, but in some

849
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:25,000
sense of like what do I do next? Am I

850
00:44:25,039 --> 00:44:27,639
on the right path? Should I get married to this woman.

851
00:44:27,679 --> 00:44:30,400
Should I join you know, should I join the you know?

852
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:33,719
Should I become an episcopal priest? Right? Like, if God

853
00:44:33,800 --> 00:44:36,920
is real, it's okay to say I need a little

854
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:39,360
help here, I need a little concrete guidance.

855
00:44:40,239 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 1: I just culturally, though, it might be wise for us

856
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:47,440
to sit in, to sit in confusion in mystery for

857
00:44:47,480 --> 00:44:49,840
a while. We're so used to reaching for the solution

858
00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:54,000
and so used to googling the answer that these are

859
00:44:54,079 --> 00:44:56,079
sort of answers and questions that are sort of bigger

860
00:44:56,079 --> 00:45:00,559
than we have AI algorithms for. It's a good that's

861
00:45:00,559 --> 00:45:03,079
a nice feelings. It's actually a nice feeling to know

862
00:45:03,199 --> 00:45:07,480
that there are no ready answers here, that that your

863
00:45:07,639 --> 00:45:09,760
question is deep enough that the answers are going to

864
00:45:09,760 --> 00:45:12,199
be satisfying if and when they come. Just for some reason,

865
00:45:12,199 --> 00:45:15,719
I feel culturally that's very important for me, And then

866
00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:19,920
ultimately too, I think it's harder, especially in a seminary,

867
00:45:20,000 --> 00:45:23,719
especially in culture in general, to understand that the message

868
00:45:23,719 --> 00:45:27,519
of Christianity is fundamentally different in many ways from the

869
00:45:27,599 --> 00:45:30,039
message of everything else, which is one of the reasons

870
00:45:30,039 --> 00:45:33,320
why this strange, weird sect has lasted, which is that

871
00:45:33,400 --> 00:45:36,320
you are important, right he will leave the flock to

872
00:45:36,480 --> 00:45:39,960
get you, and that gives you a lot of grace.

873
00:45:40,000 --> 00:45:41,840
It also gives you a lot of responsibility, and it

874
00:45:41,840 --> 00:45:44,280
gives you a lot of I think autonomy in a

875
00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:49,360
lot of ways, and a lot of expectation. That it's

876
00:45:49,400 --> 00:45:51,440
not about fitting into the tribe. It's not about fitting

877
00:45:51,440 --> 00:45:53,360
into the darma, it's not about fitting into the sort

878
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:56,920
of big sweep in history. It's about something really personal

879
00:45:57,159 --> 00:46:01,880
which may never you know, I'm sixty years old. I

880
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:06,599
don't know the answer. So that's my that's my Friday

881
00:46:06,639 --> 00:46:10,559
sermon for you. It's not very satisfying, but please give

882
00:46:12,159 --> 00:46:13,920
that's right. By the time you're in the pulpit, you'll

883
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:15,559
have honed it to perfection.

884
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:20,519
Speaker 4: Speaking of that pulpit, I'll leave you with an extremely

885
00:46:20,679 --> 00:46:24,000
petty question that I have here, a petty complaint. Perhaps

886
00:46:24,599 --> 00:46:26,039
somebody mentioned before, and I think it was Stephen, the

887
00:46:26,039 --> 00:46:28,440
word cosmology. And one of the things that just absolutely

888
00:46:28,440 --> 00:46:30,199
fascinates me is the depth and the breadth and the

889
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:32,360
variety and the glory and the beauty of the universe.

890
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:35,760
And when I behold these great, deep astronomical photos and

891
00:46:35,960 --> 00:46:38,760
generally I say, yeah, well, you know, of course God exists.

892
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,639
This stuff is proved positive to me, and I want

893
00:46:41,800 --> 00:46:44,280
this is the mystery to me, and I want to

894
00:46:44,320 --> 00:46:47,320
look at it more. I wanted the fascinating aspect that

895
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:50,159
if you look at a very close a picture of

896
00:46:50,159 --> 00:46:53,480
the human retina, it is almost indistinguishable from a picture

897
00:46:53,519 --> 00:46:56,960
of a great galactic wall. Everything scales, and you sense

898
00:46:57,000 --> 00:46:59,440
this design and you sense this purpose. And of course

899
00:46:59,440 --> 00:47:01,519
the rationally atheist will say, no, that's just simply how

900
00:47:01,519 --> 00:47:03,679
it arises because of certain laws applying, because of the

901
00:47:03,679 --> 00:47:04,960
Big Bang, et cetera, et cetera.

902
00:47:05,039 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 3: I get it.

903
00:47:05,840 --> 00:47:08,079
Speaker 4: But if your heart and your spirit and your mind

904
00:47:08,159 --> 00:47:12,079
are open to you know the contemplation of the Cosmo says,

905
00:47:12,239 --> 00:47:15,239
I know that sounds spiritual, not religious. But what I'm

906
00:47:15,239 --> 00:47:18,440
saying is getting into a small building build in nineteen

907
00:47:18,480 --> 00:47:20,960
twenty five that smells of old candles and a stained

908
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:24,159
glass window seems a constraining thing. And when you add

909
00:47:24,159 --> 00:47:26,800
the liturgy and all the other wrote things, it seems

910
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:31,360
like something that's an impediment to contemplating the great beyond above.

911
00:47:31,960 --> 00:47:34,440
What do you say to people who have basically the

912
00:47:35,159 --> 00:47:38,719
Homer Simpson critique of going to church on Sunday because

913
00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:41,800
you have to wear itchy church pants and a tight shirt.

914
00:47:41,840 --> 00:47:44,199
Speaker 1: And you mean you mean my nine year old son

915
00:47:44,400 --> 00:47:46,559
that complaint.

916
00:47:46,280 --> 00:47:47,760
Speaker 4: Or your sixty six year old friends.

917
00:47:47,800 --> 00:47:52,719
Speaker 7: Yes, it's funny because you know, the last at a

918
00:47:52,719 --> 00:47:55,639
book signing, someone came up to me and in a

919
00:47:55,679 --> 00:47:58,199
friendly way, gave me a long lecture on exactly the

920
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:01,440
terms you've you've given about how there can't possibly be

921
00:48:01,480 --> 00:48:04,119
a god because the universe is so big, right, he

922
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:06,760
was like, you know, he was all mystery and wonder.

923
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:07,719
Speaker 1: But in the service of.

924
00:48:09,400 --> 00:48:11,360
Speaker 4: That's that's like saying it can't there can't be a

925
00:48:11,360 --> 00:48:13,599
cook because Orison Wells is too fat. I don't get

926
00:48:13,639 --> 00:48:14,199
that one at all.

927
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:15,039
Speaker 3: No, I don't.

928
00:48:15,079 --> 00:48:17,199
Speaker 7: I don't get that argument either, But I'm going to

929
00:48:17,400 --> 00:48:20,719
just to to steal from it to to try and

930
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:23,519
answer your reasonable question, which is to say that, like

931
00:48:24,239 --> 00:48:26,960
there has to be there are different scales of things, right,

932
00:48:27,079 --> 00:48:31,320
And yes, of course it's appropriate to contemplate the majesty

933
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:35,199
and mystery and wonder of Almighty God in a sunset,

934
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:39,000
a rainbow, you know, the hubble hubble telescope photos, all

935
00:48:39,079 --> 00:48:43,000
of these things, right, And but what is asked of

936
00:48:43,039 --> 00:48:44,880
you in church is not you know, spending your whole

937
00:48:44,880 --> 00:48:48,440
life sort of in a small building saying prayers.

938
00:48:48,519 --> 00:48:48,679
Speaker 4: Right.

939
00:48:48,719 --> 00:48:50,800
Speaker 7: I mean, if you're Catholic, you're expected to go to

940
00:48:50,840 --> 00:48:53,599
Mass once a week plus on on Holy days of

941
00:48:53,639 --> 00:48:56,480
obligation more you know, maybe more you should go more, right,

942
00:48:56,519 --> 00:49:00,760
But that's the basic ask. And if God is present

943
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:03,079
in the fullness of the cosmost part of the point

944
00:49:03,079 --> 00:49:05,280
of going to church is to say, okay, there's a

945
00:49:05,320 --> 00:49:08,880
correlation there, right, that these things, these things scale in

946
00:49:09,039 --> 00:49:11,760
just the way you talked about with the retina, right,

947
00:49:12,639 --> 00:49:14,519
And that's why it's nice to go to a church

948
00:49:14,639 --> 00:49:18,840
I think that has nice architecture, right, that has good music,

949
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:23,199
that captures some form of that scaling, that seems itself

950
00:49:23,239 --> 00:49:26,760
to be participating in the heights and depth that you describe.

951
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:29,559
But I think what the low church Protestant who has

952
00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:34,079
skepticism about fancy Catholic architecture would say is that actually,

953
00:49:34,159 --> 00:49:36,920
you're so supposed to see that scaling in your neighbor

954
00:49:36,960 --> 00:49:38,559
next to you and to hear it in the word

955
00:49:38,559 --> 00:49:41,039
of God preached by you know, Father rob Long from

956
00:49:41,079 --> 00:49:41,519
the public.

957
00:49:41,599 --> 00:49:41,760
Speaker 3: Right.

958
00:49:41,840 --> 00:49:45,000
Speaker 7: But like that, you shouldn't even need the stained glass

959
00:49:45,000 --> 00:49:47,519
windows and the saints and so on you should be

960
00:49:47,559 --> 00:49:51,360
able to get that scaling from your neighbor next to

961
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:54,800
you and the Bible read to you. And that's what

962
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:58,400
church is for. And I think that's certainly enough. It

963
00:49:58,440 --> 00:50:01,480
should be enough to get you there. You know, once

964
00:50:01,519 --> 00:50:03,199
a week, I think once a week. This is what

965
00:50:03,239 --> 00:50:05,119
I literally what I say to my nine year old son.

966
00:50:05,119 --> 00:50:07,559
I'm like God, in all his majesty created the entire

967
00:50:07,639 --> 00:50:10,000
universe for you to in habit, and all he asks

968
00:50:10,000 --> 00:50:12,559
you to do is wear on comfortable pants for fifty

969
00:50:12,599 --> 00:50:14,320
seven minutes this Sunday.

970
00:50:14,480 --> 00:50:15,159
Speaker 1: Can you do it?

971
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:15,599
Speaker 7: Well?

972
00:50:16,239 --> 00:50:19,679
Speaker 1: Sometimes is? You know, come on, Dad, you're to have

973
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:24,719
to say that. Homer Simpson goes nonetheless the only family

974
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:26,880
on television that goes to church regularly.

975
00:50:27,840 --> 00:50:29,480
Speaker 4: Well, God speaks to him in that episode. And one

976
00:50:29,519 --> 00:50:31,880
of the great things about it, when God is actually revealed,

977
00:50:31,880 --> 00:50:34,119
we see that he has five fingers. Well, as we

978
00:50:34,239 --> 00:50:36,039
like to say around here, a mighty fortress is our

979
00:50:36,119 --> 00:50:39,880
rob And we will look forward to the next time

980
00:50:39,920 --> 00:50:41,679
we talk to you about the next book, or even

981
00:50:41,719 --> 00:50:44,840
this one, because it's the topic of our lives. Ross

982
00:50:44,880 --> 00:50:47,400
douth that's the new book is Believe Why everyone should

983
00:50:47,440 --> 00:50:50,039
be religious? And we thank you so much for showing.

984
00:50:49,840 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 1: Up, guys, I really appreciate It's great book. Thank you Ross.

985
00:50:53,440 --> 00:50:53,840
Take care.

986
00:50:54,519 --> 00:50:57,280
Speaker 4: You know I mentioned the church, you know, built in

987
00:50:57,280 --> 00:50:59,199
the twenties. The church that I grew up in elm

988
00:50:59,280 --> 00:51:02,199
Lutheran Fargo, North Dakota, is an old, classic nineteen twenties

989
00:51:02,280 --> 00:51:05,159
church with the off the shelf stained glass picture of

990
00:51:05,159 --> 00:51:09,239
Martin Luther looking varied about and Jesus in the garden

991
00:51:09,360 --> 00:51:10,760
and the arrest of it. But at some point in

992
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:13,440
the nineteen fifties they decided, hey, if we want to

993
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:15,280
really be with the times, we've got to modernize a

994
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:17,320
little bit. So they slapped the sort of Perry Mason

995
00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:21,320
era swank, cool blonde wood stuff all over the place

996
00:51:21,719 --> 00:51:24,079
in the pulpit and some of the railings. And so

997
00:51:24,159 --> 00:51:27,159
I grew up with a syncredic combination of these things

998
00:51:27,239 --> 00:51:31,239
which just made perfect sense to me. Streamlined pulpit, I mean,

999
00:51:31,599 --> 00:51:35,320
from which the pastor would thunder and I mean thunder

1000
00:51:35,360 --> 00:51:37,880
at everybody. And it was wonderful. It was one.

1001
00:51:37,960 --> 00:51:42,400
Speaker 1: So you're a Lutheran, Yeah, yeah, I knew everybody.

1002
00:51:42,440 --> 00:51:43,119
Speaker 3: I was, but I was.

1003
00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:46,280
Speaker 4: I was an ultra boy too. I was ideal that too,

1004
00:51:46,760 --> 00:51:49,320
And so I put on these robes and the robe

1005
00:51:49,480 --> 00:51:52,440
and I would have these wands, these wonderful ones with

1006
00:51:52,519 --> 00:51:54,119
a wax tip at the end. You'd light it and

1007
00:51:54,119 --> 00:51:55,840
then you'd play it out a little bit. You'd light

1008
00:51:55,880 --> 00:51:57,800
all the candles, and then you'd sit there, and the

1009
00:51:57,840 --> 00:52:01,559
soft fabric of these of these robes was just absolutely wonderful,

1010
00:52:01,599 --> 00:52:03,760
and you just feel you, why don't we wear this

1011
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:06,599
all the time? I wish I had sheets like that.

1012
00:52:06,639 --> 00:52:08,719
But here's the thing, folks, with spring right around the corner,

1013
00:52:08,840 --> 00:52:11,519
the bitter cold of winter hangs stubbornly.

1014
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:17,599
Speaker 1: Literally the greatest transition I've heard. I'm so overwhelmed with

1015
00:52:17,719 --> 00:52:22,519
the fractal perfection of this transition that I it's almost mystical.

1016
00:52:23,159 --> 00:52:23,519
Speaker 3: Mystical.

1017
00:52:24,159 --> 00:52:25,639
Speaker 4: Well, I'm just I'm just saying. We have a we

1018
00:52:25,679 --> 00:52:27,880
have a seminary student here, a man studying the divinity,

1019
00:52:28,159 --> 00:52:30,639
studying the resurrection, and and just said that was the

1020
00:52:30,639 --> 00:52:33,800
greatest transit transition. I think there are other bigger ones

1021
00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:35,679
on history. Robin maybe become a configuration.

1022
00:52:35,840 --> 00:52:40,679
Speaker 1: I just said transition. Anyway, put it that way.

1023
00:52:41,239 --> 00:52:46,559
Speaker 4: Oh good lord, reset record, scratch, starting again. We are

1024
00:52:47,559 --> 00:52:49,519
not really, folks, what I'm talking about when it comes

1025
00:52:49,519 --> 00:52:50,960
to fabric and comfort and the rest of it. I'm

1026
00:52:51,000 --> 00:52:54,599
talking about Cozy Earth sheets. Cozy Earth. You heard about them,

1027
00:52:54,599 --> 00:52:56,199
We've been talking about them a little while here. They

1028
00:52:56,239 --> 00:52:58,559
got a goal. It's to help you turn your home

1029
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into a sanctuary, a play where you can escape the

1030
00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:04,440
outside world's demands and truly unwind because life gets hectic

1031
00:53:04,519 --> 00:53:08,079
and finding comfort and calm. It's essential your time outside

1032
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of the nine to five should be all about relaxation and

1033
00:53:10,679 --> 00:53:13,000
recharging and soaking in a sense of peace. And with

1034
00:53:13,039 --> 00:53:15,760
Cosey Earth you can create that space, a space that

1035
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feels like a personal retreat where comfort and serenity coming

1036
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together naturally. Cozy Earth uses only the best fabrics and

1037
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textiles to provide the ultimate ingredient for luxurious softness. Let's

1038
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you sleep like a baby. And they're not just soft, No,

1039
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the we fabric is enhanced for a durability that won't pull. Now.

1040
00:53:33,679 --> 00:53:36,079
I hate to say this, but Rob, you have been

1041
00:53:36,480 --> 00:53:40,159
replaced Chary to cook this week and Charlie has been

1042
00:53:40,440 --> 00:53:42,000
using the sheets for a while. If you were with us,

1043
00:53:42,880 --> 00:53:44,639
he tells you all about the bamboo sheet, said that

1044
00:53:44,719 --> 00:53:46,760
missus cooked showays I had hooked up, picked out and

1045
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:49,960
how the breathable sheets provide temperature regulation that get this

1046
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make for comfortable and sleep for the cooks in Florida

1047
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as they would for sleepers like me in the fridge

1048
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and north. The best of all Cozy Earth betting products

1049
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have a one hundred nights sleep trial and a ten

1050
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:04,880
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1051
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So get up to forty percent off at Cozygearth dot

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com slash ricochet with this code ricochet. That's cozyyearth dot

1053
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com slash ricochet. And don't forget. If you're asked in

1054
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a post purchase survey, let him know where you came from.

1055
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:20,199
Cozy the Earth. We thank Cozy Earth responsing this the

1056
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:23,320
Ricochet podcast a few minutes before we got a role here. Gentlemen,

1057
00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:25,559
I have to have to have my lunch and then

1058
00:54:25,559 --> 00:54:27,840
I have ten thousand errands to do. Sounds like good

1059
00:54:28,400 --> 00:54:33,119
proclaimer song. But so we have upcoming German parliamentary elections

1060
00:54:33,639 --> 00:54:38,039
and according to Reddit, we got Nazis. The Nazis might win,

1061
00:54:38,119 --> 00:54:40,119
the Nazis to the Nazis might come in second.

1062
00:54:40,719 --> 00:54:45,760
Speaker 1: Well well yeah, I mean it's always been the fear right.

1063
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:48,559
I mean it's very strange that the country itself has

1064
00:54:48,559 --> 00:54:53,360
been what it's been since nineteen forty six, right most

1065
00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:56,199
of Europe. Frankly, let's be honest, when whenever the conservative

1066
00:54:56,239 --> 00:55:00,519
wins in a European election, every one in the United

1067
00:55:00,559 --> 00:55:03,920
States reminds everybody, well, when they say conservative, they still

1068
00:55:03,960 --> 00:55:09,000
mean socialist. It is about time. I mean, there is

1069
00:55:09,039 --> 00:55:12,159
this probably an idea. I don't know whether it's going

1070
00:55:12,199 --> 00:55:14,480
to turn out okay. It has never turned out okay

1071
00:55:14,639 --> 00:55:17,719
up till now, so maybe you know, nineteenth time is

1072
00:55:17,760 --> 00:55:22,159
the charm. But a certain amount of sort of from

1073
00:55:22,199 --> 00:55:27,239
from that big center part of Central Europe national identity

1074
00:55:27,360 --> 00:55:33,079
and national pride, which you're very very very very ginger

1075
00:55:33,719 --> 00:55:36,679
things to think about when it comes to the German Republic.

1076
00:55:37,239 --> 00:55:40,280
But it does seem to me that it is time

1077
00:55:40,440 --> 00:55:43,960
for European nations to think of what it is, what

1078
00:55:44,000 --> 00:55:45,760
it means to be a European, what it means to

1079
00:55:45,800 --> 00:55:51,519
be a nation, and those are two different things. I mean,

1080
00:55:51,960 --> 00:55:55,519
that's the changes. Yeah, the vast changes culturally in that

1081
00:55:55,559 --> 00:56:00,400
part of Europe from immigration really more than any thing else.

1082
00:56:02,199 --> 00:56:05,119
They were never going to go easily. And what you

1083
00:56:05,280 --> 00:56:08,039
what you don't want to do is is ignore it

1084
00:56:08,599 --> 00:56:11,920
and then it leaps out inappropriately, or it leaps out

1085
00:56:11,960 --> 00:56:17,199
in the historical historical president. So I suspect that there'll

1086
00:56:17,199 --> 00:56:19,119
be a lot of screaming and yelling at Henry in

1087
00:56:19,159 --> 00:56:22,199
certain the obvious places about the outcome of the German election.

1088
00:56:23,000 --> 00:56:25,239
But I suspect that we were in Germany the people

1089
00:56:25,239 --> 00:56:28,239
who voted in that if they do in fact vote

1090
00:56:28,239 --> 00:56:30,880
in that, you know they do vote for that, that

1091
00:56:30,920 --> 00:56:36,800
party will won't won't sound like Nazis to us. They'll

1092
00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:38,639
sound like dudes from Wisconsin.

1093
00:56:39,360 --> 00:56:41,320
Speaker 2: Look, I mean, I I think we should not be

1094
00:56:41,400 --> 00:56:44,239
trusting the same people who called Trump a Nazi to

1095
00:56:44,280 --> 00:56:46,320
say that AfD is purely a Nazi party.

1096
00:56:46,360 --> 00:56:48,079
Speaker 3: I think they do have a few bad.

1097
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:50,320
Speaker 2: Actors, and that friends of mine in Europe say, look,

1098
00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:52,400
they do have some problems that could clean house more

1099
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:56,679
than they have so far. However, I have thought that

1100
00:56:57,000 --> 00:56:59,679
the party was probably underpolling, and I was predicting here

1101
00:56:59,800 --> 00:57:02,119
the last few weeks that AfD might well win the

1102
00:57:02,119 --> 00:57:05,360
most votes, which will cause a political crisis in Germany

1103
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:08,159
that they richly deserve. For reasons you just stated, Rob,

1104
00:57:09,559 --> 00:57:11,800
I do I'm now equivocating a bit because I think

1105
00:57:11,800 --> 00:57:15,119
it's possible that Vance's speech a week ago, which I loved,

1106
00:57:15,159 --> 00:57:17,519
by the way, but I could see it backfiring. I

1107
00:57:17,519 --> 00:57:19,960
could see a certain amount of undecided Germans who might

1108
00:57:20,000 --> 00:57:22,239
be fed up with all the violence to keep getting

1109
00:57:22,280 --> 00:57:25,480
from their immigrants. Their migrants would have voted for AfD,

1110
00:57:25,599 --> 00:57:28,440
but now may vote against them because of their latent

1111
00:57:28,440 --> 00:57:31,840
anti Americanism. So it's possible that speech may have backfired

1112
00:57:31,880 --> 00:57:33,000
at least for this election.

1113
00:57:33,280 --> 00:57:35,320
Speaker 3: But I think I'm with you, Rob.

1114
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:38,960
Speaker 2: I think the continual exclusion of you know this is

1115
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:40,559
a fifth of the country or more is going to

1116
00:57:40,599 --> 00:57:42,519
say we are fed up with this, and for all

1117
00:57:42,519 --> 00:57:44,360
the other parties to say no, we won't talk to

1118
00:57:44,400 --> 00:57:46,639
you is just simply unacceptable.

1119
00:57:47,960 --> 00:57:50,239
Speaker 1: I agree, And I'll also feel like the rule of

1120
00:57:50,280 --> 00:57:53,599
thumb is in general, and it isn't just Jade Vance,

1121
00:57:53,639 --> 00:57:58,119
it isn't just the current administration. American politicians should stay

1122
00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:02,840
out of European policyolitics and shut up because there's always

1123
00:58:02,840 --> 00:58:06,320
that European contrarianism which comes from being a client state,

1124
00:58:06,400 --> 00:58:09,960
essentially that you know this, you you can't tell me nothing,

1125
00:58:10,119 --> 00:58:13,119
and it's better that we just let them discover on

1126
00:58:13,199 --> 00:58:17,000
their own that it's a good thing to it. It's

1127
00:58:17,000 --> 00:58:19,800
not necessarily a good thing for all of Germany to

1128
00:58:20,159 --> 00:58:21,519
suddenly speak Turkish.

1129
00:58:21,679 --> 00:58:23,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, they will not discover it on their own

1130
00:58:23,559 --> 00:58:26,199
because they have an entire overclass that's designed to keeping

1131
00:58:26,199 --> 00:58:29,800
that information and that revelation from being enshrined in the

1132
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:33,239
general in general wisdom. They won't. I mean, when you

1133
00:58:33,239 --> 00:58:35,800
said before they need to start thinking of themselves as Europeans,

1134
00:58:35,800 --> 00:58:37,679
and then you add a nationalist, I mean, that's the problem,

1135
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:39,760
that's the division. There is no we know, we all

1136
00:58:39,760 --> 00:58:41,880
see where nationalism got us. So let's have this pan

1137
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:45,400
European transnational identity. And it ain't going to work because

1138
00:58:45,400 --> 00:58:47,159
people still like to have their folk ways and their

1139
00:58:47,159 --> 00:58:48,679
culture and their language and the rest of it. And

1140
00:58:48,719 --> 00:58:51,519
then within that national quality to hate the people on

1141
00:58:51,559 --> 00:58:53,679
the other side of the country for different reasons, you know,

1142
00:58:53,719 --> 00:58:56,119
and so forth, down to the sub atomic level. We

1143
00:58:56,159 --> 00:58:59,239
are done. Ross's book was great. We want you to

1144
00:58:59,239 --> 00:59:02,320
buy it. We want you ricochet dot com and discuss it.

1145
00:59:02,719 --> 00:59:04,199
And if you're thinking, wait a minute, isn't that some

1146
00:59:04,360 --> 00:59:07,920
kind of just civil cyvile center right political thing. No,

1147
00:59:08,400 --> 00:59:10,400
it's the place where people will have an animalst comment

1148
00:59:10,480 --> 00:59:15,599
thread discussing theology in interesting ways. So yes, Ricochet is

1149
00:59:15,679 --> 00:59:17,639
all things under the sun, and you really got to

1150
00:59:17,679 --> 00:59:20,199
go there. You can read it for free, but the

1151
00:59:20,239 --> 00:59:23,679
membership where the friendship's form and the interesting conversations happened

1152
00:59:24,280 --> 00:59:27,079
a couple of shekels a month, So go there. Rob

1153
00:59:27,119 --> 00:59:29,039
has been great to have you back, Steven and WELLI

1154
00:59:29,920 --> 00:59:33,360
we would like everybody, of course to buy Cozzy Earth

1155
00:59:33,480 --> 00:59:36,559
sheets because that thanks them and you get great sheets

1156
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:39,480
and find some place to leave us A review couldn't hurt.

1157
00:59:39,639 --> 00:59:40,480
What's stopping you?

1158
00:59:40,679 --> 00:59:41,119
Speaker 1: I don't know.

1159
00:59:41,440 --> 00:59:43,920
Speaker 4: All I know is this has been the Ricochet podcast.

1160
00:59:44,119 --> 00:59:46,119
We got another coming up right next week. But until

1161
00:59:46,119 --> 00:59:49,199
then we'll see everybody in the comments, said Ricochet four point.

1162
00:59:49,000 --> 00:59:57,039
Speaker 1: Zero sells Ricochet. Ye join the conversation.