Christian Values Vs. Civilization | Yaron Brook Show

So today we're back to the topic of civilization and UH and Christianity and uh uh yeah, well we'll keep on this rotation. I do not have any views today, but I do need to catch up on those, so

we'll probably devote a midweek show sometime to at least catch up on reviews and get them all done and get them all or most of them done by year end.

All right, Let's see, So I thought we talked today about Christian values and what they are, and then how they relate to Western civilization, to civilization, to where we are today, to how we got to where we are today, how civilization came about, and to what extent we can attribute civilization to these, you know, co Christian values, to what extent is Christianity responsible, But we'll look at it through the lens of Christian values, of through the lens

of Christian morality. I want to say one thing. I was thinking of calling this judo Christian values versus civilization, but then I thought, God, then I'd have to separate out what is exactly. I'd have to do the whole theology of the separation between Christianity and Judaism, and that seems ridiculous. Also, it just opens it up to the argument of no, there is no judo Christian It's really only Christian values and Jewish values are very different. And

to some extent that's true. So I decide dealt with it. I mean, the reality is judo Christian values. The whole idea of judo Christian civilization, judo Christian whatever is probably a mid twentieth century concept. It is a post Holocaust concept. It's a way for Christians to pretend that Christianity had nothing to do with the Holocaust, for Christians to pretend they don't know. You know, we've always been on the Jews side, you know, when faced with the reality of

what happened in you juring the World War two. Uh So, so there is no such thing as Judo Christian values. The Jews and the Christians indeed disagree on many of these values. They they they share common as well, see we won't see, but they'll share common irrationality, that the irrationality of religion, the originality of faith, that they share. But they disagree on the particulars. And there's no point

in really getting into it. Uh, just to be clear, just so nobody has any doubts, because I know a lot of people are out to get me on this issue. It's Judeo who cares. Judo is a martial art. I'm talking about Judo. You thought I was talking about Jews. Now I'm talking about Judo Christian. It's the it's the there's a Judo Christian thing, Judeo Judeo Christian. Just so we're clear, I don't think Jewish value said anything to

do with the civilization either. So everything I say criticizing Christianity with some variations because the values are different, but basically applies to Judaism. But why don't I and this is a question I get all the time, right, why don't I attack the Jewish religion and Judeo values as much as I attack Christian values, primarily because they're just mostly in America, in Western civilization. Arguably even in Israel,

they're not that relevant. We live in a world in which the relevant, the relevant values, the relevant, the relevant perception of morality, the relevant religion is Christianity. Judaism is an asterisk. It's barely significant that what I don't know, fifteen million Jews in the world, it doesn't count for anything. And most of those, many of those yewser if not most of those Jews a couple of secular and if they have any values, if they've absorbed any values they've

absorted from the Christian culture around them. And indeed, arguably Judaism is being Christianized quite a bit in the last few hundred years. So it's just a waste of time to criticize Judaism. Now, if I lived in Israel, where Judaism is to a large extent a threat qua religion is a threat to I think the existence of the state of Israel, to the success of the State of Israel,

to the Western the civilized aspect of Israeli society. Then it's spent a lot of time in Israel criticizing Jewish values, but I'm living in America and my audience is overwhelmingly, well not overwhelmingly not Israeli. It's overwhelmingly American and Canadian, Australian and European. It's Anglo Saxon and European and a

small fraction Israeli. So why would I talk Why would I spend time talking about Jewish values when it's not relevant to the challenges and struggles that we are are facing in America, the cultural issues that we face, and indeed to the very evolution of Western civilization. Western civilization

evolved in the context of Christianity, you know, that's a reality. It didn't evolve in the context of Judaism. It didn't evolved in the context of this particular version of the context of Islam. Although Islam played a much bigger role Muslims, not Islam. Muslims played a much bigger role, arguably suddenly in the in the in the push of of of civilizing the West than Jews did it because they were the transmitters. They were the people transmitted the knowledge of

the Greeks to the West, not Jews. Muslims did did that. So, you know, religion, religion sucks and across the board, and I'm not biased towards Judaism. You know, you could we could have a discussion about the relative virtues and vices of Christianity versus Judaism, and which version of Christianity, which versions of Judaism and so on. We could have that discussion. It could be an interesting discussion which one is worse

Christianity of Judaism. But that's not that important. It's not that interesting from the perspective of I reject them both from the perspective of the rejection of religion. All right, Uh, just a few other things. Somebody says, the Golden Age Islam. Yes, I'm you know. I read a book I told you about this. I read a book about Central Asia, Islam in Central Asia and the Golden Age, the Enlightenment in Central Asia in the I don't know, ninth to eleventh century,

and it was amazing. It was a really incredible book. And I'm reading a book now about Spain basically during the Middle Ages, that is the Islami consequest of Spain and then the erosion of that and and what happened there. Not as good of a book to too engaged in the politics of it. This King did that and rather

than in the intellectual it's not. Now, granted, the book is focused differently, it's not focused on enlightenment, it's not focused, but it still emphasizes the extent a where the the the fact that Christians were welcomed into Islamic Spain, into Andalusia, the south of Spain, which was which is which was Muslim for a very long time, and and were allowed into the libraries and therefore copied and translated the writings of of the Greek Greek Greek philosophers, and and also

the the Asian Islamic uh Enlightenment was also being translated. And then of course there was everywhere everyone is who is the great Muslim philosopher in Spain, who was as Italian? Who was translated into Latin. That is what's set off the intellectual revolution that made that that that led to the Renaissance, that led to Western civilization. So you cannot

you cannot understand Western civilization. You cannot understand the rise of of of a Statilian ideas, the the even the creation of universities and in Europe without an understanding of what they were reading, what was being translated, what was being what, what was being transmitted into Europe from the Muslim world during this period, primarily from Spain Primelli, from

the from the libraries and places like Cordoba. Uh and and later uh god, what's the what's the Toledo uh in in for the North Toledo which was occupied by the by the by the Christians pretty early and immediately they started translating everything and moving it out. So yeah, I mean, and Delicia was no paradise. So I gotside recommended the myth of these in paradise one week ago.

I don't I don't know if that's the book I'm reading, but I'm reading a book that basically says, yeah, it was no paradise, and it certainly it was no paradise. And I don't even know what you mean by paradise. They were all killing each other constantly, and raping and murdering and fighting and infighting, and and they were all in on it, the Christians, the Muslims, the Jews, they were all scheming and politically it was a complete disaster and there was no stability, and there really was no

period of of of paradise. But there were periods of great achievement, you know, not so much in the sciences, but philosophy you get mimonodes and and Avicenna nos in Asia and and mimonodes and and in poetry and and other cultural culturally it thrived what politically it was It was just a complete and out a disaster. And it was never paradise in a sense that everybody was constantly discriminating against everybody. You know, it wasn't everybody again was

slaughtering everybody. So very is very is all right? So I want to say that's also relevant because relevant to a discussion of where civilization comes from and how it involves, and relevant to the discussion about Christianity. But but I just want to fill you in kind of on the books that I am that I am reading. God, where's my phone? I didn't bring my phone into the office. Okay, that is fine. Uh, I want to say something else, No, I think that's all I want to say is in

a sense a backup. You know, introduction wasn't even really an introduction. But okay, let's jump in. Let's talk about Christian values, and we'll talk about the relations between Christian values and civilization. And let's be clear. Hear what I mean by civilization? What I mean by civilization. Uh is

a is a culture of achievements. Uh, it's a it's a society, a civilized society, as a society where you see great achievements in human life, that is in the arts, in architecture, in sciences, in the advancement of human well being. Civilization in a sense as a relative term, because it's contextual to the peuit it was in We talked about this last time we talked about civilization. Right, Egypt was

a civilization when it was a civilization. If you took that civilizations and planted in today, it would be barbaric. It would be primitive, barbaric, and and and and you know, completely uncivilized. But in the context of its time, it provided stability, it provided a legal system, It it proved I did some you know, human achievement, pyramids, some dabbling in primitive science, particularly astronomy, and and and some arts in Egyptian sculpture and things like that. Right, So it's

relative to the time. Greece is exceptional in a sense that much of that civilization would be civilized in any period except for the fact that Greeks had slaves and viewed slavery positively as a positive feature, you know, with some exceptions or some Greek thinkers who condemned slavery, Greek stated women, you know, awfully, democracy or political participation was very, very limited. So it was civilized in some respects even today.

But for its time, it's a civilization. It's a great civilization. It's one of the great civilizations ever because it has features Greece that impacted all civilization following it, and indeed would be considered civilized even today. So you know, civilization

is this threat that goes through history. Maybe it starts in with Soopotamia, Egypt, Babylon and Persia, Greece, Rome, Central Asia, you know, to some extent, you know, Andalusia, Baghdad, southern Spain, and then I think comes to Europe as a civilizing force, and Europe becomes civilized at some point, but it's not civilized. There's no Western civilization i'd certainly say before the Renaissance, and really no civilization in the sense of the achievements

of the modern world before the Enlightenment. So you know, there's no there is a Mayan civilization, there is a there are you know, American civilizations pre in in pre Europeans, arriving here. Those civilizations are civilized only in the context of the place and the time, but not in time, because there were already much more dramatic achievements in other places. Uh, you know, given the time, but given the place. They were improvements, you know, for for and compared to the

culture surrounding them. They were improvements to the mining civilization,

the Aztec civilization, and so on. And of course there was Chinese civilization, Indian civilization, who were kind of parallel civilizations that in many respects got stuck and never really never really advanced into the modern world, never really took the next step, you know, beyond uh, an organized society with the rule of law and a government, I mean at least laws and and and a government and a declining violence and UH and some technological and material achievements, right,

it got stuck. Those material achievements got stuck. They never made political achievements. The philosophical achievements got stuck. That there's you know, confuse Confucius and I mean there are a few others, but it a philosophical culture doesn't evolve like it does in Greece. And then ultimately UH in UH in Europe, so so what we have is so that's how we consider civilization. That's what I consider civilization. And then the question is is civilization can we see a

causal relationship between civilization and the Christian values? And so think about it this way, you know. Can we see a relationship between the political achievements of the funding Fathers and Christian values? Can we see a relationship between the

esthetic achievements of the Renaissance and Christian values? Can you see a relationship between the incredible scientific scientific achievements of the Renaissance through the Age of Science and the Age of Reason and into the modern world through Christian values? Can we see the material advancement that happens starting you know, sometimes in the late eighteenth century, through the Industrial Revolution through the twentieth century. Can we find those do those

have a root in Christian values? Can we see the relative decline in violence that happens starting in certainly starting in the early nineteenth century today in spite of the Two World Wars? Can we see the decline of violence during a certain period in Western civilization as anchored in Christian values? So, you know, that's that's the that's the project, that's that's what that's what I H. That's what I want to talk about today. We can't cover the whole topic.

We'll take on a few a few elements, and you know, maybe we'll talk about this again sometimes in the future. Reminder to feel fee to ask questions about about this or you know, anything else. But you know, it would be particularly interesting if you ask questions about this topic or generally about civilization, about history, the history of civilization, you know, and all of that. That would be the most interesting and I think useful if you could, if

you could do that. So we've got one question so far, but it's a fifty dollars one, so that's cool. And of course you could support the show with stickers all right. Now,

in order to figure out what what Christian values are, this is important important, I turned to my UH, to my UH basically UH, the companion theologian, the theodre, the in house if you will, my in house theologian UH, to ask about you what are coote Christian values? And in my household the in house theologian is chat Gypt five point two. That that that's uh, that is UH. That is where I get my theological advice from. Now I know for For some this will not be very satisfying.

They would rather I had an actual, you know, theologian here, but you know, alas I do not know any and uh, I've discovered that chat Gypt does a really decent job, like if you ask chachipt about iron Man, which I do you know? In view of this, I mean in view that it does a really good job of summarizing a philosophy of addressing it. Now, it's wrong on some things, and there's some nuances that are wrong, and it's a little skeptical of objectivism, but generally it's pretty damn good.

Now I don't I don't have groc although I guess I could use it through through Twitter, but I think checchiut seems to be quite good. Again, my measure quite good is is asking about something that I know, and uh, you know, I know objectivism. So I said about objectivism, and and it does it does it? It does it quite well. Jason says Moments will cook you dinner, Yeah, but without want to eat it. I don't know. Momon

food does not strike me as advertizing. I apologize to any moments out there who might be great chefs, but but just generic moment food is not my thing. Uh. You know, people are pretty just saying you know, Grock is more straightforward. You know. I wonder if I ask Groac what my core about core Christian values? Where they get a different answer, significantly the same with Gemini. Anyway, here we are. These are the core Christian values. It's got ten. I get the associate with the with the

ten Commandments, and it's separating from the Ten Commandments. I give it credit for not just giving me the Tin Commandments. Indeed, none of these are in the Ten Commandments explicitly. Uh so, uh you know Number one? Love charity, Love and charity. So uh you know, love God and love your neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself. You know. This includes compassion,

self sacrifice, and concern for the vulnerable. Okay, so so love love, you know, not so much as an emotion, but as a as a as a kind of a how do how does you know? As as actions as a guide to action, faith, love, faith, trusting God, commitment to his teachings. Not you know this is this is about reliance on God, loyalty to God, and this is where important truths come from. It's faith. The most important truths come from three Humility, recognition of human limitations, and

dependence on God. Rejects pride and self exaltation. The last shall be first. The last should be first. Forgiveness, forgiving others as God forgives. Uh, you know, and I find this weird. Forgiving others as God forgives. God is unbelievably unforgiving. Now everybody tells me that that's true of the Old Testament God. But the New Testament God is a very loving God and is very forgiving God if you follow his dictates to the letter. And even then it's not clear, right.

I mean, in the day of judgment, I go to Hell, I mean, where's forgiveness? Like, Okay, I've sinned here and there, But you know, where's the forgiveness to me? No, you got to help because why because you were born Jewish and you're an atheist. You got to help Hell. What you actually did in life? Hell is for you. I don't know. Forgiveness, I don't see that turned the other cheek turn out the chief Christians are very good at tuning the other cheek ah justice, which is more righteousness

and care for the poor, oppressed and marginalized mercy. It's often paid with mercy. Justice and mercy are related, right, And then another use of most is mostly in compassion. This is a number six, I guess, showing kindness. And again some of these repetitive ultimately because as we'll see, honesty and integrity, truthfulness and would in action and living consistently with one small commitments self sacrifice, willing it to give up personal comfort for others. I like the way

Chadgypt puts it personal comfort person that self sacrifice. Jesus gave up personal comfort to be put in a cross and kneel to it and suffer an agonizing slow death. I mean, that's a whitewashing of self sacrifice. How about willingness to give up your life, to give up your values, to give up what makes me happy, to give up what's yours for others. And then it says the second bullet point is modify modeled on Christ's life and crucifixion. But the whole point of the crucifixion is it wasn't

just giving up a personal comfort. It was a lot more than that. All Right, Maybe I'll try grock. Maybe maybe groc won't won't sneak in personal comfort kind of stuff in there? Obedience to God. Obedience to God, which I think is part of faith. Alliging one's life with God's will is revealed in the scripture and conscience and conscience, and they finally hope, confidence and salvation although most of you are not going to get salvation. You're not going

to get salvation, you know. And if you believe in Augustine, before you were born, God already decided whether you were saved or not, so forget it. Resurrection and eternal life, so hope. All right. So here's the thing I mean, basically, what does this all boil down to. It balls down to faith. It boils down to faith, and under faith you can put in a obedience to God and really hope. If hope is confidence in salvation, resurrection, eternal life, those

all based purely on faith. Uh, providing meaning and suffering in adversity. That's all faith, the faith that there is something. So I would say, you know, one is hope, sorry, one is faith. Faith captures much of this, right. A second is self sacrifice. Self sacrifice includes justice and mercy and forgiveness. Uh, they're all captured under self sacrifice, right, self sacrifice, justice, mercy, and forgiveness. So that's that's true.

We got faith, which captures hope, obedience to God and faith, and we've got and we've got we've got self sacrifice. And what's the third one. What's the third one? I mean third one would be I think humility or yeah, humility, which is, you know, recognition of your own limitation. And I would say this is also connected with love, although love could be also related to self sacrifice, because that's kind of the conception of love that they have. Their

love is self sacrificial. Their love is about compassion, about concern for the vulnerable, about loving your neighbor as yourself. Where they you know, so you know this humility, Yeah, there's kind of they throw in here two things like honesty and and what is honesty and integrity? Integrity, So okay, they have that in there. It's in the same commandments that shall not lie as duties. But you know, it doesn't that that is really so different than all the

other ones. And you could add it, but I don't think it's significant. I think the three that I want to focus on really a faith, self sacrifice, and humility. Faith, self sacrifice and humility. And the question is to what extent the faith, self sacrifice, and humility encourage or discourage civilization? To what extent did they play a role? These Christian values, these essential I think Christian values that capture a lot of the other Christians values. To what extent did they

really represent the striving towards and achievements of civilization. Think of a civilization that is built on faith, self sacrifice, and humility. I can't think of one. I can't think of them because I don't think that these are compatible with civilization. Indeed, if you think of an error in human history, with faith, self sacrifice, and humility were elevated above all else, we're elevated as the as the values that should dominate human life and should dominate human organization,

you know organization. Then if you think about a period like that, then you get the Dark Ages and maybe part of the Middle Ages. Jennifer Sais Jennifer says, you get twelve twenty Europe. Yes, you get you get Europe, or you get you know, the Muslim world since it's Golden Age faith. I mean, civilization depends on what I mean.

It depends on great achievements. It depends on hum human flourishing and human success at living at creating the material possibilities for living and and and improving materially and benefiting materially.

Human civilization depends on human creativity, things like arts and architecture and uh and and you know, and beyond that science and technology, and and they depend on being able to create political forms that facilitate the betterment of human life. Now, none of that comes from faith. There is no you know,

the Renaissance artists did not figure out anatomy from faith. Indeed, the Christian Church made it very, very very difficult for the Michelangelos and the Leonardo's and and the great artists of them, of the of the Renaissance to figure out anatomy because they banned dissection, They made it illegal, they viewed it as a sin. Faith does not give you Michael Angelo's David. It doesn't even give you a even I mean, it doesn't give you a a a Donald

Tello's David. It doesn't give you a school of Athens. It doesn't give you a uh kind of the the amazing I mean, Leonardo da Vinci doesn't give you any of his paintings where you know, where you can see kind of the careful detail of an emphasis on on things like perspective, but then of course on on expression, an expression, on emotion, on individuation, on the idea of individual, individuating the the particular, the particular people these painting. None

of that comes from faith that you know. It comes from studying human beings. It comes from It comes from you know, scientific analysis. It comes from experimentation with colors. It comes from a mathematical geomagical analysis of human perception and as a consequence, the discovery of perception. It comes from a study of anatomy, even the anatomy of the human face, the muscles of the face, the musculagy of

the face. It comes from reason, from the application of rationality. Now, all these people might have been Christian, but in that they were doing things that led to civilization, In that they were in acting causes that led to the to the effect there was civilization. They were not acting on

Christian values. They were acting on rational values, rational values that they recognized, either because of the introduction of rational values through Aristotle into the culture, you know, within Christianity, or implicitly or through their own realization. But they were pursuing, for example, the Renaissance. One of the things the Renaissance is really pursuing as a value, as an important value

is beauty, beauty for its own sake as a value. Now, even though the Christian Church in that period is doing the same thing. It is pursuing beauty, but that's not a Christian value. That is a pagan value. That is a value they've taken from the Greeks. The cathedrals are not meant to be beautiful. Indeed, the cathedrals are stark. The cathedrals have gargoyles on them, the cathedrals have sharp edges.

That that there's so much about making you look small, making you look insignificant as compared to the majesty and grandeur of God. It is the discovery of Greek and romanants and the introduction of even architecturally, you know, compare compare you know, Renaissance architecture. Two these ugly cathedrals, and you can see a different There's a certain harmony that is being sought in the Renaissance. There's a certain sense of beauty. There's this you know, edges, there's a lot

more rounding of things that domes rather than spires. There's a lot more seeking beauty and harmony Beauty is a value, it's a value in human life, but it's a secular value. Then is n used by the church because the church wants to embrace lots of secular values. Just want to make science. Its only wants to make beauty. Its only wants to make audits own for political reasons, for for for power reasons. Right, I mean, why do they Why do the popes make somempeter so amazing and beautiful and

grand and the higher the best artists. Anyway, Is this because there following scripture? Or is it because they want to show the world how rich and successful they are. They want to show the world, you know, the power that they have. And they also want to entice people to come to church. So church has beautiful music and has great paintings on the wall and and uh and so on. So you know, it's it's for the church beauty. It's not an end in any kind of sense, and

it's not to enhance human life. It's to project power and to entice people in. To entice people in. It's used for the purpose of the church, but it doesn't come from the church. Again, when the church dominates, you get goggo oyles. If you get any attempt at aesthetics.

You know, science. We've talked about this, and we'll talk about it many, many times, because I find this so damn condemning and so so stunning, you know, particularly given the historians who want to rewrite history to pretend that the Dark Ages didn't exist. But science science, when faith is at the forefront, then science does not advance, it does not succeed. That's why for thought and years there

was just no science. I mean really there was no science in the West about four hundred to about fourteen hundred. I mean, there was a little bit here in there, but nothing of substance, not anything dramatic, and no culture of science, no civilization. So faith, you know, it's anti science. It's the idea. And so this is not an accident. Faith is anti science. It's the idea. The truth comes from God, from revelation, not from observation, not from experimentation,

but from revelation or from an ancient book. And they were so it was so, I mean, the Christians were so immersed in faith. Faith was such a dominant value to them that when they discovered Aristotle and they had you know, they they found him interesting and fascinating. They took so much of what he said on faith, so that Aristotle's scientific observations, which for the most part, are wrong, they tried to defend as if it were scripture, because

their whole understanding was Aristotle couldn't be wrong. He was inspired by a by a revelation, by by a holy whatever. They didn't understand the methodology that he was using, which was anti faith pro reason, but uh yeah, anyway, it was it was faith is incompatible. It's it's incompatible with the civilization of science and and and and beauty and aesthetics and and and and the creation of those aesthetics.

So some other values had to be snuck in, some of the values that enter in order to make the civilization happen. Those values of beauty from the pagan world, the value of reason from Aristotle, the value of logic from Aristotle, and then the actual scientific work that the Greeks had done and the Arabs had done, Asians or whatever the Muslims had done penetrating and people going whoa, oh, you can do this stuff. It's not just the Greeks. Other people can do it. Maybe we can do it.

But those ideas, the idea of reason and rationality and observation and the possibility of discovery. That is what makes civilization possible. Faith is the anti civilizing force. And indeed, as those values are entering, the Church is fighting them.

They're fighting against Aristotle, they're fighting against science, and to some extent in early Renaissance, they're fighting against the artists. It's controversial what the artists are doing. So faith incompatible with civilization, incompatible with civilization. I'm going to go to humility, will leave self sacrifice dand it's humility compatible with civilization. Humility the recognition of human limitation and dependence of God. I mean, really, where would we be without the arrogance

of a Newton or the Galileo. I mean, you have to be pretty arrogant, self confident, self assertive to say to the world you've all been wrong, You've all been damn wrong. I have the truth, I have discovered the truth. This is how the world works, and you guys are wrong. Humility I mean was Michelangelo or I mean Michelangelo was not humble. He could do with marble what he wanted to do with marble, and he knew it, and he knew he was the best and he told people he

was the best. And it's reflective in his work. He is pushing himself, he is striving, he's perfecting, he's not depending on God, he's not contemplating his limitations. I mean, and you know you can argue that to the extent that he rejects pride, he suffers for it. The last should be first. What civilization was ever built by the last, by the meek, by the poor. By the way, if you want to ask a question or make a comment or challenge me on something, super chat is open. That's

the way to do it. Don't just stick it in the chat if you want me to see it. The comments today are hysterical. Oh my god. All right. You know, these the people who sold a civilization, the people who build civilization, who create civilization, who have made the modern world, which even if you reject you are massive beneficiaries of, are not guided by humility. They guided by a passion to seek out the truth, to change the world, to

create something beautiful. Civilization was created by men who reject the value of humility and embrace their own capacity for genius, their own capacity to shape the world, their own capacity to understand the world. Free of faith, free of a reliance on a god, on mysticism. I mean, do humble men create the United States of America? No, These were men were supreme confidence and self esteem. These are not

men that were the last. These were the men who were first of immense intelligence, of a men's capabilities, and they knew it. They were actors. In reality. They weren't guided by faith to establish America. They weren't guided by humility to establish America. They were guided by self estas theme, love for this world, love for freedom as individuals. As individuals. Again, they might have had, they might have had, you know, presented Christian ideals because that's the world in which they live,

and that's all they thought. I'm saying. They acted against those ideals. Oh, I mean Newton was deeply religious, Locke wise, you know, Michelangelo was. No, No, not so much. But they acted against that. I don't know exactly what Franklin meant by humility, but religious humility, recognition of his limitations and dependence on God and rejecting and self exultation and the last shall be first. That's not Franklin. That's not Benjamin Franklin. Even if he wrote in His Little Book

of Virtues, to be humble. This is not the humility. It's not Christian humility that he's talking about. You know. Don't be boastful. We all can agree, don't be boastful. Don't take credit for things you are not responsible for. Don't you know a lord of other people because of your success. There are lots of things that we can agree that might fall under something related to humility that

Franklin might be talking about. But in terms of what it means in Christianity, no, no. And finally, self sacrifice, I mean self sacrifice fundamentally means the giving up of personal values, of your values, of values that you believe in, necessarily for your life, your happiness, for your success, for your flourishing, for the sake of others, giving up a

high value for no nothing in return, no something lower in return. Again, that is not That is not civilization, so civilization building. Self sacrifice is what you demand of people who go to war for you. It's what you demand of your serfs, it's what you demand of slaves. But self sacrifice, self sacrifice is not a morality of

value seekers. People who are you know, you know, aggressively pursuing passionately pursuing, aggressively and passionately pursuing the values, which is what you need to build a civilization and to sustain a civilization and maintain a civilization. You need the creation of values, human values, values necessary for human life. I mean a sacrifice would be to ask Michael Angel not to sculpt David because I don't know there was

some charity work that need to be done. You need, you need to go in and feed people in the soup kitchen. I mean, none of the people who built Western civilization, who created the civilization, Who who who created the achievements right, the science, the art, the architecture, the political freedom, political liberty that that characterizes modern civilization. Those

people didn't do it as an act of sacrifice. Even when the funding fathers signed the Declamation independence, knowing that they're likely to be killed because they're likely to lose the war and the British will execute them. They don't view it as a sacrifice in a sense of giving up a high value for low value. They view their freedom as a high value, a value that will interest their life's for same goes for the soldiers who fight

to protect civilization, defend civilization, sustain civilization. It's not a self sacrifice. It's not about mercy and compassion and a willingness to give up stuff. And suddenly nobody's ever created civilization by modeling Christ's life. Christ's life is stagnation. It's not elevation. It's stagnation. It's not progress. The idea of human progress, the idea that we can achieve more that is not a humble idea, that is not an idea

based on faith. God doesn't promise that anyway. You promise the salvation to some, but salvation has any doo with achieving material prosperity or beauty or anything else in this earth other than sacrifice. And sacrifice denies you the time, the energy, the focus, the ability to make to achieve

great things. So there is there's no relationship between these Christian values and the civilized in the civilized world and civilization I mean compassion good thing, But compassion doesn't build civilization. Mercy doesn't justice in a sense of care for the poor and the press, and marginalized I mean finding fathers. The declamation of Pendis doesn't talk about the poor, preston marginalized talks about individual rights. Oh men are equal, equal

in their rights, politically free as individuals. Forgiveness. I'm just looking at this, I mean, which of these? And I'm not even gonna get to love because i think the definition of Christian love is absurd and ridiculous because it relies on self sacrifice. We can talk another time about love. Jennifer's compassion for whom, compassion for the last, the last shall be first. It's a compassion for the suffering, compassion for the people who don't have compassion for anybody except you.

And of course hope. Hope is you know. Entrepreneurs are not hopeful. They're doers. They go create the world that they want. They don't sit around hoping for it. They're not confident in this salvation. They go create, they go build, they go make again. Entrepreneurs, you don't function on the basis of faith. I mean confidence, belief based on based on evidence in your own ability and in the market and all that stuff, but not faith. And entrepreneurship is

not about self sacrifice. It's about working hard, it's about trade offs. It's about giving up stuff. Indeed, faith self sacrifice and humility anti civilization of values and to the extent that they had taken seriously, we know what they lead to in spite of the idea of love and and uh and and forgiveness. I mean, did Charlomage forgive those well they Frankish, well, I'm not even sure what

they were. But you know, the four thousand, five hundred soldiers who refused to convert to Christianity who he slaughtered in one day? Was that an act of charity, forgiveness, love? What exactly was it? Certainly an act of faith he believed God had you know, had not commanded, but in

trust to him to do the right thing. Maybe viewed as a more active justice when heretics were burnt at the stake for disagreeing about whether there was a trinity or what the relationship in the trinity between God and the Son where there was literally a son, whether they were co equals, or whether they were all the same. Like I mean, Catholic Church post what do you call it?

Nicea holds that it's a three that are one, right, So they don't believe in a is a. The Catholic Church does not believe a is a. They don't believe a thing is what it is. They believe something three different things can be one thing. So three different gods can be one god. And if you disagreed about that, or some implications of that, a minor explanation of that,

you were burned at a steak. I mean Calvin burnt somebody who was very friendly with and he actually respected, because of a disagreement about the trinity in Culvi's Geneva. But there was no tolerance for people who misinterpreted the Bible. There's only one interpretation, Calvin's in this case, and if you disagreed with it, it was it. You were burned at the steak. So Christianity incompatible with civilization, incompatible with freedom.

Now I say incompatible that is to the extent that it is taken seriously, to the extent that it is embraced fully, it leads to the opposite, it leads to uncivilized. To the extent that it's just embraced at the margin. Then yeah, civilization can still exist Christians. You're not adding

to it. It's subtracting from it, and it's subtracting from human flourishing. But it can coexist if you will. Reason and faith can coexist even though the opposites and they're driving civilization in different directions right, one uncivilized, one to civilize, and ultimately one has to win and one will lose. But again to the extent that we are Christian, to the extent we take it seriously, to the extent that we're going to be consistent about it, to the extent

that we pursue it. To that extent, we are driving ourselves a culture a world away from civilization, towards about barty, towards twelve twenty or nine thirty or six sixty six, there's go they go, six sixty six. That's a good number. So my conclusion not surprising, I think to anybody out

there is Christian values is incompatible with civilization. They hold civilization back, They undermine civilization and to fully, to fully embrace the potential that is civilization, the potential that is freedom, the potential that is science, The potential is beauty and aesthetics and art. The potential it is human achievement in any realm, The potential it is love, the potential it is human relationships. One needs to reject the Christian values.

Now it's not enough to reject them. You have to replace them. And you have to replace the values inc it in reality discovered through reason. We are rational animal. To live as nature in a sense, to live by our nature requires us to banon faith in the name of reason, to banon self sacrifice in the name of our own thriving, in our own flourishing, and to bannon humility in the name of pride, a commitment to our

own success, achievement, perfection. So yes, Christianity civilization, they don't mix. I mean they mix, but the one is polluting the other. Christianity is polluting the element that is civilized. All right, thank you guys, thanks for joining me. That was an hour.

All right, We're good, super chat is good. Thank you. I appreciate that we're on a good track. A lot of questions, all right, I'll just to get through all of them. Let me remind you of a few things again. You can keep asking questions, that's great. And if you don't want to ask questions, you can you can do you can do stickers. December thirty first, we'll be doing an extended show review of twenty twenty five and looking forward to twenty twenty six from one pm East Coast

time until who knows four plus hours. We'll also make that a big fundraising push fundraising events, So please, if you're not a regular live listener, please consider coming live just to participate in the fundraising aspect of it. It'll also be fun and engaging and we'll have some fun banter and back and forth. I might have some guests show up to take some of your questions. I'll try to let you know in advance once I know who's going to come, so that might also be might also

be installed. But generally we'll try to make it fun and interesting, and there'll be the suspense of can we raise? Can we raise the money? Which is always fun. If you'd like to contribute and don't want to use YouTube because it's limited by five hundred dollars, or you just don't don't want to do it on YouTube, you can

do it on PayPal. Just write in the notes of PayPal under your run book show PayPal, just write in the notes that it's for the New Year's You've show, so I know to attribute that money for that show. All right, let's see if there's anything else I wanted to mention before we jump into your questions. You know, we've got a bunch of sponsors that're down there. You can you can you can find the links down there.

I'll give them full credit nixt show and yeah, Patreon, don't forget to become a monthly supporter of the show on Patreon. If you are to ten dollars, you get the audio version of the podcast with no ads, with no ads, right. If you get it the normal way, you get it with ads. But if you do ten dollars on Patreon you get a separate feed still through

Apple Podcasts or whatever, but now you don't have any ads. Also, I didn't even know this, but it turns out that if you are if you support this own Patreon at five dollars above, you have access to all the all the members only shows. You can't watch it live because that technically YouTube doesn't allow me to do. You have to be a member on YouTube to watch them live,

but you can't watch them after the fact. You can watch all the shows the members only shows after the fact on YouTube, you know, I guess, I guess, No, you can't watch them. You get a podcast version of them. So you get a podcast version of all the members only shows that you can listen to. So that's another poke that exists on Patreon beyond the regular pooks. Those are unique to patreons, So please consider becoming a monthly supporter.

As we enter into twenty twenty six, it'll be great to increase the number of people supporting on a monthly basis. And of course, the the the dollar amount. All right, let me turn to your questions. Let's doing this, all right, let's stull with Andrew. Fifty dollars, Thank you, Andrew. Advice for serious believers of Catholicism in their youth who now consider themselves subjectivists. To avoid the ranscid premise of suffering

on the earth as a supernatural value, one must first come to know that acknowledging one's pleasure is safe. Yes, acknowledging one pleasure is safe, and pleasure is good. Pleasure is to be enjoyed. Embrace pleasure. I mean, make sure it's not a sacrificial pleasure, that you're not giving up a higher value for it. But pleasure, core, pleasure is good. It's a sign of life. It's a positive sign. So it's the knowledge you know. Pleasure is safe, it's good,

it's a value. It's pro life, pro you there's no sin involved. Also to those of you who were once Catholic and a now objectivist or Christian generally, I highly recommend Iinman's essay, and you can find it in the internet. You can find it for free on Air's website. Duty versus causality, because I think that what happens to many people who come to objectivism from religion, any religion, but primarily Christianity, is they then approach the objective's ethics as duties.

Iin Ran rejects duty through and through completely. She calls it an anti concept. It is a destructive idea that un minds morality, undermines ethics. I mean, we'll have to do a show on this. So you've got to reject duty. And this is the sense of which objectivism is not a religion. You do not act out of duty in order to live your morality, And she talks about the objection's morality is causal. You act out of an understanding

of causation instead of acting on duty. You act based on values that are pro life, and what causes those values, the actions that are necessary to achieve those values, those become your virtues and values. So morality, you know, religion tells you thou shalt, thou shalt that your duty to do it. And by the way, the more you suffer doing it, the more virtuous it is. Because you know, religion fundamental leans anti individual human life. It's not a

pro life ideology religion, it's an anti life ideology. But objectivism says, no, don't do it out of duty. You must discover your values. You must figure out what's good for you. Here's some philosophical ideas, but you must make them your own. And those abstractions don't give you concrete guidance in terms of what to do in your life. You have to figure that out. So you know, rationality, reason is a cordon of value in objectivism. Okay, what do I do with that? How do I apply it?

What does that mean in terms of career, love, a pursuit of anything. Well, you have to figure that out, not subjectively, not out of emotion, but through a process of causation. If reason is a value, what causes my must I affect in the world in order to achieve it? What must I do in my life in order to achieve the value of reason? If you want to be successful in your career, If that's a value, what must I do? How must I act? What should I cause

in my life? To achieve successive work. So you act on the basis facts, evidence, reality, and on the basis of values that are oweent it towards your life. And if you have a sense of thus shall be h You know, objectivism says that honesty is a virtue, and and you you have this thing in your head that says that I shall be honest. I need to be honest honesty you know, you know, then you haven't. You've got to understand how honesty affects your life. How honesty

is just an application of rationality. How it's a means to achieving the value of reason, It's a means to achieving the value of self esteem, it's the means to achieving the value of happiness. It's not a commandment, it's

not a duty. And suffering and pain mostly signals, with exception of exercise, that something is not right, something is not working, whereas on the duty premise, pain is suffering is a sign of positive So yeah, I mean, when you come to objectives and from religion, there's a lot of baggage. There's a lot of baggage, and you've got

to be aware of that. And I think Andrew's right in one of the baggage is one of the ways to you know, realize you in a new world now, It is to come to terms with the idea of the of the goodness, of the value of pleasure molten splendor. Why does so many think that a charismatic objectives leader will help socialism fuentes to all have large followings, But

aren't they just reflections of the culture. In my opinion, a reflection of an individualist culture, a reflection of individual's culture, is more important than a new tribe. Yeah, I mean absolutely, I don't think a charismatic objectives leader will help. There's no harm. Be great, but it's not going to make a big difference. It'll attract a few more people, it'll increase maybe leadership of bne Rand. But this is the point.

To be a follower fuentis. You don't have to do a lot of thinking, you don't have to do a lot of integrating, you don't have to do a lot of work on yourself. It's pure emotion. The same with socialism. I mean, you just it's easy to follow a leader in that respect because you just follow the leader and you follow your emotions, and you get angry when you when it's appropriate. Objectivism requires that you think, integrate, understand, and the most charismatic leader can do is prompt you

to do that. But then you have to do the work, and there's nothing to indicate the culture. People in the culture are ready for that work, ready to actually do the thinking, to actually do the integrating. But look, the reason they think that is because everybody wants a shortcut. Well frustrated by the fact that we don't yet have an objectivest world, well frustrated by the fact that evil and bad people succeeding politically certainly as much as they

are and culturally as much as they are. And we want a solution, and we want a solution now, and we're not willing to wait. And if only a great charismatic leader came about, but the only way he would gain large audiences is you're right, if those audiences became a tribe, and I'm thinking following tribe. What we need is cultural change. Cultural change takes a long time. It's a lot of work. People have to do the work themselves. Nobody can do it for them. No charisma can do

the work for you. You have to do the work. You have to change, and it takes generations. It just does. There's no shortcuts, no shortcuts, sadly or not sadly. I mean this is it's hard to be saddened by It's hard to be sad by the metaphysical, the very nature of reality. There's just no shortcuts. People have to do the work, and work takes time, and for people to realize they have to do the work is going to take a long time. Andrews says, I've observed something, and

wonder if you think it's ominous. Christian aesthetics has improved lately, just one example, in a series in a In the series,

Martin Scorsese is directing the Saints much more compelling and even beautiful at times. What does this portend, you know, a rise in in in Uh, you know, I don't know. I'd have to see the show and to see to what extent is it really Christian right? To what extent is it really uh enforcing Christian values? But look, the reality is that we live in a world dominated by Christian values in many respects, certainly in the in the realm of ideas and in the realm of esthetics. I mean,

socialism is fundamentally Christian. You know, for interests of course, doing it in the name of christiananity. So we are surrounded everywhere by Christian values. And did the fact that did the fact that, I don't know, Michelangelo sculpt the pieta Christian theme. You can even say the theme of the sculpture, which might be, you know, resignation, Mary's resignation

to the fate of her son. You know that that make Christianity stronger, maybe at the margin, but it also there's also such a strong secular aspect to it that I think it also weakens it at the same time.

So it depends what people responded to, and I think they they much more responded to a humanized Jesus, a strong, powerful man, a beautiful woman mourning who lover because Mary in it is just as young as Jesus is uh And and there's a real there's a real secular aspect to it, even if ultimately the theme is she's resigning to the loss right. So it depends on exactly what the art form is actually doing. But look, Christianity in some respects is on the rise. More people are taking

it seriously. It seems to be gaining influence politically generally, I think we need to be worried, you know, and I don't know. You know, Christian music is kind of silly. It's just it's just a form of either rock or pop or country. Uh. You don't have a bah, you don't ever a mot are doing a requiem, you don't

None of that exists. So even if it's goes directly in the Saints, it's one element that, you know, to really have pro Christian aesthetics, you got a long way to go, particularly if you compare it to the Renaissance. And the Renaissance is a period of de Christianization, not of intensifying Christianization. So I'm not too worried about any particular a TV series, but maybe it's a broader phenomena. But all the themes of almost all the movies are

altruistic and collectivistic, and in that sense anti civilization. And your civilization just survives as wider then how long I don't know, but it survives. Pick axing pick axing in Europe. On Europe, he says, Finnish Bernstein's a splendid exchange recently, incredible real heroic gems like ancient wheat being traded by up to the euphrates for copper and lapis and lazuli all the way to the fallacy of the corn laws. I was shuffed. Yeah, I mean it's a really really

good book. I mean there's some things later on when he gets the twentieth century and and current events that I think he's compromising. But his history stuff is just amazing. And yes, the idea of trade in a very very primitive society when you know, when they didn't have even have wagons and wheels and they still manage the trade stuff, you know, and the amount of trade that was going on internationally early early in human existence, early in human civilization,

because this is kind of is just stunning. It's just amazing. And uh and and Bernstein's it's called It's a Splendid Exchange is the book by the author's name is Bernstein. It's on Amazon and gained audiobook. You get it a book form or kindle. It really, really, really is a good book, and it gives you a perspective on trade and how it's been part of human life pretty much forever. That is incredibly valuable. Sea's bad. What would iron Ran think of Chernobyl disaster if she lived to see it?

What would she think of the current regime. Well, I

don't know. I mean, look, let's be very clear, I do not channel lining rand. I don't know what she would think, really, I mean, I can I can guess, or I can give you my my But she was an original thinking and always had perspectives and ways of approaching, and she was a genius in ways. I'm not. So there's just no way for me to tell you what Iran would think. You know, But but I think it's the obvious, right she she would think Chernobyl was expected

in a consequence of socialism and communism. I think the way was the way it was depicted in the miniseries Chernobyl. I think it was an HBO or something like that. Chernobyl. I think it's very much aligned with I think the way Iran would have imagined it happening. If you read Atlas Shrugged. It's almost like some scenes in Atlas Shrugged, like the train, like the training and the tunnel and

other things. So, you know, I think I think what happened there is very consistent with what she did, right with what she she believed in what she she believed, how evil functions, the way evil functions the evasion that the not taking push responsibility to anything. I think she she saw that, she understood that, she understood that that was very much in the nature of communism, and so what she would think of the county regime, she would

she would again, I don't think she'd be surprised. She believed that that Russian culture was was very much mystical, superstitious and mystical, and and very much relied as a consequence on a powerful authoritarian leader. And I don't think she'd be surprised that Putin's authoritarianism and that there were alti passivity of the Russian people. I mean not all

of them. Many of them left and many of them objected, but most of them there were alter pacivity of the Russian people, just like they were passive under Communism, that passive under Putin. So I don't think she'd be surprised at all that Russia became authoritarian in a different way than Communism, but still essentially authoritarian with the fall of Communism. Molten's splendid kindness rocks altruism. Guilt, self sacrifice sucks, yes,

and kindness rocks to people worthy of kindness. I mean, there's some people I would not be kind to I'm a big believer in you know, some people deserve hate, some people deserve to be treated badly. So kindness rocks to people you don't know, or to people, to people you have, to people of whom you have no reason to think ill of, But to people who you think ill of, you shouldn't be kind. Yep, thanks Moulten, not

Chavi Jagorithm. Some days I think the Enlightenment is just too vigorous for ideas are silly and primitive as Christianity than do it. But when I see what the Republican Party is devolved into in such a short time, it's

hard to say yeah. I mean it is to say I have this strong sense that the Enlightenment has been weakened dramatically over the last twenty years. And it's it's we're living through times right now that are truly scary and and I mean I've been watching some of the turning points us say stuff. I'll talk about it on Monday, God and and and the on Twitter a lot. So I see a lot of these stupid heritage Americans, I mean, the the barbarity, the primitiveness of this idea of heritage Americans.

My eleventh grand parents, it's eleven generations earlier, came on the main flower, my tenth. This family was a funding father and this is you know, like what have you done? And and what does that have anything to do with you? They and and how many of them were slave owners? And how many of them were criminals? And how many of them did horrible things? Because if you go back eleven generations, that's a lot of grandparents. There a lot of grandparents. That's a lot of people. Some of them

were really bad. So what does it mean? And yet they take it so seriously, they're so intent on it, they're so committed to it. I mean, I couldn't imagine just a few years ago that America would become this collectivistic, this tribal, this racist. I mean, I guess should have known better because it has a racist past, but I did not. I think that was something America powerfully had overcome. And to see it revoting back to it, unbelievable. Uh,

swish up. Excellent show and presentation today. Happy holidays to you and yours. Happy holidays to you too, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and all the rest. Lourie, please talk about the process challenges in writing your book and how you overcome them. Came them? Oh, the process challenges. I'm

not sure what process challenges are. By the way, we just signed to deal with an agent. I'm excited. I don't know. I think most of the challenges intellectual. Most of the challenges intellectual, and someday I don't think there's really I mean, Don is a good writer, I'm a good editor. We both can hash out these things. So process is I think pretty down. You'd have to ask Don if he feels differently. I think the main thing is that the intellectual stuff is hard. So how do

you how do you conceptualize Christianity? For example? Like there are a million different types of Christianity? Right, every little Protestant sects has a different interpretation. What's the essence? What are the essentials of Christianity? And how do you do it in a way that doesn't come off dismissive of all the different christian variations? How does it? How do you? Yeah?

But even Jesus, they're like multiple interpretations of Jesus. Jordan Peterson has an interpretation of someone in the amount which is different than I think Pope X's and Pope Wis and Pope Ce's, they all have different ones. So what is the essence? What are you criticizing Christianity? So you have to do that again. You have to do it

unless you're just writing for an objective at audience. You have to do it in a credible way that a Christian audience or mildly Christian audience, because I don't think we'll convince anybody who's thoroughly Christian, but a mildly Christian audience, so somebody raised in Christianity would recognize it. And then how do you untangle the fact that in the same geographic area at the same time you have these opposite

forces functioning. You have Christianity functioning, and you have call it Greek ideas or Ristatilian ideas functioning, and Christianity at least nominally seems to embrace some of the Greek ideas. So what extent does it embracing Greek ideas because of the nature of Christianity? And to what extent is it embracing idea Greek ideas in spite of its nature of Christianity?

And I think it's in spite of Christianity. But how do you show that you know, and because a lot of Christians will say, see, we embraced Abstotle, we brought reason into the West. And it's like you did that in spite of being Christian, not because you were Christian. Christianity fought against it, or Christianity Quai ideas fought against

so all of that untangling, that's the most complex. I think that the layout of stoical the sequence historically of you know, the introduction of Greek Austatilian well, the decline of Greek ideas and early Christianity and the going into the Dark Ages and the rediscovery of Greek ideas in in the Late Middle Ages or the early Middle Ages, and then more so in the Late Middle Ages. It leads to the Renaissance, leads to the Enlightenment, leads to

the modern world. That I think we have right that that I think is lays it out and I you know, I think we've I think we have a deep understanding of that. But even there, what is important, what is not important, you know, is complicated. But I think it's untangling. How do you separate that from the story of Christianity. So yeah, I mean a lot of people claim that Christianity is all answer for a conception of the individual. Uh, but but you know, I don't. I don't think that's

even true. I think there's a that conception of the individual, the conception of ie, a conception of a of an individual mind already exists in Greece. So I don't think that was invented by Christianity, you know, I really So. There are a lot of things that people throw at you as the different virtues of Christianity, dignity, I don't know the equality of man. And yet Christianity abided by slavery for a very long time. And and but then the many of the leading abolitionists are Christian, So how

do you how do you do that? I mean, all the southern slave owners are Christian and use Christianity justify slavery. But then all the abolitionists, or significant number of the abolitions were like Quakers, and and and I mean committed Christians, not not just moduling Christians. So how do you how do you explain that? So it's that's the complication. It's an intellectual issue of figuring out what's the saying, show what's not, and how to untangle it? All right, all right, Andrew,

do you agree that this. With this as a general point regarding pity, an emotionally connected person allows himself to access all emotions, including pity, but Christianity says to maximize it.

Pity is an intense emotion. Don't play with it. I don't know what playing with an emotion is. But you know what does pity mean? Right? I mean to feel sorry for somebody. I mean, if you're rational, you only feel sorry for somebody when they deserve that feeling. That is now, because you have baggage, you might feel it when it's undeserving, when you shouldn't feel it in a sense, but you feel it. So what objectivism teaches you use

Your emotions are what they are. You feel them, you recognize them, and then you evaluate whether they deserve taking action or not. Based on Christianity says it's it's pity is a essential emotion on which you should always take action. It's an essential emotion that should guide you in life. You should pity the poor, you should pity the weak. But I don't pity the poor. I pity some poor. I don't have the emotion of pity towards the poor. I have an emotion of pity towards the unjustly poor.

But if I see about a you know the example I always use, if I see a white beating drunk who's poor, I don't pity them. I mean, if anything, it's a sense of justice the poor because they deserve to be poor. So there's a deserving poor and there's an undeserving poor. And to the extent that you're going to respawn emotionally, it's you should You should be responding emotionally in a sense of I guess pity is a

is you're feeling sorry for them. You feel for them, you you, you, you, you, You have empathy for them. In some sense, you only want to do that for people who don't deserve to be poor. So Christianity doesn't discriminate. I don't pity my enemy, you know so, So while you take your emotions as they are, you also should evaluate them in a sense of do they come from

from the right place? Do they come from from the place of love or from a place to us gin Rooni, I guess terminology from the place of fear Andrew the impassioned part of Rand's answer on how we can teach our children not to be ashamed of success do not teach him to be humble? Yes, yeah, take credit for

your work. Take credit for your success. Again, it doesn't mean to be boastful. It doesn't mean to the lord of others over your success, because it's not about other people's about you. I succeeded, I did it, I built it, I created It's exactly the opposite of what's his name, Obama's. You didn't build that. You should be humble. You didn't build it. No, I didn't build it, and am. If a Christian today is being overall good and rational, why do I need to pick a fight by telling them?

Or those oh those aren't? You aren't your Christian values? If a Christian to today is being overall good and rational, why do I need to tell well? Because they might not be tomorrow. That is, tomorrow, they might hear a different sermon and it too, put those values differently and become more Christian and therefore become worse. And as long as you're Christian and you hold faith, there's only so

much happiness you can attain. There's a cap on your ability to be rational, and they're for successful and happy. So you're doing them a favor by telling them. Here's the real nature of the values you're pursuing, and you should be more consistent about it. It's good for their life. And secondly, you want to arm them not to be captured in the name of Christianity by the values that would do you home and all of us home. So truth is a good thing. Reality is a good thing.

Knowing what people really you know, people knowing themselves is a good thing. Liam says, will you be on the panel, Stephen pikat this SoCon? You know? I don't know. I assume not because I haven't heard, But I just don't know.

I don't know who's going to be on, and I have not heard anything one of the others. I assume the answer is no, because I assume that they've already planned it. But you know, I don't know. I'm not involved in the planning of it. Hapacampbell thoughts on retiring in Santa Barbara, California versus Orange County. God, I mean, I don't know. Santa Barbara strikes is more expensive than Omige County. Orange County has a lot more variety in terms of housing and places to live. Santa Barbara is

smaller and probably more expensive. Santa Barbara is more beautiful if you can, particularly if you can get something on the hills overlooking the ocean. It's gorgeous. It really is amazing. Orange County to get a house overlooks the ocean is very expensive, but it's probably very expensive in Santa Barbara. I get a sense that Orange County has more stuff to do, but I'm not sure. I don't know Santa Barba that much. There's a symphony, it has upper coming

there once in a while. La is not that far, particularly if you can drive off hours, off rush hours, you can get to La and less than an hour sometimes and then there's all the benefits of La. Uh. There's a lot more, probably a lotmo restaurants in Orange County, particularly given that you can get to La. So, but look, whether in both places is great. Ocean is right there views the great expensive places to live, but yeah, wonderful

in many regards, many respects. And you have to tolerate California. James on hundred years. So now will AOI be bigger than the church? You know, my powers of prophecy are very limited. Powers of prophecy are very limited. So I

don't know. I hope so I hope so, and there's a chance. I don't know how to put a probability on it. One hundred years is a long time, but there certainly is a chance we will be Andrew. Materially, the year twenty twenty five standard of living in America like living in heaven on Earth. The citizens the civilized world wasn't built for the sake of teaching heaven, but for the betterment of man on Earth. I'm not sure what you're getting at, Andrew, but I'll just say, yeah,

it's nobody satisfied, and nobody should be. The point is more, more and more. We're greedy human beings. Rational human beings are greedy. Healthy human beings. Put it this way, healthy human beings are greedy. If greed beans, you want more, and we want more. We want flying cars, for God's sake. We want materially more we want spiritually we want more. We want more success, we want more prosperity, we want

more fun, we want more pleasure. We want more. So twenty twenty five was like living on was living in an amazing world materially, and it could be much much, much, much much better, and we should strive for that. Yeah, I don't think it's well worded because I didn't quite understand it, Robert. Every year, every one of these values is reimagined by the better among contemporary American Christians. I know, faith is risk tolerance, humility is knowing your limitations and

avoiding second handedness, and fake pride. Love is benevolent and embracing values, which makes discussing the underlying contradiction within these issues challenging at best. Yeah, but when you push them, when you push them, the altruism comes out. The Yeah. At the end of the day, you know, they believe in a God, and God has certain things that they

must do. At the end of the day, it affects the epistemology and it certainly affects their ethics and their ability to experience pride, their ability to gain self esteem, the ability to to be, you know, even more ambitious than they are. So yes, I think it's hard, but a lot of that is rationalization. And what you need to do is ask them questions that help kind of, you know, reveal what is being rationalized and and and and what is behind it all. And the fact that

no they accept they accept these definitions. They just have they know their anti life at some level, and they don't want to live that life. So they've they've redefined them, they've they've put them to the side, but they haven't completely given up on them, because otherwise they'd have to give up on being Christian. God is still there in altruism, is still there that undermines them, and that's what you

need to help them. See Moulten's Splenderism. Sorry I missed you're missing link talk, but I did enjoy listening to it later. Please do more of these, Yeah, I intend to thanks Moulton's Splendi intend to I like numbers. When did you have become civilized? I think during the Enlightenment. I think in the mid sixteen hundreds. You know, you

can't certainly the Thirty Year War was not a civilized thing, Sully. The Inquisition was not civilized. So I'd say post thirty Year War, early seventeen hundreds, laced sixteen hundreds somewhere around that. The Enlightenment. Basically, that's when it becomes civilized. It becomes a little bit, it becomes more peaceful. Of course, it becomes much more peaceful. In the nineteenth century. You know,

rulers are viewed with a lot more suspicion. In Britain you get a much more sort of parliament and a significant reduction in the power of the king. And there's a certain tendency around Europe for a little bit of that, although not in France they have to go through a revolution to get that, but it certainly becomes it's becoming civilized intellectually, scientifically, peace wise and politically. And of course you could say it's civilized in seventeen seventy six. Now

that doesn't mean bad things don't continue to happen. Slavery, for example, that only gets but it's on a path starting in the late seventeenth century. It's on a path for progress, for progress materially, in progress, spiritually and progress politically. So the America is the consequence of that. JJ. Your thoughts on the film A Man of All False Seasons. I rewatched it recently. I thought it was great. I tried to imagine how you would interpret it. Yeah, I mean,

I love that movie. It's a really great movie. It's a movie about integrity, now integrity to false values, but still integrity and the evil of kind of an authoritarian king, a whim worshiping authoritarian king, and a man standing on principle. So it's the story of Tom'smore and can Hang Me the eighth and Yeah, and it's really well acted and really well directed, and the dialogue is excellent. Yeah, I mean,

I really like that movie. I haven't seen in a long time, but I remember it's it's up there, and it's up there in my movie lists Andrew. Does integrity to self sacrifice? Suicide? Is that? In that sense? Do the monks who set themselves on fire for social cause

achieve the utmost moral good? Well, I mean by their sick morality, Yeah, but that's not morality, so they don't. They achieved them all good. But you know, some people would argue that by dying it doesn't allow them to help more poor people, So probably not right. So the ideal is suffering through life well, wanting to commit suicide and help helping other people while hating helping them. That's

the ideal. That's utmost mal good. The outbros male good is staying alive in spite of the pain, the suffering that you experience in order to help other people and to eat and take care of yourself just enough so that you can keep staying alive, so you can help other people. That's the ultimate good. That's why Mother Teresa is a saint. Robert. Oh, this splitting along question with multiple super chats like I just did is definitely cheating.

You're very charitable for not criticizing it. Why would I criticize it? It was completely legit. I mean, if you'd done it in one question as a twenty dollars question, I would have answered it earlier sooner. So, if anything, it was it was hurting you. No, it wasn't cheating. Who suffered from the cheat? Who did the cheat? There's

the expense of all right, Jeff. If we support freedom of speech and separation of church and state, how do we achieve the removal of religion from government and schools without silencing them. Well, you don't remove it in the

sense of that the president is religious. The president can be religious. What it means to remove it from government is that it affects it should not affect legislation, that it should not affect governing. And there's a sense in which that's almost impossible. If you know, particularly in a democracy where people can vote anything, in the sense that people are influenced by their values, and if their value

is a christian and a vote Christianity. But a court could say the prime the reason this, the reasoning for this law is fundamentally religious, and therefore we strike it as unconstitutional. Now, you can silence people in the context of schools and in the context of lots of things, right, I can silence you on my here, on my on

my chat. So if you perceive government schools as at least in the functioning pseudo private property, the private property of I don't know, the parents or whatever of the school board, then the school board gets it in the curriculum. They can decide who to platform and who not the platform. It's absolutely not the responsibility of a school board to maximize speech to allow for all perspectives to be presented. No, they have to make a decision about in the name

of educating the kids, what should be and should be presented. Now, ideally there are no public schools, you know, government schools, and then private schools get to the side what should and shouldn't be in the curriculum. Free speech is not a contradiction to deplatforming, as long as the deplatforming happens in the context of private interaction like numbers. Was walk

wrong to pity Keating. Look, there's a sense in which the whole relationship with doing keyting and rock doesn't really make sense to me, Like what keeps helping keyting to what end? You know, he's being benevolent, but it's sometimes

there's a friendship there that doesn't quite make sense. So the only reason I think that work with pity Keating is that he sees something in Keating that I don't see that is a source of their friendship, that is a real value, and he is he pities him because he can see his potential if he taken a different route, if he had if he had uh not made committed the errors or it's not errors, the evasions that he did when he was young. But I don't pity Keating.

I think he gets exactly what he deserves. Jason in the two thousands Peacock on his podcast pointed out how concerning and un settling the mere notion of motorcycle bikers

have their own Christian ministries was now it's normal in my town and on TV. Yeah, and it's everywhere, and then many ministries everywhere. It's these you know, Christianity catering to every little group, every little tribe, that comes about they develop their own theology for them. All right, we are only thirteen dollars short of our goal. Let's try

to make it. We've got ten minutes. Ten minutes is hort stop anyway, So you know there's somebody come in with thirteen dollar question and so we can there we go. That's ten and we're just the ten. So we just need three now. FJ fang. I've just realized I don't like my parents or have anything in common with them. I'm struggling with this, Yeah, I mean it's normal to struggle with it. The question is do you have any feelings towards them because they raised you, because they gave

you life? Is that a value to you? The fact that they raised you and gave you life. Did they raise you well? And so to what extent is that a positive that that you want to recognize and accept and and and and therefore, you know, give them a certain minimal level of respect and appreciation for that. But if you don't like your parents and you don't have anything in common with them, then you've got you should

adjust your relationship accordingly. I mean, you don't hang up with him a lot, don't spend a lot of time with him. You know, whatever it is your valuation your parent is and your emotion and your commitment to them, figure out what that is and adjust your interaction with them to that. So if you appreciate them because they raise you, okay, and you appreciate the fact that they gave you life, but you know, it's not that you dislike them, it's not that you hate them, it's not

but you just don't have anything common with me. You don't like them that much or not, they're not your kind of people, then minimize your interaction with them. Don't cut them off completely, because you still have that basic appreciation for them. But if you don't, then cut them

off completely that is I'm not against that. But in other words, adjust your relationship with your parents to the extent to which they are value to you, and don't feel that you have to do more than that, because they're your parents and you should honor your father and your mother, so says the Bible. Andrew, I think you should use this show to organize your material for the book. It was really well structured and impactful. Thank you, Lincoln.

I mean, I'm doing that in a sense because this really helps me think through some of these issues, and then I go back to the book and verbalizing it really makes it. It clarifies it to me. Don listens to it. I think it helps clarify to him. At least it clarssfis what I'm thinking to him, and then we can have a discussion about it. Lincoln, why is Christianny more common in America than Europe even though the

US was founded by large secular Enlightenment thinkers. I think because, I think because it wasn't a state religion, it was allowed to morph, and it's all kinds of sects and all kinds of interpretations and develop in a way that made it consistent with America as it emerged in the nineteenth century. So the conflict between Modernity and Christianity didn't become as evident because it kind of Christianity kind of absorbed America or incorporated America into its theology. This is

the point that Robert was making earlier. Most of Americas the theology is American. I tell them often that they love Jefferson more than Jesus, and they loved the and they love the Constitution more than the Bible, so they made it part of it. I think that also there were no really leading intellectuals in America were kind of really secular and pushed the secular agenda until kind of the pragmatists, whereas in Europe, I think there was a

real secularization among the intellectuals very early on. There was kind of a diminishing of religion to some extent, or secularization of religion. And of course there was this massive secularization of religion that was done by Marx, you know, basically secularizing religion into into his view of communism. There are other things. I mean, Europe really secularized after the First World War. First World War was such a horrific

event for them. It was so disorienting. The idea that it could be a god and the First World War happened was just beyond them. It was similar to the Thirty Year War, which led to the Enlightenment. I think the First World War led to secularism but also to cynicism. But it's a good question. I don't have a full answer to it. It would require real analysis. Lincas is, how can a career in the military be self interested? I like the idea of being in the military part

time by the national guard. But it feels a bit

and I didn't I don't have the second part of the question, but let me just answer that. Look you can it feels a bit the military at the current administration is against my values. Yes, I mean, I think you'd you really have to be questioning about whether to join the military under the conditions of this administration or any other administration because of all against your values, you know, in in this modern world, and what are you fighting for?

You know, it's not clear, So it's it's I think it's a difficult, much more difficult decision today to join the military than would have been in the past because of the nature of the country, the people, and and and and our politicians, our leaders, uh and and and including by the way, the generals and what they will tell you to do or not do, and which is which I think really damaging. But to make a career of it in a rational, rational world, I don't see

a big issue there. I mean, it's it's a challenging position. It's it requires a lot of thinking, it requires action. It's yeah, it requires you know, uh, strategy, It's it's a challenging, interesting profession. You know, how to how to defend how to defend military, how to use the military to defend values. Andrew, my manager gave me a good advice regarding a person who apputs to me, who's objectively not doing her work, and I was defending her. She said,

you said, you're not her savior. Andrew, that is very good advice. Yes, yes, you can't save people. It's not your job as a manager to save people. Your job is to objectively evaluate them and give them that objective feedback and treat them with justice, which means you know, positively if they're doing good job, and negatively if they're doing a bad job. Lincoln says thoughts on LDS moment Church, I don't have a lot. I don't know that much

about them. I mean, it's a crazy story. If you listen to the story of how the church came about, you know, anybody believes that has to be a little cuckoo.

But that's true of all religion. They just are modern people believing in that is just bizarre. Modern people coming up with that theology is bizarre. But generally, if you go to if you interact with Moments, they're hard working, they're honest, they're quite productive, they're nice, people. You know, they seem quite friendly, So yeah, I mean they seem pretty normal in spite of the Kooki theology. And the question is, my guess is most of them just don't

take that theology very seriously. You know, they very quickly abandoned polygamy when it become when it became politically inconvenient for them, so they obviously don't take theology. That's eviously right. I mean, polygamy was part of the theology. And then they were told if you in order to become a state, you would have to embrace monogamy, and they did in order to become a state, So they rewrote the rules, just like Christians do all the time. The moments I've

interacted with mostly being positive people. But I also know a lot of people who left the church. Actually there's a number who become objectivists, and they have a much more negative view of the church, right because they've lived it. So I'm sure that if you live it, it's not pleasant at all, and if your parents take it seriously, to an extent that it's taken seriously, it's not pleasant at all. The extent that it's taken seriously is bad, just like all religion. All right, guys, have a great

rest of your weekend. I will see you on Monday. I schedule got a little screwed up, but anyway, we don't have an interview on Monday, so we'll just have a show on Monday. The Nicos interview is a week later, so yeah, I will see you then. Thanks all the super shadows. We made our goal, just squeaked in perfectly. Thank you, and yeah, have a great weekend. By