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June 3, 2013 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:14:33

2396 Freedomain Radio Call In Show June 2nd, 2013

Stefan Molyneux, host of Freedomain Radio, discusses the darkside of music, how religion drove the Iraq war, prevalence of religious hypocrisy, finding love after a forty year drought, indecision, turning into Hitler and much much more!

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	All right.
	Well, everybody, hello.
	It's Stefan Molyneux on early June 2013.
	I hope you're doing very well.
	This is the Free Domain Radio Sunday Listener Philosophy Brain Borg Call-In Show.
	I hope you're doing well.
	I don't have anything particular to chat about in terms of news and the weather this morning, other than to say my health continues.
	Hopefully, it's massive Apollo 16-like ascending spiral up to the very lunar module.
	And I'm sorry.
	The metaphor escaped orbit and went off into interstellar space.
	Sometimes it happens.
	You can't wrangle every cattle to the ground.
	Ooh, that one actually worked out alright.
	Okay, so James, if you would like to bring up the first caller, let's see what is on the collective brain of the greatest listeners in the history of spoken communication.
	Hi, Stefan.
	How are you?
	I'm very well.
	How are you doing?
	Good.
	Thanks for taking my call this morning.
	I'm really happy to hear about your health.
	That makes two of us.
	Yeah, I bet.
	I was actually the one that emailed you about, you actually kind of talked about it already in your last podcast, about the kid leaving religion, having a girlfriend still that might want to raise her kids in the church.
	Yes, okay.
	So it's you who's, well, more than dating, but not quite engaged to the woman who's still hilt deep in the Mormon faith?
	Exactly.
	Yep, that's me.
	Right.
	So, yeah, I wanted to thank you for talking about it the other day.
	I was listening to it, and I was like, oh, he's talking about my issue.
	But...
	It's kind of a bigger issue, though.
	There's more to it.
	That one thing is just one little aspect of leaving the Mormon faith.
	So maybe I thought we could talk about that today.
	Absolutely.
	I'm very happy to.
	So just for the background for those who have not...
	I mean, if there's one person out there who happened to be in a coma when I did my last show, I'm sure that everyone's heard it.
	But just in case you haven't, this fine fellow wrote to me and said that he was a Mormon and he's left the...
	I hate to say left the faith.
	That sounds really...
	You are now faithless.
	You now believe in nothing.
	But he's left the religion, for want of a better word.
	But his girlfriend slash live in...
	You guys live together?
	No, not yet.
	Okay.
	So, but she's interested in getting married, he's interested in getting married, but she wants to raise the children in the Mormon belief system.
	And you, I think not so much of my advice was that you can believe whatever you want, but you don't have the right to inflict superstitions on your children, because they don't have a choice in the matter.
	You know, it's prisoner indoctrination to inflict irrationalities on your On your children because they can't leave.
	They didn't choose to be there.
	They didn't choose you as parents and so on.
	So that's not something that is, I think, a positive and productive thing to do.
	I don't even think it's a moral thing to do, but that's sort of where we have...
	Do you want to talk more about it, which I think is great.
	I mean, certainly my two minutes on it can't possibly do justice to a very complex issue, so I'm certainly happy to talk further about it.
	Yeah, yeah, that'd be great.
	Well, let me give you my backstory then.
	When I was very young, about, you know, five, I mean...
	My parents would take me to church back in the day.
	And I remember that I did not appreciate it.
	I didn't want to go to church.
	I didn't understand what they were saying.
	Plus, the clothes would itch and the shoes would come untied.
	It was just a big hassle.
	I didn't like it.
	And I had an experience one day where I felt...
	The one thing I did like about church was being able to sing.
	I kind of liked singing as a kid.
	As I was singing at church one time, I kind of felt emotional about it.
	I started thinking about the words, I got emotional, and I felt as if at the time that this was the revelation, the answer of God to me that everybody was talking about.
	And from that moment forward, that's probably like seven or eight or something like that, from that moment forward until I was about 22 or three, I was totally devoted 100% to the church.
	And looking back on it now, and even during it, I kind of felt like something was wrong.
	And looking back on it now, I can kind of see how my growth, my intellectual development, in every way, emotional, social, was kind of stunted by me being so into it, so dedicated, and so Believing that it was true and everything.
	I mean, I don't know, we can get into that.
	When you have that, you kind of adopt a different set of morals.
	But they're not your morals, they're just commandments.
	And so that's just one example of how you just stunt your own growth by, or I felt like I stunted my growth.
	By just adopting all these things without even thinking about it.
	Just saying, oh, well, it's what the church teaches, so it's got to be true, so I'm down.
	So, I mean, looking back on that now, I can see how it's kind of hurt me as a person, and I don't want to do that to my kids, and I don't really see that my girlfriend sees that yet.
	She just sees the good stuff, like a social structure and And having friends and, I don't know, all those other kind of good things that a church embodies.
	But I don't want to put my kids through what I've been through.
	So, that's kind of some of the background.
	Yeah, just a couple of thoughts that popped into my head.
	First of all, music is...
	Music has a really dark side, and I think you sort of experienced that as well, which is that music is very effective in terms of propaganda.
	It's hypnotic.
	It gives you emotions without intellectual content, which is always very dangerous.
	And, of course, when it's communal, when everyone's singing together, there's a feeling of unity that comes simply out of everyone singing together, which is entirely artificial.
	Like, I mean, if you go to a sports game and everybody starts singing some...
	There's a false feeling of unity.
	The same thing happens, of course, with national anthems and so on.
	There's a very false feeling of unity that comes with everyone singing together and it bypasses sort of rational intellectual skepticism.
	So music is very dangerous, particularly for children, because it can provide them, again, emotional Content without intellectual content, which is dangerous.
	And it gives a false feeling of unity, which is why there's always singing in propaganda.
	I mean, think of the music that goes into totalitarian regimes.
	Think of all of the hymns to the state called national anthems or the hymns to deities called...
	Religious music, it is all very effective in getting people to feel this sense of emotional connection and unity without Actual emotional connection.
	Like intimacy is great and intimacy requires that you really know what the other person thinks and feels.
	But if you want everyone to feel like they have intimacy, just get them all to do something together and music is about the most effective in creating that.
	So the fact that it happened during music is not accidental.
	A lot of the religions have this sort of chanting that is designed to put you into a semi-hypnotic state.
	Think of the Gregorian chants that happened in the Middle Ages.
	I used to sing some of those when I was in theater school.
	We used to use them as warm-up exercises.
	And they are incredibly hypnotic.
	When you think about it, they put you into a state of receptivity, which is very dangerous, I think, again.
	So a lot of the stuff that happens in almost all of the major religions to do with chanting and to do with songs is a way of bypassing your critical and rational faculties and getting you to feel connected and united.
	With people without the actual trouble of getting to know them as individuals.
	So I've always sort of looked at it like music is like a fast-flowing current and all the salmon end up swimming kind of in the same direction.
	But just because there's a current, not because they've all made some sort of decision.
	And so music is something that is very tricky when it comes to children.
	And if you get children to repeatedly sing songs that have...
	An emotional content, both in terms of the kind of music, like what kind of music, happy, sad, or whatever.
	The devotional music where children are repeatedly singing the tenets of the religion, then that's very much propagandizing them.
	It's like getting people to just repeat a particular intellectual position over and over again with songs, stirring music, and so on.
	It gives them a feeling of truth without the work of actually trying to achieve truth.
	So I think that music is a beautiful and wonderful part of life, but like all of the things that have power in human nature, it has generally been hijacked by the worst elements in society, pointed at children, and the trigger is repeatedly pulled.
	So, I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry about that, but I can certainly understand that during a time of musical ecstasy that you felt a bond with the religion, because that's really the point.
	Oh, wow.
	Yeah, that's exactly, exactly.
	Well, it worked on me, you know?
	Yeah, they've evolved very well, you know?
	Whatever didn't work in terms of propaganda was...
	Whatever religion said, oh, I know...
	Playing drum solos on your forehead is the way to indoctrinate children.
	They generally didn't last, right?
	The religions that lasted and have spread and grown are the ones that most effectively use propaganda against children.
	That's a sort of meme selection bias that happens.
	And generally, a religion's success is directly proportional to the degree to which it is willing to treat children as empty objects to be filled up with profitable superstitions.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and I have some other issues that have come up.
	I mean, like, first of all, with the girlfriend thing, I don't exactly know...
	So I've been through this process of leaving the church and thinking more rationally and all this for a few years now, and I've come to where I am, and I can't expect her to...
	I'm not trying to change her.
	Like, if she wanted to go to church for the rest of her life, that'd be fine.
	But...
	I'm sorry to interrupt you.
	I just wanted to pause on that point.
	Yeah.
	Why don't you want to change her?
	I would love to have an influence or a little persuasion and opening her mind up to things.
	But I started dating her and I developed this relationship while she was LDS and she's wonderful.
	I'm in love with her.
	I can accept her for who she is.
	I hope that makes sense.
	Because we all come to relationships with our past, right?
	Other things that we just accept in the other person because we love all the good characteristics about them.
	I don't know, but I don't want that to be in there.
	Well, sorry, again, I just want to ask a question or two.
	Do you believe that...
	I'm trying to phrase it in a way that's not leading, because, I mean, I really want an open-ended...
	I don't have an answer to this on the tip of my tongue.
	Do you believe that religious faith is positive, neutral, or destructive to a person's...
	True identity or rational integrity or what have you?
	That's a good question.
	Let me tell you what.
	I went on an LDS mission church, right?
	An LDS mission.
	And I saw and I continue to see.
	An LDS mission is where you're a young adult, like 20 years old, and you go out for two years preaching the gospel door to door.
	That's basically what it is.
	You go with other people.
	The only reason that God put sidewalks in suburbia, right?
	Exactly.
	So, I saw a lot of people that find the church or find a church because they're at a low in their life or they don't have anything.
	They need a kind of moral code to live by.
	They're willing to change and they just don't have a moral code.
	An identity for themselves.
	So they're missing these things and religion will provide that.
	And I continue to see that constantly.
	So it's good in a way that it's a crutch for people because I asked my own mom when I was making these decisions about what I felt about the church.
	I said, Mom, why do you go to church and why have you gone to church your whole life?
	And she didn't say...
	Like I would have a few years ago, that it's true.
	Like, it's true.
	What else matters?
	I want to go to heaven, not to hell, and all that, right?
	Exactly.
	She didn't say all that, which is what I would have said a while ago.
	But she said, it's a good way to live your life.
	You know, it has good teachings.
	She said, I have a great husband, a good family, we have a good community.
	That's why she's in the church.
	So it has positive aspects to it like that, but if you want to, I don't know, I kind of feel like saying it's a crutch to not taking control of the way you live your life for your own self.
	Like, when you're in the church, like I have been, and you just follow the commandments, the guidelines, just because, you know, just because you don't want to go to hell or You don't want other people in the community to look down on you or whatever reason it is.
	It's not because you think...
	I mean, you might also think, hey, that's a good idea, but it's not because you've sat down, at least this wasn't for me, and decided this is, may I say, universally preferable behavior, you know?
	So you haven't decided that for yourself.
	You haven't thought about it logically, figured it out, You just accept it.
	So, it's kind of a crutch, but it has good aspects to it in that respect.
	Kind of a life by life.
	I don't like it to extend past one generation, right?
	But if somebody feels like they need religion in their life, then it can be good.
	It can get people out of drugs.
	It can do those kinds of things.
	Provide them with a...
	Like, if they're a vine, something to grow onto, you know?
	But I want to be a treat.
	I just want to have a trunk and grow myself.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	Let me also add something that I've been thinking about lately.
	So, you know, for those who don't know about, I think about two months ago, whenever I was diagnosed with cancer, and I'm going through chemotherapy, and unfortunately, it's not having a hugely negative impact.
	I mean, I'm a stay-at-home dad to a A four-year-old, and I was told by the doctor it was unlikely I would be able to provide care for her, but fortunately, I'm able to still provide great care for my daughter.
	If I wasn't, and I was part of a church, there would be, from what I've seen, there would be people who would really step up to help out.
	And you get that kind of social support network.
	A friend of mine's father had brain cancer.
	And he was an atheist, but as the, you know, not too subtle a metaphor, but I don't know the degree of which it's biological, but as the brain cancer continued to destroy his higher cognitive faculties, he became more and more religious, and he and his wife ended up joining a church, and the church was incredibly supportive during the, the churchgoers were incredibly supportive during the Final stages of what was an incredibly difficult illness to go through to manage and so on.
	And I think, you know, if he'd been an objectivist, it's hard to imagine, or a libertarian, it's hard to imagine that same level of community support would have occurred.
	Incredibly hard trials and tribulations that occur where people become resource black holes.
	They need resources.
	They need someone to come and help them and a family can do that.
	That's great for people who don't, like if you're older and you don't have your parents who can do that or maybe siblings are further away.
	The one thing that, well, one of the many things that religion does get right is the degree to which it is willing to invest time and energy in It's members.
	So lots of religious groups, you know, when I'm at the hospital, I see lots of religious groups who are volunteering to be, I think they're called candy stripers, volunteering at hospitals to help people out.
	And I don't know the degree to which I would see a lot of libertarians volunteering at hospitals to help people out.
	And one of the things I'm thinking of is in the fall when this is all behind me to start focusing on really generating more libertarian charities, because this has been quite It's instructive to me.
	I mean, so far a bullet has missed me that could have been incredibly difficult, which would be I would be unable to provide care for my daughter.
	And what would I do?
	It's a real challenge.
	So the one thing I think that libertarianism slash objectivism slash anarchism tends to be a young, single, healthy, independent man's gig.
	This doesn't have anything to do with the truth or falseness of it.
	I still fully accept the truth of the anarchic principles.
	The older you get, the more challenging your resource requirements become.
	And one thing that religion does is They bring soup to the sick and they volunteer and they help out.
	And that to me has been a very important and instructive thing to understand the prevalence of religion, to understand the challenges that people have in joining anarchic communities or voluntarist communities.
	And this is why I think things like the Free State Project are interesting.
	And I don't know the degree to which there's charity going on there.
	I'm sure there is.
	But I think that is one of the things that becomes challenging for people who are focused on This paradigm of volunteerism is that it's not a big enough set of communities yet where you can get the resources that you need from your community for free if you need them.
	There's not enough to build that sort of reciprocity of tribal networks that are the hammock and support system for those who, through no fault of their own, tend to be in significant need.
	That is already there.
	That's built in when you join A church.
	And so I just wanted to point out that this sort of, the community aspect, I think, is important to religion.
	And you know, when I was facing my diagnosis and what the doctors were telling me, the toll that the treatments were going to take on me, it was a challenge.
	Because, you know, it's not like I can, you know, just go to my local atheist-anarchist gathering and say, dudes, you know, I need some help here.
	I need some significant resources to help get me through the next couple of months.
	That's not possible.
	In that sense, I can sort of understand the degree to which the welfare state rose with the collapse of religion in many people's lives because there just are times when you need those resources.
	And how do you deal with that?
	I think that's an interesting question.
	I don't have a big answer for it other than I think...
	I was trying to think of objectivist slash libertarian charities and volunteer groups and so on.
	And I've certainly tried to get some of the listeners of my show involved in things like Big Brother and so on, and they have, and I think they've had very positive experiences with that.
	And I myself, you know, donate to charity and all that kind of stuff, particularly the stuff which helps get medicine to kids in the third world.
	I think that's all very important.
	But I can understand in a way that I didn't before the degree to which When you need resources, having a collective community is important.
	Obviously, I think that a rational philosophical community would be far better than a superstitious one, but beggars can't be choosers when you need those resources.
	Does this make any sense to you?
	Oh, that's one of the challenges that I'm dealing with while leaving religion.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Oh, yeah.
	You've got to wander off into the desert saying, I'm sure there's an oasis out there somewhere.
	It's kind of cross your fingers.
	That's how I feel.
	Yeah, that's how I feel.
	It's hard.
	I mean, this is all I've known, right?
	And so I'm venturing out.
	And the other hard thing about this is your family doesn't understand, right?
	And I haven't even really talked to them about it.
	I've only talked to my immediate closest friends.
	And that has already proven a challenge with my girlfriend and this situation that we've been talking about.
	So just being able to communicate it with your family, I'm not going to get any empathy from them.
	And I'm only, when there's no empathy, there's got to be judgment.
	And so I know that I'm only going to get judgment, probably quiet, silent judgment, like Oh, did you hear about Jordan?
	This, that, and the other.
	Not to my face, but I'm not excited about that either.
	So I keep, I don't know, yeah.
	But what you write.
	I get that.
	That's hard.
	Wouldn't it be great in life if just once you could get the cheese without the trap taking a finger off?
	Wouldn't that be great if you just didn't, like if you could pursue truth and wisdom and self-knowledge and rational virtues and integrity and thinking for yourself and reasoning, all of that, and get all of the beautiful and wonderful prizes of that without at the same time having some big ass fucking bear trap take your leg off at the same time.
	Wouldn't that be great if you just didn't have to choose between reason and community?
	I mean, man, because we're social beings.
	We're not isolated astral-traveling cats, for God's sakes.
	We're social beings.
	We like community.
	We need community.
	But at the same time, we are driven to reason and truth and evidence.
	And these poles, these opposites, it really does feel like you're sometimes in that old Genghis Khan punishment of having four horses tied to each limb, and they all charge off in an opposite direction.
	I hope I hug myself okay, because otherwise I'm going to be bouncing all over the tundra in various pieces.
	And it's horrible that after 2,500 years of philosophy, the choice remains as stark now as it did in the days of the pre-Socratics.
	Now, it's true that we're not given hemlock anymore, and there has been some significant progress.
	We ain't burned at the stake as much as we used to.
	Good, good stuff.
	But it does suck that...
	Integrity Tends to isolation and Honesty tends to ostracism and that is Tragic and that remains I think is heartbreaking I talked about this when I was in New York this remains as heartbreaking now as it did in the past where I can say I get my human need for community met at my individual need for actualization or I can get my individual need for actualization meant at the expense of my human need for community
	and And it, as they used to say in the Old Testament, it doth suck.
	So I really sympathize with that.
	Yeah, well, thank you.
	Thank you for your sympathy.
	But it's really, I have to thank you also, because what's been helping me also is good examples of people that can stand on their empty feet, you know?
	And like yourself, I mean, when I was kind of thinking about libertarian or Anarchist concepts, and I saw Doug Casey, I was like, this guy, he doesn't care what other people think.
	And you just kind of have to be that way if you're going to go this route of objectivism or, you know, rational thinking.
	Well, I mean, I know that there's, and this is all just my personal opinion, this is not philosophy, this is just person to person, open my heart time.
	I don't know the degree to which not caring about what other people think, while it is a relief to imagine it, and it probably is a relief to experience it, I don't know the degree to which it is an ideal emotional state to be in.
	You know, empathy is not a laser.
	Empathy is like sunlight.
	At least I think real empathy is like sunlight.
	So I don't think, I've not been able to find a way to only care about what my friends and wife and daughter think and have no, and nobody else has any impact on me.
	I've not, like, to me it just seems like a big giant switch.
	You know, if you turn your empathy off, well, okay, then you don't care what people think, but I think that's very costly in terms of interdependence and love and emotional connection and all that.
	I mean, I incredibly care what my friends think of me, I incredibly care what my wife thinks of me, and I incredibly, incredibly care What my daughter thinks of me.
	Almost every single day, probably a few times a day, I ask her how her day's going, how she's enjoying her time with me, if there's anything I can do different or better.
	And it really, really matters to me what they think of me.
	I have not found a way to, like a big giant table saw, cut that little part out of my heart and have only the people who I care about, that's the only people I ever...
	I don't care about what they think of me and have no opinion whatsoever or no interest whatsoever in what anybody else out of this particular circle thinks about me.
	It seems to me that there's always a case where there's overlap, where people I don't care about, do I care what they think about me?
	Well, yeah, probably to some degree it's less, right?
	But I think that the ideal of I don't want to care what people think about me, I think that I don't know any way to achieve that.
	Other than...
	Without.
	I mean, there is no switch, at least for me, to turn off empathy.
	So I don't know how to achieve that.
	And I don't know how to achieve that in a way, even if I could, that's so precise that it only targets the people I'm indifferent to or don't like and never targets the people who are incredibly important to me.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So that's a new epiphany for me.
	Then...
	Sorry, I don't know if Doug Casey has kids or a wife.
	I don't know much about his personal life at all.
	I haven't either.
	My first thought, and I like Doug a lot, but my first thought would be, has that indifference come at the price of other things that I would not be willing to pay?
	Yes.
	Yeah, I see where you're coming from.
	I see that now.
	So that means that the solution to my problems with communicating with everybody, my family, community, my girlfriend, even friends, would be...
	Can you give me some guidelines on this of how to approach this topic of the new me, I guess, without...
	Just how to communicate it effectively to maybe be understood...
	Or, so that I can care what they think about me and put my best foot forward.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	There's no way to solve the fundamental problem, I don't think.
	I mean, and I'm telling you this is my opinion.
	This is no absolute answer because that I think would be impossible, at least it's certainly impossible for me.
	I don't think there's any way to solve the problem that honesty on your part is going to cause emotional difficulties for others.
	Who are still religious in your circle.
	So I think if you accept that as a possible fact, I think it's true.
	If other people have become conformists, then you are becoming an individual.
	There is...
	Whether we like it or not, there is an implicit criticism of collectivism from individualism, right?
	So if you say, I'm no longer going to believe things that other people inflicted upon me as a child, oh, and that reminds me of the one thing I, you know, if you listen to this again, and I would recommend that you do, I would focus when you listen on your story about for how long you were religious from, as you say, the You talk a lot about your choices and what you believed in someone rather than what was inflicted upon you.
	And for which there was enormous social pressure to conform to.
	So I'd really focus on the outside forces rather than your individual choices.
	I think that's especially because you were a kid.
	I just wanted to mention that.
	I wanted to mention that earlier, but I forgot.
	So I don't think there's any way to say, I am going to choose to think for myself.
	I'm going to choose to reject the irrational superstitions that were frankly unjustly inflicted upon me as a child.
	And I'm going to live with reason and philosophy and integrity and true virtue rather than just obedience to edicts and so on.
	And that's better for me.
	This is not, you know, I've switched from heavy metal to jazz, right?
	All right.
	Which is a matter of taste, not a matter of better and worse.
	Because there is an implicit criticism.
	When you choose reason over superstition, there is an implicit criticism of superstition that is not personal to you, but is rather more objective and true for everyone.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	So that aspect...
	Until reality reverses itself, which I'm not holding my breath for, that is not something that I think will be able to change.
	Now, do you think that there's a possibility that...
	And I don't know the edicts of the Mormon Church, but just looking at Christianity, and again I know it's not exactly the same, but looking at Christianity, one of the things that is the most frustrating is the...
	Self-reinforcing cherry picking that occurs during times of moral crisis.
	It seems to me, from what I've seen, that all Christians do is they use religion in general to reinforce whatever emotional impulse that they're having, right?
	When the planes fly into the World Trade Center, the Christians, who are the vast majority in America, the Christians seem to forget a couple of edicts that Jesus put forward, like, turn the other goddamn cheek and love your enemies.
	That was nowhere to be seen.
	I didn't see any of the Christians and almost all of the people in the media and the people in politics.
	They're all Christians, and not like Sunday once an hour Christians, but real Christians.
	God-fearing, Christ-loving Christians, I did not see any of them say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
	Christ commanded us to love our enemies.
	Christ commanded us to turn the other cheek.
	If he asked for your cloak, give him your shirt too.
	If he asked you to walk a mile with him, walk two miles with him.
	Let us take the example, what would Jesus do?
	Jesus would try to love his enemies and try to understand where they were coming from.
	I saw none of that in the lead-up.
	To two of the most brutal invasions the world has ever seen.
	You're totally right.
	And that is really kind of frustrating when you see that utter disregard of one of the most central tenets of Christianity.
	Christianity is focused on Christ.
	And if you want to find an eye for an eye commandments in religions, they're not hard to find.
	Right.
	I mean, they're not hard to find.
	But the whole point of Christianity is to allow the adaptations that Christ put upon the Old Testament religious commandments to be primal, to have primacy.
	You're not supposed to skip over Jesus and go to the goddamn Old Testament if you're a Christian.
	You know, the key is in the first five letters, folks.
	So, it is incredibly frustrating, though, I mean, it's not that frustrating for me anymore, because I understand it in a deeper way, but it is incredibly frustrating when you see Christians continually Satisfying their bloodlust with no reference to the central tenets of their religion because it makes you ask, what the hell is the point of the religious edicts if they just reinforce whatever you feel like doing anyway?
	Impulses on steroids.
	That is the essence of almost all the religion that I've ever seen in the world.
	And it would be really nice for the Christians who praised somebody who went against the dominant ideology and theology of his time, who attempted to reverse some of the more brutal commandments of the eye for an eye Old Testament psycho-deity, for one of them to actually emulate what Jesus was supposed to be doing and stand before the Chinese tanks.
	Of righteous vengeance and say, no, Jesus taught us to love our enemies.
	What would Jesus do?
	Would Jesus go and bomb the shit out of the Iraqi civilian population and the Afghanistan civilian population who in no way were responsible for what happened?
	No, that is not what Jesus would do.
	I stand before you and say, stop!
	Let us remember the commandments of that, of the man we worship.
	Did you see any of that in the lead up to the war?
	You know, I hate to say this, but I saw exactly what you did.
	I was in high school or whatever, and I don't remember too much about the news.
	I didn't care.
	But I would go to church, and I remember sitting there...
	Because in our church, it's not just one preacher.
	All the members get up and give talks and whatever.
	So I remember sitting there listening to...
	These people get up and say, you know, they were for the war.
	And not just like, it's my opinion, that's great.
	No, they would say like, this is what we need to do, you know?
	And I remember thinking like, really?
	I had to ignore it though, because I was totally in the faith.
	I had to be like, well, maybe they're right, I don't know.
	And I just had to forget it.
	But I do remember it bugging me Saying, you know, it kind of feels like weird.
	I mean, they're saying that these Muslims or whoever are just bloodthirsty, their religion tells us all to kill each other or whatever.
	But I was like, we're kind of, seems to me that we're kind of doing the same thing.
	So, the same thing that we're preaching against, right?
	Yeah, just stare in the mirror and paint a turban on and that's the reality.
	But the power of religion to get you to say, oh, well, whatever.
	That's sad.
	It was very sad.
	I look back on that and I'm sad that I just had to be like, well, I guess, whatever.
	And I couldn't think to myself.
	And there's no backtracking that I can see.
	Like, nobody has said, you know what, in our lust for blood we committed the unforgivable sin of baying like a bunch of rabid jackals, baying for the blood of our enemies.
	We forgot the teachings of Jesus and now look what's happened.
	You know, we've killed over a million Iraqis.
	I don't think anybody even knows how many Afghanis have been turned into vaporized rubble.
	We forgot the teachings of Jesus, we committed a sin, and now we must make amends.
	I don't think there's been any goddamn backtracking at all from the Christians.
	There never is.
	With regards to not following the teachings of Jesus and joining into the low-rent, baying, paleolithic blood pack of vengeance seekers.
	There's no circling back.
	There's no...
	Oh my...
	I mean...
	The priests drove the war more than the politicians did.
	I mean, everybody focuses on the politicians.
	Ooh, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush.
	Ooh, Rice, bad, bad, bad.
	No, I mean, the priests drove the war.
	America is by far the most religious of the Western countries.
	I mean, there's not even a close second.
	It's by far the most religious.
	And if the priests had told people, Jesus loves his enemies, don't you dare pay for the blood of those who have attacked you.
	Don't you dare Go for bloodlust.
	You cannot go and slaughter the innocent children of your enemy and call it virtue.
	That is directly against the teachings of Jesus.
	If the Pope had said, everybody who supports the war is excommunicated, anybody who lifts up a gun to shoot, even if we had the enemies in our sights, anybody who pulls the trigger is directly disobeying the central commandment of Jesus to love your enemies, there would have been no war!
	Yeah.
	And the fact that the priests are back there driving and whipping the sheep all over the cliff in the fiery furnace of sin and bloodlust is something that atheists should be pointing out repeatedly.
	They drove the war.
	They herded the sheep into the war.
	They blessed and approved those who shoot the innocents and bomb the children.
	And not only do they do nothing relative to their own ideals and edicts to stop the war in its tracks, they're the ones who drove and made it happen to begin with.
	Yeah, it's really sad.
	What did the Pope do?
	Well, the Pope did what the Pope always does.
	Gets behind and licks the boots of those with the biggest goddamn guns.
	I mean, the Pope says, I excommunicate, I condemn as a sin, ex.
	That is some serious shit.
	Hundreds of millions of Catholics around the world will take that shit very seriously.
	He had the power with a word to prevent a war.
	Who else has that power?
	And what does he do?
	Goes home and forgives his pedophile priests and licks all the fucking gold in the basement of the Vatican.
	Excuse my outrage, but I think it's justified.
	It is justified, totally.
	And it's also, these people don't know, because there's so much status propaganda, they think that it's virtuous.
	I'm sorry, who don't know?
	First thing you've given me is forgiveness.
	And I get that that's a virtue, but let's forgive what is real, not what is imagined.
	So, who doesn't know?
	Well, I was talking about the people in, you know, my little community when I was growing up in high school, right?
	They don't know the edict, turn the other cheek?
	Oh, they know that.
	They don't know the edict, love your enemies?
	I see it on bumper stickers, for heaven's sakes.
	This is not a closely kept secret written in ancient Aramaic on the inside foreskin of the Pope.
	They're not keeping this one secret, are they?
	No.
	No.
	What they don't know is that the status propaganda has turned it all so that they think this war is just going after the bad guys and we're liberating the people and giving them democracy.
	And this is the kind of stuff that I get when I bring it up.
	And there's...
	When you say backtracking, they say, oh, well, we were trying to do this, and it just didn't work out.
	And this is what's so frustrating.
	The equation, the state takes away the economic responsibility of the war by printing money and going into debt, so people don't feel the economic brunt of their bloodlust.
	So the state facilitates it.
	The state greases the tubes But it's religion that lights the fuse.
	That's what propels it.
	And religion has been utterly unable to solve the problem of war for 2,500 years or 6,000 years, depending on how you count it.
	Religion has been utterly unable to solve the problem of war.
	The state, and in fact, facilitates and drives it.
	And the state has not only been utterly unable to solve the problem of war, but facilitates and drives it.
	And this is why I have sworn enmity to these two institutions.
	Because until we can solve the problem of war, we cannot have a just world.
	We cannot have a peaceful world.
	And religion, Christianity in particular, one of the moral revolutions that it had was to love your enemies.
	And it seems to me that whenever that question comes up, it vanishes to satisfy the bloodlust of the moment.
	And the priests Who approved the war and the priests who are not, all the Christians, and this is all the media, the media are all Christians.
	I think Rachel Maddow may be an atheist, I don't know.
	But they're all Christians.
	And there is a massive conspiracy of silence to reference none of Jesus' teachings when it comes to violence.
	And so what the fuck is the point of these teachings?
	If you can just wish them away and never talk about them and never reference them and never mention them, no matter how disastrous the outcome of not following the Love Your Enemies edict is, what the hell is the point?
	It's a marriage of convenience between the lusts of the moment and the eternal approval of the imagined.
	Yeah.
	So, anyway, let's get back to your question.
	Well, I was just going to say...
	The reason I came up with the love your enemies thing was I had this idea or this belief that you could say to people that they're supposed to love you if you make An error, right?
	Hate the sinner.
	Sorry, hate the sin, love the sinner, right?
	So if people believe that you're an error, do you think it's possible to, I don't want to say use their beliefs like in some manipulative way, but to appeal to their ideals and say, but Jesus would have loved me if I am a sinner and I'm having trouble with my faith and I'm struggling with it and I'm trying an alternative.
	There is a commandment that they continue to love you, in fact, perhaps even more.
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	I hadn't really thought of that.
	Now, you might want to check out Richard Dawkins online reading his hate mail to find out whether or not Christians bow to this edict or not.
	And this, of course, I don't want to say that's representative of Christians as a whole.
	I mean, it's not.
	The war is representative of Christians as a whole.
	Because I've not seen any countervailing currents from any of the Christians who have any kind of pulpit or media.
	But you have, I think, the confidence of going in to say, look, this is a speech I would give.
	I'll make it very brief.
	But it'd be something like this.
	Mom, Dad, I am more than struggling with my faith.
	I am really drawn to an alternative to the belief system that was inflicted upon me as a child.
	And I say inflicted not because you're bad people, because you felt it was for the best for me, but I sure as heck didn't ask for it.
	And I was really not allowed to question or oppose it.
	I am trying on something different.
	It works for me.
	I, you know, I'm really drawn to the rationality of philosophy.
	I'm really drawn to the objectivity of philosophy.
	And, you know, the way that you like how your car runs because of engineering.
	I like the way my brain runs because of philosophy.
	You don't fill up your tank with faith, but rather with gas.
	And I'm filling up my brain with reason rather than superstition because I actually want to get somewhere in life.
	So I'm pursuing this path.
	I know it's going to be upsetting to you, and I sympathize with that.
	I really do.
	And in some ways, I wish that the curse of the lightning rod of illumination had not happened to strike my particular brainstem, but that's the way it is.
	I am now a candle.
	But I remind you, of course, that Jesus said to love the sinner, if I am a sinner, and to love your enemies, though I don't believe that we are necessarily enemies.
	And now if they say, well, you know, that's true.
	I was taught and told to love the sinner and, you know, we're gonna redouble our attempts to get close to you, to love you, to understand you, to talk to you, and to not bear false witness against thy neighbor, right?
	Not bearing false witness against thy neighbor is a Christian commandment for integrity, right?
	Because it is to tell the truth.
	To not bear false witness is to not lie.
	And intimacy and lying are opposites, right?
	Intimacy, true knowledge of someone, true connection, true closeness with someone is the truth.
	Is the truth.
	And you are actually following a commandment, to be honest, with your parents about your skepticism, you are following the commandment.
	You are following two commandments.
	The first commandment is to not bear false witness, and the second commandment is to honor their mother and their father.
	I don't think there's any theologian alive who would say that you honor your mother and father by lying to them.
	Honor and lying are opposites.
	So you are following at least two of the commandments in talking to your parents openly about your skepticism.
	Now either they're going to...
	Of course they're going to have a reaction which is going to be shock, disappointment, surprise, or anger, or whatever it is.
	I mean, that's my guess.
	Now either they're...
	Moral beliefs have some power to change their emotional reactions.
	I mean, if our emotional reactions were always moral, we wouldn't need morality.
	I mean, it's like if what we wanted to eat was always the very best thing for us to eat no matter what, we wouldn't need nutrition, right?
	Nutrition is because we want to eat stuff that's not good for us, you know, salt, sugar, fat, all that kind of crap.
	We want that stuff and so we need nutrition to change our instincts.
	We want to sit on the couch and pick Cheetos out of our belly lint.
	Yes, absolutely.
	So we need people to say, get off the couch and go on a treadmill or something like that.
	Otherwise, you look like a combination between the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Michelin Man, and Rush Limbaugh.
	And that's not what we're looking for in a bikini thong, at least not me.
	So we need a moral code because our instincts are, frankly, pretty fucking simian, which is, you know, somebody throws a coconut at us, we want to rip their heads off.
	I mean, we have that aspect to it, that primitive biological mammalian simian thing, you know?
	And I don't know if that's human nature, I don't know if that's, you know, something that comes out of childhood, and it doesn't really matter, but the fact is we have it.
	So do your emotional impulses...
	Are they able to be conditioned by your rational values?
	And by rational values I don't necessarily mean philosophy, I just mean a conformity to your rational values or a rational conformity to your accepted values.
	So if your parents or your community is angry at you for your skepticism and if they then ostracize you and you remind them or they shun you or they get angry or they start calling you all these terrible things And you remind them that their religious edicts tell them to love their enemy and to love the sinner.
	If they then say, oh man, you know what?
	You're right.
	I was tempted into anger.
	The devil was whispering in my ear that I should ban you and I should get angry at you and I should shun you and I should curse you and so on.
	That's the devil whispering in my ear.
	You have reminded me of Buddy Jesus on this side who is telling me to love my enemy, to turn the other cheek and to hate the sinner but love, to hate the sin but love the sinner.
	And if they then say, whoa, bring it up short, you're absolutely right, let me take a deep breath, let me return back to the way of Jesus and the Lord and all the other saints that come marching in, then I actually have some intense admiration for that.
	I mean, though I don't believe in the ethics, I have intense admiration for people who are able to arrest the charging horses of their emotional impulses according to their stated moral ideals.
	Now, either they're able to do that, and it may take a couple of tries, you know, the devil is strong in these parts, right?
	But if they're able to do that, I think that they have an integrity that most of us can only cross our fingers and hope that we get in moments of crisis.
	I think that's incredibly admirable, and that means that their religion has some meaning to it.
	It's not just a justification for whatever they want and a way to avoid social criticism.
	It actually has some meaning.
	It's able to change their behavior.
	What an incredible thing that is.
	Now, if they just quote some other cherry-picked thing and then, you know, I don't know, you're a moneylender and Christ is whipping you like, you know, they're whipping you like Christ did at the temple of the money changers and so on, well then, they're just using their religion to justify whatever impulse they have in the moment.
	And unfortunately, I think that's going to be a, I don't know what you'd call it, a respect challenge.
	Yeah, it probably would be.
	But it's always important to remind people of the ideals they have that run in opposition to the emotional indulgence of the moment.
	Okay, yeah, that's really extremely good advice.
	Wow.
	Thanks for all that.
	I'm going to listen to this a few times.
	But that reminds me of one other problem I've been having.
	Oh, wait, wait.
	Now, let me just check in with Mr.
	J. If we only have one other caller, I'm happy to continue with this, but I want to make sure that we get to the other callers.
	Oh, absolutely.
	We have someone who would like to get on the phone, and we have someone else from the chat who said they want to get on.
	Okay, Jordan, I hate to be concise, Lord knows, but let's give it a shot.
	Let me see if I can act in accordance with my ideals of listening to all the callers rather than venting my own emotional crap.
	So, go ahead, let's try and deal with this one quickly.
	This last thing is just exactly what you mentioned, how the integrity of following those edicts, right, against your emotional state.
	I no longer have those commandments in my life, and it's kind of left a black hole for me to...
	I want to act with integrity, I just don't quite know exactly where to start.
	I'm starting at ground zero, like a child.
	I've read UPB, and I kind of understand it, but I'm kind of dealing with that issue as well.
	I don't know if you have any thoughts on that, or if you need it more expounding.
	No, I would not say that you're starting like a child, because a child doesn't have 20-plus years of crap to undo.
	So, that's the first thing.
	I mean, I get that it's like a child, like, okay, so the physics I believed in, you know, I thought I was in the real world, I was in Alice in Wonderland world, and now I need to learn physics.
	But you need to unlearn physics.
	The Alice in Wonderland physics to learn the real physics, right?
	So children who are not born in the Alice in Wonderland crazy upside down rabbit twitchy physics world, they don't have to unlearn or they just learn it basically, right?
	And so I get that you're like a child in terms of learning something new and I feel that way quite a bit, but there's children don't have as much to undo.
	As far as the code goes, well, unfortunately the code of reason Is combat at the moment.
	I sure wish it wasn't the case.
	I sure wish it wasn't the case, but it seems to be there's just so much well-armed and dangerous irrationality around the world that is doing such ungodly harm to everyone in the world that I don't believe that the irrational and dangerous and greedy and destructive And sociopathic in the world are going to give up because of the sweet
	caress of the gentle spring breeze of empirical reason.
	I just don't think they're going to give up that way.
	And in the war for the future of the world, and I don't view it as any less important than that, there are people who will accept reason, It's the old thing, there are people who will see when they are shown, there are people who will see on their own, and there are those who, even when shown, will never see.
	Yes.
	And there is no one humanity.
	It's like saying, well, we all live in a farm, so we're all the same.
	No.
	There are the cows who are beating their heads against their tiny paddocks as they get Pretty much their spleen milked out through their ever swollen nipples.
	And then there are the farmers who are kicking up and watching American Idol while drinking a beer, right?
	These are not the same species in their opposite ends of the exploitation spectrum.
	And there are the owners and deceivers of mankind.
	And there is the general tax livestock and war livestock and cash livestock and meat livestock of humanity.
	And I think that the owners of humanity Invented philosophy to further control us and therefore we can use philosophy to intellectually dislodge them from their vulture-like purchase.
	So there is, you know, I mean, we push out the delicious elixir of sweet reason into the world and there are those who are going to be drawn to it like bees to honey and there are those who are going to fight tooth and nail to keep their power, to keep their control, to keep their, frankly, their ownership.
	Of the human herd.
	And the wonderful thing is that we don't actually have to lift a finger to win.
	That's the part that everybody got sucked into fight, fight, fight!
	Vote, vote, fight, fight!
	That's never going to win.
	The only way to win at the game of human control is not to play.
	Not to get drawn into trying to control the political mechanisms put in place by the most evil among us.
	You get drawn into the boxing ring with Mike Tyson, you ain't going to win.
	You're just not going to lose an ear.
	Get tossed into the corner.
	They designed the whole system.
	It's like trying to join the church to rise to become pope to make everyone an atheist.
	Well, no, the whole point of the religion is it's designed by the people who want to own human beings, who want to control human beings, who have no trouble terrifying children with tales of everlasting damnation in order to squeeze a few additional shekels out of them when they get older.
	I mean, this is Monstrous.
	Massively evil.
	It's just to not play.
	Just don't go anywhere near the power structures.
	And try and convince everyone to stay away from the power structures.
	The moment you get sucked into that UFC cage, you're just going to come out.
	Because they've been training for about 6,000 years and reason, at least the way we discuss it here, is barely out of its diaper.
	You know, you don't throw a newborn in with Muhammad Ali in his prime and think you've got any kind of even match.
	They have been developing an Making these mechanisms of control, these propagandistic tools, these amoral, quote, moral systems, this patriotism and making everyone a slave to the hostilities of their communities.
	This has all been perfected for thousands of years.
	You can't go in and win.
	They got it down, man.
	They got it going on.
	And you just have to walk away.
	And they'll, you know, if you want to fight them, they'll invite you to come into their arena.
	Come in and try and wrestle control from us.
	No problem.
	We got no problem with that whatsoever.
	Come in and try and vote someone in who's going to be great.
	Come on in and try and get your atheistic beliefs to worm their way up the ranks of the clergy.
	We got no problem.
	We've been fighting this fight, developing these systems and these mindsets and these control mechanisms for thousands of years.
	So you all come in.
	Come on in.
	You know, it's not like me saying, hey, I'd love to invite anybody.
	Pretty good at it, right?
	And they'll try and get you to come in and Boy, you know, that Rand Paul, you know, whoever it's going to be.
	I mean, the systems draw you in to make you ineffective in other areas, and particularly to make you ineffective in simply going your own way.
	And so, I mean, with reason and with evidence, You just avoid the control systems and avoid people who try to draw you into the control systems.
	And we build an alternate life that is going to be so attractive that it's just going to start peeling people away from these control systems, at least those who don't have the sociopathic lust to mount to the top and, you know, put their vampiric proboscis into the mouths of newborns and suck their very souls from their lungs.
	I don't know if that makes any sense but that I think is the excitement that we have as rational thinkers and my god if this doesn't save the world I don't think anything will because this is the one thing that's not been tried which is simply to give people lots of opportunities to turn away from desiring you thrown in a status cage or a demonic hell for disagreeing with them and following your own conscience and your own reason which I was taught By the
	government not to follow other people and to think for myself and to reason.
	I was taught that and unfortunately I actually listened.
	Most people don't.
	And so I think that, you know, it's weird to have this kind of bumper sticker.
	You shouldn't even need this bumper sticker, right?
	Friends don't throw friends in cages.
	It's so weird to even say that to people.
	It's like saying, friends don't punch other friends in the face with vampire teeth embedded between their fingers.
	Why should you even need to say that?
	Friends don't throw friends in status cages for following their conscience.
	I guess a little bit of a bumper sticker, but friends don't let friends drive drunk.
	Yeah, I'm down with that.
	Friends don't let friends drive drunk.
	And friends don't want Friends thrown in rape rooms for thinking for themselves.
	But unfortunately, that is still a deeply shocking message to humanity, and I think that there's great honor and nobility in speaking it and living it.
	Okay.
	Speak the truth and avoid those.
	Yeah, I avoid those at all costs.
	The last time I voted was for Ron Paul and then I said, you know what?
	It's never going to work.
	So we're done.
	Good.
	Anyway, so I think we have a great mission.
	I will leave you with one last quote.
	Speak the truth and shame the devil.
	All right.
	Well, thank you very much, Steph.
	I really appreciate you and all you do, and I really appreciate your empathy with me today and all that insight that you had to give.
	I appreciate it.
	Thanks, and I appreciate you asking the questions.
	I'm sorry that these are the stark choices, but if we don't confront these stark choices, history is just going to be just one big-ass, blood-soaked, revolving door of over and over and over again all the tragedies of history.
	We're currently in the eye of the hurricane, as Doug Casey has talked about.
	Things are going to get worse, and it's just that same damn cycle over and over again to break out.
	We really need to hold FastPrint to principles of reason and evidence, because that's the one consistent approach that has yet to be tried.
	And you know what they say, if you keep doing the same thing, getting the same results, got to try something different.
	So thank you so much, Jordan.
	I appreciate that.
	Best of luck to you.
	Keep me posted if you can, and let's queue up somebody else.
	At this rate, we get 1.7 callers for Sunday's show.
	Thanks.
	Hello.
	What's on your mind, brother?
	I've got two questions.
	I'm trying to figure out which one is the most important.
	Basically, as far as socializing and whatnot, I really don't do a very good job of that.
	And to tell you a little bit of my history so you can kind of know where I'm coming from...
	I grew up with a mother that was very overbearing, hysterical, outright hostile to me as an individual and to my masculinity.
	Anything that ever went wrong, she basically blamed on me.
	And from a very young age, she would consistently tell me that no woman Whatever left me, no woman would ever want to be with me, etc.
	And I went through...
	I mean, my childhood was horrendous.
	I mean, my school years were horrific.
	I mean, I really had...
	The first 20 years of my life was basically very intense isolation.
	Some of it self-imposed just because I was trying to protect my...
	Protect myself, and at the very least, not get slapped around or screamed at.
	You know that's not self-imposed, right?
	Well, you know, I would like to believe that I had some control over it, but I mean, I know that's bullshit.
	Like if somebody injects me with some virus that's easily contagious to other people and I end up having to stay home, I guess I can say my self-quarantine is self-imposed.
	But it sure wasn't imposed by my choice, right?
	It was just somebody injected me with some god-awful virus and I have to stay home.
	But it's not self-imposed.
	That's just a rational reaction to an attack.
	Yeah.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I really don't have that much...
	I've experienced socially.
	I'm close to 40 years old now.
	I've never gone on a date with a woman.
	I mean, the propaganda that was fed to me by my mother and the people around me was so strong that even now, when I try to make friends with people, that little voice in the back of my mind is saying, Don't bother them.
	They don't want to be bothered.
	They don't like you.
	It's this bullshit, constant tape recording over and over and over.
	I'm close to 40.
	I'm kind of wondering, is it too late for even me to have any healthy relationships?
	Because I'm so socially behind people.
	I mean, I'm taking acting classes now because I'm trying to be an actor.
	But, you know, everybody else in that class is like in their 20s.
	And some of them are just like, you know, I mean, some of them are here with me as a person, but some of them are like, what the fuck is wrong with this guy?
	He doesn't act like, you know, all the other, you know, 30-plus-year-olds that I know.
	And it's just I'm so socially behind people.
	I mean, a person my age...
	It's just light years ahead of me, socially.
	I mean, I don't know the first thing about, you know, about, you know, what to do to attract a woman.
	I mean, a lot of it is just a self-hatred because, I mean, I figure, well, if I'm not going to be able to get a woman, then why bother doing anything else?
	Why bother, you know, going to the gym?
	Why bother taking care of myself?
	Why bother...
	Making money, why bother?
	Basically, why bother doing anything if I'm not allowed to fulfill my biological purpose?
	If I'm not allowed to have...
	I see out in town or out on the street or whatever, I see people who are in relationships at all ages, all races, all cultures, people just...
	You know, in love.
	And for some reason, I'm not allowed to have that.
	And it's really, you know, I'm close to 40 years old.
	I'm kind of thinking, you know, but what's the whole fucking point?
	What's the whole fucking point if I can't have what everybody else is having?
	You know, then why not just fucking, you know, just, you know, crawl under a bridge and die?
	I mean, it just doesn't make any sense to me.
	I mean, I'm trying to get over But I'm really struggling with the social aspects of it because I'm so far behind.
	Well, I mean, first of all, I really want to compliment you on an incredibly courageous series of statements.
	That's not easy to talk about.
	And I'm vibrating like a tuning fork with celestial admiration for what it is that you're talking about.
	That is hard, hard stuff to talk about.
	So I hugely appreciate honor and respect your honesty in this.
	Yeah.
	Bye.
	Thank you.
	Yeah.
	dig in a little bit more to the history while first prefacing it with like, holy shit, what unbelievable, staggering soul abuse you experienced at the hands and words of your mother.
	I mean, that's just, that's like seriously psycho stuff.
	And I am incredibly sorry that you had this poison force fed into your ears over and over again, based upon your mother's pathologies.
	That is absolutely unholy.
	What an incredibly destructive thing.
	To do to a child.
	So I'm incredibly...
	I just really want to be upfront about that.
	Like you were treated in an unjust and evil manner.
	And I'm just so sorry that that was part of your...
	And a core part of your experience of your mother.
	And of course, to some degree, your template for femininity as a result.
	So I'm incredibly sorry for that.
	I mean, dear God.
	It always shocks me how this is even possible to occur.
	In society.
	I mean, you weren't on a desert island with this loony.
	You know, you're in a society.
	You're going to school.
	Did she have extended family?
	What was your dad, for God's sakes?
	Well, it was a small town in the Midwest, and I had teachers claiming that I was retarded.
	I am hurt and impaired.
	But, I mean, I had...
	I mean, it's almost like I became...
	It's almost like as a child I was prey for whatever radical feminist psycho bitch that, you know, crossed my path.
	It was like I had teachers behaving like children.
	They were, I mean, just mean and vicious.
	I had the people around me being mean and vicious.
	Nobody wanted to talk about the problem.
	Everybody basically acted like that there was no problem, but that I was the problem.
	That somehow my existence was the problem.
	Yeah, and I know what occurs.
	You know, we live in such a predatory environment that children who are smashed up by their primary caregivers, in this case your mom, and usually it's a woman.
	Children who are smashed up by the moms go through life Like a gravity well for more people who want to exercise unjust power over the helpless, right?
	So, you know, it's like she just gives, like she covers you in honey and, you know, pushes you out into a beehive.
	This is the way in which the abuse continues.
	It's like there's this dog whistle that you're continually blowing, whether you like it or not, that attracts other abusers.
	It's like, ah, here's someone who is smashed up.
	Here's someone who can't fight back.
	Here's someone who's already broken up.
	Let's all continue to prey on and pile on them for the rest of their natural born life.
	And you really get a sense of the vicious underbelly of what we currently call society when you have been abused in the past and you realize the degree to which this just continues to draw more and more abusers until you, right, whatever, there's things you can do to avoid it, but you really do get to see a view of society that other people don't see.
	And the people who are raised tall, confident, strong, healthy, and blah blah blah, they don't even see the same planet.
	It's like they don't even know the same human ecosystem.
	It's like the elephant saying to the mouse, I don't know what your problem is with being stepped on.
	You're an elephant!
	Of course you don't see the problem.
	Nothing can step on you.
	The brontosaurus is gone.
	What's worse is when I was growing up, I thought it was normal.
	When I was about 13 years old, I went over to a friend's house We were enjoying each other's company and stuff.
	And I mean, I remember laying there on the floor in my sleeping bag at 3 in the morning thinking, what the hell is going on?
	There's no screaming.
	There's no fighting.
	There's no...
	I mean, it was like I was on an alien planet because it was a healthy family environment.
	And I was just like, what the fuck is this shit?
	You know, because...
	I literally had never experienced anything like that before.
	Right.
	These smashed up victims of abuse, you know, sail unhelped through all the social systems that we have, through the churches, through the schools, through the extended family, through the Boy Scouts, through the summer camp.
	I went through all of these.
	I was in the Scouts, I went to summer camps, I went to three different continents, I met thousands of people as a child, sailed right through, you know, trailing blood and teeth behind me.
	You know, smashed up bits of scalp falling off my head.
	You know, shitting blood.
	Just sailed right through all these symptoms and nobody lifted a goddamn finger or even noticed or mentioned that anything was wrong.
	This is the conspiracy of silence that the abusers operate in and which enables them to do what they do.
	And everybody who turns away from a child who exhibits these symptoms is simply enabling the abuser.
	They're holding the child down while the abuser does unspeakable things to them with a pole.
	So I just wanted to point out that you see a side of society that is really fucking grim.
	I completely know that you can empathize, and I do appreciate that.
	So now that I'm, you know, close to 40, I mean, how do I break this cycle?
	Because, I mean, it's like...
	I mean, I literally will not...
	I mean, I won't go to the gym.
	I won't do anything to really take care of myself.
	I just kind of float along.
	Because I figure, well, if I'm never going to find love, then, you know, why bother with anything else?
	I mean, just why bother?
	Okay, well, let me...
	Let me disabuse you of one notion that you repeatedly talked about, which I think is just a way of torturing yourself, which comes, I think, out of the verbal abuse of your mom, which is you're talking about how everyone else has this love and everybody else has these marriages and these wonderful relationships and so on, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	You know statistically that's not true, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, so look, let me tell you something.
	Obviously, I know people...
	You know that that's not true, right?
	So 40-50% of marriages end in divorce, and it's not like all the rest of them are happy.
	One out of 10 marriages is sexless.
	They don't even have sex.
	And that's, I mean, obviously incomprehensible to me.
	So it's not like everyone else has this great food and you're starving to death, right?
	Everybody else has shit sandwiches.
	Not everyone.
	A lot of people have shit sandwiches and you don't.
	So in some ways, you could look at what you've done as...
	An opportunity to avoid catastrophic mistakes, right?
	You could be in a lot worse position than you are right now, my friend.
	You could be in the position of having married some psycho like your mom, have two kids and have her take you to the cleaners.
	Right, and divorces occur not just where guys end up having to pay alimony and child support and so on, but divorces occur where some women, it's not ridiculously uncommon for women to even pull the nuclear option and through the lawyer to accuse the husband of abuse of the children in God-for-sake ways.
	When my mom divorced my dad when I was seven, she took him to the cleaners.
	I mean, it was vicious, and it was just like, you know, she'd get a big fat juicy check over a month, but then, you know, she'd sit there and go shopping, and there was hardly any food in the fridge because she was busy, you know, using that money to buy new clothes and stuff that she didn't need or she never wore.
	And she was incredibly neglectful.
	But at the same time, it's like, I mean, It's like me and my sister were supposed to just be there to make her look good.
	And what were your opportunities to visit your dad?
	I know my dad was also abusive and overbearing.
	I did meet him later when I was in my 20s.
	No, sorry, when he divorced when you were seven, did you have any contact with him after that?
	Not really.
	When I was in my 20s, I went ahead and I went to live with him for a couple of months, and he found out that I had money in my bank account, and he proceeded to basically hold a gun to my head and demand that money.
	How did he hold a gun to your head?
	He's a fucking piece of work.
	He's also an alcoholic, so I mean, you know, I've never had any adults who were You know, worth two shits to the wind in my life.
	So it's like, okay, but what the hell am I supposed to pattern myself after?
	Because they were all a bunch of, you know, fucking assholes, messed up.
	I mean, they were insane.
	They were incredibly fucked up people.
	So it's like, you know, how the hell, you know, was I supposed to, you know, figure out how to become an adult when the examples that I had in my childhood We're just a bunch of really fucked up people.
	Right, right.
	Okay, so I think the one ray of light that might come through these storm clouds is it's better to be you than your father, right?
	Yeah.
	It's better to have not dated than to have married someone like your mom.
	Yeah.
	So, in a sense, the paralysis that you have achieved is way better than some potential motion that you might have had, right?
	Yeah.
	So you have avoided some enormously catastrophic mistakes.
	But I need to change the belief system that if, uh, cause it's like, the reason I'm not doing anything with my life is because, oh, I'm not gonna have a woman in my life who loves me, so it's like, I need to change that belief system.
	Because I'm damn near 40 and I feel like I've not accomplished a damn thing with my life.
	And it's incredibly painful.
	No, I get that.
	Yeah, I mean, mortality can take away, sand running out of the hourglass and all that, right?
	Plus, you don't want to be like the Anthony Quinn 77-year-old dad.
	Yeah, I mean, even if I would write some books and leave behind some books or something that could teach others, at least then I would feel like my life had some meaning.
	But right now, it's just like, I mean, what's the second point?
	Right.
	You know.
	Right.
	I mean, it's like, how do I change?
	Okay, sorry, I get the question, so let's not keep repeating it.
	And I get the frustration, but I want to make sure.
	Now, you know that I can't give you any kind of answer, right?
	I mean, I can only give you some thoughts about it.
	No, I know.
	I know that's what I'm asking for.
	The first thing that I would do, I don't know if you've done any talk therapy at all?
	I've done that.
	It's never really helped because it keeps putting me into a state of repetition in which I just keep reliving, re-experiencing and just being depressed.
	So it's like, I'm kind of tired of talking about it.
	I just want to fucking change.
	Right.
	Okay, well, I'm a big fan of talk therapy, but I'm not going to try and talk you, obviously, into doing something that hasn't worked for you.
	But I would approach this like a project, right?
	Because, I mean, obviously, you've got trauma and history and so on, but you're 40, and, you know, you've been many decades out of childhood, and so you're nearly 40.
	And so I think that we need to approach this with the objectivity of a project.
	And so what I would do is, you know, I'm a big one.
	It sounds ridiculous, I know.
	I'm a big one for, you know, get a sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle.
	And draw, you know, make yourself a little Jesus cross of self-knowledge.
	Line down the middle, one across the top.
	And on the left, I'd put what I have to offer.
	On the right, I would put what I want.
	And this means in a romantic relationship.
	Because, look, if you don't think you have anything to offer, then anything you ask for is fraudulent.
	Like if you go into a restaurant and order from the menu knowing you're not going to pay, you're kind of a thief, right?
	So if you want to have a relationship but you don't think you have anything to offer, then everything you do is fraudulent and it's never going to work, right?
	So on the left hand side, put what I have to offer.
	Now I'll tell you one thing you have to offer, which is that you're in your late 30s and you are unencumbered by Previous marriages, slash children, slash alimony, slash divorce, slash, you know, crazy psycho ex, or whatever it is, right?
	So the fact that you're in your late 30s and unencumbered, not so bad.
	You know, when I first met my wife in my early 30s, mid-30s?
	Yeah, early 30s.
	The fact that I was single, had never been married, didn't have any kids, was...
	Kind of a significant plus, because once you get into your 30s, particularly your late 30s, you're getting a lot of second-go-rounders, you know, with all the baggage and financial catastrophes and bitterness and potential future problems, right, that that can involve, right?
	So the fact that, you know, again, I know it may not sound like the world, but the fact that you're unencumbered is actually quite a plus.
	So I think that's, you know, obviously your verbal skills are excellent.
	Obviously, since you've been to therapy and you have a clear understanding, Yeah.
	You know, some career stability, some financial stability.
	So you have self-knowledge, you have unencumberedness, you have financial security, you have, you know, done self-work to get you to a clearer understanding of things.
	So, I mean, you have verbal skills, a great communicator.
	I can hear in your voice that you are actually connected to your emotions, which Is a particular plus in these kinds of environments.
	And this is me talking to you for like 15 minutes, right?
	This is the things that I can see just from the outside that you have to offer.
	Yeah.
	And you also have a great template of what not to do.
	Yeah.
	You know, the templates, like, for me, life was actually pretty easy to make better.
	It's like, whatever my mom and dad did, if I simply do the opposite, I'm already going in the right direction.
	You know, templates that are negative, you can flip them around, right?
	Which is like, I now know all the things that I should never ever do or even think of doing in my life, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, so how do I stop using...
	Wanting to have a woman as a template for motivation.
	I know there's things that I can do in my life that are good, but I'm having trouble finding a motivation that will get me actually going instead of just being depressed about not having a girlfriend.
	Well, look, you've got to get your mom out of your future.
	Yeah.
	Right?
	I mean, this decade's old, right?
	Can I tell you a phrase that helped me?
	Get thee behind me, bitch!
	Yeah.
	Get thee behind me, bitch!
	Get thee behind me, bitch!
	I got my future.
	You had your life.
	You made your mistakes.
	You screwed up everything you touched.
	I have my future.
	Get thee behind me, right?
	Our parents and our childhoods are in the past.
	The degree to which we attempt to put them as predictors or templates for the future is like driving at high speed while only looking in the rearview mirror.
	You're going to crash, of course, right?
	Get the past behind you as much as you can.
	And that means getting angry and rejecting all of the things.
	But at some point, we all got to blast through the roof of our childhood bedrooms.
	And we all gotta grab the future.
	And we put the stuff that is in the past rationally behind us.
	Get thee behind me bitch was very helpful.
	I think we got a name for the Sunday show.
	But it was very helpful to me because this stuff was all in the past.
	And all the stuff that was in the past when I was a child was defined by me by the screwed up environment that I was in.
	And by that I mean Western culture.
	I don't just mean my particular shitty little apartment.
	And that stuff was all the stuff that was done unto me.
	That's the stuff that was all defined by crazy people.
	That was the past.
	It was involuntary for me.
	I could not change it.
	I could not escape.
	I could not get out.
	I was born into a prison like we all are.
	I just happen to have a shitty prison.
	I'm trying to provide a really happy prison for my daughter, but she's still a prisoner.
	She can't leave, right?
	But you're not in that prison anymore, right?
	So focus on the future, which has to be something that you can determine and you can decide, that isn't going to just be being stuck in the revolving door of stuff that happened 25 years ago.
	You gotta get out of that revolving door.
	I mean, I've got books, there's lots of books, you read Alice Miller, you're Nathaniel Brandon, you're John Bradshaw, do the worksheets, whatever it is that helps you break out of that cycle.
	But the problem is when you're a kid, in an abusive environment, you get used to being a dandelion in a high breeze, right?
	Cork on an ocean.
	Buffeted around by whatever crazy shit is going on, whatever manic mad intensity is going on, you're helpless, you're dependent, you just have to conform like water to a vessel and you become passive, you lose your spine and all that stuff then follows you to an adulthood.
	But as an adult you have to start recognizing that you have choices now that were impossible to you in the past and you can start to define what it is that you're gonna do with your life and who it is you're gonna be based upon your choices and getting that muscle exercised is really important.
	Second part of the page, What do I want?
	Note the specific virtues that you will need in a partner, right?
	So what are you going to need in a partner?
	Well, if your mom was highly materialistic, and I know that one too, then don't do that.
	My mom was physically beautiful, and I'm sure that had a huge impact on my father choosing her from, you know, hey, what's the craziest of these beautiful little bunch of peonies?
	I'll take that one.
	So if physical beauty is attractive or crazy, then...
	Sorry?
	Yeah, she looked to pretend that she was helpless.
	I mean, in public, she was very weak and submissive, but then, you know, you'd get home and she'd just, you know, the raging bitch would come out.
	I mean, it was like she was two different people.
	Okay, so you don't want someone who's two-faced, you don't want someone who's manipulative, you don't want someone who's overly materialistic or acquisitive, you don't want somebody, in my case, physical beauty was a huge warning flag for me, because, you know, it's a honey trap, right?
	Physical beauty is a way of getting somebody into your power, so you can generally...
	Do unpleasant things to them with lawyers.
	So these things, you need integrity, you need rationality, and you also need somebody who's going to have sympathy for your history.
	There's this horrible, cold callousness that human beings have where they say, we're all the same, and we all have pretty much the same backgrounds, and therefore anybody who's screwed up as an adult, I'm just better than them.
	We all got the same diet, so anyone who's short, well, too bad for them.
	But the fact is that...
	Half the damn population is starved of affection and connectedness and closeness and probably damn well higher than that.
	But everyone just loves to think that we're all equal and therefore all the virtues I got from a happy home are my personal virtues and all the screwed up stuff that people got from an abusive home is somehow their fault and flaw.
	And so you want to steer clear of people like the plague who are even in that ballpark of thinking.
	And so if somebody says, wow, you're saying all the people in the acting class, what's wrong with this guy?
	He's not like other people.
	It's like, they know exactly what's wrong with you, which is that you had an unbelievably abusive history.
	And this is something that you want to steer clear of people who don't have sympathy for what you went through, because they will just continue to do the work that your mom started.
	Yeah.
	So yeah, virtue, integrity, financial independence, competence, a non-manipulative form of helplessness display and all that.
	Make a list of all the things that you are looking for in a woman and then just start to train yourself to look for these things.
	You could read Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, the degree to which we know everything about a person in the first few seconds of hearing them and talking to them.
	Start to develop your instincts to find the right people.
	I've got a YouTube video Called How to Meet a Nice Girl, which I had a chat with a guy who's now married.
	He was in your position, never gone on a date.
	He was in his, I think, mid-30s at the time.
	Now happily married and so on.
	So you can check out that video.
	I think it's got some useful tips in it.
	But really start to attune yourself to how you feel in the presence of other people.
	When you grow up in an abusive household, all you do is focus on everyone else all the time.
	Like in the same way that if you are in shark-infested waters, you're not focusing on yourself.
	You're focusing on whether you're getting bitten or where the sharks are or where the ripples are.
	Oh my God, will something go past my leg?
	All you're doing is focusing on your environment when you grow up in a predatory situation.
	So you're not used to focusing on your own instincts, on your own thoughts and having your own independent evaluations and judgments of people because all you're doing is wrangling the crazy ghosts of other people attempting to enter through your eyeballs and fuck with your brain.
	Yeah.
	So, really start to focus on your experience of other people.
	Does the other person make me feel good?
	Do they seem to have empathy?
	Do they seem to care?
	Do they listen?
	Do they ask questions?
	Really focus on your experience of other people and that will help you sift through all of the sand to get to the gold.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	No, that sounds like good advice.
	I mean, something that I should try.
	I mean, what would be some, like, Good principles as far as socializing with other people because, again, I feel like I'm coming from such a different place than most people.
	It's like I'm speaking English and everybody else is speaking German, so I'm trying to figure out Look, okay, sorry, sorry.
	You have to not think that you're a different species because it's not true.
	Okay.
	Right?
	Okay.
	Because you say we're coming from such different places and so on.
	You are as human as they are, and you adapt it to very different circumstances.
	Yeah.
	Isolation is the key tool of the abuser, right?
	And so one of the ways that abusers continue to isolate even after we escape their grips is they try to make us feel like we're somehow inhuman or fundamentally different from other human beings.
	It's not true.
	You are a perfectly human adaptation to a very difficult environment.
	You are exactly like other people.
	You put one water in a cup and you put another water in a still.
	Well, the water in a still has taken a whole different shape, but it's still water.
	It just adapts to its environment.
	You are as fundamentally human as everyone around you.
	You simply adapted to a different set of circumstances.
	So don't feel alien.
	Don't feel different.
	Don't feel like you're somehow a different species and so on.
	Just recognize that, hey, And understand that if you had switched places with someone else, they'd be pretty much like you and you'd be pretty much like them.
	Luck of the draw, man.
	I'm sorry it came out snake eyes for you.
	I'm sorry you got such a terrible short straw.
	That doesn't make you a different species.
	You adapted to a different environment.
	You are not a different kind of human being.
	So you have a common humanity with everyone else.
	Now, other people probably have the vanity of assuming that, you know, as I mentioned, all that their stuff is their own personal virtues and la-di-da, they were just so great and boy, you just made all these mistakes.
	Well, steer clear of those people.
	I mean, they're a fucking plague on the planet, right?
	There's this cold lack of empathy where they actually step on the backs of abused children to give themselves a few extra inches of self-esteem height.
	How wretched and horrible and vicious is that?
	So stay away from those people.
	But you're not inhuman.
	You're just adapted to a different set of circumstances, but you're fundamentally exactly the same as everyone else.
	Yeah.
	And if you can get rid of that feeling of isolation and differentness and otherness...
	Then you can actually have a relaxed conversation with people, knowing that, hey, I happen to be born in the snow, so I have some extra hair.
	You know, there's nothing fundamentally different.
	I just adapted to this.
	And then that also releases you from any...
	Self-attack that comes from adapting.
	You made it through.
	You made it through some of the craziest shit I've ever heard.
	And I've heard some pretty crazy shit in my years.
	But you made it through.
	And you are a functional human being.
	You get out of bed in the morning.
	You put your pants on.
	You go do something productive in society.
	You're frustrated and isolated.
	I totally get that.
	But holy shit, man, what an incredible accomplishment.
	I mean, the fact that you are where you are speaks to an incredible strength of character that you have.
	You know, all the abusers in society as a whole, they seem to work night and day to make us feel ashamed for having survived abuse.
	Holy shit.
	I mean, I swear to God, if 90% of the population had been through what I went through, they wouldn't be getting out of bed.
	It's a strength to be where you are based upon where...
	I mean, people might feel like it's a weakness.
	It's an incredible strength that you are where you are.
	You know, the fact that nature happened to place us in an environment where, you know, we had to carry 300 bricks on our back and climb shaky ladders while other people were running around and playing.
	Well, what do we get?
	Strong backs and strong legs and a great sense of balance.
	There's an incredible strength that comes out of surviving that stuff where you say, well, shit, nothing else is going to be that hard in my life.
	Nothing else is ever going to be that hard as my first 20 years.
	So, I've got me some strong legs, strong back, and a great sense of balance.
	And other people are It's wobbly and shaky, and they don't have that same trial by fire.
	They don't get toughened like steel in the furnace.
	The strength that we have is incomprehensible to others, but as we recognize it ourselves, it reverses the shame spiral that was inflicted on us.
	It recalls to my mind something I read from one of Ayn Rand's books.
	A person needs to feel that they're right for the world that they're in.
	That's why I need to focus on how am I right for the world as it is now?
	Because I am.
	And I need to stop focusing on all the negativity and all the bullshit that happened in the past.
	I need to let that go and stop feeling like I'm somehow wrong.
	You know?
	Yeah.
	No, I do.
	The essential sense of wrongness is something that is very infectious, and it really is fundamentally the point of abuse.
	I mean, your mother used you like a Piece of toilet paper for her own narcissistic needs, it sounds like.
	Yeah, I mean, that's wretched, that's hideous, that is vampiric and parasitical, and it's a long time ago in the past, and you've got to grab your future and define it for yourself according to principles rather than the inertia of a brutalized history.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, definitely.
	And again, I'm incredibly sorry for what happened, but I also hold hope that it has helped you to escape mistakes that more healthily raised people have made that are catastrophic and unrecoverable.
	You can recover from this and you can go and get married and have a happy life if you really work at it.
	But man, if you had two kids by some lunatic and you were in and out of court for the next 20 years, that really wouldn't be so possible, right?
	So look at, you know, you didn't catch love, but you also didn't catch a bullet, so it's 50/50. - Well, yeah, and I've listened to your podcasts and shows for a couple of years, and it's really helped people with a lot of stuff.
	And I mean, A while back, I donated $500 to you because I really believe that this philosophy, as you teach it, can change the world for the better.
	Honestly, before I heard you I had never really heard anybody speaking about these principles, you know, philosophically.
	I never heard that.
	So, I think that, you know, you're going to be able to, you know, change the world with your philosophy, but it's going to take, you know, it may take a hundred years, but then again, if people would treat their children better, it could take a generation.
	Well, if it takes 100 years, then you really only donated $5 a year.
	No, I'm kidding.
	Listen, first of all, thank you very much for that donation.
	It's incredibly generous, and I hugely appreciate it.
	Yeah, I mean, speaking basic, honest truths, if the world had its way, you wouldn't be hearing me now.
	It's just that the internet has no way.
	The gatekeepers are gone, so we can actually have direct conversations.
	Look, thank you so much.
	I wish you'd told me about the donation beforehand, otherwise I would have been much nicer to you.
	But I really appreciate you mentioning it at the end.
	No, no, no.
	I'm kidding.
	I'm kidding.
	I'm very grateful for that.
	And, you know, for the people who do donate, I'm so grateful for it.
	I'm so grateful for it.
	The fact that people have donated means that I've got, I think, a pretty good technical setup now.
	I have Mike's here listening to the Sunday show.
	Wake up!
	Wake up!
	No, Mike's here listening to the Sunday show.
	The fact that I get to work with one of my best friends and get to really drive this conversation out to new people.
	We just passed 16 million video views.
	That's probably more...
	Views and books and philosophy have been sold throughout the history of the planet.
	I'm incredibly grateful to people like you and of course to you directly for making this possible.
	I would not be able to do this at all without that support.
	It just wouldn't be possible.
	I hugely appreciate it.
	Every time I get to spend the day with my daughter, A couple of times a day, I literally pinch myself and say, is this possible that I'm able to do this?
	And it's because of your kind of generosity that I'm able to do this.
	Hopefully, I'm given the biofeedback of how the parenting is going, and that's an experiment that's valuable to everyone.
	So I'm trying to pay it back by sharing what's working with the parenting and challenges that I have with the parenting.
	So this is all because of that generosity that you bring to the table.
	So let me put down another thing in your plus side.
	A very noble sense of reciprocity and generosity.
	That is another thing that women would be very happy to be on the receiving end of.
	And now, let me ask you another question, which is, if you have a message board account, you don't have to give out your name or anything like that.
	But if you have a message board account, would you like to share it with people, perhaps of the fairest sense?
	No, I actually shut down both my YouTube channels because I just got tired and abused from people.
	I'm going to try to focus on my acting and some other things that I'm working on in real life because You know, if I don't spend time creating my life right now, then it's going to be another 20 years, and then I'm going to really feel like shit.
	Right.
	Okay, well, let me put this offer out then, which is ladies.
	Ladies.
	Are you looking for a man with great degree of self-knowledge and a deep and abiding wisdom about what not to do in relationships of any way, shape, or form?
	Are you looking for a man who can casually toss half a thousand dollars at a ball-headed internet philosopher he's never met with that kind of money and resources?
	Are you looking for someone who's got destructive and abusive people out of his life?
	Are you looking for somebody who has worked on therapy, who has self-knowledge, who is financially stable, who is a great communicator, Well, then you send your email and all the nude pictures in your collection.
	No nude pictures.
	You can send to operations at freedomainradio.com.
	Did I say dot com?
	Sorry.
	Operations at freedomainradio.com.
	ShakeYourFDRMoneyMaker at FreedomMainRadio.com.
	And if you pass the test that Mike will have, the barrier that Mike has, then we will forward your email should this fine gentleman send his email to Mike at Operations at FreedomMainRadio.com.
	We will try and connect you for at least a potential opening chat.
	So if you're interested in a wealthy, philosophically inclined, self-knowledgeable, untainted by other women's hands and the legal system that destroys men, you can email operations at freedommanradio.com.
	We will try to hook you up.
	Yes, I have come down to pimping for philosophy.
	It's been a proudest moment of my entire career.
	So thank you so much for your time.
	I appreciate it.
	And we will try to hook you up, brother.
	brother.
	James, do we have another caller or are we down for the day?
	It's been a really great honor to speak with you.
	Oh, it's a real, real pleasure, and again, thank you for your kindness, and we'll see if we can't pimp you up.
	I mean, sorry, hook you up.
	I mean, get you in contact with some wise, philosophical student-bearers.
	Are you young and fertile?
	Okay, so James, if we get the last caller up, thanks again so much.
	You too, man.
	Thanks.
	This is going to be Carrie.
	Hey, am I on?
	You are on.
	Oh my gosh.
	Awesome.
	Hey, Stefan.
	How are you?
	How are you doing?
	I'm doing really well, man.
	Hey, am I wrong in guessing this?
	Do you have a really nice singing voice?
	Yes.
	I thought you did.
	That's a nice voice, I'll tell you.
	That's good stuff.
	Okay, which duet are we going to sing today?
	No, I'm kidding.
	What's on your mind?
	No, the words too.
	Well, I have been just tossing back and forth what I should call this man about, because your words and your mind are just so beautiful, and I actually wanted to talk about that, about indecision.
	What, my words and my mind, nothing about my abs at all?
	Nothing?
	I have one.
	Well, actually, most of your videos only display, you know, like your...
	You're, uh, collarbone up.
	But, uh, you know, as a woman, as a woman in today's society, actually, I'll just say this.
	As a woman in general, I have a bit of a problem with indecision.
	It's kind of like, if I go shopping with a guy, I'll be like, hey, you like these shoes?
	And I'll be like, yeah, get them.
	Yeah, let's go.
	And if I, you know, if I'm with another chick and we're shopping, it's more like...
	Oh, I don't know.
	You know, like, maybe this would...
	It's awful, but...
	And do you have a domino effect?
	Like, I love these shoes, and if only I had a top to go with them.
	Oh, I have those tops.
	This was great.
	Now I need a skirt to go with the top.
	Did you get those dominoes thing?
	Exactly right.
	Thank you.
	Thank you so much for keeping the shallower sections of the economy afloat.
	It's very important.
	But go on.
	I try...
	Well, I try to shop like a guy, but...
	Here we are.
	Here we are.
	So, let me just give you a brief background, as brief as I can make it.
	I was raised in a great family, or I feel like it was as good as I could have gotten.
	My dad's a psychologist.
	My mom was into child development.
	Those were their studies, and I learned a lot from them.
	But also, it was very, very religious.
	As in, dad's dad's dad was a Preacher, you know and dad went to school to be a preacher and he turned out to be a psychologist Then you know, it's just very very legacy minded as in we are building this Christian legacy Like I have cousins cousins that are in Papua New Guinea right now as missionaries What does Christian legacy mean?
	That sounds like an interim that I'm just not familiar with Okay, um Well, let's just take a subjugate a little bit.
	First off, legacy.
	We have that word.
	And it means the torch that is passed on to future generations.
	And Christian as in spreading of the Christian faith.
	Can you hear me?
	Yep, go ahead.
	And so, then I emerged.
	And, I mean, I got vocal training and all that.
	And I actually was a worship leader for thousands of people every Sunday.
	And Wednesday, led people in worship.
	Wow, you must have made a joyful noise.
	Yeah, and so I got a full ride art scholarship to the Cleveland Institute of Art, and my dad said, well, that's not really how we're going to do this, because that's going to corrupt your morals, and you're going to go to a Christian college.
	And I did that for like a year, and I was like, this is kind of stupid.
	And I got out of that.
	Why was it stupid?
	Because, you know, it's Um, pointless as in, you're going $17,000 in debt for something that you already know about and something you've been doing for, like, years.
	And also, it's not a very lucrative, you know, subject of study.
	And also, just the whole backing out of the whole, um, you know, just accepting things for what they were told to me.
	So at the Christian college you were learning theological principles that you were already familiar with, having studied in the religion for many years already, is that right?
	Exactly, and I just wanted to check out the world and see what other theologies had to say before I actually just put all my eggs in one basket.
	Now, where were your religious beliefs slash skepticism at this time in your...
	I guess this was your late teens, early 20s?
	Exactly.
	Yeah, so where were you in your belief systems at that time?
	Kind of like, what's going to happen after we die?
	Oh, I don't know.
	We'll put it off for later.
	So you had some, obviously, some skepticism, some questions, some doubts, so to speak?
	I just wanted to experience the world.
	Oh, yeah.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Oh, yeah.
	And so I ran away, so to speak, as in, like, moved away, far, far away across the country, down to Texas, and actually lived with some Muslims for a while, you know, and went to a couple Buddhist temples, and I don't know.
	My point is this.
	This is the major point.
	I have influenced people, and they are actually going onwards I'm becoming this version of my old ideal self, my old ideal version of self.
	And they're just blowing up.
	And I'm a little worried about that because I'm not even sure.
	What do you mean they're blowing up?
	As in, you know, they're becoming well-known musicians, artists with followings.
	You mean in the Christian community?
	People I've trained and mentored.
	Yeah.
	Right, right.
	People I've trained and mentored.
	You're funneling people into the sort of Christian conveyor belt and they're taking it at a full clip, right?
	Oh my gosh, yeah.
	Okay.
	And now I'm just kind of stuck with an indecision because I've kind of just gotten out of the theology game and I've kind of more so put it towards just a humanity game and what's best for humanity and I just really don't want to turn into a Hitler.
	You know what I'm saying?
	Like, he thought that his version...
	That last part was a bit of a lane departure without a warning for me.
	But what do you mean you just don't want to turn into a Hitler?
	I think it's a given that most people other than Hitler don't want to turn into a Hitler because he blew that game for everyone.
	But what do you mean when you say you don't want to turn into a Hitler?
	Right.
	Is that the secular curse?
	Like, if you become secular and powerful, that means you're Hitler?
	No, no, no, no, no.
	It's more so the guy, you know, he just...
	He was a normal guy, I'm sure, at some point, and he went to some sort of art school when he was younger, and then he developed this ideology system in which he had his own purest form of, you know, utopia, and that actually got a lot out of hand, and he, you know, everyone knows him as this bad guy, and it's, what, 73 years ago, you know?
	Well, I don't want to go into the full biography, but...
	It was not art school that made Hitler Hitler.
	The fact is that Hitler was beaten so viciously when he was a child that he actually would go into comas regularly.
	His father would count beating him viciously with implements hundreds of times until Hitler passed out.
	Hitler was turned into a complete psycho by his own family.
	Then, of course, he was served in World War I, was gassed and thought he was going to die.
	And so on.
	It really was not art school that was the issue with Hitler.
	And of course, Hitler's childhood was unfortunately all too commonplace in Germany at the time.
	What Alice Miller calls the poisonous pedagogy.
	And it may be worth, I mean, I think it's worth just, you know, if you're going to fear turning into Hitler.
	If you read Alice Miller's work on Hitler's childhood, it's probably important to recognize that That's not going to happen.
	You could get a Charlie Chan mustache and start screaming at all the obedient blonde people you know.
	It's never going to happen from you.
	So I just really wanted to point that out, that if you're going to look at the transformation effects of Hitler's life, and this is not to say he was not a bad guy, I get it was, and so I just wanted to point that out, because the Hitler thing kind of came up for me out of nowhere.
	I just wanted to point that out.
	So it seems a little foggy to me.
	So are you an atheist?
	Are you agnostic?
	Are you pantheistic?
	Are you a Rastafarian?
	Where are your beliefs at the moment?
	Well, currently, if You had to put me on the spot, which I suppose you are.
	I would say that whether there is, you know, any sort of higher power or whatever, I just think that it's kind of as if every form of life is like cells in a toe, if that makes sense, or your finger even.
	It's like, well, you all know what's best for the toe and or the finger.
	You know what's right, you know what's wrong.
	You know what's gonna, you know, make it better or worse.
	And I just think that if everyone can adopt their truest version of what's going to make this world better, you know, based upon the very instinctive principles of right and wrong that children are automatically born with.
	I mean, it's the world and families, and I love that you do try to, you know, Bring up the whole family thing.
	But I don't know.
	Did any of that make sense?
	Well, can I ask you perhaps a tangential question?
	Would others describe you as pretty?
	Depends on who you're talking to, honestly.
	That's all, you know, subjective.
	Because I'm afraid I must have awarded you a rather ignomious prize, which may be related to prettiness or not.
	I don't know.
	Obviously, you're an attractive person, but for a philosophy show, that's some of the worst philosophy I've ever heard in my life.
	I just wanted to point you out that as far as prizes go for Incomprehensible statements of personal preference when I'm asking you about a belief system, that's pretty high up there.
	And I don't mean this insultingly, I'm just, you know, because you asked about indecision, and I can certainly understand why you're facing some problems with decision.
	Because when asked about your belief systems, you talk about cells and toes and instinctual knowledge.
	And I just want to point out that for a philosophy show, you might as well be bringing chicken entrails to a physics conference.
	I'm sorry, could you go about wording that in a different way?
	Just so I'm sure that I understand what you're saying?
	Yeah, okay, so when I sort of ask are you atheist or agnostic or where are your belief systems at the moment, you know, this is a philosophy show and so we're looking for first principles, I'm looking for first principles or reasoned arguments or, you know, evidence or whatever it is, right?
	And you talk to me about cells and toes and instinctual best for humanity and so on, right?
	And now, when you hear this back, this may be obviously in the circles that you move in, this may be considered some sort of philosophical conversation, but if you listen to it back, there's no reason or evidence, no arguments in anything that you put forward about where your beliefs are at the moment.
	And the reason that I'm pointing this out is not to be critical, but to point out that if this is where your philosophical thinking is, you are going to end up being wildly indecisive.
	In perpetuity, because you're not working from first principles, right?
	You're not working from reason and evidence, and if you have these vague feelings about cells and unity and spirituality and we are appendages and so on, that's not going to give you any clarity about how to make decisions in your life, because they're all just kind of vaguely incomprehensible emotional impulses with no philosophical content or rigor, if that makes any sense.
	It does.
	It does.
	And I completely agree with you.
	If you and I were discussing, you know, how to build a bridge across a canyon, and you were to say, well, you know, the canyon is all rock, and the canyon is kind of joined at the bottom, and so the canyon is kind of one in a way, and do we even need to get to the other side?
	That's an interesting question.
	I don't know.
	And maybe we should build it out of the dreams of fairies or whatever.
	That would be kind of an incomprehensible series of things to bring up in an engineering meeting, right?
	Amen to that, that's for sure.
	Right.
	And it wouldn't, I mean, I'm being, you know, for comic effect, making it sound more silly than you were sounding, but it would be kind of like that.
	You know, as opposed to, well, I think we should use these trusses, the bridge is this far across, it's going to have to carry the weight of these many cars, and maybe an engine goes under the bike, like a locomotive or something.
	We would start to work on the principles of engineering, or we'd say, I don't want to build the bridge, you know, I want to do something else.
	But talking about the unity of the canyon would be incomprehensible when it came to figuring out whether to build the bridge or how to build it or not, right?
	Right, and can I just make sure that I understood I like to make sure that I'm gathering the point correctly.
	So, what you're saying is, um, this dodging of spirituality needs to be reckoned with before I can progress any further, because if I'm, like, honestly, it's just, it's on the back burner.
	I don't care.
	I don't, I don't care.
	And, uh, what I am caring about is...
	You don't care about what?
	About, you know, God or any of that right now.
	Or, you know, what's after or anything.
	Like, I just really care about reforming education, reforming parenthood, reforming nutrition, stuff like that.
	And there's just so much to do.
	Okay, let me ask you a couple other questions.
	When you were a child, were you taught about hell?
	Uh, yes.
	Around about five years old I was exposed.
	Okay, so your parents, did they tell you directly about hell and this is where you go if you are not adhering to these beliefs?
	Not in the scare factor way.
	More so in the tender, loving, supportive way, but yes.
	Wait, the tender, loving hell way?
	Oh yeah, definitely.
	Help me square that circle a little bit.
	I mean, hell is a threat of everlasting torture and damnation, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	So how is that the loving way?
	Well, in our family, you talk a lot, and hell was basically not really talked about as a reality for us, if that makes sense.
	So, wait, so when you were five, you were told that there was hell and that's where sinners went, is that right?
	Exactly.
	And we need to help them and all that.
	Yeah, no, no.
	But if you didn't adhere to the beliefs that your parents put forward, that you would end up in this place of eternal torture and damnation, right?
	Yeah, that's their fear.
	Exactly.
	Well, no.
	When you were five, you're kind of evasive, right?
	It's like an evasive maneuver, Sulu.
	Because you were told as five that this was not a place of language or metaphor, but this was a real place that you go to if you don't adhere to the Religious beliefs, right?
	Exactly.
	Okay.
	Yes, yes.
	So that is not kind and loving.
	That's a threat.
	Okay.
	Don't say okay to me like I'm making something up here.
	I'm happy to hear how threatening a child with eternal torture is not a threat, that it is in fact loving.
	I mean, help me understand it if I'm missing something.
	It's like, well, you're so lucky because it was God's will for you to be born in this family and we're going to make sure that That's not your worry and you can help others.
	You know, that type of story.
	Okay, so obviously then by proxy, did you have friends who weren't part of the same religious ideology?
	Or did you know other kids in the neighborhood who weren't?
	Yeah, eventually there was some immersion.
	Okay, so you were lucky you happened to be born into a family that was going to steer you clear of hell.
	God liked you and put your soul in that family.
	Obviously, the other kids weren't quite so lucky, right?
	That was the message.
	You got it.
	Right, so the poor Muslim kids, the Buddhist kids, the Jain kids, the Sarastrian kids, the Anabaptists, the Swingalians, the Lutherans, you name it.
	Those kids, like, wow, sucks to be you, drew snake eyes, short straw, you go to hell, right?
	Yeah, very, what's that word?
	You know, high and mighty type of...
	Yeah, exactly.
	So your parents taught you an ideology in which the vast majority of children, through no fault of their own, are very likely to end up eternally burned and tortured, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and that was a big wedge for me.
	I can imagine.
	I can imagine.
	Okay, and...
	You started off by telling me that you had a very happy family life, right?
	Great family, you said?
	Yes.
	Okay, except for the burning of children for eternity through no fault of their own, right?
	Except for the religion, yeah.
	But the religion was pretty core, right?
	Very core, yes.
	Very cool.
	Okay.
	And do your parents know of your existing perspectives on these things?
	Yeah, they do.
	And, uh...
	What has their reaction been?
	Um...
	They kind of just treat me in conversations just like they would treat anyone else that they're really trying to win over with, you know, God with, you know, loving, caring reminders of we're praying for you and, uh...
	You know, you know Jesus loves you, and blah blah blah, you know.
	But I feel like I have bigger fish to fry than that type of fish, if that makes sense.
	But I'm just worried that if I'm climbing up a ladder, only to see at the top that I've added to destruction to the world, that just sounds awful.
	What do you mean by that?
	Sorry, I know I use metaphors, but I missed that one.
	Which ladder?
	Just for instance, if I wanted to...
	Let's just take it towards you.
	So, Stefan Molyneux...
	Molyneux, I'm not sure.
	Doesn't matter.
	At first, you were a programmer.
	Just from my very vague knowledge of you and your background.
	So in the beginning at some point you decided yes this is so me and this is what we're gonna be pursuing and then you climb up that ladder and then at some point I don't know if you're still doing it or not doing it or you know you might do it for fun like playing sudoku but uh but now you're you're doing something else and and it's it's just uh and now you're gaining momentum and followers and And you're really getting your message out.
	And I like your message, and I don't believe it's destructive in any way, shape, or form, but it's that type of ladder system.
	I assume by followers you mean Facebook followers.
	I don't have any followers, like people who phone me up and say, what should I do today?
	I don't have followers.
	Like Richard Dawkins doesn't have followers.
	There are people who accept his arguments or reject them.
	But anyway, I just want to point that out.
	Followers is...
	Not what philosophers aim for, right?
	I just wanted, again, unless people want to follow me on Facebook or Twitter, that's fine.
	But anyway, so...
	If you don't like that verbiage, then, you know, disciples.
	I don't know how you want to say it.
	Disciples even worse!
	Anyway, it doesn't matter.
	It doesn't matter.
	I just wanted to point that out.
	So are you concerned that...
	What's the ladder that you're concerned about climbing?
	At this point, any of them.
	As in, like...
	Let me just give you a couple personal examples.
	I worked at Apple and now I work at Verizon selling cell phones and I thought Verizon was going to be it until I could come up with something else such as you know either an arts thing or music thing or community thing and so just recently I got offered Some money to do some mural work for a local business.
	And it's some work outside of work.
	I just don't want to be tied in too much to one thing and then being stuck in it and or finding that it was, you know, useless and or, you know, not as impactful in the world as I want it to be or impactful for the wrong reasons or end.
	I don't know.
	So what was your question again?
	Was it about indecision?
	Exactly.
	How does one take this world and prioritize and specialize?
	That's truly my problem right now.
	To prioritize and specialize?
	You mean in terms of what you want to do with your future?
	Yeah.
	Well, I'll give you a little speech here.
	And hopefully it will make some sense to you.
	Maybe it will, maybe it won't.
	And again, it's all just my opinion.
	I don't think we can be any clearer about our future than we are about our relationships, particularly our past relationships, because they condition us so much, particularly our relationship with our parents.
	And I think that the fogginess that you have, or at least that I experience, the confusion and fogginess that you have, I think stems out of a confusion and fog that you have about your Relationship with your parents, about your relationship with your community.
	It's not just your parents, the extended family community, as you say, religion is big all through the gene pool.
	And my perspective, of course, is that it is not right to inflict superstition on children.
	It is not right to tell children about hell and burning and torture and for noncompliance with edicts.
	And your parents obviously are very well educated, father's a psychologist, your mom is into child development and so on, and so they would have had exposure to the dangers of inflicted and threatened ideologies upon children and all of the problems that that causes in cognitive development, independence, reason, thinking, and so on.
	So if Religion is not a good thing for children, and if your parents are very big in spreading it, then that's the problem.
	And if you haven't cleared that up, look, maybe you have nothing to clear up.
	I'm just telling you from the philosophical perspective, religion is false, and from a developmental perspective, inflicting threatened falsehoods on children is not good.
	It's not good.
	For me, it's worse than spanking.
	Because spanking is obviously wrong, it's hurtful, it's an invasion of the child's physical autonomy, it's the use of pain to get compliance, but at least it's physical.
	At least it doesn't get in your head in the way that hell does get in your head, which is infinite spanking for non-compliance with Commandments, not even reasoned arguments.
	And I'm not trying to tell you how you should have experienced your childhood, and I'm not trying to tell you your parents did all these terrible things.
	I'm really not.
	But what I'm saying is that from a philosophical standpoint, since you're interested in philosophy, you listen to the show, from a philosophical standpoint, that's a problem.
	Now, I don't think that, I hope that when you have kids, you're not going to tell them that if they don't comply with the Edicts of invisible beings that they're going to be burned in hell forever and they just happen to be lucky and other kids in Somalia, God just doesn't like them but really like them.
	That's so destructive to a child's thinking.
	Capacities.
	And capacities to stand up to and be independent of authority and think for themselves and so on.
	Again, I've gone over that a number of times before.
	I don't think I have to go over that.
	But It's not as simple to say, I came from a really good family who just happened to threaten me with hell for non-compliance.
	That's a circle I can't square.
	It doesn't mean your parents were terrible or mean.
	It doesn't mean that they had all these mean and terrible intentions or anything like that.
	But the effect is for a five-year-old to be taught about eternal torture for non-compliance.
	And I could have picked any number of things that came out of religion or religious ideology.
	I just happened to pick that one.
	I could have picked, you know, any one of hundreds of other things that, you know, that they teach you the story of Noah, that this great God drowned fetuses in the womb and drowned babies in the crib for the supposed noncompliance of their parents.
	Literally wiped out the entire planet, not just of people, but of life itself because of noncompliance.
	Murdered innocent babies.
	It doesn't matter.
	You could pick up six million of these things, any number of them, and come up with how insane they are to tell the children as true stories.
	Right, right.
	Those are important aspects of how you were raised.
	You say religion was core.
	And if you have skepticism about these things, I mean, I was going to ask you, is there a God?
	Because that, to me, would be something which philosophy can help you with.
	But I have a feeling I just get back, I'm not that interested, or it doesn't matter, or...
	Maybe, but who am I to know?
	Again, it's fog, right?
	Now, where is this fog coming from?
	We're not born with fog.
	My daughter's incredibly decisive about everything that she wants and very clear about what it is she put forward.
	We're not born with all of this fog and this confusion, so where does it come from?
	It must come from some contradictions that we're taught or things that we can't reconcile about our primary relationships.
	So if you were to work on decisiveness, again, as I always say to people, Sit down, talk with your parents, but don't accept that we pray for you and Jesus loves you, but just talk about your experience.
	I think you have some skepticism now, as you say, you live with Muslims and hang with Buddhists, and listen to this show, God help you.
	But if you have some issues with how you were raised or how you were indoctrinated in these particular Tragic and horrendous, hellish, literally hellish belief systems.
	Sit down and talk about it with your parents and don't accept the catechisms as a response but really try and connect with them about issues that you had if you have them with how you were raised in this or other areas.
	I try not to be the bull responding to the red flag, you know, but when people come and say, I came from a great family, and I was told about hell and how lucky I was when I was five, it doesn't mean that it's a terrible family, but it means that it's not as simple to say that it's just great.
	Because that's just not right to tell people.
	I mean, my daughter is four and a half, she's going to be five this year, the idea of telling her that people are going to burn in hell for disobedience I can't imagine telling her anything like that.
	Even if I believed it, I can't imagine telling her anything like that.
	I mean, even if I believed that it was true, I don't know that I would...
	I would not inflict that on her.
	Like, it's true that people get horribly burned every day in the world.
	That doesn't mean that I have to take my five-year-old child to a burn unit and hold her right over these people's horrible burns and scars and say, this is what happens.
	People get burned every day!
	But she's five.
	Even if it's true, even if hell was as true as a burn unit in a hospital, it still would not be right for me to inflict that on my five-year-old.
	Anyway.
	And given that it's not even true, and the religions vacillate on this stuff all the time.
	No hell in the Old Testament, it's just Jesus who came up with the enduring power of verbal abuse rather than physical abuse by moving from getting blown up and drowned and stabbed to going to hell forever.
	But it's not something you tell a five-year-old.
	Even if it's true, even if it was objectively true and you believed it, it's not something you tell a five-year-old and you shouldn't tell a five-year-old because a five-year-old, at least according to most religious traditions, can't go to hell anyway.
	Don't reach the age of reason until seven.
	Surgery happens every day.
	That doesn't mean you put on the surgery channel and have your five-year-old strapped to a chair to watch it.
	I'm afraid I think we've lost her.
	Is she coming back at all?
	Have we lost the whole connection?
	She's gone?
	No, she's still connected.
	I think maybe her microphone is out of order or something like that.
	Well, maybe we can pick up with her another time, but I think we've gone kind of over the show as it is.
	But I filmed this one.
	We haven't done this for years, but I thought I'd give it a shot.
	And I think it...
	It worked out okay.
	So if you're used to listening to The Sunday Show and you want to see all of the technological magic and TCP IP pixie elves that constantly dart in and around my ears, tickling me to no end, you can check it out on the YouTube channel.
	If you like the video of The Sunday Show and you find it useful or helpful to give you a crick in the neck having you stare at a screen for two hours or more, if you like the epic Long-distance marathon that is a Sunday show in its full visual splendor.
	Please let us know.
	Operations at freedomainradio.com.
	And again, to help out the show, fdrurl.com forward slash donate or freedomainradio.com.
	Just click on the donate button.
	We take bitcoins and chicken spleens.
	Anything else?
	PayPal!
	But chicken spleen through PayPal?
	No.
	Anyway, so thanks again, everyone, so much for your support and your kind words.
	And I look forward to chatting with you next week.
	I think we're already full for next week, but for the week after, we've got some spots.
	We're going to try to do some themed Sunday shows, but I really appreciate everyone's time.
	Have yourselves a deliciously wonderful week.

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