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April 15, 2016 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:31:41

3261 An Honest Conversation With A Single Mom - Call In Show - April 13th, 2016

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	Hi everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain Radio.
	Hope you're doing well.
	Well, this was a gamut of callers tonight and I had a great time with them.
	In particular, the first lady who is a single mom and had found out how bad the outcomes were in general for kids of single moms and wanted to know How she could avoid negative outcomes for her child, given the challenges of the child's origin story.
	A very far-ranging, far-reaching, deep and wide conversation wherein the grim photocopying of intergenerational repetition is lit up like a flare for all to see and hopefully will guide you to better decisions yourself.
	The second caller was curious about what a rejection of authority means.
	Does it mean rejection of expertise?
	Does it mean rejection of people who can tell you what to do?
	Or is it more political?
	And through that process, I went through a fairly comprehensive laundry list of all that is necessary for I hope you'll find that helpful.
	Thank you, Will.
	And the third caller, we talked a lot about religion and atheism and some of the problems that I have with atheism and with the atheist community as a whole and atheism's occasionally hobnailed imprint on the soft mud of human history.
	I think you'll find it interesting, to put it mildly.
	So please remember, freedomainradio.com slash donate.
	To help out the show, FDRURL.com slash Amazon if you want to help us out by doing some pain-free shopping.
	And you can go to FDRPodcast.com to share podcasts.
	Please like and subscribe and share wherever you can.
	We look forward to your support.
	Alright, well first today we have Jessica.
	Jessica wrote in and said, I'm 20 and I'm a single mom.
	I have a lot of things I'd love to discuss, but ultimately my question would have to be, what can I do to be sure that I'm not a burden on society as a single mom?
	I realize that I am in a lot of ways, but I definitely have already changed my outlook in some ways by watching the show and have been enlightened.
	Noticed a lot more things with other single moms in my life that I think I would have overlooked before.
	That's from Jessica.
	Well, hey, Jessica.
	How are you doing?
	Hello.
	I'm good.
	How are you?
	Great.
	Thank you so much for calling in.
	Is there anything you wanted to add to what you mentioned already?
	No, not really.
	Just that.
	Just wondering what your opinion is on it, really.
	Well, I guess my first opinion is a question.
	Jessica?
	Yes?
	What happened?
	Well, it's a bit of a long story if you want to go through the whole thing, but ultimately, you know, I was...
	Oh, no, no.
	I'm okay with a long story.
	It's an important topic.
	Yeah.
	I got together with him when I was 17, still in high school.
	I then went and tried to join the military and he had a really bad accident and so I left the military and stayed with him.
	He's now in a wheelchair and we were together for about three years and it was just...
	I knew the relationship was going south anyways and was trying to make it work, trying to make it work and then I got pregnant and then it was a lot of, oh, he's going to change.
	Of course, he didn't as expected.
	Then after she was born, he obviously still didn't change, still didn't work on things, wasn't helping at all and so I got out of it.
	What accident did he have?
	He was hiking and fell.
	He fell somewhere between 70 and 120 feet, broke all kinds of bones, all kinds of surgeries.
	He's not paralyzed.
	They put a rod in his back where he had shattered one of the bones in his back, and he had to go through a bunch of physical therapy.
	Probably could have gotten out of the wheelchair and probably still could now, but he's not doing the work through the physical therapy like he should, really.
	Now, you know, I've done a lot of hiking in my day, Jessica, and I've never been close to falling 70 to 120 feet.
	Yeah.
	No, I had actually gone hiking at the same place about a month before him, and yeah, I didn't have any problems either.
	Was he drinking?
	No, a lot of people ask that, because he's been known to, but from the story I've heard, he was with friends of mine, actually, and they said they weren't drinking or anything, so...
	I think they were just being stupid, if nothing else.
	In what way?
	Because they didn't have any...
	They were clearly going to close edges and weren't wearing anything to protect themselves.
	Oh, so it was sort of like rock climbing or dangling around the edge of a big gorge kind of thing?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so...
	How long had you been with him when he had this accident?
	Six months.
	And why did you...
	I'm not saying, you know, ditch the guy because he fell down, but...
	Yeah.
	Why did you stay with him?
	Well, we'd been together for six months and...
	Well, I was, you know, planning on starting this career in the military and just...
	The whole accident really shook me up a lot.
	And then I left the military.
	And at that point, it was, I gave up all this.
	I have to make this for something.
	I mean, what was his decision-making abilities before this?
	Was there any indication that he might make somewhat rash decisions?
	Like, I knew a guy when I was younger that used to play chicken with trains.
	Like...
	Like, there aren't any video games in the world, right?
	And the guy lost his legs.
	Yeah, when we first met, he was doing a lot of stupid stuff, but close to me leaving, he had, you know, done a lot to change and better himself, and, you know, when we first met, he had no intentions of going to college, and by the time I left, he was, you know...
	Accepted in a bunch of different colleges and working a good job.
	He had made progress, I guess would be the only way to put it.
	And then he could have ended up in a better situation with regards to his injuries, but he didn't do the physio that was necessary or didn't do enough of it?
	Yeah, he's actually still in physical therapy now.
	And it's been, you know, three years now.
	Something like that.
	And he's just, he doesn't want to do it at home.
	He doesn't want to do it.
	He doesn't want to go there every time he has to.
	And, you know, just isn't putting in all the work he should.
	Right.
	I assume that he hasn't been working.
	No, of course not.
	So, Jessica, do you know what my next question is going to be?
	What is that?
	So you're in a relationship with a guy who perhaps fooled around on a hiking trail and plunged, is not doing his physio, is not working, has no particular prospects.
	I assume that this was emotionally devastating for him, right?
	And then what happened?
	You got pregnant.
	Yes.
	Tell me about that.
	I don't need the play-by-play or anything, obviously.
	But what happened?
	I mean, there's like 18 different forms of birth control for you, right?
	Yes.
	It was really just being irresponsible.
	That's really all it boils down to.
	No.
	No, that's like saying God created the universe.
	I had an irresponsible action that was caused by irresponsibility.
	The question is why, right?
	I mean, you know, smart enough to get into the military, you've not got an IQ of 70, so you know how babies are made.
	I believe about 98% of the internet is devoted to showing documentaries on just that very thing.
	And so you know how babies are made, and you know what steps are necessary to not Have a baby.
	So you kind of chose to have a baby, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So help me, step me through that decision.
	Well, I was originally on birth control and then he and I broke up and I wasn't with anyone else.
	I wasn't worried about being on it.
	And so I stopped taking it and we were separated for, you know, 30 months or so.
	And when we got back together, I just I just didn't.
	Wait a minute.
	Wait a minute.
	Oh, man.
	Are you actually telling me, Jessica, that you decided to have a kid with a guy who's got a broken body, who's not doing his physio, has no money, no job, no prospects, and you just broke up with him, too?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Step me through this process.
	You're getting back together with the guy, and...
	How good looking is this guy?
	I gotta know.
	Um, not terribly.
	I assume his body is not a lean, mean fighting machine after a bunch of time in a wheelchair and all, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, he's not super smart, right?
	I mean, he's not, you know, he doesn't shit diamonds or anything, so what...
	What is the thought process of, well, it's a really unstable relationship with a guy who's facing, let's just say, enormous life challenges with no particular prospects, who's not doing what he needs to do to solve his health issues.
	I know I'll get pregnant.
	I mean, help me understand that.
	It really just wasn't a thought process.
	Oh no, no, no, no.
	You don't get to pull that with me.
	I'm sorry.
	That may work with your, I don't know who other friends.
	That does not work here.
	A woman's choice to get pregnant is never something that just happens.
	You know, as a woman, right?
	I mean, your whole biology, Jessica, as you know, and your whole psychology is evolved over hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.
	To make sure that you know when you're getting pregnant or not.
	Because if you get pregnant with the wrong guy and he takes off, your whole bloodline would likely end because other guys wouldn't take you in and you wouldn't be able to get enough food.
	So it is never something that just happens.
	There's always some kind of thinking behind it.
	And I'm just...
	I'm not trying to be mean or anything.
	I'm genuinely curious what the thought process is.
	This doesn't just happen.
	Well...
	I guess if I would have to say something more than anything, it would be, you know, I gave up all this and, you know, it's got to be for something.
	I gave up a lot and went through a lot and didn't want it to just be for nothing.
	But when you broke up with him, why didn't you just go back into the military?
	It was an option because of the way that I left.
	Because I wasn't through boot camp when I left.
	Oh, so if you leave early, and you don't have to get into the details, but if you leave early, then you're not allowed back in?
	Yes.
	And there was nothing else that you wanted to do?
	It was like, I'm either going to take lives or make lives.
	It's military or motherhood.
	There's nothing in between.
	Is that right?
	I just...
	I really...
	I don't think I'm particularly fit for college or anything like that.
	I guess still don't really have a career in mind.
	I'm working, but just warehouses.
	So without a baby, you've got a whole bunch of nothing going on, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	And what are you living on?
	You're not married to the guy, right?
	You're just living together?
	Oh no, he's not around.
	You've broken up?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And when did you break up?
	We broke up when she was about two months old.
	Was that a shock to you?
	I was actually the one that ended it.
	It was...
	It just got to be harder and harder.
	He wasn't wanting to be around.
	When he was around, he wasn't doing anything to help.
	I was waking up every three hours through the night and getting no sleep and working a job.
	He was at home doing nothing.
	I had to put my daughter in daycare because he wasn't going to watch her.
	At that point, I was just done.
	So you must have known this ahead of time when you got pregnant, that it wasn't going to work out and he wasn't going to be an even remotely decent father, right?
	Yes.
	Okay, so you knew that it was 99% or 95% likely that you were going to end up raising the child without him, right?
	Yes.
	And what are you living on?
	I'm working.
	I've been...
	I've been going a little job to job because I've been through temp agencies, but I've been just working warehouse jobs, you know, $10 or $11 an hour.
	And I do have a new boyfriend now.
	All right, hang on, hang on.
	Let's get to the new boyfriend in a sec.
	Is your ex involved?
	Is it your son or daughter?
	I don't want any details.
	I just need to know what to refer.
	Daughter.
	Daughter.
	Is your ex involved in your daughter's life at all?
	No.
	Does he contribute any money?
	Yes.
	He does.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And how does he get money if he's not working?
	Disability.
	Oh, government.
	Yes.
	Excellent.
	Excellent.
	I'm sure the taxpayers in America are now sending off a ragged cheer of discontent.
	All right.
	Now, who is it who takes care of your daughter when you're working?
	I take her to daycare.
	Does that, I mean, if you're making $10 or $11 an hour, do you have much money?
	I mean, I don't see the math here.
	How are you surviving if you're dropping her off at daycare and you're making $10 or $11 an hour?
	Well, I work four-day shifts, or, yeah, four-day shifts, and so...
	She only goes to daycare three of the days.
	The fourth day, she goes to my mom's, and it's about half as cheap for three days.
	And that's about it.
	That's about it, really.
	So, do you have enough to live on working four days with a kid?
	Barely.
	Right.
	I mean, health insurance and all that.
	What's happening with that?
	I have her on passport.
	I'm sorry, I don't know what that is.
	I have her on state health insurance and then we were on, she was on the food assistance for her until it got to be a little easier for me to manage that and then I took her off of that and then that was it.
	Right, okay, okay.
	And how old is she?
	She's a year old.
	Right.
	Were you breastfeeding during this time?
	I attempted to as best I could, but it only lasted about two months.
	Did you dry out because of work or what happened?
	No, it was...
	Honestly, it was terribly, terribly painful and really hard to manage.
	And then I did go back to work after two months.
	And so I just chose to stop it then.
	Did you feel that your ex-boyfriend owed you a baby because you weren't in the military?
	I wouldn't say that I thought he owed me a baby.
	But you said, since I gave up all of this...
	And nothing much else is going, I don't want to go to college or not.
	Like, it feels like, I mean, I'm not trying to tell you your experience, of course, Jessica, but there was something like, well, I gave this up, therefore, what, your oats?
	I mean, I'm trying to sort of figure out the why the baby thing.
	I mean, obviously, it wasn't a terribly big surprise since we weren't being safe with anything.
	Um...
	But, you know, it was...
	I guess the only way to put it is we didn't slip up until the one time, and that was when we got her.
	I thought you said you weren't on birth control when you got back together.
	No, I wasn't on birth control, but we were using other methods.
	Oh, okay.
	Like condoms?
	Okay, and then you did one unprotected.
	You know, it really only takes one to get one past the goalie, right?
	Yes, absolutely.
	Your new boyfriend?
	Yes.
	He's fine with you being a single mom?
	Give and take, here and there.
	He's actually the one that introduced me to you with the reasons on why not to date a single mom.
	So he watched my video, reasons not to date a single mom.
	He's dating you and he introduced you to my show.
	Yes.
	The irony vortex is just spiraling around in my brain here, but all right.
	All right.
	We've known each other for a lot longer than...
	I've known him longer than I've known my daughter's father.
	It's kind of just been a working thing, just kind of as we go, figuring things out, really.
	Does he want children as well?
	Yes, eventually.
	And is he paying for certain aspects of your daughter's expenses?
	No.
	Not exactly.
	We live together and he obviously pays a portion of the bills and I pay a portion of the bills.
	So I guess in a way it kind of works out that way.
	Look, I'm sure your daughter is charming and all of that, but I don't know if he's available, but I'd kind of like to ask him, why does he want to put all this time and effort into raising someone else's kid?
	Yeah, I'm available.
	Oh, hello.
	How are you doing?
	I'm well, how are you doing?
	I'm doing good.
	You are doing something.
	So you listen to the show, Why Not Today to Single Mom, right?
	Correct.
	Was this before or after you moved in with Jessica?
	Before.
	And you didn't believe me?
	Why does this guy know?
	He's lying!
	I believe you, but...
	I think one of the reasons I showed it to her, really, was, uh...
	I don't know, I was trying to...
	She tries to pull away from a lot of the behavior that you talk about in the videos like that.
	Well, she's already got my admiration for just calling in and asking this basic question, so, you know, this is why I'm having the conversation.
	I admire her for that, but I'm just sort of trying to ask you at the moment.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, um...
	Well, she's got my admiration for the same reason, but, uh...
	I don't know.
	I thought it would maybe help her get a little further with it.
	She wants to be able to do it independently.
	I admire that a lot.
	Were there no women around without a baby that you could date?
	I mean, let's be frank.
	I mean, just to be perfectly honest and perfectly frank, as I always try to be, if Jessica, if you had, I'm sure you, you know, your kid's great and all that, but if you had the choice, like if ahead of time somebody was saying, well, there's two women you can fall in love with, one has a baby, the other one doesn't, which would you choose?
	Probably the one without.
	Of course!
	Yeah.
	Because biology, right?
	Yeah.
	So, look, maybe she's got fantastic virtues, and again, I admire her already, not necessarily for the decision she made a year and nine months ago, or didn't make, but for calling in and wanting to prevent challenges, and that's great.
	So, you know, she may have virtues that overcome the negative aspect of this.
	Did you try and date her before she got involved with Joe Wheelie?
	Yes, it was...
	And why didn't she date you then?
	Were you just not hurling yourself off high enough mountains?
	I mean, why didn't she date you in the past?
	Why is she waiting now to date you if you're such a great guy?
	Why is she dating you now after she has another man's kid?
	Well, then we were in high school and I got shipped out to a military school when I was 16.
	I think that might have been part of it.
	So you just weren't around?
	Correct.
	Jessica, would you have dated him if he'd been around instead of the father of your daughter?
	I would definitely say yes, but I was also a different person when he and I first met.
	Go on.
	Better?
	No, no.
	No.
	I mean, I was 15 and in high school and, you know, still learning a lot of things.
	Okay, you gotta not give me these euphemisms.
	I'm being pretty straight with you guys, right?
	Just be straight with me.
	What was going on when you were 15?
	When I was 15, I was trying to figure out how to color in the last couple of pages of the Monster Manual, a Dungeons and Dragons reference.
	What was going on with you when you were 15, Jessica?
	When I was 15, I started smoking cigarettes and weed and drinking and skipping school and just a lot of growing up to do.
	And Jessica, in the grim cycle of the generations, where was your father?
	My dad's always been there.
	Where was he when you were 15 and making these really bad decisions?
	In his own way.
	My parents divorced when I was about 12.
	And my dad, he got really depressed after that.
	And so he was around but wasn't this big bubbly personality.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Who got custody?
	It was week to week.
	I would be with my dad for one week and my mom for the next.
	But your dad was depressed after the divorce and emotionally unavailable, to put it mildly?
	Yes.
	Was he abusing any substances himself?
	No.
	No, not at all.
	My dad doesn't drink or do any of that.
	And did your mother know when you were 15?
	I mean, we think of bad decisions before we make them.
	They don't just, you know, hit us like a...
	Ball to lightning out of a clear blue sky, right?
	So at some point, you were beginning to think of running with the bad crowd and doing the destructive things, you know, the self-destructive things and dangerous things and giving up on education and smoking weed.
	At some point, you were contemplating this.
	And where were your parents?
	Were you talking to them about what you were contemplating?
	Did they know either what you were thinking of doing or what you were doing when you started doing it?
	I mean, what was going on?
	Absolutely not.
	I didn't tell them about any of this until I graduated and moved out.
	And why didn't they know?
	Did they not know who your friends were or what you were doing or whether you were going to school?
	The school usually will call parents if you don't show up.
	So how did they not know?
	Well, my parents divorced when I was 12, like I said.
	And my dad was just really depressed all the time.
	And my mom was looking for a new boyfriend, looking for something new to do.
	And so my mom was going out and drinking and having fun with her own little crowd.
	I was probably with my dad more than anything.
	So your dad was depressed and your mom was trying to relive her teenage years by going out and be a potty girl?
	Yes.
	Exactly.
	So is it fair to say that you were neglected during this time?
	I guess in a way.
	Well, no.
	They didn't even know that you were thinking about making bad decisions or that you were actually making bad decisions.
	So that's neglect, right?
	They didn't know what was going on in your life and they weren't there Available to you for guidance.
	Because every time you're home with your parents, every second that passes, you can open your mouth and you can say, I'm thinking of doing weed, I'm thinking of smoking cigarettes, I'm thinking of drinking, I'm thinking of not going to school, I'm thinking of hanging out with these bad kids, right?
	The whole time that you're home, you can say that to your parents.
	And if you don't, there's a reason.
	And I want to know, what is that reason?
	Because this is what your daughter is going to face when she grows up if you don't know this stuff.
	It's just, I mean, curiosity for me too, but there's a reason behind what I'm asking.
	Well, my dad I had a hard time having a lot of conversations with because every time I would talk to my dad he would tell me how much I was like my mom and it would either be really good things and he would start crying or it would be really bad things and he would start yelling.
	And then my mom was more than anything just trying to be my best friend and My mom thinks she's this fun, party girl, teenager, even to this day.
	She's always been real open about saying, you can talk to me about anything.
	If you get drunk somewhere and you need a ride, I'll pick you up, no questions.
	I wasn't comfortable with talking to her.
	I think it was probably because of the divorce, because it definitely brought out a different side of my mom.
	I found out that she had cheated on my dad, and then she disappeared for a couple weeks.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Hang on, hang on.
	We're switching.
	And I was going to ask who cheated on whom.
	I assumed it was your mom.
	So before your parents got divorced, your mom cheated on your dad?
	Yes.
	And was that what precipitated the divorce?
	Yes.
	It's what started it.
	And do you know if that was the only time?
	No, I found out it was the third time that she had done that.
	So when you were 12, did you find out when you were 12 that your mom had had three affairs?
	Yes.
	Yes.
	And how the hell did you find that out?
	They sat down and they said, well, your mom's kind of been whoring around a bit with three other guys, so bye-bye family.
	No, it was my mom disappeared for a couple of weeks, and my dad was angry, yelling everything, telling me and my brother all that had happened so that we would hate my mom.
	So your mom disappeared for a couple of weeks because she was shacking up with some guy?
	I'm not totally sure where she was in those weeks.
	I'm guessing not seeing Old Faithful the geyser.
	Well, maybe kind of in a way.
	But, you know, you don't tend to abandon your family because there's a good sale on at Baskin Robbins, right?
	Yeah.
	All right.
	Yeah, well, they tried to make it work and tried to go to marriage counseling and everything.
	Oh, no, no, no.
	No, no, no.
	Don't even try.
	Don't even try to tell me that your mom tried to make it work after having three affairs.
	That's explicitly not trying to make it work.
	No, my dad tried to make it work.
	Okay.
	You said they, which is both.
	Yes.
	And how did your dad try to make it work?
	He...
	He signed them up for marriage counseling and he kicked my mom out and then tried to get her to come back.
	And she came back for a night and then would leave another night and then would come back for a night and leave another night.
	So they went to marriage counseling and then your father...
	Kicked your mom out.
	Was that part of the marriage counseling?
	I don't know much about marriage counseling, but I'm not sure kick the woman to the curb is part of it.
	No, that was actually before the marriage counseling.
	That was before he took a nap step.
	Was your mom drinking when you were young?
	I don't ever actually remember my mom drinking because my dad doesn't like drinking at all.
	But I know as soon as they got divorced, she did.
	Right.
	So it's fairly safe to say that you were relatively unparented puberty and onwards.
	Is that unfair to say?
	No, not at all.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And so, like all people who raise themselves, myself included, you do a fairly decent job, but not that great because you're a kid.
	And if kids could raise themselves, we wouldn't need parents after the age of 10, right?
	Correct.
	All right.
	So...
	I don't know if you've watched it in the Gene Wars stuff, but it seems to me more likely that you got our selected stimuli in your environment.
	And there's lots of statistics that show girls who are not close to their fathers make very bad decisions in general.
	Not all, but, you know, in general.
	And so I'm just going to take a little run through the stats, right?
	Because I'm sort of cognizant of the fact, and you guys have listened for a while, But this is the situation, this is why Jessica's calling in, and this is the situation that occurs.
	Women who had first birth outside of marriage were 3.6 times more likely to live below the poverty line, 4.5 times more likely to be receiving food stamps than women who had their first birth within marriage.
	Children living in female-headed families with no spouse present have a poverty rate of 48%, over four times the rate of married couple families.
	Their likelihood of unemployed single mother being in poverty drops 65% if they marry the father of their children from 100% to 35%.
	Marriage more than doubles the family income of these mothers and their children.
	Among single mothers who were employed, part-time marriage decreased the poverty rate by 38% from 55% to 17%.
	Marriage increased the household income by 75% and would raise 83% of such households above the poverty level.
	Among mothers who were employed, full-time marriage would boost the incomes of nearly two-thirds of such households to 150% of the poverty level.
	In sum, marriage increases median family income of mothers by between $10,000 and $11,000 per year and would reduce the probability that mothers live in poverty by at least two-thirds.
	Children born to single mothers show higher levels of aggressive behavior than children born to married mothers.
	Living in a single mother household is equivalent to experiencing 5.25 partnership transitions.
	Adolescents from other family structures were between 40 and 198% more likely to enter into sexual activity than adolescents living with two biological parents.
	90% of homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.
	71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes.
	70% of juveniles and state-operated institutions have no father.
	71% of adolescent patients in chemical abuse centers come from fatherless homes.
	63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes.
	85% of children who exhibit behavioral disorders come from fatherless homes.
	And we've got a whole presentation, the truth about single moms, if people want to have...
	But this is the stuff you're scared of, right, Jessica?
	Yes, absolutely.
	Got it.
	All right.
	I don't know if the fine fellow there wants to give me his name, or maybe can I just call you Bob?
	It's Frank.
	All right.
	All right.
	You're going to be Frank with me.
	Fair enough.
	All right.
	I will.
	You can still be Garth.
	Did...
	Frank, did you know all this stuff about Jessica's family history?
	I did.
	Right.
	And what do you think of her parents?
	I'm not the biggest fan of her mom, especially.
	From when I've met her dad, he's a nice guy, but I understand that he's got stuff I haven't seen.
	But generally, Yeah, I'm not fond of her mom.
	I just don't like her.
	And Frank, how pretty is Jessica, one to ten?
	I know she's in the room, but you know, you said you'd be frank.
	Eight and a half.
	Eight and a half, alright.
	Post-baby.
	Good job.
	Post-baby.
	And is she the prettiest girl you've been with?
	Yes.
	By far?
	By far.
	Right.
	And when do you want to have kids?
	At a point of financial stability mostly, but at least five years.
	In five years?
	And how many kids do you want?
	One or two.
	Nothing more than that.
	And Jessica, you're down with that as a potential plan?
	Yes.
	And are you guys getting married?
	Not anytime soon.
	Why not?
	You're living together.
	You're raising a kid together.
	What's the holdup?
	You're going to be married.
	I don't know what the laws are, but your common law is going to transition you to married legally probably within a year or two, maybe less.
	So why not?
	I'm not saying you have to.
	I'm just curious.
	Why not?
	If that's where you're heading anyway, just legally, why not do it?
	I just don't think we're at a place for that just yet.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Don't give me that.
	Don't give me that chattel in non-answer.
	You know, I love you.
	I'm just not in love with you.
	Like, come on.
	What does that mean?
	I mean, you're building a life together.
	He's fathering your daughter.
	So what is, like, your daughter's attaching to him, right?
	Yes.
	She views him as a father to some degree, right?
	Yes.
	So, you expect your daughter to commit, but you don't want to commit.
	It's not so much me.
	Oh, Frank, you don't want to commit.
	Okay, let me turn the harangometer on you.
	So, why don't you want to commit?
	I don't know.
	I feel like there's a lot of uncertainty.
	But if there's a lot of uncertainty, why are you parenting her child?
	I mean, you get it.
	She's already lost one dad, right?
	If you guys break up, that would be two.
	And that is going to make it far more destructive for her in the future, right?
	Because you guys are kind of playing house, but you're not committing.
	but I guarantee you, the kid is committing.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that's true.
	And, you know, I think we all, as adults in the conversation, should recognize that what's best for the girl is the most important thing, right?
	Not playing house, not having someone fun to hang out with, not getting someone to co-pay the bills, not having a pretty lady to sleep with.
	What's best for the kid is the most important thing, because that was the reason for the call, right, Jessica?
	Yes.
	So, what are you doing?
	Are you guys a couple?
	Are you planning a future?
	and what is the barrier to commitment?
	I don't think it's so much lack of commitment as just lack of making it legally committed.
	Well, but as I said, that's going to happen anyway, because you go common law.
	You're actually living together, which means after a certain period of time, you're equivalent to married, right?
	So you've got inertia, right?
	So here's my concern, Jessica.
	It was kind of inertia that got you pregnant, right?
	You kind of didn't make a decision.
	Now there's this inertia that's going to end up with you guys being married.
	And what I'm trying to do is give the joystick of control over the flight path of your own life back to you so you don't just keep drifting into things.
	You're kind of drifting into kind of a half family now, but without making decisions.
	Yes, I see that.
	But if you're not willing to commit, look, if you guys want to live, if there's no kid involved, yeah, I mean, I think it's better to wait to live together until you get married, having done both.
	It's better for reasons I don't need to get into right now.
	But you guys are kind of playing house, but there's a kid involved who's steadily glomming on to Frank as the dad.
	Right?
	Yes.
	And if it doesn't work out, it's going to break her little heart into a thousand pieces.
	And that's my sort of major concern here.
	You guys are having fun.
	You guys are getting along.
	You guys are having a good fling.
	But from your daughter's perspective, Jessica, this could be two for the price of one dad losses, right?
	If it doesn't work out.
	Yes, sir.
	Now, when you commit, what happens is you make different decisions than if you're just kind of bumping along.
	Like, oh yeah, I'll move in, we'll split some rent, and two can live as cheap.
	That's kind of drifting along.
	Now, if you say, okay, let's make a go of it to commit and be with each other for the rest of our lives, what happens is you start making, you start having the conversations that really help determine whether you're compatible or not.
	Do you share the same values?
	Do you share the same approaches?
	Can you stand each other's families?
	Because, you know, they're around a lot.
	In particular, when there are kids around, the grandparents, you know, they come in, right?
	And they often will come in hard and stay long and whatever it is, right?
	Which is great if you love them and can be a challenge if not.
	Because you said, how can I avoid negative consequences to being a single mom?
	Well, one of them is don't expose her to a succession of boyfriends.
	Right?
	You get that.
	And you grew up in a family, Jessica, where commitment was...
	Not exactly front and center.
	You know, if your mom's having a bunch of affairs and all that, and they're coming and going and make up and break up, right?
	Which then you, again, did with your hikey bikey boy.
	And so you've got a challenging template, right?
	Now, Frank, what's going on with your family?
	What do they think of this situation you've got going on?
	I don't talk to all of them too often, but...
	A lot of what I heard, like, the one I'm closest with is my aunt, and a lot of what I heard when I first talked to her about it was, I understand people make mistakes, but it seemed like, I don't know, it seemed like she was making excuses for it, I don't know.
	Wait, who was making excuses for what?
	My aunt.
	Was making excuses for Jessica?
	Correct.
	Well, of course she is.
	It's female in-group preference.
	Women side with women.
	That's a law of nature.
	That's a law of physics.
	There are a few exceptions, like helium balloons don't fall down.
	But, yeah, in general, it's like, yeah, go help the lady.
	You get the white knight uniform.
	Go in and help the lovely lady with the deadbeat dad who's raising a child all by her own, heroically going, right?
	Correct.
	Right.
	And...
	I don't know.
	No, that's too harsh.
	Okay.
	So, in terms of the things that are necessary, first of all, I don't know.
	Right.
	I just want to be upfront with that because this is not philosophy.
	This is barely informed opinion.
	So, I'm going to just give you my thoughts.
	I'm not going to claim that they're absolute or true or final.
	Alright.
	So, the things that are unacknowledged in families tend to repeat.
	That's an old truism that predates psychology by a long way.
	And I don't know about your side of the family, Frank, but given what you've said, it's not a good family situation.
	Jessica's got some challenging family situations.
	And that's where you're coming from, which is not a great template for success in marriage and dating and parenthood and commitment.
	Is that fair to say?
	Yeah.
	And now you're trying to make a relationship work when you both have some pretty destructive elements in your history, in your family templates, templates of what a family is.
	You're trying to make it work in a very, very complicated situation.
	If you guys were just dating each other and you came from these family histories, it would be tough enough.
	But if you throw a baby into the mix, that's even more complicated.
	Because now you're not just playing with each other's hearts, you're playing with the heart of an innocent, tender-hearted, attachment-prone little girl, right?
	Right.
	And so instead of just juggling with balls, you're juggling with like fiery balls, so to speak, right?
	Because stakes are that much higher.
	And as far as what to do, well, the first thing is, as she gets older, I mean, she's going to wander.
	I mean, let's just assume Frank's not in the picture.
	Just for now, right?
	Because you guys are...
	Kind of half committed, but not committed, but you know, so it does not bode well, just putting it that way.
	And how long have you guys been going out?
	10 months.
	Wait, Frank, you got with Jessica when her daughter was two months old?
	Three.
	I thought you said you'd been together for a year.
	I'm just going with 10 months out of 12 months.
	She's just over a year old.
	She's 13 months old.
	Okay, so three months.
	Now, this is when you started dating.
	When did you start becoming...
	Because, you know, there's usually a bit of a flybys of romantic interest before you start dating.
	So when did you guys start doing the flybys of potential romantic interest before you got together?
	How long after the birth?
	It was...
	Right around the time I left my daughter's father.
	And it was just kind of a, hey, I haven't talked to in a long time kind of thing.
	Wait, hang on, Jessica.
	Oh, my God.
	Yeah.
	Oh, man.
	So you dumped the dad.
	Mm-hmm.
	And then you're on the phone calling up Frank saying, hey, stranger.
	Yeah.
	The other way around.
	He called me, actually.
	Oh, so Frank, you knew that Jessica had dumped the dad, and then you called her with romantic interest?
	Um, no.
	I didn't know she had dumped him, and it was originally kind of starting conversation.
	We hadn't talked in a really long time before that.
	So basically, it was a couple of weeks to a month after the dad had left that you guys started getting romantically interested in each other?
	Something like that.
	Yeah.
	What do you think of that?
	I think it was probably a rush to a, You think?
	Do you think that is enough time to mourn the end of a relationship and the end of a marriage, so to speak, and the banishing of the father of your daughter and the complete mess of all of that?
	I mean, do you think a couple of weeks is enough to just tidy that up and put it deep in the rear view?
	She might argue with me on it, but yeah, no, I don't think so.
	Of course it wasn't.
	You know, there's a rule of thumb, which I don't know if it's true or not, I've just heard it, that it takes half the length of a relationship to get over a relationship, which is why every relationship you're in that isn't going to last every two days you continue is just another day your heart's going to be broken in the future.
	And so this is kind of crazy, right?
	I mean, you get that.
	Right?
	Couple of weeks.
	Couple of weeks.
	Yeah.
	I mean, it just seems weird going on a date with a woman who's still breastfeeding.
	You know, call me old-fashioned.
	You know, call me some stodgy old uncle from a Jane Austen novel.
	But to me, if she's leaking through her bra, I just find that a little distracting for the romance.
	Yeah, I can see that.
	Well, did you at the time?
	Did it seem like, yeah, let's go ahead with this thing.
	And how long have you guys been living together?
	Probably about seven months, I think.
	So, oh man.
	Okay.
	So, basically a month or two after you started dating, you moved in together?
	Yeah.
	Two or three.
	And what do you think of that?
	It was also rushing.
	I know that.
	And why were you rushing?
	I don't know.
	Thank you.
	I know it's not an answer, but I don't know.
	No, but you do know.
	You just don't know consciously, right?
	Correct.
	Because what I get is in the space of four months, Jessica, you throw out the father of your child, you start dating this guy, and you move in together.
	Yes.
	The relationship with her father was, well, I wasn't planning to stay with him.
	And then I found out that I was pregnant.
	And then I stayed to try and make it work.
	No, no.
	You decided to get pregnant.
	You didn't just find out.
	This is not an immaculate conception, right?
	You didn't get boned by a Bible.
	They just need you to reframe this because this is the ownership you need to take for your decisions.
	Because the less ownership you take for your decisions, the worse it's going to be for your daughter.
	Because your daughter needs to see a mom who takes ownership for her decisions.
	Not, it happened to me.
	I was going to break up with him, but then I just got pregnant.
	Right?
	The less responsible you are in owning the decisions that you've made, and to not decide is a decision, the worse it's going to be for your daughter, because that's the kind of irresponsibility and absent your own life that you are going to transmit to her.
	So I need you to start owning what you have decided to do.
	For your daughter's sake.
	You asked me what you think is going to help your daughter.
	You saying, I just got pregnant, is disastrous for your daughter because then it's going to happen to her.
	No, I definitely agree.
	Well, I was planning on leaving him and then we, well, I guess I decided to have a baby.
	And so I tried to make the relationship work because I wanted her to have a dad that was going to be around.
	And the relationship was...
	Okay.
	Sorry.
	Sorry to interrupt you again.
	I hate to be such a nag.
	I do.
	It's not normally the guy's job.
	But anyway.
	You cannot say to your daughter, I tried to make the relationship work because I wanted you to grow up with a father around.
	You cannot say that to her because it's not true.
	Because if you wanted her to grow up with a father around, you wouldn't have had unprotected sex with a man you just got back in together with in who you wanted to break up with again.
	If you really, really wanted her to have a father around while she was growing up, you would not have done it this way.
	And that's the ownership that you need to take.
	Because this wishful thinking and hallmark cards and, well, I just got pregnant and I really wanted her to grow up with a father, so I tried.
	No, you didn't!
	At least, unconsciously, you can't have.
	Because it doesn't take a brain surgeon to look at the situation from outside, Jessica, and say, you couldn't have taken more secure steps to ensure that your daughter grew up without a father.
	Because this for sure, and I'm concerned about this thing with Frank now too, that this is going to happen again.
	Steps that you're taking are certainly not guaranteeing that your daughter is going to grow up with a father.
	Quite the opposite.
	And again, this is just annoying, naggy stuff that I need to remind you.
	There is this thing that happens with people, maybe a little bit more with women, although with guys it's when they get dicknapped, right?
	When they're thinking with their dick.
	But it's like responsibilities fall on people.
	And then it's like water off a duck's back.
	Off they go.
	Look, I'm dry.
	Did you see what I'm saying?
	Like you said, well, I really wanted her to grow up with a dad.
	No.
	Because then you wouldn't have done it with this guy, the guy who's gone.
	Because this was a totally shaky situation to try and have a kid in, right?
	Yes.
	Absolutely.
	And this is the level of self-ownership that if you want to break the cycle, Of your mother being sexually irresponsible and you being sexually irresponsible, you have to take full and complete ownership.
	Nothing happened to you.
	And everything that happened, you either chose directly or you chose as the result of not having self-knowledge, which itself is also a choice.
	And again, I'm really glad you're calling in.
	I'm going to sound overly negative and naggy.
	I'm really glad that you're calling in.
	But that's the feedback that I would have.
	No, absolutely.
	I mean, the whole reason I called in was because I like the thing that you said, and, you know, I do want to make this step sit.
	Why is the dad not involved?
	He, you know, he wasn't when she was...
	Brought home because it was too hard with him being in the wheelchair.
	Even if I set everything up for him, it was too hard to just...
	No, it wasn't too hard.
	He just didn't want to, right?
	Yeah.
	Listen, I saw Supernanny once where a woman and a wife and a husband, they had, I think, 17 adopted kids and biological kids, and the father was a paraplegic and he made it work.
	So it's not...
	Impossible.
	He just didn't have the motivation.
	It wasn't that he couldn't, right?
	Oh, no.
	Absolutely.
	Okay.
	That's what we are about.
	Now, when you told him that you were pregnant, did he say he wanted to be a father?
	It was a lot of us talking about adoption, and we actually really looked into adoption.
	And it just...
	I think more than anything when it got to telling our families is when adoption kind of just felt like it wasn't an option.
	Because you understand statistically your daughter stands a much better chance if she's in another family than with you.
	Yes.
	Right, so adopted kids have the same, like if kids are adopted into a stable household, they have the same outcomes as everyone else.
	But if they're in single mom households, the outcomes are much worse.
	So you holding on to your daughter, and I hate to say this, I mean, they're just the facts, right?
	But you holding on to your daughter may have been better for you, but statistically is not better for her.
	But sorry, you were saying that adoption, you didn't take that option because telling your, I don't understand, what was that?
	Okay, so when I went to tell My family was, to put it lightly, excited.
	They were excited that you were having a kid with a guy you'd just broken up with who was in a wheelchair.
	Yes.
	What?
	I'm so sorry.
	Like, Jessica, I'm so sorry that you're in this environment.
	Like, I know I'm nagging at you, but just to give you the...
	I'm incredibly sorry that you're in this environment where people see a wolf rushing at them and say, my favorite dog is home.
	Let's give it a hug.
	Let's rub ourselves and marinate and give it a hug.
	But go on.
	Sorry.
	They were very excited.
	Yeah, um...
	Well, my mom was excited and my mom, I have a brother.
	He's actually my half-brother.
	I'm sorry, what now?
	How is your half-brother?
	No, how is he your half-brother?
	He has a different dad.
	Sorry, the marriage with your mom was your mom's second marriage?
	No, it was her first marriage.
	She had my brother when she was 15.
	Oh, seriously?
	You could have mentioned that to me when you said you started going off the rails when you were 15, right?
	Yeah.
	You could have mentioned that to me when we're talking about why you might have had a kid outside of wedlock with a guy who's unsuitable.
	Can I go out on a limb here, Jessica, and assume that the guy that your mom got pregnant with when she was 15 was not the most suitable father in the world?
	No, I cannot stand the man.
	Okay, so we're basically jammed in the blind photocopier of history, right?
	That your mom got pregnant with an unsuitable dad prior to being married, and you got pregnant with an unsuitable dad prior to being married.
	Boom, boom, boom.
	Photocopy, photocopy, photocopy, right?
	Yes.
	All right.
	So I'm very sorry.
	I'm very sorry for that environment.
	environment, that is heartbreaking.
	But now I'm just trying to figure out how to make the best of it for her, especially most importantly for her, for my daughter.
	Right.
	And again, I hugely respect and appreciate that.
	And I don't want to pretend that I'm missing that.
	And I'll repeat it as often.
	You know, I really respect that you're calling in about that.
	Yeah, I am.
	Sorry, how's your half-brother doing?
	Can I go out on a limb here and guess not well?
	Just tell me not well if it's not well and we'll move on.
	I'm just curious.
	Not well.
	Not well at all.
	Right.
	And is there any acknowledgement on the part of either of your parents about the dysfunction of their own previous life choices or your current existing life choices or is this like, yeah, business as usual, this is what happens?
	My dad is just, oh, you know, you make mistakes, you learn from it, you move on.
	And then my mom, you know, she...
	Wait, sorry, your mom says you learn from mistakes?
	Then why the hell is she so enthusiastic about you being pregnant and keeping a child with an unsuitable dad, which is what she did?
	How has she learned from those mistakes?
	Look, I ran into a wall.
	Oh, look, my daughter's running into a wall.
	You go, honey!
	No, my dad's the one that says, you know, you learn from your mistakes.
	Oh, did he learn?
	Sorry, but you just replaced it then.
	Did he learn from his wife's mistakes?
	Well, he's in the first real relationship I've seen him in since they divorced eight or so years ago.
	He kind of just seared clear of women.
	Great.
	My mom, when she talks about how she's not happy with where I am, she is like, oh, I should have been a better role model and all that.
	She says all that, but she says it in a way where I should feel guilty for not being better and starts crying and being all emotional and really isn't sorry.
	Yeah, so she makes it about her.
	Yes, absolutely.
	Right, right, right.
	And of course, you know, I mean, she probably has not had the thought that since she made such disastrous decisions when she was younger, that she might need to prepare you to not make those decisions.
	Yeah, I mean, I think she thinks she tried to, but, uh, It definitely, clearly didn't.
	Am I going to assume that you are committed to peaceful parenting?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	No yelling, no spanking, no punishments, no timeouts, no being sent to your room, no food or anything like that, right?
	Negotiation all the way?
	Yes.
	Good.
	Trying my best.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Sorry, that last bit?
	What was that?
	Trying my best?
	Yes.
	Are you going to be here to pick me up at 7?
	I'm trying my best.
	Wait, wait.
	Are you going to be here to pick me up at 7?
	What does that mean?
	All I mean is there have been times where I've gotten frustrated and I've sat her in her pack and play or her walker and just had to walk out of the room to cool myself down from getting frustrated before I went back in and tried to work things out again.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I mean, I can live with that.
	That's fine.
	And Frank, are you down with the program for that as well?
	Absolutely.
	And are you down with your mom, Jessica, also being down with that program of no punishment, no hitting, no yelling?
	Because she's got big influence on your kid, right?
	Yes.
	It's been a subject I've argued with her on, and she...
	From what I've seen most of the time, she's good about it.
	But more than anything, she just tries to spoil her and just give her everything she wants.
	Oh, that's not good.
	Oh, that's not good.
	So, yeah, because no limits, no sanity, no boundaries.
	That's very unhealthy as far as I'm concerned.
	I agree.
	And daycare, no yelling, no timeouts?
	No, they don't have any of that.
	All right.
	All right.
	Well, I mean, I would certainly make that an absolute with regards to the mom life.
	Like if you want to, I mean, I know you need her at the moment, but nonetheless, you know, this is the program, right?
	You know, and you can say, if you want to, it sounds like it might not be a bad time to have an honest conversation with your mom, although it could be risky, of course, depending on how she reacts.
	But saying, look, I'm trying to break the cycle.
	You had a kid out of wedlock.
	I had a kid out of wedlock.
	We're not handling the sperm very well, right?
	Yeah.
	You know, the pucks are getting past the goalie quite regularly when we ain't even signed to a team.
	So, I don't know if these analogies make any sense to you, but I like to pretend that I know hockey.
	Icing?
	It's all ice!
	Anyway, so...
	Yeah, full ownership.
	Full ownership, which means that nothing happened to you.
	You're fully, fully responsible, because that's what you want your daughter to grow up with, right?
	Fully responsible.
	And all kids will try and weasel out, all human beings will try and weasel out of responsibility for what they've done, right?
	I mean, any kid, you know?
	Why did you do that?
	I didn't do it.
	So-and-so did.
	Like, that's just natural, right?
	I mean, and the more, of course, the more aggressive you are, the more that's going to be evoked and all that, but...
	You have to model 100% responsibility.
	And I mean, I'm aware of this with my own daughter that I don't ever want to put language in her ear like stuff just happened to daddy, you know?
	There was just traffic.
	I was late.
	It's like, no, I didn't leave enough time for traffic.
	And that's why I was late.
	You know, I don't want her to get the perception that things happened to me or that I make excuses.
	That 100% ownership for what I have done.
	Because that's, you know, I assume that your mom, by saying, well, basically stuff happens, you learn for it, you move, like that's not 100% ownership, not just for the messes that she's made, but for how they've impacted others.
	I mean, I don't know, I gotta tell you, I mean, if I had three affairs, it never happened, but if I had three affairs and broke up my family, I'd have a whole lot of apologizing to do to my daughter.
	Sorry, I screwed it up so badly.
	Sorry, I went out and caught some dick and destroyed the whole family.
	Has she ever acknowledged that aspect of the harm she did to your childhood?
	Yes, but I still feel like a lot of it she makes it about her.
	I'm sorry I couldn't be happy with your father is a phrase I've heard.
	Yeah, that's unhappiness just happened to her, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, I tried to make it work, you know, like, when you listen back to this, and I hope you will, Jessica, you'll hear, and this is not a criticism, I'm just trying to turn the light on here, but you'll hear the degree to which stuff happens to you when you describe it, and that's, you'll hear me...
	Yeah.
	Talk with a bone, right?
	Like a...
	A viper with a mungus that I'm going to be pushing back against that because I think that, you know, complete and total self-ownership.
	And my concern is that you guys' relationship is just happening.
	Nobody's really deciding to be there, to not be there.
	You're not having the tough conversations that a true commitment would require.
	And so what's happening is right now, you're a couple of months, what, five months into living together, so you're in the massive sexual flush of initial romance, right?
	And after that, The responsibilities keep piling up.
	The bills keep piling up.
	The sex gets more infrequent.
	Snappiness builds up.
	There's stressors that come in from life as a whole.
	And the sexual excitement phase, which lasts four to six months as far as I know, can't survive reality.
	There's a reason why that chick needs to take a helicopter to the spanky pad of the ab-based multi-billionaire in Fifty Shades of Grey.
	There can't be any reality.
	I can remember when Riel Hunter was having that affair with John Edwards.
	His wife was going crazy because the wife was like, well, there's no reality.
	You guys just meet in hotel rooms and have sex.
	I know that's not what you...
	But it's like, there's no reality.
	No bills.
	Nobody's got to take someone to the dentist.
	There's no recovery from appendicitis.
	There's no reality to it.
	You know, hot sex in a helicopter, right?
	And so you guys are in that flush, but I don't know if you're letting your hormones make the decisions or history or momentum or what, but it doesn't seem to me like you guys are sitting down and saying, because there's a child involved, we can't play with her heart because her heart already got broken once by having a father who left.
	And we really need to figure out what we're doing here.
	And you cannot move in To a single mom's house without commitment.
	Because the kids attach to you.
	And it's gonna happen.
	She probably views you as more her dad than anybody else in the world.
	And you cannot play with a toddler's heart.
	You can.
	I mean, you know that.
	I don't even need to tell you that.
	But you cannot move in and stop parenting without a commitment, right?
	I remember there's some movie I saw, gosh, years ago.
	The woman's a single mom, she's got some kids, and her boyfriend is like, oh, you should put them in private school.
	And she's like, I can't afford that.
	He's like, I'll pay.
	And she's like, for how long?
	Because they're not married, right?
	If she's married, okay.
	She says, for how long will that happen?
	And that's important.
	How long is this going to go on?
	And, Frank, are you committed for the long haul?
	Now, you don't have to answer that now, but you guys, I think, really need to have that conversation.
	Because I'm telling you, Jessica, if it doesn't work out and he moves out, your daughter's heart is going to get broken a second time in as many years.
	And I think that's going to be very, very hard for her to recover from.
	Absolutely.
	I definitely agree.
	You know, once you have a kid, playtime is over, right?
	You can't play house, you can't date.
	I mean, once you have a kid, you are a mommy moat, a grizzly bear of bristly forearms encircling your daughter's heart.
	And whoever she bonds with better stick around.
	No, yeah.
	I, uh...
	I... Definitely like to think that that's what this is, but obviously it hasn't been a conversation that's been had.
	And of course, you bypassed the grieving for what was effectively a marriage, right?
	I mean, you were with a guy, you broke up, you got back together, you had a kid, you tried to make it work, you broke up again, you kicked him.
	I mean, that's pretty sad.
	This is not the...
	Cinderella glass slipper and a prince happily ever after that you wanted, right, Jessica, with the father of future?
	Definitely not.
	Yeah, and you haven't processed that grieving at all, right?
	Because you basically just jumped into bed with another guy.
	I mean, I hate to put it bluntly, but you did.
	And you bypassed all of that grieving, and that's going to build up.
	And you can't be emotionally available until you process stuff that's happened to you.
	You can't eat a new meal until you've excreted the old one, so to speak, right?
	That is also not a very good sign for the future.
	And of course, if it doesn't work out now, your temptation, of course, is going to be, as your mom did, to jump into some other guy's bed.
	And that is not what you want to be modeling for your daughter, right?
	The guy, the woman who can't be without a man and who uses sexuality to get men to come and live with them, pay the bill.
	Like, you don't want to model that, right?
	You want that stuff to be not anywhere close to your daughter's processing, right?
	Correct.
	Alright, that's all I can think of off the top of my head.
	How is the call?
	I'm sorry, again, if it's been overly blunt.
	No, that's what I expected.
	It's what I wanted.
	And how has the call been for you in terms of usefulness and annoyance?
	I definitely feel in just you getting on me about telling you the story, I definitely feel like I have a lot more to improve with it than I thought, you know, with taking responsibility.
	And so do I, just so you know.
	Like, this is not, I'm not some cloud nine.
	Ew, I take 150% for all.
	Like, I still have to work on that myself.
	So this is just a reminder for everyone.
	No, I mean, it's something I've heard you say in a couple of your other videos.
	And it's definitely something I've been trying to work on.
	And it's definitely different hearing it firsthand.
	But I've been really happy with this goal.
	Definitely gave me a lot to think about.
	And Frank, I'm sorry for yelling at your penis.
	I hope it hasn't become an innie, but how was the content?
	This has been...
	You said a lot of stuff that I was...
	I know that was already on my mind and just I didn't want to talk about.
	I'm not sure about that.
	I mean, was it good or bad or are you going to let me know later?
	It's good that you, I mean, got me thinking about it and got us talking about it.
	But just...
	So I guess the band-aid is off, but so it's half the hair on your arm.
	Is that a way of putting it?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Okay, got it.
	And I just wanted to just close off again by saying it was great to talk with you, Frank.
	I'm glad that you were there.
	But, you know, in particular, Jessica...
	How much fun was it to look forward to this kind of call?
	Probably not massive.
	You know, like, my two-thirds, I'm going to go to the dentist.
	I know I'll feel better at some point.
	It's really going to hurt when I'm there, right?
	So that takes some real courage.
	And, you know, I just wanted to say that I really respect and admire your courage in asking some tough questions and getting some feedback that is not always...
	Easy to hear.
	And I just really, really respect your dedication to your daughter's happiness to give that a shot.
	And I think you both did great.
	Thank you so much.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	All right.
	Thanks, guys, so much.
	Will you let us know how things are, how it's going?
	Absolutely.
	All right.
	Thanks, guys.
	All the best.
	Thank you.
	Alright, well up next is Jordan, and Jordan has a bunch of liberty-esque questions.
	First off, he says, I recently come to the conclusion that government is inherently immoral.
	I believe that there should be zero authority and no government.
	No power disparity between people.
	A true system of equality.
	Do you agree that there shouldn't be a government as well?
	I guess we can stop there and ask the other questions as we go.
	Welcome to the show, Jordan.
	Hello, this is me.
	I'm Jordan.
	Hey Jordan, how you doing?
	How are you doing?
	I'm well, thanks.
	How are you?
	I'm alright.
	You kind of mixed two things in there that aren't quite the same.
	Did you notice that while Mike was reading it?
	Yeah, my first question is...
	Do you think the current system of government is...
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Sorry, before we get to that.
	Mike, if you can give me the...
	Okay, so this is the question, right?
	You said, I recently came to the conclusion that government is inherently immoral.
	I believe that there should be zero authority.
	Okay, well, what do you mean?
	Do you mean to say that authority is exactly the same as government?
	And you also said, no power disparity between people.
	And those are two very different concepts.
	And I just wanted to get a sense of what you meant by all of that.
	Right, so there's an old quote from Mikhail Bakunin.
	Who said, people say that because I disbelieve in the state, that I reject all authority.
	Heaven forbid, I fully accept the authority of the shoemaker in making shoes and in the dressmaker in making a dress and in the dentist in taking care of my teeth.
	I'm perfectly willing to submit to authority.
	It just can't have a gun pointed at my head.
	I'm wildly paraphrasing, but it's something like that.
	That is extremely similar.
	Sorry, the idea that there's no power disparity between people?
	Well, in a free society, there will be a boss and there will be employees.
	You know, probably to some degree at least.
	And there is power disparity with regards to that.
	Some people will have more money, and some people will have less money.
	You could argue there's a power disparity in that.
	It's not coercive, it's not violent, but it's influence-based or whatever, right?
	Someone's going to own a newspaper and someone's going to read a newspaper and the owner of the newspaper has far more effect on the opinions of the reader than each individual reader does on the owner of the newspaper, though collectively it may be different.
	So when you say government and authority and power disparity and put them all in the same bag, I don't think they all fit in the same bag.
	Well, okay, let me tell you how they fit in the same bag and the way I'm trying to put it out there.
	And as concise of a sentence, probably was a mess of how I read it.
	But basically what I mean by no power disparity means there isn't a piece of paper that says somebody has more power than somebody else because they said so.
	So you mean, by power, you mean, like, enforced power?
	Yeah, yes.
	Okay, got it.
	I'm not talking about, like, being a commune or anything like that.
	Okay.
	I'm not saying let's just throw all capitalistic...
	Just capitalistic things where actual advancements of technology happens.
	Okay, and I just wanted to check on that because sometimes that's the difference between left libertarians or left anarchists and...
	Yeah, yeah, I just realized the way I......disparities as the equivalent of the state and therefore require some stateless communist non-hierarchical utopia.
	And so I just wanted to double check on that.
	So I certainly agree that there's no doubt that...
	The initiation of force is immoral and government is predicated on the legal right to initiate force in a geographical area, and therefore governments, by that moral standard, are a violation of the non-aggression principle and therefore immoral.
	So I certainly agree with you as far as that goes.
	Okay, so the next part is, so you do believe in property.
	Do you believe in absolutely no public sector, like I do?
	Well, I think that by definition, if the government is immoral, the public sector as a subsection of the government is immoral.
	Sure.
	I mean, if 10 hitmen are illegal and immoral, then one hitman who's part of that 10 is also illegal and immoral.
	So the public sector as a subsection of the state would be as immoral as the state.
	So there will be no public sector without government.
	What I'm basically saying is...
	Public sector and government are synonyms, so yes.
	Okay.
	Yeah, all right.
	So, the big question here is, one of the facets of my questions are, we have discovered that, I mean, I have discovered that government is immoral, which led me to think about Because there is going to be, like you said, or that kind of like broken up my previous sentence that was a bunch of questions.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	I just have a quick question.
	Sorry to interrupt, Jordan.
	Have you been up for a while?
	You sound kind of tired.
	I'm a little tired.
	Why?
	How come?
	Have you been up for a while or a tough day?
	Nothing really.
	Okay, I'm just curious because I don't want to feel like I'm bleeding your energy off like some fat tag cruise vampire style guy.
	I'm also trying to think about how I'm going to say what I'm saying.
	So basically, when there is big corporations, for instance, let's talk about A cool energy plant or a nuclear energy plant.
	If everything is privately owned, how do you think pollution will be handled?
	How do I think pollution?
	Well, first of all, pollution is not handled in a state of society, and I've sort of gone into that a bunch of times before.
	But how will pollution be handled?
	I don't know that there would be nuclear power in a free society.
	Originally, nuclear power did not work because insurance companies would not insure.
	Companies that were interested in nuclear power until the government basically took it over and subsidized it and excluded them from liabilities.
	And I've talked about this in a podcast before.
	But the way that pollution works is you buy pollution insurance.
	This is my guess as to how it worked.
	It's how it worked in the past.
	You buy pollution insurance.
	So let's say you have a nice cottage on a lake.
	Then you pay 50 bucks a year for a company to ensure that your lake stays clean.
	Right?
	And let's say there's, you know, 50 houses on it, right?
	So they get a certain amount of money every...
	Every year.
	And they guarantee that the lake is going to stay clean.
	And so what they do is they either buy the land up around the lake and make sure that nobody sells it to people who are going to pollute or let's say that there's some...
	I mean, you buy it for the lake, you buy it for the air, you buy it for the groundwater, you buy it for whatever, right?
	The same way you have fire insurance in case there's a forest fire.
	And so let's say you've got air clarity insurance, and let's say someone just builds some, starts building some giant smokestack that's going to put all of this terrible smoke onto your lake.
	Well, the insurance company that's going to guarantee you clean air needs to deal with that.
	Because let's say that the policy is, if my air gets dirty, you have to pay me a million dollars, right?
	Okay, well, that's 50 million dollars they have to pay.
	And maybe more, because no insurance company would just be 50 houses.
	You've got 500 houses or 5,000 houses downwind of this place.
	So they have a huge amount of money to play around with to try and convince the guy to put in scrubbers, to put his plant elsewhere, to find some less polluting way of producing whatever he's producing.
	And so you have people with a strong financial incentive to keep...
	The air clean, because people have bought insurance to make sure that their air stays clean.
	And I talk about all of this, and actually, I think it's my original essay that came out over 10 years ago, I think, on Lew Rockwell.
	Which was The Stateless Society in Examination of Alternatives.
	And it's also talked about in Practical Anarchy, which is a free book people can get at freedomainradio.com slash free.
	So that's one possibility.
	But the important thing to remember is that the government isn't solving the problem as it stands.
	Okay, so my next question would be...
	So how do you expect...
	A non-governmental society to exist.
	Do you think it would be worldwide?
	I mean, what would be the best method to create an anarchal society and have it running smoothly without a bunch of foreign influences trying to be for power or take the land that they I don't know exactly how the transition is going to occur in practical terms.
	Of course, that's trying to predict the future.
	But there are a couple of preconditions that I guarantee you are necessary for a stateless society, let's just say a truly free society, to emerge.
	The first thing that you need is a highly intelligent population.
	You simply cannot get a free society with An unintelligent population.
	You can't.
	Because unintelligent populations benefit more in the short run from statism than they do from freedom.
	And because they're unintelligent, they don't care about the long run.
	They're only in, you know, what's in front of their faces in the moment.
	So you need a high IQ population in order to have a free society.
	There's, you know, various estimates that we've talked about with an academic in Europe, which we're going to release that interview at some point over the next week probably.
	But he's saying, look, if you need...
	You need an IQ of 90 to 95 for a functional...
	There's no democracy that functions below IQ 90.
	And democracy isn't even of that much of a free society.
	It's just freer than other societies that are sort of floating around.
	And the free market was developed, according to some estimates, when the general population's intelligence in North America and Western Europe was a standard deviation or two standard deviations higher than it is now after a bunch of world wars and the, you know, triple generation dysgenics of the welfare state and all that kind of crap.
	So you need an intelligent population to have a free society.
	And the best way to get an intelligent population is peaceful parenting, right?
	I mean, breastfeeding is going to add a couple of points.
	Not hitting is going to add a couple of points to the degree that it can be shifted.
	And, you know, there's no guarantee for sure that it's going to happen that way.
	But certainly you need a population that is able to negotiate.
	And this is why people are shocked when I say, well, low IQ child vicious populations shouldn't come into free countries or relatively free countries.
	Otherwise, those countries not only will never become more free, but they will decidedly become less free.
	And this is complicated for people to understand because they probably don't understand all of the biology and all that behind it.
	So Kevin Beaver and Garrett Jones have also discussed this on the show, so we can put the links to those.
	Shows below.
	So, yeah, I promote you need to keep your intelligent population concentrated somewhere so that they can recognize that it's better to have a free society, even if it costs you short-term pains, you're going to get long-term gains, which will accrue even to the less intelligent people, but you can't ask less intelligent people to defer immediate gains for the sake of 10 years ahead.
	I mean, just...
	It just doesn't work.
	It just doesn't work because they're less intelligent, so their horizon of biofeedback is relatively narrow.
	They can't even, usually as kids, pass the marshmallow test, like one marshmallow an hour, two marshmallows in 15 minutes.
	Before they finish the question, they've eaten the marshmallow.
	So, yeah, you have to keep a high IQ population around and you have to enhance that high IQ population with peaceful parenting.
	That is at least, you've got the seeds in the right place.
	What grows then is up to each individual.
	So, a lot of this stuff has been answered in my books, freedomainradio.com slash free.
	So, I'm going to move on to the next caller, but I do appreciate the call.
	And if you read those and have other questions, then please call in and we'll go further.
	But I feel like I'm sort of dictating the book again.
	So, I'm going to move on to the next caller, but thank you so much for calling in, Jordan.
	A great pleasure.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Well, up next is Josh.
	Josh wrote in and said, Stefan, as a devout Christian, I've been in many discussions with biblical skeptics about events in the Old Testament, even though the practice of such was ceased after Jesus' arrival.
	Who only mentioned the Ten Commandments since those were the only exact laws that God had ever written in stone to label perfection.
	How do you address these issues of the past during and before the time of Christ and today, especially since Jesus' explanation for the New Covenant made it possible to carry tradition of such into today's society?
	That's from Josh.
	Hey Josh, how you doing?
	Good.
	How are you doing?
	I actually thought that guy was going to be on longer, so I was trying to eat, but it was kind of a surprise.
	If I hear you flush, I'll know what you meant by eat, but okay.
	So, okay, you were asking some, you know, like a non-theologian, some fairly theological questions.
	I just wanted to mention that.
	Well, I just wanted to see if you've ever had a discussion about morality and It was kind of hard to explain what I wanted to talk about without writing an essay about it.
	I don't really know how to answer the question as it's stated.
	I'm not even sure what the question is.
	And again, that's just my complete lack of knowledge of these matters.
	But if you wanted to give me a ramble tangent on it, maybe we could get more out of conversation than we could out of typing.
	And I understand that and I understand that I could understand what I'm talking about and maybe not you just because you're not knowing where I'm starting my thought from.
	So my thought starts from the assumption of even some agnostic and atheist People in today's society, friends of mine, people that you might know, about some of the moral decay in society.
	And it doesn't necessarily mean the rise of atheistic principles.
	It's just the decay of morality in terms of personal responsibility, parenting, some of the things that you talk about all the time, that I believe that it is intricately linked to the rejection Of biblical principles and the core of which comes from the New Testament teachings of Jesus and how we are supposed to conduct ourselves and behave
	and act within society.
	And that is a huge part, especially in history, about how people, not necessarily the governments, because governments are corrupt, leaders are corrupt, Things can be misinterpreted.
	Things can be used to start wars.
	Things can be used to manipulate.
	But I'm talking about the general view of society that the core of basic Christian principles helped shape the overall morality of Western civilization.
	And that's just part of looking at history from that point of view.
	And that's where I was coming from.
	Right, okay.
	I think I understand it.
	Is it fair to say, and you know more about these matters than I do, but is it fair to say that under Christianity, compulsion in the realm of virtue is a vice?
	And God wants to judge you not by your fear-based compliance to secular laws, but by the degree to which you follow God's commandments according to the yearning for virtue within your own conscience.
	That's actually not necessarily true.
	That's something that I grew up...
	Well, you're not a Calvinist, are you?
	No, not necessarily.
	I'm just, yeah.
	I mean, there's...
	Talking about evolution and things got kind of weird towards the end.
	Okay, just checking.
	Okay.
	I understand that.
	And Calvin, there's a lot of views.
	You're talking about the no free will.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I don't necessarily believe in all that.
	I think there's an assumption that if I believe that there's an almighty creator who knows all and can do all, that there is an inevitability of my actions that he sees.
	But that doesn't necessarily mean that I don't have the free will to choose what I'm going to do.
	Okay, yeah, I don't want to get into free will again because it's death for our videos.
	So I'm just letting you know why I stand on that.
	Is it fair to say that like a good parent, God would rather you do the right thing because you understand that it's the right thing and want to be good rather than out of blanket animal terror at his retribution?
	Absolutely.
	And there's things in the New Testament that point to that, that the Gentile does not have the law of the Old Testament, and therefore he tries to be moral from his own moral code.
	And from there, God sends his gospel, that the gospel is given to those who are moral in their own sense.
	Yeah, I mean, Jesus said, all who would follow me sell your possessions and give all the money to the poor.
	And he's making a case for that.
	He's not saying set up a giant welfare state and shoot to ribbons anyone who doesn't contribute to the welfare state.
	He didn't say go out and buy votes by making the poor dependent on government programs.
	He urged people to do good, and, you know, with the exception of the moneylenders for the temple where he beat them with a whip, for the most part he urged people to be good and appeal to their conscience and thus try to implant virtue in them.
	Through a philosophical argument, so to speak, right?
	He didn't say, God will strike down any man who throws a stone at that adulterous woman.
	What he said was, let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
	Absolutely.
	And that idea that we reflect upon ourselves and do not project our own evil natures onto the other, onto some, and then destroy, right?
	People don't know usually where the word scapegoat comes from.
	And the word scapegoat comes from some tribe.
	put all of their sins into a goat and drive that goat out into the wilderness.
	And then when that goat died, their sins would die as well.
	I mean, so you project all of your negative characteristics onto other people and then hate them rather than deal with your own capacity for evil.
	And that's sort of the old...
	The way I was raised in England was, how would you like it if, right?
	How would you like it if somebody just pushed you down like that?
	And how would you like it if somebody took your pencil without asking?
	How would you like it, right?
	This idea, you've got to gain empathy and it's not just win-lose and put yourself in the other person's shoes.
	Walk a mile in someone else's shoes.
	And I think he went a little bit too far with...
	You know, if your enemy asks you for your cloak, then give him your shirt too.
	And if he strikes you on one cheek, give him the other cheek.
	I think that was a little bit too khaki, so to speak.
	Well, hyperbole is used in a lot of ways when we're trying to explain things.
	I mean, even you yourself, when you're talking about...
	The lack of an existence of God.
	Sometimes you do use hyperbole.
	And I won't use the word straw man because I don't like using that word because people use hyperbole for things all the time.
	You know, saying like, well, that, you know, why don't I just believe in unicorns or a magic fairy and things like that?
	I think...
	Well, because there's no moral.
	Yeah, I mean, the unicorn doesn't give you the moral dimension.
	And I've got a video coming out this week why I was wrong about atheism, so I won't repeat this all here.
	But...
	Religion is a far better conveyor of morality than atheism is.
	Because atheism, you said, there's a system.
	Atheism technically has no system any more than a guy with a giant wrecking ball is a brilliant architect.
	Or a guy who can set fire to a painting is a great painter.
	Atheism is about the negation of Of a belief structure.
	And when atheists had negated that belief structure, they didn't say, whoa, big giant power vacuum of virtue, we better create an ethical system or we better work night and day to make sure that we replace the giant void of virtue that we took out when we put a bullet through God's heart.
	And that's what's always really annoyed.
	This is why I worked so hard on universally preferable behavior, that you need something to give to people when you take away...
	God, because taking away God is taking away good, is taking away virtue.
	And this is why I think a lot of the atheist societies have ended in this shallow, materialistic, live for now, don't have kids, hedonism and all that.
	And they're unsustainable societies, as we see happening in Europe right now.
	A stronger belief system, as always happens in history, a stronger belief system is overpowering a weak and anemic belief system.
	And as Aristotle said, virtue and tolerance are the last...
	Wait, hang on.
	I'll come back to that quote.
	Yeah, I got you.
	No, here we go.
	I remember it now.
	Aristotle said, apathy and tolerance are the last, quote, virtues of a dying society.
	Apathy and tolerance are the last virtues of a dying society.
	And so I believe that in Europe, atheism has created a big giant hole in the belief structure and in the respect for Western civilization.
	That is causing the profound end to thousands of years of, potential profound end to thousands of years of incredibly civilized development.
	So I have a massive amount of respect for religion, and in particular Christianity, to the degree to which it stimulates empathy, to the degree to which it brings values to children, and Obviously, I don't agree with all of those values, but the core ones I would agree with a lot.
	And in particular, I agree with you should be good because of your conscience and because you accept these moral standards and therefore you should act upon them.
	And even if we talk about hell, and I know that's been sort of phased out in many ways of modern Christianity, for better or for worse...
	But that's a lot better.
	Even the threat of hell is a lot better than a government jail.
	Because Christians can threaten each other with hell.
	I don't end up in jail.
	But a bunch of atheist socialists start pumping laws out of themselves like crazy.
	Then I can end up in jail.
	And that's a whole different matter.
	Well, so let me just ask you this then, because you said there was some of those values that you didn't agree with.
	Are you saying that there's core Christian values that you don't agree with, even though you've basically...
	It sounds like you've changed your attitude a little bit.
	I mean, I can notice over watching all your videos that you do tend to...
	I'm not saying that you're flip-flopping.
	I'm just saying that you have changed your perspective.
	What are some of those core values that you don't disagree with?
	Wait, hang on.
	Two double negatives.
	Core values that I don't disagree with?
	You said some of the core values that you teach your children.
	You said that there are values that we teach our children in Christianity and you said some of which you don't agree with and I just wanted to know which ones.
	Well, there's two aspects to the methodology and content of religion, and one is the way in which children are taught, which is faith.
	Now, listen, modern Christianity is different from the Christianity that I took a whole course on medieval religion, and the degree to which people like Martin Luther and St.
	Augustine and other theologians of the late...
	Middle Ages.
	Middle to late Middle Ages.
	This attempt, and I just did this whole presentation on Aristotle today, so it's fresh in my brain.
	But the attempt to synthesize ancient Greek philosophy with relatively modern Christian theology...
	was a huge and titanic effort.
	And there used to be a lot more rigorous logic in Christianity, at least the Christianity that I grew up with, there was a lot more sort of...
	Now it's a lot about the feels and maybe it's because women became more prominent in the church or whatever, but there's a lot less of an attempt to reconcile rationality with faith.
	I think basically Christians have gone to their corner, which is more faith-based, and they've given up reason to the atheists in that synthesis, which was so productive, right?
	The two steel edges rubbing together, creating the sparks called the enlightenment of reason and faith, they've kind of gone to their respective corners.
	And I think that's a real shame.
	You know, like Richard Dawkins says, I don't debate with creationists because I don't want to give them a respective heart.
	No, engage with, I mean, to me, yes, engage with people who have beliefs that are vastly different because that spark of the minds colliding is what creates a lot of heat and light in creation.
	In the world.
	So I don't like, in the more modern Christianity, it's more like they've given up the struggle to prove, in a lot of ways, God.
	And reconcile God with Greek philosophy.
	I know that's not the case, and there's still people working on it and so on.
	But as far as sort of mainstream Christianity goes, that is not as strong, in my opinion, an emphasis as it used to be.
	And I'd kind of like to bring some of that back, which is why I'm trying to build these bridges between philosophy and religion.
	So the methodology of belief, Just because.
	You know, believe just because we're telling you.
	Believe just because this church is really big and it has really pretty stained glass and don't you love these hymns and what cool robes we have.
	Oh, and hell.
	Right?
	I mean, that's not a very good methodology when it comes to philosophy.
	Philosophy can't handle that.
	It can't do that.
	At the same time, I don't know how to get people to believe in goodness merely on philosophical grounds quick enough to stop Islam.
	Right?
	Right?
	So this is the challenge that I have.
	And that's part of the argument is that, you know, from a Christian point of view, I totally agree with you.
	I think that there are way too many churches, too many of these megachurches that believe that, you know, faith, faith, faith, hell, hell, hell, and then they send you home.
	You know, the Catholic Church has become a huge...
	Breeding ground for sin on the weekends and then go to confession.
	You know, that there's all this kind of comfortability or comfortableness or whatever word it is to describe, the contentness, I guess.
	Laziness is the word you're looking for.
	Laziness.
	Laziness and politically correct.
	How I have lived to see a politically correct Catholic Church is absolutely and totally beyond me.
	It's crazy.
	And even the idea of hell, right?
	So, you know, obviously I believe that there is a hell, but where you approach it from in a biblical perspective is the idea of separation from God.
	Just like, you know, if I were to be separated from you, if I don't want to have anything to do with your show, especially if I am abusing you, like if I got on here and started cussing you out and You know, and being totally rude, you'd probably block me and you'd probably never have me back on.
	That is me being separated from Stephen Molyneux because I didn't abide by the rules according to the show.
	Other than that, you know, there's not really very many conclusions that we can take from the Bible about hell.
	There's not a whole lot like, you know, fire and brimstone, right?
	Whatever conclusion you come up with of what hell actually is, the way people get there, what it is and how it came about is the real topic of discussion.
	It should be the real topic of discussion.
	Not that there is this jail cell that God created this torture object to send all of His people that He hates to.
	It is just a literal separation from God because we have chosen To partake in sin or we have chosen to deny that we are living in sin and therefore we are not accepted to the party, I guess.
	We're not invited.
	And so, that's why it was important to see, and you notice, and you said the scapegoat, I mean, that was the core, you know, value of the Old Testament, is that if you did sin, and you did do something that you weren't supposed to according to the law, according to Mosaic Law, then you had to make an animal sacrifice, you know, as your, I guess, scapegoat for your sin.
	One of the things that Jesus taught when he was in Jerusalem was about how the heart of the issue was lost to Israel.
	And that's why they turned from God so many times.
	They were punished by God so many times because they would turn away.
	And they focused way too much on the materialistic part of, hey, I don't want to go to hell.
	I don't, you know, can I technically do this?
	Can I technically do that?
	They weren't focused on the heart of the issue.
	The Pharisees would go to Jesus and say, why are you healing on the Sabbath day?
	Because the law says you can't do anything on the Sabbath.
	And he said, well, if people are dying, I came here to save and seek the lost.
	The Sabbath day holds no ground against that.
	If you want to go out and work and make money on the Sabbath, that's completely different.
	Taking the technicalities of what the Old Testament says and trying to compare it to Jesus, Jesus himself took those technicalities and ripped them apart.
	And that's part of why we see, like in the Enlightenment for example, people were blindly following these kings and rulers who would war with other nations and just kind of agree with what they were saying because they said,
	well the Bible says this, Even though it may not have said it, or they said it in a different way, and people would blindly follow it until people like Martin Luther and with the invention of the printing press, when you actually gave the Bible and those biblical virtues to people and held it in their hands, you know, the enlightenment became even stronger.
	You actually had people who were able to read the Bible and discern its morality.
	And we're actually encouraged to be better people.
	Had a reason to be, and had a reason to believe, and had a reason to better themselves.
	Not just by faith, faith, faith, hell, hell, hell, but by actually reading, studying, and using the gifts that God gives us to do things that we normally wouldn't see ourselves doing.
	You know, if I have a gift for preaching, then I need to go and do that.
	If I have a gift for writing, then why am I sitting here wasting my time doing something else when I could be writing?
	Teaching ourselves, self-education, that's one of the biggest reasons why I started watching your show, is that self-education is one of the key differences between an uneducated society and an educated society.
	Because we can't just believe everything that somebody tells us.
	We have to actually go out and seek it for ourselves.
	I respect your point of view, absolutely.
	I wasn't expecting a yelling, screaming argument, but there are still things that separate the understanding of biblical morality from atheists in society or from agnostics or whatever people want to call themselves.
	People see things in the Bible that they don't agree with, therefore they reject the whole thing.
	And instead of getting into that conversation and bringing what they have to the table and actually trying to dissect it themselves, they just completely reject it and say that it's all nonsense.
	Does that kind of help understand where I'm coming from as far as the intellectual point of view?
	Yeah.
	No, I think that does help clarify things for me quite a bit.
	And this...
	The capacity of people to handle ambiguity and ambivalence, it is a sort of key mark of intelligence.
	And for atheists to say there's no value in religion, I don't know if I've been guilty of that.
	I've certainly been harsh in my treatment of how religion, at least when I was younger, used to treat kids in terms of threatening them with hell and hellfire and all that.
	And it was even worse.
	I mean, read Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.
	There's a description of hell that went on in, I think it was Irish...
	Church.
	Unbelievable.
	But this capacity to handle ambivalence or imperfection is a significant mark of intelligence.
	And I mean, I've Probably done this to others.
	Actually, no, I shouldn't say, because I remember being really devastated when I first read Nathaniel Brandon's description of his life with Ayn Rand, Judgment Day, I think it was called.
	I remember I said to my girlfriend at the time, I feel desolate, you know, like seeing how Ayn Rand acted relative to what she said.
	And it was shocking to me, deeply shocking, and also the sterility of her last many decades on the earth and so on.
	And...
	The capacity to handle imperfections in a belief system, all belief systems have imperfections.
	Mine does, because there is no one who can have an answer.
	All we have is a methodology, and we all try and push the truth forward a little bit every day.
	And sometimes we push it sideways, sometimes we even pull it backwards.
	But in general, like waves, you know, pushing a boulder up, they go back, they go forward.
	But generally, they end up pretty high up on the beach, or at least a piece of wood.
	So, I have not given religion enough nuance to accept the value that it's provided.
	In other words, I basically didn't say, I'm going to step on the boat and step on the pier and maybe try and bring, I just left off the boat and went onto the pier.
	And it turns out that the boat was up and the pier was sinking.
	That makes my metaphors.
	Can you explain that a little bit more?
	I'm trying to understand where you're coming from.
	I left off religion and went to atheism.
	And atheism is not a huge part of what I do because it's not a system.
	It's a negation, right?
	It's the application of reason to the question of the existence of a deity.
	So it's not really much to talk about and I haven't really talked much about it.
	But what I will say is that Atheists have not solved the problem of ethics and therefore they have turned to the state and the state is far more dangerous than the church.
	I don't believe they will.
	Well, I've tried.
	And I think I've succeeded.
	But the fact that I've tried and succeeded has not been enough to solve the problem.
	I mean, not enough people have read and understand and are talking about universally preferable behavior, my system of ethics, to stop Islam.
	Islam does have a bit of a lead, you know, 1400 years versus a couple of years.
	And, you know, it's had a bit more of a time to...
	Wend its way into people's hearts and minds and spleens and sword fists.
	But it's, you know, it's not going to work in time.
	It's not going to work.
	And atheists from the 19th century, and I've just talked about this, so I'll keep it really brief.
	In the 19th century, okay, so knock down the church, but where the hell are people going to live?
	Where the hell are people going to live?
	It's a stormy world.
	There's lightning.
	There's frozen frogs raining down from the sky.
	Knock down the church.
	Where the hell are people gonna live?
	And atheists just knocked down the church and went and go and live in the capital.
	They went and go and live in the state.
	They knocked down the church, and then they beefed up the parliament.
	They knocked down the priests and armed up the policemen.
	And that is my big concern, the idea of a power vacuum.
	And this is all stuff before I fully understood, you know, the audiobook I've read, The Origins of War and Child Abuse, and before I had facts on race and IQ, and before I had facts even on the fact that atheists don't have kids.
	And agnostics in particular don't have kids.
	Mormons have like three and a half.
	Agnostics have like 1.3 per couple.
	I mean, agnosticism is a completely dying culture.
	And atheists have only 1.3.
	They are a dying breed.
	Literally are a dying breed.
	Especially since they're statists and the whole system relies on more taxpayers and they won't even have sex and get pregnant to the point of having taxpayers.
	So...
	So atheism, I think, has proven to be an exceedingly dangerous ideology because they didn't go far enough, right?
	So they said, okay, well, we need, like, we don't believe in the church, we don't believe in religion, don't believe in God, don't believe in that whole ethic.
	Okay, fine.
	Then create new ethics.
	Don't burn down one church because you, sorry, don't burn down one hospital because you think it's substandard and not build a new hospital.
	Then what do people have?
	No hospital!
	And that has been my big sort of problem with what's happened in the atheistic community.
	And plus they are a bunch of lefty social justice warrior, infighter nonsense, a lot of them anyway.
	So I do have issues in knocking down the central pillar that was sustaining Western civilization without providing an alternative.
	And that is not what the people need.
	Yeah, and well, I mean, even going back from not this last caller, I didn't really pay attention to much what he was saying, because anarchy is about the worst possible thing, especially when you're dealing with a lot of people who, in a society where it's generally accepted to knock down the moral fabric of whatever society that you're living in, then you go right to the everybody's just kind of all by themselves.
	It's, you know, But going back from the first caller when you were talking about when a Man and a woman have a child, and then the man leaves.
	You have a single mother, right?
	Or a single father, if the father's taking care of the kid.
	Single parents.
	Dating somebody else makes the risk of the child potentially losing another parent.
	And one of the things I was thinking about was in Old Testament culture, and even in New Testament culture, there was a...
	There was an emphasis put on the family, an emphasis put on fellowship with fellow believers in that those core values, those core belief systems, how you are to raise a child, how you are to respect your spouse, and how you are to be financially sound, to not be in debt, to work hard, to, yes, have a bit of a gender role in it, especially in that society.
	I think that's been knocked down a little bit in this society, which is fine.
	I'm willing to accept that because the culture has changed.
	But the responsibility of parenting was so much easier to maintain then because people were around other people that shared those same ideals and beliefs.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	Hold your thought because I just want to mention very briefly.
	The problem is not X. The problem is X plus the state.
	We all know that when the state and the church are one, it's a mess, right?
	Because theologians get the state power.
	Atheism is not the problem.
	Atheism plus the state is the problem.
	Feminism is not the problem.
	Feminism plus the state.
	Environmentalism plus the state.
	Everything plus the state is the ring of power that shreds souls.
	But sorry, go ahead.
	And I'm not talking about, you know, Christianity being part of the state.
	I'm not.
	No, I know.
	I'm pointing it out that it's the state that is a fundamental issue, not the ideologies or the beliefs.
	And it's kind of ironic, not ironic, but it's a little bit interesting to see that Christianity and biblical principles are the only ones that allow for the people to live within the state and still be held true to their beliefs.
	You know, rendering to Caesar the things that are Caesared.
	And when Christian beliefs—I'm not saying it's causal, but it certainly is coincidental—that when Christian beliefs were stronger, the state was smaller.
	Exactly.
	And you're allowing for the freedom of people to live the way they want to live, which, you know— I'm not going to say it's necessarily a good thing, but the isolation of communities based on belief systems and values and culture is not necessarily a bad thing.
	I'm not saying that you should do it by force.
	I'm just saying that the reason why it happens naturally is because you naturally want to be around the same people with the same culture and ideals and things like that.
	The guy who said birds of a feather flock together Was not called a racist or an isolationist.
	He was just, you know, as Muhammad Ali says, the bluebirds want to fly with the bluebirds and the redbirds want to fly with the redbirds.
	And that is something that is...
	I mean, that's evolution and atheists seem to reject that.
	Well, and getting into evolution is another thing, but when you're talking about the core aspect of us as humans, we have a mind that is riddled we have a mind that is riddled with emotional tendencies.
	We have We have a disproportionate amount of error when it comes to making decisions based on emotion.
	We get mad at something, and so we will irrationally go to lengths to make sure that whatever it is that's making us mad goes away.
	But then we have the inevitable truth of going back and saying, Maybe I should have done that with a little bit more level-headedness.
	And Christians, sorry to interrupt, but Christians get the prize in this, as far as I'm concerned, because Christians are willing to debate evolution, and Christians are willing to debate the Big Bang, and Christians are willing to debate physics.
	And they don't sit there and say, well, anyone who brings these topics up, we're gonna shame them We're going to throw red paint at them.
	We're going to scream them down if they show up at campuses.
	And we're going to try and get them fired and destroy their families.
	Like, they don't do that.
	Christians will listen and have a debate about something.
	But go to your average leftist atheist and start talking to them about something like race and IQ and biological differences between particular ethnic groups.
	They go insane.
	Like, Christians will listen and have a debate.
	But leftist atheists, if you bring information to them that's entirely scientific and fact-based and well-tested, race and IQ differences are about the strongest and most positively researched and correlated fact in the social sciences.
	You bring that fact to them and they lose their shit all over the wall.
	Well, isn't it interesting that when you watch, especially some of the most famous debates, how the Christian is more likely to try to put the debate on a neutral level and say, let's assume that there are no conclusions right now.
	If we look at the evidence shown, What reasonable conclusions can we come up to that may or may not have anything to do with abiogenesis, macroevolution, the Big Bang, or God?
	What other options are there?
	It's really hard to debate, and I don't try to get into evolutionary debates or abiogenesis.
	No, but the fact is that you can.
	And you can, and I have never, to my memory, and I think I'd remember this, I have never in my decade plus of public challenging debates, Josh, I have never once been called evil by a Christian.
	Not once.
	On the other hand, leftist, atheist, social justice warriors call me all the names that you could possibly imagine in a sailor's book of shitty curses.
	We know why that is.
	It's hard to avoid the fact that Christians are a lot more reasonable than leftist atheists.
	That's a biblical morality.
	Go on.
	When Paul was writing his letters, he specifically...
	Actually, it wasn't his letters.
	It was in the book of Acts when he was talking about—actually, it was.
	It was in Romans—when he was talking to the Roman Church about not judging others.
	Like, when you run around to all these Gentiles and to run around to all these nonbelievers and start screaming their offenses at them, well, haven't you turned back and seen your own offenses?
	You know, you commit those same sins, so why are you telling other people that it's evil to do those things?
	Whereas social justice warriors imagine that they are pure and everyone who disagrees with them is pure evil.
	And they don't have that.
	They don't have the humility of let those without sin cast the first stones.
	And so Mike gets more messages than I do.
	You know, you've been receiving a bunch of feedback on the show.
	You ever have a Christian call us evil?
	I don't remember, even before I started working with the show, a Christian calling in and saying you're evil.
	I haven't got any email messages saying anything of the sort.
	Normally it's similar to the messages I get from Josh where it's just like, maybe the caller that called in about this didn't exactly express it how I would.
	I'd like to call in and take a run at it.
	It's normally pretty positive.
	Or they say, Steph's knowledge of theology is limited, to which I can only say, I agree.
	I completely concur.
	But I've not been verbally attacked and abused by Christians, even though I've had harsher things to say about Christians than some other groups.
	But, yeah, the leftist atheists, they get all kinds of crazy and unstable when it comes to processing information counter to their prejudices.
	Well, I mean, that's very eye-opening.
	And it's very...
	What's the word I'm looking for?
	You people are killing me with kindness, you know that?
	You people are killing me with kindness.
	Come on, Christians.
	Just be mean to me.
	It will make my life so...
	Come on, you know you want to listen to the serpent.
	Eat the fruit.
	Be mean to me.
	You'll make my life so much easier.
	This love tsunami is tearing me apart.
	Between debates, maybe you should just read some of the John Edwards sermons on On the fires of hell and how it's going to be and things like that.
	I think that's kind of – I think it's important to know as Christians – Wait, did you say John Edwards, the presidential nominee who banged?
	No.
	John – The famous pastor.
	He's like, out of, you know...
	John the Baptist?
	Colonial era.
	Colonial era preacher.
	Oh, I don't know.
	Let us know.
	I think his name was John Edwards.
	I know it was a president.
	I mean, it's probably a very common name.
	Jonathan Edwards, born 1703.
	I believe that's a John.
	Damn, that guy looks great for over 300.
	He does.
	Four hundred and...
	anyway.
	It's because he was a liberal.
	No, okay.
	The sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
	Yeah, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, yeah.
	Yeah, so I mean, and even my, I guess, libertarian friends have, I don't know, Mike, how would you characterize it?
	I call it libertarian autism, personally, when it comes around talking about immigration or IQ or potential differences between ethnicities.
	The freakout begins.
	Hey, there's this group of people which tend to vote for more government and then attack.
	Right.
	Attack, attack, attack.
	There's no argument.
	There's just attack.
	No one calls in and says, Steph, I'd really love to correct you on the misapprehensions that you have.
	They're all just like cowardly, kucky keyboard warriors typing away their vitriol.
	At least Christian's got the guts to come on and take me on, which I think is beautiful.
	This data makes me uncomfortable.
	Attack.
	Right.
	So boring.
	Do you realize the state is terribly aggressive?
	Oh, dear.
	Yeah.
	Well, the thing about the whole Islamic problem is kind of interesting too, especially when I debate other Muslims.
	And I do have Muslim friends, not very many, but I try and make sure that they're against the Quran before they...
	Because there are Muslims who are very devout Muslims that believe in God and everything.
	They reject most of the things in the Quran, especially among Shiites.
	It's not very popular for westernized Shiites to believe everything that's in the Quran.
	But the problem is that Shiites are like a 1.52% population of the entire world.
	They've been eradicated for the most part.
	These religious wars.
	Just the opposite of Christianity.
	When you gave the Bible to the people, society got better.
	But when you start giving the Quran to the people in Islam, things start to get worse.
	People start to...
	Really do what the Quran tells them to do and well, I guess I do need to get rid of these people and Because I spent a long time From when I was 16 to just up until last year there's a few missionaries that I know that go through Egypt now he's on the border of Syria and Some of the things that he he goes through some of the things that he's seen are nothing short of miraculous you know I
	guess depending on what perspective you go through.
	But just to see the cultural differences and how people respond to the Bible compared to how people respond to the Quran and the cultural backbone of how each is behaving in society, it's a little bit scary.
	To imagine an entire world ruled by Islam.
	Oh, it's terrible.
	I mean, it is not a world that I would survive in for five minutes.
	I mean, literally fighting for my life here and the life of my family and the life of my daughter.
	Because atheists do not do well in Islamic societies, to put it mildly.
	So, at least they'll let Christians live, but they don't let the atheists live.
	So, I'm more behind the eight ball than you are with regards to that prospect.
	Well, I mean, my life under Islam would be like communism.
	I'd have to pay the jizya or the 90% tax.
	And so, yeah, I'm equally scared of both.
	But, you know, all I try to do is just, you know, present the...
	And, you know, I kind of expected you to, you know, attack, you know, morality of Christianity a little bit.
	And it's kind of...
	I'm not saddened by it at all, but it is...
	When it comes to the emotional battle against Islam, frankly, I'd rather have the onward Christian soldiers than the spineless atheists.
	Because the atheists should be front and center in regards to being concerned about the spread of Islamic law in society.
	And they're not.
	Because atheists are just lazy.
	Lazy, self-indulgent.
	There's nothing bigger to live for than the pleasure of the next five minutes in many ways.
	They are lazy.
	Christians will work very hard to spread their beliefs.
	You ever hear about atheists deciding to spend two years in a ghetto teaching kids how to think?
	No.
	The Mormons and they go on the two-year pilgrimages to teach people in Africa all the time.
	Christians will sacrifice.
	Christians will build soup kitchens.
	Christians will work very hard to make the world a better place for those who come after them.
	And they're willing to have children.
	What are atheists sacrificing these days?
	Are they sacrificing?
	Christians are willing to go against the herd because they have a higher calling.
	Which is obedience to God himself.
	And in the face of God, the herd is like gnats in a wind.
	In the face of God's commandments, the herd is nothing.
	And if we don't have some belief system that gives us the strength to stand against the herd, wishing to stampede off a cliff and say, stop, turn around!
	If we don't have that belief system, we're swept off into nothingness, into subjugation.
	And so, yeah, I'm becoming a little bit Impatient but leftist atheists who are like, yeah, we hate Christians.
	We love Muslims.
	It's like, are you what?
	And of course, Islam has not had to reconcile the teachings of the Koran with any other philosophical system, but because, of course, the Greco-Roman tradition was foundational and parallel with the Judeo-Christian tradition, trying to find ways to combine the Judeo-Christian tradition with the Greco-Roman tradition has been the great challenge and has led to the great humanism And the separation of church and state and you can argue to the Industrial Revolution and all the great things that came after that.
	But Islam is not attempting to wrestle with the integration of other systems.
	At least it certainly hasn't been for the past couple of hundred years.
	And because of that it is undistilled mysticism and that is much more dangerous because it's unleavened by the rationalism say of Aristotle who was simply In the church in the Middle Ages was called the philosopher.
	I mean, he was just the guy.
	And the fact that Christianity had at its center a non-Christian empirical philosopher at the center of its traditions, there's nothing like that in Islam.
	Now, anyway, in the past they did keep, they hang the Averroes and Ephesena and so on.
	They all hung on to Aristotle and they translated Aristotle, but that's a long time ago now.
	Well, I mean, sacrifice is all about, you know, Christian values.
	You know, Christ sacrifices life for us, so we're supposed to share in His sufferings and sacrifice and offer up ourselves as living sacrifices to please God and to further the Gospel and to save people.
	You know, whether that be, you know, through the, you know, Christian aspect of salvation or to give our He didn't say, throw all your possessions in a river somewhere.
	He said, give it to the poor, to people who actually need it.
	That monetary giving of your possessions is actually helpful to people.
	I may finally offend you a little bit, but that's why people like me, in the intellectual sense, still have a problem with the gay community.
	Not necessarily the aspect of them being able to do what they want.
	You can do whatever you want.
	I don't care.
	Even in the New Testament society, people were not judged based on them doing whatever they wanted to.
	People weren't running around stoning people that they saw were doing the wrong thing.
	They were offering gospel truth.
	And so, when I look at this society, and the core Another problem with the gay community is the action itself.
	What are you sacrificing to gain what you want so badly?
	What is it about being gay or bisexual or even with the whole transsexual movement, not being happy with your own gender?
	That there's this identity problem that we have when we separate ourselves from a moral and biblical and spiritual society that we don't have a concrete set of values that we look to.
	That you have someone who decides to get married as someone who's homosexual and they try to compare themselves with people who are straight.
	Well, You know, I'm married.
	My wife is pregnant.
	We just found out a couple weeks ago that she's pregnant.
	Congratulations.
	Thank you so much.
	He's going to be our first.
	I believe he's a he because, you know, I'm a weird person like that.
	Like, I look at the whole, you know, is he on the right side or is she on the left side and what percentages are correct.
	So I'm hanging on the fact that it's a boy, but it could be a girl.
	I don't know.
	But I'll be happy either way.
	Sorry to interrupt, but it's more like...
	I want to make sure before we move on that I understand a bit about...
	So when I was a kid, one of the races I loved the most, I don't know if you ever ran them, was a relay race.
	Do you ever run those?
	Oh yeah, I was in the 4x1, yeah.
	Okay, I love that because I love the complexity of getting into a sprint and hitting just the right sweet spot so the guy can pass you the baton and you're at maximum warp already.
	It's quite complicated, it's quite challenging, and I love the relay race.
	It's amazing to watch, yeah.
	It is, and it's amazing to participate in.
	And for people without kids, there's no relay race.
	They're not taking something that was handed to them by their forefathers and handing it to something that's for their kids.
	And they can't facilitate it either.
	They can't do it themselves.
	Well, yeah.
	I mean, so there is no...
	You know, there's this argument about...
	Keynes, right, the economist who was very much into, let's just basically run up debt and all that kind of crap.
	And people would say, well, in the long run, he'd say, well, in the long run, we'll all be dead.
	He was gay.
	He was gay.
	And the degree to which gay people, now, if gay people adopt, it's a different matter.
	But in general, they don't have kids.
	And people without kids, and there are some exceptions, of course, right?
	But people without kids, they're out of the baton race.
	They're not grabbing something from their forefathers and handing it to their children.
	And so because they're not part of that great chain of civilization, they've stepped out of it, there's not a higher calling that they're willing to sacrifice themselves for.
	And it is the fecundity and fertility of Christians compared to agnostics and atheists that is one of the reasons why Christians take the long view.
	It's not just about getting into heaven, although it's certainly part of it, but it is more life-affirming.
	Just from a birthrate standpoint, it is more life-affirming.
	For there to be Christians than to be atheists.
	Because atheists want the government to pay for a whole bunch of stuff.
	They don't want to make more kids.
	And so what happens is the society becomes an inverted pyramid.
	They have to import masses of non-Christians to pretend like somehow immigration from the third world is going to prop up this tottering, childless, atheistic, suicidal system.
	And then that's the end.
	That's the end.
	I mean, if atheists...
	If they had eight children each, okay, well, you know, the system could sustain itself.
	But atheism takes, in a way, atheism and associated childlessness with atheism takes people out of the baton.
	And what's the point of racing if there's no baton?
	You just walk around, you amble around, and...
	All the more fertile and more energetic cultures who are willing to sacrifice for a greater cause will run these societies right down, as we can see is happening in Europe.
	Well, is it reasonable to, you know, point that, you know, the reason why people want to move away from that?
	I mean, I get that that's the general, you know, direction that we're going in, but, you know, people want to have sex whenever they want to.
	People want to be able to be gay if they want to.
	People want to be able to You know, do whatever they want to do.
	And that ends up being a very popular reason to turn from the church and then blame it on, oh, well, I felt like it was being forced.
	No, you want to be able to do what you want to be able to do.
	That's the most popular reason.
	I mean, I understand there are people that, you know, maybe like yourself or, you know, other You know, atheist friends I have that just have a problem compartmentalizing it and coming to the, you know, exact conclusion.
	That's different from people who were raised in the church and just left because I don't want to have to do all this.
	I don't want to have to, you know, conform, I guess.
	Because, I mean, there are scholarly studies.
	On, you know, people who have sex before they're married, or people who have had multiple partners in sex feel like they have to live more secret lives.
	They feel like they have to lie about things.
	Yeah, particularly for women, there's a linear gradation.
	The more sexual partners the woman has before marriage, the less likely she is to succeed in her marriage.
	I want to point out, certainly, the desire for promiscuity is common, obviously, particularly among our selected people.
	And promiscuity is a choice.
	I want to be clear from my perspective, and I think there's a fair amount of science to back this up.
	I don't think that homosexuality is a choice in that way.
	I think there's a lot of, you know, female brain in a male body.
	It can certainly happen.
	So I don't think that there's...
	But I would certainly agree with you with regards to promiscuity and that kind of hedonism, that that is definitely a choice.
	And we've got The Truth About Sex as a whole presentation, so I don't want to belabor people.
	I'm trying not to sort of do shows where we've already got presentations, but...
	I do think that Christianity is more life-affirming in just that Christians produce more life.
	Particularly the Mormons.
	I mean, a bunch of hyperkinetic baby-spewing rabbits.
	But there is a sterility and a selfishness to atheists.
	And I think...
	That is causing a huge amount of problems.
	Again, in a free society, people can choose to have or not have kids because there aren't all these unfunded liabilities that you need a constant stream of new taxpayers to pay for, like old age retirement, pensions and healthcare schemes for the old and all that.
	But everyone on the left who's not having like four kids is just a complete and total parasite and hypocrite.
	And a lot of atheists are on the left and a lot of atheists are not having kids or having only one kid.
	And that is a problem.
	I am fully aware.
	I am an atheist.
	I have one child.
	That wasn't by choice.
	There's a whole bunch of stuff behind that, which is not particularly relevant.
	But there does seem to be this massive...
	I don't want to get up early on Sundays rather than I find this anathema to my sensibilities.
	Well, is it something that you're willing to talk about?
	I mean, you know, you've just given...
	You know, Christianity, especially in comparison to New Atheism, and I don't like using that term either.
	I think it's just something that they've attributed to themselves, but New Atheism and Islam and things like that, you've given Christianity a lot of credit as far as moral structure, the way that We handle ourselves in debate, the ways we handle ourselves in society, the way that we further new generations.
	Are you willing to at least state a couple of things of why you're still an atheist, even though you give so much credit to the solving of these problems to Christian morality?
	Oh, well, because I don't—that's not up to me, right?
	I mean, until somebody can give me an airtight argument for the existence of a Christian God who intervenes, I don't have a choice to cross over that chasm, because reason and evidence is the definition of atheism.
	So it's not like I can say, well, there are all these beneficial things over there, and therefore I'm going to believe those things.
	That would be an argument from consequences, which is not what philosophy— And I don't think we can get atheists to go back into the church.
	We've got to keep going forward, at least from my perspective, which is why I'm doing so many shows and so much material, just trying to get people to think about things larger than themselves, to think about ethics and virtue, to think about the continuity of civilization that we've all inherited and should want to pay forward.
	And even if you don't have kids, you still don't want all of the things that you gloried in to be absent from the world even after you depart.
	So, I would...
	From my perspective, you know, we're not gonna get Richard Dawkins back into the pew.
	You know, it just wasn't gonna happen.
	But on the other hand, I can continue to make the case that atheists better buck the hell up and start living better, more consequential, more meaningful lives where they sacrifice immediate present comforts for the sake of a larger good and that they recognize the momentum and pendulum of civilization that has given them the freedom to be atheists.
	And if Europe loses to Islam, There will be no freedom to be an atheist anymore.
	And if they don't care about that, they don't deserve the civilization they inherited.
	That's, I mean, that's understandable.
	I mean, I guess I guessed right earlier that it's more of a, you haven't, I believe you haven't come up with a conclusion yet.
	God is welcome to manifest to me anytime.
	I am an empiricist, and if God wants to manifest to me anytime, I am, you know, I've written this whole book called Against the Gods, question mark, question mark is important, and, you know, my enemy, and I describe this very clearly in the book, My enemy is not the religious.
	My enemy is the agnostic.
	My enemy is the agnostic.
	Agnosticism is really just nihilism at the beginning of the dictionary.
	That's all it is.
	It's just nihilism.
	It's too close to the middle.
	Let's go with an A word.
	And my enemy is not those who are committed to religion.
	My enemy is those who are not committed to anything, because they are the dead weight and the hysteria and the ballast that is dragging down society.
	People of commitment, and again, we're just talking about Christians here.
	I mean, I guess terrorists are committed too, but that's not who I'm talking about.
	People committed to civilized virtues.
	And in my dealings with...
	Thousands and thousands of people in the world through the process of this show, in call-ins, in interviews, private conversations, and so on.
	Christians are very civilized.
	Christians are very civilized.
	And Christians are tough.
	Because, of course, they've got 2,000 years of momentum in history and art and treasures and riches and literature and so on.
	So they have a momentum that your average hysterical reactionary social justice warrior leftist neurasthenics simply doesn't have.
	I mean, they're standing on foam.
	Christians, you know, obviously, to use a Christian metaphor, have built their church upon rock, not upon the sand of popular opinion.
	And so my particular enemies are the agnostics, the people who will not commit to anything larger than themselves, who will not commit to either accept or reject any particular belief system.
	And I have much more in common with Christians than agnostics any day of the week, twice on Sundays, I would add.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm going to have to close things down, although I don't want to just cut you off right in the middle of something, but I got to – Start winding this stuff down.
	It has been a long day for me.
	I kind of got up.
	It was grinding away on Aristotle.
	Did an hour and a half show.
	I have to do a show after this, Lewandowski and Michelle Fields, because we just found out they're not pressing charges.
	So it's going to be a 14-hour philosophy day, so I'm going to close this down.
	But I don't want to cut you off in the middle of your last thought, and hopefully you'll be able to call back in and we can talk more, Josh.
	But I just wanted to give you that heads up.
	But please go ahead with your thought.
	Oh, I just thought it was interesting.
	You were talking about building on the rock compared to on the sand, based on values and being tough and things like that.
	But the Bible talks continuously.
	And I just wanted to use this one quote before I go that'll be my last thought, because I understand.
	And it's been an honor to talk to you, really.
	I guess I can't really find it right now, but basically it's from the Old Testament to the New.
	Many, many times that Jesus is mentioned in prophecy and in the New Testament, he is mentioned as the rock.
	And that's part of the faith mentality in the church that still exists on my part, even though I do a lot of self-education, things like that, is that faith is the essential part of Of Christianity and of God that even though we can educate ourselves and know everything about the world that we can, it is the existence of sin and the fact that we cannot make it on our own.
	The fact that no individual can do anything on his own in society, that gives me that need to have faith in God.
	And so I know it wasn't enough time to really articulate what I was trying to say, but...
	But I thank you for giving me so much time.
	I think we spent about an hour and nobody else would really do that for me.
	So I really appreciate it.
	Well, they should.
	You're a great person to chat with, Josh, and I really, really appreciate the conversation.
	And I was just saying this to a friend of mine the other day.
	I can really, really understand how people feel.
	It's a cheesy way of putting it, but they let Jesus take the wheel or God doesn't give you more than you can handle or whatever because I'm right here on the edge of Of what is even socially permissible to talk about.
	And I do believe, you could say, have faith.
	I do believe that philosophy will carry me through.
	And I can really understand how people can get to that place where they say, this is my calling, and God will take care of me.
	And it's all going to work out.
	And with God behind me, nothing can stand before me.
	But without God on my side, I can't even get out of bed in the morning.
	And I feel that, obviously, I say, well, philosophy is going to carry me through, and part of the general momentum of reason and evidence and courage in philosophy is going to carry me through these trials and tribulations of being a sort of cutting-edge or slashing-edge thinker in a rather volatile and reactionary world.
	And so there's a lot where I can really begin to sympathize and understand The perspective of the Christian who feels too small for the enormous task at hand.
	I mean, the task that I... I wouldn't even say has set myself the path or the task that history has given me the momentum to make inevitable.
	That's a terrible way of putting it.
	The task that I have set myself is so much larger than my mere mortal frame.
	You know, like my 195 pounds of middle-aged man muscle in muffin top.
	The part that I have set for myself is so much larger than My mere mortal life that I can completely understand how people feel the need to blend themselves in with the angels to fly as high as they need to to communicate with all mankind.
	And so I just I find myself these days mulling over what is the difference between philosophy and God for me at the moment not in terms of the methodologies just in terms of how I think about it and how I'm able to do what I'm able to do as a mere mortal kid You know what I mean?
	How can I do something as big as what it is that I'm doing and what it is that I will continue to do in the future?
	How can I... Have the strength to do that if I merely think of myself as flesh and blood and mortal.
	And so I just wanted to point out that I can really understand that perspective of having the need when you have a great task to blend yourself in with something so much larger than yourself that it is functionally infinite.
	So that's my sort of closing statement of sympathy for and understanding, I think, of where Christians are coming from.
	Does that make any sense?
	Yeah, and I think you'll get there.
	Everybody hits rock bottom at some point, and everybody hits that point where it's important to grasp something that is bigger than yourself.
	And to continue when there's no particular sign of success, and the continuance is what creates the success.
	What are the empirical signs that reason and evidence are going to win out over bigotry, hatred, and prejudice?
	In the world.
	What are the signs?
	Well, if there are no signs and then you say, well, I'm an empiricist, there are no signs, so I'm going to give up, then you're going to lose for sure.
	But if you deny empiricism and you say, I'm going to keep going and get better at it and get more powerful at it and get more entertaining at it and keep going and keep going, you create the empiricism in your wake that if you'd been purely empirical at the front hand, you never would have gotten in the boat.
	So, all right.
	Well, thank you very much for the call.
	Thank you, everybody, so much.
	For your support of the show, this show, you know, they call Aristotle the philosopher.
	Let's call this show the show.
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