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Sept. 9, 2022 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
48:48
Why Atheists Should be Christian!
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Alright, thanks everyone for great questions.
I had one of those, yeah, one of those days where you just, you feel kind of amped, you feel kind of pumped, and you just know that sleep ain't going to be coming anytime in particular soon, so I asked for questions, and I got great questions.
Thank you so much to join the community, freedemand.locals.com.
Alright. So what is the best argument for why an atheist should be a Christian?
Well, the best argument as to why an atheist should be a Christian is basically, what is it that makes you human?
What is it that makes you different from an animal?
Ah, the capacity to reason!
Well, I mean, animals can reason.
They may not have complex language, but they can certainly reason.
What is it that makes you specifically human?
Are you just more animal?
What is it that separates humanity from the animals?
Are you just animal plus?
Are you just animal extra?
Are you animal with sugar and cream on top and a cherry on the side?
Are you just more animal?
Well, if you're more animal, then animals are cunning.
Animals exploit. Animals kill.
Animals eat. So if you're just more animal...
Then why don't you just do what animals do, but do it better or more efficiently, right?
And in fact, if you're cunning, the cunning is the animal, right?
So if cunning is what makes you in particular special, Then you should use more of it.
In other words, our intelligence has been developed to mislead, to exploit, to brutalize, to subjugate, to control all of the animal stuff, right?
I mean, if you look at an elephant, an elephant is stronger than a horse.
An elephant is stronger than a mouse.
An elephant can push over trees, a mouse cannot.
So an elephant, if you look at the strength, is just more.
It's more than the mouse.
It's not a different kind.
It's just dial it up.
Like a higher note has a higher frequency than a lower note.
That doesn't mean that the higher note is something different fundamentally.
It's just more frequency, right?
A 20-pound weight is just heavier than a 5-pound weight.
They're still in the same category.
So, what is it about you, Mr.
Atheist, that makes you A human being who is subject to different rules than the animals, because you, Mr.
Atheist, say, well, you know, we have reciprocal altruism, and, you know, there's what is generally best for humanity, and so on.
It's like, oh, you can say all of these things, although what is generally best for humanity is almost always used as a way to...
Subjugate people, to control them, to enslave them, right?
What is best for humanity? Oh look, humanity turns out to be totally represented by the ruling class.
It's just a weird coincidence, but you understand how these things work?
So this is what I would ask your average atheist.
You're just a smarter animal.
So why would you have morality?
You're just a smarter animal.
A mammal doesn't become a non-mammal just because it gets stronger.
The fact that the elephant is stronger than the mouse doesn't make it a different kind of creature, subject to completely different rules, and it can reverse gravity, and it can fly without wings.
You understand? It's the big question for atheism.
Why are you not more animal?
Animals have intelligence.
Human beings have more. Animals are subject to morality.
Human beings are. Well, why?
Why? Animals exploit their advantages to dominate and control other animals, including those of their own species.
A young lion will use its strength to maul and attack an older lion so that the younger lion can become the alpha of the pack.
So the younger lion is stronger and therefore it attacks the older lion.
Well, if you're smarter, why don't you use your intelligence to control and dominate other human beings?
Well, that would be wrong. Why?
Why would that be wrong? Why is that wrong?
If you're just an animal, then the animal uses its strengths against the weaknesses of the animals.
The wolf uses its big teeth against the tiny teeth of the rabbit and wins.
That's why there are wolves, and frankly why there are rabbits, so they don't have too much population.
So if you're smarter, if you're more verbal, if you're more charismatic, if you're more attractive, why wouldn't you just use...
These strengths against your opponents, your competitors of your own species and prey of others, or I guess prey within your own species as well.
Every other animal does it, and you're just more animal.
I mean, you're weaker than the elephant, but stronger than the field mouse.
You're shorter than your giraffe, but smarter than the ape.
The giraffe uses its height to get the top leaves on the tree.
Why wouldn't you use your intelligence to exploit animals?
And gain resources from other people.
Because that's what happens.
It's called the wills of power.
It's what happens when God falls and nothing rises to take its place that makes us extra special human that puts us in a different category.
And people will still talk about morality but the reason they talk about morality...
It's because it's great camouflage for predation.
And if you can get other people to believe in morality when you yourself don't believe in morality, you have a pretty great old time.
If you can get everyone else to respect property rights and you're the only thief in the world, you have a pretty great time of it.
So yeah, tell me why, Mr.
Atheist, tell me why you're not just more animal.
Well, God can't be both all-powerful and all-knowing.
Yeah, yeah, I get that. I get that.
But here's the thing.
If you are so concerned with logical and moral contradictions, Mr.
Atheist, if you're so concerned with these logical and moral contradictions, then how is it that you are subject to opposite rules than every other living creature?
Now, the Christian has his answer to this, that we are created in God's image and we have a soul.
Mr. Atheist, what's your answer?
Well, we have reason.
Yeah, animals have reason. Well, we have language.
Yeah, animals have language.
Well, we're intelligent. Yeah, some animals are intelligent, not as intelligent as us, and they don't have as complex a language, which is more.
Would you have a, you know, giraffe, I think, what probably has the longest neck, right?
So giraffe has the longest neck by far of all the creatures.
Would you go to a biology conference and say, because the giraffe has the longest neck, it's fundamentally subject to different or opposite rules from every other creature?
Because it has the longest neck.
And they say, well, come on, you can find some creature that has the longest anything.
Pelicans have the deepest beaks.
Some lizard has the longest tail, right?
How do you turn a difference in degree into a difference of kind?
Because morality and moral requirements, moral standards, that's a difference of kind.
It's not a difference of degree.
It's not like, well, animals are subject to 50% morality, but we're subject to 75% morality.
Giraffes have longer necks, but, you know, other creatures have necks.
The giraffe's neck is just, you know, 1,000% longer.
How do you get to the difference in kind From the difference in degree.
We're smarter, have more complex language, have a greater capacity for reason and abstractions.
But that's just a difference of degree from all the other animals.
How do you get to the difference in kind?
How do you get to the difference in kind?
Now, if you can't get to the difference in kind, and there's no such thing as morality, and we're just more animal, we're just an animal plus, okay, then clearly we need to eliminate moral rules, moral laws, laws of any kind, and it just needs to be a war of all against all.
Oh, you... Sorry, you don't want that?
Mr. Pencil-neck, half-beard fedora-wearer, you don't want the war of all against all?
Well, you better wake the hell up, man.
You better wake the hell up.
You don't want the war of all against all.
Then you better figure out how the hell you go from a difference of degree to a difference in kind.
You better figure out the soul of the species.
You better figure out why we should actually have morality rather than just use morality to control and exploit.
Every animal exploits its advantages.
The wolf tears and the rabbit runs.
The rabbit can turn faster than the wolf because it's lighter.
And so the rabbit dodges and the wolf pursues.
They're both dealing with their advantages.
Every animal is willing to...
Almost every species is willing to prey within its own species if it has the advantage.
Why not human beings?
Why not? Apes hunt each other.
Kill and eat each other.
Why not humans? Now, the Christians have the answer.
Now, you may say, well, that answer is not rational.
There's no evidence for the soul.
Okay, where's the evidence of the difference in kind that you claim to be the basis of moral requirements for humanity?
No animal has moral obligations.
No animal can be good or evil, but human beings have moral obligations and can be good and evil.
Okay, just invented a whole new damn different category there, didn't you?
Whole damn new different category there, didn't you?
Well, it's an emergent property.
I'll explain that in more detail.
It's not a magic phrase that takes away your need to explain this in more detail.
You tell me why morality only applies to human beings if human beings are just more animals.
If a giraffe's neck gets three foot taller, is it now a moral agent, moral entity?
Well, it doesn't really understand this and that and the other.
So we have more understanding.
How does that mean a difference in kind?
Well, human beings can do things that animals can't do.
Yeah, well, animals can do things human beings can't do.
Animals can fly, people can't.
Animals can breathe underwater, people can't.
Fishes can breathe, right? So if, as an atheist, you say, well, but the God thing, the soul thing, the superstition, mysticism, I can't...
Okay, well, who faces the bigger contradiction?
Who faces the bigger contradiction, the more important contradiction?
The Christian has a perfect, and assuming the principles, perfectly rational explanation as to the difference in kind versus the difference in degree.
The belief system, the theology is perfectly consistent with human beings having moral natures and moral requirements and no other creature having those things because made in the image of God, endowed with reason and have a soul.
Oh, but that answer doesn't make sense.
Oh, really? And your answer if, well, you know, you just get more smart and you go through this portal, man, and suddenly you of all the animals are subject to moral standards.
A difference in degree can turn into a difference in kind.
You see, if the giraffe's neck gets longer by 5%, the giraffe becomes a lizard or a cloud.
You think the Christian has a problem with logic?
My God! Alright, next question.
Can you explain the concept of a social contract?
So a social contract is a Hobbesian argument, really.
I mean, lots of people have done it, but it's a Hobbesian argument.
And it says, look, in a state of nature, we're just brutish and bloody and life is nasty, brutish, bloody and short.
Everyone wars against everyone else and there's no structure, there's no standards, there's no law courts, they're just Hatfields versus McCoys, tribal warfare, and you never get ahead.
Nobody's going to accumulate any property because everyone's stealing from everyone.
So maybe you can accumulate $2 worth a day of value.
But, you see, if you enter into a social contract with the state, then the state will protect you.
And yes, let's say you have to give half your income to the state.
I mean, that wasn't the case when Hobbes was around, but let's just say now and make the contemporaneous argument.
You have to give half of your income to the state.
But instead of $2 a day, you make $100 a day.
Make $100 a day, you give $50 to the state, you're still 25 times better off than a state of nature.
A stateless society, war of all against all, you get $2 a day, you make $100 a day, but you give $50 to the government, you're still 25 times better off.
$50 versus $2.
So that's the social contract, that you willingly surrender some of your liberty in order to gain resources and liberty as a whole.
You don't really have much freedom.
Without the government, we have freedom.
Well, you don't really have that much freedom if people just come and steal your stuff all the time and you have to shoot people.
But if you shoot them, then their brothers come and shoot you and you're in some hot little vignette out of Huckleberry Finn or something, right?
So that's the social contract.
In the same way you say, well, having a cell phone is beneficial, but I'm going to sacrifice some of my liberty to have a cell phone.
I'm going to pay $100 a month or whatever it is to have a cell phone.
And that means that's $100 worth of things I can't buy because I'm giving it to the cell phone company.
And it also means that...
Let's say it takes me two hours work to get $100.
Well, I'm not free to do what I want during those two hours.
I have surrendered part of my liberty and my resources in return for something that benefits me.
And you can see this all the time.
You could build your own shelter in the woods if it's legal, but...
Or you could, I don't know, live in a tent somewhere and camp from places to places or whatever.
But instead you say, okay, I'm going to spend, it used to be ideally 25%, now it's closer to 50%.
I'm going to spend 50% of my income on a house.
And that means for two weeks of the month you're not free to do what you want because you've got to work to buy the house.
But having a house is preferable to living on the streets, and therefore we surrender some of our liberty for the sake of a greater good.
And we have these all the times, and the social contract is between us and the state.
I obviously don't agree with it, but I'm just sort of giving you the argument.
What advice do you have for Christians who value peace and err on the side of turning the other cheek?
When should they stand up and be ferocious?
I don't know about ferocious, but the answer for me, again, I'm no theologian, but the answer to me would be something like this.
Christians should not turn the other cheek in the face of tribalism.
Because tribalism is devilry in many ways, right?
Again, looking from the Christian perspective, because you did ask about Christians in particular.
So turning the other cheek is fine when people have universal beliefs regarding morality, right?
Morality is universal. You can turn the other cheek.
Because the person will probably come back to their senses with regards to their moral values or, you know, will go to their philosophy club.
And, you know, if someone comes along and just, you know, slaps you in the face because they're having a bad day, but they believe in universal morality, then they're going to feel bad about it at some point.
And they may not apologize to you directly, but they'll probably come around to believing or seeing that what they did was wrong.
Or if they believe in universal morality and they...
Slap you in the face, then they go to the church and they either have to lie and say, well, nothing important happened today, or they have to tell the truth and say, I was so angry, I slapped someone in the face.
At which point, the priest, the congregation, everyone else, or the philosophy group is going to be like, well, that was terrible, wasn't it?
You shouldn't be doing that. And so even if they don't come back to apologize to you directly, there's a check and balance because people believe in universal morality.
Now, people who are purely tribal...
They genuinely don't feel that they have moral obligations to people outside their tribe.
So if you're not in the tribe and they slap you in the face, other people don't particularly care.
And the more universal the morality, the more empathetic it tends to be, because universal morality is based on empathy, which is why people who fight against UPB generally don't seem to have any empathy as a whole.
And so universal morality, whether it's do unto others as you would have them do unto you, the Christ formulation or the Confucian formulation of do not do unto others what you would have them not do unto you, it's based upon empathy.
Empathize with others and recognize that you have similar needs and preferences and if you don't want people to steal from you, don't steal from them and so on, right?
If you want people to be nice to you, be nice to them.
So yeah, turn the other cheek is great when you are dealing with people who have universal moral standards, no in-group, out-group, no separate moral obligations or opposing moral obligations for those on the in-group and those on the out-group.
So yeah, that's when you should really stand up.
Alright. Are you a Johnny Cash fan?
I fell into a burning ring of fire.
I'm not a Johnny Cash fan.
Nothing to do with his music in particular, although he seemed a bit trashy.
But mostly because I have a singing fetish, you know, as a sort of half-baked, damaged singer myself.
I really like vocal quality.
That's why I couldn't really get into The Stones and I couldn't really get into Bob Dylan.
To me, if the voice ain't great, sorry.
You know, give me Luther Vandross, give me Peebo Bryson, give me Freddie Mercury, give me Sting.
I just need good vocal quality and Johnny Cash does not hit the band for me.
Is a kid having an imaginary friend evidence of dysfunction or is it developmentally appropriate?
I don't know for sure, but my belief is that it is a sign of intense loneliness.
Like, why would you need an imaginary friend if you have real friends or real contact or real connection?
It's a solitary activity and it is designed to try and preserve the capacity to bond when there's no one to bond with.
Ah, Steph, what are the philosophical implications of a family-in-law financing a future home compared to financing through a bank?
The pro of getting a loan from a family-in-law is a no interest, but it seems to me I'd be losing what it means to own property as a man and to own what you've earned.
For reference, this potential loan is coming from my wife's father, and we don't see eye to eye on cultural or political issues.
The flip side is going to a bank and paying off a mortgage with interest rates, but at least I will not be beholden to anyone other than the state.
What am I missing, or is this a no-brainer?
Well, it is a no-brainer. Don't take that money, man.
Don't take that money. Even if you agreed 100% with your wife's father, you can't run to her daddy to be the provider for your family.
My God, that's going to kill her vagina like a sandstorm in a crevasse.
No, I'm sorry.
You're just going to have to be the provider.
She needs to see you as the leader.
And everyone has different leadership areas in relationships, but we'll just go with the traditional, right?
That the man is the provider.
So if this is the way things are set up, that you're the provider and your wife is doing other things, taking care of kids or whatever, right?
So if you're the provider, be the provider.
And just like surprise thing, take money.
Take money for a house from your father-in-law, even if you agreed with him on everything.
But of course, if you agreed with him on everything and he was a reasonable guy, he wouldn't offer.
He wouldn't offer.
I mean, listen, it's fine if they want to, you know, we'll buy you a couch or I don't know, whatever, right?
A little thing here and there, a housewarming gift.
That's all very nice and no issue with that.
But, oh my God, no.
Your wife needs to look up to you.
As the provider. And if her dad has paid for your home, she's back living at home and she's going to feel like a kid.
And it's not going to be an adult thing with you.
So no, I would say that's a particularly bad idea.
And you know, just take a smaller place.
Take a smaller place and pay for it yourself.
All right. Freedom Man.
How do I deal with self-hatred and learn to forgive and even love myself?
I've gained a lot of self-knowledge these past few years regarding the reasons for my troubles, but I am struggling with years of built-up self-hatred.
I'll make some progress, slip up a little, then tell myself I'm a bad person for falling off the path, and then use that as an excuse for yet more bad decisions.
No, I get that, yeah. It's called falling off the wagon because it's a long way down, right?
So, I've done a bunch of call-in shows about this recently, just sort of by coinkydinky, but...
You're self-hentered. Who does it benefit?
Who does it benefit? Do you think that you just woke up one day for no particular reason and said, Oh, you know what?
I've had enough with enjoying my own company.
I've had enough with feeling good about myself.
I've had enough with liking myself.
I'm just going to start hating myself. Who does it benefit?
Who does it benefit that you hate yourself?
It's not you. It's not how we're built.
You know, wolves don't just wake up, just start chewing on their own legs for no reason.
Well, I guess they will if, well, not no reason, but they will if they're caught in a trap.
So who benefits from you hating yourself?
And it's usually exploitive, destructive, abusive parents or something like that, right?
Could be an elder sibling or whoever, right?
But if somebody's benefiting from you hating yourself and you are just complying with that...
You don't think, I hate myself.
It's more of an insult to you.
It's, you know, if somebody stabs you and you end up with a knife, a broken-off knife blade and you're in it, you don't just say, well, I just stabbed myself.
No, somebody stabbed you and you got to deal with the injury.
And the injury is compliance with the self-destruction demanded by other people.
And when you over-criticize yourself, that's almost always implanted in you so that you avoid criticizing somebody for legitimate reasons in your life.
I really understand this.
Really, really important. Because you're in this, in a sense, death spiral, right?
I'm doing so well.
I woke up hating myself.
I made bad decisions. I hate myself even more.
You're just going in this death spiral, right?
So why is self-criticism, like hyper-self-criticism, pathological self-criticism, why is it implanted in you?
Well, it's implanted in you, of course, so that you're too busy criticizing yourself to genuinely criticize evildoers around you.
Ah, let's see here.
After I learned the true nature of my family of origin, and after I tried talking about it with them, with the expected results, I began to feel what I can only describe as grief.
It isn't exactly the right term, but it's the closest I can think of.
Is there another word to describe the sickening feeling of letting go?
Yeah, it's sorrow.
Giving up on illusions is great sorrow.
Giving up on illusions is great sorrow.
And if we're abused as children, we have to pretend that our parents are better than they are because we need to retain the capacity to bond.
We need to please them. And those who didn't either did not make it through our evolution.
So we have been handed these genes by a bunch of desperate Stockholm survivors who managed to get their way through their past by bonding with those who were harming them.
So you are not, in a sense, we're not programmed for this kind of change.
It's why... Childhood remains so wretched for almost all children throughout the world.
So we're not really evolved or programmed for this kind of change.
We're programmed for really static societies where we get abused and then we abuse the next generation.
It just goes on and on for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.
And coming up for air and saying, I don't have to repeat the cycle.
Yeah, so there's a lot of grief.
Because you're peeling away the necessary delusions that your abusive parents were better than they were or are.
And this is why I really do think it's important to have conversations if it's safe, right?
If you have... If you have significant issues with your family or any issues with your family, sit down and talk with them with the knowledge that you have the right to do so.
You have the perfect right to ask a reasonable, decent, nice behavior.
You have the perfect right to not be yelled at, not be abused, not be undermined, not be verbally attacked, not to just be there for the utility of other people like some sort of lawnmower that they just get to whack until it does what they want.
You have the perfect right to have a reasonable, civilized, decent bunch of people in your life.
So you sit down and you look at them across with the eyes and liberty of an adult.
You look at them across the table or wherever you're having the conversation and just see them for who they are.
You see them for who they are.
And there's a kind of shock and horror sometimes in that.
That's number one. And number two, you say, you won't change.
You won't change. Change is a process that is initiated quite young and maintains itself throughout life.
Let me repeat this.
Change is a process that is initiated quite young and maintains constant throughout life.
Somebody who's 50 or 60, who's acted out and hurt their children and has never shown a shred of interest or humility in pursuit of self-knowledge or has never been interested in therapy, has never examined their own motives, but just externalizes and blames and acts out.
It's never going to change. Never going to change.
Expecting a 60-year-old woman to change who's had no history of change, of curiosity, of growth, of self-criticism in a positive way, who tries to think about her own motives, who's honest about her past, who examines things.
Trying to expect a woman who's not changed for 60 years to change.
It literally is like expecting her to go through puberty again.
She missed the window. It already happened, right?
She had the chance. If she's 60, she had the chance maybe 50 years ago, maybe 40 years ago, but not really after that.
I've never known anyone, and I'm getting old enough now to have had a reasonable amount of, or a lot of, a lot of, Data and examples about this.
I've seen people on the arc of their lives.
Right now I'm in late middle age.
So I've seen the whole arc of people's lives pretty well.
Because, you know, I've seen people from fairly young to dead.
I've seen people from very young to late middle age.
I've seen people from middle age to very old.
I've seen a lot of arcs.
I've seen a lot of this trajectory.
I'm telling you, I've not met one person who wakes up to change forever.
After the age of maybe 20, maybe early 20s?
Your brain has stopped developing by your early to mid-20s.
And if you haven't got curiosity and change and humility and growth as your agenda, when's it going to come?
It's not going to come.
Later? I've never seen anyone.
I mean, I'm saying 20 at the lower bounds, right?
But I've never seen anybody who's resistant to self-knowledge, who acts out, who doesn't have humility and curiosity towards themselves and what makes them tick and how they can be better and all that.
Read books and do therapy and talk about self-knowledge and puzzle the great Jumbled puzzle of our own histories.
It's not a puzzle for those in the future, but it's a puzzle to us because our box of puzzle pieces gets shaken from our original shape, gets slashed and cut and shaken up pretty bad.
I've never seen anybody after the age of 20 to maybe early 20s who grows.
If they haven't grown already, they're not going to do it.
They're not going to do it. I mean, you could say, well, but you know, one in a million, one in a thousand.
Okay. Yes, I guess maybe.
Although that's all hearsay for me because I've never seen it directly.
I mean, let's give you an example, right?
So I had friends in my life until not super long ago that I had been friends with since the age of 11.
Right, so I'd seen 30-35 years of people's trajectories.
That's a long-ass time, frankly.
And I pursued self-knowledge, I pursued philosophy, I pursued all of this kind of stuff.
And, I mean, I think...
My life is pretty good.
It's pretty good.
You know, I have a wonderful wife.
I have a wonderful family life of good friends.
I have a meaningful way to spend my time and my thoughts.
I do great good in the world.
It's a pretty good life.
And, you know, every now and then out of curiosity, I check on the people I used to know every couple of years.
You know, just see where they are in the season.
And it's bad.
Now, have any of them said, oh man, you know, we really mocked you for this whole self-knowledge philosophy thing, but man, has it ever paid off for you in a way it didn't for me?
It's never going to happen. All right.
How can you tell a genuine personality trait from an imposed trait, a possible reactionary trait from bad parenting?
Sorry, I don't know how to word my question more elegantly.
No, that's a great, Frida, that's a great...
That's a great way to put it. So a genuine personality trait is that which brings you benefits and happiness and causes your life to flourish and go well in a sustainable manner.
So reactionary traits are when you attack yourself for the sake of appeasing historical evildoers in your life.
I ask, does it benefit you?
Does it benefit you? If it benefits you in a sustainable manner, brings you happiness, it's probably a genuine trait.
If you do it out of fear or anxiety or out of avoiding self-attack, it's almost for certain in the service of evildoers, and that's what they put it in there to distract you from criticizing them.
What are your thoughts on the trolley problem?
Pull a lever and a trolley kills one person or five people.
I made a video explaining why I think it's a way for bad actors to endlessly distract people from real-world moral issues.
It forces you to logic away out of a problem that was not logically created.
Yeah, it's funny, right?
Because people never put it in the right way.
The trolley problem, you know, you've got a switch and you throw a switch and only one person dies, or you throw a switch and five people die because they're all tied on the tracks and all this kind of stuff, right?
I mean, it's all just a bunch of nonsense to distract you.
I'll give you the real trolley problem.
So here's a real trolley problem.
You got a switch, you can throw the switch.
If you don't throw the switch, one person ends up half a million dollars in debt.
Now. But if you throw the switch, five people end up $5 million in debt later.
So you go from half a million debt to $25 million in debt.
One person, half a million dollars in debt now.
Otherwise, it's five people, $5 million in debt down the road later.
Of course, I think people would say, well, of course, the one person should take the debt rather than the five people taking the $5 million worth of debt later.
It's like, okay, then you're against the national debt.
Because that's the real. If you vote for more free stuff and you resist any attempts to restrain spending, then your morals don't align with your actions.
That's a real one, right?
That's a real one. Of course, you'll never hear it put that way, right?
How to effectively fight depersonalization or a weak sense of self.
Post-therapy, post-removing hostile people from one's life.
Every time I say I, I feel like I'm lying a bit.
You said the problems caused by loneliness can be solved by loneliness, but I feel like there is almost nobody left inside, only my knowledge, which is not specific to me.
So, removing malign influences is not the same as...
Allowing your personality to flourish.
I mean, if you have shrapnel embedded in your body, getting it removed doesn't make you a marathon runner.
And getting it removed is necessary but not sufficient for you to become a marathon runner.
So getting bad people out of your life, which is a good thing to do, is not the same as having positive people in your life or giving yourself the reward that you deserve for getting bad people out of your life, for saying, I'm worth it to not be abused, I'm worth it to not be put down, I'm worth it to not be denigrated.
Have you given yourself the hero's medal for doing what very few people do?
Most people just hang on the quagmire and quicksand of history and crap, right?
Have you... Giving yourself the necessary praise for doing the right thing.
Because society won't, I'm afraid to say, society won't give you praise for doing the right thing these days.
In fact, quite the opposite. But can you give yourself praise for doing the right thing?
I hope so. Steph, why were you not the biggest fan of the film A Beautiful Mind?
I remember really enjoying that film.
I don't remember it very well.
But... I can't remember whether there was a tie-in from his current madness to prior child abuse, and I don't think that there was.
So, when it's just causeless madness, without the stress of child abuse as a contributing factor, then it's a cover-up for abuse.
Socrates versus Dostoevsky.
Can a world full of atheists still be moral, or is God required to curtail the natural wickedness occurring in men?
Well, yes, atheists can be moral, but they have to accept universal morality, which means they have to limit their appetites, which means they have to separate themselves from the mere animal, and they don't like doing that.
Because atheism is the substitution of coercion for persuasion.
Because atheists run to the government to enforce their beliefs.
And Christians pray or proselytize.
They will lecture you. They will ask you.
They will beg you. They will cajole you.
But they won't force you, for the most part.
But atheists, whenever they want something done, they just run to the government and force, right?
So atheism is...
A brutality, and Christianity is the attempt to convince.
Again, lots of differences in these overlaps, but in general.
Currently preparing to be a first-time father.
Very weary of CDC vaccine schedule and pharma corruption.
What vaccines, if any, did you have your daughter take, and what age was she?
Well, I don't want to talk about my daughter's medical history or anything like that, and I don't have any medical advice to give, but...
It seems to me, I think particularly in America, it seems to me that the vaccine schedules are, you know, pretty tight.
I don't remember getting too many vaccines when I was younger, but it just seems like a conveyable these days.
Just recently, my daughter, who was four and a half, made friends with another little girl at the park.
A few days later, we then met at the river to go swimming.
When it was time to go, both my daughter and the other little girl did not want to leave.
I witnessed the father of the little girl we had met get frustrated and smack his little girl with her shorts on her rear end.
This happened fifteen feet away from us and other people.
This, of course, surprised my husband and I, since it seemed like the guy was a calm and engaged father.
What do you do in these situations where you witness other parents using force against their children?
We will definitely be seeing them again sometime since we live in the same neighborhood and go to the same parks.
Well, really try your best not to put the adult down, put the parent down, or humiliate the parent or make the parent feel less than...
Lesser in the presence of his children or in the presence of others because people, it's like a helium balloon.
You push them down, they just come blowing up later.
So if you did anything that humiliates him in public, then he will probably try and level up with his kids later.
Look what you caused this whole embarrassing situation by not listening to you and this other parent came down on me for ridiculous reasons and look how embarrassing that was and he'll just take it out on his kids and that's not great.
So if the abuse is really bad, then you can just stand up to it.
You don't have to do anything, of course.
I'm just saying possibilities, right?
You can just stand up to it knowing that it could be bad for the kid later, but at least the kid has had an example of somebody saying this ain't okay.
So again, I don't have any advice.
I'm not telling anyone what to do.
These are various things that I've done over time.
But yeah, I think the best thing is, you know, get the guy to one side and say, I couldn't help notice you're a corporal punishment guy.
Can you tell me a little bit about that?
We don't do corporal punishment, but, you know, just tell me a little bit about your philosophy of it because it's kind of important for us and obviously it's important for you and And all of that, and just, you know, get them to talk about it.
Oh, it's nothing. It's just a little bit of that.
It's like, oh, you know, that there are, and you can start to bring up the Elizabeth Gershaw stuff that I've talked about, you know, that it's counterproductive, that, you know, 40% of corporal punishment victims are in high school, like it just doesn't, and it produces immediate compliance, but long-term resistance.
And It has never been shown to improve the behavior of children in the long run.
Quite the opposite. You know, just bring some data in and say, look, you really...
I can see this very clearly that you want to be a great dad.
And, you know, I don't in any way mean to imply that you're not.
But, you know, if there's a little tweak that I would suggest, again, really tentatively from the outside, it would be something like this and just something to mull over.
Just real gentle. And because, you know, it's...
It's usually a hitting parent within the parent that's hitting the children.
And you have to find a way to get the information across in a positive way.
Otherwise, you're going to trigger the parental alter ego and it'll dig in.
Ah, what would you say to someone who says I would never have sex with someone inside of three dates?
When I asked him to please explain how a particular number is relevant to finding your soulmate, all I heard was crickets.
It seems he is simply a serial monogamist, and the concept of a qualitatively driven exploration of a potential mate is outside of his understanding.
Yeah, I mean, he's probably just trying to say that he's not ridden with sexually transmitted diseases.
And he's trying to say, if it's a man, it's kind of a humble brag, like it's a brag to say, well, you know, women obviously want me so much, but I wouldn't do it within three dates or whatever, right?
It's not. This is somebody who's speaking not honestly, but for effect.
This is a very, very common thing in the world.
People speak in order to gain an effect.
And the words they choose are chosen with the calculation of getting a particular effect.
They're not chosen out of spontaneous warmth or curiosity or spontaneous self-expression.
There's nothing about them that is not calculated for effect.
And those people are very exhausting and you can't bond with them because they're just trying to control your perceptions rather than connect with you as a person.
Any plans for future debates on anarchy?
I've binged all the older ones like a junkie with an addiction.
Keep speaking truth, brother. Well, thank you.
I have no plans for future debates on anarchy.
I wouldn't necessarily say no, but I'm very much enjoying the really hardcore philosophy that I'm working on.
But of course, if people want to call in and to the shows and debate, that's fine.
Have you considered hosting debates amongst members of the Free Demand community?
It could be fun to hear your intelligent listeners where they disagree.
Yeah, it could be, but people can debate at freedomand.locals.com and people can follow that.
I'm not sure I would add a huge amount.
Which debate that you've done would you say was the most challenging or one you admittedly lost?
Well, you know, again, to be an annoying pedantic guy, I can't lose a debate.
I can't lose a debate. Because I've been proven wrong, I've gained incredibly valuable knowledge.
I mean, if you have a debate about the best way to drive to your friend's wedding and you're running late and your friend is right and you get to the wedding on time, whereas if you'd gone your way, you'd have been terribly late to the wedding.
Have you lost? Did you lose something?
No. Thank you, my friend, for giving me the good argument and telling me something better that I was wrong about.
So, you know, I don't think...
That I've lost debates. What generally happens with debates is sort of why I've sort of faded out from them.
What generally happens in debates is, you know, people just, they just deny and they just move the goalpost.
They beg the question.
They gaslight. They just simply give up on debating and try to give the impression that you're wrong, right, rather than I mean, I've had in debates where if someone's made a really good point, I'm like, yep, that's a great point.
You're right about that. I was wrong.
You're right about that. That's great.
Fantastic. But first of all, if somebody proves me wrong, that's fantastic.
But secondly, debates just get boring because, like, would you play chess if somebody just kept changing the rules when they were losing?
Well, you wouldn't, right? It would be a boring game to play.
It would be kind of pointless and just annoying, right?
Just annoying. And you'd be more annoyed at yourself for falling into it.
So I know that I'm very good at debating.
And if I win a debate, people just get really angry and trolly.
And I generally do.
And so, yeah, I mean, you start off playing chess and, you know, they just...
You know, if they start losing, they knock over your pieces, and then they turn all of their pawns into queens, and they just break all the rules, and they think they've won, right?
So, yeah, it's really sad.
All right. What is your opinion on the psychology of the act of looking away while shaking hands?
A mutual friend I met the other day shook my hand and immediately looked at his feet.
Insecurity, distrust, something to hide.
What's your opinion on this?
Thanks, Steph. Um, yeah.
So, eye contact with a predator is extremely dangerous.
The people who hate themselves don't like it when you look deeply into their eyes.
They really hate it, and they can be quite explosively angry, which is why eye contact can be extraordinarily dangerous when you're around somebody who's really full of self-hatred and evil thoughts and all of that.
Because you look deeply into them, and they catch a glimpse of themselves in your eyes, and you catch a glimpse of them.
Like, we see deep into somebody's personality when we look deep into their eyes, the eyes of the windows.
To the soul. It's very true.
And so if someone was raised by a sociopath, if somebody was raised by an evildoer, if somebody was raised by a pedophile or like a really vicious abuser, then eye contact would be extraordinarily dangerous to that person.
Because if you look deeply into the heart and minds of your parent, they'll completely freak out or whoever's the abusive person.
So probably something to do with that is my guess.
Should you go to a public place, for example a concert, if you know everyone there is a degenerate lefty?
Is there a way to enjoy the music without letting the political sermons in between each song bother you?
I feel like it's impossible to enjoy yourself.
No, I think that's sensible.
I mean, don't give money to those who want to really mess things up for you.
Let's see here. Would you talk about the Queen?
Well, not really.
I mean, not really. I've talked about monarchy in the past.
And the problem is, of course, that any kind of nuanced description of people just annoys the extremists on both sides, right?
So there are people who just love the Queen and love the monarchy and love the royalty, right?
And if you say anything critical, then you're just dumping on the dead.
And then there are people who just, oh, she was a colonialist and exploiter and blah, blah, blah.
And then if you say anything about the value of a physical manifestation of a cultural tradition, then, you know, the world has become so polarized that...
The only common enemy people have is nuance.
You know, that there's pluses and minuses, benefits and drawbacks.
So, complexity is the enemy of the black and white thinkers.
It's something I remember from, gosh, the really old show now, I guess, called Cheers.
And there was a character played by Kelsey Grammer called Dr.
Frasier Crane, who was, you know, an educated guy, a smart guy.
And he was trying to introduce some culture to the low-rent layabouts in the bar.
And so he brought in Charles Dickens, right?
A Tale of Two Cities, I think it was.
Anyway, so... I just don't remember this.
This just blew my mind because it was one of these first indications of these kinds of thoughts.
And I don't know, I was in my teens or whatever when the show was out.
So it was a good 40 years ago, maybe 30 years ago.
Anyway, so he's a psychiatrist and he's gone to Harvard and he gets up and he says, I'm going to read you from this book.
It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times.
And the mailman goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, doc, doc, doc.
Which was it? It was the best of times.
It was the worst of times. Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Which was it? Right?
Now, that's the difference, right? Somebody can say, yeah, it was the best of times.
It was the worst of times. That's nuance.
That's complexity. But Cliff the Mailman is like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Hey, Doc, it's got to be one or the other.
Was it the best? All the worst.
It can't be both. And, uh, so, yeah.
I mean, there's pluses and minuses about the queen.
And, uh, Like, we're into nuance.
Maybe we can do it here. Maybe I'll do it here.
You know, you can...
I'll put a poll out.
Should I talk about the Queen? There's lots to talk about with the Queen.
I certainly have a long history with the monarchy as I grew up in England, of course.
There's lots to talk about with regards to the Queen, but let me know if you're interested, and I'll put the poll out at freedomain.locals.com.
So listen, thanks guys. Fantastic questions.
Really, really value these amazing brain tickles.
I hope it's been helpful to you. If you're listening to this outside, freedomandmain.locals.com.
My God, you've got to stop by.
It's a great community and I hope you will.
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