Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - My Experience with CHRISTIANS! Twitter/X Space

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Sept. 24, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:13:57

My Experience with CHRISTIANS! Twitter/X Space

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	Hey everybody, hope you're doing well.
	Special thanks, good wishes, salutations, and greetings to the fine people on X who are subscribed.
	If you want to subscribe at X, you can go to X.com forward slash defend Molyneux and subscribe, just on the header and all of that.
	So I wanted to talk today about my roller coaster of relationships to Christians and Christianity.
	And I won't get into sort of the deep history of it all.
	But I will uh talk about some of the ups and downs I've had in my relationship with Christianity with Christians, and I'd love to get your thoughts.
	And if you've had similar experiences, you can talk me out of where I'm at right now, because it's not uh super fun, but uh I think productive and healthy and helpful.
	So if you're listening to this, you want to join in, you can just subscribe.
	If you want to subscribe at locals, you can go to FDRURL.com slash locals or subscriberswor.com slash freedom.
	All right.
	So uh this will be just for subscribers and supporters on locals and on X, and it's interesting.
	I've really been just grinding this through my brain gears, mulling it over, and I would really like to hear what you think, because it's been it's been a pretty wild journey.
	And I thought it sort of stabilized my relationship with Christianity, but apparently not.
	Apparently that is not the case.
	And of course, if you have comments, I'd love to hear what uh what your thoughts are about this kind of stuff, and you can type them in the chat if you don't want to talk, and of course, if you do want to talk, then you can just uh raise your hand and I will get uh I will get to it.
	All right.
	Let me just see if I've got questions here.
	Something went wrong.
	Try reloading.
	Excellent, good job.
	Good job, X. Nice to know.
	All right.
	And I will keep my eyes peeled on uh locals as well.
	I haven't got the technology yet to merge locals callers and X callers, but I'm I'm working on it.
	The the giant house of cards of the one-man operation running every conceivable piece of tech and camera and phone known to man uh needs one more variable.
	I will get to it, but I can't do it.
	I can't do it just yet.
	All right.
	So yeah, so Christianity, it's interesting.
	So uh it was before I was deplatformed when I kind of noticed that uh there was a lot of positivity coming around my deplatforming, a lot of help.
	Even before the deplatforming, I realized, of course, that nobody who was deplatforming me was a Christian.
	I cannot think of a single social media payment platform and to deal whatever that deplatformed me, that was uh Christian.
	So because of that, kind of hard to escape fact, uh, I did end up having a more positive view of Christianity, just sort of based on empiricism, if that makes sense.
	So that was a plus as a whole.
	So then uh over COVID, I got to know Christians uh quite well and had a very sort of positive relationship and an enjoyable conversation.
	And of course, when if you were sort of negative towards the vax, then you had a lot of success with Christians relatively.
	I think it was white evangelical Protestants were only thinking only 57% of them took the Vax, whereas over 90, 95% of atheists took the back.
	they were better off in that standpoint.
	And I think they kind of got and understood where some of us were coming from regarding that.
	So then I, you know, sort of put positive stuff in towards uh Christianity and all of that sort of stuff.
	And I'm so sorry, let me just pause for a sec.
	Yeah, hearing and seeing, I don't know why.
	It's so bizarre.
	I don't know why the computer doesn't even pick up that I've got a microphone here.
	But apparently it's working.
	All right.
	So had fairly positive relationships uh with Christians over that.
	And then uh with the X thing recently, it's kind of flipped again.
	And I'd love to hear your thoughts and so on, right?
	So asking a question.
	Why is an unrepentant murderer being forgiven?
	Right?
	That's a that's a big question.
	The question of forgiveness is complex in Christianity.
	And you can find support for a variety of options.
	The way that I was raised was unrepentant uh unrepentant sinners should not be should not be a forgiven.
	And I've promoted this, of course, over the course of what I've done in the public square that you really do need to apologize, make restitution, and take reasonable steps to help ensure that the wrong is not going to occur again.
	That's something I've always sort of talked about.
	And I find this blanket forgiveness is interesting.
	So I thought I would engage in, you know, my usual kind of social experiment.
	And my social experiment went something like this.
	Okay, so if Christians praise the forgiving of an unrepentant murderer, what happens if I question or disagree based on theology?
	In other words, is it worse to half blow a man's head off in front of his wife and children?
	Or is it worse to say, why is he being forgiven if he's not sorry, if he's not repentant?
	Because I'm all about these social experiments, right?
	So I was kind of curious about that.
	From a logical standpoint, and forgive me if I've gone astray on this from a logical standpoint, it would seem to me that it's worse to shoot a man in front of his family and in front of the world, than it is to say, why is he being why is the murderer being forgiven if he's not repented?
	Because the Christians who were contemptuous, attacking, fairly savage, dismissive, uh insulting, and so on.
	They're all people who believe that the murderer should be forgiven.
	So this is where I'm back in knots about Christianity.
	I mean, straight up, I'm I'm my my brain is entirely pretzelled at the moment.
	Because how is it how is it how is it possible?
	How is it possible that Christians who believe a murderer should be forgiven within 10 days of blowing poor Charlie Crook's head off in front of his wife and children, that a murderer should be forgiven, But a man who asks why is he being forgiven cannot be forgiven.
	Thank you.
	I genuinely do not process or follow this.
	I mean, we can chalk it up to, I don't know, lack of self-knowledge, hypocrisy or whatever, but but that's not much of an answer, if you don't mind me saying so.
	I'm sort of I'm straw manning you if you have these questions or not.
	But that's not an answer.
	So it's forgivable to gun a man down, but it's not forgivable to ask why he's being forgiven if he's not repentant.
	More conciliatory feelings are felt towards a murderer than towards someone who asks.
	I mean, I'm literally asking a question.
	Why is he being forgiven if he's not if he's not repentant?
	So the Christian response to me, And again, I'm happy to have this corrected in every which way, including Sunday.
	To me, the response to that question would be, you know, that's a really great question.
	Uh I get that it's a tricky thing to understand.
	I know that there's scripture that you can interpret, but you know, here's, you know, that would be a sort of loving and positive response.
	Or at least not a weird hostile response.
	So then the question for me is, okay, so if I'm asking why is a murderer forgiven when he's not repentant.
	And I get in return, almost universally, I mean, maybe there was one or two exceptions, but almost universally, of the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of replies that I got, they were all scornful, contemptuous, aggressive, and insulting or dismissive or something like that.
	There was no Christian love.
	There was no forgiveness.
	There was no love your enemies.
	I mean, basically, a whole bunch of the messages was Christians are commanded to love their enemies, a-hole.
	It's like, I'm not even an enemy.
	I'm a fellow traveler.
	Literally just asking questions.
	I have strong perspectives and opinions on it, but I'm happy to be corrected.
	And it's a weird thing too.
	Maybe it's this is a sectarian thing.
	But it's a weird thing to not ask a question.
	For me.
	It's a weird thing to not ask a question which is something like, why do you believe that?
	Why do you think that?
	What is your Christian tradition?
	Where are you coming from?
	You know, all of that sort of stuff.
	Because I don't believe that I was not raised a Christian.
	I mean, I know that there's some peripheral aspects of particularly American Christianity, where people say, you know, oh, it's kind of doubtful, they're not real Christians.
	That's not the case.
	I mean, Anglicanism, the Protestantism that I was raised in, uh, that that's not some weird sectarian cult like branch of Christianity.
	It's like foundation, like kings have ruled under the Anglican church.
	We have a Archbishop of Canterbury, we have like it's it's not an out there Christian tradition.
	It's one of the core Protestant denominations.
	So you can't say, well, that's just some weird interpretation of Christianity that involves uh waiting for a comet to come by.
	No questions, uh insults, scapegoating, put downs, snarkiness, hostility, and I'm like, hmm.
	Now I am once again being forced to, and I sort of say it's not compulsion, right?
	But as an empiricist, I don't have ideas that go against the evidence.
	And this, over the last day or two, has been quite a lot of evidence.
	So I don't I don't understand.
	I don't understand, and you know, if you're I mean, I have theories about how it could be the case, but those theories are not very flattering, and I don't want to be unfair or unjust in my theorization, my theorizing, my theorizing.
	If Christians believe that you should forgive even without repentance, then why could they not forgive me and love me for asking a question and providing biblical support for my perspective?
	Why would they prefer or treat almost infinitely better a murderer over me?
	Because that's messed up, man.
	I mean, I don't think we have to prove this like some UPB theory, but if you say, well, we will extend forgiveness to a murderer, but not that philosophy guy asking questions, he's unacceptable.
	I mean, that's messed up.
	I don't even know where to go with that.
	Because it would seem to Me that if you are a Christian and you have a powerful relationship with Jesus and a living faith, then you would say, okay, that's somebody who's asking a question.
	I represent my faith.
	I represent the love of Jesus, I represent Christianity and virtue itself.
	Here's somebody who's asking a question.
	And the initial post was just a question.
	So as a representative of Jesus Christianity, my faith and virtue itself, I should follow the commandments of Jesus and love this person, and reason with him and act in a positive and friendly manner, because that's what Jesus commands me to do.
	And it certainly would be nuts to attack this man while publicly praising forgiving an actual murderer.
	That would be crazy.
	That would be deranged.
	And that would drive people away from Jesus and from Christianity and from the faith.
	To be that publicly petty and vengeful and aggressive and nasty and mean, that would drive people away from the faith.
	I mean, I'm aware, whether I do it right or wrong, you know, you, me, my family, history will be the judge.
	But I'm I'm sort of foundationally aware that I represent philosophy every time I'm out there in public.
	I mean, not just online, but even just walking around.
	I represent uh philosophy, and I'm very sort of conscious and aware of that.
	So, you know, it would be almost a week ago when uh Professor John came in and was just sort of haranguing and attacking and belittling and blah, blah, blah.
	I'm like, no, again, well, A, I have to obviously keep my calm, I have to keep my cool, and I also can't just roll over.
	So I have to be assertive without being goaded, right?
	Without being provoked into just outright hostility.
	You don't find me insulting anyone in social media who hasn't directly insulted me first.
	So I I'm just kind of aware of that kind of stuff, and I take that responsibility very seriously, because of course, you particularly as subscribers have invested into this platform, have invested into me into what it is that I do, and I'm aware that I'm representing you as well as um philosophy as a whole.
	and of course myself, but I'm genuinely the least important variable in the equation.
	Now, I and I'll stop in a second, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.
	I I fully accept and understand, of course, that this is not a representative uh representative sample of it.
	But it is not a small sample.
	I have 425,000 followers on X. Now, I get some of them robots, some of them are inactive, some of them haven't read me for years.
	I get all of that.
	But I can also see by the number of people who've read it in the hundreds of thousands, or sometimes more, and the I've had like an eight and a half million or eight point two million view tweet.
	Uh that that's when I was annoying the atheists, now I'm annoying the Christians.
	I'm really an equal opportunity annoyer, and that's the business plan.
	So when you have hundreds of thousands of people reading, and you have thousands of replies, that's not a small sample.
	And you can say, ah, yes, well, maybe, but only the most hostile people are replying.
	Now, I don't know why that would be the case.
	I don't know why there would be some filter uh out there in the world that says, well, only if you're petty and hostile can you reply to Steph's thread on forgiveness.
	So I don't think that's particularly strong.
	But even if we were to accept, even if we were to say, uh, yes, it's it's only the most hostile who are responding to uh Steph, right?
	Even if we were to say that, well, There are still a large number of other people, right?
	There are a large number of other people who are reading this and who could absolutely reply.
	Right?
	That's certainly possible.
	And they could reply, and they could say, you know, that's kind of hostile, or that seems kind of aggressive, or that's kind of bad, or that's kind of wrong, or something like that, right?
	There would be something wherein people would say you are not living Christian values because you are attacking someone who is a clear thinker and a friend to Christianity, and a fellow traveler, you are attacking someone who is uh doing all of these uh wonderful things.
	And that is not the way that you want to play things in the world, right?
	That's not the way you want to play things in the world.
	Uh sorry, if things just got a little bit louder, I just had to adjust the setting there, but I don't know what happened there, it all went quiet.
	Now it's it's up.
	So sorry if you had to change your volume.
	So that is confusing because it's hundreds of thousands of readers and it's thousands and thousands of replies.
	Thank you.
	So that is odd.
	Thank you.
	Bushko, I appreciate the donation.
	And of course, if you want to support the show, free domain.com/slash donate, it's very gratefully appreciated.
	Very gratefully appreciated.
	So it's not a small sample group, and even if we were to say, which I don't think would be valid, even if we were to say that it is only the hostile who reply, there are lots of other people who should step in and intervene.
	Like if somebody said, I'm a fan of Stefan Molyneux, and I was sort of following a thread, and they were getting just, you know, petty bitchy and hostile for no particular reason, I would step in and say, you're kind of not doing what I suggest.
	You know, you should be curious, you should be open and treat people the best you can, otherwise, you know, after that treat them as they treat treat you, and this other person has been pretty civil and respectful.
	So if you're a fan of mine, uh you should not behave in this kind of petty and immature and aggressive fashion.
	I would certainly step in.
	If so, and if it even if it had nothing to do with me, if if somebody said, I'm a big fan of philosophy, and then they started doing ad homonyms on someone, I would step in and say, it's not philosophical to just do ad homonyms on people that just attack their character.
	If somebody was either a fan of mine or claimed to be a fan of philosophy as a whole, and they demanded evidence, and then evidence was supplied, and then they ignore that evidence.
	I would say, hold on, you asked for evidence, now you're ignoring the evidence.
	So that's not a reasonable thing to do.
	And I did provide significant argumentation and biblical support and links to articles and screenshots to support my position.
	It didn't seem to matter.
	Much.
	I'm not saying it didn't matter at all, but it didn't matter much.
	And I get that theology is a little bit of a subjective discipline, and there are interpretations.
	I I get all of that.
	But I think it's worth having a civil discourse about these things.
	I think it's, you know, or or other people who were like, you know, there was tons of people like, bro, this is just basic Christianity.
	How can you not know this?
	And it's like do you know how many denominations of Christianity there are, all of whom believe different things?
	I mean, even the Pope changes his mind from time to time.
	So don't tell me it's basic 101, blah, blah, blah, right?
	So I'm I'm legit confused at this point.
	Like what the hell is going on in Christianity in America.
	And it wasn't just Americans who were Responding, but the Charlie Kirk thing was, of course, an American phenomenon to a large degree.
	So I guess.
	If you all can help me out, I'll give you my two minute theory and then you can tell me.
	So I think that Christianity in America for decades has focused on forgiveness without repentance.
	And I think what's happened is because American religion, Christianity, has focused on forgiveness without repentance, a lot of people with bad consciences have been drawn towards Christianity.
	And because there is forgiveness without repentance, they haven't had to repent, they haven't had to improve, they haven't had to make their lives better, they haven't had to make restitution, they haven't had to do any of that stuff.
	Because the American often evangelical, but in general, the American Christian movement, and I would exclude the Catholics to a large degree from this, but the American Protestant or non Catholic Christian movement has uh dangled all of this get out of jail free card stuff and has dangled all of this forgiveness without repentance.
	And so people with bad with a bad conscience have gone into that religion and have been denied the opportunity to improve because they have received this forgiveness without repentance, the requirement for repentance.
	And it's like, you know, I was sick when I had a cancer, if the doctors had said, Well, we can cure you, or we can cure you without chemo and radiation, or we can cure you with chemo and radiation.
	I would have been like, what?
	Sorry, you can cure me without chemo and radiation, just a sugar pill, let's just say, right?
	We can give you a sugar pill and you'll be cured, or you can go through rounds of chemo and radiation.
	I'd be like, why would that other one even be an option?
	Of course I want to get cured without chemo and radiation.
	If there's a sugar pill, I can one sugar pill, Bob's your uncle, done and dusted, sorted, I'm better.
	So why?
	I mean, honestly, like you take your car in, because it won't start.
	And the mechanic says, okay, we got we got we got two choices here.
	Two choices.
	Number one, I can just reattach this wire, it doesn't cost you anything, or number two, I can disassemble and reassemble the whole car is going to cost you $15,000.
	But hang on.
	If it's free, then charging for it would be kind of a ripoff.
	It would be kind of dishonest, right?
	So if you can get forgiveness without acknowledging your wrong, without apologizing, without making restitution, without working to go forth and sin no more as Jesus commands.
	So if you can get the benefit of virtue without the requirement of virtue, well, you'll take that.
	But the problem is you don't solve having a bad conscience without acknowledging your wrong and working to improve.
	Now, I get that there are some people, after they're forgiven, they work to do those things.
	I I get that.
	I understand that.
	Because the argument is, well, you just forgive people and then they become better over time in general because they've been forgiven.
	I'm sure that happens, but not much.
	Not much, because people respond to incentives.
	It's sort of like saying, well, I'll pay you for a difficult and unpleasant job, but you don't have to do it.
	I mean, imagine if somebody has like the grossest job I ever had, well, outside of once having to move an entire outhouse, dig it, dig a uh fill in the old one and dig out the new one.
	The the worst job that I ever had for far as that goes was, and I only spent one night there was as a dishwasher.
	It was absolutely vile.
	A plongeur, as George Orwell would say in Down and Out in Paris and London.
	So it was vile, uh, bits of food, steam, heat, uh gross, Oily, slimy water everywhere, like it was just hideous.
	And I was like, man, I'd I'd rather be homeless than work this job, so I quit after one day.
	I never even went to get my paycheck.
	So if somebody were to say to me, I'll pay you for being a dishwasher, but you don't have to show up to work.
	Now, there will be a few people who will take the money and still go and show up to work, but most people won't.
	Like 99% of people, 95%, whatever, they won't do it because and we know that from the welfare state, right?
	People technically aren't barred from volunteering and doing a lot of work and this and that.
	I mean, I'd say wouldn't work under the table or anything like that, but people could go and spend eight hours a day doing difficult and unpleasant labor if they're on welfare.
	But they don't.
	So my general theory, and again, I'll stop in a second get your thoughts.
	My general theory is that Christianity, because of its blanket forgiveness without requiring repentance or restitution, has attracted a lot of people who have numbed their bad conscience with this endless trip-trip novicane of forgiveness, and then when I come and say, well, no, you gotta earn it.
	I mean, basically it's like saying to people on welfare, you have to get a job, they get mad.
	Saying you have to earn it, that upsets the people who have gone into this ultimate socialist welfare state of forgiveness.
	And that's why there was such a blanket hostility, and why the other Christians, you know, we're we're defined by our customers to a large degree, right?
	I'm sorry to use such crass economic terms when it comes to religion, but religion has to pay its bills like everything else.
	So we're kind of defined by our customers.
	So why didn't more Christians not come along and say, that's not Christ like that, that's not Christian, that's not good, that's not right, what you're doing, to the people who were being snarky with me for asking a legitimate theological question.
	Although I wasn't just asking a question because I wasn't like, I don't know anything.
	Why don't you tell me?
	I have I'm hey, why are these people being forgiven?
	They haven't even repented.
	That's a f that's a fair I wasn't just asking a question like I didn't have a a stake in the matter.
	I do have a stake in the matter, which is my public advocacy of apologies, restitution, and uh recompense uh for 20 years, so I have a stake in the ground, but I still was asking a question.
	I wasn't saying, right?
	Now, then later on I did say it's sin.
	It's a sin to give people forgiveness without rest without requiring.
	So I did move from asking a question to a definitive statement later.
	But most people saw the question.
	So you're kind of defined by your audience.
	So if, as a religion, you have handed out this forgiveness stuff, then you have attractive people who don't want to earn forgiveness.
	So then if somebody says, no, no, no, you have to earn forgiveness, then I think the concern on the part of uh religious people is, well, if we start demanding that people actually earn forgiveness, people are gonna leave and the church will collapse, and we won't have a congregation and everyone's gonna be gone.
	So I think it's not just the people with a bad conscience, it could also be just people who are like, look, this is our customer basis, people who want forgiveness without repentance.
	So if we start demanding repentance, we start demanding that forgiveness be earned, they'll leave.
	They're only here for a particular kind of drug, which is unearned forgiveness.
	And if we start asking them to earn it, they're gone, baby.
	They're gone.
	It's like a restaurant saying, our business model is free food.
	If we start charging a hundred bucks a plate, we're out of business.
	So I I think it's something like that.
	I don't know.
	I'm certainly open to any and all other thoughts and suggestions, but like even privately, even if people don't want to get into it, I think I got one message over the last couple of days of somebody saying, ah, not particularly Christian, that wasn't great, that wasn't ideal.
	So again, I'm I'd love to hear your thoughts.
	Uh let me just go to the questions and uh comments.
	Uh, because it's weird to me, it's like so if if if the eternal threat of damnation is not enough to make people nice when they're commanded to be nice.
	Well, this is this is why I go to the childhood stuff.
	Because if I was a moralist and I looked at this and I said, holy crap, this is wild, man.
	So even the threat of eternal damnation and the promise of eternal salvation is not enough to have people be nice and to follow the commandments called, just be nice, love your enemies, even though I'm not an enemy, that kind of stuff, right?
	So I would be in complete despair and I would be an absolute nihilist.
	Like without the childhood stuff, because I'd say, well, look, UPB cannot offer you eternal bliss or threaten you with eternal hellfire.
	And so if even the people who are promised eternal bliss and threatened with eternal hellfire and promised to be reunited with their loved ones after death and live forever, like I can't offer anything like that.
	I can offer you 12 hours on the French revolution.
	I cannot offer you eternal life.
	I really can't.
	I've worked on it, but so far, so far, I've just kept an egg out of the fridge for one extra day.
	But you know, we'll keep we'll keep plugging on it.
	So without the childhood stuff and the peaceful parenting stuff, I'd just tell you straight up, I'd be a straight-up nihilist.
	I'd be a straight-up nihilist.
	Because it's like even eternal hellfire and eternal life and eternal bliss and reuniting with loved ones is not enough to have people not be a-holes when the most foundational commandment is don't be an a-hole.
	I just I'd be done.
	I'd be like, you know, uh to hell with humanity.
	Uh none of it's gonna work.
	Uh people are beasts in human form.
	We're bald apes.
	People just use ethics to manipulate, they don't do anything real with it.
	And so anyway, this is why the peaceful parenting and all of that stuff is kind of important to me because without it, I'd look at the evidence in the world and I would say uh very clearly and with every shred or piece of evidence that human beings will never ever be good.
	All right, so let me just get to your questions.
	If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat.
	If he is thirsty, give him water to drink.
	In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.
	Fantastic.
	Fantastic.
	Okay, so let's say, because you don't insult your friends, right?
	So let's say that a number of the Christians viewed me as an enemy.
	Uh a godless secular atheist who is trying to get people to set up Shrek hunting lynch mobs or something like that, right?
	So you should heap extra goodness on people you think are bad.
	Did any of that happen on X?
	Nope.
	Not a thing.
	Not a thing.
	Sigh.
	sigh
	Chris says your theory makes sense to me, which means Christian groups who welcome unrepentant sinners are also welcoming the devil into their body as the virus of unaccounted sin.
	So offering people relief from moral suffering is foundational to the modern world.
	I mean, what are SSRIs?
	But offering people biochemical relief from what is often, though not always, what is often moral suffering.
	People who've done wrong, people who have corrupt people in their lives, people who are uh liars and cheaters and uh who support uh evil and and so on, right?
	Uh political violence, very common.
	So this idea that you don't have to morally improve yourself, you just have to take a pill.
	You just have to, you know, dip your head in a bathtub and be born again.
	You just have to be uh forgiven.
	You just have to find Jesus, and you don't like whatever it's going to be, take a pill, take a pill.
	Be born again, take a pill, and you're fine.
	Uh it's not good.
	It's not good.
	So, all right, let me um uh see if there's anybody who wants to get things sorted out with me.
	Uh I'm going to uh bring our good friend James onto the mix.
	What's up, Jimmy?
	Hey, hey.
	So um.
	When you said uh the thing about the bad conscience earlier, um I know where you're talking, but we talked about this yesterday, but absolutely just clicked for me that I actually have had direct experience with this in my life with um my own my own father.
	Um because his whole thing was he became born again and he had done some pretty bad things and he didn't become a better person.
	Well, and in fact, if you were to demand, and I'm sorry to hear that, of course, but if if you were to demand of your father and say, you actually have to be a better person, or you're still responsible for the bad things you did in the past, what would he say?
	Oh, um.
	Sorry, I'm having I'm having a bit of a moment because uh I wouldn't have been that bold as a kid, but let me let me just sort of Oh no, me neither.
	I'm just like a theoretical here.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Uh he would he would dodge, you would evade, he'd be like.
	Oh gosh.
	Um he would attack.
	No, he'd be like, bro, I've been born again.
	You cannot bring up past sins.
	They've been washed away.
	Yes.
	By Jesus.
	They're gone.
	It would be like if you get a letter from the credit card company, let's say you owe $10,000 and they say an anonymous donor has wiped off your debt.
	You now owe zero.
	Right?
	And then next month, if you get a letter from the credit card company, let's say you haven't spent a penny on your credit card, right?
	Wiped out.
	Your debt is wiped out.
	And then the credit card company says, hang on, you're still responsible for that $10,000, what would you do?
	You'd call up the credit card company and say, no, no, no, no.
	You can't charge me for the $10,000.
	I got a letter right here in my hand that says I owe nothing.
	Here's here's here's what here's what he w would have said something along these lines.
	God has forgiven me, why can't give.
	Right.
	Now, if God's forgiveness would require that he gain your forgiveness, that he make restitution and apologies to you and work to be better, take anger management, all the stuff that you would need to do to become a better person.
	If God's forgiveness was dependent upon your forgiveness, then you would have reasonable leverage.
	However, if you can just go and get God's forgiveness, then you don't need to make restitution or be a better person in your relationships.
	And this is why I think it's actually quite sinister in many ways.
	Yes, yes.
	And uh the there's a bunch of a bunch of these things just clicking in my mind as as after you mentioned that.
	And one of them was that there was this expression that they use sort of like to to describe um various aspects of the uh uh of the doctrine and saying justified and like giving giving like a little sort of kitschy thing.
	So justified means just as if I've never sinned.
	Born-again virgin.
	Born-again virgin, yeah.
	It's as if I've never sinned.
	Right.
	So all prior sins are washed away and removed, and woe betide anyone who brings up your past wrongs.
	I think this is particularly attractive for people who've been vicious parents.
	Oh, yeah.
	Well, I'm uh data point of one here, but yes.
	Yeah, because if your kids come to you and say you did wrong or bad things as a parent, they can say, it's all washed away.
	It's all gone.
	I have got magic shower of destaining my soul.
	It's all gone.
	And that's very tempting.
	That's very whereas if if the priest says, hey, if you want to be forgiven by God, you have to first be forgiven by your children.
	Because we don't have the right to bypass that process.
	We do not have the right as priests, as religious people, we do not have the right to offer you forgiveness for the wrongs you've done to others.
	It is up to you to get their forgiveness.
	We cannot bypass that.
	We cannot substitute our forgiveness because you haven't wronged us, to the forgiveness you need to get from your children.
	And if it turns out that you just can't get that forgiveness for whatever reason.
	And I mean, you've talked about this before, I'm not going to go into detail now, but I can imagine, you know, even even now, after so many years, if they were to come to me with some sort of thing, I actually experienced like, okay, like an opening of my heart towards them.
	Um but like in the case of like a murder, right?
	Uh sorry, I was gonna say if there's no possibility for like forgiveness, then you kind of have to carry that with you, and I don't know what that means for your salvation.
	Oh, you mean uh for the wrongdoer, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Okay, and And I don't know the answer to this, and I mull this over.
	So I've said in the past, if restitution is impossible, then the relationship really can't be solved.
	Like if somebody cuts off your arm, you can't regrow your arm, right?
	So but I wonder, and I I've been thinking about this, of course, my mother is very old, and probably, of course, is not long for this world.
	My father is dead.
	And I wonder, though, if my mother were to uh knock on my door, come in and say, you know, I've gone to therapy and I really thought about this, and yes, you were treated really badly uh as a kid.
	I treated you really badly as a kid, and you didn't deserve that, and it was I think it would be nice for me.
	I think it would be positive.
	Like, I mean, I'm pushing I'm I'm 59, like tomorrow.
	So it's not like this is gonna do me much good in my teen.
	It's 40 years ago I was a teenager, right?
	But but it would be nice.
	It would be it would if my father had called me before he died and said, Yeah, I've really been thinking about this, you know, your criticisms that I did abandon you to a violent woman whose company I couldn't stand and left you as a baby, a baby.
	I was like months old when my parents separated, I think.
	It would have it would have been nice to get that kind of acknowledgement.
	So in to me, the withholding of at least asking for forgiveness or at least taking responsibility, the withholding of that is a continuation of the abuse.
	I really I really I really feel that, which again, it's not not an argument.
	But I really feel like if words could give comfort to someone you've wronged and you withhold those words of comfort, you are continuing to harm them.
	And so you know, if my mom was like you know, if my father if they'd called me up and or or come over and and we'd had that conversation and I'd got to ask all questions, and they had really unpacked their own childhoods, what led them that way, like a call-in show with my parents, right?
	Sure, then uh that would have given me significant uh comfort and help and aid in my life.
	And my life is great, but you know, it would be nice.
	It would be nice.
	So you can do good things for people even if you can't undo the wrongs that you've done, you can still give them comfort.
	And the fact that my father died without ever taking responsibility for what he did uh as a father to me.
	I might say it's a dick move because that's but but it means that he still didn't get it.
	He still didn't understand it.
	And he still didn't and he was a Christian uh for the last I think 15, maybe 20 years of his life.
	And he uh had had lots of time to he was on a rowing team and did lots of like fun stuff like that.
	So he had all the time of the world for that, especially after he retired, but he didn't have any time to call me up and say, listen, I really need you to tell me what happened uh to you as a kid because I was your father, I was responsible.
	Like he didn't have any time for that.
	Now that to me is also it's it's still the withholding of a positive, even if he can't make restitution, he can't make me whole, he can help.
	Uh-huh.
	And so I'm sorry for that long speech, but but with your dad, if he called you up and said, you know, James, I've really been thinking about your childhood, and I really did you a lot of wrong.
	I I really I didn't listen.
	I was aggressive, I was I yelled, I I hit, and I've never taken any responsibility, and I've waited way too long to say this and tell me what you think, tell me what you feel, here's what I did wrong, here's why I think I might have done it, which is not an excuse, but let's look at some cause.
	Like if he did I've been in therapy for six months, and like if he did something like that.
	I don't want to I don't want to lead the question, but could that be a positive in your life?
	No, I've I've definitely thought about this before, and yeah, that would certainly be a positive thing.
	Um I don't I I can't guarantee anything about whether we've had a relationship at all.
	But you know, I would it would certainly be a positive thing to uh hear that experience that and and to and to be able to converse and ask and you know like get get an understanding of him beyond the shell, the face, the mask that I that interacted with all the time.
	If that makes sense.
	But the unreal, you know.
	It's not not like a real person.
	He's not genuine, he's not honest.
	He's just sort of all these aggressive.
	Snarling mask.
	Lying and everything else and you know, of course, abuse.
	Right.
	Yeah.
	And I think that if someone did something like that.
	You know, one of the reasons that I focus sorry, this is kind of personal, but I shouldn't say apologize for it.
	This is kind of personal.
	But one of the reasons I focus so much on principles is that nobody's apologized to me.
	Right.
	So if if let's say people who were older than me in the past, if they had come to me and said we did wrong, it was bad, it was mean, it was negative, it was this, it was that.
	Then I could relax in the knowledge that crimes had been confessed to.
	Because when people don't confess crimes, you have to really lead on principles.
	Now leaning on principle is a good thing, and I think it's done me a lot of good in my life.
	But it sure would be nice.
	You know, you don't have to keep up the manhunt if the criminal surrenders and confesses.
	You can then release those energies towards something else.
	And the fact that people have not done that has had a significant effect on my dedication to principles, because I don't want to be unjust.
	I want to be fair, I want to be right.
	Now, if somebody confesses and says, I did you wrong, I was bad, then it then the morals have been established.
	But if they don't do that, then you have to really in order to not be unjust, you have to really, really lean on abstract principles.
	So it would also help viscerally expose the crimes that you have to theorize about.
	If if there's a confession, then you don't need to keep hunting if that makes sense.
	Uh-huh.
	All right.
	So and the sorry, but just people have have great uh comments.
	Um your theory makes sense to me.
	Oh, yes, sorry.
	Uh I have Protestant Catholic and Orthodox people in my family of origin, they all pushed forgive and forget, or forgiveness is more for you than them on me as I was exiting that immoral hellscape.
	Uh Graham says, it's wild.
	We get the Protestant Reformation because of the sale of forgiveness, and now they're giving giving it away for free.
	It's kind of true.
	That's kind of true.
	All right.
	Sorry, James, is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
	Uh no, I don't think so.
	Um I just wanted to if you you can take a look at the uh the the DMs and uh Discord real quick.
	Uh yes, yes.
	Oh, uh people had comments there that I didn't see, right?
	No, it was something else.
	Just something else.
	Okay.
	didn't take note of.
	Oh, you Oh, you don't think the space is X subscribe for suddenly.
	Maybe I forgot to click that.
	Oh, well, this is the kind of stuff we talk about on ex-subscribers.
	I'm not gonna try and change it now.
	I must have forgotten that.
	Well, thanks.
	I appreciate that.
	I'm really sorry.
	I want also wanted to get that out there in just in case anyone else comes on.
	Because I felt comfortable and uh so far I didn't hear anything you said that wouldn't be hard.
	I mean, I but I'm a little more frank of the private spaces, but no biggie.
	Okay.
	Uh thank you for the birthday wishes, Cyril.
	I appreciate that.
	He's in Australia, so it's forgiven that he's uh in a whole different different time zone.
	All right.
	Uh all right, so um welcome to everyone.
	Operation Freedom, if you wanted to unmute, I'm happy to hear what y'all have to say.
	Thank you.
	Going once, going twice.
	All right.
	Apparently not.
	Um honest A-hole.
	Sure.
	Let's uh let's bring you on board.
	If you want to unmute what's on your mind.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	Going once, going twice.
	Oh, uh sorry.
	Hey, hey, hey, oh, oh no.
	No, I got thank God.
	Oh, thank you so much.
	I didn't think I was gonna get a chance to speak.
	This is amazing.
	Thank you so much.
	So um my my thing is I don't think this is really how Christianity was supposed to work.
	I don't know why people would be telling you that you can get forgiveness without repentance.
	Uh John the Baptist said repent and be baptized.
	You know, in the Bible it says, confess your sins one to another.
	It says, when you wronged a brother, go and ask him for forgiveness.
	It's just so many things.
	You're you're you're the forgiveness that you get from God is so that you can be in relationship with him.
	And it covers over your sin, but it doesn't get rid of it.
	Well, but God himself requires that you repent.
	Jesus, upon saving the uh adulteress who's about to be stoned to death, said, go forth and sin no more.
	Exactly.
	So I just I don't understand why people would be pushing this as a narrative.
	It makes no sense to anyone who's actually read the Bible.
	Well, no, but but but so I get where you're coming from.
	I don't want to scorn the other side because they have some vague support for what it is that they're talking about, and they have a whole theory about how forgiveness then generates grace and all of that.
	So I I don't want to call them idiots or they haven't read the Bible and so on, because I don't want to scorn even when I'm scorned, I want to sort of be quote bigger than the the other side, but uh but the fact that that they think it's a done deal is surprising.
	Uh that that's not what the Bible says at at all.
	And and if you even if you look into other religions, it's it's it's it's that's not how the universe works.
	My my favorite religion other than Christianity is Buddhism.
	I don't know if you're familiar, but they have this thing um where you come to this point where you desire to stop desiring, and you require grace from the universe in order to move past it.
	My the thing that drew me to Christianity was that they had the grace.
	But that doesn't mean that it's the only part of the journey.
	Right, right, it's the thing that allows you to transcend.
	Right, right.
	And is there anything else you wanted to mention?
	Uh no, no, I just uh I I find it uh insane that people are pushing this in in any, you know, fast of the cruise.
	So you gotta think about it.
	Well, do you have a theory as to why people would be so hostile for me bringing up the idea that you should earn your forgiveness?
	They're absolutely uh well, here is the thing that I think is interesting and where the confusion comes in.
	You it's not burned in the sense that you can do anything that is good enough to get the forgiveness.
	It is a gift in the sense that no matter what you do, it will still be, as the Bible says, as filthy rags compared to anything that you can put it up against as far as God's actions go.
	But he gives the forgiveness anyway, that is the grace portion, even though you don't deserve it, because he sees that you're trying.
	You are acknowledging your sin, accepting Christ's, you know, salvation, and working towards a relationship with him.
	But you have to acknowledge your fault and you have to work to make some kind of restitution, and you have to me a third party apologizing on your behalf is like a third party incurring a debt on your behalf.
	And to me, like, let's say that uh Bob is married to Alice, and Bob uh goes and cheats on Alice with some rub and tug prostitute, and then he brings home her peace.
	Right?
	And and he infects his wife with that, right?
	Yes, and and then she's really angry at him.
	She says, You cheated on me, you infected me with a lifelong disease.
	How dare you, blah, blah, blah.
	And he says, no, no, no, no.
	Because you can't get mad at me because I stopped at the church on the way home, and I've been forgiven.
	Now, can the priest can the priest forgive Bob on behalf of Alice?
	No.
	It's Alice's job to forgive him, and it's his job to earn her forgiveness if he can.
	But it's not the priest can't just shoulder in and say, I've forgiven you.
	Alice is meaningless in the equation.
	Uh here here's uh Here's where I would kind of put that scenario, right?
	Bob cannot just go to his priest.
	Bob has to go to Alice and ask for forgiveness.
	And if Alice does not forgive Bob, Bob can go to his priest, confess his sins, repent, and then God can forgive Bob.
	Now, what if Bob goes home and Alice finds out that he cheated on her and gave her an permanent STD, and he denies and lies and claims he's innocent and falsifies and gaslights her and won't take any accountability, should she forgive him.
	Well, no.
	But that's what is being suggested.
	And neither should the priest either, because now he's compounding the sin.
	He is now living in that sin.
	That's what there's a few verses that talk about living in sin.
	When you deny your sin, you are it.
	You become the sin.
	You are now living in it.
	It is part of your essence, goodness who you are.
	Yeah.
	And when that happens, the Bible even says that at a certain point God will abandon you to a derelict mind.
	Right.
	I I think there is a path.
	I was certainly taught that there is a certain amount of sin that you cannot recover from.
	It's not necessarily a certain amount.
	It is a certain mindset.
	set.
	That cannot be recovered from.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, and there is a point beyond which, like, you know, if you smoke too many cigarettes, man, you're gonna get sick for sure.
	And so I am uh always so concerned when people say there's infinite possibilities of redemption.
	All right.
	Corey.
	You wear your sunglasses at night.
	What's on your mind?
	Don't forget to unmute.
	Unmute.
	Going once.
	Going twice.
	I then.
	Yes, go ahead.
	Hey, I am honestly willing to ask where you're coming from.
	Uh where's your heart?
	I don't I don't follow the question, sorry.
	Oh, sure.
	Uh the one thing I wanted to ask you was about Galatians.
	And kind of see where you stand.
	Um Galatians 5-4.
	You who are trying to be justified by the law are alienated from Christ.
	You have fallen from his great You have fallen from his great I'm curious what that brings up in you.
	Galatians 5-4 states that if you're trying to be justified by the law, you have been severed from Christ and have fallen away from grace.
	This emphasizes the importance of faith of adherence to the law for salvation.
	Yeah, I mean, this is a very uh ancient challenge in Christianity, which is if you model the life of a saint, but you don't believe in God, are you saved?
	So if you follow the rules, you follow the Ten Commandments, you go to church, but you don't believe, uh are you saved by faith, or are you saved by works?
	Now, ideally it should be both, but I think for most of Christianity, or for most Christians, the works alone are not enough, and you also need to have accepted Jesus into your heart and believe uh with all your heart in the values and virtues and divinity of Jesus.
	And uh that that's my understanding of the Christian approach.
	If it's something different in your understanding, you can certainly let me know.
	Well, I'm curious to kind of see what you propose, and I think you kind of gave that.
	Um I think that's one of the things, though, that you're pressing, and it seems like a lot of I I didn't hear from the beginning, but it really feels like a lot of what you're bringing up is Erica.
	Um her tribute to Charlie Kirk and being willing to forgive the killer.
	Okay.
	Do you have a question or comment?
	Well, no, I'm just curious, is that is that where this is coming from?
	I mean, it's been a long standing issue, I think, you know, with all massive deep and and humble sympathies to Erica who's going through uh more than her mortal share of suffering.
	But yeah, the idea that you can forgive someone who has denied that they've even sinned, right?
	Again, I I'm not sure, of course, we have the whole legal process to go through, but from what I understand, the accused shooter has pled not guilty.
	And even if he were to say, yes, I shot Charlie, he would say, here's why it's a good thing because X, Y, and Z. So he has not even accepted that he has a sinned.
	I'm a huge fan of Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment, where it takes like eight hundred pages for the murderer to say, you know what, I did something wrong?
	Uh and to sort of get out of the the abstract uh nihilistic philosophy that that allowed him to justify the murder of the pornbroker.
	So the idea that you can forgive someone without requiring any acknowledgement of the sin on their part is not comprehensible to me, and even after debating with Christians for a couple of days, it remains not comprehensible to me.
	Really?
	So just uh honest forgiveness and willingness to let it go?
	What do you mean by let it go?
	What does that mean?
	Just there's not a great way to put it.
	It's well then you can't expect me to understand it.
	That is a very good point.
	Yeah.
	Um but why not?
	I mean, all this pain, all this hurt you can go through.
	The more you're talking about.
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	Would you would you s let me ask you this?
	Would you say that the cr uh uh a significant number of Christians insist upon forgiveness without requiring restitution, but that has it that has grown uh over time.
	And would you say that the moral excellence of say America is better or worse than it was, say, fifty years ago?
	That's a great question.
	Um I think that the institution that we built upon.
	No, no, no.
	I I'm asking you a question.
	You don't have to answer it, but please don't ignore it.
	Sure.
	Would you say that the moral dedication and moral excellence of America is better in 1960 or 2025?
	Uh I see what you're getting at.
	I'm just asking a question.
	Do you think it's better or worse?
	So you think that America is a more moral nation now than it was, say, in nineteen sixty in terms of its dedication to Christian virtues?
	Only because of what this reaction has been going through with Charlie Kirk.
	Yeah, but you're wrong, though, because there are fewer Christians now than there were in 1960.
	So by definition, uh it can't be as Christian a nation and dedicated to Christian values if Christian if the Christian population has declined significantly.
	I don't think many people are willing to claim themselves as Christian.
	Whatever you however you want to put it, the number is down.
	Correct.
	But I think there's a revival happening.
	So even if there's a revival, maybe there's sorry, maybe there's a slight bump up from a long term decline.
	Yeah.
	And I I kind of think that's what we're seeing right now.
	Okay.
	Uh, what do you have to say about that?
	Well I would say that as Christianity has significantly declined over the last uh fifty uh sixty years.
	To now to the point where only six uh the recent study, only sixty-two percent of Americans identify as Christian.
	Twenty-nine percent are religiously unaffiliated, and seven percent are other religions, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on.
	The share of Christians is down by nine percentage points.
	Yeah.
	From in in only ten years.
	That's catastrophic.
	Yeah.
	And this is at a time when requiring no standards.
	There's no standards for forgiveness, there's a decline.
	And I can tell you why, because generally it's repulsive to men.
	Um to some women too, but if I had to broadly categorize it, it is repulsive to men that you just wave away whatever wrong someone has done without requiring that they lift one little finger to even admit their fault.
	Doesn't that bring in some sort of hate, though?
	Like you don't get over something.
	You bring up men, which is where I'm kind of heading towards.
	I want to create a podcast geared towards men's mental health.
	Um The fact that men are very injured.
	If that makes sense.
	Um, if you want to do a podcast, you can't talk like that.
	I mean, you're gonna have to just speed up the amount of information you're getting across in a particular time slice.
	So uh so your question is if we require that people take ownership of the wrongs that they've done, that they admit fault, if we require that people acknowledge their sins that that generates hatred.
	Yes.
	Why?
	Why is taking responsibility or why is saying you have to admit that you did wrong in order to be forgiven?
	Why does that generate hatred?
	Think about your older brother or your younger brother.
	It probably didn't come across as hatred.
	Well, what are you talking about?
	Are you hive?
	What's going on?
	I don't understand.
	Give me an argument here.
	I'm I'm trying to say like your older brother can do something mean.
	Yeah.
	But it's not a good thing.
	Wait, are you talking when your children I'm not talking?
	I'm not hanging on, hang on.
	I'm talking about children.
	We're talking about adults here.
	The guy who shot Charlie Kirk was not a child, so let's talk about adults.
	He was So let's say let's say that someone gets angry at your dog's barking and shoots him.
	Right.
	Okay.
	And let's say that you you live on a farm and you need a dog and you're a long way away, but he's just very sensitive to noise.
	He comes and shoots your dog.
	Doesn't talk to you to shoot your doc, right?
	Sure.
	Has that person done wrong?
	Uh I see where you're going, but No, no.
	Just answer the question.
	Don't try and analyze the thing.
	Depends on the reason I get it.
	Yes.
	Okay, the per thank you.
	I don't know why this is so kind for people.
	So that person has done wrong.
	Yes.
	Now, do you forgive that person while standing over the smoking headless body of your dog?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Why?
	Because it I have nothing to hold against them anymore.
	Your dog is dead.
	Yeah.
	You have something to hold against him.
	He killed your dog.
	Sure.
	I can't.
	I'm not saying you go fool John Wick, but that's something, isn't it?
	Well, I can hold him again.
	Like I can I can do that as long as I want, but I don't want to.
	Sorry, do what?
	As long as you want.
	Hold it against him.
	Okay, so he did evil, he did wrong, he shot your dog.
	Yes.
	What do you mean hold it against him?
	It's just a judgment.
	He did wrong.
	He shot your dog.
	Sure.
	Okay.
	So how do you erase that wrong?
	Because of John 316.
	Go on.
	I God gave his only begotten son for all of us.
	That doesn't that doesn't mean anything.
	I'm not saying it doesn't mean anything theologically.
	I'm not saying it doesn't mean anything to Christianity.
	But how does Jesus dying on the cross mean that you can't call someone immoral for shooting your dog and not just immediately erase it with this magical forgiveness wand?
	Is imagine what it would be like to be a god or the god and give your only son to die in front of everyone.
	Okay, so no we can't have any laws, and we can't have any punishment, and we can't have any courts or jails or police because Jesus was crucified.
	No.
	Yeah, I see what you're saying.
	Um, it's more forgiveness, um.
	That's a tough question.
	I don't I don't think so, but you do, and that's totally fine.
	Maybe I'm missing something.
	I think it's more let me ask you this.
	You've got kids, you've got animals, you've got other dogs, cats, rabbits, whatever, right?
	And there's someone who will shoot into your property because he doesn't like the sound of your dog.
	If you forgive him and he just goes off and goes about his day, are you not putting everyone else in your family at substantial risk because you've got a lunatic or an evil guy who's going to shoot into your property if he doesn't like what's going on there?
	What if your kids are playing too loudly?
	Is he going to shoot one of them too?
	I see where you're getting at.
	Um I think the best way to put it would be probably give me a second.
	He would so while the wrath that was put forth during that.
	Sorry, whose wrath?
	His or yours loud.
	Uh the whoever is shooting.
	Okay, your neighbor, his he's angry at your dog shoots your doc.
	Yeah.
	Well, his wrath is probably heightened was not fair nor deserved.
	Yeah, we already said he did wrong.
	So get to the point.
	Well, you don't really have to.
	You don't really man.
	I I don't know if you're stoned or something like this, but I really can't do a conversation when there's like five seconds pause between each sentence.
	Uh uh I have to think of the audience and all of that.
	So PTBO man, if you would like to let us know what your thoughts are.
	Set me straight.
	What have I got wrong?
	You need to unmute perhaps.
	All right, can you hear me?
	Yes, sir.
	Go ahead.
	I'll uh try to pick up the pace a little bit from the uh last gentleman there.
	Uh I felt like I was getting slow motion sickness.
	Go ahead.
	Yep.
	Uh yeah.
	Just uh maybe a little bit of uh uh perspective um from a uh I'm a reformed Protestant.
	Um and uh what uh what someone has said is that theology is the art of making distinctions, and I think this kind of flattening of the doctrine of forgiveness to our fellow man actually suffers in modern times from uh a uh a flattening of distinctions here.
	So I'm gonna um uh read a quote here from a seventeenth century theologian, just a brief one, uh Wilhelmus Albrockel.
	So he wrote that though forgiveness, so this is speaking man to man, wrote that though forgiveness proceeds from a heart that does not harbor vengeance, hatred, or aversion, uh quote, an expression of the disposition of the heart does not always occur.
	Rather, it only occurs when the offender confesses his guilt and seeks forgiveness and reconciliation.
	And we can see this distinction if we look at say Mark chapter 11, verse 25, for example, when you stand praying, forgive if you have anything against anyone.
	And then Luke 17, if your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.
	And then that's where we get the seven times, you know, willing to forgive seven times.
	Uh and what we see here, and and this is I think it's actually a bit of a hobby horse of mine, is that among Christians, there's a failure to distinguish between what we might call attitudinal forgiveness and transactional forgiveness.
	So the Christian ought always to cultivate an attitude or disposition toward forgiveness, uh that essentially releases the offender from our judgment and entrusts him and ourselves and the situation into God's hands.
	So that's an attitude of forgiveness.
	You might say, I'm I'm ready to forgive, but I don't harbor bitterness.
	Uh and then secondly, a transactional forgiveness.
	Once we've developed an attitude of forgiveness, we are in a position to grant forgiveness to the person who has wronged us ask for it, uh, but it's not required.
	Um and so in in this case, you know, for the widow of Charlie Kirk to forgive uh his supposed killer, uh, that seems like it comes from a good place, uh but but without repentance, we might say, or without it being asked for, it's not required.
	And so actually, in in counseling situations, and I'll I'll conclude conclude with this, in counseling situations, often it uh to require forgiveness without there being uh it being requested, without there being repentance, can actually heap an additional burden on the head of the one who is wrong, right?
	If we think about women or children who have been abused, for example, to say right away, well, you must you have to forgive, you must forgive, uh, is to heap a burden that uh well, God's word doesn't give them.
	The Psalms, for example, are full of um are full of cries for vengeance for justice, and that's appropriate for the Christian as well.
	So I think uh I think part of the issue here is a flattening of that distinction.
	We should distinguish between an attitude of forgiveness and the transaction of forgiveness.
	Okay, so what is forgiveness?
	Is forgiveness the erasure of the sin.
	Well, we're talking about so between man and God, forgiveness is as a fruit of justification, forgiveness is the removal of the penalty of sin uh and and even the Okay, so sorry to interrupt, I just want to make sure I get this idea.
	So if you uh if you're a killer and you are forgiven, that means it is as if you have not killed.
	Forgiven by whom?
	Let's say God, right?
	Uh no, no, let's not forget the God thing.
	Let's just go with with man.
	Okay, so if somebody owes me 500 bucks, they fall upon hard times, I say, I forgive your debt, it means they don't have to pay me back.
	It's as if they've never borrowed the money.
	Like the effect is the same.
	If somebody doesn't borrow me, if somebody doesn't borrow 500 bucks from me, they don't owe me 500 bucks, right?
	If somebody does borrow 500 bucks from me and I forgive their debt, it's as if they never borrowed the money.
	Is that fair to say?
	Okay.
	So if I forgive someone, it is as if they have not sinned.
	Uh against you in any way.
	Yes.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yep.
	Okay.
	So if a murderer is forgiven, it is if it is as if he has not murdered.
	Uh I again to that, as long as we're distinguishing between before God and before man, that then yes.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So if it is the same.
	So let me uh let me ask you this.
	Somebody borrows 500 bucks from me, they fall on hard times, they say, I can't pay you back, and I say, you know what, don't worry about it.
	Keep the money.
	It's no biggie, right?
	Then can I later take them to small claims court and try and get the $500 back?
	Well, sure, you can.
	You ought not to.
	And that would be a good idea.
	No, I shouldn't, though.
	That would be that would be wrong, because I've forgiven the debt, right?
	So once I've forgiven the debt, he should not be punished for failing to pay the debt, right?
	Okay.
	So why would a murderer go to prison?
	If he's been forgiven, it is if it is as if he did not murder.
	So why would he go to prison if he's been forgiven?
	I think there are three parties involved, right?
	So if we consider the murderer uh again, where he has so even if we consider this accused murderer, he has sinned against God by committing murder.
	He has sinned against uh the Charlie Kirk's widow and and his family.
	Uh and then there's a sense that actually he sinned against uh the rest now I'm not American, actually, but maybe the r the rest the rest of your country.
	Um and so there's a sense that yeah, but before God, sin can be forgiven uh by the uh imputation of Christ's righteousness.
	Forgiveness can be granted against the widow by the widow herself.
	Um but she's not in a place to to therefore forgive and nullify the requirements of justice which are required publicly for for the state to enforce, right?
	So it's it's possible for him for a man to go uh to the hangman's noose, being forgiven by God in Christ, being forgiven by the widow, and yet it be right and appropriate for him to be executed by the state.
	Aaron Powell Okay, so the equivalent, I appreciate that explanation.
	So the equivalent, if you can just indulge my analogy for a moment more.
	The equivalent would be somebody borrows 500 bucks, I say you don't have to pay me back, but they can still go to debt as prison if this because the state has to enforce the contract that I have released him from.
	I'm not sure.
	That's a private contract between two individuals, right?
	You lending the money.
	I'm not sure that's I don't mind an analogy, but I'm not sure that holds when we're talking about, say, the the social contract for for all of us not to murder each other, right?
	Um I'm I'm not sure.
	I don't try to nitpick an analogy, but I'm not sure that holds.
	There's there's a third there's a third party involved in murder that's a very good thing.
	So that I'm sorry to interrupt.
	Uh I'll adjust the analogy.
	I'll adjust it.
	So we'll make it not a debt.
	We'll make it um let's say that he um he takes my lawnmower.
	Yes.
	And so he's stolen from me.
	And I see him using my lawnmower, and he says, Look, I'm real sorry, I desperately need to cut this lawn.
	I need the lawnmower, and I say, you know what?
	That's you know what?
	I was gonna get a new one anyway.
	Why don't you just keep that one?
	Uh it's fine.
	Right?
	So I have now given up my claim that he has to return my so he stole from me, but I have said, you have no longer stolen from me.
	Is it then incumbent upon the state to enforce the property rights that I have relinquished?
	I have forgiven him for stealing from me.
	Does the government then get to put him in jail for stealing my lawnmower?
	I think this is also the plot of a musical that I saw perhaps in my youth.
	Uh may maybe you're you're drawing on it was a a silver candlestick, perhaps not uh not a lawnmower.
	Um I think um I think actually in a and I don't mean to avoid the question by this, in a just society, the the basis of punishment actually would restitution actually would be the uh would be um would be the the major part of that punishment.
	And so restitution uh would would nullify it.
	Um I think strictly speaking, yes, he ought still to go to jail for that theft, even if it's been forgiven.
	But the the sort of public nature of it, right?
	That if No, but would would that make sense to you that I've said keep the lawnmower, but the government's gonna throw him in jail anyway?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Okay, so The government, the people in the government, we assume the Christians in the government, because it would be a Christian society for these values to be be held.
	So the Christians in the government must do the opposite of forgiving, but the Christians not in the government should forgive.
	Yes, for forgiveness is not a virtue of the state.
	No, no, there's no such thing on.
	There's no such thing as a state.
	There's just people who are enforcing laws.
	They're just individuals, right?
	It's not this big abstract thing that exists.
	But but there are individuals who must not forgive, right?
	So there I can say you can keep my lawnmower, but the policeman cannot forgive, even if I've forgiven, they must haul his ass off to jail, right?
	Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.
	Yes.
	And I I think even as you say there is no state, okay, but as individuals uh filling their office as civil magistrate, right?
	Certainly we'd make a distinction there still.
	So the office of civil magistrate is not one of mercy of forgiveness.
	It's of executing justice.
	Uh forgiveness is not a good thing.
	Okay, so justice, hang on.
	So justice is to not forgive.
	I mean, you yeah, I mean, that's not a full definition, but sure.
	Trevor Burrus, Jr.
	Well, no, no.
	You because if the magistrate, if the police forgive the criminal, then they don't arrest him.
	So for for justice to be enacted, for morals to actually be enforced within society.
	The magistrate cannot forgive.
	Must not forgive.
	Correct.
	I mean, and you and I would draw a distinction still, even if you don't want to, between the magistrate as individuals, do they have an attitude of forgiveness towards the criminal versus carrying out their responsibility given to them as civil magistrates.
	No, that they ought not to forgive.
	They ought to persecute.
	No, no, not they ought not to forgive.
	They must not forgive.
	For justice to be enacted, the Christians in the magistrate must not forgive.
	Sure.
	I I I'm using that.
	You're you're smarter than I am.
	I'm using those two words synonymously when when I shouldn't.
	So that's I I agree with that.
	Must not forgive.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	No, no.
	You have to forgive my infelicitous language.
	No, no, listen, you're doing you're doing great, and let's not compare brain size here with just trying to get to the truth.
	Okay.
	So let's say that my neighbor gets hauled off to prison for six months for stealing my lawnmower, even though I've said you can keep it and it's totally fine, and blah, blah, blah, right?
	And this does actually happen.
	I think Aaron Schwartz, uh if I'm going off memory here, but Aaron Schwartz uh siphoned off a bunch of data and and published it, and the people even who had the data said it's not that big a deal, but he was pursued, if I remember rightly, to the magistrate, if by the magistrate, even to the point of of he killed himself.
	But okay, so my neighbor goes to prison.
	Now, I'm sure you're aware of this, that if you are in prison, are you more or less likely to be released early if you continue to say, I didn't do it.
	I'm not responsible, I'm innocent.
	Oh, I suppose less likely.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So if you continue to deny that you did the crime, you are much less likely to be released early.
	In fact, I mean, again, I'm going off the exquisite documentary Shaw Shank redemption, but if you don't admit that you did the crime, you may never be released at all.
	So the release has to be earned by an acceptance of the crime.
	In other words, the magistrate or the society only, quote, forgives you or considers you having paid your dues if you accept responsibility for having done wrong and stop denying the crime.
	Sure, that's seen as part of the rehabilitation process.
	Sure.
	Right.
	Forgiveness must be earned.
	That's my point.
	And you have you earn forgiveness by at least acknowledging that you did wrong.
	That's my point.
	Let's have a consistent set of morals.
	Now, I get that there's soft relationships you have with people, friends, family, uh, or even criminals.
	Uh uh, but there's a hard relationship, which is the magistrate, the prison, the court system, and jail and all of that, right?
	So I I get that there's a difference.
	But why not just have one set of rules, which is to say forgiveness must be earned, both in the magistrate and among people.
	Now, of course, if somebody refuses to acknowledge their wrong, the state may keep that person in prison forever.
	And so that's a pretty punitive.
	If somebody uh publicly insults and humiliates me for no particular reason, and they don't apologize.
	I can't throw them in jail.
	I mean, and I don't know, maybe you could do some sort of defamation or something like that.
	But let's just say let's just say somebody publicly hang on.
	Let's just say somebody publicly insults me and puts me down and whatever it is.
	I don't get to throw them in jail.
	But if I wanted if I wanted that person if that person wanted to be in my life or wanted to spend more time with me, I would expect an apology, wouldn't you?
	Uh sure.
	Of course.
	Now, if somebody does acknowledge their wrong and somebody accepts that they did wrong, apologizes makes restitution, takes anger management classes, goes to therapy, whatever it is that's going to make them a better person.
	Is it better for the person to admit fault and make restitution than to continue to deny that they did wrong?
	Sure.
	It's better if they admit fault, right?
	Certainly.
	Okay.
	Are they more or less likely to admit fault if society won't forgive them unless they admit fault?
	If the forgiveness is given without the admission of fault, are they more or less likely to admit fault?
	Oh, less, I suppose.
	Yeah.
	They're less likely to admit fault.
	So by granting forgiveness without requiring repentance, we are lowering the opportunity and incentive for people to repent.
	In other words, we are sinning because we are increasing their defense of their sin and we are reducing their opportunities to apologize, to reform, to repent, to get closer to God again.
	So we are providing them the benefit.
	It's like if you give someone a million dollars, are they likely to do a difficult and unpleasant job?
	No.
	So if you give people rewards without requiring the effort, the effort will usually not be expended.
	And therefore, if you give forgiveness without requiring repentance, you are lowering massively lowering the odds that people will repent, and thus you are now participating in their sin by making it less likely that they will repent and become better people.
	Sure.
	And that's and that's more or less part of my initial argument, right?
	I think I think you and I agree with kind of my opening statement about transactional forgiveness between men not being required without repentance, right?
	That was my kind of opening statement.
	I don't believe that forgiveness is the purview of the civil...
	You didn't like the term state.
	Um that's fine.
	Forgiveness is not their purview.
	That's that's my argument.
	So I I can see the logic in yours, but I'm simply saying that yes, m man to man, we don't have to forgive an insult, an injury, a sin against each other without repentance.
	We should be the Christian should be willing to.
	That's an attitude, a disposition of the heart, but the transaction doesn't have to requ be uh be performed without repentance.
	But that's the state, the civil magistrate.
	Sorry, hang on, hang on.
	I'm sorry, there were there were two things there, and I lost the second one.
	So the first one is you're saying we don't have to forgive if somebody doesn't apologize.
	Correct.
	Okay, good.
	So we agree on that.
	And uh your second one was around the government must not forgive.
	Uh correct.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So forgiveness without repentance is wrong.
	I think we agree on that.
	Okay, fantastic.
	I appreciate that, and thank you so much.
	Great topic, great topic.
	All right.
	SoCal.
	So kill.
	What you got?
	Feel free to unmute.
	Yes, sir.
	Uh, can you hear me?
	Yes, sir.
	Oh, hi.
	Thank you for taking my call.
	I do appreciate it.
	Yeah, yeah.
	The um the first thing like there's two things, I guess that are are going down here.
	You You talked a little bit about like forgiveness, like it makes people more prone to sin and you know, the whole justification thing.
	And like for you, I think I think you're your problem is that you don't realize how bad you are as a person.
	Now we all are.
	I mean, we we and I say that I say that I say that with love, and I know you want you you search for truth.
	I search for truth, like I I Yeah, go ahead.
	Make this this original sin stuff, or what do you got?
	Yeah, well, we we're we're we're all condemned to hell because what Adam did, we didn't have a chance, and then but we don't go to hell just for what Adam did.
	I mean, we do a whole bunch of sins on top of everything else.
	So we're all in need of grace.
	I mean, we're just I mean, I mean, we all commit adultery, because if you love self to a woman, you're committing adultery with her in your heart, you hate someone without cause or a murderer, you know, we we are God doesn't just.
	Yeah, okay, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Are there different degrees of sin?
	Yes, yes.
	Okay.
	So stealing a candy bar, as I was talking about yesterday.
	Stealing a candy bar is not as bad as executing a father in front of his children, right?
	Um, um, let's not go down this road again.
	Come on, man.
	You you can't maintain that.
	No, yeah, yeah, no, I'm I'm I'm agreeing with you.
	The only the only thing that uh the only caveat I have, God makes it speci uh Jesus made it specifically clear that if we have more light, we are more liable for sin.
	So because I grew up in a in a country that had the Bible preached, my uh I would, if I went to hell, I would go to hell a hotter hell than a cannibal did who never heard about Jesus.
	So because of more light, the punishment goes goes greater.
	Yeah, that's the one.
	That's the route of uh forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do with the Roman soldiers nailing Jesus to the cross that they don't understand, they don't know, they're not aware, they haven't been proselitized or preached at.
	So okay, uh I'm I'm with you.
	So um, but even among those who know the gospel, there are different degrees of sin, right?
	There are different degrees of sin, yeah.
	But we're all going to hell uh regardless.
	I mean, we're we're damned.
	Okay.
	Is there an argument that you wanted to make about uh forgiveness?
	So uh but but you were saying about how like you know, um like you know, people have to do I think you were saying that people have to do works to get into heaven.
	What am I correct on that?
	No, no, no.
	No, no, we're just talking about forgiveness.
	Because forgiveness, does forgiveness need to be earned?
	Between man or between or or with us or with God.
	Well, I know that God requires you to earn forgiveness because there's no example in the Bible of God dispensing for uh forgiveness without it having been earned.
	So I know that God requires that you earn forgiveness.
	No, no, yeah, no, that you're you're totally wrong.
	I mean, Galatians is against this, Romans is against this.
	I mean, if you look at Romans 1 and 2, uh like Romans 1 describes all of the gross immoral sins, you know, the worst sins that you could think of, sexual sins, murder and all that.
	And then Romans 2, um, I put in the comments uh verse one, it talks about, you know, you do you think that you're gonna get off scot-free, you that judges for you that judges uh do us the same things.
	And and you uh and it goes on to say how you commit you increase the wrath of God against you, uh because the self-right uh and uh the self-righteous are just as bad as a big thing.
	All right, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	And I I don't understand all of this, but if you can just answer me this question, can you get into heaven by doing nothing?
	Yes.
	Christ died by the ungodly.
	With his tribes who are healed, it is finished.
	Okay, okay.
	So a non-believer, a murderer, a sinner, a fornicator can get into heaven by doing nothing.
	No repentance, no worship, no church going, no prayer, no conciliation with God, no not nothing.
	He can just go do his evil stuff and he just sails like a like a soap bubble, he just sails up through the atmosphere into heaven when he dies.
	You have to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.
	That that's fantastic.
	Okay.
	So you have to earn.
	No.
	Forgive you.
	Faith is the opposite of doing.
	This is one thing I struggle with for years.
	Faith is, okay, so the gospel is Christ died for our sins.
	What does that mean?
	Your sins are forgiven, go in peace.
	So if Christ died for my sins, I'm forgiven.
	And so I have to literally call God a liar to say that Christ did not die for my sins.
	Okay, so if Christ died for everyone's sins, and then everyone is forgiven, And you don't need to do anything to get to heaven.
	He didn't die for everybody.
	He only died for the elect.
	Okay.
	Okay, so you have to believe in in Jesus to get to heaven.
	And you you also you can't say I believe in Jesus and then break all the commandments, right?
	You can't go around murdering people saying I believe in Jesus and go to heaven, right?
	Justification and sanctification are separate.
	You're trying to mix the two.
	You can't do that when you're talking about justification.
	Don't tell me what I can and can't do.
	That's kind of rude.
	You can make a case for something, but don't give me orders.
	Not trying to be rude, but No, you are.
	You're telling me what I can and can't talk about.
	I mean, you can make a face for something.
	I mean, no, you can you can talk about Baham saying theologically speaking, you can't do that.
	Like according to the life.
	A murderer who claims to believe in Jesus, go to heaven.
	Okay.
	Homosexual can go to heaven if he believes in Jesus.
	Look, the the the uh we have this sin in us.
	So you can you can be a mass murderer, you can be a pedophile, and if you say you believe in Jesus, you're good.
	I I don't care about what the person says, that is the person believing in Jesus.
	So do they come to Christ, do they put their hand on the sacrifice by faith appropriate that as theirs?
	If they do, they're saved.
	So if you believe in Jesus, then clearly you believe in Jesus' teachings, right?
	Yes, a part of faith is knowledge, and then the second part of faith is a sense, and then the third part is is trust and trust um, well, and there has to be actions as well, right?
	No, no.
	Well, no, because if you're hanging on hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Okay.
	So if I believe in a math teacher who says that two and two make four.
	If I believe in a math teacher who says that two and two make four, if I go around saying two and two make five, am I following the teachings of that math teacher.
	Um no, yeah, yeah, I guess you're calling a math teacher a liar.
	Um, I'm I'm I can't say I believe in this math teacher.
	I accept that the math teacher is perfect and divine and wonderful and always true, and this math teacher says that two and two make four, but I go around saying that two and two make five.
	Would that not be an indication that I do not actually believe in what the math teacher says?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Okay.
	So if you believe in Jesus, you have to follow what Jesus says in your actions.
	Not no, no, just as if you believe in the math teacher who says two and two make four, you have to say that two and two make four.
	If you believe in Jesus, you will follow him.
	It's not we don't follow him because we're we're we we are trying to avoid hell.
	We follow him because that's naturally what we're gonna do.
	Fantastic.
	Okay, so the way that you know if somebody truly believes in Jesus is they're following his teachings, right?
	Yeah, uh, we judge people by their actions, God judges them by heart, but we can only see the actions.
	Okay, okay.
	So to believe in Jesus means that you act in a manner consistent with Jesus' teachings, right?
	No, so that's where you're No, no, we just we just went through this.
	You can always say we judge people by their actions and by their boots shall you know them, and then say, no, no, no, it's totally different.
	You're skipping the you know, you're mixing definitions.
	We believe in Jesus and we are justified with God through the death of Jesus Christ, but the only uh men cannot see our hearts, so to be a witness to men are witnesses by our actions.
	Now, I mean, a person can do really terrible things, and you cannot know they're a Christian, but God knows a perfect example of this is a lot.
	I mean, a lot had an incestuous relationship with his daughters, and yet I believe it was the apostle Paul who said no, he was actually saved, he was redeemed.
	We wouldn't have known that, but but God knew it, and then God gave it to the apostle, and then he's gonna be able to do it.
	So, what did Lot hang on?
	So, what did Lot have to do to get into heaven despite being incestuous?
	He had to look to the Christ to come and trust in the sacrifice of Christ to come save him.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So he had to earn getting into heaven by accepting Jesus.
	Looking to Christ is the opposite, uh, is the opposite of earning.
	You're looking away from yourself and you look to what he did on the cross.
	Right.
	Right.
	And that's what you have to do to get into heaven.
	You're looking away from yourself, you're looking to the cross.
	I I I mean, it's it's I mean, it's the opposite of that.
	I need a ticket to get into a concert, and the ticket, sorry to be cross in my analogies.
	I need a ticket to get into the concert.
	The ticket in this case is accepting Jesus.
	No, it's see, that's where you're trusting and you're trusting.
	You can't do that.
	You gotta trust in Christ.
	Faith, remember, Right.
	Accepting Jesus.
	You saying trust in Christ.
	What's the difference?
	Oh, there's a huge difference.
	There's a lot of people they say, Oh, I said a prayer.
	I said I stood up at event.
	I'm going to heaven.
	They're going if that's what they're trusting, they're going to hell.
	Trusting in Christ is saying I have no other argument, I have no other plea.
	It is not that Jesus died, they die for me.
	Right.
	Right.
	And if you do that, you get to heaven, right?
	But that's the opposite of doing.
	You are relying on what somebody else did to get you into the heaven.
	Okay, if you believe that, the pri I get that the price is belief.
	But there is a price to get into heaven.
	Okay, let me let me ask you this.
	Do you think what you're saying is confusing?
	To the lost, yes.
	So now you're you're saying it's confusing because I'm lost.
	The Bible says uh we preach Christ crucified uh to the Jews, stumbling blocking to the the Greeks uh foolishness, but to those that believe he is the power of God.
	Do you have to believe something to get into heaven?
	Yes, you have to rely on Christ.
	Fantastic.
	Okay.
	Good.
	Well, but then we're in agreement.
	So there's things that you have to do to get into things that you have to believe to get into heaven, and therefore your salvation results uh results from your dedication to Jesus, your belief in Jesus, and that's a good thing.
	So you have to earn your way to heaven, and you also have to earn your way to forgiveness.
	All right.
	Gilly.
	We are gonna hide in the undergrowth together and dodge snipers.
	If you want to unmute, I'm happy to hear.
	Yes.
	Hello, sir.
	Thank you so much for your time.
	Yeah, I just wanted to kind of thank you for this beautiful uh face that you're opening up here regarding forgiveness.
	And I just want to share my kind of feelings regarding what you you shared about your life, and I it kind of correlates with my father and how I grew up, uh feeling left uh left as a child, leaving me with a mother who was uh considered bipolar and having an easy.
	I don't want to just bypass that and have you keep going.
	Like I'm really, really sorry about that.
	That's a that's a heck of a burden for a child to be left with, and I'm sorry.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And but but the thing is like what what I was left with when I grow up, because my father died when I was twenty-one, and I had a lot of resentment towards him, and I ended up becoming him.
	I became the man that left me when I divorced my wife, and she moved to another country with my children.
	And it was an extraordinary.
	Did you meet her overseas?
	So sorry to interrupt.
	Did you meet her overseas or how did she end up at in another country?
	And again, you don't have to get into details, I'm just curious.
	No, it it was like just after the 2008 uh issues, people decided she decided to do move to a better place, uh a Scandinavian country, and she had a job opportunity there, and she wasn't where her people were from, but she just decided to move there.
	Yeah, she had issues with her own family, she was kind of escaping a situation with her family and other things, and uh yeah, it's a long story.
	But in essence, what really made me feel extremely low and you know, nearly wanting to delete myself at the time.
	Uh living in the apartment where my children used to play with me and and just living a l like a living nightmare.
	I needed to go on my knees and understand in order for me to be able to honor my father and mother was to be able to forgive them, even though that they didn't repent themselves.
	Because my soul was held hostage by this trauma as a child.
	And my inner eight-year-old had grown into this metaphysical hulk of anger and resentment and hate.
	And uh it it became so overpowering to me as a man that it wasn't until I managed to finally humble my self and realize that I just needed to look at that little broken little child within and hug him and tell him like you just f it's okay.
	I am not that.
	I'm not my father.
	And I and and I also had to have this kind of metaphysical act between them within allowing my mother to forgive my father for what he did to her and then allowing my father to forgive my mother, and it it was kind of like a ritual that I had to do.
	I understand, sorry to interrupt.
	I understand the the idea of you forgiving your parents.
	I'm not sure how I I understand I don't think I understand you having your parents forgive each other.
	Because I think like we in essence, my mother followed me when I was alone at home and I needed to clean my room.
	And I had this inner voice of her judging me, not doing things correctly.
	It wasn't good enough for her.
	And I was never good enough for myself.
	So this voice within me that was more from my mother's upbringing, and the father's voice within me.
	Like I needed to let these feminine masculine energies within me somehow dance again instead of fighting constantly, because I grew up where they were fighting.
	Sorry?
	I'm sorry, I just missed I'm I think I'm didn't hear did you say you wanted them to dance again rather than have this conflict, is that right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I'm not being cynical.
	I just want to make sure I heard the word.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, and I that's that's what I wanted to kind of introduce to this table.
	Uh uh, just just lay it out on the table as something that is a metaphysical activity that you need to do in the same way as you take a decision on something, which is in itself not a physical act, but it's something that happens within your soul and within within your mind that creates determination of okay, I have a destination where I have to go to.
	And in that way, forgiveness is a certain master key that you can give to yourself, even if you're alone, and you can offer it to others, and you can be b ask others for forgiveness if you have wronged them, and I think you have to be a pretty noble and wise soul in order to be able to do that.
	But many of us aren't for some reason.
	So I just wanted to add that to the conversation.
	I I appreciate that.
	I mean I'm I know that this is a public square and I'm more used to public speaking than you are, but it sounds to me like you're still carrying a burden.
	Yeah, of course, man.
	It's like you you that's also with the with the sinning part, right?
	It's it's the thing that you do every day.
	No, no, but if you're not careful.
	I don't want to get into theology.
	Let's let's just keep this personal because you're talking about personal relationships, right?
	So let me so let me ask you this, and I'm happy to get this feedback from the audience as a whole.
	Does it sound like I'm carrying a burden in life?
	Like when you like when you talk to me, do it does it sound like I'm carrying a weight or a burden?
	Yeah, like I I remember your testimony where you were talking about it.
	No, no, just as I'm just as I'm talking now, I mean, does it sound like I'm carrying a weight or a burden?
	In other words, am I kind of talking like this and kind of heavily and with lots of pauses and uh or or do I sound relatively energetic and uh focused in present.
	Yeah, you seem pretty pretty straightforward, yes.
	Okay.
	So I think it's fair to say that I'm I mean, I don't feel like I'm carrying uh a big burden.
	I mean, I have challenges like everyone and and so on.
	So if if forgiving people releases you of the burden, then why then why do you have a burden if you've forgiven people and I don't when I haven't So you so you feel like I have a burden that I'm gonna do that?
	Yeah, it sounds it sounds like you have a burden, and you you told me that you do.
	Yeah, maybe because I'm living the story, you know.
	I'm in inside of it.
	Because I understand the story inside of it, I I don't know what that means.
	Are you trapped in a DVD case?
	I don't know what that means.
	No, no, no.
	Now I'm living in the country and be being next to my children, trying to be not what my father was.
	So I became the father who returned to my children, and Okay, but but shouldn't forgiveness release you from the burden.
	Because I hear this, I hear this people say forgiveness has they forgiveness has released me from this burden.
	And it's like, bro, rather, it sounds like you're still carrying that burden.
	That is true, of course.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Maybe it's just my mindset also.
	Like I I but I felt like it it needed to have a certain gravitas.
	So maybe maybe I'm coming off as a very burdened soul to you right now.
	But I'm not sure.
	But no, but you told me that you you told me that you do still feel this burden.
	And the question is, you know, if if forgiveness solves things, then there should be more empirical evidence that forgiveness solves things.
	Now I would say that the correct approach, and I think to me the most rational approach, and I'll sort of make the case briefly, is so what is the purpose?
	If somebody hurts you, then you feel negativity, you feel pain, you feel sorrow, maybe you feel horror, uh, anger, maybe even hatred.
	So w what are these emotions for?
	Well, they're to tell you that your rights are being violated, your personal space is being violated, your integrity is being violated, your morals are being harmed, somebody is doing something highly negative towards you.
	And the purpose of the emotions is to attempt to resolve that negativity in some fashion, right?
	So if you've ever got stung by an insect, maybe it gets infected and your hand swells up or something like that, right?
	Well, that's your body fighting the infection.
	And the purpose of your body fighting the infection is for your immune system to overwhelm and destroy the bacteria and restore your hand to a state of non-Michelin puffy health or whatever it is.
	So anger is the immune system of the soul, and it is there to protect you from being exploited, abused, or harmed in particularly moral ways.
	Now how do you resolve the problem of people harming your interests, attacking you, undermining you, or attempting to corrupt you?
	Because that's what generally tends to make people the most angry is when somebody else is attempting to corrupt them either through horror or temptation or bribery or threats or something like that.
	So to me, the approach that I've taken, which has worked, I think very well, is to say, I've sit down, and this is a biblical injunction, right?
	You sit down with people and you say, you've kind of wronged me, and here's why, and here's what I think.
	I'd love to hear your side of things, but this is what I recall, and this is the issue.
	These are the issues that I have, right?
	And then what you do is you sit across the table from the person who's done you harm, and you see how they respond to you saying, You've done me wrong, you've done me harm.
	And if they gaslight, if they lie, if they counterattack, if they storm out, and so on, then they've just done you another wrong.
	Then what do you do?
	Okay, well, maybe they're just having a bad day, maybe they uh didn't sleep well, maybe they had a headache, whatever, right?
	So you sit down with them again.
	You say, listen, we didn't you left the last conversation, you didn't behave in a very gracious or honorable way, but you know, water under the bridge, let's talk about it again.
	And you see what happens, right?
	Do they gaslight, do they counterattack, do they say it never happened?
	Like, do they insult you?
	Do they call you paranoid?
	Do they right it just further attack your consciousness, your memories, and your integrity and your honesty, because they're calling you liars, right?
	Now for me, three strikes, man, three strikes in your app.
	I'll do it three times.
	And with people in my past, I generally did it.
	Three times.
	Okay.
	And now, of course, after somebody storms out because you've said, listen, you did me wrong, they have time, right?
	They can cool down, they can calm down, they can go and get a fro yo, and they can say, gee, you know I kind of reacted pretty pretty pretty harshly to that.
	You know, fairly reasonable critique or whatever it is, right?
	So after the third time, if they continue to escalate and double down, I'm done.
	I'm done.
	I'm not going to continue to pursue.
	I am not going to continue to try and have a relationship.
	I'm not going to continue to try and have a conversation.
	I'm done.
	Because I've tried three times, and it usually it usually gets worse each time.
	Oh, we've already talked about this.
	What are you bringing this up for again?
	You're stuck on this.
	You're obsessed with this talk.
	like they usually just get even more aggressive, right?
	Now is that do I forgive that person?
	No.
	I don't forgive them because forgiveness has to be earned.
	And I don't pay what people have not earned.
	So I mean, if I'm feeling charitable or whatever, that's fine, or and I do give to charity, but in general, in these kinds of situations, there are people in my life who, if they wrong me, they will apologize and make restitution.
	And I will do the same because there's inevitably shafing in relationships.
	So there are people in my life who do the right thing, and I'm not going to give the same rewards to people who do the wrong thing as people who do the right things.
	There are people who they wrong me, they apologize, there are people who they wrong me, and then they wrong me again when I bring it up, and then they wrong me again, and they insult me and they put me down, and even more.
	So I don't forgive.
	But what I do is I say they have no functional free will left.
	They can't choose the good.
	They are beyond my moral judgment.
	I mean, I can morally judge them for what they did wrong in the past, but they're beyond reforming.
	They're beyond reformation, they have no capacity empirically, they have no capacity to repent, to make restitution, to make amends.
	They have no capacity to listen to me.
	Their conscience is so bad that if any of their past misdeeds are brought up to them, all they can do is blow up, explode, and I want to stop people from doing more wrong.
	So every time I would go to people and they would further abuse, escalate, storm out, yell, call me names, insult me.
	I withdraw from the conversation because I don't want to be an accomplice for someone doing more wrong.
	My mother is a worse person when I talk to her honestly about what happened in the past because she escalates, she gaslights, she throws things, she screams, she storms around, she storms out.
	She's a a worse person, and I don't want to make her a worse person by telling the truth.
	So I recognize that there is no practical functional free will.
	Now I can make up a theoretical free will, blah, blah, blah, but there's no practical functional free will as the result of a number of prior decisions that were bad.
	You know, if if somebody is 70 years old and they smoke two packs of cigarettes a day for 50 years, they ain't running a marathon.
	They they have no functional capacity to run a marathon.
	Because of all of their, you know, prior, you know, 40 times a day lighting up a cigarette.
	So I accept two things.
	One, they have no functional moral free will left.
	So there's no point holding them morally responsible.
	Holding them, holding someone morally responsible is supposed to make them a better person.
	If I hold someone morally responsible and they get more abusive and more angry and more destructive, then trying to make someone better is actually making them worse.
	So I stop doing it.
	Now, is that the same as forgiveness?
	No, because they haven't taken moral responsibility, they haven't repented, made amends, taken reasonable steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.
	I view them in the same way that I would view a dangerous animal.
	I'm not enraged, I'm not angry, I don't hate that person anymore because their suffering is way more than anything my hatred could ever achieve, but I'm safe.
	Right.
	So if there's a particular shortcut, you go home, but they keep leaving this crazy Rottweiler out who's dangerous and jumps and bites and snaps.
	You stop taking that path.
	You don't sit there and say, for the rest of the for the rest of my life I'm gonna hate that Rottweiler.
	I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna look at pictures of Rottweilers, I'm gonna see angrier, right?
	I don't.
	I'm just like, I don't want to go where the rottweiler is.
	Because it's a dangerous attack animal that I can't reason with.
	I don't hate the Rottweiler, but I recognize that the Rottweiler is dangerous, and I can't make it undangerous.
	I can't reason with the Rottweiler and say, you know, maybe you had a bad puppyhood, tell me a little bit about your early weaning.
	Like, I can't make the Rottweiler undangerous, so I just go around.
	I just don't interact.
	I don't go down that alley.
	I'm now safe, so I can forget about the Rottweiler.
	So I say Not that now I get this is different for Christians because with Christians there's always a soul in there that you can reach and and that people have perfect free will and even among the most diseased lungs there's a magical set of lungs that's perfectly pink and healthy that if you just find the right word combos maybe you can unlock but I don't work that way because I'm a secularist and uh there's no magical person in there who is perfect and unharmed.
	That's not something that I that I exist, right?
	Yeah.
	Isn't that the the other one?
	Yeah, isn't that the basic understanding of the objective morality that would have to live in an apex mind because it's conceptual.
	Well, see, you you keep diving off to abstracts.
	I'm trying to give you something visceral, which is a way to deal with dangerous people without requiring the injustice of giving forgiveness equally to people who've earned it and people who haven't.
	Yeah.
	Right, which is like giving the same if you've ever been in a job, right?
	Let's say there's somebody who keeps messing up, screwing up, put putting all extra work on other people, and they stole money from the company.
	And they get the same bonus as the diligent hardworking honest people.
	That's unfair.
	That's unjust.
	That's wrong.
	It's wrong to give the same benefits to people who act well as people who act in a terrible manner.
	You do not give the same benefits.
	And if you've ever been in a company where the bad workers get the same benefits as the good workers, you realize just how demoralizing this is, and it degrades the you're you're insulting the virtuous people by giving the same rewards to the bad people.
	Now, the alternative to not forgiving is not to cede there with hatred.
	It's to say, "This person is in a state where pursuing restitution makes them worse.
	I don't want to participate in making them a worse person, so I'm going to withdraw from the situation." Once you withdraw from the situation, let's say this dangerous rottweiler, right?
	Every time you go down the street, it jumps the fence, it it chases you, it it's bitten you three times and you got infected, you got rabies shots in the belly, and it's let's say that you move to another state.
	Are you still worried about the Rottweiler?
	Do you still hate the Rottweiler?
	Do you still obsess about the Rottweiler?
	Do you still oh that Rottweiler?
	No, because you're safe.
	Rottweiler is three states away.
	It cannot harm you.
	It is not in your orbit.
	It is so you've moved beyond it.
	You say people move on.
	Just get the dangerous people out of your life.
	All right, let's take one more call, and I appreciate people's patience.
	But there's an alternative between just waving around the magic wander forgiveness without earning and some sort of perpetual rage machine going on in your heart, which is just to get safe to get distance, and then you can move on with your life.
	Thank you for your patience.
	Devuvnik.
	Devoovnik.
	Sorry.
	I'm sure you're calling sounds like you're calling from Scotland.
	No, not anyway, sorry, what's on your mind?
	Uh just to bring up uh a little distinction between uh well, the the aspects of forgiveness itself, because I think that that's where the problem comes from in you uh from what I'm understanding.
	Actually, as I I will tell you my my background just as a Catholic.
	Uh the kind of uh forgiveness that we uh uh uh try to or encourage.
	No.
	In this case, the forgiveness related us from the from the previous people who spoke uh I don't know what his his name he mentioned uh that he had like a burden, no?
	This this burden.
	That is one aspect of it.
	I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean.
	His having a burden is one aspect of it.
	I'm not sure that I understand what you're talking about.
	We have the first part is the the wrongdoer, no?
	Doing doing the bad action.
	The person receiving the the the sin the sin, the evil.
	Yes, the evil.
	And and then the able that you well, the moment you do something bad, obviously you're affecting your your uh uh your hurting God itself.
	So it's like the three the three sides, no.
	But the the thing in here is that forgiveness does not entail permissiveness or or tolerance.
	It's a separate thing.
	Okay.
	Okay, so sorry, sorry, just before we get there, does God require that you take responsibility for your sin and admit you're wrong in order to be forgiven.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So that's my whole point.
	Yes.
	I agree completely with that part, that with that part.
	But the other part is the person who is injured, for example, uh in my case, no, like somebody does something wrong to me.
	If I keep that grudge, that's going to affect me.
	As you mentioned, you you're the side of you or or your point was that instead of thinking of them as as humans, you think of them as bulldogs, huh?
	Like, no, no, no.
	Sorry.
	They're still human.
	They're still hum of course they're still human biologically and legally and all of that, they're still humans, but they have shown no evidence of a functional moral free will.
	In other words, they're just doing that which feels best for them in the moment, kind of like an animal, or they're still human, but they have shown no capacity for self-restraint.
	And they've no sh shown no capacity for self-criticism.
	Because, you know, admitting that you did wrong is a difficult and unpleasant thing to do.
	Hedonists don't do that.
	Narcissists don't do that.
	Self-involved people don't do that which is difficult, they do that which is pleasurable.
	And so if somebody's operating on the pleasure principle, in other words, well, if if you if you say something that upsets me, you're a bad person and I'm going to attack you.
	Okay, well, that's just hedonism, which means I don't want to hear any criticism, I don't want to hear any negatives.
	So if somebody's operating at the level of the pleasure-pain principle, they're kind of like an animal.
	Of course, they're still human, I get all of that, but they're acting at the level of pleasure and pain, which is how like an instinctive.
	How yeah, yeah, you you don't sit there and lecture a puppy and saying, well, you know, this is my property, and for you to pee on my property is a violation of my property, right?
	So you just you know, you give them rewards and punishments and train them to not pee on on the rug, right?
	So so if somebody is acting on the pleasure-pain principle, then you attempting to make them better will just make them worse.
	And if if you're a um physician and if you try to apply a medicine, right?
	So let's say uh you're allergic to uh penicillin, right?
	And you go into the infection, you don't know, and then they start giving you penicillin and your body reacts horribly and you almost die, then the doctor shouldn't give you any more penicillin.
	Penicillin because it makes you worse.
	And it's the same thing with if moral instruction makes people act in a more demonic manner, then you should they're allergic to morals.
	You should stop applying morals because it's making them worse.
	And the only way that they're ever going to get through to being moral is in some other manner than you trying to make them moral because making trying to make them moral is making them worse.
	I agree, I agree with with your statement in the sense of not letting yourself uh fall into that trap of trying to uh r correct them in a way, no, or or try to bring them to light if they're not willing to.
	Uh-huh.
	But that aspect that's it's like a small seed of I suppose grace that you give them uh trying to avoid that clinical aspect of well, I'm going to completely shut you down as a as you mentioned as an un uh uh an unwilling person, like a person who's not like able to think straight with clarity.
	Sorry, what do you mean?
	Sorry, I apologize, and I'm I'm sorry for interrupting.
	I just want to make sure I understand what you mean.
	So with regards to my own father, uh I told my own father like 30 years ago about the issues that I had with him as a father and the uh you know who he left me with.
	And we don't have to get into the details, but uh he continued to send me letters from time to time, he continued to leave messages uh on my answering machine from uh time to time.
	So I mean, especially given modern communications, uh I don't know how you can stop someone from contacting you.
	I mean, generally they can, even if it just buy a new phone or whatever it is, right?
	Set up some social media account and they can contact you.
	So I don't I mean, certainly in the past you could probably do it like you go to Australia, you're probably not gonna see the person again.
	But with regards to sort of shutting people out and so on, you're saying I'm no longer going to initiate contact.
	And if you initiate contact with me as if nothing happened, Then you are not acknowledging any kind of moral reality between us and you're again gaslighting me and putting the onus upon me to reopen this conversation, which I will then do, and then you'll storm out and make you worse.
	So it's not like you're just saying, I'm never talking to this person again.
	It's just that uh I I am no longer uh seeking to make this person better because becoming better is uncomfortable.
	And if they say I'm only gonna do what's comfortable, like if you were a nutritionist, sorry to over analogize this, but if you were a nutritionist and someone came on and said, uh I'm 300 pounds, I need to get down to 200 pounds, but I never want to experience any discomfort at all.
	I never want to experience any hunger, I want to indulge in whatever I want to eat, would you take them on as a client?
	I I understand what you're saying.
	I I I agree.
	But you wouldn't, right?
	I agree in the human side of things.
	That's the small d diversion or difference between forgiveness from a Christian perspective.
	You have to give this little seed of compassion in order for them to be able to come back to the light.
	Uh I and in the sense of uh Yes, you still have to acknowledge the wrongdoing.
	You cannot avoid it.
	Well, thou shalt not bear false witness means that and and of course the Bible commands you to, if you have an issue with someone, sit down and talk with them about it, right?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, that's that's the only thing I wanted to to separate if if it was possible.
	Yes, it you need the act of contrition as a sinner, but also but if somebody else is doing something wrong to you, and you can still as you as you did.
	I I like the way you you portrayed it.
	Like, yeah, you have to like shut them down, not completely, as you mentioned, but uh in uh in a manner in which they don't hurt you anymore, no?
	As as you said.
	But well, you're helpless.
	If if the only medicine you have makes the person more sick, you have no options as a doctor.
	That's the grace of God.
	That that would be the part where that's the the opening.
	That is a small opening.
	It's not it's not that you're going to be uh permissive towards uh towards the wrongdoings they're doing.
	That's the thing.
	This is a small aspect of it.
	It's that's I think that's the thing that is creating the the the confusion with regards to forgiveness.
	It's it's not about giving an open uh door for thing to to be a rampant because I forgave you.
	No, no, that's not the case.
	It's never been case.
	Yeah, they have to do something to earn that forgiveness.
	And I you know, I I'm I have a very sensitive and aggressive conscience, for better or for worse, usually for better.
	And so for me, my friend, what I wanted to do was I didn't want to cut people off without telling why I was upset, because that would be to deny them the opportunity to address those grievances.
	Right.
	So I mean, the silly analogy would be like if if if I'm running a restaurant and somebody has something really unpleasant in their meal, I would much rather them tell me that so that I could give them a free meal, give them a coupon, rather than leave and I didn't even know why, because there could be something that needed to be fixed in the restaurant or the kitchen or something like that.
	So in general, uh if I have a problem with someone, I'll sit down and and talk with that person about the issue because I want to be honest.
	And especially with family members, there's a very embedded genetic historical familial relationship by definition.
	And so I I wanted to give people the right of reply.
	Because if you've ever been in relationships, most of us have been in relationships where somebody just disappears.
	They just stop calling you, they stop responding, and you don't know what happened.
	That's kind of crazy making, right?
	And it's funny because I've even had a couple of these relationships.
	I run into the person years later and I said, geez, you know what happened?
	And they said, Oh, I heard this about you.
	And I'm like, but that wasn't even true.
	Like you could have called me, we could have cleaned this up at about two minutes.
	Right?
	Like, what a shame.
	What a shame to just walk away without giving people the right of reply.
	That's really, really important because first of all, if I have an issue with someone, I could be wrong.
	I could have misinterpreted something, I could have taken something ambiguous and turned it to the worst, I could have misunderstood something.
	Like or I may have heard something false or whatever.
	So it's really, really important relationships.
	Sit down and give people the right of reply.
	Because you would like the right of reply.
	It's just a universal thing.
	You would like the right of reply.
	If someone has a big issue with you, then they you they should sit down with you and give you the chance to to to talk about it, to sort of explain yourself, or whatever it is, right?
	See if you can find some reconciliation, because you need if you have a long-term relationship, you've got to have the right of reply, because otherwise you're just throwing things away for things that could be entirely mistaken or or false or whatever, right?
	So uh d you you do want to sit down and give people the right of reply.
	If their reply is, you know, F you, you a-hole, how dare you bring this up to me.
	You're paranoid, you're weird, you should have moved beyond this years ago.
	I can't believe you're still stuck on this, how pathetic, how like whatever.
	They just escalate and savage you and your character.
	It's like, okay, so unfortunately, you're allergic to the medicine called honesty, and therefore if I continue to apply it, I'm making you sicker.
	And as a doctor, as a philosopher, the only medicine I have is the truth.
	And if the truth makes you a worse person, I have to withdraw because I don't want to participate in making you a worse person.
	Now, that doesn't mean if somebody later on uh finds out, oh, I used to be lactose intolerant, now I'm not lactose intolerant.
	It's like, yeah, well, come back to my cheese and dairy bakery or something like that.
	So if people do uh learn better and and come back and say, you know, boy, I was really I really felt bad about the way I behaved the last time you you talked to me, and yeah, hey, you know, it's it's always a possibility.
	But I I've been doing this public stuff for like 20 years.
	I've had thousands and thousands of these conversations.
	I can remember two instances where people who did long-term wrongs came back and apologized.
	Now, I'm not saying it's impossible.
	You might also win the lottery, but you probably should stay safe of retirement anyway.
	All right, well, thanks everyone.
	Uh really great conversation.
	Um I guess I guess it was supposed to be uh my my fault, of course, right?
	And I'm happy that people watched uh I I promise I will remember to I've got all these new interfaces.
	Uh I promise I will make subscriber shows subscriber only.
	Um, but I do appreciate everyone's input today.
	Great conversations to have in the world.
	I absolutely love you guys for bringing your passion and your curiosity and your open-minded discussions to these very, very important topics.
	You know, restitution, apologies and forgiveness are absolutely essential.
	In the courts of life, we generally are small claims.
	And we we are not in charge of giant armies in the pursuit of virtue.
	We are not in charge of giant institutions, we don't have world-spanning global networks of communications, we don't run universities.
	But when it comes to the morals of our own life, doing wrong, wronging others, apologizing, earning forgiveness, these are the stones upon which the cathedral of general social virtues are built.
	And everyone who has a stone and participates in the building, whether we like it or not, is either putting their stone in the right place or the wrong place.
	We put our stones in the right place, our personal virtues, we build a cathedral to lasting virtue, we put them in the wrong place.
	Everything falls down.
	And uh that's a pretty big disaster.
	So free domain.com slash donate, if you would like to help out this philosophical conversation, I really would appreciate it.
	It's my birthday tomorrow.
	So and I'll do a short show in the evening just to sort of check in and say hi.
	Have yourself a beautiful evening.
	Free domain.com slash donate.
	Take care, my friends.

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