Is the U.S. a Christian Country?

[0:25] Michael: Yes, yes. We're here.

[0:27] Matt: We're here

[0:28] Michael: on the shores all sandy and wet.

[0:32] Matt: That's. That was unnecessary.

[0:37] Michael: I will spit that.

[0:38] Matt: Just drink your whiskey.

[0:41] Michael: Making sandcastles.

[0:47] Matt: Hey.

[0:47] Michael: Hey. What's up?

[0:49] Matt: I don't know what's up with you? How are you?

[0:52] Michael: I don't know. I kept kind of right before we started, kept thinking a little bit more about Landman and.

[0:57] Matt: Oh, yeah,

[0:58] Michael: I love Sam Elliott's. He says like Billy Bob Thornton asked him, like, what are you gonna do today? He's like, oh, I might watch the View. He's like. He's like, those. Those gals or those ladies are hilarious.

[1:15] Matt: Yeah. And then doesn't he say, I don't think it's on purpose?

[1:19] Michael: Exactly. Yeah.

[1:23] Matt: That show's so great. I was so disappointed that the story ended on us with season two. Yeah. Wait for the next season.

[1:30] Michael: Yeah.

[1:31] Matt: No spoilers. But it's just so excellently written and acted and Billy Bob's performance is incredible. It's a great mix of humor and action. It's intense. But there's also a lot of like, what it's like. It's very feel good.

[1:48] Michael: Also the drama with the ex wife. She's so intense. She's

[1:52] Matt: hilarious. Ali Larter, I think this is her name.

[1:56] Michael: She does that so well.

[1:57] Matt: You know, she was the girl with the whipped cream on her tits in Varsity Blues in the late 90s.

[2:03] Michael: Oh, no.

[2:03] Matt: Yeah.

[2:04] Michael: Oh, okay. Wow. Yeah, she does great.

[2:08] Matt: She's great. She's really good. Well, we will have to wait for season three.

[2:13] Michael: Yes. Yeah.

[2:16] Matt: And we'll say no more in order to not spoil it.

[2:19] Michael: No spoilers.

[2:21] Matt: A lot of really searing commentary too. Just on social issues that are peppered into that movie in a way that is like. It's not really, really overt. But it's not the typical mainstream kind of commentary either.

[2:34] Michael: Yeah. And kind of show the complexities. Not necessarily just the, you know, boilerplate Republican or Democrat view on things, which is really kind of refreshing.

[2:44] Matt: Right.

[2:45] Michael: Which I think is probably triggering for both sides.

[2:51] Matt: And Taylor Sheridan's depth of understanding of these industries is really impressive because he also wrote Yellowstone in 1883 and 1923. But it was interesting. Back in 2010, I went on a tour. It was me And I think three or four other guys in this 12 passenger van that I bought.

[3:16] Michael: Oh, like a tour? Like a music. A

[3:17] Matt: musical tour. Yeah. And we broke down out. Where were we? Out west I think we were on our way to Lubbock and the head gasket blew on this old piece of shit van that I had bought for this tour and we took it to a shop and they were basically like, yeah, you're toast. It's going to take us, you know, X amount of time to fix it, which is going to be a long time. So we were kind of stranded and we ended up meeting this guy on the side of the road who agreed to hook our trailer up to his truck and drive us all to the next city where our next show was.

[3:55] Michael: Oh, wow.

[3:56] Matt: And so we were talking about talking to him and he had worked in the oil industry and there was a whole episode in landman about this H2S gas, which is just hydrogen sulfide, something like that, that's a byproduct of drilling wells.

[4:11] Michael: Oh, that's right.

[4:11] Matt: And it's heavier than air. And he was telling us that out in that area it's like a real danger. And he said sometimes if the wind isn't blowing and there's H2s coming out of a well, it will settle into like a low water crossing in the road. And he said a car will drive into it, come out and the guy's dead.

[4:34] Michael: Wow.

[4:35] Matt: He was telling us about all these crazy stories about that back in 2010. So it was interesting to see that show up in Landman in that whole episode about the H2S gas.

[4:44] Michael: Yeah. That's crazy.

[4:46] Matt: Yeah,

[4:47] Michael: I'm sure that was probably a really fun drive with that guy.

[4:49] Matt: It really was. Yeah. I'll have to at some point go. I know I put like, I kind of journaled about it at the time. He's a really interesting person.

[4:56] Michael: I think it's what a lot of people miss out that haven't really explored or been into rural areas, you know, to just that salt of the earth kind of person, you know.

[5:07] Matt: Yeah. And when they couldn't fix my van, I didn't know what to do with it. And I think I called him this guy and he said, you can just leave it on my property. So I drove it back or had it towed back to his place and we left it and we went on, finished the tour. And I couldn't do anything about the van for like, I don't know, two months or something. And when I finally got back there after two months, he was just like, hey, how you doing? How he was asking for updates on my life and how the tour went and really cool, you know, very short lived but cool relationship.

[5:44] Michael: Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah. I always love hearing the stories of like, especially like a lot of British people come and then they go shoot guns with like, you know, someone who's kind of more rural, you know, minded or whatever and just how much fun they have, you know.

[6:01] Matt: Are you referencing our mutual British friend?

[6:05] Michael: Oh, yeah. Charlie too. Well, I mean, it's like, I feel like I've heard so many stories of this. Like,

[6:09] Matt: I guess just because you're not allowed to have guns in Britain.

[6:13] Michael: Yeah. There's like a lot of restrictions around it. So it's like. Yeah, there's just a. Just something really like grounding whenever you like. I mean, even like my daughter's taking care of chickens and like I showed her how to kill a chicken and. And

[6:31] Matt: yeah, Alison sent me the video.

[6:34] Michael: Well, it's something I just remembered as a child or as a kid growing up is when you, like when I would, like, you go hunting, you don't kill the bird all the way and you have to like, you know, kill its life.

[6:45] Matt: Yeah. Finish it off.

[6:46] Michael: And I just remember my, my dad and the people that I was around when I was hunting, like, they had such a respect for life, you know, like the whole idea of like, you know, even, you know, thanking the bird, you know, like that kind of thing. And I mean, thanking God too, but it was just sort of like, you know, thank you for giving your life, you know, that sort of gratefulness too. And so it's just. It was just funny to. When I was telling. Explaining this to Hannah, just like the words that were coming out of my mouth were almost like a ceremony I was passing on. And it just was like, oh, I wish I could have given my kids more of that. Like, you know, that in touch with, you know, your food and hunting. And I think there's. The hunting culture is just such a really fascinating and life giving and learning experience.

[7:35] Matt: Yeah. I think especially for those of us, you and I included, who, you know, live in a metropolitan area, it's really important to get out outside of that for, you know, maybe brief but somewhat extended periods of time and go see the way that other people live.

[7:53] Michael: Yeah.

[7:54] Matt: Meet them and talk to them. Really change the way that you see things.

[8:00] Michael: Yeah, that's for sure. Well, I mean, kind of segues into kind of something we were bringing up. You probably kind of explained this a little bit better than I will, but you kind of see this attitude of people coming into situations with already these preconceived notions. And that's something that kind of like, you know, we saw with Don Lemon recently with that going into the church is sort of. He already had this judgment. And they just go into a random church and sort of like protest inside of it. And they're like in the middle of their Sunday worship.

[8:37] Matt: Yeah.

[8:37] Michael: And he comes in just already with all these preconceived notions. And that's not the way you approach people, you know, and.

[8:46] Matt: Well, it is if you feel them morally superior to them, you know. Yeah. Well, let me pull up that clip and we'll play it if I can find it. So everyone, I imagine, will kind of know the thing we're talking about when Don. So it's in Minnesota with all these. The ICE controversy going on. It's kind of the, you know, ground zero of the ICE controversy right now. And this was last weekend. Don Lemon, in a group of, what would you call them? Activists. Activists, I think they self described themselves as agitators, barged into a church on Sunday morning and disrupted the service. And this got, you know, very controversial. And I brought it up to you earlier tonight because I wanted to talk about it because of something he says. And if you want political commentary, this is not really the place. Go listen to your requisite the Daily or Megyn Kelly, whichever side you want to listen to, because I'm sure they all address it. But this is a pretty astounding clip. And this is. I've never taken the time here in this home studio setup to figure out how to pipe this directly in. So I'm just going to put the thing up to the microphone. So.

[11:05] Matt: So there's so much to say about that clip. And just putting aside this sort of vanity and narcissism of his final comments there, like, I'm the biggest name here and I'm a gay white or gay black male. It's just kind of an astounding thing to say, I think, on both counts. But he says, well, first of all, he says these people in this church that they stormed into in order to intimidate in his words or to agitate, that they were entitled to and entitled by a supremacy, a white supremacy. And you made the comment to me earlier, these people weren't doing anything. They were just minding their own business inside their own church, doing their own thing. And you come storming in and tell them they're entitled white supremacists. What is that? It sounds like you're the entitled one. Really. You feel like you're entitled to go slander people when they're minding their own business.

[12:08] Michael: Yeah.

[12:09] Matt: You're not. You're not responding to them because they haven't, they haven't confronted you. But the thing that I thought was really telling was he said they think we live in a Christian nation. And he doesn't immediately refute that, but he says, when in fact we left Britain for religious freedom. But I think what he is saying is they're entitled thinking we live in a Christian nation. And that isn't the case. And I thought that's a really, really fundamental tectonic kind of shift in thinking. That got my sort of the hairs on the back of my neck standing up a little bit. And I've been thinking about it for days since this clip came out and thought maybe we could talk about why that's somewhat alarming.

[13:02] Michael: Yeah. I mean, would you describe the United States as a Christian nation?

[13:08] Matt: 100%.

[13:09] Michael: Yeah. I mean, different words to it, though. Like. Like, like it's inspired. You know, I don't know if I would. Maybe that's semantics. But I would say it's inspired by Christianity.

[13:25] Matt: I mean, it was founded explicitly by Christians for Christians. I mean, I can't remember which of the founding fathers said that out loud. He wrote that down. He said, this is a Christian nation of poor Christians. It won't work any other way. And you can take your beef with that all you want. The United States being a Christian nation does not require all the people that live in it consider themselves Christians. But I would say that it is a Christian nation because all of our founding documents, the Constitution itself, is rife with very explicit Christian doctrine, but also very implicit Christian doctrine. There's just so much of what we take for granted in the United States and in the west more broadly that does not exist without the prerequisite or presuppositions of Christianity, Christian doctrine, and the Judeo Christian values more at large. And so I was just thinking about, like, so if Don Lemon doesn't believe that the US Is a Christian nation, well, then what is it? And what do you do with the fact that there are Christian presuppositions and doctrine all throughout our founding documents, all throughout our legal system? I mean, even in the very original assumption of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal with inalienable rights given them by God. That's the idea on which almost everything flows from.

[15:05] Michael: Yeah, it's like the crux of the entire.

[15:07] Matt: And that is an explicitly Christian idea. So if you don't want to be a Christian nation, you have to get rid of the first idea of our nation, and so everything else has to come falling down after it.

[15:22] Michael: Well, I think that's the hard thing, too, is like, again, I think you'd have to start. You'd have to build a case where. I think that's. That's where. When you build it on something like Christianity or I would say even Judeo Christian values, you know, where all men are sort of held accountable to a higher power, whether you're the president or, you know, gas station attendant or whatever, you know, it's like you're all the same in the eyes of God. It's like there's a sort of equality that kind of happens, you know, and so like, okay, well, so let's just take that out. Like, what. What do we replace that with? And I think. I think some of those are some interesting questions to. To dive into. Is like, okay, if. If we're not founded on this Judeo Christian sort of idea, and that's the sort of the metaphysics behind the United States. Because there is sort of like a metaphysics to every sort of nation, which is like, you know, what is the nature of reality? That's really what you're trying to boil everything down to. Because if you can't answer those questions, then you have a harder time keeping all the different parts of it complete because you have nowhere to focus to. And having something to focus on is a metaphysical aspect that everyone needs, you know, because, you know, if everyone believes something different, then it's really Hard to have any sort of cohesive cohesion among a people.

[16:59] Matt: Well, and you asked me earlier, which I think is a good, interesting question to consider. Is it possible to have a nation without some kind of metaphysical order? And maybe we could explore the alternatives there.

[17:15] Michael: Okay,

[17:18] Matt: maybe it's not possible because maybe whatever a nation is, is big enough that without something bigger holding it together, it falls apart under its own weight.

[17:28] Michael: You

[17:28] Matt: can think about it that way. So maybe an alternative. So what would you replace a metaphysical order with? And you know, well, you could replace it with a despot like Hitler who's charismatic enough to. That everybody can focus on him. North Korea is an example that comes to my mind. But they actually do have a metaphysical order and it's that the Kim family, whoever's in charge is basically God. And there's all these crazy stories about him, like, you know, he doesn't defecate. He, like, I can't remember all the rest of them does never get ill, things like this. And every household is required to have a picture of him in their home.

[18:15] Michael: Yeah,

[18:16] Matt: so that's sort of a metaphysics that, that is loosely keeping that country together. But I wouldn't say that it's keeping it together very well because without their, you know, their walls and their, I guess, guards hunting down and killing people who are trying to defect, everyone would just leave, presumably.

[18:36] Michael: Yeah. Any sort of. Starving. Yeah,

[18:38] Matt: yeah,

[18:41] Michael: yeah. It's hard for me to just take broad strokes of this because I, I, it's, it and, and not actually get into the nitty gritty of like, what, what other possible scenarios would actually work? Because I, I've, I don't want to dismiss it lightly, but I feel like my experience is that in just studying different history is just, it doesn't, it doesn't seem to work if you don't have a, A higher principle and that everyone is, or at least the laws or the nation is aspiring to, you know, because in every instance where it is like a despot or a totalitarian person in, in charge, it's sort of like you're sort of at the whim of other people. And if you don't have even your leaders that are subordinate to something greater than themselves, it's like there's like a, it just seems to always lead to ruin of some sort.

[19:52] Matt: Well, that's when you get the phrase absolute power leads to absolute corruption.

[19:57] Michael: Yeah, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

[19:59] Matt: Yeah,

[20:00] Michael: it's like. And it's interesting because I do want to try to think because it requires belief in any Sort of gathering of people. You have to have a belief around something. So, you know, if you have a belief in. So let's just say like most people are good or all people have good in them. Okay, well, so that's kind of a metaphysical. Like, why is that?

[20:32] Matt: Well, I would put that in the category of the Christian presupposition.

[20:36] Michael: Well, I'm trying to. I'm trying to think outside of that Christian presupposition. It's sort of like, but what do you do with evil or negative behavior, however you want to phrase it in that system? It's like, how do you explain that? It's like, oh, well, that's their animal instincts that were trying to socialize out of them into coming into a. You know. So

[20:58] Matt: yes, these are two alternatives. And that was Freud's idea, was that the animal instincts were coming out and trying to take over and they needed to be subdued to some degree. The alternative approach is that everyone is essentially good and they're corrupted by externalities, they're corrupted by society. That's Rousseau's idea. Oh,

[21:17] Michael: that's right.

[21:18] Matt: There's a real. In both cases, there's a real moral relativism that emerges. And you see some of the Romantics, starting with Rousseau, trying to establish morality and ethics without God. And I think Freud picks that up and continues it. Freud ends up really hyper sexualizing it. Um, but what happens when you try to create morality and ethics without God is you end up with a morality and ethics that's completely subjective to each individual. And so it's sort of every man should be able to do whatever they want all the time. That's the solution. And that's clearly not going to work for any kind of organization. So maybe that's some historical evidence that. And it's really crazy. And I learned all of this from that book, the Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, which is really, I think, worth reading. It's really crazy where the lines of thinking end up. They end up with justifications for things that even our own, in our own postmodern society feel in very poor taste, like no limits on sexual interactions. So pedophilia is fine, incest is fine. Ideally, every man would have sex with any individual, male or female, that he wanted of any age at any time. Monogamy is nothing but an external societal corrupting force. So you end up in some crazy places. And then there's this guy, Peter Singer, who takes that even further and makes an argument for. His version of what should be legalized abortion. And it's abortion all the way up to like the age 2.

[23:17] Michael: Wow.

[23:19] Matt: And by his reasoning, he also justifies euthanizing elderly people when they are perceived to not be experiencing pleasure in their life. So these things seem like in very poor taste. I mean, in our country right now with the abortion issue, I think we have nine states now because Virginia just passed legalized full term abortion. And I haven't looked into it, so I'm not sure exactly what the details of what full term means in that legislation. But I would say most of the country is fairly uncomfortable with full term abortion. Most of the country is fairly comfortable with something between six and 12 weeks. But the line of thinking that starts with, I'm going to create a set of ethics and morality without God when taken seriously and logically lead to a position. And when you read Peter Singer's position on this, it's kind of airtight. Like you can see how he came to the position, the reasons that he did. And he justifies killing toddlers in his way of thinking. And I can't repeat his way of thinking. So that's an alternative. So what's the alternative to those two things? Well, it's like man sits under a spiritual authority and man has derived his value from that and also his humility from that. And without those two things, the project of creating your own moral order always goes awry. This is why. I don't think he said it this way. I think I'm paraphrasing from some other place. But this is why Nietzsche said, we've killed God and there will never be enough water to wipe away all the blood. He compares the tap. He, he even says, like, I don't know how we've done it. How can you boil the ocean? Something like that.

[25:32] Michael: Well, I think this, I mean, it's really hard for me to. Because I hear people making these arguments that like, you don't really need God. And in a certain way I can kind of follow that line of thinking. But what I keep coming back to is like, well, where did you get that? And really, like, you're borrowing from the Judeo Christian worldview and you're just taking out God, but you're saying, but everything else still exists. If you take out the whole God aspect of it, you know, as far as, like, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

[26:14] Matt: Yeah, you don't get that without, without God.

[26:16] Michael: Yeah, it's like, who defines those things? So I think that's the hard thing, that it's sort of when you, you know, you Grow up in the US and there's all these laws and rules and people follow them mostly and, and they're sort of semblance of society. But then you go to another place where there is no foundation for that.

[26:36] Matt: Yeah,

[26:37] Michael: it's like it's a completely different world. And you're like, no, no, you gotta follow the rules. It's like, yeah, fuck you.

[26:43] Matt: Yeah, yeah, yeah,

[26:44] Michael: that's mine.

[26:45] Matt: Well, I mean, it just occurs to me that this is a real Chesterton's Fence kind of problem. I mean, when you're living in a Christian society, you might be able to do just fine without God

[26:55] Michael: totally

[26:55] Matt: because, well, the social contract you've already agreed to, which was built on the presupposition of the ideas of Christianity. Do others, do unto others as you adapt them. Do unto you the Golden Rule. Every individual has

[27:13] Michael: value,

[27:13] Matt: infinite value that should not be violated even in extreme cases. And so you don't really need God because this is built into the social contract. But if you try to get rid of God and the social contract fails you, you can't resurrect God in order to bring back those values, especially if you've, you know, dispensed with the idea of Him. And, you know, if you've ever even. Just a couple years ago, you and I went to, to Mexico, fairly deep into Mexico, and we were both commenting to each other, as we were, I guess we didn't rent a car, we were being, you know, driven around or whatever, that there was this very, this sense that the social contract there is different. You need to be careful because you don't know what you're getting into. You don't know the way people are going to respond to things. And for people who've only ever traveled to Western countries, I mean, I guess of which Mexico is sort of one, it

[28:22] Michael: kind of is, but it's definitely a taste of

[28:24] Matt: something different. But if you've been to France and Germany and Italy, I mean, in the Czech Republic, these places, you're pretty comfortable with, like, I pretty much can. I know how people are going to behave and respond in most situations. And mostly people are going to be putting their best foot forward and they're going to treat me with kindness and like I'm worth treating well. But there are other places in the world that aren't like that at all.

[28:49] Michael: Well, it's like I've been to Venezuela and it's sort of like, you know, you operate in these small enclaves of people because those are the people you can trust and anybody Outside that enclave, you don't trust them.

[29:00] Matt: Right.

[29:01] Michael: Even when we went to a big party with a lot of people from other different parts of Venezuela, they all hung out in their little enclaves, you know, and it was sort of like, you don't. You don't move outside of that because you don't know what's.

[29:15] Matt: What the rules are, what

[29:16] Michael: the rules are going to be. Yeah.

[29:17] Matt: Well, it just occurred to me that the idea of democracy itself is a Christian idea. I mean, you would not have any interest in democracy if you didn't start from the presupposition that all men are created equal. And you're starting to see some of this in the discourse about the Electoral college in this country. I've had some conversations with people where I basically said, if you get rid of the Electoral college, then the west and east coast decide on everything. And if you live in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, your voice doesn't matter at all. Right. And their response is kind of like, well, yeah, but it doesn't really matter at all. You know, it's the city centers that matter. And if those people want a voice, they need to move to the city centers. Something like that. So what you're really saying is that you would get rid of democracy if you could. The idea of democracy is. No, the voice of that person who lives on 100,000 acres in Wisconsin has value. It has equal value to mine, even though I live in a city of a million people. I mean, that's a. That idea goes right out the window when you get rid of the Christian nation idea.

[30:28] Michael: Yeah. Or if you can think like I was in el Salvador in 2007, and it was sort of like, you know, there's a there, there. You just don't. You, like you had armed people with you because you did not know.

[30:44] Matt: Oh, yeah,

[30:45] Michael: you know, you know, if the cops were safe, if the. Or someone's going to stop you or come onto your land. And one of the farmers we were with, you know, he's. He's carrying a gun as well as he's got an armed person with him. And it's just a different. A different life that you're living. Whenever you don't have that sort of foundational value is, you know, it's like even, you know, I think about kind of the Judeo Christian values is that, you know, it's kind of similar to capitalism where, you know, you can. You can be a communist or a socialist and a capitalist world, but you can't. But none of those exist in the others. So, like, you can't be a capitalist in a communist world. So I kind of find that with the Judeo Christian values is like, you can still worship and believe in other things in that worldview, but you can't.

[31:41] Matt: Yeah, Let me try to put it in another way.

[31:43] Michael: Okay.

[31:44] Matt: So in that book, the Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, there's a man named. I think his name is Philip Rieff. And he's putting forward this idea. He didn't write the book, but he's being quoted in the book. He put the idea forward that there are three types of civilizations. There's Type one, which is a pagan civilization, but it has a sacred order that is registered within the social norms of that society. A type 2 civilization is a religious civilization, and it also has a sacred order that's registered into the social norms of that society. But it is something like a Christian society, or you can maybe say a Catholic society or even an Islamic society to that matter. But Type three has no sacred order. And that's what we're talking about here, is if we're not a Christian nation, then what are we? Well, we have to be something without a sacred order. And without a sacred order, all systems of ethics and morality become matters of taste and personal preference. And this is the Rousseauian idea that I was talking about earlier. And he says that a type 3 civilization can live inside of a type 2 civilization. So you can have a secular portion of society living within a religious society. He said a type 2 cannot live within a type 3 because one of the necessities in a type 3 civilization, which again, has no sacred order, it isn't enough. And he gives many examples of this. It's kind of mind blowing. But it isn't enough to simply do away with the sacred order. The sacred order must, in fact, be mocked and derided and put up on display as an inversion of what it is. And that's why a type 3 type 2 civilization, a religious civilization, cannot exist inside of a type 3. But type 3 can exist inside of type 2. Because type 2's presupposition is all men, no matter what they believe, are created equal. All men have inherent value no matter what they believe or even no matter what they do. But the type 3 civilization doesn't have that idea.

[34:05] Michael: Yeah,

[34:06] Matt: and you kind of. This is very similar to what you're saying, which is that communism can exist within capitalism, but capitalism cannot exist within communism.

[34:16] Michael: Yeah,

[34:16] Matt: it's a similar idea, but I mean, the example. So Philip Rieff's idea, type 3 can't exist inside. Sorry, type 2 can't exist in type 3. That clip from Don Lemon is evidence that he thinks he's living in a type 3 civilization. And what do they do? They barge into the church, insult them openly and admittedly intimidate them, and then deride them afterward. No one from that Christian church was barging into Don Lemon's podcast room and saying anything to him,

[34:57] Michael: which is interesting. Like, so if, like, in a. In a. In a type 2, and it can. It does depend on what the Type two is, because, like, you know, if you live under Sharia law versus more of a Christian nation, and you've also seen some really perverse, you know, quote unquote, Christian nations also that have, you know, maybe don't, like, follow the principles of, like, all men are created equal, you know, in the eyes of God. You know, it's like, even the US at certain times did not see everyone as created equal. And. But we see that there's something in. There's a value in that when that is a presupposition that all men, no matter race, religion, color, whatever, are equal. It's like, you have to, like, you have to sort of allow all people to have those rights that you would have, because it comes back to that golden rule is like, treat others as you would have, as you would, and other people would treat you. You know, it's like, if I expect you to respect my freedom, then I need to respect your freedom or your freedom of speech. If I want to have freedom of speech, I need to respect your freedom of speech, you know, and, you know, if not, then you're starting to, like, head into a world where, you know, you have to follow some sort of strict dogma that keeps you beholden to something you might not believe. And I think that's like, where you have that Type three where there's a sort of derision of anybody who doesn't follow that absence of. Of God. And then, like. But then it's also interesting too, because as you were talking about that, I was like. I was like, okay, well, I feel like a lot, in a lot of these places, they talk about more about what they're against than what they're for. Like, there has to be an enemy. There has to be a. Because if you lose, if you lose that, then it's like. It's like the enemy becomes more and more refined and refined and refined until everybody's your enemy.

[37:12] Matt: Yeah, well, I mean, it is kind of interesting, like, if things aren't the way that I want them to Be, I could say, well, I haven't been who I should have been to God. I haven't pleased God. I haven't made the proper sacrifices to God. That's why things aren't the way I want them to be. But if I do away with the idea of God, then I say things aren't the way that I want them to be. It must be my neighbor and all of his shenanigans and his dog that's staying keeping me up late, barking. And it must be the government and the things that they're taking from me. And it must be those bigots down the street who voted this particular government in. I mean, you're going to find the, I think, the solution to your problems, in a sense, externally. And it's either that you're not sufficient, which means you're subject to something greater than you, which is the idea of God, or you are sufficient. And this is the Rousseauian idea. It's like I'm essentially good and sufficient and it's the corrupting forces of the external society that are causing me to do my life to not be the way that I want it to be. And so I need to reform society. And that's a tyrannical thing.

[38:31] Michael: Yeah,

[38:33] Matt: that becomes tyranny.

[38:37] Michael: I find this, this conversation so difficult.

[38:40] Matt: Yeah.

[38:42] Michael: Because, you know, when I, when I, when I discuss this with people, I find that they have some sort of metaphysical belief that they don't want to acknowledge and they think it's somewhat inherent or even biological in the way or it's just a good rule of thumb. And I'm like, it doesn't really hold for me. I just don't, I can't make those arguments outside of. And I think this is why I keep getting drawn back to God, is because it's like none of these things make sense outside of that framework. And I, I really enjoy and I try to make those arguments outside of God because I feel like if I can make those arguments, like prove the negative, then God doesn't exist. You know, but it's like I, I can't prove the negative. Like, you know, as far as, like, actually, you know, love. Like, what is love? And how do you define that? It's like we know that it's better that if you're loving to your neighbor, you know, loving to your wife, and what does it mean to love your neighbor? What does it mean to love your wife and your kids?

[40:06] Matt: Well, I guess I would say we say we know it's better because we live in a Christian nation. If you're Attila the Hun, or Even just take 1930s Germany for that matter, were they saying, we know it's better to love your neighbor?

[40:30] Michael: Yeah.

[40:31] Matt: No, I think there are people that live within type 2 civilizations inside of religious civilizations who say, well, it's self evident that it's better to love your neighbor, so we should all just do that. It isn't self evident. It is not. And it's very easy to stop thinking that way. Once you perceive the problems in the world as being perpetrated on you by a corrupting force that is your neighbor. Well, then wouldn't everything just be better if we took all of those neighbors that happen to be Jewish or Christian and put them in concentration camps? If you're the Ottoman Empire, wouldn't it be better if we just controlled everybody and everything and we conquered 75% of the world?

[41:17] Michael: Or even like, I mean, the Christians do the same thing with the Crusades. You know, it's like, oh, everyone would be better if we were in charge. You know, it's like, so there is something like that. So the superiority of man and trying to inflict and their ideals onto other people. And I think that's what made the us different in that it's like, hey, we see that everyone is. Some of the most basic things is you're created in the image of God. Well,

[41:47] Matt: I just want to.

[41:47] Michael: Freedom of religion.

[41:48] Matt: Yeah. And I want to respond to the Crusades comment because I want to say that no one, no matter what principles they believe is immune from corruption and a mob mentality can encourage almost anyone to do almost anything, regardless of what they think, they think about values and principles. But if you are trying to establish a set of principles that are likely to keep us away from that corruption, away from that tribalism, away from even just murder for the sake of murder, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, for that matter. The principles, the only principles that have been tried and instantiated and seem to have worked are those Christian principles.

[42:43] Michael: Yeah, I mean, just historically that makes sense to me and specifically with the United States. But you can see it kind of grow over time, but kind of culminating, I think, in what happened with the, the, the American experiment. You know, I think that's. But I think that's the cool thing with it. It was like they left room because they know that, that we're not going even worshiping God, we're not going to do it the same way. And they left all these like religious freedom and freedom of speech and the right to bear arms to protect yourself. Because, you know, sometimes it's going to go haywire. It's going to go not the way that maybe you agree with and, and, and they left that tension there, but with the. I think the foundation of that is. Was crucial. I mean, how do you do that? Like, I think it's just really hard to ex. To, to understand this through an American lens just because of that sort of like.

[43:53] Matt: Well, that's because

[43:54] Michael: of. Tied to. Yeah.

[43:55] Matt: Yeah. Well, I think that's my original point. Why I think the United states is a 100% a Christian nation is because those ideas are so baked in that you can't even see that they're there. In some sense, we just take them so, so well for granted.

[44:09] Michael: Yeah.

[44:10] Matt: And we just think again, it's obvious that this is what's good and this is what's bad.

[44:15] Michael: Well, would you say maybe, like, maybe the argument could be made is like, and this is hilarious, but like, it's more about. Because we're, we're more civilized that we have this cohesion, like in. And then countries that are less civilized don't have that cohesion. So it's more about the civilizing of people and having a sort of shared morality that is agreed upon. Like I, I could see that as, as that, as that being an argument for United States is that we have a somewhat shared morality. So it has nothing to do with God. It's just that we've accepted and adhere to a shared morality where in other countries where they don't have that same shared morality or even a disregard for any morality, which is more of like a might. Like might makes right type of mentality.

[45:22] Matt: Yeah. Well, my argument would be it is not possible to have shared morality without God, because without God, all morality is a reflection of taste. And to the extent that a group of people shares the same taste, it's coincidental. And so it's going to be very fleeting and temporary.

[45:42] Michael: Yeah.

[45:42] Matt: So you're not going to have anything sticking around long enough for you to call it civilized. I mean, how does a civil. How does a civilization become civilized? You know, I mean, just look back, I would say to the 16, 1700s in this country, especially as you moved out West. It was not civilized. It wasn't civilization. Maybe you had some on the east coast, some civilization, something that looked coherent and functional, and you could kind of trust that your stuff was going to stick around for a little while. But you go watch a show like 1883 or Emily Blunt was in this really excellent series that I'm Blanking on the name now, where she. It's kind of in the same time period, like late 1700s, early 1800s. And she's moving out, going out west on her own as a British elite woman. And the things she gets into. I mean, it's just these old stories of the west in America are just brutal. There's no idea of civilization. There's no idea of treat your neighbor as yourself. There's no idea of anything except for every man for himself. No holds barred. Nothing's off limits. I mean, the whole idea of the Western town was like, you. You had a lawman, but it's not like he was obeying the law. He was the law.

[47:11] Michael: Yeah,

[47:13] Matt: He. He shot with impunity whoever he pleased. So I don't think it's until you first instantiate the ideas of Christianity into the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and the legal system and give that time to take hold and spread, that you can even have something like civilization emerge. And I mean, just to give a couple of other examples and to stick with Philip Rieff's framework, I kind of glossed over it. But the Type one civilization is pagan, but still has a sacred order. Like the city of Sparta is an example of that. They were pagan, but they had a sacred order. And anyone who disagreed with a law or an edict or a ruling, they would accept that. Well, the Oracle of Delphi demanded it. Not exactly a God, but an oracle. And so. Well, okay. Can't argue with that. Right. And so I think some of those. What you might think of those as sort of more civilized.

[48:20] Michael: Yeah. Like Athens and Sparta.

[48:22] Matt: Yeah,

[48:23] Michael: that makes

[48:23] Matt: sense. They still had a sacred order, but it's not the kind of sacred order that. Well,

[48:27] Michael: Rome, for example. Right. Yeah, that makes sense.

[48:32] Matt: You have to have a set of ideas which are civilizing, and the people have to submit themselves to them. And there's no such thing within a type 3 civilization. If you can. If it can be said that they're. Could exist. One.

[48:48] Michael: Yeah. It's almost impossible. Even the idea of a type 3 society without some sort of hierarchical. Or. How'd you say it?

[49:00] Matt: Sacred. Which is a register of the social norms. Yeah.

[49:04] Michael: Without a sacred order of some sort. Which is so fascinating to me. Well, because I was also thinking in this line is like some of these things can exist in small groups. Like you can have. You can have small functioning groups. But I think it says that as that scales, it doesn't work. You know, like Native Americans were more pagan in that sense, you know, or maybe not Pagan, But

[49:31] Matt: I think they were

[49:32] Michael: more pagan.

[49:33] Matt: I mean, I,

[49:33] Michael: I. Sorry. Like the Great Spirit.

[49:35] Matt: I don't know a lot about the. Like, what is the right term?

[49:44] Michael: Native American is a.

[49:46] Matt: Because it's like when we were growing up, we called them Indians, and then it became politically correct to call them Native Americans. But they're not Native Americans.

[49:54] Michael: They're prior to us being.

[49:56] Matt: They were prior to this land, but this land wasn't America at that time. So it's not an accurate term at all. That's

[50:00] Michael: true.

[50:03] Matt: They aren't exactly indigenous because they migrated here through the Bering Strait. So anyway.

[50:10] Michael: Yeah, it's kind of not worth it.

[50:13] Matt: The native people of this land.

[50:14] Michael: Yeah, there you go.

[50:17] Matt: I think that they were certainly a type 1 civilization to the extent that they were a civilization. Or maybe like the Aztecs would be a good example of that, because more of a civilization. The tribes of natives in North America were less of a civilization. More nomadic. More

[50:32] Michael: nomadic. That's a good point. Yeah.

[50:36] Matt: But they certainly submitted to something like God, whether that was the God of nature. I mean, they appealed to a spiritual order, you know, for all kinds of things to bless. Their hunts, their kills, the rain.

[50:49] Michael: Yeah,

[50:49] Matt: all sorts of things.

[50:51] Michael: In fact, there's really. No, there's no example of. I mean, that's kind of like what Nietzsche is talking about, the Uberman and the sort of like. Like the sort of the death of God and moving into this, the modern man that doesn't need God. It's like. I think the more that we try to do that, the less we have to stand on.

[51:15] Matt: The only examples of it that I can think of are when a type 3 civilization tries to grow within a type 2 and tries to take it over, and it ends in annihilation.

[51:26] Michael: Yeah.

[51:27] Matt: So the Soviet Union, I think, would be a good example of that. You had a society that was very Catholic for a very long time and very religious for a very long time, and then got just wooed by this idea of we can absolutely control everything and make it perfect ourselves. And they tried that. Lenin and Stalin came along and tried that and murdered tens and millions of people. And it finally ended in just total collapse in the end of the. At the end of the 1980s, which is within our lifetime, that happened.

[52:06] Michael: It's crazy,

[52:08] Matt: you know, and in that society, you had the Berlin Wall, which is interesting, because it wasn't a wall that was keeping people out. It was a wall that was keeping people in. The guards on the wall were shooting in, not out. That's where you End up.

[52:26] Michael: Yeah. Nobody was trying to get in there.

[52:28] Matt: No. It's the same in North Korea.

[52:31] Michael: Uhhuh.

[52:31] Matt: The guards are shooting in, not out.

[52:33] Michael: Yeah.

[52:34] Matt: This is not a society. This is a prison.

[52:37] Michael: Yeah, I mean, so I mean, I. I mean, just try to make. Make the case for the modern scientific man, you know, if that's the case, you know, because I think that's something that we're really flirting with right now is this whole. Whole idea of, like, now we know enough and, you know, you can maybe say. You can start to point to just physiological features of, you know, it's love your neighbor as yourself. Well, here's all the. Phil. Here's the scientific reasons why that's good and healthy, and it has all these positive aspects to it. So it's not that there's a God, but it's actually something that's healthy for society because it's physiologically mapped. But

[53:30] Matt: we had this conversation several weeks ago. The presupposition there is that we can agree on what good is and what healthy is. And I don't think you can do that.

[53:41] Michael: Well, I'll make an example. I'm more talking about, as we move into the future of understanding these things better, that I could see that argument holding some weight. I would then ask, why is that? You know, there's actually. I think there's a metaphysical reason behind that, but that shows. That shows physically in our bodies. But I can see moving forward, we start making those arguments more from a scientific point. You know, as far as saying that, you know, monogamy is a good thing because we see the effects on our kids and how they grow up so much better and with more confidence. If there is a two parents in the home, if there's, you know, it's like, I feel like there is physical evidence for those values. I don't think they're sufficient, but I think I. I think you could make those arguments.

[54:43] Matt: You can.

[54:45] Michael: Oh, sorry. I just found some holes in my thinking.

[54:48] Matt: Okay, go tell me.

[54:50] Michael: Well, it's just then you start to kind of determine. It's sort of like there's this sort of like, almost Gattaca kind of aspect of where you start relying on these physical features, where you start determining people's like, oh, you're not capable of this because you don't carry this certain chemical, or you're not, you know, you're not balanced in the right way. So you don't. There's an elitism that then could. That could start to formulate from that. It's not that all men are created equal. It's actually some men are created better, you know, because they're genetically superior

[55:26] Matt: or. Yeah, you get into. What is that called when you try to change people's genes and stuff?

[55:35] Michael: Genetic editing?

[55:35] Matt: No, eugenics.

[55:37] Michael: Eugenics,

[55:38] Matt: yeah. You get into eugenics really fast. And this is why I would say, like, to your point about, we can observe that monogamy is better, but monogamy isn't a value. Monogamy is the thing that we call better. The value is further upstream. The value has something to do with. Well, you're assuming that it's good for people to have families. Why would you assume that? I mean, you're seeing all kinds of people, mostly on the left in this country and in the west these days, who are saying, actually, it's not a good thing to have a family. It would be much better for you selfishly to not have a family. I saw this clip of a woman saying this, responding to the ICE stuff in Minnesota. She's saying, it's probably best that I'm single right now because if I had kids, I wouldn't be able to go to these protests. So I'm really glad that I don't have kids or a partner who might disagree with me. But the whole structure of monogamy and marriage and kids is that, no, it's actually good for you to have a partner that disagrees with you. It's actually good for you to have children that limit you. But you can't submit to something like disagreement or limitation if you aren't already, in a sense, argued with and limited by some higher power. Because if that higher power isn't there, well, then you just have a disagreeable, annoying spouse or inconvenient children. So you get rid of the original value, which I'm going to call God. And all of a sudden monogamy is a meaningless restraint on your life. There's no way to see it any differently and to say, well, science can show us self evidently what is good to your line of thinking, I would say, well, that's when you assume that all the scientists agree on what is good. And this is CS Lewis's whole argument in his book the Abolition of Man. It's like we're not going to agree on what is good or what even is healthy. You know, what is healthy? You might say, well, you might give them like an arbitrary definition. You know, I saw this video of this woman who lived to 109 years old. Wouldn't it be great if we could all do that? Okay, so healthy means long life. Why are we euthanizing people in Canada? It's like the number one or two cause of death in that country right now, or maybe three or something like that. But a lot of people. Well, because we've determined that their life had no value. Why does Peter Singer agree that we should euthanize toddlers? Well, it turns out we can't actually agree on what health is. We can't agree on what healthy is. And to that end, maybe it turns out that not everyone is healthy. Not everyone's capable of health. So what should we do about that? Who's healthy enough? Who isn't healthy enough? You get into eugenics, whether by way of gene editing or trying to prevent certain populations from breeding. I mean, that was happening. That's how Planned Parenthood started in this country. Was Margaret Sanger trying to breed out black people, discourage them from having kids? Which is why to this day, 60% of the abortions in America are black.

[59:14] Michael: Wow.

[59:15] Matt: Even though they represent 6% of the

[59:18] Michael: population,

[59:20] Matt: 13% total, 6 and a half percent. If you just take the women, men can't get pregnant.

[59:26] Michael: Whoa. That's crazy.

[59:28] Matt: So, I mean, which is really interesting. It's like, so you might ask, ask someone who's pro life, let's say, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Maybe you start with, is it a good thing or a bad thing that the Black population is 13% in America? Well, that's a hard question. You'd probably err towards. Well, it's a bad thing. It should be more. Okay, then, is it a good thing or a bad thing that 60% of the abortions are black? Whoa. I'm pro life. So it's probably a good thing for them, but it's at odds with your original good thing, so you can't even decide on what's good.

[60:04] Michael: Yeah.

[60:05] Matt: So I think that the idea that a scientific worldview is going to be able to cohesively move forward in any direction is just a remnant of the implicit, if not latent Christian ideas built into the social contract.

[60:23] Michael: I think that's what I've been really enjoying. Reading a little bit more sci fi in this last kind of couple years or year, I guess, is like working these thought experiments over like a hundred or a thousand or ten thousand years. And what does it look like in the future? Because let's just say science solves most problems or is able to diagnose a lot of those problems. It's like, does that solve our societal problems? You know, the stuff that we're talking about here. And that's kind of one of the questions I have too is like, you know, because we've seen science be captured and us to trust the science, you know, you're like, well okay, you know, it's. But there's something, there's something beyond the science that is of a higher value.

[61:16] Matt: Well, that's a really good, it's a really good point, like seeing the way things play out. But I want to go backwards because again, you run into the problem of what is good when you go backwards. So science fiction takes you forward to see the way that civilization plays out. Could emerge, could emerge over thousands of years. It's just today listening to this guy being interviewed on Lex Fridman. His name's Paul Rosolie, I believe. And he's been working in the Amazon rainforest for the past, I think 20 years. And just a few months ago was approached by a never before contacted tribe of people who live in the Amazon. And these are people. The way he talks about it is like the tribes of the Amazon, the uncontacted tribes of the Amazon are sort of talked about like Bigfoot. Like some people want to believe that they're there. Some people claim they've seen them. Some people have found a spear here or there or an arrow. There's stories about people getting murdered, but still people are like, it's not possible, you know, they're not there. So he's there deep into the Amazon jungle and gets approached by this tribe who have these six foot bows from which they shoot seven foot arrows. Just like kind of hard to comprehend. And these people are fairly short, they're fully naked, no shoes. They apparently don't have, they don't have any metallurgy, they don't have any, they don't do pottery, so they don't have vessels for water. But they've been living the way that they're living for thousands of years. And he starts talking about, well, he wants to protect them, protect their way of life, which is to say stop the loggers from going in there, stop the narco traffickers from taking over the area. Stop the. He's like, I have this real moral dilemma. Like should I even post this because he videoed the encounter? Should I post the encounter because a bunch of people are going to say, oh, either I want to go live that way or and join their tribe which would be certain instant death for them or maybe we can go bring them some things that would help them. And so you re encounter this problem. It's like, is the way they're living good or not, should we impart our ideas of civilization on them or let them be? The difference is so stark that it's either complete separation or these two things are going to have to combat and one's going to win and one's going to lose. And I can promise you which one is going to lose. So what's the good? I mean can we even identify a good civilization when we look at it?

[64:23] Michael: Well, even what we've been talking about kind of applies here too. And the type 2 and type 3 is like, like if you take the. And this is kind of a bastardization what you just were saying, but it's very similar in that. Let's just call these tribes that have not really encountered modernity, it's sort of type three and modernity is, Type two is, it's like we can actually provide these type three societies inside a type two because it's like, hey, we're going to try to preserve this and not bother them. Like that island off the coast of, what is it? India or I think it's India. There's that, there's that tribe that's on that island.

[65:07] Matt: Yeah,

[65:08] Michael: forget what it's called, but

[65:09] Matt: I think that's a more well known one. People have flown over and taken video and stuff.

[65:13] Michael: Yeah, but, but again it's like they can exist at our, our leisure. But, but it's like, but if they encounter, if it was the other way around, it's like they're going to be combative and not, and, and not assimilate into our culture. You know, it's like, but we can allow those types of systems to exist within that more civilized society. Does that make sense?

[65:42] Matt: Yeah, but I think that has less to do with the terms of the three types of civilization. It

[65:48] Michael: is, it's a little bit, it's a little bit more

[65:50] Matt: of a point about power and population density and size because I would I think probably classify the uncontacted tribe in the Amazon rainforest as more of a type one.

[66:04] Michael: Type one? Yeah, totally,

[66:05] Matt: surely. But my point is that I'm not sure that you can just simply from first principles identify what is a good civilization and what is a bad civilization. So directionally you're going to be disoriented if you just without God, try to identify where, just based on somehow like science, where should things go? Because the Aztecs had a fairly impressive civilization on many, many counts, we from our current vantage point would not call that a very civilized place.

[66:42] Michael: Oh, interesting.

[66:43] Matt: They sacrificed children, they engaged in Genital mutilation, all kinds of. They believed things that we think are very unscientific, like we can control the rain by sacrificing children. So we would say, well, that's not very civilized from the perspective from within that society. I think it probably seemed incredibly civilized and in a way incredibly scientific to them at that time.

[67:15] Michael: Yeah.

[67:15] Matt: So, you know, I'm just not sure that we have very good ideas on the whole about what is and what should be. And if we're not pointing towards some. We think we see, we can identify what is good because it's obvious. And I would say, I think in the end there is one good. And everything we call good are the things that move toward that. And that is a sacred order in the type 2 sense. And without that one good, that everything moves toward good becomes arbitrary. And so it moves in all directions at once. And it causes conflict, dissociation, it causes entropy.

[68:17] Michael: Well, even if you think about just to sort of like the missionary ethos there would have been and maybe still is, that sort of idea is like, well, we need to go in there and convert these people to God. You know, it's like, so they can experience a different life. And it's like, well, that's. That's kind of invasive is like, that doesn't really have that same preserving their culture and their way of doing things

[68:49] Matt: right,

[68:50] Michael: you know, and it's like, is that good or bad? And

[68:53] Matt: I know that's the whole point. It's really hard to answer.

[68:55] Michael: Tough question.

[68:56] Matt: Should every culture be preserved? Should every cultural practice be preserved?

[69:01] Michael: Yeah,

[69:03] Matt: I mean, you know, if you answer in the affirmative and you say, yeah, well, one, get ready to lose because you're not going to be able to make it happen. I don't know that I had a two. The two is like, well, that's so obviously false. You know, even if you just look around the world right now and you say, I'm good with every cultural practice now in the world, well, rewind 50 years or 100 years. You good. Should have every cultural practice from everywhere in the world have been preserved from then.

[69:44] Michael: I mean, even just in, you know, certain practices, whether it's in Christianity or outside of, like, you know, you know, someone turns away from. From God. It's like, it's like, are you allowed to do that? You know, and I think there's something that, you know, like in Islam, it's like, if you. If a Muslim becomes a Christian, like, that's not an okay thing. And you're. You're punished for that?

[70:10] Matt: Yeah.

[70:11] Michael: You know, so it's, it's. Or there are certain views about women in certain cultures. It's like, is that okay or what? I mean, but then what grounds are you making that assertion that it's not okay? And I think that's where a lot of people get. Well, it's just, it's, it's self evident.

[70:30] Matt: Right,

[70:31] Michael: okay. Well, based on what though, it's like. And I think that's, I think that's a hard thing where we come back to the Type two, you know, societies that these like Type threes are in that are kind of like, well, it's just self evident. Everyone knows that. But even in this conversation that we're having, it's like, I really would love to hear people's comments on what we're talking about because I find this very difficult. And I think the, the part that makes the most sense to me is the type 2 argument and why God is something that, and is essential to society and I can never get away from because everything outside of that just falls apart. And a lot of times I find anytime I'm starting to make an argument outside of living In a type 2 society, I'm really basing it on that, you know, trying things. I think that's something I've always tried to do is try to move into that Type three, that Uberman, the, the, the Nietzschean idea of like this, this person beyond God, you know, I feel like I'm always trying to make that argument in my head is like, what does it mean if God is dead? Like, what does it look like? And I find that I'm always coming back to relying or propping it up on the idea that there is a God. And I think that's, that's where I have to be intellectually honest with myself, you know, as far as like stating that there is a God. Because it doesn't work any other way.

[72:07] Matt: Just your, even your own lines of thinking don't work.

[72:10] Michael: It doesn't work. It just, I mean, because like I have to, I didn't have to think about what I, what, what's what I, what society that I'm embedded in and then how other people, how other societies work. And I don't see, I don't see that even like in the, in the ways that Christianity have experimented and played itself out in different ways that have failed. And I would say it failed because it, it went away from God and not towards God.

[72:43] Matt: Yeah,

[72:44] Michael: so it's just, it's so. I can see how different lines of Christianity have failed because of the very thing that. Why. That. Why it has succeeded. And I think that's something that's. That's a. That's a. To me, that's a teacher, a disciplinarian of my thinking is like. It's like, oh, no, it's not that. It's not that God is wrong. It's that I'm wrong because I see him not clearly, you

[73:14] Matt: know? Well, it's interesting. As far as I'm aware, Christianity is the only sacred order, the only religion that incorporates the answer to what happens when God's people go awry. Because in that story, God incarnates into flesh and his people, the people who claim they believed in him, denied him and murdered him. Mm. And maybe it's not the only religion that talks about what happens when it goes awry. I guess in other religions, well, you just meet murder with murder. But Christianity offers a way out by way of the very murder itself. Yeah, that's unique.

[74:19] Michael: Well, I think the response to that is really set up in what they don't they know, not what they do. And I think that's something that's built into. It's like, yes, you committed this crime, but you really don't know what you did.

[74:33] Matt: That's built into our justice system. Yeah. Innocent until proven guilty.

[74:42] Michael: And then even in guilty, it's sort of like you still don't know what you really did.

[74:46] Matt: You still sort of bend over backwards to give that person the best life that you can.

[74:51] Michael: Yeah.

[74:51] Matt: I mean, yes, you punish them, and, yes, ideally, that punishment is primarily about protecting other people, even. It's not even so much about punishing that person, because the idea is that, well, punishment isn't our responsibility.

[75:10] Michael: Well, that's an interesting way. It's not really about punishing the person. It's about protecting the rest of society from that person. It's not really punishing them.

[75:18] Matt: Right.

[75:18] Michael: Well, that makes a lot of sense to me,

[75:21] Matt: because if it was about punishing them, you'd see a lot more of that ending scene of Braveheart, you know, like, why are we giving them euthanasia? You know, that's supposedly painless, even though apparently it's not. Or the electric chair or whatever. It's like, how about disembowel them?

[75:38] Michael: Yeah.

[75:39] Matt: You know, it's fairly obvious that crowds have a taste for death. I mean, hangings used to be public, and it would be like, one of the few times outside of church that people really even gathered. So if it was about punishment, you'd be Doing something more like that.

[75:58] Michael: Yeah, well, the whole idea of punishment too is like, hey, we're going to set you aside from society for a period of time to give you a chance to reintegrate. And you can argue, like, the ways that we do that. I think there's always better ways that we can do that. But just in the fundamental aspect of it, it's just like we're protecting the rest of society from this person that we've deemed a danger. And if this person can re enter, then because they're made in the image of God, we're going to allow them to re enter. But we need to set some time aside for them to maybe come to terms with what they've done. And that,

[76:44] Matt: well, even that is, I think, a sort of implicit acknowledgment of a sacred order, an implicit acknowledgment of the divine within the other person. Because you asked earlier, it's like, what does it mean to love someone? I think what it means is to will the good of the other person. So it's like when you have kids, if you're a good parent, you don't seek to punish your children, you seek to bring the good out of them. And that might mean I'm going to remove you from the dinner table or from the playground and give you some space to be able to see what you're not seeing. Because I believe that you can see it and you would be better for seeing it. You would benefit from seeing it. That's not, in a sense, a timeout is a punishment. In a sense, it's also, I'm going to open your eyes. And there are even other versions of that. It's like my parents spanked me when I was young. Spanking is very unfashionable these days. But my dad never spanked me because he wanted to hurt me. He spanked me because he wanted to open my eyes. And he always made sure of that because it was never a come here whap. It was a, you're coming to my room of your own will and you're going to bend yourself over my knee of your own will. And generally there was a, I want you to explain to me what you did.

[78:29] Michael: Yeah.

[78:31] Matt: And then afterward, and I love you, I don't ever want to see that again. And it was usually for something pretty severe. You know, I had hit my sister or thrown a spider on her or, you know, some. Some shit that I did which is like, deserving of a. Like, hey, you need to experience, like, you need Your eyes opened by some pain here because you're in a cloud of prepubescent, nihilistic, malevolent curiosity.

[79:03] Michael: Well, it's also like a mercy in like, hey, I'm going to show you consequences and I love you and I'm going to do that so that when you go out into the world with people that don't love you and you start to experience the consequences of your action, you know, I'm going to be a lot more, I mean, ideally is like a lot more loving in my distribution of consequences. And like, so that when you go into the world where you face real consequences, like you act like a. It's like you might get your ass beat, you know?

[79:35] Matt: Right.

[79:37] Michael: And I'm going to teach you not to act like a.

[79:41] Matt: Yeah, well, and again, it just comes back to. It's so hard to. It's like, what is good is not self evident. If you are not appealing to a sacred order, it's really hard to really justify almost anything you do. And so you end up in a place of, well, I shouldn't have to justify anything that I do. This is Ivan Karamazov's whole argument in the Brothers Karamazov. If there is no God, every man should be permitted anything. There should. Basically it should just be anarchy.

[80:13] Michael: Yeah, might makes right kind of thing. Yeah. It's like as long as I'm stronger and better than you, then I impose my will upon you,

[80:22] Matt: you know, which is a pretty like, you know, in a sense kind of justifiable order to things. I mean, I love this, this phrase that I learned only recently that you don't own anything you can't protect. And we take ownership for granted because we live in a society which basically guarantees its protection. It's like you don't really ever think about whether the money in your bank account is safe. Even in 2008 when a bunch of banks closed, you didn't think about whether or not your money was safe. It's protected. It's protected by the federal government. Stuff in your house is protected by either the law enforcement, the federal government or an insurance company which is protected by the federal government and insured itself. And so it's like, what's mine is mine and I will be made whole if it's taken. But without that order around me, those structures around me, you live in a world in which you don't own anything that you can't personally keep.

[81:22] Michael: Well, even that's acknowledged in the US as far as like the right to bear arms. It's sort of like to protect your. You know, in Texas specifically is like, you know, we recognize that law enforcement can't come quickly enough. And so you have the right to protect your home.

[81:37] Matt: Yeah.

[81:37] Michael: And so we do have like a very high value on.

[81:42] Matt: Yeah, but I was more like

[81:43] Michael: property rights.

[81:44] Matt: Pointing to your might makes right kind of thing. It's like, you can see without these structures that are built upon these presuppositions we've been talking about, without all of that, you live in a world in which if somebody can take your. Then they're in the right.

[81:58] Michael: Yeah.

[81:58] Matt: Because you can't argue. You just lost. Yeah. You lost the argument when you lost your shit. You can't go to them and say, I'd like a. I guess you could. I'd like a rematch.

[82:12] Michael: Yeah.

[82:13] Matt: You know, but. But

[82:14] Michael: Jesus says that.

[82:16] Matt: Yeah, you could say that.

[82:18] Michael: But

[82:19] Matt: if you don't live in a social contract with that person in which that person's like, oh, you're right, I was wrong.

[82:24] Michael: Yeah.

[82:27] Matt: It's like if I'm strong enough, I guess I don't need God to justify me and why would I.

[82:33] Michael: Yeah. That kind of gets me back into like Bret Weinstein we talked about last time, the useful fiction thing. It's like, well. And I don't know if we want to rehash that, but. But I don't see it. I don't see how a system works outside of that sacred order that you kind of keep bringing up. It's like there has to be a sacred order. If not, then it really does come back to sort of that might makes right or, you know, genetic superiority or however you want to start defining.

[83:07] Matt: Right.

[83:08] Michael: You start picking some sort of like arbitrary definition of what is good, what is bad, you know?

[83:18] Matt: Yeah.

[83:21] Michael: Wow. It's such a. It's such a difficult thing. I mean, maybe that's why it's interesting. It's like the simplicity behind believing in God is so amazing and because it works and then. But the complexity of it and the complexity, it's still you. You still can't get around it. I think that's because, like, I think there's a lot of arguments for people who just. Just kind of like. I don't know, people would probably say, like just kind of blindly accept that there is a God, you know, and that and you. They kind of are seen as sort of dumb, but they're actually like, like way more in tuned with reality than those who might be intellectually more. I don't want to say superior, but like

[84:28] Matt: articulate.

[84:28] Michael: Articulate. Yeah, that's. That's the right word.

[84:30] Matt: Yeah.

[84:33] Michael: Because I think that's something that I think I get. I get kind of stuck in that area where.

[84:38] Matt: Well, I think we live in a. We live in a society which places a lot of. That believes that intellectualism is a virtue. And in our frame, however we came to be in this frame, there's. It does sort of seem self evident that the more intellectual you are, you know, the better that is for you.

[85:06] Michael: Yeah.

[85:06] Matt: Or at least the better you feel about yourself.

[85:09] Michael: Totally.

[85:09] Matt: But I would argue, I don't think it's self evident.

[85:12] Michael: I

[85:12] Matt: think that there's a great danger lurking there.

[85:20] Michael: I've even heard arguments like, as far as, like,

[85:22] Matt: this is why the meek will inherit the earth.

[85:24] Michael: Yeah. Because there's like. Like sometimes the intelligent people that are led astray to be the easiest,

[85:32] Matt: a hundred percent. I mean, this goes back to. Who's that female poker player

[85:37] Michael: who

[85:37] Matt: taught us that lesson?

[85:38] Michael: Annie or Anne?

[85:40] Matt: The smarter you are, the more biased you are.

[85:42] Michael: Yeah.

[85:44] Matt: Which is so interesting because in our modern political discourse, you'll see this paraded about a lot, that the majority of the people on the left are college educated and the majority of the people on the right are not.

[85:58] Michael: And

[85:58] Matt: they'll basically say, this solves all our problems. This answers all our questions.

[86:02] Michael: Yeah.

[86:02] Matt: And I'm like, not in the way that you think it does.

[86:06] Michael: Totally

[86:09] Matt: not in the way you think it does.

[86:10] Michael: Well, I just think for myself, man, it's like, I mean, my wife is very intelligent, so this is not like. But she has a simplicity about her that is honorable. Like her belief in God is. Is beautiful. And I have a sort of intellectualism about me that is almost a hindrance in this area. Like, that I admire about her.

[86:40] Matt: Totally. It's like.

[86:44] Michael: And that's not a good thing.

[86:46] Matt: If you're very intellectual, it's very likely that you're going to win an argument.

[86:49] Michael: Mm.

[86:51] Matt: Do you think because you won that argument you're right?

[86:54] Michael: Totally.

[86:55] Matt: Or did you just, you know, memorize all the right phrases and you were quicker with math so they couldn't follow your statistics and.

[87:01] Michael: Yeah.

[87:02] Matt: You quoted a bunch of people that seem irreproachable. That doesn't mean you're right.

[87:07] Michael: Yeah.

[87:08] Matt: It just means that you were playing a different game than they were.

[87:10] Michael: Yeah.

[87:11] Matt: You were playing by a different set of rules or you were just simply better at the rules of that particular game.

[87:17] Michael: Yeah.

[87:17] Matt: Doesn't mean you're right.

[87:18] Michael: Or are you. Are you, you, you. They made a mistake in A certain logical argument. And so you were able to expound on it and win. Where they're probably right in the. In the general vicinity of it. This is true. Exploit it. That's what I was like, exploit that.

[87:38] Matt: Another version of this is mob rule. Like, we think in the United States that democracy is the ultimate virtue. Do you know what also is democratic? The mob.

[87:52] Michael: Yeah,

[87:52] Matt: the mob that lynches somebody, or the mob that murders a cop or burns down Minneapolis. That's also democratic. I watched this really interesting video. I think it was on Veritasium. It's on the channel I reference a lot because I love that channel where they talked about the issue of democracy. And it is not actually mathematically possible to have a democracy.

[88:21] Michael: What does that mean?

[88:24] Matt: I can't remember all of the points off the top of my head, but there's all kinds of ways to figure out who is it that the most people want. And you might think that it would just be a 50, 50 majority split, and it's not. They go through all the math, and then they go through rank choice voting things, and they go through other probabilistic things. And it's really interesting. You come out of it on the other end, like, thinking, like, how do we choose anything then as a people? It's really crazy. Which is just more evidence that our hubris in thinking we've advanced scientifically. We know what we know. No, you don't. You think you do. You don't know.

[89:06] Michael: Yeah,

[89:07] Matt: you need to be humble,

[89:11] Michael: dude.

[89:12] Matt: All right. Should we leave it there?

[89:13] Michael: We probably should. I don't know if we really got anywhere, but other than open

[89:18] Matt: a

[89:18] Michael: can of worms.

[89:19] Matt: Fun chasing your tail. Yeah, totally. My tail. I don't know.

[89:22] Michael: Just random circle. Love you guys. Cheers.

[89:25] Matt: Cheers out there.

[89:27] Michael: Thanks for sitting in.

[89:28] Matt: Yeah. Sam,