foreign yes so we're live I'm here with Sean Ruby Sean how are you doing pretty good thanks for coming on thanks for taking the time uh we're complete strangers but we met recently on Twitter so maybe just uh for me and for the few listeners that I do have on my podcast uh start from the beginning introduce yourself what was it like growing up as Sean Ruby and the Ruby household were you exposed to religion as a child what were your first inklings that there's this creature not this creature this Creator called God and that there's such a thing as religion Christianity uh what are your first experiences with God and religion and just sort of talk us through the whole upbringing up until today with just touching on the highlights that you think are good to touch on sure yeah um yeah so we how would you call it we were definitely Christian uh growing up uh but I think about like the age of 19. uh we uh well actually I was I'm Protestant so we grew up with a Baptist first and then like after a year we went to Lutheran um which was our grandmother's Church our other grandmother our first grandmother was a Baptist and then after that uh like about 13 or something like that our neighbor took us over to uh another church which was like Evangelical as a Church of Christ and so we went over there when we're like 13 we did that for like a couple years and then um I think I don't know I I sort of fell off it or whatever but I didn't know anything like theological or anything like that so um I just you know I like to the community and that was something that I really uh appreciated um and to a degree I like the message so that was something I really agreed with um and but about like 19 or something like that I guess that's when I had I started getting questions uh but particularly I had a dream where I was about to die or something and then like um I was too late to uh you know uh you know ask for forgiveness or whatever and it freaked me out so I asked one of my friends who was Christian and stuff like that and so I spent like I think a solid day uh thinking about it and I uh ended up how would you call it um I concluded that God didn't exist so that's that was my conclusion after a day or whatever um but then eventually I I joined into the new atheists uh like the anti-theist I was atheist but then I became like anti-theist once I found the community and uh I did that for like a year or something and then like politics made everything you know messed up so everybody got confused inside the whole Community like which side to join you know Trump or Clinton or whatever um and in any case uh so after that I did politics for a while and I found out it was a dead end uh but I was very certain about my beliefs and so I got really into philosophy like Plato and stuff like that and I was going to try and prove my politics and uh I ended up not being able to prove it but I did end up finding there was a lot of overlap between my philosophical beliefs and uh what Christianity was and so I slowly like kept going over moreover into Christianity until finally they became more of a litmus test and I was like obviously you know there's God there you know yeah cool very cool so uh how old are you today uh 32. you sound you sound a bit younger but maybe it's just because I'm getting older um so what's the situation with the parents and the siblings uh where are they on the spectrum of Christian to agnostic and atheists and all that stuff today yeah uh well I talked to my brother and he's uh how would you call it he's uh in theist so I ended up yeah I ended up asking him I was like I was like y'all are Christian and he was just like no we're not I guess he never really thought about it but like uh he went through the same thing with me he's like a year younger than me and uh he has uh you know you know he he got a family and stuff like that but okay yeah we just different paths I guess yeah yeah yeah no problem everyone's got to find their own path and let's just hope and pray that everyone comes to Christ before it's too late everyone don't want to dwell on the negative but hell is real um and your folks are uh still alive and uh they're Christian today or yeah definitely uh uh my dad and my mom uh yeah I don't know about my sister I have no idea what she is to be honest uh well you can send her my whale interviewer and I'll find all find out all about her world yeah sure yeah so where remind me where are you geographically the United States I'm in the eastern part of the United States right now okay so I'm in the eastern part of Canada I'm in Montreal Quebec it's very nice yeah I'm from Texas but I moved I've moved around so much like countries and everything yeah and so what's your favorite country you visited uh probably China but inside Europe probably Greece wow yeah yeah that's my favorite I married a Greek girl that's that's very nice yes have you uh visited uh have you visited Greece yeah I actually lived there uh I went there once for a couple months and then I lived there for about a year oh nice uh did you see yeah yeah it really is it's really nice they have the trees and stuff like that uh which have the plants or fruit or whatever everywhere yeah I uh I have like a little test I do to decide which one which country whether it's a third world country or first world not in a negative sense but uh but um it's how by how much they honk and then uh yeah I I mean you go to the Philippines or something like that it's just like it's uh a lady told me it's like express yourself or something that's exactly what they do and Greece is a little more like that in Germany there was like a crash almost like an almost crash and nobody honked and just went off restraint and discipline yeah well a shout out to my friend Matthew um Matthew Bates if you're listening in Australia I guess Australia is a third world country now because Matthew uh bought a condo and there's a lot of honking going outside going on outside of his condo and he is having trouble hearing his own thoughts so this is a shout out to uh third world Australia so I uh so any other highlights you want to tell me about any mystical magical moments in your journey to Christianity or was it all just in your head in your intellect and your reason and uh yeah was there any mystical part that was more heart connection I wish I could say that I'm not very a very mystical person uh so yeah it's been mostly uh just logical reason like it's the back of my hand that God exists if I exist I've been actually singing it on Twitter a lot uh lately uh if you know like if I exist then God exists you need fundamental being for it to exist and you have partake in being so um obviously pure being exists yeah my uh I agree with you 100 my journey to God was 100 intellectual philosophical I was uh many things over the years but I lost my Christian faith and my faith in God generally at the age of 14 I had a beautiful dream about Jesus I woke up and I had lost my faith it was very counterintuitive but uh 25 years of atheism most of which was a nice guy hippie peace and love agnosticism and then at the end it got darker and darker as I studied philosophy of the West and uh I ended up being an atheistic Satanist and a hard solipsist um but uh you know my journey to God was very very very intellectual and it's all about the I am that existence that pers that subsistent being that is God the necessary being that then which nothing greater can be conceived so I think we're similar in that way we have a predilection for uh philosophy and and we're going to do a fun little quiz together uh once we get past the biographical stuff foreign what are you reading these days like are you deep into uh Christian philosophy or are you more interested in uh other things when it comes to reading do you read every day uh no I I don't get to read every day I haven't been able to read every day in about like two years but um no I I my goal is I want to learn attic Greek and then I want to read the Bible in Greek and you know the early philosophers so wow yeah that's very ambitious yeah it's it seems uh a bit easier they have a lot of uh like uh they have a Latin thing where you just read the stories and it tells you and I think athenaise is the Greek version of it um I don't know if I'll use it but they do have a lot more uh um how would you call it sources now nice language it's uh it's a nice sounding language to it these the modern Greek is anyway and uh yeah it's uh it's got a nice alphabet and a script which I like yeah it's just it's it's there's nothing more romantic than thinking about uh Socrates and Plato for me that's the highlight of of philosophy right there if you know obviously without uh getting into the Christian stuff like the Christian stuff we'll top that but as far as non-Christian philosophy I'm very very very excited about Socrates and Plato no doubt yeah definitely amazing um in terms of uh Christian philosophers are you a big fan of Saint Augustine Saint Anselm St Bonaventure St Thomas do you like any of those guys yeah I definitely like Augustine a lot yeah I think he's really good I do like the Eastern uh tradition too I think they had a lot of good ones too um but Augustine is definitely a big one Aquinas is okay but I'm not I'm not Aristotelian although I do respect Aristotle like a lot so I'm way more places for sure 100 100 right there with you and uh I scored pretty low on the Aristotle on that quiz that we're gonna do together okay cool yeah yeah well I mean I I have a begrudging respect for him especially since my church the Catholic Church emphasizes uh like they sort of baptized Aristotle and uh I think they went a little bit over the top with that but I would have liked to have a little bit more of the Franciscan school like uh Blessed John Don scotus do you know him yeah aragana is the first one or the second one I don't know if that's the same guy aragina that's just the Gaelic word for uh Irish or something that's right yeah or that's the Scott or Scotland or whatever but yeah yeah yeah I think it's the both of them or whatever but I think it's the same guy I think it's the same guy but I'm not sure yeah there are two John the Scotts I like both of them um okay okay I didn't realize her too so I'm gonna have to look into that and distinguish them when you said skoda it's so done done scotus yeah okay yeah that's the second one that's the second one okay okay did you read any n Sound at all no but I've read about his life and I do like him yeah yeah yeah cool guy a very cool guy um I was a big fan uh before I was Christian I was a big big fan of um Spinoza did you like him at all yeah he's he's okay I've I've read a bit about him uh I do like his metaphysics I think they're it's really good I do like the rationalist movement yeah yeah I'm a bit of a rationalist my journey to God came through rationalism via Renee Descartes of all people nice yeah yeah he's really good he's got I like his Cartesian metaphysics I like his uh philosophy of science where he tries to have a completely rational science and I really think that's the most important thing to you know for modern science to do that brought me to God that brought me to God like his his foundational uh his radical doubt brought me to God like this is the most surprising thing about my conversion it was the application of radical doubt Cartesian radical doubt which he used to build the foundations of modern science and I think he's missing out on a lot of the Aristotelian uh points that would help uh to moderate today's science which has gone off the rails is completely disconnected because uh we can go into the details on that if you want but um it was just ironic that you know I was a safety atheistic Satanist reading this radical doubt of uh Renee Descartes and boom found God yes it's so counter-intuitive so counter-intuitive yeah uh do you know the neoplatonists uh what's his name is it uh Philo is that the guy uh no that's the Jewish guy uh what's the famous guy with the one there there's platinus yeah proclus I think I don't know procliffe so much yeah uh well I I don't know which one it is but one of them has an epistemology where uh obviously they have the one uh and they try to get back to it so uh one of them said uh you have to cut down on pieces so you can get down to the pure aspect of it uh so you can get to it and so I wonder if that has a you know a correlation or something with the with the doubting or something like that yeah for sure for sure for sure like it's like okay I don't like uh William of Occam but I basically used Occam's razor to get to God like it's just like what what what what's uh what can I not know with certainty well pretty much everything like there's not much that we can know other than other than I am you know yeah yeah so it's a short leap once you realize that there's just being per se being subsistent being it's either one of two options like I am God or God is God that's about it like I am am I the source of my I had to ask myself honestly am I the source of my own existence yes or no if I am which I thought it was because I was a heart solipsist if I am then I'm God and if I'm not then God is God what a relief that was yeah to admit that did you feel did you feel a great relief when you came to monotheism yeah yeah I definitely did yeah it was just like a moment I was just like it's just like a moment yeah where were you uh well I was philosophically still with uh Plato or something like no no but geographically like were you in your car were you at your mom's house where were you oh I was in Washington state yeah do you remember the moment like were you brushing no I was uh just um how would you call it uh that was just in an apartment and then I uh just it was just like a realization real quick I don't remember okay because I remember the exactly I was okay you don't have to remember every detail of your life but I thought it was a momentous occasion and I do remember the exact moment I lost my faith in the exact moment I came back to my faith in God and those two memories are etched in my brain so to speak uh and I was uh for me it was when I came back when I was reading I Rene Descartes discourse on method and uh boom just don't you like how like a lot of the philosophers they uh they were historically you know Christian and even looking at like Aristotle like you said they tried to baptize Aristotle uh but even Plato like they're inside this polytheistic place and you see how everybody you know you know reasonably they lead towards this monotheism they lead Towards the Sky even look at like Soul Invictus you look at the I don't I don't think whatever the Egyptian one was for the slight bit but they all lean towards you know what God is they all try to understand what God is and yeah and obviously the distinguishing part is you know as Christians we have logos uh which is the country which is an ontological basis for understanding you know who God is and which fulfills you know obviously the Old Testament you know uh my listeners will get sick of hearing me repeat all my my stories but I came into the church without believing in the Trinity or the Incarnation and the the monk who is teaching me he just said well that's fine you know because I had the desire when I saw the mass I said I want to worship God I believe in the same God you do and I don't really want to be a Muslim or I can't really be a Jew so I see that you're worshiping my God I need to I need to worship God publicly and I the mass moved me so uh I'd like to join Christianity but the problem is I don't believe in the Trinity or the Incarnation that's kind of a big deal right but he's like I was surprised he's like well it's no problem we'll just teach uh teach you the teachings of the Christianity and if you accept them you're a Christian and if you reject them you're not Christian that's it so it's pretty cool pretty cool what was it like for you tackling the Trinity and the Incarnation were you just open to it because you love God so much at that point oh I'm uh I I suppose I'm not theologically uh at the point of Trinity I suppose so how long have you been back in the church uh oh Lord um to be honest I haven't uh I haven't gone back to a church it's still just me growing you know with that but I do hang out with Kong uh with specific congregations um and I you know like apply like hermeneutics and stuff and I generally talk about God like almost every day of the week I'll say like at the very least like three days out of the week or something like that I'll be talking about you know Christianity having debate about it Etc yeah yeah but you know the church is not just some brick building on the corner where people get together the church is is the body of Christ it's the mystical Body of Christ and we are the the mission obviously is to die to self and to live in Christ and have Christ live in us and that's the body that's the body of Christ that's the church so you belong to the church right so it doesn't matter if you go I mean from my Catholic perspective obviously it's very important that you enter the fullness of the Catholic faith and you get the sacraments and all that sort of thing that's obviously very important to me although it's not a good idea to shove that down anyone's throat um so I won't do that but I'm just letting you know honestly that it is important to me but at the same time you're a member of the church you're a member of Christ's body mystical body and so that's what I mean when I talk about the church okay so obviously you will understand that although I believe you're you are a member of Christ I also know that you're not a member of the Catholic church in good standing so uh from my perspective you know there's growth to be had there but uh there's also no pressure you've got to go out you've got to follow the truth where it leads you and God it has a plan for you and so there's no pressure yeah no doubt yeah I've uh I I see oh I was actually curious what your thoughts were essentially said that um there's a lot of people who say like try uh you know even like Islam like lots of other religions you can't force religion on people and so you'll have people uh like it doesn't make sense it literally doesn't make sense in fact uh I I just found out recently uh that the you know the Turkish you know the the massacre of the Armenians or whatever the Armenian Genocide uh it was not actually done by uh Muslims it wasn't Islam it was actually done by liberals it was done by uh them they tried to uh Force converts they tried to you know kill people and stuff like that for Islam that's not really or for religions in general that's not really what you want to do for you want to convert them and you want to know they're converted uh you know the same inside Spain Etc uh you're you're it do you have to have that truthful thing so uh but there's a lot of people who use like uh sort of uh fear fear uh fear-mongering I was wondering what you thought about that yeah that's that's not good that's not good we need to like it's like the basic go-to analogy that I will always use is romantic love okay marriage uh it's pure it's holy it's intimate and that's it's fruitful because you can have children these sorts of things I don't have children but yeah you know I'm ordered to have children like I'm a male my wife's female like yeah real genuine old-fashioned male and female like I'm a real man she's a real woman not like the Modern Day stuff I'll just do what they want to do right very sure the liberal religion yeah yeah but um so with the romance like the the love between a husband and his wife you know the bride and the bridegroom this is talked about in the Bible and we're going to talk about the Bible I hope a little bit uh later on but uh it talks in the Bible about Christ and the bride of Christ the church and that uh is a very intimate relationship and it's consummated like to say it's sexual maybe is crass a crass way of putting it but just there's an intimacy there there's a mystical element to it and uh so when you talk about forcing religion to me that's a sort of spiritual rape you do not force the intimacy and the joy and the Bliss and the respect mutual respect and the mutual self-giving of man and woman and you certainly don't force that Union between Christ and his church you just don't do it there's never ever ever an excuse for fear-mongering or force or coercion or like you know you have to do this or you can't feed your family like we've seen over the past two or three years a lot of coercion a lot of force and I don't want you to talk about by name what's been happening because I'll lose my YouTube channel again but you know you know what I'm talking about with the liberal religion it's like it doesn't work people don't like that people don't like being forced because people have free will and people want to follow the truth where it leads them and they want the the freedom that is in truth because uh Christ is the truth and Christ will set you free and you're only free if you're in Christ right you're only you're only free if you're serving Christ so I'm not sure where you're at in your journey with uh with Jesus Christ you said you weren't you weren't too strong on the mystical stuff but there's a lot to Grapple with there's a lot to um familiarize yourself with through meditation and prayer and through uh just uh thinking just contemplating thinking about uh the one or God and what it means to be a creature and it's it's mind-blowing really is I I bet yeah yeah so what's your prayer life like um without you know divulging anything that's too personal or whatever but do you do you you said you think about God you talk about God but uh what's the friendship with God or the relationship with God how would you describe the intimacy that you have with god um at this stage in your journey oh sure I mean that's a bit difficult uh obviously uh whenever uh how would you say I don't I don't get to I don't get to pray every day uh because uh I don't get to pray every day I think it's a very private thing um but it's definitely something I'm growing a lot more in but I have you know I was raised Christian so it's something like I always I have you know there's a relationship I fall back onto it it's nothing alien to me but Let's do let's uh here where uh I'll put you on the spot just a little bit and you you can feel free to squirm your way out of it if you don't like it but um I'll set an example I'll do a little spontaneous prayer and then I want you to try to say one if you're comfortable with it okay so this is just for fun it's just silly it's not it's not too too serious but I just want to sort of get the training wheels on for spontaneous uh sincere prayer to God so I'll start first so here's my prayer I'll say in the name of the father son the Holy Ghost and I'll say God thank you I love you so much because of all you've done for me that you created me that you sustained me and I hope that you will allow me give me the grace to know you to love you and to serve you in this life so that I can be happy with you forever in the next life amen name of the father son holy spirit so I just made a quick little prayer there was completely spontaneous and I'd like you to try to just do a prayer if you're not too awkward and embarrassed to try sure yeah uh dear Lord could uh if you could please help me out through uh the next whatever is happening whatever if you could help me out uh through whatever dear Lord thank you very much for everything that's happening um I appreciate the insights that I'm gaining Etc thank you and almond that's it that's nice that's cute uh you know what it reminded me of my favorite prayer of all time which is uh dear Lord I do not know what will happen to me next I only know that nothing will happen that was not foreseen by you and directed to my greater good from all eternity I adore your holy and unfathomable plans and I submit to them with my whole heart for Love Of You the pope and the Immaculate Heart of Mary amen that's one of my favorite prayers because it says I don't know what's happening I don't know what's happening now I don't know what's coming toward me uh like tonight on my way home from work I have like a 45 minute bike ride home from work and there's a snowstorm and I got a flat flat tire almost right away I was stuck in the snow in the middle of nowhere with with the bike that doesn't work so I thought it was horrible I was praying to God to get me home in time to do this interview with you and uh I called a taxi it took like half an hour to get there but then it turned out to be this really amazing guy that we had a really good connection good friendship we exchanged information and he's good friends with George Saint Pierre the UFC fighter here in Montreal he showed me the photos it's really cool so it's like a magical moment a magical moment and so that prayer that I pray every day I don't know what's going to happen to me next I only know that it's part of your plan and it's for my greater good it's amazing if you think about life that way isn't it yeah yeah no definitely yeah uh yeah it's the source and everything uh yeah we just need to learn to trust God like it's so simple it's so simple but it's very very difficult it's difficult to uh let go of the wheel and Jesus Take the Wheel that sort of thing uh it's incredibly different difficult because we're so full of Pride can you talk about your sort of emotional or spiritual maturity like you're 32 you said yeah yeah 32 years are you learning are you learning how to control your appetites your anger Your Lust for food or sex or all these sorts of things are you learning about yourself because you're Christian yeah yeah no definitely yeah it's been uh how would you call it again as I said I use uh the Bible as a litmus test um and the congregation for it so there's in a lot of senses like uh obviously it has a positive effect um so yeah yeah but uh and yeah but I'm also at the age where like I'm starting to realize I'm getting older so so at the same point it's like uh you know like I'm sure it compounds it certainly but uh at certain points I'm just like wow I'm older now you know so uh but yeah there's uh yeah the fruit of the spirit definitely is uh uh in everything charity like uh my debates have become you know a lot more effective you know and I don't mean them in a sense of debates but you know just uh I'm just more yeah yeah definitely in general yeah like uh I'm way quicker to forgive way quicker to be charitable and the beautiful thing about it is I don't like I just saw an article about it I think it was like not the b or something and they're like yeah we uh the Somebody went out there and made some I don't remember what it was but somebody like pushed a thing and uh you know like they got caught up in it and then they realized they were like yeah just having a reasonable rational faith and stuff in the Lord uh it allows you to have this wider you know purview I suppose of things and be able to see past the bickering like you know like a you know you know any age any place or whatever that Paul takes for liberalism or whichever that they really grind you into you know for sure hey I just want to give a shout out to uh Rebecca bread of life she's in the live chat right now uh you know about her right Sean Yeah Yeah from the Twitter okay yeah well she's gonna be on my uh podcast tomorrow and uh she's a sweet lady and I think uh I think you mentioned that you're into the charismatic movement can you just touch a little bit on that like uh the indwelling of the Holy Spirit maybe the charisms I don't know if you speak in tongues or these sorts of things but um what is it about the charismatic movement are you like officially part of it or just curious about it well I I'm not sure I don't remember that uh I don't remember you didn't say that I might well I don't know I think I said something about uh Charisma oh yeah I prefer the yeah yeah yeah oh okay okay okay but are you aware that there's a whole movement like uh even when I just even within the Catholic Church there was like a charismatic charismatic charismatic Catholic movement I didn't know there was a Catholic one I actually just found out about it today I looked up on the thing and uh they uh Oh I thought maybe I'm not sure actually it's funny there's so many movements uh within Christianity you will never you'll never learn about them all because they're just too many right yeah it's yeah it's really good there's a lot of uh diversity inside there uh which is you know like actual diversity spiritual diversity right it's the [Music] the word of the century yeah it is it and it's so ambiguous I mean obviously we know it's ambiguous but I mean like until you like reduce it into something like we reduce it into logos uh that you can actually determine like what is actual diversity and uh so yeah like uh you know I think you know Galatians 3 28 said it just perfectly well you're neither uh June or Greek male nor female uh slave nor freed you are one in Christ and so and that's like actual freedom and yeah there's just so much to it I just love it like uh that it's like a way out of you know being enslaved you know like with the Hebrews uh Israelites you know before like there's just so much like ontological basis like ethical basis and stuff like that that is just extremely actionable quiz which is just a bit of fun uh let's talk some serious talk about the Bible Old Testament and New are you very familiar with a lot of it or with some of it or parts of it or mostly the New Testament just talk me through uh where you're at with the Bible and which versions you like to read yeah uh I right now I just read the NIV but uh I've read the Dewey right the Dewey Reigns I think okay yeah I got recommended that um yeah I've read the Old Testament several times like kid Bibles and like uh bits but mostly I debate historical Linguistics hermeneutics so I end up covering a lot of uh verses through that Ah that's pretty intense yeah so um I want to get a sense from you like I'm just asking you to sort of gush a little bit about your favorite parts of the Bible like you know what is the sense that you get as an overview because I think it's important the reason I'm asking you this is because I think it's important for all of us as Christians to have knowledge you know of the juicy parts of scripture but also to have step back and have an overview like a bird's eye view of the whole story of Salvation history uh who are the Jews and what did they do and what was Judaism all about and who's this Messiah That was supposed to come and did he come and who is he and then when the Messiah comes like uh what does that do to Judaism and who are the Christians and what is the church and who are the apostles and just a basic overview from your perspective I know you're you know you're not an expert and maybe you're still young and have a lot more to learn as we all do but what's your sense or your impression about the overall meaning of the Bible in the context of Salvation history because it's an ongoing thing the project ultimately from God's point of view is that he Wills that all of us be saved none of us be lost and so that's what it's all about at the end of the day we have to keep our eyes on Christ keep our eyes on the prize the prize being God himself and that's what heaven is heaven is being in that intimacy with the Trinity so uh what do you have to say about the Bible in terms of overview and salvation history yeah no yeah you know what dispensationalism is yeah the end times and the Rapture and all that stuff uh it's it's you know what Covenant uh Covenant theory is no it's particularly okay okay so Covenant theory is just that there's the Old Testament and then you have the New Testament and then uh that you go into one to the other and dispensationalism is that there's multiple covenants uh I I don't know the exact whole thing but it's like you there was an academic Covenant and then uh you know the abrahamic right right yeah that's ringing the bell now I seem to recall that there were seven if I'm not mistaken the first being Adam the seventh being Jesus Christ if I'm not mistaken I think that uh you know Noah obviously has a covenant and uh there's a there's a guy there's a Catholic guy who was a Protestant before who teaches at um The Franciscan University of Steubenville I can't believe I can't remember his name but he's a famous guy and he talked about these covenants the seven covenants and how it's an Ever widening circle of people so you start with the first human pair the couple that that sort of marriage and then you have the family then the tribe then the you know the nation and then finally with Jesus it's the whole the whole world so uh that's all I'll say about that'll let you continue on and talk about your your overview of Salvation history so you were saying with this dispensationalism and Judaism that fits into the big picture right yeah definitely yeah uh definitely a dispensationalist so uh you like ansem uh so uh you uh the ontological argument from him yeah yeah do you like that over the cosmological by the way or which one uh just for a little bit of background when I was an atheist I thought about the ontological argument pretty much every day for eight years uh without you know without you know being able to refute it or confirm it but to me it's sort of like a koan like a Zen puzzle that you just play with in your mind and it brings you closer to God that's what I think um I think it's I think I my hunch is that it's sound but it's a question of communicating that truth in a way that is convincing I don't I don't think he achieved the the communication of it that makes it readily understandable I think it's a mystical thing where uh if you're if you're a Christian then you intuitively know that it's true and if you're a non-Christian then it's just something to chew on that can bring you closer to God because that's certainly the effect it had on me for sure for sure what's your take yeah yeah um the cosmological I used to like the cosmological uh a bit more but uh that just deals with actions and so I prefer being and so I agree with you about ansem he uh his ontological argument it's really good but you know I think Aquinas said it just as well he's like it's uh or he may have been saying it for his um but that the arguments they aren't going to convince atheists but they are uh you know invaluable for uh you know Christians or whatever uh but ghetto actually uh made like a modal logic um I don't remember which one but he made a modal logic version of uh ontological one it's really good it's logical it's like uh you know it's motologic formal logic so it's really good um yeah are you familiar with scotus's modal argument no what is what is this it's amazing because it's it's a it's a strict demonstration in the Aristotelian uh uh sense of the word like it's a strict demonstration meaning that the not only are the premises necessary but the conclusion is necessary Everything is Everything is uh a postiori like these are all known uh manifest truths that we work with so it's one of the it's one of the rare a postiori proofs for the existence of God it's the only one that I know of and uh it's a strict demonstration and it's all about efficient causality and this is what I was trying to say about Descartes he threw out two of two of Aristotle's four forms of causality or modes of causality or whatever you say and uh that was a big mistake for uh for the modern science but with scotus he focuses on the efficient causality and it's independent of time because he's looking at any given moment in time every effect is the result of a series of causes in that same moment that are independent of time and so this is how it goes back to the first efficient cause which is necessarily atemporal and that's how it gets to his principle which he will flesh out into uh you know for lack of a better term flesh it out into the uh the god of classical theism and the Triune God of Christianity in particular so it's very fascinating it's not easy to read scotus's work um but it's worth it's worth the effort I think and I think you've got the intellect to tackle it and there are certainly works that talk about his uh his proof so something I would highly recommend highly recommend it it's one of my favorite proofs for sure nice yeah um sorry to cut you off do you believe in uh Evolution that you evolved from an ape or do you believe like I do that the whole universe is less than ten thousand years old uh well I I don't believe the universe is less than ten thousand years old uh but uh I I do believe in the ontological aspect uh the ontological argument uh it's similar to the cosmological but it just goes by being uh right so um um so anyways uh I I think I think time is like a uh hierarchized so and we we do see this with general relativity with mass it affects time uh so or you know bigger Mass effects time you know it makes it uh slower or whatever and so so I I do think that there's a hierarchicalized time uh and God's time is obviously it's very neoplatonic it's very you know like uh the one and so God exists in everything he's throughout everything and then as it goes down it comes more particular so uh with less mass or whatever it would be you know math is universal but um yeah so in that same sense I do believe that I apply the dispensationalism just in that sense uh same sense uh I don't accept Covenant Theory or I don't disagree with it I don't disagree with anything I do think there's some truth to it uh obviously but I do feel like there's uh that uh dispensationalism really shows this as we this growth into God and so I really do appreciate uh the growth into God and how uh I I was actually asked uh on a uh some somebody else asked me they uh asked you know about like the verse inside the sermon of the mount uh it's on Matthew five I don't remember um which but it's like at the start of it uh but it says uh one of the versions like they say something like uh did uh Christine come to uh get rid of it the laws he came to fulfill it and so he was like uh well how do you account for that in terms of like the you know like Exodus uh you know uh or Leviticus some of the mosaic laws um and I was like well if you don't think about it in terms of uh you know the consequences for it especially from a consequence from a modern perspective if you think of it in terms of what the being is uh and that's Injustice the Justice you know was Justice which obviously got them to be free you know got them to not be enslaved by uh any you know like uh the Egyptians and uh allowed them to uh you know develop past the abrahamic conception of Purity and stuff like that uh towards something which is more fulfilled feeling but if you think about it in that sense like you can see the steady growth uh in that sense and I suppose I would say uh in terms of the evolution uh how I think of Adam and Eve is that they earned the first Covenant uh I'm not sure I'm not too much sure in that uh uh conception I don't really have like a lot of view points on it but I do feel like that uh uh it's coherent with My Views so lots to unpack there for sure as you continue your reading and your study of Genesis one of my favorite books in the Bible what are some of your favorite books in the Bible just yeah yeah I like a second uh Corinthians a lot uh I like Romans I like Romans a lot yeah and uh Hebrews is good uh and acts is good but uh yeah what's Hebrews about uh in overview because I'm having a hard time thinking about what it what it teaches uh sure so like I said I use the historical Linguistics hermeneutics so we end up just like going through verses and stuff like that um Hebrews 7 uh goes over Melchizedek uh the priest and it goes over oh is Hebrews the one that says the better everything's better with Christ we gotta better this we gotta better that is that the one I feel like I feel that that's yeah that sounds correct I think that's where Paul put in a lot of his typological algorithm okay okay yeah because I seem to remember I thought it was either Romans or Hebrews but I always get those two confused but I think that's the one where he said we have a better uh you know a better high priest we got better sacrifice right better this we got better that yeah I think that's the one that's he versus Hebrews so we're not sure we're not sure if uh Saint Paul wrote that yeah that's what they say but I mean uh but yeah I feel like there's just so much uh how would you call it um um I I feel like that is most in uh that does a lot of work for what Paul was trying to do the white Paul tried to read in the Old Testament Etc and so I feel like that's uh if it's not directly from Paul I mean it's definitely from one of his you know like assistants or something for sure yeah yeah uh okay says cool those are some of my favorite books too Sean so she's right there with you and uh I was going to ask you about the Bible um you know oh yeah the question the first question I want to ask you about the Bible is do you believe as I do and as my church teaches that it's inerrant uh there are no errors in any parts of the Bible and in the Bible as a total unit yeah there are no errors is that something that you believe yeah I'm not a literalist I don't think you're a literalist are you a literalist well we we are told to take the literal meaning first and then to look for uh much like Saint Augustine said he said first we do the literal reading and then we can look for the other layers of meaning and as Saint Augustine also said if something cannot be literally true then obviously we don't take it as literally true and we look for uh different uh spiritual readings so you know I'm not going to accept any contradiction ever for any reason and because God doesn't God doesn't approve of any contradiction God doesn't allow any contradiction whatsoever now I can say that good is evil Up Is Down left is right and all these things I can say that a man is a woman a woman is a man I can say that with my lips and my tongue and my vocal cords I can say it so it's a contradiction in that in that sense that I'm saying something that's not true but the reality is not permitted by God I'm allowed to say the lie but the LIE itself will never be manifest right like the square circle just doesn't have a reality I can talk I can talk about it all I want it doesn't give it reality so there's no danger with God there's there's this is the Beauty and the joy of being a monotheist is that we have the absolute objective Eternal truth it's God Almighty and it's so it's so beautiful to be in contact with that in uh even though our contact here Below in this Fallen World is uh fleeting and it's as Saint Paul says we see as in a broken mirror or as in a glass Darkly or however he phrases it right yeah no yeah I do agree with that yeah I agree it's in errands in the same sense uh that you do um and yeah I I think it's uh and still interesting that uh yeah we have God who's the virtue of Virtues you know he's the time of times the Egypt the Eon of eon or uh I I feel I feel like that's really a good the older paganism it's such a step up from paganism where they had like they anthropomorphize like justice or like wisdom and stuff and they had them all separate and and then their their myths just tell it perfectly out you can't have these separate they can't be a god they can't be separate otherwise they you know end up fighting you have to or there's conflicts with them you need something which grinds you be God God yeah yeah yeah yeah that's where your neoplatonism comes in handy too right yeah it does yeah I agree one the one yeah well the the analogy I like to use with atheists when I debate or argue with atheist I don't debate but when I argue with atheists uh it's about the Perfections you know it's like uh just as truth Health Beauty all these Perfections um they the pure Perfections those Perfections that it's better to have than not to have because this is how we Define the Perfections that uh that God has they're called Pure Perfections now a circle is perfect but God's not a circle because circularity is not a pure perfection it's a Perfection but it's not a pure perfection so when I'm talking to the atheist about the pure Perfections I always just use a very intuitive Common Sense argument which goes as follows like when you're pursuing health is it theoretically possible in your world view that you're leaving behind truth and beauty and goodness because in my world you know if you're pursuing truth you're pursuing Beauty and you're pursuing Justice and you're you're heading toward all the goods because all the goods lie in one in the same source and you don't need to be a religious God-fearing person to understand that that's common sense and that that's intuitive right would you agree with that yeah yeah I mean again Plato Aristotle you have all the philosophers in the world and they all lead towards them so yeah they all need him they'll need them you need the prime mover you need the form of good or the demiers or you need the the one or whatever you need a God yeah what do you think of uh the Book of James because I always like the book of James have you read it uh yeah yeah I'm familiar with the one about the works okay oh I'd say one second actually uh about that uh so uh you would say then just in that same sense uh uh that our work is uh derived from our faith well yeah I I when I discuss my faith with Protestants or non-catholic Christians I love conceding all the ground to the the non-catholic way of seeing Grace and Faith and all that sort of thing and I truly believe in my heart there's not much there's not much difference between the Catholic point of view and the non-catholic point of view when it comes to Grace everything is Grace absolutely everything is Grace and so I just give you everything I give you like Sola fide I'll give you everything because that's what it is it's all like I'm a bit of a you know I tend toward the like I'm a platonist basically right so I'm all about the one I'm all about the I'm all about God and so I'm willing to deny my own existence like I'm willing to go that far like my the reality that I have is inferior like you said it's a borrowed reality it's it's a it's a participation it's a very limited participation in life the life that is the life that is that persists that subsistent being that is God right so relative to God I am not I am not so yes everything is Grace and certainly uh my conversion uh to God in 2009 was 100 Grace and the only pushback you'll get from me as a Catholic is to say that I could have said no to that Grace but I didn't by the grace of God I didn't okay so it's a very it's a very tricky it's a very tricky thing to articulate because I will say very happily that everything is Grace and it's only by the grace of God that I converted but I did say yes to that Grace and then I'll come right back onto your side of the fence again and I'll say by the grace of God I said yes to the grace so I think we need Grace we need to cooperate with the grace but to cooperate with the grace we need Grace we it's only by the grace of God that we can cooperate with the grace so it really is murky murky Waters and the simplest way to say it is that everything is Grace and uh all the glory to God and uh I don't even exist you know relative to the the being that is God in the goodness that is God and the life that is God so sure that's that's the Armenian calvinist distinction you mean is that what you mean well I mean I definitely believe in Free Will 100 100 believe in Free Will so uh there's a tension that will never be resolved by our puny little human brains in this Fallen World okay I'm very happy as a Catholic we have a lot of tension that's unresolved and unresolvable in the Catholic church so what the Calvinists did is they went ahead and resolved the tension and now they have an absurd worldview okay no offense no offense to my calvinist friends and uh there are other people that go the other way and say well I have free will therefore God is not sovereign and God's grace is uh ineffectual or whatever right like they're people that try to resolve the tension and to their own peril so I would rather keep the tension and say look I'm like a little child I'm coming to God like a child I don't understand God I don't understand myself I don't even understand one hair on my head much less how my digestive tract works or anything like that am I going to start teaching God about Free Will and Grace no I'm going to come sit at the feet of God and just thank him for being good and for creating me and sustaining me and giving me the grace to love him to know him and hopefully to serve him [Music] um so what about Free Will for you how are you feeling about the free will uh conundrum because I know if you're talking with atheists you're going to definitely run into some uh conflict because they don't most of them don't believe in free will yeah oh I I might be a little more calvinist in that sense oh really I really yeah yeah I've got I've got a verse that came up but I found well obviously uh that uh that just sort of justifies it a bit I believe it's in Romans I'd have to look it up real quick but um it's uh it says that we're slaves to righteousness and it might overlap with your view it might overlap with your view uh it says with slaves to righteousness we're slaves to uh uh but for us we're slaves uh or you could be slaves to sin Etc et cetera and so I do feel like uh whatever you know we uh you know and then obviously you see I think it's in Leviticus 25 42 I'm pretty sure it says that uh uh God saved the Hebrews by them uh by making them his servants or slaves you know they only use one word which is a badge you know uh so uh that's uh so in that same sense I do feel like that's where I kind of get a lot of my uh my my viewpoint from I feel like I'm a slave to God I'm a slave to Pure being and that's uh what decides my actions and if I want to grow you know if I want to have a higher quality life if I want to have more choices more Freedom Etc and I have to grow closer to God and so and then also yeah and so yeah I feel like we have overlapped with that so yeah um yeah you would you would admit along with me that we don't have a lot of free will and we are slaves either to Satan or to God or to the world or to ourselves or whatever uh we don't have a lot of freedom but you would admit with me that it's a non-zero Freedom we do have some Freedom right you would admit okay oh that's your caller compatible with us if you want to yeah but yeah yeah I just focus on that so much more because I don't feel like uh um I feel I get a lot out of that um but I was gonna ask about the the James thing with the work um like uh considering uh and this might bring in a bit more towards modern sense uh but uh considering where we are we're uh you know like to be honest like I feel like the atheist movement is like really bankrupt at this point because you know like that's you know Sam Harris Etc I think a lot of his beliefs like really uh fell down uh in that sense so I I but in that same sense we still do have a lot of work to go and while historically we've you know like I I want to say like in Western history like the biggest ethical things that happens the most ethical things that happen they're all growing within you know Christ evangelism whatever it is like the University Systems all these sorts of things they are specifically based off of a uh you know an ethical basis or ontological in growing closer to God uh so but in that same sense uh it feels like uh there's been a sort of a a drop I suppose since maybe the tea totaling thing that happened uh there's been and I feel like we have to grow further past that and so I do feel like uh as our faith does gain uh uh more towards how you know like the world develops and stuff like that that's what faith does gain um that our works do have to you know gain just as well too so I was sort of curious what you thought about uh uh in the current sense I know some Protestant churches are trying to uh uh get rid of you know like uh some Sunday services so they can do things uh and in some sense you can see that like okay yeah there's a negativity in some senses of that but in a lot of Senses it is trying to you know grow that fruit of the spirit so it is you know uh you know it's it has it is the answer so we can grow it towards the answer uh so uh can you present me Choice a choice B which one and which one do I like better like you just present it to me like here's what's on the menu which one which way do you think the churches should go because I didn't I didn't I didn't get a clear picture of the two ways like you said uh just sort of summarize it into like the two different paths that you see going forward and I'll tell you what I intuitively think is better sure uh I'm a monus so I don't I don't uh I I didn't mean I didn't mean to participate put it in the sense of uh in a sense of uh two things so which which one do you think uh what's a way that you think that we can grow uh closer to God what's a way that you think we can those those are just examples I'm not sure okay so you were not trying to set up two different uh Visions for me yes sir yeah oh okay okay yeah I like that you said you're a monist like that's I have very strong monist sympathies and basically I'm a Monistat hurt so I'm just uh sort of like connecting with you as a monus brother because it's it's kind of rare in the west to meet a monism is huge in the East it's not very big in the west um so I really do uh sympathize with you on that and we just have to be a little bit cautious we have to do you know do we do have to realize that uh you know there's an economy of Salvation God did Will to make a universe and creatures and all these sorts of things and we do have a certain reality and our choices do matter and there's a heaven and hell awaiting us these sorts of things but other than that like I mean the Ultimate Reality is God and like we're headed towards God hopefully that's where we're going to end up so yeah I'm honest in that sense here in this world we have to be monotheist but later we can enjoy the monism right that's the way I see it so anyway uh the the way to go forward if you want just like a my sort of uh elevator pitch for like what we should be doing as Christians in the world like to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth is that what you're sort of asking me yes uh what the modern yeah with everything given the context of secularism yes that's it yeah well I mean I my focus uh as an individual is okay there are two aspects to my walk with God one is like I'm a member of like society and of the Holy Roman Catholic church and I have my prayer life the sacraments I've got you know I go to a confession I'm going to go to confession tomorrow hopefully and then I'll go to the Eucharist and I've got these sacraments and I got I'm married so I have that Sacrament and when I die hopefully I'll get the last rights Sacrament that will help me get to heaven and these sorts of things so the sacraments in prayer are very important and the community life in the church like being part of that Community singing and praying together publicly worshiping God when I found God that was the most important thing is I have to publicly worship God I can't just sit at home worshiping him you don't have that same impulse obviously or you would have found yourself a church that you attend regularly but that was a big very big strong impulse for me which is counter-intuitive because I'm an introvert I'm not really uh fond of people generally like I mean I'm friendly to my guests because I can have a one-on-one conversation about the things I'm passionate about you know philosophy and religion but in my Waking Life it's just like I don't have a lot to say to most people because I'm just not interested in the Kardashians and sports you know so uh so there are two aspects to my walk with God one is that external thing where I'm part of society and the church and the prayer in the sacraments the other part though is the four last things I'm thinking about uh death judgment heaven and hell that's my my obsession is like I'm a lowly sinner I'm unworthy I'm unworthy like I'm not treating god with the respect that he's due and I'm trying to have virtue and as someone who studied philosophy I'm sure you know all about virtue ethics and so I'm trying to work on myself by the grace of God I'm trying to kill the old man as Saint Paul says so that Christ can live in me and I can live in Christ and so as one of my favorite quotes in the Bible is uh John the Baptist one of my one of my heroes in the faith John the Baptist who said I must decrease Christ must increase so that's what it's all about that's the second aspect of my walk with God I must decrease and Christ must increase and so that involves on the Practical level getting some self-control and some uh you know uh discipline with my uh base appetites and stuff like that so the East is very very good I'm talking about the Eastern Orthodox fathers the desert fathers they're very good at talking about the appetites and how to control them any sorts of things I find it very very very very very very very very very very very very very challenging to say no to my appetites if something is salt or sweetie or oily or whatever I want I tend to just justify it like oh I'm cute I deserve a little treat so I treat myself and I'll be you know so I'll have self-discipline self-control later like when tomorrow no tomorrow is going to be just like today I'm going to be a a Lusty Glutton tomorrow too so the whole self-discipline thing is constantly on my mind and I don't beat myself up about it too much but I'm very much aware that I'm in love with myself and I can't go to heaven if I'm in love with myself I have to detach from this world and I have to uh you know put God first I have to be so in love with God that I'm not you know fantasizing about my next meal all the time or whatever it might be so I hope that it wasn't too rambling of an answer but they're basically two answers the societal part and then the interior life with the trying to get self-control yeah that's uh I do feel like that's the con uh Geno kenosis yeah yeah yeah emptying yes that's it um so uh yeah um is that something that you think about or you struggle with are you trying to uh is it theoretical for you as it is for me because I'm not very good at fasting and all those sorts of things that's interesting yeah uh well I ah man I don't know um is it too awkward do you feel awkward talking about that no my brain my brain right now that's sorry too many words I'm really trying to throw things out there okay um well I was gonna ask about the ketosis I was gonna because you brought it up with the cart Descartes and you brought it and I was yeah and so with the uh the Eastern East it sounds like you're into the Eastern philosophies which you said uh so I was wondering if that's something that sort of plays A Part yeah well I mean I uh I've never been a I've never been a fan of Eastern religions Eastern philosophies Buddhism and Zen and you know I've dabbled in it um and Hinduism is certainly interesting and uh you know uh Sikhism and all these sorts of things they're interesting but I don't feel at home there I feel very much at home in the western tradition philosophy and religion of the West okay but having said that we do have in the western we you know in the west we do have uh platonism neoplatonism we have uh even some of the Eastern orthodoxies bled into the church so that we have access in a very digestible way to some Eastern ideas so that would be the extent of my sort of uh getting my feet wet with ideas from the East and um so I'm sort of going out of my way to explain that I'm a very Western rationalist kind of guy at hurt but I'm also a modest at her and I also am very attracted to certain aspects of the East and it's just like how do I integrate that so it's all about integrating that because I'm not naturally uh uh an Eastern type of uh being if you catch my drift sure uh yeah I was going to ask if you feel like a John the Baptist uh sort of fulfills some of that in the sense that she said yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah he's a real bridge builder like he's like that at Old Testament New Testament he's right there like he's a wild he's a wild wild character but like I said I would you know I'm I'm like that rich kid that came up to Jesus do you remember that when he's like oh I do this and I do that and I'm so perfect and Jesus is just like well if you want to be perfect you have to give away everything you own he's like oh no no no no so that's kind of where I'm at you know and when I read that story I'm like you idiot just that's that's the God man Jesus Christ wisdom incarnate telling you what to do and you're like throwing a pity party for yourself like just do what he says right yeah and yeah and we all face that yeah in the uh face of um I criticized that rich young man but I'm I'm the exact same guy like I'm I'm not detached from you know my ego my pride my desires all these sorts of things so I'm in the same situation so I'm really critical of that guy because I'm critical of myself but it's just it's really hard that's the Crux that's the existential angst of uh for me personally of being a Christian like that it's just the self-awareness like I'm very weak I'm very selfish and very prideful so that's painful that that is painful that is really embarrassing and painful yeah but but yeah it's it's a it's a nice Pro uh problem to have though you know I mean instead of being lost to us yeah yeah yeah oh yeah I wouldn't trade it I wouldn't trade it don't get me wrong I would not trade it for going back to uh my foolish ways with atheism no way no way oh I'm very very happy and grateful to God every day thank you for allowing me I don't I don't feel worthy to be Christian but here I am right here I am so yeah can you relate can you relate to a lot of my attitude oh yeah definitely I think it's yeah definitely I think it's a human problem I think uh historically there's the God versus nature man versus nature Man versus whatever but yeah I think that's uh that's the big one that's the one that underlies all of it did you like the existentialist philosophers or did they annoy you yeah I don't think existence precedes us and stuff but I do like cooker I do like Kirk regard I will give that as uh take on Abraham was interesting so uh even the Continental the postmoderns and stuff like that I consider them valid but uh very unsound so it's it's definitely fun to go through them yeah do you have uh 10 minutes to go through the philosophy quiz with me let's do it let's do it uh I'm just gonna go and try to find it now again on your I found it on your Twitter so I'm just gonna go and take this and I'll just read the questions out loud and we'll come to a consensus uh answer okay where the heck is your page you're trying to find your page on Twitter here it is what's going on it won't show me your content tweets uh they got liked on yours check your uh check my notifications here we go okay got it so take the test question one take the test again okay because it took me to my old results uh by the way I have a thumb what do you call that a finger puppet of Hegel on my fridge from back from my atheist days did you like Hegel I I think he's interesting yeah that's a good word he had a good word to describe good adjective okay question one so-called quote unquote evil people are really just ignorant and in need of knowledge of the good this is such a platonic question I I was hesitant to crank it up because I knew it would just be getting full on Plato points for this one what do you say yeah that's exactly what I think you want to crank it okay we're going for Plato here the best Insight is gained by approaching a subject in a practical and orderly manner indexing it and mapping out what is currently known about it so this seems to appeal to my rationalist Tendencies I would I gave this uh a mild agree instead of a full-on agree because I want to leave some room for mystery what do you say no that's that's exactly what I agree I think I think uh yeah definitely or do you want to create you fully agree I know because I there was a thing with William Lane Craig and he had uh something that everybody was going about like oh what if you have one in a million chance you know to accept something that's so good you know like why would you accept that and then somebody came up and they're like Well yeah if you have a if I have a one out of million chains that my seatbelt's Gonna Save you know my child's life you know I'm going to take that every time and but if I'm going to have a one in a million chance to trip on the sidewalk you know I'll just you know take that so I do think like faith has a place inside there okay next question I don't like this line of questioning which is peppered throughout the quiz it says I have a flair for controversy it's like what I don't know how to answer this I left it neutral I left it neutral what do you say that's pretty fair yeah I think I I put it without I put it without it yeah neutral neither a green or discrete because it depends on the situation right you would agree with me yeah I think there's uh how would you call it within that there's something that is unifying sometimes you know like obviously some controversy is like okay I'll look at this and then you can come together but uh in general I do say negative so I go uh towards the full disagree okay you want to go disagree yeah full yeah full disagree okay okay I'll go with you on that I uh this is another silly question I mock people's religious beliefs well if they're atheists and satanists yeah but not usually no yeah I don't answer this yeah uh for me I don't consider atheism to be an actual ideology okay for religion okay so yeah so you you would definitely disagree 100 that's right yeah you don't want to mock the Hindus and everything yeah okay I agree with you on that question five I am more interested in things that can be measured uh oh than some pie in the sky type of thinking now this is they they characterize faith-based beliefs as pie in the sky which I take offense at but I am definitely not more interested in things that can get be measured because God cannot be measured you both yeah yeah exactly yeah I think I totally disagree oh I for that I knew I'm neutral I do I I think some uh I think God is he's he's not something we we do have to be able to reach him you know so that's how I sort of interpret it also that hold on so you're saying you're neutral on that and I strongly disagree so you want to put it as mildly disagree is that a good compromise that sounds perfect yeah okay we'll see what we end up with are you already getting an idea of how this is going to be a different result from your previous result no I'm not sure okay well it'll be a surprise at the end my view of life is often misunderstood well obviously I'm Christian and people hate Christianity so I put strongly just I put strongly agree for that what do you say um I I don't feel like lines is uh misunderstood I put the opposite oh really yeah I feel like it's come uh completely there um yeah that's that's how I think of it okay so hold on talk me through this talk me off the ledge here because I'm thinking like that everyone's against me because I'm Christian you'll be persecuted because I was persecuted these sorts of things so talk me back from that to where you're at yeah that might be a bit similar with uh not thinking of atheism as an ideology I think I don't remember what the verse is but it says it's you're a fool if you do and I I take that very literally there's no way you can they're usually naturalists or something like that okay okay okay okay so because you see these people as merely fools you don't see your yourself as misunderstood by them you just see them as a bunch of Apes basically so I I see them as like uh whatever they're coming into it's with uh it's it's a bit more it's a shallow criticism it's very shallow yeah okay can we compromise and just mildly disagree with that then let's just see what the result that gives us people fuss too much over their banal every day problems I'm not sure what to say about this I I don't think people do I feel like everybody uh is trying to grow into God as best as I can and uh wherever they're at so uh I I do but obviously that's uh I think the banal thing it's trying to uh has a different conception or domain of what it means so uh in that I guess I'd put slightly uh a slight or slightly disagree okay so you want to give the bulk of people the benefit of the doubt that they're seeking God and stuff like that okay yeah definitely the wise human being avoids the Allure of power and fame I'm going to say right now I strongly agree strongly agree uh the why is human being what the wise human being avoids the Allure of power and fame oh yeah no 100 agree with that yeah yeah that was one of my strongest answers like what yeah I shock people with crass actions and words so here we have a reiteration a rephrasing of that same thing where they're trying to say that I seek controversy I like being rude uh so I guess we could disagree with that but how strongly do we disagree yeah yeah strongly disagree yeah I think we should even though I am I am an idiot and I just can't control my mouth that's why I like the Book of James because he talks about how hard it is to control the fire that is the tongue yeah animals are better quote unquote people than most people I hate this question and I strongly disagree I I think yeah I don't think animals are as yeah but I do think animals I I I'll say I do think animals do seek uh God just as well but of course of course of course but they're not better people because they don't have free will and reasons yeah I know I yeah I agree yeah they're they're under judgment but yeah they still need to yeah Simple Pleasures are the best this is why I got epicureanism because I agreed strongly with that what do you say that's yeah that's so yeah that's that's why I try not to Let's uh their algorithms yeah exactly yeah so I don't want to assume it yeah yeah yeah um yeah so I highly agree slightly agree yeah that's fine that's fine yeah let's do that because we don't want to end up being epicureans most people are oh God most people are unable to think for themselves oh yeah I I don't I just strong disagree embarrassed to admit that I did agree with that one when I first did this test Beauty in this world is what I went with your answer Beauty in this world is proof that there is a Transcendent higher world we both 100 agree with that yep generally speaking only the highest specimens of human only the highest specimens of humanity interest me that's very that's very interesting so because that's very relative like what it means like what the highest specific obviously we speak we seek whatever we think is the highest I would say the Saints yeah no that's yeah that's fair yeah uh yeah I I guess and I like the poor I like the underdog I like the regular folk I like the blue collar workers I support the truckers here in Canada I'm a popular I want populist uh Uprising against the tyranny of these mafias and stuff like that so I'm torn I'm really torn it depends on how you interpret the highest specimens it depends on it depends on so many things so I'm going to leave this one up to you and I'll buy whatever argument you give me you know I I really feel like we shouldn't interpret it in uh any liberal way I don't feel like anybody else should interpret that in a way I see God say I strongly agree okay you'll strongly agree yeah okay good yeah very good yeah that's good because I saw Jesus Christ I said strongly agree okay because he's he's the height of humanity right uh people who profess to be Gravely concerned with the so-called objective truth are really just professing their weakness strongly disagree and I'm sure you agree with me that we strongly disagree with that like it's all about objective truth that's what it's all about we're not we're not being weak by saying that that's reality yeah most were on question 16 of 35 most people need to be led and controlled oh my God what do you say oh my Lord that's another one because you know I do feel like we have to be slaves to God we have to be slaves to righteousness uh but I I really feel like this is like the philosophy but I'm not going to insert in the philosophy way that how I think they're doing it uh I feel like that's platonist um well yeah maybe that's trying to test for Plato uh but yeah I guess I would say uh strongly agree but just because I'm not using it from their philosophical view what would you say though I'm curious uh ah most people need to be led and controlled well I mean you know like you said like we we need to be slaves of God or or not God and so yeah we I whether we like it or not we will be controlled by our slave master like and when I say controlled that isn't if God is the one that we put ourselves in slavery to that's the best thing we have the most freedom in that slavery so to say that I'm controlled by God is to be controlled by Freedom which is the best thing so it's paradoxical but I would just I would just say mildly agree because I'm just scared to go down some rabbit hole of like sure you know like oh the Communist version of this answer like it's like no I strongly disagree with the Communist worldview you know what I mean yeah I know I had to yeah 100 agree it's it's a fine line to control so yeah between humans and you know if I get an email later like hey well that quiz you said you wanted to be controlled so here we go okay your bank account's now at zero uh our minds can never comprehend comprehend reality as it is I strongly agree let me let me let me read that again our minds can never comprehend reality exactly as it is only God Only God can do that oh that's I think that's kantian um how do you say it yeah I I guess that's yeah that's the best way to do it I mildly agree to avoid something that's an algorithm yeah yeah yeah I just don't want to be you know have the conti and you know things of themselves things okay what would it mean you and I wouldn't go down this rabbit hole but what would it mean for someone to say I strongly disagree I think we can comprehend all of reality exactly as it is what would that mean is that pantheism is that is that just uh R and raw and his evolutionary theory where he thinks he's going to one day understand every molecule in the universe like what does it mean for someone to say I I I think we will and I think we can understand it reality we're like what what does that look like that world view what does it look like yeah no I I yeah I do think I think it can yeah definitely uh but in Us in another sense I do think uh like we have access to God we can know God uh and while uh all of creation I think all of creation is uh knowable uh but not everything at once or anything like that but um yeah so yeah these are tough answer tough to answer our base desires as human beings are coarse and vulgar I strongly agree yeah sure yeah that's true or you want to mildly agree mildly agree I think yeah okay because uh I'm just thinking now I maybe answer to hastily the first time I did this because you know marriage is good and The Marriage Act is good and these sorts of things and food is good and eating is good and maybe I'm a little bit too paranoid about you know because of reading the Eastern fathers like how harsh they were on uh self-control so maybe I was a bit too harsh on that so we'll do mildly agree beautiful language is not as important as people make it out to be people that were going into the uh Aesthetics or whatever they call this here beautiful language is not important to people make it out to be people should say what they mean as briefly and plainly as possible the highest truths about this world are not rational or analytical but can be grasped only through a sort of mystical intuition hmm neutral that's for me you're neutral okay because you like the rationale you still like the rational and the analytical grass yeah because it says to be grasped only through uh mystical intuition I think that's false so yeah it's uh okay hold on the highest truths can only be grasped by mystical intuition I kind of agree but you'd want to leave it neutral yeah yeah it's okay yeah it's one of those confusing ones yeah okay let's leave it neutral being preoccupied with whether one is a good person or not is a sign that one is a lesser being hmm I disagree with that I strongly disagree would you let me do a strongly disagree let's do it yeah that works okay I mock people who think they are all that so as to deflate their egos I disagree with that yeah same mildly or strongly I I'd promise I strongly I'd really try to avoid mocking you yeah people think I am much harsher and more hard-headed than I really am uh and yeah I strongly disagree I don't think so I make use of long chains of logical arguments in my thinking so as to root out any contradictions or uncertainties I don't do that I do I do right yeah uh would you want to do mildly you want to mild that you do that I do that 100 let's mildly do it because you know I do appreciate that like a like I said I like uh Spinoza and he he does that so I you know I do that rationalistic tendency I don't want to feed the algorithm too much but we'll give it a mild like I shock people by saying outrageous and offensive things this is the same nonsense that we got before we'll give a disagree but how strong of a disagree do you want to do oh yeah I think I go strong yeah I think I go strong it's just it's just not good to be offensive right yeah I am a creature of habit well I kind of am yeah I mean my life is boring I just get up go to work go come home eat sleep but I don't like that I don't like that but I do I on the on the positive side I want to have good habits I want to pray regularly I want to go to church I want to you know so I agree I would give a mildly agree what do you say yeah I agree with that yeah okay 27 of 35 the mind is basically like a machine I strongly disagree what do you say yeah I strongly disagree yeah even though Descartes may have seen it that way I don't know uh sexual attraction tends to lead people into bad situations I strongly agree I strongly agree I think if you look at Twitter and the internet generally the pornography and everything like that I strongly agree what do you say neutral I I don't feel like it's a I I felt yeah I just neutral I don't think it's a a big thing maybe I think it's derivative what's the what's the divorce rate where you're living um it's it's it was pretty high then it stopped I think like a flat lines and think about like a few years ago but we're now in civil unions so like it's not like you're getting the full marriage so well what led us into that bad situation it was all this sexual stuff I would say mildly agree with you let me do that sure that's fine yeah okay we'll see what we end up being here 29 or 35 a profound text can only be truly good if it is oh sorry a profound text cannot be truly good if it is not beautifully written I slightly agree with that I feel like they come from the same boat okay you want to slightly agree you want a profound text to be beautifully written yeah I do think it should be beautiful if it's going to be really good it's going to be beautifully written just as well uh but I do feel like there's people who like uh go off one side and then the other side but I do feel like fundamentally uh they'll both come together okay mildly agree even though I'm kind of neutral on that okay I ask a question that others can I ask questions that others consider crazy well that's mildly true in my case sir are you okay with that yeah we can do that that's fine yeah there is much about the world that we can never know with certainty this is the same question basically we saw before what do you say what did we say uh yeah I I guess uh uh oh Lord um yeah I think I strongly agree I strongly agree with this by the way yeah I think I think well I guess I'd say I slightly disagree yeah as well I slightly disagree yeah yeah it's that uh yeah okay if we if we if we have two sides of the scale like there's a scale a balance and you put on one side the things that we can know with certainty and they put on the other side things that we cannot know with certainty which side of the scale is going to have more stuff on it oh yeah but I don't think quantity is very uh important I think quality accounts work I think you could derive quantity from quality okay so as they're saying they use the word much which is quantitative thing right there is much about the world we can never know with certainty like do you know the orientation of each and every grain of sand on any given Beach I don't no I don't but I do feel like uh as long as we know like science or something or some math or something or God or something like that then you have something which can fundamentally so I think the qualitative answer is what I mean okay so you you wanted to mildly disagree yeah yeah yeah all right I'll give you that I'll take your your perspective on it which that's the problem with these quizzes right is it's just up to the interpretation of the question there's so many ways to interpret a question so I'll just give you that one question 32 of 35 there is always a clear right and wrong course of action in every moral dilemma yeah yeah oh yeah what do you think here well I think from God's point of view absolutely but from my point of view it's not clear it's not clear it's not always clear but I would give you a mild a mile degree that's as far as I'll go uh sir yeah you want to give a strong agree because you want to use God's perspective on this no I I feel like we do have access to things like uh we are human beings therefore we necessarily must to some degree operate within human rights uh and so we are we're lots of objects you know sometimes we identify as a work or sometimes we uh identify you know we identify through our uh our sex or sometimes we identify through our ideologies or whatever but in any case every single one of them uh while they maybe they may not overlap necessarily I do feel like uh we do necessarily operate morally and I would say we only operate morally okay we operate more like what words you've convinced me you've convinced me and I've also realized that this is a trap like if I actually disagreed I would be voting for moral relativism right that makes sense yeah because they they want me to say that there's not a clear yes or no black and white morality it's like okay now I'm now because of what you said I'm leaning I want to say strongly agree what about you that makes sense yeah okay you just totally changed my mind on that one 33 if people challenge or confront me I confront them right back with little fear of the consequences I'm not sure just because you don't like confrontation yeah I mean like uh I yeah I think uh how would you say it um I I feel like I've I choose uh for whatever battles I choose that's a strong degree uh but there's no reason to have like half the battles that uh you do whenever you know like in politics and stuff like that they're like oh the written house thing and stuff like that uh I feel like if you follow that too much that braver thing just similar like the virtues it ends up leading you towards uh you know like you know where the gods you know they don't necessarily lean up towards God yeah okay so uh we'll mildly disagree that is that what you said or neutral I I think I'd say mildly disagree I don't remember I don't know It's Tricky It's tricky to answer I stir up controversy simply for the sake of arguments we'll disagree strongly on that one you don't just stir up the [ __ ] for no reason right 35 this is the last question a life marked by the absence of pain is better than a life marked by the presence of pleasure what do you think this is a stoic religion by the way okay uh by the absence of pain is could you say it one more time please yeah a life marked by the absence of pain is better than a life marked by the presence of pleasure so if you could uh avoid pain is that better than having pleasure uh what do you think I've I think I voted for no pain or at least slightly disagree for pain I don't need pleasure or something like that so I'm like very good okay okay so you've got a stoic uh strain in you that's good so uh yeah you would mildly agree with that yeah yeah an absence of pain okay that's good I think I agree with that let's see what we got okay I'm gonna share this on my how can I share this on my screen are you able you're not able to see my actual live stream so you can't see this but you'll see it later okay sure drum roll please oh you're gonna be happy we got him eighty percent Play-Doh 70 epicurus wow wow yeah I think I got uh yeah a decent epic curious too yeah did you yeah let me hide your um AI Abraham's getting in my way so let me hide him okay very cool so we got you'll see this on your screen when you watch it back your traits are closest to those with Plato 80 Plato 70 epicurus which is not bad I've kind of always begrudgingly admired his uh moderation and whatever um next you won't be too surprised to hear is Kant who is an interesting guy but you you were kind of uh shy to get him I think when you posted your thing everyone else is very low diogenese who's a total pig is at 10 percent Hume David Hume whom I admire he's a Scottish guy very uh skeptical I like I like reading his stuff he's 20 percent Nietzsche's also 20 and Aristotle got a 45 percent which is you know I I forgot they had diogenes I kept wondering where they're talking about uh for the stirring up stuff I thought that was a soccer season I was like that's such a bad reading of soccer teams I'm so you know wow yeah that diogenese he's fun you know that's the same reason I liked uh Donald Trump in 2016 is because he's kind of like a diogenese character just stirring things up yeah yeah I voted for him uh actually in 2016. it was a protest boat though it was just really really because I was a Democrat even like a week even while I voted for him like a week after it was like I consider myself socialist I really like a Democratic Socialist before Bernie yeah yeah but really okay you're Bernie uh your Bernie guy yeah I do like Bernie I'm I'm not for politics now but yeah I did like Bernie it was like a week after I saw the protests against Trump and like everything Clinton said about like oh they go uh low we go high I was like well that's exactly what I like but what are you doing you know not Clinton herself but you know like the party while during the 2016 thing and then like uh yeah I just kept going into this thing you know that was like it wasn't High whatsoever it was very low a lot of low blows and then uh yeah so then after like a week I was that's when I was like I'm not you know Democrat I'm not left wing I'm not Democratic Socialist or any of that stuff so wow what a journey what a journey you're on um very privileged to meet you I gotta get now I gotta get back to my wife and uh do the rest of my evening my weekend I got a couple more interviews uh tomorrow but I really appreciate talking to you meeting you I hope you come back and chat to me some more you've got a lot to say and you're you're uh your journey I think is just beginning right that sounds great thank you so uh God bless you I hope you pray for me and mine I've got you uh enrolled in uh daily mass it's a Perpetual Mass every day you and your family are being mentioned in the Holy sacrifice of the mass it's a representation of the once for all sacrifice on Calvary of the god man Jesus Christ so a lot of Grace is coming your way for your ongoing conversion for you and your family and that includes your siblings who might be a little bit off track right now who knows God bless you thank you thank you so much and we'll talk soon okay yes sir thank you all right take care bye