we are live i'm here with mike mike how are you doing pretty good how are you doing nice to meet you nice to meet you as well a little nervous first time to do something in this format it's just a conversation it's just a conversation just don't say anything stupid that you regret later like i always do i'll try i'll try thanks for having me on yeah so did you comment in the comment section on my youtube is that what happened yeah yeah i'm a big youtube commenter kind of person so i found your channel uh i'm i'm pretty big into the style of content that you produce so i go and describe that theistic side how do you describe i uh apologetics maybe or in the in the service of maybe pro you know catholic church as opposed to the opposition i'm into like debates and stuff conversations you're catholic you're catholic uh i was i was baptized i was i'm i'm not practicing and i would say i'm an atheist right now oh okay so okay okay okay okay um can you scoot to your left or rotate my left yeah there you go perfect okay yeah you want to be you want to be on that side of of you like close to that side of your screen because i i crop when i when i scream this i crossed wherever so that looks good you're comfortable there yeah comfortable okay good so uh talk us through a little bit about uh who you are where you come from how you raise i know you're of italian heritage so there must be some kind of catholic stuff in there somewhere your grandma or something so just talk a little bit about that sure yeah so my name is mike i just turned 29 recently i'm actually living in the czech republic but i'm american and uh i grew up not in a religious home although my dad was baptized and confirmed in the catholic church my grandparents on his side the italian side they're the catholics that's the influence my mom's side i think my mother might have been baptized but they were episcopalian i think so they weren't really practicing growing up wasn't practicing at all it was never really mentioned in the house at all uh it's more along the lines of if someone passes away it's like oh where's you know great grandpa oh they're in heaven what's heaven oh it's a place where god and his angels take care of everyone you love so that was the extent uh and then my parents got divorced when i was nine and from that point my dad had this born-again moment and apparently there was this deal he made with god to where if he won custody of us it was a pretty nasty custody battle that uh he would serve the rest of his life you know or you know live the rest of his life in service to god so he is a pretty hardcore i would say fundamentalist christian although he would not probably enjoy that title he would say he's a seeker of the truth he rejects the title christian even because there's too many hypocrites out there so uh and that was my first introduction to god was basically his perception of the bible and you know solar scripture and all this uh i don't know if you're familiar with the uh there's a church in fort lauderdale uh cavalry chapel they start out in california pastor bob coy if you know these guys it's a mega church it's like it was the fifth largest mega church in the us after joel osteen you know lakewood ranch whatever that stuff is so yeah that was early teenage years and uh i'd say since then wasn't really practicing at all and then around maybe two years ago or so uh i was having these conversations with my dad to sort of deconvert him from christianity we'd have you know theological discussions and he would refuse to have a discussion with me because he's saying i'm talking about it but i've never read the bible so i read the entire bible cover to cover about halfway through something happened and i just sort of believed it all and uh i then converted and i was looking for okay well if i believe the bible is real and that version of god is real maybe there's a church i tried some things out oops frozen scream i'm not seeing i'm not hearing anything i'm not seeing any motion on your side if you can hear me just wait okay so it bugged out a bit but uh just continue from where you froze just a couple seconds ago okay i'm not sure where i froze but basically i came to the conclusion that the catholic church was the right way to go i also discovered i was baptized in the catholic church so that you know kind of just felt like going back to where i belonged i guess wow uh and i'm i'm definitely a joiner type of person and uh when i when i am into something i'm all the way so if i'm let's say into music i'm in a band if i'm into school you know i'm doing projects after school things i'm in clubs and when i discovered the church i said well i need to devote everything to this so i was doing greetings i was doing youth group stuff i was getting involved in bible studies adult religious education and ultimately someone said hey maybe this guy has a vocation so i started getting invited uh to stay with the priests at my local parish they're augustinians and uh started hanging out with them doing the liturgy the hours doing everything and then you know they invited me for easter they invited me for christmas for new year's i found myself staying there more and more and then uh decided that i would like to pursue that maybe i did have a vocation somewhere along the way i lost my way and uh here i am as a non-practicing uh self-professed atheist wow so uh ramble sorry no no no that was very succinct very good you covered a lot of ground efficiently there uh i'm excited to explore that moment where you left the faith uh you know because i remember the exact moment i lost my faith at age 14. it was a beautiful beautiful moment an encounter a mystical encounter with jesus christ he was waving to me in a dream and i woke up and i had lost my faith i was just a i was just a sweet innocent protestant christian boy with naive faith and i had this beautiful dream of jesus waving goodbye to me and i woke up and i realized i'd lost my faith even though it was counterintuitive like you have an encounter with your lord and savior who was god incarnate and you're like so why have i lost my faith again like it doesn't make sense but you just run with it my in in retrospect i think it has to do with sin sexual sin because i hit puberty and that form once were raging and all that sort of thing um and that's often the case i mean that's often the case satan loves to use that's what happened to me basically yeah oh what happened so talk about it as much as you're comfortable i'm super open with that stuff uh you know if you have any questions i'm totally willing to go there uh i might just leave out you know names of people obviously but uh let's say i took the celibacy very seriously and i went from being somewhat i wouldn't call myself a womanizer but there's you know experiences and encounters that i had where you know i probably was not being sexually chaste you know right so uh i basically went nine months one when i was practicing and i was considering the priesthood because they have vows one of those vows is celibacy so i said well i might as well just start doing that now instead of you know getting it out of my system and then going into a monastery or something and uh i held off for a while and i had a regular confessor that i was going to and i would say probably the same stuff as anyone else in their mid to late 20s you know the the same urges temptations whatever's going on and i was doing you know daily liturgy of the hours praying the rosary daily but i kept getting distracted by these images whether they be from past experiences or just random images or pictures or something and it was very distracting and i was considering how do i deal with this do i keep praying but when i'm praying i'm getting distracted and it just seemed like maybe if i give in once it'll just go away and i can go another nine months because i was i was like uh pretty successful actually i i don't know if it's vulgar to stay but like the whole like no fat movement i don't know if you're i'm guessing i'm aware of it yeah i'm aware of it i don't know how much we would discuss with that but just roughly roughly speaking i found it much easier to resist temptation as a practicing catholic than as an atheist just trying to avoid porn for whatever other reasons attaching sin to that made it much much easier to resist there was more weight to giving in than i experienced as a secular person but anyway so i gave in to that uh and it was like a light switch went off and then there was a time when i was uh smoking marijuana a lot and involved in drugs and alcohol and it was like okay so i will kind of break this nine-month streak of celibacy and then i said okay well let me try to uh maybe you know smoke smoke weed again and then from there i started going down this rabbit hole of you know uh youtube videos like debates on both sides and i just found my faith uh seemed less and less rational i would say and it's not like i'm i'm stoned or high watching these videos it's just that broke me away from having this fear because i expected a stronger reaction like more guilt and i felt i felt no guilt at all actually and it made me sort of question you know what is sin and why are we sort of forbidden to do these things and uh i've tried to distance myself from the church and from the bible and uh even to this day it's still something where it's kind of nagging at me in the back of my head and i've had that for maybe 15 years or so since my dad became a born-again christian even during these dark moments where you know you could be doing anything you know going down the hole of just doing whatever but there's still this image in there just sort of um this picture of jesus almost i guess like he's kind of waiting for me to just like all right you know i'm here when you're ready you're clearly not ready right now so very powerful that was the first yeah that was the first i would say [ __ ] in the armor there was the sexual uh purity stuff yeah yeah it's it's a it's an excellent tool in satan's tool kit i mean if you believe in satan i don't know if you believe in satan now anymore no i wouldn't say so yeah it wouldn't make sense if you don't believe in god doesn't make sense right but um no we need to uh what we need to do and i'm in the same i'm in the same boat that you're in like i'm a weak man and i like pleasure i like uh looking at beautiful women i like eating tasty food that's salty or sweet or both it's just like it's just like whatever feels good uh just lounging around like not working hard uh doing my will not god's will it's just that's just human nature so i i want first and foremost to let you know that i understand the struggle is real and it's just easier to give up and uh i've been going through a rough time since kovid uh my faith has suffered especially since i didn't get back i didn't get no money i didn't get backs so i wasn't allowed to go to mass and uh that's the policy here in quebec and uh now i'm allowed to go again but it during two years there were lockdowns there were curfews there were all kinds of things and my sacramental life suffered and my prayer life suffered as a result of that and then some bad habits crept in in terms of just you know looking at not not porn per se but just allowing myself to look where i shouldn't look uh images just because there's sex images of women everywhere and they're sexy women on the streets of montreal like now in springtime i'm surrounded by them and it's just hard not to look it's just and not to blame the women but they should i i would like them to dress a little bit more modestly and it's up to me to just not look right but um you know it's just it's just it's just a very typical thing for guys to be like to be like sensual in that way like with their senses especially vision like just looking yeah and uh fantasies like you're so dangerous like the sexual fantasies and when they flood your mind and you're like where does this come from like it's so creative and it's so vivid and it's so strange you know so i i am uh you know i used to be an atheistic satanist before my conversion in 2009 so i went down the that sort of dark path of self-indulgence with uh sexual sin and stuff like nothing too exciting i mean if i told you what i got up to you wouldn't be too impressed right i'm sure you've done more exciting stuff but i don't know i don't know what you're into but yeah we'll go with that i don't want i don't want to start comparing but uh you know my my basic point is even the great saints they struggled um many of them uh saint mary of the desert is a good example where she had lust she had lust i i never think about women having lost but i guess they do um but uh she went to the desert to get away from the near occasion of sin and you know there are many many saints who talk explicitly about how they struggle with chastity and purity saint augustine as well yeah my favorite he's my favorite so uh do you still have a love and reverence for the saints or no uh no i wouldn't say so no no you just think they're silly fools no i don't i don't think that either it's more i recognize the influence that they have and i recognize the contributions they make to the world of thought and debate and rhetoric and stuff but it's not something where i would feel any uh not devotion but you know this reverence i don't think i have like a reverence for them to say in the same way that i maybe used to uh just sort of a like a i don't think they're wholly i wouldn't say they're like holy people they don't get respectable maybe not holy okay respect you do give respect but not uh yeah you don't see the whole thing i'd give them respect yeah no no no so uh i mean i think it's philosophically untenable to deny the existence of god just because we need an uncaused first cause that's what you want to talk about yeah yeah no and just just as a disclaimer i'm i'm definitely out of my league when it comes to discussing philosophy so i'll probably take like the layman's approach to things but i'll do my best to be as just be yourself honest as i can be with my answers and and uh go with that so you said it's untenable to doubt or to not have god in your life what was the exact way you said that again the existence of god is certain and to deny it is philosophically untenable like we have no basis to deny the existence of god okay so or even to doubt uh i would say it's i would say it's not self-evident so it's definitely something where you can be brought up in the world you're gonna have to think about it it's not self-evident but you're gonna have to think about it it's indirect like the the creature points to the creator the contingent points to the necessary and these sorts of things so it's not a direct knowledge and it's actually a lot of the saints talk about this how it's not a direct knowledge that god exists it's not a direct certainty we actually have to think about it we have to infer it from creation and from the fact that everything that's composed of essence and existence or of parts or whatever everything that's composed is mutable and relative and subjective and not not absolutely immutable in eternal and so we have we have we have to acknowledge that there is one and only one uncaused first cause who's infinite in every perfection every pure perfection that those are the perfections that it's better to have than to not have so the example i always use is the circle the circle is perfect but it's not better to be a circle like it's we don't attribute circularity to god right so um yeah but the uh getting down to the brass tax with the necessary being that one necessary being the uncaused first cause that's that's going to bring you to monotheism whether you like it or not and then you have to pick your religion oh christianity judaism islam or whatever find some other find some other religion but once you're a monotheist again you're going to want to worship god and you're going to want to worship him publicly not just at home like with your generic monotheism so we have to get you back to monotheism it's the first step and i guess the stakes are my my soul suffering eternally if i don't get to that position right yep and is that the most convincing uh argument that you could give or let's say not even the argument you would give but i would say one of the things that i struggle with is exactly how i'm guilty of anything how i would be guilty of hellfire if the system was designed before i was even involved in it so before uh i'm alive you know we have the sin of adam right so that's kind of the reason why we have this fallen nature uh i don't see how if i'm born you know i don't know how old you age all the genealogies and stuff but you know after adam um if if he sins and i'm just born with original sin and i'm born into a system where there's all these different options and everyone says that they have the right way to go if i'm genuinely seeking what's true and i'm not convinced of your claim uh i don't see how i would go to hell for that because it seems like a just god if he is all-merciful he should understand well the the environment that he's whether or not he directly created that is different but how am i held liable for that basically i don't see like the necessity of of avoiding hell let's let's let's go down one level to a more fundamental question a fundamental question about morality per se morality objective eternal morality okay um there can be so we're laying the foundation here there can be no morality no meaningful morality if there's absolutely no difference between the best case scenario and the worst case scenario for any given person right so uh if you talk to certain types of hindus or buddhists or universalists like christian universalists that don't believe in eternal hell they'll say everyone including satan ends up in heaven eventually okay just some people take it more direct simple route some people take a winding jerk route a painful route through hell like this temporary hell purgatory and so forth and so everyone ends up in heaven so it's just it's just a question then of pick your root do you want to take a dark route do you want to take an interesting route like that's an old chinese uh curse is like i hope you have an interesting day right like it's a chinese curse because an interesting day what they mean there is lots of problems and frustrations and pain and suffering that's what that's what that curse means but uh do you want to take the interesting path to heaven or do you want to take the you know maybe it's a boring path to just be a saint and go straight to heaven who knows either way right yeah i'm gonna go my way like uh frank sinatra said i did it my way like hey i'm just gonna do my thing it's like a video game and i know the outcome is good so i'm just gonna explore and even though it's dark and it's a bit painful and it might be annoying at least i can indulge my pleasures i can live like an animal i can have all the food i could have all the sex i can have all the kinky stuff i can treat women like horrors and like just like sex objects and whatever it does so those are all in the same category of self-indulgence but yeah i get what you mean no i'm just saying i'm just saying what i would do if i'm just saying what i would do that's how you would spend it if there are no consequences you would well i mean i have the inclination i have a selfish inclination i have a selfishly selfish inclination short term gain short term pleasure short term whatever oh i hurt your feelings oh well sorry i'm gonna go to heaven anyway so it doesn't really matter i'll see you in heaven okay so uh and the same thing with uh thievery and uh you know just dishonesty like you can focus on any sin you want doesn't have to be sex and food but um i know the difference between a selfish motivation and a selfless sacrifice i know the difference and you know the difference too and this is where god judges you because you you already know and when god judges you you're not there going no well that's not quite right god you you misunderstood my motives no you know when you're being selfish and you know when you're being selfless and you know which one is easier and you know which one is more difficult and that's what you judge based on and you have zero come back you've got nothing to say you just remain completely silent and you accept the judgment because it's reality it's true then you know it's true so i mean that's the basis for uh the basis for morality as hell and the basis for your vulnerability to hell the punishments of hell the eternal punishments of hell is that fact that you know full well when you're being selfish period and you can't tell me otherwise right sure well i mean i don't think that hell needs to exist for things to be right and wrong i don't think hell and heaven need to exist for that i think we can have as social creatures and i've i've seen other uh interviews or discussions debates with other people and i know that uh i don't know if that'd be called uh pragmatism right but but if i basically say what we consider to be morally right and wrong is merely uh the reaction that we get from the society that we live in because we're social creatures so things that are conducive to you know trust and working together that's better for us because all of us benefit from that and if you're a liar if you're a murderer you know if you can't be trusted and things like that that actually hurts yourself too because if everyone behaved that way we wouldn't be able to have the things we have right now so i don't understand how you can make the connection there when it's well it's just it's just a complete first like this uh pragmatism and utilitarianism it's used it's used to justify selfishness and it's just wrong it's just wrong i'm not saying i'm not saying that i'm not saying that there aren't truths hidden in this false worldview what i'm saying is that it's a lie it's a deception just like when i choose to sin and i do you know god help me but when i choose to sin it's like little justification rationalization i'm a genius when it comes to that okay i'm not a genius when it comes to self-sacrifice and doing the right thing but i'm the genius when it comes to making excuses why i'm lazy why i'm selfish why i did you know whatever so um why i wasn't alive though i'm just i'm just curious how is that a lie because it does hurt there is harm caused like for example my uh homosexual acquaintances say well as long as i'm not hurting or my unrepentant masturbator friends they say well i'm not hurting anyone and that's the lie you are hurting yourself and others right what do you mean how it's like it's let's take let's take uh homosexuality how how if if destruction sensing adults how does that how does the destruction of the family so if they're not going to have families no destruction of their the the it's the abuse of the human nature like it's like it's like when i use uh it's like when i use uh what should i say here uh when i use my hand as a tool like a hammer or something i just mangled my hand like there's there's a proper way to use a screwdriver that's one example i like to use like the screwdriver has in nature and the screw has a nature and they work together in a way that's well ordered or you can mess it all up and you can have your tools damaged and your your project damaged and that's just the way it is it all everything it all has to do with nature the human nature the nature of things the nature of god and how it's all well ordered how it fits together there's a right way there's a wrong way there's a right time there's a wrong time there's a right place there's a wrong place and you know this the book of ecclesiastes or whatever it's called talks about that king solomon talks about that vanity of vanities and all that sort of thing so it's all about it's all about respecting reality and if you don't if you're not in touch with reality there's a word for that right it's called insanity like you're out of touch with reality i'm not i'm not leveling this accusation against you or any other atheist but basically i'm not thinking wrong yeah but basically it's like that's that's what's at stake here is like we have to get in touch with reality and conform ourselves to god and god's creation in a way that makes sense in a way that's well ordered because otherwise it's just like yeah my little son johnny uh i think he's transgender so i'm going to like encourage him to do the gene the replace or whatever the hormone replacement therapy and dress them up in pink dresses and all this sort of thing it's like sorry you're doing damage to your kid you're doing damage to to all of creation and uh it's an insult to the creator and i'm sorry but that's wrong you're you're gonna have to change your ways i hope you know i hope you don't have to why i don't have to but i hope you do i'm i'm failing to see the connection between that and uh like utilitarianism though so if it's if we're talking about things that are conducive to life things that are conducive to cooperation because that increases the life that we can experience uh i don't see how that stuff really has a negative impact well it's like it's like i don't think it's morally wrong because i don't see it having any impact on that well just because you can't see it doesn't mean that it isn't isn't pernicious so exciting explain to me just an example we can use it we can use examples we can use an example of uh do you have any the best one yeah well the best i'm not gonna give you the best one i'm gonna give you one that comes to mind do you have do you have any nieces nieces do i have any nieces uh no i don't have any uses so uh anyway if you had a [Music] a girl that you were friends with a young girl who said she's going to get into prostitution and she starts listing all the benefits okay the financial benefits the security she's got a good bodyguard she's got the pimp who takes care of her she's got this that the other thing she's got a medical medical checkup for all the sdts she's more she's more healthy like quote-unquote healthy sexually with her medical stuff because she's getting examined all the time she's got medications that help regulate all this stuff she's never going to get pregnant because she has this that and the other thing all the technology everything's brought to bear okay and uh you know you're there just saying well you know you're my dear friend i care about you and i don't i don't want you to go down this path and she's like why everything about it is good i just told you it's all good right and you're like uh well because it's not good for you it's not good for society it's not good for the guys who sleep with you behind their wife's backs it's just not good and she wants you to prove it to her using a calculus like her calculus or checklist and you basically you don't have time because you don't have that much time to spend with her and you just basically know that it's wrong and that the women have uh women have dignity that needs to be respected marriage has dignity intimacy there's a time and place for intimacy and it's an abuse of all these good gifts even if you're an atheist i think you could see that or if that doesn't touch you maybe if a nice young person came to you maybe a nice young man that you care about came to you and nephew or whatever and he said the joys of cocaine and heroin and how they've got a system his drug dealer has a system where he's never going to get addicted he's never going to get sick he's all perfect and everything's good and he's making a lot of money selling it to his friends and you just know from experience or whatever that it's wrong it's a bad path it's a dark path and it looks good on paper and it he this kid thinks he's going to have a wild and exciting and great future of pleasure and goodness and it's all good and everyone's happier and he treats his wife better he you know or his girlfriend better he's not beating his wife up anymore because because he's got this drug system happening but you just know it's wrong you just know what's wrong right and we can we can unpack the reasons why it's wrong but that's i want to appeal more to your intuition that prostitution's wrong and uh you know hard drugs are wrong i just think the intuition can be can be in ways that we're not aware of so you can have these inherent biases and uh that can influence why you think that's wrong whereas in other countries or in other cultures uh it wouldn't have the same gut reaction that you have so if we're gonna use the example of prostitution and i don't know if you meant drug trafficking or just drug use but let's let's say it's drug trafficking uh you know i think something that would be uh if i'm gonna okay let's go with that so let's say prostitution and the example he gave is legal uh if if drug trafficking is illegal there's different reasons to say why something might be wrong and if something's legal honestly if i did have a niece or a sister uh i don't know if i don't know i don't know would i would i do that i mean would i would i be better off if that person chose to join the armed services the armed forces and you know perhaps risk their life but for that cause it's more socially acceptable but you know potentially catching a sexually transmitted disease uh i'd cry over that i mean we recall there's a bunch of ways you can live your life and i i don't know if how would you feel about that like if you had a close family member okay they're gonna go into the uh adult film industry or be you know a prostitute in let's say the red light district somewhere yeah um okay that may be dangerous but if it's legal if they're explaining all the the things they have set up to keep themselves safe and it's like hey uh what would you what would you say as someone who's not a catholic i'd say be very very careful and choose wisely and like you can do what you want to do you can do what you want to do i think it's wrong like if you're asking are you asking if you're not asking me i'll just keep my mouth shut but if you're asking like if this person is asking me it's like it's a touchy delicate subject and you're already like on your way to doing it or signed up or whatever it's like but if you're asking me i think it's wrong and these are the reasons i think it's wrong the main reason why i wouldn't i wouldn't say it's wrong so you're you know i guess that's the assumption there is that we would have the same viewpoint of that yeah yeah niece or sister i respect i respect it's it's primordial and it's very very fundamental the respect of the dignity of the person and the free will of the person the free choice you're going to make your choices you're going to make mistakes obviously we all do and you have to be free to make those mistakes i would encourage education i would encourage people to think deeply about the choices they make and this applies to me too i'm the king of stupid impulsive decisions right like you know you're in the line at the store and you don't need this little trinket or that little candy bar or whatever it is it's like i don't have impulse control i need someone on my shoulder telling me hey david like do you need that or whatever like i mean you know but i'm free i know that i'm free and i know that i pay for the mistakes that i make and it's the same thing for you but let's just try to educate ourselves and especially our young ones our children let's try to educate them about better choices and these sorts of things i think you will agree with me now you won't agree with me necessarily about all my dogmas about what what is human nature what is marriage and all that sort of thing right or uh you know when does life begin and the sanctity of life from conception moment of conception to natural death and these sorts of things you'll disagree with me on all those sorts of things but you know we can basically agree that we want what's best for people and we want them to make better choices and you used an example of the military it's like i'm very skeptical of the government i'm very skeptical of you know especially the western governments with their you know their drug dealing and their prostitution like they're dealing in women they're dealing in drugs they're dealing in arms or dealing and death they're dealing and i would not be proud uh particularly proud of someone that joined the military but given my perspective on the uh the godless governments that we have but i would you know i would understand that this person is has a noble uh quest and uh maybe naive and maybe i'm misinformed maybe i'm paranoid about how evil these uh these regimes are so whatever i'm not gonna i'm not gonna stick my nose in unless i have an intimate friendship and i can sort of speak my paranoid uh delusions to them but i mean we probably draw the line at safety versus morality though i would i would maybe test that idea from a safety perspective whereas you would say it's immoral because you have your you know your presuppositions about what's right and wrong you assume that to be true right yeah i mean i i take into consideration the other person if the other person doesn't believe in god then all bets are off like their their standard of judgment is relativistic subjective temporary and constantly changing right so isn't that better than the catholic standard or the christians no it's it it's it's not bad it shouldn't be changing you think it's better to not change the standard the standard of truth and goodness does not change and it cannot change and it should not change if it does uh then it's what have you got you've got nothing you've got absolutely nothing it's just my opinion against your opinion right there's might makes right well my gang is stronger than your gang and what my gang wants is your cookies so we got your cookies sorry you know sorry not sorry that's it that's my makes right that's what we've got without god that's what we've got without no it's with god that's with god because he's so much stronger and can can you send you to hell that's why you would serve him because if it's not i have the goodness of your own heart it's like well pascal's wager or you also say that the the noah's ark is basically the catholic church you know hey get in here because the end is coming and this is going to save you that's might is right so that's literally the christian god is if you don't the one example of might makes right well the difference is the nature of god versus the nature of the creature right because god is god is infinitely god is infinite god is infinitely perfect and infinitely just and infinitely merciful so when you talked about hell being the primary uh motivator yeah it's a primary motivator but it's not the best reason to please god the best reason to please god is like what you just said no be good for goodness sake that's the best that's what we call uh what is the it's perfect contrition versus imperfect contrition or what we call attrition okay if i'm only avoiding sin for the fear of hell that's not perfect it's very but it's still good very imperfect it's a start it's a start right so if you're if your fear of hell could come back and get you on course to the point where you're going to be good for goodness sake hey that's great but it's not perfect it's just a step it's just a baby step to get you to be good for goodness sake so i think you and i agree about that uh to a degree but i would say that still might is right for the people that are only experiencing imperfect contrition because perfect contrition can actually forgive you of a mortal sin without the sacrament of confession yeah but yeah how do you know if you have perfect contrition that's why you have to go to sacramento but you have to go to science eventually yeah but if you died before you went there with the intention of going and you truly felt that way then that would be considered perfect nutrition so i would say imperfect imperfect concussion is basically the scenario where might is right so he said that doesn't exist with a world where there's god or that's only when there's a world without god i would say that exists in both of our there are two very radically different types of might makes right there's the wholesome one where god almighty is right and we we have to align ourselves and conform ourselves to god that's might makes right in the in the good sense might makes right in the pejorative sense is the utilitarian pragmatism uh godless do what the wilt that's right the difference is i am not the standard i'm not the perfect standard of truth and goodness so when i set my own when i make myself my own standard of what's what's good i will not be pleased i will necessarily not be pleasing the highest good the the one necessary being that then which nothing greater can be perceived you know god who is okay is goodness itself and the source of every good like i mean this is what it comes down to it's like recognizing the things you like and the things you want for society and for your family and for yourself those good things health and beauty and justice and all the things you want they come from one source and that is god so it you know you can run but you can't hide when you dig down and you look at what motivates you with your worldview with your politics or with your utilitarianism or with pragmatism whatever it all comes down to your vision of the good right like it's just it's inescapable it's inescapable so we need to identify the source of the good are there multiple sources if i'm pursuing justice am i leaving behind peace if i pursue goodness am i leaving behind truth of course not they all lie in one and the same source and this is the ancient greeks knew this right and they weren't exactly uh christian they were sort of proto-christian i would say like socrates plato and aristotle but you know it's this is not rocket science this is metaphysics we just need to think deeply about uh who we are where do we come from where are we going and uh the good you know the good sure fair enough uh can i ask you a question uh maybe a little bit off off topic but going into uh god god himself for itself uh i think one of the issues that i have right now would be a lot of the things that are considered mysteries or at least to the eastern church they would call the trinity for example a mystery or the immaculate conception of mary as a mystery so i would say when it comes to the trinity uh i i would say now that i no longer have this fear of hell and i can question these things that could have before been considered blasphemy uh i would i would say something like uh i don't see how you can rationally support the the trinity or how that's not polytheism or how that's not uh like i i how do you how does that make sense to you because i was praying yeah well as i say so like i i usually would ask people when you're praying to god you know what do you imagine do you imagine a puffy cloud did you imagine a picture of jesus on the cross or if you're praying to the holy spirit before reading holy scripture you know you're praying for the holy spirit to open up your heart your eyes to you know understand what's going on uh do you imagine the holy ghost the holy spirit is that not jesus not god or does someone imagine all three of them in like a painting or something and i just don't see how that's not considered polytheism so it's a dogma it's a dogma it's a dogma of the church that have you read this it's a dogma of the church that christianity is a monotheistic religion there's one god there are not two gods there are not three gods they're not four gods they're not five gods there's one god and there are three persons in the trinity i don't understand that i don't understand that i just take it as a i just take it on faith i don't understand it and i don't worry about it right and i don't think i don't think even in heaven if you're wrong what if you're committing idolatry and you're going to go to hell for uh worshiping jesus when he's not god well i'm worshiping at him as god right so that's the thing and this is this is what if you're not supposed to how do you know you're right well i mean the the one of the uh reasons why i'm comfortable with the trinity and i i was i did not obviously i think it's beyond obvious that i did not just intuitively believe in the trinity when i was an atheist right sure that's beyond obvious but when i came from atheism to monotheism i was sort of an anti-christian i hated christianity i hated christmas church i was sort of like a generic monotheist default de facto uh muslim who didn't believe in muhammad but um i hated christianity but the the trinity obviously was just not stuff and nonsense to me but i began through my philosophical uh understanding of my investigations um and contemplations to come to appreciate the this is sort of an incidental anecdote but i came to appreciate the significance of the bridge between me a finite creature and god the infinite creator that is uh at least symbolized because i didn't yet believe in it at least symbolized by god incarnate right there's that bridge there's that connection there's a way now to bridge the gap between a stupid finite creature like myself and an infinitely good and wise and smart creator infinitely powerful creator right so that's that's part of the attraction of the and this is just sort of like a footnote but i want you to i want you to contemplate that yourself like what would it mean to have a god who is purely transcendental not imminent only transcendental like the muslims have what would that mean how would that shape your worldview how would that shape your religion how that shape your morality how would that shape everything i mean i think if we look at if we compare monotheism not polytheism yeah but polytheism is forbidden and it's a dogma of the church that christianity is not a polytheistic religion right there cannot be more than one uncaused first cause it just says there just cannot be there are not three god there are not three gods in christianity it's not there there are some religions who branched off from possibly broke away from christianity and believed in three gods right those are condemned as uh heretical and uh for you to just say well you must be a polytheist because father son holy ghost you must be a polytheist you must be a polyhist well i'm telling you the church teaches that we're not polytheists we don't believe in more than one god and it's irrational and insane to believe in more than one god because if there's more than one candidate for that position of god we just need to compare the candidate with the real god and if there's no difference then they're not two but one and if there is a difference then the the one that's lacking infinite perfections is just not god this is this is well established in catholic philosophy go back and read saint augustine he talks about this this is not rocket science this is metaphysics 101 there's one god only one god there cannot be more than one god but it's three in one three persons of the same divine essence yet somehow is three different people that's the thing that i know like when i was when i was uh practicing when i believed it i would tell people you know that it made sense and i would tell myself that it made sense but now that i no longer subscribe to that i can kind of recognize that for just being totally uh illogical for lack of a better word three is not one i just don't see how that takes a lot of mental gymnastics to sort of not see that and i it just seems very clear now so i guess i'm missing something read i don't know if you've read catholic uh the fathers of the church they talk about this they mock they mock their atheist opponents saying that obviously we know that three is not one we know that one is not three we're not stupid right so it's obviously uh it's not something that we can understand saint augustine talks about this very eloquently when he talks about the child on the beach with the digging a little hole it's not something we can understand is that what you just said it's not something we can understand it's not something we can understand as finite creatures no it's beyond that we're somehow expected to believe that yeah it's beyond recently okay we're expected to believe something beyond reason of course of course otherwise you're god if you understand god you're god period the only one who understands god is god you must see the logic in that if you could just remember that if you comprehend god if you cut if you want to comprehend god first of all that's hubris that's pride but if you want to comprehend god it's also naive but if you were to comprehend if you were to comprehend god that would mean that you are god how can you comprehend the infinite i think it would be something that god could foresee if he gives us the ability to reason right that's what separates us from the from the animals of the world we have the ability to reason we can comprehend not comprehensible we can think about god yes and i think for god to give us the the ability to think about god he gives us the gift of reason yet we're expected to somehow not use that when it comes to his presence why would he of all be of all people of all entities he would expect us the very thing that makes us so advanced and basically the top of the food chain when it comes to acknowledging our creator we're not supposed to use that as a way to somehow serve him better so that doesn't seem to make i i don't i don't see the connection it's very very simple it's very very simple is your intellect limited is your reason limited or not if it's limited there's gonna god's gonna be beyond and if it's not limited then guess what you're god right so which is why he doesn't exist i mean it could be he doesn't exist no no are you saying are you saying that your reason might be unlimited that your intellect might be unlimited is that what you're saying i'm saying it's possible that i don't have to be infinitely intelligent or uh smart to recognize there might not be a god as well it's not just like there's no god that means i must be super smart i can have a limited intellect and still just like it doesn't seem like you're you're getting off topic you're getting off topic the topic here is we have an intellect we have reason it's either limited or it's not you can't pick a third option it's limited or it's not if it is limited and i know with certainty that it is if it is limited then god necessarily will be beyond reason because if god is not beyond reason then our reason is not limited but if our reason is limited god is beyond our reason now if it's not limited if our reason is not limited then like if my reason is not limited then i am god i believed that i was god at one point i was a hard solipsist i believed that i was god that my reason was unlimited so i mean i'm not saying that it's beyond the realm of possibility to fall into that particular aberration maybe we're using a different definition of god i guess like how are we defining god in this scenario the one necessary being that then which nothing greater can be conceived the uncaused first cause the prime mover the just like the the infinite uh it's it's i'm just missing that connection where that is that is necessary in this scenario where my limit my my uh my intellect is is limited i don't see how god must be you know existing i can't i just have a limited intellect and it's still just the way it is now the the distinction that i make when talking to uh atheists or whatever is the distinction between comprehension which is comprehensive and apprehension like when you and this is another analogy i've used a hundred times when you go to the beach yes it is true your little toes touch the water and you've touched the ocean and you might even dive in you might even go quite a little distance in but let's be honest you haven't plumbed the depths you haven't charted out the whole thing you've just got a little taste of it the ocean you're just a little tiny creature faced with a big ocean and the ocean by the way in case i need to remind you the ocean is finite it's limited it's not infinite but even the ocean you can't plummet steps and chart it all out sorry it's a it's a mystery to you sorry sorry to have to break this to you but the ocean is a mystery to you so god almighty is a mystery to you you may encounter god you may dip your toes in the water and you may even dive in you're not going to plumb the depths you're not going to chart it out it's too big oh it's too big yeah the ocean's not going to send me the hell for not yeah the ocean's not going to send me to hell though so you know i i just might it just doesn't seem like it might okay everything can be an occasion of sin everything could be an occasion of sin everything there's nothing that can't be turned into an occasion of sin but you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're you're that your your uh your concern about hell is heartwarming and encouraging because you know deep inside you are a creature of god and you know you have that you have that conscience that little pang and twinge of conscience and that's a grace that's a gift of god you have to nurture that you have to cherish that you have to investigate that you have to find out why that's from my dad yeah but you need to you need to understand that this is a short short life and that the next life is eternal and you know you have to choose wisely choose life and i'm saying this to you and i'm saying it to myself it's the same thing you know as catholics and i mean i think this is if you do come back to the faith i think you come back to the catholic faith god knows but uh as catholics you know we are in touch with that uh the danger of having the faith and losing the faith and that we uh we strive and we run forward lest we preach to others in vain and we ourselves don't win the crown you know what st paul says so it's like um it's not once saved always saved it's not you know and i'm aware of that as a catholic you know i'm very aware that it's it's a dangerous dangerous time this time that we have this pilgrimage that we have on planet earth it's a short time it's a dangerous time and we need to really be careful and uh there's so much at stake and uh i mean i don't want to uh like preach to you or bash you over the head with the eternal hellfire and threats of damnation but i'll be praying for you and uh i'm hoping that you'll come back to the faith and it's just better it's just better it's better and you know the virtue and the purity and the chastity and the peace the peace that you can have and i'm not saying that i'm a virtuous man or that i have the peace of god or that i have a perfect relationship with jesus christ or anything like that but i'm striving i'm struggling and i'm hoping i'm hoping that you'll pray for me that's what i'm hoping uh i'm not gonna pray for you but uh i hope you're you know your experience in the church is positive and stuff but yeah what do you what do you make of the uh what do you make of the corruption the human side of the church and the corruption and the the human side you mean the church i don't think there's a difference there uh yeah so how did you see that's another reason why um how did you see that why am i basically yeah so no it's okay so uh before joining i think i saw the catholic church as most other non-catholics view it which is kind of filled with uh the the stereotypical pedophile priest kind of stuff or sexual abuse things like this uh and then once i became convinced that the catholic church was the one true church the one that existed you know from you know jesus and pentecost and all that i looked at it like well even if there's bad people in the church it can still be god's church because judas betrayed jesus and he got to talk to him face to face so of course there's going to be people ruining the church and then you know i went on catholic answers and i said oh how do i defend this how do i how do i you know rebut this this when someone brings it up and you know they'll say hey first of all you know there's no excuse all that stuff is terrible but oh by the way did you know actually in public schools there's higher rates of you know sexual abuse and uh yeah even if there is you know the the public school system doesn't claim to be you know run by god so i think if if it's on par with something else or slightly worse i don't think that really makes it any better the fact that it exists at all so that's one thing you know you can judge a fruit you can judge a tree by the fruit that it bears and i think the catholic church has borne some pretty terrible rotten fruit so that's how i look at it do you think it would be easy to uh destroy the catholic church do i think it would be easy to destroy it no i don't think it would be why not i think there's well first of all there's over a billion you know nominal catholics i don't know how many are actually practicing but there's so many it's rooted in our culture you know western culture i guess so uh i think it's one of those things that people like religion doesn't necessarily mean it's true but you know it's it's useful for society so i think for that reason probably won't be going anywhere anytime soon but the numbers are dwindling that's part of the reason why i think i got fast-tracked into checking out this vocation was because the vocations for the priesthood are at record lows there's almost no one from north america or europe joining it's all coming from africa and asia right now so uh you know the numbers of people going and wanting to serve the church are dwindling so if that's anything any evidence for if it can be destroyed you know i think i think the church could become so thoroughly corrupt that it just uh falls apart and gets abandoned and a new religion takes its place i'd say it's already happening yeah so you think that the church uh could possibly uh defect like it could we because it's already been done it's already been done multiple times what do you mean so the schism of 1054 that was your first one you had the protestant reformation that was another one you have all these off groups that consider themselves you know the the trad catholics you know they'll say oh nova sorto you guys are like this infiltrated church it has to be in latin anyone that agrees with anything vatican ii on if you support pope francis you're not real catholics there's catholics within the catholic church that don't even say that novus ordo people are true catholics so i would say there's so much splitting there's so much infighting that it's hard to say that that's the one united church yeah yeah it's all right i'm not talking about those i'm not talking about like the fracturing i'm talking about uh the this catholic branch which has all of these dogmas and uh because when people split off they just abandon the dogmas like the anglican church and whatnot and the different protestant sects they just give up the sacraments they give up different dogmas and they change the teachings but the catholic church just keeps chugging along so i'm not talking about offshoots and branching off and splitting and bifurcating i'm talking about corruption in this branch that i belong to the catholic church becoming so corrupt that it disappears and then all you've got left are those branches that broke off maybe or some new branches like i mean could this main branch that i belong to uh disappear i don't think it could because the church teaches me that it never will until the end of time but one one interesting thing to contemplate as you as you decide how you're gonna answer your question is is the question of uh divorce contraception uh um you know all these things centered on the family and marriage and these sorts of issues abortion these are all very heavily uh central to that distinctive catholic morality sexual morality and morality of the family and that's how you can recognize the one true church that's one of the easy ways to recognize if you strayed like if you look at what the anglicans have done uh they've strayed right and you can point to all those issues so um is it just a coincidence that the that there is still this one branch the catholic sort of what i would call the root and the the trunk of the tree yeah i know about all the the branches that are splitting off but could anyone ever destroy this one sort of conservative dogmatically conservative branch there's catholics that would say that because i think it will always be here i think that that's well i don't just think so i know so because it's uh it's a dogma of the church that that will continue until the end of time but it's just fascinating to think about it because there are many many sects that broke away from catholicism that are no longer here right you look at the history of a defunct christian community uh you know obviously we could point to the more radical uh sex cults like uh that are here today gone tomorrow like a charismatic leader of some pentecostal church and he starts having sex with all the congregants and then she's buying weapons and then the cops come and then that's the end of that religion right but it doesn't it doesn't happen with the catholic church it just that does that happen scandal doesn't happen with the catholic church to the point where it's destroyed yeah because you have to yeah with all the guns and stuff if they don't get destroyed but they continue does that somehow make it any more true if if there's like scandal happening there no but they don't last that's that's my point they don't last and you know you can laugh and you can say oh there's a sexual scandal in the catholic church but guess what it's going against what the church teaches sorry like what does the church teach about raping young children what is it what does that mean of the faith i i'm not saying that it does i'm just saying that when the organization claiming to be instructed by god is dealing with this on a worldwide scale i i just don't see how that is as convincing for you because it's so easy to point to protestant churches or the anglican church it's easy to point to their mistakes and say oh well you know how how can this be the true church yet you could you could point to like way more than catholic church there's a there's a huge difference where you can't believe i can't believe you don't see it the difference is the teachings of the church what are the teachings of the church and particularly sex in the family sexual morality and the family it's like it's like that's the key in a sort of litmus test of true religion that's the key and you know if you're if you're running a sex cult and you're teaching like the flds i was just talking about warren jeffs of the flds the fundamentalist uh latter day saints or whatever they're called you know he he was teaching as god-given doctrine that all this sexual immorality was actually good this is a way to connect to god and all these perverts do the same thing and i recognize the difference yeah so there's a big huge difference it's like what does your church teach because warren jeff was teaching yeah this is from god and pornography is good and you know polygamy is good and all these things are good i'm judging the truth by the fruit that it bears though yeah that's a different thing that's a different thing that's anyone can say anyone can say anything you can say you're a good person you can say organization's good but what does it do you know yeah well i mean show me show me a bad fruit that came from chastity uh monogamy show me a bad fruit that came from the the the bad fruit is the magisterium that came from the teachings of the catholic church the the on sexual morality the no i would say the magisterium itself i would say that that is the bad fruit you know there's plenty of good things in the bible there's plenty of uh lessons and you know good things i guess you could say in there but i don't think the magisterium is a an improvement to the christian to the christian faith yeah but i'm trying to draw a connection i'm trying to draw a cause i'm trying to draw a cause and effect because the example i used with flds is because they twisted the doctrine they said this is the truth about sexual immorality and then the thing imploded okay i think they're still going but um yeah it's just a hot mess but i'm trying to make a force you to give me a causal connection between the sexual teachings of sexual immorality in the catholic church and the bad fruits that you see like if you see okay i will do that right now you see a corrupt bishop or something how how can that corrupt bishop blame the doctrines of the catholics i can do that right now yep i can do that okay so i think the concept of celibacy especially for the priesthood is unnatural and i think that that attracts a certain type of person i think that those types of people if you look into the statistics of the abuse that's happening it's part of a very specific demographic and i think if you have the same rules that the eastern church has uh where priests can be married and have children they're actually encouraged to be bishops still can't but the priests themselves can and they have far fewer cases of sexual abuse in the eastern orthodox church probably the eastern uh catholic church as well uh that's that's the problem with the doctrine so that doctrine is a direct cause of that bad fruit that i see the problem the problem with your the problem with your example is that's not dogmatic that's just discipline it's just this one that could change tomorrow we gotta marry priest tomorrow that's just discipline let's do it so let's see if it was that easy they probably would have done it by now no i mean there's a lot of money going on it's just a discipline you may disagree with the discipline but it could change tomorrow right it's not like it's not like uh women in the priesthood women will never be in the priesthood that's dogmatic okay but uh celibacy of the priesthood is just a discipline it could change tomorrow and in the eastern church we have like you said we have married priests there are certain constraints on that but we have married priests even in the in the catholic church in the east and of course the orthodox they have married priests too so i mean that's just a non-starter to that example you gave someone well you got me on a technicality as a discipline not a dogma but i mean if we're talking about a rule or a tradition i'll deal with it that's i'll deal with it as is then and i'll just say that it's a calling it's not a job being a priest is not a job it's not like hey i'm going to be a doctor i'm going to be a lawyer i'm going to be a priest it's a calling if you don't have the calling guess what you're going to end up sexually frustrated and just perverted sorry so that's why we need to have good education good seminaries good priests training other priests and not just hey like let's take anyone because we're desperate because the numbers are low and let's just uh compromise on the quality of our education and don't worry too much about the vocations you know he's a nice young man seems like a good guy let's just put him in the seminary whatever no we we need to have respect for the calling respect for the vocations and the proper education so that's a shortcoming i mean that's a shortcoming for that yeah so i don't think we disagree about that it's like all the bad fruits you're pointing to come from an abuse of the doctrine an abuse of the discipline an abuse of the training and the education of our priests it's abuse it's all abuse yeah it's on a worldwide scale it's like if you want to see abuse in the catholic church you're not going to have a problem finding abuse in the catholic church abuse of everything on every level money food sex whatever but that's the one true church though it's the one true church it is one holy catholic and apostolic but you're forgetting conveniently you're forgetting that there are three parts to the church there's the church militant the church suffering in the church triumphant which part are you focused on conveniently you're convenient i'm not focused on this you're conv you're convinced i'm not familiar with those levels okay the church suffering is in purgatory it's being purified the church triumphant is already pure and we have the example of mary she's already body and soul in heaven she is the example of the purity holiness of the church that's the church and then in purgatory it's kind of like in the process of being purified here below it's uh wild west it's a complete nightmare with uh you know sinners and weeds among the wheat jesus said we have to and what's the name for this one for this one militant militant church militarism you've heard of michael voris church militant i actually haven't though okay he does uh he's he's a reformed homosexual who was very uh anti uh you know unrepentant homosexuality and then he got caught that some journalists found out that he used to engage in some homosexual activity before his conversion to the church and then he had to come clean about it but um he called his organization church militant and uh he's a little bit rad trad like he's a little bit uh pope he bashes the pope a little bit and all that i don't listen to him but um yeah so every saint has a past and every sinner has a future so i don't judge you know i don't judge michael boris just because he dabbled in sexual perversion who hasn't but i mean i'm not saying i did any gay stuff i didn't but um let's make that clear that clear um but uh no the church militant here below is a hot mess we've got the weeds among them weeds among the wheat as jesus promised until the very end we'd have the weeds among the and he promised we would have the wolves in sheep's clothing oh my god i mean that's a nightmare scenario that's a nightmare scenario so this nice old man this catholic cardinal you're telling me he's a sinner and a satan worshiper and a child molester yeah sorry that's what uh that's what jesus promised us that's what we get here in the church militant and if god willing he repents and he goes to purgatory he'll be purified there and he could be purified here if he if he plays his cards right but and he could skip purgatory but if he doesn't but if he dies in the state of grace he'll go to purgatory and then eventually he'll go to heaven and that's that's where the interesting system that's where the church is hanging out with those kind of people up in heaven you know if they play their cards right on earth you know well you gotta gotta choose wisely choose why choose life as moses famously said choose wisely choose life it's a it's a it's an ordeal you know here in this uh in this fallen world it's a real ordeal you admitted yourself it's a bit of a struggle uh you struggled at least at one point with uh sexual purity and these sorts of things i don't know what your relationship is with food or with uh you know other things sleep sex drugs and rock and roll temptations yeah so what are you we're gonna wrap it up here but uh what are you uh what are you actively pursuing philosophically and religiously or do you want to what's your mission do you want to find a world view that's more satisfying or do you want to dive deeply into your atheism or do you want to discover if god exists what are you excited about with your worldview where are you going with this yeah well you know i know it sounds just like what i said my dad says but i'd like to find what's true so i think i have an open mind to the truth and i don't think i've found it yet i i i'd like to say i'm sort somewhat of a i don't know critical thinking person i want to use my brain to the best i can but i want to find what's true i'm actively pursuing uh i don't know i'm still somewhat associated with the church and like youth group stuff a little bit so i still kind of keep one foot one foot in the in the pool in that sense yeah yeah so um i haven't gone to mass in over a year i haven't gone to confession in about the same amount of time but uh there's still something interesting about it so that's why i'm very sympathetic to the faith i'm sympathetic to the people that are faithful catholics i think they're all wrong and i think the catholic church is wrong but i can understand why people go and uh i respect the devotion that people have to that again i just think it's wrong and uh i'm more into just general love i guess at this point you know so that's that's that's maybe not of religion but just i think i'm more focused on that than i was when i was practicing what about your love life you got a woman or no i do yeah i'm in a relationship i have a girlfriend and uh it's the first time i really experienced love i would say in my life and that's kind of helped me to get rid of a lot of baggage and things that i had in the past a lot of anger that i had and i think it's kind of like lightened up my world view quite a bit it was pretty bleak for a while wow that's the magic of the woman man wow yeah yeah yeah she's great and she'll keep you on your toes point out all your flaws to you that's amazing we'll see so far that hasn't really happened yet man i'm 26 years married so wow there's a courage there's a curve there you're gonna go through some ups and downs yeah i believe it yeah so what's she like is she religious uh she's she's okay so she's not religious she's not practicing but uh i would say open open to theism uh to a degree she's culturally catholic no no no but just sort of spiritual i guess you would raise christian i don't even think that no okay no no she's kind of generally open to it no she's not she's checking oh oh you gotta check girl oh my god yeah i'm in the czech republic i know you told me that but the czech girls are beautiful from what i've yeah i've seen amazing wow they are but you're a married man so don't look it up yeah so god bless you and uh we'll talk again if you want to talk again you know how to schedule uh a live stream with me it's so easy with that new app that i figured out yeah and uh we have a lot more to talk about but uh it's just nice to meet a strapping young man you look almost like military style with that hairdo uh yeah that's the goal yeah uh not real i mean i've been doing this for a while but my dad was in the military he's a marine he would cut his hair i just wanted to oh no i just can you can you hook me up with an interview with your dad is that something he'd be open to you know what he actually might and also i have a friend uh who i told him about this discussion we're gonna have and he was really excited to maybe do one as well yeah i don't know if you're interested in talking to uh and he's he's a satanist he's claimed to be so uh he's uh my dad also yeah yeah yeah hook me up hook me up for sure you just you just share that link of the uh cowland lee thing there and they can book whatever time they want and i'm open to meet anyone to talk to anyone obviously it's got to be about philosophy religion ideas stuff like that and uh i i appreciate you coming on and uh sharing so honestly like you're no holds barred you're gonna say what's on your mind and you know you've got a bit of edge which i like you know you're not just trying to be you're not trying to be overly polite like a lot of canadians so that's the american to me sorry yeah which which part of the states are you from florida oh yeah okay okay yeah yeah so florida or north florida or south florida south florida okay where all the where all the fun happens are you latino you have some latino italian spanish yeah yeah so you do speak a bit of uh italian i speak more czech than any italian in spanish i actually speak zero italian spanish what does czech sound like can you give me a little phrase uh yeah w dan mike some language yeah there's some similarities there so you would say like in czech or astrodomia and russian so some of those i think people was the same in russian too cool every day you're speaking trick i try i try i speak english with my girlfriend most of the time so it could be better but you know cool do you watch check content or listen to check content sometimes yeah like youtube videos or game reviews i'll go on twitch or listen podcasts too no way wow so your comprehension is pretty good like 80 comprehension or something uh more like 35 yeah something okay okay but you can get enough google translate open another tab but i can i can get the gist of it cool very cool will you master it i hope so about six years i've been studying for maybe four but i would hope to be fluent i don't think i'll master it but i i'm striving for that cool very cool what's the weather like there right now it's pretty good actually we got some friends over we're having this kind of grill garden thing going on it's good i'd say uh for canadians you guys use the the metric system right not always not always we use 15 degrees celsius okay yeah we use celsius i don't know 15. it's 15. okay okay but the winters are pretty rough there or they're okay no no no supermodel it's actually really great it's the easiest place in the world to live well enjoy your br you said you're having a barbecue yeah yeah so i'll probably go back to that enjoy that but thanks thanks so much for the invitation and uh i'll send my my friend my dad you know the the links and if they're interested i'll maybe see them on here sometime that would be fine yeah so thanks a lot and have a good day and hopefully we'll talk again okay reach out anytime cool thanks david nice meeting you great have a good one bye bye