NIC's some hauser part 5 that's good and this time I didn't need to like and make a Frankenstein of your voiced I have no idea how you did that I've also made a few strange phone calls using your voice to other people that's a little disconcerting there David I blame the electric universe oh no here we go so no I just wanted to I just wanted to sort of try to undermine your faith in this silly worldview but maybe just talk a little bit about who you are what you believe and why you believe it no no but what is it with this electric universe you wanted to just sort of talk about the metaphysics of your belief please sure so the electric universe is in an alternate cosmology it's a it's a cosmology based on electrical mechanics from plasma physics that argues that electricity rules the universe that gravity is a very weak force that is beholden to electricity and that one of the things that happens when you allow for this is that planets can get very close to each other and that when they do get close to each other they discharge electricity between each other and this plasma discharge phenomena takes certain shapes and in doing forensic analysis of cultures around the world we have found petroglyphs and carvings and drawings of these various Thunderbolts which substantiate the idea that these events were happening in the sky in human memory and this is the birth of the myths of the religions of the the Greek in the Roman and even the the monotheistic lore that is what we that we read in the books today and at first it was just Tamiya of fascinating cosmology and it's it's but I've now find it very difficult to take religion seriously or at least in the same give it the same weight as I used to before I knew about this mm-hmm yeah so in all of that you've talked about natural science but you didn't talk about metaphysics like first things so what do you have to say what have you learned from the electric universe model yeah pretty much nothing so you know it is strictly a cosmology it does not propose a beginning to the universe it does deny the Big Bang happened you know it does not denies redshift as a plausible evidence for some Big Bang it thinks that black holes are nonsense that time cannot be stretched and squeezed you know like clay just saw all this stuff is nonsense but you know it doesn't it doesn't talk about you know heaven or hell or first things one of the questions that I asked the guy who wrote the book on this is you know why is the universe not homogeneous if the electric universe posits that you know these forces are all working to rectify one stress over here and another stress over there then how come the entire universe isn't homogenous you know what was the first stressor and so the you know there are still plenty of things that are not answered by this and and I think I've told you over messages before that my intuition is that there is a deity and that there's an intelligence and a consciousness to this universe that is supernatural as an above natural and so I don't think that the electric universe you know is grounds for atheism or naturalism actually I think it's quite the opposite but what I take issue with now in light of what I understand is just this notion that that religions whether it's the the you know the Greek and the Roman religions of the gods of Olympus or even the the monotheistic religions and these stories they're that they can't be seen in the in the same light of oh this is a historical event that was seen and passed down rather this is a misinterpretation or the inability to inter Ritt catastrophic doomsday cosmological events that happened on earth in man's memory and then when they when they stopped when the planets entered the orbit that we see them now today our inability to see what the people who originally saw them is what gave rise to our attempt at understanding them which is you know the religions and the gods and the stories you know I bounced that idea off you on Facebook about the three world views being monism monotheism or nihilism did you want to just talk a little bit about what I was proposing how you understood it and where you think you might fall and if it had any utility for you at all as a metaphysical diagnosis I wasn't super impressed by that just you know because my response to you was you know where does atheist or agnostic ISM you know fall into this and you know I think I still consider myself a pretty strong agnostic and in that I think that there's so much that is possible that I'm sort of in a state of superposition I think that I've grown to appreciate just how dogmatic and unreasonable hard atheism is which I guess is you know massive progress from where I was when you and I first started talking but I think that the idea of you know pants psychism or pantheism as opposed to hard monotheism is more intuitive and appealing to me in terms of what I've experienced personally and then the sort of the research that I've done the idea of you know the universe itself being conscious being the consciousness that we are all sort of segments of a large fabric that is conscious and has information and that this information manifests itself throughout the universe in in various forms I think that explains you know how evolution works because this idea of neo-darwinism I think is as nonsensical as creationism and I've really given both the fair shake but if God is all there is then basically heaven awaits all of us because we are suffering from a separation illusion and we're gonna go back to the source and we're just going to enjoy being that one God and the definition of heaven is just being with God enjoying God's presence and if all separation is illusion which I think every pantheist every monist every pence I kissed should come to that conclusion that separation is illusion and that the ultimate reality is God and therefore heaven so it's it's a good outcome there's literally nothing to worry about we just have to enjoy the illusion the show right are you comfortable with that I think if pants psychism is true or you know any permutation of that then yeah you know there is only the illusion of separation that makes perfect sense to me and then you know life is just the Symphony of illusions until ostensibly death you know rips the veil apart and we once again become one with existence itself you know without separation and I think from you know what I understand about psychedelics and what little I've experienced with them that maybe they give you a peek behind the veil pre death you know you get to die without dying in the new once again return to the illusion and I think that's where Aldous Huxley would agree that the you know with the doors of perception that the brain is a reducing valve that it is what stops down this flood of experience from being itself and that psychedelics remove that valve and it's just a total immersion and being see how that would that would make sense to me but that the point I'm trying to emphasize here is that it's good news you can jump up and down and celebrate and laugh and dance and sing but I don't see you doing that so I don't think you buy it um well I personally find existence to be I just read something recently I'm Terence Mckenna he was a psycho not he took every psychedelic Under the Sun for you know decades and decades in in the last few years of his life the mushrooms turned on him and he he saw what you and I saw that one time you know with with the void and he just kind of was left babbling saying you know it's all meaningless there is nothing there is there is nothing and no meaning and that scares the out of me I know exactly what he means I was staring into that void and I imagine that that is what hell is that that true hell is conscious non-existence that you are you are aware of your own annihilation and it's just endless annihilation endless separation if God is being right if he is the being whose essence is existence then hell is annihilation and being aware of that annihilation if that's even possible and so that I mean that's that definitely makes me even more wary of psychedelics but also you know maybe maybe that kind of gives you an insight that that these drugs can either show you heaven they can show you God and being itself or they can show you hell which is non being yeah and so on the other end of the spectrum from the joys of pantheism where there's just God in heaven you've got nihilism where you are falling into that non-being and that non-existence you're aware of your own annihilation and in between those two in my little diagnostic tool I put monotheism where we have both God and not God and it really is the best of both worlds and I like to joke that there are true pantheists true monists but it's only the monotheists that gets to experience true monism or true pantheism because the monotheists distant to be united with god and to part fate more and more and evermore in the life of God the mysterious triune life of God so I am destined if I play my cards right to be experiencing more and more this sort of monism which is being sold here on earth by Satanists demons to gullible fools who say yeah it sounds good I mean there's only God there's only heaven and everything's alive and being is just is in separation is illusion and so it sounds good so they buy into it and then they're left sadly with nihilism at the end when they die and or if they take enough drugs they'll end up realizing that they are not United with God they are not actually God because they didn't make a choice to return God's love and so they're falling into nothingness this is my model of the three world views if you choose monism then you get nihilism and if you choose nihilism ironically I think you fall straight into monotheism because there's so it's so terrifying being a nihilist that I think you'll run straight into the arms of the god of monotheism only God exists we are nothing we are creatures we are nothing we're radically contingent but if we make a choice to accept the free offer of salvation that was offered to us by Jesus Christ on the cross we can go to heaven we can be with God and we'll be united with him and so in a sense monism is true once we get to heaven but here on earth it's an illusion it's a lie does that help you understand my model I think a little bit the the idea that there is both God and not God is obviously very different than pantheism which is to say that there is only God and in separation is illusion and I think the idea that there is God and not God is that sort of that dichotomy that binary way of being of nature of reality you know it's very old it's very classical it makes sense it's intuitive that there you know that there are the yin and the yang the the two sides at the same coin that would not surprise me if that were the case I just think right now that's kind of where I'm at that there is sort of this this pantheism makes sense because in the reason why is because that you know if there is a god that means that we are not God that means we are separate from that we are not consubstantial and so as a result we have to write you know we are made in the image we are not made of the substance and so that separation to me isn't intuitive because just like I said you know because of what I've experienced and sort of what I've what I'm looking into so I think in order for me to make that move from pantheism to monotheism it would just be a very simple thing of me sort of being able to intuit or understand the fact that I am NOT consubstantial with God that is actually what motivated my solipsism is the fact that it is absurd to posit not God and to believe in not God even to this day it boggles my mind much more than the existence of an Allgood all-powerful all-knowing God what boggles my mind is you know a grasshopper or a cute little kitten or my wife you know like these creatures are like mind-boggling how can ya how can you not be how can anything not be God it's just it is mind-boggling so I do you understand your perspective and why you don't think it's intuitive at all to be a monotheists have to reassure you that you're absolutely right it is not intuitive it is the most wonderful and bizarre and counterintuitive and absurd belief but it's what I've come to believe and I it's what I hope you will come to believe because I don't think you can be happy where you are I don't think you are happy where you are we both know that nihilism is not gonna bring you any happiness and if you have any happiness now in pants psychism I don't think it's a true happiness or a true joy I think it's a false joy and I think that hunger remains that void that god-shaped hole in your heart remains and it's aching and it's crying out maybe not 24/7 but certainly in those dark and quiet times I think you'll notice that it's still there whereas since my conversion to monotheism I don't have that anymore so I'm a living breathing example to you that monotheism is better now you can take that or you can leave it but I'm telling you I'm much much happier yeah and and you know I think I'm not struggling like I was pree episode 12 of my podcast you know when I kind of let that burden down I'm not at peace and that I don't have like this you know sense of consolation or I've figured it out or I know how to orient myself in the universe or anything like that but I have a much calmer approach to this than this sort of neurotic anxious obsessive-compulsive approach that I've been having and I think just becoming okay with not knowing was really was you know really big for me and I don't have the same sense of urgency to like find God and I'm not sure why because the stakes are still the same you know nothing is really change I think it's sort of just a mindset shift but in terms of whether or not I can actually be you know happy and fulfilled as a pantheist I'm not sure I doubt it it doesn't you know it's not it's not super enticing but then again I'm also very prideful person and I I think it would be hard for me to be subservient to God because I think so highly of myself and I and I really haven't experienced the glory in the wonder of God you know when people describe you know the ancient philosophers described and Ansem described God as you know that which no greater can be imagined maybe it saw this study and my you know I'm not reading the right sources but so far God doesn't seem that extraordinary to me and I feel like I've put him in a box with all this studying I feel like I've like I've been able to stuff God in a jar and set him on the shelf as a specimen and say okay you know maybe there's something in this jar maybe there's not but it all fits in this jar and so to me I feel much greater than anything that could fit in this jar of my comprehension you know okay so it creates the universe but you know big deal I can't create a universe but it doesn't really you know it doesn't get doesn't knock my socks off and so I think in order for me to be a happy monotheists God would have to really blow my mind I hope that makes sense yes yes for sure for sure for sure you know pride is the major impediment to faith and I seriously doubt that you have more pride than I do I've never been impressed with anyone I've never looked up to anyone ever until I discovered God and his Saints and now I can honestly say that I look up to another human being and it's the Saints it's God's Saints and I certainly look up to God because I was confronted with the reality of how good he is not only how good he is but how humble he is this is a key thing that you might want to focus on it's not that God's gonna impress you with his greatness he's gonna impress you with his little nests with how low he can stoop with how he can serve you because you don't want to serve God well that's fine God will serve you and then you'll have a tear in your eye a tear of appreciation and bewilderment how God are you serving me this until you reach that point yeah you keep him on that little jar on your shelf that's fine that's where he belongs yeah I mean you know if there is this Catholic God or that you know the God of Abraham and Isaac I've got a lot to learn about him I guess I just I really haven't encountered him and something that I've realized recently too that I kind of talked about a bit in episode 12 is that I never really had a relationship with God you know what I had as a child and as a young teenager was very dogmatic and ignorant and it was really just an attempt for me to impress my mom it was to impress my peers to impress the priests at my school it was look how good I can be look how good of a Catholic boy I can be and I know all the theology and whatnot but I didn't have a relationship I feel like right now I have more of a relationship with a god that I don't believe in than I did with the God that I didn't believe in is that my god or is that the supernatural deity my intuition says it's your God oh speaking of my God and a personal relationship I mean this interviews about you but our dear friend Matthew Murdock had an earth-shattering experience did he talk to you about it and do you want to talk about what he might have experienced from your perspective I am going to be interviewing for my podcast within the next couple of days actually I struck me that after this interview I might call him up and see if he's available I'm fascinated by what he has allegedly experienced I'm also very skeptical I feel I'm not gonna cut him any slack obviously I'm happy for him but you know he knows I'm an honest person and that I'm gonna probe him and really see you know did he get a true experience or is he sort of on the Jesus high you know going through high school Catholic high school there's we go on a retreat every year and you know I would always find these kids who you know the cool kids in class who didn't give a damn about God and Jesus for 364 days of the year and then the one day that we're on this retreat you know they go to confession and that they got the praise and worship sessions and they're just they're crying and cheering and screaming and they you know they're elated and then that high fades over the next couple of days and so I you know I hope he finds the Shire and I hope he has and he said he as he's told me that he has and he's extremely excited to share his experience with me so with my tongue slightly in cheek I will be interviewing him he got back Sunday I spoke to him on Tuesday night and he said it's already fading but I coached him to just try to massage his heart to keep it vulnerable keep it wounded keep bleeding keep it open and raw and tender that was my coaching to him and that's easily said and it's not easily done life does beat us up and that's why we protect ourselves that's why we hurt in our hearts that's why we allow those scabs to grow over those wounds because it hurts when you pull off the scab and the blood comes gushing out right but on the other hand we want to pick at that scab we want to know you know are we alive are we human like Pinocchio I want to be a little boy well it hurts to be a little boy so I mean I want to ask you generally about this prodigal podcast and you the project generally you started with a vision where it was going to be lights cameras action the whole thing interviews with celebrities and then you've sort of come to a realization that listen this has to be a very serious project with an intellectual discussion and exploration and it's more suited to the podcast and then the tension between one extreme and the other like young Earth Creationism on one hand and then evolutionist like are Unruh on the other hand he sort of stretched your elastic to the breaking point and now you've got this slack sort of complacency where it's like well you know what I don't really care I've lost my drive and my passion for the question am i sketching your journey pretty accurately so far close I think I'm not as apathetic as I might appear I think I still am interested I think I'm just not as frantic and in the way that I'm pursuing this um and you know somebody recently asked me you know Nick what is your vice you know everyone's got advice what's your vice and I said well you know I don't really I don't drink coffee you know I'm not addicted coffee I don't smoke cigarettes I don't smoke pot I don't watch porn I don't overeat I don't really binge watch TV like I got what do I do and and I realized oh I compulsively research that's my advice is I will get grabbed by a topic or something usually it's either nutrition or theology and I'll just dive into the rabbit hole and my interest on something or another will kind of oscillate back and forth and it you can only go full-bore for so long and in terms of the prodigal you you really start to realize how little you know the more you investigate and in terms of evolution specifically just you know something like that I can honestly say that I don't know enough Nord could I ever know enough to come up with a definitive answer I think that from what I understand neo-darwinism is about as silly as young Earth Creationism and the electric universe Rupert Sheldrake's work on morphogenetic fields the the understanding of information outside of the the genome that the DNA is not what codes for things that it's merely the the factory floor like these types of ideas kind of make this back and forth debate pretty obsolete and so now I'm kind of enjoying the stroll through the marketplace of ideas picking up some fruit and tasting it others you know this is an interesting idea wow I've never seen this one over here before all the while just acknowledging that I'm probably wrong on everything I'm probably a hundred percent wrong and and all I can really do is just enjoy enjoy the marketplace and and hope that my intuition and my experience as I continue to live and move through life guides me to the right place and the neuroticism and the the frantic attempt at avoiding hell by thinking my way to God with just a recipe for disaster I want to ask you about the recruitment mentality in every club whether it's an atheist club whether it's a scientific club whether it's the Chess Club every club wants more members usually how do you see it now with all this eager recruitment from a spiritual perspective from a psychological perspective well yeah I mean if you believe something there's two reasons why you want other people to believe it the first is because you want to show them how smart you are and impressive that you are that you have obtained the truth and so you know when you share it with them and you say come look over here look what I have found look what I have you know there is a big ego bump to that and then there's also the the validation of if these people whose opinions I care about believe the same thing that I believe though then I must be right and there's a very putting and secure feeling when people join your ranks now I'm in a place where I mean I don't really have a camp I mean the VA the agnostic camp that I am in it's I don't know if you've ever seen the Big Lebowski but we're just a bunch of you know guys like hey man you know don't don't pee on my rug we're just we're just like you know this is some interesting stuff we will just talk about while sipping White Russians so I don't have a club now and I think that's healthy for me because I'm I'm so prone to joining cults god damn I'm I just I joined cult so quick and and then I go yellow from the rooftops that this is the right cult everyone should be in it I mean it's it's it's probably my biggest character flaw is is this serial monogamy with various intellectual cults so yeah I think it's very healthy for me to be in a place now where there is no nobody has a t-shirt or an armband or anything like that and we're just we're just calmly perusing random question do you get eligible young ladies coming forward because of your podcast saying hey you're cute let's get married I have very few listeners in general I think my most listened do podcast was the one that I did with Michael Jones it's got like seven or eight hundred listens on it because he shared it but primarily I have very very few people listening and the handful of people who do listen to my podcast the women that I know I think are all in a relationship and any women who are secret admirers of mine are very secret I was talking about recruiting right well time to get me free I mean I mean I just got all the cult leaders in history I've done a really good job with the women so I just got to start a cult and then I'll be all set get yourself a white robe I think it helps yeah I agree yeah so can you remind me what we were just talking about before all the girl stuff the psychology of people recruiting I wanted to I want it to mention to you you have a very pessimistic and a cynical view of humanity obviously because it never occurred to you that someone would want to share the truth and that they would want their brothers and sisters to enjoy the truth right like I think of Plato's cave the analogy of the cave if I'm chained to that cave wall and I'm looking at the shadows with you and for whatever reason I'm tapped on the shoulder and I'm allowed to go out into the sunshine and play you're damn tootin I'm gonna come back in and I'm gonna say hey Nick what you think is the fullness of a fun and fulfilling life come with me let's go up this narrow craggy path and follow the light outdoors where the air is fresh and clean I mean this is a natural thing we want the best for each other you know that is true that does happen sometimes I mean I personally will share if I if I really care about somebody I'll let them know hey you know here's a way of existing that I think might serve you better you know if somebody is has a nutritional habit and they're really suffering as a result of it and I just know that they have no idea you know the causes of their suffering I might be like oh hey did you know X Y & Z this might make your life better but something that I'm learning more and more is that I don't owe anyone anything and this this notion of me trying to save everybody and go preach from you know the rooftops of all these wonderful things that I've learned it really isn't isn't the best way to go in fact the very few people are receptive and so maybe I do have a pessimistic view but I have rarely run across people who out of love out of true love and and desire for my own happiness and well-being have said hey I'd like to show you something I'd like to I'd like to tell you something it's usually out of a place of self and grand iseman of the ego or of the delighting in and showing that I am wrong about something so maybe I just need better a better friends yeah we all do we all do but you mentioned earlier about your to sort of go to obsessions being nutrition or diet and theology or religion or whatever it is it just occurred to me that if I could possibly get you hooked on a research project that combines both maybe this would be like the mother of all obsessions and they might benefit you and so this is the the scientific scientifically confirmed miracles of the Eucharist if you want to look into that I'm not pressuring you but if it ever occurs to you that you get the itch to look into it because it does involve true food and true drink the body blood soul and divinity of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and it does involve God and religions so you can look into it you can see atheist doctors that are giving full reports of these miracles and they say that it's not natural there's no possible natural explanation for these Eucharistic miracles and there's a consistency across the approved miracles I want you to research the approved ones these the ones that are approved like the miracle at Lanciano and stuff like that so how does that strike you are you tempted and tantalized even in the slightest I am squeamish and fearful what's what's the other word protecting my ego from looking at those I've been introduced to those in the past and you know the that's one of my Catholic compatriots favorite things to bring up because if they know about them they know that that is a pretty pretty damning thing to just send me the URL to one of these and say so we so check me a theist what do you think of this and for a long time I got around it by showing all the the ones that were BS and being like well these are all lies therefore I don't have to address the one that you sent over but I think the way that I've described is like if there's a UFO right and then someone says they're for aliens well they've kind of missed the it's an unidentified flying object you know and in the case of this Eucharistic miracle we don't have an explanation for a turning in to be now it's pretty convenient that in the confines of the of this story this thing that everyone says is the the body and blood of a guy happens to turn into body and blood like you know I'm not gonna be so pompous as to say oh that's just it could it could mean anything no it couldn't yes it couldn't mean anything it clearly if this crazy thing is happening and in the context of this story it's it has to do with the story that everyone is talking about which is you know the Catholic of a Christian story you know I don't I don't have an explanation for it I do find him interesting I guess let me ask you this if I just said I have no skepticism I have no doubt in my mind whatsoever that yes indeed these hosts did turn into human flesh you know how far does that really bring me well just saying that doesn't do anything but you're a magician right you know about sleight of hand mm-hmm so when if I send you on a mission to like put your nose into a bunch of Catholic books talking about miracles it's just to bathe you in Catholicism I could care less what conclusion you come to I just want you to be bathing in this that's my approach with you well I would definitely be interested you know more from the intellectual side I'd be happy to cede the ground of your ulterior motives that's fine by me but yeah I'd love to read into some of these and I love to I mean I will fearfully approach the topics that might absolutely undermine the ego that I've built to the world but yeah it's worth investigating I wanted to address this point with the Eagle mania and the pride and all that it is a very very very very common trick of Satan to make you think that you're gonna lose something by submitting to God and it's completely the opposite you're gonna have a more authentic sense of self and you're going to be more you than you've ever been we've talked about this before it's the same thing in a romantic relationship you could be million girls but until you meet the one you're just being inauthentic and when you are with the one she'll bring out your true self we've talked about this many times but I want to hammer at home with you because when you meet the true God you're going to be more yourself it's not like you're gonna be missing out on your ego it's just gonna dust off all the crap that's cluttering up your ego and your ego can be free to sing and dance and to peacock around as much as you want for sure and and whether or not I believe in the Satan I think that it would make sense it would follow logically that any God worth his salt would not cause a diminishing of his creatures for them knowing him it would cause a celebration and a fulfillment of everything that they are so I do just have to kind of get over that fear however with regards to the females I don't believe in the one I don't believe that there is you know that there's one person and so I think while I understand your analogy I kind of reject this notion that there is a that there is one female set aside with whom I am you know most fulfilled or whatever so just substitute when I say one female just say one harem so very nice talking to you as always I'd like you to end the show and I'll leave it up to you what message you want to leave for the listeners today just a few words do not