https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=zk7JEW7xvQA
happy Sunday everybody happy Sunday how are you doing Andrew? I’m doing alright, how are you doing? doing good, doing good it’s been a busy weekend oh, ok but it slowed down you know 3 hours ago, so that was enough oh, ok I was gonna ask I was gonna ask I was about to ask have you rested up since Easter but I guess work never ends, right? sometimes you just have weekends like this so it was a wedding at 11 on Saturday and then at 2.30 I had to get a couple of our kids caught up on baptism for their uh uh confirmation mass with the bishop at 4.30 uh but because we had um we’ve got so many kids and such a small worship space right now because we’re not in our main church yet we had to have two confirmation masses, so the one on Saturday had the bishop and the one this afternoon had just Father Phil, he got faculties to do the confirmation ok so um yeah, so that meant I’ve got all three of those yesterday that I had to take care of and then the uh two masses this morning and I was the emcee for the confirmation mass this afternoon and these confirmation masses, there’s a lot of moving parts a lot of little things to take care of and just a lot of walking a lot of walking walking for mass? well before mass when you’re running around setting things up oh, oh yeah, I guess so well that’s what uh, altar servers are for, right? I don’t have any like high school aged altar servers that I would trust with more complicated tasks ah, ok right our oldest altar server was a sixth grader which, you know we can put them to use, but they’re not going to be quite as I don’t know, it was a team effort and I had a part and now it’s done and I can relax nice good to hear Philotimo Christos and Esti same to you Mark tells me that busy is good and it keeps me out of trouble yes I went to a confirmation mass for my friend last summer joyous occasion indeed, indeed it is joyous but one thing that I like to do whenever we’ve got a big mass with a crowd of people who are not ordinarily there is delegate somebody to go up half an hour before mass starts and pray the rosary so the uh the church area is at least somewhat reflective and uh prayerful right there’s a fair number of people who don’t come to church often even though they’ll bring their kids for confirmation yeah that does happen with a little bit of this real chit chat so anyway we may compare the rosary was that today? the confirmation mass? oh no no, there was something else going on today at our church, it was something to do with confirmation but it wasn’t confirmation I thought maybe you guys did the same thing I’m not sure what you would have going on for confirmation that’s not confirmation I’ll be interested to hear what this is after you’ve done some more research and can give me a clearer idea of what we’re talking about yeah, they told us but I forgot what they said was it like a right of sending? and they were like sending them off to the cathedral? for confirmation? for confirmation? no, I think I heard somebody said catechesis so it might have been people from RCAA that were there but not for confirmation for some reason but then again we just did confirmation at Easter so I don’t remember but something was going on today and we had somebody what’s that? I said as long as the priest knows what’s going on you can make a lot of things work I’m not running the parish but yeah, there was somebody who was doing sign language for the mass which I thought was interesting because I’ve never seen that before so I figured something special was going on yeah, all that signing looks like a lot of work a lot of energy you gotta put your face into it too I’ve seen some of those big signed masses where they actually tag team in and out like every 15 minutes somebody will switch in so they’re not getting worn out I guess yeah, that’s a good idea actually I mean it doesn’t look like too much effort moving your arms around but I’m sure for an hour that’s kind of a lot but it’s not just the physical effort of moving your arms although that’s certainly a part of it but you’re also translating into sign language which has its own grammar yeah, yeah it’s not just English on your hands so right so yeah have you ever had that at any of your masses? not at my area but I’ve seen it like when I lived in Montana one of our masses at the parish was always signed I guess they had people who volunteered to do that and I’ve seen it at a few other type places so it kind of depends usually in your area there’s like one parish that has the one signed mass and there’s not so many deaf people in there that every parish needs to have it for every mass right yeah interesting yeah, it’s just something I’ve never seen at a mass before so it caught my eye what else has caught your eye? what have you been up to? what I have been up to, well mostly right now it’s just designing our final projects I have a video to make as well as my other two design projects so it’ll be a busy couple of weeks until the end of the semester but the main thing is our studio project which we’re doing right now we’re doing the same exact site and the same, almost the same program as the second years so we’re all kind of doing the same thing but what they’re doing is a little more detailed and it’s all for a competition that they’re entering into and they’re also in teams of two which is pretty interesting I don’t think we go I don’t think we do any of these projects in teams of two until the end of our second year so although we do a lot of other partner projects which are the other ones I’m doing right now but this one is a competition for them for us it’s just our last design project and it’s of a place elsewhere in New Jersey it’s a place where a Catholic charity called Straight and Narrow I believe they’re a charity basically it’s a building where I believe there’s people there who will help others for free to get out of stuff like addictions and other problems that you know people who are homeless or addicted to stuff and this sort of thing they’ll help out where other people can’t seem to help them out so it’s kind of like one of the last lines of help that these people can get so this charity has acquired some more land on on this street corner because the other buildings around them went to disrepair and were demolished so now they’re able to build stuff there and the program is we have to design a building that will enable conversation so it says because of division and politics and other topics that go through our communities today what they want is a space that will enable all sorts of people in the community to come and work out their differences and have a deeper connection in their community You need to put a boxing ring in there Yeah pretty much a verbal boxing ring perhaps Yeah but and then we’re required to put certain things in there like a gallery space a presentation room a courtyard and they have to be roughly a certain amount of square footage and there’s like some raised ground for a parking lot that we can’t change that we have to figure out how to put that into the into the site So Yeah It seems like you’re operating with a decent number of constraints on this project Oh yeah Exactly Which should hopefully pull out a little bit of creativity from you so you don’t have to sit there and try and reinvent something The constraints will guide you Yeah exactly Because if you can do anything then you can do anything and then what do you do? So it’s helpful to have those constraints to do something But I thought it was funny just the prompt talking about enabling discussion and it just sounded like estuary and that sort of thing That’s what you need is to have in the center is a statue of PVK Not PVK Just a giant PVK head A bust And then on the front engraved in letters is conversation Hey you’re in New Jersey that’s town territory right there Oh that’s true Wait what town is he from? Actually Is it Patterson, New Jersey? That’s where it is There’s way too many things coming together for their nappy Like I’m not saying you should actually do that because that would be a foolish thing to do for the lulz But if you can get some kind of subtle little PVK thing in there Oh what else could I put in that’s not his face Guys put in some PVK bingo stuff into the chat so we can sort through this We gotta take advantage of the distributed cognition that we’ve got here I could also Republican Republic Something about being a Calvinist I could also Since there’s gallery space I could do like example paintings in the gallery space and then put his face on one of them or something And then like some shots of living stones and putting John Vervecky into a headlock or something How many AI I generate that? Yeah that could probably work Okay that’s probably the That’s probably the right go for that Something subtle Not at the center of the design The straight and narrow center in Patterson, New Jersey Now is this just something that your professors looked at in the state and said Hey this would make a good project or are they actually talking to the people running this place and kind of have a pseudo contract So I don’t know if this is an actual design that the people there would take for something But it’s the program was created by the people hosting the competition which is not our professors it’s somewhere else I’m not exactly sure where but I imagine since it’s in New Jersey maybe it’s like a statewide thing But I don’t know if it’s like let’s do a competition and whoever wins will do that as the design or something So I would be interested to know that but for us What’s that? Yeah then you know they can get free ideas from their competition because they’re just having students do it for credit Exactly And for clout too Don’t forget about the clout Oh of course yeah Put it on your resume or portfolio or something Your Instagram or whatever Yeah your Instagram Or for architects get attention I guess social media Facebook, Instagram that sort of thing I don’t actually have any of those I designed this check it out everybody Yeah that’s probably pretty cool You design a building and then you drive by like hey I drew that on a piece of paper Probably more like oh my gosh I can’t believe I made the window so small It could be like that yeah Or the stupid contractors didn’t get the bricks looking right. This is not what I had in mind. Oh they did the tooling wrong on the mortar Can’t believe it Hello Mark Hello Hello Happy Sunday It is Sunday I will acquiesce to the Sunday part Yes Okay you’re in a good mood tonight I can say that means we’re gonna have some calm and recollected reflections Demons, demons Demons all around Demons all around Alrighty Do you need me to put my stole on and do some exercise? I got the exercise salt right here we can make this happen Let’s do Sally Jo was joking I’ve been trying to set up this computer for a while on and off and you know all kinds of things happened and then last night I set it up and I turned the thing on and flames literal yellow flames start coming out and then I’m like alright whatever and I shut it off immediately and whatever and then earlier today I was like I gotta find where the you know what’s causing burning can’t find it nothing is burned and I’m like what’s going on? I’m about to take another trip down south to sprinkle a little holy water a little you better bring gallons that’s usually not very good for electronics like I’m not an expert on this you’re the expert but it’s fine it’ll be fine and I just want the demons gone if I don’t have electronics I’m trying to get rid of the demons priorities father priorities no more twitter I don’t care it’s fine it’s a good trade so I took the motherboard out put it in another machine whatever swapped everything around parts everywhere the back room was just a complete junkyard of computer parts like wow pieces and motherboards and screws and all kinds of broken stick of ram on the floor no no ram the rams contained well not in the shed but in the back room there’s no ram that’s about the only saving grace there and then I was like well I should grab the hard drive out of the other machine and just use that one because I’ve already designated it for use for this project it’s easier than finding another hard drive I go to take the hard drive out the hard drive was what was burned never in a billion years I’ve never heard of a hard drive actually setting itself on fire never seen one I mean I’ve heard rumors that these things happen but I’ve never been around it before I was like well that’s a first and you know and the thing is that’s not you know that either has to be caused by dust or a bug it couldn’t be dust because I cleaned it before I put it in a bug or a defect or you know demons because hard drives are not that high power there’s not a lot to burn and you know it’s all traces it’s not like you can have a chuffed wire on a hard drive there aren’t any wires it’s a board so the board itself actually like set on fire and I was like okay but that’s good news because that means the motherboard and the chip and the wiring the other case are fine it’s like oh okay I’m not going to blow anything up by using any of those components of course I’ve taken the motherboard out and put the other machine it’s like ahhh wow so is it was it a solid state drive or a disc drive? No it was a 2.5 inch spinny disc it was a little laptop high speed drive yeah very strange I’m having a hard time imagining that burning is it like silicon? like how hot do you have to get silicon before it’ll burn? Well it looked to me like what had happened was there are copper connectors on the board and then the boards are green usually right? and then that’s the coating there’s a coating on top of that it’s clear coating on top of green coating that’s what it burned with some of the copper connectors underneath the board or something and I was just like what? Like no that was very strange interesting alrighty we got a question did Mark watch that video? Burn recommended to Paul this week my first exposure to Malachi Martin he was talking to William Buckley that’s old school right there I don’t think William Buckley was on TV when I was born don’t think so no I didn’t know about what Burn recommended to Paul off the top of my head I got to watch the Nick Cave stuff cause Burn very nicely and Twitter said no no here’s the videos you gotta watch for Nick Cave in order from his punk rock days to his everything’s demons days or whatever seems to be quite enlightened in the last video I saw of him I was like this guy was a punk rocker huh? that’s pretty weird now this Malachi Martin guy is real interesting I think he was kind of a I don’t know I don’t know if he was like an insider insider but he’s in like the orbit of the Vatican in like the 70s and the 80s and then he wrote what he said were semi-fictionalized accounts of satanic rituals at the Vatican interesting he’s a bit of a spicy character in Catholic circles it’s kind of like if everything even half of what he says is true like you don’t need the exorcism that Vatican does so I don’t really know what to make of it cause it’s he’s they’re written as novels all of this stuff so it’s like how do you evaluate this and even if it were 100% true what am I gonna do about it so right well and it’s I just heard a clip Jonathan Peugeot has a clips channel cause I’m subscribed to his channel Symbolic World and the clips channel and the clip was an interesting interview where they were basically talking about you know what do you do about you know giving the symbols to your enemies or whatever and it’s like what it is really about is he’s talking to an artist and the artist was you know Peugeot is saying you know what do you do about this about this problem is it something you think about he’s like I think about it all the time do I use a pentagram cause you know pentagram is in Christian symbolism but I’m probably not gonna use it in my art I got crap for using the rose at the center of the cross it’s like yeah but the rose is at the center of the Colosseum Muppet like you know and it’s so this you know you always get these accusations are you using symbols correctly it’s like idolater be gone like get behind me idolater like you can’t they’re misusing symbolism and so there’s this tension between are these symbols right you know and so this Malachi guy sounds like sounds like a a legitimized Dan Brown you know at all cause you know you get into that cause I got I got into that years ago when the I forget the Da Vinci Code Angels and Demons Digital Fortress I don’t know if you know this Dan Brown just took all that from scholarship like it’s all in the it’s a fictionalized story but almost everything in the fictionalized story is actual like it’s all real so it’s it’s a very postmodern thing to do you’re taking facts that are established and you’re knitting together I can’t remember the name of the book but there was a book that was that Dan Brown based a lot of his work on and there was a TV show years and years and years ago that I watched on this theory that the it’s the Sangriyal which is the blood of Christ meaning his offspring and that’s where a lot of that comes from it’s like wait a minute so he was married and he had a child and I guess the child’s name is Sarah and they traveled to Europe from the Middle East and you know it’s got that very universal history feel to it of course at the same time so it’s the same sort of thing right it’s like well you know because they because they when you look into the Templars for example if you ever do it’s absolutely fascinating I don’t necessarily recommend wasting your time with it but it is fascinating right the stuff they’re being accused of is not all inherently unchristian right it’s just that and all the all the cases you know and I dipped into it briefly I didn’t do my usual like deep dive research but it looks to me like all the cases of this is overtly against Catholic teaching or whatever those those cases are not well made because effectively what they’re saying is this is hearsay the the stuff they’re accused of that they have evidence for is perfectly normal Catholics do this all the time in the order sort of a thing so you know it’s all like well but we heard that what was really happening behind the scenes was and therefore you’re a heretic and it’s like well that’s a suspicious move like if you don’t have the evidence say we don’t have the evidence and if you do have the evidence bring it like but you know I think I think a lot of the accusations against the Templars were just a pretext for seizing their property wasn’t it well yeah ostensibly right because it’s Philip the first that borrows the money and Philip the whatever third or fourth or whatever that decides out this is too heavy a burden and I guess you know I if I remember correctly that the French had already infiltrated the Vatican pretty heavily and maybe that Pope was even a cousin of his or a second cousin or something and so it was more like family helping family you know very very Italian or Sicilian actually right and so yeah there’s a that’s certainly what the motivator was but the more interesting thing is yeah if you look at the trials you can see the gaps and go oh why didn’t they just bring the evidence why why are there two types of things brought in the trial things with evidence and things that either couldn’t possibly have evidence or just have no witnesses or no reliable witnesses or something these are two qualities of evidence brought to the table it’s like oh well you know that’s just more indication that what they were doing was you know bad Yeah yeah I mean you know they wouldn’t be the last corrupt ecclesiastical tribunal to already have the sentence in mind and you know massage the evidence to make that I think of especially of of the first or the second ecclesiastical court that tried Joan of Arc for witchcraft and just how just surreal the level of corruption was and we’ve got like a full it was a super corrupt super corrupt trial but we’ve got very detailed trial notes about it the court transcripts and all of that it’s like we’re gonna we’re gonna screw this up and everybody’s gonna know all about it Right well and and that’s the thing right like you know it’s paradoxically a message of hope it’s like oh you think you see the corruption around you is pretty bad huh well in the past it was even worse so you know on the one hand bad sign history at least rhymes if not repeats so it’s probably gonna get that obvious you know I would argue it already is but now we have to go down a political rabbit hole and argue because it’s bad framing right well there’s bad framing and then there’s like there is flat out fact denial you know like when you have videos showing things and you know and you can go you go in any number of incidents you can go to the Kyle Rittenhouse trial you know you could you could go into Tim Poole like like one of the best things Tim Poole ever did was there was an article in the New York Times done by it was it was on the editorial page by Krugman Paul Krugman who is about the worst human being you could possibly think to be and he you know he’s publishing the results of the study and he’s publishing part of the study with the image it’s a thing you can see with the graph and the whole nine yards and in the article he’s saying well this study shows that you know the right has gotten more radicalized okay that is not in the study the conclusion of the study says the exact opposite of what he said in the article but he references the study Krugman’s an economist right? No Krugman’s a demon who claims to be an economist but to be fair most economists are not of a type that wouldn’t be demonic so you know we’d not seem to let he’s got nothing but bad things to say about them and he can back it up he brings the goods like they all suck and almost all of them are liars yes can confirm and it’s easy to see but the interesting thing to me is he’s got the reference to the article the conclusion of the article is literally the opposite of what he states it is in his editorial and the image says the opposite too it shows the left going far left right and the right not moving much but moving a little bit to the left so there’s like there’s no extreme right wing according to this article and you can you know you could say methodology like you you could argue about the article that’s not the problem here the problem here is that the guy’s obviously lying about the article I don’t care if the article if the study actually is accurate he’s lying in the article about the study and Tim Poole of course catches him and I’m like well there you go and this way no one you know not nobody but you know the number of people that understand the gravity of something like that and this is a while ago because I haven’t listened to Tim Poole since maybe just after the fake news virus scam for example so it was before that so you know what do you do with that what do you do with the fact that everybody knew decades ago that that Al Gore’s emails had been dumped and that he was just doing it for the money and didn’t believe any of it like what do you do we have his emails what do you do with the climate emails from the climate scientists that got dumped that say no no no we skewed the data for sure to make the hockey stick because we were trying to make a hockey stick you can tell people that all day long and people have for decades now and it hasn’t worked they just ignore facts and evidence you know you can show them the video from Kyle No, people are rational Mark exactly dissuaded by evidence and nothing else and nothing else evidence and the other part about rationality is ordered patterns right and when that like this is the this is the the culture war thing where people are like no no it’s a it’s a culture war if you just bring them evidence or or if you show them how absurd their position is by their own stated principles and it doesn’t work because they’re not principled so you can’t you can’t use principles principles on unprincipled people and if you see people not following principles you should believe they’re not principles like you shouldn’t you shouldn’t try to redeem them because you’re effectively trying to redeem yourself no no no all humans are rational in principle it’s like no no they’re not that’s that’s definitely not true now what’s your what what’s the question I want to ask you hear conspiracy theory what do you do like how do you go about evaluating it because I’ll give you the way I evaluate it and my first test is even if this were 100% true can I do anything about it yes and if it doesn’t pass yeah yeah and I’ll be pragmatic about that so I read this Malachi Martin stuff you know and it’s like gosh that’d be horrible and it’d be super like salacious if true and somebody should do something about it but I’m in North Dakota and I’m kind of at the bottom of the food chain like I’m not going to do anything about this so maybe if I’m a cardinal someday I’ll look into it but right right well that’s the it’s interesting so I did my my Friday live stream on Action and it’s already got 356 views somehow between the three channels so so it went really well but I talk about the pragmatism and about the judging by fruits right which are actions judged by actions not by words right I talked a little bit about that on in my monologue there which is like an hour or 40 minutes or something it was a very long monologue it’s like and I was exhausted at the end but yeah you you kind of as a pragmatist that’s what you have to do you have to say like even if this is true does it matter and Sally Jo in that live stream it said two hours and I think 14 minutes if memory serves she goes into this great thing when she’s got a drawing and you know six-year-olds were worried about Joe Biden and so she does this drawing based on Peterson’s work right where she’s got clean your room then take care of your family right then take care of your community et cetera right and she says she showed it to the kids she said Joe Biden is way over there and she she said Joe Biden is way over there and they’re like oh okay and all the kids immediately calmed down it’s like yeah well and I was like I told her I said no you need to do a short of that like immediately like a one minute you can’t you can’t use those words and all that but make that point in a one minute short video spread it throughout the world immediately that’s what we need we need to because it’s not just the kids that’ll you know like Joe Biden let’s panic why during the first golf war my dad’s in the military right yeah so I wasn’t I wasn’t alive yet but my oldest brother was four or five years old and there was a in in New York where they were living there was down the street there was like a military monument with like a tank or something you know and my brother would see my dad leave for work every day in combat boots because that was his uniform and my dad had CNN on a lot because you know there was a war going on and that makes for great television if nothing else and so my brother put it all together that dad was going off to fight the war at the tank you know downtown Plattsburgh New York so my dad stopped watching as much CNN that was his solution to the problem but but yeah if you’re if you don’t actually have like the right way to contain that sort of knowledge it just drives you crazy yeah well you have to know and this is probably going to be the Friday theme I’m still mulling it around you have to know what to pay attention to right what signals are valid signals because there’s lots of signals and you also have to do about those signals because you can put them together in any number of ways like Dan Brown did in his book right it’s like oh you can just like use it’s all real stuff or almost all of it is real stuff right and some of it’s conjecture and speculation but it’s reasonable inferences right is the world rational I don’t know like it’s some did you ever did you ever read digital fortress Dan Brown no what it was is that the NSA had a supercomputer that was brute force unlocking people’s encryptions and so it was literally like this computer that’s not like like like it was like it was like a computer that was like 10 stories long tall just filled with processors cracking numbers yeah that’s not I don’t so here’s it here’s it here you want conspiracy theory it was I forget how many years ago it was it might have been eight years ago or something but it was a while ago they released the fact that the NSA had had one of their mathematicians pick the prime number seed for all SSL transactions which means effectively unless you went in a manual change it some very very few people knew to do that and change it to a different number the NSA’s had access to every single you know these zero trust things SSL you know you use SSL to get your email over the web or use SSL for all all clear text to the NSA guys all of it slick unless they change because they’ve got the seed for the algorithm so once you know the seed you can just run the algorithm yourself you well it’s not quite that simple the seed is the starting point for the key and there’s usually more than just the seed but the rest of it’s derivable but the seed is hidden except in this case the seed is not hidden because the NSA doesn’t want to do it so they can they probably can’t do it live or maybe they could do it live but like you know very targeted right a lot of people get confused with scales they go like oh well they could spy on your machine and find therefore they could do it to everybody well except they can’t do it to even you know one fifth of the population all at the same time and so the fact that it could possibly happen is not relevant to you right this is this is what you listen to what do you what do you feel anxious about the fact that the government could target you and get you yeah they could but there’s a lot of people so you know they can’t target everybody they can’t even target most of the people they can’t even target like a fifth of the population the government’s still a small number of people at the end of the day so like yeah maybe and you know like a lot of people think they you know they they have all the internet lines mirrored and they’re looking at all the data there’s no freaking way in hell that anything like that you would need an you would need an outrageous amount of computational power to even do like a basic filtering on that you need so in order to monitor a network of any size you need a network of that same size plus something and that plus is already not insignificant and to monitor a network the size of the global internet you would need a network as we don’t have that nobody has that and people get well they have taps and no they don’t no and also it doesn’t matter because the amount of computing power to your point to actually decrypt that exceed the total amount of computing power available in any ten places combined like unless it’s the lizard people from the Hall of Earth it’s not possible yeah right and and look the government’s already proven they can’t do it because they’ve taken VPN a couple of VPN companies in particular like ExpressVPN don’t keep logs and the government keeps going after people in court and they’re like we’ve shipped you all our logs the government’s like you have to have logs and like now actually we don’t and we don’t have them because we never collected them because we sent everything to Dev Null and now they don’t exist because they were deleted before they were in memory they were deleted from memory and they never got written anywhere and so you can’t have them unless you can reconstruct bits that floated away in the ether you know which of course you can’t do and people get really confused by that yeah well hey that’s uh that brings us to the sponsor for our tonight’s show ExpressVPN did you know that there are people who want your data protect your data with ExpressVPN that’s funny you should get the data who would want my data everybody wants your data they want to Andrew they want to sell you Gregorian chant books and vacations to Rome and things about architecture oh that’s horrible I can’t allow that well the way to not allow that is to not ever be on the internet yes that’s I mean you can you can win you can win the advertising war right now just never go on the internet Casey Clements needs your data oh well I didn’t know that yeah he does if you really need it just uh just ship him your hard drive that’ll have all the data right it would how’s that I might um I might need this one so I can ship a copy I guess okay Casey you just you send you send a hard drive to Andrew and he’ll ship you a copy of all of his data that should work right definitely yeah I think so and then Mark will tell you how to put a horrible computer virus on that uh hard drive that makes it burn I’d love to figure out how the hell that drive burned that’s so cool no no no it’s you need to make it burn at two o’clock in the morning that’s the really evil bit so hard drives are super low power you wouldn’t even think that they could set themselves on fire but apparently apparently an old laptop drive has got the goods to keep you warm see we needed that laptop when we got lost in the woods yes yes we did we could have huddled around the fire and stayed warm yeah so it’s been it’s been demons haunting me all the way down for ever since I got back from New England I don’t know the demons followed you from New England that’s pretty simple I’m there I’m totally there demons is the best explanation for sure no the mother’s maiden name and we’re good to go the mother’s maiden’s name is not even that hard to find yeah that’s the problem that’s just public now so it’s not used to be much more difficult I don’t even think they use that as a security question anymore I haven’t seen it in years like so much easier just to shoot a text to my phone and have me enter the code right and apparently the cell tower encryption is pretty solid yes like people aren’t going to intercept that so it was cool a number of years ago I read this case from a hacker and he had been hacking forever and never gotten caught and then one day they get him and he’s in the trial and he can’t figure out what he did wrong he’s like I’ve been doing this for years no one’s ever like what the hell and it turns out that in the trial the I think it was the local police admitted that they have this device and I forget what the heck it’s called but it’s basically a portable cell tower so your cell phone connects to that tower instead of a real tower and now they do a man in the middle on you and they’ve got all your stuff and that’s how they got him now unfortunately for the police that’s illegal actually for them to do oh yeah it’s illegal wiretap obviously and so he got the whole even if they got a warrant no not if they have a warrant but they didn’t have a warrant you go get the warrant but a warrant on who? they can’t because they don’t know who’s doing what because they don’t know who it is but also who do you control like who goes through the cell tower you just get everybody’s data so that’s right so you can’t technically you can’t get that data now there are exceptions that they do blah blah blah blah and this is the old dust up with the secret court and all that nonsense where they and they’ve been lazy and not been trusting the government instead of not trusting the default position would be not to trust the government like if you’re a secret court that’s your job is to not trust the government yeah they let it fly and it’s like but they got in trouble for that they might be fixing some of that but yeah so it was interesting just because the guy wrote this article and basically got his conviction thrown out and exposed the fact that this thing existed and exposed the fact that the FBI is the only one that’s supposed to be using it but they keep lending it out to local police which is not copasetic on any level at all ever right so yeah and it was a great article it was really interesting and he got himself out of trouble so I’m up to two minds because you were stealing people’s money guy come on like no yeah I mean that’s gonna really put a damper on his whole stealing people’s money business because now the FBI’s can watch him well he got out of it because of this in a strange way it scared him straight because he’s like yeah he’s like well I thought I was the biggest baddest meanest most capable bad person on the planet here comes the local police and the FBI showing me up and now I’m out of business because I know I’m never gonna beat them right it’s like oh okay but now I’m on the other side it’s like yay we need your help what’s this like what do you do it’s like beating a boss and then they join your party yeah it pretty much it’s where the world’s a strange place you know and I like that I don’t know if you saw this banderclap clipped something that I said from the live stream in these lonely lives in bedrooms video which is a great video anyway even the parts that you’re not in Mark I don’t know about that because I haven’t seen the whole thing yet but I’ll have to take your word to work I really enjoyed it and it I looked at it it just it matches what I’m seeing with kids these days basically yeah I’m gonna drop the link to it in the chat here lonely lives in bedrooms anxiety and the loss of religion Stella O’Malley and Megan Daum PBK from Thursday guys make sure you watch it all right yeah it’s a great it’s a it’s a great video from from all accounts I did I did watch part of the part before I was in it because I was told like oh you got mentions I listened to that right away but and Mary Harrington’s talking about much the same thing except you know there is it and it’s and it’s in the zeitgeist right there is this thing about we keep problematizing things that aren’t problems right problems have solutions you know what doesn’t have solutions most of life most of life is just a struggle that you’re supposed to use strategies to help get you through like Greek and then I saw that Verbeke posted a comment or reply to a comment on that video and he used perennial problems like three or four times and I’m like all right John just not act out and just just admit that there’s no such thing as perennial problem it’s inappropriate use of language and you should probably just say something else like patterns of life or yeah Hey Ted Hey This is good stuff yeah I was working through that one the lonely lives in bedrooms one so that’s a What are you getting your four year old smart phone? for a while over my dead body that’s what I thought that’s why we keep you around Ted oh I just part of me from the pulp it just wants to go to war and then the rest of me knows that I’m gonna get hit if I do that because I’m gonna go into a room full of young parents and I’m basically gonna accuse all of them of abusing their children by giving them smart phones nice this can’t go wrong I support this Christians are for lions go face the lions sir and I hope you don’t get eaten yeah I don’t know maybe I’ll do it winsomely that might save me no no I do not support this no Did any of you guys read that short story that Paul Kingsnorth wrote a couple years back called the Basilisk it’s like a series of letters between an uncle and his niece and it’s basically like the uncles arguing for the fact that the internet is basically an antenna for demonic psychic energy can’t confirm like there’s a reason they call it the net and you’re like anyway it’s pretty it’s like it’s a fun thing to look at I think it was I can’t remember what it’s one of those like fun weird small journals online it’s called the Basilisk yeah I think it was like 2020 late 2019 somewhere in there yeah but he spends a lot of time talking about like ancient wizards and sorcerers like when they made portals they drew magic circles around the portals to make sure that only the things came out that they wanted to come out and then we just live our lives with these open magic portals and we just assume that like nothing bad is going to come out of them and yeah you know and then there’s you can see them at sort of the individual level and then also on the collective level of like this entire project of maximizing digital intelligence or whatever that is and cramming as much data into that as possible and we’re like let’s just see what comes out of this net if we as a civilization do that like boy we could look back at the old sorcerers and alchemists and like learn from them yeah yeah in these clips from the Jonathan Pujo clips channel I think they both got released today the one I mentioned earlier be careful not to give our symbols to our enemies and then one he put out about 8 hours ago called the god behind our smartphones which is a different talk he did with somebody who’s basically saying like oh yeah look at these demons popping out of the so this is how I think of this it’s like oh yeah it’s probably the best way to think about it because that’s probably exactly except we don’t have the wisdom of even the ancient Egyptians who put symbols around the portals as you say right and you know wore things to ward off the evil eye and stuff like that like we’re not even smart enough to do that in more recent times we’ll say it’s a real mess I need to get your thought on vervecky’s video on AI that he put out like yesterday no no no dude he was talking like the only responsible way that we can treat these AIs is as parents right and we’re like birthing a new form of life what? no no no yeah right and he was talking about like these like these biological forms of computation and machines that people were developing and I was just like oh god it’s that meme it’s that meme with Peter Griffin I hope I’m not exaggerating that but that’s what I heard and that was like an explicit theme is like we got to treat this as as a parent a lot of people are saying that right but what are you really saying when you’re saying that you’re saying no no no no no no no no no no you’re a god and you better start acting like it and it’s like agnosticism confirmed no no no more no that’s why I keep telling people AI is a mirror it’s a funhouse mirror maybe but it’s a mirror it’s not bigger than you in any way shape or form it’s so hysterical right so I’m scrolling through my demon maker very handy demon maker and out no no demons in the in the newsfeed because of curated the newsfeed of course you have to keep recurating it because they keep changing everything but in the newsfeed I like it there was an article about a new signal they found inside the brain so it turns out that the way they were thinking about neurons which is wrong by the way but whatever we’ll just brush aside the fact that these idiots are obviously incorrect so there’s an and and an or function and they found the and function inside neurons and they found the or function inside neurons and they thought that was all that was there now this is an absurd way to think about the brain by the way and it’s totally wrong like it’s an analog they’re making is so incorrect as to be useless but yeah because that’s digital computation not analog exactly right they’re equating digital competition to analog and because they’re doing that they recently discovered that the neurons can do XOR operations which are technically impossible no no they’re not impossible and I went over this in my live stream when you hit something like that the correct response isn’t oh this is impossible the correct response is my original model was broken and I’m an idiot that’s the correct response is humility for your stupidity you just thought it worked away and then you found out that the rule that if it worked that way that was broken means it doesn’t work that way like you don’t you don’t say we need a new way of thinking about this you say our old way of thinking about this is totally broken and now we need to go destroy it and start over that’s what you say but of course no we’re not doing it because we gotta keep moving forward progress progress we can’t go back we can’t go back progress progress yeah crazy talk like a parrot it is they are parrots listen to them it’s the same I was I was talking to I was talking to Jesse my compatriot on my live streams and I was basically you know because he was on the discord server last night and I was basically saying listen really closely because he was he was saying like I lost for Vakey’s awakening at episode 11 I said yeah but by episode 11 he had he had already made all the mistakes like all the crazy statements were already baked in and so when you hear something like we can’t live in it you know we can no longer live in a two worlds mythology which is just an axiomatic statement he keeps making or or you hear something like we can’t go back but then his proposal is neoplatonism only we’re going to fix it it’s like I thought you said we couldn’t go back and then you realize that once he reaches the end of neoplatonism and finds out all the good things in neoplatonism are actually in Christianity and not incorrect according to neoplatonism whatever that may mean then you get panicky and so you go back further to after Socrates oops I guess we can’t go back or can like I’m confused and Jesse was like I didn’t see that before and I’m like yeah the whole thing is this gnostic say one thing do another trick it’s like look at the action you keep going back you say we can’t go back you keep going back you know you’re going to erase Christianity by starting neoplatonism and then doing Ritnar the religion is not a religion it’s like but you’re saying one thing and doing the opposite I don’t know what to say I don’t know what else to say about it Well yes he doesn’t want to live in a two worlds mythology he can’t afford to because science is relegated to one part of one of the worlds and that means he can’t be a god unless of course and I haven’t watched the video because I haven’t been really watching John’s stuff lately I’ll have to watch it now though unless of course it’s AI in which case all bets are off and we can be gods and you know and now we have to we have to be gods we have to be responsible like parents Right because the argument is we got to get in there before the military and the pornographers do Of course as if they’re not already there Well I mean like so Father Eric and also Mark to your point about like going back and like this progress thing you know I’ve been really you know trying to think about these things in terms of have we changed the playing field in a fundamental way and like one of the things that I’ve been thinking about a lot so when you look back at medieval writings you get stuff that at least to my sensibilities growing up as a kid in the 90s and the early 2000s or crazy like for instance the idea of a succubus right so you start thinking about the idea of a succubus and you’re like okay it’s a demon it’s a spirit it doesn’t have a body but it has an appearance it has the appearance of a highly seductive woman and it like unites itself with a man and like fills his vitality from him and we’re like okay so you’re saying that the middle ages was plagued by these like airy bodies of women who stole men’s vitality and like wait a minute hold on like if there weren’t succubi back then we invented them with the internet it’s like that pattern is like more manifest now than any other time in history and so then I start looking at these things I think this whole idea that we’ve somehow like fundamentally shifted reality and like now we’re in something different I’m like I don’t I don’t really know like that seems like now what kind of magic circles we’re drawing that’s the question and like that’s where the existential angst comes from if you’re gonna have any which you know yeah it’s like what those aren’t those it’s just weird I’m like how is we like to talk about like pornography is something new in a sense and it’s like the way that it’s coming about is new but like the I don’t know the ideology of it or whatever what is that called there’s a name for that in medicine anyway like the way that it manifests it’s like yeah we just got like succubi and ucubi just like running around the world rampant you know I think like what’s the other thing I was thinking about mermaids I was thinking about the idea of mermaids that you have this thing that like I think you guys will get where this goes the other thing that have the appearances on the outside of being a woman of being an attractive woman but then like it’s utterly sterile on the lower half and you’re like oh we made those we’re making those like as a society like we didn’t know mermaids but now we have mermaids yes that’s exactly right it’s like this is so weird why is it that all these weird things that come out there like all these little strange things like most of it’s just like embedded in fairy tales honestly yeah yeah that’s a great yes I love Grimgir’s set he didn’t come up with that he quoted it I mean he found it so props to him he found it and he brought it to our attention I don’t know pocket set pocket set well it’s you know what it’s more it’s more pernicious right so first of all the succubus thing you know you get people that succubi aren’t real right and then they’re talking about their friend and they’re like well that person’s a real you know energy vampire or psychic vamp and it’s like didn’t you just describe a succubus and use a use a term instead of a word and that’s real like there are people that exhaust me to be around and then there are people that it exhausts everybody when they’re around it’s like oh okay cause like almost anybody can exhaust me that’s not hard people are just I don’t know I feel like if we just sit here and listen to you you’ll just exhaust yourself eventually no I won’t that’s the thing I can eight and a half hours buddy let’s go let’s do it but also you know to your other point what is a mermaid and I think the problem of pornography is a totally different I was gonna I was gonna spring this on Vanderthal’s channel but I haven’t gotten a chance so you get it Father Eric you ready for this? the problem of pornography it’s way more pernicious because to me that real problem is women that are sexually signaling on TV so there’s no skin involved they’re just they’ve got the the lipstick on right they’re dressed up they got the hair done and so you get this constant like sexual readiness signal and of course that can’t be repeated in the normal world cause most women most of the time are not doing that obviously right you couldn’t you couldn’t keep it up you’d burn out but you know a new one comes on and then that’s the top half of the woman that’s the cloth portion of the woman right but she’s sterile because she’s on TV you don’t have you know this is you know but people would ask me once in a while like well why do you go to strip clubs it’s not that I haven’t been to a couple but like I if somebody asks I’m like ah no I got better things to do than to go to a building and look at a woman that I know I’m not going home with like that seems like torture like you’re not this is what you’re missing I don’t I mean even if that were true like why that’s torture like why would I want that for myself well Mark you know before before like the Little Mermaid Hans Christian Andersen thing they weren’t mermaids they were sirens and what happens is if you went after the sirens they they ate your flesh off your bones yes it’s like oh okay maybe we should get into that yeah I just I mean it’s really weird the way those things they they keep I was also thinking about mermaids in terms of the doltrude but that’s another I mean another direction you can go with that but you’re talking about right there was I don’t know if you listened to Vander Klay’s talk on hyperreality like strawberries and like Nero’s eunuch oh no I did hear that one yeah yeah yeah yeah so that’s exactly that same thing you’re talking about and and this idea of like presenting women that are like more than women just in the way that you go from like wild strawberry to cultivated strawberry to like strawberry candy to artificial strawberry candy to like Jolly Rancher strawberry Jolly Rancher the strawberry Jolly Rancher and it’s like yeah and the kids like this thing that I picked up off the ground kind of tastes like the strawberry Jolly Rancher slushie and you’re like whoo and so but there’s something I think one of the things that didn’t get picked up in there is there’s this idea that it I mean Mark you probably you probably I don’t know I haven’t dealt that much with the stuff you’re talking about but like the idea of homeostasis right so you’re talking about thinking about our minds and how you know this is such a big problem with drug use right like you can’t just use morphine and feel great forever you can’t just use cocaine and feel amazing forever your your body for whatever reason wants to get back to here and so if you crank it up to here it’s like oh hey we don’t need to you know release all those dopamine, those neurotransmitters and stuff and now we’re back to here but it’s like here when you’re using narcotics this is annoying those narcotics leave your system your way down to here and so the the problem with hyper reality and particularly thinking about something like say hyper real women is that your response it’s like this is how you should respond when you’re like when you see someone like that and then you start cranking it all the way up to here because it feels better up here and you know this I mean all this ties directly into Catholic moral theology and disordered and disordered affection you get up to here well and then you just come right back down to there I mean St. Paul in the first chapter of his epistle of the Romans he’s talking about how like when you sin morally your intellect is darkened your ability to perceive is darkened the more you sin and so then like that actually drives you to sin more because the effect of those things the things that drove you into that is dampened and so we can talk about hyper realities of right as an epistemological problem sure I get that but it’s also a deeply moral problem because your mind is all you’re you’re doing this homeostasis thing you’re like oh that’s what strawberry tastes like I can’t I can’t eat normal strawberries anymore so I was talking with a friend of mine and he’s a he’s a devoted Catholic and he’s fasting for Lent he was doing a very rigorous fast for Lent so he’s you know the old way he’d eat a quarter he’d literally like part of a piece of bread at 3 o’clock and it’s his like wife’s whole wheat sourdough to some tape how it’s like it would be kind of like ugh but he said that after waiting until 3 in the afternoon to eat he said the amount of different taste in there he’s like there’s like caramel and there’s honey and there’s all these you know and like that’s what happens when you walk out of hyper reality it’s not like your experience is diminished it’s actually that your ability to sense is heightened and you end up back in the same place except that you don’t because now you’re in a you have the capacity to actually express gratitude because you’re not being you know having hyper reality fed to you you’re actually responding you’re there’s a sort of you have an ability to see where things come from and so then you can be grateful and so then you can be happy because you can’t be happy without being grateful right for Eric you know it’s our duty and our salvation everywhere and always to give God thanks that’s epicureanism that’s proper epicureanism from the ancient Greeks was basically actually striving yourself for every like that every durable religion in the world has had that except for catholicism in the 20th letter half of the 20th century yeah every every right every it’s interesting right so there’s these patterns that recur and then we call it religion and then we think we can do without it but really they’re the patterns of how the perennial struggles can be dealt with best right we’ve learned throughout time that we know through mimicry not through words writing oral tradition even right we know it more through mimicry and that’s really what what religion is and good religion in particular and yeah you can modify it based on the time and the place and whatever but yeah we don’t really realize like you have to go up but you can’t stay up and you can’t keep going up indefinitely because even if you’re going up you’re reciprocally narrowing to use verveckis you know excellent term for this right although it was Mark Lewis I think that he got this reciprocal opening from so or reciprocal narrowing from and then he did the or there must be reciprocally opening yeah that’s called starving yourself so that you can appreciate the homemade bread for the uniqueness of it because it’s unique and it’s not until you do without that extra stimulation that hyper stimulation that normal stimulation becomes a good thing again and that’s why like if you if you watch somebody on coke even if they think they’re not addicted maybe they haven’t had coke all month right they do they do one weekend binge and then for the next three four five six days they’re angry and mean like it’s if you I mean I don’t know if you run into drug addicts but they’re always angry and mean afterwards like always and it doesn’t matter what it is it can be it can be hallucinogens it actually works the same way even though they’re like well back into the action but go observe just just take away all your science knowledge and watch them they’re always just try and hang out with drug users is that an option too you can try that in a world in a country where drugs are legalized but I don’t think you’re going to succeed sir so mark I want to make I want to take I’m gonna take what we’re talking about and I want to make a distinction there so I was sitting in a it was a weekday mass so my kids weren’t there so I could you know I had a little bit more room to pay attention and like the next pew up or two pews up there’s this just totally adorable four year old kid sitting there with their parents and I was thinking about it and I was like I was just I was grateful for my ability to appreciate how cute this kid was right and like because I’m aware of like the way that the world tries to tell people that kids are some sort of scourge as though we weren’t all children at some point and for a multitude of other reasons but I was appreciating this job and I thought you know it is my it is my pursuit of God that allows me to appreciate this child more than I could and I thought that is good but that’s really good but then I have this which is where we are right now basically which is to say pursuit of God and even lower things just the pursuit of virtue which is not the same as the pursuit of God you can pursue try to pursue virtue without pursuing God but but the pursuit of virtue right it aids in your ability to say appreciate so to have happiness or joy or whatever but then I thought okay I’m in math right now, right now my attention is supposed to be given to something else and I realized that there are two ways of thinking about this one is I could pursue God in order that I could appreciate those things like that child in front of me or the crust of bread the other way I could think about it is that my ability to appreciate the child or the crust of bread can lead me closer to God and those are like I feel like I made that switch maybe a year ago where previously I was like ah religion is helpful because it lets me appreciate these things it’s like yes it does but there’s like should be a further reverse where you say okay except that those things I’m being given the ability to appreciate those things so that they can drive me towards further towards God I don’t so there’s my distinction I don’t have a name for it or anything like that I’m just wondering if if y’all can like tease that apart at all and try to figure out what that difference is I’m trying to make there it’s not a difference it’s the it’s this is what people mistake for duality right so western Buddhists in particular would make much of this and say that first thing they say is it’s a paradox and I would say you’re an idiot it’s not a paradox it’s a self reciprocating reciprocal opening it’s exactly what John’s describing it’s just that like a philosopher would go that’s a paradox because one relies on the other and the other relies on the other but all you’re actually doing is switching priority you have to do that in life you can’t keep the same priority 24 7 that doesn’t make any sense the whole point of life and Peterson does a great job because he’s a pragmatist he points out like there’s a conflict between you now and you in the future and I think I was talking with Sally Jo about this actually the other day I think the problem with understanding something like ego is ego is sufficient if you add time and say the ego is always fighting its own immediate needs by realizing that it is going to exist in the future and therefore right and now all of a sudden you don’t need five types of things in the personality fighting each other a la Freud anymore you don’t need the ego the self the blah blah you don’t need any of that you can just go oh well there’s the ego and the fact that there’s a mirror for the ego that we call self and that self can because it’s a mirror can show you more than just you like when I look so I’m looking at effectively a mirror even though it’s a camera when I look at the camera I don’t see just me I see my white board I see my dragon I see the door I can see the light switch right like like and that’s the thing like all you need is one agent and a mirror and that explains the six other agents in your head weird psychological phenomena right and then you just add the time component and the fact that whatever that one agent is is time aware and suddenly you have all you need to build personality theory and all the psychology you have a very simple two part two part model time which is the movement the continuous portion one agent and one mirror that’s it that explains all of psychology better than with simpler model better than then then Freud or Jung or both of them so so let me let me see if I can back this conversation up a little bit because because you did one of those things where you went really fast that I didn’t follow sorry and it happens it happens all the time backwards father yeah Ted was talking Ted was talking about his experience of appreciating the the childlike beauty of this four year old and then giving glory to God and wondering well do I do I follow God in order to be able to appreciate these sorts of things or do I appreciate these sort of things in order to get to God and then you’re like well those are actually just the same thing but with different priorities yes alrighty and then somehow you got to your psychological model which I find intriguing but I don’t see the connection between the two the connection is the following the dual that is a dualistic attitude right that these two things are paradoxical right but they are resolvable by adding time and priority so they’re not paradoxes if time exists and prioritization is real because you prioritize one at one point you prioritize the other at the other point right the fact that you can’t do them both at the same time doesn’t make them a paradox because there’s lots of things I can’t do at the same time and just because they have related elements doesn’t mean they’re opposites you’re saying like I need to eat and I need to sleep to live I can’t eat and sleep at the same time it’s a paradox that’s resolved by the fact that I’m existing through time sure sure or it’s not a paradox from existing through time well then I’ll just add to that that idea of modulation and sort of you know that especially right as a secular father I’m not going to be religious because I’ve got a wife and children and it’s like this is the life I’m living there’s a degree to which my attention has to be modulated down I have to put it towards them I can’t go in my room and you know pray all the time and let them starve or fend for themselves or whatever obviously like my attention has to go to these things I guess what I’m saying then is that that second I had never like made cognizant that sort of aspect that okay so this this deeper appreciation for these things is driving me towards it and there’s a prayer for reposition that I just learned which I should have learned a long time ago but at any rate right brother it’s like glory blessed be God you know and it goes through blessed be all these things in the last line blessed be Jesus Christ true God and true man blessed be the name of Jesus blessed be his most sacred body precious body blessed be okay yeah the litany of the holy gosh what is it go on but at any rate that last line is blessed be God and his angels and his saints and there’s that sort of that it’s that movement back around in that sense right because it starts with blessed be God and you’re and there’s there’s sort of this movement towards particularity well I don’t want to say that because God is particular this movement towards things that are closer to me in the hierarchy of being I don’t know exactly but there’s a sort of to say blessed be God and his angels and his saints especially as a recovering Protestant is like okay I’m I’m really trying to work on that I’m really trying to understand what this means here this this way in which I mean it’s just interesting I could because maybe in the last you know decade ago right I was talking about this with my friends who’s still a Protestant we’re sort of living this like you know the pursuit of God lets you live your best life not in the sense of the sort of prosperity gospel thing but in the sense of if you pursue God and truth and beauty and order your desires then like things are going to go well maybe not necessarily you’re going to have money or whatever but like you’re going to have happiness it was almost a sort of like fusion of epicureanism and Christianity essentially not that there’s a denial of eternity or the resurrection but like that’s not what the focus is on and I’m trying to I’m trying to figure that out it’s a really interesting thing because one of the things is that I and this is maybe the most interesting thing to me is I realized when I let go of pursuing God lets me appreciate this child more and I realize that the final cause of appreciating that child is for me to love God more then I actually love the child I can appreciate the child even more like that’s the funny thing it’s like the degree to which I’m able to let go of needing to get something from that crust of bread needing to get something from that sunset needing to get something from that beautiful old house or this evening with my family or whatever it is the less I need to get something from it the more that it brings out and like I really really mean that because you can’t just be like I’m going to pretend that I’m not trying to get something from that but really I am like I really don’t like I really I get where this is ordered to and then all of and the more that that happens I don’t know is that God’s blessing you God’s blessing you I just received the blessings stop thinking about it so much I am it’s wonderful that’s Plato’s cave right you get out of the cave and you can’t look at the sun it’s too bright and we don’t like you can’t stare at the sun and you shouldn’t stare at the sun like please don’t do that right but like all life comes from to some extent the fact that the sun’s hitting the earth yes okay and it’s the same with the creator of all creation how could it not be it’s it recurring on the fractal pattern one layer down where the thing the things there’s the wind where the hell’s that can you pay attention to the wind can you I think you can only pay attention to the results of the wind I don’t think you pay attention to the wind right like oh that’s weird can you pay attention to gravity and then and the worst and here’s the worst part not to make you feel bad Ted but you don’t have to like you don’t have to become cognizant of it to get the advantage but you do have to submit to you know the people who are like I’m never gonna understand this so I’m just gonna submit to it they’re just happier better people on average period you know like but blessed are the the slow right they’re like ignorant and they’re in bliss blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth yeah yeah well Mark I mean it’s easy for me to look at that and say okay I was cognizant of this in this one particular moment but like go to traditional math like you’re quite aware that almost everything is happening beyond your level of perception like I get it yeah I get that something is happening that I or most things are happening that I don’t get what’s going on and so I don’t I’m not but I feel like you do occasionally have those things that sort of come up above the surface and you think oh I should probably lean into that like that’s the direction I should be leaning that’s the direction I should be going and and and just in terms of you know all my sort of sensibilities and all these things I mean it it’s just really interesting I’m so I’ve been thinking a lot last year about the vows that religious take which is obedience, chastity, and poverty and I’ve been thinking about how the three things that are principally held up the three categories of say life that are held up that is to say I don’t know high dopamine levels on a consistent basis or everyone is is pleasure, wealth, and autonomy right and you’re like okay so we’ve got these people who are going out there and they’re saying we’re going to renounce pleasure in the form of sexual reunion we’re going to renounce personal autonomy and we’re going to renounce any kind of personal possession and then it’s like okay so can you find one happy monk can you find one happy monk or nun and sister in the world and it’s like if you can then the world’s wrong I mean it’s just I just find that fascinating and so thinking about that in my own life and like what does that mean and again there’s that sort of almost that ability to have that poverty mindset about even experiences in that sense of that I have to like derive things from this and being able to come to it I mean this is just interesting like just almost in a state of poverty and to say like I just it’ll be what it will be. You just receive it. You just receive the grace. You just receive the experience and you gotta turn off that left brain dissecting machine and just be there. Right. You gotta get out of the thought and thinking is actually having those. Like when you’re thinking about something you’re trying to have something about it even if it’s just quote knowledge or understanding. And there’s a wonderful talk that John did back in the day with a guy named Jacob Kishir that you can probably look up if you like Vervecki’s work it’s an excellent voices Vervecki talk. And what Jacob was he did he did the same he did the same story on the Awakening from the Meaning Crisis Discord YouTube channel too with the Q&A we did with him afterwards. He talks about being stuck in Athens Greece like the actual Athens like in actual Greece during the fake news virus scam. And you know here I am like stuck is not the word I’d used. You know condemned to heavenly pleasure for some indeterminate amount of time. Oh no save me save me. And he he had done psychedelics and you know had some profound experiences but you know whatever. And he goes into a Greek Orthodox Church imagine that in Athens Greece of all the places in the world. And he says I went there and you know beautiful stuff right like clearly nothing happened. Right. And then he leaves and he starts walking around Athens back to wherever if he went on a soldier and I don’t know. But he was walking around Athens and then bang it all hits him. No liturgy no awareness of the importance of the stuff in the church. But the contrast and this is this is where like all of our models that Manuel and I work on come together the contrast of seeing them exemplified in the church and then all of a sudden you notice oh no no no these aren’t in the church. These are in the world. But you need to see them with gold behind them or around them or you know in relation to one another in a weird way before all of a sudden those symbols pop up everywhere and you’re like oh wait a minute. This is the world. The church isn’t apart from the world at all. It’s just pointing in a different direction from from the rest of the world. It’s like a spiritual condensation of reality. You’re just taking the whole of the thing and you just you just concentrating it. And that creates a contrast. But you know he wasn’t aware of it. He wasn’t like wow I’m in this transcendent church experiencing this transcendent thing. Like he wasn’t doing the liturgy. Like there wasn’t a mass going on. Nothing. He just goes into the church and like looks around like oh wow this is really you know I I mean especially in an orthodox church like I could spend all day because there’s so many details to look at and I would. Right. So you know no problem right. Or like the so I there’s an orthodox church down the street from me you know about 30 miles from here that I sometimes attend. And I remember the first time I went with a friend of mine from Discord had actually driven from Texas to come and visit me for a few days. So we went over there because we were invited by our mutual friend. And I remember when I came off the property after the after the mass. I was like can you can you tell? And he was like what do you mean? And I’m like now there’s like a thing around that whole space. And the minute I drove out of it I was like we drove out of this field. There’s no question about it in my mind. There’s no question about it in my mind. So Mark there’s a wonderful traditional Benedictine monastery about three hours west of here in Oklahoma. And I mean it’s like when you walk when you’re in there you’re like OK not only can I not tell what year I am or decade or century I actually can’t tell what millennia I’m in. You know these like these like gaunt men they’re all you know have about as much hair as Mark does on his head and they’re black robes just you know singing Gregorian Chant for like six hours. But what’s so fascinating is and it’s like backwards Oklahoma and you’re driving along and it’s like I mean it’s backwards Oklahoma which is like backwards Arkansas which is probably like backwards Appalachia except Clatter. And you’re you’re driving along and all of a sudden you’re like oh those trees over there look different from those trees over on that side. And you turn the corner and it’s like there’s the gates of the monastery and you’re like interesting. And you drive down like two miles of road it’s like winding along this ridge and it goes down and like goes over Clear Creek and it comes up and you start winding up the hill and you can’t even see the monastery. And there’s like like oh well there’s the vegetable garden there’s the vineyard and that’s where they grow the wheat for the for their bread and like and and you can just feel it. It’s like moving towards something. I mean this is like the second time I’d ever been to Mass while there was the Feast of Christ the King at Clear Creek I leave Clear Creek Abbey. And again right so it’s a big church but it’s a monastic church and so like when the people come in there’s all the pews way in the back and then there’s like all the monks and then like way at the end of a football field it feels like there’s a high altar. And they’re still in the process of constructing it so it’s very like they don’t it’s sort of in a Romanesque style you know it’s not high Gothic or anything and and so I had no exposure to the Latin Mass at all they’re not helping me out I can’t even hear anything that’s going on because you know the Abbot’s way at the front I can’t even see him there’s like three guys roll six foot two standing in front of me. But when when the consecration happened you have the priest and he holds up the consecrated host and the bells in the bell tower start ringing. And it just goes so they ring the bell like they do for the consecration and the bell towers ring and you’re like oh hold on a minute what’s going on here? And then there because it’s the solemn high mass you know all of the priests the others were serving at the altar to all the monks they’re all exchanging the kiss of peace and like flows out from the high altar and then they give the host of the they give communion to the brothers there and then all the laity come up and receive it and you’re like you see it right? Because it’s like you have the woods and then you have the pastors and then you have the vineyard and then you have the mown grass and then you have the church and then you have all of that and you have the sanctuary and the high altar and then you have the paten and then the host right? And it’s like the whole thing has become this giant like geographically instantiated focal point on the incarnate Christ and then bam and it just flows out in sound and imagery and all of these things and you just see it and it’s like that’s where life comes from and it flows out and then all the people leave the church and the god of the world and you’re like there’s like the logos indwelling the world right now. So I get it man. It’s pretty wild. It’s like you’re like that’s different from over here. And I was back there about two weeks ago and I was telling the guys I was like this feels like Lothlorien like the air feels different when you’re just like out in the grass. Yes. You’re just like there and the sun shines overhead and airplanes will fly over it’s not like M.I. Shyamalan’s The Village or something like you’re still in the world but also like I don’t know. You’re not constrained by materiality and it’s that gong noise that music right? It brings it all together and that resonance. So it’s kind of like would you have would you rather have the freedom to be a small relatively limited power in the world whenever you want right? Or would you rather have a bell ring in your village so you can get together with others and do stuff that you’ll never be capable of doing on your own. And that’s very much the recent sort of problem that we have in the times in which we live and which times in which we’ve been living you know since the say the 60s onward right? Is this struggle between do you really want to be this independent I can engage when I want but I’m always going to be limited like I’m always going to be limited by me or would you rather get together because there’s a bell and that tells you when to get together and then you all gather together and now the amount of we’ll say global time energy and attention for your village for your community is actually way past what you can I mean it’s way past anything you can even imagine at that point and that and that reflects outwards and around everything all over the place right? I think that’s true I’ve always thought that’s true in fact I always took it as a foregone conclusion and couldn’t figure out why everybody else didn’t. For Dumbark. We are I guess I know I’m dumb I mean I’m assuming the rest of you are like me at least in that That’s kind of like the baseline assumption you have to make Well that’s why that’s why on my live streams I tell people you’re a muppet I’m a muppet we’re all muppets like yeah like we all have more flaws than we can realize on our own which is why we need other people to help us realize our flaws and also we should be grateful that we’re not all dead like you know pretty much every day and you know the one thing it’s odd the one thing that’s been really reminding me of this because I had to do this thing I had to go to this place called Outside I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it it’s very scary but I had to go outside today and I it’s such a beautiful day today it was like mid 70s into the mid 80s depending upon where you were and I had to drive so I got the convertible the top is down and like reliably the car is joy like just this car for whatever reason is just reliably joy to me you know even when it’s raining out and we’re driving into the city to some new place and you know and I get sick on the way and have to stop like 10 or 5 minutes from our destination right and it’s miserable when we get out of the car it’s still joyful to drive and it’s even more joyful when you’re you know when you’re out in the sun on your nice bald head right enjoying the wind and you know driving on the highway and just cruising and you know doing whatever it’s reliably joyful for me I’m a little bit afraid to get rid of the car now it’s like no it’s enchanted I must keep it forever it’s like no Don’t be possessed Mark go out the car possession It’s a struggle It is a BMW 280i convertible I mean I did not intend to buy a BMW I only intended to buy a convertible and while I was where I was before I got back home I looked up in Car and Driver and it basically said for the money I was willing to spend I really wanted an Audi A5 convertible but they’re like 60 grand so if you want a 20,000 convertible that will break the according to Car and Driver the 280i is the way to go and I didn’t think her it is part of the magic is probably also living in the south where you know you don’t have ice you don’t have big piles of snow I look you can put the top down I had convertibles in New England I got hooked on them early you know like people talk about drugs it’s like no convertibles you mean cocaine and heroin I’m just saying Mark I wouldn’t drive your car in Fargo not in the winter summer would be fine I had a hard time seeing over the snow banks of my little SUV I would drive my convertibles in 30 degree weather I just have coats on and I would put the top down and go for it I did not care I also had a higher tolerance for cold back then but yeah I mean the thing that makes the real part of the real difference is the traffic because I found out the reason why I stopped liking driving in New England was because the traffic had all changed once I got down here and the thing they call traffic is so laughably not traffic I was like oh I love to drive it’s fantastic yeah no that convertible that’s the place where it all comes together for you yeah all just resonates with the engine that goes vroom vroom the quiet engine that you can’t even feel it eight eight speed automatic you can’t even feel it shift it’s amazing you’re heavenly chariot I’m all in yes can confirm amazing but it is that ability to interface with quality and the thing that kills the ability to interface with quality is the dualism it is that oh you know we must have opponents in our head must be a battle between the ego and the aid and the self and that just kills quality because it’s a fight it’s a war and that’s not we aren’t warring with ourselves internally all the battles we have are with the external forces that are pulling us to darkness and all we have to do is free ourselves from that and the light it’s already there the sun rises every morning in the east you don’t do anything you just have to appreciate it you just have to notice right it’s just attention well you know that’s interesting Mark this is something else I’ve been digging about for a while so I was talking with another friend of mine and I was he was talking about he’d done this assessment thing it was like spiritual pathways assessment which he thought was pretty funny but it was like we’re kind of talking about sort of like the meta level of it and it was like these things that make you feel closer to God and we’re kind of trying to analyze like what does it mean to of what value is feel closer is that what we’re doing and a very related thing to that was thinking about okay so one of those the reason it’s connected one of those is like is nature as a way to connect with God and I it’s very easy easy I have the tendency to have what’s a strong emotional experience is when I’m out in the natural world like it’s very easy to be super engaged and like connected with it and like on all sorts of levels you know intellectual intellectual and and emotional and spiritual on all those levels so that’s I can really like people which is interesting anyway we can leave that aside but I was thinking about that and so it opens you up to just how much glory there is in the world and so you know an easy example is like trees in the fall or my friend was another friend was showing a friend was showing me some pictures from in the Rockies and you know they’re out hiking and there’s this granite crag that like comes down to this roaring stream and there’s you know moss and beautiful young pear trees on it looks like a bonsai garden comes to life there’s just this like degree of of glory to that rock with those trees there and I looked at it and I thought you know okay if I could really appreciate that it should make me happy for my entire life like there’s enough joy there’s enough beauty in there that I could just feed on I should be able to feed on that for my whole life likewise like that memory that I have of last fall of that one particular oak tree just like radiant you know and on and on and on you know my son’s face any of these things and I think about that and then I think about the fact that and that that’s really tough and I think like one of the reasons I love like Walker Percy is I feel like he’s just willing to like smash that head on and and it’s related I think it’s related to reciprocal neighborhood I’m not sure I don’t know but like related to that you know I go into work heavy equipment I’ve been doing more stuff like in residential areas with heavy equipment operation and so I’m like in these places where they’ve got like three quarter of a million dollar houses on like an immaculate two acres and like I mean it’s just like a chateau and they’re like and now we’re putting in the three story pool house and you’re like okay but you’re not like radiantly transcendent happy all the time and it’s a different thing that’s like possession but like there’s a this is what I’m saying is like there’s like this thing is like I can’t I can open myself up to the outside world in that way and just be like deeply profoundly appreciative and moved and then as Walker Percy says basically like how do you get through three in the afternoon four in the afternoon on Thursday it’s like there’s this like it’s or it’s TS Eliot’s you know man cannot bear too much reality like I go out and I have these like I can have these you know ecstatic experiences out in nature and just be like overwhelmed by the beauty and the unity and the goodness of it and then I get worn out. Right but that is the thing you can’t you can’t stay there you can’t stay in any places because life is moving. That’s a huge problem. No it’s not a problem. It’s a pattern. It’s a perennial pattern. You can’t stay anywhere because then you’re not alive anymore. So you have to keep in that and that stuff isn’t there. Right like the radiant oak tree doesn’t look the same at midnight. Like it’s not still there and you know that. Yeah well so here’s the question then because because in that you say there’s you know there’s like there’s movement and I just wonder where is that movement necessary because like I can look at the world and I can see there’s all sorts of movement and I think we’ve talked a little bit about like the distinction between novelty and variety right that to we pursue novelty because we can’t appreciate variety and that variety is baked into lived experience like you grow and you meet different people and the seasons change and things get bigger and smaller and so on and so forth and there’s the day night cycle moving in the stars and all this there’s definitely variety but but I’m just wondering but I guess there’s a part of me that doesn’t accept that like that that that place of existing in a state of of whatever that is that has to be one of those things that moves that’s the thing that’s weird because I would also say that almost everyone in the world believes that you could get there and stay there and they live their entire life based on that and so that I think was that just like a profoundly maladaptive is everyone completely mistaken about that No that’s idolatry that’s when you think there’s a goal or an end state right but the bottom line is it’s not it’s not it’s not novelty variety it’s novelty nostalgia variety and variety it’s so funny I actually I did a video on this and it didn’t record but I did one for my personal channel where I was going to talk about variety, variety is variance that’s what it is technically reduces to variance so you need all three of those aspects you need a newness aspect the novelty right you need the nostalgia aspect things you know that’s contrast and then you need variety for the moving contrast between those two things right and I think a lot of cultural collapse is just we have too many extremes right the extremes are way further than they’ve ever been before right and so the amount of variation in the world has increased and what that does is it drowns out order and so there’s more noise than signal in other words the signals that we have it’s not that the ordered signals aren’t there it’s that we’re not paying attention to them anymore and that’s why that’s why you’re convincing me to have all these questions I’m going to cover attention on Friday’s live stream because now it’s really coming up a lot it came up in a couple of other contexts already since Friday so which is crazy but these things are always crazy crazy yeah it is crazy you mean providential then yes yeah yeah yes right but it’s all about contrast we need contrast to see and contrast isn’t black and white it’s not that simple if you do photography or anything you realize pretty quickly oh you know it’s not the total amount of light it’s actually the difference in light from different angles right and you know I mean I can demonstrate that it’s not the total amount of light because I can increase the total amount of light all day long right now and that doesn’t work right it’s the contrast between the three lights because I got one above me right and that’s what changes the colors so it’s a multivariate equation and people don’t like that they want a scientific materialist linear discrete answer A to B here’s the algorithm relationship in terms of what’s the goodness is you’re talking about like variance, novelty and variance, novelty and what’s the last one we were talking about variance, novelty and variation no and nostalgia there we go great but there’s some like it’s not just those three things it’s like something that’s it’s not just those three things it’s like some particular pattern of those three things that feeds you right and so there’s a sort of like I don’t want to say thing above that it’s the intelligibility well but you can have things that meet all those criteria like say numerical patterns that are not life giving right so it’s intelligible it’s god variety and it’s got and there’s a little bit of like a interesting they don’t they don’t move they don’t have life because they don’t move okay but you’re even in that like I don’t know I’m just this is just interesting to me because I think well you have to get at some reason the thing is you have to get at some reason why that doesn’t why that doesn’t work long term like you would recognize there being like dysfunction in someone right so they could have some sort of pattern of like they’re happy sometimes like the drug user and then they crash and like there’s something wrong with that right there’s like something past just like and so time it’s right it’s something past it right when you add time that’s the contrast of the pattern and then the pattern becomes clear is it an up and down pattern or is it a reciprocally opening pattern or because drugs are a reciprocally narrowing pattern of addiction that’s what they are they aren’t anything else they can’t manifest anything else right ultimately now you can use drugs very wisely very carefully but only certain ones right to to be you know to be in an in an enhanced state and that’s okay to some extent although I would say cocaine is you know never okay it’s too strong heroin is too strong right there are certain ones that are too strong in the same way that you know if you engage with psychedelics the odds that you’ll become a schizophrenic are high the number one cause of schizophrenia is drug use psychedelic drug use they always leave that out somehow when they’re talking about drugs I don’t know why so it is that contrast with time so yeah you can set a time limit like this is the scientific method this is explicitly science has to set a time limit otherwise everything is rusting all the time right rust is inevitable sure but how do we define rust we take a time frame we take a material type then we then we the variance is humidity or something usually right and that’s all you need right and then you can define rust but you need all of those variables locked down locked down why because if you continue it through time none of science works because everything goes to dust I’m pretty sure that’s in that famous book you guys keep reading and telling me about but yeah it’s all there coffee is good though right no Sally knows what I’m going to say to that this is her trolling at this point but it helps her do stuff is it doing stuff good this is Sally this is that’s like that’s all of Sally right there like that’s her whole ethos she’s so narrowed in on doing stuff and coffee it’s like and then she’ll probably talk about lists you need the coffee to make the list to do the stuff doing stuff is good that’s her whole that’s like that’s all of it if you wanted to make Sally an algorithm that’s the algorithm for Sally now obviously I’m being absurd right but yeah you can’t you can’t use the Sally algorithm and get another Sally it’s not going to work doing the right thing at the right time is good bubble this instant coffee oh you we need to put a fund together to get some decent coffee everything excommunicated you know what’s funny is speaking of nostalgia I have mad nostalgia for instant coffee from what I’m in South America you think like coffee beans is going to be great and then everywhere like coffee and then you like the weird thing is obituate and stuff like that you’re like oh I love this this is my thing I drink like bad diner coffee I’m like oh yes like there is something there’s something about bad diner coffee with a lot of creamer in it or something where you like this is somehow it’s fitting it’s fitting that the situation raises the coffee to a new level to a level it transcends itself like it’s a bad cup of coffee but it’s high contrast it’s high contrasting all the rest of the experience that’s excellent that’s what it is and that contrast item helps to remind you because it’s the most salient thing is that is actually the negative case like evolutionarily that’s why what’s so funny mark is that I can have crappy coffee somewhere in the situation not like that and the memory of the bad coffee right yeah you right you remember that you remember the contrasting memory yeah that’s absolutely how memory works yeah that’s the whole thing yeah it’s so funny right because you you develop an appreciation not only for the nostalgia but for the fact that you know that’s still available to you to engage in speaking of engaging in things how you doing Bruce hey how’s it going doing alright better for your asking we’re solving everything here as we do every Sunday night oh excellent such a great use of the Sabbath but I don’t know if you’re going to like this but we solved the reality problem with the traditional Latin mass oh the TLM yes the old TLM oh that’s great what’s that well basically if you go to an abbey in the middle of Oklahoma and you have eyes to see then you’ll notice that beautiful churches are just reality concentrated and then you go out into the world and you can actually see reality properly yes that was a really bad summary I’m sorry about that so beautiful churches are reality so all of reality concentrated into one locale yeah and then you can go out there and see the bits floating around but because you saw the miniaturized versions the bigger bits that make sense well they’re not just miniaturized they’re contrasted like when you go to a Greek Orthodox church and you look around everything is bright lines yeah no disagreement there there’s a significant aesthetic that people experience and enjoy in many of these institutions that includes Catholicism, TLM Greek, Antiochian etc. in fact I’d argue there are aesthetics that exist in churches that meet only outdoors in the woods yeah but I don’t I don’t find them entirely useful because the thing that makes church worthy of attendance is that it can be experienced by even the blind deaf dumb mutant smellless man I mean without that you don’t have the contrast so you couldn’t see the church at all oh I would disagree inducing it for the lower level of the flattening in my opinion well if flattening as it is it’s not I don’t have a problem with flattening something as far as ultimate you’re reducing it to the minimum possible level which is useful as far as application goes yeah that’s where we as you know that’s where we disagree on all points like every time we get to a point where you do that I go nope that’s all I’m into I disagree efficiently that’s true yeah but that is an interesting observation though I think that you have this concentrated reality in such an institution or a building someone I actually saw someone post an interesting in this slack group with a bunch of orthodox folks they said that art or architecture or art is music frozen in time which I thought was an excellent example of that sort of idea because they posted a picture of I want to say it was Notre Dame but if it wasn’t Notre Dame it was a very similar cathedral and so they had this sort of the spires right and all the angles are very distinctly carved but you have a giant building with those distinctions and so they kind of compared it to a masterpiece symphony with harmony right so you have the broad symphony but you have the interplay of the harmony which I thought was interesting that’s an excellent way of putting it yeah yeah it was that’s the architecture student yeah well and it is like and this is you know and again that to me would be a reduction right where you’re making an equivalent which is a good one right but it’s an analogy right there’s an aspect to music because it’s not frozen in time that can’t be captured in the building right and at the same time doing that makes the music sound better acoustically if it’s done properly right so it’s like oh that’s weird and you can look at that again and go well that’s paradox and I would say no if you think that’s a paradox you’re forgetting how time exists and that movement matters like in fact that’s the only thing that this is one of the cases you could make the axiomatic statement that being is good right and it’s why the Gnostics use emergence as good as their core axiom and not being as good right because they see that conflict that challenge that quote paradox that isn’t a paradox and they say ha things that move are good it’s like uh no because that’s not the same as being and being is enchanted whereas movement is not necessarily enchanted Alrighty uh Bruce you want to take a question? Uh oh sure yeah I don’t shy away from questions How does the blind mute deaf person come to Jesus without reading the Bible according to Bruce? This is the Tommy problem you know cause Tommy doesn’t know what day it is he doesn’t know who Jesus was or what praying is How can he be saved? There are two answers to this There are two answers to this The one answer is it doesn’t matter because God is in control and if he decides that certain people are destined to not be saved because they’re deaf as a part of the fall then that is his decree The other answer is when one is when one’s heart is quickened they experience a significant change with whatever senses they possess Both of them require God to act When the heart is quickened? It’s a Baptist thing don’t worry about it Oh okay When one is born again When one is born again Well there’s a third which is um the decree is already laid and therefore their coming to Jesus will happen in some time How does one become born again? Baptism Baptism You can incorporate it into Christ being a baptism Can’t you just Can’t you just tell Jesus you’re a sinner and ask him to save your soul when you’re in How do you do that if you’re deaf? True conviction It’s baptism of the heart and circumcision of the heart not externally Therefore Gentlemen I have a very early morning As much as I love these old Southern Baptist waters that I’ve treaded many years y’all have a great week Thanks for hopping on Delightful as always I’m the Southern Baptist I’m not though but okay Was it reformed Baptist? Yeah So there are some reformed Baptist in the Southern Baptist Convention Most Southern Baptist today I would probably not share much at all with So there’s that Okay Except from the outside where you share almost everything I love how we don’t share it It’s like yeah it’s all 99.9% the same and you’re just arguing over 0.1% theology discussion Entirely foolishness to the world I agree with you there So from the outside that may be true But from the outside in many cases Father Eric and I look the same to many With very small distinctions I should hope so Otherwise there’s something very wrong with this thing that we’ve labeled Christianity Still my point Well I mean to be fair the Catholics and I have a very similar tradition As far as the Genesis of it goes in the West Why don’t you expound on that because I’m curious now For instance our For instance our doctrinal statements Right? Catechisms Very specific Confessional theology Very specific Western Western based Christianity It’s very similar You know in fact You know there were people Making the same distinctions that Reformers were making in the 1300s That still considered themselves Catholic And because we held so many of the same Tenants Largely So the traditions were shared And actually I think many of them Remain There just was a massive Reforming of those things that Were distinctions As one does Sure yeah When you’re talking about like Today’s Modern Big Eva or The polar opposite Russian Orthodox You and I would be much more Closely aligned than I to those two Sure yeah Modern Big Eva has an easy Believism aspect that I don’t Believe in And I know Catholicism doesn’t And Eastern Orthodoxy Russian Orthodoxy has a very Mysterious Uncodified set of Traditions that they hold to And we and I wouldn’t agree with that either So that’s where we share a lot Yeah yeah I guess I Am quite a bit More codified than The Russians I don’t know I actually Look at a lot of the Orthodox Traditions and I look at the Respect they have for their traditions And I’m like oh we gotta get back To that cause Cause all of this stuff we’ve been doing Since the 70s where we’re just kind of making Stuff up it’s very clearly Not working Yeah Yeah yeah I This is where we depart That’s what I was gonna think I have the traditions you know in Colossians Paul discusses the traditions of men And I’m not too I don’t think the Bible ever Speaks too kindly of the traditions of men so Then we’d have to state whether or not these are Traditions of men or are they divine Yeah yeah But I do want to come up with a criterion For distinguishing between the traditions Of men and divine institutions And golly that sounds like an Awful lot of work right there I would say One thing that’s true is There is a massive search for ancient Roots you ever read that book? The Bible? The massive search for ancient Roots? It’s called the search For ancient roots it’s a book No that was probably just my Early 20s Oh No it’s Good I like it Examine sort of a I’m gonna say this A search for Identification with something That has been lost in Much of the modern traditions Right As it were Yeah I mean I don’t know I can’t comment on other people My basic experience was Was that the closer I got To the more Ancient form of worship The happier I got And the more satisfied I was with it Um Nostalgia is a very powerful emotion But I don’t know how I could be Nostalgic for something I’ve never actually experienced Right well it’s not nostalgia In that you’re um Well my argument is that It’s not experienced nostalgia Because you once experienced it It’s the archetype that you’re grasping toward Then it’s not It’s not nostalgic in that case It’s similar it’s not entirely the same No it’s not it’s something Entirely different it’s like a Reverence for that which has always worked And why wouldn’t you Yeah it hasn’t always worked though Because if that were true we wouldn’t be in the position we’re in today No that’s not true If you move away from that which has always Worked that’s how you get in the position we’re in today And that’s clear from Vatican II For example it’s clear Like there’s a number of things you can point to It depends on where you draw the line of today We’re just bored and we’re looking for novelty And then we over extend on the novelty And the next thing you know chaos I don’t think that you have Well okay the question I guess would be Where are we drawing the line As far as what is old What is tradition and how it makes you feel And also like as far as I’m concerned The heart is entirely deceitful So what makes me feel good is no bearing on Any truths or things I should Or should not be doing In fact if it feels good It doesn’t necessarily give me a truth Claim That’s fine but now you’ve removed all ability to rationalize Which is also fine because I think rationality Sucks but In a sense I agree with you in a sense I do agree with you in a certain sense But then you’ve created problems that you can’t ever resolve So I would be a no On the creating problems that can’t be resolved Right I think I’m creating them I think I’m discovering the unresolvable I’m not creating them No no I think that The mistake that people make Is they say oh well there are these Old patterns that make We’ll pick on Father Eric because it’s his dream And he kicked me off if he doesn’t like it You know you can say well this makes Me feel good right but the mistake He doesn’t make is say therefore everybody Should do this Right whereas you could say Look there are older Practices and there are a number of them And we can pick some arbitrary cutoff Point right like say where The church received from society Or where church attendance went down and I would Argue this happened around the same time Right and I would say okay so we’ll just say Vatican II right and we don’t have to blame The paperwork in Vatican II We can blame the implementation Right and we could say things That came before that Are useful and then all Of them because there’s a bunch of conflicts There right over time in the church Is this change and that change But they’re all on the table And anything later Than Vatican II should not Supplant any of them That’s perfectly valid because then You’re not universalized and I would argue That Father Eric would almost certainly Not make that mistake and that’s because he Was you know at my house for a week And we had lots of discussions and I’m fairly Sure he understands the Problem of universalization And then when we propositionalize Things and talk about them we Have to abstract them into a universal There’s no choice in language you don’t get The option and then that that’s when we Fall into idolatry fall Into this dogmatic thinking fall into This universalization Right because we can’t be careful Enough but I don’t think that’s Fair I think that the traditional Things that resonate with you resonate With you for a reason that doesn’t Mean they have to be universal for everybody But the fact that they’re old and have survived Has value that would be Anasim Taleb’s Lindy effect Read all of Anasim Taleb’s books they’re wonderful Right and so there’s a there There for sure which also Doesn’t close the door on new things but Like let’s first venerate The old things before we throw Them out That’s good to me Andrew’s on board Bruce’s in deep five Oh I was waiting for Father Eric to respond I didn’t want to Well yeah Yeah I I appreciate you blaming the implementation And not the paperwork because Sacrosoctum Contrilium is a very conservative Document with the exception of one Sentence which I would strike From the record if I had the ability but I’m not an ecumenical council so I can’t Do that Yeah and then yeah I don’t want to go forcing massive Changes on the entire church we did That once in 1970 and it was A disaster so like Let’s try the whole welcoming People into something rather Than Smacking it into them Let’s build people that can be welcomed Into something first see our Video Right and then And then they’ll come flooding You won’t have to do any more work But you do have to do the work of building The community so people can submit And then submit to something higher Yeah I’ve definitely taken a different Approach on the entirety of the things And state that these large distinctions That are separating the wheat from the Chaff and the sheep from the goats is a good Thing and so in other words if we have A number of goats coming into churches Or churches failing and dying because They were merely goats that’s great Because the faithful churches of sheep Will shine and be a fragrant pleasant Aroma when the world is burning With all of the goats that are upset that Their church no longer exists and so There’s a place where out of Darkness comes light and the sheep Are a pleasant Aroma that people will Flock to That only works in Protestantism though It doesn’t work in Orthodoxy and Catholicism It doesn’t have to It doesn’t have to work today Or yesterday for them I don’t see a pessimistic end To all things In fact I see the opposite Many people think things have gotten worse For some measure since the fall I actually disagree I think that we’ve had massive Massive Improvements Among many times And there are some periods of difficulty But improvement Nonetheless Let me see if I can sort out all of the book of Revelation stuff Is that pre-millennialism? That’s post Post-millennialism All I know is that I’m not even getting into that Particular But that would be post Post-millennialism That’s very inside Baseball for Mark Yeah That wasn’t for Mark, that was for me That’s great I love it I think you’re great Father Eric I think I’ve got my Reformed Baptist Convictions wrong if you can You know if I If I wasn’t expecting to To meet people That I wouldn’t put The StreamYard link out on YouTube That’s an excellent point Yes, I agree Yeah, same way Totally agree That’s why my doors always open at my lounge And there are people that come in all the time And it’s fun We need more Catholics though Not many of them come out Some version to cigars it seems, I don’t know You’re in Maryland How can there not be Catholics in Maryland I know, you would think that there were But where I am is actually Methodist land There’s so many more Methodists than even Catholics No, I know exactly where you are There are no Catholics there I think I can throw a dart and hit Two? Within I don’t know, 60,000 people or something Maybe three? Not many It’s kind of a strange Situation here Although there is a Very big For our area Catholic private school That people love It was one of the Safe havens for From public school for a while Before many others came And many people still go In fact, most people that I’ve met That go to St. Peter and Paul Which is the name of it Are not church attenders There’s some requirement for The children to be involved in some version Of mass at some point But there’s no requirement For the parents or anything like that Isn’t that weird That these Catholic schools Were so well known For their education such that People who weren’t Catholics Were interested enough And willing to submit their children To potential Catholic doctrine Just to get the good education Isn’t it weird that they tried to separate those things And it turns out that you can’t Yeah, I mean, well the entirety of the institutions In the United States were higher learning Especially in college were created by Christian institutions You know Christians period And you referred to Yale You know, from across the pond It’s almost as though all the ordering In the universe was either created by Caesar or a god or something Weird I wonder if only somebody had written That down somewhere in a book a couple thousand years ago And we listened to it Maybe we’d be better off No disagreement there Yeah, there’s something about I don’t know, there’s something about worshipping God That makes everything line up properly Well, I would, yeah I do agree with that Are you, Eric, where, Father Eric Where are you again? North Dakota Oh, okay, okay Yeah, so spring hasn’t really shown up here yet There’s still piles of snow, it’s pretty disgusting I never made it up there, only through south I didn’t make it to north across You know, do you love South Dakota but hate The Black Hills And Mount Rushmore Then come to North Dakota Funny enough, I did not stop At Mount Rushmore the two times I went through Actually, I know it seems silly But I didn’t I can’t see it, I got my roses out There’s not enough contrast, Mark I can’t see without contrast Yeah, I got the roses out They’re blue all over Are you from the small town of North Dakota Like most of North Dakota I’m in Fargo Which is the biggest town Which isn’t really that big in the grand scheme of things Big for North Dakota Big for North Dakota, yeah When we fill the Fargo Dome up it becomes the sixth largest city in North Dakota The claim to fame of that place is the movie, right That’s about it Yep, yep I’ve managed to go a full four months without putting anybody in a wood chipper So I’m feeling pretty good about myself It seems like progress That’s what we call killing sin You know, I’ve never even watched it Well, you’re not missing out too much You’ve heard enough Yeah, yeah It’s very worldly Yeah How long have you been in the priesthood Since 2020 Oh wow, so relatively recent I got a COVID ordination What does that mean It means that the cathedral was only like half full Same requirements of course I’m sure As everyone else, just faster Yeah I don’t think the ceremony would have taken significantly shorter Okay Just, yeah I don’t think the ceremony would have taken significantly shorter Okay Just, yeah And that was in North Dakota? Yeah, it was in North Dakota Oh, okay I mean, you know, North Dakota was less bad in their COVID response So we were able to do You know, like first off, the government never shut any churches down I don’t think So that’s two thumbs up for Governor Burgum there Nice And you know, they would give us recommendations And those sorts of things and so Guidelines, yeah Yeah, so there was a few Well, they weren’t even like major changes to the ceremony, just like options we didn’t take But I became a priest and I’ll survive, so How have How have your superiors felt about the internet presence They are unaware We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it I mean, like, I don’t know Sometimes I get a dozen people watching this stream No, that’s fair I mean, hey Cross that bridge when you get there, it is a tool though Yeah, yeah, and You know If the bishop tells me to stop, I’ll just stop Go to bed early on Sundays I won’t be happy about it, but So you host the livestream post-mass every Sunday? Yeah, it would be earlier if we didn’t have a 6pm mass Okay, so you have evening Evening and morning And Saturday? So Sundays we have four 7.30, 9, 11 And 6pm That’s impressive for Fargo, wow Or do you just hold them even if no one shows That’s standard for you Well, sometimes I’ve never had a scheduled mass That nobody showed up for On a weekday mass During a massive blizzard, I have one guy show up And my boss was like, should we have mass? Should we cancel? Like, I’ll put on my snow pants and trudge over there, somebody’s gonna show up And somebody did, so we had mass, just the two of us But we get pretty good attendance It drops down in the summer because everybody goes to their lakes in the summer Yeah, that’s pretty That’s pretty solid for many churches Yeah So the homily must be very interesting on one person Sort of a conversation I didn’t preach that day I’m just like, Larry, you’re gonna be just fine You came here, there’s no storm So we got the Eucharist We got the prayers, we got a couple of songs The order of the mass Goes through, and He’s good For daily masses, we usually don’t do music We do low masses Okay We’re not like the Orthodox, we invented a low mass, where you didn’t have to chant absolutely everything Yeah, you don’t say theotokos 32 times a minute like they do Or anathema 700 times, whatever it is But he still does He still does mass He says mass and holds a mass on vacation, which is just weird By himself even, he doesn’t need attendees Oh, I see I did attend in my living room It’s quite nice My cousin hates me now, but that’s okay Must have made for an interesting experience with all the incense in your home Look, the amount of incense that he used was A, nothing compared to what I would use if I were buying incense again But B, absolutely nothing compared to the Orthodox Church, man, those guys are like They’ve got like, I don’t know what it is It’s like an incense flamethrower and they just brrrr, and they’re just like can’t see anything They go nuts with that stuff I can answer Lyn’s question for Father Eric and the answer is no, right? The answer is no Unless you’re an Orthodox Christian member of the Assyrian Church of the East, or the Polish National Catholic Church We would give them communion but their bishops tell them not to take communion from us So, and I urge you to respect the authority of the people that you’ve placed yourself under Your shepherds tell you, yeah It would raise the question as to why one would decide to take it if they’re if they’re shepherd or bishops or spiritual fathers I told them not to Yeah, well That is the ultimate question Yes, anybody can pray the Rosary Anybody can pray the Rosary It’s just a whole communion thing, we got the guardrails around that, but stations of the cross the Rosary Divine Mercy Chaplets processions, anybody can join into those We fenced the table too I think you should I don’t get this whole open table thing I went to the Thunderbush I went to the Thunder Bay Conference and so I went to Catholic Church first Well, I can make a case for it for open table I’d never been to a Eucharistic Protestant liturgy before Eucharistic Protestant? That’s interesting Protestant with the communion Oh, I see, Protestant with the ordinances Yeah, the Lord’s Supper, I gotcha I’d been to a Protestant wedding and that was fine It was like a Missouri Synod Lutheran, and so I kind of felt at home, the guy was dressed up properly Lutherans are very somewhat similar feeling But then when they served communion in plastic dishes I was like, oh you couldn’t pay me to take that Yeah, I hold the memorial version of the Supper like Zwingli, right but I also have a For me, it’s more of a Let’s put our best foot forward when we do things and that doesn’t feel like our best foot forward sometimes I’m a big fan of having things well prepared when you do things, but when it’s memorial that’s where they are So if it’s memorial they have Have you seen those the COVID sort of things that people started doing, which was this very weird It’s a cup with two layers and pieces of plastic I think that’s what they were doing Oh, was it that? Okay. Yeah, it’s really strange No, no, no, no, there was these little shot glasses Oh Plastic shot glasses Okay Well, some Protestants have glass ones Well I’ve even been a part of Methodist services where they have the chalice and they just dip as opposed to drink like the Catholics would In a couple of different Methodist churches I’ve been to they have a giant wonderful loaf of bread that’s baked, it’s very Amish style and you pull a huge chunk off or a small one and that’s actually kind of a funny bit, but anyway what size do you grab So you grab it a piece and you dip it into the chalice and everyone uses the same chalice and then you just have That’s called intinction There’s a name for it It is an option in the Catholic world Yeah, I’ve seen that somewhere else too, that makes sense now But then if people actually want to receive intinction they have to receive on the tongue which would be super easy to implement if we hadn’t gone through 1970 because everybody would be receiving on the tongue anyway Yeah, I have no problem with doing in fairness I kind of would like everyone to just drink out of the cup Why not? I mean But also I feel as though we need a feast after every communion as well That’s my biblical conviction And when we do it at our church that’s what we do So every day that we have communion, which is in this case monthly, not daily or weekly rather, it incorporates a giant meal as a part of the post-church service So I think that’s the proper ordinance But, you know What about coffee and donuts? Would that get you there? Oh, you mean as far as like could we use coffee and donuts for the Eucharist? No, no, no, no, no, after the Eucharist you just did coffee and donuts for your meal I would not imagine that you would be at coffee and donuts for communion kind of guy I don’t want to signal that kind of disrespect I actually Well, if you talk about that I don’t No, I mean I think ideally it’s a real big meal, like a seder would be You do however you can do it with the resources you have which is usually some sort of potluck But if you’re going to do it, share a meal That’s how I see it This sort of like version of the meal that we’ve instituted from church tradition I think is is less than ideal but convenient and that convenience tends to win in many of the early church history if you read some of that That’s how I see it I would rather people eat a massive meal together and not just dip in a shot glass and a little bit of cracker Yeah On our big liturgies we can usually get a good banquet going We still had the ordination lunch when I was ordained in the basement That just felt right I totally agree Lynn is asking Do Catholics do fush washing on Holy Thursday? We wash 12 people’s feet in an optional right after the homily That is something that we do practice most places once a year Okay Yeah, that’s interesting It’s optional I agree with Jordan Memorial and not Jesus as King, yes and amen We can all get behind that All of Christ for all of life Repent Mark There is not one square corner of the earth that Jesus doesn’t cry Mine Lots of presumption there Father Eric I’ll forgive it Careful Well Bruce, it’s been delightful to have you on Yeah, thanks for having me on I wish I were in my lounge I would show you I think you’d like some of the imagery I have a couple of Catholic paintings and crucifixes on the wall It’s an ecumenical lounge Interesting, the ecumenical lounge Well maybe someday I’ll be able to stop by in person You are invited if you’re ever on the East Coast if you want to come No pressure to smoke cigars but if you want to I tried the cigars and I thought they were okay I just didn’t think they were worth the cost I’ll give you one for free No, that’s not the only cost there is Oh, I see the other cost There are other costs I enjoyed it but I didn’t enjoy it enough I’ll have beer or whiskey or something We have a lot of that too, man We have a lot of whiskey here Thanks for having me It’s been good Happy Sunday everybody God bless you all Thank you Bless you as well