https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=0bOXfLd8Pow
So Daniel asked, I spent some time with an atheist friend this week who I had not seen since becoming Orthodox. He was curious about my conversion, but I feel as though we were talking past each other. He kept speaking to me as if I was a fundamentalist. Yeah, that’s gonna happen. I feel as though I didn’t do a good job explaining the Orthodox understanding of God. My friend even went as far as to say that thoughts aren’t real. Whatever. How do you explain this sort of stuff to materialists and people who are so invested in science and empiricism? Yeah, I mean you’ve got a long road ahead of you. I don’t know what to tell you. I mean, I think there are tools right now. And so I think, I mean, obviously that’s what I’m trying to do. So I’m sure you might be able to find toolkits in the things that I talk about, which is, right? And so the idea of science and empiricism, when we talk, when John Dravecki and I talk about something like combinatorial explosion, the problem of multiplicity and unity. And so it’s like if you can bring someone into that space where they’re thinking about that, like the fact that things exist both as, all things exist both as multiples and unities at the same time, that they seem to have parts and have unity together, that I think that if you can start to get them into that space, then at some point they’ll start to understand that they’re, like the saying that thoughts aren’t real is just the dumbest. I mean, it’s such a dumb statement. It’s like, but sorry, I don’t want to insult your friend or anything. But you have to, I think bringing them into that space, like of understanding the necessity of consciousness and all that, it may be a way to kind of approach it. But I know the feeling, man. I know the feeling. And I also know like the kind of contempt or that look in the eye of your atheist friend that thinks you’re some kind of an idiot. And then them not knowing, not understanding what you’re talking about at the same time. I know that feeling. You really got to hold on to that, right? You got to grab on to that and take it as like joy. You really have to, every time some like materialist atheist looks at you and looks at you like you’re a 10 year old and you’re a superstitious idiot. And you know, you just got to smile and you just got to really take it as joy because that’s really the best way to do it or else it’s unbearable. You know? Okay, so explaining it, what do I mean? You have to take it as really as something like, in this case, like with the person like that, you have to take it like I have a secret understanding. Like I have a secret understanding that this person standing in front of me, I have like, it’s like I have this giant treasure, this secret treasure. This person like can’t see it. They can’t see it. And so it’s like, that’s what I mean by you have to find joy in it because especially if you worked it out, especially if you know that these things are like a lot of these questions and discussions are bring about the inevitability of invisible patterns, right? It’s like, you know, so you just got to take that as joy. Like, yeah, I’ve got this beautiful treasure and you can’t see it. I’m sorry, man. Sorry for you, bro. That’s all I could do. you