https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=X0rJ5RrA0Rs
All right. I think this is, yeah, it’s on. All right. So hi, everybody. As you see, I’m once again in a new place. Hopefully this will be the last place that I’m going to be for until I move into our new house. The house where we are here, it was also flooded and but just less so we were able to rent it. It’s in our city. So it’s close by. We’ve gone through a lot of the plans for our for the renovations of our house, as some of you who maybe follow me closely have heard, because we have to go back to our house. We don’t really have a choice to leave. And because we don’t want to put our kids back in the basement, they don’t want to go back in the basement. It was quite a traumatic experience for them to go through this crazy flood and seeing their house in the water and everything. So, yeah, so we’re going to put a second floor on our house that is going to be that’s the plan. I’ve already talked to the bank and luckily I’ve always I’ve always not have a very big mortgage. I’ll be able to borrow. So so, yeah, so that’s what’s happening. And so I guess the house once it’s renovated will be appropriate for our family until till we die. Hopefully I’m trying to get Andrew Gould to do some of the designings. I figured if I’m going to remake my house, I’m going to try to make it at least as beautiful as I can afford to make it. And so maybe Andrew will do some of the drawing for either some of the outside, some of the details or some of the inside. I’m hoping to try to actually include some carving in the in the either some architectural carving or something inside the house. Until now, our house has always been just kind of has been understood as a way a kind of halfway house. We always felt like it was not our home that we were just there. It’s a very small house and it’s kind of plastic. It’s a kind of plastic suburban house. We always felt like we were there waiting for some day to have enough money to move. But but yeah, but life pushed us in a direction where now we have to fix it. So if we’re going to fix it, we’re going to try to make it beautiful. So there that’s some news on that. Just for other news in terms of the the Chicago event, don’t forget, I am going to be in Chicago on Saturday, the 26th. You can find on my website the hour. I think it’s at seven, something like that. Don’t trust me here. It’s at St. John Cancius Catholic Church. I’m going to be talking about sacred art for a sacred arts guild there. I will also be talking the next day on Sunday after the church service at their lunch that they have. It’s going to be a bit more informal talking about, you know, how to include symbolism and kind of the symbolic life in family life. So so that’s going to happen there. I also mentioned that I’m going to be at St. Now, a lot of people have been writing me asking me for details on that, and I kind of spoke too quickly and then I checked with the people organizing the event. The event is only for the seminarians, the seminary that St. Ticans, but also the other seminarians at St. Vlad’s and the other Orthodox seminaries around Holy Cross. And so so what’s going to happen is the priest, Father John, who’s responsible for for a lot of the seminary, he he he saw that some people wanted to come that aren’t from the seminary. And so what we’re going to do is after liturgy on Sunday morning, which is going to be the third of November, I will be doing some I’ll do like a little bit of speaking and take some questions. So if you do want to come to St. Ticans in in Pennsylvania, you can do that. Try to get there, maybe come to liturgy. And then after liturgy, I’ll be doing a little bit of speaking. So yeah, so that’s it for the that’s it for the announcements. Oh, yeah, one last announcement. The the last video I did, I kind of knew that it was going to stir a lot of a lot of stuff. The video about there is only there is no literal meaning. Obviously, I hope some of you understood that I was using a bit of a provocative title and speaking very provocatively. Once again, I want to reiterate that I am not implying that that that everything is just that it’s not referring to events that the Bible isn’t speaking about events. Of course, I believe that it is. Of course, I believe the resurrection is real. And I just wanted to say one thing. I one of the a few of the comments on the YouTube of that video were were very thoughtful. And we’re talking about how it seems like in my last videos, I have been becoming a bit more arrogant and let’s say my my tone is is becoming unpleasant. And and I don’t remember the name of the person who wrote that comment, but I want to thank you because it’s something that I’ve been kind of feeling in myself that hadn’t been totally understood in my mind yet, but I could feel and reading that comment has helped me. Hopefully, I’ll be able to tone it down a bit and and do less, less criticizing of others and more trying to present beauty and truth and the things that excite me, which is the reason why I started making these videos in the first place. So hopefully I will be able to do that. And if I’m not able to do that, guys really call me out in the YouTube comments. I usually try to pay attention to the first few days of the YouTube comments. Usually that’s when I feel like the most engaged people are writing. And then after a few days, then I stop because then all the then a lot of the madness appears on. Now, some of my videos, that propaganda video has like 300, I don’t know, 350,000 views or whatever, 300,000 views. And and now almost all the comments on that video are are horrendous. So anyways, all right. So so I’m going to start with the as usual, what I’m going to do is I’m going to start with the patron questions. Just to remind you guys for people who are giving at the $10 level, I open up the possibility of asking questions in advance. And then after that, I will go to super chats. We have as usual, two moderators, Jacob Russell and Christian Chad, who I trust completely. So don’t don’t annoy them because yeah, you won’t get any sympathy from me if they if they remove your your comments or your super chats, if you write stupid stuff. All right. So here we go. I’m going to start with my website. Okay. All right. So Jimmy D thing says, I’m curious how you feel about Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials series. They’re pretty clearly an inversion of Milton’s Paradise Lost. So it’s on brand for something for you to explain to us who can see there’s something to be seen there that perhaps we have trouble seeing or finding the words to explain to ourselves. The reason I ask is because HBO is about to start airing a new series depicting these books and I have a feeling they’re going to be popular. I have not read the books I know about them. I know a little bit about the story and about the premises. And I mean, I don’t want to speak too much because like I said, I haven’t read them. But for sure, the notion that someone would put out a book that would take Paradise Lost premise and let’s say, invert it or show that in fact, the the Satan character is is right and that the Satan character is is on the right track or that eating the apple is right. That is completely in line with the modern way of thinking. You know that sometimes when I listen to people like when I listen to some of the more explicit Satanists, I realize that they’re pretty smart because they understand that the way that let’s say even someone like Anton LaVey for example, that his Satanism is basically just modern culture. He understands that a lot of modern culture is upside down, is an inversion and is in a certain manner Satanic. You can kind of sympathize. The thing is that we have to always be able to explore thought and not just react with a knee-jerk reaction. We have to be able to understand why someone would view the eating of the fruit in the garden as be sympathetic to that because the question is why is it a problem that we eat that we know good and evil? You know the snake said, this is a big thing. It’s something to think about and I’ve actually seen people that I care about. I’ve seen Jordan Peterson who seemed to suggest that he thinks that eating the fruit in the garden was good. Now the right Christian answer in my opinion is the one which is given by St. Irenaeus and the one which is given by St. Ephraim the Syrian which is that God would have given the fruit to Adam and Eve if only they had obeyed him in humility. That is, if they had understood their place in the hierarchy of being then ultimately God would have given them the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as they are accessing the fruit of the tree of life. But because they did so in arrogance and by elevating themselves, trying to elevate themselves into this hierarchy of being, then seeing the knowledge of good and evil made them fear what they saw above them, made them afraid of actually seeing the glory of God. That’s why they cover themselves. They’re hiding themselves because by seeing the knowledge of good and evil and doing it in this trying to lift yourself up, all of a sudden you’re blinded by the let’s say the glory of that which is above. But what God wanted was for Adam and Eve to to understand where they were and then God was to bring them up towards his glory. That was the purpose of creation in the first place. And in the end, God is going to do that anyways and that’s what the incarnation is. And there’s a kind of a weird joke in the Genesis story which is that the serpent told Adam and Eve, God told Adam and Eve if you eat the fruit you will die. The serpent said if you eat the fruit then you will become like God. And what happened in the end is that both happened. What happened in the end is Christ. And the conclusion of eating the fruit of the tree of good and evil is that he who died with humility, he who accepted death voluntarily was the one who was God. And so it all comes together in the end in the story. Like I keep telling you guys, the biblical story is there’s no limit to where it goes. All right, so that’s too much talking for a book I haven’t read about. But maybe, I mean, if the series is good maybe I’ll watch it and I’ll do some commentary. You might have noticed that I haven’t been doing some movie comments in the last few months. And the reason is very simple is because I’m just tired of the copyright thing. I got a copyright strike for my video on Spirited Away. And as you know on YouTube, if you get three copyright strikes you’re out, your YouTube channel can be deleted. And some controversial YouTube channels have been deleted through the use of copyright. And so I really, I’m very nervous about going in that direction. I’ve also had on every single one of my videos that are doing movie interpretations, I’ve had some kind of copyright problem and I’ve had to protest, to fight it. And then finally most of them were restored. Some of them are still blocked in some parts of the world. But the Spirited Away one was taken down and I got a strike. So I’m not sure that it’s, I’m not totally sure it’s worth it. Unless you guys really rail and tell me that that’s what I should be doing. I feel like, at least for now, a lot of this stuff I’m talking about, talking about stories, talking about this different stuff has been better. Maybe I could make some movie interpretations that would be less video intense and maybe just show some stills from the movies, something like that in order to avoid the copyright problem. But yeah. So I, but I am putting all my stuff up on Bit, on the BitChute and on DTube. So if you want to follow me there, please go ahead and follow me. All right, here we go. So David Flores, I can always, I can always count on David to ask a good question. So let’s see. So why are ancient evil monsters, villains, principalities so much more fearsome and powerful in stories? Is it related to the experience said evil creature or is it something about forgotten knowledge about it? I’m not sure I totally understand your question. Like, are you asking, are you asking, are you asking why they’re more fearsome in stories than let’s say in our, in our experience of them? Like, is that what you mean, David? I’m watching the chat so you need to answer me. All right, so let me try to answer if David’s not going to give me, give me more. As opposed to like new evil. Well, okay, so one of the things, okay, so one of the things that a lot of stories, one of the things that a lot of the stories do is that they condense things into, into an image which is, which is beyond reference to particular time. So for example, like there’s nothing scarier, let’s say in terms of fearsome and powerful, there’s nothing more fearsome or powerful than a, you know, an F-18 fighter that is coming towards your village. There’s absolutely nothing more fearful than a nuclear weapon or a, or a helicopter dropping napalm on some village in the jungle. Like there is nothing in the ancient world that is more terrifying than that. Now, so, so the, so modern monsters are in some manner the equivalent or scarier, freakier than any monster that exists in the ancient times. Now in terms of, in terms of monsters, not in the, not in the sense that I usually talk about it, like just in terms of ambiguity, but monsters in the sense of the big thing that’s going to come and eat you. Now, the reason why in stories we usually will use tropes that are more traditional, like a, you know, a giant beast or a, a, you know, a blood sucking thing or a, a man eating monster. For sure, man eating is one of the, one of the best images that you can get of a monster. Fire breathing, dragon, all this stuff is because it, it connects all the levels together, right? It can still, it can still bring about the image of the modern evil, but it’s not so dependent on contemporary references. And so it’s going to connect to a very, very deep, deep, intuitive understanding of what the monster is, you know, like that beast in the forest, it’s going to eat you. So I think that that’s what, that’s why, let’s say the, the, the, the monsters that in stories look more powerful in terms of the, the fact that they are, they also, one of the things that they do is that they, they’ll usually have a character which is extremely powerful and extremely evil and extremely all of this. And that character has powers that he can, you know, you know, they, in like Voldemort, for example. So Voldemort is, is the person doing the magic. He’s also the scary, freaky character. He’s terrifying all of this now, because when they’re, when a, when a helicopter drops napalm on a village, the person behind that, or if a drone, you know, blows up some, some, you know, some pharmaceutical building in the middle East, you know, the person behind the drone is somewhere in America. And the, the person who’s actually controlling the video game drone is not even the person who’s willing that. The will comes from somewhere else. And so it’s hard to represent that so that everything comes together. But if you want to represent it so that everything comes together, then you have the evil sorcerer who’s doing it himself, right? Who’s standing there and he’s shooting electric, he’s shooting electricity out of his fingers or whatever. But there’s no difference in terms of the, the, the, the, the, insanity, in terms of the devastation that we have the same thing today. We have worse today. The monsters today, the, the big bad monsters today, they can do way more damage than any monster in the history of the world. So, so, you know, you just look at, look at, look at, if you have enough, I don’t know if you guys saw that video that there was showing a drone, which was going through the city of Damascus. It’s like, my goodness, Godzilla went through there, you know, that’s what it looks like. So, all right. Okay. So Pat Shire asks, hello, Jonathan. I’ve, I recently talked with evangelicals, who are running a panel called, are you going to hell? Who panel? Are you going to hell signs on my campus? And they seemed anxious when I said I’m going to the Catholic church, because you’re going to hell there, Pat. There are two lessons for this that I’ve picked up on. One, the faith works issue and two, liturgy Catholic hierarchies. I don’t know much about Luther’s Solafide argument, but as far as liturgy goes, I tried to, I tried to demonstrate that ritual is natural, but they talk about liturgy almost as if it is brainwashing. Little guidance would be greatly appreciated. All right. So PS, I’ve stick back into the Catholic church and it feels like it is moving in an amazing direction. Thank you again for all your wisdom. So, so Pat, I mean, there are some people that won’t be convinced. There’s some people, I mean, there is something to say for throwing pearls, as Christ said. So just be careful not to get into ruts where you start arguing with people that are not going to change their mind. If you’ve noticed that I don’t get into debates or I try not to get into debates online or on social media, it’s because I feel like it’s useless. So try to be attentive to whether or not it’s useful or useless to argue with these people. But I would say that the best thing to do is to point out the rituals that they’re engaged in. So for example, if liturgy is brainwashing, the question would be like, what is singing hymns? Why do you sing hymns? Why does everybody sing hymns at the same time? That could also be seen in the same logic. It could be seen as a form of brainwashing. So one of the things that somehow the disjunction in a lot of people’s thinking is that they say that prayer should always be extemporaneous, that prayer should always be improvised, that even saying the Lord’s Prayer is evil, but then they sing songs that were written in the 16th century. And so the best thing to do is to maybe try to point out some of their own cognitive dissonance. But like I said, just be careful not to get into arguments and not to let yourself go to the arrogance that I myself let myself go to sometimes. So all right, so Kenan Cronin asks, what advice would you give to a Christian who holds personal beliefs that are at odds with the church at large? For example, believing that homosexuality may not be sinful. Would your answer change depending on the church you are part of? Example, Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Baptist, et cetera. So I would say that in terms of that, I mean, if you want me to answer that specific question, I would say that the answer should not change based on the denominations you mentioned. There are denominations which we call liberal denominations or mainline Protestants, you would call them, who have changed the way that the church is teaching on that question. But at least officially, the denominations you mentioned have not changed their thinking on that. And so the question is, what would you do if you hold personal beliefs that are at odds with the church? I would say that the best thing to do is to just walk humbly, step by step, and to not pretend, to not lie to yourself, to not lie to others about what you believe and what you think, but also not to try to change things. That is the biggest problem, is that we all, all of us sometimes will have some thoughts or some thinking that we think, ah, you know, this thing, I’m not so sure about this, I’m not so sure about that. And I think the best thing to do is to just walk slowly and walk slowly and pay attention, listen, try to learn, and try not to use the church as a platform to advance your opinions. But I think that, I think that it’s normal for most people, especially on in terms of secondary questions secondary questions like that. I mean, there’s a difference between doctrinal questions and then moral questions. Not that it isn’t important, it is important, but I would say that that’s the best thing to do. And the second thing I would say is to talk to the authority you’re part of, of the church you’re part of. Talk to your priest, talk to your, talk to your pastor, talk to, you know, and they will hopefully, they will be a guide to help you through your questions, to help you through your belief, to help you through whatever it is you’re struggling with. Hopefully that’s the case. Sometimes it’s not, I’m sorry when that happens, but what I would say to be honest and humble, those are the best way to go. If you’re honest and arrogant, then that doesn’t help because then it looks like you’re just trying to change everything to fit your own personal opinion. If you’re humble, but you’re lying, that’s not good for your soul. So that’s the best way, that’s the best thing I would say to do. All right. All right. So Jesse Blaney asked, hi Jonathan, hopefully these two, so we’ve got two questions. So first question, are two, are less heavy questions this round? I’m wondering if you have explained the icon that you use in your website and YouTube thumbnail. No, I’ve never, I’ve never explained it in a video. Maybe it’s because I just think it’s, it’s self evident what it is, but I’ve had several requests to, to explain the, the image that I use. It is an image from a German missile. I forget the name of the, the actual book. It’s a, it’s a medieval Western image and it represents the six days of creation and it represents the creation of Eve. And so if you look at, if you look at the circle, you’ll see that it says day one, day two, day three in Latin at the different, at the different days. And there are other inscriptions as well to describe what is happening. And then in the center you have Eve who is asleep and you have Adam that is asleep and Eve that is coming out of Adam. And you know, it’s, it’s, I chose that for many reasons. First of all, because of the six days were very beautifully represented in this beautiful thing and the creation of man represented in the center. But I also represented it because of the creation of Eve. As you probably noticed, a lot of my efforts have been to talk about feminine symbolism in, in kind of critiquing some of the way that it’s presented in modern world, but also trying to give a beautiful and powerful alternative to, to what is being presented in our culture. And so that is also one of the reasons why I chose that image. But if you guys want, maybe I can make a video where I can actually have it on and you know, the image and then go through the days, maybe do a little bit of the symbolism of the days as well, maybe something like that. All right. So Jesse also asks in your last video on rituals, I think I heard you make a reference between rebellion and a form of cultural appropriation. The link had to do with youth pastors and what they dress like. What do you, oh yeah, okay. What do you believe is the diving line that separates honor and the dividing line that separates honor and dishonor? Another way, the question might be, what is a guiding principle for Christian encountering forms of cultural appropriation? So I don’t think that my problem was cultural appropriation in terms of the youth pastor. It was mostly the desire to, to use the tropes of being informal, use the tropes, use the tropes of, of kind of punk rock culture or rock and roll culture. You know, certain imagery that is very typified that we know we can recognize it. We know what it means when somebody dresses like that. We know what it means when somebody acts like that. And then, so the youth type youth type pastor will take on those tropes in order to, to show some kinship with modern culture. And I think what I was criticizing was that. Now, in terms of honor and dishonor, I would say that the thing about honor and dishonor is that it’s all about situation. Everything is about situation that. It’s all, how can I say this? There’s nothing that’s wrong in itself. There’s nothing wrong with wearing ripped jeans, dude. I wear ripped jeans when I’m working. It’s not a problem. I wear t-shirts and I wear, you know, and I, and I’m sloppy and, but I’m in the workshop and I’m working, you know, and if I go to the beach, I wear a bathing suit and a t-shirt. Then I take my, my t-shirt off and I go into the water. And so it’s, but I don’t, I won’t go to church like that and I, and I won’t go to the store like that. And so it’s, it’s, it’s the, the line is all about context. It’s like everything is about being in the right place. You know, everything is good if it’s in the right place. There’s nothing that is bad in itself. The problem with the youth pastor who dresses like a rock star and then wants to pretend like, like he’s being informal and improvising and cool, but he’s, he’s standing there in front of everybody and everybody’s attention is on that person. And so he should be, he should be modeling a center rather than modeling the periphery as you’re speaking to him. But like I said, there’s nothing wrong with the, with the periphery. If you see a beggar who’s dressed like that guy in, in who’s standing on the stage in some, you know, in some church where he’s all, he’s all messy and has messy hair. If you see a beggar like that, you should have mercy on that beggar and you should help them out. It’s like, it just depends on where, on where things are. I hope that answers that. All right. All right. So David Flores asks another question. He says, my next question is about your literal meaning video. And I’m afraid because, all right, as I understand it, when people are talking about literal meaning, they want to get to the bottom of things, a definition of reality of what is true. I agree with you about bias, purpose and meaning always affecting the objective or literal meaning. How do we come to know what is true? If all we have is subjectivity, I think your response is going to be hierarchy. You already know my answer, David. And it is how, how do we use to measure how true something is? How do we use to evaluate its place in the hierarchy of truth? So, okay. So the, the, the biggest, the biggest thing, the biggest thing that I, maybe I want to emphasize on maybe adding a little more to the, to the literal meaning video is that what I’m trying to point you guys to, you know, what I’m trying to get you to see is that stability of something is not found in the phenomena. It’s not found below. It’s not found, it’s found above. The stability is held from above. You could say it this way. You could say that something is true to the measure in which it is in Christ, right? That’s a way to say this. It is very Christian, but it’s not arbitrary. It’s not just, it’s not just saying that. It’s that as things are attached to their logi, to the, to the logos, which is their essence, their purpose, the reason why we notice them in the first place, the, the, the, the, as those things, let’s say, cohere in this hierarchy, ultimately what, what it’s showing is how they’re attached to, to, to Christ. And so it’s not, it’s not that like the idea, the idea, the idea of something objective is it’s so interesting. Like if you look at, if you look at, at the time, like if you look at the Greek philosophers, if you look at the ancients, for them, that which was stable and objective was math. That is the most stable and objective thing, not the phenomena. The phenomena are fleeting and they, they’re changing and they move. Math is what is stable. For somehow, some reason people have been able to, I don’t, I don’t totally get it. They’ve been able to conflate them together that somehow math and phenomenas are related. Maybe because people use math to measure phenomena, but those two things are not the same. Anyways, I don’t want to go too much into this. Maybe I will make a video, a follow-up video on that and look at some of the better questions that came up in the, in the YouTube, the YouTube comments. Because some of them are good. Some of them, I think, ask good questions. I think, I think point to some dangers that could be, if, if what I’m saying is misunderstood, what dangers that could entail. But I’m not, definitely not saying that everything is subjective. That is for sure. All right. Okay. So DS Brew asks, Hi, Jonathan. I’m wondering if you could talk a bit about the symbolism of musical instruments in Matthew’s book. He talks about them as the cosmic axle, which makes the world, the world pointlessly turn and dance and implements of recreation, renewal, reawakening, and even resurrection. Can you help me understand this from an Orthodox perspective? Since musical instruments are not used in the liturgy or in sacred space, what is their proper or highest possible place in the hierarchy? Outside the narthex as a call to prayer, like the tawakka, letting people know the time like Noah chipping away at his ark. I’m hoping there is a way to use them to wake up zombies. What we do have, we have instruments in the Orthodox Church, we have bells, that is for sure. And you could say that the voice or the singing voice in the church, in the Orthodox Church has been a way to bring this notion of turning, you could say, this notion of pattern to its highest level. Because the musical instrument has a form of externality. It’s a garment of skin. And you can see that in Genesis because the musical instruments come from Cain’s lineage. And so there are these garments of skin. And so from an Orthodox perspective, I mean, musical instruments are fine, like I said, they’re fine outside the church, and there’s nothing wrong with musical instruments. And I think that music has a capacity to go very deep in terms of our intuitions, in terms of our perception, intuitive perception of patterns. And so music is very important. I don’t totally understand music. I think I’ve mentioned that to you guys before. I don’t totally understand music. But if you want to see a very simple image of when Mathieu talks about how musical instruments are an image of recreation, renewal and resurrection, just look at the icon of the Last Judgment. And there you will see angels playing trumpets. And you will see this image of St. Gabriel calling the dead out through the use of a trumpet. And so there’s a very powerful image of what Mathieu is talking about, of how the musical instrument can be used as a call to awake. All right. So Jacob, our moderator, asked this for someone else, for Dionysus, who frequents our Discord group. As you know, there is, maybe you don’t know, but there is a Symbolic World Discord group that I don’t go on very often just because I don’t have a lot of time. But it seems like it’s not super active, but it’s there. If you’re really interested in it, the best would be to go in the Facebook group and talk to Jacob. I think he holds the keys to that. Okay. So Dionysus says, this is for my video on rituals. What you pointed out regarding rituals is very true, but I believe attention needs to be directed on the pitfalls of ritualistic behavior. For example, emotional conditioning, superstitious behavior and thought, fanatical belief in the exclusivity of rituals of one’s faith as the correct rituals, confusion between the container and the content, suitability of certain rituals for the present time, place and people. I am skeptical of taking I am skeptical of taking part in formalized rituals because of these in my very, in my view, very important issues. Would love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Thanks. I thought this, all right. So I agree. I agree that there’s such a thing as an empty ritual. Obviously there’s always such a thing as an empty form or an empty exterior form. Um, that is of course why Christ is always talking about hypocrisy. You know, what Christ wants is not, when people see Christ as a revolutionary who wants to remove the forms, you’re going to run into problems because there are many places where he affirms them. Although there are also many places where he criticizes them. The best way to understand it is that what Christ wants is for a unity of logos with the world. He wants what he is. He wants the unity of the spiritual and the material, physical, particular together. And so that is the best ritual. The ritual, of course, ultimately we, we, we try to both engage in the outer form while having disposed ourselves in terms of the inner form. Now, now I think that, I think that in terms of Christianity, I would say that for sure baptism and communion, especially are two rituals, which I think are, are, are not temporal. I think are not, are not, uh, they’re so basic, the idea of eating, the idea of, of bathing or going down into the, into death, down into water and coming out, uh, those rituals really, they, they, they, they are, they are universal. They don’t, they’re not time specific or culture specific. Um, in terms of, of communion, it’s a little cultural specific because obviously bread and wine, uh, is not something which is is not something which is universal, but it does become universal, especially for us, for sure. It’s not, it’s not a problem because bread and wine is part of our life. We all know what bread and wine is. We all, we all still eat bread and wine except for, except for all the carnivores out there. Um, you can make an exception for communion. I’m sure. Uh, and so, I would say that, I would say that saying that you don’t want to be involved in ritual is a little bit naive because like I said, ritual is an inevitable part of life. And so if you are not aware of the rituals you are part of, you will be engaging in rituals that you’re not aware of. You will be, become a slave to bad habits, to ritual behavior that, that will be there despite yourself. Um, and so it is best to understand that ritual is inevitable and then engage in ritual with your whole heart, like engage in Christian ritual with your, your, as much as you can with your entire being. And that’s why, you know, like in the Orthodox Church, you know, you’re supposed to, you’re supposed to go to confession. You, you have to have some kind of prayer life. You, have some accountability to, to, to going to communion. You can’t just, you don’t just go, just can’t just go out, go like this. If you do that, you are, you are breaking what’s supposed to happen. You’re, you’re supposed to have some kind of spiritual life, someone following you, someone helping you along so that the ritual doesn’t become just an empty form. All right. Okay. So let’s move to subscribe star. All right. Okay. So Nikola asks, hi Jonathan. I’ve been puzzling over the question of sexuality for years. On March, 2017 in Toronto, you broached the topic of metaphysics of sex and how sex can be and should be used to strive towards God. It sounds beautiful. I would love to be all in with sex, but I’m still very scared of making kids with my soon to be wife because of our very troublesome finances. We both want kids, but even making ends meet with a potential kid would not be possible on current income, let alone saving a bit for rainy days. You have any advice to give on this topic? Nikola, I have to tell you that I totally disagree with you completely on the way that you’re perceiving this. The idea that kids are expensive is something that advertisers want you to believe or something. I don’t know. The, if you, if you have, first of all, if you have a, if you have a child, hopefully your wife will breastfeed that child. Yes, there are the costs of diapers. You can have we, our first kids, we had washable diapers and there are always, there are always people out there to help those who have kids. And so if you’re, if your only reason for not having kids is financial, then I would say that just look around you and you will find all this type of community help. You can find all these things secondhand, you know, you, almost everything you can find secondhand because people have kids and they get rid of the stuff that they had with kids and they all have one or two kids anyways. So all this stuff, baby stuff you can find on, on secondhand pages. I would say that, I would say that your, I would say that your reason is not, is not the right reason. I understand why society’s pressuring you to think that and to, to see the world that way, but you know, people have been having children for ever since human beings exist and in all kinds of situations. And you will see that if you have a child and you invest yourself in that child, you will experience joy and you will experience a kind of maturation that you can’t even understand until it happens. I can’t explain to you what having a child does to you, you know, as a, as a man, what it does to you, because all of a sudden you’re the provider and that will, that will knock some sense into you. It will make you change your priorities. If you’re just a child, you will change your priorities. If you’re just a little bit sensitive and a little bit attentive to your child and you don’t fight the natural tendency you have to want to, to, to, to take care of things and to, to be a provider, it’s the best thing that can happen to you. All right. So Christian Chad says, our other moderator. So, hi Jonathan, do you think we can ever return to a version of the medieval ancient world? Wow, man. For example, a world with buffer zones between ideas, identities, and places, a world where authority was rare, but brutal and most of life was in the shade instead of constant surveillance. If we cannot return to it, what is the new direction we should take? I don’t, I’m sorry, I don’t have a good answer for you there, Christian. I, I don’t think, I don’t think that at least not in the foreseeable future that that’s going to happen. Um, yeah, I don’t know what to say besides that for sure the way that things are going now can’t go on forever. Um, but, uh, but I don’t see that, I don’t see it, us returning to the ancient world, or that, that type of structure that you described, at least not in the short term. So what can we do is I think that we have to create small spaces. We, we have to create remnants of subtle existence, remnants of community, remnants of, uh, you know, that’s like a family is awesome because you can, you can do that. You can have a family, which is, which is both that has a form of, of strictness in terms of expectation, but also has love and compassion and understanding for aberrations and for weirdness, all the while remaining, keeping a line on what’s acceptable and what is not. So you can do that in a family. So I would say have a family and try to find like-minded families already. And, you know, find a church, find a, find a good church that is going to be able to, to, um, support you in that vision. So Christian also asked, Hi, Jonathan, have you read anything by Nassim Taleb? His writing on religion helped me get over my early atheist phase of religion is unreasonable. I also find his idea of Christ having skin in the game, an interesting explanation of the Trinity. Um, I haven’t really read anything by him. For some reason he follows me on Twitter. I don’t know what, how that happened. Um, he, at least his behavior on Twitter is extremely, is really extreme. I’m really surprised at how aggressive he is and how he just kind of goes after people and calls everybody frauds and everybody and everybody, uh, charlatans and everything. So I don’t quite know, I don’t quite know what to think. Like I, you know, it doesn’t give me the desire to read his, his stuff, but maybe I should, you know, um, this idea of skin in the game is for sure a good idea in terms of, of understanding what, of understanding why people act and understanding, you know, motivation. Um, all right. Yeah. I always say if you want, if you want people to be involved in something, don’t give them everything, ask something of them. It’s like that’ll make them involved. They have, if they, they, they’ve actually put their own sweat. That’s one of the reasons why people have to give money at church. It’s not, you know, if you had a, if you had like a billionaire in your church and they, and, and he could finance everything in your church, you should still give money at church because when you give money to church, oh my goodness, it changes your perception of your place there. You feel like you’re part of it. You feel like you’re part of it. You feel like you’re, you’re, this is yours. Like you’ve got skin in the game. So maybe I should read his thing. All right. Hi, Jonathan. What are your thoughts on the idea of received visions? I’m a visual artist and often have ideas come to me fully formed as it’s as if a cartoon light bulb turned on above my head, except it’s illuminating a fully rendered image, sometimes scenes containing imagery with deep symbolic meaning. Some that I’ve told about this experience say these are visions, but I’m struggling with the term because it seems too high. Oh, while calling them pictures seems too low. Thank you for your time. I appreciate your perspective. Um, uh, I agree that, I mean, there’s, I don’t have a problem with having visions. I think that people can be connected and can, uh, people are not everybody, but a lot of people are like tuning forks and, uh, they can catch some patterns. They can kind of catch them and see them or they, they can, they can engage them or they can manifest themselves to, to them. Um, for sure. So, so for example, in, in the Orthodox tradition, visions are definitely part of the tradition. There are many stories of visions, saints having visions, sometimes whole churches having visions. Um, all of these things are possible, but for at the same time, the fathers are always warning us to be wary of visions and to be careful, um, for several reasons. One is that they can make us boastful. Second of all is that when you, when you’re like a tuning fork and you, it’s, it’s, it’s like, uh, how can I explain it? It’s like, so it’s like you put out your antenna and you can get these visions, but it’s not clear all the time what it is that you’re catching. Um, sometimes you might not be catching the best stuff. And so that’s why you have to be careful. And if you look at the, if you look at the church fathers, once they, once they develop their spiritual capacity, you would say, once they kind of develop their noose, their higher capacity, they start to have, they start to see angels, you know, they have visions of heavenly things, but then they also have visions of demons and they have visions of demons pretending to be angels and they have all this wild stuff that happens to them. Sometimes the biggest saint, you know, the stories of, of, of monks that spent their whole life prayer, praying and they, they, you know, some, some divine vision takes them to the top of a mountain. And when they get there, they realize that it’s like some demon who’s, who’s snickering and, and, uh, trying to get him to become prideful. So I would say that, I would say that to discern the vision is something that should happen. Hopefully you’re a part of some church. Hopefully you’re part of some, you’re part of a tradition where you can ask advice about that. Uh, if not, then I don’t know, man, it’s tough. It’s tough because, you know, it’s the same with the whole psychedelics thing. It’s like, I don’t know, I’ve never taken psychedelics, but if it’s true that psychedelics somehow can open up that antenna where you can all of a sudden, let’s say, perceive patterns and perceive beings that are not, uh, physical, that you can suddenly see them in terms in your mind or in your, I don’t know, whatever, that you can perceive them in a different manner. You know, it’s like, man, just because you take a pill, like you haven’t at all worked on being able to discern the patterns. Like you, would you be able to tell the difference between an angel of light and the devil as an angel of light? Like, I don’t know, because I don’t know. I don’t know. So I would say just, I would say don’t, don’t think that it’s, that it’s not necessarily just an illusion, but I would just say to, to just stay, try to stay humble about it and to try to discern what it is that you’re perceiving. All right. So we’re moving to Patreon. Let me just see, cause sometimes people write these last minute questions and I haven’t like refreshed cause I don’t, I don’t necessarily refresh the questions. Sometimes I might miss something. All right. Okay. So let’s move to Patreon. All right. So Robert Smith asks, can you discuss the symbolism of shopping malls? Their decline seems almost inevitable given that they have no unified purpose, like a set of organs, which doesn’t form a body. Well, my, my theory about shopping malls, I, I mentioned this in a few talks is that they’re kind of like the last ditch effort at communion. They, you know, it’s as if in a normal world, in the normal world, the church would be the, the place of communion where everybody kind of comes together in the right direction. Then there’s also the political space where that would happen. Let’s say a town square. Then there’s also, and then the, like to say the third place would be the market, you know? And so the shopping mall is, is kind of like the last version of that in terms of creating a space where people can come together, but to buy stuff. So it’s kind of like a market, but because, because the church is going away and because the, let’s say the public square is going away, then the shopping mall has for a while kind of took on this kind of monstrous or gigantic space. And so I think, like you said, I think you’re right that they’re going to go away because once the, once the highest thing starts to degrade, then you don’t see it at first, but the things start to degrade all down the hierarchy. And so you think that, you know, it’s the joke. It’s like you think that, you know, when the king, when the, you think that you think when the king displaces the the priesthood, you know, he thinks that, aha, now I’ve displaced the, all those pestering people telling me what’s right and wrong takes the power. But then, you know, he’s got the bourgeoisie right there waiting to come and get him. And when that happens, they’re like, aha, we finally got rid of this political moron. Now we can do what we want. Like there’s other stuff, lower stuff still on the bottom that are going to come up and devour you. So yeah, that’s what’s happening. That’s what’s happening with the shopping malls. So, so Norm Grondin asks, why does Jesus continually perform miracles in the gospels, but then immediately tell those he heals not to say anything about it? There’s a few things I’ve been thinking about this very long time. I don’t think I totally have the answer for this, but I will give you my little tidbits. There’s a mystery related to the idea of the secret. It’s as if this is hard to understand because it’s as if the center has to be hidden. The center has to be secret for the world to lay itself out properly. You’d think, let’s say, in terms, if you were just using reason, you’d think, well, wouldn’t the center have to be visible? Like, because that’s the thing we’re all turned towards, like that’s the origin of everything. But because the center is actually not the thing, it’s like, because the center is the cause inside, or it’s the hidden pearl, it’s not the actual thing, then it has to be hidden because it’s the intention, it’s the logos, it’s the spirit of something. It’s not visible anyways. So there seems to be something about that in the fact that Christ is asking to hide his works at the beginning. And then it’s like a seed. It’s like Christ is planting the seed all the way through the story of the gospel. And at first it’s like hidden, and then it has to die. And then it becomes, then it fills the world, something like that. So I don’t know if I’m, I don’t know if this is making sense to you guys, but to me that is the best understanding I’ve had of that. All right, so Norm Gourney also asks, can you please discuss the symbolism of Galatians 220 particularly in the Gospels? And I think that’s a good question. I think that’s a good question. All right, so Norm Gourney also asks, can you please discuss the symbolism of Galatians 220 particularly the idea of having been crucified with Christ and that Christ now lives in him. I’ve been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. So Norm is, did he, yeah, Norm is bringing that up because I mentioned that in the video or in the comments in my last video about literal truth when I talk about St. Paul. I think I mentioned that in a comment. So what is the symbolism of that? The symbolism of that is Christ is showing us the source of reality. Christ is exactly the same showing us the source of reality. Christ is exemplifying the way in which the world actually works. He is the source, he is the finality of everything. And so the idea is that ultimately we want to all be that. We want to participate in Christ. To participate in Christ, to be crucified with Christ is to enter into the Holy of Holies. It is to enter into the garden. It is to eat both the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and the fruit of the knowledge of fruit of the knowledge of good and evil and the fruit of the fruit of the tree of life. All of that together. And so we are meant to become little Christ. That’s what the word Christian means. The word Christian just means little Christ. That’s what we’re meant to be. And so Paul is expressing how he is participating. He is seeing how he is participating in Christ and how he has given himself completely to Christ. And so it’s not him who lives, it’s Christ who lives in him. And you could say that ultimately it’s also at the same time the fullness of who he is. Right? And so by living that life he has also reached the totality of what he can be. You know, this is mysterious stuff guys. So I don’t know if I can say any more about that. So, Angel Terpstra asks, how do you regard the Gospel of Thomas in your worldview? I mean, there are some good things in the Gospel of Thomas. I think there’s some things that are interesting. There are some things that are heretical. Some of the statements are so similar to the regular Gospels that it’s as if it’s just the Gospel. And then there are a few things that are weird and a few things that are kind of off key. But I mean, I don’t mind a lot of these books. I keep telling people, I don’t mind if you read all these weird books that have been found. Sometimes it can make you ask questions that you wouldn’t have asked. It can provoke some thought that you wouldn’t have thought of. I always just tell people to just bring it back to the Father, bring it back to the Church. You can look at things in the periphery of your vision and get something from it. You don’t have to bring it into your heart. So I think that’s something like the Gospel of Thomas, the Book of Jubilee, all these books that were kind of found in the book of Enoch that everybody thought was gone forever. I think it’s useful. I think some of it is useful and then some of it is not. And we know what the measurement stick is. It’s the creed. It’s the Church Fathers. It’s the tradition of the Church. So that’s how I see it. All right, so Alina T. asked, can you explain the concept of aerial toll houses in Orthodoxy? My goodness, guys. Seriously. You know that the toll houses in Orthodoxy is the reason why I barely post on Facebook and on Twitter anymore because I kind of let myself go on that subject and got emotionally involved. So the aerial toll houses in Orthodoxy is a tradition, which is not, we call it theologumenon. That is, it is a pious tradition. It has not been proved by any council, directly by anybody, but it’s a pious tradition, which seems to also have some pre-Christian sources, some pagan sources involved in the way it’s formulated and the way that it’s presented. It’s basically the idea that after you die, you ascend. With you is an angel and a demon. You have an angel on your right shoulder, a demon on your left shoulder, and then you’re ascending. As you reach the toll houses, the demon will accuse you of the sin. Each toll house is like a sin. The demon will accuse you and the angel will kind of help you. You have to you have to kind of pay the toll. You have to prove that you can move to the next station. It sounds very technical when you look at it in terms of you have to have these prayers and you have to have sometimes the prayer of this saint or the prayer of this or that. So we have to be careful not to take it, we have to be careful how we take it. I think the best case scenario with the toll houses is this notion of an ontological hierarchy which exists and which exists now. It doesn’t just exist after death. It’s happening now. I keep telling people you’re going through the toll houses now, not just after you die, but everything that you represent after death is like a projection into totality of your life. So it’s like what you do now is represented symbolically in these toll houses that are after death that you ascend and that you have to that you can ascend but you can also descend. So one of the things it does is one of the dangers of it is of course to get too caught up in the details of it and to see it as this technical thing that you have to have so many prayers and you have to have so many things and you have to do that. I don’t think that’s the right way to understand it but if you can understand it as just this basic notion of a hierarchy that you’re ascending and that the prayers of the saints and the prayers of those around you helps you and that the good you do and all these things are part of this ascent of this hierarchy, then it doesn’t really bother me that much. What it also does is that you need this ontological hierarchy because that’s also one of the reasons why Catholics have purgatory. Purgatory has the same problems as the toll houses in terms of if you get too caught up in the details and the technical aspects of purgatory and all these years and whatever and everything, that’s problematic but if you understand it as the notion that there has to be transformation for you to come into the life of God. That it’s not just that you believe these things and that you’re with God. It’s like I don’t even know what that would mean. It’s like I’m in heaven. Die and go to heaven, that kind of thinking. That is not useful because you have to, in order for you to go to heaven, in order for you to ascend the hierarchy, the spiritual hierarchy, you have to transform into what you are, where you’re going. You have to become the level that you’re at and so it’s not just this arbitrary thing that it’s like if you believe something you die and all of a sudden you’re with God. If you’re with God it means you’re becoming like God. You can’t just be with God. It’s like I hope this makes sense but it is very controversial in the church and there are some people that are wholly for it who take everything like this is exactly the description of what happens after death. There are other people who are completely against it who think that it’s just paganism that is coming to the church and there are people who are in between. I would say that I’m somewhere in between but I try not to emphasize that stuff because yeah I do emphasize the hierarchy though this idea of an ontological hierarchy of transformation. All right so Drew McMahon asks, Plato or Aristotle? What do you think? Yeah it’s obvious that I’m more of a Platonist but I also think that I think that someone like say Maximus has been able to take the best of Plato and the best of Aristotle and really filtered out the stuff that needs to be filtered out and brought it into a Christian vision. So for example like really say Maximus and kind of the Christian cosmologists they really have this idea that yes there are these essences but the essences only exist as they are attached to the particulars. So that in some ways kind of like Aristotle but they also believe that these essences are you know wheels of God that they are you know essences in the mind of God so that they also do have a kind of permanent reality and so that’s it like that’s the incarnational thinking. To me that’s the best way of understanding. Incarnational thinking is the best way to deal with Plato and Aristotle and yeah how Christians let’s say may do with that. All right so Mark Peters asked, Jonathan do I have this right? As applied to biblical symbolism historical events are acted out according to their respective forms all of which is from the divine. The true interpretation of the meaning comprises these events the true interpretation of the meaning comprising these events is the logos. Thank you for your vocation Mark Peters. I think that’s a good point. I think that’s a great way to describe it. I think you are right and that’s what I was talking about before is that the stability of the events is not in the events. The events are real. I’m not saying that it’s all subjective or that it’s all relative and I’m not saying any of that none of that. All I’m saying is that the stability of the event comes from the logos comes from its purpose. The very form of the event comes from the purpose that you’re describing that event for that you’re noticing that you’re realizing its relevance to use John Dravici’s language. The fact that you’re realizing relevance that is the stable pattern out of which the the the I’m gonna really speak like him out of which the the the event emerges from all possible events. I think that that’s the best way to understand it and to me it seems like that’s even though I’m quoting John Dravici who’s not a Christian I think that that’s the best way to understand it. All right Elisa Brugman asks can you please give us your interpretation of the Easter Bunny leaving chocolate eggs in September? Come on man why are you asking me this in September? You should be asking me this in April but uh all right Elisa I’m sorry. I mean for sure the Easter Bunny the Easter thing and the eggs it’s all about fertility it’s all about spring as the moment where the birds and the bees come out in all in every manner. And so I think that that’s that’s just why it is it that the idea of a bunny which is an extremely fertile thing and the egg which is an image of fertility itself I think that that’s those things go together. In terms of of Christianity I think it also has a level of symbolism which is related to the egg as an image of life and of resurrection and so the tradition of painting eggs at Easter is one which is a Christian tradition. I don’t know where it comes from though it might come from before but it’s not when people tell you that it’s some western European tradition it was there in Constantinople too so it’s it seems like a very ancient tradition to have these decorated eggs. In terms of chocolate I don’t know when that happened the whole chocolate thing but I mean for sure it probably is related to the similar things in the sense that chocolate is obviously some is obviously and somewhat an aphrodisiac and it is obviously also related to sweetness and so this this whole idea of fertility and sweetness it’s not that hard to see how those go together. All right so I hope that but I don’t know enough about the history of that it’d be interesting to look into to kind of how that manifested itself maybe can give some hints like I say usually that you can’t necessarily find the the meaning in the historical way it happened but sometimes it can give you little hints and it can help you to to realign your thinking. So all right guys so we are done with the that part of the Q&A. I’m going to go into the I’m going to go into the the super chats all right let’s see so I hope I hope everything in the chat is going okay I really struggle to be to stay on top of the super chat and the chats at the same time. All right here we go so Virginia Charlotte asks here we go so Virginia Charlotte asks would you be able to explain the key symbolic differences between the the understanding of the Holy Trinity that the Orthodox and the Roman Church hold i.e. procession of spirit uh am I on the right thing here i.e. procession of spirit and son from father versus philiocue. Well I don’t have them all sorry I need to refresh this again guys sorry all right okay so here they are that that question was real though all right all right so to explain the Holy Trinity the difference between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic vision of the Holy Trinity well man so the idea of the idea is that Charlemagne and his theologians added a phrase to the creed which is that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father and the son so they add added and the son and there are places in scripture where Christ like there’s there’s that place where Christ says he’s going to send the spirit and there are places in scripture where he blows on the apostles and says receive the spirit and so it seems like those are the verses out of which the the uh the western church wanted to add the the uh the western church wanted to add and the son so what is the difference so the orthodox church has never accepted the philiocue and they they believe that the that to say that in the creed is to confuse the persons is is to create a kind of weird confusion in terms of how the Trinity works so the the the orthodox perception mostly is that the father it’s like God is the father and God his logos is fully divine and has uh is fully participating in the father’s nature which is divine and uncreated and the spirit also is proceeds from the father and is also fully participating in the divine nature okay so the idea is that that that that the God is the father and so Christ is also God but he’s he’s he’s God to the extent that he is the logos of the father uh and so but if he’s fully God like he’s not less in terms of hierarchy that’s the mystery of Christianity um and so that’s how they that’s how the orthodox see that if you say that the spirit proceeds from the the the father and the son it’s like what how does it work because God God is the father like God our father uh so how does it work it’s confusing um and you can see that a little bit in the images of the Trinity which the west developed which is the um with the gut with an old man on one side and Christ on the other and then in the middle you see the Holy Spirit which is kind of proceeding from both at the same time um now it’s my understanding that there is a way to talk about procession of the spirit uh a way that some people use to say a way we could say would be something like the spirit proceeds from the father through the son something like that and so that could so it’s like just like the world is created by God it’s created by God the father using the logos the logos is the means by which God creates the world so too in terms of of creation that the spirit proceeds from the father through the son something like that um and so you know I will tell you I will be totally honest you guys I I really I trust the church and I trust the uh I trust the fathers but I don’t totally I don’t completely understand how the world is different like how what what totally comes down from the different understandings of the Trinity I tried to kind of figure it out it seems like there’s something about that that I that I that I don’t like I I myself prefer the orthodox uh way of describing the of talking about the Trinity and I think that it’s the way that the that the entire tradition agreed to talk about it um but I don’t totally understand the consequences like some people say oh because of the filioque it’s like basically the filioque is the reason for the entire west like everything that went wrong with the west is because of the filioque and it’s like I struggled to understand like how why why that would be like I can if you say nominalism I can see it I can see the causality between between uh you know uh between Occam his way of of describing reality and how that felt and his way of talking about God as being completely uh so transcendent that that there’s no connection between him and the world and that his that his will could you know that God could desire like that God could create a world where evil was good and good with evil all that kind of insanity it’s like I can see that as the cause of our problems but I struggle to see the filioque way how it it it filters down so you can you can put that up to my lack of theological understanding maybe but I don’t totally get it so Virginia then asks um is one structure inherently less stable is one symbolic structure inherently less stable is one more prone to tyranny and disintegration if it is misunderstood misused see that’s that’s exactly the that’s exactly the difficulty that I struggled to understand um and then she says your thoughts on the energy essence distinction would be helpful there too that is something that I understand more in terms of its effect on the world of understanding that when you when you talk about God to to to to talk about the unknowability of God’s essence when I talk about when I’m talking about guys when I say God is beyond all being God is beyond all things God is not a being God is beyond everything you know St. Maximus talks about being and non-being together like God is the infinite you know that’s when we’re talking about the unknowability of of of the uncreated and I think that that has to be maintained completely maintained but the problem with that is if you don’t have something like the energy the essence energy distinction then you run into the the problem that Occam ran into which is like okay so God is is completely unknowable completely completely unknowable okay so then who cares about God like he’s just outside of so outside of the world that whatever dude like I mean does it matter like what are you going to do about it so but but if but if you understand that God’s energies fill the world that God’s will that God’s uh that God’s actions are that which hold the world together while maintaining God’s unknowability it’s like I can understand that I can understand what that does I could I could completely see how that is one of the keys to bringing back in my opinion a truly symbolic world a truly uh integrated world um so so hopefully one day I will have better intuitions regarding the filioque and the trinity so Jonathan Ott asks like Jesus uh like Jesus the word of God incarnate died and was raised did the law have to die so it could be raised if so would it be raised in different garments of skin hmm it’s a very strange question uh to have to die so that it could be raised uh to have to die so that it could be raised I don’t know I don’t I don’t I don’t totally understand what you’re getting at I don’t see why the law would have to die yeah sorry man I I think that I think that that for sure the law is transformed in terms of what Christ brings to the world it’s as if one of the things that Christ does is he’s constantly showing the logos of things he’s constantly pointing to the meaning pointing to the purpose you know it’s like he says these laws these laws that you’re doing do you know the purpose of them do you understand that you know you pay the tithe to this and to that but the fact that you’re not helping your neighbor means that you don’t understand the purpose of the law don’t understand what is this is aiming to and so he wants to realign the law we talked about that before today he wants the outer performance to match the inner purpose that’s what Christ is doing um and so there’s a there’s a kind of transformation of the law which happens in Christ interestingly enough sometimes there’s a flips sometimes it there’s a weird kind of like a flip but maybe I’ll make a video about that one day about how there’s some laws that flip when Christ comes all right all right so Christian Chad asks hi Jonathan any updates on Jordan’s health um no I don’t have any updates on Jordan’s health I I had I had been having a few little messages from him once in a while when I would I would just write him uh in and I was mostly concerned with his wife’s health and I didn’t know what he was going through so since I found out that he he uh he’s gone to rehab for this um this prescription medicine that he was that he was taking I haven’t written him I’m not sure I don’t know it’s like I’m wondering if I I’m just not sure if he wants to be bothered or if he wants to be left alone so um so I might write him a little note or something we’ll see but no I don’t have any news I I learned it the same way you guys did through uh Michaela’s video all right James David all right James David please discuss the validity of scheduled liturgical fasting seems it may be structuring masculinizing something which is inherently new cetic what feminine the act of fasting I don’t understand why the act of fasting is feminine I would say that on the contrary I think the act of fasting is very masculine in the sense that the the act of fasting is a desire to uh line up the body it’s a desire to not be dominated by the belly and so and so that’s why that’s one of the reasons why we fast you fast in order to to show how dependent you are on on your desires on your on your belly and all of that and at the same time try to to master your your your desires and body so yeah so I to me I don’t see it as something that is that is feminine um in terms of the schedule I mean usually we don’t know in terms of the schedule I mean usually we schedule we fast before an important feast you know like like pascha or like christmas you know it’s as if it’s a kind of spiritual discipline a spiritual preparation in order to fully be able to participate in the let’s say the glory of the feast or the you know when you when you when you’re deliberate about when you’re deliberate about your actions and your discipline and you’re focused you know once you know once you once you’re then let’s say once you reach your goal which is the feast you know it’s it’s going to be a lot it’s way more precious than if it was just handed to you you know um what do you think about the council of trullo is it orthodox doctrine that the world is roughly seven thousand five hundred years old um I mean that they that’s how the orthodox count the dates they count them from they they they do some backtracking in order to calculate the uh the generations um in order to reach in order to reach uh let’s say the the the the beginning of genesis so is it orthodox doctrine that the world is roughly 77,500 years old well is it doctrine I mean it’s definitely orthodox tradition um I think that our world is 7,500 years old I don’t have a problem with that it’s pretty good actually pretty good uh pretty good estimate in terms of understanding when any memory that we have any tradition any actual connection to the past that we have seems to not go beyond that so so to me I don’t have a problem with that I don’t know if that makes sense like our we don’t have any we don’t have any tradition which goes before let’s say the beginning of the of the the the the mesopotamian culture let’s say or the uh the beginning of um yeah we don’t we don’t really have anything before that anything which is before the the the beginning of the great cities in in Mesopotamia the cities in India the cities in Egypt uh in Egypt is really it’s a broken line anyways we don’t we don’t really know what Egypt is about honestly I don’t think so so that that’s the longest line you can find is going about 7,500 years old so I would say our world is about that old no matter how you look at it I’m probably confusing you guys by saying that stuff all right okay so Travis Jordan asks seems like Rumplestiltskin had power while he was anonymous and knowing speaking Travis Jordan by the way gave 42 my goodness Travis dude that’s an that’s amazing uh sorry I never I was surprised by that it seems like Rumplestiltskin had power while he was anonymous and knowing speaking his name then subordinated his power how do you see the realm of the anonymous and naming yes exactly they’re not knowing being anonymous can give you a certain amount of power that should be obvious to anybody who uses YouTube anybody who goes on on uh on uh message boards being anonymous can be extremely powerful that’s why that’s why 4chan played a role in electing Donald Trump I mean my goodness talk about power um and so anonymity has a certain kind of power and it it has the it has a revolutionary power it has the power to to change things secretly you know and flip things around that’s what anonymous power has um and then naming is the solution to that you know it’s it’s not that complicated to think it’s like you’re if you want to if you want to change the established order or if you want to have power on the established order it’s best that you act in the dark it’s best that you you know you’re a spy you’re a you’re a you’re a double agent you’re a you’ve infiltrated something all of these all of these images of an anonymity are revolutionary images images of of of gaining power from a hidden place in order to to uh to take over right in Rumpelstiltson’s case to get the king in to to to own the king that’s what Rumpelstiltson wanted he wanted a child of the the girl but ultimately what he wanted was the child of the king and so he wanted to to through a hidden process to to to infiltrate and to get the next king right and so that is and then naming is the opposite power naming is the power of of shining light you know you you discover that that um that Watergate was you know that secretly they were secretly taping the democrats and that they were getting information on the democratic convention and so you shine the light on that and you expose their their misdoings and by doing that by naming what what was hidden you are able to take away its power um so yeah so that’s why when she names him she takes away all this power because Rumpelstiltson is ultimately a revolutionary character all right let me see so I got and I’ve got a few more that came up all right Drew McMahon asks do you have a specific definition of truth that is most correct Aristotle Aquinas etc JVPs that which is best for survival or something like that seems to miss the mark um yeah um do I have a definition of truth man alive that is really tough um I would say I would say a good definition of truth could be close to something that that Jordan is expressing though I think he’s expressing it in he’s not expressionally fully right a good definition of truth I think could be something like that which hits the mark uh so if sin if transgression is that which hits the mark transgression is that which misses the mark truth is that which hits the mark so truth is when it’s kind of incarnational it’s like when the the invisible aspect of something and the visible body that it has not necessarily visible or the day the body that it has fits together when those when we get that’s when we have a problem with truth so either that’s when you get hypocrisy that’s when you get lies is when you when you say one thing and you do another that’s a lie when when you you you uh when the thing you’re saying doesn’t fit the the body that’s untrue and so when those fit together to me that’s that’s what’s true it doesn’t necessarily it doesn’t necessarily refer only to physical phenomena when I mean a body it can be all any kinds of any kind of accumulation of particulars um that’s as good as as it’s going to get for me you’re trying to pit me up against Aristotle and Aquinas I have people coming for me um all right so Barry Cavett asks do you think time being made of the past the present and the future could be related to God being made of the father the son and the spirit respectively so that’s the famous um that’s the famous uh what’s his name I should know because Jordan named his church after after that forget his name somebody remember that guy anyways um no I don’t like that idea honestly I really struggle with that notion um with that notion um yeah so I think that there are different kinds of threes in terms of uh the the past present and future I think has more to do with something like that which has been let’s say that which has happened that which has been revealed and then the this potentiality which is still in the dark and so you can imagine the the the the present as a yeah guys I’m not going to get there especially in terms of the father son the spirit I I I know that that is that that is an idea that has been popular but I when I think about it symbolically I just don’t I just don’t see it and and I think that the the yeah like the the the past and present had there’s a there’s a different kind of a three which is more like the center and two sides and I think that that is closer to what the the past and the present is sorry guys all right so we are it’s 10 30 usually I try to go for about an hour and a half um so let me see if something else came up all right so I think we’re done guys um I don’t see any more messages I see a few of the super chats were deleted so I would I would warn you guys just to just to stay within normal boundaries in terms of what you what you write in your super chats um and uh thanks for everybody thanks for your attention thanks to everybody who is uh who’s supporting me as well it’s been a rocky road since the flood and uh the all the support that I’ve been getting from you guys has been not only helpful but life-saving so I really appreciate it and I will continue to be putting out once a month patron only videos I will try to also be careful not to be too arrogant in my future videos and uh yeah I really enjoy this so I will talk to all of you guys very soon so so