SPEAKER_02

Just like you're saying you can have your cake and eat it too. My thing isn't so much to become an atheist, but my thing is to say let the meat cake. We have to have some sort of standards. Not just for ourselves, but you know, we need some sort of a system that we all live by. If two chimpanzees walk into a coffee shop, if they're from different tribes, they'll impulsively kill each other. But we don't do that.

SPEAKER_01

And thank God for that, Richard.

SPEAKER_02

We do have our standards and we do have our at the end.

SPEAKER_01

Touche. Hi, my name's Glenn from Speak Life. We like to see all things through the lens of Jesus. You are welcome to round two with the Fatheist atheist Richard Suttles. We had a ding-dong battle about a year ago uh when we talked about the changing nature of the faith conversations that we're having. And uh he's joined me again. Richard, thanks so much for coming back. Yeah. Now you have, since our last conversation, read my book called The Air We Breathe. And uh I thought it'd be great to ask you about your reflections on uh a book where I basically kind of popularize arguments that have been made by others, uh particularly someone like uh Tom Holland, you might think, who comes and says, Look, there is there is a natural explanation for the surprising uh rise and triumph of Christianity in the West. And he he takes a quite sort of secular approach to here is how Christianity uh comes into being. And I sort of took his argument and said yes. Um the reason why it seems natural is because it has woven itself into our moral presuppositions so much that it is now the air that we breathe. And we believe in these seven principles, and I go through them in the book: equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom, and progress. And you say you kind of read about those kind of seven moral presuppositions, and you thought this is actually where the faith conversation needs to happen. Tell tell me about that. Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, well, just like um so you know, I've been doing this for 30 years, as you remember from our last uh talk. Um, and just like Jonathan Hait's uh five moral foundations from his book have always been for me kind of kind of like uh uh my talking points, and and I I kind of weave off of those. When I read your book after we talked, I was like, well, here's seven more, and of course they tie into those five from Jonathan Height. Um, but these are the seven things that apologists and uh atheists, uh you know, for that matter, Islamists and Hindu, Buddhism, Shinto, this is what a lot of people talk about now. And I realize in some cultures, those seven aren't dominant right now for different reasons. But I I think I think there's a hunger for that. I think if if they're not dominant, there's a hunger for that uh in those cultures. So we can talk to be, you know, why is there that hunger? And you know, and and why did some cultures do it and why are they doing well if they're doing well? Uh so I I thought it's really these are the seven things we should be talking about, probably more so than Christianity versus atheism, except to say which one of those gets us there, which one of those helps us uh maintain those.

SPEAKER_01

Right. And it that reminds me a little bit of the Aion Hersy Ali kind of conversion, um, which happened at the end of last year. And there are a lot of sort of new atheist types, and there were a lot of Christians um who kind of took the same side on the Aion Hersy Ali conversion, and for both of them, there was this sense of, well, it doesn't matter if Christianity builds a civilization or not. Um, that is very much a secondary reason why anyone would would convert to anything. It's got to be, you know, it's got to be true with a capital T. And so interestingly, you know, the Richard Dawkinses of the world and a bunch of Christians as well, um, for very understandable reasons, um, feared that a conversion towards Christianity for anything other than, you know, capital T truth would be, I don't know, hypocritical or um manipulative or um you know, treating Christianity as a means to an end and just a political power play sort of thing. And and I'm I'm very sensitive to those objections, and I and I think they are interesting. But I think Ion Hersiali was pulling at threads that are interesting to pull at and talking at a civilizational level about the fruits. Jesus said, by their fruits you shall know them. And maybe you can apply that not just to individuals, maybe you can apply that to societies, and maybe if there are fruits on the tree, you can trace them back to the roots. And if you find Jesus in the roots, then maybe that's a way towards faith. How how how did you process Ayan Hesi Ali's story?

SPEAKER_02

Before I get to her, when you're talking about truth-centric and facts, and you know, I I don't care about uh whether it's helpful or just whether or not it's true. The first thing I want to say is that, you know, being in my 50s, I remember in the 70s and the 80s where some of the dominant Christian narratives uh were so much sort of stories like, you know, things that weren't things that weren't feasible, like um, you know, sciences of man and uh Satan's planting dinosaur bones and a lot of prosperity preaching. Um these are the things that new atheism responded to. You know, the reason why new atheism died so quickly after it started was that it wasn't really approaching Christianity, it was approaching these uh narratives in the 70s and 80s that were more about prosperity and uh believe the Bible because it says so. And then the new atheists created this culture of facts, facts, facts, truth, truth, truth. And then, of course, from there, the apologists came back and said, no, no, no, truth, truth, truth, facts, facts, facts. And then atheists were like, no, no, no, truth, truth, truth, facts, facts, facts. And so here we are today, where both sides are like crossing their arms and they're like, I don't care if I die tomorrow. This is the truth. And and you know, like you say, faith positions at a costly uh price. Um both sides are doing that, saying we're the truth. And and so I can't I can't blame people who say, okay, there's no way to convince you guys of what's true and what's facts at this point. Can you not kill each other? Can we convince you to not kill each other and go to work and take care of your families and then goodness forbid, watch each other's kids if one of you are sick? Um and so in that respect, I say, yeah, the truth matters. And obviously, if the truth didn't matter, we couldn't have air conditioning and satellites. But at the same time, how we get along is is probably the key. So if if I meet someone who says, look, I can't demonstrate Christianity to you, but I take care of my family and I try to help my community and I respect you as a person, then I'm I'm gonna say, you know what, we we probably we can talk about the truth, but I'm just really grateful that that you're there. So that that's that's kind of my first answer, is that I think it's really important that we think about how we treat each other uh and and paying attention to those seven foundations in your book, more so than the truth, but that's not to say that I'm a relativist or you know, hey, believe whatever. Uh I do think the truth matters, but I think I think uh cohabitation uh you know matters more. I think that's the priority.

SPEAKER_01

And so with with that with that foundation, like how do how do you process the Ion Her CLE story?

SPEAKER_02

So I think she very much is thinking that too. She she's thinking, like, we've got we are beset on all sides, uh, and you know, to to use uh some Christian language, and she's uh she's thinking, how do we get out of this? And it's not gonna be with me, me speaking for her, it's not gonna be with me screaming at Christians, you know, to stop believing things. I've gotta, you know, I've got to see people like uh Jordan Peterson who's uh who's saying, okay, how we treat each other and how I think uh matters, you know. So my my mindset and my behavior really, really matters, and and in that respect, there's a lot of work that's already been done there on the Judeo-Christian side that that I can just uh agree with. Uh my take is that I I agree that we can use a lot of those values. Do we give Christianity credit for those values? That's you know, that's another thing. But at the same time, I'm like, I'm I'm happy living with Christians as as we're doing those values, and the Christians are like, you're welcome. I'm I'm happy to say, okay, yeah, thanks. You know, even if it doesn't sink in that it really is true, I'm happy with them thinking that. But at the same time, I'm happy with Mormons and uh and Muslims saying, You're welcome. And you know, and I'll say, Okay, yeah, sure. But so it's it's less important to me as to where they came from, is that we're doing them and we're valuing them.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So let's talk about two other people in Ayan's story, because I think they've been significant in the way that faith conversations have happened. She was on stage with Jordan Peterson at the art conference when she first kind of came out as a Christian, as it were. And she cited Tom Holland, is is another name that's important um in her conversion story. So, first of all, Jordan Peterson, um, how do you think he's changed the faith conversation over the last six, seven, eight years?

SPEAKER_02

Well, one is measurably, because a lot of Christians report that they were an atheist and they were listening to to Jordan Peterson through people like um uh now I can't remember the the two brothers who were scientists. Uh the Weinsteins.

SPEAKER_01

One's a professor.

SPEAKER_02

Yes, yeah. You know, and so Jordan was just a guy talking to them. And so they kind of got to Jordan Peterson through them, and he was just making a lot of sense. And and people were like, hold on, maybe there might be something here. They just enjoyed his lectures, and then they went to church and found out that church wasn't as awful as uh their atheist peers had led them to believe, and found meaning, and so measurably he he uh you know he's measurably changed the conversation in that way. Um and then I think for people who listen to him, because I I know a lot of his talks are controversial, and a lot of his views are controversial. Um, and I've seen some of his tweets, and I'm like, he should sometimes I think he should have an agent who's like, man, this is this is a powerful thing you just said, but let's you know, let's take a week before we post this. Um but I don't judge him by that. Because I, you know, if you if you judge me by everything I posted and it took off later, then I would, you know, you wouldn't have let me on your show. Um people wouldn't let me in their homes. So so I don't judge him by that. Uh but I I think that he's talking about something important. You I I don't know if we don't I don't think we talked about this, but his his Descartes moment, you know, how Descartes finally realized that no matter what, there's something doing something, so I think therefore I am. That's his foundation. Jordan Peterson's foundation was that everyone would view the Holocaust as an atrocity. He's like, there's eight billion people that if you talk about the Holocaust, they would all say that that's awful, you know. Even deniers of it would say, Well, the reason why I'm denying it is because it's so awful. So he's like, that's my foundation, is the fact that there's something out there that's so awful that we all, you know, recoil and disgust automatically. And the fact that we recoil and disgust automatically without thinking about it, that he's like, that's that's not an analysis, that's an automatic uh recognition of something. So that's his that's his foundation. So I think that's important. I think everyone should say, like, man, what is this stuff? What is this stuff where I'm immediately inspired or immediately disgusted before I even think about it? Um that that's something we're thinking about.

SPEAKER_01

It's something we cannot not know, um, is one way of putting it. But yeah, that the Holocaust is wrong. It's something we cannot not know. I I watched um Zone of Interest just last night, in fact. And do you do you know the film? It's it's sort of set adjacent to Auschwitz. It's about the uh Auschwitz commandant, uh Rudolf Hauss and his family, and it's the it's all about the banality of evil. I th I think you'd really enjoy the film. It's it's uh it's basically Hannah Arendt's kind of the banality of evil as as this 90 minutes of just showing uh a glowing Aryan German family who they love their children too, they love their dogs too, and just over the wall you see the plumes of smoke going up from the chimneys. And you just hear the gunshots in the distance and the screams at times. And it's it's just a sort of the banality of evil. It is so powerful. And there's a there's a scene where Rudolf Hauss um you like you don't understand why he's gone to the doctor and the doctor doctor's kind of pressing on his stomach and and making sure that you know um that he's in fine fine health. Because uh a couple of scenes later you just watch him descend a staircase and he sort of dry retches. And then he composes himself and he goes down this uh another flight of stairs and he dry retches. And it's the only hint it's the only hint in the whole ninety minutes that he has any questions about what he's doing. But it is one of those things that you cannot not know. And I think I think Peterson Peterson does a a service to us in showing us in Twelve Rules for Life that you you could have been that guy. If you grew up in the Hitler Uh, you could have been that guy and he's kind of tapping into uh you know what as a Christian I kind of see as sort of original sin or whatever it is, but but that that sense that we given the right circumstances we could find ourselves in in his position as well, but that there is something also that makes us dry rich at the at the whole thing. I think Jordan Peterson wakes us up to that.

SPEAKER_02

Right. Um and yeah, you've you've inspired like so many thoughts that I I need to start writing it down. Um one thing of real quick an admin note, and you know, keep this in the show, but speaking of screams in the distance, uh I've got two teenage daughters and a dog and a wife who's a personal trainer. So you you all might hear screams in the distance as well, and that's just normal uh family life. Different kinds of screams joy and life. Right. Yeah. Um and then uh something you said once in a podcast about how Plato and Aristotle assumed slavery. They didn't condemn it, they assumed it. And I know in your what's your narrative now about this uh Auschwitz uh uh commandant, uh I know he condones it because he's the commandant, but he assumes it. That stuff over the wall is just you know part of the natural stuff, you know, and it's just normal routine background noise against the real important things in his mind. You know, you could you could take clips of things you and I have said in these last few minutes and make us sound like monsters. But for for him, there are routine things in the background that he just assumes while he's thinking, okay, meanwhile, my kids are hungry or I need to go to the doctor, you know, you know, the important things in life that really matter. Um I think that can be a natural thing that can happen to a lot of people. And and maybe in some degrees, you know, we we do that now. You know, maybe there's horrors not too far from us now, and we, you know, just make sure that our house uh is painted or you know, something uh routine like that.

SPEAKER_01

Right. And and there was one one of the things that the liberators of the camps did was because it's an ecosystem, Auschwitz does not exist by itself. It it needs the village next to it to be complicit in it to some degree. And they would bring like the villagers in and they would show them films of you know what it looked like when they liberated the camps. And and you know, we still to this day have footage of the locals seeing what happened over the wall, and there's this there's this haunting quote, I forget who it's from, but but somebody who said um we didn't know, but we knew. And it's that whole, we didn't know, but we knew. And and there there is the righteous mind at play, isn't it? There is the the kind of we we are very good kind of self-justifiers, and we will tell ourselves a narrative, but reality keeps pressing pressing through nonetheless.

SPEAKER_02

Right. And and for those of anybody who missed our first talk, and you know, that's unforgivable, by the way. Um, that's in the Bible. That's unforgivable. Um yeah, this this whole thing about righteous mind is that there's a part of our mind um that says it's like we talked about the elephant's gonna go to the water, no matter what. You're riding on an elephant, and the elephant that you're on is gonna go to the water. You can tell yourself whatever you want to tell yourself, but the elephant's gonna end up in the water. I I think our minds do that. And whether it's natural or whether there's some religion, religious struggle going on, whatever's happening, there's some things that your mind is like, we're gonna do this. Now you tell yourself whatever you want to tell yourself. And you know, do make up a straw man, make up something else, distract yourself, whatever you want to do, we're gonna go do this. Um so that's like a struggle inside of your mind. But the funny thing is, is that it happens outside of your conscious awareness. And unless unless it's something as brutal as like the Holocaust, it might not ever, it might not ever flow itself into your conscious awareness. And I think as you and I said in the last time, we're all guilty of that. You can be the most religious or the most atheist person in the world, and you're still guilty of that uh that that activity happening in your mind.

SPEAKER_01

Aaron Powell Did we talk about or are you aware of the uh Mitchell and Webb sketch? There are a couple of comedians uh here in the UK and they have these sketch shows. And you've probably seen the meme, Are We the Baddies? I'm sure you've seen the bad. Are we the baddies? Yeah, yes. You know, there they're there are the Nazis, you know, bedded down in the in the foxhole. And uh one of them says, you know, why why do we have skulls on our uniforms? And they just start piecing things together. They look around the room and there's a skull picture over there, and there's somebody knitting a skull scarf and things like that. And the immortal line is uttered, are we the baddies? And it's it's hilarious because we never think it.

SPEAKER_02

It just it's just normal. If if you're if that's your culture, then you just see it as normal. And especially if there's something exciting. Like, you know, I I always say that the culture that you're born into has a lot of what what you believe. But at the same time, if a new culture takes over and it's exciting, and you know, the Nazis experience this, they're like, well, there's a lot of exciting things here. I I feel like I have an identity, then the skulls can make their way in without you paying attention to them.

SPEAKER_01

Surprisingly quickly as well. You know, uh a very a very Christian nation uh ends up, you know, singing hymns to Hitler, the Fuhrer, and and saying things of Hitler that were usually reserved for for Christ, and within a generation, they're like, oh gosh, like this is for all the atheists who say that well, if they were surprisingly Christian, then they must have hated science.

SPEAKER_02

But no, they were the classic type of Christians, the old school Christians, where science was flourishing and diversity was flourishing, and you could have these art shows, and you're right, b Berlin was like the the place you'd want to be before Nazism took over.

SPEAKER_01

And scientific racism was absolutely a hundred a hundred years ago, it was it was absolutely mainstream that of yeah, that it that of course the s the science is pushing you in this direction.

SPEAKER_02

You know. Right.

SPEAKER_01

Which which again goes to show that, you know, science is science, but the the moral framework we press it into um becomes incredibly important. Um and what the the the the moral implications we tend to the moral implications that we claim to read out of science, um we might well be reading into science because we're we've just got these very thick moral lenses that we're that we're looking through.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I I completely agree. You know, I think we said before, we're all moral creatures and we don't see how deeply that that moral stuff uh gets into us.

SPEAKER_01

Aaron Powell Yeah, I th I think I mentioned um Ashley Null the last time we spoke, which um he was summarizing Thomas Cranmer, who was the Archbishop of Canterbury. He wrote the Book of Common Prayer, which is the sort of the founding document really of the third largest denomination um of the church, actually. So the Church of England and the Anglican Communion sort of goes by the Book of Common Prayer. And uh Cranmer, um his his anthropology is in the words of Ashley Null, what the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies.

SPEAKER_02

That's right. You said that quote in our last talk.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and that that's the way we operate. And Jonathan Haidt is is sort of kind of saying that as well with the elephant and the rioter and that kind of thing. Can you just explain for us um Jonathan Haidt's five kind of moral foundations, his moral m moral taste buds?

SPEAKER_02

Yes, and I I usually get these wrong, but uh like we talked about last time, uh almost two of them is like uh compassion and and caring for other people. Uh and almost everybody gets into that. Uh but the other ones have to do with having some sort of an authority and and some sort of systems that you are also loyal to. Um and and Jonathan Haidt was saying that uh sometimes people who think about the authority and the traditions, uh, sometimes there might be more well-balanced than someone who's just, oh, I care for you and I'm empathetic about you. And I'm just, you know, I'm just empathetic and caring about everybody. Uh Jonathan Haidt was like, well, there's also this other uh set of goals that have to do with the authority uh and then maintaining that tradition and maintaining those systems. Um if if anybody's familiar with uh Thomas Sowell, who's you know had books out for 40 years now, about how you you have this conflict of visions. You don't just have caring and loving, but you also have this authority and traditions, and they're and they're both important. Um and then and then of course the funny thing is that if you get too much into authority, then you can forget about the caring and the humanity, the shared humanity. And if you get too much into the shared humanity and caring, you can forget about having any standards. Um and I think that's the big message. Uh, you know, for you and me, and for uh Thomas Sowell and Jonathan Haidt, the the big message is that we're all struggling between empathy for what other people are going through and recognition that we have different experiences that lead to different conclusions. But at the same time, we have to have some sort of standards, not just for ourselves, but you know, we need some sort of a system that we all live by so that when we're, you know, when we go into a coffee shop and we meet somebody with a different view, we don't do what the chimpanzees do. The the chimpanzees, if if two chimpanzees walk into a coffee shop, stop me if you heard heard this before, they'll kill each other. If they're if they're from different tribes and they both go into a coffee shop, they'll be like enemy and they'll impulsively kill each other, but we don't do that. So so there's something about us that uh well, hopefully, hopefully we don't do that. For the most part, Starbucks would report that for the most part we don't do that. Uh there's something about that, uh and thank God for that.

SPEAKER_01

Thank God for that. Right.

SPEAKER_02

Well so w we do have our standards and we do have our empathy, and we just we just kinda have to keep working on that. We and and I think your seven I'm gonna keep tying this back to your seven things.

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_02

Not just because you're the host, but because I really do think like if I could have a hard copy of your book, I'm I'm gonna push you to you know just make one for me. Uh I'm gonna put that back here. Um because I I think that it matters that we talk about that. Um because cause usually if I'm talking to an atheist or a Christian who's already angry at me, which I get a lot, they're already angry at me, I'll start picking at some of these values, some of these foundations and and get them to say, okay, wait a minute, I I like those ideas, you know, keep talking. Uh because I I think there's some commonality there that we should all keep talking about.

SPEAKER_01

Well let me see if I let me see if uh I can summarize where we've got to and get us to the seven values. Okay. So interestingly, so where I got to in in my book is um I actually mentioned Jonathan Haidt, I think, at s at one stage, where because he he says that basically care and fairness um have become really preeminent values, especially of on on the left. And he and he says, you know, politically speaking, those on the right um tend to have pretty equal um affirmations of all five moral values. Those on the left tend to um very much prioritize care, so that's compassion and fairness, you could you could say equality. Um and I I I think you can trace that back to the the Auschwitz thing, actually. That what we saw with Nazi Germany was the overturning of in particular the first two of the seven values. Um equality. Absolutely there is a difference between the races, and we will treat them very, very differently. And and compassion, you know. Um even before the Holocaust began. Um there was you know euthanasia and and the the putting to death of of the disabled and um and so there was not the the lifting up of the weak and the poor and the marginalized. There was there was absolutely um the desire for strength. There were no good Samaritans. No good Samaritans. And the right thing to do is very few good Samaritans. Yeah, yeah. Of course you pass on by. That guy would only hold you back. And so and what we have since World War II is sort of we we're not sure what's up, we're very sure what's down. We don't have a pole star to guide us, we have a pit to avoid, and the pit is Auschwitz. And absolutely Peterson. I'm gonna use that. Oh, it's in it's in the book. It's in the book. But yeah, absolutely Peterson kind of points us to that. And I think even the UN Declaration of Human Rights, though, or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the preamble is all about in the shadow of the great evil, we have faith in human rights. And and they enumerate the human rights in that in that sort of sense. And as Tom Holland says, you know, for 1900 years of church history, um, the moral guide was Jesus. And for the last century, the moral guide is Hitler. It's just for the first 1900 years we did what Jesus would do, and for the last hundred years, we've done the opposite of what Hitler would do. And I think that that might be one historical reason why especially care and fairness um strikes us as as things that you absolutely must um kind of value, or else you're a Nazi and you're you're the worst kind of human being. And we've kind of constructed a morality out of doing the photo negative of Nazism. Which it's which itself was in in some sense a reaction against 1900 years of Christendom. But to but to do the photo negative of Nazism is not necessarily to return you to the original vision.

SPEAKER_02

I think so much of our culture is overreaction to problems that were previously going on.

SPEAKER_01

If you don't have a pole star, then all you're all you're going to do is avoid pits.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, and so that's going to be, you know, we'll do this later, but my biggest thing is I don't think there's a pole star. I think there's pit avoidance. And the best cultures just were surrounded by pits. They were beset on all sides. Like, I don't know what to do, but we're not doing that, we're not doing that, we're not doing that. And then we're just kind of tiptoeing. And that that might be the best times in history, was, you know, this is my take. Um, but we'll get to that in a second. Um one thing, before we lose the the anybody who's watching who's right wing based, who's watching our show, and they think that we just said something good about the left about how care and fairness is what they care about, that has changed. Um, you know, the the left has now created an authoritarian um regime based off of care and fairness. So it's so when John Hyatt wrote his book 12 uh 11 years ago, maybe 12 now, uh he uh he said the left is all about caring and and equality. Great, but now uh some places in the left, especially on Twitter, have created a new regime that said, we'll tell you today if there's a you know a person from this culture arguing with another person from this culture, we'll investigate which one of those had a harder time. That person will be correct over whatever the issue is, and you will follow what we said, or you're a Nazi. And so talking about a mirror image of Nazism, they've created an authoritarian regime where this Twitter group decides the correct form of care and fairness. Uh so that's interesting. It's interesting that they took something that was sort of uh at odds with authoritarianism and made it the authority. So everybody on the right who's watching, you know, come on back. We're not we're not praising the left on that. That was uh for me, I think that was a mistake on their part. You know, care and equality, wonderful. But having one person decide what's equal is probably a problem.

SPEAKER_00

Hi folks, it's Thomas Thoroughgood here, media producer at Speak Life. You might recognise my voice as the guy who does the filler bits on the podcast. It's part of my job to think of how we can include you more in the work of Speak Life and bring you behind the scenes, if you will. And so we have a very exciting thing called the Speak Life Discord server. It's an online platform where you can interact with other Speak Life supporters and the Speak Life team. We have bonus content, creative theological discussion, and lots of fun along the way. So if you want to join that, you can just go to speaklife.org.uk forward slash give. Okay, back to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01

Yes, absolutely. And and um a phrase that I've developed since writing the book um is is that I think the seven the seven values that have come through sort of Christian history have been divorced and detached from the the wider story, and then they they become more free-floating, um simply atomized values. Um G.K. Chesterton talked about the Christian virtues run amok. And he was writing a hundred years ago, and even then he was talking about Christian virtues such as compassion, running amok, that that are untethered to reality, untethered to any other virtues, untethered to a story that makes sense of it. Um, and some of the cruelest people that you've ever met um use the hashtag be kind. And you're like it can absolutely be be used as a as a cudgel, and so it goes from value or it comes in from the fruit of a kind of a civilization and a story to a detached value to now a virtue that you signal um that that can mask any number of different nefarious purposes. But yeah, absolutely. Simply to claim care or fairness does not mean that you have the substance.

SPEAKER_02

Right. That I think that'd be one of my biggest uh things to preach. You know, we talked about last time how I talk like I'm in a ministry and I'm preaching. Yeah, one of my biggest things is that you can use the right words. You can use the absolutely the correct words, but the thing that you're loyal to and the thing that you're expecting other people to be loyal to, if they don't agree with you, that doesn't mean they don't care or that they don't they're not interested in in equality. Uh just because they just disagree with you doesn't mean that they're monsters. And I think that's something that a lot of people, religious, atheists, right, left, mid-ground, sports fans, they can all forget that. And and so uh that's my one of my big things that I preach from the pulpit.

SPEAKER_01

But that's what that's why I think a pole star is important. Because uh otherwise we get we get triggered by um oh, it reminds me of that pit. And what are the the the Buddha said that you know, if you've ever been bitten by a snake, you'll see every you'll see snakes everywhere, even when it's just a curl of rope, right? And if it's all if it's all pit navigation.

SPEAKER_02

If I write a book, I'm gonna name you as the co-author, even though you didn't help me write it, just because I've been stealing. It's either gonna be I'm either gonna name my book something that you said, or I'm gonna call it Ste Stealing from Glenn Scrivener, just like Frank has Stealing from God, everyone's gonna be stealing from Glenn Scravener. Um because this is this is very helpful to what I what I think as well.

SPEAKER_01

So how how do we how do we not be reactive? So if we if we don't have if if we're not gonna go with the okay, it's the Jesus story, and the Jesus story is true, the Jesus story frames our civilization, you know, it's because God died for you, that's why you believe in compassion, that's why you believe in equality, and there's that large so if there's not that large a story, how do we avoid values becoming detached from one another and we just end up being reactive against one another?

SPEAKER_02

I I'm not sure. And but this idea about the ideas kind of floating in the air, um, that makes me think of what I was saying before about how we're surrounded by immaterial ideas. And in our last talk, we talked about how I was thinking like a songbird is born into a community, and the song that the other adults are singing is already there, and it's like waiting for him, even though he has no idea that he's gonna take that up. The song it doesn't know, and it's immaterial. It doesn't, you can't grasp it, but it it does exist. So I think a lot of these ideas are floating out there. And I wonder if those ideas didn't start floating out there based off of some awful situation before. And then I wonder if humans didn't like creatively take these ideas floating around the air and say, what if we try some of these other ideas? So we're avoiding the pits, but we're also grasping at these ideas that are floating in the air. Maybe that's the song. And then some cultures did better at that than others, and so you know, Christianity, now certainly Christianity did really, really well with that, but I would say that a lot of that was trial and error. You know, you and I both uh have read John Dixon's Bullies and Saints. So I wonder if there wasn't some of the bad stuff that helped sharpen the Christian sense of the good stuff. Um, so uh that that's something that I'm thinking about in terms of natural development of those seven ideas, is that maybe those ideas came from living long enough in the pits and saying we can't do that, and then we created some concepts or imagined some concepts that were floating in the air. And again, they're immaterial. And again, I don't know if this threatens Christianity because the story of Christianity could be a struggle rather than having the answer the whole time. But you know, the whole thing of Christianity might be a struggle, so that maybe God needed us to come from the pits and then get to a point where we have these ideas. And so maybe the ideas were already there, we just had to discover them. So I'm not really uh I don't know this is threatening Christianity so much. But but I wonder just from my natural point of view, if that's not how it happened, if it wasn't trial and error and creativity, um, and then trying new things, and then that becomes the culture. So we created an another culture based off of uh trial and error trial and error and and grabbing these ideas out of the air. That's that's my yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's my thought. I think one one thing, one thing to talk about that um that that reminds me of is yeah, Christians shouldn't be threatened by the idea of a long story and things developing. Um I think I think that's that's kind of baked into the thing. Even even you go to like Matthew, like Matthew 19, Jesus talks about he's been asked about divorce and remarriage, and he was like, oh well, you know, there was this regime, you know, in the in the beginning the creator made it like this, but but actually there's been this fall, and because of hardness of heart, there has been this non-ideal arrangement um called the old covenant, and that's been going on for quite some time now, and I'm I'm here to restore things to to something like what it was in the beginning. But he also says in Matthew chapter 13 that his kingdom will grow like a mustard seed, you know, into the largest plant, or like yeast working its way through dough. And so, like the I the idea of long development um should not be like the way I think the way a Christian should argue should not be exactly the same as the way a Platonist argues. You know, Pl you know, Plato had the the realm of ideas in which um yeah, the good, the true, and the beautiful are just eternal realities in the mind of God. Um and you know, I think Platonists can be moral realists in a far more immediate way. Uh-huh. In a in a way um that's that doesn't necessarily have to that doesn't have to respond to history and development in the same way that you know clearly there's a story to the Bible. And you know, there was something in the beginning and then there's a fall, and then there's a non-ideal sort of thing, and then Jesus is working on the world in a gradual development sort of sense. And so I I I don't think Christians are like Platonists, and I therefore I think Christians have a a a category um even even being moral realists, we have a category for development over time. And so we we shouldn't be threatened by in in one sense, of course, human civilizations are trial and error. You know, every you know every everybody is um So that that's that's one thing I'd um I'd love to say about that. The other thing is on the naturalistic worldview, you don't have very long to live in a pit before you're an evolutionary dead end. And therefore, like it's so say that again. So you can't be in you can't be in a in a pit for very long before you're an evolutionary dead end, can you? So like whatever whatever lessons you learn um have to be learnt pretty pretty quickly. Um and I I just wonder whether that that becomes quite fear-based and reactive.

SPEAKER_02

I do, but I think that might have been how it worked. You know, I I think maybe yeah, so uh I'm sort of uh assembling my worldview as as we talk. Um but yeah, I I think that you have all these horrible things going around and and people are like, you know, I I don't have a pole star except to say I hate this and I hate this and I hate this, which might have led to them uh pitching some ideas, and then it took a while before you could have people give it a try. Um, and then maybe, you know, maybe for a while the pit is how you lived. I think you and I talked about this six or seven years ago was that some of the most awful tribes probably ate all the moderate tribes at some point in our history, and so you had to be a monster in a monster tribe in order to stay alive. And so that's why I think now we still inherit that monster capability. Um, because I think maybe our original ancestors, you know, killed everybody, all the Neanderthals and anybody else who was willing to, you know, listen and hear them out rather than fight back. Um, but then you had too many pits and too much fierceness, and maybe from that evolved another uh sense of people who said, Well, I've got to fight this urge to be a monster and try not to uh kill this other guy. Um and we talked about this a little bit in the last time with uh Eleanor Ostrom, who had studied occasions in history where different groups that were warring tribes had figured out how to share share a limited natural resource because just pragmatically they said if we kill each other, then we all die. And if we destroy this natural resource, then we all die. So let's get past ourselves and sh and come up with a new set of rules and and obey those rules. And then because some tribes did that, that's how you get nation states and and uh and bigger uh tribes. So that that could have been a natural evolution too, just based off of pragmatic decisions. Like I I'm not gonna I'm not gonna um abandon my tribe and I'm not gonna betray my values, but at the same time, I'm not gonna go over there and attack you uh and keep you from the lake because you'll come over and and attack me and uh keep me from the lake. So so uh then I I think so something could have uh evolved from that. Um that's kind of how I see that could have happened. And then from that comes the pole star where someone says, hey guys, you know, a hundred years ago our our always get always makes up ancestors and descendants. Our ancestors a hundred years ago got to this point, and then they started fighting and and they screwed up. Let's make sure we don't do that. Let's memorialize these ideas that we grasped from the idea from the air, you know, and and maybe there's two people doing it. Maybe one person is like, hey, let's just make a pragmatic list, and then his brother goes, What? Oh hey, God just told me these these ideas, and then everyone listens to him. Everyone tell tells the brother who's saying is pragmatic, you know, go away. And then go into the guy who's like, oh, God just revealed this to me. Maybe that's you know, something, maybe that's how religion started. Um I'm I'm grasping at straws here, but uh, you know, that that could be sort of what happened. And it would, and if that's the case, then maybe that's a naturalist uh development of that pole star.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Yeah. I think have have you have you come across Christian Smith? Um he's uh he's a Catholic apologist, but he he's written a book called uh Atheist Over Overreach. And um I think I think he does a good job. So you have you come across him? He's um smart guy.

SPEAKER_02

No, I haven't heard of him. He um I like that title though, because I might be guilty of it.

SPEAKER_01

Atheist Overreach. Um Well, I mean what's interesting is is that he's he will absolutely grant that evolution can absolutely teach you a morality. And it can be a pro-social morality. And in in fact, it must teach you a pro-social morality. But I think the uh the the overreach comes when we when we talk about something like inviolable human worth and dignity, you know. That that absolutely I mean the same evolutionary pressures are on chimpanzee societies as well, and yet the idea that there's the inviolable worth of every member of the tribe in a in a chimpanzee society just does doesn't really make sense. And yet you you bring that over to the episode.

SPEAKER_02

Right, they wouldn't survive.

SPEAKER_01

And uh Yeah, but his his his thing is is well of course evolution will teach you to pick nits off your neighbor and to be to be good to your kith and kin. Um but it it won't it won't teach you some of these things that we prize so very deeply. Like human rights. Um like the fact that okay, you know, that you mentioned the Good Samaritan, so I I go past the guy by the side of the road, like honestly, it's no harm, no foul if you pass on by, right? And and there is and and you could just say it's completely cultural. It's it's a completely cultural guilt that you feel.

SPEAKER_02

Right. And if anybody who doesn't know the Good Samaritan, how dare you? How first of all, how dare you be an atheist and not know the story of the Good Samaritan? Because you you know, we're the ones who are saying, we're reading the Bible. Um but yeah, but the the first two who walked by the herd guy were officials, they were church officials who who walked by the the dying man and came up with justifications as to why they wouldn't help him. Um so yeah, I exactly and uh and I'll also I'm I've been curious if when Jesus was telling that story, was it a historical story and that it happened before Jesus, in which case, what was what was the Samaritan, what was the pole star for that Samaritan? And that led me to the donkey. The fact that he has a donkey and the other two guys don't have a donkey, and maybe the donkey is a symbol there. So maybe the pole star. I'm trying to I'm doing your work now. I might just I might as well just switch sides. Um but then I wonder if you know that was the the donkey is like a symbol for Jesus, so that maybe Jesus was already always there.

SPEAKER_01

Um I think Jesus is the good Samaritan in disguise in the story. So um he was called a Samaritan by his enemies.

SPEAKER_02

I got the feeling that the good What's that?

SPEAKER_01

He Jesus was called a Samaritan by his enemies.

SPEAKER_02

Um Right, right, because he wasn't playing uh he wasn't playing along, he wasn't he wasn't uh toe in the line.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. And and it was just, you know, an easy epithet to just throw out and discredit him. Um and and like he's filled with compassion. And like the verb compassion, it's the number one way of describing the emotional life of Jesus, and that verb is only dis uh is only used to describe Jesus' emotional life in the Gospels. It's it's this word for gut-wrenching pity, and you know, it's that kind of stomach-churning love that he has. Um and there's yeah, so I think there's lots of reasons within the text to think that Jesus is kind of in disguise in this story. He's certainly doing a very Jesus-y thing, which is coming from outside the system, and what he does is an intervention, and he does not let nature take its course. And you think, well, in one sense, you think, How dare you? Because maybe the tribe has willed him to be exiled, or maybe the gods have willed him to be exiled, or like he doesn't look like he'll help the survival of our in group. So who are you to intervene? And so you see that compassion is really an intervention and it it's very costly. And he expends that and we've we've meditated upon that story, and we've meditated upon that storyteller and his compassion. For 2,000 years, and we've come to see that there's something in and of itself that is worthwhile, valuable about compassion, such that now we take the opposite view to the people who might have heard the story at the first time. The people hearing the story for the first time might have thought, no harm, no foul, the priest and the Levite who passed on by, whatever. Um, but now there's been a kind of a moral rev revolution.

SPEAKER_02

I was just gonna say you mentioned this before in another podcast was that a lot of cultures in the past, if they had heard the story of the Good Samaritan, they would have hated it. You you should have stopped after the priest and the Levite and then say that's the end. And everybody wants to say, okay, that makes sense. But if you bring in the Good Samaritan who who goes against the will of nature and says, no, wait a minute, I'm gonna help him, they probably would have been enraged. So we all in the Western, you know, probably probably more people than not like it now, but I'm just saying there's probably times in history where other cultures would have hated that story.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

You you can finish. I just I wanted to make sure I threw that up.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, no, that's it. And and just to bring it back to the Christian Smith atheist overreach thing, I think I think Christian Smith would say, um you can get to a certain level of care for the guy beaten up by the side of the road. Like you might sort of console him in his demise, and that would be a sort of a kind thing to do. But to build a civilization on that vision of compassion is a surprising thing to do from a purely naturalistic account. You can certainly um you can certainly advocate for pro-social behavior, but the kind of gut-wrenching pity and the kind of sacrificial love it would take to do that, or as I say, inviolable human worth and dignity, human rights, that sort of thing, um that's that seems to be far beyond what your naturalism can can get you to.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I and uh I remember you've you've mentioned this. Um I I had not heard of Christian Smith or atheist over a job, but that's that's giving me another thing to read. Um but I mentioned you before that like you're saying in your seven values, all of us who live these seven values, this is a faith-based position. And and you've even used the metaphor of we're already six miles in the air uh with these seven values. Um that's faith, it's a faith-based position. You said, you know, living in faith living in faith positions uh at a cost or in a costly way, is your words, um, which I which I think I want to make the title of my book. Uh so so yeah, and I agree with that. And then I just wonder if if those ideas, if they didn't develop naturally the way I said, but also with memory. You know, what what if what if I was hurt and my family came and saved me, and then I recovered and I'm like, you know what, I could have done that for someone else's kid. And and then I do it for someone else's kid, and then somebody in another village is like, what? The other person's kid? And they're like, well, hold on, what if it was my kid? And and so then our sense of creativity might have kicked in. And again, I'll I'll you know, this isn't based off of observation or you know, anything like that, you know, and you could say it's my bias and wishful thinking, but but then I would say if it is trial and error and creativity, that could possibly be a way. That's my faith position, uh, that it could have happened naturally. Um but I I wanted to say something I mentioned in my uh I made a post on Facebook the other day, and I said, even if there is this pole star, even if there is this thing that exists for all of us and we're all supposed to be paying attention to it, we still do whatever we want. So I I try to say, even if there is this objective standard, people, the Nazis are still gonna be Nazis, and ISIS is still gonna be ISIS, and then people who say, you know what, for whatever reason I'm gonna go help this these other people that aren't uh, you know, that aren't on my team, I'm still gonna do whatever I can for them, whether they're atheist or religious, we still do whether that's selfish or whether that's uh ideology or sense of cooperation, or we're just recognizing something from above, or you know, it I've even heard people who say there's nothing else, it's all meaninglessness, but because of that, I'm gonna rise up and and do my best, and that's where their sense of purpose comes from. Whichever is the case, I'm just happy that there's people who are more like I'm gonna go help them, and and hopefully fewer people who are more like ISIS, who's like, it's gotta be my way or I'm gonna kill you. Uh I'm on the side of the people that have these seven values that you mentioned. If it's Christianity or naturalism, I just I like the seven values.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. Yeah. And there's there's a sense in which you can kind of shake your fist at the heavens or or you know, protest outside the UN headquarters all you like and say human rights are a real thing. Um that that won't stop that won't stop the Uyghur Muslims being you know, um being wiped out. Uh Right. Yep, exactly. Um But I think to I think two things to say to that. I think one one thing is um it is still a precious thing to be able to say that the Chinese Communist Party are doing something wrong there. And that it's not and that that's not simply a uh a different way of organizing your society. It's not just, you know, different so you know, social custom. You know. You know, in in China they do great dim sum and you know, and you know the the Communist Party treats treats the Uyghurs like that. Like it would be a loss um to to lose that category of of evil, even if you couldn't do anything about it. And then the second thing is is just I think um that a society that tells a story in which the highest figure actually like stoops down to the lowest gutter and with gut-wrenching compit uh you know compassion and pity serves and sacrifice and and that that is the greatest demonstration of his glory that there's ever been and we've I I do think that on aggregates over centuries that has a moral uh formation on a society. And I guess my question would be have we ever attempted a a moral program with a population in which the way we try to form the population is not so much with a a religious superstructure or a story, that kind of narrative, but rather with a more pragmatic sense of how to avoid pits. Like are we running an experiment that's never been attempted before?

SPEAKER_02

Aaron Ross Powell Right, yeah. In that case, you're right, because I can't think of any uh society that said, you know, enough of this deity talk, let's just pragmatically do this. I can't think of any. Um but Christianity is certainly a case where it worked in a lot of cases. And and I've I can hear all the atheists screaming, well, not always. And and and you and I have we've read Bullies and Saints, so we realize not always, but uh in both of our cases we agree that it's part of a journey and trial and error. But you're right. Uh if if I'm right and and this can be done naturally, wouldn't it be great if there were natural naturalist societies I could point to that have 2,000 years of success? And I probably will never get a chance to do that. Um but then I also want to say I worry if if we're a 300,000-year-old species, I worry for the 298,000 years where people didn't have what we have, you know, and and they they were like, we've I've got to do whatever to stay alive. Um, you know, and maybe they were developing some sense of compassion and you know, and they were wiped out. Uh, you know, maybe these values were being formed over the 300,000 years, but I I I kind of feel sorry for them that they didn't have this pole star introduced into their society. And if they did, you know, we just don't know about it. Uh I guess I don't for me, it doesn't make sense that a pole star creator would see our species, you know, and say, okay, wait, wait, wait. Like in those movies, you know, wait, wait, wait. But then 298,000 years, like, okay, go, go, go. I I understand Jay Warner Wallace's position is that it had to happen right then, but I wonder if that's not like picking and choosing uh the situations that evolved much longer that so that we could be postured for something like that. Um, that's a good point. That's why that's why I wonder if if yeah, that's that's my sort of a pushback on that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Which okay. Here it this this might sound like a um uh a random segue, but it might get us to the figure of Tom Holland who I mentioned earlier. I think I think that's one of Tom Holland's big objections as well, uh uh to jumping in with both feet with with Christianity. You know, uh I think he he talks very movingly about there have been times in his life where he feels absolutely able to believe, um, not just in human rights, but I think he's pulled at the human rights thread and found the Christian story on the other end, and he's able to kind of take a leap of faith and believe the Christian thing at times, and at other times he's not. And and one of the things he says is when I think about um when I think about dinosaurs and deep space, um, which is a way of just talking about the just the immense the immensity of time and the immensity of space, um and I guess the brutality of of a you know human history in which we've we've emerged at you know 1159 on the on the cosmic clock and the rest of the uh the rest of the dial has not been a lot of fun. Um so he he struggles with Christianity for exactly those those reasons. So there's my segue to Tom Holland. Um tell me about like you've you've read you've read Dominion, um, and are you are you noticing the kind of impact that he's he's having in the in the faith conversations around you?

SPEAKER_02

He gets he gets filed with uh uh in the hardcore atheist. So you know there's different kinds of atheists, but the even though new atheism doesn't have the popularity it once did, I would say the most popular atheists are still saying we need to get rid of this religious talk and just start talking factual. Um so that's still a big part of the conversation. Um I would say Alex O'Connor is the last remaining uh non-new atheist who was allowed into new atheism. And that might be because for six or seven years ago, he was the tip of the spear of that kind of new atheism talk, especially for the younger generations. Um, you know, because Richard Dawkins and Dan Dennett weren't necessarily having a YouTube channel, uh Alex O'Connor was that guy. Now he's really shifted over the seven years, as you and I have seen him shift. But usually the atheist, once an atheist is like buddying up to Christianity, Christianity, which is my whole ministry, is buddying up to Christianity. Usually once an atheist does that, then the atheists go, okay, trader, you know, nice talking to you. You know, if if you go to church or something, you know, have fun. Uh so yeah, Tom Holland, there's not too many atheists who are like, huh man, Tom Holland's got a point. And and if there are, they don't have a famous Facebook page uh for long. So I uh uh that's one of the things I'm trying to do is to say I think Tom Holland has a point. Even if Christianity isn't true, um it's still a point there that uh there's some better ways of doing things. And if Christianity was the one group that happened to make that a dominant uh talking point for us and and and part of our uh even our compulsive thinking, uh, then we should at least give them credit. Even if it is just a natural, if if Christianity turns out to be nothing more than avoiding pits and grabbing ideas out of the air, we should at least be grateful that it happened so that we were born in a society where we could at least uh rebel against Christianity instead of an authoritarian uh regime where we can't where we can't rebel. You were talking about um uh how that worried Tom Holland uh about the times in history and the vastness of space. Uh C. S. Lewis wrote a whole thing on that, the discarded image, is where he he worried about how the new scientific discoveries were gonna make it impossible for Christians to build a narrative that made sense to them because in the Christian mind back then, you know, according to him, and C. S. Lewis was not fighting the science. He embraced the science, but he was like, I'm worried how this is gonna affect the Christian narrative because uh with Christianity, there's like a two-dimensional chart, and we're down here, and the heavens are up here, and it's a fixed space, and we all understand that. But for us to be a tiny dot in this infinite cosmos, I wonder how that's gonna make sense. And of course, he wouldn't have known Hugh Ross, but Hugh Ross has has made that his bread and butter. Uh he's completely rewritten uh a type of Christianity that I think C.S. Lewis would would sign off on using the science as we understand it today. So I'm throwing that out there for anybody who's struggling with uh the the stuff that Tom Holland struggled with.

SPEAKER_01

Yes. And I think for both, yeah, re- reading the discarded image would be really, really important because I I think there's something about um considering the human in all the dignity and worth of the human that like in the image of God, like to to to frame it biblically. I really I really think that can be um a way to faith, actually, for for for people, so that's that there's there's a place to look. And the and the place to look is not you know the the far-flung stars and the nebula, but the the place to look is you know into the face of a discarded person. Into the face of the guy beaten up by the side of the road. And saying, even if they are it's all about the merit.

SPEAKER_02

Everything is everything's a good demo.

SPEAKER_01

It's uh isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Here's a here's a short story that we've been you know discussing for two thousand years. Powerful stuff. Um but yeah, to to look into the into the face of that discarded person and to see uh there is there is someone whose worth is far beyond whatever they can offer to the tribe and you know, whatever economic utility I can extract from them. There it there is somebody who is valuable as such and has been has a given kind of And I I've I I am finding it fruitful to talk to people who don't think of themselves as believers, but actually they totally see that the guy beaten up by the side of the road has that and and they can't prove that, you know. I I don't think they can prove that logically or or scientifically. I d I don't. I think that's a belief. Well I don't either. Uh and I think pulling it that thread Uh and here I'm the faithist atheist. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you are.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I'm saying I'm the faith atheist, so I I agree it's a belief too.

SPEAKER_01

And I I think I can have my cake and eat it as well, in that yes, I I think it is a faith-based position that is also grounded in something historical because I I think the one at the top of the hierarchy has descended to the deepest depths, and that is the most glorious thing that there's ever been. And therefore we're in touch with something of our creator, even when we're looking at somebody in the gutter. That's yeah, that's that's my best take. Okay, I'll g I'll give you the floor. One your one last chance to convert me, Richard Suttles. What do you what do you what do you want to throw my way?

SPEAKER_02

Okay, so yeah, two things. One one is just a word of warning just to the world at large. We talked about the uh China's regime. They are gonna keep doing it. We we talked about before, even if there's this pole star, uh the the regime is gonna keep saying we're the authority, and anyone who goes against our authority will be dealt with harshly. And your best bet is to feverishly support us, and then we'll see if we can't help you some. But that's your only choice. And they would not mind doing that for the whole world. Um, so keep keep that in mind if you're thinking China's over there. Uh, well, it try to watch this on TikTok if you think China's over there. Um that you know, this this kind of stuff is coming. So, you know, I I guess I'll sound like a conspiracy theorist, but we've been talking about this all day is that there's some authorities that want to continue with their authority despite this pole star, which might be natural or Christian. That's that's gonna happen. So that's kind of a word of warning. Um, and then my second point is that just like you're saying you can have your cake and eat it too. My thing isn't so much to become an atheist, but my thing is to say let them eat cake. If if this is what they think is the pole star, give it to them. And then hopefully there'll be more people who have different versions, hopefully of the same pole star. And then our way of living will outcompete. And again, again, if I'm right, you know, us all we're competing on this limited planet. Um, hopefully, our way of living will outcompete the authoritarian groups that you know not only are uh have this really uh scary ideal that you have to be uh loyal to them, but they actually have the technology to back it up right now and to enforce it. Um hopefully will those of us who are outside of that can outcompete them with the way that we see the world so that when other people try to introduce an authoritarian regime to us, we recognize it and we uh avoid that uh so that we can uh like I think the pole star will disappear underneath authoritarianism. So any even if it's an authority that sounds good to you, uh I think the poll star would disappear. And it uh it all ties into loyalty. And man, I'm gonna bring this back into the Good Samaritan. It ties into behavior over label because in the Good Samaritan, here's the Jewish uh you know uh Messiah talking to a Jewish audience, and the first two characters of the story don't do the right thing. The guy with the wrong label does the right thing. Uh and so when he goes, here comes a Samaritan, the audience is like boo, boo, but he does the right thing. And so it's behavior over label. If that's the pole star, which I got from the Good Samaritan, uh, then you know I think maybe there's hope for us. That's my that's that's my bringing all this together.

SPEAKER_01

That was a brilliant, a brilliant job of bringing it all together. Uh Richard, how can people keep keep up with you online?

SPEAKER_02

Uh also far I'm on Facebook and YouTube. My YouTube uh presence is is pathetic, but you know, it's a small start. Uh hopefully it'll develop naturally like like everything else did.

SPEAKER_01

Touche. Richard Suttles, thank you very much for joining me.

SPEAKER_02

Man, thank you so much for having me.