Genocide Joe, Head Injuries & Vietnam Veterans | Ep 67 | Moral Combat

In episode 67 of the Moral Combat Podcast, Nathaniel and Zachary delve into the complexities of healing from religious trauma after leaving their evangelical Christian upbringing. The brothers discuss the challenging process of questioning ingrained beliefs and values, the importance of finding joy in the present, and the everyday challenges of work, health, and maintaining friendships. Their conversations cover a wide range of topics, including the therapeutic benefits of podcasting, the role of trauma bonding in personal connections, and the discrepancies between religious teachings and historical evidence about Christianity. They critically examine the influence of the black church on social justice issues, particularly its stance on international conflicts and the contradiction of political figures exploiting religious spaces for personal gain. Additionally, they explore the intersection of neuroscience and religion, discussing studies on brain injuries and religious fundamentalism, and consider the healing potential of plant medicine. The episode is peppered with personal anecdotes, from military service to video games, and culminates in a discussion on creative projects, including Zachary's upcoming music release. This episode is a rich tapestry of personal reflection, societal critique, and the search for healing and growth beyond religious trauma.

Moral Combat, hosted by siblings Nathan and Zach Blaustone, is a heartfelt exploration of life's complexities, with a primary focus on healing from religious trauma. Step into their world as they navigate the realms of music production, confront the lingering echoes of religious trauma, and embrace laughter as a universal healer. With each episode, Nathan and Zach weave together their unique perspectives, seasoned with dynamic personalities that make every discussion an engaging adventure. From unraveling the complexities of personal growth to fostering open communication, healing the scars of religious indoctrination, and embracing the unfiltered authenticity of siblinghood, Moral Combat is your passport to thought-provoking conversations, heartfelt insights, and the pure joy of shared moments. Join us in the combat for morality, one conversation at a time.

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All right, well, here we are. Here we are again. Welcome, everybody. Thanks for being here. Yes, welcome, Moral Combat fans. Moral Combat fans, MCPFs. MCPFs. We are the Moral Combat Podcast. We are. And my name is Nathaniel Blaustone. And I am Zachary Blaustone. Scratch that. My name is Nathaniel Blaustone Faust. Okay. Why don't you explain that? Well, I'm getting married in February. There we go. I just had to apply for my marriage license and I changed my name. So what I just did there, my name is actually changed. Legally? Basically, yeah. It's all there. Well, until it's signed into marriage. Well, it's signed. But I think you're getting married in February. Let's pause. This is a podcast where we'd like to talk about religious trauma. Why, Zachary? Well, our father, who is still a pastor, we were raised in the evangelical Christian church known as Calvary Chapel. Very popular here in Northern California and Southern California. California, yeah. All over the world now. But we have left the faith many, many years ago, but have struggled quite a bit with some religious trauma that we have healed quite a bit through this podcast and communicating through it and talking about it. And so we like to give that opportunity to more people. You might've seen on previous podcasts, a handful of interviews we've done and just had a lot of healing, and it's been pretty amazing. Yeah, and I don't know if we're offering anybody to anybody out there. We're offering a lot to each other having this vulnerable conversation and then doing it publicly online over and over and over has been extremely therapeutic, cathartic. And so we're the lucky ones. And we really hope that y'all that have been joining us, listening for a long time with these recent interviews, thanks for being here. And we really hope you're getting something out of it. I think we've healed a lot. I think there's been a lot of healing. I like to say, we're just healing a lot. There's never no ending healing. And bringing up, I'm getting married. You're gonna get married someday at some point. And it's like, planning the marriage is going great. Yeah, real fun. Coming from a Christian evangelical upbringing. Everyone knows marriage is like a religious as ****. And so I've had a kind of a difficult time breaking down these traditions and really feeling myself and what marriage is and in this exact time in my life. And so never, there's no end to being more vulnerable, honest and going deeper into whatever this, what it means to have religious trauma, to be born into the church, to have parents as leaders. And we've been so lucky to have these guests that we've had on lately. And Kim and Forrest, we have so many more to come. It's really like changing our podcast a lot. It's advancing. This is the first time we've done a podcast alone together in like months now. We haven't even worn our headphones in a while. It just feels different. It's fun. Yeah, I'm happy to be here with you, bro. Bro, what's up, brother? Yo, what's up, bro? What's up, brother? How you been lately? I've never lived a better day. That's exactly how I felt all day today. Yeah, same. It was a stressful day. Best day of my life. Best day of your life. Stressful Sunday, best day of my life. Yeah. It's actually a funny saying because it forces you to like think about the present. It's like, this is the best day of your life because this is the only day of your life. This is the present moment. This is the most important part. Living in that though, living in that piece of, I don't know. Shit, right. Yeah, exactly. Living in that shit. Living in that shit is the best. Love it. No, I'm doing all right, man. How you doing? Yeah, we're good. I've had a wonderful week. It's been a five-day-er in a row in the hospital and I've become really neurotic when I work five days in a row in the hospital. You know, getting up at like 4 a.m., getting to the hospital by five and then 12, 15 IVs a day and like so many sacred moments. Like there's so many things that happen in a day for me as an outpatient cardiac surgical nurse. I get to just meet so many people and so I feel very, like my week has been full. I've had all my workouts. I'm changing a lot of my diet in life. I've cut out all hot sauce. I've cut out all extra mayo because I love that mayo on my food. I've cut out like any added salt. I'm cooking all my food bland and plain and- You know what's so funny is you did this last year. Yeah, I did this last year and I'm just way ahead of schedule this year. It's like, why are you getting such a headstart on this? Yeah, I know I have a retreat coming up in April again, end of April, and part of that process, this meditative retreat, is to like cut out a lot of the stimulating things we're like addicted to or trying to learn the relationships to like caffeine or salt and hot sauce and like foods and then digital addictions and like all the things I like aren't bad at all, but just we like cling on to. I've started to slowly strip those away and so, which I'm gonna start fasting with you soon. I wanted to do it start in February, but I'm pretty sure I'll be ready for it in March with all the other things that I'm like working towards. That's good because I've been, I'm trying to figure out how to fit fasting into school just with like my school schedule kicking in. Yeah, you're back in school. Dude. Wow, everybody. What started as taking time from work, from back pain, has now led to a new career. In school. Yeah, and I gotta go back to work soon. Someone of your old co-workers. And I'm still in a lot of back pain. Someone of your old co-workers the other night. From the Taj? Yeah, I mean, Megan went out to dinner and he's an old bartender you worked with. A tall guy, really, really sweet, nice, gentle. He now works at a different bar. Is it your son's name? Yeah. Yeah, I love him, dude. I like how we like protect, try to protect. Yeah, he's so sweet. We talked and like the moment he was like, how's your brother? I was like, oh, you know, he's like, he's still at a, you know, the other place you worked at. The other M place you worked at. And I was like, no, actually, he like had a really bad back injury working at the bar. They built it really shitty, too low. And he went on a medical leave and has, you know, getting like, you know, hasn't been able to work. And so he's actually back in school now getting a psych degree. And he was like, dude, I totally get it, man. Like one bad bar and your back is done. There's days, man, I get home and I have sciatica for like a week. And he just immediately understood, like heard it. And he was like, well, hey man, maybe that back, that's amazing, you know, sometimes it's impossible to get out of the machine. Like there's no way to, how else do you choose to change your life and fix it and do something better? Sounds like his back pain got him to do that. And I was like, this mother****er just spoke everything that's been going on. Totally, no, he's a spiritual being that I connected very deeply with. Yeah, he's really fun. And I've been meaning to meet up with, it's always tough to meet up with- Old co-workers. Just even like old friends. You make old friends and you're like, dude, I really valued our friendship working together and I wanna meet up and I never initiate that. You know what it is? There's like this theory that you see cows out in the field. This is not my theory. It's like an old theory. I don't know where it comes from. So, you know, do your own research. Do your own research. D-Y-O-R, okay? Is you see cows out in the field eating grass. Well, like cows are like very friendly animals. They're really smart. They're very like companion oriented. And so cows normally will eat grass next to the same cows every day. So they like, yeah. And so like if their friend cow's already out there, the other cow will run to go be next to it and they'll like eat grass together. And the research shows that they're like friendly, like they're friends with one another and they can become like, they're like very intelligent beings in their own right. And so the theory is like, do we become really close, connected with the people that we work with, even though like we have these real friendships and these real bonds that really matter, but technically those bonds are only possible because we end up working at the same place together and a stressful situation with like suffering and complaining and you both bond, like there's trauma bonding, right? There's like, we have to be here, we have to be at work, we have to be part of the machine together. So it's like, is it the cow eating grass theory where like you become super close to these people just because you're eating grass next to them. So you eat grass next to people. So the moment that like, oh, you have to go eat in a different field where there's fences. It's like, oh, well, like now, like do I, I can't go eat grass with my other friend because I don't, we eat in different fields. Yeah. And then you make new friends. Right. And then you're like, you're my best friend. Yeah. Like, oh my gosh, did we just bond over that horrible night together? We're gonna be best friends, we're gonna do karate in the garage. We're gonna do karate in the garage. I definitely think that's a part of it is that little trauma bonding because in every workforce there's a little bit of trauma and so there's a little bit of a trauma bond there, but there are certain people, man, that they just connect with you on a certain level that's very spiritual. And in that same work experience, same trauma that you like outside of it at different jobs, I'm like, I still wish they were here replacing some of these other people, even though I bond with a lot of people in places like that. But at that specific place, him and a couple other people, like I would hope would be like lifelong friends just because of we all bonded pretty well together. Yeah, I mean, he was very sweet. He's a sweet guy. He probably has some religious trauma. He comes from Florida. Let's get him on the cast. Dude, he would be amazing. Let's get him on the cast. Get him on the cast. Tell us your life story. Just start texting people. Do you have religious trauma? I would think you'd be great on my podcast. The last two guests that we've had on have so much gratitude for because coming on our podcast is kind of like, get on the cast, fill your guts, do the work for us. Okay, so what are you gonna do with the information I just gave you? We're gonna make 25 shorts out of it. I know. 30 clips. I know, I know, dude. I hope I'm not offending anybody by how many shorts I make. No, you're not, dude. Zachary makes amazing, you have an obsession with detail and you have a really hard time not like doing what you think you have to do for your projects. And that's why you make so much content. It's because it's like, normally there's such good content. I have to make clips of it. And I'm like, well, you don't have to, but we appreciate you. Yeah, and it'll probably change with school starting and everything. But there's something just about people spilling their truth. That's what I'm saying. That is like, I have to clip it, dude. Already you and I are just shooting the shit, having a good cast right now. But when the moment we have a guest on, and I think that that like sets, there's a precedent for our podcast here. There's a precedent for our show, which is respecting the space and respecting the nature of what we've created. Which is we are alone tonight. And that's fun and exciting for Zach and I, because a lot of what we've benefited from doing this together, which it didn't start this way, was rekindling our relationship as brothers and best friends. And we've been able to literally become best friends and like connected again. And so it feels like we're just, I'm just hanging out. Yeah. We're just hanging out. That's what most of the podcast has been. The new advancement has been interviews. Yep. Which is exactly what we've wanted to do. Yeah, it sets a precedent. And speaking on that, let's jump into tonight's episode. Let's do it. Let's go right into it. I think we both are recognizing where we're at in life, and that's great. Let's have a show. So we were talking with our ladies not too long ago. We actually had to sit down with them and we asked them to brainstorm with us on options that Zach and I could have or things to do on this cast when we don't have guests. Given it's been really difficult, him and I rehashing out our trauma or our history to the church or our history and our upbringing when we've done it 50 episodes, 55 episodes, however many times. That's like 55 plus hours of us saying things. And it's really been hard for us just to go deeper into conversation around things that we've talked about a lot. And so we've had different segments. We've had, and which probably don't mean anything to anybody that, unless you're listening to the whole cast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like moment to Reddit and does it heal and more of a variety. We had a moment to TikTok for one episode, which was great. Which was great. The moment to Reddit's the best one because it's pretty easy for us both to grab some posts and talk about them. And then the moment to TikTok is like, I don't really want to respond to a lot of these TikToks. Yeah, and a lot of it is just like grabbing content from the internet of a lot of people that also have religious trauma that are sharing their stories or posting comments anonymously. And we're like, there's a big community out there. Let's throw it on our cast. That's what we're trying to do. Well, in tonight's episode, our wonderful partners suggested that, and something that they've seen other podcasts do, and so this is not our idea, was for each of us to find a significant story or something in society that we felt was related to our podcast that we haven't talked about with each other and brought that story to the podcast, each sharing our part of what we found that we thought would be interesting to bring. And then we're gonna talk about these stories or topics. Yeah, and the whole intention is that Nathan doesn't know what I'm bringing to the podcast and I don't know what he's bringing to the podcast. Yay, exciting. The whole idea is we both get to learn a little bit. I hope yours is about sex. Mine is not about sex. It's gonna be a boring podcast. I'm just kidding. You should've just taken your headphones off and walked out. Gotta go. Like, you know, I don't want to do this one anyway. But- Yeah, let's do it. I did, it was tough for me to not pull some Reddit. Because there's so much content, especially around like vulnerable religious trauma or good things to talk about that we can relate to that are on Reddit. And then like, yeah, I look on other media platforms and it's either like, I'm gonna pull a really cool scientific study that I found and we're gonna do very in-depth talk about that or I'm gonna pick some of these posts. So I picked some posts, but I have more than you brought to the table. I have one story with a lot of information. So I have one big thing too. And so let's get through my small little snippets to start it off. And then how about you take it after that? Got it. And then I'll end it with my big one. I'll be the alpha and you be my omega. But when was the last time you took like a religious studies class? Were you ever in a course that was religious studies? Yeah, I did. I took world religions. When was that? Junior college. So long time ago. My first semester, it was my first like full semester in college. Did you learn a lot in that class? Did you learn a lot about Christianity in that class? To be honest, I mean, it's a long time ago now. And so it's like 13, 14 years ago. But did you ever like learn things about Christianity that you were like, wasn't taught that? And that's just historical information. Yes. I mean, that has come up not from like the world religions class, but yeah, there's like a lot that I've learned about. There's an insane amount of Christianity that I've learned about that it wasn't necessarily like brought up on. Yeah, totally. Totally. But so I am in a sociology of religions class and I am not enjoying it. God, that sounded sexy. I love hearing that. Oh, thanks, man. All right, continue. And I'm not enjoying it yet. Okay. Let me just be upfront. The first class got canceled, right? Right. And then I still have to do all the homework. And the homework was over 140 pages of reading from two separate textbooks. What's already reading for me is tough. And I already know I'm gonna have to read a lot, but like that's a lot of reading. Yeah. And then 80 of those pages was on Christianity. And so I was like, what a way to start. And so I would find myself, and this is true, this happened twice this week, where I'd be reading, I get about 10 pages in, and I'd be so mad because I'd be so bored because I've learned this my whole life, like Christianity, I don't wanna learn anymore about it. But there was a couple of things that stuck. And I was kind of throwing a fit to my fiance and I was like, I'm not even retaining any information. Like this, like that, like this. And she's like, sounds like you're retaining the information. And I'm like, yeah, maybe a little bit. Yeah, just a little bit. So, but I just wanted to spit out some facts that kind of were like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that people devote their entire lives to this religion. And I just wanna talk about it. Give it to me, baby. Did you know that Jesus didn't do much of anything miraculous until the last three years of his life? I didn't know that, yeah. You don't think him as a 12-year-old going into the tabernacles and teaching all the elderly smart people the truth? But that's not historical reference. No, no. That's just not. History from just the, we're not talking about what the Christians believe. We're talking about just what we know from history. Sure. Because Christianity is one of the religions that uses history for their main belief. And Jesus was a part of history and it was the last three years of his life. And he wasn't spiritually awoken technically to history. I know that like on the contrary, Christians all believe different things until John the Baptist baptized him and then he was spiritually enlightened. Did you know that? I'm trying to remember what he did before he was baptized. Exactly. Was there anything in the gospel that I can't remember? Is there stuff in the gospel before he was baptized? Probably. There's probably things that people believe for sure. But historically, no. Historically, he was just kind of like a carpenter. He was a boy. Yeah. It wasn't really like known that he was born from a virgin. That wasn't like a thing people talked about. It was just kind of like, oh, all of a sudden he gets baptized. He's spiritually enlightened. He starts doing miracles. And then now he's miraculous. And we can all agree that like Mary, his mother, like back in that time, like if you were R-word and got pregnant that way, they might kill you, right? You might be kicked out of society, right? Because back then it was still in our society now. It's not looked at as being an accepted thing that can happen to women. So isn't it possible that maybe she was R-word and then she was so scared to tell the truth. She went, oh my God, the God gave me a baby. Totally. Totally. Okay, cool. 100%. That's probably, that's way more possible than anything else happening. Perfect. But another little fun fact here. Nobody in the stories of the Bible or in the Bible at all wrote one word of the Bible. The Bible actually wasn't even written until decades. Decades. Not just like, oh, a couple months went by. The savior of our lives just died on a cross and I'm gonna write about it. No, you're talking 50, 80 years go by. And then someone who we don't know, we don't know who wrote anything in the Bible ever started writing some stuff and been like, that Jesus dude did some things. We should write about it. You know what? We should make it a full religion. It was just made by we don't know. Okay. I mean, this isn't like new information, but this is stuff you're learning in your class. Like class number one is a funny thing that you're learning this. I just thought I'd bring it up. These are just things that were in the text that stood out to me when I was reading. And mind you, I was angrily reading all of this. It's been tough. Well, whatever textbook you're reading, Florida and Texas and these other states better get it taken out immediately. Okay. Cause it sounds racist and sexist. You gotta get out of the kids. It was authored by a white man. So it's gonna stay in. Oh, interesting point, Zachary. Continue. I'm gonna skip my first Reddit post that I was gonna bring up because it's worthless. Okay. So I have one Reddit post I want to talk about. Sure. This one is from X Christian. Oh, it's like we're doing a moment of credit. It's not a moment to Reddit guys. It's okay. Say it. From educational underscore job 3307. My mother posted this for me. Sad, cry face. Make sure your children are on the arc dot, dot, dot. Tonight's during the message, my nine-year-old son, Jay, which we all know a Jay in the church, came to the realization that the children who were not on the arc didn't make it. He looked to me with such a sad questioning face. Super sad. All I could say was their parents didn't make sure they were on the arc. The weight of that statement is still weighing on me. What the? Of all the things that I do for the kingdom of God, nothing is more important than making sure that my children find their way to a relationship with Jesus. Tracy Jacko. Who said that? Wait, that's on ex-Christian? So then, so someone's mom posted that to them, right? Like on their Facebook. Oh, okay, yeah, gotcha. Or something. And then they posted below it, I'm still in the process of deconstructing and this just gave me a little twinge of guilt. I just thought it was powerful because it felt like the words of my mother. Of all the things that I do for the kingdom of God, nothing is more important than making sure that my children find their way to a relationship with Jesus. What's like horrifically scary and abusive is a parent that would tell a child who was scared about that story, like what about all the other children? My confusingly, and so she says, oh, their parents didn't do anything to get them on the arc. Yeah, it's their parents' fault. But there was only a couple parents on there. I have a comment I'd like to read. Okay. And this comment comes from Defiant2123. Said, but, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, there were no passengers on the arc. God decided that only the five to eight people in Noah's family would be on board. According to the story, it's God who killed all those children. That kid is right to be appalled. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. But it's just abusive that a parent reinforces such a horrible feeling. And that's anxiety. It's like, hey, we're gonna give you anxiety now. Yeah. So that you're scared, because if you're scared, then you'll believe. Right, yeah. You gotta create the damnation so that there's a reason to have a Savior. I just have never heard that story being twisted like that so much for a kid. And that's child abuse. Yeah, yeah. And the kid's like, just child empathy. You know, he's just having empathy. Where's the other kids? Of course he would, because he's innocent, dude. And his mom's like, they didn't have parents that loved them the way I love you, and you're on the arc, and that's why you're alive. I mean, they don't want me, me, me, me, me, me. Ego, ego, ego. Yeah, yeah, and it's sad. But it's very real. And yeah, that's how we were raised, just in different ways. Yeah. I was very well aware that there was one family on that arc, and I always just thought, I didn't even question it. I didn't even question the fact that God killed every other. I didn't question any of that. I wasn't that type of kid. I was just thinking, like, God chose two of each animal. God chose the family, because Noah was the one that listened to God when everyone made fun of him. Noah was the only one that was listening to God, and everyone else made fun of him, and he just kept on going. So when I go to school with my Bible, everyone's gonna make fun of me, and I just gotta keep on going like Noah. And everyone made fun of him for building the biggest boat in history. Yeah, like, so the cartoons were like, always the people in the mud underneath the boat, like, you're an idiot, Noah! What are you doing? You're so stupid! And he was like, hurr, hurr! All by himself! The power of Christ compels you! And then all of a sudden, the flood comes, and lightning, and it's like a mass, like, even the cartoons, it was extremely destructive. Oh, everyone on earth, full population of earth, not just like a couple thousand people, full societies just drownded in moments. What's fascinating is that we know that there's like, I said this last podcast, like nine, I think it's nine recorded known, like, Extinctions? Complete extinctions that have happened on our planet where like less than 1% of life survived and was able to evolve from there. Nine times. And so what the Christians did, they were like, there was that time where the world floated, let's use that. Yeah. And we're gonna make it a white family. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. And two of each animal because we need a man, and a woman, and a female animal, and a male animal. Yeah. Because gender is important. You know, all of that. Why am I doing a Southern accent? Don't, I'm not trying to make fun of anybody. I'm not. It just happens. Yeah, just leave it. Well, great, great. Those are great Reddit posts. Those are good. I like this. I approve. I was gonna have another one that was about chat JPT that I very much relate to, but then I just didn't feel it. You can leave AI out of it. Yeah, just didn't feel it. Just take AI out of it. Yeah. Thank you. All right, dude. Why don't you give me, why don't you give me what you're gonna bring? Because the next thing I'm bringing is gonna be a big, in-depth, long thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I have a feeling that's what you're bringing too. Totally. Well, let's first, before we get started, let's hear a word from our sponsor. Sleepy Puppy. Oh my God. That was the craziest, cringe laugh I've ever heard you. Yeah, don't laugh like that. No, man. Don't laugh like that. We. That's a clap back. Go back like 40 episodes, 50 episodes. Go back 64 episodes. Yeah. You might be able to figure out what that's from. We used to do mock sponsors because all the podcasts have sponsors. They're like, you know, Bluetooth. Yeah. You know, or like something green. I don't know. Okay. All right. So this is a story that has come up recently, last couple of months. And it's specific to the black church in our country. And I was really touched by it. I would imagine, I would hope it gets more and more mainstream media, which it won't, but you're in the Moral Combat Podcast. That's why we feel like it's important to talk about. If you go back a handful of episodes, we also had a very special guest in our podcast that wasn't specific to religious drama, but he shared as a documentary filmmaker, his 10 year research and documentary on the war in Gaza and Palestine and Israel and the history with it. And he gave us an entire PowerPoint history lesson on the history of Palestine, specific to 1948 and the creation under the beginning of Israel in 1948. And so we are for a ceasefire here on the Moral Combat Podcast from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. And so this story relates directly to that. I wanted to explore how black pastors are influencing international justice issues, drawing upon a very insightful article that I found on the New York Times, which, well, mind you, no matter what you feel about the New York Times, I'm with you. Whatever you feel about it, I'm probably with you. And so this is just an article I found that was directly correlated to something, a YouTube video I'd found, like a couple of weeks ago that really touched me. And the article is written by Maya King. And yeah, the video I found on YouTube that kind of sparked my awareness of this was by a gentleman named Mark Lamont Hill. He's like a radio host, podcaster, he's a black activist, extremely brilliant, so smart. He's like a Martin Luther King Jr. speech giver. He is amazing. You can go check out his YouTube right now and be ****ing rocked by black activism and international justice. And the dude's just talking about so much good stuff, great interviews, and every week he does an update on Palestine, like Gaza and Israel updates, just every week interviewing people and talking about recent things and trying to get underneath it all. And, but Lamont Hill, the video that I saw that Mark did was him giving a speech at a church about a recent event that had happened where we are in the beginning or have been in the throes of the next presidential election. And it has been a fun and exciting and treacherous and very boring and annoying time because we have Mr. Biden and we have Trump and all the other shit that's going on. And it seems like we know where this is going to end up. And during this election year, these candidates or these people are on their like presidential campaign trails. So even President Joe Biden, Genocide Joe, whatever you wanna call him, is on his campaign trail right now. And they stop at locations, they give these speeches. We see Trump's all the time because it's like very, very loud. And I'm sure conservative news is seeing Biden all the time and making him seem like an idiot and all this. And so Biden was able to have one of his like election speeches or whatever like on this campaign trail at a black church that has a very, very strong history to the civil rights movement. And so- What was the church's name, do you know? Yeah, the church was AME, the African Methodist Episcopal Church. And so Biden had on his campaign trail to get more voters to vote blue. He did a speech in the church. In the church, okay. Which political church, the black history of the church, we know what Biden said, you know, if you don't vote for me, you ain't black. Remember when he said that? I don't, but I don't, but it sounds like something someone would say. You don't remember him saying that? He said, if you don't vote for me, you ain't black. And that was like a really huge like, what the ****? Like he said some crazy shit. And, but so anyways, he gave this, whatever, his campaign trail speech in this church. And that had a rippling consequence, like a rippling effect in the black church community, which is massive in our country and has an extremely strong and powerful history to the evolution of this country, specific to not just the civil rights, but like so much that came out of slavery, like black activists fought for just black people to be able to have their own church here at all. They didn't even have, they weren't even allowed to have their own churches. They weren't even allowed to be pastors. They just had to fight for that, just freedom of religion to do it in this country. So there's just so much history of white murderous racism against the black people in the black church. And I think it's very obvious. And there's like, that's, if you don't know that, then like go ****ing wake the **** up and go read some shit. Totally. So anyways, whoever this pastor was, the pastor that agreed to this, pissed off a lot of the black pastor community because Joe Biden is very much supporting and supplying massive, or his administration, massive amounts of money given to Israel, bombs and all of that that is just decimating and destroying the people of Gaza. So many people have been displaced once again in Palestine and all over. It is horrific how much murder and bloodshed. I heard a recent statistic that said, if you celebrated the birthday of every child that's been murdered so far, it would take you four years. So horrific. It's most of our government. It's not just, oh, we're all still funding Israel because of Joe Biden. No, no, no. Yeah, I know this goes very deep, but given this is the president, this is the one who has the power, this is the one who's really- At least it's what we believe. Sure. Yeah. We, you know what? He's the face. We have to have, who do we rise up against, right? And so we're not up against, but ****ing hold accountable. Or rise against, that's my language, dude. Sure, sure, sure. So anyways, this did not sit well in the black church community. Like why is it that with the history of the civil rights, the history of the black church and the connections to genocides around the entire world and how much, what the black church stands by, which I'm learning more and more just in my own research and my own, you know, like books that I've read over the last years, trying to get a better hand on it. And what we've said on this cast is we do not have a connection to the black Christian church or Episcopal church or whatever in our country at all. And we would like to have people on our podcast to talk about their connection to religious trauma from the black church, because there is a very direct line from the white church and the black church in this country. They are not the same. And if I was ever to give my life back to Christ, I won't. But if I was gonna go back to church, it'd be a- Black church, for sure. You said it, baby. They really seem to believe. Well, and their love seems to really be unconditional. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just, well, it's coming from a different place. And that's a huge part of why I thought the stories were important for us. And I don't think that you and, Doc, I don't think you and I could speak eloquently and brilliantly on this topic, okay? My fiancee is literally writing her dissertation on the black race studies in this country, like black relationships in this country and the history. And she could talk about this very eloquently and educatingly. See, I can't even speak. Educatingly. Yeah, educatingly. Love it. But the story itself, it's happening right now. And I think that that's why I thought it was really important. So anyways, Joe Biden had this speech given and there was this huge response from the black community in that the historical context of this church, right? That Joe Biden did this speech in, the African Methodist Episcopal Church was founded in 1816 by Richard Allen in Philadelphia as a response to racial discrimination in the Methodist church. So the church founding was on, in this country, white people treating black people and all people of color just like how Israel treats Palestinians. That's what this country was founded on and that's what it still does today, mind you, because there has been no change no matter what you wanna think about it. There has been progress, but it's like an inchworm crossing the street with traffic. You be the judge. It played a significant role in the abolitionist movement and was a platform for advocating the end of slavery. The church was instrumental in the civil rights movement, advocating for racial equality and social justice. The AME church continues to be involved in education and empowerment initiatives for African Americans. And this is the church that? The speech was done at. Okay, this is the history of the church. This is what they considered to stand by now. And whoever the pastor is of that church, whatever their organization that leads this church allowed Biden to come in and to give a political speech while he's actively giving millions and millions, billions of dollars in bombs to Israel who are blowing and destroying Palestinians like they're animals, which is happening, has happened, and has continued to happen in many different ways in this country for the black community. So it's right there. We get it. They shouldn't let that happen. We cannot stand by, we stand by a ceasefire. And so the black church is like, this is, we stand for a ceasefire and we cannot stand by Joe Biden if he's doing this. We cannot vote for you any longer. And the black church is coming out and speaking on that based off this situation. But why? But why? What do you mean why? So he gives a speech? No, yeah, so the reason, well, the reason being is that like the black church stands for international social justice. So we have a president who is actively part of an administration that is giving billions of dollars in bombs to a country that's killing innocent people. So then what do they have to say about this pastor? Is it because he's the one that allowed it? That's not really too much of what it's about. It's more of, it's like a deeper, it's not like pointing out one thing. It's bringing up the conversation. And what this did was a lot of pastors came out to be public about it. Something else that I felt that was really interesting to talk about this is that we tend to be like kind of against the church on this podcast a lot of the time, like pretty heavily. So we speak against it and strongly. And so to be in support of like, not support, but to feel like freedom of religion. Like I totally see you. I like, this isn't like against, this isn't against my choice to believe or not. Like I don't feel like pressured. I don't feel ostracized. I don't feel like is the history of the black church has a history of supporting people, like loving people, giving to people and like allowing people. It's just a completely different culture. And that's where like, I don't have all the ability to tell you what that's like. And I think that if we could ever interview somebody that was from that culture, like I think that we'd learn so much of those differences. But like, there is nobody in the white church speaking on Gaza and Palestine in this way, right? Oh, there's some psychos in the white church we're talking about, right? So my point is this, the article discusses the efforts of over 1,000 black pastors advocating for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict. These pastors represent diverse congregations nationwide and are vocal in their concern about the U.S. government stance on the conflict, particularly its impact on Palestinians. 1,000 black pastors, over 1,000 black pastors. What if this said this? This, you know, discusses the efforts of over 1,000 white pastors and how they're saying a ceasefire. You wouldn't hear that. So that's like my point here is that's why this, the black church is a church that I would, like, I need to learn more about the history of it, the culture around it. Like I want to, because I feel like we are so opposed to the church, we don't really know anything outside of our experience. This story alone was so powerful to me because I like stand by these people. I'm like, yes, I'm with you. I will march with you. And they're also preaching the gospel. Exactly, and I will march with you. I will go to your church and stand up for like, we are protesting the same shit. And we know that the church we were born in, they are literally posting like- Israel flags. Israel flags, and they go to Israel with their church every other year. They are standing by the- And Israel is still the victim somehow? This is my point, is the same church, same Christianity, same God. And yet in this country, the black church goes, no, absolutely not. And the white church goes, yes, yes, absolutely, yes. Okay, so Joe Biden comes to this church and gives a speech. What did the church do? Is the church, so you said the church isn't in support. What did they do? Yeah, what happened at his speech? So basically at this speech, while he's giving this speech, there was some Gen Zers. We love Gen Z. My favorite. In the group of whatever, all the people that came for this, mostly black population speech, because it's a black church, black community, a bunch of Gen Zers held up signs and stood up during Joe Biden's speech and said, cease fire. Started screaming, cease fire. And they were politely escorted out and kicked out for their protest during his speech, because it was an interrupting speech. And so that's where, boom, news. There's some news, so news hits. There was the youth that rose up. So I think also in this discussion, there's generations, right? Like I'm not, I don't think like all generations right now are like as active as the younger generation, right? Like we know the younger generation is always a lot more active in movements and louder. And Gen Z is specifically loud on the horrific things happening over there and protesting on it and climate change and everything else, right? And so, yeah, that's what caused this thing or whatever. So can you imagine being those kids? Like how ****ing cool, how scary, all the Secret Service, and you stand up right when the president of the United States is giving a speech and which is extremely like hard to understand probably. And you just stand up and you're just like, from the land to the sea, Palestine will be free. River to sea, yeah, it'd be crazy. It would be nuts. And these Gen Zers are part of the church? Yeah, I mean, I think that like that's, or maybe they just, no, whether they're part of the church or not, they went and they were like, yo, dude, you're a ****ing murderer. Like you're like causing, you're like supporting the genocide. So come on, Joe, come on, Joe. Yeah, I love seeing it. I love seeing it. These protests are happening so often right now, which is good. And TikTok and social media has been since like Christmas, shadow banning it, or I hate using that word, but just keeping it from being seen. And then all of a sudden in this last week, whatever, something got lifted and it's Palestine everything again, which is what needs to be happening. But there's so many protests in every speech from every political, powerful individual. They'll be giving a speech and there'll just be some like old woman in the back, like 25,000 children have been murdered. And they're trying to continue the speech like nothing's happening. And I'm like, that's how you do it, guys. Just keep interrupting them. But I love that there's some unity in the black church. I love. Oh, it's all, it's all, it's all, like that's the difference, man. It's all unified. But like just a thousand black pastors. It's because there's real community and unity given the history of this church. The history of this church has been murdered and slaughtered. They were not equals. A white pastor and a black pastor to this day are not considered equals. I don't care what the ****, you just, you know. But back then it was like, no, you can't even be a pastor because you're black. You can't even do anything because you're black. And go back even farther and it's like slavery. So that's the uprising. That's the rising out of that. You have to fight. And that's like the whole, this history of the church he gave it in is 1816. Advocating for just the right to be able to have a church, right? Because black people weren't allowed to go to a white church. If they were, they had to sit. In the back probably or like in a corner or something. Yeah. And so. And it's recent too that all of this is even changing. Like 1970s was not that long ago. 1960s is civil rights. Yeah, not that long ago. Of course, and there's just massive advocation. There's so much shit that happened before then, but the civil rights are like, you know, some very impactful times for our country. If not the most impactful times. There's a lot of discussion around this, you know, like the black, like we're talking right now, the black church and shaping political and social discourse. Especially in relation to international issues, reflect on the impact of religious spaces being used for political purposes and the potential trauma it can cause within the congregation, right? Don't mix church and state. Yet here's Joe Biden preaching at a church. Come on, Jay. Examining how different generations within the black church approach activism and social justice. That's like, we can just speak on that with our own generation. I'm not gonna speak for like anything. I'm not gonna speak. Can't speak on that. But like, we know that different generations are very different given which generation did this at that speech, Gen Z. And exploring the intersection of religious identity and racial dynamics and international justice and human rights advocacy. There's a lot that we could talk about. And which we are. So thank you, Zach, for being engaged with my story. Oh, cool, yeah. Great story. I love it. And so here's this speech that Mark Lamont Hill gave that it's pretty great. Check it out. I can't sit here calmly when I watch these preachers. Ooh, Lord. And these bourgeois Negroes who will allow the church to be used as a shield for empire. Last week, there was a protest in the great mother Emanuel AME church in South Carolina. A beautiful church, a historic church, a church birthed out of struggle. Birthed out of the struggle of the African Methodist Episcopal tradition, which is built on saying black folk have a right to preach the word of God. And not just the other black folk. Black folk have a right to full humanity and full participation. Don't tell me you love God and you obey the commandments of God and the word of Jesus and tell me that black folk ain't got the same rights. So the AME church is a church of struggle. And it's also a church of tragedy. We know that Dylann Roof went into that church and killed nine beloved saints as they were praying. So I was a bit struck last week when I saw that they opened the pulpit up to Genocide Joe. Y'all can get mad, I don't care. And people, as he began to give his campaign speech, some protestors stood up and said, stop the blood in Palestine. They said, if you're outraged by the blood of Selma and you're outraged by the blood that was spilled in this very church, then how about calling for a ceasefire in Palestine since you've given them the weapons, you've given them the support, you've given them the money. Joe, why don't you do something about it? They marched and stood up and got kicked out of the church. And people said, we're outraged. You know, I was outraged too. How dare you use this sacred space? How dare you use this beloved pulpit? How dare you use this sacred tradition? How dare you use the words of Jesus who overturned the tables in the temple, who was committed to overturning a Roman government, who was committed to speaking out against injustice? How dare you use this space as a shield for imperial war? How dare you use this space as a shield for violence? How dare you use this space as a shield for genocide? So in this video, Mark Lamont is criticizing the use of churches for political agendas that contradict their principles of justice and humanity. He highlighted the historical significance and struggles of the AME church in advocating for black rights. He condemns the moral irresponsibility of allowing political figures who support violent regimes to use religious spaces for their agendas, right? That shit was wild. And his energy in that video is, I think that is the energy that you should feel of what the response should be from this, right? Standing up these values of what it means to have a church. This is something to stand for, to not be supporting the genocide and not allowing anybody that has such powerful abilities to be in that space, tainting that space, that history. So this response to it is just amazing. These are the quotes in the article that I wrote down. And I'm gonna read all of them. And I think that we can totally talk a little bit after that, but we don't have to go much further than that. Unless you wanted to talk more on it. But I think that these quotes really hit it as it is. Reverend Timothy McDonald, senior pastor of First Deconium Baptist Church in Atlanta, quote, black faith leaders are extremely disappointed in the Biden administration on this issue. We are afraid and we've talked about it. It's going to be very hard to persuade our people to go back to the polls and vote for Biden. Reverend Michael McBride, founder of Black Church PAC and lead pastor of the Way Church in Berkeley, California. Pretty close to home. Right down the street. This is not a fringe issue. There are many of us who feel that this administration has lost its way on this. Barbara Williams Skinner, co-convener of the National African-American Clergy Network said, black clergy have seen war, militarism, poverty, and racism all connected. But the Israel-Gaza War, unlike Iran and Afghanistan, has evoked the kind of deep-seated angst among black people that I have not seen since the civil rights movement. It's deep, man, because it's so true. So real. It's deep, man, because it's so true. So real. And I can only imagine the fear that he feels. We should all be feeling it. Yeah. Which we do. We do on this cast. Reverend Cynthia Hale, founder and senior pastor of Ray of Hope Christian Church in Decatur, Georgia. It's like weird saying all these churches. They are oppressed people. We are oppressed people. Yeah. Reverend Frederick D. Haynes, senior pastor of Friendship West Baptist Church in Dallas. Dallas. And president and CEO of Rainbow Push Coalition says, what they are witnessing from the administration in Gaza is a glaring contradiction to what we thought the president and the administration was about. So when you hear a president say the term, redeem the soul of America, well, this is a stain, a scar on the soul of America. There's something about this that becomes hypocritical. And Reverend Jamal Bryant says, from senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Stonecrest, Georgia says, I think Biden threatens his own success. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think this huge threat of Trump being possibly reelected is what is causing a lot more fear on why do we have to vote for Biden, agreeing with what he's doing. And there's a lot of people in our country that don't, especially over this Israel-Gaza. Unfortunately, in this situation, there is a lesser of both evils. Oh, totally. I am going to be a strong believer and I'm just going to point it here. I do not think Joe Biden's going to rerun. I think as of right now. I mean, he is rerunning. He's on his campaign trail. No, I think it's going to change. Yeah. Well, this is like getting into speculation. You're like, this is why I think it's going to be crazy, America's going. No, there's a lot of reason to believe too. And there's a new theory that popped up that Michelle Obama is going to come out and run. Yeah. Oh, well. Let's get it. Yeah. I think that we know that. That would change everything. I think we know that the problem in this country is capitalism, which leads to racism, racial capitalism. It's all going to break down from there and it never will end until we ****ing change this shit and revolutionize this country. Stand up like Gen Z, but on a much larger level and ****ing change this shit. Well, and this is part of the revolution, man. A thousand pastors signing something, a standing in unity with the black church is part of the future revolution. Don't you realize that that's been happening for 200 years in that community? I mean, I don't realize that, but I'm realizing it now. That's the thing. That's part of it too. In this country, that is happening. The black church is America. Black community, the silver, all that. Our history, our American history is black history. Like right now, when this podcast airs, we're in the black history month, right? February is black history month. The shortest month of the year. And we have to give our history a month? Black history is the history of America. That's why America, that's why everything that has happened in this country is happening is because black activism. Yeah. Okay? Yeah.****! All right. That's my story. All right. Thank you, Nathaniel. Thank you for your story. Yes, you're welcome. That was a wonderful story. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you for listening. And thanks for bringing the energy. Yeah, you're welcome. No, you're welcome. I'm welcome. All right. It's my turn, everyone. So buckle your seatbelts in. We are not talking about church. We are talking about science. And I tried my best, took some real good time, okay? Out of my busy school schedule. No, it really wasn't that much, but I did take some time to try to make this as understandable as possible for anybody that might not. You got to do that? I love a good story time. Okay. We're just going to keep moving along. All right, so. Sorry, I just wanted to mess you a little bit. There's a study that is getting popular, but it actually came out in 2017. And the title of this study that we're talking about is the Biological and Cognitive Underpinnings of Religious Fundamentalism. Damn, okay. Getting into some heavy shit here. It is very scientific. Again, I tried to make it understandable. I'm going to try my best to make it understandable. I am very interested in neuroscience. And so there's a lot of things that I can be like saying and just a lot of people won't register, but it's like, oh, I'm consistently studying neuroscience. I love neuroscience. And so I tried to make it not too many big terms, but just to give some background on the study and what we're looking at. So the way the study is done, and you know this, you've taken a lot of science classes, is you normally have a control group and then the group you're doing the experiment on. So this study took place at the National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. And here we go to saying names of places. Give it to me, baby. We have nothing to prove. Bethesda, Maryland. I think I said that right. Beth-she-da? Beth-she-da? No, Bethesda. Bethesda. I looked it up how to even say it and just when I came up on it, I was like, I can't say it. You're good, we got it. It's part of the Vietnam Head Injury Study Registry's phase four research. Which is that? So it's consistent research on studying trauma of the brain. So Vietnam vets that have head trauma, we do brain scans on them and we run tests and stuff and see like what, if you had prefrontal cortex trauma, what else are you experiencing in your life? The team involved were merely researchers from this institute, including experts in neuropsychology, what I'm going into or trying to go into, and brain behavior relationships. They focused on a group of male Vietnam War veterans who had sustained penetrating traumatic brain injuries and included a control group of uninjured veterans for comparison. All right. So that's just setting up the study. Veterans from Vietnam War, head injuries with veterans from Vietnam War, no head injury. Yeah, okay. So the study involved Vietnam War veterans divided into two groups. 119 with brain injuries and 30 healthy controls. Veterans without brain injury. I just said that, sorry. I interrupted you. No, it's totally fine. The more we say that, the more it's, what we're studying is very obvious. That's the whole goal is. It's very obvious. Everything I've already said was pages and pages of way too much information. Right. The focus was on how injuries in the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for cognitive flexibility and openness, influence religious beliefs, specifically fundamentalism. So the prefrontal cortex influences. Flexibility and cognitive flexibility and openness. Openness. So being open to new ideas. Okay. Curiosity. Creativity. Curiosity. Being curious, all of that. Which is the fertilizer to evolution. Prefrontal cortex. Prefrontal cortex is a big deal. And so they're studying this on the, specifically with fundamentalism. But let's figure out what is fundamentalism? If you're not part of religion, how would you know? Religious fundamentalism refers to a strict adherence to the specific theology doctrines, typically characterized by a literal interpretation of the religious texts. Something that we can relate to. We were raised in a family where it's the Bible says it, therefore it's fact. Right. You base it off the Bible. Religious fundamentalism, it's in our blood, dude. Well, no, I mean, not anymore. Not anymore. I blood myself. We're filtering our blood. A blood test. Hashtag Brita. Hashtag Brita. Fundamentalists often hold unwavering beliefs in the absolute authority of their religious teachings and reject the flexibility of interpretation. Now, let's get interesting. Okay. Comparing the injured veterans to the controls, researchers found that those with injuries, especially in the door, okay. Just go for it. I'm trying to also not say the biggest of words, but you do need it. Especially in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, showed increased religious fundamentalism. Because of the head injury? Because of the head injuries. This link was mediated by reduced cognitive flexibility and openness. The study thus suggests that our brain structure, particularly the prefrontal cortex, plays a significant role in shaping our beliefs and capacity for religious diversity. So basically what they found is in the 119 veterans that had, all of them had damage to their prefrontal cortex from the Vietnam War compared to the other 30. And the data shows that most of the 119 veterans with prefrontal cortex damage are now religious fundamentalists. Because they're saying that, or that's what they're hypothesizing, is the damage to the prefrontal cortex is what makes them so fundamental in their religious beliefs. Okay, so the conclusion of this study is saying if you've had a significant head injury, you're more predisposition, you have a predisposition to fundamental religious belief. In the prefrontal cortex, yeah. In the prefrontal cortex. If you got hit in the back of the head, might hit your hippocampus, might lose memory. So that might be different. But if you- Like here. Right in the prefrontal cortex. So you're like, what about like, I know that, so this is specific to Vietnam veterans. The study, so like the ones that have head injury, 119 people versus 30. So the numbers are a little bit- A little off. I mean, you don't need too much of a control. You just need something to balance it off. Yeah, okay. And if most of the 30 are not fundamentalist- Yeah, religious. Hyper-evangelical Christians that believe the word as like, even if they're religious, but they're like, oh, I have some interpretations of it my own. Like they're thinking like with curiosity. Whereas the 119 that have prefrontal cortex damage are not. Now- Interesting. So my brain is like, cool, that's a fun little study we did. Let's take it a heap of a lot further. And so my suggestions for further research would be to conduct a study comparing the prefrontal cortex of religious fundamentalists with non-religious individuals to determine if any differences in brain structure or function exist, primarily in the absence of physical trauma. So I would be interested to see if you take the physical trauma out of it. If we had, let's say a thousand fundamentalist Christians versus a thousand non-fundamentalists, even if they're still religious, but just non-fundamental, that would be the best control, I think. So everyone still believes in religion to see if there's damage in the prefrontal cortex, because that would be so fascinating to see if, oh, most of the people who are fundamentally Christian or fundamentally religious- Have brain damage? Have brain damage, possibly. Oh my God. But dude, it would make sense on some of this unwavering beliefs that fundamentalist Christians will die for, would die for. But let me take it a little further. I mean, our father did karate. Yeah, I mean- You think he got a shin to the head? Let me get further, because it could get even a little more interesting. Yeah, everyone could have some sort of brain damage, for sure, but to have an actual lesion in the prefrontal cortex, like they found with these veterans- For sure. Is a pretty big, like you have some brain damage. That part of your brain is no longer functioning instead of it just being not functioning properly. Yeah. It's like dark spots in the MRI. Yeah, because a lesion in the brain is an actual like dark area. Yeah, cancer. Yeah, whereas a functioning brain would be like, everything's still going past, whereas it's not going past here. You're not using that part of your brain. So you actually, the people with brain damage can't think this way that we're talking about, thinking creatively, thinking outside the box. Yeah. So if differences are observed, particularly any indicative of brain damage, this could lead to the hypothesis that religious practices and not just physical injury may influence these changes. And so I would hypothesize that the practice of the religion over a long period of time could cause this brain damage. Oh, so you're reversing it, like- That's what I'm saying. And this is not the study, this is everything else. So you're like, if you could study people that have been religious fundamental fanatics for like 40 years without wavering, like 40 years of religious fanatical belief and fundamentalism, and you're like, we're gonna do brain studies on like 100 of those people. Versus like 100, just not fundamentalists, but whether you have a religion or don't have a religion, just like a collection of different people that are like not fundamentalists, but maybe they say they're Christian, maybe they say they're Catholic, maybe they say they're Jewish, maybe they say they're Islamic, blah, blah, blah. Just not fundamentally living their life based off religion. And you would wanna be like, and do these people have any head injuries now? Yeah. So like they can have any head injuries and you would be curious if religious fanatics have head injury trauma in the prefrontal cortex. It doesn't even need to be head injury, if we just found any brain damage in the prefrontal cortex. I'm just trying to really understand this. You're saying that it's possible that like lack of curiosity given, due to a cultural and society's pressures and norms around that fundamentalism could lead to brain damage because of the lack of there being that awareness. A lack of curiosity could lead to brain damage. That would be my personal hypothesis. I don't think there's any science to back that up. Are we gonna do it? We do have science to do what? You're gonna do the study? Hopefully, that'd be awesome. I would love to be part of that study. But we do have evidence to show that when you stop using parts of the brain, it shrinks. And if you stop using parts of the brain long enough, they dissipate. Wow, wow. The anterior and mid-cingulate cortex is the part of the brain that keeps us tenacious. And so when we were talking about doing cold therapy with Jonathan, that's the part of the brain that's getting activated. People, it's proven in science, live longer when that part of the brain is bigger. That means they've done more things they didn't wanna do in their life. They've put themselves through more struggle. So like getting in a cold bath, you don't want to do it, but you do it anyway, and that part of the brain gets more neuroplastic. So my theory would be being a religious fundamentalist, being born into it, we were born into it, and that part of our brain, hypothetically speaking, there's no science to back this up as of yet, could have just never really been being used. And when it was, it felt so uncomfortable and so afraid that we always avoided it, always avoided it, that there could be, I don't even wanna use the word brain damage because that's just so characterized as a negative thing. It could just be less functioning brain activity. Like atrophied. Atrophied. Like a small muscle. Prefrontal cortex. If you don't stand for a year, you can't walk until you get your muscles back up, which will take like crazy shit. Exactly, and how have we healed is, we talk a lot about plant medicine. What does plant medicine do? It causes extreme neuroplasticity to help parts of the brain that have atrophied or died off activate again. So then do you know if certain psychedelics or plant medicines have like activations in the prefrontal cortex? They have, well, I mean, neuroplasticity in the entire brain. Okay, everywhere. Yeah, I mean, there's probably more specificity in certain types of the parts of the brain that get more neuroplastic, but the whole brain gets incredibly neuroplastic. That's kind of part of the healing side of plant medicine is the neuroplasticity that we force. Blasts you with curiosity. Blasts you with curiosity. You're like, oh my God, and then you come out of it and you're like, I am so curious about everything now. And so it's gotta be the prefrontal cortex for sure. It's interesting. It's like if curiosity is the fertilizer to evolution, then psychedelics are the catalyst to that fertilizer. It's like a match. Totally. So if you have to light a fire, well, you need the match to light, so you have to scratch it on something. What do you scratch it on? A scratcher. It's like a psychedelics, psychedelics. Yeah, the whole brain's on fire. Heat. Just to conclude here, lastly, another hypothesis I was thinking of that we've seen in the church, and so I was just kind of like, it would make sense if we take away the physical trauma, because that's what this study is based on, physical war trauma to the brain. Yeah, it's very specific. So if we take that away, other things that cause trauma are things like child abuse, are things that happen in your childhood. If you were a, what we call a drug baby, whatever you call it, where your mom was doing, drinking a bunch of smoking and heroin, you're gonna have some brain damage. And a lot of those people end up possibly becoming fundamentalist Christians as, I mean, I'm just saying from experience in just our church, there's a lot of people that have very traumatic upbringings, so much trauma, whether it be abuse, whether it be sexual abuse, whether it be drug addiction, it's always like, oh, I found God when my life was ending and everything was terrible, makes me think, was there brain damage trauma? Because you can have brain damage just from a trauma happening, just from being sexually abused, you have trauma to the brain. Totally. And if that happened to be in the prefrontal cortex, and then you happen to become a religious fundamentalist, it actually might all relate back to just being traumatized. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And love it. Great study. Thanks, man. Great story. And I think that not, I don't think everything stems from trauma, but I think that like, God, I'm forgetting his name right now. He became pretty popular on YouTube and stuff. And he was on some really popular podcasts, but he's like a really amazing psychologist that talks about how so much of our depression and anxiety comes from generational trauma and like childhood trauma. And so going deeper into that trauma, which you and I totally connect with, and I'm such a believer, but I just don't think it's all trauma-based, but I mean, injuries define life. If you play basketball, break your arm, you're gonna be in a cast and be playing basketball again until your arm heals and that takes nine months. So injuries have direct consequences that require recovery, healing, and then a restrengthening. And then normally it's stronger, right? And so like whatever injuries that maybe have come, and not talking about specific brain injuries, physical, which you can't like undo that, but like going back to those traumas and like recasting them, right? Like going through the healing process, which is like, you need to like reset those bones. It's like, there's so much similarity, I believe, to the process of healing physical trauma to emotional trauma. It's excruciating. And it takes a long time to get that neuroplasticity and grow those neurons. Totally. And I love what you did where you flipped it. Cause it's like, I'm so curious, like, can we do brain scans on us? Can you hurry up and get your degree so we can check our brains? I would like, that's a big part of why I wanna do it, man, is just to scan my brain. It'd be like, look at mine. It's like, dude, your entire prefrontal cortex is black. Yeah. What? Yeah, you don't have one. That explains so much. Yeah, you're like, I've been trying to be curious. I've been trying to figure out what that even is. Every time I think outside of the box, I go right to a circle. What? I don't know who I am. No, that's a huge part of it. Great study, man. Why I wanna get into neurosciences is to be a part of studies like this. And it's really support to the veterans, man, especially Vietnam. I was just talking about Vietnam veterans with my fiancee, I've met so many of them as a nurse, and God, what a tragedy. The ****ing military of this country, what a ****ing tragedy. Totally. Yeah, and I would say the way our government treats veterans is the real tragedy, dude. The military of this country is a ****ing tragedy. They do get you though by giving you an insane amount of benefits and helping you buy a home and sending you to college for free if you make it there. You were talking to your fiancee about that. I was talking to my fiancee about how why do we have the best, or I don't wanna say the best, why do we have such a strong army is because nothing's really free in America. And so if we had free healthcare and free education, I guarantee you 80% of the recruits that get recruited would have no reason to go into the army. So many recruits are like, if I just put my four years in, I get free education and I get healthcare. So that's a big push. Well, you have to be with us for eight to 10 years and we're gonna move you wherever the **** we want and send you to any country you want, you better kill. And if you don't kill, we're gonna put you in the bridge. You know how long you're gonna be there for? Well, probably a really long time. We're gonna take your rights away as long as you're with us. Anyways, you wanna go to college? America. You want healthcare? You're gonna have a baby someday? You have to come to our military hospitals. You're fine. True, man. Sorry, I'm going off. Great cast, man. It's been really fun doing this with you again tonight. This will be my last episode. Perfect. Now, we were supposed to do the game cam. Let's do it. You wanna do it? Yeah, we're doing the game cam, dude. Okay. Well, here we are. Yep. We are gonna do it because this is what we do when we podcast alone and we're podcasting alone today. So we get to actually play a game. Zachary, let's go on over to the... Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Game cam. Game cam. Here on the Moral Combat Podcast, we believe in connecting with your inner child. And one of the ways that we do that is doing the same exact thing we used to do as children after church every single day or every time we went to church was playing Mario Kart 64, Nintendo 64. I don't even know what we're doing. Like, is this like, we've normally done, we do battles. Oh no, we did block front last time. So it's gonna be the double layered one, double decker. Okay, cool. Which is like, I think we're on seven then, right? 7.0. Yeah, 7.0. And we've done so good, dude, because normally we would be on like almost 9.0 by now, but because we've had so many interviews, it's really lingering. I love it. This is just for us. And we know that if you've made it to this part from the cast, thank you. Yeah, thank you. Thanks for being here. Yeah, thank you. We hope you're watching. You're not gonna wanna listen to this. No, no, no. I guess this is kind of, this is like listening to sports players if they were miked without any commentary. Yeah. Just be like, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh. Right? It's like, same idea. It's like, wait, so I know something's happening. Yeah. Huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh, huh. That would be really funny. It's just like listening on the car radio. Listening to a whole football game with just the commentary. I listened to the Superbowl on the radio, miked, one of the players was miked. One, it's just one. Half the game, he's on the bench, you just hear some weird conversation. Oh my God. Yeah, it sounded great. It sounded hard. It sounded really hard. It sounded like he was tired. Big effort. All right. Who you gonna be? That's a great skit. That is a good skit. All right, I'm Toad, dude. I'm Toad today. Well, if you're Toad, then I'm all, you know, I'm just gonna be Mario. I don't think I've ever been Mario. Okay, Mario and Toad, here we go. Double deck, 7.0. Who won last time? You did. I played terrible. Real bad last time. I kind of, well, I'm gonna get into it. Here we go. Go, go, go, go. I feel like I always forget the controls. Oh, he's got a little red shell already. He's got a secret missile, huh? Hey there, it's like, hey. Ah! Oh, got you. All right, not a bad start. Not a bad, oh, okay. Here comes the star. Oh, we're going under, dude, stay. Wow, you're so fast. You're really fast. Oh, my turn. Oh, oh, thank God. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, we're just gonna crash into each other. Come here. Ah! Okay, okay. All right, we're just twisty. We're twisty, twisty here. You're not gonna hit me, don't even try it. Oh, it was a good shot. Ah! Ah! Oh! Oh, got the hit. No, no, no, no. Got the hit. No, no, no. Got the hit. Go, go, go. Get over here, dude. You want it. Son of a bitch. Dang, good shot. Nice shot. Okay, one to one right now. Last balloon. No. Yeah! Hit the head of the banana. Damn it. Yes. Nice, well played, well played. Wow, we're in it. This is a good game. Wow, we should bring storage to the cast more often. This is a good energy. No, just that. See, if you're just listening, it's not good. It's not good, dude. A lot of grunts and a lot of distorted yelling. Yeah, they're sweating, they're having a hard time. Here we go again. We're just gonna, going in hot. Oh. You can, you can take me. Oh! Whoa. Oh, I know, it's so hard. Come here, dude. You never hit me once. Come on, dude. Ah! Wow, nice hit. We got that one, baby. Let's go. Oh! No! Okay. Oh, darn, why do you keep getting the triple shells? You better run. I am running. Better run. Run. Da-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. Run. Come on, dude. Come on, Max. Come on, bro. Come on. Let me show you a little something. Let me show you a little. Ooh, we got a green shell in there. Ooh, that's dangerous. Come on, buddy. Come on, buddy. Come here, come here. Oh, we got a star. We got a star. He's gonna use it. You just hit yourself. I hit my own red shell. Two stars. I'm just gonna go for a drive. I'm out of here. I gotta go. You're too fast. Come here, dude. This is too fast. Oh, wow. I'm coming for the hit. Coming for the hit, baby. I'm risking the bisque. God damn it. Goodness. This is ridiculous. It's okay. We're playing good. You're playing good. You're avoiding it. Oh, my goodness. No! No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is so bad. I just hit myself again. Wow, but you got another star. You have a chance. Dude, it is so hard to hit the other player with a star. It's so hard. That's why I love Starfire. Dude, I'm like, I don't even want these red shells. I don't even want these red shells anymore, dude. Come get me. I don't even want it. I'm just chasing you this whole time with three circulating green. I'm about to shoot these. I'm gonna get you. Yes! No, dude! Yes! No! Laugh it up, fuzzball. No! Well played, man. I guess you smashed me this time. I smashed you last time. Keeps it quick. I was in it. Keeps it quick. You were in it. We were both in it. I just got green shells. You got red shells and stars. Yeah. I wanted to go one more round, but. Good game. Good game. Echo, garage on. We really need to name this. It's just water, by the way. You're chugging it like it's straight whiskey. It's like, the only way we get through these casts is by drinking scotch vodka. That's a lot of water. We gotta change the name of the place in here to like, I don't know, like penthouse. Penthouse on. For garage. For garage. It's not a good sound. It's not a good. Garage on. Basement on. Mother's basement on. Yeah. Where do you guys have your podcasts? Just watch till the end. Watch. If you make it to the end, you'll learn. Any updates at the very end of our cast that no one's gonna hear about? Hell yeah. There's some updates. February 12th, Daddy's releasing music again, baby. Damn, congratulations. Thanks, man. It feels good. And then, the same week, we are filming our episode with another guest in studio. And the week after that, another guest in studio. Yeah. Oh, wait, Forrest is after that one too? Yeah. We are really stocking up. I love it, dude. But no, I'm excited about this one. I have another one that's gonna be coming out after it too. It's kind of similar to last year, where a lot of creativity coming out towards the beginning of the year. And I'm still in back pain, so I'm really proud of myself. Good for you, bro. Yeah, man. Yeah, that's awesome. It was funny, this song, when you and your girl came over and you showed me the new track. That's not the one that's being released. That's one being released after. Oh, gotcha, yeah. But I haven't written music in so long. And my buddy, James Tower, I'm allowed to say his name on this cast. Because we own him. We love you, Jim. He hit me up and he was like, yo, and he's an amazing musician. He was like, I haven't done music in a long time. We gotta do something together. And I was like, oh, that's right. Yeah, because I got into acting and I love acting and pursuing these different things. And so I sat down and I wrote just music that I love, dance music. And it was the first kind of like star power sounding, like dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, which is like a new genre in EDM. Is this the one that you showed us? Yeah. And it was very raw when I showed you guys and it's like really underground. So you have to really be into like that style of like dance music. But I wrote a song. So you're actually writing and releasing. So I'm really proud of you, but yeah, there's something creative about the new year. Interesting. Oh, for sure. The energy. Cool. Sweet. And I ordered a bunch of green, like planted trees and bushes for our podcast. So it's gonna get some more greenery. There's gonna be some more greenery coming in. It'd be really cool if we had enough greenery that we were actually kind of like sitting in it and it was kind of like funny where it was like. It's like between two ferns, but between in the forest. In the fern. Yeah, into the forest. It's like, hey everybody, welcome to the, it's just like the leaves. Hey. All right, that's it folks. We love you. Thank you for being here. Thanks for meeting everyone. To all of our new listeners, thank you for joining us. Stick around for the next. 100 years. Yeah, okay. Thank you. Bye. See ya.