Mark Bell's Power Project - How Our Beliefs in “God” Are Changing and Evolving || MBPP Ep. 899

Episode Date: March 8, 2023

In this Podcast Episode, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how their beliefs in religion and God have evolved since their upbringing.  New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

We continue to produce this content for free, and if the podcast has brought value to your life, it would mean a lot to us if you could go to your favorite podcast platform, whether that's iTunes or Spotify, and give us a star rating. It'll help the podcast grow, and it won't take you much time. Enjoy the episode. Oh! I was watching War of the Worlds earlier today. Oh. Speaking of Scientology. Is that Brad Pitt?

It's Tom Cruise. War of the Worlds. Hold on. With the tripod-looking things that shoot out the blood. Like, they, like, they kill humans and they, like,

they utilize their blood to, like, fertilize the land. Oh, I don't remember that one. It's sick. I was thinking of World War Z, but... That was a good one. War of the Worlds.

Why am I thinking of the one... War of the Worlds is really, really good. And the graphics, the graphics, the fucking CGI or whatever stood up to the test of time, I thought. It wasn't horrible. Is that the one where you had a female co-star and she was like a badass? And they kept dying?

No, it's Tom Cruise and then he's with his kids most of the movie because he's trying to save his kids. The one where he keeps dying is good. I think that's the one you were just talking about. Yeah, I don't know. Are we recording? Yeah, we are now. trying to save his kids. The one where he keeps dying is good. I think that's the one you were just talking about. Yeah. Are we recording? Yeah, we are now. So do you guys think that Tom Cruise is the greatest action movie star of all time? Actually.

I mean, he's kind of hard to contend with, right? Jackie Chan, man. Jackie Chan. Jackie Chan also did all of his stunts. Jackie Chan's in a lot of movies. A lot of movies that we've never heard of right no hella yeah yeah we saw he's jackie chan's made a lot of money too don't be sleeping on him like he's fucking crushed it he's made like a mortal kombat game too a really really bad one really fucking horrible yeah oh wow it was back when mortal kombat was super popular. I got hair in my mouth.

I feel like I'm still at Jiu-Jitsu. No, it was when Mortal Kombat was huge and everybody was making a bunch of knockoffs. Jiu-Jitsu was mentioned 45 seconds into the podcast. I just had to let everybody know. I hate this show. Put them on notice. Jiu-Jitsu, functional patterns, go to. I'm just going to say it.

I get it all out in the beginning. Get all the red flags out. Carnivore, just keep going with it. Make everybody mad. Meat based. I mean, dick. That's to be mentioned. If you guys are listening, you know, we're just getting it out. Tom Cruise, best

American action star up until this point. Jackie Chan, best worldwide action star. I'd imagine that Jackie Chan movies have probably been seen in more places than Tom Cruise movies I could be totally wrong though I wonder what the age difference is with those two and there's a lot of people in China a lot of people in China is that another thing that we're not supposed to say or is that okay no he's just whispering it just in case somebody heard it oh got it I don't want to his uh siri is close by

well where does sylvester stallone stand against tom cruise well as as my buddy russell put it he said he's i can't even say it with straight face he said rocky one and two is the best movie of all time i said that's two movies i was like he goes i know but if you collab them together he's like it's like the greatest movie ever i'm like that's weird movies. I was like, he goes, I know, but if you collab them together, he's like, it's like the greatest movie ever. I'm like, that's weird, Russell. I have to also say this. Rocky movies burn me at the stake, but I watch them. They're just so cheesy, dog. That's really old.

You know, I could understand, like, when did it come out in the 70s? Don't get me wrong. 1976. And they are good movies. Don't get me wrong. 1976. And they are good movies. Don't get it twisted. I think they're good. But if I was a kid in the 70s watching Rocky, I'm like, yeah, but I'm a kid in the 90s watching Rocky. I'm like, what?

It just – Yeah, well, by the time it went to like Rocky IV and he's like fighting the Russian or whatever. It starts – there were so many different iterations of it. Well, there's – you know, it's – those movies had like montages. Well, those movies had montages. They had those training montages. Those are famous. Yeah, they're pretty cool. Some of the best music.

Yeah. It's so good to work out to. Another Creed is coming out too, right? Creed 3 is already out. I haven't seen it yet, but I've heard it's good. March. It's out. It's in good shape.

It's out. It's out. No way, is it? No. 3, 3, 23. You're right. See? For Creed 3. Andrew's right. It's out. No way, is it? No. 3-3-23. You're right. See? For Creed 3.

Andrew's right. I'm going to take Stephanie to that. I can't wait. I want to go see it. Now, the fight scenes in the Creed movies, because I'm obviously more current, but those get you pumped. Oh, the stuff in the ring, in any of those movies, I mean, they did a good job. I mean, that's got to be...

I know in Rocky and stuff, they talk a lot about how they actually were hitting each other, and that's got to be i know in rocky and stuff they talk a lot about how they you know actually were hitting each other and like that's got to be painful doing that shit every day that's got to be hard and then how hard did uh carl weathers have to work to try to make rocky look good when they were running on beach he looked so good man yeah i also wonder too like size wise like um sylvester stallone got in incredible shape he looked amazing and i think he probably still is in pretty good shape but carl weathers was a professional football player he was yeah he played i think he played like linebacker or something the nfl for a little while might have played for like the raiders and he was in crazy shape oh yeah these guys hit put 10 and they're hitting each other and they're start whacking each other pretty good, right?

Yeah. Did he actually get tagged a little bit there? Probably. He went into it a bit and then he flung himself. Damn. The dead legs are great. Sorry again for those listening. We're watching something right now,

but we're going to get into this soon. That looks like he got hit. Just stick with us. Today's topic is going to be into this soon. I mean, it looks like you got hit. Just stick with us. Today's topic is going to be interesting, potentially somewhat triggering, but I didn't even think we were going to talk about this. Me neither. My mom doesn't listen, man. I hope nobody listens. Yeah, family members tune out.

I think we were just talking about, you know, believing things that get passed down from generation to generation. And then do you just believe them? You know, something like religion, for example, do you just believe that sometimes, you know, insert in some families and even in some like areas, like, I don't know how you guys grew up, but the area that I grew up in, um, it was kinda, it was a little bit like, it would probably be in my best interest to get the fuck out of here or I'm going to end up like everybody else around here but a lot of people believed that they had to be around their family they really believed and really felt so strongly that they had to be around their family and I was like if I have to stay here and be around my family

I'm not going to be able to become what I want to become. So I'm going to have to start to develop my own beliefs. I'm going to have to go outside of this like system. And it was hard. Like my, I'm grateful that my parents, my parents were always pretty loose with stuff. You know, you would mention something to them and they, I'm sure they were like, fuck, that's crazy. I'm sure they went, you know, in bedroom, probably talked about it. Like, oh my God, you know, Mike wants to, my oldest brother, Mike wants to go to Cincinnati and play football. They're probably like, fuck, that's like division one. Like what do we do? You know? And then my dad's probably like, well, he's pretty big. I think he can handle himself. Maybe he'll figure it out. Or like when Mike wanted to be a pro wrestler, Chris wanted to make movies. Like

there's a lot of crazy shit going on in the Bell household, but my parents were always, they were pretty supportive of it. When we were very young, you know, there's certain things we didn't have a choice with. Like we, my parents were very religious. I grew up Christian, going to church all the time type thing. But something interesting happened with the church that we went to. I don't know exactly what happened, but the church kind of imploded. I don't know if they didn't have money or I don't know exactly what went down. But we had that and we went there every Sunday. We had friends at church.

We had family friends. And then it just kind of slowly kind of died off as that church was kind of unraveling. And then we just – I think we moved and then we weren't as close to that area anymore. And we didn't have that practice as routine any further. And then my dad was like in the middle of his uh career with he worked for ibm um and so he did have time like we could have made time to do it but we just didn't make time to do it any further and for me it happened at a i would say like a good age because then i was able to freely start to think about like yeah what were we going you know like what were we going to church for? Like, am I Christian? Like, I'm in a Christian household,

but do I believe in God the same way my parents believe in God? Do I believe in like, we used to, you know, we would pray. Do I believe in prayer? Like, I don't even know. When did you start to ask yourself these questions, by the way? Like, when did you actually start to evaluate your own personal belief? I think probably pretty young, probably like 12. Yeah. For me, it was way later, but that's interesting. Keep going. Yeah. And I think, uh, even today I don't have answers to a lot of these things cause I don't

really know. Um, and, uh, sometimes some, some, some things I haven't thought of enough or haven't thought them through enough to even like give a real answer. But the short of it for me is I think that human beings are just as important as like a tree or a cow or a dog. I don't think we're any more important and I don't think we're any less important. And this is like a whole other topic and it's probably a different podcast, different time. I don't believe that we have like a point to be here. I don't believe there's like a reason to be here. I'm a little like nihilistic in that way. But I don't think that that's a miserable thing. I think that's just is. That's just the way that it is. And some people view that as like a downer, like, since you don't know why you're here, then why not just be a fuck up? And I look at it in a different way.

It's your job to figure out what's your point and what's your purpose in this world. That's a digression a little bit from religion, but that is kind of my belief. And some people, they might find it more beneficial to gravitate towards a religion or to believe in something greater so they can fast track themselves to getting into those positions earlier or sooner or just feel more comfortable because life can be really difficult. There's a lot of things that happen. There's a lot of, you know, in this country, things are pretty good, but there's, there's suffering going on worldwide that is just atrocious that we can't even really fathom. Uh, all of our ancestors have suffered many, many different times over many, many different ways. Um, even just, even just, uh, things like

just surviving the fucking climate, you know, surviving the temperatures outside and being able to travel thousands of years ago and being able to survive on the food and the land and things like that. There's a lot of things that have been very difficult over the years. So it makes sense to think that we have a greater purpose or something outside of that so that you have something maybe a little bit more to hold on to. Let me ask you both this, because Andrew, you said you grew up Catholic. Now, when you think back to your time in the church as a kid or maybe a teenager, do you think that Christianity or Catholicism, do you think it helped you with your personal moral compass? Did it affect any of the good or bad decision that you made? Like when you were making a decision, do you remember thinking like,

WWJD, what would Jesus do? I really want to know this. And actually people in the audience, whether you're still with your religion or whether you're doing something else, think about that question. But yeah, go ahead. I mean, I'll say maybe because right, like, especially in a Catholic church, you're kind of, you're, you're basically, what is, I forgot, you're basically always committing sin and, you know, he's forgiving you the whole time, but like, you're the bad

person. So it's like, like, oh, fuck. Okay. I'm sorry. But no, no, I've never needed someone else to tell me what's good or bad. And I've never needed a, I'm not going to say, I don't mean made up, but what I mean is like, I don't need a big glorified story of somebody telling me what's good or bad for me to know what's good or bad. Like I've never, like I've never once. So you believe you always had intrinsic a good morality from since you were a child yes absolutely one thousand percent like to not hurt another person yeah no i've like like that again so you know don't argue about what makes a good man be one marcus aurelius like that's what i've always believed in before i ever knew anything about stoicism so i would say no it never influenced me to be a better person because I already wanted to be that. There's, do you, do you ever think back to a time? Cause I remember like, for example, there's this learning center that I went to and my mom put me in called Kumon, right? Fucking, they put me forward in math, but I hated the place. So on one day they had these Kumon

packets that you'd have to like sit down and do all your math problems and shit. I didn't want to do it, so I just took it outside and I dumped it in the sewer. And somebody was watching me. Apparently the Kumon instructor, they saw me do it. I went back in, acted like nothing happened. And they're like, oh, Nsema, what happened? I'm like, oh, I finished up my Kumon.

I lied. They told my mom and I was reprimanded for it. But I did do that again because I hated Kumon. So I knew it was a wrong thing, right? But so what I'm getting at here is like you get reprimanded for things. You do stupid shit as a kid. I did a lot of stupid shit as a kid. But do you think that like did your parents lead you in that direction or nothing from the way you looked at things or the way you looked at the world came from church?

I was – this is going to sound weird, but I basically all, I grew up with four parents in the same household because my brother and sister were significantly older. They're like seven and eight years old. And they would just be straight up with me and be like, what we're doing is good. What we're doing is bad. Like we're sneaking out. Don't tell anybody this is bad uh we're gonna throw a party don't grow up like us like don't do this or whatever it may be and my parents were very religious and you know they would say good or bad things but like if i ever did anything dumb like break the rules or do something to get in trouble i didn't think oh i'm going to hell for this all liars go to he double hockey sticks yes it hockey sticks. Yes. It was never that. It was just like.

I didn't even say the real word. Oh, man. Yeah. It was like. Close call. Yeah. I was so scared of like saying hell for such a long time. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I'm not going to lie. Like definitely like thinking like, oh, if you, you know, whatever, draw the devil, he's going to come get you. Oh, fuck. That sounds scary. I don't want to do that.

But it wasn't that. It was, uh, if I get in trouble, my dad's going to beat my ass or something. It wasn't, I'm going to hell. Yeah. Power project family quality sleep can make everything with your health and fitness easier, which is why we've partnered with hostage tape. Now we've been talking about mouth tape for years and nasal breathing for years. But one of the problems that we've had with tape is we all like to rock facial hair. And a lot of the mouth tapes we would use would fall off of our face at night. Hostage tape doesn't fall off your face if you have a beard or if you're not a man and you don't.

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Enjoy the show. I think there's so much you can take from religion, and there's so much, I think there's a lot of positivity to it. However, I think sometimes the rigidness of it can lead to, like, it can lead to more people wanting to uh not conform to it um it can lead to uh it could lead to all kinds of stuff i mean having people in having people in a religion and then not have you know those people not allowed to have any sex is like a really interesting, it's a really interesting thing.

And it sounds to me like an impossible way to live, to live, to live your life, you know, dude, dude, I know, I know,

I know where we're at. Yo dog. It sounds hard. How old was I when I lost my virginity? Maybe, uh, 19, you know,

19 years old. Really? Yeah. Yeah. You're such a good kid, dude for the longest time i was just like i'm not gonna have sex until i'm married the first girl right i get my first girlfriend at my my my job right look at you look at your virginity i'm gonna wait dog i really tried not because like there there, there's say no only so much. There's some girls in high school that were like, we're interested, but I'm like,

I'm studying and I have soccer. Like I, I, I shooed the woman away. Right. But dude, my first job, um,

I ended up with his girlfriend and I, uh, I went to her place and we were watching a movie, right? I was 19. We were watching a movie. I wasn't expecting to have sex. I wasn't even planning on it because, again, that waits for marriage.

Well, for some reason, she just gets on top of me and starts making out with me and then whips out my dick. I'm like, no, no. Yes. It was so quick, dog. But once it finished up and once it happened i was like i guess i'm gonna have to get married to this one this isn't sema it was like no oh wait i gotta go study i just want to go play soccer leave me alone devil i just want to go learn and become a doctor dude but you know what dude okay because of religion i

was very sexually conservative when i was younger but also because of religion i felt like the first girl i had sex with that was gonna be my lady i felt like okay well this one i'm gonna have to stick to this one that's what i really felt at the time because i was so engulfed you know did you guys go to church or have a bible around or anything like that? Every Sunday. Every Sunday. It was a big part of like, so my mom is from Nigeria. My grandma's from Nigeria. My grandma would fast and pray.

My mom would fast and pray. We would like, there would be times that we would fast and pray together. We would have, we would like read the Bible, study the Bible. Like it was a very, very,

very big part of growing up, which is, and that's why like, I do think there are so many good things that I've, that I learned from the Bible because also the church that I went to, um, the pastor was really cool in the sense that he didn't take everything in the Bible super literally. He looked at it as like, these stories have this specific message and it was all good messages messages morality messages of good and bad and just things you should be trying to do you should be trying to be examples of things that are bad examples of things that are good over and over again different stories told different ways right but that is all good but then there is the other side where it's

like there's a benefit to being sexually conservative as a man or a woman, but there's a point where it might be taken too far. And it might make you feel a certain way and feel very closed off and maybe too conservative when it comes to things like that. So it's really interesting. And I've had this conversation with my girl. I'm like, damn. Because the way now I look at religion is I think all different religions have different pieces of the puzzle. I don't think that if you're not a Christian, you're going to go to hell.

Cause that's when I was growing up, that was part of the messaging. Like people that weren't be able to be saved while they wouldn't be able to go to heaven. And for the longest time, I was just like, well, how about just people in parts of the world where they just don't have access?

Do they just go to hell off rip? Yeah. Or they didn't have access to this, this religion. They had access to only, only another religion. The wrong one. Yeah.

They were born into it. Like, oh, they're, you know, their God is not the same as ours. They're going to, you know,

it's, it's, uh, that's what always kind of baffled me. I was always like, what, what is that about? How does that, you know, person, that's what always kind of baffled me. I was always like, well, what is that about? How does that, you know, person, that person's spiritual and they're putting a lot of time

in and they're, they're reading their version of a Bible type thing and they're doing all the things that they're supposed to do. Um, you know, it's just, it's just, I don't know. I find a lot of that really interesting for me because both of my, so my mother grew up in like a chaotic environment. Both her, both her parents were alcoholic. There's a lot of drugs and alcohol kind of in her, in her family history. Yeah.

My uncle died of a drug overdose. As you guys know, my brother died of a drug overdose. Like these things are things that kind of lingered around the family. But my mom's side was like, I would just say they were dysfunctional. It was a really tough, they had a lot of children. I think they had the same amount of children as my dad's side of the family, which is nine children. So that's a lot of kids. They didn't have a lot of money.

And they grew up in some rough areas as well. They grew up in some areas where, you know, my mom would get like harassed a lot and things like that. So I think my mom found religion to be like a huge relief, even though she grew up with some religion, I think they were Catholic. And I think that as she got older, I think because she grew up in the household that she grew up in, I think that she thought that religion didn't work well for her. And so she wanted to explore something different. So me having some of this knowledge as I grew up, I was like, well, maybe I'll end up like that too. Maybe I'll want to

find something that suits me better, that fits me better. Because when my mom found Christianity, it really seemed to help change her life. Then she, well, she already knew my dad from so young, but they built and worked on things together. They both went to church together, then they had kids, and then they brought us to church. And it seemed like it was the making of, you know, kind of a normal American household. And my mom would read stuff from the Bible to me when I was going to bed,

and she would tell me the interpretations of it. And church itself is just a massive interpretation of all these words that are written in the Bible. Just imagine, like, let's take religion out of it for And church itself is just a massive interpretation of all these words that are written in the Bible. Just imagine, like, let's take religion out of it for a moment and let's just say, we're going to read something from a great philosopher. I'm going to read something from Marcus Aurelius or Seneca or something like that. And imagine just the three of us got around and said, hey, what'd you think of that quote from Seneca? He said this, Andrew, you know, what are your thoughts on that? And we just keep going around. I think those practices

are really, really healthy. And I think that's like a really wonderful thing and being like communal, like having a community, getting around people. I've said this before, but, you know, I have like 500 and something thousand people on my Instagram, but a local preacher that has a decent following could get something way bigger arranged than I could because he knows so many people locally. In the community. In the community, yeah. And he could, I don't know, do like a fundraiser and have a shit ton of people show up there. I'm sure I could figure it out and do some stuff too. But you kind of get my point.

Like that guy might not have any following on social media, but he has a literal following in the area that he's in. So I think there's a lot of power in communal stuff. But I also start to think a little bit more like, do we need a church setting for that? And, or do I personally feel that I need that? I don't really know. Cause I don't know anything different at this point, uh, this stage in my life. I have thought about those things before. I have thought about like, Oh, maybe I should go back to church and see if I like it. But I'm also like, well, I think I'd be going by myself. My wife, she has different vantage point. And so, but for me anyway, just kind of answer your question. I do think it helped with morals in religion sometimes are just maybe a little too like you're going to burn in hell if you do that. Like it's like, man, that's a lot.

But, you know, my wife's mother, when my wife had her first period, her mother just explained to her. She said, it's really important that you know this from this day forward, you can get pregnant. And you're very, very young. And like, you know, if you have a boy, you know, she just ran down the whole thing right then and there. But there was no scare tactics of like heaven and hell. There was no religious thing. Like if you have sex with a guy before you're 20, you're a slut or something like that. It was nothing, it was nothing like that. It was more like just very factual. Like now you're at this stage of your life. This is now you're, you're kind of turning into a young adult. Practical sex education needs to happen for kids because like, I mean, even if you're, for me, I was like within that religious context. So I was just like, I'm not going to do

it until I get married. But at the same time, even though I had sex ed in high school, the amount of unprotected sex that I had just because that wasn't talked about. And that was a decision I made. But at the same time, it's like there's it's multifactorial. Hey, a lot of us got lucky. Yeah. Yeah. Right. I mean, it's multifactorial because like, first off, I got lucky. Yeah. Yeah. Right? I mean.

It's multifactorial because like first off, I didn't have a dad in the house. So I never had a sex talk ever. Me and my mom, that shit didn't come up. Why? Because I wasn't having sex. I'm a good boy. But, you know, with kids, you know, kids start getting it in 13, 14, 15. It's normal for kids to experiment.

And they need to understand what they might be getting themselves into because if they do and they're not using rubber, you end up with kids getting pregnant at 13, 14, 15, 16 years old. So the scare tactics are a wild thing. But I do think all of it is really interesting because it's like I could see my trajectory totally being changed if early on I found a deeply Christian woman. Because for me, that was the type of person that I wanted to have, a faithful person. And if we hit it off, bam, I might have been married to her super early, might have been going to church all the time because that would have been something that like I know the people in my family would like and the people in my community would also like.

So I could have, I know I could have easily fallen into the community if I ended up with that type of person. I'm not saying that type of person's bad, but that would have, I think that being so engulfed and bathed within that community, I might have not thought differently. I might have just been like, this is what the people important to me believe. And because this is what the people important to me believe, this is what my parents believe, this is what everyone in my family does, this is the right way of doing things. So it doesn't mean, again, I'm not saying Christianity is bad because I know I learned a lot from it. But I do think that there's merit to rethinking why do I personally believe this?

Do I believe this because it's something that everyone in my family and the community closest to me is doing? Because there is a fear in going another route and alienating yourself and potentially losing the community and the people closest to you because now you don't believe what they believe that shit is scary it's just like leaving any type of close friends group it's a scary thing to do but it's something you probably should ask yourself and maybe analyze do you guys think maybe like going to church uh could be a helpful thing to help uh it seems like there it seems like a lot of people are like moving away from religion could be a helpful thing to help. It seems like there, it seems like a lot of people are like moving away from religion in this country. It seems that way.

Keep in mind, we live on the outside edges of the United States. We don't live in the middle where there's, there's probably more religion there, but do you guys think it'd be helpful like to, cause I, you know, I,

I think, I just think that there's discussion that probably happens at church that might not happen otherwise at home. It could happen at home and you could teach your kids about social media. You could teach your kids about these dating apps and some of the dangers of them and how it would be fucking great

if you were able to meet somebody in person. But I understand this technology is here. Like, I don't know. What do you guys think? It's tough because, like, you know, it's probably pretty obvious now where I stand on this because, like, I don't really understand the need for religion. I know that, again, that sounds interesting. But with that said, I think the country would be better off if we did actually go to church more.

Yeah, just because like, I don't know, man, like a lot of people don't have like a home base. You know, there's the social media, there's weird shit going on at school or work or whatever. You know, fatherless homes or whatever it may be. There's no like, fuck, dude, I need my safe zone. I need my spot. And I think church can definitely be that for a lot of people where it's like, especially like, so like, again, I grew up in a Catholic church where we did have some things and I'll get to that later. But like in a Christian church, it's like, there's a huge community aspect to it. And it's like,

they have so many different programs, like tons of fun, like almost like an afterschool type of program, like after church thing where it's like, everybody gets together. And it's like, I remember looking around being like, damn, this is a church event. Like this is pretty fucking exciting. I think more of that would be huge for this country. So again, as somebody who isn't down with it, I think it would still serve this country very, very well. I think some churches too can be a lot of fun. I know that there's kind of more conventional churches where they just read the Bible

and they have very traditional way of doing things. But the churches I've been to, the Christian churches I've been to, the Christian churches I've been to, the pastor is like not always like in a suit and tie. I mean, he's not always dressed in flip-flops. Yeah, yeah. It's like just talking and just really, really funny too. Pastor Jim, who is the head of the church my dad goes,

the pastor of the church that my dad goes to. The guy's hilarious. He's from Arbuckle. He always talks about Arbuckle being the armpit of California. It's the worst place. And he's got all this funny stuff. And his son does some, his son plays the guitar, I think. And maybe he sings, too, part of like the church, you know, course.

The guitar is like the staple thing of every church. Right. And he's like, all right, you know, give it up staple thing of every church right and uh he's like all right you know give it up for my son he's gonna play like intermissions and stuff like that and then pastor jim comes back on the microphone he's like i i realize my son's terrible but i run the church so he's gonna play and you guys gotta listen to him it's my show so i get to put him in he's always like talking trash and making jokes but he has a lot of good points too and he taught he'll dissect again they dissect a lot of the quotes, a lot of the

things, a lot of the meanings. He has an initiative every single time. He has a, like an intent, you know, today I'm going to talk about loneliness and why I think our society is so lonely. Like, what a cool thing. Then, you know, people, people raise their hand, they'll have testimony. They'll say, I was, you know, this happened, that happened. Then, you know, people raise their hand. They'll have testimony. They'll say, you know, this happened, that happened. And, you know, they kind of go around and say, does anybody else have anything else to say? And everyone always says no. But then people go up to the pastor privately and they're like in tears and they're like, this happened to me, that happened to me. And it's just like, I mean, where else do you get to kind of unload that kind of stuff?

else do you get to kind of unload that kind of stuff? And I've had people from churches, I've had pastors and all kinds of different people in my life that have been really religious that have had a huge impact on me. People I can just bounce stuff off of, I can say certain things to, and I don't have to worry. It's like, I don't know, maybe they're judging you, maybe they're going home and laughing with their wife or kids about something weird that you said. But it feels like a judgment-free thing and you can just kind of unload your problems right then and there. And there's things like men's groups. There's things like women's groups. They have groups – like a lot of churches has groups for married couples. People are listening right now like, what?

Yeah, yeah. They got all this at a church? Yeah. They have married couples groups where people like like married couples, can go and talk and whatever. And then church is almost somewhat like a built-in daycare, somewhat. You know what I mean? Because maybe you go to your service, you leave your kids off with a teacher, and they teach your kid probably something good. But a lot of times there are fear things in there that'll kind of make a kid scared

of doing certain things. But at the end of the day, it's, it is overall positive depending on where you go. Cause like, obviously there's in terms of Catholic churches. So that's what I was going to say. I'm like, if we grew up Christian, I'd probably have a different take on it. But no, let me also say this real quick. There's a lot of pastors that have scammed the fuck out of their congregations. Like think that might be something that happened at the church i was going to i never i never even asked yeah but just all of a sudden i kind of disappeared and i was like that was weird it happens a lot in the united states but also it happens a lot in nigeria and other countries where the interpretation that your pastor who's this authority figure has

of the bible can then if they're the authority figure and they, who's this authority figure, has of the Bible can then, if they're the authority figure and they're giving you this interpretation of what they're reading and this is what it means for you as a woman, this is what it means for you as a family, there have been pastors that have slept with many people in their congregation. You know what I mean? And people have been okay with it. They've scammed money out of people because, again, they're an authority figure interpreting the word of God to you because he has that power.

So it's like it's I think it's overall good, but you've got to be so careful. C.T. Fletcher's dad, right? Yeah. He ended up having. Yeah. That's crazy. Yeah. But, yeah, no, what I was going to say is, you know, in the Catholic Church, like it's a big ceremonial thing.

Everyone's, you know know dressed in their robes and stuff and they talk like this they have to make it a huge deal oh my goodness and i'm just like i'm falling asleep dude like this is hard and i went to catholic school as a kid even though i wasn't catholic yeah that's when you gotta rip a good farm off those wooden chairs they have great reverberation off of those so loud yeah so every sunday was the same thing it was just like please please let them stay in bed please please please i don't want to go to church please please please dude african and then they just walk in and like damn we gotta go to church everybody was pissed oh my god african church because i went to an african church then i went to american church where he was wearing flip-flops as the pastor but african church dog it goes like four hours man oh the the the length of time a couple hours late too probably

yeah it starts a little bit late goes on african time but man the the the amount of time, like the length of prayer, and you got people like shaking, dancing. I mean, overall, it's fun, but like, it's time. It's a lot of time, you know? There's a lot of people, whenever I do go back to church, which is really, really rarely, but... Christmas and Easter? Yeah, when I do go back... We, which is really, really rarely, but – Christmas and Easter. Yeah. When I do go back – We call them Cresters.

Yeah. When I do go back, I always have a good time. It's always fun. And as an adult, it's different because you – I don't know. If I get fidgety or just want to get up and walk outside, I can. But as a kid, it's like – You get elbowed by your or just want to like get up and like walk outside. I can, you know, but as a kid, it's like, you get elbowed by your mom.

So we would get in trouble all the time. Like we would get spanked or hit with the belt, like just from shit from church. So then you're like, I'm trying to learn this religion over here and I can't because I probably have ADHD and seven other problems. At least you stayed awake. But this shit's boring, you know,

and now, now I'm getting, you know, now I'm getting spanked for it or whatever. So I think there's a lot of stuff in religion, you know, that gets maybe communicated to the parents. And then the parents are trying to communicate that to their children. are trying to communicate that to their children. I think just because maybe the church shares with you that, hey, you know what, stay on top of your kids. You should be strict with them. No drugs, no sex, no swear words, no, like those things, they're probably all pretty good principles. But then I think at some point you have to figure out how you can be realistic with your own children. Like there is going to be a day, if you have a kid, there is

going to be a day where they run into drugs. There is going to be a day where they run into sex. There is going to be a day where they get into a fight in school. Like all these things are going to happen and you have to figure out how am I going to communicate? What's the best way for me to communicate to my child in this situation so they can be safe so they can end up being an awesome person yeah and additionally so they can end up being a great father or great mother like that's to me that's what i'm always thinking about i'm like hey man be really fucking careful with how you react to this right now because do you want him do you want jake to react this way to your grandson or your granddaughter like you don't you don't want that.

You don't want him reacting that way. So compose your shit, whatever weird, silly stuff you want to say, say it later. Think about this a little bit more. And then how do we move forward from here in the best way? And for me, it doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with religion. And it's not really like a religious thing. I'm, you know, not going to flip out just because something happened that is, you know, a sin or something like that. You know, I didn't even know what the hell that would even be. But if something's

like a sin or something like that, I still want to just try to handle it in the best way that I think is best for our family, not necessarily the best for a particular religion. And, you know, another thing is when I was growing up, you know, I was in the church a lot, doing a lot of stuff. I was lucky enough that my mom, you know, she put me in a lot of sports and stuff. So I was able to do stuff with other kids. But one thing that I noticed is like the way sometimes that certain Christian kids would like maybe other people who weren't Christian or the way that they would look at people who weren't.

It's an idea of like you have the right belief. People that aren't part of this group, you love them, but they're obviously wrong. obviously wrong. And it's looking, looking at it now, it's like, it's, it's somewhat of a, I don't know, almost kind of dangerous idea because you believe in this thing that this, this God that you have faith in. Now there's, you can't see him, you can maybe feel him, but there's this level of faith and faith is good. Faith can get you through a lot of things. But when now you have this faith and another group of people don't have this faith and faith is good. Faith can get you through a lot of things. Um, but when now you have this faith and another group of people don't have this faith and automatically there's this, there's this ridge where they're wrong. You're right. They're already intrinsically wrong about their belief

systems. It's, it's, it's a tough place to be. I remember when I was, when I was younger, uh, maybe 2021 it was, maybe I was like, yeah, maybe I was like 18 or 19, and I started learning about all the gay marriage stuff because I had a friend that was gay. And I was just like, when I would think about people that were gay, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's weird. That's a sin. But then I started being like, wait, they're just attracted to somebody else. And the messaging from the church would be like, well, they can be switched. They can go to a type of camp or whatever. And that's not what you have to be.

It's a choice. But then as you talk to somebody, it's like, no, they've just been gay. Like they were just attracted to the same sex. And just the messaging from the Christian side of things, that had me kind of conflicted because I was just like, we're supposed to love everybody. We're supposed to treat people well. And why are some of us treating these people who just have an attraction to the same sex? Why are some of them all God's people but not these people? What the fuck is that?

Why are some – All God's people but not these people? What the fuck is that? I think that started to make me kind of be like there's some things off here because initially I just wanted to fall into the belief system. This is something that's been taught to me, right? But my cousin was gay and he suffered because of it. He suffered at home because of it. He's not here anymore. So it just – it had me thinking a lot about that and that's why I – that's one of the reasons why I started to kind of reevaluate my belief because I still believe in God.

Don't get me wrong. I do still believe in God. But I don't think that the God that I believe in is the one that everybody else needs to believe in. And I also don't think that the God that everybody else believes in or the gods that everyone else believes in are totally invalid. They might not even be invalid at all. I think maybe some people listening might be thinking one way or the other about this, but I'd also just say, just think about anything else that's been propagated within your own family, anything that is like a meme, something that's been passed on from generation to generation that's not actually part of your genetics, your religion, your politics. You're going to have just the same politics as your parents?

You're going to have the same beliefs as your parent i mean your parents your parents are do we're doing the best that they could with their life scenarios and life experiences um some of the things you look at and you're like man i cannot believe that you think that way i cannot believe you talk that way that is people don't do that anymore like we're moving on you know so you're gonna have much you're gonna have have very, very different views. And I realized religion is like a longer standing thing than just politics is shifts around a bunch. But,

um, even, even something, uh, more innocent, like something like, um, going to college,

everybody in this family goes to college. And then are you going to do that with your kids? Like, do you, is it effective? I guess that's some of the things to kind of think about. Like are these things effective and then why are they effective? And if they are effective and you can answer a couple reasons on their – on utilizing them for your own family, then maybe you have some really good points.

for your own family, then maybe you have some really good points. But if you think that your kid can be a success, like you want your child to be successful and you don't think they necessarily need college, then why would you just go ahead and propagate and believe in the same exact thing that your parents did, that college is everything? More along the lines of what you were explaining, Nsema, because even before the whole gay marriage thing sparked up and religious

people were getting upset, I was already kind of like off the boat, but like this just kind of reminded me of this when it, in regards to like, we're being very nitpicky, right? Or some people are right. They're picking certain things out of the Bible,

like, Oh, you're sinning. But so check this out. also earth scroll down solar system. So we're zooming out solar interstellars, Milky Way galaxy, a bunch of other galaxies and shit. Virgo supercluster,

Virgo superclusters, the local superclusters, observable universe. And then at the very top is God telling you not to masturbate so because that's a sin okay i did a lot of sinning i did so much sinning so what i'm getting at is like yeah we we get very nitpicky right like oh out of all the things all right uh oh you're gay okay yeah you're sinning okay but then like there's a lot of other shit from what i understand right like you're not supposed to shave or something like that you're gay. Okay, yeah, you're sinning. Okay. But then like there's a lot of other shit from what I understand, right? Like you're not supposed to shave

or something like that. You're not supposed to wear silk. Well, that isn't necessarily in Christianity, but there are other, they're like, I'm not going to. Yeah, and again, I apologize,

but there's a lot of things that are supposed to be sins that we, that a lot of people overlook, but then they'll grasp on the one that they just like that's the one bunch of sinners it just reminded me of that meme where it's like keep zooming out zooming out and at the very end it's god pointing at you saying don't jack off paraproject family how's it going now piedmontese beef is a company we've been eating literally for

years now because they have some of the best beef on the market tons of cuts tons of different types of beef check them out andrew where can they get it at piedmontese.com that's p-i-e-d-m-o-n-t-e-s-e.com and at checkout enter promo code power to save 25 off your entire order and if your order is 150 a more you get free two-day shipping links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes yeah you know You know, the conversation we had with Daryl Davis, and if you guys remember, Daryl Davis is the guy who, he has derobed many people, many men of the Ku Klux Klan,

meaning they gave him their robes when they were in the Klan. But you heard the stories where he mentioned that some of these young men and women were literally just brought up in the Klan. So they had the belief of their parents that black people were subhuman and they should not mate with, they are like,

they are the master race. That's just what they believed. And they were never able to talk to someone who was black and they never like looked at that person with any type of respect. But when he spoke to them, he was actually able to be like, Hey, I'm not comparing Christianity to KKK.

Just follow me here. He was able to, you know, convince them otherwise. So it's the same thing where it's like, hey, I'm not comparing Christianity to KKK. Just follow me here. He was able to convince them otherwise. So it's the same thing where it's like when you're brought up under a belief system and it's what your family believes, it's maybe what your grandparents and great grandparents have believed, it's what your community that's closest to you believes, you will be under the impression that this is what I also must believe because look at how much good it's done for the people around me. But when you talk to somebody outside of that belief, your knee-jerk reaction is like, you're wrong. That's not it. That's not what my people believe.

But it might be cool to have a cool conversation with that person and see maybe why they think certain things. I know that when it comes to the Quran and when it comes to people that are Muslim, there's a knee-jerk reaction to people to see all the things that have come out of that book that have been like, oh, this is like, this is pretty bad. You know, you die and you have this amount of wives and like all the type of stuff in there. But, you know, understanding some of it will help you maybe understand why some of these people go about their lives the way they do.

Because they're coming from the side of that's also their whole community. Where they're from, when they come from the U.S., but where they're from, everybody believes in that same thing. It would be good to have a better understanding of their belief systems and maybe not automatically think that they're sinners or they're wrong or whatever. But it's a very interesting thing now that the world is so connected because i wonder would would we have these viewpoints if there was no internet i've learned so much shit from the internet i've seen so many things from different

parts of the world because the internet but like if this was in 1970 would would we be able to be so open? You know, I think religion is something that you can like, because we have such great technology, you can look up a lot of stuff and you can find out a lot of information. I mean, there's theories that some very, very smart, intelligent people believe that all religion is associated with psychedelics. It's a really fascinating thing. But again, if you think of the suffering that people went through over many, many centuries, and if you were to go to somebody, and let's just say they gave you psilocybin mushrooms, and they're like, we're going to do this ceremony, and you're going to have these,

because that person came to you because they weren't feeling well. They were sad. They were mad. They were sad. They were mad. They were depressed. They were whatever. You gave them these mushrooms and they had this out-of-this-world experience and you're telling them that you can communicate with God, you might start to like buy into that.

Or even without them saying anything, you might think that that's a special person that has some sort of ability to connect you to some of these things. I know Joe Rogan talks about it a lot. He's had some different guests on there. And that kind of brings me to my next point is like the information that you take in, don't just listen to Joe Rogan. Please don't listen to us and take what we say as gospel, right?

Like go and explore and listen to other stuff. And I think. If you do that, you need Jesus. You will need Jesus immediately. But look into these things yourself and observe them yourself. And maybe you already have. And maybe you already come to your conclusion. Maybe you are already fired up and going to church and you love it.

And it's great for you and your family. And I think that's awesome. going to church and you love it and it's great for you and your family, then I think that's awesome. For me, you know, having my parents, you know, believe so much in religion and believe, you know, in a particular God, I just don't personally, I don't believe in that. I don't believe in like, I guess the God that, the way that the Bible lays everything out.

I just, I don't believe everything in there to be true. But I do believe that there is some sort of higher power. I do believe there's something larger at play. I don't know exactly what it is or how it works. But the other thing is that we could sit here and talk about it forever and we're never going to know. And there's not a person on earth that does know. and there's not a person on earth that does know. And if there was a person on earth that does know, we would think they're full of shit.

If they're like, no, I talk to Jesus. I talk to God. I'm right there next to him. You'd be like, you're going to have to figure out a way to. So it would be very difficult to prove one there's it would be very difficult to prove one way it'd be very difficult to prove the other there are things in science that kind of show you know i think the bible says most bibles say that the earth is like 7 000 years old it seems like we have completely different information than that um but i also think that

it's up to you on what you want to believe. You can believe the science and you can believe in religion. Some people are like, no, you can't have it both ways because religion suspends the actual facts of science. I think that you can. I think you can work it out in your own way and you can think about it. I think that's the, again, as I mentioned in the beginning of the podcast, no one knows why we're here. You don't know what your purpose is, but I think it's your job to figure out what your purpose is but i think it's your job to figure out what your purpose is i say i'm here to make the world a better place to lift is that my actual like is that my actual thing no fucking made it up so i have a goal so i have something i can be part of something that i can develop and work on over however long i'm here for yeah you know but You know, but one thing I am curious about, and I just think about this is like, how can, at the point that I do have a kid, how can I recreate some of the community aspect that we had?

You whoop his ass. But I mean, what I'm, what I'm getting at is like church was such an awesome community. Like I get why my mom and my grandma and everyone went every single Sunday for decades because this community that you can constantly go back to and everybody believes what they believe in a similar thing. And pretty much the morality aspect of things, all of it is good. pretty much the morality aspect of things all of it is good like you feel as if you're going into a room with good intentioned well-meaning people hundreds of them like everyone's really happy to see each other when you see people like once a week it's perfect amount hey hope you're doing well yeah buddy hope you're doing well champ it's just like yeah dude and the parents uh or the adults get to talk about everyone has all the same problems. You know, their kids are listening to music that they don't like. The kids are online doing stuff that they all get to work out their problems and communicate.

Oh, my kid's doing the same fucking thing. Oh, go talk to Jeff because his kid is doing the same thing. He has the advice. Right? Like, exactly. It's like it's a community of people. A lot of them have kids. But if some kids are acting up, like you just chuck off to somebody else and maybe they'll be able to help.

That's amazing. It is amazing. How do we get that outside of potentially church? That's what I'm trying to think of. Maybe the answer is right there and I'm just not smart enough to see it. Well, maybe the answer is just to go to church. Maybe the answer is to go to church. Or do jiu-jitsu.

Church is really interesting. I always say that fitness should be like church. Oh, come on. No, no. We're not like the other spots you've been to. You just come in on a Sunday. Just come on in. Oh, you got your girlfriend with you?

Okay, bring her on in too. Then you're sitting there for a while and they give you pamphlets and then they talk about Wednesday's service. And they're talking about these gatherings that they have. We have a Bible reading tomorrow night or whatever. You know, they just keep – but with fitness, I think it should be the same way. You just keep encouraging people to come in. Be like, oh, we're just going to do a little bit of biceps. And then the next thing you have them doing some legs, right?

Next thing you know, you got yourself a bodybuilder on your hands. But the wild thing is like when you go to church, you're encouraged to talk to other people. It's like when you go to the gym with someone, y'all like lift in and then you're out. But church, you're encouraged to talk to people about your life. It's almost like going on a date with somebody. You start getting to know, like you're put in that position.

Now there are other things you can do to network and do things with people in the community. You go to church too, damn. I do. That's another bonus. Now you got a couple more dudes going. Yeah. But I mean, that's, that's, I call it people power though.

Like, you know, you're, you're closed in a box. It doesn't matter what the box is. It's a CrossFit box or a church. Like you're surrounded by other cool people with the same like mindset. And that's why, like I, again, I may not be religious, but I sure as hell believe, sure as hell, I sure as heck can believe in prayer. Like I 1000% believe in prayer and I, I almost want to like, can guarantee that that works. What, and what I mean is like, if, I know we had like 30 people surrounding in SEMA and we all put our hands out or we point at them

like JL Holdsworth did, you know, like we can get him to feel that, right? We can push light and love through in SEMA with that. Does that mean that it's God doing that? I don't know. I don't know what that is. I always replace God with universe. Like when somebody says, oh, thank God, I say, oh, thank the universe. That's my version of it. I've had this conversation with Charlie, right? Like he has very strong faith and like we have really cool open conversations and, you know, where he'll say God and I'll say universe and I'll be like, yeah, the universe chose you for X, Y, and Z and it'll make sense to him. But what I'm getting at is like, yeah, and it'll make sense to him.

But what I'm getting at is like, yeah, I think prayer and the power of people, you know, we're souls, right? I think we all have possessed that ability to, you know, like I said, push light and love through somebody. But again, I think it gets really lost and muddied up in the religious side of things. I think prayer is huge. I mean, it's kind of a little bit like affirmations in a way. The Bible, like one of the first things it says, one of the first things the Bible talks about is if you need something, just ask. I mean, that's life. Life is that way. You need something,

just ask. You want to get better at jujitsu? Ask the guy next to you. He doesn't know. Ask him if he knows somebody that knows. You want to make more money? Ask somebody. You want to get better at lifting? You just, I mean, now you can even like ask your phone and ask Siri. You can ask these chat things and there's all kinds of information. It's, it's, the cool thing is it's always been there. You know, the information has always been there. It's always been a person, just one person away. That's not really too far to travel, you know, to find a person.

Never mind just the technology piece. If you just ask people, say, hey, I'm looking for a car. You know, I have a kid. He's going to be 16. You know, anybody selling like a used car, but it's still reliable. It's good, you know, decent price. And they're like, I don't know. And they asked a couple people and they come back to you a couple days later like yeah i'm like so weird man my cousin's selling

a car yeah well yeah what happens is they what the fuck they don't even necessarily look for it they're just like oh i do what's going on and see i haven't seen you know why what you up to like oh i'm trying to sell my car like that's so weird i just talked to my like again that's 1000 real and a prayer i think is just something that you're kind of putting out there. Maybe it's something that's a problem in your life, and you're kind of putting that out there. And you're kind of asking for help, but ultimately you know who needs to solve the problem, right? Right. Like even if you believe in God, you're going to believe that God led you to something or some opportunity to get yourself better, to help you with whatever problem you had or another family member. And so that's one of the big issues I have with extremely religious people is they will say, like, I'm just going to leave it in God's hands and not really strive to do anything to help correct the situation, whether it be marital issues or like whatever it is, insert issue. I did my part. I'm just going to leave it up to God now.

Like, well, is there really nothing else you can do right here right now? Like you're, you're just, you're done. You're basically saying I'm tapping'm tapping out i'm gonna let some higher power take over for me maybe it works out for you maybe it doesn't but i don't think it really works that way my opinion yeah maybe do both you know maybe pray and exactly but try yeah say like it's you know it's god's will or leave it up to god but you're still putting in some sort of work for it right yeah you know like yeah there's a lot we can do with action. But the faith is comforting. And it's not just comforting. It's something that helps you sometimes just not stress about a certain situation.

Like when someone says, I'm going to leave it in God's hands, maybe sometimes you've done all you can. And at this point, it's like you have someone you've been trying to help out and you've done what you can. Leave it in God's hands. I've done what I could. That in and of itself will relieve you of that pressure of consistently trying to stress about it because it's

in God's hands. Faith is a very interesting thing. I think that's partially, and I don't know, it's just we've talked about this a bit, but Alcoholics Anonymous, like one big aspect of AA is having faith, is building that, that structure. And then, I mean, believing God and having faith, like that's, that's a big, that like whenever you, whenever you talk to somebody who's been able to, they've been in AA, they've battled with alcohol and they come out the other end, they have a faith, they have Christianity or whatever.

And that's something that guides them. That's something that helps them. So I do get what you're saying, where it's like, maybe there are some people who just throw their hands up and like, I'm leaving in God's hands. But I guess like when I've heard my mom and my grandma, like the people in my family that whenever that's come out, right, they've done what they could. And they do have faith in God where, okay, I'm going to leave this to God because God helped his hand. And they do. And they have their faith in it.

And I think that that's actually a good thing at some point, at least if you are taking some action like you mentioned. Yeah. No, that's very well said, actually. Yeah. And you're absolutely right. Like, you know, control what you can control and then what you can't, you know, disregard it. But in this case, you're not just saying disregard it.

You're also like putting some positive vibes towards it. Praying. Praying and having that faith that the good outcome will come your way. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I got my boys that messaged me, Hey, pray for me. I got this going on. I can't actually do anything for them, but I can pray for them.

And I do, you know, I'll message my friends. I'm sorry. Pray for me. This is happening. They'll pray for me. And I'm,

I'm thankful for that because somebody is putting something out there in your benefit. And if like you mentioned, right, where, you know, people putting their hands on somebody, they can feel it.

Well, people putting their, their, their, their good thoughts out there to whatever in your favor or in your son's favor, and they're just praying for the goodness and benefits for your life and his life. I mean some people think it absolutely does nothing, but I think that does something good. I think it does a lot of good. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm trying to look up this thing from

Tim Tebow oh Tim Tebow god it was really good you know what's funny for a long time too when I was younger I was scared of saying like oh my god is that saying God's name in vain like yeah like Jesus Christ yeah

story's too long it's too long to share it here but like basically he um he put like um he put a verse on his uh eye black on his eye black that that you wear like a lot of times they wear this eye black to block out the reflection sometimes you get from the lights uh at football And so he put a religious thing there. And then his team won a bunch of games. And he went to his dad and he was like, hey, I'm thinking of changing it. And he told a bunch of other people, told his mom. And they're like, that's great.

You get another message out there because people keep talking about it. I don't know what the message was previously, but his dad flipped out. His dad was like, whoa. He's like, did you tell coach? So you better talk to coach because the coach is really superstitious. And the coach was like, wait a second. What are you trying? What are you trying to do?

Anyway, kind of as a story goes, of course, I think he changed it to John 3.16. And just all these things happened where the team, and I'm sure he's kind of finding coincidences, like these things can happen, but he's finding that the ratings were 3.16 and all these different things happened. And basically all of this to say that via just changing the message that he had on there and the team doing well, he had an opportunity to share the message of John 3.16 with like millions and millions of people.

And so he was like super grateful. It was a really cool speech the way he kind of laid it all out there. But he was talking about his wishes and he was talking about his prayer and he was talking about his belief and faith and how he felt that that's what led him there in the first place. And I'm like, that is, fuck man, why not? Why not live your life like that? That seems really cool. Like that's what he believes in. He, like he must, could you imagine how incredible he must have felt that entire time to be playing that sport on that level and then to also be able to deliver a positive message to as many people as he had access to probably made him feel incredible.

So you're right. I think belief, there you go. Austin 316 means I just whooped your ass. A little different. Man. Yeah, let us know your thoughts, guys. Really curious about what you've come to terms with as far as your belief systems and religion or other religions just like what are

your thoughts on this curious yeah and try not to let your try not to let some of your experiences like if you had a bad experience in church or something like that try not to have that completely dismantle all belief in religion or if you've seen it maybe not work out great for a friend or something. Try to figure out if it's something that fits you and try to figure out your own, organize your own thoughts on it. Andrew, take us on out of here, buddy. Sure thing. All right, real quick, if any family members are watching,

let's just pretend that this didn't happen because I don't think we're gonna really get anywhere i got a i got a saucy question for you okay you can decline if you want but uh did you have to do anything with your kid that you didn't want to do because of religious stuff did you think it mattered or didn't matter or i don't know yeah we we had to have a conversation about it right and um catholic um, Catholic church, there's, you know, baptism's huge. It's kind of like the number one thing you're, you have to do for your kid. And I just said, I didn't want to do it. And we kind of, we go back and forth a little bit here and there on

religion and stuff, but I don't, I don't, uh, I don't talk negatively about religion. I don't make, obviously don't make fun of her for any of it. I will, when family gets in a prayer circle, I, I, I participate. I don't, I don't know the verses and stuff, but I am very respectful and I, you know, I try to be a part of it because I do believe in prayer and stuff. I just don't necessarily believe in that type of religious, whatever it's called. So that is going to definitely be something that gets, more conversations need to be had in regards to my son and religious or whatever direction we go. I think also, you know, as he gets older, you can teach him about the religions that have been around you and you can say, you know, this is the religions that have been around you and you can say you know

this is the decision that we made when you were young and you can make your own decisions uh with your own kids you know this is the way i think just you know awareness is uh is critical but yeah we never like baptized my kids or we never did anything like that and luckily in our family we don't really have like someone that's so kind of religious that they were like, you know, his kids aren't baptized. Anyway. I have a question for both of y'all. You can decline.

You can answer. Y'all capped or snipped? I'm snipped. Oh, I don't mind. Are you capped or snipped? No, I got that sleeve, son. You're capped. What do you mean capped? You got a full on sleeve. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. Uncircumcised. So it comes out of the... Yeah. You have more sensation. I don't sleeve, son. You're capped. What do you mean capped? You got a full on sleeve. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, wow. Uncircumcised. So it comes out of the...

Yeah. You have more sensation. I don't need lube. Yeah. Hey now. Capped or snipped? Yeah, I got... You got snipped?

Yeah. You got snipped? My son's not... He's... Capped. We left him alone. He's got his cap. Oh, okay.

I get it because he's capped. Yeah, leave it all on there. Yeah. That's something that I'm... that's an interesting one, huh? It is interesting. It's an interesting one because, I mean, if we're being real, like I got snipped because of the Bible. My mom did that because that's – your boy is supposed to get snipped, right? It serves no purpose.

But it's like not natural, right? Right? You're supposed to have your skin. Like it doesn't – like when you think about it, like you should have doesn't like when you think about like you should have your foreskin right yeah you should have it you were born you should probably have all you should probably have it you know did you oh fuck here we go um i uh rabbis the because traditionally did you yes so they were passing around like stds and shit to these poor little babies because the way they're traditionally i think there's i've i am so sorry everybody just read it uh no i don't want to do that because it's just gonna sound funnier i believe there's traditionally used to

like just like bite it off so now all right at least what they what they transitioned to was they they got it you know done correctly or fuck i don't know they did it not with teeth but to keep the tradition or maybe something to do with saliva they would basically like kind of just put their mouth on it to keep the tradition going and when they did that like kids were getting all kinds of illnesses and shit. I'm going to say this incorrectly. Metziza bepeh, direct oral suctioning. When a baby is circumcised, some ritual Jewish circumcisers, mohelim,

do a practice called metziza bepeh, is when a mohel uses their mouth to suck blood away from the baby's circumcision wound as part of the circumcision ritual. So they've already been circumcised. They don't bite away the foreskin. Yeah, no. Eating the chicken wing.

After this, some babies can get an infection. So, yeah that's more skin in the air fryer probably pretty good pretty good yeah i'd imagine so did you a little bit of lemon pepper yeah did you end up keeping the uh placenta uh no no i heard some people cook that shit up yeah we joked around about it saying yeah that yeah, that thing looks weird. When you have your son or your kid, it's like, whoa, that whole bag, it's just really weird. All of it, the whole thing is weird. All right, guys, comment down below. Captor Snip, let's go. Yeah, Captor Snip.

Snip Club. I already told you guys what I am, and that's supposed to be embarrassing to a lot of people. I don't know, I'm married, and we're all good. So, yeah, drop those comments down below captorsnipped and make sure you guys hit that like button don't know how this episode is going to do as in regards to like the algorithm and all that stuff I don't know

what religion is like how well it's accepted on these platforms but just in case please comment and hit that hit that like button subscribe you guys are not subscribed already. Follow the podcast at mbpowerproject all over the place. My Instagram is at imanderz. And don't forget powerproject.live.

And Seema, where are you at? They did me like Goku when they cut off his tail. And Seema, you can hang on YouTube. And Seema, you can hang on TikTok and Twitter. Mark. Thank you guys for listening. Special shout out to JC right here who's on every single show. There you go. Of course, talking about John Cena. Strength is never a weakness. Special shout out to JC right here. Who's on every single show. There you go.

Of course, talking about John Cena. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. I'm at Mark Smiley Bell. Catch you guys later. Bye.