Pints With Aquinas - Heretics and Fundamentalists (Trent Horn)

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

Show Sponsors: Exodus: https://exodus90.com/matt Hallow: https://hallow.com/mattfradd Strive21: https://strive21.com/matt  

Hey guys, it takes a lot of money to keep this podcast going. Please consider supporting us at matfrad.locals.com. When you become an annual supporter, we will send you a free Pints with Aquinas Bierstein. Just pay shipping. You'll get access to our long-form episodes one week before they hit YouTube. You'll also get to interact with me on my exclusive stream for my supporters over at matfrad.locals.com. Thanks. Do you remember the time your son corrected me on my pronunciation of a diplodocus? He said you mean Diplodocus, and I went you bastard basically We can talk about anything, right? Sure.

Yeah. Obviously we don't want to talk about something you're perfectly capable of being like, yeah, I don't do that. And we weren't like, yeah, I'll just say I'll pass. Yeah. Whatever. All right, we're ready. Trent Horn, G'day.

Matt Fradd. Um, I have been so impressed with your channel. Thank you. That is a high compliment coming from someone as established as you are. It's unreal. Everything from the thumbnails to the editing is incredible.

You know what helped with that was we basically, we didn't fire. We transferred the old guy who was doing the editing. To unemployment. No, no, no. The older, the other person who was doing the editing. To unemployment. He didn't fire him. No, no, no, the older, the other person who was doing the editing and the homemade thumbnails,

he wasn't right for the task, because that was me. Oh, okay. No, no, so I was, the channel's grown in a lot of interesting ways. I just want to reach more people. I want to share the faith, defend the faith. And what started as like a podcast in 2018, it's kind of turned into a series of two video essays

I put out a week and you want to reach more people on YouTube, you have to have editing, you need to have, I started scripting the episodes probably like eight or nine months ago. And I'm really grateful Catholic Answers has brought on a new editor to assist me. And so, and our supporters, we wouldn't be able to do that. We got more supporters of Council of Trend

and that allowed us to bring that editor on and you know how it is, just like you want to expand and reach more people and I mean, it's kind of weird, right? It's like we're, you know Wayne's World? Of course, I wanna watch that again. Party on Wayne, party on Garth. You know, they have this little cable access channel. They're reaching people with that and it's kind of like with YouTube, we all they have this little cable access channel. They're reaching people with that.

And it's kind of like with YouTube, we all have our own little cable access channel. But like now, there was a day when YouTube, you could just watch fun videos of people at the zoo and it was just people uploading like whatever. And now there's like this expectation. You have to be your own like commercial enterprise to reach a lot of people.

But yeah, I wanna reach a lot of people with a good message. No, it's excellent. Whenever a new video comes out from yours, I know it's gonna be worth my time. So congratulations on putting so much work into it. And you do an excellent job, obviously, writing the scripts, but whoever your editor is, and I think I know who it is, I don't wanna dox him, but he's excellent.

No, I've been- He's as good as they get. Yeah, I've been very happy with him. And then he's also been helping with Joe Heschmeyer's channel, Shameless Popery. So not Shameless Popery, that would just be like Shameless Trivia, but Shameless Popery.

He's also helping with Joe. And eventually we'd love to bring on another editor. And like I said, just continue to go and reach more people. Like for me especially, because I know my show started as a podcast, and you know the podcast things like turn on the mic, hey guys, here's what I think about this. But I know there's so many different channels

that people can watch, so many different things that people can be doing, podcasts or channels or whatever it may be. I wanna be really respectful of people's time. I want to give them good edifying knowledge and wisdom and ways to understand the faith and defend it and not keep them longer than I have to give them good, edifying knowledge and wisdom and ways to understand the faith and defend it and not keep them longer than I have to. So it's like, so a lot of the things,

if I script it in a scripted episode, it might be done in 20 minutes. Unscripted, it could take me 45 minutes or an hour to cover the same points. Yeah, that kills me about some channels where they've got a very like sexy title and you wanna know the answer to the thing they're telling you about.

Right. Because at three hour, just them talking into a camera and you're like, just where is the thing so I can know the answer. Yeah, so that's why I started scripting them because I wanted to reach people. The irony of me complaining about three hour videos. What?

The irony of me complaining about three hour videos. But it's different because you're having conversations with people. Yeah, this is a different thing. Where you get natural back and forth and that's fun. But I think when people have a monologue for hours on end, it's just not as efficient. Yeah. Hey guys, I hope you're doing well.

Oh, but I guess if you, I mean, I mean, you would have to love that guy. Like people really like, who's that Orthodox fellow right now? The Crucible? Oh. Andrew someone? Yeah, Andrew, the Crucible.

Something or other. Yeah, like people really like him. So he can do these streams where he's just chatting and kind of skewering people and people are all about it. Well, if you're an entertaining individual and people have different tastes of what they find entertaining, I think if you're just, if you're an entertaining individual and people have different tastes of what they find entertaining, I think if you're just,

have this dry delivery and you're talking for three hours, I think anybody who is keeping an audience and they're doing essentially monologue or commentary, there's gonna be something entertaining about how they do the delivery. That goes back to 1990s talk radio. Like Rush Limbaugh could just talk for hours on end, but they knew how to- The Vaughn would be good like like that who would be good like that on you know

The comedian the Vaughn Theo Theo Vaughn Okay, yeah, he's really funny. Yeah, anyway What does your workflow look like? How do you? Schedule out your week, and how do you write the scripts? Where do you write them? What's that process like? Well, I think when I come across something that I find is interesting or an idea pops in my head, you know, it's funny, I think the more having children and getting older, I feel like my short-term memory

is just going straight out the window. My long-term memory has been sticking around, which is nice in my line of work to have something like that. But I'm always reliant, I'm trying very hard also to get off a cell phone, I should really just keep a notepad. We actually just got a home phone line finally to like eventually migrate off of cell phones.

But I'll take out my phone and I'll just write down a notepad, oh, that's a good idea. And if I don't write it down right now for an episode, I'm gonna forget it and just put it in a little folder. And then I'll go and just start writing. I think each episode scripted out is about, I don't know, about 2,000 words.

Do you think of them as articles or do you approach it differently knowing you're going to read it into the camera? I approach it differently. There's a big difference between how I might speak something in an episode. Like the video essay format, most, I try very hard to write it so that you get the most out of it probably while watching it on YouTube with visuals that are overlaid, but I do not want to alienate, many people still listen by audio podcasts.

And in fact, I would almost prefer that. I know like it's fun to grow your YouTube channel, like, oh, I can get this many subscribers. And I really worry about people being on the internet, including YouTube, an inordinate amount of time. I think it's, I really don't think it's actually good for people. So I'm trying to grapple with that

because I make content that brings people on YouTube where I wouldn't rather have them be, but if they're gonna be there, I wanna give them something good that's edifying. So I would be happy if someone's like, yeah, I'm just gonna listen to your audio podcast, Trent. I don't wanna be on YouTube anymore. And I'd say, praise be to God.

Unsubscribe from my channel, listen to the podcast, and then you're not, because when you're on YouTube, you watch, and then like, oh, I'm gonna watch this now. I'm gonna watch that now. I'm gonna angrily write on this comment about this. Like, I would feel bad contributing to that kind of negative environment.

So if someone just listens on the podcast, and then they free up their time, be with their kids or wife or community Or whoever it may be that makes me happy But I write the script so that yeah the podcasters are not alienated in any way you can listen by audio It's still the same experience, but it's like reading an article is a lot different than watching a video essay. I would say So you're saying that you've got landlines in. So is this something new like that you and Laura are going through where you're

realizing you need to kind of get off the teat of the smartphone as it were? Because I mean, I've been talking about this for years. This is a constant battle in my. I think it's tortured life. Yeah, in general, it's not good to be on the teat of anything, I would say. So that's something that's something reserved for reserved for infants, I would say. So that's just me. I it's something that's something reserved for reserve for infants. I would say so that's just me. I It's something well, that's what I give a lot Laura a lot of

praise and credit for Stepping away really walking away from her YouTube channel. Seriously, I mean agreed I don't know if it'll ever come back in the future, but we've had a lot more peace in our home since she Retired but who knows people come out of retirement all the time for a big fight or something like boxers this or that but at least in the foreseeable future, it's we've kind of let it be and it can the channel can just be a Portfolio of I was great work. I was laying in bed with my daughters the other day and they were begging me This is how little they watch TV or anything, to watch Laura Horne.

And I understand that some of it's not appropriate for my daughters, but we watch it anyway. Be discerning, yeah. We're discerning, but they just absolutely love her. She is terrific. They could do Try That in a Trad Town. In the Trad Town? Try That in a Trad Town.

Oh yeah, that's right, yeah. Or Dear Tay. Was that decision difficult for her? I think so, because it's always hard when you're a stay at home mom to find, what's my identity, what am I doing? Like, oh, you're raising the next generation. Like, yeah, yeah, I know, but.

They have naps. The house is clean and I could maybe do something else. But we recognize though that it did create, the problem is it went from being, we just started it as just like, we in the sense that, you know, it's Laura's idea and she's doing and I'm doing all the technical aspects. And it started as just like, oh, we just send the videos

to her family and friends and they get a laugh, a kick out of it. We're not trying, you know what's the ironic thing here with YouTube? You'll have people who will go on and they'll say, my goal is to create, I'm starting this business, I wanna make a YouTube channel and in six months, I want 100,000 subscribers.

And they're like, they have this big plan and they go, and then like in six months, they have like 18 subscribers. But then like Laura is just like, let's make these funny videos, this will be hilarious. And then it gets to like 10 and 20,000 subscribers really quickly without marketing or doing anything like that, because Laura's just being her genuine funny self.

And it's not just like trying to sell something. It's not, it's just her legitimate joy and humor with actual insightful observations in the Catholic world that somebody needs to say, because we're all thinking it. We're all thinking of these different kinds of moms that go to mass or Catholic celebrities. It's funny you say that. I was in the airport today and Avila my daughter was walking past me She went excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me. She was taking off Laura

Like that's part of our family now that my kids imitate your hilarious, but that's what you see at mass like it's Being able it's a fine line to walk of because there's some humor. It's not funny because it's not willing to be edgy Yeah, another humor where it's just it's just too edgy and not funny because it's not willing to be edgy. Another humor where it's just too edgy and it's mean-spirited. And Laura, she always walks a fine line with that. And so we had a lot of fun, but it quickly went from being a hobby to feeling like a job. Where it's like, oh, two weeks, it's two weeks,

we gotta get another episode out, or the algorithm will punish us, or we gotta watch these comments, and this or that. It's like, too much, let's focus on our domestic family, domestic church, and maybe someday in the future, if there aren't little kiddos at home, and you know, we're in a different space, maybe we'll return to it.

But, and then it's the same for myself. I really structure, like you said, how I structure my work week in life. I wanna really focus on creating episodes, doing research, and then just really trying to let work stay in life, I wanna really focus on creating episodes, doing research, and then just really trying to let work stay at work and just savor the time that I have with my kids and my wife. Because that's the most important thing.

That's my primary vocation, as well as to be a Catholic, a husband, a father, you know, apologist is like fourth or fifth down on the list. I haven't heard you speak a lot about kind of wanting to distance yourself from the phone or YouTube in the past. Well, I think we've, I guess, you know, it's kind of a long game to try to do that. And I've been implementing little steps here or there.

Like one thing I've done, like on my social media, the only social media I have left now is an ex account, Twitter. But I really rarely post on there anymore. I'll do little replies to people every now and then. Some of those get a lot of likes and I'm just like quick replying to somebody. But I have no interest in just like posting every day and trying to get a lot of likes and shares.

Build the channel, build the- Build a social media channel and voice. A lot of times, sometimes I'll see something dumb on X, right, shocking, and I'll wanna retweet, or yeah, retweet, repost, and or post a thought that I have and I'll write it out and it's hit discard and it's like, you know what? I don't wanna get sucked into this today.

I don't wanna have to go in an hour or three hours, look at all the replies, engage people. What I'd rather do is, oh, I have an interesting thought. Let me write that down in my journal or in my phone. And if I have enough interesting thoughts that interconnect with each other, I'll make an episode. That way, instead of being restricted to just a little paragraph on X, it's,

okay, here's a cohesive thought I have about an important thing. Here you go, everybody. What do you think of it? Write in the comments section. And then I'll go after a while, look through that, revisit it, engage more. But social media, it just makes us,

it really does turn us into bad people. It sucks, it's a time suck. However, I'm never gonna truly, I never wanna to leave X Especially because there have been so many opportunities where I meet people say oh, I'm thinking of becoming Catholic And I'm like here have my book and then eight months later. I get an email saying I read your book And I'm gonna go into RCA now Totally worth it to be on as long as I'm there and I'm not wasting my time

Yeah, as long as you can be disciplined absolutely and, and it's like, I don't need to post all the time, I wanna just keep everything in perspective. Yeah. So, and the same with the technology of just really wanting to get away from, it's hard, if you get rid of your cell phone, I'm sure somebody's done this, like,

how much would it cost to replace everything your cell phone does? Yeah. You know, it's like, you would need a GPS unit, a calculator, a notepad, a calendar. The cost wouldn't be the annoying thing. It would be having that many devices. Would you carry it in briefcase?

No, I deleted my Twitter account well over a year ago. We have a Twitter account that Josiah posts to occasionally, but I am quite seriously never on it. I don't know the last time I opened up X. How does that feel to be this like away? Yeah, it felt excellent. When I deleted it, it was right before Musk took it over. And so when he took it over, I was like,

oh, I made a mistake. I should have stayed on, you know? No. But no, I feel really great about it. Yeah, I remember I would post things and then I'd be wondering what they would people would say and then it was the same with Laura's channel a lot of the work with the channel it wasn't like, you know, creating the episodes it's still a lot of work.

What are people saying now? What's the next comment? Do people like it? Yeah, does somebody not like it? You could have 99 positive comments in response to this snarky comment. One snarky comment ruins your day. Yeah, and it's kind of like static in your brain. You're trying to play with your kids, be with your spouse,

and it's just on the back burner. It's not worth it. What's funny to me is that we have enough stress in our life, but a lot of the stress is self-imposed. Political podcasts, ex-posts, like all this mania, we willingly shovel into our lives. I don't know why, to make our lives more dramatic, more interesting.

But we can create- It gives a little dopamine hit. I mean, anger gets addictive to people, outrage. It stirs probably a hormonal chemical release in the brain. And anything like that, that makes you feel like a little rush of something, that can get addictive. Now you made a decision

to kind of try to keep out of the drama. It's hard whenever you make a statement like this. You mean the church drama? Yeah, well any drama, right? Like you're not, I don't see you posting on political things much or- I'm not interested, yeah, politics, it just depresses me.

The biggest thing is cause I feel like there's really not much I can do about any of this. And I know a while ago you posted about, you know, Pope Francis and green energy and how we should, but for the most part you've made a decision to sort of about any of this. But yeah. I know a while ago you posted about Pope Francis and green energy and how we should, but for the most part you've made a decision to sort of stay out of that. It's always weird when you make that announcement because there were gonna be times where you think,

I actually do wanna comment on this, but what was that? Why did you make that decision? And has it been difficult to stick to it? It has been difficult. I mean, I think the difficult thing for me is not so much as something I wanna say and I feel muzzled and I can't say it because I still go on X a fair amount

because it is helpful for me to do research to see. Because in a lot of my episodes, I show a lot of clips. I talk about what's on people's minds. So I really wanna reach people where they're at. So I do use social media as like surveillance. Like what is, because I can't trust mainstream media for that and it doesn't go deep enough, but using different social media sites,

I can see, oh, what's on people's minds right now or what's going on. Gather, learn, interact with people in that way. So I've done it in that way, but sometimes my biggest temptation is I'll see someone post something just dumb or offensive or illogical And inside of me there's like correct him, refute that, and you get a great dunk when you do it right over it Yeah, and it's just like I

Don't have to do that. There's other people doing that. Do you remember that meme that big fat fella Pounding away at the keyboard and his wife says, come to bed and he says, not right now. Or he says, in a minute, someone's wrong on the internet. Yeah, exactly. Every now and then, sometimes I will here or there. But I think for me, if I'm gonna create things that are more long lasting, because also I think it's interesting

if we're gonna build up our culture, build up our world, use our energies, we should put them into things that are long lasting. That's why I'll always write books. I mean, we do all this stuff on the internet. It's like, Oh, I did this YouTube video about this and you could find it, I guess, but it's really nice. You'll say, Oh yeah, here's the book I wrote on that. And like even in a hundred years, you'll be able to find that book.

And a hundred years is someone going to find that YouTube shit, that video I made. What book are you most proud of writing? Why we're Catholic, easily. Really? Easily. Even though that's not, because I mean, you had a more, not scholarly, but perhaps more scholarly one.

Yeah, more in depth, the case for Catholicism. But still, Why We're Catholic is the one you're most proud of. Absolutely, because it's done the most good. I mean, the reason I write books is to help people to come to know Jesus Christ, know our Lord, know his church, be fully received into the church and full communion with what God is with God and to understand what God's revealed.

I want to help people build up their faith, rescue them from unbelief or strengthen people's faiths and that's the spiritual fruit that that's why I write these books to fill that need. If I feel like, oh, here's an argument that Catholic really hasn't engaged a lot recently. I think this could help people. And so when I look at all the books, I'd say Why We're Catholic is the one

that is most responsible for helping people return to the church, come into the faith entirely from different religions. Prior to, so that book came out, I wanna say like around like 2017, before that book, I was amazed, like when I decide to write a book, I'll think, okay, is there a subject I like? I have to like it, if I don't like it,

it's too much of a chore I don't wanna write, that I'm competent in writing on, and also other people haven't written on. If it's saturated, like you don't need my voice in there, other people have done that. But, and I was thinking at the time, I was like, where's like, if someone says, I wanna be Catholic, what's a book you give them?

Like, what's a book I could read? And so I had the only book at the time, and I became into the church in 2002, was probably like, Rome's Sweet Home, was probably like the number one that was recommended. Which is good, and it's a great book, but it's more of a conversion story and it's more focused on

if you're a particular kind of Protestant, would mean the most to you. But where's the book you could give to an atheist or give to a Jew or Muslim or fallen away Catholic or having something that's also that's easy to read? Like I purposely wrote Why We're Catholic at about an eighth grade reading level because I want it to be wild.

I remember once I was typing away, I used the word nonchalantly, and I didn't mean to write a big word. I was just like going through and I was like, delete, delete, delete, as relaxed as possible. Because it's like, I don't want, I don't want to have any unnecessary obstacles. I want the most number of people.

And I think that's why like, why mere Christianity, C Christianity, CS Lewis's book was one of his most successful apologetic works, easily his most successful one, because it was an adapted series of addresses he gave on the radio. And they were meant for the common man, which is so funny now because when common people read it,

they're like, this is too over my head, which is kind of a sad, sad commentary, right? Yeah. No, that's awesome. While I was overseas encountering people in Romania and Czechoslovakia and everywhere else we went, your name came up frequently along with people like Bishop Barron and Father Schmitz

that have helped bring them into the church or help keep them there. And notice the commonality there, though I'm gonna put those luminaries far up here. Sure. My mind can never get to the level of Bishop Barron. My cheekbones will never get to the level of Father Mike Schmitz or affability

and just general holiness. I agree with you about the cheekbones, but I don't know about Barron. I mean, he's a smart guy, but so are you obviously, but anyway. But what's the- Standing on the shoulders of giants, those are the two I'd be on to get up and out there.

But notice the commonality there, you were talking about drama before. Bishop Barron doesn't get in on drama. Father Mike Schmitz doesn't get in on drama. I have noticed and I'm getting, I'm engaging this a little bit more and I may actually, well, no cats out of the bag, I'm gonna write a book on this subject soon.

I'm doing a lot of research for it because I just did a book on this subject soon. I'm doing a lot of research for it because I just did a book called Confusion in the Kingdom, How Progressive Catholicism Harms the Church. And that covers Father James Martin, many of the writers at American Magazine, the National Catholic Reporter,

scandalous things that you'll find there from the Catholic left. But on the far right in Catholicism, there is a group that I would call Catholic fundamentalists who also cause scandal and harm. And among that group of people online, I think that they would describe myself, Bishop Aaron, Father Mike Schmitz as normies.

And I would say, okay, I'm not sure what you mean by that, or if that's a bad thing, I'll let you have whatever term you want. And if there's other things you wanna focus on, that's fine. But I do find it interesting when we think, who are the speakers, writers, online media personalities

who have brought the most number of people into the faith introduced in the Catholic faith? They're pretty normie. And there's nothing, you should be a normal person. Now that doesn't mean you should mindlessly follow what the mainstream says to follow. I agree that that consideration of normie is bad. But Colossians, the letter of the Colossians, Paul says, I think Colossians 4, 6, let your words be seasoned with salt so you may know what to say to each one.

Whereas some people say, well, I'm just gonna say how it is. I don't care how they feel. Well, I like that Father Mike Schmitz cares how people feel. But Sheberrin does, Jason Everett does, Scott Hahn does. Like, when I look at the people who are, the people I look up to who have brought so many people into the faith and have that mindset, they're quite normie. I don't see what's bad about being a normie.

Mason- Well, what's interesting between those names that you just mentioned and what we might call Catholic fundamentalists, I want to get a definition on that soon, is that it feels to me that there's a certain subset within the church that seems to not, they seem more intent on converting novice auto Catholics, quote unquote, than converting atheists or Muslims or something. I mean, they would want them to be converted as well, but it seems like a lot of their energy is spent talking about the glories of the Latin mass and returning to tradition. And certainly there's merit in that. Yeah. I don't think there's anything wrong if you have a particular charism or call

to want to focus on helping Catholics become holier. Like if you might say, look, what I'm trying to do with my ministry or my work, I'm not necessarily trying to do evangelism or apologetics. I just see that there's Catholics who don't even really practice their faith or their Catholic in name only. And I want them to become holier. I want them to become saints. I think that that's fine. I, so I do think it becomes a problem though, and that's why I particularly use the term

Catholic fundamentalist rather than radical traditionalist or rad trad, because there's nothing wrong with traditionalism. I think in many times our tradition gives us many answers for how to be radically holy in a sinful world. Where it becomes fundamentalism, I think, is when it deprives people of their legitimate freedom as Catholics.

So the error of progressive Catholicism, where it hurts people, is when it makes the forbidden permissible, where it leads you down the line of, this isn't that bad. Oh, voting pro-choice is okay, you know, da da da, or maybe, you know, having a gay pride flag, it can be good for this or that, and it leads you down a path where the forbidden

slowly becomes more and more permissible. The error of fundamentalism is making the permissible obligatory. Or forbidden, right? So the things that are permissible, like a daily rosary. Or the permissible forbidden, yes. Yeah, I pray the rosary once a week. Well, now that's forbidden under this thing that I'm telling you. You must pray it every day. You must pray it three times a day. Right. Or for example, saying that natural family planning is as sinful as contraception.

Yeah. And what's really weird is like in politics, now there's a debate about how valid this is, but in politics there's horseshoe theory. It's like the right and the left, they start to almost meet radical communism and radical fascism look very similar as authoritarian movements. As I said, the horseshoe is critiqued, but just for this illustration. And I see that a lot that the progressive Catholic progressives and the Catholic fundamentalists is like a horseshoe, like NFP and contraception. So the far left in the church will say, NFP and contraception are the same thing. So we should treat contraception like NFP and say it's not bad. So the forbidden becomes permissible.

But on the far right, they'll say contraception and NFP are the same thing. So we should treat NFP like contraception. So the permissible becomes forbidden. And that's right. And so it creates scrupulosity. It creates burdens people weren't meant to carry. And it leads to burnout. And you're thinking, if this is what I have to do to be Catholic, I don't want to be Catholic anymore. Or saying like, to be a good Catholic, you have to reject the theory of evolution.

Like it's permissible. You don't have to believe in theory. You don't have to believe the earth is round to be Catholic. I think it really helps. But then it becomes, it's obligatory. Like, oh, you want to be a real good Catholic. You're not on the, but yeah, these obligatory standards the church doesn't impose.

You're not on the team if you don't pray your daily rosary. Who says, and what does that mean? It's just, we don't wanna create unnecessary barriers. We don't wanna water down the faith so people aren't pursuing holiness. We should call people a radical holiness, but allow them freedom and latitude to choose that in the different states of life and how they do that.

I'm so glad we're talking about this. And I am gonna force you to talk more about it because I think a lot of people, this is like balm to people who are exhausted right now. So I'm so glad you're talking about this and I am going to force you to talk more about it because I think a lot of people, this is like balm to people who are exhausted right now. So I'm so glad you're addressing it. So on the left- B-A-L-M. I thought you were going to say this is da bomb.

Oh yeah, no, bam. It was a soothing bomb, yeah. So I get why people are probably motivated on the left to do what they do. Either they themselves are engaging in sinful behaviors or are accepting heretical theological doctrines, let's say, or they just wish to be more inclusive to bring people into the fold, those who can't seem to accept a particular moral teaching or a theological doctrine. It seems to me that, okay, fair enough. It might come out of a misplaced compassion. Help me understand why you think fundamentalism is so attractive today, not

just with, I mean, specifically in Catholicism. Yeah, but it's, it would also apply to other, it applied to other fields. I mean, the term fundamentalism that goes back to the 1920s. Originally, this was a Protestant enterprise. So in the late 19th century, you had a form criticism coming out of Germany. So you have the biblical manuscripts, scripture, uh, also in the Protestant world, this is really focused more on scripture. Something similar happened in the Catholic world in 19th century related to tradition, like, okay, which of the church fathers are actually legitimate, which are forgeries,

how much of antiquity can be put around this particular doctrine or devotion. So Catholics had that too, which led to the modernism crisis, Pope Pius X, you know, condemned in the early part of the 20th century, trying to say, oh, there's not really any historical grounding

for a lot of these Catholic beliefs. And Protestants are dealing with that with scripture, saying, well, you know, Moses didn't write the Pentateuch and here's the multiple Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are aliases is weren't, you know, and not all of this comes from the apostles. And so the Protestants in the early 20th century wanted to respond to that. And they, there was a multi-volume work that was produced called the fundamentals. And it was really underscoring that to be a good Christian, you have to affirm like the Virgin birth, for example, that you can't just say, which was popular at the time to say this was a legend added in Matthew and Luke, because we don't find it explicitly

in Paul, John or Mark, things like that. And so this, the idea that if you start catering, caving, so to speak, to different modern say, well, this isn't historical or that's not historical, the whole thing's gonna give away. So I think there's a tension of worrying, okay, if we say this is symbolic or this is allegorical, the whole thing's gonna go away. So we have to lock every, we have to lock everything up so that that doesn't happen.

But then you can go too far in the other direction. So like in Protestant fundamentalism, it can turn into some people saying, if you don't believe Genesis one is literal, you can't believe John one is literal. Like you have young earth creationists, people like Ken Ham, who say if you don't defend young earth creationism, you're not really defending the gospel. Like you, that you can't be proclaiming the gospel if you also reject. And I don't know if you phrased it that way exactly, but a lot saying that like, yeah, to be a Christian,

you have to believe all these other things, say, well, no, actually we could disagree about this theological issue or that theological issue. So I think this goes into some of the Catholic world as well, where the desire is, what if, you know, saying they're trying to weaken everything and water it down, saying, no, we are planting our flag with what the fathers have said,

what previous popes have said. But then to say, but where is the room for development of understanding of these different issues? And then in the lead of things where somebody will just pick out, they become their own magisterium. So let's say, well, I read the fathers and these councils and this council says that you can't go to a Jewish doctor.

So I don't do that as a disciplinary canon, or these saints and this Vatican statement says, you can't dance. So I'm not gonna dance ever. Like unmarried men and women dancing. And because who are you to determine what the past collective witness of the saints, the councils, the fathers, magisterial

teaching, how do we put all that together? Well, we have something, we have a magisterium that tells us that. It seems to me that fundamentalism arises in times of chaos to try to stabilize ourselves. When it feels like everything's falling apart, just like you're saying, we want to reaffirm what won't be watered down. But then what happens, it seems to me, is it can be an act of maybe virtue signaling,

where I state the thing that I will not bend on very, very loudly, or I find, like you said, very niche things. And just like you have a woke spiral on the left, it's like there's some kind of fundamentalist spiral on the right. It's been called purity spiraling. Tell me, all right, so what's that?

Yes, so you will find people who identify as more traditionalist. They wouldn't call themselves fundamentalist. But I think you have some Catholics who identify as traditionalist. And I noticed like a kind of an arms race of saying, no, I am faithful to the tradition. And then I'm even more faithful than that guy

who says he's faithful to the tradition. You know, this guy says, you know, then they'll argue about this guy says he's faithful to the tradition, but he allows certain sexual behavior between husbands and wives that is obviously immoral. You can't do anything like that. And then another guy will say, oh, I'm gonna go even further than him. You can't even kiss until you're married. And here's a pope who said no kissing until marriage.

And treating, I guess the difference here is that the progressives will treat everything that's been said in the past as just a fallible suggestion. And a fundamentalist will treat anything said in the past in the Catholic context as being an infallible proclamation. When you have to understand that there are what the church teaches comes in varying levels of authority across time that doc, you know, doctrine develops as we gain a clear understanding of it. Then we might have a clear understanding of it, then

we might have a clear pronouncement, like an infallible teaching of it or an understanding that what was commonly believed at one point may now be understood to be one theological opinion among many, like the doctrine of limbo, for example, the common teaching in the medieval church. But the international theological commission did a study of that. And now the church is stanceless. It this seems to be this is a Theological opinion what you are permitted to believe but not obliged to you can also believe that God and his infinite wisdom mercy and power Can give salvation to anyone even an unbaptized infant so whereas but then the fundamentalists will say that

Permissible belief no, it's forbidden Actually, you can't really believe that well, I'm gonna go with what the magisterium says the living magisterium by the way What does that mean the bishops in union with the Pope? We you and I are alive now we listen to the bishops the teaching of the bishops and the Pope alive today But okay, but I think what's difficult is a lot of the confusion seems to be coming from the magisterium Yeah, and so I think what's difficult is a lot of the confusion seems to be coming from the Magisterium. And so I think at that point, it's like, can you really blame people for verging into fundamentalism when a lot of the confusion is coming from the top down?

And then you'll even have people within the Catholic space who seem to kind of blame everybody else for misunderstanding the Pope or blaming everybody else for thinking the Pope's confusing. And then we just, we don't know enough. We haven't been trained theologically. We don't know a lot about church history. And so we're just trying to do the best we can. So, in one sense, I'm really sympathetic to people who are verging into fundamentalism,

but I certainly see how it just winds people up and makes them unhappy. Right. You know, like, yeah. Yeah, well, I think that there is a fine line to walk between Pope bashing and Pope's blaming, you know, and sometimes it can be hard to make the difference there. That's why I have, you know, weighed in on both sides

of this where I said, hey, the Pope didn't say this, that's a complete misinterpretation, that is not a fair interpretation of what he's done. But in other cases saying, the Pope said this, I'm not sure what he's talking about here. I find this very confusing. I've been critical of Pope Francis on certain prudential judgements he's made on economics,

or in my recent episode on green energy. Like I want to really listen to the Pope and his judgments and give them his prudential judgments, the level of respect they deserve. But at the same time, I have to follow my own conscience and rational mind to try to discern what were you suggesting? Because what's funny is back to this idea that fundamentalism arises to stabilize ourselves

in times of chaos, both Pope bashing and Pope's explaining seek to do that. So the Pope bashing is he's wrong, here's what the truth is, let's stick to this and not listen to him. Or he might not even be the Pope. That's sort of attempts to stabilize us. But then on the Pope's explaining,

you have the same thing happening. Where it's like, there's nothing wrong and you shouldn't feel destabilized. And it's only the trads or whoever who are making you feel that way. Yeah, no, you should be honest. Life is just messy. And so the way we understand the world,

different evidences and ways of understanding things are going to be messy in some cases. It's not always messy. Sometimes it's actually quite clear and we just need to recognize that. But see, this is why a lot of people became Catholic, Trent, they thought that it would no longer be messy. And that's what we told them.

We kept saying, look how many thousands of Protestant denominations there are, they can't all agree on anything. And now come over here and it's all very clear, but it in one sense doesn't seem clear at all. Well, I think that's why I've tried very hard and I certainly apologize if in the past or earlier in my apologetic career,

I may have oversold certain things. I mean, you can always remember like, how did you present things 10 years ago versus now and growing as a witness as someone who evangelizes. 10 year old talks. You know what's the worst part is? So like I've listened to audio tapes from Tim Staples and Jimmy Akin from like 1995 or like 1997.

And it's like when they were at this point in my career, whatever that means. And like Jimmy will say like, let's just put that away. What's kind of nice, you got to cut your teeth on an audio cassette, where it's like, I'll do stuff and it's just, it's on the internet forever.

But as GK Chesterton once said, if something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly. So I think though, I've tried very hard to say, one, I try not to even say the thousands of denominations. I'd say there's just far too many. But I've also, the language I use is, Protestantism leads to disagreements on fundamental issues of great importance.

And we don't have that similar kind of disagreement in Catholicism. Like you might have disagreed about the prudence of doing a 10 second blessing for a same sex couple that comes up to a priest at a pilgrimage or something like that. Clearly that one was abused easily.

If you get it photographed in the New York Times, that ain't spontaneous. But, and this is what I've said when I dialogue with James White a while back, saying that even in the most, the absolute most liberal Catholic parish, you are not going to give two men or two women the sacrament of matrimony. And if a priest did that, the bishop is going to step in. Like that is not going to happen. But in many Protestant denominations, you have a liberal wing that certainly is doing something like that. That there is doctrinal uniformity

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That's Exodus90.com slash Matt to join men from around the world this Advent starting December 1st. Has there been a subject that you've had to go along with because the Magisterium has lent in that direction, even though you yourself thought it shouldn't have? Yeah, I think I'm, I mean, I've been torn on the trajectory of the Church's teaching of the death penalty. You know what's funny, actually, I remember when I was inquiring about Catholicism, like 20, like 2001, 2002, I was in high school. That was one of my objections actually, was the church's teaching on the death

penalty. And even back then, the catechism said it allowed it, but it said it was practically non-existent when its use could be allowed, which I took to mean, yeah, you basically can't do the death penalty. And, you know, going to my youth minister and priest saying, well, I think the death penalty is a really good thing. So, you know, I don't, I don't know if I can sign on to this, but weighing the balance of evidence of everything else, saying, well, if this is Christ's church. Maybe I don't fully understand this issue and I'm going to have to assent to that and see that this is not something that,

it should be practically non-existent in its use, for example. So that was one example there and I hope we'll do an episode soon. I know a lot of people kind of get in debates about that issue, but I think we can look at the development of the church's teaching on capital punishment, really similar to the development of the teaching

on something like slavery, for example. I think a lot of people, when they try to do apologetics on that issue, they really start to whitewash. Really? Yes. For example, I mean, anybody who says, well, obviously capital punishment is something the

state can do now. I mean, look what the Bible says. Well, that's like in the 19th century, people argued, obviously slavery is permissible. Look what the Bible says. In the 19th century, when people were arguing about slavery in the United States, especially among evangelicals, there was a book by, I think it was Mark Knoll. I think it was something like slavery and the theological crisis of the American South.

It's titled like that. Because the idea was we're saying slavery is wrong. And the people who were arguing for slavery in the 19th century, they would win a lot of those Bible debates. When it was just slinging proof texts back and forward, they would go, if slavery is so wrong, why does Paul say slaves we obedient to your masters? Even if they're, you know, first, second, Peters, even if they're,

even if they malign you or are cruel to you, like does, where does the Bible ever say Christians must release all their slaves? And they were kind of winning a lot of these just straight up proof text debates, whereas Christians had to readapt their argument to argue more from, no, the Bible is very clear. Everyone's made in the image of likeness of God. There's neither Jew nor Greek slave nor free. They were arguing more from principles being applied than just slinging proof texts.

Same if you go back and look in the church's history and after the New Testament, you have voices condemning owning too many slaves. And very few, maybe St. Gregory of Nyssa, kind of a lone voice for arguing for strict abolitionism, but the development of the church's teaching reaching the need to abolish slavery, that was something that took time for people to see. And so I'm hoping to address this more,

and this may be a more in-depth and intricate video, I'm spoiling it now here, because I know people will make different objections. They'll try to say, well, the church never said slavery was a good thing, it just tolerated this institution. Well, you had church fathers saying that this was something that's part of the natural order,

arguing natural law from Aristotle, or divine punishments in some cases, whether someone's a slave or not. It gets a bit messy. Now I do think though, and I did a debate recently on slavery, biblical slavery. It was actually kind of fun. It was a tag team, Gavin Ortland and I versus two atheists.

So super fun. It's like, you know, maybe like the two adversaries in a comic book just like- Pair up. I think we're gonna need each other for this one. I don't know why. I would love to have the Batman voice if that were the case, but it was really fun.

It was great to, because Gavin's a smart guy. So it was a great engagement with them on that subject. And I think Gavin and I agree that it is the historical record is a bit messy, but we really pushed in that debate. The abolition of slavery was a unique thing from Christianity. You had slavery in every culture around the world. It was ubiquitous. But, and even our atheist interlocutor admitted that the Christian teaching of being made in the image and likeness of God universally is unique to the Bible and unique to Christianity. So for example, when the Bible says man and woman is made in the image and likeness of

God in the ancient world, there was a proverb that said, the king is made in the image of God and man is his shadow. So the idea in the ancient world was the only humans in the image of God were man is his shadow. So the idea in the ancient world was the only humans in the image of God were Pharaoh, were the king. He's in the image of God, not you, you're a peasant, you're nobody, you're the faint shadow of God. But Christianity turned it on its head to say, no, we're all made in the image of God.

And in the ancient world, people were seen as a curse. The gods would flood the world in the Epic of Atrahasis because it's too noisy. But Genesis says, be fruitful and multiply. I wanted to do that in my house when my kids were too noisy. Right, flood it, flood it, open the mains. But seeing, so it was that, that is really,

I mean, I think the first nation to abolish slavery was like medieval France, like in the 14th century, at least in some parts. So like, I'm not trying to say that, oh, well, slavery is just something that's just willy nilly or whatnot. It's about finding this balancing line because you'll have some progressives that will say,

oh, the church was wrong on slavery, so it's wrong on homosexuality. And that's where I would argue there. No, it's different. The trajectory on the development of the teaching on slavery is completely different from the universal condemnation of homosexual conduct for 2,000 years

versus taking something that had its place in the social order. Like if an invading army destroys your kingdom and you capture these invading, marauding soldiers, yeah, maybe you should force them to rebuild what they broke. That's slavery. If you lock someone down and make them work.

Or that they could have been understood even a few hundred years ago, if somebody wants to immigrate to a better country and they're dirt poor and they're near starvation where they are, maybe they'll become an indentured servant and they'll pay off their voyage being forced to work when they arrive at their new country. But nowadays we would say, no, there's no justification for that. That just leads to human trafficking. We have means to help people in difficult plights. We ought not tolerate indentured servitude anymore.

And I see the end for me personally, I saw the same trajectory in the death penalty. It served a purpose to maintain the common good of society. But now it's something we can have the common good of society without it anymore. It's something that we just should not do, we should not have anymore. But it was, but that was a journey for me. And at the beginning I had to just be humble and say, all right, I'm just going to go, this is the church Jesus Christ established. So I'm going to go with that.

What about other topics, you know, because if you read some of the earlier saints, you can find quotations that make it seem like there might be five people in heaven when all is said and done and everybody else is going to go to hell. But if you look at Pope Benedict, John Paul II, and I'm sure Francis, they seem a lot more sanguine about the numbers that will be in heaven. Yeah. Yeah. How do we know to listen to them as the trajectory might change somewhat? And how do we discern whether maybe these three popes have just misunderstood the scriptures and the next pope will reverse that? And then how are we not just in the same place as our Protestant friends? Well, I think we have to understand like the number of those who are saved, for example,

we'd have to ask the question. And I think when it comes to understanding what any church teaching is, we have to understand it's a deeper subject. That's why I'm really grateful. My colleague, Jimmy Akin, wrote the book, Teaching with Authority. So understand what are we to believe? Well, Jimmy would say that different teachings are expressed at different levels of authority. and a teaching might Rise an authority over time like it's something that's commonly believed and then gets infallibly defined Yeah, or it's commonly believed but then the church begins to see oh, well, this is not An essential element of the faith

Like there's a difference doing teaching no salvation outside the church when you think the only people that exist are the faithful and the obstinate heretics who know otherwise and reject. And then in the age of exploration in the 16th century, 15th century, and it's going to the 16th, Oh wow, there's a whole continent of people that never heard of Jesus. That kind of upsets the apple cart and is new data for us to consider here. They're certainly not, they're not the faithful, but they're not obstinate heretics either. What do you know, what do we do with that? And there you see an expression of a greater, uh, optimism for salvation. That's not just something that came about with John Paul the second that goes back to Cardinals in the 16th, 17th century popes during that time period. So I think that the

number of people who are saved or not, like, well, has this been infallibly defined? No, it's a matter of somewhat of theological speculation, right? So you could even personally have a personal feeling Yeah, I don't think many people are gonna make it and that'd be within your purview to hold that now You'd be going a step too far if you bind other people and they have to believe that But I think it's also helpful for us to say, you know, there's gonna be things that are matters of theological controversy Maybe I personally disagree on that matter But if it's a theological opinion, I might express my disagreement if it is taught. And I'd have to go through the data to see if the number of saved is taught as part of

the ordinary magisterium. I'm not sure that it really is. I think that would probably be another theological opinion because if it's taught as part of the ordinary magisterium, it would require religious ascent. So at the bare minimum there You just can't you cannot publicly protest it and you couldn't engage in like an act that's prohibited So for example, like the teaching on ivf, that's not infallibly defined. It just came out a few decades ago, right? But so you you might struggle with that teaching so at the bare minimum, don't protest it and don't get IVF.

And you'll be, you're still faithful to the church in contrast to something that has been defined as dogma, infallibly defined to be divinely revealed. You better get your gear in order. If you think that, um, Christ isn't truly present in the Eucharist, it's merely a symbol, or Jesus isn't truly God, or rejecting something like that can have grave consequences for your soul. And that's why I think it's important when somebody, once again, the error is the left and the right. If you say everything's up for grabs, you risk people failing to believe what they ought to believe or doing forbidden

things and going to hell for that. But on the other side, if you say, no, you've got to believe all this stuff, even stuff the church doesn't require, well, that can lead to scrupulosity, scandal, burnout, and just walking away saying, this Catholic faith's ridiculous, I'm not gonna hold to it anymore, when saying what you walked away from

was not the Catholic faith. It was a fundamentalist misconception of it bound up with scruples or pet theological doctrines that if they want to believe that that's fine, but you are not bound to have to believe that. So it's always the golden mean. What you just said about IVF is gonna scandalize people who heard you say it fleetingly.

Yeah. So maybe explicate that a bit. Right, so we have to understand that the teaching, you know, a sense of the mind and will. So you are obliged to believe these teachings, but the question is when are you like in a state of sin, for example? I see.

So if you per, so you should, it's not like, I'm not, I am not saying, oh, you don't have to believe it. So if the church teaches something, you're bound to believe it. Like IVF is evil. Yeah, you are bound to believe it. Yeah. You're, you are bound to believe that you should receive that teaching. What I was saying at a bare minimum was what do I do to stay out of grave sin? What do I do to stay out of a state of grave sin?

So for teachings that require the religious ascent of mind and will, these ordinary teachings, another theological example might be, um, does our soul come from, does God immediately create the soul or does our soul come from our parents? There's some theologians that argued for the latter. The catechism says God immediately creates the soul, but that's not an infallibly defined teaching, for example. But it's something we should receive because the church teaches it.

Now am I in a state of, now with IVF, am I in a state of sin if like I personally grapple with it and I just can't see how that's wrong? No, you wouldn't be in a state of sin if you just can't see how that's wrong, you don't hold to that belief and you're, you know, you're grappling with it. As long as you don't go get IVF and you don't publicly tell other people that it's okay. So not, there's only a subset of teachings where if you don't hold to the teaching, you are in a state of sin because you are a heretic. For example, you to be a heretic means that you deny it is the hair. And this is another problem is people will. Yeah. Well, well, not just

that people will call anything heresy, even a theological opinion. They disagree with call anything heresy, even a theological opinion they disagree with. Heresy is the obstinate, post-baptismal refusal to believe that which must be believed with divine and Catholic faith. Mason- There's a lot there, isn't there? Jason- Yeah, it can't- Mason- It's a thick statement. Jason- Yeah. So it's not good to throw around the word heretic. It's like throwing around the word murderer. Make sure you have the evidence to back up that you can meet all the stipulations there. So the particular dogmas that you must believe if you don't accept those dogmas,

they're a particular subset of the church's overall teaching, which you're still obliged to receive. And that's why if there are teachings of the ordinary magisterium that theologians, I think Donovan Veritatis talks about this, that theologians have a forum to approach the church, maybe in a theological journal, for example, to say, I find this to be problematic

with this ordinary teaching. How can we explore this particular matter more? Is there another way of understanding it that might make it more understandable. Is there an element to it that's actually extraneous that we don't need to have to fully understand the teaching? And there's a forum for theologians to do that.

There's no forum for theologians to say, you know, I don't think Christ is actually divine. No, sorry, we're not debating that. That's been brought to an end, define. Define means brought to end. It's finalized is done. We're done debating that. Let's move on to something else then.

So it's important, but for the lay person, you're not the theologian cowboy going out, challenging the church. I would say be receptive, pray and focus on personal holiness and ask God to help you if there are church teachings that you're really grappling with. All right, so now I hear what you're saying that if you're grappling with something that's part of the ordinary magisterium, you can't seem to accept it, but at the same time, you're not rejecting it. Yeah. But, and you're saying that's not a sin necessarily, but isn't that true of anything, even those

truths that have been defined dogmatically? Is it a sin if someone says, I see that the church teaches that Mary was assumed into heaven, I'm really having a trouble accepting that? Surely that doesn't- Well, I think that, yeah, I think there's a difference there. Cardinal Henry Newman would say that 10,000 difficulties don't make a single doubt. So I think that some people,

it goes beyond grappling to say, personally, I can't see this. Like personally, I'm not able to accept that. Now, does that lead you into sin, is the question, does it lead you into grave sin, especially? That's where I would say that at the bare minimum, with like a dogma of the faith, a person would have to say, well, I'm going to make a decision of the will. Yes, Christ is truly present in the Eucharist. It's not merely a symbol.

I have a hard time really understanding how that is, but I'm just gonna believe that even though, even though I can't even explain to you how it is. I just know that that is, I'm just gonna say, yeah, that is the case. Want me to explain it? I really can't. I'm trying to figure out what the distinction is

between non-sinful grappling and sinful grappling, because in both instances, you're not accepting something. Right? Yeah. I think it's going to, there's going to be, this might almost be like a fallacy of the beard too. Right. It's like what's the, when does stubble become a beard? Like when, when do doubts become rejection? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

And so I think it's going to be hard for us to find that line of like when it becomes, when a good natured challenge of how do I understand this, but I accept it, or I'm really lost on this then becomes, no, I don't, I don't accept this. It's like you're not even grappling anymore. It's like the ball's at your feet. You're just like.

I'm thinking of the person who might listen to a Gavin Ortland video on the assumption of Mary or something, and he has a lot of objections to it that he hasn't considered before and it rattles his faith. And he's like, I don't, I mean, I want to, but I don't know. Well, I think that I would just, I would just ask that person, um, did it was Mary assumed body and soul into heaven? Yeah, sure. Yes. Yes or no. I'm not asking you to defend it. I'm not asking you to explain away every objection to it. So if he says yes. But would you be willing to stand before God and say yes? Uh-huh.

What if he says, I would say yes because the Catholic Church teaches it, but I struggle to accept it. Yeah, yeah. Most of what we believe is based on authority. Yeah. You know? I mean, most of us have not done the investigations for ourselves

into every single element of the faith. Uh, I think it was even St. Augustine who said, I would not have believed the gospel if it were not for the authority of the Catholic church and his Epistle of Faustus. So I think it's going to come down to, to that, uh, yes, or yeah, I really hope so. That's what I want. Or that's what I want to, I really do want to affirm.

So yeah, even if I can't tell where the dividing line is, I know there is one, I know where there's clear cases where it's over the line. And that's where it's kind of like with chastity, right? It's like, let's not worry how close we can get to the line. Yeah. Probably. That's good. I Let's not worry. Let's not worry how close we can get to the line Yeah, probably that's good I'll be thinking lately about how it might not be a healthy thing to seek out an exotic Liturgy the way one seeks out an exotic coffee shop or something

Do you know it's like I don't know and I'm saying this is somebody who jumped the shark Or jumped ship and is now Eastern Catholic. You mean swam the, what's, they have an expression for someone who goes Orthodox, this is a river over there, it's the Tiber for Catholics. Yeah. I can't remember for the Orthodox. But I think the Bosporus maybe?

Something like that. Yeah. But I mean, there's certainly this kind of like. No, I'm not talking about Orthodox, I'm talking about like one of the other Catholic, Eastern Catholicism. There's certainly like this psychological thing within humans where maybe this is part of the stabilizing feature where

that got it. I got it. So you got a champ where we were afraid and we then kind of flee the normies at our parish that are current that occasionally bust out that God forsaken guitar. And we try to find increasingly niche places to worship. And I see this a lot, right?

I mean, you've got, okay, you think of the journey of someone who's like the charismatic Catholic who gets over that and then kind of disparages that and sees a lot of the errors in that and then goes to like a regular Novus Ordo, but then gets sick of the life teen stuff, which we had in the nineties, right? And then goes to a Novus Ordo parish that doesn't have it. Our God is an awesome God who reigns. And then he goes to the trad church and then he gets,

and then he goes to orthodoxy. But I bet you within five minutes from now, you are going to see people getting kind of tired of orthodoxy. And so now we're going Coptic, right? And then we're going, we're going to like the niches thing we can find. Ethiopia, Ethiopia, Tawhid, oh, uh, orthodoxy. Do you see what I'm, do you understand what I'm trying to say? Yeah.

You're smarter than me. Tell me what I'm trying to say. I see what you're saying. If someone is seeking, well, it's not just someone, I just feel like this is like this. Or there's people. There's this thing within the church where we are doing that. We are the people are doing that. Yeah. Like in droves, we're doing that. Like we're leaving places to find the.

And we're not always wrong to do that either. Like I wouldn't want to stay in a parish with a sloppy homily and terrible music with my children here. Like I want them to have experience of the sacred. I know that what I'm saying is accurate. I'm just not good at saying it. I can't seem to articulate it well. No, I see what you're saying, at least as a phenomena of observing.

There's a desire. Like how many people are going to who have just left Catholicism for orthodoxy because they had great curb appeal on YouTube, are going to get kind of tired of that and then go even neesher into something that they've decided is now the real church, until that doesn't do it for them anymore. And they just end up in their garage with a priest who celebrates Holy Mass or liturgy.

Yeah, or you end up at a monastery where you and six other people are the only true members of the church Yes, exactly Meanwhile you got people that I know and you know who just like salt of the earth people who go to their little nervous order every day and they're faithful to their daily rosary and they say their prayers and they love their wife and they're like They're speeding into the kingdom of heaven while the rest of us like an Involved in this search for the exotic. Yeah, I think a common theme of what I've been sharing with you in the, in our chat

is finding that golden mean between the two extremes. So I think there is an extreme between having reverence for liturgy and a desire for faithful, authentic worship of God, and a kind of liturgical snobbiness of looking down on, you know, there's some people would look down on a very, maybe a rural or cultural expression of the Novus Ordo that's a little cheesy. Like I remember when I was, I visited a friend who was on a mission work in Argentina actually many years ago. And while I was there, I had a free day. And so I wanted to go to Tierra Santa.

It is Tierra Santa. Is it San Diego? No. No, I'm thinking of, isn't that a suburb in San Diego, Tierra Santa? Might be Santa. Well, down in, I'm talking about Buenos Aires, Argentina. I missed Santa. Well, down in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I missed that, continue.

So in Buenos Aires, Argentina, there is a, at least when I was there as many years ago, there was a religious theme park called Tierra Santa, Holy Land. And it's basically a recreation of first, it's like a first century village and it's a Christian theme park. And the main attraction is this giant,

like 60 foot statue of Jesus that comes out of a mountain like every hour, blinks its eyes and like looks around. And like I'm sitting there watching this and I'm trying so hard not to bust up laughing. But like I look around and the people there, they're just legit like, this is beautiful. And they just go about their day and like, oh, that's really great to see. And it's because I'm just an awful American with a cynical, memed

sense of humor that if anything, like always having to see things is cringy or cheesy, full of myself. It's like if these people find this to be holy and it leads them to Jesus, good for them. And I should just quit being such a, you know, but I agree that there can be forms of religious art or liturgy or song or praise that are unbecoming. So it's hard to draw the line between that, which is unbecoming and that just, which isn't your style.

You know, here's an analogy. It might be similar to how people get into diets or let's say even martial arts. I know you like talking about that. Right. So like, what was cool. You brought it up. Not me. Laura's watching right now going, no, right. You know, what was, what was trendy, you know, 10 years ago may have been like paleo, right? But today if like if you're not doing carnivore like you really not even well martial arts is like that like that's right Like 30 years ago was quite wonder no 30 years karate Because the karate kid came out and everybody was learning karate and then everyone was already taekwondo before that

That was Bruce Lee's was kung fu and like Wing Chun Wing Chun as well Yeah Before that there was Bruce Lee's of kung fu and like Wing Chun Wing Chun as well Yeah But like for like now it's a joke when you watch when I think of my taekwondo classes and then I compare that to the few Jiu-jitsu classes I took I am I don't want to get off on a side tension I wonder there's no there's gonna be three taekwondo people they're gonna storm down here get your kicks ready boys We're getting that right, but my voice There's something similar in these things if you think of diet and you think of any kind of exercise, there's no martial arts where it's like, I don't know if it's this desire to be in the pure group where we then look down at people who have like outdated ideas of what's good for your body, whether when it comes to exercise or food, if there's something similar

in what we're seeing as people go to these different liturgies. Yeah. And again, we're not saying it's it's wrong, right? Forgive me for cutting you off, but it's- No, I see what you're saying. Yeah, like someone wants to eat well, then yeah, there is a way that you should eat that's better than something else. And that's fine to want to seek that out.

I think when it comes down to, are you allowing people the freedom that they have, whether it's like freedom in diet, for example, or freedom in martial arts, like I really enjoy jiu-jitsu. Other people like other forms and styles. I have my martial arts. Like I really enjoy jujitsu. Other people like other forms and styles. I have my own opinions. Sometimes I get a little jokey about some of the other

styles, but at the end of the day, if something makes somebody happy, a whole fulfilled person, they're healthy, they can physically defend themselves. Good for them, even if it's not my style. Okay. I think that when it comes to liturgy, what you're saying is there's a balancing act there.

I think that if you're at a parish that you feel like is spiritually deleterious to your family, you don't have an obligation to stay there. Go somewhere else. But at the same time, if every single parish, you find something wrong with it, I don't know. Do you think you're raising the bar so high nobody can reach that?

Like I really think it's important to let people once again have their freedom as long as it doesn't become choices to sin. Even if I think something isn't like that prudent. But yeah, when it comes to liturgies, it's so funny, it'd be on the record by the way with everybody. Some people are like, Trent Horn's a fraud. He defends Catholicism, but he attends the Byzantine divine liturgy. Yeah, I did that for a few years. And then my children started going to a Catholic school at a Western parish. And so we go to that liturgy.

And I really like it, even though I have access to the traditional Latin mass. I really like that. I also really liked the divine liturgy on occasion. I find them, they each lift up my soul in different ways. And that's okay. And if you find a certain Eastern liturgy, or it's not even just liturgies, right?

It could be devotions, right? You could have a very, you could have a very Ignatian, like maybe you have an Ignatian spirituality. Maybe you have a Dominican spirituality. Maybe you follow more the way of, you're St. Therese of Lesu, or you, St. John of the Cross, or there's different. Where you go through seasons

where different things are helpful at different times. Yeah, so I think there, as long as you are well-balanced, talk to a spiritual director and make sure you're seeking things all in their proper order and you're not a slave to trying to... It's kind of like when some women, right? They have a hard time finding a guy to marry,

and it's like, well, he just didn't have the spark. Like, do you think maybe being misled by this spark? Like, it's just, this is a really nice, I hear laughter, I hear laughter in the Vena gallery there. Here's someone who's mature, holy, is a good person, not a bore. Hey, give him another chance. Maybe sparks will come and go, you know.

Preach. There you go. Yeah. And you could say something similar with even liturgical and devotional preferences. Yeah. And find the beauty. Like maybe you're gonna be a Catholic in a place

where it's a little cheesy. But like when I was at Tierra Santa, I'm like, this is kind of cheesy. But also like, praise be to you, God. Look at all these people here who love you. And they're just people who are living lives that are much more difficult than mine. I mean, I spent a few weeks, like a week there

in like the Vizha Hardin, like the ghetto-ist part of the garden village. It doesn't smell like a garden, let me tell you that. Let me tell you that. But the holiest people worshiping in the most basic ways. I don't know. I grew up, I mean, I grew up in the Southwest and Laura feels the same way. Like, you know, the guitar mass and the orange, the orange,

with the, you know, there was an orange with little like rocks inside. So it would go, okay. Chk, chk, chk, chk, chk, chk, chk. It's kind of like, oh with little like rocks inside. So it'd go, okay. It's kind of like, oh goodness. But at the same time, it's like, but to see if someone is truly, if it is an expression of a true love for God and not like liturgical dance where I can see like, it seems like a lot of this is about drawing attention to you. That's what makes me roll my eyes in the back of my head. But if it's something where the person is within the appropriate liturgical rubrics,

and this is just how they are expressing a really authentic love for God, and it's within the rubrics, within the rules, I wanna say, that's good. I want to lift that up, even if it's not my cup of tea, and find the good in that. That's really helpful. Has there been a time during your apologetics career,

to use that word loosely, where you've encountered something that's made you kind of question Catholicism? Maybe you made the wrong choice back in high school. Maybe it was, you know, and now you're stuck here and you've got this kind of fidelity to Catholicism. You get a paycheck from being the Catholic answers guy. Are you afraid sometimes that you're not being

as objective as you could be? And that if you were really objective, you'd finally end up Orthodox or Calvinist or something else. Like, have you ever done that kind of deep search where you're like, am I defending this to defend it or do I really believe it? Well, I think that I'm always concerned Am I defending this to defend it or do I really believe it?

Well, I think that I'm always concerned about trying to be objective about evidences and nobody's truly objective. Everybody has a bias, even if you try to admit your biases, there's still a bias when you try to do that. I can't think of anything that was ever a crisis. I think though in my journey, I might've noticed that maybe an argument I found compelling early on that led me to a certain truth,

I now no longer find that argument compelling. And now it's like, oh, that wasn't a very good argument. But in its place, I found other reasons that are better. Or I don't actually need that particular data point to have my faith or something like that. So sometimes I have to reassess things in that way. But I think, I mean, I try really hard just to do what I think is right. I mean, during my conversion experience, I had many non-Catholic, non-Christian friends, my family's

not Catholic. And I feel like if I truly felt like I was in, I was doing something wrong, like if I was just lying about this, yeah, I'd quit. I'm not a hopeless individual. I can, I mean, I thought about even, I was applying when I was discerning what job should I do in life. I'm like, I wanna marry Laura if I need a real job.

So what do I do? So I went to take my LSATs, I was gonna become a lawyer. And I signed up and the day before the LSAT exam, I canceled the test because I read a blog on being a lawyer, it's called, I think, the $100,000 Gamble. And they said, if you're becoming a lawyer only because people told you you'd be a good lawyer,

you're gonna be miserable. I say, yeah, I'd rather work at a, I, yeah, I'd rather be making $40,000 a year defending babies and trying to figure out the bills later than doing a job that pays well, but is just not what God's really calling me to. Though I love being an apologist because it's kind of like being a lawyer, but I know my client's definitely innocent.

So like that's, so that makes it. One of the arguments I remember you questioning, this was back when we first met, when was that? 2012 or something, was the, I think the Kalam argument, the philosophical Kalam argument. Have you, do you feel stronger? No, I've changed my view on that a bit. So what was your view and what is it now?

Well, I think I had a view that I really believe, so the Kalam argument tries to use reason to prove that the universe began to exist. And my favorite version of it was the argument from Successive Edition, that you can't, if the past, you can't get infinity by adding, adding members. And if the past is infinite, you can't have an infinite past if the past is formed one event at a time. And I still think that that's a strong

argument. The argument, and then as I defended that argument, though I was defending more, it requires a particular theory of time to work. The A theory of time that the past, you know, isn't real anymore, future's not real yet, each day happens one at a time. The B theory though says past, present, and future are all equally real. It's part of a block universe. That's Jimmy's, is that Jimmy's understanding?

I think I would say that's Jimmy's, and now like the arguments, I use the existence of God, I would say all can work on a B theory of time. Really? Yeah. Do you think the Kalama argument even works on a B theory? Is that what you just said?

Yes, if you adapt it. And I've adapted it recently. And I've come to this by being engaged with critics of the argument, like Wes Morrison, Alex Malpass, engaging their criticisms of it. And in fact, I did an episode critiquing the argument from William Lane Craig, and he responded on his podcast. So- That's got to be like you've hit the big leagues.

I remember when you and I would geek out over him back in the day. To think one day- Matt, look at this, William Lane Craig said I'm an idiot. Yes! He didn't say that, but he was very kind. And I really affirmed that he was the reason I came to know the Lord Jesus Christ

and I'll always be eternally grateful for him for that. So I always, the successive addition argument was one that I always believed in, but now I see the problems with it, especially having to add the theory of time that's kind of controversial. So I had a dialogue with Jimmy about this at the conference last year. Yeah, who could find that online too?

Yeah, it's on my channel. What was that like going up against Jimmy in front of people? Like it's one thing to go up against him in his office where no one can laugh at you, but what was it like going up against him? Totally fine. Nothing to be nervous about at all No, it was more of a friendly chat and I think we because we agreed on a lot

But I was seeing more the way I would look at the argument more now is that if the past were infinite paradoxes would be possible based on were infinite, paradoxes would be possible based on infinite collections forming. Like let's say every Google years, an indestructible atom comes into existence. If that happens every Google years, today there will be an infinite number of these indestructible atoms.

Because that's how infinity works. And so you can get these paradoxes that can emerge still. And in the lit and Rob Coons and Alex Pruss have done work on this is called causal finitism. And so they make an argument that there cannot be, they don't make a Kalam argument, they make an argument more, there cannot be infinite causal chains

because paradoxes arise like the grim reaper paradox. And the reply to that from like Malpass and others is to say, well, there is a particular kind of principle that'll prevent the paradoxes from arising. Or you've tried it, you can't, yes, you can't have an infinite causal certain kinds of series. It's an unsatisfiable pair. If you try to say there's been an infinite number

of this kind of causation that leads to a paradox So that's an unsatisfiable pair and Alex press says so you're positing a mysterious force that prevents these Paradoxes from occurring and so I read another paper from a guy who was argue actually Joe Schmidt He's an agnostic philosopher appointed me to his paper I really liked it arguing that theists should not be causal finitists because God can prevent the paradoxes from occurring. So what I would say is either the universe had a beginning, so it has a cause, or it's infinite and you need God to prevent the paradoxes from arising. So it's a modified thing. So like I said, like I might approach an argument and similar with a moral argument,

I'm refining that too. Before we get to the moral argument, if, I don't know if you've can go back to that. Yeah, sure. Before we get to the moral argument, I don't know if you've asked Jimmy this, I haven't. If the A theory of time is correct, would Jimmy agree with the philosophical Kalam? I don't know. I think because Jim- I've said this to you before,

but people should go and check out the debate between him and William Lane Craig on my show. You texted me halfway through and said, it's like watching mom and dad argue and you're like, no, please don't get a divorce. Stop fighting. Stop fighting already. It was sense.

Yeah, but I think Jimmy, because Jimmy diverges from Aquinas a little bit here. Aquinas would say that an actual infinite collection is impossible. So, whereas Jimmy does not find that to be an impossibility and Craig's argument relies on that. Aquinas just would not say that you would ever get to that point.

Aquinas is not considered the series of past events an actual infinite that's problematic. But if you do the argument, even with the A theory, you could have that. But Jimmy differs from Aquinas in that regard. So I still think even if you allow the A theory of time, and people can go to his website to read his thoughts on that, but I think he would probably say that the philosophical arguments he still doesn't find convincing. And I think a lot of them, I would use this version based on the causal finitism route,

I think are some of the stronger arguments. So yeah, I feel like when it comes to evaluating things, I mean, it is possible. I try to be open-minded things. I think I have a very solid moral certainty. I have found the truth. I'm gonna teach that to my children and I'm going to hold fast to that.

But I try to follow reason and my conscience, but I also don't wanna be unanchored. Like if I'm going off the rails here, because I am not gonna say, oh, the Catholic church is wrong because I, Trent Horn, couldn't answer this objection. Maybe somebody else can, or maybe it's just something we're still working through.

Like how, what hubris for me to think that the Catholic faith must be false because I couldn't answer an objection to it Yeah, so I would be very careful for someone who reaches that particular kind of conclusion but yeah, the idea that I just do this for like Money, I love doing this and sharing this with people as a hobby long before it was ever a career But there's other things I could go out and be doing that that would be lucrative There's other things I could go out and be doing that that would be lucrative.

But I would rather be building up the kingdom. That's what I that's the riches I long to see in the next life. See what the kingdom will be like there. What are we going to say about the moral argument? Oh, yeah, just narrowing, I think, maybe on other aspects of morality, like not necessarily even objective moral laws, but more responsibility, free will, moral obligation. See, Steven Evans has a book on more obligation, David Badgett, Badgett and Jerry Walls got a truth meaning in cosmos. I think it's, they, they do some books on the moral argument.

I think refining them these arguments where that's why actually I am planning to do another book approaching atheism. It might actually replace answering atheism. I don't think answering atheism is a bad book. I learned a lot writing 11 books after that, you know, and studying atheism more for 10 years. So I think the arguments can be further refined. And that's what happens in the course of thinking about philosophy and theology, right? You have something, oh, we could actually make it a little better if you add this or add that, and always kind of refining things.

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Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. The link is in the description below. It even has an entire section for kids. So if you're a parent, you could play little Bible stories for them at night. It'll help them pray. Fantastic. Hello. Dot com slash Matt Fradd. Did you see Alex O'Connor's? Well, Peterson's interview with Alex O'Connor. Yes, I did.

I did see some of that. I commented on an episode I did where I talked about political Christianity and how Peterson articulates some of it that I find. I wish I could go back and interview Peterson. Really? I would do it very differently. First of all, I wouldn't have let him get into a like 20 minute rage about global warming in the beginning.

Have you, buddy? I don't know how it took this turn. I think the difference between like Alex, Alex did a great job. I emailed him and said, well done. Yeah. The difference though, I think like he, Alex was being invited to talk to Peterson. Yeah, it's a little different.

It's different when like Peterson's my guest and I got to like try to let him know I'm a friend. I'm not here to be like unnecessarily critical of you. Yeah, but he brought Alex into his den so Alex can push back. Yeah. Yeah. But I thought Alex did an excellent job. I mean, he got Peterson to essentially admit

that Christ probably rose from the dead. That's huge. Yeah. But I think it was difficult and that's where I showed in my episode, other parts where trying to get him to say, what do you mean you've studied the Exodus more than anybody else?

Did it happen? And even I might qualify things. I wouldn't say the Exodus involved millions of people. But you saw Okonok presses in on that as well. Yeah. But I don't, I don't remember there being a clear answer to that. Like he gave for the resurrection. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think for me, when I said to him, um, what's been really fun over the last few weeks to see Peterson in my comment section, responding to people. What's he saying, Josiah? He's like, there's so many comments, like,

try harder! Like he's on a bender. Don't read the comments, Peters, and it's not worth it. This is why I got off social media, a circle back we had at the beginning. I don't I don't want to spend my time doing that. No. Well, I mean, you know, like when I said to him, best argument for atheism and he said it, it's a, what did he say? It's a stupid question.

It's an invalid chess move. Yeah. Yeah. But that, that made me think, okay, so like, I still don't know what you mean by God then. Cause if I thought God was synonymous with what everyone takes to mean by existence, right? Just the bare basic, what we mean by existence, like things exist or something. Yeah.

Then to say, is it, what's the best argument for atheism would be to say, what's the best argument against anything existing? Well, yeah, that's a stupid question. But so is that what you mean by God? Like what do you, I wish we had have begun on the God question. Cause I feel like, what's that? Do you want to read it? I mean, if they're close, if they're easy to look up.

I've got them. Okay, sure. All right We're gonna repeat since first of all I just have to say like it would be hard to be Peterson because that guy he has received a lot of slings and arrows Okay, we're gonna read some of Peter's Yeah, like it's it's got to be hard to be him I mean that that man has been attacked and he's attacked constantly. And, you know, like

you can't listen to everybody like I none of us can. You know, like I know I've called you several several times in the past. And I'm like, am I wrong here? Should I have said this? You know, and there's times I'm like, yeah, probably shouldn't have. But it was not bad enough to apologize or no, it was fine. You know, like, and so like I have, and I'm sure you're similar. Like we have a small group of people that we trust and we listen to. If you were to listen to every comment, you drive yourself insane.

And I know he gets a lot of criticism and so I don't blame him for coming out elbows up. But let's check this out. Elbows up. I think he's like an old timey boxer. So here's one. Sorry. What? He's like an old timey boxer. So here's one. Sorry what? He's like an old timey boxer. Exactly. Yeah.

So someone says why believe in God? Because if you don't you go to hell. That's the kind of circular reasoning common con men have used for millennia. Is that the comment? Yeah. Trying to. Yeah. Trippy blood of money.

And he wrote back, aren't you a genius of cynicism and cliche? I love how you have to do a three quarter turn when you do Peterson. Aren't you? All right. So the one Jordan. So here's the original comment. Jordan seems to have a chip on his shoulder these days. Maybe he's going through something that said he obviously believes in God. I wish he would man up and say it instead of dancing around the truth

He himself said the worst thing you can say is lie to yourself Peterson writes back aren't you I love that so many of these aren't you aren't you the derisive and morally superior? towering intellect Hey, Mark Dice commented on my YouTube channel. Yeah, that's why Hey, Mark Dice commented on my YouTube channel. That's wild. I told you that. Oh. I never understood why so many people look up

to Jordan Peterson as if he contains some kind of profound wisdom. I think he does. Like he does contain profound wisdom. I think he does really, he's good at getting people to think about very important questions. And I think that there's a very important service that that can have.

And I don't think he offers interesting insights in like fields of psychology, very important service that that can have. And I do think he offers interesting insights in like fields of psychology. But just because somebody prompts you to think, you should still approach what they say with, you know, your own critical thinking. All right, here's one last comment. Someone says, why is Peterson so angry?

And Peterson replied, because presumptuous trolls call me Peterson. I mean, look, we've all been there. I know what it's like to get pissed off and respond to people. So I'm not picking on him. I mean, but it's just not worth reading comments. And if you think comments mean anything at all, I want you to go and look up a song from like Backstreet Boys.

And then I want you to read the effusive comments about how this song saved them when they were 15. And then you realize, oh, comments, people's opinions mean nothing. I realized I was larger than life and that's okay. Exactly. Yeah, it's, I think once again. I'm gonna look that up when you talk. Yeah, look at I think once again, I'm gonna look that up back to

What's that song called larger than life well, that's one of them Back streets back I'm trying this is taking me back to my TRL days the days when you would wait at home To see your favorite music video played on television until it got retired 65 days later for being on the countdown. Yeah, I think once again, you're trying to find the balance between two different things, right? If you just, you can become paralyzed, worried about what everybody's thinking, but at the same time if you're just like, I'm gonna say it and I don't care what people say. Well, you could become a horrible jerk you could become an awful person so that's why the Bible is very clear like a plan with many counselors will succeed did you find one

it's hard to listen to you say serious things while I'm looking at these comments so for backstreet this is um this is quit quit playing games with my heart you know that song quit playing games with my heart teenage train had a lot of people playing games with his heart I would have wished those people had listened to the backstreet boys Thank you very much check out some of these comments number one best boy band in history comma all caps Period next one this person's never heard of o town brian's eyes nick's hair kevin's browns Is that hoey smile aj swag?

They voice What is that? Hoey smile, AJ swag, they voice. Then the next comment is like, did anyone see the documentary about how their band manager molested them and embezzled millions of dollars? Have you seen there's a documentary about that? I forget the. I love how much you know about rare. Harold, not a Harold. It was no, it was one guy.

He's got glasses. He's a little heavy. Someone says, bring back this kind got glasses. He's a little heavy. Someone says bring back this kind of music. He's a good one. I'm closing my eyes when I listen this song. It feels like yesterday when I was 12 years old. I'm now 37 and still love this song after decades. New generations will never know.

Can you tell that era? We saw. Can you tell that's a man or a woman? I hope it's a. Oh, it says Tyler. Oh, and that's fine. Good a woman? I hope it's a oh it says Tyler. Oh And that's fine good on him if it makes him happy Do you know what I mean? And it's not a sin leaf. Oh boy boy bands had their place in our musical pantheon I'm not gonna lie that I don't rock out a bit when it comes on. Yeah, nine nineties XM

I went to with my wife sushi with a mate the other day and we're both the same age and we listened to Creed the Entire way Creed and live And we were sure are you sure you didn't die and go to purgatory like no. I was terrific actually They had that song Crashing that's the other band like cuz they had that song heaven. Yeah. Yeah, that was I hated that song. I was always like, cause I loved apologetics back then. It's a terrible argument.

Your daughter is not. Yeah. I don't need no proof to know about God and truth. I'm like, no, live. Don't do that. Yeah. Don't do it. Be like Creed.

Take me higher. Very good. Hey, I've asked my people for questions and there's a lot. Would you mind if we started some of these? Yeah, we could. We could do a break. No, we're fine. Recordings going good, right, Josiah? I occasionally have terrifying.

All right. What does Trent says, Apex? Think about some of more recent apparitions, Akita, Garabandal, Medjugorje. Never heard Trent talk about these things. I would say I haven't done the requisite study to come to a conclusion on them. I know that there's been serious concerns raised out of Medjugorje,

but I would say I haven't done the requisite study to use it either for an apologetic or to really comment on it. The ones that I have been interested in the most that I have used for apologetic purposes would be like Fatima. I find this really powerful evidence for the supernatural with the appearances of Fatima, the miracle of the sun.

Another one is Our Lady of Zatun in Egypt. I know even atheists that are impressed by that one. It's the Coptic. Yeah, but it's like even like, it's like the prime minister of Egypt and Muslims saw this apparition. Like you know what's interesting about Catholic miracles? Yeah, there's a few that have surprising amounts

of evidence for them. One would be Our Lady of Zatun. The other one is St. Joseph Cupertino. I love the film Reluctant Saint. So the bad guy in it is the guy, Ricardo Multibon, he plays Khan in Star Trek. And you have the story like St. Joseph Cupertino, right? You prayed to him, if you didn't study for the test,

he wasn't a very smart guy, managed by the grace of God to pass his test, become a priest, and he was so joyful like he would levitate. But there is an astounding amount of eyewitness, early eyewitness accounts of his levitations. And I've heard atheists tell me like, I don't know what to make of this.

Like the best a skeptic can come up with is like, he basically like leapt really high and fooled people. Like this is not, like there's some things that Catholics really like, like, oh, the angels took Mary's house from Israel and brought it to people. Like this is not like there's some things that Catholics really like like, oh, the angels took Mary's house from Israel and brought it to Italy. I'm like, no, a lot of that or Mary appeared to St. James on the way of St. Our Lady of the Pillar. People will talk about that. But I'm like, uh, the first thing, the, the first attestation we have of that is from the middle ages. And this is, that's a thousand years later.

That's not the greatest historical evidence. But like St. Joseph Cupertino, there's there's like books from Yale University Press on the phenomena and people saying, yeah, this is like, this is actually surprisingly well documented. So I'm hoping to do yet. I think I've sort of mentioned like three books I want to write. There's many down the line to do,

but one, because you'll tell me, why do you believe in Christianity, but not these other miracles? Well, I'd love to do a catalog study of major miracles. And there's some Catholic ones I'm not sold on and some Catholic ones like an atheist, really look at this, you know, and then comparing it to other things for sure.

But the apparitions, yeah, there's there's some things There's a lot of my plate. I'm always trying to get to and I'm familiar with them, but I don't like to pronounce on things unless I've done a lot of due diligence Yeah, that's fair. We're glad for that This is a good question Marty staff Nick says what goes through your head when Mormons say look we agree more than we disagree Well, I mean, I recently did dialogues on this and, you know, the debate on your channel. And I've enjoyed conversations with intelligent Mormons. And I think what I would say is, well, it is, it is possible based on the sheer number of topics. We might, I don't even know if that's true, but we do actually have a surprising amount of agreement. Like Mormons and Catholics believe Christ instituted in a hierarchical

church with successors of the apostles that has a power to bind and loose that has a ministerial priesthood. So we reject sola scriptura. We reject sola fide, very similar on a lot of moral issues. Mormons have stood up against gay marriage, so-called gay marriage against abortion, similar family values, uh, reverence for large families, but we, we don't believe God is an exalted man and that, you know, Jesus and the devil are brothers because they're begotten of the father and their, their eternal, you know, eternal intelligences. We don't have, we don't have more in common because Mormon baptisms aren't valid because it's just, it's not even monotheism.

We believe that there's just one infinite God. It's a henotheism. So there are some super, there are a lot, there are similarities, but the differences are stark and serious. BossmanBDC asks, Trent, what's your favorite dinosaur? And would you bring it back if we had the technology? Here's the thing, Matt, you're so busy wondering if we could do it, you just have to think if you should. OK, so I showed Matt Jurassic Park, my son Matthew Jurassic Park, not too long ago to start him on his more mature. What did he think?

Oh, he liked it. He's like, said it'd be scary It wasn't that scary Because I remember when I was a kid, but I saw it in a movie theater Yeah, so when that lawyer got eaten by the t-rex that t-rex was like 30 feet tall Oh, I gotta watch that with my son. Thank you for bringing that up. Oh, yeah. It's a Jurassic Park I'm trying to slowly integrate him starting with the 90s blockbusters Do I have a I don't know t, T-Rex does have a, it doesn't replace my heart. Do you remember the time your son corrected me

on my pronunciation of a diplodocus? He said, you mean Diplodocus? And I went, you bastard. Basically. Trent's son is correcting me and he's three. I think when boys are like three to five, it's like an intense dinosaur stage. There's like that shirt that says like,

when you were a boy You'll pick one of these four things and it's gonna define your personality and it's like a locomotive a t-rex a cowboy And an astronaut or something and it's like that's just what you're gonna be as a boy So yeah, it's I don't know I guess here's a follow-up question Can help me come up with some movies that are worth watching with children? Because this is this is a question that people have What like I want to watch shows my kids and all the fundamentalists will be like I can't believe you didn't like you should Fundamentalists already hate you should only you should only watch I think there's that movie to rez oh my okay

Can I tell you a story? Yes, I? I was on a cruise Okay, I think a Catholic answers cruise. And I think I said I hated that movie so much. And the Therese actor was awful. I think I said that maybe on my show and then the Therese actor moved to Steubenville. I said that.

No, I'm so sorry. I shouldn't say anything anymore. I mean, it was a terrible movie, right? Like it was- I think, I think what, well, no, but here's, you know what's funny? I think there was like- She's a wonderful person.

I just want to get that out. I think it was Maximilian Kolbe, maybe it was Kolbe who like refused to write a letter of congratulations to a bishop because he was worried, and it caused a big scandal because he was worried about even faint praise being lying. Exactly, I'm like him. I'm like Maxime and Colby.

That's too scrupulous, that's too scrupulous. Exactly. And especially if he doesn't really mean it. This woman should go back into my catalog of chastity talks and mock me mercilessly on the podcast she's about to create solely for that reason. Or maybe it's an opportunity if you're gonna express an opinion.

Maybe I think we have to work on just expressing just charitable criticism. What do you think of Therese? Well, I'm gonna be honest, I feel like the actress tried, but I think there were serious problems with the performance that just director to to be fair They you just say there's problems the performance Maybe that was on the actress or maybe was the director that took me out of it And there's elements of things like the set design seeing light stands in a background. For example, I think

Not enough requisite care was taken and then just balance it was saying here's some good things But I think that that's like so when I should when I said I'd be happy to burn the Book of Mormon How should I have then soften that one? I don't know then you have to bring me in the softened relations with the Mormons love a dialogue and debate and all of that Well, I think they just have a general I think to spell out generally. Hey, it's not just you guys I'm gonna all burn everything I think is false or you know, just so people can claim to be divine revelation. That isn't like, yeah. So the Quran, I'd be happy to burn that.

Yeah, I mean, it's that's why I'd even be happy to burn the. Who are they called? The Jehovah's Witness translation, the new world, the new world. Yeah, I'd be happy to burn that. Well, I guess it's like, what do you mean by burning it set on fire well no what I mean is well no for example like I was walking with my family at the University get a match right why are you just why are you destroying it so for example if it's your private property and you're like this is garbage no one needs to read this and you throw it in the trash can.

Yes, I'm not talking about stealing it from Jacob Hansen. No, no, no. I think there's a difference. It's like Job's witnesses. If you give them Christian tracks, they'll throw them away. They're told not to read them when they come to your door. So I don't give them you can give them stuff, but they're going to throw it away because they're instructed. They're told to treat it like pornography. So it's like if you're thinking like, yeah, I just burn that because like,

nobody needs this in its mind. I think a prudential judgment can call into play though, if it's, I'm gonna make a public spectacle of this so that Mormons and Muslims, Jehovah's Witnesses see that I do this. I think the question there is, well, if a person would have been more likely to become Catholic, had I not do that, then that should make me really seriously consider

doing that, I think. Like I couldn't see, like, how doing that would make it more likely somebody would become Catholic. I could see how it could push people away. So that for me, the calculus, there's not a good trade off there as to, and that would be a prudential decision on that part, which is where I would say, well, what good would be a complex?

I just asked you about movies, and now we're talking about burning the Quran. Oh, because of Therese and honesty. Jurassic Park, what else? Well, you know, okay, but here's the problem. They're gonna be like, I can't believe you did. So we showed Matthew, Eric. Baywatch.

And Matt loved it. Maybe Baywatch Nights, I think that could be allowed. What's that? Season two it gets weird. Baywatch Nights was, you took David Hasselhoff and his partner friend, but instead of girls running out on the beach in bathing suits, they go back to the beach at night

and they solve crimes. It was for some reason not as popular. No one can figure it out. No one can figure out exactly why it wasn't as popular as regular Baywatch. Now we showed him Air Force One, because I love Air, I did a Free-Fall Friday on my field. Nicholas Cage? No, Harrison Ford.

What's the one I'm thinking of? Get off my, yeah, that's Conair. Conair. I was wondering why you would show the two kids. I love being married to Laura, because she'll say something and I'll make the perfect reference. So I said, oh, she said,

what's that movie with John Travolta? And he goes in and he's like, get it done people. And I said, are you thinking of Glenn Gary Glenn Ross with Alec Baldwin? That's that famous scene where he goes in and he motivates them to sell, always be closing. Coffee is for closers. Very famous scene, very profane scene, by the way.

So if you watch it, moral offensive rating there. But I love that Laura could have an actor that's not in the movie and a different dialogue. I'm like, oh, I know what you're talking about. Like, if you know you have a compatibility with someone, if you can dissect that from, like, dissect an obscure thing from a what they mean to say. No one else could possibly get that.

But I showed him Air Force One and it's rated R for like violence, terrorism. But I liked it because it's very clear. Here are the bad guys, America is awesome. Like there you go, I am sick and tired of new movies where it's like the bad guy's not that bad. No, the bad guys in here, they are just bad. You can tell who's bad. They're bad terrorists. They're bad people. And you can tell who the bad guys not that bad. No these bag the bad guys in here. They are can tell who's bad

They're bad. Terrible bad people. You can tell who the good guys are. No, these were white guys. They were Russian They were white guys. They were they were Russian nationalists. I watched the hunt for red October recently again. It was excellent I'm trying to think of a Sean Connery quote from the ball. I just want to do a Sean. I just want to do Sean Connery That's that well, I don't know the Batman series the Batman cartoons. Those are fantastic Batman the animated series That's not a cartoon that is an animated series Oh my kids already gone through Batman the animated series the original Justice League But that's what I'm trying to think also going back like what you'd want to show girls We show them a rid the Disney Channel original movies. Yeah, Laura was like we gotta watch brink. I'm like green

What's that? It's like a skating movie, but it's very 90s. I just it is hard Maybe it's a yearning for time before smartphones and yeah seeing the way life was and see there's that nostalgia for that coming back, but I I love showing What else I don't know. I do think trying to find like family films from like the 80s and 90s Some of them can be intense like gremlins. I think that was rated PG not showing that to my kids like 15 I don't want to watch it. It's scary but I showed him Air Force one and it's like innocent hostages get executed and but it's like it's very but But what it's a but it's a clear thing, but I think it's important to show kids something.

It's like, how do you depict good and evil, right? It's like, I hate when evil gets so watered down. It's like, no, there's real evil out there, Matt. And we you have to have courage and fortitude to stand against evil and to do the right thing. So I think it's important to balance glamorizing evil, not desensitizing kids, making sure they're at an appropriate emotional maturity to handle things. But plus, this is a feel good movie that I watched.

Jurassic Park and Air Force One. Good. All right. So I don't know. But I'm trying to think of other stuff from back then that would be that's appropriate things. Which one? Sky. Oh, Sky High is a great one. I don't know that one.

Sky High is about it's about a bunch of kids whose parents are superheroes. So they go to a high school for superheroes in the sky like sky high got it I show my kids like my little kids be locked watched a homeward bound. I Remember watching that as a kid, but I don't know about the two dogs in the cat Which was a remake of the old 1960s movie. I don't kid movies watch the kids I don't see now I hate drawing a blank from that But usually I just go online and try to remember once I I wrote to you and Laura Okay, what's it like a good movie that me and Cameron could watch you know, and you gave us an idea

And we watched it we were so appalled that we turned it off and lost respect for you which one Oh, what are we jumpstreet? Oh, that's hilarious. I'm not going to watch that with my I will not watch that with children. But that is a guilty pleasure. And my we watched a movie the other day on Netflix. Who's the fellow on the Hello app who I interviewed? And it was awkward. You know, good looking guy. No, no. Wall burger. What? What? What?

Wallberg. Yeah. Yeah. His restaurant's called Wallberg or whatever. But anyway, so there was a new movie on Netflix and it was it was absolutely terrible It was just the acting was awful. The storyline was Mark Wahlberg in it. It was awful. Yeah Did you know he just moved to Steubenville shit? This is gonna be really awkward for you. He's actually next door neighbors with Therese. Yeah, exactly next-door neighbors with Therese. Yeah, exactly. All right, good. What's what's a movie you've watched recently with Laura? You're like, I'm glad we did that.

Oh, my three billboards outside of something, something Missouri. That was the last movie I watched with my wife. And I thought this was fantastic. Ebbing, Missouri, three billboards outside of Ebbing, Missouri. I highly recommend it. I've heard of that. It's very good. Oh my goodness, we watched, I don't know. Was it the Coen Brothers, Joe Sawyer?

Do you wanna look in that up? I don't know if we, it's not really a movie. I think we watched that documentary about that guy who was Lou, Lou Pearlman. He was the band manager for the Backstreet Boys. And I think there's accusations that he molested some, but he ran the longest running Ponzi scheme in American history.

So he was a band manager and people thought like, he's this rich guy and I managed this transcontinental airline and you can get this investment. He was doing a Ponzi scheme. He was taking investors money, using that money to pay out to other people. And he stole like, I was like $500 million or something like that.

And then he went to prison. I think he died of heart complications in prison. And like, yeah, so I don't know. I think we're we like Films, but I don't know. I think we were kind of more interested in documentary true crime that kind of stuff. Who is it? Martin McDonough is the director, okay Can I tell you what I did on the airplane today? What did you do? I hit a guy. So you hit a guy? Well, let me just I didn't hit him.

So I'm with my girls on the plane and we flew to New York and we were flying from New York to Pittsburgh to be here. Yeah. And he's a guy in front of me and he's got his phone out and he's watching a show and he's watching a pornographic scene. Oh, I hate that. I don't mean steamy kiss. his phone out and he's watching a show and he's watching a pornographic scene. Oh, I hate that. I don't mean steamy kiss. I mean, I won't say what I saw, but so it was very,

they weren't just holding hands like this. It was exactly interlaced. And I think they weren't married and they kiss. That's Catholic third base. That's crazy. No, it was, it was full on pornography. Oh, that's crazy. Oh, that's awful. I gave it a second and I'm like, okay, maybe he'll skip. And he didn't. And so here's what I And I gave it a second and I'm like, okay, maybe he'll skip and he didn't. And so here's what I did. I hit him harder than I meant to. I hit him with the back of my hand and I went, could you stop watching porn in front of my children?

Thanks. That loud. Wow. He shit himself and didn't look at me for the rest of the flight, but he definitely skipped the porn. That was like a wonderful combination of excellent masculine leadership

with Karen level condemnation of Saying out loud what he's doing so others can hear if it would be purely passive aggressive that way But you also had the hit in there if he did Now if he didn't respond to me, I'd be like, I think I would have used the word. Could you say you masturbating? I don't know But I think it's time to start shaming people publicly when they do publicly shameful things, especially in front of children. Yeah. Well, you know what's more offensive than pornography? When people walk, when the plane stops and the seatbelt light goes off,

when people push forward, I hate those people. They should be banished to the furthest edges of Siberia or Alaska. I always, I'm like an aisle protector. So as soon as that light goes off, I jump out and let everybody go in front of me just so I can rebuke the bastards who would push. That's not more offensive than pornography, but it's also awful. But that's what I did, hit the guy.

And I was, I'm doing this thing because I'm not a confrontational person. I don't like being confrontational. I wish I was. I think it's a, I think it's like a negative in me that I get really weird about it. I, you know? Um, so like after I interviewed Dennis Prager, I couldn't sleep for three nights. That's not true. Um, yeah, but I, I, I, that's good. You're like, there's all, there's confrontations that are not worth it. I mean, you know, I, I, that's good. You're like, there's all, there's confrontations that are not worth it. I mean, you know, getting tempted to road rage, things like that happened here, surprisingly. But I mean, like when you see, when you see evil, I mean, it's so funny scripture

in Ephesians says be angry, but don't let the sun set on your anger. It's Ephesians 525, I think. Uh, so I think so. Even he he can check we'll see if that's right I hope you're wrong look it up fusions yeah see if he's wrong he's gonna do a shot of whatever I'm drinking okay be angry we don't let the Sun set on your anger that anger is not a bad thing it's long is it motive it's show it's a response these I had a good thing on my mind. I'll take a sip. Why was I?

Try that. It's really good. Be angry. Is that 520? No, because that's the submission. Why did I? What is be angry but do not the sunset on your ears at four? I gave them a blanket on that one.

Sometimes when I cite scripture, I think I might have a my what? You have to have some right Don't worry, it's powerful enough that whatever I have or did he actually get it right and use That's smooth no, but I'm glad I did that, you know, I just think Angers are response when we see an injustice right? I know and and I know that often goes off the rails and we like to justify our anger. We say, well, Christ overturned temples.

No, he didn't, he overturned tables. But that doesn't mean you should. Actually, I think what he did was he hit those people in the arm and he said, excuse me, don't you realize what you're doing here in front of all these people? Yeah, imagine if you just like- Are you watching porn in front of my kids?

Here's a question, did he actually hit them? Cause I've heard people say that he whipped them. Is that right or? It said he used a whip. I don't know if it says that he actually made contact, but it wouldn't surprise me. I don't know. But I think that, yeah, I am sick of like evil in the world

and this idea that we have to be tolerant of evil. I think that's it. Just want to wrap this up for people. I share this because I think it's good advice for people. Like to just say, could you stop watching pornography, please? I think that is a wonderful thing to do because people, you say that out loud.

It shames them. It shames them. Because they think they're being secretive doing that, and then other people see it, but they're afraid to do anything about it. I'm sure a lot of other people around saw that and felt the same way. I think I probably should have, was a little more gentle.

I think I've had it said, hey buddy, I'm sorry. Could you not watch that from like, I could have done that, I guess. I don't know, I think there's, I think there's a thing you could have done, Matt. There's nothing wrong with that. But I think there's a really good bold witness. Let tell you something. I did that. I shouldn't have done Okay, so I I'm doing this thing where I'm not very good at being confrontational. So I'm trying to do it more

I'm also getting older and grumpy and so it's easier. Yeah, I Yelled at this guy for cutting ahead Hey any reason you're pushing in front of the rest of us and it was this guy who spoke broken English He's like my wife and children are ahead. I'm like, hey, any reason you're pushing in front of the rest of us? And there was this guy who spoke broken English. He's like, my wife and children are ahead. I'm like, I hate myself, continue. That's the danger when you try to become the vigilante. I could be Batman too. No, you're just punching poor people in the street.

Punching poor people in the street. That's what I know. But there are people who try to be real superheroes. There was that guy. Tell me. Yeah, Citizen Prime. No Punching poor people in the street But there are people try to be real superheroes. There was that guy. Yes citizen prime. He was a real-life superhero I think he would go around and like try to tell people not to litter and stuff But there's old documentaries on that a while back But I think some of them like people actually got together and made gangs and try to find them and beat them up If you hear there's someone trying to be a real superhero, you're like, let's go kick his butt. Yeah, but As myself sensor there, what am I like? Years old but no, I think it's um, I think it's good to call it out

But I think once you've been noticed there you have to be You have to be you know, if you're always going around trying to be policing everyone Honestly, you also have to be careful like there are just crazy people out there I know and it's just like is it worth it? It's not worth it. Is it worth it if someone's, you know, got a weapon on them or they're out of their minds? That's why I think starting gently and then escalating is a much better idea than what I did. Yeah, so I think it's using prudence, right?

But I am glad I did it. Because as soon as it was done, I thought to myself, why should I feel bad? This guy was watching pornography publicly. He should be ashamed. When I'm on planes, I hate seeing that in their kids and they can look through and see that kind of stuff. So good for you. It bugs me so much.

Wiki, I, Wiki, Rish dot. Citizen Prime. So is this a real photo of him? I don't know. It's a while ago. I don't I don't know if he's retired from yeah, that'd be him 2009 this isn't they might bring him back for fan service in a movie. Maybe wait. So was this a show? No, he's a real person Did you know about this Josiah Salt Lake City, he was a Mormon

Possibly citizen prime has retired as of 2009 Here is his farewell letter as posted to his myspace It is with a sense of resolute peace and serenity that Citizen Prime is putting down the cape and cowl I am going to be spending my time making my own children strong and resilient gay What else does he say maybe the maybe he's maybe he's raising well He's raising up the next Matt being a superhero is very tiring and exhausting you can't do it forever You have to train the next generation You know male outfit armor black silver boots black cape yellow. Yes, I made his own

Outfit most superheroes do. Yeah, unless Edna Moe. This is a real guy. Yeah, it's all kinds of actions. Listen to his actions. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Foes apathy. Hey, at least somebody's fighting it.

Actions, community outreach, inspirational school visits, neighborhood cleanup, political protests. That is... Hey, I'd rather have Citizen Prime in schools than some of the people that bring in to schools nowadays. Think about that. Yeah. We had, I'd much rather have Citizen... If I would love to replace, if we could replace Drag Queen story hour with Citizen Prime story hour,

if somebody can go to school dressed up in a stupid costume, why can't it be Citizen Prime instead of a drag queen you tell me? Did you ever watch the WWF before it was WWE? Let me tell you something brother I Didn't the bug didn't catch me. I think wrestling has to catch you at a certain age. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I Remember the day I found out it was fake. I was so it was I was devastated. I know it was last week He told me I was 38 years old

No, it's about 10 I think and I was out the back with my cousin him and I used to watch it all the time and they say yes Hey, you know, it's fake. It was worse and finding out the Father Christmas. Right, Father, that's so Australian. Like finding out Santa's fake, it's like, well, even if it is fake- I still get presents, they're real. Yeah, it's just very corpulent men, climbing about can still bring you joy,

even if it's not real. Do you ever watch fake martial artists online? I have seen some episodes of YouTube videos. It's my favorite pastime. I love when people, actual martial art practitioners confront these people and challenge them to a fight. I love when they actually try to fight and get their behinds handed to them. I haven't seen these.

I can't wait to see these. Some of the fake martial artists, they have students that are in on it. It's like a weird cult where the student will run at them and they'll be like, oh, and just like they'll fling themselves away. And then they actually, and they believe their own hype so much. Real martial artists will fight them and destroy them. That's always amazing.

So those are my favorite, but many other ones, it's a fake martial artist and they know they're fake. And then when the real person shows up, they try to weasel their way out of it. So there's a few videos of like Jujitsu black belt, seeing someone who was a fake Jujitsu black belt. And it's like, maybe they, they might have enough, like a blue belt, but to get a Jujitsu black belt takes about 10 years. And you can tell if someone has it or if they don't, just by watching them with other people. And they're like, oh, I'm okay. And, and they get, I watched one video, the guy, the real black belt, he got mad and he said,

do you know what I had to go through to get this belt? You know how many injuries I had to go through? I spent years and years of my life for this. This belt means something. When you put on that fake belt, it doesn't mean anything. So it's just, I mean, it's similar to what we talk about stolen valor, right? People who pretend, you know, people who pretend to have certain the armed forces at a certain rank. I feel like you might be referring to somebody. Who knows? People who pretend, you know, people who pretend to have certain the armed forces at a certain rank. I feel like you might be referring to somebody. Who knows?

But when it does happen, it's like, it's so disrespectful to the men and women who actually risked their to say you were in combat and to get honor from that to the men and women who actually face combat and the risks is just so disrespectful. So as I guess a parallel there too with that as well. You mentioned women in the armed forces. So I wanted to ask you what's your most offensive opinion to Catholics, to those who would call you a normie Catholic. What's an opinion that you hold that they'd be like, Oh, okay. Wow. Not that you have to hold an opinion that

would shock them. Oh, if I, I don't know. I think there's a lot of things I say that people just, uh, they don't like. Some people get really mad at me about holding the epiphanian view on Joseph that he was, that he's remarried. Some people get really worked up about that. And like suddenly, I want you to debate me on this. Like, why would you believe that, that Joseph had a previous marriage and that's who the siblings of Jesus are adopted siblings?

I'm like, I don't really feel like debating that I think when you said that Judaism is the true religion and Catholics should Apostatize and become Jews that pissed. Hey, hey, come on quiet. I haven't paid you your money yet the gold I have Oh my goodness. No, what did you write? What did you you did that video about? Judaism and I was talking about people saying Christ is Christ is King. I don't think there was one comment that was like, good job, Trent. It was everybody just burning crosses on your YouTube. Well, there is a contingent of people who have very odious views that tend to overwhelm online spaces. And so they they represent a disproportionate

number of people who actually hold those particular views but they're very active online. And I think that that is very damaging to their character. And all I did in that episode was show, here's some people who say Christ is king and they say really awful things like Hitler is cool or look how awesome Hitler is when this is somebody who are orchestrated

and attempted genocide. And if you don't believe that, well, I hopefully I have an episode should be out soon or shortly dealing with that as well. This people get mad about that. I'm like, what do you why are you so mad? It reminds me of when I used to live in Ireland. There was this football team, two football teams,

the Celtics and the Rangers. And the Rangers are the Protestants, right? Thought to be, and the Celtics are the Catholics, the Irish team. And I remember there being this controversy at the time because when the Celtics would get a goal, they would make the sign of the cross at the Rangers people. And I thought this is kind of analogous to what took place there because when they're making the sign of the cross, they're not really making a proclamation of faith. I mean, some of them might be, but a lot of them weren't. It was more merely a middle finger at the Protestants. And it seemed to me that that's what at least some people were doing when it came to the Christ.

I think Bishop Baron, I think it was Bishop Baron who said that the first proclamation of the phrase Christ is King was a mock a mockery of Jesus. As the Roman soldiers were saying to Jesus, so hail the King, you know, oh hail the anointed one. And giving him the crown of thorns and the scepter, it was a statement of mockery. And I think you can take anything. And if it's a slogan, if the point of the slogan is you're reaffirming you belong to an ideological

subgroup that holds very odious views like claiming that people of Jewish ethnicity are morally inferior to other people, for example, or represents some kind of unique threat to the social order that need to be dealt with, and you use a phrase, if you use a phrase that's good, but you use it as a gathering sign or a slogan for a subgroup that holds the odious views, that that's what unites them together. Well, then it can be wrong to use the phrase in that context. You know, it's much as in the analogy I gave in that episode was there's nothing wrong with saying Allah, who Akbar Allah. So he was like, we don't believe in Allah. Allah is just the Arabic word for God. Like Arabic Christians talk about Allah. It's the word for God. So

they worship Allah. Now they don't worship the God of the Quran. They worship Allah. Allahu Akbar means God is great or God is wonderful. It's bad if you say that because you identify, you use it as a slogan to identify with people who commit acts of terror and shout Allahu Akbar before they do it. If that's when you, if you use it because you know it intimidates people and it shows your alignment with people that hold a morally evil view, well in a phrase that would normally be neutral or good,

you've now made it evil. You've corrupted that and it's wrong for you to do that. So anything can be corrupted. I mean, the Nazis put a cross on their swastika, didn't make the cross bad, but it became an evil symbol. You also balance what you were saying by pointing out that people can say something is anti-Semitic when it clearly isn't.

Absolutely. In a way that people say something is racist when it clearly isn't. People have accused me of anti-Semitism. And I mean- What did you do? Well, I said that there are valid comparisons to be made with the systematic killing of innocent people in the Holocaust by dehumanizing them and saying they're parasites and saying that abortion

is able to be advocated because the unborn are dehumanized. People say they're literal parasites and there's a systematic means to kill them. I mean, my goodness, the abortion pill, RU486, the company Rousseau-Ura, I forget the name, RU, the French company, it was derived from the German company, it was a spin-off of the German company

that created Zyklon B that was using the gas chambers. So it's a creepy connection there. But so even like I was saying online, making that connection and people are saying, you're antisemitic to compare abortion with Holocaust. I'm not saying the same thing, but I'm saying you can find parallels in dehumanizing human beings

in order to make it more palatable to systematically kill them. And that's, I mean, the Holocaust began actually, like the Nazis began primarily with a euthanasia program, Action T4. What they did, you might think, how could normal people have, you know, gassed men, women, and children? Well, they started by saying, well, look,

there's people that are sick and frail and feeble-minded, and they have liebenswert, liebens, life unworthy of life. So we're gonna euthanize them. And you'd even identify, hey, these children, they're notwert, Lebens, life unworthy of life. So we're gonna euthanize them. And you'd even identify, hey, these children, they're not gonna grow up, they're gonna have horrible lives, their parents don't realize it. So we're gonna have the kids sent to the hospital,

we're gonna inject them with toxins, and then we're just gonna tell their parents they died of pneumonia. And so, and then people started realizing, you know what, it would just be easier with a lot of these patients that we're trying to euthanize, we'll put them in a van, and we people started realizing, you know what, it would just be easier with a lot of these patients that were trying to euthanize, we'll put them in a van and we'll just run a tube from the exhaust pipe into the back of the van.

And they are called gas vogans. Because actually when they were killing the undesirables, like I think it was Heinrich Himmler who was at a mass killing once a mass shooting. And he vomited after seeing the mass shooting because it's hard to watch yourself kill other people. And they found that gassing people in these gas wagons is just when you don't have to see them

and you just flip a switch, it's just, it's easier to kill people when you don't have to be directly connected to them. It's like the A-bomb. Yeah, oh yeah, and that's evil, and I did a whole episode on my show talking about how that was evil. It was the direct targeting of innocent civilians.

It was absolutely evil, it was a war crime and should be treated the same as the allied bombing of Dresden and the Nazi blitz on London. Those were crimes targeting civilian populations. So in seeing that, so action T4 began with, here are these undesirables. It's really better for them anyways, and they're bad for society.

Like they can't contribute. It's overall better for the state. Well they're bad for society. Like they can't contribute, it's overall better for the state. Well, if you say a certain ethnic group of people like the Jews, they are also bad for society. And you've already had a policy of euthanasia, which turned into mercy killing and then killing, including using gas chambers essentially. It becomes incremental in that regard.

And so it's, Hannah Arendt had a very famous term related to this when she went to the Nuremberg trials looking at Adolf Eichmann and called it the banality of evil. It's the idea that when you think of like, you know, you think about people who ran Soviet gulags or Nazi concentration camps, or people who were in the Khmer Rouge who

would kill people if they, like they would, if you wore glasses, they assumed you were part of the intellectual elite that had to be killed for the glorious revolution. And, yeah, and the smart people, you know what they did if they had glasses, they would take a book and they would hold it upside down to trick them into thinking they were illiterate so they wouldn't be murdered. How could people do something like that? And you start to think, well, only these slobbering inhuman monsters could commit such horrifying things, could do something so horrible.

But really what Aren said, you look at Eichmann, like he just looks like somebody you would get a beer with after work. He looks like somebody who would work in the office with you. And that's what it was, that just people were worn down over time with propaganda, dehumanization, malicious slander and lies into thinking, maybe this isn't the best, but maybe this isn't pretty, but sometimes you have to do what has to be done. And you have even Heinrich Himmler in his speeches, the Poston speeches, talking about, yes, it is difficult to kill the women and children, but sometimes, uh, and you have people who say that that's

fake. We have the audio recordings or they'll try to reinterpret the words, say like when he did it, house rotten, he doesn't mean exterminate. He means like to deport. That's like saying the word exterminate just means to deport because ex terminae means beyond the border. It's like, no dude, come on, stop trying to eye wash this. You're doing pseudo history, not real history.

And now your comments are flooded with Holocaust deniers and that such. But the point is, yeah, the banality of evil. It's just like, I do get really concerned, Matt, that like, I mean, we live in a sinful world. Bible says that Satan is the God of this world. And sometimes we can be really tricked into thinking that like, oh, you know, well,

people are all basically decent. I think there's a lot of decent people, but it doesn't take much to start moving people towards very indecent things. So, and especially does it, like when you were on the plane, so I love I can tie it all back together. Like most people aren't gonna stand up, they see something really awful

and they thought in their heads, I wish that guy wouldn't have porn on the plane that I hate that. But they're not going to do anything. You're special. There's very few people who are willing to to speak up and then to do something. Yeah. So evil triumphs and good men stand by and do nothing. Yeah, it does.

And that's why I brought that story up and why I posted it to Instagram today because I want to encourage people To be you know, not not unnecessarily not critical for no reason but if somebody's watching pornography and and and and they're in a public place and it's clear that They could have skipped it by now, but they still haven't yeah Please say something because I got a feeling that this guy will never watch a sex scene on a plane for as long as he lives. I'm pretty sure I scared the hell out of him. He could have beat the crap out of me, I think. I think you're on a plane. I'm pretty sure he could have.

Yeah. But I didn't care. That's what's beautiful about getting old. Not if I teach you a little bit of jiu-jitsu, Matt. Okay, do an arm drag, single leg. Well, you're in a confined space in a plane, but we'll get to that. Yeah, but I didn't care. Like, I didn't, I really, like, even if you a confined space in a plane, but we'll get to that. Yeah, but I didn't care. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't They're just too afraid to say something But you don't want to just like go explode over but here you're picking out you're picking a gross evil like pushing your way through

That's rudeness. It takes a lot to want to say like I'm gonna make a stink about rudeness Just like yeah, but like grave evil that can send people to hell like a kid looks at porn and gets gets addicted to that It's like not on my not on my watch you and citizen prime. I bet citizen prime was behind you He's like, not on my watch, you and Citizen Prime. I bet Citizen Prime was behind you. He's like, even though I retired, I'm glad they're still heroes. Maybe he gives out badges. And you could talk to him and he could send me one

I could wear all the time. I hope so. I wanna tell you about a course that I have created for men to overcome pornography. It is called strive21.com slash Matt. You go there right now Or if you text strive to six six eight six six will send you the link It's a hundred percent free and it's a course

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Strive21, that's Strive21.com slash Matt, or as I say, Text Strive to 66866 to get started today. You won't regret it. Anthony Christie says, does Trent smoke cigars? And if so, what is a good Catholic position, if or if not, what's a good Catholic position to hold regarding tobacco usage? I was kind of worried you were gonna ask me about this.

Yeah, well, give me your honest opinion. I really struggle with defending the morality of smoking cigars or cigarettes. I'm not going to pronounce a judgment because I'm still working through it myself. So I don't want to bind people like a fundamentalist might. I have serious concerns. I have a hard time justifying cigar and cigarette use. Because for example, we talk like natural law, right? Why is sodomy wrong?

It's like, well, you know what? That male member wasn't designed for the exit door. That should be very clear. Sometimes, every now and then, some things might go in the exit door. Like you gotta go for prostate exam. But that's not something we we seek out for pleasure. It's something we put up with because that's to do with life and you have the risk of colon cancer after 40 or something. But you don't seek it out for pleasure. That's not what it's made for.

Well, I would say like the lungs weren't made to receive toxic gases that significantly elevate your risk for cancer. Well, the lungs don't receive that in cigarsmoke. Well. The mouth does. The tongue does. Well, I would also say the mouth and tongue weren't meant to receive. Like, you might have to, you know, every time we breathe, there's particulates, right? And the air is not perfectly clean.

But it's like when we try to argue about homosexuality, right? We'll say like, well, that's disordered. And we might try to give an example. Like, well, what's another disordered thing you shouldn't do? Well, you shouldn't, you know, disordered thing you shouldn't do? Well, you shouldn't throw up food that you just ate because the stomach wasn't designed for that. Or you shouldn't.

And so it's, yeah, it's the tongue and mouth made of a nicotine. Yeah, so then it's, or we talk about pica, like it's disordered to want to eat like glass or dirt. Well, some of you will eat dirt, I think, for nutrients here and there, that's a different subject, like glass or rocks or, so like for me, it's like, well, if I use these natural law arguments.

Yeah, geophagia is what you're referring to. Yeah, so it's like, does, Yeah, that's clearly- Is there a proportional good to justify it? To me, it seems disordered and just the risks involved. Like for example, martial arts. I talked about this when I did my episode. I was engaging.

I know, I hate that I disagree with you on this, because I know you're smarter than me and would beat me if we argued about it. Yeah, I'm not trying to like, I'm trying to work through it too. I'm not a definitive, because I know a lot of people enjoy it. But it's like when I did my thing with-

No, I'm talking about martial arts. Well, I was engaging Father Mike. I know. And my, and I think he and I actually agree, there's a line that has to be drawn somewhere. Like I drew the line at like slap fighting. I know, yeah, I listened to it. Or like, you know.

But I think UFC's immoral. I'm with him on that. Sure, you draw the line there. Because the argument is just that there's gonna be a good reason to inflict or to almost, or to maybe inflict irrevocable damage on somebody. Right.

There's gonna be a good reason for that. And I would only say if someone holds that view, I think they'd have to put American football at the center level. I know, that's where I get uncomfortable because I don't know how to respond to that. You might just have to bite the bullet. Yeah.

And just say, no UFC, no football. Yeah, well, I think no UFC, no boxing. I think I'd be willing almost to do that. There's way more conclusive injuries than football. Okay, then fine. I guess I'll have to. Yeah, you might have to bite the bullet. It sucks, but that doesn't seem right.

That seems like crazy to say. I don't know. So, but my point was even even there there's things that I would say like slap fighting or Football well what I would say is there is no proportional good to justify the level of risk but so for me like Like I would say like if my son came to me and he said hey dad I want to start smoking or I'm gonna smoke, I wanna start smoking or I'm gonna smoke a pack of cigarettes today or I'm gonna do boxing. It would be really hard for me to say like,

oh, no, smoke cigarettes, don't box. It's like, at least even there I'd be like, I don't want him to get lung cancer or mouth cancer. I also don't want him to get head concussions. But I feel like- I'd rather my kid box. Yeah, cause you can wear a helmet for example, like, but like cigars, especially like cigars and things like that. Like there's not really filters. Like I feel like with the box.

Do you know of any, do you know of any studies on cigars or pipe smoking that show that it's, that it increases your risk of cancer? Yeah, no, it's no studies off the top of my head, but I can't see how it would be less healthy than cigarettes that use filters. Like I think. What about the idea that cigarettes contain other chemicals whereas cigars contain merely leaf? And what if it's that the Native Americans gave it to us

and you were a racist for denying it? Have you thought of that? Right, they didn't give it to us, Matt. We stole it from them along with the land. So it's actually, so it's even, so it's even worse. It's even worse than I thought. Even worse.

So that's where, yeah, I need to think about, let's get, I'm not binding people. I'm just, this is what I struggle with on it. Yeah, yeah, we're thinking it through. But, cause I mean, I grew up, my grandfather smoked cigars and I think the smell is nice, but I, it's not my thing. But there's other things too.

I mean, you could say the same thing about a million chemicals that we ingest every day. Like what about high fructose corn syrup? Would you put that in the same category as nicotine? I think the difference there is it's easier to justify a proportional good in eating calories to live. But I'm also really concerned about ultra processed food. Laura and I were going through a book,

I think it's called Ultra Processed, talking about how food companies using things like seed oils instead of butter, they're making food really much more unhealthy for us than it used to be. And that is also something like- Right, so there's like nicotine, I think, in like peppers and tomatoes and things like this So in that if I'm right about that, would you look that up real quick?

Is there nicotine in capsicum as we call in Australia? Because if there is you would find that more easy to justify than smoking a cigar Well the dangers in the dosage Like I said if you you could you're always breathing in particulates You can't just live in a sterilized room and not have that, but purposely inhaling them and they're carcinogenic. I would need a very high proportional good to justify that. What? Oh, capsicum.

That's in Australia we say capsicum. You all say peppers. Oh, capsicum, the spiciness. No. Wait, what? It's like red peppers and green peppers in the store. Oh, cool, those capsicums in Australia. But I think there's nicotine in that. Yeah, it wouldn't surprise me.

But like anything that you can, there's some things that are toxic. You have a small amount of them, it's fine. It's a natural herbicide. I mean, in some things like water, you drink too much water, it'll kill you. So it's the dangers in the dosage. But yeah, so when it comes to smoking.

Well, what about alcohol? Hang on, hang on, hang on, just, what? It's between 7.7 and 9.2 micrograms per liter. Okay, so there is some, More than alcohol. Hang on, hang on. What? Okay, so there is some, but you'd be able to justify that because you're trying to eat food. It's caloric intake that serves another purpose. However, I would say, like, I think it's, I would be really concerned about someone

who gives children diets that are high in high fructose corn syrup. I think that could be immoral. What about alcohol? Like how do you justify alcohol? I mean, we know what isn't alcohol. We know that if we drink water, that's better for us than drinking poison.

Isn't that what alcohol is? Well, alcohol, it is, I mean, it is diluted poison, but technically a lot of medicines are diluted poison. I mean, Tylenol will wreck your liver if you take too much of it, but it also eases, it's analgesic, it reduces pain. And so that, you know, you have to balance it. You can't take so much Tylenol, wreck your liver if you take too much of it, but it also eases, it's analgesic, it reduces pain. And so that, you know, you have to balance it. You can't take so much Tylenol or wreck your liver,

but you know, but if you abstain, you could really miss out on a medicinal purpose there. Alcohol, I have to look at, I don't know. I wonder if, I wonder if like the cancer risks and the harm to the body can be easier to mitigate with alcohol consumption than with cigarette and cigar smoking. So I don't know, I'd have to look deeper

into how the harm is inflicted, how it can be mitigated. I do think when it comes to drinking alcohol, I think when people smoke, they tend to smoke, I don't know, there's not that much difference in people's smoking habits. But I think drinking, everybody agrees you can drink too much. I think the line of when it becomes too much,

that can be a hard one to draw. Do you think that if Christ had of becoming Kana in Central Asia that he would have multiplied cannabis? Cannabis? Yeah. No, like marijuana. Isn't that where it came from, Central Asia? Isn't that where it came from? Central Asia, isn't that where cannabis comes from?

No, I think it's more of a crop that's grown in the- Look it up. I don't know. Look it up. Please look it up. Well- We've had certain people who've sat in that chair who've looked at Joe's eye when, look it up, hey!

Well- Monkey boy. If, well, I mean, I've just engaged Mormonism recently and went, look it up, hey, monkey boy. I mean, I've just engaged Mormonism recently. Are you looking it up? They talk about Christ going to the Americas. Am I right? Is it Central Asia? There you go, so like if Christ had of...

12,000 years ago, all right, fair enough, that's a long time. Maybe it went over the Asian land bridge with everybody. That's how it got to the Americas. So yeah, because the reason I asked that is just because it sounded like you were almost willing to demonize alcohol, if not demonize it, call it into question, and yet we know Christ multiplied wine. And so it becomes really awkward for the Christian

to try to say that alcohol is wrong. Alcohol is a little bit different because we do have, we have biblical precedents for responsible and irresponsible alcohol use. We don't have anything like that for cigars or cigarettes. Like the Bible is very clear. Paul says, do not be drunk on wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Paul in his vice list repeatedly says drunkenness is a grave sin. The Bible is very clear on the immorality of drunkenness. And it also talks about the use of wine though, and alcohol for festivities. Paul recommends Timothy to drink wine to settle his stomach, for example, to have a medicinal purpose.

So I think we have more actually from divine revelation. And also of course, an alcoholic beverage is something that is a sacrament, though it can be given in a way must that suspends the fermentation process. But the point is that there's a lot more for alcohol going on in divine revelation for us to consider in its moral use than cigars or cigarettes.

You know, I'm trying to talk about cannabis. We don't have to talk about that if you don't want to. Oh, about cannabis? Yeah. Oh, you mean smoking it or ingesting it? Either. What is the difference? Why is there a difference?

The same, doesn't the same effect result? No, I mean, well, my concern about smoking would apply to marijuana or cigarettes or cigars when it comes to ingesting things. I think it would just depend on the amount that's done. I don't, I wouldn't really wouldn't see how the, even if Christ became incarnate into the culture, I don't think cannabis serves the same symbolic value of necessity of life and eating as like bread does or wine that would be the equivalent we're going for here right oh um i don't know if cannabis is really like whatever the asian equivalent would bread would be if cannabis is the equivalent of wine i don't think on the

sat analogy exam that's going to line up all. This is going off the rails quick, so why don't we wrap this up. Anything else you want to talk about? I don't know. I apologize for all the people that I've offended. I did my best on the hot seat. We somehow went to the Holocaust, to marijuana, to cigars. Who knows. But yeah, I think these are important questions. There's a lot of things that we've covered, but I find at the end of the day, trying and whatever I try to do, especially with my own channel and my apologetics and evangelization, I try to keep an eye on like, what is, what is the middle path and try to, if I can find extremes, I can help me to see. Now, extreme isn't always bad.

Martin Luther King Jr. says nothing wrong with being extreme for love or extreme for justice. But when it comes to discerning things, always trying to find that logical and temperate middle ground I think is important. But being extreme for that, which we know is good, like you standing up on the plane like that, yeah, I have at it. What if that fellow watches my podcast? Maybe he will. Where's the weirdest place someone has said, Trent Horn, I watch you on YouTube. I think I got home once and Laura was like,

Trent, here you are. I finally watched an episode today. I don't usually do that. It's pretty good. They're actually pretty decent. Weirdest place. I don't know. Where's the weirdest place someone saw you at a Lego store in

Vienna. There's a woman who is at the counter and she's like Paints with Aquinas. Like a German and Austrian accent. Yeah, totally. Yeah. That was probably the weirdest place. Yeah, I don't.

I don't know. I can't get to any weird places that I go to, but there will be places where I feel weird. Like the airport? Do people stop you at the airport? Yeah, I guess it did happens in places. Yes, I was at the Eucharistic Congress. Oh, how was that?

Oh, it was beautiful. I thought it was great to see people, thousands and thousands of people. 50,000. Yeah, and someone at the airport recognized me, but they weren't, I was leaving, but they were not coming for the Congress. Well, I was expecting that.

A few people might see me at the, recognize me in the Congress or whatnot. But yeah, and someone else recognized me there. Another person recognized me and they're having a conversation with someone from the, a Sikh. It's an Eastern- Yeah, I didn't know if you meant the Sikh conference.

I couldn't tell. No, S-I-H-K, Sikh. And so we had a little chat and, you know, broke some common ground there. Cause I had Sikh friends growing up in high school. So I said, oh yeah, like you have the five essential things like, cause Sikh students, they have to wear a dagger. There's five things they have to wear for dagger. There's five things they have to wear

for essential element to their faith. They have to wear the turban, the dagger, and things like three other things. And- I wish we could wear a dagger. That's a cool thing to have to wear. And schools have to allow it actually for religious liberty.

Does it have to be sharp? I don't know if it has to be sharp. It has to be a dagger of a certain size and length. But it was, you know what was nice actually when I was engaging, I know you said Rappa, but this was fun. I find what's really helpful, it's good for Catholics. Some people don't like, once again, two extremes.

I remember once I was hanging out with the Pro-Life group and there was kind of a liberal nun there. And people were like, let's go see what this mosque is doing tonight. Like, oh, that would be great. Like, just to go, like like instead of going to it, there was like a Christian event we wanted to go to and they wanted to just go to this like Muslim event just to like have a virtue signal. Like,

look how cultural we are. But at the same time, if you refuse to learn anything about other cultures and religions, it can really harm your evangelism. So I have found, it's been very fruitful like to really study other religions because some people are like, oh, that's in differentism And you're gonna believe in the faith. Well, if you study it responsibly It really helps if you meet someone who's Sikh or Baha'i or Mormon and you can speak their language

It's like oh, yeah, so you know But even recognizing because a lot of people when they see someone who's Sikh they think oh you're a Hindu I'm like no, they're not Hindu You can tell by the style of the turban and this and that, they're Sikh. And being able to make those distinctions or talk about a Mormon and you understand the basics of wards and stakes, what Mormons believe, and you can talk almost inside baseball,

like inside Mormon, inside Sikh, inside Buddhist, and you have a conversation where like, they can tell you're not their religion, but you actually understand it pretty well, and you talk about it, it really opens the door now for you to share your faith. Because if you met a Protestant who couldn't tell the difference between the sorrowful

and the glorious mysteries or something like that, and they're hopelessly ignorant about Catholicism, you're like, oh, that's nice. But if they could talk to you like a fellow Catholic, and then say, hey, what do you think about this? You'd be like, oh, yeah, I don't know. I really, like you give them a lot more credibility. Yeah. The luminous mysteries. When John Paul II, his encyclical, suggested them as optional. Yeah. Did you think that was kind of weird? And it's like, oh, you really understand a lot. You're not just like someone out to get another notch on their belt to get a Catholic.

You took the time. It shows a level level of respect I'm super fascinated by Judaism I don't know if you watched my interview well Ben's interview with me But I was like, why don't you maybe a Jew? I want you to want me to be a Jew and I man We don't want anyone to be Jews I really want him on my show, right? Just so I can ask him all these questions But one of the questions I had was about the Sabbath and about combustion and I learned that there's a particular light that you can buy for your refrigerator that does not go off on Saturdays.

Yes, you can't. You can't. Cool is that the commitment impresses me. Yes, there's a lot of tick talks about how to skirt your way on the Sabbath regulations. There's there's also the elevators that open in every floor so you don't have to press a button to complete a circuit. Cool. Dennis Prager was telling me I see what Jesus was saying about laying up heavy burdens about I think I talked to Ben about this.

There's a word that they have, but basically you can't make somebody your slave, but Dennis can't light his cigar on a Saturday, but I could light it for him. Oh, he would indicate that he would like it. Shabas goy. I don't know. Yes, Shabas goy. It was something like that. It's it's a it's having a Gentile do work for you on the Sabbath. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Now, man was man was not made for Sabbath. Sabbath was was made for me. It's funny. It's like Catholics do have identifiers. And there's ones that are so obvious that you no longer can tell if that means they're a Catholic, like a crucifix. If you're on an airplane and someone's wearing a scapula,

you know, okay, they're hardcore. Well, that's similar in Judaism, right? You have a lot of Jews, they're basically, they're atheists that go to temple on Saturdays. Like a lot of like reformed Jews, which is very sad. A lot of that actually stemmed from the Holocaust. People lost a lot of faith and faith in God after that. You had some rabbis who are arguing that, well, God just isn't all powerful.

He would have loved to stop it, but he can't. And so that was that was a significant trial. That was a trial for a lot of Jews. But yeah, but it's interesting. You'll see some people are Jewish. But like if you see someone with, you know, it's got their their their keep on and full ringlets or other Jews, you know, you see like all the questions when I asked Ben when he comes on the show, when he comes. Wait, I'm really fascinated with it. and full ringlets or other Jews. You know, you just say like- See, these are all the questions I want to ask Ben

when he comes on the show. When he comes. I can't wait. I'm really fascinated with it. Well, it's... So I went to Florida and I was on his show and I went, they did the makeup thing. And so I sat down and his little hat thing was there.

The amika or keepa. Little hat thing, Trent. That's what they call him. Right. Yes. Oh, when Catholic Answers, we were visiting a local synagogue to just kind of we visit the local religious groups to like establish relations. Open yourself up to so much criticism when Catholic answers.

Yeah. The local synagogue. Yeah, I think it's important to understand Judaism so you can help Jews believe in Jesus. That's what I would that's what I would tell people. And I'm more than happy to help a Jew come to believe Jesus is the Messiah. To do that, you have to understand Judaism. And it was just good to establish that relationship. But what was the, was it like an outing or how did that?

It was like an outing to, I think, well, I think someone, oh, I think one of the staff members might've been doing some study there in Hebrew to help, and what's also is to help you learn like Hebrew, for example. And the rabbi invited us to come and I remember once he said, all right, as a Jew I always get asked two questions. That is a great Jewish accent. Does anyone know, it's just basically now I'm just Rabbi Herschel Christofsky from the from the Simpsons. Does anyone know what those two questions are? The apologists

looking around and I just raised my hand and he says he says you I'm like the first one is What's that thing on your head and the second one is why don't you believe in Jesus? He said very right young man So what's with the lock locks thing the curls that some of them have it's a beautiful gift of genetics. Okay, see It's a precious gift that we are to the world to share with others. I don't know the intricacies of the style and why. I mean, it could have a reference to the Old Testament, you know, you're not supposed to cut your hair, for example, as some verses refer to that for the preso.

Whatever, I'll ask Ben. Don't worry about it. I'm sure he'll know. I thought you'd know, because aren't'd know, aren't you a Jew? Why did you think I would know? Because of your hair, it's so beautiful. Well, thank you, I appreciate that. Who's the one, was it Laura who said you had Protestant hair? No, I've seen some people online say that I have hair.

I can't lie to you. All right, you want me to read it? I mean, yeah. All right, here we go, why the Jews wear it. Some Hasidic Jewish men wear long side curls called peyote as a result of an interpretation of the tongue. To knock the Jewish old the Old Testament to knock to knock prohibition against shaving the size of the head. Hey, I was right. I got there.

No, you weren't. Yeah, that's what I said. Yeah okay. If you got into a jujitsu fight with a fellow who had those. Well that would really be jujitsu. Like there's guys, no there's a there is an Israeli. No there's a there's a video online of an Israeli UFC fighter and this guy was being very anti-semitic to him online And the UFC fighter said fine. Why don't you fight me in real life? And he said okay and this online bully shows up at like a practice ring

Yeah with this Israeli UFC, you know mixed MMA fighter and he's actually kind of a big stocky guy Got absolutely pummeled. Yeah, the The bully got pummeled and it's always, it's always nice when a bully gets there. Absolutely. There's a lot of YouTube videos all about that. Oh really? Yeah, just about bullies getting. Yeah, I mean, once again, you know,

you don't want to stand back from evil and you also don't want to be vigilantes that punch poor people in the face. You know, you don't want to, you don't want to go too far. You're punching poor people in the face. I think, you don't wanna, you know, you don't wanna go too far. You're punching poor people in the face. I think that's a, that is a newer modern critique of Batman that Bruce Wayne could have used his millions

of dollars to reduce crime more by investing it in the community instead of getting a bunch of toys and driving around and punching poor people. Okay, what is the next best superhero movie that you foresee coming out that there's no wind of yet that may come out in the future Do you think no gosh I like to see or are we so done with superhero movies that we need another fight I don't think we're done super if you decades off before I need well, I think it's Marvel movies that are the problem

Marvel movies homogenized the superhero content. So it's all very generic in style color template Story plot beat jokes writing you seen one you see them all people are sick of that So I think there's always going to be like what is a superhero story? Like I love the oh, here's another good one to watch from the 90s the Rocketeer The Rocketeer there is a the Rocketeer there's a tad bit of The Rocketeer. There is a- The Rocketeer, I don't know what that is.

There's a tad bit of immodesty. No, it's not porn, but it's a bit immodest. It's brief, you could just quick fast forward to it. But overall, I do find it be a magical, whimsical, and it's a guy who finds a rock, it's set in the 1930s, wonderful score, finds a rocket pack, has to fight the mob and the Nazis. That sounds awesome.

Yeah, it's great. When did it come out? Oh, early 90s, probably. But it's like, and the Rocketeer is based on a very early comic series, or like The Shadow is another one. Are they superheroes? I think there's always a place for the hero

with a thousand faces, Joseph Campbell. Like that archetype, you may not call it superhero, but it's someone who gains a power or ability. Like it's Harry Potter, a superhero story. He starts from humble beginnings and acquires power. He has to use a sponsor lead to defeat evil. Eventually like superhero, it can become so generic. It's like, it's the hero's journey.

And those are always great stories. Superhero has just very particular tropes, secret identities and powers and things like that. but I don't know there's honestly I really checked out after Probably dr. Strange to like after Avengers endgame. They really you know I gave him a little bit and they they couldn't give back same with the DC. I Don't know I it takes a lot to get me out to uh I was so excited about the flash years ago before no I ever knew it would come out probably like one of the best super Movies I showed my kids another one is a mega mind. Yeah, that's a great. That was that's a great family film and superhero film

it's also a great commentary on Redpillars and there and they're disordered views of women. Yeah kind of Because you know the red pill stuff. Yeah, I do, yeah, but I don't know how it works. Do you remember how Megamind, how the cameraman gets obsessed with the girl? It's been a while since I've seen it. It's been a while. I remember there was a blue gentleman in this film,

but after that- There was a large head, almost bigger than mine. I remember that one, yeah. Yeah, but he's like obsessed with her, and he tries like, but he's kind of like weird and manipulative and cringey and dorky. Yes, yes, yes, the redheaded fella. Yeah, so he's weird and cringey and manipulative and dorky. Yes. Yes. Yes the redheaded fella Yeah, so he's weird cringey manipulative and dorky and he thinks to get that the girl the reporter

Well, he has to get all these powers and then she has to like him because he got all these powers and that's like An arc when I see men online thinking of ways to like Like yeah, they're like sucking up to women and then try to manipulate women with power or other things when it's like you should just Be virtuous and discerning when you engage in relationships. Aren't you so glad that when you and I got into relationships with our now wives. I'm glad you ended that with our now wives.

Aren't you glad when you and I got into a relationship? When we hooked up, you know, it's public knowledge. I wrote about it in my book. No, when you got married to Laura and I got married to Cammie, these conversations weren't even in the air. It was a little bit. I remember in my dating during my dating time, there was

there was a thing called pick up artists. So there was that. So there were men who were trying to teach other other men how to manipulate women and pick them up. There was this guy, mystery. He'd have a big hat and a clock on and sure women love that. Surprisingly it did work until women began to notice,

pick up artists and there's between the sexes, like an arm race, like men try to dupe women, women have to have dupe detectors, try to get better at duping. And I'm like, this is disordered and weird. I don't like that. So there was, there was actually a reality show where dorky guys, mystery would train them

to pick up women in public using his little manipulative tricks. And a dear friend of mine, a young lady, she was inadvertently on the show. Wow. It was in a grocery store with hidden cameras. And I like said- Does she not have to consent to that?

I think she signed off on it? I think she signed a form later. Okay. And was like, okay. And I was like, whatever. I was like, why consent to that? I think she signed off on it. I think she signed a form later. Okay. And was like, okay. And I was like. Whatever. I was like, why did you give him your number? He was so weird. She's like, I just wanted to be nice.

I was just like, oh, this is so weird and creepy and manipulative. Neil Strauss, he wrote a book called The Game that was related to that. So yeah, back then, but even back then, you know what I think the biggest thing kept things grounded was the majority way to meet people was through friends of friends. I think it's very, very majority way to meet people was through friends of friends.

I think it's very, very difficult now to meet people online. I'm not writing it off, but it seems extremely difficult. I really would love to see a resurgence of meeting people through friends of friends. And if you're having a meeting people build up your friend and network. Yeah. Because it's always nice to have a friend network. That's good. And from that, it's opportunities that can arise.

A recurring theme to which Josiah always approves of or agrees with me is that I don't understand how to give people dating advice anymore. I used to think that I did. I can give great dating advice to people if they were dating in 2004, but I find that when I do it today. Make her your top eight immediately on MySpace, and then she'll know you're serious. Yeah. But do you find that, that today's that things are so confusing that you don't even.

I don't know. I tell people not to worry about rinsing others up and, and. What does that word mean again? I think it's short for charisma. Wow. And although in our day be called game, which I think makes a lot more sense. Sorry, Gen Z. But I think makes a lot more sense. Sorry, Gen Z. But I think, I don't know. I think old fashioned advice can have its place though.

I like the dating advice. I would give some of the, what I followed and met Laura. I would say build up a friend network, friend of friends, start very casual, do things that only take 30 minutes or an hour, like coffee or a snack date of, not date even, just getting together. And after two or three times, if it seems to be congenial,

say, hey, do you wanna go on a date? And if you start seeing chemistry there, then you can talk more about, you know, you wanna just like date exclusively and see if there's something here and be on your behavior. Don't turn into a mini marriage and don't get so emotionally invested that like your breakup is like a divorce.

Just know it's a time to discern and find out. There was another, and also do things that are side by side where you're having an opportunity to see the best of one another. Don't just Netflix and chill. You know, do volunteer, do stuff together. I had a woman tell me that you should take a girl to the swimming pool so that you'll see her without makeup.

A girl said that? Yeah. What? So you should take it. Maybe it was that Sheila you debated here. Oh. Um, well, I mean- What was her name again? I think-

Pearl. I think that's one way to go at it. My favorite first date was Laura and I went to a bookstore. We got coffee. We each picked up three books that we could buy if we were going to. So we went out and said, let's get, let's each get, let's each get three books that we could buy right now. If we just money was no concern. I love it. And we go back and why'd you pick that book? Oh, that's a really great date night. Yeah. So my wife and I just celebrated our 18th anniversary. And so we were out at a steak restaurant because that's all my wife eats.

And they said, are you celebrating anything special? I'm like, please don't say anything, please don't say anything. My wife said, yes, it's our anniversary. Anyway, so they dumped some rose petals on our table, which I hated. But what we did is we collected the rose petals together. We collected 18 of them and we went over like 18 memories,

which I know you don't do when you first start dating, but that was a really beautiful thing. Some people do. It's our 18th day anniversary that we've been together. 18 things. Oh, I like that. Here's a nerd thing that we used to do. We used to do Wii dates. You know, the Nintendo Wii. Oh, good. I thought you said, I thought you said Wii dates. Good. Okay. The Wii. W-I-I. If you combine them, they're exceptional. Lot of motion sickness. Threw up all over the place

Can't believe she married me No, we would like candles drink wine and play the Nintendo Wii. That was real fun. Very oh another advice So for my other advice for men If if you ask a girl out and she's busy three times in a row, she's not busy. Let her go And girls if you are busy, you need to suggest an alternative. Don't forget to do that. Otherwise we are gonna take an incorrect hint.

Oh, the other advice, sorry. The other advice is guys should make the first move and girls need to make the first signal. I like that. Yeah, guys need to make the first move, ask out on something to get to know each other. Girls, as long as he's not a serial killer, give him a chance chance touch his arm and laugh. I know Laura was like I do that to everyone I'm like Laura too many signals. She's like, I'm sorry

Yeah, but I agree there's a lot of you loose a like when they look at dating now They're like it's like you're sitting on the lifeboat looking at the Titanic and you're like Made it out. Yeah the last helicopter out of Saigon and you're like, phew, made it out. The last helicopter out of Saigon. What's one thing maybe that you've learned from marriage or a difficult experience you've had in marriage that you all have gotten through? I've heard of difficult experiences.

I've never experienced it on myself in marriage. So it's foreign concept in the whorehouse. See, it's funny, given that Laura and I have the same temperament, I can imagine she's the one who has difficulties with the marriage You're like, I think everything's fine. Everything's going great. I'm looking at all the metrics here. We're doing great spreadsheet I was like what have I done No melancholy in severe doldrums of depression

I need Laura to scoop me out of them because melancholy just like things I have an ideal for perfection and nothing can live up To it. The world is terrible. Have you really, cause you don't strike me as melancholic in that regard. I am a hundred percent melancholic. I'm melancholic, Clarke. Yeah. But you don't seem like somebody who gets down in the dumps about things or idealistic

and then disappointed a bit. I'm good at shoving it deep down and then unleashing it on Laura. Oh, all right. And then she is a saint that pulls me back up again out of the depths of despair. Do you find that you're more idealistic than her? I think that I tend to be more perfectionist about things,

but there's other things she has very high standards for that can become unrealistic. I think the biggest struggle, I think when you struggle with marriage, it's different phases. So I think in the early part of marriage, the struggle is mismatches and learning to be tolerant to differences.

Like we went on our honeymoon, for example. I'm someone who eats late in the day. Like I don't eat breakfast. I eat at like two, seven and 10 p.m. And Laura is someone who eats at like seven a.m., 11 a.m., dinner at four. And so when I didn't plan our meals out quite right, there was a bit of a few hangry episodes on our European crisscross. So I made sure for her, I'll make

sure we have an early dinner. So I got like a six o'clock reservation in Paris. And like we get there and like the restaurant doesn't open until seven and we walk in and they're just like, why are you here? This is like the idea like you're up eating at 7pm. It'd be like eating at 330 in the afternoon here for dinner. Right. You know, she's like, I don't understand these people. This culture. Why can't people just go to bed at a reasonable hour?

So I think it's that mismatches and learning to live with one of those differences. And then I think later in marriage, the difficulty is you become comfortable with each other and you find a groove, but that can lead to taking one another for granted. And the loss of that conflict means you start maybe, you know, if there's a familiarity there that can breed a disinterest or contempt even. So I think that as once you get past like the seven years, like those first, and of course there's people

listening to them marry for 50 years, but I do think that there's, so I don't know what the next phase is after like from seven to 20, but I do think there's like that mismatch period where you feel like, why did I marry this person? This is the wrong person, we don't get along, and then you find you've settled into a group,

but you can almost like turn into roommates. And that's dangerous too, because you're not, you live together, it's not roommates, and kids and everything else, you're trying to like balance a life and you become teammates rather than spouses. And I think that there's a danger there also, you have to be cognizant of.

I found that the two of us being dedicated to like healing, inner healing, growing in holiness, dealing with things. That has really kept things beautiful and fresh. Well, there's so much conflict that you don't realize. It's wounds that you had from your family of origin. Totally. And you bring those in, you don't realize it. I just expect my wife to act the way my parents acted

or people I knew growing up acted. And when she doesn't act those ways, I'm like, is she hiding things? Or why is she so different than me? Yeah. Or in your life, you, me, I, all of us, developed unhealthy ways to respond to stressors in life based on patterns of how we grew up.

And we bring that into marriage with someone else. And you have to look at what are the ultimate things you have bonding together. That's why it's so important to have a strong faith to fall back on, to be the thing that bonds you together. And you're committed to the benefit and wellbeing of the other person and being willing to grow and being willing to recognize on both sides,

hey, where am I falling short or where am I having a disordered view of things? And I have an unhealthy habit that I need to work on and we work on together. Are you pretty good at acknowledging when you've screwed up? I'm the best at acknowledging when I screw up. I've never been wrong about it. I'm just kidding.

Sounds awesome. Like who is it you or her who tends to be like, ah, who's more quick to acknowledge, I shouldn't have done that. Well, I think Laura is quicker to do things in general because she's more sanguine. And you're kind of sanguine in that regard. I think I guess I have flare ups of sanguine.

But I'm definitely melancholic, caloric, which surprises people. But I think you're more quick to. Yeah, I'm very spontaneous and impulsive. We were, Laura is like 100% sanguine as a temper, which tends to be extroverted, people pleasing, seeking out the party, sociable. See, Cameron's an extrovert, but she's textbook caloric.

That's why the two of you would kill each other, I think. I get along with calorics if they see that- I'm right. Well, I'm not trying to take whatever position they have. I've just got my thing and I think it's correct and they do their thing and we can play off each other. I think that with- Cameron, just to finish that point, Cameron is can play off each other. Yeah. I think that with this. Cameron, just to finish that point,

Cameron is very much okay with other calerics. She just needs to understand why we're taking this course of action. She's not okay sort of just going along with it because you said so. She needs to understand it. Now, if you've got an opinion that's different to hers and you can argue for it and she understands it,

she'll totally be fine sacrificing her opinion going with yours. She just really needs to understand it. And I think in the beginning of our marriage, I thought she was being argumentative or nitpicky when she really just, no, I need to help me understand this. Well, I think, Laura, we were reading a temperament, and people who aren't familiar, look up the book,

the four temperaments, or the temperament God gave you. familiar. Look up the book, the four temperaments or the temperament, the temperament God gave you. And it said in the book for saying weans, saying weans is kind of person who will say, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. And then the next day act like it's water under the bridge and nothing happened. So they could have these like flare ups and it was like,

oh, I'm sorry, let's just, you know, I didn't mean that. You know, it's all over. And I mean, Laura doesn't do that verbatim, but like quick up, quick down. Whereas a melancholic, it's like this slow fuse that becomes an atom bomb. And then it's like radiation persists for like decades. So I think melancholic have more of a penchant

to hold grudges. Whereas like, so it's saying we can flare up and we're good. Whereas melancholic might be like, and then it's saying we can flare up and we're good. Whereas melancholic might be like And then it's always hovering around for a long time and they have to learn to let that stuff kind of go It's funny though how I know this is an obvious thing to say but so much of this stuff doesn't fit into neat little categories like Cami people men often tell me that their wives don't say what they mean You know, they'll say one thing, but they really mean another and you've got to, got to guess it. And if you're wrong, then

she'll be upset. 18 years, 18 years of marriage. That is not my wife. That is not her. And she says what she means. Um, it's bizarre. Christ said, let your yes mean yes, you know mean no. I'm glad she does it, but it is refreshing. Yeah. But it's taken me 18 years to believe her. Like she'll say something like, oh, maybe she's not really thinking, like no, that is absolutely, which she's very straightforward.

I think it's something I struggle with too. I think I grew up in an environment where, and I think other people can relate to this, you sometimes grow up in an environment where people, and I think other people can relate to this, you sometimes grow up in an environment where there's a dysfunctionality in that parents or caretakers will say one thing, but they mean another, and it's your job to figure it out. And I think a lot of people have this struggle

with relatives and family members. A person will say something they believe is the acceptable thing they're supposed to say, but they mean another, and it's your job to find out that meaning. And if you can't find it, you're being disrespectful. So they might say, for example, oh, it'd be so fun to have you over for dinner sometime. And then they don't really want to have anyone over.

They're just saying that to be nice. And the other person says, yeah, how about, let's do Saturday. And it's like, uh, whereas the person who said that said, oh, it's like an invitation, they want me to come over. Yeah, let's do that, that'd be fun. When it's like, no, I was just trying to be nice, I don't really mean that. I'm just trying to say a thing that sounds nice. And you know, it's like the idea

that someone will offer something. Or the same like, oh, do you want me to pay for that? And the game is, that's me showing I care. And you show you care by declining. Yes. And so it's like, we don't say what we mean. It's more like we've, we try to figure out, have you learned the game of etiquette by figuring out the hidden meanings of all this? And some people don't, they're like, yeah, that'd be great if you paid. How does that apply to you and Laura then?

Well, I think it applies to any relationship. I know it does, but in specifically like, is it you or Laura who has done that more and have you had to grow through that? I don't know, I think one- Because I would say that I grew up maybe in more of a passive aggressive kind of family. Yeah.

Yeah, so similar to what you're talking about, whereas my wife is, I've never met anyone less passive aggressive than her. I think I dealt with more growing up of people don't really say what they mean and it's your job to find the hidden clues. And I think that is a fight that we've had when Laura says, when I said that, I mean it.

I'm like, do you really mean it? And she says, and if I went back on that later and said I was mad when before I said it was okay, that's my problem. Good for her. Yeah, so it's, I'm a lucky man. See the channel, you know, it's, I'd much rather

Get out of my office I'm a lucky man. That's the video. Oh, I would much rather I I would go crazy married to someone who is who just had a very just like Very flat and everyone has a different affects right but a very flat temperament That was because there's the phlegmatics phlegmatics get along with everybody. Yeah, but it's like that's why I like them I love hanging out with phlegmatics. Yeah, but I think in marriage you need a little no no marriage I've never been attracted to anyone who's phlegmatic, but I just mean as friends. I often say of Laura and you I say Laura is to Trent what the church is to Christ. She makes him intelligible I'm like am I this am I this unintelligible?

Buster when we met you I thought you were cool and my wife liked you but she wasn't really too sure about you And then we met Laura and we're like, oh Now it makes sense. Yeah, I That's one thing I have enjoyed. People will, you know, I don't know. What's been nice doing the channel actually and doing Free For All Friday is I feel like people, like if I meet, when I meet people,

I sometimes see comments they've written about me later after they've met me, which is always weird, right? You'll talk about you online later. But it's always nice, usually they say he's like how he is on his show Like I would I would go crazy if like counselor Trent I had to be like a character You know trying to be professional engage. I don't talk in regular life like I talk on the show I write a script for it, but if you listen to free for all Friday for example on my which is audio

I'm hoping to get that onto its own. It has its own YouTube channel. I'm gonna hopefully make new content for that soon I did that originally for the podcast. That's something fun for people to see I'm not just an apologetic like yeah It's you know, I like here's this other and you if you like this stuff you might enjoy And I think that's why when you look at like like people will say like father Mike Schmitz on Bible in the year That's just who he is. But that is his personality He is not he is not putting on a character. Bishop Barron is not a character. And I think that is important for those of us

who are publicly sharing the faith to have that kind of authenticity. Now, you don't wanna just say whatever pops in your head, even if it's offensive, but you're like, ah, I still have to work on. Still have to work on a little bit. But if it's so carefully crafted that it's just like this fake persona.

I don't think that's helpful. Right. No, I've used the analogy before that if you're continually trying to like make your personality and way of speaking just so so that it appeals to everybody, you end up as interesting as those hotel advertisements you see within hotel elevators. It doesn't appeal to anybody. Like it's completely inoffensive and uninteresting. Like our hotel art. Yeah. There's the office, they said like Oscar says of Pam Beasley's art, it's hotel art.

I know. That it's just inoffensive, but it doesn't stir emotions. It's just a bland sailboat. Yeah. Yeah. That was so beautiful when Michael came in. It doesn't matter. Trent, I like you a lot and I'm grateful that you came on my show.

Oh, super fun. Thanks for having me. Anything you want to point people? I want to just say this. I mean, people who watch this show know of your channel, but I want to invite people to go and subscribe to the Council of Trent because it does help the channel. So even if you watch Trent's show frequently and you haven't subscribed, please go subscribe. Yeah.

Thanks for the work you're doing. Well, thank you for having me. Thanks for the work you're doing. Bill, thank you for having me and thanks for the work you're doing. Awesome sauce.