0:00
all right good morning getting ready to
0:02
do therapy
0:05
session um which should be pretty good
0:08
kind of looking forward to
0:13
it um I've got a whole list of [ __ ] to
0:16
talk
0:19
about
0:22
Sho let me go take a hit of crack real
0:25
quick I'm kiding I don't do
0:27
crack um oh [ __ ]
0:33
all
1:12
all right here we
1:16
go see what
1:21
happens I think I look pretty good oh
1:24
hello there
1:25
sir hey good morning you're right on
1:28
time as always I like that about you
1:31
nice nice background are you at home
1:34
yeah working from home today hey all
1:36
right I like your little um cubicle
1:39
there yeah my little self selfmade
1:42
cubicle to not give away any like tricks
1:45
or or evidence of what you do with your
1:47
life you uh box it in I can see a little
1:51
bit on this side is that a TV or
1:54
something uh I have I'm sitting on a
1:57
desk and I have some lights that run oh
1:59
light okay all right along the edge
2:02
curious okay well good morning good
2:07
morning how are you I'm okay I'm okay
2:11
okay yeah I'm okay how how are you what
2:15
are you up to doing all right a little
2:18
tired but yeah what makes you tired
2:21
talking to people all
2:23
day um yeah going to bed too late
2:27
getting up too early that sort of thing
2:29
gotcha
2:31
okay I haven't been drinking as much
2:33
water today so I think that's probably
2:36
part of it as
2:41
well so what's on your agenda for our
2:44
session well I've got uh I've got my
2:46
list of notes again I always make notes
2:48
awesome and uh got 10 items to talk
2:54
about some uh will dive into a little
2:57
bit more than others
3:04
yeah all right I guess you know we'll
3:07
start here with the beginning and then
3:09
and then it we'll kind of loop back
3:10
around to some elements that are in this
3:14
first particular
3:16
issue okay
3:18
um who do you think's gonna win the
3:21
debate today between uh Joe Biden and
3:24
Donald Trump if Trump even does the
3:27
debate that I have no idea oh come on
3:30
yes you do you're not you're not a dummy
3:33
you
3:34
know yeah butting my my politics here
3:38
might not be the most helpful it would
3:40
be actually it would be clearly helpful
3:42
because there's a clear right and wrong
3:45
side in this particular era of politics
3:49
in the United States unlike let's say
3:52
maybe 10 or 20 years ago when it was
3:55
Republicans vers Democrats it was
3:58
conservative policy versus liberal
4:02
policy and that's not what's on the
4:04
table right now at all we are looking at
4:08
democracy versus fascism no we're
4:11
looking at the end of
4:13
democracy um this is a big deal and let
4:17
me give you an
4:19
example back in the year oh my goodness
4:23
2005 I would say I was at Sunni Albany I
4:27
was going to Sunni Albany
4:30
and I ended up getting this roommate she
4:34
was Korean her name was
4:36
JK and I was talking with
4:39
her and I guess at at that time in 2005
4:44
I wasn't really aware of the big
4:47
difference between North and South Korea
4:49
I was like who cares right what's the
4:52
difference well as you know there's a
4:55
big difference right like South Korea is
4:58
a Democrat itic uh country that actually
5:03
contributes to the world with science
5:05
and technology and they're a developed
5:09
Nation whereas North Korea is a
5:12
horrendous
5:13
dictatorship of about 25 million people
5:16
it's it's it's substantially big and and
5:21
it's horrid
5:23
so that's a similar situation to right
5:26
now there's a clear winner
5:30
I mean this isn't even democracy anymore
5:33
I mean this is the fight
5:34
for uh you know the way a nation should
5:37
be and to have a leader that cares
5:41
nothing but himself cares nothing but
5:44
for himself so can I ask you again who
5:47
do you think's going to win the
5:50
debate I mean one man's clearly insane
5:53
and one man's not so to be to be neutral
5:56
on this is is is concerning
6:00
I'll I'll pick the uh the non crazy non
6:04
insane okay well that's that's clear
6:07
then okay good now the reason I guess
6:10
I'm kind of drilling you on it a little
6:11
bit is cuz I asked my sister that
6:13
question
6:15
yesterday by text message I sent her and
6:19
her
6:20
husband a message saying you know who do
6:22
you think's going to
6:25
win and my sister just says back I'm not
6:28
really into politics and then she says I
6:31
love you boom and that's but it was
6:33
disturbing because of what I just
6:35
explained to you about North and South
6:40
Korea so it feels like that this
6:43
election kind of is my fork in the road
6:46
and left or right I I'm afraid to ask
6:49
her any follow-up questions but the
6:52
follow-up question is do you not vote
6:55
anymore do you not believe in teaching
6:58
your children to vote
7:02
which I understand not liking politics
7:05
because politics is awfully nasty right
7:07
now like Donald Trump has injected it
7:11
with just the nastiest
7:15
um
7:17
elements like they're you know they're
7:19
used to not the Republicans used to uh
7:23
you know really care about Law and Order
7:25
for example Like Richard Nixon he
7:28
resigned because because there was a
7:30
potential he broke the law he did break
7:33
the law and so he resigned because the
7:36
Republicans are like we can't have
7:38
somebody breaking the
7:40
law right right but now the law does not
7:44
matter and what's on the what's on the
7:48
line now honestly I think you and I
7:51
might be okay cuz I
7:55
mean we are still in the majority I
7:58
suppose as white men
8:00
uh and you work with veterans I am a
8:02
veteran I think veterans might stay okay
8:05
but the what's at stake is immigrate is
8:08
immigrants and
8:09
minorities like I mean if Donald Trump
8:13
had his way which he doesn't personally
8:16
give a [ __ ] I don't think but
8:18
politically it's it's good for him to
8:20
you know Deport everybody or not allow
8:24
immigrants at all so the core position
8:28
that they have that's who's that's
8:29
what's on the line here so that's why I
8:31
mean you and I might be
8:33
okay but millions of others won't be
8:37
okay so it's sort of a big
8:40
deal
8:42
and what what this has to do with
8:45
anything this has something major major
8:47
to do with something that I've
8:51
been I've been really meditating about
8:54
and thinking about and praying
8:56
about well prayer prayer if God's real I
9:00
mean you know last week I was I'm
9:05
still a little bit doubtful whether
9:08
God's even real or not cuz if God's not
9:10
real then you know the billions of
9:13
people that go to church are all
9:16
delusional um and that's troubling
9:18
that's really troubling anyways this
9:21
directly leads into a concept that I
9:24
have been very worried about
9:27
lately nihilism
9:32
what do you think about
9:37
nihilism what what am I supposed to
9:39
think about n or what do
9:43
you I mean I what do I think about
9:45
nihilism I mean it's a are you
9:47
philosophy are you a
9:49
nihilist I wouldn't I wouldn't describe
9:51
myself I wouldn't say you're nihilist
9:53
either no but nothing matters is what
9:56
nihilism is like just there just nothing
9:58
matters there's no point to
10:02
anything and and and that's what I kind
10:04
of want to ask my sister I'm like okay
10:06
so you're not really into politics
10:08
anymore so nothing matters then like now
10:12
she can be her be a Christian and not
10:16
and it still doesn't make sense how you
10:18
cannot not care about millions of real
10:22
life people like immigrants or
10:26
minorities and be a Christian that
10:28
doesn't make any sense so there just if
10:31
you're going to say to hell with
10:33
politics then really nothing matters
10:35
like I mean to say that there is no God
10:38
then nothing
10:41
matters but that's more of a
10:43
philosophical thing politics are at
10:45
least real if anything's real the whole
10:48
universe could be a all in my
10:50
imagination that is another
10:53
philosophy you know what I mean there's
10:56
a lot of like the mind is doing a lot of
10:59
jumping here to to if this then this
11:02
conclusion so I'm just like kind of
11:04
drawing your attention to that process
11:06
that that perhaps there's some wiggle
11:09
room in there because I'm kind of
11:11
envisioning someone who might say that
11:12
they're not into politics and yet still
11:15
I participate in the voting system they
11:17
don't necessarily you know pay attention
11:20
to debates like tonight or some of these
11:23
larger spectacles but they still care
11:26
about certain things and sure o actually
11:31
I have this is not on my list but gun
11:33
violence is something that I've been
11:36
kind of debating with my sister cuz um
11:40
her and her husband have a bunch of guns
11:42
like he my brother-in-law is a hunter
11:46
like but he's a responsible gun owner
11:49
he's one of the good guys with a gun for
11:52
all intensive purposes if if there's
11:54
such a thing as a good guy with a gun um
11:57
what is a myth would be good guys with
12:00
guns stop bad guys with guns that's not
12:04
how guns really
12:05
work like you just don't simply have the
12:08
gun handy enough when the bad guy with
12:11
the gun shows up unless you're carrying
12:14
around your gun all the
12:16
time um but as a
12:19
Christian as a Christian I think that
12:24
you should completely surrender all
12:27
violence uh surrender give it up like
12:30
God is your protection Jesus says if
12:33
someone slaps you you let them slap you
12:36
on the the other cheek as well I mean
12:38
let God be your protection in the
12:42
universe because now this goes back to
12:44
politics do you know what the number one
12:46
killer of children in the United States
12:49
is the number one cause of death for
12:53
children guns guns which is such a sad
12:59
pathetic frankly statistic because guns
13:04
uh children don't buy guns they they
13:07
can't use guns you know they don't make
13:11
the guns they don't sell the guns but
13:13
yet they're the victims of guns now is
13:17
whether they're shooting each other or
13:18
adults accidentally shoot them or
13:21
whatever however the situation at the
13:24
end you have a dead child because of
13:26
guns so it's sort of a messed up like if
13:31
there was any other industry in the
13:33
country that was killing children at
13:36
this enormous rate we would shut it down
13:40
like if toys were killing children at
13:42
this
13:43
rate we would shut it down right right
13:48
gun violence it's just just so senseless
13:51
now I'm a Marine Corps veteran and I'm
13:54
responsible partly for unn Untold
13:58
numbers of deaths
13:59
like in
14:01
Afghanistan and um now as a Christian I
14:05
put that behind me I mean I I have to it
14:09
still weighs very heavily on
14:11
me but for my sister to
14:14
flippantly believe guns are good not
14:19
participate in
14:20
politics and the thing that really bugs
14:23
me about her is that I I have a
14:25
16-year-old nephew right with with um
14:30
their their son and they don't want me
14:33
playing violent video games with him
14:35
like killing zombies in video games now
14:37
that is something I do love virtual guns
14:39
love them love them love them I mean
14:41
give me a million zombies to kill oh
14:43
I'll be happy all day
14:45
long okay but it's those are video games
14:48
right that's not
14:49
real and I can clearly distinguish
14:52
between the real because I like killing
14:55
zombies does not mean I would ever well
14:58
I would never obviously never pick up a
15:00
gun and shoot somebody yeah um and the
15:03
research the research supports that that
15:06
violent video games don't lead to vient
15:09
action and aggression out there a lot of
15:12
research so I don't think I can be
15:13
friends with my sister anymore I the
15:15
things are building up where I just I
15:18
want to be a positive influence in in
15:21
her life and in her kids lives and um if
15:25
we just disagree on everything
15:30
anyways let's Circle back to nihilism
15:33
I've been meditating on it and quite
15:38
frankly it's not that
15:40
helpful like to believe that nothing
15:42
matters is not very helpful I don't find
15:45
it like yes it makes sense that nothing
15:50
matters but then what do you do with
15:52
that there's no there there there's no
15:54
real good direction to go if you yeah
15:59
include if that becomes your world view
16:01
that nothing matters so that leads into
16:05
Hedonism which I think that's the next
16:07
natural step from nihilism is Hedonism
16:11
just the pure pursuit of pleasure you
16:14
know sex drugs and rock and roll that
16:16
sort of thing yeah and that's definitely
16:20
not the answer like I mean I guess we
16:22
could go on and on philosophically why
16:25
Hedonism is not a good thing
16:30
and there could be philosophers who
16:33
think Hedonism is the best
16:35
thing well yes they're not Christians
16:38
though obviously it it's
16:41
contradictive to Christianity in almost
16:43
every way like so it's interesting that
16:47
you could say a philosopher would think
16:48
heathenism is a good thing but they
16:50
would not be a
16:52
Christian at all if if you really think
16:56
that just pursuing pleasure is the point
16:58
of life
17:02
now I guess in a big scale of thing well
17:04
part of Christianity is
17:06
sacrifice right you sacrifice your own
17:09
pleasure now so you know for you know
17:13
the future whether you give God directly
17:16
your tithe which is a
17:19
sacrifice or you know you don't have as
17:22
good of a time now so you can have a
17:25
good time later which is ultimately the
17:28
point of life as far as a Christian goes
17:30
is you
17:31
are
17:33
surrendering and sacrificing your
17:35
pleasure now so you can have eternal
17:38
pleasure later right for eternity and
17:42
and okay hold on so so perhaps
17:46
Christianity is
17:48
hedonistic it sort of except it requires
17:52
sacrifice Hedonism doesn't doesn't
17:55
really consider
17:57
sacrifice immediate right it's more
17:59
immediate yeah yeah all right so I do
18:02
have a point to this all of this by the
18:04
way I'm circling back
18:08
to
18:10
so in my meditations I've concluded
18:14
nihilism isn't very helpful and he and
18:17
Hedonism ultimately is
18:21
destructive I think Hedonism would
18:24
be uh um Insidious like if might seem
18:29
good at first but um you sex and drugs
18:34
for example well drugs for example I
18:37
guess only get worse they never get
18:39
better like the the time you might have
18:42
it it gets progressively better up to a
18:45
point and then you you crash and burn
18:49
like pretty
18:50
bad you know gateway drugs and stuff
18:53
like that yeah so okay the next topic
18:57
that I that I did some serious
18:59
meditation on is
19:03
gnosticism what do you think of
19:07
gnosticism not quite as familiar with
19:09
nastic ISM ah good one okay I know I
19:12
know agnostic oh agnostic is when you're
19:16
unsure um in the belief in God yes yes
19:19
yes but that's agnostic gnosticism it's
19:23
the one that spells with the G so it's
19:25
gnosticism yeah yeah
19:29
well from my understanding gnosticism is
19:32
it was a pretty strong competitor I
19:37
guess to um the rising popularity of
19:41
Christianity in like the first century
19:45
okay so 2,000 years ago we're talking
19:48
here um it was a direct philosophical
19:52
competitor to the idea of Christ I guess
19:55
and
19:56
Judaism right cuz it has more to do with
19:59
I guess the Old Testament than well
20:02
gnosis gists believe that Jesus
20:06
either was never a real person that he
20:10
the entire time he was a
20:12
ghost right
20:14
just not not what Christianity believes
20:17
that Jesus was fully man and fully God
20:21
and then he you know and he died and
20:23
went to heaven and or actually died and
20:25
went to hell first which is very
20:27
interesting the three days he on the
20:29
cross between Good Friday and Easter the
20:33
resurrection is when he came back to
20:35
life it's all very confusing unless
20:37
you're really really into the Theology
20:39
of it but
20:42
gnosticism proposes that the god of the
20:45
Old Testament was
20:47
evil and that the serpent for example in
20:51
the Garden of Eden was the good
20:55
guy which is just
20:59
mindblowing right that now it makes
21:01
sense because God was hiding from Adam
21:04
and eveing from Adam and Eve God hid the
21:08
knowledge of Good and Evil like because
21:11
they were in Paradise they didn't need
21:13
to know it and then the serpent tricked
21:17
Eve to eat from the Tree of knowledge of
21:21
Good and Evil and when they ate the
21:24
fruit their eyes were opened and they
21:27
and they saw that they were naked and
21:29
and they were
21:30
ashamed um just what a weird alternate
21:35
Theory to the universe here
21:37
gnosticism yeah that God is evil oi oi
21:43
it's just it's it's terrifying really
21:47
so I I think I went on kind of a fun
21:50
little little journey here where yeah
21:53
I'm a Christian and I just doubted God's
21:56
existence and that brought me to
21:58
nihilism where nothing
22:01
matters and I found ultimately that's
22:04
unhelpful and then I went to Hedonism
22:07
and then I went to
22:08
gnosticism and all of those philosophies
22:11
are ultimately not as good as you know
22:16
just basic biblical
22:20
Christianity yeah um so it's sort of a
22:22
full circle like and I have a couple of
22:26
other good words for you here is um
22:29
well gnosticism is classically
22:34
heretical like everybody knows that
22:38
narcissism is
22:40
heresy are you familiar with
22:43
heresy are you yeah good for you
22:49
okay excuse me I don't I wonder about
22:53
you cuz you don't give me much
22:54
information so I'm I have to ask if
22:57
you're so anyways I am not a
23:02
heretic in fact um well I've always been
23:06
a teacher a teacher of things and and my
23:10
one reason I'm so angry at God is I
23:13
wanted to
23:15
be um a great
23:18
evangelizer right a spreading of the
23:21
Gospel the good
23:23
news of Jesus right that's what the go
23:26
gospel does translate to good new
23:30
news
23:32
um and I'm just upset with God because
23:35
because I got such uh the the shitty end
23:39
of the stick with my wife like if I if
23:43
God gave me a good Christian wife I
23:46
would be in a much better spot to do
23:48
some great
23:50
evangelizing yeah but now I'm just
23:53
utterly alone right now and that so I've
23:56
got so much time to meditate annihilism
23:59
instead of going out there and just
24:02
being a really good Christian and and
24:05
spreading the good news and you know
24:08
because I have an ability to do it in a
24:11
nice
24:12
way yeah like I I
24:14
don't I don't I wouldn't
24:17
preach what what this is like part of
24:20
the process that this is like the work
24:23
that gets done to then be that good
24:26
evangelizer like this is the this is the
24:28
gritty hard difficult work it is that
24:31
goes from you know point A to point B
24:33
that like you kind of see point B and
24:35
you're at Point
24:37
a and maybe before you thought it was a
24:39
straight line but it's really good point
24:41
good point however a
24:45
Counterpoint is rather than me sitting
24:47
alone in my
24:50
apartment meditating on nihilism I could
24:54
be in my house with my wife with a whole
24:59
different set of problems regarding
25:02
raising of our
25:04
children like I would trade in sitting
25:07
alone meditating about nihilism to have
25:11
to be further ahead because no matter
25:14
what if I
25:15
meet my goal is to ultimately meet a
25:18
woman and and have children although at
25:22
this point I'm almost 40 I'm going to be
25:24
40 in
25:25
July and I don't want to have baby in my
25:29
40s because I've told you I don't
25:32
believe I'm going to live to be 80 years
25:35
old or even 60 maybe I'll make it to 60
25:39
but if I have children in four years
25:41
four or five years then you know they'll
25:43
be 20 when I'm 65 and that's you know
25:47
what I mean and I'll be 75 when they're
25:50
30 and that's you know what I mean it's
25:53
it I'm running out of time unless they
25:55
come up with life extension or something
25:58
or I would have to probably get new
26:01
lungs maybe a new liver I don't know in
26:04
order to live longer like I mean I'm
26:07
going to my my my body will fail at some
26:10
point and I will die like that's a
26:13
reality of of science the one yeah the
26:16
one thing we do know about life that's a
26:19
science reality yeah science I love
26:21
science oh my goodness
26:26
so okay so I'm not
26:28
heretic and I'm also not an
26:32
apostate I feel good about not being an
26:36
apostate because the way that Christian
26:40
theology goes is you start you might
26:42
start off as an atheist not knowing god
26:46
and then maybe go to an agnostic for a
26:48
little while but then you become a
26:50
Believer and once you're a Believer like
26:53
you're in the club sort of you're once
26:55
you know of God's goodness there's no
26:59
going back you can never go backwards in
27:01
time and become an atheist again like if
27:04
you're a Christian and then you become
27:06
an atheist you were never really a
27:08
Christian you never fully knew the love
27:11
of
27:12
God yeah the only Next Step would be
27:15
being an
27:17
apostate you leave the religion that is
27:20
okay Christianity what does separate it
27:23
from a real
27:24
cult is you're allowed to leave they
27:27
don't shun you most churches anyways I
27:31
mean the Jehovah's Witnesses for example
27:33
they're famous for
27:35
shunning you for leaving like you're not
27:38
allowed to talk to your family anymore
27:41
if you're Jehovah's Witness and you
27:42
leave and so that makes them a
27:45
cult hey I don't make the rules for
27:48
Cults I'm just using the the the
27:51
definitions of Cults right I love
27:54
studying Cults by the way it's one of my
27:56
favorite subjects yeah they're f
28:03
um all right how are we doing we're
28:05
about halfway through here all right I'm
28:07
doing I'm making good time
28:09
here
28:12
um thank you for bearing with me through
28:14
that whole nihilism
28:19
thing I I don't know the the nihilism
28:21
thing is still a filter of my life right
28:23
now it's something I'm I'm seeing
28:26
everything through like does this have
28:28
meaning and purpose in the world or does
28:31
it not and like it or not
28:35
politics have I think probably the
28:39
biggest impact on the world so like it
28:43
or
28:45
not you know we we do have the
28:49
opportunity to participate in the
28:51
political system by voting that's our
28:55
say and and that does affect the world
28:58
like in a major major way like it
29:01
decides where people live and whether
29:05
people get
29:06
to um go on living if it wasn't for our
29:09
government well I never would have went
29:11
to
29:12
Afghanistan um and then been injured and
29:16
now I've got disability from the
29:18
government which is just a wild chain of
29:22
event really
29:25
is um
29:30
all right I've got a couple of more big
29:33
big things to talk about um I would like
29:36
to just talk about briefly uh Sarah
29:38
Quill again with you