This is this was all lies and that's what made me then go into these other events
9-11 like man if I was like to about this that's I gotta revisit 9-11 9-11 for me was sacred for the longest time
I was a firefighter because of it
As someone that believed in science, I'm not saying I don't believe in science
But science has also become very dogmatic, you know
It comes off as something that is anti religious anti dogma
And yet it does the same things that religious
Organizations do you have to believe in these tenets or we will ex-communicate you and Pontius pilot famously says what is truth?
Do you believe you have a soul? I don't know anymore, man
This is what pissed off my parents like no
We have to accept the resurrection story and they would get mad and I'm just a
Inquisitive little kid man. I was like nine years old. No, but he's got it, right?
You tell me he's got he knows everything and he claimed to be the son of God
So we have to we have to do something with that you either have to believe him or you don't
I want to try to be the best person that I can't I'm not perfect by any means man
But I'm gonna try to do things as best as I could so that if I go or if my brain goes at one point
You're like hey man, at least he was trying to be the best person that he could be
You're listening to the great reassessment podcast
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Hey everyone, I wanted to make a quick intro before we get into the actual show because I don't think I gave my guest a proper
Introduction while we were actually recording so that's my bad
So I'll do that now my guest today goes by the name of wheezy
And he is the host of the what is truth?
Podcasts guys you guys should check this show out, especially if you enjoyed today's conversation
he talks about conspiracies and my personal favorites is his
Podcasts on the Lincoln assassination and alternate histories with that
I mean he's got some great stuff on the moon landing current events given some pretty interesting takes and so make sure to check
It out you guys will definitely enjoy it
Anyways, thanks for listening and I hope you enjoy the show. Well, thanks for taking the time to meet
Yeah, I look forward to talking to you because I've I got introduced to your
Podcasts, I think probably about six months ago and I've been tuning in pretty regularly actually and so
I like what you do
Appreciate it. How'd you find it by the way? So the first podcast I watched was your moon landing one with Randy Walsh
Okay, and that was a good one and then I just kind of went back into the archives and was listening to some of your episodes on Lincoln
And I was like, man, this is actually this I I'd never heard this before
I've never heard any of these this hypothesis. That's actually backed up with a lot of like
There's there's so many holes in that story, man
So I want to go ahead. Yeah, I went to a DC in April of last year
It was the 160 year anniversary and I wanted to put my hypothesis to the test with like
Top-notch people, you know people that work at four theater Rangers. They were pissed
They couldn't rebut anything I said, but they didn't like that their narratives
See a lot of people can't accept that they could be wrong, you know things that they've
Held dearly for so long and so that's what made me laugh even more late. They didn't rebut me. They just got mad
You know, they just got angry
What were some of the what was like some of the biggest Henry Ratbone repeating his deposition three times verbatim
Because I told him I go, but I my this sounds crazy
But I believe Henry Ratbone is the most likely shooter like get out of here. You're this is insane
No one's ever said that no and I started giving my pieces, you know
The three depositions memorized then what he goes on to do later on and Germany killing his wife
silk inflicted inflicted up knife wounds and trying to cover it up as a merger
Yeah, those were some of the bigger pieces and they they just they couldn't rebut it they're like damn
But they were angry and they were upset. Yeah, that's that's crazy. So Henry Ratbone
I was gonna get to Lincoln in the middle of the conversation, but we'll just talk about it now
Can you can you give us like a flyby of who he was? Yeah, Henry Ratbone
Was a civil war, I guess you could say vet at this point in time and he was actually the third person
On the invite list to be there with Lincoln during his visit to Forrest Theatre
So the Civil War had ended on the on April 9th
Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant and Appomattox on April 9th
And they were supposed to be going to I guess to celebrate if you can imagine
I'd like to tell people you have to imagine DC was probably in several
Celebratory mood at the moment, you know had been a long war many years lives lost
And I'm sure people had family on both sides
And so it had to be a huge relief for for the war to had been over and I
Supposed to kind of wind down and enjoy some of this victory. There was a
Play our American cousin was to be had at a Ford's Theatre
Ulysses is Grant was supposed to be there next to Abraham Lincoln
And if you look at all the posters leading up if you go to Ford's Theatre
They still have the posters right there advertising Ulysses as Grant is gonna be there with Lincoln Ulysses as Grant decides to back out
couple hours prior and that reminds me a lot of like how Mr.
Silverstein, you know owner of the World Trade Center who was there every morning every day
But just on that he so just so happens to get a haircut. It's just the right time
So the Ulysses is Grant bailing out a couple hours prior to this is very sus in my in my in my opinion
and so then there was
Another individual Thomas Secker who later became assistant secretary of war and was super close to Edwin Stanton
who I view as kind of like the Dick Cheney of the Lincoln era and
He backed out. He also declined. So then the third string was Mr. Henry Rathbone. Mr. Henry Rathbone
Allegedly, they were chosen because his wife and
Mary Todd Lincoln got along they were good friends
That's one of the reasons that that are given as to why they were invited over other people
Because that's one of the things that official historians will often point out is that
Ulysses as Grant his wife did not get along with Mary Todd Lincoln and that's why he pulled out
I don't buy it. You're not gonna I mean if you're gonna bail out you might as well have done it way before it was announced and put on posters
You don't do it a couple of hours
In my opinion, but yeah, Henry Rathbone's wife Clara Harris who was also his step sister
They were fiance at this point in time. She really got along with Mary Todd Lincoln
That's why they were chosen and I view him as the suspect as there's a shooter
You know, the if you've heard anything about the Lincoln assassination
You always hear John Wilkes Booth was a shooter jumps down breaks his leg gets caught 12 days later end of story
That in a nutshell is the Lincoln assassination
Yeah, but what draws me to it is when you really start breaking it down and you start looking at the little finer details
None of it makes sense including the Seward attack the Seward mansion attack
That's a massive component to the Lincoln story and my inspiration is David McGowan
He's the one that led me down this path and he
He's of the thought that the sword mansion attack never took place
And this is key because if the sword mansion never took place then obviously
Obviously, there's more to the story of what happened and transpired at Forrest Theatre. So
Henry Rathbone did he work for Lincoln? Was he part of his cabinet? No, he was a he was a military guy
I can't remember if he was a
Colonel or yeah somewhere along and so he was also in the military and he was invited
Yeah, man Ulysses pulling out is that's that's that's interesting
And I heard you mentioned on one of the other podcasts is that like he did it because he wanted to catch the train
Yeah, but but he he he didn't get home any earlier if he just waited like for the next one, right?
Yeah
So he ended up catching the midnight train to go the official excuse given is that he wanted to be with his kids
That Saturday morning he caught the midnight train out of had a town and people that have looked into the train
Manifest and the schedules for that time period have noticed that by catching the midnight train
It wasn't a straight shot. There was a layover. I can't remember what town
But there was a long layover like a four or five hour layover
So by the time they finally got to New York if they would have caught the six in the morning
A.m. They would have only been off by two hours instead of having like a five six hour layover somewhere else
You know, I mean, so it makes no sense
And so why do they want to why did why did Lincoln? Why do you think Lincoln's own guys like his own right-hand men?
Like his his top leaders. Why did they want to kill him?
So just like a lot of things I'm of the mindset
I've never proclaimed to know it definitely was because of this or because of that
I have theories some of those theories. I'm of the mindset, you know, like I mentioned David McGowan
He's been passed away for 10 years and you can find a lot of his work at a Center for an informed America com
Which was a play on words for CIA and he passed away
He he died of a like basically turbo cancer
Shortly and he was diagnosed shortly after he exposed the Boston Marathon bombing
He did an exquisite expose and I don't know where you're gonna be posting this
So it might not be safe to really talk about it too much
But if anyone wants to watch that four-hour podcast that David McGowan did I did I do have it on my
Odyssey channel if you go to my Odyssey channel, there's a search tab
Just put in David McGowan all the things related to David McGowan including a moon landing book
He's got he wrote the book wagon the moon doggie
Which in my opinion is one if you don't believe the moon landings that is one of the best books out there
Hands down, but David McGowan was a a former journalist and super inquisitive guy and
What I learned from him is if you find big holes in some of these stories early on
Why should you just freely accept everything else you really then have to start questioning everything else
That's what he did with the Boston Marathon bombing and so many of these other events and
I'm sorry. I got a little sidetracked. What was it?
Yeah, you're good question you introduced him
But because he introduced you to the Lincoln assassination
But like why do you think because it makes sense like if Southerners like, you know
Southerners want to kill Lincoln that you know keep the war effort going but like why did those in the north on Lincoln's own team?
Why did they want to kill him?
I got you so much like I'm of the same mindset of David McGowan that
We have this fake left-right divide and I say it's fake. It's real. There is there are liberals
There are Christian conservatives. It's that's real, but the divisions to put us
Against each other are nonsense because the same agendas get pushed through no matter who's president
Doesn't matter if it's Joe Biden is behind president Israel's still gonna be doing their thing and Gaza now
We have Trump nothing's changed the same agendas in the background still go through some people may disagree with that and that's fine
But that's how I view it and that's how I see things and that's how Dave McGowan viewed it
So we go back to this time period. Yeah, we had the north and the south one of the
The bloodiest war in our nation's history
But there was money being made by figures up top the elites down south the elite up in the north
One of my theories is Lincoln although I I do view him as a tyrant
There were many things that I vehemently disagreed with there were some things that he was trying to change a little bit
He had plans to the war
People had already been thinking that the war was gonna be winding down towards the north's favor months before it officially ended and
Lincoln had been planning on taking it easy on the south not being so hard a lot of the
Radical Republicans wanted to punish the south and by having Lincoln at the helm that was not going to happen now
What happened after Andrew Johnson vice president Andrew Johnson got put in a
Rather notorious reconstruction period took over so that's exactly what ended up happening and so that's that's a very very plausible theory
this whole theory that it was a
Confederate plot holds really no water, you know the the war had already been over why kill Lincoln, you know
You the south had to know that that was all the repercussions were gonna fall back upon them
Which ended up doing it happening anyways
So there was no reason for it and then when you look at the Masonic connections
There was masons on both sides on the north and the south John Wilkes Booth was a Mason Edwin Stanton was a Mason
That's another key aspect to it
I I I view Booth somewhat of a Lee Harvey Oswald type a Muhammad Ata
These were just figures to leave some kind of a paper trail to leave a narrative that you can go with
You know what I mean, but the like I mentioned at the very beginning when you really dig into the finer details
None of the story makes any sense the one shot derringer that one doesn't make any sense the fact that
John Wilkes Booth would use a gun that only has one bullet carries one round. What if you missed?
What if you missed what if the guard that was supposed to be guarding the the entry instead of going downstairs to get drunk?
Actually decided to stay his post, you know, so it's not just what about missing. It's all these little things
This is what I mean. It's not just one thing. Oh, you're making a big deal out of one thing
No, I can list you problem after problem after problem with the story
Other issues with the story is for all these big parts to what we are sold as the official story
There are two to three different versions to it John Wilkes Booth a lot of people
You know through the stories and what you grew up hearing is that he broke his leg when he jumped down from the box
Down onto the stage. That's I guess if you want to call it the consensus
But that's what John Wilkes Booth said in his diary in order to make him seem more like a like a boss
You know, I broke my leg and and I don't even think he I have questions
Whether he wrote all those entries or anything on those entries on the boot diary for the simple reason that the FBI did a
Forensics analysis in the 70s. They found so much tamperings
Pages glued on and ripped out. How much of the boot diary can we take at face value as well?
The other part to the breaking of the leg other people believe that Wilkes Booth probably more than likely broke his leg later on
When he escaped when his horse fell upon him. That sounds a lot more realistic. I went to like I mentioned at the very beginning
I went to DC. I sat in Ford's Theater. I'm 43 years old. I could make the damn jump and not break my leg
It's not very high. It's high, but you're not gonna break your leg
Okay, and from what we understand, I mean Booth was 26 27 super athletic young actor
I mean, and that's why I mentioned I'm 43 if I could make it
I don't see why a young athletic man couldn't yeah, you know what I mean, but so I've read the book by a
Timothy as good it's called we saw Lincoln shot and it features a
hundred testimonies from people that were allegedly there at Ford's Theater and
It's interesting how there's really no witnesses to what happened inside the box at Ford's Theater
So what we have to go on is Henry Rathbone's deposition
He was the only one deposed Mary ton Lincoln was in the box Clara Heron his sister his step sister fiance
Claire Harris was also in the box, but none of those gave depositions. We only have one deposition
That's Henry Rathbone's the people that were in the theater
Some say they heard the discharge of a gun others say they didn't hear anything at all
The interesting thing that you get from reading these these alleged testimonies is how a lot of them say that
They didn't even know what was going on
They thought it was part of the play which I find rather interesting when I hear that in today's lens
If so if something doesn't look really that looks fake
I don't know how you feel about the Trump assassination attempt
Well, I viewed that as soon as I saw my man
This doesn't look natural the reactions in the crowd the reactions by the by President Trump
Nothing looked natural at all and then when he turned his head at the wrong mo at just the right moment in Trump's case
Because I had gone down the Lincoln hole, you know rabbit hole
It brought back Lincoln memories because Lincoln turned his head at the wrong moment
And that's how Wilkes Booth was able to get that lethal shot. I don't know if you caught that in any of the shows
So Lincoln was sat in that presidential box and he was closest to the door
His left ear was closest to the wall the proceedings on the stage were that way to the right, okay?
we're told that the gunshot the fatal gunshot came through his left ear and
Lodged under his right eye. So think about that if you're a right-hander, which Booth was and you're holding a one-shot
Daringer, that's a funky looking shot
You know your your wrist is gonna be turned around to make that shot
So he was seated to his left to Lincoln's left who was seated the shooter the shooter was John
Wilkes Booth came from behind from behind, okay?
That's that's the story that he came from behind
Yeah, and and Lincoln was sitting next to the left-hand wall his left ear was next to the left-hand wall
So right there. We are told the shot came from the back of the left ear and lodged under his right eye
So boom, so picture that close your eyes picture that how do you make a shot your wrist is literally turning like that?
So what historians have said happened was Lincoln turned his head at the wrong moment and that enabled the death shot
So yeah, you see what I'm saying he turned his head at the wrong moment
So that's I want to hear the Trump so he turned his head at just the right moment
He survived I started laughing because with a lot of these historical events a lot of these
questionable events a lot of these
conspiratorial events you start to see overlap you start to see many many similarities in the Epstein stuff the cameras didn't work
You know they just conveniently went down. Yeah in the Lincoln assassination the telegraph lines went down a couple for a couple of hours
And there are even reports that the lights, you know, they used gas lights at that point in time period a gas line went out
So yeah, yeah that from the witnesses perspective, I I can understand why you like you're there to see a show, right?
Like you're you're there you want to be entertained and you know a noise happens and all of a sudden you're just like wait, what?
And so I could see how they thought maybe is this part of the show
You know because I've I've been out in public and like I've seen street performers, right?
Like who like maybe maybe ten seconds before like you didn't know they were gonna be like performing something
And so like you think maybe this is all just part of some performance, right?
Like I've been at shows where like the dude standing next to me ends up going in and jumping and doing some like acrobatics
I don't know if you've ever been to like Central Park or anything like that where like some people are like doing these street performances
But sometimes somebody I didn't know who was a part of the show ends up coming out of the crowd and being a part of the
Show like I'm also remember if you go back to
the
The shooting in Colorado
I think it was in Boulder where they were doing a screening of Batman Begins
This was the one of the first ones I think and some of the witnesses where they were saying like the shooter got up
And they thought it was a part of the show as well
Like they they were just like because he was he was like dressed in some sort of costume. I think
Yeah, like the Joker I believe yeah
So I think maybe it's like our first instinct to think like well
This can't be some like murderer right like so because you're trying to rationalize why
Why you've departed from like the normal course of events like you're trying to think like why what is that noise?
What is this and then you soon find out it will have nothing to do with with the original event
Which I've never been in that type of situation
But I don't I don't think it's a far leap for me to think for some of those testimonies that say we thought
It was a part of the show dad actually kind of lines up with my understanding of like just how a
Navigate person might try to explain like an anomaly in real time. I get you I completely
Yeah, get where you're coming from the problem is when we look at the story going back to the story. Hmm
Mary Todd Lincoln was in that box
Yeah, and so was Clara Harris and none of them screamed none of them yelled
Which is weird. Yeah
No one in the know none of the witness heard them make any sound if we focus on Henry Rathbone's deposition of the events
which again the
Wild part is that in no less than three occasions
He pretty much verbatim says the same thing over and over and over again like a memorized script
And in his version of events he he's talking about, you know
The the gunshot and then he seen a cloud of smoke come through and he heard who he later
Describes as John Wilkes Booth. That was the other thing with the witness very few people
Identify John Wilkes Booth. It's become we've heard it so many times that oh, yeah, it was definitely John Wilkes Booth
It was definitely John Wilkes Booth one thing that I don't think I keep forgetting
But I'll bring it up now to bring up is during the trial the coke conspirators
They were shown the picture of Edwin Booth John Wilkes Booth's brother
So all these alleged witnesses that said it was John Wilkes Booth were actually
Identifying Edwin Booth as the shooter because that's they were being shown that picture and they were saying oh, yeah, that was him
That was that was the guy that that was at the theater
so it none of it makes any sense and
Again going back to Henry Rathbone's version of events Wilkes Booth shoots him and then yells
According to Rathbone says freedom shoot
It's just comical to me
I don't know the more I think about it shoots him in the head says freedom and then
The Henry Rathbone that's when he makes a lunge towards John Wilkes Booth like he's gonna start grappling with him
And John Wilkes Booth takes out the 10 inch bowie knife and starts slashing at him
Allegedly cuts Henry Rathbone in between the shoulder and the elbow
So around the bicep area takes a big gash several inches deep allegedly
That's when Wilkes Booth gets on top of the front of the box
The presidential box and that's when he leaps down and some of the witnesses says that he kind of like staggers a little bit
And then stands up holds a bloodless life or knife
There which is weird. Why would I mean he just stabs someone what shouldn't it be have blood or something?
But he holds a bloodless knife up and that's where some people say he yelled six emperor tyrannous
Others say he said the South is avenged others say he said nothing at all
So there is no there is no consensus even with that part of the story
This is what I mean with so many of these moving parts
It's almost like the official story that you hear that you know
It's just a bunch of stuff that whoever's telling you to tell this is the version that they want you to hear
This is this is what I think happened
But when you break it down all these pieces have two or three different versions of it
So how do we know which one is the real version? No, they're just cherry picking the story that they want
That's another part that people don't fully understand or or accept to it
So then booth or I'm sorry. Yeah booth gives this theatrical speech. It's quiet in the theater
No one's yelling on screaming. Absolutely. No, there was a couple of thousand people in there
Much of them were probably armed. You have to imagine most of the people in the audience were probably veterans
This is the 1800s. It's not like today's where leave your guns, you know, no guns allowed. No, you're talking about a packed theater
With military vets all around so we're told we're to believe that boot jump down
Gives us theatrical speech and then sprints out with a broken leg to his horse and gets away
I don't believe any of it, man
Yeah, the people were allowed to escape and preach, you know
I didn't think of the fact that there was probably be a lot of military officers with their sidearms
You know, everybody was carrying a gun in the 1800s
It was a Wild West man. Yeah, these are the Wild West days
So it's you you you I think to understand where I'm coming from and why I don't believe the official stories
You have to take yourself out of
Today's time period. It was a different time
You know
How many times have I heard people like with the coke conspirators involved in the Lincoln assassination?
Oh, I'm glad that Mary Sarah got hung. I'm glad that they these guys all got hung
They'll say that and then you start talking about the corruption and how people, you know
Illegal searches were happening and we think some people think police are corrupt today
The hill was a lot worse back then and so you're gonna trust their their ways of finding these pieces of evidence
That's the other thing with with the pieces of evidence against booth booth allegedly went for theater left some ID cards there
When he crossed the bridge to get away less of my D card
He's like he's leaving breadcrumbs everywhere. This is what I mean
It's like he's the Muhammad Ata or or Lee Harvey Oswell. Just leaving little pieces. Oh, yeah, I was definitely here
I don't know if you listen to any of my 9 11 stories, but I told you I live out here in Sarasota
This is where Muhammad Ata the alleged ringleader of 9 11 lived and he one of the fascinating stories to it all is how
Before they headed out to board these planes allegedly Muhammad Ata went to take his rental car
You know, they had to have a rental car while they lived out here for months
So when they took their rental car out and this is this was documented by Daniel hopsker
Awesome researcher that passed away a couple years ago. He was boots on the ground
He interviewed Muhammad Ata's girlfriend and Lord everyone connected the person that rented their car and the the rental agency said
One of the things that has never made sense was how when Muhammad Ata came to return the car
They left and then about 40 45 minutes later
They returned and they wanted to redo the paperwork because they had put the wrong names on the paperwork
They had to have these hijackers as the guys that rented the car. I
Would you have to do that if you're going on a quote-unquote suicide mission?
Why would you care about these little details unless you are leaving a narrative a paper trail?
This is what we want to believe. This is what happened with the Lincoln assassination
Yeah, John Wilkes Booth leaving calling cards calling cards were like little ID cards back then left
allegedly Andrew Johnson vice president Andrew Johnson was to be assassinated as well by a
George Atsura and
John Wilkes Booth
George our vice president Johnson was staying at the Kirkwood Hotel and John Wilkes Booth early in the day goes to check in is
To see if vice president Johnson was in his room, you know to have him as assassinated at the same time and he left some calling cards there
So he's leaving calling card. Here we go. I'm here. I'm here. I'm here
I have a hard time believing that unless you're trying to set up a narrative, you know
Here's your little storyline and we're just gonna sprinkle little pieces of evidence here in there
Yeah, man. So if anybody really wants to go deep
Have you you've done a series on this, right?
So because because we just scratched the surface from some of the things that you've you've talked about
So where could people go listen to your your like extended podcasts on Lincoln? So
And I apologize, man
The thing is it's hard to talk about the whole thing and just yeah two hours even four hours
I have a hard time. I feel some of my better episodes
I did a two-part series with Monica Perez and I put those on my
On my podcast player if you go to my Odyssey channel as well
I have a I do have a Lincoln assassination playlist where anytime I've talked about Lincoln or that era in particular have over
10
13 videos and each one's over two three hours long
So tons of content for anyone. That's a history buff if you will I also voiced over
The Lincoln assassination book by David McGowan. That's on there as well. It's about five hours long. I believe took me much longer
Obviously, yeah
And I did have a couple of mistakes, you know
I had a couple of mispronunciations with the names and some words
Which hopefully down the road. I'll have time to clean up
So just keep that in mind
But that book by David McGowan is what inspired me to go deeper and deeper a lot of things that David McGowan proposes
He he doesn't outright say that Henry Rathbone was the shooter. He doesn't outright outright say it
But the way he lays down his case
That's the only logical conclusion
That you can um, you can reach after after listening to to all the pieces of evidence
Uh, so there's that I've also expanded on David McGowan's findings, you know briefly
Well, I don't know if you were trying to wrap things up or if you wanted me to
No, I just uh, I was gonna change subjects because I had other things I wanted to get to
But because I
I'm a terrible host. I kind of did this out of order
I wanted to introduce you and then talk about linking a little bit
But if we could go back and do that so like wheezy you got the what is truth podcast
You've been podcasting for for several years now, right?
Yeah, 2019 is when I first started cool
What I wanted to ask you is like and I think you kind of alluded to this a little bit
Is like reading David McGowan's book, but a lot of people who are who are interested in researching
And education and reading they can usually point to a moment where they had like an awakening process
Where like they can look back at their life and they say this was a time in my life where I just didn't care about
Learning I didn't care about understanding the world deeper around me
Was there a moment for you where or maybe a book
Or a person that where you can kind of trace back to like you're like awakening process of like
Here's where I
Or have you kind of always been that way?
So I'm gonna say something
You know, I looked at some of your content and so you probably won't agree with what I'm gonna say
And maybe some listeners won't and I don't say this to offend anyone
But for me it was I grew up very religious very religious my parents were very devout
My mom passed away a couple years ago was super devout
My dad was super devout until his Alzheimer's kicked and now he doesn't talk about God at all
But that's all he used to talk about over and over so I grew up very devout
and
in 2013 my
My brother's wife passed away of cancer. I was already losing my faith
and
I was praying and praying and praying asking for a miracle man. I didn't want my brother
You know to raise three kids on his own, you know, I was like, that's messed up man
It's too young for this and nothing happened
And so the reason I bring this up is because that was my first red pill
Because initially I was angry with this higher power that I called God. I was I was I was angry. I was mad
So how could you let this happen? Then after I want to say about a week
I don't know when it was about a week later calmness came over me
And I go, maybe I'm getting mad at something that really doesn't exist
And so that's I'm only bringing this up because that that was my moment
I'm like, man, I've been taught that this was the truth
I've been taught that the bible was absolute truth
I've been taught that all these things were true and true and true and true now
Maybe that's not it. And so that turned my
World upside down man. It was like, are you familiar with plato's allegory of the cave a little bit?
Yeah, he doesn't know where the light's coming from and he tried to convince all his friends that he he's found
Where the well they're in the cave. Yeah, they're in the cave
This is what inspired the matrix as well. Yeah allegedly, but they're in a cave
And it's these prisoners they're they're tied and bound and they are forced to look at the wall of the cave
Which is pitch dark, but every now and then they light some fires from behind them
And so there's these people in the in the back making rabbit shapes and all these weird shapes and so
That's all they these prisoners have known all these shadows on the wall
That's their reality of what world is
You know their shadow rabbits their shadow trees
Everything is that's their reality. They don't know any better and at one point one of them manages to escape and
Leaves out to the cave and as soon as he merges out of the cave
He's been in the dark all his entire life as soon as he pops his head out
It's so bright his eyes actually hurt
He can you know, he's got to close his eyes like his eyes are sensitive if you can imagine
It's painful then after a few days his eyes start, you know to to acclimate
Yeah, and he can now see outside now. He sees a real life rabbit. He's like, whoa
The heck I thought this thing was a shadow. This is what a real rabbit looks like and so now his perception on reality has changed
And so it's a powerful allegory that allegedly was told thousands of years ago, you know by Plato
And so for me that moment right there was my first, um
Red pill and even so that was the first step
And I grew up as a lefty guy that watched rachel madow religiously everything that came on the msnbc
I believed and bought that is the truth. I'm not proud of it. That's what that's how I viewed the world
Anything republicans or conservatives said was dead wrong. These guys are idiots
They still believe in mythology blah blah and that's how I dismissed them. That's how my brain worked
That's how I had been programmed to think of the other side
And when I moved to florida, which is essentially the south, you know, I was worried that there was going to be racism everywhere
Nazis and and skinheads everywhere and that hasn't even been the case
So that that changed that helped change my perception of reality
Like no, yeah, these guys may wave confederate flags every now and then but you know
Most of them aren't racist and even the ones that are are just most mostly ignorant
You know, they don't really fully understand. They didn't grow up with they've only known that
They've grown up in their own cave. You know, I mean they're with their own shadows
So that's their own reality that helped change me and then
I think it was
An event called the pulse nightclub shooting that took place in orlando florida a couple hours from where I live
and I was listening to npr on the news
And I'm listening to it. I'm listening to it. None of the story was making sense
I'm like, and this is me as a normie that
Did not buy into
conspiracies
I'm like, this doesn't make sense. This and I'm going in. I'm going in deep. I'm comparing
Witness state statements police statements. None of it is making sense. I drove up to orlando
I'm looking at this club. I'm like, wait a minute. You're telling me how many people were here at five in the morning
And that's that was my first red pill where I'm like, man, this is all a sham
This is this was all lies and that's what made me then
Go into these other events
9 11
Like man, if I was lied to about this, that's I got to revisit 9 11
9 11 for me was sacred for the longest time
I was a firefighter because of it
When I saw, you know, the the videos of the fire department going up the tower, I'm like, man, that is
Bravery to the max man. That is boss material. I want to do that. So I joined the fire service
I went to the fire academy in 08
And I joined the fire service in 09. I did that for many years out of
Being inspired from the official 9 11 story. So for me to take a second look at it was wild to me because I believe I
I bought
A hook line and sinker every official story narrative regarding it. There was times where I had questions
I'm like, yeah, that's kind of where they found a passport. Yeah, but I believe it. I still believed it
You know what I mean
But then as I took a second deeper look and I'm looking at
This
With a microscope that doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense. None of this makes sense. It's all a sham
and
Same thing with the moon landings the moon landings. I believed I thought it when I was a kid
I I thought it would be cool to go into space and jump around and collect some moon rocks
How many boys young boys don't grow up thinking that we all think that at some point
I'm assuming and
I was already into questioning official narratives and I was kind of 50 50
I was like, maybe we did maybe we did it. Maybe we did maybe we did it
And then I took a trip out to cocoa beach down to the kennedy space center
And I saw a replica of the lunar lander
And that was one of those moments. Right. Yeah, man. If you put this replica lunar lander outside
During a florida a typical florida storm season or hurricane that thing would not last
But I am led to believe this thing made it through the rigors of space radiation and all these rigorous elements and came back
Now i'm not and then I remember hearing one
Podcasts were nailed to grass Tyson the premier astrophysicist of our time in one episode
Straight up admit that we have nothing today that can take us back to the moon
We did in the 60s, but not today and so that made me wow, you know
Like I want to look into the moon landing even more now
And I have tons of content that I've done on the moon landings, but that's what it is man. It's been a steady process
It's not like it's been one thing. Yeah
It's been one thing to the next to the next and i'm at the point in time now where
Some folks view me as as an extremist that is radical and it doesn't offend me
You know because there's been many times where I've said things or been against and later on people come around
I'm like, oh man, you were right. You were right
So I don't I don't worry about it. What I worry is
I go about life now trying to believe in as many true things as possible
And it's getting harder and harder to tell man. We get told lies on a daily basis
I mean the coveted stuff woke up a lot of people
But look at how many things we were lied to about that as someone that believed in science
I'm not saying I don't believe in science, but science has also become very dogmatic
You know it it comes off as something that is anti religious anti dogma
And yet it does the same things that religious
Organizations do you have to believe in these tenets or we will ex-communicate you we will call you an anti vax
We will call you a denier of this if you don't stick to our dogma to the way
We interpret what we deem as science which has in many of these cases
Who is funding these scientific projects and that'll tell you what agendas they're trying to push so yeah
Um, I'm in this weird place man where I don't know and I guess that's why I chose the name
What is truth and I love it man because I'm all these years doing it. I'm still trying to figure out what truth is
No, I love that. Yeah, let's talk about Christianity a little bit because I I am curious
You know when the name of your podcast what is truth?
The first thing that came to my mind was that it's actually in the bible that exact phrase is in the bible
So for anybody who's not familiar when jesus is before paunch's pilot
He's about to be crucified and he says that he came to bear witness about the truth
That's why jesus did because he's like are you a king or you know these jews?
They want to kill you they tell me like who are you and he says well you say i'm a king
But I came to bear witness about the truth and paunch's pilot famously says what is truth?
And so did that story
In the book of john have anything to do with why you named your podcast what you did
Absolutely that that right there even though I no longer believe and I haven't believed in many many years now
That story that that image, you know, I'm a very visual person. I picture that image
I'm like man if this really did happen because I do have questions if it didn't but it's a cool story
It's it's I mean here. We are sitting there and paunch's pilot asked him. What is truth and
I've
Way before I even started my podcast. I always thought about that. That's a killer question, man
That's a it sounds simple. What is true? Oh, yeah
I know what truth is and one of the things I've done with a lot of the guests over the years
I'll ask them for you. What is truth and no two people give me the same answers
Everyone has their own answer to it
So for me, that's it's the simplicity and power behind that little statement. What is truth?
You know what I mean like simple a couple words and yet super profound
And so yeah, that definitely was the reason for it that that's what inspired the the show so
I um
I'm not gonna like sit here and try to like convince you to be a christian again or or what
But how do you reconcile who jesus is?
So, you know, you can go back in history and you can look at
Historical events and and you know, you can look at like things like lincoln and look at things like how
There's just things that don't line up
But the most famous person to ever walk the earth, right every culture every country around the world
Jesus christ has affected that culture in some way shape or form our entire calendar is based on when this man was born
And somebody said something a long time ago. It was like extraordinary events
Require extraordinary explanations
And I think the the effect and mark that jesus has left on the earth is an extraordinary event
The fact that this this man in the middle east with
12
Followers who who were not like cream of the crop educated people right has had a bigger impact on human history than anybody
So he he affected the world
If he were the son of god like whether he was or wasn't right
He actually has an impact on the world that is so great
His legacy has lasted for thousands of years our entire calendar is based on when he was born and um
So he his impact is as if he were the son of god
And he also claimed to be the son of god like statistically
Doesn't it make most sense that if somebody impacted the world as if he was the son of god
And also claimed to be the son of god that maybe he was the son of god
So
As I stated I was back real very religious and I read the bible a couple of times
And I'm actually going to try to write read the entire bible all of it and this year
I've already went back and listened to the genesis exodus
Yeah
Listen to the gospel of mark and matthew revelations book of revelations a book of joshua a book of samuel
So I I'm I'm slowly making my way and maybe I may be able to listen to the entire thing
But this time around I'm listening to it as a non-believer and it's very different
I'm someone that so you ask if I've always been inquisitive that it has been my nature
I remember as a kid asking certain religious questions as a young little kid
That was taken to church and Sunday school and whatnot and I would ask some of these questions of my you know
My mom or dad and those times they got upset. They would say satan is talking to you
You can't be asking those kind of questions and I'm a little kid
You know like one of those things was I remember I'm trying to think some of the more now that I'm older
I think I'm like man, I was I was asking some pretty deep questions as a little kid
I can see why my parents would get mad
But I would I would ask like, you know
We were talking about the talking snake in the garden meeting and as a little kid
I've always loved animals. I'm like, how come God doesn't make any more talking animals, you know, like that
Snake was talking in Genesis and come and convert it and then the other question I asked like why did God make
A tree that would tempt Adam and Eve to begin with like he should have just let him chill
You know, like don't even tempt them and then I realized people now will say free will and stuff
I'm very I'm very hard-line these days with with certain explanations because I've looked I've listened to
All the apologetics on a lot of these hard to swallow religious passages
There's many parts. There's a reason why there's a children's bible
There's some parts in the bible that kids of a certain age should not be reading
You know, there's a story of onan god killing onan because he spilled his seed on the ground for example
And there's another story in in genesis of a
Of a rapist that is the good guy in that story. And so there's many many many many of these hard to swallow
Passages in the bible and that's what started me questioning and everything else. I'm like, man, I can't just blindly accept this anymore
You know what I mean? And so going back to to jesus, uh
figure that is
typically given as the
contemporary
Source to you know to talk about the history
Ossity of jesus is josephus josephus is a very
Polemic figure some people view him as a traitor to to the jews. I don't know if you know much of josephus
He was a jewish historian for the moment as I know. Yeah, and he's yeah, his story is his story is fascinating, man
super fascinating
because
He he was he was a very intelligent
Jewish guy back in that time period. So the jews
There was different sex, you know during jesus time
There was the Pharisees the sadjuces different sex some were more violent warlike sex of jews
Then there was other jews that were more
Strictly they they adhered to the the Torah and then there was some that were just more passive passive, you know
Like all right if the government wants to do that we'll just roll with it
So there was different strains of it josephus was a was raised pretty you know pretty in well-to-do means in
Rome and he was super intelligent
He knew because he had worked with the romans alongside the romans for so many years
He knew that the none of the jewish sex had any chance against the roman empire like
Trying to rate trying to start stuff with the roman empire is just suicide suicidal
You got to work with the romans
This is how josephus and that's and that's why some people view him as a traitor because he
Betrayed his own people and whatnot. Some people would argue he was just using the smarts
It's stupid. Why are you fighting against the machine?
Rome is already here in judaea. We're not going to do anything about it. And and so a lot of people
He writes a couple of lines regarding jesus, but he wasn't a
Contemporary of jesus. He wrote these decades after the alleged jesus story
We talked about the link and stuff look how many holes this event happened 160 years ago and none of the story makes sense
It falls apart here falls apart here falls apart here
But yet when it comes to the gospels people will accept there are people
I don't know if you are of this this brand of christianity
But there are some christian folks that will take line by line. This is exactly what happened
This is exactly how it was said and the translation that I have received from some of these languages that are now extinct
Are as close to the original
Translation as possible and they accept it. They they wholeheartedly accept. I'm like, you don't have any questions
You don't think maybe this is a little bit wrong
I speak spanish
There are times where I can hear a joke in spanish and I try to tell it in english
And it doesn't have the same punch it
It's missing so much texture so much nuance to it and vice versa
If there was a joke in english and i'm trying to explain it in spanish
It's not going to hit the same and so my point is with the bible that we have today in today's climate
How much of it is actually as close to the original writings?
So there's that issue. The other issue is there were so many other texts and scrolls
For example the gospel of james a magnificent. I listened to the gospel of james the other day
Beautiful text, but it talks more of a mystic jesus and this is probably why it didn't make the cut
So who how did these people
During the council of nicaea. There was also a council of carthage and whatnot
Who made them the arbiters to decide what text could make it into the bible into the final cut
And which ones could it because there were so many that didn't make it
Why did you exclude those and so the more I look into that even though I don't believe i'm
Profoundly interested in it. It's amazing to me because it helps me understand today's climate the way people talk about end times today
Now that I've read revelation it makes more sense. I'm like, all right
I could see why this guy's saying this because I've listened to it
But it's so interesting to me that I I've
I've just been trying to get deeper and deeper to the origins of it all
Who were the first people taught telling these stories? Um, and and when you look at genesis
I you know listening to genesis again over with a fresh new lens and god is talking about how in several passages how
I
Was known as Elohim el shadat
You know, those are gods from the old canaanite religion
The name el is the head god of the canaanite religion
The canaanites had it preceded the the
Israelites by centuries if not more then you go back to the epic of gilgamesh
These stories were written on clay tablets as far back as 2700 years
So almost a thousand years older than the bible itself
And you I don't know if you are familiar with the epic of gilgamesh
But the the flood story in there even the way one of the gods makes humanity
She takes clay and forms humans. So I start going back and back and because that's in my nature
I I want to know the origins
Where did you know this didn't just start here and then everything took off from there there everything has origins
Where are the origins to all of this and so it's in this quest that I've been going down that I'm like man
And so the further I dig the the more I enjoy the stories, but I just don't believe them at all
I just I believe my mindset and you could disagree with this
But my mindset is now looking at it is that religious thought as well as government thought
They're they're tools to control people control populations. There's a great book by larkin rose called
What is it government authority or I think it's called the the biggest superstition and it's talking about the belief in government authority
People we get raised to believe that we have to trust in government authority. The government tells us this is the way it is
We have to accept it. That's gospel. That's fact. We can't deviate it. But in reality, it's nonsense
It's not real make it. We bend to it. But when it's not real, you know, this country allegedly was founded on
taxationist theft was one of the cries that we are told right taxationist theft and yet I'm working
60 80 hours a week. I look at my checks and I see how much
I'm getting taxed every dang week
I thought this country was I thought taxation was theft and this country has been doing this to each and one of us for centuries
So this whole myth again
It's a myth that this country was founded on these particular principles. It's all nonsense, man
We're told to respect the constitution and all this and it's constantly getting trampled upon
It was trampled upon during Lincoln's time in the 1860s. It's being trampled upon today
It's all mythology. So this is the way my mind view or my worldview is that whether it's religious organizations or governments
They're just pushing these myths to have us living in fear
You know the way I ask the question. Yeah, man. I'm sorry. I got your good horse
No, I appreciate that. That's a good backdrop to have but you said you'd like to you know, understand origins
Do you believe you have a soul
I don't know anymore, man
I used to think that and what has made me answer you as I don't know anymore
My dad's Alzheimer's because if you've had any any loved ones that has Alzheimer's, it sucks, man
Yeah, I had I had heard people getting Alzheimer's, but I didn't know these people that good
But now it's my dad and he raised me. I know, you know, you know, you have a relationship with your dad
We know our dad and when I talk to my dad and I'm looking at him
I'm sitting across from him looking at him in the eyes. I'm trying to look
I'm trying to see if there's a soul in him and I don't feel it
So I don't know. I don't know if we have souls or not
Maybe what we I've been thinking about it a lot
So that's a good question because I've been pondering and pondering pondering and musing about it
What if soul is simply our consciousness? Well, that's and what is consciousness?
Are they intertwined or are they two separate different things?
I'm really sorry to hear about your dad
And I
You know, I don't know anybody with Alzheimer's right now
But I've have relatives who have relatives and my grandfather
He had Alzheimer's and I think that's ultimately what took him, you know
And it's you know, our bodies are frail our bodies are fragile
And I've done some reading about like the causes of Alzheimer's and just what can lead to the
generation of
a
Of the brain
Um, that's where it starts and so there's there's a bunch of hypotheses
But that's not really the point
But I was reading a story about a man who had hydrocephalus and he didn't know it and
His brain was like the size of a grape and
This guy was like 40 years old married with kids
But like it dude, he just didn't really have a brain like how I don't know
How you can they really explain that without like
Like where does consciousness come from and so like there's so much mystery to the human experience like why are we here?
Like that's ultimately what religion I think wants to to answer that question is like
Why are we here?
Who created the universe or what created the universe?
And then perhaps most importantly is like what happens to us when we die
You know, we have this feeling that there is like our bodies and our physical nature
But there's also like this experience where we feel spiritual realities
Very deep like and so there's a part of me at least this is my experience that like I feel like there's a part of me that will
That that is separate from my body
you know
and that I have a soul and that some something is
Is going to carry on beyond beyond death
Because as I look around the world man, like there's just no way this all happened as an accident
You look at like the vastness of space and the planets and just like how you can look at like a piece of grass
Under a microscope or look at a cell and it's irreducibly complex
Like there has to be an explanation for why all of this exists
Or maybe not and that's where we sometimes get hung up on
Why don't say that we have to have a perfect understanding of the explanation?
But we at least have to admit that it started somewhere it started it had to have yeah
And so when people say god created everything my quick
Because i'm in this weird thing with everything man
I don't believe so people because I don't believe the creation story people
Oh, you believe in the big bang because something came out of nothing. No, I don't believe that either
I don't believe any of this. Maybe it's something that we will probably never know man. Um,
It's incomprehensible and so I've been reading and learning more about these ancient philosophers and
I listened to your episode on Seneca. By the way, that was really good. Yeah
Listening to Seneca. What do you think about his writings? His writings are on point. Yeah, I'm on like how many halfway through and yeah
Yeah, there's just I feel like it's food for my soul
Yeah, I love it man
And they were gonna add some of his writings to the bible
Those remember I was telling you about what books made the cut his writings were in consideration
Which that's not something I've looked at
Yeah, I'll just I haven't looked at that but I'll look into it. I trust you but you know, I know that
You know the canon of scripture like what was left in and what was left out
um
like
It's tough like there's there's some things where I'm like and like what if we found a book of the bible today?
Right like and hypothetical here
We could be 100 percent certain that it was written by the apostle paul or 100 percent certain
It was written by john or even jesus, right? Like let's just say hypothetically we could
Verify that you know, there's people who say that like it would be of no importance in that it would not be it would
It wouldn't we should not add it to the bible and
I'll be honest like that kind of bothers me a little bit because
That if we uncovered a text out in the middle of the desert, I'd be like well, what the heck does it say, right?
Like what what does it say back to that rigid thinking? Yeah, this is what I mean with a lot of people
Yeah rigidity
And I think I think why some people would be hesitant is because the bible we talk about like biblical sufficiency
Like the bible is perfectly sufficient, but that doesn't mean it's exhaustive
So you have the creation story that's not an exhaustive story, right? Obviously because
We don't know what happened in all the details, right? But like it's it's a summary
So summaries are not usually exhaustive
And so I can actually reconcile with that like I don't know all the details
I don't know how
God took dust of the earth and made a human being
But i'm assuming if there if god is he created a universe he can create a man
Or so having a scientific explanation of how these these compounds in the in the ground
Turned into human flesh like I don't think you have to scientifically prove that that's possible because or exhaustively explain it
I think you can take a summary which which that's what the creation story pretty much is it's
It's a summary and we should not look for exhaustive explanations where the written text never intended to do that
You know like we talk about like chronologically what's the word the chronology of the bible
You know in in genesis you have some of those really long segments where it's like this person begat this person and this person
Begat this person and this was the father of so-and-so like I think it's entirely possible that that's not an exhaustive list either
Right, you know, some people will cite the age of the the earth as being like 6 000 years old or something like that
Well, if you are going based off of those numbers and people's ages and when this person was born that person was born
Sure, you can get that but that that section was also not written for the express purpose of keeping a genealogical record
It was written for a particular people at a particular time that had background knowledge
And so they didn't need exhaustive lists
And so I think it's entirely possible that you know, there's some generations in there that are skipped
And so it's it's a much longer lineage than than what's actually recorded
You know, you have other other things that are listed, but they're not exhaustive. And so just want to make that point. Yeah
And and I I understand that
I've been uh, I I also read a Homer's Odyssey
Fascinating tells and and I say this with all due respect because I know some people will get offended
But I read a lot of these stories like I'm reading the bible like mythologies, you know
Maybe there are some grains of truth just like some of the greek stories probably had some grains of truth
And then they further expanded upon
So I think I learned a lot from those stories. I I was fascinated. I'm learning, you know, reading
I listened to revelation twice in the last couple of weeks and the version i'm listening to on youtube
It's kind of dramatized so they have voice actors for god and and the apostle
And and music and you know in dramatic events, you know
Just it sounds cinematic, but it makes it more immersive, you know
You you can actually instead of just reading some plain text and just reading through it makes it funer
For me at least it makes it more visual and I love it
But in the end I view them as stories for a set of different, you know, a variety of different reasons
A set of stories to explain some try to answer some of the questions you had
Why are we here? How did it this whole thing came up come about?
And then ultimately they are used as control
Tools, you know 10 percent of your tithing gave on to god was what is to god and give on to Caesar
What is to Caesar things along those lines?
And so ultimately I I reject them for those aspects, you know, I I don't claim to know how
This planet came about, you know, if we go with the religious belief that god was just hanging out for
Trillions of years in the darkness of space
And then just one day. He's like, you know what today?
I'm gonna make the universe like that doesn't make sense. So, you know, but you also have to like just
I mean, I get it if you describe it like that it's kind of humorous. You're like why right and
I guess how I think about that is like you use the word years, right?
You said god was just hanging out for trillions of years like you have to you have to
But you have to just get rid of that time of measurement entirely because like even the concept of time
As we're describing it, we can't apply it to god
Like if something is completely outside of time, like an
incomprehensible god, we we can't assign or make we can't assign
Figures of time measurements of time towards god in that way
Like it's beyond our understanding to understand like, you know before the creation of the earth
We know that god we know that god is perfect and we know that he was perfectly fulfilled
How do we know that though see now we're getting into the god of the god
Gaps fallacy because when science can't explain it or whenever no one else there for god, how do we
See to me that seems like another jump
Science does this and then religious folks do it like there for god. There for science. Therefore. No, no, no, no, no
Let's not jump there. How did we get there? So we we this god creature or thing guy woman
Who knows because every culture has different beliefs in it, you know, it's not it
I guess i'm of the the way I look at it is god is not a universal truth
There are universal truths out there math
Are you can go to china? You can go to latin america?
You can go to russia two plus two is going to be four no matter where you go
But you talk about god
Well, god could be yaoi or jojoba depending on what region of the world you're in or he could be the buddha
He could be mohammed, you know, it just depends on where you're at
It's not a universal truth and so that's where I see things these days
And so this concept that god is all encompassing over this
Okay, how how did you get to that point? How can you verify that?
So I mean I can't verify it with all the typical tools of of science that like one would rely on today
So like i'll admit there is an aspect of faith in all of this is like I believe the bible
I believe the bible is true, right?
So for what I was saying earlier before is like the bible is not completely exhaustive
But it is sufficient for what we need to know for salvation
Okay, so it's not exhaustive in explaining the creation of the universe
But it is sufficient in telling me what I need to know about god in order for salvation
So setting setting aside like the exhaustive versus the sufficient part
So like the bible is sufficient for what it was intended to do now going sort of beyond that like
I think you can make philosophical like reasoning you can use philosophical reasoning to like understand
Okay, we know there was a beginning right you can you know a lot of
Astrophysicists will talk about how the universe looks like it's expanding and that it began at a singular point
Okay, so you can make philosophical
Insights that there was a time where this wasn't here and so just kind of going off of that
We can kind of go back and forth philosophically about what may or may not have existed
And there will be some speculation at that point. Yeah, I don't think we we could ever get
There's times where we will never be able to get absolute truth. You know, that's one of those things
We won't be able to it's kind of I guess
Kind of bringing it back even to the moon landings
I don't believe we have the tools to get back and we're told that in the 60s they and they built these
Amazing. Yeah analog pieces of equipment to get us into state
But we we don't have even though we've made leaps and bounds
Of technological improvements since the decades
We don't have anything to take us back
And so the only way to be absolutely truth whether we made it to the moon or not would be to each of us
Going up there and being able to verify. Oh, yeah, maybe maybe
We absolutely did we absolutely. Yeah
So because that's not realistic
That's not possible. We then have to look at other pieces to it
What what makes more reasonable sense and what doesn't and for me
I know you said that for you scripture fulfills you and it's meant for me
It does nothing of that. In fact, it just makes me more curious as to why people still believe onto these things
Especially as I read all the Old Testament
It's full of animal sacrifices. You need to make sacrifices to our lord and just massive sacrifices
You got to cut the animal this way put the entrails there like in detail
The Mesoamericans practiced a lot of human sacrifice and a lot of people that's why Jesus came
Hold up before you look down upon them
The whole pinnacle of the christian story is the human sacrifice of Jesus
Jesus is goes through this crazy crucifixion thoughts of pain
And this is one of these questions. They brought me back to when I was a kid
He goes through all this pain and I remember as a kid. I'm like, okay. Well, he's god. He knows he's not gonna die
So why why why why do we have to feel bad that he's getting crucified?
He probably doesn't even feel the pain. This is me as a little kid thinking this
I'm like, he's gonna he's gonna revive himself in a couple days. This is what pissed off my parents
Like no, we have to accept the resurrection story and they would get mad and I'm just a
An inquisitive little kid man. I was like 18 years old. No, but he's god
Right, you're telling me he's god. He knows everything. He knows he's gonna die
He even says one of you guys is gonna betray me, you know, peter you're gonna deny me
Three times before the crow, you know or before the rooster sings
He knows these things and he knows he's gonna resurrect themselves. So why is it a big deal?
Is it really a sacrifice and these were fundamental questions that I had as a little kid and now that I'm older
I'm like, man, those were damn good questions as a little kid and now I I've kind of explored them more and none of the
Story makes any sense for me at least. Yeah, and so yeah, I don't want people to take anything like these things
Back there could be things that we you and I or anyone listening we can agree on many many other things
This could be just one of those big things
One of the things I've been pondering lately. Yeah, I mentioned David McGowan
And I have huge respect for him
He agree. He believes that
Um, the the flight 93, you know with Muhammad Atta
There was something going on. Maybe they'd get hijacked. I don't believe in that at all
I believe it was like the sword mansion attack a completely manufactured event
That's a huge disagreement that I have with McGowan. Does that mean I'm gonna scrap everything else
He has said because of that huge disagreement we have
And James Corbett James Corbett in my in my worldview. He is the king of conspiracy theorist
He out of all the big names out there. He is the least known
Because I think he's more legit, you know, you we've all heard of alex jones or david hike
But I think those guys are all corrupt
James Corbett is a real deal and that's why he's underground still he's still highly shadow band
I've done several shows with James Corbett. I'm gonna have him on in the future
But he thinks we made it to the moon
That's a massive disagreement that I have with James Corbett
Does that mean that now I'm gonna throw away every every all his other beliefs?
This is one of the things that I've gotten older is
You're not gonna agree with people 100 on everything man
You're gonna have some big time disagreements. Does that now mean you have to discard everything else?
You may naturally because we're humans you may naturally well
He was wrong about that. So how much how much seriously can we take him on this other thing?
You know and by all means we should always be doing our homework always be fact-checking always
Verifying all these claims and things that we hear you shouldn't hold anyone in a high pedestal. You shouldn't
Do your own research man
I think we're living in an age where people like taking shortcuts for everything
they want to know these high intricate things
In a 60 second tiktok reel and find out the truths of the universe on those 60 seconds
You know what I mean? Like how do I become enlightened in in five minutes or less?
People are looking for or quick little things when in reality these could very well be lifelong
Journeys that we take. You know this latest philosophical thing that I've learned is kaizen
kaizen
Is that Japanese for?
It's what's a little improvement. Yeah
1% improvements
So it's super simple but powerful philosophy because it kind of relates to what I'm just saying people
You know what happens at the end of the new year, you know or at the end of the year people for new years
Oh, I'm gonna lose 30 pounds in two months. I'm gonna be doing I'm gonna be running
I'm gonna be doing you're you're going balls to the wall for lack of a better term
Trying to lose all that weight and then after a week
I see here at the gym where I where where I go
I've been I go to the gym as much as I can during the week and at the very beginning of the year jam packed
It's it even sucks because you can't even use any of the machines now. It's back to
What it normally is just quiet all to myself three three. Yeah, but it's because people get burnt out
They they want immediate results right away if they see a 60 second tiktok video
They want the answers to the universe right there in that 60 second clip. That's not what it
You need patience you need to exercise patience and keep exploring things even when you think you are absolutely sure about something
Like we started with Lincoln. I've read so many damn books on the subject. Does that mean now I stop?
No, I keep reading more if I hear more Lincoln stuff. I want to consume it
I want to get as much information. Some people will say well now you're like somewhat of an expert and whatnot
I guess but I still feel there I can learn so much more even though I do know quite a bit about the subject
I don't feel like I I'm the end all be all by any stretch of the imagination
I'm still learning and if I can enhance my
My theories or or or maybe I need to throw maybe I started reaching a certain conclusion
Now I need to scrap it based on this new information that has come in
I need to have my mind be able to have that flexibility. You know what I mean? Yeah
It kind of reminds me of this
Kind of reminds me of this quote by I think it was Newton really Isaac Newton. He says, you know, a lot of people would
compliment him on his
His intelligence and things like that and he always said that he never felt like he was but a child
Who picked up a few stones on the shore of the sea of knowledge?
and I think that's kind of like you picture this
This beach right with all these rocks like just it's just vast and we're so lucky if we can even just pick up one stone
And understand that one thing but like there's there's so much that and I think that's kind of a humbling thing as
It is as a man as man
Like, you know, I believe we should be grateful for those like the Isaac Newton's and like those those are like the
Examples of the people who like we should all strive to sort of be like and you know
Like for you it's David McGowan like I have people like who it is for me
But like pursuing knowledge
It's it's also a really humbling thing because we realize just how much we don't know
It's like it's like that bell curve, right?
Like both sides
Understand that they're retarded kind of like just for a word like
Like it's it's only when you like learn so much that you realize you don't know anything
And the people who are just straight up idiots who don't read anything and they don't ever try to learn
Like they also would probably be like, hey, I don't really know anything
But it's like everybody in the center who thinks they know things and they think they're smarter than they actually are
But it's like once you've actually achieved like some true knowledge
Like it's it's actually a very humbling thing because it's like you come over this rim of insight
Just to see a whole new landscape that you actually have no idea about so it actually makes you feel smaller
You're like, man, there's so much more and
I sort of it's humbling and like I I don't know
I certainly don't think that I've arrived by any stretch of the imagination
But like and that's part of the reason maybe like I need the bible. I need that structure. I need that
Um, I look at my life and I'm like, man, I have these questions
How do I reconcile with the fact that like like lying right like talk about like moral absolutes like
Why do why do I feel bad when I lie or when I steal or when I when I do something
It doesn't sit right like and then you look at like every other culture that's ever existed like
There's a pattern here lying is kind of
stealing
I'm sorry to interrupt you but I listen to the
The story of captain cook when he was in the Polynesian islands. He was pretty captain cook was pretty
Even tempered with with a lot of the natives. It was probably less racist than you know a lot of his uh,
his uh
You know the his crew that when they were exploring the world
He was a little bit more open-minded, but when he went to the Polynesian islands, one of the things that drove him crazy
was how the Polynesians
would
It almost for their culture Sling wasn't viewed in the western sense as bad or
For all intents and purposes buy out most cultures around the world as as this supreme bad
It was almost viewed as stealing based on the accounts that I I've been reading
In in that Polynesian culture at that point in time
It was mostly viewed as like damn you were able to pick pocket him
That's cool high five like it was viewed as as like a skill set instead of like this evil thing
Man, if you steal you feel horrible about it, you know
For in their culture it was most like wow, that's freaking awesome and captain
It drove captain cook crazy it pissed them off like these guys just steal steal steal steal
But in their culture, they didn't recognize stealing in the in the same sense that other people
So even a lot of these things that we I only want to try that. Do we are they really absolute truths?
I hear what you're saying and I've heard of things like that, too
You know, I was I have a friend who he's he's going to be a missionary and he reads a lot about like these
Uncontacted tribal groups and he was telling me about how something that they honor in their culture is people who can befriend
Somebody and earn their trust but then betray them
Like it's actually seen as like a really more like like a something to be praised like
Like you got him
To think of you as like a brother
But then you kill them and like and that receives praise and so like I
Those are those are kind of tough to explain, but I think that even at the core there is some semblance of like universal
truths
Like you look at like meso american culture where you know, they would like kill people
Right like these human sacrifices and we think oh that's so evil
But in their minds they were actually trying to bring about some good for human flourishing
Because they wanted to affect weather patterns
They thought that maybe sacrificing these people would bless the harvest and therefore people could flourish
And so I think a lot of these things that like hey, we we don't want to steal because we want people to flourish
Hey, we don't murder because we want people to flourish
Well, maybe in their minds it's like I befriend somebody and then I betray them
I would be I would bet that you could trace it back to like they believe it leads to human flourishing
So like even even though it is expressed in a way that's like completely backward and I believe that's immoral
There are moral reasoning probably can trace back to the same reasons why I believe murder is wrong or stealing is wrong
They just have a a very confused moral reasoning
You know go around and study different cultures pretty much every culture believes that murder is wrong
Pretty pretty much at least the murder of an innocent person
But like what somebody defines as an innocent person can vary
And so I think these these moral laws are are written upon our our souls and we understand them
Even though in some crazy cultures, I don't know if you know the people get mad that I use the word crazy
But in some of these cultures where things are a little backward
It's just a a confused moral reasoning that leads to a very immoral expression of those moral truths
But if you did kind of backtrack it and find the origin
I think you still would find that it's
It's trying to uphold the same thing
So it's when I you know as you're talking about that, you know, even the meso american cultures
They were sacrificing people because in
Some of their beliefs they were bringing the sun rise another day and and the harvest and whatnot because it would lead to more human life
Yeah, supposedly now the way I look at it is that's government and religious
Teachings that's being taught to the masses to accept this, you know what I mean?
And the masses did by and large probably accepted
There was probably some people that were atheist or agnostic like me like man, this is that shit crazy
Why are we doing this?
But you can't just like today in in some middle eastern countries where religious totalitarian
Nism, there have to be one or two dissidents that are like, man, this is stupid, man
But I have I can't speak about against this, you know
But unfortunately the masses will will gravitate to this and so in a weird way
I'm trying to connect all this to to our modern time, you know, we see these false flags
We see these lying about history well mainly most people will accept these narratives
We landed to the moon killed
Lincoln and blah blah overwhelmingly people do that
But there will always be those couple dissidents that say no, I don't I don't believe in that
I don't ascribe to that
And I mean you talk about how maybe some of the backwards of this is what I mean by going back to the roots of the
Bible like in the story of uh, Joshua where their god is telling them
He's gonna be with them to defeat these tribes and he's gonna make the they have to go circle
around this town and instill fear in them. I'm like, whoa, this is
Kind of psychopathic and on the certain day the walls are gonna come down
The trumpets are gonna thing and then they're gonna go in there and slaughter men women and children and even their livestock
And raise the town to the ground. This is god commanding these people to do that
And I'm looking at it now in 2026 and I see a lot of these people that go to church
They go to church on the weekends and they're probably sitting on a pew and they're
reading their scripture on an ipad and they're they're they probably have some contemporary music playing
While they're in in service and I'm not trying to make fun of anyone, but it's just what I what goes through my mind
I'm like, I wonder how so many of these people that go to these mega churches or nice churches
You know, they drive up in their Lexus and park in the church and then do their tithing and read their scriptures on the tablet
If we were to able to grab them stick them in a time machine and take them to this
part of
When the bible was going on when people were
Sacrificing goats and slitting their throats and satans or saying certain chants and talking to the holy spirit
So it doesn't kill them and I have a hard time believing that a lot of these people
That are contemporary christians that in my view adhere to a liberalized
Sanitized version of Judaism. I have a hard time believing that we could transport them to that time and they would be cool
Absolutely, they would probably look at them as satanists and who are these barbarian savages?
You know what I'm saying? I'm a christian. I I do not want to go to sleep and be reborn to be a contemporary with moses
You know what? But you see my point though, but that's not like I don't think that that's necessarily a
Good litmus test to see if somebody really believes these things because like I was born into a
Completely different context with completely different sensibilities. I was born for a certain time
And into a certain age and like yeah, like my preference is now
It's like I like to wake up and have my nice warm coffee in the morning with air conditioning and freaking modern heating
Like I don't want to go live in the middle of the desert
But like I can I think I can read those stories and read the history
And still have an appreciation that like for what god was doing through that epic in history
I'm not troubled with the the sacrifices
Of the old testament sacrificial system with like animal sacrifices and things like that
Yeah, I wouldn't want to be covered in blood myself
like
That's me speaking as somebody who's just born in 2020
Born in the 21st century
But like the fact that it happens it doesn't it doesn't trouble my spirit at all
And there are difficult things to reconcile
But I think it's just because somebody wouldn't want to be transported back in time
And and and their their modern sensibilities wouldn't mesh well with like the culture of the time because like
You could put anybody today back in those times and it'd be like it would be a massive culture shock
I guess the what I'm I maybe I didn't make my my
Entire point or or stated good. I guess what I'm trying to get at is
Those belief systems and I don't mean this in this respectful way are just fully antiquated. You know, they've been
they the the stories have been
Sanitized and edited to to fit the modern age, you know
um, this is why you
Like the the old testament is full of genocide man genocide genocide genocide and it's god ordering it and
Let's let's talk about that for a second like who is being genocided
The amacolites
The canaanites the the jebu sites pretty much a lot of the tribes in that region because the Hebrew according to this
You know these scriptures the Hebrew Israelites were gods chosen people
And if we apply my way of view of looking at the world today
History is always written by the victim one of the jebu sites were the chosen people
But this is the version that we that has survived and endured and therefore it is the truth
Well, so would you have any
problem like so we have to just step back for a second right and and understand we as
The created have no right to cast like god is god, right?
And i'm i know you don't believe in god
But like just for a second if god is the creator and he created all things and so he has perfect justice
Perfect understanding all powerful and he's he's the is the essence of truth goodness and beauty
And he has a chosen people that he's going to eventually use them as a vehicle to deliver
Salvation to the world right because jesus is going to come through
This lot of people and he's he is giving them the land
But he's also judging these other peoples right who would slaughter babies and sacrifice them to molek
Right like that's a very evil thing
And so if god is using one people to bring judgment upon another um and and we're reading that i can't say
God is immoral because where am i even getting my sense of right and wrong right like let's just let's just say for for the for
Hypothetical there was a community down the street from where you or i live and this was an immoral people that
Raped children every day. I don't think you'd have a problem. Just
Abniolating them, but i would spare the women and children. I would feel the children could be rehabilitated
I may be on board with the men for sure
But i can't fathom any justification for ever killing children at all ever at all and the bible does it continuously
So i mean like there's parts that like look it's hard to square with but at the end of the day
Do we have a higher moral code that we can tell god?
It's it's wrong of you to do that because it's like when paul's talking about i believe i do
But what if i know it sounds sacrilegious, but i believe my moral code is better
But what if and this is this is to somebody who doesn't believe in god like this might sound crazy
But what if it's actually an act of mercy?
You know the bible talks about how every tongue tribe and nation will worship god and rather than letting a child
Come up in that degenerate society and possibly end up becoming a murder
Like god wants his people to have nothing to do with that
And he's wiping out evil and to take foreign wives, but possibly like that's one of the reasons why
They weren't allowed to take foreign wives the the israelites because taking a foreign wife
Every time that's happened like you look at solemn
He took foreign wives and what happened a few few years later
He's he's he has a worshiping their gods and god is a jealous god
Where he won't settle for people worshiping anybody else other than him. Yeah
Yeah, that that was another key takeaway that i've been getting he's constantly like especially in the
In the exodus where he's constantly he constantly has to make the reminder
I am the god that your ancestors prayed upon
Because this is a time period where the more I studied it it becomes clear
It was a polytheistic religion that came out and it slowly
Turned into a monotheistic religion. This is why I mentioned, you know, even in genesis god refers to himself
Your ancestors knew me as el shadat el elawim
Well, so that's just god take like it's one god, but like
Each different name it doesn't mean it's a different god
It is though because it's no, but it is it's they're using a different word for like
Elohim refers to like the creator god
So like in the creation account you're gonna see the word elohim because it's god
In the canaanite religion that is the top god and then right below there's a lesser god named ball
So it becomes clear for me at least that
Judaism evolved from the god el the top because god was
In the canaanite religion they had a pantheon. They had a bunch of different gods and goddesses
El was the the creator god
And then you had ball b a who was a lesser god
But also had a lot of power and so it becomes clear as I've studied this more and more
I've gone super deep man
it becomes clear that Judaism then merged the god el and
The god ball together and so because remember when moses goes up to the what's that that mountain and then he comes
Yeah, my mouse and I to get the commandments and then when it comes down
What are the people doing? They made a an idol a calf, right a baby bull
This is what this is what the canaanites worship
So to me the signs and the clues are all in the old testament that the
These thoughts and beliefs. I know you don't don't agree with it. I know you
You believe in the creation story. I'm just saying the way I look at it becomes quite apparent
that these beliefs originated somewhere else and
It's I'm not saying that they necessarily stole these ideas
They just improved upon and and gave their own mission message. Let me give you a perfect example of this in meso america
The old mechs are
Civilized or the toll techs were in mexico city and we know very little about the toll techs
But they built these there's a massive pyramid. It's called the pyramid of the sun in mexico city
I've been there massive structure freaking amazing
Exquisite exquisite stuff
But we don't know much about the toll techs
But it is believed that the god known as the feathered serpent originated with with the toll techs
And then eventually the asteks adopted it this god and they named him gets alcohol the feathered serpent
The mayans also praised a similar god a feathered serpent
But they named it in their culture
We also see this with the greeks and the romans where the greeks were
Highly influenced by the egyptian mythology and then they came up with their own mythos
Then the romans were like, oh man, these greeks have some stuff on point
So they borrowed a lot of this is why a lot of the gods when you look at greek and roman mythology
It's the same god. They just the romans gave them a slightly different twist
I think this is a thing that cultures do when they're living in proximity with each other
They're gonna borrow ideas and thoughts from each other
Then some are gonna take certain evolutionary paths and and come out this way and that way
I think that's what happened with judieism when you study canaanites when you study the sumerians the epic of gilgamesh
You see that the evolution and this is the product that we see today has been
On a process of evolution for thousands of years at this point and I know you disagree with it
But this is this is where i'm seeing. Yeah, no, and I appreciate you sharing, you know, there are
I don't want to say this because there's there's kind of a lot
I'm loving it by yeah, by the way, matthew. Same here. Same here. I love these deep conversations
Yeah, I think I think there's always going to be in every civilization people trying to
Explain certain things
I get that you kind of see them all as equal, but one of them has to be true and
You know question is how do you know which one what what if it was the
mythology that was true
What if it was a greek mythology that was true? What if it was an image?
I think all of those things like I think the fact that there are similarities between them are sort of like pointing to the fact that
Like they're grasping for something that's true
And like just because there might be similarities in some of the gods or the explanations
Those can just be sort of things that they made their own traditions
You know, but they ultimately kind of maybe might trace back to something like you know
You were talking about how every lot a lot of world religions talk about a flood, right?
Well, maybe that's just because there actually was a flood and they're just kind of coming up with their own explanation and running with it
Yeah, I agree with that. Yeah, so
But the bible like I do think it's in a bit of a category of its own
In that like archaeologically just the the fact that like the amount of like home or zileid
I think there's only like two two original copies or copies of copies
Like they don't actually have the original copies and I don't think there's any
Original copies of some of these old testament texts
But like we do have copies of copies and then copies of those copies of those copies
And like just the amount of ancient texts that exist for the bible that can be
Cross-referenced with a lot of like the historical events
I do I do think it matches up a lot better than a lot of these other ones again
I'm not going to say here and say I'm an expert on every world religion, but
Then you look at like yeah, moses leading his people out of egypt
There's no archaeological evidence for that. No, but there's um like what the bible is talking about
Even scholars will say yeah, that that could have been a completely manufactured story the story of the exodus
Yeah, I don't have like there's no evidence for it
No, no, I think there is I think like there's the pharaohs that are talked about in genesis
We're the ones at the time ramsies. There's might there might not be I don't know
I don't have all the mental recall right now, right?
And I'm not gonna pretend that like I'm an expert on cross-referencing the bible texts with like all of egyptian history
But like I know that there's
More connecting the bible to actual historical events than a lot of these other ones and that's that's not that's not like
It's not like wheezy believe because I I say I know
Um
Like there's just a lot of things we got to reconcile with dude. There's there's there's so many
What is truth man? Yeah, but I come back to the person of jesus. We know he existed
We wouldn't we bc in ad if he didn't you know, there are there are
Historic like that's something I can speak a little bit more about, you know, we have like the accounts of jesus docephus
There's the accounts of cornelius tacitus. You have the gospel accounts themselves, which a lot of people like to say
You shouldn't be able to use those as authoritative historical texts
But like we have thousands of copies of these manuscripts and so we know jesus existed
We know nobody's been able to match like his impact on civilization
And he claimed to be the son of god
So we have to we have to do something with that you either have to believe him or you don't and you know coming back to
The name of your podcast what is truth? I'm reminded of what jesus said
He said I am the way the truth in the life and his response to punch his pilot actually
I got my bible right here. Someone open it is um in john 18
It says everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice and that's when paunch's pilot says what is truth
But everyone who listens to my voice is of the truth. So and who is truth?
I think truth is not necessarily just one thing
But it's a person and that the purest embodiment it is christ himself
He is the way the truth and the life and nobody comes to the father
Except through me and his life his testimony his death and resurrection
Meet god's demand for perfect justice like we were talking about rights and wrongs earlier
Is like is lying a sin or is it not? Is it right or is it wrong?
Like we know even people who are non-christians know that that lying is wrong
But why or that committing murder is wrong, right? Like we've fallen short
We've sinned and god sent his son to reconcile us to him
And the only thing that could actually meet the demands of his perfect justice
Because we've sinned against an eternal god is jesus. And so I don't know. I don't know what you're thinking about all that when I say that but it's uh
We have to be
I mean
What is it your experience as a as a as a man that uh, you're content with yourself that you're content with
You know your life and having never sinned or like do you have that sense of justice written in your in your heart that
These things will have to be accounted for
You know the bible talks about how Jesus is going to like we're gonna have to give an account for everything we've done right like
and
Like if I if I examine my life and I look at some of the things I've I've done
It's like man. I've really messed up here or like no
I'm uh like even even my best works are but dirty rags, right?
And you know, I look at I think about death
I think about what's gonna happen to me after I die and
You know, I look at what the bible says where says the wages of sin is death the wages of sin is death and
I can't make myself clean. It's gonna have to it's gonna have to come from somebody who's perfect
It's gonna have to come from somebody who's perfect and clean and has never seen and that is that is jesus
So my thoughts
Yeah, what are your thoughts
What you just said is you know
This is a lot of the stuff that my dad was seeing prior to his Alzheimer's kicking in you you're gonna have to account
For the way you're living
And it's just this and I don't mean this in a derogatory way
This is just the way I hear it and the way I try my brain processes it
But it's like living in fear again
This is why I view both government and religious thought in much a similar light
They both feed you this constant barrage of fear porn to living in fear instead of living life
That brings you happiness just reading the the ancient philosophers
You know like a Seneca Seneca wasn't Christian at all
But you read his writings. He was living as good as he could be
You know, maybe he was a hypocrite
You know in his real life same thing with Marcus Aurelius Marcus Aurelius writings are
Amazing amazing words to live by but it's entirely possible. He doesn't have anything the way he wrote about
We're all humans at the end of the day. It's not to crap on anyone. You know, I'm a human and
when I grew up very religious
And
You know, I still remember feeling shame for you know, if I wanted to uh, how do I say this to keep you rated g?
If I wanted to explore my my self gratification as a kid
I was meant to feel horrible shame, you know
You need to go to the priest and confess your sins. God is watching you, you know
Or if I saw a woman's beautiful curves, for example, and I caught myself under religious thought
I was like, oh man, I'm gonna my eyes are making me sin
You know, I feel so much guilt and now as I'm older and everything I'm like, no, man. That's a nice rack
I'm gonna enjoy it. I'm not gonna feel guilty about this stuff, man
There's bigger things to worry about
There's kids getting killed on a daily basis in Palestine
But I'm supposed to feel guilty because I enjoy a nice pair of racks
You know, like it's like people's priorities are all over the place
And I blame a lot of this on government indoctrination and religious indoctrination
Let's worry about real stuff that's happening. You know what I mean?
Let's fix the homeless problem and instead of worrying about
Debating who can go into a bathroom and who can't you know what I mean? Like this is the stuff that I worry about
This is my personal ethics. Let's worry about real stuff instead of this stupid
Superficial nonsense that we're constantly arguing back and forth about that's the way I go about my life
And so I don't care if I get judged by this god if he exists or doesn't I don't worry about that
I honestly don't care. I'm gonna live to leave behind the best legacy that I can do
I could very well die tomorrow going to work and I feel
Especially the last few years. I've tried to become a better human being so I would have no regrets
You know what I mean? This is my legacy. This is what it is. You know what I mean?
And now that my dad has had
Alzheimer's now, you know
Officially this year. I've been thinking about him a lot man because he was constantly you need to repent
The end is near. Jesus is coming. He's gonna judge
Always man. Like I it saddens me because I wanted to know my dad
I wanted to ask him stuff about his childhood and he never opened up man
He just it was always jesus and god jesus and god and repent
Blah blah blah always non-stop. It was I'm not exaggerating man. It was it was extremist
If my dad was an arab, he would have been a jihadi. He was a christian extremist man like
Non-stop and so for me. I'm like, man, I don't like this extremism
I don't want nothing to do with that man. I'm gonna I'm gonna live and let live man
I'm not gonna force my view my perceptions of of morality onto others man
The way I look at things is I don't care what you believe
I don't care what they believe or or whoever believes as long as you don't infringe on someone else's well-being
I don't care man. I honestly don't care once you start infringing on another person's well-being whether that's
Getting kids to do these stupid procedures and and hormones and stuff now you're infringing on other people's well-being
I'm not cool with that. I don't care, you know, or you're telling
Your religious beliefs tell you that you need to do this
But if infringes on someone else's well-being, I don't care. I'm not cool with that. That's the way I look at it
but coming back to my dad my dad is
Was at one point a religious zealot and now with his Alzheimer's
He doesn't talk about God at all. You know when I when we first started accepting that
dad had Alzheimer's
That was the first dead giveaway. He would have I would talk to him over the phone and then
Zero mention of God or the Gospels or repenting or nothing. That's freaking weird
I actually enjoy this conversation with my dad
But that was like the onset and it's almost like Alzheimer's erased all the hardcore reading of the bible every day
I don't know if there was a way to tell how many times he read the bible over the over his lifetime
How many times over it was several times over man
My dad knew the he could give you
If you gave a religious quote or you know a bible verse
He would tell you exactly what book and chapter in verse
My dad was that hardcore with it and now he doesn't talk about it
So as someone that thinks a lot about these things I've been thinking about my dad
I'm like damn. This is all he lived for the last
several decades of his life
And it sounds harsh, but it's like it was all for nothing now now he doesn't now you could you could view it in a
Different way. I'm just telling you from my perspective. I'm like all that crazy all that shunning of family members
He would ostracize and judge other people push people away
All that shit was for nothing now because now you're out your brain is done
So when I look at my dad my own personal experience with my dad
I'm like he kind of left the shitty ass legacy with his religious extremism
I don't want to do that. I want to try to be the best person that I can
I'm not perfect by any means man, but I'm going to try to do things as best as I could
So that if I go or if my brain goes at one point people like hey man
At least he was trying to be the best person that he could be and so that's why I live that
I do it all for legacy because I don't know
There's no way to know if there's an afterlife or not
Maybe we just go to the ground and the bugs eat us and that's it and the way we
rejuvenate in the next world is through our
Breakdown of our body and and going back into the soil and then coming back into the planet that way
That's possible that religious people don't want to accept but that could be possible
Maybe there is an afterlife. I don't know, but I don't worry about it, man
I just worry about leaving the best legacy that I can and
That's all I try to worry about stuff that I can control
I can't worry about things that are out of my control is what I'm trying to get at
No, I definitely appreciate you sharing that story about your dad
I could I could I could see how that would shape your view on all of this. I could definitely see that
And yeah, I mean I think we're all just people at the end of the day
But I don't think we can like like you say you're trying to live good. It's like
How are you? How do you define how do you define that? How do you define like the the moral
The moral reasoning behind that like I just said earlier by not infringing upon another person's will
But why do you think that that's that why do you think infringing upon another person's well-being is it's not good?
Like because if you were to trace it all the way back like
I'm taking away their autonomy. I'm taking away their sovereignty of being
What it is to be a human being that's why
You know who the hell am I to tell someone that they need to believe this or believe that way
Or behave this or behave that if whatever the hell they're doing is not hurting anyone else
Whether it's kids or full-grown adults
I don't care and so I'm I'm not I'm not taking away that individual person's sovereignty
You know what I mean? So that to me covers everything because if you said well, what about what about this?
Well, is it hurting kids? Then no, I'm not cool with that
Is it hurting that person physically or emotionally or or stunting their
Physical growth and or emotional growth in one way. I'm not cool with that
So I feel that way of morality that works for me, you know, I know you said for you scriptures
What works for me living life in this way where I don't care just as long as I'm not infringing on another person's well-being
like for me personally if
If I'm on you know, if I'm somewhere and I see someone struggling
I'm gonna if I can I'll stop buying hell why because some moral duty
You see my dad used to say you're gonna work
You're gonna win points to go to heaven and I remember thinking I'm like, I'm not doing this for no goddamn points
I'm doing it because that comes from within me. You know what I mean?
I drive up and down these roads all the damn MacArthur man
And I probably save several turtles a week and I'm not doing it because I want people to record myself
You know like oh look at me. Look how cool I am put me on
You know on on instagram or facebook. I saved a turtle. I do it all the week. Why am I doing it?
I want to give that little creature an extra day to live
You know, I mean it's there's nothing magical. There's nothing fancy about it, man
It's just that's the way I live life, man
And if I can try to help a creature or a fellow human being I'm gonna take that opportunity to do so
But that's because it comes from within me. You know, that's part of my personality. That's what makes me me
Weezy I want to thank you for this conversation, man. It's been really fun
I loved it
You know, I'm not I'm actually not I for somebody who has a podcast
I I don't consider myself well spoken at all. It's kind of good, man
Like give me a copy and I'll put it on my platforms, man. If you can share it with my folks
Yeah, yeah, the folks will will enjoy you because not everyone that follows me views things
I'm sure there's plenty of people that follow me that are religious
Um and and still and I'm sure there'll be people that that really enjoyed you
So you're doing good, man. So I appreciate it and uh, yeah best of luck to you, man
And maybe we'll do it again sometime in the future. Absolutely
All right, brother. Have a good one. Yes, sir