Starve the Ego Feed the Soul
Starve the Ego Feed the Soul
The Authentic God Conversation: Rethinking Religion with Pastor CHARLIE MCCALLIE
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We explore the nature of spirituality and religion with Pastor Charlie McCallie in a wide-ranging conversation that challenges conventional thinking about God, faith, and human connection.
• The episode opens with poetry from 11-year-old Beckam Atwood, highlighting the wisdom and depth young people often possess
• Religion as a "force multiplier" that can exponentially increase both good and evil depending on how it's used
• Four philosophical conceptions of God: as a being, as a super-being, as the ground of being, and as experience
• How religious texts contain beautiful contradictions that prevent literal interpretations and encourage deeper engagement
• Why questions and doubts serve as the foundation for authentic spirituality rather than obstacles to overcome
• The problem of suffering as an entry point for spiritual growth rather than a reason to abandon belief
• Jesus as a radical figure focused on love and inclusion rather than establishing an exclusive religion
• How to build bridges with those we disagree with politically through radical love and empathy
• Finding God in moments of human connection rather than abstract theological concepts
Visit flagstaffcommons.com to hear Pastor Charlie's sermons or find the American Heretic podcast for more conversations on progressive Christianity.
Warmly,
Nico Barraza
@FeedTheSoulNB
www.nicobarraza.com
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Speaker 1:Start small welcome back. I'm so happy to finally be recording again. I know I've been promising this for multiple years now to start to launch every Monday and happy to announce that I'm back home finally in my home of Flagstaff, arizona, have a studio again, going to be recording on the weekends when I have some spare time and hopefully launch new episodes every Monday now. I'm super excited. I know I've been promising that a lot, so thank you all for your patience and I'm super excited. I know I've been promising that a lot, so thank you all for your patience, and you know I already have a handful of episodes I've been sitting on for months. So those are going to come out in the next few weeks here. Yeah, just really grateful.
Speaker 1:A little update on my shoulder, you know, after this really ridiculous experience in the modern healthcare system here in the U S the orthopedic surgery system and having a surgery in Flagstaff, arizona, with the surgeon that just wrecked my arm, three in San Diego and then just one in Vail, colorado, basically a year ago at the Stedman clinic Um, all of it the same, uh, sort of the same experience, where these surgeons are not listening to me, there's not very much empathy, a lot of ignorance, a lot of lack of clinical data and science and really just sort of focused on making money. So this next surgeon I'm going to see is in Boston and it's probably the last guy I'm going to see, at least in the States. We'll see what he has to say and, yeah, I'll keep you guys all updated. I don't want to focus on that too much, but before I get into the episode today I want to read some poetry from a very special young man that I've been very blessed to have in my life over the past three and a half years and watch him mature and just I don't know, just grow into an incredible human being, and he already was when I first met him. Just, I don't know, just grow into an incredible human being, and he already was when I first met him, mr Beckham Atwood. He wrote this these sets, the sets of poetry when he was in fifth grade just last year. He's in sixth grade now. I'm probably going to embarrass him a little bit. I didn't ask him if I could read these because I wanted to be a surprise. I think he's going to be okay with it.
Speaker 1:These poems that I'm about to read, they're so incredibly deep and I think it really talks to just the idea that so many of us adults and I remember when I was a kid I kind of felt this way too when adults really, even if they're helpful to you, they kind of look down upon you, right, they had all the wisdom and you were just a kid, you had so much to learn, right, wait till you get older, right, wait till you get older. And it's the finger wag, the old sort of adage and the cliche scene there. And when I'm around kids like Beckham and his little brother Camden, and when I read poetry like this, and when I hear how they see the world, and when I can really like sit there and understand. You know there is so much depth and I think you know we really focus on as adults, like how we can give back and how we can teach the younger generation and empower them, and that's great, but I think that's only one side of the coin. I think we really have to understand that they can empower us and through their view of the world and their sort of just just their presence.
Speaker 1:You know, I think as we age, we tend to lose a lot of presence because we have worries and stress and bills and healthcare and all this other stuff we're focusing on, right, debt, you know, these things that you don't really focus on as a kid, but you focus on so much more. Right, there's trauma, there's grief, there's laughter, there's love, there's video games, there's food, all these other things. Right, I think there's just this beautiful presence of how many young people not all, but many young people view the world, and I just really want to throw a shout out to this young man. He has done some incredible work and I'm just really a big fan of not only this writing I'm about to read to you, but just who he is as a person. So I'm just going to read a couple of these poems and then we'll get into the episode. I'll introduce the guests and everything, and again then we'll get into the episode. I'll introduce the guests and everything, and again, shout out to.
Speaker 1:Beckham for this incredibly deep writing that an 11-year-old wrote. So keep that in mind as you're listening to this. Okay, so this starts his thank you page, his page of gratitude. Here I would like to strongly dedicate this wonderful collection of poetry to my amazing family and to my awesome friends. I also want to greatly thank my loquacious teacher, mrs Lorimer, for all your help.
Speaker 1:Invitation Poem. There is a place where imagination takes the place of everything, where anything can mean everything, where everything can be possible and every dream can come true. Follow me to this amazing place and flip the page to ride the river of reading. This poem is called the Stars Infinite like forever. From the black darkness beyond the never-ending universe, within the unknown endlessness around the beautiful world, inside the dark void above the midnight sky, the only shining light in the abyss. This poem is called I Am Poem.
Speaker 1:I am an inquisitive kid who loves engineering. I wonder what awesome things you could make. I hear the large storm of ideas in my head. I see the magical dimension of wonders. I want to make everything. I'm an inquisitive kid who loves engineering. I pretend that there is no limit. I feel like I'm in another world. I touch everything. I see I worry the world of fun will go away. I cry when I have to leave. I'm an inquisitive kid who loves engineering. I understand that I can't make everything. I say there's an infinite world. I dream big being on top of the beautiful world. I try to come up with everything. I hope that the golden world will never die. I'm an inquisitive kid who loves engineering.
Speaker 1:All right, this poem is called Dear Skiing engineering. All right, this poem is called Dear Skiing, and it's inspired by Kobe Bryant's Dear Basketball, dear Skiing. From the moment I fell over and over and sliding down at those hills, I knew one thing was real I fell in love with you, a love so deep I gave you my all, from my brain and body to my heart and soul. As a four-year-old kid, so much in love with you, I never saw the bottom of the mountain, I only saw me going down it. And so I gave you all heart, all of it, every single time, because you asked for it and I gave you it. I gave you all of my heart because it came with so much. And so I skied through the wind and snow, not because competition called for me, because you called for me. I gave you all Because you make me feel as alive than ever. You always give me what you can and that's why I will always love you, even though there is risk. That won't stop me, because nothing can stop me from you. But no matter what, I know the love between us will never break, no matter what, because you mean the world to me and we both know. No matter what I do next, I will always be that kid that loves you endlessly. Love you forever, beckham. All right, this is one of my favorite here.
Speaker 1:If I were in charge of the world the title of this poem. If I were in charge of the world, I would cancel boring school homework, terrible, gross pollution, evil, despicable crimes and also long deadly wars. If I were in charge of the world, there would be more tall green grass, shorter school hours and every gross food would be awesome. If I were in charge of the world, you wouldn't have boring, you wouldn't have lonely, you wouldn't get hurt or clean your room. You wouldn't even have chores. If I were in charge of the world, everything would be fun, everyone would be super happy and a person who got lost in the fog or once sat on a flat log would still be allowed to be in charge of the world.
Speaker 1:This poem is called Air. I am air, the blank nothingness that is everywhere. I see everything which cannot see me. I hear every single loud and quiet noise. I see everything which cannot see me. I hear every single loud and quiet noise. I feel the whole world around me. I can taste the blue, vanilla sky. I can smell the silence of nature. I am air, the muted emptiness that no one can see. I am as quiet as the fluffy white clouds in the sky, for I am air, no silencer than a small bird. All right, this is the last one End poem. There is a place where your journey ends and where the sidewalk bends, where the trees grow white and hollow and where the bluebirds come and follow. Let us leave this imaginary place where no grass grows and where the mighty strong wind blows. Us leave this imaginary place where no grass grows and where the mighty strong wind blows past the small, busy towns and winding streets, over the tall, snowy mountains where the sun meets, to the place where the journey ends.
Speaker 1:Wow, man, if you don't think those poems are awesome for an 11-year-old, those poems are awesome for anyone of any age. I mean incredible writing. Just so much depth and meaning in those words and I think it's a great segue into the guest I've had on the show for this week, mr Charlie McCauley. He is a pastor. He's the first I would say religious figure. I mean Dr Lisa Miller is religious and a handful of other my guests have been religious, but Charlie McCauley is a pastor here at a Christian church in Flagstaff, arizona.
Speaker 1:I'm not religious. I was raised Catholic, but I don't practice a religion anymore. I do consider myself spiritual, but I wanted to have Charlie on the show and so give me, give me a couple seconds here. If you're don't believe in religion, if you're atheist, agnostic or you don't align with Christian values, totally get all those things. But Charlie in particular has a way with words and he's got a podcast of his own.
Speaker 1:I attended one of his sermons this was years ago and was really impressed with the openness, with the inclusivity, with the depth of thought and realism of not only the Bible but of the stories within the Bible too. I really respected the sort of equality he was preaching about all religious texts and about all belief structures, including those that do not believe in Christianity, that do not believe in the Bible. I really appreciate the open doors that he has facilitated here in Flagstaff, in the community that I call home, and I wanted to give him an opportunity to come on the show and really share not only his spiritual belief structure but really his deep-rooted knowledge in history and historical context, and he's a very educated, well-read human being, and so having a deep conversation with him was really a treat. I think when you Google his name, I don't think he runs his podcast anymore, but he does post the sermons from every week, I believe, from his congregation online, and even if you're not Christian again, I'm not Christian but I really enjoy listening to them. There's a lot of great values there. Of course, I don't agree with everything, but I agree with a lot of this stuff and they're very heartfelt. You can tell this human being is authentic and genuine and is really trying to facilitate a home for all people, of all religious beliefs, of all walks of life, of all genders, of all sexualities, of all political backgrounds, to really come together and celebrate something greater than themselves, whether it's a God you believe in, whether it's love, whether it's earth, peace, whatever dogs. So we just have a really good conversation and we recorded this a while ago because I haven't launched an episode in a bit, so apologies to Charlie for taking so long to get this out.
Speaker 1:I'm excited to get this episode out there and I'm just happy to be back. So thank you all so much for being here. Please don't forget to leave the show. A five-star written review on Apple and Spotify podcast Helps the show out a ton. It's a free way you can give back and yeah, I know I've kind of rambled on for the intro here, but I really wanted to read Beckham's poems. I thought that would be a great and is a great segue into this week's episode. And yeah, hopefully you all enjoy and without further ado. Charlie McCauley, you know and I'll obviously get into this, but like that, that was actually my first introduction to you, believe it or not, is I found you through? It was what was the name of the podcast? American, something right.
Speaker 2:American Heretic yeah.
Speaker 1:American Heretic, that's right, really really intriguing name too, you know. So I don't remember how. I don't remember how the podcast came to be. Like I was in Flagstaff at the time. I had just gone through a really like life-changing cycling accident and then a separation, and then, randomly, I grew up Catholic and I was like maybe trying to like dip my toe back into believing in something and I was like, and then, I don't know, the podcast kind of just found me and I it's weird Like no one from Flagstaff sent me it. It wasn't, it wasn't even local, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I think I stumbled upon it just through like Apple recommendations or something, um, or or maybe maybe I had seen it through. Someone shared something on Facebook, maybe it was a Flagstaff connection, but I remember clicking on it and listening to you speak and and I was just like man, this is a very intriguing human being, the way they're. They're sort of taking Christianity and taking the gospel and and and welcoming and there's a sense of inclusivity and just like a lot of the things you talked about were very historical and very logical and very pragmatic and I haven't heard a lot of. I would say, if I can call you a religious figure because you are. That's what your work is. There aren't a lot of people that are pastors or priests or any sort of preachers in that way.
Speaker 1:I think talking like you're talking and maybe there are, and I'm just not tapped into that part anymore because I've been so far removed. But when I heard you speak it was and this is before I had my own podcast I was like man, this is some powerful stuff. And I remember, after I'd crashed, I went with my partner at the time we were still together we went to one of your gatherings, one of your sermons in Flagstaff, at the old place that they tore down.
Speaker 2:What was the middle school. Yeah, it was the old Flag middle school yeah.
Speaker 1:Exactly. So we went there and I recognized some of the musicians playing because I'd been a musician most of my life in Flagstaff, when I moved there when I was 22. And I just felt it felt like a. It felt like something I hadn't felt in a long time, which was a sense of community and just a sense of like trying to be a better person. And there were people from a lot of different walks of life. They're celebrating and you know I'll get into my story Christianity and just religion and spirituality in general.
Speaker 1:But I want to start off with just sort of thanking you for the community you've created and this won't be a show, just pumping up Charlie's ego at all, but I just want to say that like it is a unique thing, you know. I think that you've built, and obviously the people around you that have built, because I've been in a handful of churches. I went to Catholic school my whole life and obviously Catholicism is a very you know it's a very specific, stringent part of Christianity, but I went in there. I was like man. This is cool. There's people from different ages, different walks of life, you know, different genders, different socioeconomic stratas, and it just seems like a welcoming community, which I think, at the end, is sort of the ethos of why us humans really gravitate towards belief systems because we're lonely and we're designed to be together and to celebrate something greater than ourselves.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to ask you a ton of questions and I'm really glad that you agreed to be on the show, because I haven't had any like one that's a religious figure on the show, minus maybe Dr Lisa Miller, who studies spirituality in Columbia professionally, but she's not like pastor or preacher or reverend or any of sorts. Right, she's a believer, but she's more of a scientist around it, not on the ground. And, yeah, I guess I want to start with that Cause. That was, I think, in 2019 and, funny enough, it's like like everyone makes excuses got busy, didn't end up going back.
Speaker 2:And COVID blew that whole thing up.
Speaker 1:COVID absolutely changed it, but you know it's. I think the thing is like we we find the excuses sometimes and I and I really think that like and I want to get into this obviously I keep asking you questions of the show but like, there it's something that I've needed for a long time and I've just been consistently at avoiding it. It's like going to the doctors. It's like, ah, you skip six months and then a year. It seems really daunting to go to the doctor and be like, yeah, my health kind of crap. Now, sorry, I've been ignoring it and I feel that a little bit with like religion, because although I feel like I'm spiritual, it's like it's almost like when I go into cathedral I prefer no one's there because there's like this little bit of guilt and shame in the back of my mind from being a kid and raising it. I haven't been in like 15 years you know which I, which I want to get into where that comes from too.
Speaker 1:But anyways, that was a long-winded sort of intro. I just want to say, you know, thank you for creating what you've created in Flagstaff, Obviously it being home to me. It's a community that I hold dear to my heart, and it's cool to see something like this there. I would expect it to exist in Flagstaff.
Speaker 2:for many reasons it's a magical place, you know but thank you Well, thanks for saying that and I'm and thank you for just like, let me be a part of this conversation and hang out. There's a lot of yeah, a lot of voices out there, but sometimes the loudest voices of religion are the most obnoxious, and it's sometimes it's hard to get past that, Right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it really is. I think that that's why it's gotten, you know, even with social media, you know, especially since that's changed things too and how we communicate with each other. Like there there's this huge like mega church vibe, right, that's like blown up even through the eighties and nineties and I never grew up in that because Catholicism is so different, right, it's like it's very much like the military of Christianity, right.
Speaker 1:Stand up sit down, incent, shut up, be quiet, kneel down, stand up, get over here, go over there, Whereas you go into a Baptist church something else people are singing, playing guitar, clapping. It's a different experience and again, I'm not saying one is better than the other just growing up Roman Catholic in a traditional Mexican-American family that's just where my family raised me in and I appreciated it and learned a lot of good things. But there was a lot of trauma and dogma, which you speak to eloquently on a lot of your sermons, which now are sort of made into podcasts. That's how I kind of stay up with you as I listen to those. And one thing I really appreciate that you speak on a lot is sort of the idea of like changing what we've predetermined Christianity or even religion or spirituality should be, whereas, like this, it can set up a lot of dividers and divisions between human beings. Right, if we look at like, different faith structures like I've read the Quran, like I've read the Bible many times too, you know, if you look at these different historical texts, like a lot of times folks and this has happened for generations, generations use them to pin against each other, right, whether it's for land or for politics or for you know, other underlying beliefs that humans have and they'll use religion sort of as the spear you know to to commit conquests or genocide or what.
Speaker 1:Have you any of these things right? That are human experiences, like in generations that are like I'm a millennial, and in younger generations that you can tell, like so many of us are struggling with loneliness, depression, like suicidality, anxiety, all these heavy things that you think would be getting better in a more connected world. I have my phone on me all the time. I can get on Instagram and, you know, see millions of nice butts. But like, why? Why are we? Why are we so disconnected?
Speaker 1:And you know, in my mind, as a 35 year old now, what I've experienced is like we're so wrapped up in this generation of me, like it's me, me, me, me, me that we've forgotten, like service and gratitude and togetherness, like that's something that I think was a was a condition of a lot of religious practices. You know it wasn't all the time, but I think, like the idea of congregation, for instance, like just getting together and celebrating something greater than yourself. It doesn't have to be the same God, it doesn't have to be God in general. It could be anything right, it could be nature, you know, but, like, I did that as a kid, and as a kid you kind of like I don't know it never really equated. It was like this is just what we do.
Speaker 1:But then, as an adult, when I started to feel lonely and I was like, yeah, you know, for 10 years I went to grad school multiple times, studied science, I was like this God thing can't be real.
Speaker 1:We're just making a shit up because we're scared to die and we don't want to admit to ourselves that we might never see anyone after death, you know, and all these things. And then I realized there was almost, like, this counter trauma response towards, like pushing myself away from other humans because I didn't believe in this thing that a lot of people believe in. And I guess, again, I'm long-winded, I have so much to say about this and I'm sure you do too. But, like, with going back to the idea of like loneliness and depression and anxiety and these things that, like so many of us face, right, and it's rising, do you think that you know religion or spirituality and we can talk about the differences between the two definitions? Like, do you think that that's what a lot of us are missing in that to bring us together, or do you think it's a combination of other things too?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Great question. I think it's definitely a combination, but I would blame I would sort of blame religious organization for that more than like young people or generations, because I think what happened is there's an American piece to this part of our DNA, historically as Americans, for good and bad, it's a double-edged sword. Is our individualism Like part of what makes us amazing and our freedoms and our bill of rights? Is this, um, I mean Thomas Hobbes and John Locke, these French and American revolutionary thinkers, who really centered sort of an epistemological revolution in the whole world, of centering the individual experience, whereas anthropologically humans were not really evolved that way. You know, we were tribal, we were communal, we were villages, we were communal, we were villages.
Speaker 2:You know there's a lot of really interesting work that homo sapiens probably are the are. This are the hominids that survived because of our relational community thing. I mean there's a lot of research out there right now that neanderthals were actually smarter, stronger, bigger, but they didn't form little communities and so like 150 homo sapiens could take on these individualized things and we've sort of gone back to that Neanderthal thing. I mean that's overly simple. There's good things about individualism, but then our religions, instead of speaking truth to that, or offering really flourishing communal experiences. They change their theology to be individualistic and say it's's all about your personal soul getting to some soulish heaven, which is really platonic and Greek more than ancient near Eastern Jewish ideas about bringing heaven on earth or making a community here. And so really, especially in our country, we have a version of religion that's it's just bad religion. It's just trying to like. Actually it's trying to create fear, it's trying to create shame, it's trying to manipulate people by tapping into individualism instead of the, the positive force of spirituality or religion, which is in the communal and the collective.
Speaker 2:I always tell people I had a really great opportunity last week to go speak at a religion class at NAU here. You know NAU and Blackstaff, and it was so great just taking open questions from all of these freshmen who are, you know, 18, 19 year olds just trying to figure out life away from home about religion and spirituality. And I like reminding people that religion is a force multiplier, in the same way that the internet or money is. You know, you can't really assign a moral value, good or bad, to money or the internet. It's just a force multiplier. So the internet just exponentially increases evil and exponentially increases good and money does the same thing, and really religion, organized or not, or spirituality, has the same potential.
Speaker 2:So, like it force multiplies the worst parts of human nature and so many wars and division, racism, so many evils of this planet have actually come from things that religion has force multiplied. But also so much good in this world has come from when the force multiplier of religion or spirituality does connect people or connect us to ourselves or the divine, or and it creates human flourishing. And I actually think that is something that most people don't have the nuance or the language or the privilege to like see the difference. And then what's left behind is individual stories who have had religion traumatize them, and then someone else over here religion has been such a source of joy and connection and health and then they can't see each other or they feel like they have to convince each other of the goodness or badness of religion and it's like, well, it's not that simple, it's a double-edged sword.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting because I almost, at least, going through multiple different graduate programs, I almost felt like the more Western colonialistic education someone had, the less spiritual and religious they were, which is an interesting paradigm, because that hasn't always been the case space. And then, you know, you, you brought up sort of the the like organizational religion or religiosity sort of being to blame for a lot of. I completely agree, I mean, that's, that's obvious. It seems like when you actually look at the story, it just seems that's what's going on. And I wanted to say, like you, you sound like a walking Howard Zinn's, the people's history, because you're you're very like, well-versed in history and historical context but also, like you, you know the books well that you're preaching to. So I just want to point that out.
Speaker 1:When you're talking, there's beautiful words you use. Look at is just all the, quite frankly, like divisiveness religion has done over the years. Right when people have used religion, for instance, you talk about Christian nationalism a lot. Right when we've used religion to otherize people instead of together right. People instead of together Right, and that blows my mind, cause that seems like like the little antithesis to love which is at you.
Speaker 1:You said so eloquently in the podcast you are, the sermon you had, which I really enjoyed, which that, at a base minimum to God is love and love is God. And so if you consider yourself spiritual at any event, whether it's like one God or multiple gods you believe in or whatever, if you believe like love is, like literally why we're here and like the absolute most worthy currency that we can celebrate outside of, like time and time is just there to spend love or to share love, right? If you're not practicing love, you're not being loving. How can you consider yourself truly like, you know, like God, that you're living up to some sort of like you know, spirit, right? Or like connecting with higher power and in, I guess, in your words, how would you describe like, how do we rectify that to get people back in to, I guess, believing in something? And does it have to? Does it have to be necessarily Christianity? Like is, do you think religion is is evolving as well? Like Christianity is also evolving?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and to deny that is to deny facts right in front of your face. I mean that's. Everything is changing, Everything is moving in a direction and religions have all changed and shifted. That's why I've been so privileged to study so many religions of the world, including my own faith, and they all have 20,000 denominations or different versions, because they don't just evolve in a monolithic voice either. As you're mentioning your Catholic upbringing and someone who's an Orthodox Christian or a Baptist or a Methodist or a Presbyterian or a Quaker, you know there's just so many different strands of evolution that are in even within each of those umbrellas, and so what ends up happening is any kind thinking intellectual person sees all this division and just goes well, there's no truth in this, Because it's just division, it's just tribalism, and they would be 100% right except for the word just. It's not just tribalism and division, not just tribalism and division.
Speaker 2:There's also complex universes of human beings who are sharing so much love and, like you know you probably know this a little bit but our community here, which is a Christian community but it's also part of an interfaith community like our home, is Christianity. Our language is Christianity. We rally and kind of form our community around following the teachings of Jesus. But we don't do that exclusively. And you said, does someone have to believe Christianity? No, of course not. I mean, in fact, one of the radical teachings of true Christianity is the largeness of the idea of God, and it would be kind of fun, maybe, to unpack what people mean when they use the word God. Be kind of fun, maybe, to unpack what people mean when they use the word God. But yes, I think what is so incredible to me is how many people who have been hurt by and traumatized by religion are still longing for that community. They're still longing for what I would use the word God for. But I would like put asterisk that we need to like define what that means, Because I mean we do a thing at our church we've done it a couple times called Atheism for Lent, and the process is to, in the Lenten season of the Christian calendar.
Speaker 2:It's not to critique atheism, it's not to say this is why atheists are wrong. It's to say this is everyone needs to be an atheist, and what we mean by that is that if you can't stop believing in a God that doesn't exist, if you're not brave enough to face what you describe yourself in your own story of going man. People just make this up because they're afraid to die. And there's this what patriarchal guy, God Zeus in the sky, who's going to like punish people who believe the wrong things? People actually think that's Christianity. It's actually not. That's modern American evangelical Protestantism and a mix of like right-wing Catholicism. That's not ancient grassroots movement following the teachings of Jesus, and I think it's really important for people to stop believing in a God that doesn't exist. I think that's the beginning.
Speaker 2:My favorite thing when I'm hanging out with sophomoric young people, when they stop believing in God or especially in philosophy, when they find nihilism is, you know, and my some of my favorite philosophers Nietzsche and Faurbach, nihilist thinkers, Kierkegaard, they're all. Nihilism is is the beginning of the journey. It's the. That's the starting point, not the end, and that's the mistake I see people make all the time is they? They realize everything is meaningless, there's no Zeus in the sky and I'm like great, you're ready to start the journey Like? This is the launching pad for figuring out what we mean by the word love, what we mean by the word God. So, yeah, I think it's all so invigorating and fascinating and it's really hard for people to talk about, like religion and politics, like just make people freeze up and paralyzed and it's like, oh yeah, they're hard, but these are actually really life-giving, enjoyable conversations to have.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and even more necessary in the current times right now, where so many people are just judging one another for who they voted for or there's just a lot of anger. And I think that we that we've we've built a culture now and through a lot of, again, very complex, nuanced issues here, but where most people don't listen at all.
Speaker 1:they just want to be right and we're addicted to being right, and so we'd rather scream or yell or shout or, you know, say something. I do think the thing that religion brings, if we can become open or even spirituality, use a greater term open to stepping into the conversation about it, whether you're an atheist, agnostic, christian, jew, muslim, whatever is the idea of openness like, let's have a discussion, let's talk, and might I not always be right? Is the question right that I should ask myself? You know, I do want to hit the god thing really quick, because that is the, that's the, that's like the big button in the room. Don't hit the God thing really quick, because that is the, that's the, that's like the big button in the room. Don't hit the red button, um, at least when you're in the Catholic grade school. It's funny.
Speaker 1:I want to tell a story. When I was I think I was like nine years old or 10 years old we were reading some verse of the Bible. I can't remember what it was. I think it was like when, when, like it was, I think Moses got the 10 commandments and I and like then, like something happened with some pagans and God like smited them. Is this a real story or am I making this up?
Speaker 2:I'm like, well, there's some, yeah, it's all mixed in there, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's all mixed in there. Something like that, something like that happened. We were reading it and I remember raising my hand and a nun was one of my teachers and I was like, if God loves everyone, why is he doing this? And then she came over and smacked me with a ruler, you know, and that was the end of the discussion. I remember going home and asking my mom I was like, why is no one answering this question? And then I remember my grandparents trying to answer the question the best they could and they were very open-minded, like they didn't force me into it, but I did have to go to church with them.
Speaker 1:I went to, you know, catholic school and that always stuck with me.
Speaker 1:It's like that was a completely legitimate question, you know, and it should have raised a larger discussion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, and we should be asking those questions because, like it's just about improving Right and and and if, if a book was written by a human being, like there's going to be things in it that we might agree with and we might not agree with Right, and I think you you brought this up a lot, as people take a lot of it literally like it's a literalist version Right Versus, like trying to understand it.
Speaker 1:And you know the thing, the idea about God to me that like is so interesting is because of that moment throughout life I realized that probably from age 16 to maybe around 30, when I actually started to like go back into questioning my agnostic and atheist beliefs is that I didn't even like to say the word God Like. I really had an aversion to even assigning the like gravity of what God is in my mind, spirituality, to the term God because of, like the ignorance and the dogma and the trauma I had witnessed, you know, from studying God at least, the Catholic God that I was taught was God you know, a God that was, you know, loving but judgmental, sometimes Right and which to me is like that, a little smitey, sometimes Smitey Exactly, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But if he has a bad day and he might just nuke a couple people, you know, and I'm just like, hmm, that sounds like a human being thing right.
Speaker 1:Not a spiritual thing. And then, when I started to have more of these conversations with people that were more open to talking about it, I realized, like, as you said, like God represents different things to a lot of different people, do you think we need to have a unifying vision of what it is, or do you think it's like an omnipresent thing that we can define in different ways? And how do we get to a point where what we see God is is actually healthy for us and everyone, and not just like an elitist God that only protects us and then smites the rest?
Speaker 2:I definitely strongly don't think we should have a unifying vision of God, because that is the problem, like everyone thinks they have, that Like I'm not interested in a God that could be contained in such a simplified way. You know, I think the things that's so fascinating to me about healthy, vibrant spirituality or religion is people who recognize that when we use a word like God or love and even in neuroscience we know it lights up similar parts of our brain, because we don't. You know, language is this weird made up thing that we're trying to wrap our mind around, and God and love both fall in this category of things that have meaning to us, that are transformative. But as soon as we try to control them and say now we have the unified field theory of what God is, well, you've started the next cult and you've done the same thing that we've done over and over again. Instead of the humility of whatever this word means, it certainly can't be captured. It has something to do with mystery or transcendence or something One of my favorite Irish philosophers. He's named Peter Rollins and he says that God has to be omni-nameable, like we can't name God and claim and put a box around God, but we need more names for God, not less, as we're just trying to throw it up against the wall and see what sticks to try to. What are we talking about when we use this word?
Speaker 2:And so you know, for me you mentioned a lot of things in there the literalism aspect or a fundamentalist religion that takes us these Old Testament stories particularly, but a couple in the New Testament that are just seemingly immoral and awful, and you're sort of trapped. If you're in a religion that teaches that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, that means that everything it says is literally historically true and there are no contradictions. Well, you're immediately trapped because, thank God, the Bible is filled with contradictions. Literally the first and second pages of the Bible contradict each other and I thank God for that all the time because it immediately disallows us to take this book as a literal fundamentalist thing. It's about a different sort of truth and you know your story is so amazing I've heard jokes about and you know like people reference like Catholic nuns hitting people with a ruler for like asking a question.
Speaker 2:You literally live that. It's not like a joke to you. That was your actual experience. And what's so insane to me about that and it's not always Catholic I have. I mean, one of my favorite spiritual teachers is Catholic, richard Rohr. I mean I love great progressive Catholic thinkers. It's not about Catholicism, it's about your experience of Catholicism or what that nun was doing that didn't line up with ancient Christianity. Because the crazy part is these texts are filled with honoring questions, like Jesus called David a man after God's own heart and all David ever did was question God and say why are you doing this? And you're so crazy.
Speaker 2:And this concept that we inherited in American religion, which does have roots in Orthodoxy and Catholic, is this idea that faith is the absence of doubts. And I remember I grew up like that in a Protestant evangelical thing that I had to like believe as hard as I could and if I doubted God or something I was making a mistake. And that is such a horrifically misunderstood understanding of faith as an action. Doubting is the most beautiful part of faith and to like have as a kid to ask a question like that and to be like physically abused is literally the most opposite thing of healthy, vibrant Jewishness or Catholicism or Christianity, and your story is really compelling in that way. I think what helps me is to categorize and talk about what we mean by God, especially when we ask questions about what were these ancient Israelite people talking about when they say God smited people? And what helps me is to understand, like psychoanalysis and textual criticism, and to understand that these texts are holy because of their contradictions and because of how human they are.
Speaker 2:These are humans trying to figure out what God is like and, unsurprisingly, the God they came up with was a lot like them Vengeful, seeking power, punishing their enemies. But what makes the text unique is not the static pull out one verse or one story and say this is what God is like. It's the progression of this library of texts where it starts in this really ancient Near Eastern world of polytheistic warring gods. And all of a sudden you have a little bit more loving version of a God who doesn't create out of violence but creates out of creativity in the Imago Dei. And then you have this like push and pull of humans saying, well, maybe he's going to smite our enemies. And then the next book is the prophet saying, no, god is not like that. And it's like, well, maybe we should kill this animal to pay for our sins. And then a prophet says God doesn't want the smell of blood of animals. Stop doing that. God is full of mercy. And so there's sort of this.
Speaker 2:If you look at it as a conversation, a human conversation about what God is, it sort of progresses into like really interesting philosophical places. Like I would say, ecclesiastes is the first existential literature, long before Kierkegaard this, like facing nihilism Everything is meaningless. There's a time for love, a time for war. There's these ideas about God that are being stretched and pulled on and then, in my particular tradition of Christianity, there's this next progression of what Jesus of Nazareth was saying about what the divine is or what love is. And maybe the most helpful thing is to think about the way philosophers talk about God, because I feel like without this frame, any conversation about God kind of, like you said, it's like traumatizing for you at some points in your life to even say the word God, and so I find it really empowering to sort of label the way some philosophers categorize different religious ideas about God.
Speaker 2:One idea about God is that God is a being like you're a being, I'm a being just like us, and this is sort of like early religion, like there was gods and they weren't even really much more than human, they were just beings, but then that evolved into the second category of God, which is God as a hyper being or super being, and this is probably how most people talk about God Like God's certainly not less than a being, but obviously transcends. That is like some sort of superhuman, omniscient, all powerful being. And this is where monotheism really began to shine. But that's actually still the early stages, even though a lot of people connect with God in that way. The third category of thinking about God is God as the ground of being, and this is a little bit harder to grasp. But it's more where religious mystics and Christianity and Islam and Eastern religions that in some sense you start getting into things like pantheism or panentheism, that God infuses everything or saturates everything or everything emerges from God. And this is really interesting territory where religions and sciences start to go okay, gravity is a relationship and quantum mechanics is a relationship. If everything is a relationship in our universe and it's the bond between, it's the gravity, it's the relationship of everything. That is what we mean by God.
Speaker 2:And then there's this fourth category that's also more mystical in religion. That is God as a vental or probably more simply, god as experience, and it's saying forget trying to put nouns, forget trying to put philosophy on it. God is only experience. So when your baby falls asleep on your chest and you have this numinous or this, something that's more than the sum of its parts, something that's just human, it's also divine, it's experienced, and so for me it helps to kind of like put these frames around it, cause then when I look back on these stories I'm like, oh well, that makes sense. They were dealing with, like God as a being, and they were projecting themselves onto this being, and then the story just keeps progressing into really interesting conversations. So that was very long winded, but I don't know.
Speaker 1:No, no, that long winded is what we're all about here. I've been asking. Usually I'm barely like precise in my questions, but I feel like this is such a it's such like a vast topic. Obviously we're talking about, you know. So I think that a lot. The question a lot of people ask and particularly I asked this a lot for a handful of years is you know if, if God is real and God exists, why do we still have all this horrible shit happening?
Speaker 2:That's the greatest question.
Speaker 1:Right and and like to go a little bit further is like, what? Like, why believe in it, Right? Why believe in anything if it's not going to change the outcome?
Speaker 2:Right. Well, this is the classic greatest critique, and this is why I encourage people to study the great atheist thinkers, because they're so beautifully articulate and bringing. This is what we call in theology a theodicy. A theodicy is a response to the problem of evil or suffering, and the problem of evil or suffering is one of the greatest anchors of really good atheistic and agnostic thought, because it's actually almost like a geometric proof, like if God is all powerful and God is all good, then he could prevent evil, and he's not. So he's either not all powerful or he's not good, and this is using male pronouns in a very being way of talking about God. Yeah, but the problem of evil or suffering to me is just like nihilism. It's the most beautiful entryway to a spiritual journey and it's so uninteresting to me to be around religious people who try to come up with annoying theodicies that are just like oh, adam and Eve were two literal people and they made this mistake, and God can't, it's free will, and you're like okay, there's so much. I actually wrote my dissertation in the University of St Andrews in Scotland on the problem of evolutionary pain, just to get behind annoying responses to this question, because what we know is that 65 million years ago there were baby dinosaurs that were slowly suffering and starving to death and that had nothing to do with some hypothetical Adam and Eve Like you can take humans out of the story and they're suffering, and it's like so for me that that's a way of taking the problem of evil and avoiding a lot of the religious annoying stuff and going what sort of a God would have a universe like this where there's just so much death and suffering. And the first thing that I'd say is it's a huge part of my faith to wrestle with this and to honor the severity of this and to say like, oh, now buckle up. I'm about to give you the answer. That's just not how good religion works. Good religion loves mystery, loves the discussion, loves the wrestle. The things that I think about when you're talking, almost like personally, in your life you had like so many humans. The realization of like this is insane. Why would I even want to believe in a God who would create a world like this?
Speaker 2:Some of the things that help me they don't answer this at all is there's an element in which we it's called the best possible universes theory. So we sort of like, we sort of are insinuating. We know for a fact a better God would make a better universe where there was no suffering and pain. That's sort of the basis of all this. But the one interesting aspect is that it may be possible that that isn't 100% true in some ways, and what we mean by that is that in some ways like Aristotle, for instance, is famous for virtue, ethics and thinking about right and wrong through this lens of ethics.
Speaker 2:And to Aristotle, the highest virtue of all is courage, because he says, without courage, none of your other virtues will stand a chance in any time of testing. So you have to have like courage as this highest virtue. And I'm only using this as an example, because in this best possible universe theory, it's this idea that if there was a world where there was no pain or suffering, there would also be no danger, because there is no pain or suffering and there would also be no courage. We would never see some of the things that we think are the highest and most human and inspiring moments, like a single mom taking care of their disabled child. That sort of love resonates with us and it means something to us, and that doesn't exist in this best possible world. There is no courage. In this best possible world, the greatest of all virtues doesn't exist in this sort of almost robotic free will.
Speaker 2:Now I'll be the first to critique this very thing. I'm not proposing that this solves the problem, because, you know, if you're a little kid starving right now in Gaza, I don't care about your academic philosophy of a better universe. Like don't don't. I would never say this to someone who's currently suffering like this is not in any way. Suffering Like this is not in any way.
Speaker 2:But I do think there's something to it in the sense that there is something about our free will that fascinates all of us, no matter what our, even if you're a total atheist, materialist or you're an Eastern religion person. Something about our agency, something about our souls whatever word you want to use to fascinates us. We seem to have this level of consciousness that we've evolved to. That's special, that's unique, and I'm not sure what other environments it could be the way that it is. So that's one way of wrestling and thinking with it. But I just think that it's really important to always communicate to people that if you ever minimize the problem of evil or suffering or claim to have answered it, then you're not really being a human.
Speaker 1:You're not really in the game, if that makes sense at all 100%, and I appreciate you just sort of speaking to the privilege of it too, of being able to think about this Cause, like you're right, there's so much suffering, disparity in the world, but it doesn't mean we still shouldn't talk about this, right, because a lot of folks still believe in a higher power of some sort.
Speaker 1:And the interesting thing to me is, like when I ask, like what is god these days?
Speaker 1:That like when I see human beings treating each other well and they're celebrating life and they're they're speaking of things, not otherizing people, but trying to find ways to have empathy, to connect with people they might not have grown up with or might not know, or might be of a different race or different socioeconomic strata or a different country or whatever.
Speaker 1:You know, these things we sort of made up in human terms, but they exist now because we've sort of systematized them. When I see interactions like that going on, like that's what God is to me, you know, like when I walk into a congregation, like one that you have, and I see people that care about each other, that are there for each other, that would like lend a helping hand, that will like look someone in the eye, like hug them, hold them if they need space, if they're like going through a tough time, if they've lost something like like that is god to me, you know, and I think that a lot of people uh, don't associate god with that. Sometimes they again associate with, like a he in the sky're right this mythical, like white guy with a beard and really like like god.
Speaker 1:I guess to me, as I've grown into, it has been like this sort of tangible, yet like not studyable thing, like spirit, if you will. That sort of connects me to fellow life, and maybe inorganic matter too, if we want to talk about like stars and just universalism and different you know, different quantum mechanics, all these different things that like are way above my pay grade of physics, even though I did take physics as an engineering student, like it wasn't that level, but I think like there's. You can get like so esoteric and go down these like rabbit holes or like literal black holes. I'm trying to think about like how this all sort of fits together in this giant puzzle that our small, like very feeble brain is trying to figure out and make meaning out of. And then you sort of jump right into like all right, what do I feel? Like I'm missing Like literally in like my actual human life right now, and I think most people, even if you like, let's say you don't have the bare essentials, like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like if you don't have money, food, shelter, like you like, let's say you don't have the bare essentials, like mazel mazel's hierarchy of needs, like if you don't have money, food, shelter, like you're going to say those things right, but if you have those things, most people are missing connection, like they're lonely or they're alone, like physically alone, and they complain because they can't find a partner or can't find someone that will love them, or can't connect with somebody or don't have friends or are estranged from their family because their family has things that they're not owning or whatnot.
Speaker 1:Right, there's always those things. But it's like this human focused thing where it's like I, I just don't feel like anyone gets me, I don't feel like I have a place to call home, right, that's. That's another thing. That people like I have a physical home and I love where I live and I spend time in nature, but like I'm, I don't feel home, you know, and and I think a lot of times like people start to search for God again, because they find home and they don't necessarily find home in, like, the idea of God. They find home in other people and God is what brings them together, which I have found remarkably interesting, as now someone in my mid thirties having like pushed away that essence because of what I sort of imagined God was based on how it was taught versus finding it for myself, which is like man. I really need other human beings to survive, like I do.
Speaker 1:I can't do this alone. I've been through too much shit. I've, like you know, been through a ton of trauma, a ton of pain, and when I feel best is when I'm sharing those experiences with others and also being there for someone else so that they know they're not alone, because I've been through something similar. I might not be able to relate to exactly what you're going to, but I will try my best to hold space for you and make you feel like you're not alone. And I think in those moments is where I felt like the most biggest presence of God, if you will. And there's been times I feel the absence too, but that is, I think, the beauty of life is that there is free will wrapped into that right.
Speaker 1:We can choose to either grab into God or love, or steer into fear or hate or anger, these other emotions that are very much part of the human experience. But we get to choose. We get to choose what we sort of align with in that moment. But the God thing brings me in right into the bigger thing, which is the Jesus thing, which is, you know, a lot of folks, including myself, like have asked like the literal thing of, like how do we know, jesus is the son of God, right, and that's like the literal question. And then also, like you know, the other part of the spiritual question of Jesus is like why, why is this the guy Right? Why is there not another guy?
Speaker 2:Why is it? This guy can only understand the whole Bible through 1 John 4, which says explicitly that God is love, but then it says God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God. That space in between, so that's such a huge, radically inclusive Bible verse. It means every Muslim mother loving her daughter lives in God. Every atheist loving their sibling lives in God. Like that is such a radically huge inclusion and it begs the question that came next for you.
Speaker 2:So why Jesus? What's the point of having any specific thing if we can just love, and that is and my answer is you're right, you don't need that. In fact, my particular understanding of my own faith, growing up in evangelicalism, is that Jesus had no interest ever in starting an exclusive religion. If you read the words of Jesus, what you won't find is someone telling people to worship them. That's not what the Sermon on the Mount is about. You need to go to a building and you need to sing worship songs. To me, that would be a weird person to follow and an even weirder God that needed that sort of like narcissistic thing from like an ancient Near Eastern brown skinned, poor foreigner, an immigrant in a colonized system, who called everybody to radical love that would transcend things. There is no, I would say, shockingly to people who want a very Christian answer, I don't think there's any reason you do have to be a Christian. I don't. There's no part of me that thinks that you have to ask Jesus in your heart to be with God forever.
Speaker 2:Love is all those things Now you might say. Well then, why am I a Christian? I still. First of all, it's my home, like it's language. I love Christmas, I love Easter Because when you learn some of the beautiful true origins of them, they are pretty radically transformative, but not superior to any other way. You know, you've probably heard this before it's a very common metaphor about world religions is the story of like the blind men feeling out an elephant. Have you heard that metaphor before?
Speaker 2:It's like it comes out of Buddhism originally, but it's a beautiful metaphor. A teacher, a Buddhist teacher, says there was six blind men and they there's an elephant there. And they say go up and touch it and tell us what an elephant is. And one of six blind men and there's an elephant there. And they say go up and touch it and tell us what an elephant is. And one of the blind men grabs the side of the elephant and said oh, an elephant is a smooth surface of skin. And another blind man grabs the tail and says no, an elephant is a thin thing with a hairy thing at the back of it.
Speaker 2:And another one grabs the trunk and says an elephant is a tube, a circular thing. The trunk says an elephant is a tube, a circular thing. And the metaphor is that the elephant in this metaphor is God and that we have so many different human experiences of something beyond our dimension of seeing that all religions are not in competition with each other, all worldviews and this includes humanism and atheism. To me they're all worldviews, they're all of them.
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Speaker 2:Are you seeing that recording thing? Okay, yeah, it gave me like a countdown like it was recording again. But yeah, so that that, to me, is a pretty beautiful metaphor about how different religions and worldviews try to understand something like God and, instead of in competition with each other, we are more free to learn from each other. That's not answering directly your real question about Jesus, though I, when I wasn't evangelical, when I was a lot more fundamentalist, I studied, I spent a lot of trying to intellectually defend Christianity because I was a little bit in a different place back then, and in the process, the things that I learned that still stuck with me. First of all, we do know quite a bit about Jesus of Nazareth compared to other historical figures, and I spent a lot of time in the academic field of studying the historical Jesus secularly. Like what can we even know about this figure? And I think what we know is that this rabbi, he was Jewish, he wasn't Christian, he spoke truth to power, he had almost certainly taught the Sermon on the Mount, lessons of loving your enemy, the kingdom belonging to children, radical forgiveness, inclusion, lifting up of women, just an absolutely beautiful figure that, as my organized Christian religion has deconstructed over time.
Speaker 2:Jesus of Nazareth has never been a problem for me because the teachings have continued to get bigger or like, still work with my life. The only problem is when they become exclusive, like, and so some Christians would be listening right now and they'd say, well, john 14, six says Jesus says I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the father except through me, saying like he's the only way. And I would go listen. The context around that whole thing is actually really beautiful. I actually do believe that's true. But what Jesus means by Father and what Jesus means through me has nothing to do with being baptized or going through confirmation in a Catholic church or asking Jesus into your heart, things that he never said anything about.
Speaker 2:He was talking about a way of being, which is love, and when he used the word Father or parent, he was talking about a relational connection to the divine. That was shocking in that day love. And when he used the word father or parent, he was talking about a relational connection to the divine. That was shocking. In that day, no one would talk so colloquially and kindly about God that we can have a parental relationship, and I still believe the only way to God is love, and that is Jesus. It's big enough to include all of these things. It's not about tribal teams or forcing someone to believe the same thing as you. I personally believe this is a personal thing. I would say I personally believe Jesus of Nazareth. If we could genetically get him right here would be aghast and shocked at the way religion has tried to convert people to believe in him and be like are you kidding me? That's literally almost the opposite of the loving kingdom message that was spreading like wildfire and changing lives yeah, I would have to agree with you.
Speaker 1:I mean, if he was here right now, it's almost like the the superhero seeing his own action figure.
Speaker 1:You know, he's like what is going on exactly, yeah and I think like there's a bit of like something to believe in. But also there's this the the term worship has always been a little odd for me to reckon with. You know, it's like worship and I'm like if, if anything we should be worshiping, it should be just the idea of love. But there's so many misconstrued things with like what love is? I think too, I mean even as like a counselor. Now it's like I, when I talk to to people and I say, well, you know, like we will talk about some sort of issue, let's say I'm talking to a parent. I'm like, oh, I love my child unconditionally. Okay, well, let's talk about some instances. And then we'll talk about instance like does that seem loving you?
Speaker 1:know, is it. Is it only? Are you only loving when you get your way right? Is that actual love, right? Is it actual love? How can that be actual love? Because if it's actual love, it means you're loving regardless. Right love is unconditional relationships or not right? And so if love is unconditional like actual love being unconditional and you have a condition on the love, is it love? And then most people's responsibility, like no it's not you know.
Speaker 1:But some people will try to defend it, defend their actions, defend their behaviors, and I've done that too. It's our human, it's our, it's like. It's like, oh, I could not do anything wrong, I don't, I'm not a bad person, you know. And it's like it's less about criticizing the self, is it about, like, revealing the self and being able to like just be a better one. And I think, like that's where, I don't know, I've, I've reaffirmed my connection with my own spirituality because, again, like you're a thinker, obviously too, and like you can get in my twenties, I just I feel like I would get trapped in this like I don't know black hole of thought, like I would, I would think, myself into nihilism so much where I'm like literally erasing, like the sky in the night sky, erasing the stars, that I'm left with black. And then I erase the black and then, immediately, what my brain tells me is it's white. And I asked my brain, why is it telling me it's white? Well, it's a theory of relativity, because, I don't know, my brain's going to try to make me comfortable and just make something up and the thing it knows that is the counter like to black or dark is white or light, right. And then I revert that back to like, belief structure and the fact that, like, well, I have people I love, things I love on earth, and when they leave, where would they go? Well, I'll just make something up to make me feel comfortable. So I'll just make up belief, something believing in something, right, and certainly we've done that. But I also think there's a reason. We do that too, and so there's like this existential question on like just because we do that doesn't mean it's wrong. It's trying to serve a purpose. It's there's the physical brain that's doing it to protect ourselves. But consciousness gets to decide. If it's out of fear or out of love, right. And if you're making a belief system out of love, what it's designed to do is give you something to rely on, to go back to, to believe and to connect with other people through.
Speaker 1:And it's usually through trauma and loss and grief, right, which can, in turn, be celebratory. It can be like beautiful things in life, but, honestly, like, the things that bring people together are like the tears of desperation, is like the things that have gone wrong. It's when, when you've experienced pain, you know. If you walk through life and you never experienced any sort of trauma.
Speaker 1:It's quite hard to have a deep conversation with a person like that. There's not very many people like that. I mean, everyone has some sort of trauma, but if they're aware of it or not is a different story, right? And so for those that are aware of their own trauma, that have done some work, some self healing, have built some self-healing, have built some self-awareness, that's where I feel like there's like those little holes of like love you can poke into and that's what like opens up someone's heart and you can connect with them. You know, you can have a relationship with them, and I think I find that now, within like redefining the use of the term God is like that is like a godly experience, right. And then when I look at like Jesus in a historical context, he seemed like a guy that was very open to that.
Speaker 1:You know which I can get behind because, especially now, like we have a lot of figures that we look up to on different political spectrums or in different economical spectrums that really are very much just self-focused. Right, it's about worshiping me. It's about me, it's about me getting this title or this position or whatever. And from everything I've read about jesus is that that's not the case. It hasn't been the case with him, which is why, if you were to come back here randomly appear he'd be like what are you all doing in these buildings? You know, like, you guys need to start loving each other. Right, it's okay to hang out in the building, but also, like the, the goal of like what I was teaching is like for you to be a better person for each other and for yourself, not to like like alienate each other.
Speaker 2:Well, I think that what's hard for a lot of religious people is it's also not to even believe the right thing you mentioned in there, like your, your experience looking at the sky and thinking about belief systems and why people do it. One of the things that I find so de-centering, in the very best of ways, is that we don't know what we believe. And again I'll reference sort of like Peter Rollins, this Irish philosopher, and he he uses the example of if you're having a conversation with a friend and you say like oh, hey, do you have a good relationship with your dad? And your friend's like yeah, and you're like well, how often do you talk to your dad? And you're like every week? No, like every month, no, like a couple of times a year. No, I haven't talked to my dad in 10 years.
Speaker 2:And you'd be like well then, in what way do you love your dad? Like you, you actually believe you love your dad, but you're unconscious. Your body this is psychoanalysis denies that. It's not what you believe, and so when religion is based on believing the right things, it's, it's already ruined because we don't even know what we believe. For me, faith is action, and that's one of the things that I find very comfortably in my own home faith, not exclusively, I love all faiths but that that call to action that you just described, jesus, would be like wait, you guys are in this building worshiping me, getting people to believe in me, and you're also oppressing immigrants and poor people and like, well, what? In what realm? Whatever you think you believe, you do not believe in me, you do not believe in my ways, you do not believe in this movement, and so I resonate with what you're saying quite a bit there yeah, even the idea of like the immigrant is is so interesting in this country, particularly because of how it was founded.
Speaker 1:You know, and I think, like most people just they, they don't really like to read history. You know, it's like like colonists came here and killed tons of indigenous people, right and granted, like the argument will be said that, well, they were an indigenous communities fighting each other. Yes, they were, but not on the spectrum that was going on with, like, the massive amounts of guns and lead that was coming here and like what, what happened? Right, trail of tears and all these things. And then we get into slavery and just these historical things that are reality, right, they're, they're not. It's not a belief system.
Speaker 1:That actually happened, you know, and a lot of it happened within, like the name of christianity on some level under the right most of it, you know which is, which is interesting, because a lot of the cultures that were oppressed through christianity now tend to be some of the most Christian cultures.
Speaker 1:I mean if you look at like indigenous natures, if you look at like the black community, the Hispanic communities, right, and it's interesting now that, like you know, that God that people are believing in is certainly not the same God that caused all the pain and oppressed, right. And so I think, like, what's the difference? Well, the difference is like the human beings and what they were, you, how they were using it, right, and so, like the, the God thing is like a separate thing entirely. You know, it's like it's like the, the kettle calling, like the pot black or something or whatever, that that you know, that that that a saying is, and I think it's.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because I feel like, in this country, which is so strange to me, because, like we, the beautiful thing about the United States is that it is a country founded on immigration and not in the way that, like you know, there are a ton of settlers that can go here, like, I think there's a way to honor that and be, you know, aware of what really happened, but also appreciate that it is a country of immigrants now and that, you know, the reason why I think there is still so much beauty in this country is that there are people from all over the world that are Americans.
Speaker 1:There are people from all belief systems that are Americans. There are people from every sort of color you could imagine, as far as skin tone, that are Americans. You know, and I think like that's why I'm always proud to live here and again, we can put aside, like the shitty things that are obviously happening and a lot of disparities, but I do think that we need to look at the positive light as well as the negative light, because a lot of times we can get stuck in these negative silos of like all right, well, half the country is this and half the country is that, and so they're like just a terrible country. I'm like, wait a minute. There are more things, coincidentally, that connect us than that divide us.
Speaker 1:We're just not looking for them, right, because we continuously otherize the other people you know, and then we get on like these sort of ivory towers of elitism, doesn't matter what side you're on and I'm saying the word side, but really just ideals, because we're doing, it's like, the same thing and obviously, like everyone likes to think there's a right or wrong and in some things it seems like there is a clear right or wrong. But I always try to open my, my heart and my mind when I have a conversation with someone I maybe disagree with emphatically on political things or on social justice things or whatever, because, like, nothing is going to change unless you can speak through love and try to understand someone, and a lot of times it's their own suffering, their own upbringing, whatever that like is having them or having me, for instance, use myself, think a certain way, because I'm not always right, you know, and connecting and being finding someone that's open to connecting, that might have a different opinion with you, is actually where growth happens, you know, and again, that's, I think, where love is built in those areas of differences and why I think, like just the idea of immigration is like to immigrate, like literally to come into, you know, and to go out of his immigration. And like I think like when I, when I have a conversation with someone I disagree with, it's like I try not to get as triggered anymore because I'm like how do I understand this person? Nothing is going to change unless we seek to understand each other, you know. Otherwise it's just anger, and anger is just backed by fear, and fear gets you literally nowhere. It's literally what gets you into wars, literally what gets you into all these other crises we face.
Speaker 1:Right, and not that I think there ever be a utopic society. I'm not belligerent in that way but I do think like quintessential thing of human beings is like ingenuity and progression. Right, if you look at like 20 years ago, 50, like 50 years ago, before the iphone exists, now, look what we have now, right, and like before we got on the moon, like imagine like that to Neanderthals and to Homo sapiens, like that was that would never even. And now like what's going to happen in a hundred years, you know, and like there are obviously these incredibly beautiful things and profound things we've done and these incredibly grotesque things like create weapons of destruction that can literally wipe millions of us off the planet, if not the entire planet, and snap of a finger, you know.
Speaker 1:And so we have both of those things inside of us, you know, and I think too, sometimes we get stuck in these fundamental beliefs where it's like, yeah, I could never do no wrong.
Speaker 1:I'm like no, that exists within each one of us, and to like deny that that exists is to deny a part of your shadow that is really there to teach you a lesson, to keep you honest, you know, because I think one of the things that really has re-invited me into Christianity religion, when I meet someone like you, that like is aware, is open, is saying like yes, I have sinned, I have been a person that I've hurt others.
Speaker 1:You know, like, when I speak about that on this show, it's not because I'm trying to get like a follower of like oh, this person is like it's not proud of. And because of those times like, I want to change, I want to be better, you know, and that doesn't mean I'll be perfect, but, like you have to be honest and accountable. And until, like, our religion is honest and accountable and reflects us and who we want to be, it's still going to have the same dysfunctionality of literally just trying to be like, oh, it's a white picket fence on the outside, but then you walk in and open the door and there's a whole storm going on in the kitchen.
Speaker 2:And I think, man, I bet everyone listening to this would resonate with you so much. I mean, I think that's the hardest thing for people with organized religion is the hypocrisy and the inauthenticity, and I think what people long for is exactly what you just described an authentic conversation about God, an authentic conversation about us, our darkness and, to me, the beautiful parts of my own tradition, but also other religious traditions is the dark night of the soul. It's the mystical journey. And I heard someone or I read something I wish I could credit, whoever it was, but they said last couple weeks I heard this. They said when you meet me for the first time, you're meeting my bodyguard, and I thought that was such a cool way of communicating, the way we interact and protect ourselves.
Speaker 2:Even our own prefrontal cortex is telling us a narrative that isn't the deepest, truest, darkest, most beautiful self and like to me, healthy religion, healthy spirituality is rooted in authenticity and honesty, in doubt, in curiosity, but, most importantly, radical love and safety. What religion has gotten wrong is when it's lost the sense of being a home where every question is welcome, all darkness is welcome, and especially grief, especially grief, this universal, hopefully lifelong friend that hurts so bad, this deep place where, if we're in a healthy community where there's safety and unconditional love and there's not shame and fear mongering and hierarchies and control and colonialism. You said one other thing I just want to point to because it made a big difference in my life Personally. You mentioned that we live in this country where Native American indigenous friends are now Christian and black enslaved people adopted their colonizers religion and the funny thing is, ironically, that's the only thing that kept me and saved me theologically in the Christian faith is what's called liberation theology. And it was when I stopped what I had my whole life, unknowing, unbeknownst to me, only listening to white European men, theological voices from the Reformation on, and then started listening to South American oppressed Christians like Oscar Romero Gutierrez, when I started listening to James Cone, black liberation theologian.
Speaker 2:When I started listening to indigenous liberation theologians in this country and the reason it saved my faith in my home language of Christianity is because what they understand is that, even though this Christian flag has been carried to crusades and colonialism and the Inquisition and the Salem Witch Trials and American slavery, none of that is this ancient movement, the ancient movement of Christianity.
Speaker 2:In fact, the whole biblical text is written by oppressed people. The Israelites were slaves, they were not the enslavers, and history is typically written by the conquerors, but we have these texts written by the conquered, the poor, the broken, and Jesus was poor and conquered and colonized. And so there's a real strong connection for me in my own faith, in connecting to that, because that's where I find the authentic and vulnerable type of Christianity, because it's not the rich white guy Christianity. That's like my soul is saved, I'm going to heaven and I can just pay my workers whatever I want to pay them and go to church with my rich friends and golf and like that's just gross and it's not. It doesn't even take much moral courage to see the grossness of like colonial religion and call it out and say this is not. Whatever this is, it isn't good, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. So, you know, we it seemed like I mean humanity we go, we go in these cycles, which is really interesting that you get like these periods of like, you know, we start to build a lot of things and then something happens, and then there's like a depression economically or some, and then there's like a Renaissance period of, like art and spirituality, and then we kind of do it again and again and again. You know it's interesting. And then when you look at like how religion or our spirituality sort of parallels, that it seems like, all right, we started with polytheism, right, there were many gods we worship, right, we like in different, like you look at Aztecs and Mayans. There's different like deities, right, and you look at like the Greeks, and then we now it's like it's changed into monotheism, right. Do you think that there's a direction we're heading now, and is it different than monotheism? Is there another evolutionary step or is that like the pinnacle of what we can conceive?
Speaker 2:I love that question. That's a good one, yeah, so, um, I definitely think there is another step. There's a there's a whole field of anthropology called spiral dynamics. I'm not sure if you ever heard of it. There's a really great podcast called the Liturgist that years ago probably six or seven years ago, if you wanted to go look up the Liturgist and Spiral Dynamics really great explanation of this anthropological steps exactly what you described, but in great deal from like the way they use colors to represent these different stages in human evolution, from polytheism and tribalism into like a more red type religion which is not yet monotheistic but it's rule based, it's real black and white.
Speaker 2:And then you get into complex monotheism and mysticism. And, yeah, I think that what I was mentioning earlier with those four umbrellas of God, I do think there is this progression. Of that we will find more. I just don't think it's new, it's not, it's not linear. I actually think Jesus even, and some of these earlier fathers were mystics who their understanding of God was advanced of what most Christians today think of this being. I think they were already interacting on this plane of a panentheistic, a God that is in and saturates everything, or a God that is a ground of being or a source.
Speaker 2:Some of the greatest spiritual thinkers are definitely using language and art and experience to talk about God in a way that transcends simple monotheism, in a sense, and so I think the thing that's beautiful, though, is when this happened even in the Jewish texts, like the creation stories in Genesis. One of the things that's hidden, if you're not a scholar of the Hebrew and you just read an English text, is that Elohim is the word for God in the first chapters of Genesis, and it's it's a plural, and you do see it in English, cause you'll have these weird sentences like let us make man in our image. It's almost like this, this pluralism, that a lot of like you maybe as a Catholic kid like wait, what? Why is it? Why are we saying let us make God a man in our image.
Speaker 1:I mean you don't really get the question very much, it's kind of you're just like oh, it sounds great, yep, yeah, cool.
Speaker 2:But what's beautiful about it is Elohim is a plural word and this text, when it was orally passed down, was in this world of polytheism and I really think there is this way forward into understandings of God. But my point is they include the past. They're not necessarily superior. The temptation with education and privilege in evolution is to think that because I understand this, I am superior to you who do not understand this and you invite people deeper in, but with the humility that we're not deep in, that we're in this other place, because once we start getting into that place that we have some new understanding or we have some way of talking and we're better than the way we were before that applies to ideas about God.
Speaker 2:Whatever is next for God language, it's going to include God now and love now and include all of it, and it's and I think that's really important so that love stays the strain. That is like the base note that is underneath when we talk about God. Love has to be the rhythm or the base note that's always connecting it, you know.
Speaker 1:You hit the nail on the head, charlie.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad I asked you that question because it's all parts of a whole and I think that even if we look outside the God context like there are so many people now that are like, even if you talk about the paleo diet, looking back at, like what our ancestors did and how they forage and hunted and worked out, and like you know, like and I'm like that, that is just us appreciating where we come from, right, you know, literally they didn't eat a bunch of processed food and sit around all day on a computer screen.
Speaker 1:They walked for a while in groups of people and usually their families, and tried to raise children and then, you know, sat down for a little bit and then walked a little bit more. You know, and I'm sure they looked up at the sky sometime and as soon as cognitive ability was there, like thoughts and things, you know, and maybe at the ground, maybe it wasn't even the sky, maybe it was a different direction. I think that I really appreciate you saying it. It's like it's it's cyclical and a circular thing and it's not like we're evolving upwards in spirituality, we're just learning more, we're filling out the circle more, right when it doesn't matter where you are on it, you're still a part of it.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Versus. A lot of people think of evolution as like, oh, I'm so much better than the homo sapien back in the day. I'm like, really, were they as depressed as us? They? Didn't have an iPhone and Steve Jobs wasn't around yet, but like they might've only lived 25 years, but maybe he was happy for 25 years, I mean you know it's like it could be an argument.
Speaker 1:He might've had a better life, you know, and I think I think the thing is is like no, it's just, it's just where we come from, and I think we have to really understand that and so many people they don't.
Speaker 1:I guess one thing is like analytical thought, like I feel like so many people don't spend the time to think about this stuff and it's and it's a symptom of our education, and like the funding and all these. We can get all these things, and I know you're like a perfect person to do this with, but like but before we to not even crack that egg. It's like how do we engage more people in having more deep conversations about this? And one like does everyone have the capacity or is it just like luck of the draw? Based on your experience, you know, and because in my mind I'm like man, I wish I could have these conversations with everyone I come across with, because this is like this is the meat and potatoes, this is like where, why I'm here, you know, I don't need to talk about the weather all the time.
Speaker 1:You know I want to talk about this stuff.
Speaker 2:Well, it's like getting past that bodyguard right. I think everybody's a little shell-shocked and a little hard to like, because I think my experience as a pastor is that most people want to talk about real things and, whether it's because of trauma or or just a gaping inadequacies, we feel most people are intimidated to talk about these things. They don't want to sound uneducated, or they don't know what they think and they're embarrassed about that, or they have super strong opinions and they push people away because they don't listen you know, so, like I think what is underneath it all it's annoying because I just have the same answer for everything is just real love.
Speaker 2:Like I don't think the world is going to change through a program or a church or a government party that you want to win even though I care about all those things, I don't minimize any of that but I really do think the world changes one conversation at a time, and it happens when you let your body, bodyguard down and when you share something about some grief or darkness you're going through, and then you listen and hear someone else and you can and you can mirror back to them what they're actually saying.
Speaker 2:Because one of the things I think that we all resonate with, without any religious language at all, is to be loved, is to be seen or known, or to see and know someone, and so it sounds like these two things aren't related, but I think they're directly related. We don't do a very good job of being seen and known and seeing and knowing. We don't listen very well, we don't let our guard down very well and like when, when we I think good religion and good counseling and good therapy can help all of us be more loving, more healthy, more secure and then, all of a sudden, it it does have a return. That's exponential. Health begets more health, love begets more love. And it has to be grassroots and it has to come from non-hierarchical powerful people. As long as we're following the richest, most powerful people, we're not, we're not going anywhere.
Speaker 1:That's not the voices we need to tap into, you know yeah, absolutely, and I, and it's always raised the question, it's like you know, the richest, most powerful, like those two terms. It's like is it innate that like that stuff starts to corrupt our minds, where we become more individualistic? I would hope not, because, like I would hope that there are folks that have wealth and have, you know, power in a social or political context that legitimately do want to help everybody and do want to give back.
Speaker 2:I would think that if I was in a position like that, I would right, there are, you know so, so it can't be it can't be that like, think that if I was in a position like that, I would right there are, you know, so.
Speaker 1:So it can't be. It can't be that, like you know, that it's, it's again, it's like the tools, it's like the, the craftsman, you know, and I think because, like, again, money is like a, a thing we can, you know, put towards incredible things that has to be well thought out, but it also is a thing that, like you know, can cause a ton of problems as well too, you know, but it really is like the, the ideas and the action behind it well, and it's it's in that.
Speaker 2:It's not that there I, I personally know wealthy, powerful people who are wonderful, but they are wonderful in spite of their wealth and power, not because of it, and we have to recognize the direction that it stereotypically moves and celebrate the wonderful people who use that force multiplier for good, that they're unfortunately in the minority, but of course they exist and it's just as bigoted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I didn't in any way mean to promote the idea that if you have money or power you are evil. No, but if you're good, you are awesome, that you've overcome these great temptations that drag people down. Overcome these great temptations that drag people down. And another thing that I think is important to empower people with is that if you notice that you only look up to rich, powerful people, or if you notice that all of the voices informing your worldviews are from rich and powerful people, you better be very careful that they're all in that minority of really wonderful, rich and powerful people, because historically you're in a danger zone and it's harder, it takes harder work to find marginalized voices and voices of people who are different and are not centered in power. Um, and when we do that, we're, we're growing as people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I completely agree, I think, you know, I even I even think of like I never really mentioned a lot of political candidates on the show at all, like, because it's just like a, a whole cluster you get into and it's and again.
Speaker 1:I have my own personal opinions.
Speaker 1:I've shared a handful of them, but really like when, when even I think about this past, like election, you know, and, and Trump winning, and so many people that voted for Kamala that are in favor of women's right to choose, or these other issues that are very important, like immediately, like demonizing Trump voters, you know, and I just want to say like I've met so many people that voted for Trump that are really good human beings, you know, that are incredibly good human beings.
Speaker 1:No-transcript and then separating Right and I like I think I haven't used this show is a like a place to have political rhetoric often, but I feel like this is a good place, like time to bring it up, because oftentimes, like it triggers people where they just stop listening. You know I'll mention something and they'll just stop listening, whether it's one thing or the other. And I think, like, really, the only way we can start to heal is to like see sides from their perspective. And it's really hard to say that because some people, in rightfully so, say that like well, these people are like infringing on my rights, so they're oppressing me, or literally trying to tell me what to do with my body, Right and and, and I hear all those things Like I'm not trying to undercut any of that, right Cause there's truth.
Speaker 1:I think there's just truth on both sides to some capacity, and the only way to find a collective one or to see each other is really to like open and to step into it, where so many people want to close down and like have a sign and have a pitchfork and like throw it across and like you know, you see it all the time now in society. It's like it's either like my beliefs or no beliefs. It's either like my way or no, yeah, I just want to.
Speaker 2:I want to go on the record and say you brought this up, not me.
Speaker 1:So you started this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but no I that. For me, trump is a metaphor and a powerful conversation starter. I've been very outspoken against the policies in person of Donald Trump and I actually think this is a great opportunity to talk a little bit about how spirituality and action takes root in my life and my own faith. But but I also I just love what you said. I mean my family. I grew up in Trump country and some of the best humans I know have voted for that man three times and some of them, you know, think he's an awful person, but they like the policies of the party. There's all sorts of.
Speaker 2:You and I are both smart enough to know that there's a universe of reasons that people make their political choices, and I think we're also. Most people don't think of themselves as evil or selfish. They would have on both sides the same part of our brains. Our amygdalas get fired up that. No, I have to care. I can't ride the fence because if I'm a Republican, these are baby killing Democrats that I have to defend unborn babies and Democrats are going. I have to defend the immigrant. I have to defend this earth for climate change. There's these moral and cultural issues that get our brains stimulated and we no longer are humans going passionate about it. I think it's great that you don't want people to kill unborn babies. I think maybe you don't have all the information about the complexities of how to legislate abortion or what biomedical, but you love unborn babies. That's love in your heart. And if you're a Republican, could you see a Democrat and go like I don't agree about vaccines or whatever, but I can see that you care about people or you care about this earth. There's just not enough of that of like assuming the best intent and the other side, because that's actually what love does.
Speaker 2:But I want to use Trump as an example because I've been on record and I strongly oppose his policies and his behavior and I don't and I think it matters and all those things. But I strongly agree with you. I don't hate in any way Trump supporters. I think a lot of them are wonderful. But my spiritual practice had an inch. I'm not a very mystical person. Honestly. As a pastor I don't have like a. I don't tell a lot of stories about spiritual things. But one of the most spiritual experiences I had back in Trump's first presidency and I've I felt pretty strongly against him in a lot of ways was. I was on my porch and I was reading a section of Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Speaker 1:And I was just like a 10 o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2:I don't even know, I don't remember all the details of it and for some reason I almost got like high, almost like a psychedelic experience. And this is a very weird story. So I'm just rambling, but like I, for some reason I don't even remember what that passage in Emerson was about.
Speaker 2:I felt love, like God's love is what I would say for Donald Trump as a human being Like, and it transported me into one of the most religious experiences I've ever had and it connected to me, to my ancestors and my ancient faith about loving your enemies.
Speaker 2:To me, his way of being and words are what I would call enemy. I think it's good to have enemies because we can love them. Like I know what to do with enemy, I love them. And to feel that love for the human being Donald Trump, I don't live in that space. I'm a human, I go back. But to experience it just for a moment was like this really spiritual connection for me to what we're called to in life, like we better try to be the kind of humans that can not fall into this polarized country If we all love our country and, I would hope, somebody on the other side who is just very scared of Kamala could tap into that and say I love Joe Biden and Kamala as a human, and then we can have a conversation, because it's built on safety security it's not built on hate and then we can get into details and try to do something together in a democracy you know.
Speaker 1:So I hope that's not too much or too weird, but it was a very real thing, I experienced you know I feel like I'm having that right now, just having a conversation with you.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that you know I've been a registered independent since I could vote in arizona, and so we have an interesting state right and I've pretty much always voted for democratic party but, at least in the last five years, I've really like I really thought that they've kind of shit the bed in a lot of ways, you know, and they've really, in my mind, let down a lot of the younger folks, based on the candidates they're running or what they're the sort like the like what they're sort of running on Right, and in my mind, like, uh, I didn't even really pay attention to what the public is doing, cause, like I was like all right, I'm never really going to vote for public, and because their, their belief system, is so far off of what I hold dear, and I would say, like I have, I have, like so many different perspectives, right, just cause, like I just try to think and to feel and to put myself in other people's shoes and have empathy for what they're going towards, but also, like, try to use logic too, like you know, do I think I really should be telling another human being what they should do with their body?
Speaker 1:No, I don't. You know, like there's a lot of things in these contexts, but it's interesting because when I, when Trump first got elected in 2016, I was younger and immediately I was like there's no way I'm going to be friends with anyone that voted for him. You know, like I was just like, I was just angry for literally, like there was reasons, but really for the only reason is because, like one, I was being a sore loser and two, I think that you know, what I thought was going to happen was, you know, all these different things, and some of that did happen with the Supreme Court and some other things that got passed, but ultimately, I put up a wall, put up a boundary right in front of myself and I started to otherize people and so, for instance, if I were to be invited on a date or something immediately, if I knew the girl voted for Trump, I'd be like I'm not going on this date.
Speaker 2:Isn't that why I?
Speaker 1:can't have a conversation or something like that. And now we've been through COVID, we've been through, you know, all these different presidential elections. The guy got reelected again. I've met some human beings just within the past two months that voted for him, that are some of the kindest, most compassionate, most welcoming human beings I've literally ever come into contact with, and so it raises the question in my mind it's like how did we get here? You know, how did we get to this point?
Speaker 1:And I think it's because if we just again just focusing on this country because we both live here, we're both American, like we've we've missed the ball so much, at least politically and economically, with, like, all these different things, from like how we fund campaigns to how, how we're represented at a global scale, from the electoral college, all these different things that, like, people are just angry. They're angry that shit is broken, it's not working, and so they just want someone to disrupt everything. And in some people's mind that's this guy. You know, I don't think it is right. I think he was born a billionaire and was born into wealth and trust fund and just kind of a kid that doesn't know anything about rural America either, probably never shot a gun in his life Definitely never ridden a horse.
Speaker 1:It's not a cowboy, you know, because I was raised in that sort of, but essentially because there's people I was raised around to vote for them and I'm like, well, what's really going on? Like I'm listening, what's really going on, and it's just, it's anger, it's pain, it's disgust for the fact that, like, a lot of people don't feel represented, you know. And then when I looked at Kamala, I was like, you know, like she has a lot of good things on record and it wasn't because she's a female, it wasn't because she's black. I would love both of those things in office. Like, when I think about Michelle Obama, I'm like, dude, let's go. You know, like I would, I would totally, but I don't think want to end on this, but I think it's a good thing to talk about, because it just goes back to love and division.
Speaker 1:Like there's something inside of me that changed within the past I don't know, maybe a couple of years where I'm like I can't keep otherizing people and think that I always have it figured out and I'm right, because it's exactly what other people are doing to me.
Speaker 1:And so someone has to step over, someone has to right, someone has to put a hand out. You know, it's like Nelson Mandela. I'm not saying I'm Nelson Mandela, but it's like when he was in, when he was in, you know, when he was imprisoned, right, like when he, when he got out and like talks about, like having love and compassion for his, his imprisoners, and like his perspective on that, like that is the sort of groundbreaking thing. I think that like true leadership demands and like what you just spoke, like is really what I think we need, like what I think that sort of idea or thought process is really what the country needs from a leader. I don't know when we're going to get it and when we're going to vote for someone like that, and when someone like that will be empowered by the powers that be, which are these two incredibly large parties that have a ton of money infiltrating them from these higher areas, right?
Speaker 1:but, like that's really. We need someone that like literally brings, that, brings us together and not divide us, and and I don't know if we've had, if we've had that leader ready to do it yet yeah, you know, I I think it's a hard.
Speaker 2:Um, it's a hard thing because, you know, donald Trump is a different sort of politician than like Pamela or Biden. I mean, I constantly, I always talk about George W Bush. Like you know, I grew up in Texas and I was Republican most of my life. I changed my mind later in life when I learned more about economic theory and some different things and like and moral ethics, biomedical stuff like that really slowly changed my mind. But when you contrast someone like George W Bush and Donald Trump, in some ways Donald Trump doesn't really have policy positions. He's sort of a unique thing. He's sort of this narcissist propaganda thing that's being pulled from all these different directions and George W Bush is your establishment Republican. And now, looking back, I'm like, oh man, I hate the Iraq war, I hate all sorts of things that he did, but I think he was a good human being.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's crazy how that works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think when 9-11 happened, you know like. He got on TV the next day and said don't go hate your Muslim neighbor, like your Muslim neighbor, like your Muslim neighbor. And he was a president for all Americans. And so my biggest concern about Trump is a uniquely vacuous void of humanity, which may be the most important thing of a president, more than policies, because really are. We have a complex, huge bureaucratic government of policies and what we need is a moral leader, and I think we have had that. I actually think I think most of our outside of Donald Trump there need as a moral leader, and I think we have had that. I actually think, I think most of our outside of Donald Trump, there's not a single president that I didn't think was a good person who wanted to be a president for all Americans. So what I what?
Speaker 2:My point is not to just like bash on Trump. I've already made it clear my opinions, but my point is that it's okay to still stand against Trump and Bill Brid bridges and love people who voted for him and not think that they're evil or stupid, because none of those things are true. The myriad reasons that people vote for a president opens up an entire universe of how we can build this bridge of like. I can stand against this man and be clear about it and continue to and not alienate or other people who voted for him for many, many different reasons, and that's where the only hope of our democracy is in unity and, like you said, leadership and um.
Speaker 2:I think we've had a lot of good leaders with different viewpoints and I think we'll, and I think we'll have a lot more to come. If we can get past this little unique bump in our political ideology, it'll, it'll be helpful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and and honestly, for what it's worth. Perhaps something like this had to happen you know, because I always think about right, because I always think about that.
Speaker 1:It's easy for us to say, yeah, well, you know, I think we have to have these moments and free for all the people that voted like from, like that are happy, like I'm not hating on them winning either, like I hope there's some good things that come from it. Absolutely, you know, and I want to believe in human beings and I agree with you, like there's, there's a lot about this human being that you know. For instance, I always ask myself would I want my child to be like this person?
Speaker 2:You know, I asked myself what I want my child to say the things as persons.
Speaker 1:I think that's a good, a simple question. I don't have kids. I want, I would love to have that if I have that blessing, but like, I still ask myself that question because it separates me from it and it looks at something I would love unconditionally right what I want, this being that I love kind of sheep, or just say these words were to do these actions in a lot of ways about him.
Speaker 1:No, absolutely not you know, but I still have to find a way to connect with people that voted for him, because they are my fellow Americans, they're my brothers and sisters, and they are two human beings that have humanity, that have essence, you know. And so I have to find a way to do that, because if I don't do it and they don't do it, who will do it, you know? And so then no one's doing it, and so I'm not going to. I'm a, I'm a doer, I'm like. I like the way you use, like, like it's, it's an action thing, right? I'm not going to wait until someone does it, I'm going to do it you know that's huge.
Speaker 1:So so good, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, my man, uh, I could sit here and talk to you for hours. I mean, there's a qualifier, you, you state that qualifier, you know, and and I think that that's indicative of someone who really is doing the deep thinking, because very rarely are things so black and white there's a lot of nuance, a lot of gray, you know, you know, in in in our, you know, just history of being human beings Right back at you.
Speaker 2:It's been so enjoyable, you're the same way and, yeah, I could do this forever too. Maybe we'll do a round two sometime, that'd be great.
Speaker 1:I would love to Absolutely, and I promise I'll be easier to schedule this time, but you as much as I can. And again, thanks for everything you do. And yeah, where can people, before I let you go, where can people find you? Where can they listen to you if they want to get involved? You know I have a lot of listeners from all over the world so like, obviously they can't go to Flagstaff, Arizona to sit in, but how can they get involved and listen?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, great question. So, yeah, well, I'm the pastor of a church called the Commons, so the website for our church is flagstaffcommonscom and there's, yeah, past sermons there for me and my co-pastor, greta Miller, and all sorts of other great speakers that come and share. Just on that and also, I think, on all the Apple and Spotify, you can also get just the weekly podcast of the sermons. Yeah, and I still have that old podcast, american Heretic. I haven't put one out in a long time, but you can still find AmericanHereticorg and there's several sort of like topical discussions along the way if you want to check out some of those old episodes. But, yeah, I'm just really grateful to be on here, nico. It's been awesome hanging out, so I hope you get back to town soon.
Speaker 1:Me too. And yeah, I just want to throw like one last thing out there for everyone else Like that is going to go perhaps listen to your podcast, your sermons that are recorded as podcasts, like as someone who was like non-religious again atheist, agnostic having found your podcast like it's probably not what you think it is. So I highly recommend to go give it a chance and go give it a shot and listen. You know, I was pleasantly surprised with some of the conversations you were having, with the things you were speaking to, with just the like inclusivity in the discussions, particularly around Christianity, and also being accountable and holding Christianity also accountable to its own stories and its own you know fairy tales as well too, which I thought is just a beautiful way.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you how much that means to me for you to say that.
Speaker 1:That means a yeah yeah, no, I mean as a listener like I. That's why I went back. You know, it's like man, this is I, wasn't I. I consistently not try to not look for places to stick myself in echo chamber and just stay the same and so looking for growth again, just like you're reading atheistic texts, I'm like I need to give this a shot again. You know, I'm like why am I so angry at it? You know, why am I so like? So like I'm still lonely and I still not happy, like what's going on here. You know, I need to give these other areas of my life that I'm, that I'm consciously avoiding, you know, some love. I guess, if you will. And here we are having this beautiful conversation. So, charlie, thanks so much. My friend, I really look forward to meeting you in person. And yeah, just, it's been, it's been, it's been an honor to have you.
Speaker 2:Same Been. Such an honor for me. Thanks, we'll. We'll talk to you soon, I hope.
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