Catholic Debates Atheist from Jordan Peterson Surrounded

What is it like going on Jubilee in Surrounded? The first time that you actually know for certain who you're talking to, is while the cameras are rolling and they walk into the circle. I thought we were going to get some sort of, like, Jordan Peterson finally comes out as a Christian moment. I want to get to the core of what you're arguing here. The core of what I'm arguing is... What would make it reasonable to not believe in God? I don't think that's an unreasonable conclusion to get to.

You're making this massive divorce between the psychological and the real. I don't think that I have... To say that for somebody to find peace, the entire endeavor must be true. I think that that's entirely wrong. It has been very damaging. But it doesn't work for everybody. Are these stories serving us, or are we serving these stories? Does the truth of it matter?

We all saw the Jordan Peterson video on Jubilee. If you want to check out my reaction video to that, you can check out this link, which is either pointing up here or pointing down there, wherever Brilliant Simon's going to put it for me. And what they pitched it to us was one Christian versus 20 atheists, and everyone kind of left disappointed. I think Cade might have left a little disappointed as well. But to my surprise, one of the atheists, he's sitting right here now, Reached out after seeing the reaction video, and we have with us today Cade Bradley, who is a self-described ex-Trad Catholic YouTuber and host of the Intrinsically Ordered podcast, which definitely perked my ears up.

So, we got together today. We're going to try and give you the jubilee conversation that everyone wishes Peterson had actually delivered. It's time we had conversations between Catholics and Former Catholics about the most basic questions. I think when it comes to faith, to God, yes, we'll get into sex a little bit, who is Jesus, all these great things, but yeah, then we'll hopefully also get the skinny on what it's actually like to be on those Jubilee Surroundeds, because I am just personally curious.

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If you're ready to align your investments with your values, start the conversation today. Your children and grandchildren will thank you for it. Visit Taylor Free Gone in the link below for a no-obligation consultation. Now, back to the debate. So, Cade, welcome to LOOPcast. Thanks so much for having me. Yeah, it's exciting. So, yeah, again, I just hand it to you for reaching out in the first place. I think it takes cojones, and that's Really great. So, just for our listeners, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Why did you reach out to us? What are your goals for this conversation? And then, give us that elevator pitch to leave Catholicism. Why should we leave Catholicism? Go for it. Perfect. As you mentioned, my name is Cade. I do a lot of stuff on the internet as a part-time job, fly places and yap about things on the internet. My background is in being raised in a kind of nominally Catholic household. A very, like, culturally Catholic or cafeteria Catholic-style household, went to vaguely Catholic elementary school, and then joined the local public school system, and I knew that I was gay from a young age, didn't know what to do with that, was struggling with the big questions of life, what is the purpose of this thing, what do I want to do with life, and then even, like, how do I make friends?

And as I was kind of getting ready for confirmation, I was starting to attend my local Novus Ordo Catholic Church's youth group. And it was like, I'm making friends, I feel at peace here, started reading into all the apologetics, Catholic answers, all of the big names, and then eventually discovered the local Latin Mass, which was just, it just kind of knocked the socks off of me. It was gorgeous, it was beautiful, it was reverent, and then started going to the Latin Mass exclusively, or started going to the Latin Mass generally at the local fraternity parish, and was on track to...

My life goal was then to become a Catholic priest, was discerning with the Carmelite order, eventually rejected from there, and so then instead went to a very conservative, small Catholic college out in San Diego, learning film and philosophy and business and all of that good jazz, and was going to work in the Catholic media world. I was going to daily mass, daily rosary, very much into apologetics. I think I've listened, I've either read, I think every Catholic Answers book pretty much at this point, I kept on business for a few years, and then circa about two years ago, I started looking at the rest of my life and thinking, well, what the church asks of me is a very high burden, this idea of celibacy or mixed orientation marriage.

I should probably have reasons that line up to that level of an imperative, and so I went back through all of the apologetics from God, the gospel, and the church, and eventually found, I don't know, I think we have some reasons. But I don't know if those reasons line up to the burden that's being asked, and so over the course of a few months was like, do I want to be here, do I want to be Catholic, do I want to be religious, re-evaluated my beliefs, and then haven't been Catholic in two, or two and a half, almost three years at this point.

And the elevator pitch for leaving Catholicism is, and this is what I like to say on my own content, is that I'm not interested in deconversion. I am more interested in de-radicalization, to give a little bit of pushback on these big Catholic ideals, and whether somebody stays Catholic or they become Protestant, God forbid, or some other religion out there, or some spirituality, or whatever it is, I hope people can make informed choices and figure out things that work for them as deconstructionist and relativistic as that sounds.

All right. So, would you describe yourself as an atheist at this point? Yeah, the specific school of thought that I would be a fan of is called ichthyism, which is saying that the terms and ideas that we use around God are so vague and seemingly contradictory that we can't make knowledge claims. So, I don't make the big claim that it is impossible for anything supernatural to exist, or that God absolutely does not exist. I think the only thing that I'm generally certain of is uncertainty in these big supernatural conversations, and so I think by virtue that makes me.

In atheists, some people might say that is more agnosticism, but the labels are quite confusing in that realm. So, those are kind of my general thoughts on the topic. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Well, I will kind of give my own background and give a sense of why I am still a Christian.

So, I am really grateful for this opportunity, and I am so glad you reached out, because it really… You know, I've watched a few of your videos where you've talked about, you know, how Jordan Peterson made me an atheist, that kind of like... Always got to do clickbait. Oh, well, yeah, I'm in the biz, I got it. But it really, you know, it really forced me to think about, okay, well, why am I still here?

Out of my siblings, I'm the only one who's still practicing, and most of my friends from high school, etc. So it's a good question. And I was trying to think, like, I don't really remember a time when I didn't believe that God existed. And looking back, like, I think my feelings of certainty about him have fluctuated a lot with my own, like, changing desires and my own experiences through life. But... I've always thought, like, in viewing the evidence around us that we have access to, that it is most reasonable to conclude that God exists, and that if he does, we ought to worship him, like certainly follows, right, given what that being would be.

I also don't, like, remember a time when I've felt satisfied with anything, like, at all in my life. Sounds like a Q the Hamilton soundtrack, right? But even as, like, a small child, like, I wanted to know why there was anything at all. So, in a sense, like, a very metaphysical, like, that there would be a metaphysical source for the physical world around us, and also just having a keen sense that everything's passing away. All things come to an end, and I'd like to know, like, what's the source of all the things, and then where are they all going to, if possible?

It wasn't, like, all dark and tragic growing up, so, like, my faith, obviously, like, I had a very loving home. My dad's a doctor, my mom's an artist, so I always had this conviction that, like, That while I received faith first in God from authority and in Jesus Christ from authority, so it was very much a faith based on what was given to me, I also learned, given their education and their background, that faith is the less perfect kind of knowledge that we have.

Moving, growing through faith based on authority as a child, finding reasons for the faith is an absolutely necessary human process, because it speaks to our dignity as human beings with intellect and the image of God, and because my understanding of, like, in heaven is that there won't be faith. Like, once we're in heaven, we see face to face, and that's the more perfect kind of knowledge, and reason better reflects that. So, I was raised, like, super evangelical Protestant, like... Believe the Bible, love Jesus, and all that, and then when we converted to Catholicism when I was 13, the year I turned 13, that is when that world of faith-seeking understanding really opened up to me, and I just kind of ran with it, because I think my natural Personality of wanting to find the source and end of all things was fed in the Catholic tradition, especially.

So, I think God is, like, the compelling answer at this point in my life to my question, like, why is there something rather than nothing? And what is the thing that I desire but I can't name or find, right? So, I find the cosmological arguments, and we can get into some of those, like your takes on those. For God, really compelling.

But I also recognize that there has to be more than just logical proofs, because we're much more than just logical, rational creatures. There's more to it than that. Then, in terms of the church, The historical arguments for me are most compelling when it comes to the church, right, which I believe Christ established when he was physically present here on earth, especially the witness of the martyrs. And to me, the fact that, like, the very worst human beings and the very best human beings have taken the name Christian, the name Catholic, it always seems to me actually proof or strong evidence that God is the soul of the church, of the Catholic Church.

I see the name Christian as almost like a judgment on us, precisely because Christ is faithful when we're unfaithful. So, those are my thoughts on... Just me, where I'm coming from in terms of why I'm still Christian, why I'm still Catholic after all these years. So anyway, we can kind of get to know each other that way a little bit.

So, we both kind of put that out there, but let us dig into, I think, our first claim. Jordan Peterson's claim, I am just going to say this, his first claim, which I think you got the seat for, with even atheists believe in God, or they reject God, but they don't know what they are rejecting. I would really like to just take all of the spite out of the question and just ask you.

Is there a God? And you kind of started to answer that, and what can we know about him, and does it even matter if there's a God or not? Yeah, so, with Jordan Peterson, and you've seen the video that I did on him, I'd like to say that I largely agree with Peterson and find his framework very compelling when approaching these questions of religion, and I don't think that his question of what precisely do you mean by God and what precisely do you mean by belief are unfair questions to ask.

My main criticism of Peterson is that, like, how he approaches the question. In a sort of like descriptive way, and then what he actually prescribes are incongruous, meaning that it would seem his platform is, in this sort of like Jungian analysis approach to religion, would dictate much more of an open-minded approach to religion, a sort of like curious and diverse view of the gods and spirituality that are out there. And so, in many ways, when it is like, is there a god?

I think the fair question to ask is, What precisely do we mean by God? If we just mean something, as Jordan Peterson would define it, like conscience, it's like, oh yeah, so if God is that voice inside of us, then that God would exist. Or is God the transcendentals, the truth, goodness, and beauty, a very like Bishop Barron style evangelization? Like, is God the sense of awe and transcendence that we approach the natural world with? Well then, yeah, there's something beyond strict materiality.

I wouldn't say that I'm a materialist by any stretch of the imagination. And if we say God is some sort of intelligence that's beyond our understanding, that seems to not line up with our purely materialistic world, I don't find that's an unreasonable conclusion to get to.

And also, maybe kind of to stomp on the question, in my particular, let's say, brand of atheism, that is both reasonable and unreasonable, or that it is reasonable to believe in God. And it's also reasonable to not believe in God. That I don't think that religious people have been deceived. I don't think that they have terrible arguments. But on the same note, I think it's entirely reasonable to not believe in that God. And so, when somebody asks the question, like, do you believe in God?

I tend to think all of these very specific conceptions of God that I have seen in sort of Abrahamic religions don't seem to be likely. Or, more generally, I don't know how we would go about approaching those questions. So, if we mean the Catholic God as this omni-powerful God with all of these properties, who is incarnate through Christ, who has established the Church, and asks of us very specific things when it comes to confession and sin and all of these things, I am generally certain that that type of God does not exist.

But I think there is this gray room when it comes to there are phenomena and ideas and emotions that we have. That aren't explained by materialism? I think that's true, but do I think there's some sort of personal God out there that has demanded a particular religion? I'm not particularly certain of that. Yeah, so I think when you say it is entirely reasonable to believe in God, and it's entirely reasonable not to believe in God, can you give me what are the reasons for...

Not believing in God. Yeah. So, when it comes to reasonability, let's say, of conclusions that we get to, I think a lot of them are going to depend on the data that we have in front of us, the arguments that we've seen, and the lives that we've lived out. And so, when I get to hear your beautiful story of encountering this God that is the fulfillment of all desire, that you've always been searching for the thing that is above. And that religion has brought you nothing but peace.

I don't think that's an unreasonable conclusion to get to, nor one that I judge. In a lot of questions when it comes to how people experience religion, I like to approach the question with a sort of like emotivism, where I, when people tell me they believe in God, I think there are the reasons, and then as you said, there's more importantly the lived experience and the realities of encountering a religion. So, if somebody is raised in...

In a Hindu family, and when they have down moments, and they go to the temple, or they have incredible moments, and they get to thank their particular gods, and that their gods have interacted in their life and done things that are unexplainable, I think that is reasonable. I think, on the other side, to answer your question, which is, what would make it reasonable to not believe in God, it seems that he is supremely hidden. That religion is very diverse and contradictory, that it seems that with a number of problems of evil and suffering, that an entirely good God seems unlikely.

It seems like the arguments that we do have for him rely on a sort of inappropriate extrapolation of principles that we see in front of us. And then more importantly, if somebody has had a terrible experience in religion and finds freedom and peace and joy, And the fulfillment of desires outside of the religion that they were mandated to believe in, that would seem to me reasonable, or that would be reasonable to not believe in a god. Okay. So, it seems like, and again, I'm just trying to understand where you're coming from and where you land on religion versus God and what can we know about him.

So, I think you're saying you're not a strict materialist. But what you see in terms of religion is that you make a distinction between the truth… The truth of a religion and the benefits that that religion can convey to people. So, you look at me and you think, okay, well, she gets peace, she gets joy, it helps her to have a good, solid family life, and those are all great benefits for her. But then you point to, okay, it's sort of like lots of different roads up the same mountain, the top of the mountain, just being sort of like this psychological benefit.

At the top, and different people can achieve that psychological benefit of religion, regardless of whether or not the religion's claims are true. Would that be fair? Yeah, yeah, I think it would be a generally fair characterization. Yeah. See, this is where I start to... Wonder, though, about the divorce between truth, and maybe you don't believe we can have access to objective truth in a meaningful sense, but the divorce of a religion from truth, especially when a religion such as Catholicism makes very specific truth claims, because it seems to me that it would be a bad thing for someone to People receive things like peace and joy from a religion that makes a claim that is fundamentally untrue, or I think in your view, some of Catholicism claims are fundamentally harmful, right, to people.

So, it seems like you would want to make a judgment about the religion that's like, well, you know, she really shouldn't be finding peace in this religion because it says these terrible things that I think are really harmful.

I don't know if... Because it seems to me, too, that different... I don't think any one system... Yeah, I don't think it's true that just any system, all systems are sort of morally neutral, and as long as it gives you the psychological benefit, we don't have to make any judgments about them. And I don't know if anyone really lives like that, either.

Yeah, so, once again, ironically to borrow from Peterson, I see religion as a... It is not that ironic, actually. Yes. I do not think he is a great argument for religion, just to put that out there. Yeah. I think religion is an entirely natural phenomenon. In the same way that I find people, they find peace in, let us say, political parties that I may disagree with. I do not think that I have to say that for somebody to find peace, the entire endeavor must be true.

Or when it comes to sports, I think that people can reasonably love different sports and not like other sports, but I don't have to say that somebody that loves baseball also has to explain away the fact that there are cheating scandals in baseball or local economic factors where when a big sports team comes to town and the local government subsidizes that sports team, there are bad effects. I think that there is a helpful distinction between, let's say, the Vatican and Catholicism overall.

Where I think when you talk to Catholics in general, somebody, when you Google Catholic churches near me, and you go up and you talk to somebody, like, why is it that you believe these things? Or what is it that you believe? I think there is a huge discrepancy between somebody's average understanding of religion and what gives them peace and meaning and understanding, and a much more, like, intellectually rigorous side of the Vatican. And so when I talk to people who find peace in things that maybe I don't agree with the truth claims...

It is because I do not think that religion and people going to Sunday Mass is solely because they read Thomas Aquinas' Five Ways and find that ultimately compelling. Very, very early. Yeah, and go to church as a sort of intellectual endeavor.

I think what religion points out fairly is that religion is much more of a relationship with the divine. That, as Matt Fred talks about on his podcast, it is like trying to get somebody to jump into the ocean. Where the apologetics are helping them drive there, and they're getting to the parking lot, and they're getting to the beach, and at some point, you do have to jump into the deep end and finally get into the water, and so I think when I see somebody who has found tremendous peace in a religion where I either disagree with some of the truth claims or think that the truth claims can lead to harmful things, it's because they've jumped into the experience and the relationship and the peace of it, and I think we can explain all of the benefits of religion through natural ends.

And in the earlier point you brought up on sort of like truth versus utility, I think that maybe a tentative way we can define truth is a sort of predictive utility, and I don't find that Catholicism has any sort of predictive utility when it comes to people's relationship with the divine or how the divine interacts with humanity. It seems that religion is this sort of projection and discovery of the human psyche through literature and culture and sociology. to these sort of spiritual needs that our bodies have inside of us.

And so all to say that there are the truth claims of religion and there's the reality of it on the ground. And I find the reality on the ground to be a much more fascinating endeavor and ultimately why I'm not I am not interested in, like, deconverting people from Catholicism. If you find peace in your particular conception, it is awesome, and if you leave the church, that is awesome, and if you leave the church and realize that, like, atheism isn't for you, I don't think that atheism in general is for everybody, and what I hope people make are those informed decisions and find that peace that surpasses all understanding, and that might be outside of a dogmatic conception of the world.

Yeah, I think that, again, like, there's, you're making this massive divorce between the psychological and the real, and again, it seems like, to me, well, if we go to a societal level, so maybe if we come, we come a little bit, like, cycle out a little bit, because, you know, as human beings, we're intimately connected with all other, we are social animals, right? So, I think that the effects of religion, we can consider. From individual to individuals, like you have your thing, I have my thing, but there's also patterns in broader human societies.

So, I think we have a great sort of just empirical knowledge of what happens when a society gets cut off from the truth claims of religion. And this is sort of what we've been watching in the West since the, really since Occam, but really, you know, the Enlightenment is sort of the... The easy way of saying it, but I would say it goes back to, like, the nominalism. So, with, if you look at it in those sense, you'd say, well, you know, around, you know, 1666, Descartes, you just, could you do it or go soon?

I think, therefore, I am. And so, we start to divorce. Descartes and many of the Enlightenment thinkers continue to be, they find their psychological, personal peace in religion and in saying things like, God is, you know, a construct of our minds, but he does have all these benefits for us and for society, but in terms of ontology and what we can know about God, it doesn't really matter. So, we're going to pursue this entirely rationalistic explanation, materialistic natural causes explanation of why the universe is the way that it is.

We're going to figure it all out. We're going to develop modern science, which is great. I wouldn't be here without modern science. Big fan. Yeah, okay, we totally agree on modern science. All right. Very useful. Talk about utility and truth. We agree that that can be very useful. So, I think, but what we saw with the history of A civilization, again, like taking it as an analogy for an individual human being, the history of a civilization, as it starts to make that divorce intellectually in the academy, right, we see that eventually you get to this sort of, this radical trust in science, like it's going to just, reason is going to figure it all out for us in terms of utility, and we can sort of jettison our Christian belief.

Well, eventually, you get to the 20th century. Well, Nietzsche really, like, calls it out, and he's like, okay, God's dead. And then you get to the 20th century, and you get an absolute bloodbath, because what happens is, and I wouldn't say that was even hitting the rock bottom, because you still had countries acting on Christian principles of justice, of, you know, prudential judgment, arguing over morality, in somewhat similar terms.

But... You see the civilization untethered from the truth claims of the religion, and it ultimately starts to lose also the psychological benefits, which I would argue we are seeing now in the West, with the rise of depression, especially among young people, young men in particular, with the rise of suicide rates, the sort of civilizational despair going on. I guess what I would say is that analogy to me shows that it does actually matter what, not just the morals, and like, are we living a good life, quote unquote, and finding psychological peace that comes from religion or belief in the resurrection or something, but was the resurrection actually true at all?

Because I do think a lot of, you know, most people can live a whole long life based on sort of feelings, but there are, there's a significant portion of human beings for whom it does matter whether or not it's true. Yeah, so I don't know if that makes any sense to you in terms of does the truth of it matter? Yeah.

Yeah, so, in the sort of like... The orchestration of a grand meta-narrative, which I think the Catholic intellectual tradition loves to kind of trace the origins of, let us say, modern societal implosion back to some of these earlier thinkers and see history as this sort of linear line of God or not God. And when you talk about, like, does it really matter if these things are true, the interesting thing is that you are much more talking about utility when you talk about the rise of the Enlightenment or the 20th century bloodbath.

or some of these psychological harms. I find that an interesting field to kind of talk about religion. But then we're not talking about religion as this absolute truth claim that we can have, like, epistemic access to. What we're talking about is the utility of these particular beliefs.

And I think I agree with you that... That people will only cling to a religion if they truly believe that it's true. Not a sort of like deconstruction, Jordan Peterson style, like, well, I think it's generally helpful. But once again, to look at people that genuinely believe. Is a psychological domain, and same thing with trust in science and political and in depression and suicide and the sexual revolution. Now we're back into the original domain that I was talking about, which is psychological, sociological, metaphorical, literary, political, and that's where I think that God belief lies, is in this sort of like investigative sociological domain, and that's the domain that you kind of brought to the forefront here with this particular metanarrative around.

Why it matters. Right, and I think the... To say that, well, it's just a psychological question, it's not to diminish it in the least, because we are, again, we're not ghosts in the machine, but what we find psychologically has very real implications in the physical world. And the question, of course, is if there is a God, if we do have an immortal soul, it would have So, I agree with you that there is a psychological component to faith. I think it would be, I think it's a So, sort of a Kantian, strange, weird, German approach.

I have a family who are part of that very Lutheran, Kantian, like, we do our duty not because it gives any benefit to us, but we do the duty because it's reasonable and rational, and this is what it means to be human. I think that that's entirely wrong and has been very damaging for people when they think about morality, right, that we just have to do our duty. So, I don't think that saying it's psychological also cuts off the importance of the question.

Does God actually exist? And in fact, I would say the reason why Jordan Peterson is so fundamentally unsatisfying is because he reduces it all to the psychological and says the psychological doesn't necessarily have to have a tether to reality.

So, again, like, in the areas of natural science, let's say in the area of medicine, for example, and I know you talk about the placebo effect in a couple of your videos, that religion can be kind of like a placebo. The placebo A placebo effect is a real thing, but it's also not a cure, right? So, when scientists and doctors are talking about a placebo effect, like they give the pill that doesn't actually have anything in it, it's just a fake pill, but the person receives some kind of psychological, and sometimes it spills over into a physical benefit as well, which is a very mysterious connection there, right, between our bodies and our psyche and our soul, and how we think about Our well-being.

Nevertheless, it is not actually, you don't take a placebo and then put it in every pharmacy in the country and say, okay, everyone, let's just do the placebo, because it's not actually a cure to the thing. So, I would apply, I don't think that we should apply a different standard to the pursuit of religious truth than we apply to the pursuit of medicine and scientific truth.

So, that is an interesting point on religious truth, and seen in a similar strain or similar concept as medicinal truth. And that is where I think, one of the reasons that I don't believe in God is because I don't think those questions can be fundamentally answered by, or that the answers to does God exist are not particularly observable, don't have a high degree of consensus, aren't something that we interact with or see regularly observed. And so, it seems like the questions of God.

When you say, just to press the, I just need a definition, when you say certainty, do you mean a feeling of certainty, or certain claim, like certainty of logical proof? What are you looking for with the term certainty? So, I would, like I said earlier, I think my tentative definition of truth is some sort of Predictive utility, where we say science is true insofar as we kind of have these regularly occurring experiments, that if you follow these rules, we can generally expect a particular outcome, whether you are running a particular calculation in South Africa or North America.

So, it seems like the closest thing we can get to objective truth is, let us say, in the empirical domain. And so, with the questions of mathematics or logic… If we take these particular given things, like the principle of non-contradiction, then we can have some pretty good extrapolations for things that are immediately in front of us, but it seems like the God question isn't something empirical.

It doesn't seem strictly logical because people who are big into logic reasonably disagree on these different questions. It seems like God doesn't interact in an observable and regularly occurring way, and I put out an interesting video on my channel of what would it take for me to believe in God, and I used the example of Interstellar, where the supernatural beings inside of Interstellar are providing specific coordinates of where to go. They're opening up wormholes to be able to pass through and save civilization, and if God had some sort of general consensus on, like, this is the God, and he's interacting with us and providing us information, and that we can know his character, it would seem that we could have much more certainty or predictive utility around the question of God.

And then, is certainty a feeling? I think... I think it certainly can be a feeling, or it can be an emotion, and one that we probably want to see that reasonable people can generally get to, and then feel certain about it, would make me feel much more inclined to believe in God than the current set of religion, which is... Highly debated, and incredibly mutually exclusive, and not something that it seems like you can reasonably get somebody from not knowing about God to one particular religion with a particular set of arguments.

It seems like the best predictor of somebody's religion is going to be their subjective and psychological experience with the enterprise known as religion. Do you think we have control over our feelings? So, that is an interesting question. Do we have control over our feelings? I think there are levers that we can pull. Maybe I will explain it this way.

When I was becoming Catholic, I knew that, hey, if I read a lot of Catholic books, I'll probably be generally certain or, let's say, emotionally convicted of Catholic claims and feel more certainty. So, it's kind of like choosing my intellectual diet, and so it's kind of, yes, we can control those levers, or as I was leaving Catholicism, I'm like, should I stay here or should I not? I was like, well, if I surround myself with people who aren't Catholic, I probably won't think about these Catholic questions as much.

And so, my feelings did change. So, it is kind of this intricate dance of kind of, and also not really, but we can do things that will probably reasonably change our feelings around things, but I do not think that we sit down and just go like, what emotion do I want to feel today? Yeah, yeah. Do you think it is good to, so like, say you want to be confirmed, you want to feel more certain about a conviction that you have.

So, you go and you dive into explanations and like, you dive into materials that you know will reinforce. A feeling that you want to have. Do you think that is a good thing for us to do? I am genuinely curious about the method. Because I think we all do it to a certain extent, because it feels good. But do you think that is a good thing to do?

I think it would depend on the particular context. Yeah. If somebody is going down, let's say, a rabbit hole that ends in what I would consider to be a bad belief system that leads to harm, then I would be like, hey, maybe we need to pump the brakes and have some critical thought in there. And I think as long as we allow ourselves to hear dissident voices and to think through them, I don't think that Like, if I'm going to run a very long race, I'm probably going to read books that are going to, like, pump me up as to, like, running is awesome, and there's going to be benefits.

I don't think, though, that I would have this responsibility to be like, and I'm going to read books that are equally pro-running and equally, like, critical of long-distance running. I think as long as somebody has reasonably apprehended sort of, like, the terms and conditions of the downside to a belief system, generally keep them and those voices. That they're listening to? I don't think that the average Catholic has a responsibility to listen to atheist thinkers, and I don't think that the average atheist has this duty to have a perfect cross-sectional pie chart of dissident beliefs.

But it is important to be open to those dissident beliefs. Yeah, absolutely. So, why though? Why would it be important, and I'm trying to understand from your point of view, why would it be important if I'm feeling so much peace and joy and everything, which, just for the record, I don't find. Is Catholicism particularly comfortable, just day-to-day living? But that could be a whole different discussion, and that's probably a psychological discussion. But why would it be important, if the goal is like my own peace and joy, to also be open to other points of view?

I think it would come down to somebody's particular conviction for bringing other people into their belief system, and what I mean by that is, when I was thoroughly Catholic, and I spent all of my time learning apologetics, trying to convert people at my public high school and succeeded... You were like the worst kind of vegan. I watched that video. Yes, I was on level four of my vegan video, which the vegans did not like and did not understand. That was terrible.

It was clickbait. It was clickable. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you got to exclaim it. All right. So, yeah, you're the worst vegan, and people can check that out if they want to, but yeah. And so, when I was Catholic, and I found so much peace in my own Catholicism that I thought everybody should join that.

Right. I think if I just said, you know, Catholicism is for me. I don't know if anybody else should join, but, like, this is what I have. I think I have less of a duty to hear people that think differently, because I'm already... Understanding that, like, maybe this isn't for everybody. But I think why... Why it would be important for people to hear those dissident beliefs is that, like, you may have found peace in something, but the question is, will everybody find peace in it?

And I think that is a really important thing if we are going to, like, promulgate an idea or a philosophy or a lifestyle. Right. That we have to recognize that everything is going to have pros and cons. And that is what I say with atheisms. Like, I don't think that it is for everybody. And I don't think that everybody would be more happy leaving Catholicism or a particular religion or joining a particular religion. I think what hearing... Other people's arguments and experiences and stories gave me the ability to go like, hey, I like this thing.

And also, maybe other people have bad experiences, so I should be careful and respectful about how I go about sharing this good news. And I think even in my life now, with doing a lot of running and ultramarathons, I like it. And I also should have a reasonable apprehension that everybody else's idea of fun isn't running 100 miles in the woods and puking your guts out. It sounds great to me. Maybe we should make everyone. I love that. I couldn't think of a better sales pitch.

I know. Yeah, I was a long-distance runner. After baby number five, I had to give it away, but it was fun while it lasted, so I honor the ultra-marathoning. Yeah, I think, like... I think there's, for me, there's a distinction there between the importance of approaching everyone, and I think that the church, at its best, approaching everyone with what we would call charity, and that heart for the fact that we're all coming.

To these big questions from our own experiences, but also from a place of deep woundedness, right, and to be respectful of the suffering, right, that other people have and not just dismiss it as like, oh, these concerns or this experience didn't count or like, you know, you shouldn't be mad at the church because you were abused as a child or something like that.

It's kind of along the lines of we can't control our feelings all the time. We shouldn't put the hammer down on people who have had these experiences and have these feelings kind of as a result. I think the challenge, though, To that is, you know, of course, when you get to the point of someone has found in the religion, not just a psychological piece, but possibly what they now are convicted is the only answer to the suffering that is in the world.

So, I mean, this brings us sort of to the problem of evil, right? The problem of evil And, which I think is the best argument for atheism, honestly. It seems to be the most prevalent. If you're looking for consensus, the problem of evil would be it. But if you really believe that the only satisfactory answer to the problem of evil would be the death of God and the resurrection of God, it seems to me that you could be forgiven for having some zeal for wanting to draw other people in.

Into that understanding as a way, if you believe that the truth claim is, is such. And I think that this is where, for me, like the witness of the martyrs and those who have sacrificed everything. For the faith to bring the answer of Christ crucified to the world, I think of Francis Xavier. I don't think he was a level four vegan. I think he really believed that baptism and the life of Christ would help bring people to eternal life. I think that the same The same sort of respect that we offer, that we ought to offer to people who don't believe what we believe, should be offered to those who believe they've found the truth, and are acting with integrity on that.

You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Yeah. I fully agree there that forgiving people for having some zeal... And even admiring it, because the world could use a little more zeal sometimes, a little indifferentism and all that. Yeah, the most uninteresting types of people to talk to are ones without any convictions in any direction, and you're like, what do you do on a weekend? It's like, oh, I don't even know. It's like, I would rather talk to somebody who is deeply religious and cares about something thoroughly than just like, oh, you know, it's like, whatever.

I'd rather talk to you than like someone who's like, yeah, I go to Mass or whatever. Yeah. And so, I think we can approach the question of like, why do people have zeal? Why do people go to their death? We're talking about St. Francis Xavier going. To these other continents, to, in his mind, in his own journals, of like, I'm saving tens of thousands of souls from burning alive for billions of years. I think we can understand where someone's coming from, while also holding them accountable for maybe some harm that was done in St.

Francis Xavier's zeal, or a lot of some of these evangelists to the New World and to South America. Or to the church being so zealous of, let's say, we have to in some way have a formal apparatus to condemn heresy, perhaps even handing them over to secular authorities for civil punishment. Thank you for making that distinction. I appreciate it. Yes. What's the book? It's got a black cover and it's like 10 lies about Catholic history.

Oh. I forget the title of that book. That's also a whole other rabbit hole. Yes. We can approach these questions of, like, what is religion and why do people do this in the same way that somebody, to reference my video on veganism, where if somebody is like, nobody else in the world can eat meat or reasonably disagree with me, we can go like, hey, I understand where you're coming from. You saw terrible factory farming. Or you had all these negative health outcomes, and then you switched, and then you've been healthier, and you've felt more mental clarity, and so everybody should follow.

And I think that's part of what I see my work doing, is kind of like reading the terms and conditions of signing up for Catholicism, or the Consumer Protection Bureau, where it's like, the Catholic Church says you're going to find peace in us, or this idea that essentially Jesus has to work for everybody. Because there's this universal call to holiness, as JP2 talks about, where everybody should become Catholic, is what the Catholic Church puts out there. And I think you may find peace, and you're probably going to find community, and you might find beauty and structure and routine and all these things.

You might be reasonably convinced of these metaphysical principles and of these dogmas. But it doesn't work for everybody. There are people who don't find peace in Catholicism. There are people who have been harmed by it. There are people who just don't believe in it. There are people that find peace in other avenues. I think one of the guys that I run with, who's an incredible man, he's big into Buddhism. And I don't have to be like, oh my gosh, I have to explain that away.

I can go like, I'm happy that you have found something that brings you peace, and that you are reasonably certain of these principles, and I can talk to my friends from college that are still thoroughly Catholic. And be nothing but supportive of them and their endeavors. My only problem is that I've never found an epistemology to ground dogmatic theology, which is to say these big questions of religion, I think are important, I think are beautiful, I think, in the words to quote Conclave, that like the enemy of faith is certainty.

I think my only problem with religion is when people start approaching it dogmatically, or that everybody must believe, or that there isn't room for Or that there isn't room for reasonably disagreeing with something like something declared ex cathedra. I don't see how we get to 100% certainty, and then condemnatory of other people. I can understand why people think that other people might be going to hell, but my problem is if somebody is going to say, you know, God has created marriage, and so the gay couple down the street who has adopted kids that the straight couples wouldn't even take in.

And of giving them amazing life, and we should take away their legal marriage. That's where I start pushing back on religion. And so, in real life, most of my friends think that I'm part of their religions. And so, on every major religious holiday, I have a number of friends who don't know what I do on the Internet wish me happy various religious holidays, because I think it can be a tremendous thing. And also, I do work on the Internet talking to particularly dogmatic ideologues, To kind of push back and give a counter voice that you can reasonably not be Catholic in the same way that you can certainly reasonably be Catholic.

Yeah, so I think we could, we'll get into the marriage thing for sure, because I know that, like, that's sort of your channel, your focus on that. I did just want to ask first, I think, yeah, that given the way that you've described your understanding of truth, I think going down the, one of the claims we were considering doing was, is Jesus who he says he is? But I think that, yeah, I don't know if we have... If we're quite there yet.

I think I did want to just... I want to touch on two other questions that are a little bit more fundamental that you kind of brought up. The idea that the closest we can get to truth is in the empirical domain, and I don't quite understand where the source of that as being, other than if it's materially useful, we feel its effect. But I don't see anywhere in the empirical domain itself that… ...can prove it's the only kind of knowledge. You know what I'm saying?

Like, there isn't an experiment you can run that would rule out the possibility of logical truth, right? And in fact, I would say, like, modern science itself presupposes a kind of faith, right, that... There is an intelligibility to the natural world, and that is, other than the fact that something works in an isolated experiment, although even modern science is starting to discover that these isolated experiments are not as effective because everything is so interconnected, that the way that modern science works with isolating and reproducing in these very specific circumstances, Then, when you actually put it out in the world, we discover, oh, wait, when we did this to the water supply, it did this downstream to all the frogs, or if we did this to, you know, we gave the woman this pill to fix this issue, it actually affected her over here.

So, the complexity of the whole, to me, Doesn't the order that we presuppose as moderns—actually, no, the ancients did it, too. The order that we presuppose to see in the world, it doesn't seem to me the facticity of it that it's there is empirically provable. We can make little stabs at it, but the assumption of the whole still begs the question, why is it that way?

Does that make sense? I am getting a little bit too... That makes sense. So, the reason why I would say that empirical ideas are probably going to be the closest thing we can get to objective truth comes down to, essentially, like, predictive utility, which might be broken down into, as I am writing my notes here, like, we can replicate the ideas, we can iterate on the ideas, and we can build consensus around the ideas. Right. Where if we say an object falls at, what is it, 9.82 meters per second squared, or whatever that number is.

Right, you can verify that anywhere on the world. Yeah, and we can go anywhere on the world, and assuming the conditions are. If the answers are true, it is going to happen that way, and then people have consensus around it, where as long as the conditions are equal, I think every major institution is going to agree with that. And not that consensus makes truth, but that consensus can reveal... It is an indicator, right. Yeah, it is an indicator. But to your earlier point, I don't think it is the only type of truth out there.

Okay, yeah. So, I mean, I would say that it's pretty clear that there is a consensus across human history, though, that there is some kind of sense of justice, that there is a way. C.S. Lewis referred to it as the Tao, right? So, he used the Eastern concept of the Tao. And he's like, if you look at all human history, the argument has not been, the dissent hasn't been You know, over is there a right way to live? The dissent has been over what are the particulars of that, right?

So, it seems to me that there is a consensus about this non-empirical fact that, or this non-empirical truth, sorry, that there is a Or, you know, to use a Greek term, justice, right? There is a justicia for the Latin. And then there also seems to be a consensus that there is more than the material world.

So, the facticity of religion arising throughout all human history, in a sense of there is something beyond the material world, there is the visible and invisible, to quote the creed, right? That also seems to be a consensus, and the sort of like modern, modern new atheists, they're the outliers, right, in the consensus of human civilization. So, it seems to me that if you're doing consensus, or the weight of The testimony, as it were, of humans over time, and we don't get too chronologically snobbish about it, then the consensus would be that there is an objective morality, we just have a really hard time finding what it is, and that there is a sort of grounding spiritual world.

Is that fair? Yeah. And that is where I think part of some of the Catholic intellectual tradition relies on this sort of like either-or dichotomy. Either it is there is a God, and in particular our conception of God, or there is materialism. We see that people historically have not been pure materialists, therefore it leans more in the direction of a God.

If the descriptive claim is, generally speaking, in civilizations, people have sort of like personified the unknown, or this concept of... We have projected intelligence upon big forces in life and have seen some sort of afterlife. Like the Norse gods, the Greek gods, we've got the god-gods, yeah. Yeah, and I don't think that's an unfair thing to say, but I think the descriptive claim can only get us to humans have historically believed in a lot of different things and not believed, where some civilizations are much closer to the idea of monotheism or an intelligent god.

And some are much more on the side of deism, or we don't really even believe in anything, and then somewhere in between, whether it's the Aztecs, or the Pagans, or what have you, that there is a spectrum to belief across history.

And so I think I'd agree that... That if a new atheism means that we have to mock this idea of humans historically reaching towards something supernatural, I think I would be on team, let's investigate these things, let's approach this in a sort of like Chestertonian fence type of way, a sort of tradition is democracy of the dead, that I think these fundamental questions around religion and spirituality and ritual are all very important.

But what I don't think that points towards is that... We are justified in having a dogmatic conception of a particular god, or that we are justified in a sort of cultural or anthropological genocide of concepts that we disagree with. I think that is where the buck stops, and that is where, to bring it back to the start of the conversation, is that the only thing that I am generally certain of is uncertainty when it comes to these big supernatural questions, that I think people can choose and can reasonably apprehend different things and can live in different ways.

And that should be respected and approached in a sort of phenomenological or sociological endeavor, not as this grand object of truth or presuppositional apologetics in which we must ardently hold to these Catholic conceptions. And that is what I put in my Peterson video, where it is like, are these stories serving us, or are we serving these stories? Where we can see the Chestertonian fence and go, like, we can't move it. Or we can investigate why it was there and then decide if we want to remove it.

And so, yeah, I think that the new atheism has done a disservice, and it's sort of like ripping away of these important concepts to ourselves, which are these maps of meaning, these rituals that we have as a society, this realm of the human spirit and our transcendent needs as a human person. Because once again, I agree with Peterson that this isn't just a plane of existence. This is like a forum for action. And we need things to believe in, and we need things to pursue.

And we need community, and we don't live as strict materialists. Yeah, but I would say, like, to what end? Like, so, why would one, well, the first question would be, is there a line for you? Do you have, are there ways that we shouldn't live, right, based on?

Peace or whatever, you know, is the goal of all of this. So, and then finally, so first, would there be any line ever? And what would that be? And where would the line come from? Other than you find peace in drawing the line here, someone else finds peace in drawing the line there. But then the question will always come back to then how shall we live? Right? We have to make concrete Actions and decisions throughout our lives, how to live, and what happens when you have everyone is sort of the god unto themselves, their own divine legislator, right?

Which seems to be where this is headed, because if we can't know, like, sure, we can be open to the fact of a divine, but when it comes to actually making concrete decisions in our lives, is everyone just their own pope, their own legislator?

You can see how when that happens, If there isn't some sort of universal line, it's going to devolve into violence, honestly. It comes down to a question of power, and am I able to effect? This is what Nietzsche saw about, and I respect Nietzsche, because he at least was able to say, Christianity is the worst. Christianity is the worst of all, anything that anyone ever came up with, because it puts the vulnerable over the proud. It puts people in positions of, you know, honoring sacrifice.

...and self-effacement, when the only answer is, I need to be able to have power to find my peace. And I have a lot of respect for Nietzsche, because he was able to just say, yeah, that's the logical conclusion, when you say something like, well, we just have to all find our own peace.

I think there are definitely constraints around, you know, I found peace in this, or this works for me, and I think two things that I'm not is a pure utilitarian, where if we do the math on suffering or goodness, that if we exterminate half of the population and make the other half of the population double what happened. You're not Thanos? I am not Thanos. Okay, well. No Thanos snapping.

And I also, so on this question, like, are there lines? There are definitely lines. And so, kind of, Maybe what we're starting to get at here is this idea of, like, objective versus subjective morality, which I think objective, subjective, and relative morality are all distinct buckets.

But I don't think that religion just asserting we have objective morality necessarily solves anything, because this idea of, like, we need a line in the sand, we can't all be our own popes, we've seen historically that the church has updated this sort of aggiornamento to big moral prescriptions.

That among people who agree in objective morality, they disagree on very big moral questions. For example, in the U.S., if you have both conservative Protestants and conservative Catholics that both claim objective morality, Protestants are a lot more okay with IVF than Catholics are. So, it doesn't seem like just claiming, well, there's got to be a line in the sand, or claiming like morality is objective, or even grounding that objective morality in God, which according to the majority of... Professional meta, or people who are in the field of metaethics can ground morality and objective morality without God, but even if we go among those people that ground objective morality in theism, there is still this debate over what is or isn't objectively right or wrong, and it seems that historically, religion as an endeavor, Christianity in particular, and Catholicism even more particularly, doesn't seem to have had these lines in the sand from all of society, that it seems like what we're left with.

Regardless of where we want to chalk these moral intuitions up to, or where we derive these particular moral prescripts, is that we're left at the negotiating table with all of us in this side of heaven to make really complicated decisions.

And so I think a lot of how I might approach moral questions, whether on a societal or an interpersonal level, might be some sort of natural law perspective, which is to say that we want to build authentic human flourishing. Which isn't pure hedonism. It's not that we're just reporting dopamine levels in people's brains. It's also not a pure, like, arbitrarity around these moral rules that we both have to, like, we want self-reported happiness to go up. We also want people to not be hooked on drugs and just doing drugs because that increases human flourishing.

And then we want people to have rights within a society and feel certain that those are going to be protected. And then on top of that, then from a governmental level, then you have this idea of like subsidiarity, or what can the government reasonably apprehend or actually promulgate in a society either through laws and punishment, or just through funding social programs on let's run commercials against cigarettes. There's a lot of things and I think that ethics and meta ethics and morality is this dynamic negotiated endeavor that We're all stuck doing at the end of the day, regardless of where we want to chalk it up from.

Right, and I think that that is true to a certain point, but it's a highly privileged, to use a buzzword, right? It's a highly privileged view of how the world actually works, right? The fact that anyone would actually give you a negotiating table, the fact that you would actually get a chance. To sit down and say, I believe there ought to be some kind of human rights, and here's my point of view, and what's your point of view, and all that.

It presupposes something that I think is actually granted by... Christian morality and Christian moral claims. So, it still comes down to the fact that the people in power still believe this. They still believe that there should be a negotiating table of some kind for some people, but who decides who gets to be at that table? So, if you were in, say, Sharia Muslim law country, The people who would be at that negotiating table would be very, very different than they are here in the United States of America.

And thank God we're here, because I wouldn't be having this conversation with anyone, right? And you wouldn't either, because you're gay. You'd be thrown off of a roof somewhere. Right, right. So, again, it seems that it's a lovely view if you live in a privileged society that has been constructed. Christian ideas of universal human dignity, of human freedom, responsibility, and duties, and that we can even have a framework for these kinds of negotiations. But once you pull that rug out from under the negotiating table that you want to come to, then the only reason someone would do that is by force.

And I think, too, the idea of consensus is that we need to have a framework for this. And all of the disagreements that people have had throughout human history. One, I don't think it's quite... I think it's empirically accurate to say that it's sort of like this wild, atomized, there's no continuity or similarities between different ethical systems, but that's a whole other discussion, and I know we still have to get to the gay marriage thing, so I'm like trying to, but I don't know if that's quite true, but we can leave that for another time.

I think, and I've lost my train of thought there, but again, I think my bottom line would be It would be great if the world just worked like that, and people were nice like that, but the reality is, if you look at human beings across the spectrum, without some kind of the lines in the sand, or I guess the way Bishop Barron will refer to it is the banks of the river, right, that you and I have enjoyed, because we come from a Judeo-Christian society.

I know that is a buzzword. Sorry, Tom Pagasic. I said it, Judeo-Christian. But we come from a history of that idea. That there should be a negotiating table at all. We're enjoying that, and once you, like the vase of cut flowers or the river without banks, once you cut off the source of that and the underlying assumptions that are still Christian, pretty soon you're going to be left with just raw power.

I don't know if it would be fair to say that Catholicism gave us this negotiating table, that historically Catholicism hasn't been, let's say, generally characterized for its ability to inculcate democracy in populations in respect of human rights, that I don't think that the U.S. is, or that Scandinavia has been made worse by falling away from theocracy and divine right, and it seems like what we love about this modern This modern political institution of human rights and universal human rights, and voting on things, and having some sort of respect out there, seems to have correlated quite well with the Enlightenment, and Rousseau, and Locke, and all of these thinkers that weren't exactly known for adhering to Catholic dogma.

And also, this kind of like, well, we need a line in the sand, goes back to the question of utility, where I think if we go, well, we need a line in the sand, so that we have these things. Now we're talking about utility and not these sort of like metaphysical claims that are out there.

Yeah, just to clarify that, I'm not saying we need the line in the sand in order to get to the table. I'm saying that the table that you presented as the place where ethics and morality is negotiated around, that if you want that table, you have to have a reason to have it at all. Otherwise, it is just all, we're all our own popes, and if you can't say a specific thing, like, you shouldn't kill people who are gay, right, because they're gay, right, or you shouldn't kill someone because they're Jewish, right, and I want to bring that to the negotiating table.

I don't think those would be good things to do, but if there's no negotiating table at all, then it's just a question of power and violence, right? But once again, I don't think that Catholicism historically has brought us that negotiating table, where the Catholic Church, especially through the Middle Ages, wasn't exactly known for being this grand implementer of a negotiating table. Like I said, it seems like the things that we love about this negotiating table sure seem to have correlated with the Enlightenment and Enlightenment thinkers.

And if we look at the field of modern metaethics, people with their PhD in metaethics, it seems like they're able to adequately ground... This idea of universal human rights, and voting on things, and making society better, without an appeal to theism generally, or Catholicism specifically, that it seems this idea of, well, these are all Judeo-Christian beliefs, and so we can't cut the root off, seems to be an assertion that doesn't play out. I don't think that Scandinavia is all of a sudden falling, or has been made worse by...

Right. I'm not sure Scandinavia is doing that well in terms of, I mean, we could, again, we could do a whole, like, section on the state of the happiness, happiness in Scandinavia. I don't know that, like, they're, they seem very happy, but they also, they also have some issues, yeah, in terms of, well, again, but. In terms of the negotiating table, I think we're using that term in two different ways, I think. I'm not identifying the idea of a negotiating table strictly with American democracy, which I certainly don't think is necessarily the only political or civil society in which human flourishing, authentic human flourishing, to use your term, could take place.

And I would say, too, that the Enlightenment thinkers didn't act in isolation, like they didn't suddenly say, we're going to jump off the bandwagon and take nothing from before us. You could go back to the Middle Ages with understanding of a universal human nature that we got from the Greeks, and you could probably go even further before the Greeks, but nothing's left because it all got burned up.

I think that there is a long history of ideas going on there, but since we are coming up on an hour and a half, I do want to leave time to talk about sort of where we are each coming from in terms of gay marriage, because I promised that we could do that.

So, if you wanted to, the claim is marriage is only between a man and a woman. I do not know if you would like to respond first, or you would like me to go first, however you would like to do that. All... The quick-sales pitch is that we see, in fact, that marriage is currently between two men and between two women and between a man and a woman, that if we look at the world, we can see that that claim isn't true, but I'll pass it over to you so that people can hear more of the philosophical side before we get back into the weeds on the issue.

Sure. So, just to point out that the way that you were describing it, you were referring to legal marriage, right? So, that there are countries that have laws that define, or you could say redefine, as in the case of the United States, marriage as being between two individuals who have consented and all that. So, just a point there, and that is not necessarily what I will refer to it as.

When it comes to talking about gay marriage, and I picked up, I mean, obviously, your podcast title is Intrinsically Ordered, which refers to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says, you know, homosexual attraction, same-sex attraction is intrinsically disordered. I assume that is what you were referring to. I think that when we're talking about this...

If the only thing gay people or people with same-sex attraction hear from the church is, you are intrinsically disordered. Um, then the church is, then Christians within the church, there's a problem. Like, something's gone terribly wrong, if that's the only thing that the LGBT community hears from Catholics. So, I think the first message in understanding where the church is coming from here, and really the thing that's most interesting to me is that we are all children of God, right? And we're all You are a son of God.

I am a daughter of God. We are called to eternal life in heaven before the face of God, perfect beatific vision. And I think that that is the bottom line for all of the Church's teachings when it comes to the moral life.

Any, you know, further guidelines or specifications that are based on human nature and our understanding of our purpose, our end, telos, that apply, they apply universally to all of us, right? There isn't, like, a special set of rules for gay people and a set of, special set of rules for straight people, right? That all of the Church's teachings on sexuality, on the Ten Commandments, on the Beatitudes, like, All of them apply universally across the board, and I think that we end up talking past each other, so that is something that I anticipate us doing now, but I just wanted to put that out there.

Alasdair MacIntyre was right that we've in some ways lost the capacity to talk to each other about this. And I think that by going back to those fundamental claims that the church has, that we're all called to heaven, there are moral universal guidelines for how we act with our bodies that apply to all human beings, regardless of what our own thorns in the flesh are. And we all have them, right? So... Thinking about this as a Catholic sexuality, the fact that we are made male and female, So, it has a particular end in purpose.

We are our bodies. We are not just ghosts in the machine who can, you know, I am in the wrong body, or I have this sort of thing. Like, we are the souls in our bodies, and we are sex. The purpose of sexual intercourse, the telos of it, is the reproduction of a species, and we are animals who reproduce sexually. So, anything from, like, lions to...

So, who else reproduces? Rabbits. We raised rabbits. Woolly mammoths didn't work out for them very well, but human beings are in that category of creature that reproduce sexually, and the difference, though, between human reproduction... And animal is that we're not just creating, from the Catholic point of view, again, and some of these premises you don't believe in, but from our belief is that we're not only creating another member of the species, it's not just utility to perpetuate the species, but we're also procreating with God an immortal human soul who deserves to live with their mother and their father in a lifelong committed...

Exclusive relationship, and that from the beginning, that was the way it was, and Christ's teaching that Moses allowed divorce, all these other iterations of the sexual because of the hardness of your hearts, but from the beginning, it was the man and the woman and the child, and so the purpose of marriage is to bring about new life, and because we are social animals, that new life best is raised in the The framework of the family with their mother and father. So, marriage requires sexual difference in principle, because that is the only kind of human interaction that can procreate a child and give the child the dignity to do them as an immortal soul destined for heaven with God.

So, that is the basic outline of it. There are a lot of objections, but that is where I am coming from. Do you think that a government can allow for the legal institution of marriage to allow for gay couples?

Do governments have the power to do it? Yeah. Yeah, governments can write any kind of law that they want. That does not say that the law... The law, though, while it is a teacher, and it sets the rules for a given human society, I would not say that the law...

is always right witness for example slavery like a black man's three-fifths of a person that would be an example of a law that would not be just and then how certain are you that gay marriage should never be allowed under any circumstance You want to, like, empirical, like, on a scale? Yeah, on a scale. Is it a generally true principle? Is it, we absolutely cannot allow for it? How certain are you that we should not allow for the legal institution of gay marriage?

So, do you, I guess, and I'm not trying to, like, avoid this, but I want to understand exactly the kind of answer you're looking for. So, do I believe that... Is redefining marriage to say it can be between any two consenting adults, do I believe that that is to the detriment of society as a whole? Yes, absolutely. In terms practically of the United States now, obviously today, actually, on the day we're filming, it's the 10th anniversary of Obergefell, when the Supreme Court forced that redefinition on all 50 states.

Do I think that there's a lot of prudential, at this point, ten years in, do I think that we should just, like, abolish it? I do not know the answer to that. That is a political and prudential question for this time in human history, this country right now.

That's an interesting angle of... So, it sounds like you are not entirely opposed to the idea of if, let us say, we are each in charge of the U.S. for a day, and you are in charge of the U.S. for a day, you can make the laws that you want, you would not entirely get rid of these legal unions between members of the same sex that are recognized as marriage.

Yeah, if I was in charge of the United States for the day, I would probably just like... Try to get us back to the Constitution, honestly. I want America to be America. I want it to be the best country it can be, and I think that she's gotten so far away from her original founding and the framework of the Constitution that...

That is the more fundamental issue with America right now. Obviously, if I were queen of any country, and I framed the laws for any country, in the hypothetical, I would say abortion would be... Not legal, because for all sorts of reasons, not just religious reasons, and that, yes, I think marriage isn't something that the state can define. It's something that predates the state. The human family is before the state. So, part of getting America back to her... Who she is. And again, as a Catholic, I don't think America is the only model for human flourishing.

But since you asked about America in particular, I think to get her back to that, I think any laws that we have that redefine something fundamental that pre-exists the state, any of those laws should go. Not just gay marriage.

Do you think that polygamy has predated the modern institution of government? Do you think that polygamous or multi-person marriages have predated the modern nation-state? Probably, but I would also say that those are, along with gay marriage, along with adultery, along with child marriage, which also has probably predated the state, along with human trafficking and concubines and whatever that arrangement was, I think all of those abuses of human sexuality, whether they predate historically and chronologically the state, they are all There are impediments and harmful to the idea of authentic human flourishing, as understood by the Catholic Church, that we're destined for eternity with God.

And that's why I don't think that this idea that we... That marriage has always been between one man and one woman isn't true, and thus we can't use that to extrapolate of why we can't allow for two consenting adults. Do you think that you can get to your particular position without belief in God?

Yeah, I think that it's not necessarily a religious claim. I think while marriage hasn't always been between one man and one woman, that's a very particular. I think the idea that marriage requires sexual difference, I do think that that is because it is ordered to the Procreation of the species, it's ordered to children and to the future. I do think that that is a claim based on human reason and the idea of an inbuilt order, right? So, that is not a religious claim to me.

It's a claim. For some people, they take that claim, and it's based entirely on faith, but I think you can also arrive on it based on reason. But it doesn't seem that if we're just using reason, that marriage would necessitate sexual difference, because we see couples that get married with the express intent to not have any kids from a governmental perspective. And so it seems like this idea of sexual difference is...

Stated or is begging the question, it doesn't seem like marriage historically or in current society has been a necessary or sufficient condition for marriage. Right. I mean, that comes up a lot. So, what about people who marry much older? So, a man and a woman who are in their 60s, and they get married, and the state recognizes it, or an infertile couple. And I think that the distinction there is that marriage is not just about marriage. It's about the relationship between the husband and the wife.

Right. There's the circumstances of a man and a woman being together, whether or not they can be fertile or infertile. That's a matter of, that's a distinction between what you would say is like foreseen circumstances and intended, right? So, when two men come together and they say, we're going to get married, then That has absolutely, it is foreseen that they will not be able to procreate together, but it's also intended, right, that there is no... That basically, like, you're only half of the puzzle for reproducing and creating.

When you have a couple who gets married, and after many years, they're unable to reproduce, that wasn't the intended circumstances. So, the idea of marriage being between a man and a woman is a matter of the principle, not of the accidents that surround them, right? I would say.

I don't know if that helps. Yeah. And again, I would say too, oh, I'm sorry, I just thought of one more thing. The distinction between the ideal and the, you know, and falling short of the ideal, right? The church gives us the teaching. I think human reason gives us the...

The fact, I think it's an empirical fact, right, that a male and a female are necessary to create a new human person. Modern science being this sort of really bizarre, like... uh warping and and violation i would say rape of human of nature um once they're like oh we can reproduce with just two female gametes um only if you yeah so i i what i want to say is we have the ideal and there are multiple myriad ways that we fall short of them sometimes we fall short of the ideal because of moral failures like adultery uh like uh divorce um sometimes we fall short of that Because of natural causes, right, that we didn't intend.

So, because we're infertile. The death of a spouse, right? A child doesn't grow up with their father because he dies. That's not a moral failing on the fact of anyone. But it also doesn't change the fact that it would have been the natural order. The reason we feel that that's a tragedy is that the natural order tells us it is best for that child to grow up with their father, with a father and a mother in the home. You could think, too, of physical endangerment, right, where one spouse goes off the wall, and so they have to separate in order to physically protect the mother and the children, or the father and the children.

That would be either a moral or a pathological failing, right? So, I think that making the distinction there between the ideal way that we can most, when integrated with our human sexuality, Live out that sexuality in order to reflect the created order that we see around us with God. That is not changed by the fact that we have all these myriad ways that we can fall short of the ideal.

What I find interesting about the Catholic position on marriage is that it is internally consistent, but I think wholly unprincipled, in that you cannot know what a Catholic position is going to be without first knowing what the Catholic position is going to be. What I mean by that is, if we take the principle, which is like a necessary part of marriage is that it is ordered towards the procreation and the education of offspring, is a standard. And then we go, oh, but then with modern science, that isn't actually true.

But then we have to then throw those modern conceptions, or how modern science can help with reproduction, out of the window as also a problem. It seems like this idea of, like, it needs to be able to produce children, historically isn't true, doesn't seem to be in line with human flourishing, seems negotiable, and doesn't seem consistently apprehended by people. So then, and then that rule then morphs again. When we go, but with IVF and with surrogacy, we can do that. Now, the goalposts have now been shifted yet another time to then carve out this exception to the exception, and that is why it is internally consistent.

If you go, well, marriage has to be able to be ordered to, in principle, the procreation of children, and then we are also not a fan of other ways to produce children, and also, if somebody is physically incapable of particular sexual acts, then we also have to throw... That conception out of the window, it is internally consistent, right? There are rules, but it seems unprincipled in that I am not sure where any of these standards are coming from, because if we say, like, what are the necessary conditions to marriage from, like, a legal standpoint, it is two consenting adults who are aware of the contract that they are entering into.

And then you also have the social element, which is, we've seen historically that societies have had certain sort of ceremony for stable, long-term relationships, but oftentimes lead with families. I think that's a fair description, but the question is, what is the prescription?

Right. So, to take those apart a little bit, I mean, first on the point of modern science sort of separating the reproductive act even from sex itself, that would also, I mean, I think that that's perfectly consistent. And is this what you're saying? That's perfectly consistent within the framework of Catholicism?

Yeah, there's a, Dustin Crummett's a great thinker, and has the line, which is that it's internally consistent, but it's unprincipled. In that, you, and a lot of these intricacies around Catholic sexuality, there's not a way to know it from first principles, that you essentially have to know what the Catholic ideal is, and then it seems like these rules are then created around that, versus if we go, like, we want authentic human flourishing. Obviously, we are going to look at data, we are going to look at principles, there might be some caveats, but generally, if that is the principle, we can kind of figure out what the entailments are, versus with this Catholic conception around anatomy and sexual acts and reproduction and marriage and indissolubility, don't seem… They don't seem principled.

It seems like we have to know the Catholic position to know what the Catholic position is. Okay, I see. I think I'd take an unprincipled to be like, you don't have any principles. But what you mean is, can it refer back to first principles? Yes. Okay, roger that. Okay, thank you for clarifying. So, I mean, I guess I would disagree that you somehow have to see the Catholic, you have to be told what it is and take it on faith in order to enter into this world of internally consistent.

Satisfying. I mean, to me, again, it's an empirical question of, and I'll talk about the modern science after I say this, it's an empirical question of You have to have a male and a female to make a baby, right? That is the way that all sexually reproducing animals, that is the principle, right? So, I would say that we can observe that in the natural world. So, that is the first thing. In terms of... Modern science, just to give a brief aside there.

This is also why the church says there are things we can do, but we ought not to do them, right? So, can we create babies in test tubes and Petri dishes? Yes, we can, and we do that. It is to the detriment ...of the human person. It's an affront to their dignity as embodied souls to take the matter, take it out of their parents, to create these children who don't have fathers and mothers, to implant them in a third-party mother, and essentially traffic that child to people who want a baby for their own, you know.

It's, again, like, I have friends who are infertile. The pain of that is very real. And it is not to denigrate that, but it's also not honoring their pain to say, well, we can just violate all the laws of nature and of nature's God to get you what you want, right? That child, the potential child, has... At the moment of conception, their own dignity before God, and so they are deserving of being with their mother and their father in that intimate moment, not in a cold petri dish with a bunch of doctors.

So, no, I don't think that we ought to, just because we can, it's okay for us to do that. So, I do think that the modern science thing, the church is consistent. In terms of rejecting that and other very bad things that modern medicine can do, right?

Then, to go back to the, actually, I will just stop there in case you had something to say to that. I would push back on this being an empirical question, because if we make a descriptive statement, which is like, to sexually reproduce in a sexually dimorphic species, you need each of the sexes to come together. Like that, that is an empirical descriptive claim. What we're actually doing here is doing a lot more than like pure description. We're actually prescribing something or creating standards for something.

So, I think the question of what combination of individuals can reproduce is only relevant to the marriage discussion if we first say that like the marriage needs to include this particular domain, right? That it's actually much more of an ought than an is type of question. And so, on the questions… And so, if we were going by purely empirical standards, we can empirically see that a gay married couple is capable of reproduction with modern science, but as you pointed out, the church has reasons that says just because we can do something doesn't mean we should be able to do something, which is to go back to the point that this isn't an empirical question, and I think, like when I was debating Michael Knowles on Jubilee, he's like, well, marriage has always been this way, which, A, isn't empirically true.

And B, doesn't actually have relevance on how it is that we want to, or what rules we want around marriage. So, the question is, like, is sexual reproduction a necessary domain or element of marriage? And I think the answer is no. That I am perfectly fine with two men marrying, even if they won't have kids, or if they will have kids through modern science, or if a heterosexual couple wants to get married, either incapable. Or does not want to ever have children, right?

Those are normative claims versus like purely descriptive ones. So, I think the essential question is why is it an absolute must that marriage must be in principle ordered towards the procreation of offspring when it seems like the rights that are conferred by marriage are not all related to the raising or the reproduction and rearing of offspring? Right, I mean, I would say that the rights conferred to marriage, that is something that isn't negotiable by the state, but the fact that the state ought to privilege the reproductive relationship, right, whatever you call that, for the sake of...

You know, where we are, we call it marriage. That the fact that marriage, because it is the future, it does provide the future of society, not only because it makes more people, but because it is the best place, it is best for the human flourishing and the passing on of the traditions of a society. I mean, there's all kinds of, you know, studies about if the father practices the religion. Or is patriotic, that's what gets passed on to the children, right?

It's the father who really does that. And how do you keep a father with a mother? Well, you privilege the relationship that brings about those children. So, I do think that the argument is, basically, is it good to reproduce and to further your society? I think yes, and that is something that has been universal. Very few societies have been as... suicidal and self-hating as our own is currently in the West, that I think the idea that we privilege the reproductive relationship, which we call marriage, is true.

And then I would just flip it around and ask, well, why is it so important to you that the term marriage, which has been about privileging this relationship, why is it so important to you that We redefine it to include two men, two women, multiple partners, what have you. I mean, we are going down that road in some states of the man wants to marry his goat, Massachusetts.

So, why ought we have gay marriage? There are a few things here. In a lot of these LGBT types of conversations, I like to start first with the principle or the idea that same-sex attraction is both natural and permanent to the human condition.

And so, if same-sex attraction was some sort of contagion that is out there, or some sort of choice that people could make, that is a very different discussion from we have people. That this is naturally occurring and permanent. And this isn't to say that just because something is natural and permanent, that it ought be okay. But the question is that we are confronted of what to do with it. And I think when we look across nearly every data point on homosexuality, when we have socially condoned and ordained paths to a regular, happy, healthy life, that across...

Mental well-being, across disease, across economic factors, across even spiritual factors, that we do better when we look at this group of people and go, let us create a normative social framework. And so, with this idea of privileging the reproductive relationship, historically, that is not necessarily what marriage has been. What we have seen across societies is that we have social stability, when people form long-term monogamous bonds with people. In having some sort of social recognition and legal framework around that. And so, I think social stability is good, and I also think that kids being raised in that socially stable unit is a good idea.

Like, I agree with this Catholic conception that, like, kids do better when they're in a permanent household, when they are not, when they are raised by a two-member household. But I don't see how any of that excludes this idea of gay couples, where we see that gay individuals do better when they are married in these socially ordained. ...and legal institutions. We see that they then carry over the ability to adopt kids and give them an amazing life. We see that then if they use IVF or surrogacy, those children do better.

Then it seems like we're forced to confront this idea that there are gay people in our society, and so what do we want to do with them? We want to inculcate authentic human flourishing, and I don't think by allowing two members of the same sex has any relevance... On a privilege over a naturally occurring sexual union, or this particular one, it doesn't seem to denigrate in any substantive way, other than a sort of fear mongering around these what ifs or these slippery slope type of arguments.

Yeah, I mean, I think I would just push back a little bit on it doesn't seem to denigrate in any way. I don't think necessarily with any ill will that there's like denigration going on because, oh, we hate this kind of person. But I think it does erase motherhood and fatherhood. And I think we are created, because it's saying that women are interchangeable with men in a child's upbringing. And it's saying that men are interchangeable with women when we're bringing up children.

Mothers and fathers are interchangeable units. I don't think that nature, I don't think that And empirically, that has been shown to be true. I don't think that just logically looking at the fact that we are sexed creatures, that we can just say, well, sex, male or female, are interchangeable parts. And, you know, confronted with what to do about it, I do think that, like I said at the beginning, Well, what we don't do about it is have the only response to a gay person be, well, you're intrinsically disordered, so you're just going to have to lump it until you die.

And then when you get to heaven, you can have the beatific vision. So, suck it up, buttercup, and just, yeah. That's not what we do about it. I think that what the church... Does about any kind of disorder, and obviously, the sexual disorders can be anything from, I am a flaming heterosexual, and I am just attracted to every man who walks across my path. That's a problem, right? I can't just act on that. I'm not privileged to that. So, I think, again, from the church's point of view, and I don't think we're going to be able to do that.

So, I think, again, I don't think we're going to be able to do that. We're going to get to the end of this or something today, or ever, but I think that from the church's point of view, offering a very...

Prescribed, yes, prescribed and described by human nature, way in which the sexual act and sexual relations occur, that everyone is held to the same standard there, that that is the most merciful and loving way, so that we know what sex is for, we act in accordance with the order that is given to us by God.

To me, the fact that everyone is held to that standard at least gives an argument for that this is perhaps one thing that we do about it, for sure. I will let you have the last one. Go ahead.

I agree with you that I think mothers and fathers are important, and I think with gay marriage, all we get are more mothers and fathers, that I have known couples that have adopted kids and have given them such a tremendous life that they would not have gotten either way, that these men and women have been made better by becoming mothers and fathers, that I think a socially stable society is a good one, and that children raised in two-parent households do well.

And when we look at the data around gay marriage, when we look around the data around queer parenting, that it is not atrocious, that it is not less than heterosexual marriages, in that to say that somebody can have two fathers doesn't mean that motherhood isn't important or vice versa. That's throwing that out there. I think there are people who have two mothers or who have two fathers and say both of them are incredibly important to them, and they also have other social role models.

And that if we look, nature has allowed for these types of relationships. One of the evolutionary advantages to homosexuality is that we know that the more children that a woman has, the more likely each child is to be gay, like the more children that is had. And what we've seen historically is that then those gay children actually help society at large by raising children because they are less likely to sexually reproduce themselves. That nature has allowed for queer individuals to work in and to have families to grow.

And that this idea, I agree with you, that people shouldn't only hear that you are disordered, that we should have a merciful and loving path, but when we look at the data or the lived experience of people who have had to live this way, that is in fact not merciful or loving, that all we're doing is throwing a sort of like padding on this two by four, or putting off the airbags before this terrible crash, that we know empirically and from talking to people that people have a much happier, healthier life.

When they are allowed to accept themselves and to build these socially recognized family units and marriages so that we can have a better future, because mothers and fathers and husbands and wives are integrally important, and I don't think that gay couples should be incapable, from a legal perspective, to become husbands and wives and fathers and mothers. I want more of them in society.

Yeah, and I think our disagreement would be that I think each child deserves a mother and a father. Rather than just society abroad. So, I think that is where we are going to have to end. Yes, gosh, we covered so much ground, and I really enjoyed our conversation. I did just want to ask you, can you give us any inside scoop? What is it like going on Jubilee and surrounded? You walk in, is it really as whacked out as it looks?

Yeah. So, all of Jubilee's casting is public, which means all of their upcoming videos you can find right on their casting website, and anybody from anywhere in the world can throw in their application. It is sort of like demographic background, and then they ask a handful of questions, and then from there, you get put in a stack of a few hundred or a few thousand applicants, and part of the game is that you apply, and you hope that you get into the casting director's inbox right as he is reading through.

Because I... Based off of talking to the casting directors, yeah, like, I don't think that they can actually read through all of them, so it's kind of a good application, plus luck, plus if you've been on, then they kind of know your face and you're more likely to be on. Yeah, you've been on twice, right? Mm-hmm. Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah, and actually, I was on their list for a while and got one of my friends from college onto the teen abortion debate, and he was wanting to become a full-time pro-life activist, and so I was like, oh, we've got this opportunity, and so I was on their list for a while, got him on for the pro-life side.

When I left religion, though, I got off of the list because I was like, man, I don't know what beliefs I have out there in the world, and then once I started YouTube, again, I was like, well, I do yap on the internet. I might as well sign up for Jubilee. And so, the first one I saw was the one conservative versus 25 LGBT activists put in my application, and I think I mentioned Michael Knowles or my own background, and that I've listened to him for a while, so I think that, like, really piqued their interest, because we don't know who the person's going to be, and I actually prepared for somebody entirely different than Michael Knowles, and the first time that you actually know for certain who you're talking to is while the cameras are rolling and they walk into the circle.

So, with Knowles, it was just... That is why the Jordan Peterson was so shocking, because it is like Christian, and you are like, wait, he is not a Christian. Yeah. With Peterson, we got... What were people saying? What did people say about that behind the scenes? Were you guys talking and being like, what is he doing here? Yeah.

Well, so, with the Peterson episode, we had, I think everybody had independently guessed that it would be Peterson, because part of the application process, once they kind of greenlight you, they bring you on a Zoom call, and then they have you answer a few mock questions, and I think anybody who was going into that debate, I was thinking through the Kalam, I was thinking through the moral argument, I was thinking through the historicity of Christ, and the questions that they asked were these, like, maps of meaning Jordan Peterson-style questions, and I was like, there is only one person who would bring these mock questions questions.

They're not the exact ones that we got in the episode, but you get a vibe of, like, the angle that they're going for. You're like, this sounds like that guy. Yeah, Jordan, I know him. Yeah. And then I was kind of cycling through different answers, and they're like, tell me more about that particular answer, which was, like, me responding to Peterson in my head. So, most people showed up on that episode in particular guessing that it was Peterson. So, it wasn't too huge of a shock.

When I saw Knowles, it was a shock because I wasn't expecting him. Peterson, though, it was like... Yeah, this is what I was expecting, and I thought we were going to get some sort of, like, Jordan Peterson finally comes out as Christian moment, because the past year, he's been directing towards religion a little bit more. He wears that jacket with Our Lady on it. I'm like, what are you doing? Theotokos there, yeah.

And so, it's like, this will be the time that he finally, like, accepts the label, because he chose the label, and we're going to be in this new, like, era of Jordan Peterson. Um, and then I sat down with him, and going first is incredibly nerve-wracking. Yeah. Um, because there's no context, or if you come out going too hot, then it looks bad. If you come out and kind of just sit there and let them opine for too long, now you've just given them the platform without any pushback.

Right. And so, sitting down in that chair for the first time is like, what's the tone? What are the ideas? What's going to be, like, socially acceptable based off of how this interaction goes? Um, and in those weeks leading up... It's like, I'm thinking about the episode, that week leading up, it's like, not a ton of work's getting done, because my lizard brain's like, oh my gosh, we're going to get seen by 20 million people, if you include all of the edits of it.

Yeah, yeah. Do you know the claims ahead of time? Did you have the claims ahead? That episode, we did. Okay, yeah, yeah. All of the previous episodes, like with Knowles, we didn't. So, all we knew was one conservative versus 25 LGBT activists. No prompts, no even topics. It was just, you are debating this thing. And over the past few months, Jubilee has tried a few different versions of either giving topics or specific prompts, so that you are not going in completely blind.

So, right now, they are trying to experiment. So, in future episodes, they might, they might not. Or some vague idea. And then, the day of these episodes, the two that I've been on are filmed in the afternoon, so the morning of, I've flown to LA, it's just like, nothing's happening other than the clock is made of molasses, and it's just like, can we get to the call time?

And then once it happens, it's very much like an extreme sport, where you know, people are watching, you're conscious of every move, and your brain is firing on all cylinders, but you also have this brain fog, because fight or flight's kicking in. And one thing that I remember is Trent Horn talks a lot about debates where it's really easy to, like, armchair quarterback them, where you're like, oh, I would have said that, I would have came off as better. It's another thing to be in the actual, like, you have the lights, you have the camera, you're seeing this person that you've watched potentially for years or for months or for weeks.

And then the weird thing in these debates is they're entirely off of instinct, and you sit back down and you go, I'm not even sure what I said. And, like, for the rest of the episode and the day after, you're trying to, like... reconstruct what was said because you can only go off of instinct and ideas that you always have which i think is why um some people perform incredibly poorly because if you just kind of like cram studied for this topic your brain cannot pull those ideas to the forefront but if you thought about these issues for a long time it's like i could have talked to jordan peterson or michael knowles like in my sleep and have been familiar with the ideas because i've thought about them before versus some people on my side for either of episodes had never ...heard those concepts, and so they're having to think through them in real time, and jubilee or a big debate is not the time to hear about an idea for the first time.

Yeah, yeah. And so, it's an extreme sport. The rest of the world melts away. It's just, you're locked in, and then afterwards, it's like, what happened? And then you talk to the other cast members, and you're like, did we do poorly? Did we not? And I had a friend who actually dropped me off at the airport after the debate, and he's at the college that I went to. Very conservative, and he was like, how did it go? And I was like...

I was just so confused. I was like, did we do well? Did he do poorly? What even was that thing? We didn't get into Christian arguments, and all of his claims could have been addressed and not actually engaged atheism as a philosophy.

So, it was very confusing, and then you wait until it's released. For Knowles, I think it was three weeks later. For Peterson, I think it was three, maybe even four months from the time of filming to the release. They don't even give you the date that it's coming out. Gosh. At some point, you will get your letter from Hogwarts that the video is going live.

And with Peterson, they changed the title. Yeah, four hours in, they switched it, which my thought is that somebody from Peterson's team is going to get fired over the whole debacle. Probably. And I don't have any sort of insider information, but Jubilee is Surrounded is not a new format. It wasn't like they were experimenting with a topic, and Jordan Peterson showed up, and it was different than he.

Like, with Knowles, I could tell he was incredibly well prepared. He had probably spent days preparing. He had both wrestling in, like, real time, and then he also had his one-liners that he wanted to deliver. Like, Knowles was incredibly good at debating, because he had prepared, and, like, the surrounded format has been around for a while. Versus with Peterson, it didn't seem apparent that he knew where he was. It was obvious that he hadn't watched surrounded before. It was kind of like a Joe Biden debate moment, where you're like, Ouch, that burns.

Yeah, it was just like, what happened, and Jubilee is very clear as to what they're doing, and Peterson was there, but also when you're that big of a person, like, it wasn't Jordan Peterson emailing with Jubilee, like, he has a team of people that book the appearances and all these things, so I think somebody on his team at the Daily Wire, which is where Knowles has done it, Ben Shapiro has done it, all these people have done these episodes, I think it was just like, well, Peterson's got to do it, the team was like, okay, and he shows up, and he just...

Yeah. Yeah, he just isn't built for that format, and I don't think that's a bad thing. There are, trust me, plenty of leftists that should not go unsurrounded, and I've seen them for four months surrounded, and you're like, you can care about an issue and also not go unsurrounded. Like, those aren't mutually exclusive. There are other formats. He does incredible on his tours, and with his podcasts and his thoughts and with his books, he's able to get his ideas out there.

But a fast-paced Jubilee format was just not a good look for him. And Jubilee seriously stepped up, like, the caliber of people on the outside for this episode as well. Like, most Surrounded episodes, like with Knowles, the people that I was talking to in the green room beforehand, most of them had never been on camera before or had debated before. Versus with Peterson, when I was talking to these folks, most of them debate atheism on TikTok or are philosophy professors or, like, whatever it is.

So, it was kind of this, the... Like Murphy's Law, where a bunch of things went wrong at the same time, I think is what made the episode this episode. Interesting. Well, thanks for the insight, and thanks for the conversation. I enjoyed myself.

Yeah, it's just good to talk to you. Indeed. And hope the very best for you. You as well. It's been a blast being on. I always enjoy these conversations and hope that people listening find them valuable and not too... Esoteric to be able to track. I know, right? All right.