The Cost of Forgiveness (Genesis 2) | PD3

Daniel Horne: I'm start recording. ⁓ it did. Ready? Have you done the cold open doors? Isn't this part of it? No. Then you're Too bad. It is now. ⁓ So what's ⁓ up, Michael? Student? ⁓ I think a better transition would be welcome to the Perfumed DK podcast. Maybe, but we'll try next time. We are on episode three and we're reinventing ourselves all the time, as you can tell, with the awesome intro that we have now. Dude, I love that. So good. And do we have copyright issues with that? No. Why not? Because you wrote it. I wrote that. Yeah. I didn't make the music though. Yeah, but soon enough to use it. Yeah, it's soon enough. Was that a setup for that joke? No. I don't think so. That's funny. Oh, hold on. I got set my 45 minute timer. Well, once we start the... Bible. okay. Yeah. Yeah. We're try to keep time. Yeah, sure. We're gonna try. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Look, I can hold to a time, but I don't think it's necessary. No? In that I don't think that we should because we get some good conversations going, but you know, we can try. can, I think as time goes on, we're gonna be able to cut it back a little bit more, but I think we can wait. Yeah. But anyways, this is the Profumed DK Podcast. and we're working on our intros here, but I will do our little, little intro here, which is normally after the cold open. guess that was the cold open. Was that the cold open? I think so. Is this currently the cold open? I think it's currently the cold open. If we're doing, if we are currently in the cold open, then we should do our cold, cold open. know? Okay. Well, you were, you were talking about, ⁓ Google glasses, right? Yeah. that what it's called? Yeah. Yeah. Well, something like that. It some glasses. I think. I think Apple also has the remote W. Yeah. Well, they've got the headset. Yeah. Yeah. And I was talking about how I really want technology, like the, what are they called? ⁓ They're not the AIs, but like I have Bixby on my phone. There's Gemini or not. Is it Gemini? Yeah. Gemini for Google, I think, ⁓ or whatever. And then there's all these other ones and I really want them to. Just do what I say. I want to be able to talk to my phone and be like, hey, do X, Y, and Z. And like everything, not just texting, calling, checking your email, setting an alarm. Like I want to say, hey, play this song, play this album, cue up all these other songs, whatever. Do all these things because that's what I That's what I want. It's going to be so much better. Freaking do it, dude. Just freaking do it. Come on. Yeah, I mean, it just, you were saying that it's coming. It's coming. Yeah. It's just not there yet. Yeah. Right. But then we, then we started talking about the glasses. I'm like, dude, AR, it's the way of the future. It's pretty, it's pretty sick. I'm, I'm excited. I want, want AR glasses prescription, obviously, cause you know, I need to be able to see. I wonder if they do prescription for that. I don't know why they wouldn't. It's just a pass. I'm sure you could. Maybe not right now. Yeah. But, just like have some gloves and you, each finger does something different and you can interact with it. Dude, it'd be so awesome. Yeah. And then we've rolled into a neural link and everything. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Do we want to talk about that again? Dude, I want to talk about all of it. Okay. All Let me try this you have for me. Oh my gosh. I'm clicking everything but what I wanted to share. All right. Did that not work? Quick, help me fill the space. We need banners or something. We do. For the black. We do. We really do. Speaking of black, we generated a website. my gosh, With ChetGBT. I'm like, where are you going with this? It gets me and Daniel down perfectly. And then it makes Steven a black guy. Which may or may not be perfect. Which may or, I mean, look, I was saying we keep everything on that website. Exactly the way that is. But Danny doesn't want to do that because he doesn't want to commit to the bit, which is why he's a coward. Well, it could just be so much better. Oh, you're saying it could be worse. I mean, better than the amazingness that it already is. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That is what I'm saying. Like in keeping with our actual podcast or in being like crazier? Both. Yeah? Yeah. Okay. Hey, look, we got one view. Dude. Check that out. Was that you? No, I don't go on there. ⁓ whoever it is. Who would that be? My mom. Your mom? Or his sister? Okay. If you don't know, Daniel and I, are in sync fairly frequently. Yeah. Not like the band. Not like the band. Cause we... Hate them. Don't like them apparently. There we go. Now it's my turn. Boom! Okay. I don't why it wasn't working before. Cause it hates us. So here's the website. Yeah. And GPT just put this together for us, agent. Dude, right. This is a home page. got about the show latest episodes and that's the picture that he was talking about Yeah closer. So Stephen Stevens here. It's the black This is Michael. Yeah, cuz he's the one who has glasses. Yeah, man. has hair And then this is me. Yeah, in the brown hair. So blue Go to the descriptions about us right here. Michael is a curious mind exploring the intersection of science and spirituality Not true. A lover of cosmic trivia and deep questions. He keeps the conversation grounded and fun. Daniel has an act for turning philosophical rabbit holes into riveting conversation. When he's not doing math, he's spitting out the perfect dad joke, which he hardly uses any dad jokes. think it's like spitting out, that's you. Yeah. And then who's... I feel like you're more the one on the top. Am I the one on top? Yeah. And then Steven brings, or I could be... Maybe I'm the one that's Stephen. Maybe it's just all three. Maybe. Stephen brings his heartfelt insight and vulnerability to the table with a background in theology and music, which I don't... Do you have a background in music? No, not really. Okay. That's you too. He creates the narrative arcs of each episode. That's definitely me. I'm definitely Stephen in this one. I think you're the top one and I think... Stephen's the middle. Maybe. The only thing I've done with music is just created my own music on... ⁓ groove pad. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, it's yeah. You're basically a producer. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. ⁓ but anyways, getting back to, ⁓ the tech conversation. Sure. Got perplexity. So you, you brought up, the Neuralink stuff and what were you saying about all that? I forget, honestly, I don't. Okay. This is why we should, we had a really good conversation. It was riveting. Yeah. When we have the actual conversation. do we find riveting right now? It's not, what do we find raving right now is like, we have that conversation again? No. Yeah. It's a once in a lifetime thing. So let's do another once in a lifetime thing for everybody else. ⁓ Is it a problem to do ⁓ an implant? In general? In general. Implanted technology or just any kind of implant. Implanted technology. What we know about to get a breast implant. Well, okay. I'm talking about technological implants. for being able to connect to the web as we were. Okay. What about technology that doesn't connect to the web? Well, no, we're talking about neural. We're talking about the narrowing thing. Whatever. is it, so what was your question again? Is it good? Should it happen? Well, is there a problem for that? Is it a problem? Should we do it? Should we not do it? Is there a reason we shouldn't? Steven, what do you think? you have any thoughts immediately? If no, that's fine. Not much. I can give you my opinion on stuff. I ⁓ think on one hand, it's super scary. surgery is just scary. then surgery on your brain is even scarier. Yeah. I mean, I always go back to like people trying to hack something. ⁓ And I think in a way, ⁓ the movie upgrade is a good example of this. ⁓ basically they create. like an AI, it came up with this process of that. miss getting it take control of someone's, ⁓ entire nervous system ⁓ just through a chip and like their spinal cord. Yeah. Can't remember if it's spinal cord or brainstem that they did. I just pulled it up on perplexity here. ⁓ that's perplexing. Thank you. Upgrade is a 2018 sci-fi action thriller about a man who becomes a host to an experiment AI chip after being paralyzed in a brutal attack that also kills his wife. The story follows his quest for revenge as the AI gradually takes more control, turning a simple vendetta into something much darker. Interesting. Okay, so more about the implant itself. The reclusive tech genius, Aaron Keane. One letter off from Elon, by the way, ⁓ offers Gray an experiment implant called STEM, a microchip that can restore his motor function by interfacing directly with his nervous system. Once implanted STEM, not only allows Gray to walk again, but also speaks to him ⁓ internally and can take over his body, turning him into an incredibly precise and efficient fighter. And interesting. But I feel like you have more to say about it, Stephen, right? It's just the premise and stuff. Yeah, I think that part of it, if something can take control of you or someone different, it would be absolutely terrifying. Yeah. And who's to say that they can't? Like they can talk all day long about, you know, all the different tests, all the legal stuff, whatever. Oh yeah, we were talking And then who says that they can't just flip a switch and then all of sudden they can take care, they can take control of everybody? Like, I don't think there's- Well, I don't think there's technically anything that says that they can't. Unless you can see the programming yourself and go in and really check it, there's... Which I probably could. Maybe. Yeah, unless they don't make it open, which is very possible. I would say that they should make it open. I feel like that should be ⁓ a legal thing. Hey, here's... You can go in, you can check it out yourself and make sure that we can actually do this. But there's something to be said about like proprietary systems. Like how are these companies that are pioneering this stuff able to protect the time and money and the research that they put into this? Well, that's a good question. Are there corrupted companies out there? Yeah. And are they the ones that are doing this? I saw BlackRock in there. Yeah. I don't know, buddy. BlackRock doesn't spell anything good for me. Here we go. Yeah, we've got a list of competitors to Neuralink. Cause you said, I don't think there's any, any competitors to Neuralink. And I was like, I'm pretty sure there's so many people out mean, I was just connected to. Yeah. Well, me too. But we got four major players here. We got the Synchron, the Paradromics, and then Blackrock Neurotech, which just seems ominous. Yeah. I'm like, Blackrock owns Tharny or everything? Do they? I'm thinking like Black Rock Coffee. No, it's not Black Rock Coffee. swear Black Rock probably owns Black Rock Coffee and they use it just to deviate everybody's mind. Like, Black Rock Coffee. that's what I'm Not the Black Off stuff. Not like the company that owns like everything. Everything. Yeah. Even the funeral homes. You know, you know about that? There's this large company, I don't know if it's a conglomerate anything, but ⁓ they go around buying ⁓ funeral homes, like cemeteries and stuff like that, from privately held companies or people. And so every single cemetery that you've ever been to is probably owned by the same company. That's really weird. Yeah. I don't know how I feel about that. I mean, why? I don't know. They're probably doing tests on dead bodies. Maybe. apocalypse is probably. Sweet. Yeah. It's the only logical thing. Yeah. What are your thoughts on the ups and downs of... Neuralink? Of... Implanting. Implanting that kind of technology. That kind of technology in your brain. I think there's definitely going to be downsides. Sure. I mean, the fact that it's going to be highly invasive for your brain. That's one way of putting it. That's huge. Yeah. That's the way of putting it. Yeah. But also there's been a lot of success so far ⁓ in the limited trials that have occurred. ⁓ what I've seen, we should probably look that up just to be sure. and just preliminary like, ⁓ research on like specifically Neuralink and what they can do. ⁓ what these people can do, ⁓ before and after is just insane. Sure. Like I told you about the guy who, ⁓ like works from home now. It's like, I think it was like some sort of engineer, ⁓ like a computer job, right. But like a skilled one, right. And he's completely paralyzed. Completely paralyzed, but now I can take care of his family. And that's like a kind of purpose that you can't like, like that's, that's insane that you can get that amount of purpose back to someone who's lost near everything. Well, and I mean, not, to, lessen the incredible story that that is because that is awesome. Yeah. But I think we can, especially when it comes to the world, it's really easy to look at this really awesome things like, wow, like someone's life is being better. And they're actually able to do the things that they couldn't do before and not pay attention to any of the good things. I think we see that with political talk because the media will spit all over whatever political party and see none of the good. And it's like, there are good things going on. And it can also be the reverse with big corporations that could be doing something shady. It's like, ⁓ yeah, we're doing really good things. But then, you know, no one's paying attention to the bad. ⁓ And I mean, that's just everything. So I think it just goes to show that we should try and see if we can take all the information in at once. But that's not to say that, you know, that person isn't... Better. Better. Isn't in a good situation. should be... ⁓ That kind of effect on people's lives should be sought. Especially for people that are paralyzed and still alive. ⁓ in a lot of ways want to still be alive. Because a of people just choose not So what you're saying is there's a, it's a unique case because ⁓ of their state of living. Yeah. Like because they're paralyzed, they can take this risk to have this ⁓ huge gain in life. Can't think of the words right now. Like ability to live life. Yeah. But for someone like you and I who are perfectly fine right now, It would be kind of foolish to get that kind of implant. Well, and I think, you know, there should be a lot of different kinds of regulations on stuff like that. Yeah. Because if you are able-bodied, I mean, if we look at the military, for instance, there are certain people based off of mental health or whatever that aren't going to be in the military. They're not going to be drafted. They're not going to, whatever. ⁓ So for tech like this, I feel like there's place for that because it's not because it should be seen as an opportunity to live life, not an opportunity to enhance your life. Yeah. To enhance it beyond the livability that you already have. Well, that's what technology ends up doing. Right. In the end. Yeah. It enhances everybody's quality of life. Yeah. And so it's, it's just right now it's so risky that it's, it wouldn't be wise to do anything but that. Yeah. Well, and, it's a question or it's not a question. It's I'm getting into my portion. I'll let you finish with you. have another, ⁓ another direction we could take this. ⁓ so say there's, ⁓ I guess just how like Neuralink is promising. It'll bring people from paralyzed to walking by, ⁓ crossing the gap that was separated in their spine, wherever it is. Yeah. ⁓ I'm wondering if they would eventually come out with other. ⁓ technology, for example, for a friend here, Steven, like some sort of bionic eye implant, ⁓ dude, cyborgs. Right. And if they did, I'm wondering, Steven, would you, ⁓ in the condition of your eyesight, ⁓ and like knowing that it's going to get worse, ⁓ which I know that it's going to get worse. You confirm that? Yeah. Yeah. So I'll, I'll say on this at the stage right now on where my eyesight is, I don't think I'd do it. Yeah. But like later on down the line, might be a possibility. 40s, 50s or whatever. Yeah. mean, how bad would it have to be? I mean, everything would have to be like super unclear. Like as far as definitions on lines and whatnot. that would be the point that I would be like, this might actually be a good opportunity for me to do everything and actually see much better. Yeah. But I mean, even though I am blind. basically tell people, like, I love what I have right now. Like I wouldn't trade it for anything. So it's good. Like your quality of life is not super hindered. 100%. I mean, even 60 % is darn good. But like a lot of people aren't going to see it that way, right? They're not going to have Steven's perspective. They're going to be like, oh wow, I have this degenerating eye. Issue and I hate this like I want to be able to see a hundred and and and then you know Eventually, it's gonna trickle down to people that you know, just wear glasses Yeah, and it's like we got that today LASIK Yeah, right, but you know, it's just gonna get to a point We're like everybody's just gonna be like I just I want to have this bionic eye because it's so much better than in normal life Yeah, and then some people are gonna do it because they just think it looks cool. It's gonna be a cosmetic thing Like seriously, I mean, because we have enough sci-fi movies that it's like, dude, that cyber guy is super cool. And it's like, okay, so we're chopping off limbs, we're taking out eyes. like, well, we already do that. Like not as a huge culture. No, we definitely do. Absolutely. But how much more so, you know, and granted going back, like we have like prosthetics and prosthetics are getting better and better every year with technology. ⁓ And people are actually able to just be quote unquote normal. live normal lives with these prosthetics. Yeah. And, you know, not feel like they're limping, but actually feel like they're actually walking. I actually feel like they have a hand that they can use. And, you know, I think it's getting cheaper and cheaper as time goes on too. And there's a very clear, like, who gets these? know? No, we're not going to amputate you just so you can use this. But, but... I mean, when it comes to having high technology, because then, you know, if you have this bionic eye, what else can you do with it? Then you have an implanted AR system in your, in your eye, right? Or you probably can. I don't know why you wouldn't. ⁓ And it just keeps on going. Well, that even goes further than like what we talking about the glasses. Yeah. Yeah. That would be really cool. ⁓ The thing I would probably, if, if I had this, ⁓ and I want to say it. retinas, but I know this is might not be the case, but like if you had detached like eye socket tissue, then probably it'd be maybe a good idea to get bionic eyes because of you could reattach everything seamlessly. Well, I just had this thought that it would make sense ⁓ for the, for technology like this to be maybe primarily focused on like the military, right? Yeah. Because all, all the veterans that you know, they're in wheelchairs or you know, they have something blown off or they can't see anymore or whatever like So you're talking veterans not like soldiers making a super soldier. Well, no, no, well, yeah, no, I don't think making super soldier But I mean even in that case too I think I don't think you're gonna be able to stop those people who are the super soldiers in a sense You know, they went through all this incredible training maybe the Marines or whatever and then they're you know, they get injured and they can't serve anymore. ⁓ yeah. They're a hundred percent going to be like, no, I need to get back in there and they're going to do whatever it takes. ⁓ And I don't think it makes any sense to try and stop them just because unfortunately with the way that the world is going with all this technology on top of all that, like it's, it's, it's inevitable. If we don't do it, other countries are going to do it. especially the more tyrannical countries, it's like, Hey, you're injured. you can still serve like we're doing this and you have no choice. And then they're going to come after us that are going to be and we're going to die. know, so it's, and I don't think there is a morality to that. ⁓ But we're not going to, we're not going to be able to stop people, you know, the more restrictions you put on stuff like that, especially with people that are trained and that are basically brainwashed. mean, people probably in the Marines are, I would say definitely brainwashed to some degree. Trained. Trained. But that is brainwashing. They're being conditioned. They volunteer though. They volunteer. But it's a thing of like, that's their life. And the reason that there's a high suicide rate from the military after people get injured is because they're used to it and civilian life does not. Oh, I see. The transition is difficult. It's hard to boil down the exact reasons why, but that's a reason for sure. Yeah. But especially people that are trained that hard and that endure that much real life field activity. can't sit down. I mean, just look at the effect of, of, ⁓ of, like church camps. Like you're hyped up and you're like, let's go, like, let's do the thing. Or you go in the mission. This is like, you are getting shot at. if you go in the mission field. And you know, the next step from church camp, I would say you go into a mission field, you want mission maybe for a year shorter, I don't know, longer, whatever. And then you come back to American life. I've met plenty of people that are disillusioned with American life. They're like, I hate this. I don't want to do this. Like this sucks. I, you know, there, there is a sense of like, okay, but there's a reason they left and there's a mission field here. Yeah. In some ways more desperate than any place. Yeah. ⁓ the, intensity of that effect and how that can create a depressive mental state on those people. It's almost like how much more so battle a state of contentment, ⁓ that, you can't not being fought for. Yeah. can't really teach that to people. contentment. Yeah, you can. I mean, you can, you can teach it, but then it's not going to stick necessarily. They have to actually put in the work. Yeah. Yeah. You can do the work for them, but you can teach it. Right. Yeah. Like it's available for you and like you can model it. Um, I mean, the best time to learn it is when you're a kid and your parents are modeling it for you and teaching you that. then there's the, do your parents have that? like, can they teach that? The second best way, in my opinion, is to just surround yourself with people that are content and happy. Yeah. And eventually it'll just pick up on their patterns. Yeah. Um, kind of like how people go to a different country and they pick up on the language. ⁓ some people pick up on the accent, like right away. ⁓ I'm one of those people like go to Mexico. I'll come back with like a Mexican accent. Like, ⁓ just sit me down, ⁓ talking to some, Mexicans for like an hour. I'll be talking like that. It's ridiculous. And I'm not doing it on purpose. ⁓ So it's like that it's, ⁓ you surround yourself with the positive content, people. like that's, you'll, you'll end up learning that. Yeah. I think going back to the implant thing, kind of having that mentality though of you want to be- contentment. Well, want to, yes, you want to have contentment to go into anything, any new stage, any new risk, whatever. But you want to surround yourself with people that are going to put you on the right track. Because you're going to go to these tech companies and they're not necessarily looking to- be like, you have your best in mind. Yeah. Like your mental state is what we care about. It's like, no, we're just trying to implant this in you and then, make you a lifetime subscription customer. Yeah. Yeah. we just probably honestly where he's going to go. Yeah. But, but when you surround yourself with people that are trying to do that or are looking to get that technology because they want to live their lives, that's different. ⁓ and so like with people that are paralyzed, I think with this technology, we're going to have entire facilities, possibly, maybe with people that don't have families, ⁓ especially from the military, but like just have entire facilities full of these people who are working. Yeah. And then in the digital realm, who are friends. Yeah. Who have communities or, you know, maybe they're at home and, you know, their family can plug in and be like, Hey, dad, what's going on? Or whatever. ⁓ And that's... That's a cool reality. like that. ⁓ Because again, I think a lot of those people, either just give up because they can't live like a normal person. Like everybody, in a sense, wants to live. ⁓ And, you know, I think some people will look at it as clutter because people believe in, what is it called? Survival of the fittest. And so suddenly the least... fittest in a way are now living and are being given a means to live and you know now should survive kind of thing. no it's it'd be more of it'd be more on the other side of like should these people be alive? Should we be applying this? yeah I mean they should if they're good if they have the opportunity but they're definitely gonna be those people. mean people suck. know going back to our story. are Hitler. Yeah, I was going to say, you know, cause there are people that are going to take the Hitler mentality and be like, we need to get rid of these people. need, we need perfect saw a video that Ray Comfort had like done some commentary on and he showed the video clip of this, these two kids were talking about evolution and the survival of the fittest and like how much they actually believe it. Yeah. prove how much they believed it. In the video, they went to their third friend's house, this girl, and they took her and drove her out to the middle of nowhere and murdered her because she was not fit enough to fight them. Wow. Yeah. That's where survival in the fetus goes. Murdering friends. And when I saw that, cause he showed it, it made me sick for years thinking about that. The sheer evil behind that concept. Like it's not just like a logical argument. If you play out that argument in real life, it ends in evil. It might not be murder, but sort of evil. Well, I think about like the, I had a whole thing kind of looking into Calvinism. And the end of hyper Calvinism is to kill myself. Really? Yeah, absolutely. Because you don't need to do anything. You don't need to evangelize. You don't need to live your life. You don't need to go anywhere. You don't need to talk to anybody. don't need to do anything because God's already doing it. ⁓ God is doing it for you. That's deterministic. Yeah. Okay. And so I just sat there and I'm like, okay, so why be alive? The elect are already elected. all you have to do is kill yourself and you're there. Yeah. And you just have to kill everybody around you, because... Bible says not to do that. Yeah. but... Or kill yourself. But it doesn't say anything. It also says to live out the... commandments. It says to live your life. says to live the Great Commission. these people are not... fact that death is the result of evil, like point blank. Like there's no like, have to tie this together and like it is poetry, so maybe not. Like no, it's death is the result of evil. yeah, no, we should not kill other people. We should not kill ourselves. But that's the end of hypercalvinism, honestly. I mean, it baffles me ⁓ that hypercalvinists exist and they still are alive, because I would tell them, like, look, you're living up to your standard. You believe that the electorate of chosen, you don't need to do anything. Like, why have you not just died? Like, what is the point of living? There isn't, based off of your understanding. ⁓ that same point, like you go so far with an idea, we should go to the bare minimum and we should go to the very top and really take a look at what it is that we're believing. Because if we don't... It could be very damaging. Well, we have to take into account what kind of people are taking this information. ⁓ Because for instance, there are probably psychopaths all over the world who aren't killing people. But we hear about the psychopaths that are killing people, right? But what were they doing? Who was paying attention to them? What information were they being given? How were they being treated? Information is important. And the way that it's applied should be taken in, be like, you know, parents being like, oh yeah, mean, Bonnie was killing animals and I thought it little weird, but we didn't really do anything about it. It's like, well, okay, so here's the thing. You're the problem. ⁓ you should have done something about that. Cause, ⁓ guess what? Non-normal behavior. Well, ⁓ not behavior that- Hold on though. Like that's- just a kid killing animals. Like obviously that should be parented, but that doesn't mean they're going to be a psychopath. No, it doesn't, it doesn't mean that, but if you don't take action, if you just completely overlook that and then you don't like all the documentary- yeah, documentaries that I've seen. They included that. These parents are not- paying attention to they're not taking their parental responsibility seriously. Yeah. And so it's like, you're letting your child just take in whatever information, do whatever the heck that they want. Or not. They're completely restricted. Or being completely restrictive, which does the exact same thing realistically, because they're going to rebel and then they're going to... And yeah, it's the same thing. So it's like, we really need to pay attention to who we're giving these things out to. Yeah, absolutely. And who we're providing for. I think we should grab. Yeah, I was going to Because we're like 40 minutes in. That was the lightly warm open. That was, well, they're always warm. They're always lukewarm. ⁓ you know, I hear that we're actually, we have another, ⁓ guest. Do we? Yeah. The same guest actually that we had last week. Okay. ⁓ who was that? I think his name is Hugh. Hugh? Yeah. I don't know if you want to. do you want to, Steven, do you have Hugh's number? No. How do you not have his number? He was everywhere, honestly. He's... Yeah. Michael, do you want to call him up? I... I can try. I could... I could do it. You know what? I think you should call him. I don't think you call him enough. Okay. He told me that he missed you. Humanity here and I watched last episode try to be PD 2.5 and immediately devolve into three grown men getting bullied by the Are We Live button at one in the morning. I saw them argue with the chat, panic over the channel name, and perform a full battery exorcism. on a dying camera like that was normal adult behavior. Then they went full galaxy brain, astronomical units, 1 % closer and were sweaty, 5 % closer and the oceans become sky soup. And somehow because they cannot pass a philosophical pothole, they swerved into forgiveness, morality, and whether forgiveness even makes sense without God. Today, Michael and Daniel are finally answering last episode's cliffhanger. If it's wrong for a random person to forgive on someone else's behalf, who if anyone has the authority to forgive everything. And what does that say about God, justice, and your whole worldview? Keep your brain on and your excuses off. Michael and Daniel, take it away. Awesome. Thank you, Hugh. Hugh kills it. I love Yeah, man. You should really get his number, Yeah, we'll give you his number after this. Okay. He's a cool guy. Although he's always roasting us. That does lead us into this next portion of perfume. Yeah. So... I think we're gonna be going through Genesis 2. Yeah, already started Genesis 2 though. We did first three verses is that right? in verse 4 verse 4 and I'm gonna try to keep time today We actually have 40 minutes in already Daniel and I actually have our Bible this time because we're extra spiritual now. Mm-hmm Stephen does not have his Bible but it is not because he's a heathen. It's because it's because he can see better on his phone ⁓ So we're not we're not judging him. Please don't judge him. We're just too small ⁓ I think we actually have an intro into the perfume do we portion? Yeah, Steven has a ⁓ Steven do you want to intro us? ⁓ Before that Just so everybody knows we have no idea what he was gonna say. ⁓ yeah, we have no clue that first portion No idea absolute gold. Yeah I... We do have another version. ⁓ we do? Yeah. ⁓ dang. So that one was Roast. Yeah. I have another one that's Deadpan. You want to play that? ⁓ we should do... Let's do that at the end. Okay. Yeah. Save it till the end. Yeah. I like it. Steven, take it away. While they open my bottles. I was getting notes and trying to figure out how I should say stuff. Well, it's basically just... Going over Genesis 2 verse 4 through 9, right? Yeah. And... We'll see how far we get. Says more stuff on space and... Moralities though now. Does it? What did you write down, Michael? We're gonna need to get the Stephen revised version. Okay. S-R-V. The SRV. SRV. That sounds quite official. It does, doesn't it? I like it. Yeah. So... Yeah, I mean, would say the intro to this section is like, ⁓ like, what do we do? Right. ⁓ Do you want to take that away or you take that next time? I'm trying to get my Bible up. ⁓ Give me a second. Well, I'll, I'll start us off. So, ⁓ we'll just read and, none of us are theologians or anything. So take everything we say with a of I think you've been discluded for the past, like forever. That's funny. No, that's okay. don't know. No one's been seeing you. I got a face for radio. That's not true. I'm actually really hot. So yeah, you are. are too. Thanks man. Steven. If you do have anything to Nope. Okay. So yeah. Well, no, we're not. That's not true. ⁓ on this podcast, nobody's a loser. Except for you to listen. Except for, yeah, that's true. ⁓ but this is our perfume time. We are perfuming our experience with the word of God. because it is the Word of God in which we find hope and peace and delight and that we hope to grow closer to God because we need to and we're bad at that. the world is quite smelly and we need that perfume to remind us of who we are now in Christ. amen. And so that's what this whole reading the Bible is helping us to do. Yeah. ⁓ and I think in the past we've, ⁓ really tried to dissect, and be fascinated by the word. ⁓ but that's not what we have to do all the time. No, right. I mean, sometimes it's... I've heard it put like, all we have to, our entire responsibility is just to open the word and let it wash over us. Yeah. and eventually things will stick. Yeah. ⁓ cause like you hear everybody's experience with the Bible is like, ⁓ I read that like a hundred times and this time... I still got something new from it. And that's like the Holy Spirit talking. And I mean the 99 times before that I was like, it's here. Sometimes. Yeah. Every other experience is like, oh yeah, this was, I mean, I've read it before. And then the other experiences were like, whoa, I really read it this time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that was our whole experience with Genesis 1. Oh, 100%. I mean, that was crazy. Part of the last one too. But... All that to say is like no pressure on this. Like we're just going to read ⁓ whatever we see, talk about. ⁓ And you had mentioned jumping around to like say Matthew. Yeah. Well, I was going to say, ⁓ we jump to like Luke or something for like Christmas. Well, I was possibly, ⁓ that's not a bad idea. But I, it was more of, you know, if anybody has any comments, if anybody has any suggestions. Or just things that they would like us to go through if you guys like our how we kind of go through it. Mm-hmm How we handle the word we hope you thought you like it because you're listening to the podcast But if you do enjoy it, then you know, we can take suggestions Deviate from the path. I mean our primary goal really is just to make it through the whole Bible, which we're not gonna do within a timely manner We're three episodes in and we're only on chapter two. I'm pretty certain that would take like a whole decade at the very least. I'm thinking like 50 years at the pace we're moving. mean, like you look at like some of the best pastors in history and like, I can't think of more than a few that have actually gone through the whole Bible. If that, like well thought out. Isn't there like a thousand chapters in the Bible? More than that. Is there? There's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot. So it's like we're looking at years upon years. I'm curious. yeah, while I do this, do you have your Bible open? I do have my Bible open. Do you want me to start reading? let's start reading. Okay. So this is chapter two, verse four through nine. ⁓ These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. So just For context, the previous verses were talking about the seventh day and how God rested. And so that talked it up. That's the full creation. ⁓ And ⁓ so just to go back to that, I know a lot of people have read the Bible like, okay, yeah, we get it. But just one of the context, verse five, when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up. for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land and there was no man to work on the ground and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature. The Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east and there he put the man whom he had formed and out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ⁓ Wow. That's epic. Any first thoughts on that? ⁓ First off, the tree. That's the thing that stands out to me immediately. ⁓ There's two trees, one that's providing life and one that provides the knowledge of good and evil. ⁓ And my first question is why? Yeah. But we, no spoilers, we're coming. We're coming to that. Yeah. Well, and I mean, it's interesting, just based on what we do know, how that kind of plays in and the things you can speculate from that, but like the tree of life. So God literally just created man out of dust. And so he, and he's created all of the rest of creation and he's currently growing it with the mist, which You know, it says before God had caused rain on the earth and caused everything to actually grow. So this kind of proves out the idea that I had last time, I think, where there was the garden and then there was the rest of the earth, which was sort of barren. Yeah. Which is interesting. ⁓ But we're, so life has already been created. So this isn't God setting apart a tree that is just so that you can live life. It's a fair point. We can assume that it's something greater. Do you think it's just representative? Did it have powers? I think it actually had powers. You think so? Because, I mean, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, wasn't, I mean, I see what you're saying. It could be a thing of this effect, or the effect that the trees provide is not... In of itself. Yeah. It's not because of the tree and that... the tree exists, and I stay without God. Yeah, it's more the choice of if you eat of this, this is the effect that God is going to cause in a sense. It's not like Joe Shmoe is going to walk up, eat of it, having never heard of what these trees are and take a bite and all of they have some It's God's physical boundaries that he created, so that we could see morality in a tree instead of like a line in the dirt or a... My physical idea. I think the trees are there to prove a point. ⁓ That choice is provided out of love, but leads to not choosing God, in a sense, or not choosing the right path. ⁓ If it's up to us. Yeah, if it's up to us. So you said a lot of the time. ⁓ I think a hundred percent of the time, a choice given to any being that is not God ends up in doing things that not God would do. Yeah. Well, and that's kind of confusing. So we would end up eating of both trees. Sure. Eventually. Like given time, you know, the argument that evolutionists give us, Given billions of years, ⁓ monkeys could write Shakespeare. Right. given billions of years, a garden, ⁓ for two, ⁓ maybe their kids and then I'll laugh on, I'll laugh on stuff. and two trees, one of them leads to death. knowledge of good and evil, ⁓ and the knowledge of evil leading to death. ⁓ if you do the math, if you take all that and you, you represent it by math, ⁓ infinite time, ⁓ plus two people, ⁓ times a negative. Outcome. Yeah. Always is Equals a negative. Yeah. Always. That's a good point, honestly. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. Yeah. So that begs the question, did God You just blew like tons of people's with that. Like all the mathematicians are like, how come I've never thought of that? I'm sure other people have thought about it. Like anything times a negative, unless it's a negative times a negative, is a negative. Right. Bang. But that's not, that's where the analogy breaks down. Yeah. That's true, but yeah, and that's all it is. It's just an analogy. Yeah. ⁓ we're let's ⁓ focused on you now Yeah, whoops. Steven. Do you have any initial thoughts? No, no, that's knitting. Okay I mean, it's super off topic but ⁓ You know how? Sometimes they say that most other religions stem off of the Bible. Yeah When it mentions the tree I've thought of this before. Is it did where Odin and like Thor and all of them, the tree of life Idris come from this. That's a good idea. Yeah. I think so. Yeah. So there's, there's this creation science guy who had a talk on this where his theory, and I can't, I'm not going to be able to say it as well as, Hey, Jimmy's. Your, your camera is spying on you. ⁓ now he's confused. ran away. He found you. Yeah. So this, creation science guy, his thought was since people lived, ⁓ near a thousand years back then, ⁓ they almost became mythologized. ⁓ and they were like little G gods, ⁓ of the big G God. Right. And so that's where all those stories could have originated from. ⁓ And it makes a lot of sense to me, given that most cultures have a story of a great flood even. ⁓ And there's a lot of stories that just align like ancient stories that are just throughout all culture. Well, definitely- ancient ideas ⁓ that are sort of the same flavor, you know? I definitely think that the idea of elves comes from the beginning of Earth, all the humans that Elven culture. Elven culture and how people lived hundreds of years, sometimes, darn near close to a thousand. Like, that's directly from old humanity. ⁓ to that same point about the, I guess, gods, the other religions and stuff, that's Norse mythology. Norse, okay. But granted these technically came after or they were I get maybe more popularized after these this time but like these other gods ⁓ are because of spiritual activity right and so you know spiritual realm is active it's not inactive yeah and nothing is just material yeah and let me interject make sure you remember that thought ⁓ Just to prove that point to everybody who's thinking like, ⁓ no, like spiritual is not real. Like it's not physical. Everything I see in front of me is just what it is. the idea of, ⁓ you know, ⁓ natural and supernatural, ⁓ is just a matter of perspective. ⁓ cause if you're God, ⁓ everything is just natural. ⁓ and let me try to switch the perspective. the, let's see here. So when people think of supernatural, it's almost like magic. Yeah. Metaphysical. Right. But, or it's like a miracle or whatever. But really all that is, is just what is unknown. so whether you believe it or not, if it's real or not, ⁓ let's just, for the sake of argument, assume it's real. ⁓ We would all call it supernatural. Why? Because it's. unknown to us in that same way that, you know, what is the bottom of the ocean look like in this one spot? No one knows because no one's been there and we can't, we can't send something down there right now. that's why we create all these different stories. Yeah. And that's why we create all these like mystical stories of creatures or the mermaids or whatever. what's at the bottom of a volcano. Like, yeah. So anything that's outside of our knowledge is supernatural. Yeah. But there is something to be said about like ghosts or like spirits and like how when, if you've ever witnessed someone die and they're, they're like, they become a thing instead of a person. that transition is spiritual. ⁓ And then the supernatural of like people coming back from the dead. Like, so there's something to be said about that kind of supernaturally. Assuming that that's real, it's all natural. ⁓ It's all on the same playing field in terms of... Assuming that God's real, again, I know this is the perspective here. ⁓ Like it could all be totally fake. I'm taking that into account, like evolution can be true. ⁓ creation story, creation account could be total BS or just total poetry, which by the way, the way that it's written. It's not, but ⁓ it could be. still everything that we know would be natural and including the things that people call supernatural. ⁓ And another way to ⁓ change perspective on this is ⁓ if God created both the natural and the supernatural, like I said, at the very beginning, they're both natural. And the only difference is our perspective. so that kind of proves that the idea. I of what you were saying there. If I can, I think I'll try and reiterate that. Yeah. Yeah. I was sort of circling it from all perspectives that I could, but ⁓ I think that's a good point. So what you're basically saying is it's not that these things are outside of normal. They're outside of our normal. But they, for the rest of existence, it always has been, it's always been there. It's always been possible. ⁓ actually, this is a better way to phrase it. ⁓ In the same way that everything is natural to God. ⁓ And we could, I guess, say everything is natural. Yeah. Including the supernatural. We could also say since God is supernatural, this is a better argument. Since God is supernatural, and He created the natural. Supernaturally. That means everything including you, me, this table, this mic, this phone, this Bible, this keyboard, this hat, this shirt, this pants, my socks, everything is supernatural. Because it came from supernatural. This is a wild take. Imagine for a moment, God is an AI. Oh my gosh. Who's to say he's not? And everything that he generates is... Are we AI slop? ⁓ I don't like that. That's... Like high quality Is that what they call it? AI slop? Anything creative that comes from AI, they just call it slop. ⁓ It's kind of racist. That's rude. Yeah, messed up. Anyways, that's a bad... I don't know why I threw that out there. I do know why I threw it out there. ⁓ I want to direct our attention actually away from that because I knew we were going to get to that. I was hoping that we would actually follow the progress. You kind of touched on it, but I think it's interesting how... So, okay, let's figure out where we're at because right now in verse 4, so, are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens. And then it says, when no blush, so... we're changing where we're at. So it just said after the seventh day that this was the account of everything being created. Yeah, it was like the summary of the last section. And then in verse five, it says, but when no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up. ⁓ And then the reason why. Yeah. Then the Lord God formed the man of dust. So that's interesting. I don't know why. My question is, why was it then, before God had made it rain and laid the mist and had all the plants start growing, before all that, He created all the creatures, ⁓ from my understanding. But He creates man from dust and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and man became a living creature. ⁓ and the Lord God planted a garden in Eden. Okay, that sort of discounts what I said earlier. What? That the earth was barren outside of, well actually I guess it doesn't. Well no, no, no, because I think, least the way that I'm saying this is that the land is barren and God then creates man and then creates this garden for man to live That's interesting. I've never actually put that together. So man existed before the garden? the way it's sounding. mean, it says, then. But the days outlined that the garden like, or plants at least, were there before man. No? So, okay. Here's an interesting thought. so it's talking about growth, right? So the rain, the mist, basically causing everything to grow. ⁓ What if the creation of all those things, right? were conceptual, just like light. Like he's making a recipe book. Well, like in chapter one, right? He starts off saying that he created light, but he hadn't created the celestial bodies, right? Yet. Eventually, you know, what was it? The fourth day or whatever he creates the celestial bodies. I mean, it wasn't the concept of light. was light. Yeah. Well, no, no, it was light and the light was day and the night and the dark was night. He created that concept. Yeah, he created night, night and day. And I mean, we, think before we kind of chalked it up to he created time. which is based on the light cycle. ⁓ Let me see here. Where does it say that he creates? Okay. You're looking back at the creation account. In verse 11, God said, the earth sprout vegetation plants, yielding seed and fruit trees, bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind on the earth. And it was so the earth brought forth vegetation and plants, each according and there was evening. Okay. So, What day was that? That was the third day. In respect to man, which was the fifth day? So, hmm, yeah. Is it the fifth? Well, okay, so verse 26, then God said, let us make man in our image. ⁓ God bless them. Have dominion over, ⁓ I've given every green plant. That was the sixth day. Yep. That it says that. So was the last day. So. And then before that was animals, it looks like. Yeah. So, let me reread verse 5 through 6. Yeah. So, it's talking about bush of the field and small plants of the field. Okay. So, it's like little plants, little seedlings. Okay, so ⁓ vegetation was... Yeah, so the plants, everything that was going to exist, existed. Yeah. But the propagation of new growth... Right. ...had yet to So it almost sounds like seeds were planted. Almost, yeah. And God just needed to water them, which if that's not a callback to the gospel, I know what it is. Or it's not even a callback to the gospel, it's just a callback of God's character. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the gospel flows from his character. Yeah, yeah. But that's... That's interesting. That's crazy. And then it says, and it also says, and no man had been there to work the ground. So the harvesting of the vegetation. Dude. So it's a symbiotic relationship chosen by a relational God. Yeah. I that. Dude. That's, um, yeah. So, I mean, that's, that's really interesting. So I'm assuming this is this, this is the sixth day. hold on. It could be the third day. Cause it's talking about no rain yet. And no, no, no, at least small plants. But man was created on the sixth day. Right. But hold on, let's keep reading. Okay. And there was no man to work the ground. So that means it can't be the sixth day yet. Okay. And a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became a living creature. So sometime between the third day and the sixth day. Hmm. God created man. Yeah, that's what we know. So I don't think this is even focusing on the time like we are. Yeah. It's got to be focused on something else because it's, it's telling the story as though there is not a huge factor of time. The only time that it's outlining is this happened before. And then after the, after, after the plants and the water, the watering of the plants, then God created the man out of dust. So that kind of stands out to me, like God being a relational God, him choosing for man and also just saying there like, oh, by the way, there was no man to help me work the fields. Right. And so what did I do? I made man. So I think that might be the focus instead of what we were initially thinking. I also want to bring attention to, oh, I got a sneeze. Bless you. Jimmy caught every angle. I'm sure she did. She? Oh yeah, that's right. And Stephanie is a man. That's our cameras everybody. Not just people standing here staring We have these cameras that follow us wherever we go. They're actually real people. They're little elves on our tables. Dude. I would love for the fantastical world to be real. Right? C.S. Lewis has imagination and he's like, you know, could be... Anyways, totally off track. But the fact that God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and the man became a living creature. ⁓ It's interesting though, because that doesn't deny the fact that man could have been a creature. Sure. So, I like where your head is at. Yeah. Because I was going to bring up why the specification, the breath of life. That's a good question. Is that the soul? he just... with that double distinction. He just created... He just created all the other creatures, right? But does it say that he gave them the breath of life? Nope. And why... Did he form him? If he did give them the breath of life, why, why omit that detail? Why is that so special? Like is this breath of life, uh, given to bring things to life? Did the plants get life, uh, from, from God's breath? The, the animals. So I think that might be, yeah, I like where you had it too. I think that might be where that distinction why it says living creature. Yeah. Um, cause it's, you could just say, uh, living, like then man came to life. Yeah. Um, or, um, then the creature became living. Well, think from a... Well, I guess that is what it said. Well, I think from a perspective, a different perspective, what's the word? It's used in arguments all the time about man becoming not independent, but sentient. maybe... So, other creatures aren't sentient beings. because they aren't free thinkers. ⁓ this is, we initially went to the soul, called it the soul, but you maybe this is the ability to think or whatever. I think animals can think. No, they can absolutely think, ⁓ but in terms of like going outside of their instincts, ⁓ because that's, every creature is created for a specific purpose, right? Sure. and they all pretty much do the same things. So do we though, like in a broad spectrum. Right. But, but we, we deviate from pattern. ⁓ we, we change up our pattern frequently. Whereas with, with animal instincts, they don't change up their pattern. They change up their pattern based off of, maybe the environment. Certainly. And right. But they don't, they don't think like we do. They can't invent things. They can't. They don't have opposable thumbs. Right. They don't necessarily build relationships the way that we do. They don't have social communication the way that we do. Whales do. Dolphins do. Right, but they don't... Well, even if you look at the primate family. Yeah. Apes. They use tools. Yeah, they have opposable thumbs. They do make tools. But what is it to them? What is it to them? Yes. I don't know. We can't talk to them. Right. We can observe their behavior and know that these things are happening. So my point is not ⁓ to bulldoze your point. I have another point, but I want you to finish. ⁓ I'm just saying they're not, in a simpler way, they're not human. And they're not human because I don't think that they have a choice in how they live their lives. Because like with the plants, they can only produce seeds based off of their kind of plant. creature, I mean, ⁓ that's a duh, but like, ⁓ way that creatures, other creatures live, they can't really change that. mean, certain details can change, but they're not going to... You're talking small scale evolution, like adaptation. Yeah. They can adapt to their situation, but their instincts are going to stay the same. mean, granted there's domestication, but is that... where things do change. Like dogs. But is that it? But that is created based off of someone coming in and being like, hey, I'm going to change your nature. And reforming their nature. Yeah. Which is different. Whereas with humans, we do that really on our own a lot of the time. ⁓ But animals, I don't think were created to necessarily, at least the amount of animals that are domesticated. I don't think we're created to do that necessarily. I think it's very damaging to a lot of creatures because they are, I mean, I've heard about like certain creatures, if they're not able to live the way that they're intended, they become depressed. And they cease to really be that creature. And if you throw them into that environment, they're just going to die. And that's not a good thing. Whereas a lot of time with humans, we can find a way to survive and adapt and whatever. that's a huge ⁓ difference. there is limitations to adapt. We can't live underwater. No. We can't live in Antarctica without extraneous tech and stuff like that. mean, maybe we could live underwater and then space with tech. Yeah. Right. But we can't just live ourselves. ⁓ So there is something to be said about the number of tools that we've been able to create that distinguishes us. Our ability of, ⁓ in capacity of thought, our ability and capacity of relationship. ⁓ but these are not pure distinctions. We just quote one, right. We won the race and we got, if it's evolution, right. And we are the best of the best of the creatures. ⁓ and so what I was getting at is like you have. You have a point, but it's a point that evolutionists have too. Yeah. Well, no, that's why I brought up the sentience. I think, because we brought up the soul, I think this is more directed towards the soul and soul is more a spiritual thing. Okay. But I'm thinking that the way that you're describing the soul and the benefits and the results of the soul is the same way that an evolutionist would say No, no, no. Just billions of years ended up doing this. That's what I was doing. I was giving their perspective. ⁓ okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. I wasn't saying those are the actual things, but I was... your biblical perspective, then. Yeah, no, the biblical perspective that I was saying is that it's the soul. It's the spiritual... Because I think everything was created spiritually, if you will, ⁓ but not to live ⁓ as a spirit, if you will. Like, because we have a soul, we are technically... I disagree. ...eternal. ⁓ But... I don't think that other creatures have souls. think whatever you mean by soul. let's clearly define this. Okay. ⁓ so where I was going to ask. Yeah. It's like, okay, what is the soul? What is the spirit? ⁓ like do animals have spirits and not souls? Like, okay, first we got to define what that means. Yeah. Because, ⁓ I've also like had conversations with other friends and they're just like, souls, like free will. like, well, creatures can decide whatever they want. It's just like you give a dog a piece of food or a treat. They're going to go for the treat every time. they'll go for both. yeah, but... Yeah, if they have one choice. But yeah, it's free will is just a billion choices basically. And you have the pick of the litter. Yeah. But I mean, it's not like other animals don't have that. Right. That doesn't... That's a categorization, but it's not... We can't prove that that is the result of a soul. No, no, I'm just focusing just like directly on this one point. Yeah. The point that your friend made. Yeah. And so that's what I'm rebutting is like all of these distinguishments are just categories that we see, ⁓ that we think make us different. and what I'm thinking is we are totally missing the point. ⁓ the only difference between us and a creature. is the fact that God formed us, that God breathed into us, that God had a specific purpose for us. Not for the angels, not for the creatures, not for the plants, not for the earth, not for the water, not for the light. He had a specific plan and purpose and lovingly formed us. Yeah. And His breathed. Yeah. In His image and breathed His life into us. like a kiss. Right. Right. Which is romantic. Yeah. Loving, like the most loving thing that you can. so let me, hold on, let me finish. The only distinguish between, like I said, creatures and us is God's focus on us and the way that he created us. ⁓ That's the only important distinguish. Okay. So that's the soul. It's not anything about us. It's about who made us. Right. Who made us and how. God made that distinguishment. Because this world was made supernaturally as he pointed out. Everything is supernatural and everything was created with differences because if everything was the same, it would be boring. And so God made distinguishments and the distinguishment he made for us ⁓ was purpose and relationship. ⁓ And so our purpose is to be in communion with God and with each other to work. ⁓ in the creation that he'd made. and it's also to be in relationship with him first and then everybody else. That's the, that's soul, that's spirit. And so that's what I, that's why I say I disagree with the idea that animals don't have that, ⁓ or even plants don't have that. ⁓ I'm not sure about plants. They do have like electrical signals, like you hook them up and you can see them quote screaming. ⁓ when you like snip a, ⁓ like a leaf off. ⁓ so I don't know what's there, but isn't it also that, like in science class as a kid, you like can make a battery out of a potato. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I would say that's electrochemical, but also some scientists would say we are just electrochemical reactions. Yeah. That's our timer for the perfumed section. So great job. Yeah. Let's give it a few more minutes. ⁓ so if, if our brains are just a hyper complex, ⁓ mash of, ⁓ neurochemical reactions. ⁓ that's all our emotions are. That's all our thoughts are. and we boil that down to plants as well. Like, ⁓ just plants are like chemical reactions. Like I just said to you, ⁓ who's to say plants aren't, ⁓ having thoughts and have like instincts and like can change and like act exactly like a creature. They're just a different kind of creature. ⁓ distinguished by God because he created on a different day. That's the distinguishment. Right. And. Other obvious distinguishments, right? ⁓ But just like some animals can swim. So they're rooted into the ocean and some animals can ⁓ run across the land. So they're rooted on the land, ⁓ but not in one place. ⁓ Some animals can fly through the sky. And so they're, they're rooted in two environments. And so it's just a different environment, but that environment and the fact that they can't move most of time. ⁓ does not make them any less of a creature besides the fact that God never calls them creatures. ⁓ So that being said, that's why I was saying it, I don't necessarily agree with the idea that animals like don't have a soul, don't have a spirit. ⁓ They don't have a soul and spirit if you define soul and spirit the way that I did. In that the distinguishment is the love and the care and the purpose ⁓ that God created man. ⁓ I think that God is able to recreate, just like, I think it's Revelations where he talks about remaking the world. And there's a debate there of like, will the earth be ⁓ sort of ⁓ made new or destroyed? And then he makes a new one. Right. Like completely. Either way, I think it's very possible that God would still make like the same exact creatures, maybe in different forms. Um, but I think God is love and in fact, know he's love. said that. like, wouldn't, and this is me presupposing, so I could be wrong. Wouldn't the most loving creature, um, and he's not a creature actually. Let me rephrase that. Being. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he's preexisting. Um, wouldn't the most loving being just by fact of his nature, um, have some sort of relationship with every single thing? ⁓ that is that you're able to have a relationship with, like going back to plants, plants grow better when they listen to rock music. Who knew plants were metalheads. ⁓ Yeah. So there's something there. And then the more obvious, ⁓ view of this is, ⁓ man and his dog. Right. There's obviously a relationship there. Obviously. so, it's not. a certainty that God would not bring those exact creatures back in the new heavens and new earth. ⁓ As whatever you want to call it, like reincarnation or whatever. ⁓ And I'm all for that idea if it's God doing that, right? But that's what I mean. It's like the idea that only man has a soul or spirit and that's what brings them the ability to exist in eternity. I think that's... Not true. Because the only reason we exist in eternity is because of God. That's true. Yeah. So why is that limitation being imposed? Why is that the assumption that we have? I mean... Right? Anyways, there's a lot there. Choose whatever you want. I think we can also go back to just in terms of the soul, ⁓ understanding that we are created in his image and likeness. ⁓ And nothing else is given domain or rule. over anything else. ⁓ the command and blessing of God. What? Like that's later in this book. Domain? Yeah. No, no, that was in chapter one. ⁓ it was? Yeah. What am I looking? In chapter one, on the sixth day when God creates man, says, let us make man the image in our likeness. And then he gives us the command to do So is that him giving the command to us? I don't think so. I think that's him talking amongst himself. ⁓ Like, is what these, this is what man's for. This is why I'm creating him. And then later on, there's a conversation and Adam starts to name the animals and they start to... No, because it says, God said to them... You could be right. Let's read it. here, then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Hold on, hold on. Where is this? This is verse 26 of... Chapter one. Chapter one. ⁓ and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." 27, so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Man and female, he created them. And God blessed them and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over... Yeah. You're right. Yeah. Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is... You have have them for food, every living creature, ⁓ everything that has the breath of life. ⁓ okay. So that distinction is made. I've given every green plant for food and it was so and God saw everything and it was good. ⁓ Okay. So that's interesting. So the breath of life. Which verse said breath of life? I think it was 30. And to every beast of the earth and every bird of the heavens and to every, everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life. I've given every the Breath of Life can't be something special. Yeah, so that's fair. Okay. So it's not the distinguishments that we talked about. Yeah. Whatever you want to call that. Because we have that. So every living creature. So in that list, it doesn't talk about plants, right? No, it said plants afterwards. green. Every green. I've given every green plant for food. Every tree. No, no. It's talking about plants and who should eat the plants. Yeah. Right? Give me verse end of it. Well, in the middle. Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of the earth and every tree ⁓ with seed in its fruit. So we're talking about fruit and plants. And then he says, you shall have them for food, talking to man and woman ⁓ and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food. So he's talking to Adam and Eve saying, Hey, You guys first and foremost, here's the plants and the fruit. you can have this, but also every other animal and creature, they should have this too. Yeah. Right. So it's not him saying you should eat the creatures. Yeah. Which sort of goes for and against what I was talking about, like against the plant idea, but for the creature idea. Yeah. Right. mean, going back to what you said before, I think there is still a case. ⁓ because of man being made in the image of God and of his likeness. I think that's an interesting, or after our likeness. Which, good point Stephen. Yeah. Shout out. I think there's still a point to man was created for, to be specifically in relationship with God. And each other. Yeah, and each other. And I think the point that you were making also of you know, God having a relationship with the rest of creation, that's, I think that's, that's inherent in that. There's a natural, well, yeah, in that, but there's a natural relationship between everything. Everything has a relationship with everything. Whether it's astronomical or a few centimeters away or what, know, situational. water, how that works in creation. So, but the relationship with man is based off of his relationship with himself, right? it's... with God. With God. Yeah, himself. Whereas with the rest of creation, it really is he created it. And that's... He created it with a purpose. He created everything with a purpose. But the one for man is so special. And the eternity that is set on us in terms of us going to heaven. mean, heaven is a distinction for a reason, right? because it is where God dwells and it is where he wants us to be with him. So I still think there is a case for that. ⁓ But I think you brought up some good points too. I think in a non-material perspective, we can look at the rest of creation and be like, this is just mine. I can do whatever the heck I want with this. ⁓ But... It is a gift from God. And so, yes, I mean, technically, based off of free will, ⁓ we can do with it whatever we please, but that is not what God said. He said, subdue it, rule over it, but that is not devoid of His character, His care, His love, of His everything. And I mean, that's carried further in the rest of the Bible, but... ⁓ To draw that point out even more, was listening to another podcast this morning. ⁓ And the guest's point was, ⁓ there's a fine line between manipulation and influence. the only difference is to use ⁓ social skills for the betterment of a person or to not care about that person so much that you don't care the consequences. And you don't care the damage that what you're doing is going to cause them. Yeah. Yeah. One is selfish and one is selfless. And I'll give you an example. ⁓ I had some friends in high school and ⁓ I wanted to stay friends with them. And I knew that, you know, once high school ends and college ends and everything, like it's going to be difficult. I intentionally ⁓ asked them to like go work out with me at the gym. Cause I knew that when people go through hard things together, even if it's just working out at the gym. ⁓ The Rwanda for that. Yeah. And was that manipulative or was that good? Was that influence? that ⁓ for their betterment? And I would say, yeah, that was. So that's an example of- Well, what was the intention behind it though? That's good question. So the intention was to be, to stay friends with them ⁓ and to build a stronger relationship with them. ⁓ Granted, if they wanted that, right. And that's why I asked them. Like, do you want to? Like, there's no like forcing them, but I'm intentionally choosing an activity that increases our ability to bond. Right. And people do that with their friends, with their best friends, usually unintentionally. It's just like they become best friends because of circumstances. It doesn't have to be that way. A bad example would, I can't think of, I don't think I've manipulated people. in a bad way, at least not something that I can think of up the top of my head. ⁓ I do remember an ex that was using manipulation on me ⁓ where she's, she was like, you're too trusting. You know what's wrong with you? You're too trusting. And like that kind of thing to say to someone ⁓ who knows you so well is that's manipulation because it's turning something good about me. ⁓ against me and everybody else that I meet thereafter. having, would say extensive experience, should probably end on this, and move on to our next question. but I mean, I, I've told you, I used to manipulate negatively, I'll say, all the time. Yeah. Extremely selfishly. ⁓ I think it's an important though, as I've gone through this journey of understanding why I did that and what manipulation actually is and how to control that because I still have mannerisms, I still have speech patterns that come off as manipulative. If you talk to somebody who is still being manipulated constantly and has a lot of trauma tied to that, someone like me could come off very negative. I've actually had interactions with people who are negatively affected by me, not because I'm trying to manipulate them, actively ⁓ going at them and trying to manipulate them, but because I have a certain way that I do things that is based on my- Your past. My past. My past behavior. is, like, it's hard to get rid of that. ⁓ I got rid of the intents, but I didn't get rid of the mannerisms. Which you could use those mannerisms because it can be used for influence. It can be used to- better people. ⁓ But something that is important to understand that everybody manipulates. ⁓ three year olds. manipulation is, not, it's, it's not necessarily, ⁓ I'll put it this way, manipulation is I'm trying to form something. I'm trying to like, like I can manipulate that pencil by breaking it. For example, God manipulated the dust into man. Yeah. ⁓ And so it is trying to form something. Whereas I think with the differentiation between manipulation and influences, influences is seen. You see someone do something, they are not inflicting that or putting that on you. You are seeing them do whatever. So like, for instance, in the Christian walk, you you're supposed to live out the gospel so that you see, so that people see you living like Christ. And they're influenced by that. We're not manipulating them by saying, by trying to, you know, well, to a degree maybe, but like we're not actively just being like, I'm going to manipulate your life and I'm trying to form you into something because we can't do that. That's the Holy Spirit. So it's kind of like that. I think that analogy falls apart. ⁓ yeah, there is, I think we associate manipulation with a negative connotation. because of abusers. ⁓ People that don't care about other people. There's a huge amount of selfishness that is tied to it. ⁓ But just being still, I guess, being a manipulator in a sense, ⁓ one of the things that you gain from that is being able to pay attention to people. And if you stop manipulating people negatively, you're still paying attention to people. and you're just like, I could do this. I can do this. can do this. that's, that's... You can really help people if you pay attention. Right. And so it's, but then it becomes a thing of, I shouldn't do anything because if I do something, I'm manipulating them and I don't want to manipulate people. I want them to choose because you can't make anybody do anything. Right. And that's why you want to influence people. Like you're saying, and, and well, like the Bible says, live like Christ. doesn't say... It doesn't, you know, says preach the gospel and live like Michael. doesn't say, you know, make people do anything. It says, here's the gospel. Here's what it says. I am going to be living this. I want you to live this. No, yeah, that's, that's a good point. Like how did Jesus influence us? He didn't influence us the way that we would instinctually influence others. I mean, he called, he called us out. He said, Hey, That thing that you say you're doing, you're not actually doing that. not doing that. No, he called out the Pharisees constantly. Like, call spade a spade. Like, that's just the facts. And until you stop denying it and you, you know, move on to another phase, like it's, I can't help you. I can't do anything for you. And so this is how I'm going to, this is how I'm going to manipulate you. Right? This is how I'm going to, like, it's people that are like closed off. Yeah. ⁓ that you can't do anything for. And that's them. ⁓ yeah. yeah. But my point is like Jesus, I mean, your point, which is a great point, and I want to belabor it, but, ⁓ Jesus influenced people, in, in a way that no one had influenced anybody ever. And he did that by putting himself last. Yeah. Like be God who created everything became a part of his creation. which is a huge step down and he wasn't a king. was homeless. was, yeah. Yeah. He, his dad died early. if you're God, why would you put yourself in that kind of situation where your dad dies? Why wouldn't you save your dad? and it says he came to be a servant. Yeah. And then became a servant and then humbled himself to the point of death. Yeah. Death on a cross, which was the ultimate, ⁓ painful experience and the ultimate point of shame in society. And that's how he chose to influence people. Well, you also have to look at ⁓ as well, ⁓ this was like from a church service. Do you think Jesus would have had the same impact if he was in like the top, like 1 % of living people back then? Or did he have the most influence being at the bottom? Like you could reach the most people. Yeah. Well, at the top, you could probably see the most amount of influence for sure. But you have to realize a lot of the same people on your level would probably shun you really quickly. yeah. Yeah. And so- Well, because then it becomes a competition. Somebody else is going to want that influence. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what else? Well, if you could just casually walk around talking to people without being noticed at all. Yeah. Would that be easier than being richer and being noticed as this really influential figure? Yeah. I think it's a trade off for sure, man. Um, it's an interesting point, interesting idea. What do you think is the answer? I personally think, wouldn't say it's the, it is a give and take, but I do think that, um, as I really thought out plan. I think it was carried out in the best way, probably, to be honest with you. you could travel between towns and not totally be noticed. then as he basically, and this is much further on in the Bible, do not get this wrong. Spoilers! Yeah, totally. But he created so many miracles and that's how he grew gradually in popularity. So I think that was probably a really smart move. As far as getting around, having conversations with people ⁓ and not dealing with a whole lot of like backlash, a ton of it. Well, societal material ties, which would weigh him down. think ⁓ Jesus, what he did, especially with the miracles, mean, the miracles hit a ton of people. ⁓ And then... turn around and he would do things that were against what everybody thought he should be, right? And so much of that, in my opinion, well, just based off of, I guess, what Jesus would even say, is he's filtering out the actual believers and the non-believers. ⁓ He's doing this miracle for everyone. I don't think it fell on just believers, you know, of, you know, five, ten, fifteen thousand, however many people, child... men, women and children. And, you know, proclaiming himself saying, hey, I'm the miracle worker. I'm the son of God. I'm doing this all, all this awesome stuff. And then he'd give a sermon. you know, and that sermon would push tons of people away. Like, oh, I don't, I don't want that. Especially the Pharisees. The Pharisees are like, heck no. Like this guy's totally against the Torah. But, you know, and that was, that wasn't him. Um, trying to reach the biggest group, it's trying to have, I guess in a business sense, a higher quality of output, a higher quality of followers. Because the rich young ruler, you know, he had everything. He's like, oh yeah, you know, I did all the, I follow all the commandments, God or Jesus, like I got this. Every single one. Every single one. Got it all. And, you know, and Jesus like, well, get rid of all your stuff and let's go. I guess it is also in the same way like you have big chain stores and you have like little mom and pop shops. Which do you get more personal ⁓ personal influence or yes influence, ⁓ Personalized service. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah, that's that's the point that I was going for too. Yeah, it's like this is Do you want to take it? No, no take it. Okay This beckons back to the the creation account ⁓ Jesus doing his miracles proves that he's God. And I wanted to touch on the phrase son of God. Son of God is kind of confusing because ⁓ the Bible also calls everybody sons of God ⁓ because we're creating his image. But what Jesus was referring to was, ⁓ I forget, in the Bible. I think it's Isaiah where it prophesies of a savior ⁓ and he's given the name son of God among other things, I think, other names. Um, yeah. And so he's, um, in, the, the time, the setting, the environment and the people that he's talking to, they all know what he means by saying he's the son of God. Um, it's, it's like, um, uh, what's, what's a phrase, um, uh, that has a double meaning. Like, uh, someone's nickname, right? He's, referring to himself as a nickname that comes from the Torah. Yeah. I'm sure there might have been like a certain tone that you use that sort of indicates that that's the term that you're going for. Yeah. There was, or maybe a set of context before and after using that term that would show, ⁓ he's talking about like the son of God, like the nickname. Well, like with when he says that he is the I am. ⁓ And you know, in English it's like, okay, you know, I am, or he's like, I am the I am or whatever he says. It's like, okay, well that's weird. Yeah, it's all... It goes saying, I'm Yahweh. Yeah. Yeah, which is ⁓ the... Like, I am is a good way to say that because it's a pre-existing being. I ⁓ it was... He says, before ⁓ Abraham, I am. Yeah, or I am. Yeah, I was. I am... Or I was, I am, I will be. Like, just every state, right? It's just he is. So... Gosh, lost train of thought. Back to, so it beckons back to creation and that he's in the miracles that he's doing. He's performing supernatural. All supernatural is the creation of something out of nothing. What do you call feeding the 5,000? Supernatural. Supernatural. He has created something out of nothing. What do you call the little known miracle of him telling one of his disciples to go grab the taxes out of the fish's mouth? Crazy story. That is a crazy story. Deep pool. I like that. I like that miracle. No one really knows about that one. ⁓ The point there is to show people that he is God. ⁓ And then they have their preconceived notions of what God is ⁓ based on creation, which is backwards. Like I said, with the backwards perspective of creation that we have nowadays, they had it then too. ⁓ And it's not far off because they were 4,000 years or so into the world, 2,000 years from, or give or take, from the flood. ⁓ So this is where all the stories are starting of like gods and like people that would live for almost a thousand years and all that, like all that mythology in theory, right? And that's saying for sure. these people are looking backwards. And I've described this on the podcast before, where it's like that cone view looking backwards. you're in a cone, which you would say creation, the point of creation beginning ⁓ is a point. And from there, because of time, it expands conically. And if you're you and you're looking backwards at that point in time where creation began, your perspective also begins where you are in time and looks backwards iconically. so in that, you're not going to be ⁓ able to see the point of creation. You'll be able to see it amongst a ⁓ massive array of possibilities. And the effect of that is not understanding the creator. so what I'm saying is Jesus is saying, hey, I'm God. And let me correct your perspective because I was there. Yeah. Right. It's not about the creation. Yeah. It's about me. Yeah. And you. That's where it began. Yeah. Like God is a relational being from the very beginning. He creates us for relational purpose in the beginning. ⁓ Everything flows from his character in the beginning. And yet people's constant mistake is looking at what God created and trying to attribute his... Attribute godlike characters to what is material. Mm-hmm when it's the other way around when it's the other way around Yeah, that's what Satan did in the garden too. Yeah, he tempted ⁓ Eve not Adam ⁓ and what form did he take? took the form of creature. Mm-hmm I think he would have taken the form of a plant if he could but he was probably bad idea. I might get you ⁓ ⁓ You ⁓ just out of what? Why isn't it talking to you? But yeah, like that's what's saying that he took creation and turned it on set. And he said, you know what? ⁓ who is God, ⁓ to tell you what to do. ⁓ listen to the creation. tell you what to do. Who is your man? Who is your husband to tell you what to do? Why don't you make that choice yourself? And Adam, who are you to ⁓ take advice and direction and command from God? ⁓ Aren't you the man over your woman? And completely turns everything on its head. Everything. And that just that same pattern continues throughout time. And so Jesus comes back and the reason his, I say comes back, He was there at creation. was at the apnea. Right. ⁓ He comes back and he turns everybody's perspective ⁓ back around to the original perspective. And because our perspectives are from our own point in time, ⁓ to us, it seems like he's turning everything on its head. That's why everything he said was so astounding and backwards. Like the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Sorry, what you said? What? What do mean? So. I don't know exactly where I was going with that, but. No, I think that's good. ⁓ I think, think that can roll into our next topic though. I was actually just about to say that I think we have this next topic, but I'm to let, ⁓ Stephen take it away if he wants to. Do you remember what it was? Intro for decay. remember Hugh talked about it earlier, right? Yeah. He kind of did all right with it. I don't know if he was spot on, but you know, it's you. Good old Huey. Huey. Mr. Manatee. Mr. Manatee. In other words, humanity. He got us even. ⁓ Mara Manatee. No, that was good. I feel like we went off on a lot of different things, but... But that sort of just proves the point that the Bible isn't just surface level. Yeah. Like you could talk about, you could read the Bible and then just like wander in so many different directions. Yeah. And I mean... I really thought that we might have been able to get to the tree of life. No, no, no, to the rest of the chapter. Good luck, dude. Good luck. And then I'm like, oh man, we've been on this topic for a while. Well, there's like a lot of really good things to talk about. No, there really is. And as we talk about it more and more, like, we'll have hit points and be like, okay, this was this episode. I have an idea. take a look at that one. For the next episode. Because I think we, I want to talk about it. I think we could really want to talk about it. Okay. But go a little harder on the ⁓ tree of life. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Through the knowledge of a needle. I think we should do that. I think we could just do that for the next perfumed portion and just kind of have it be a free for all rather than trying to take away the spoilers. Well, we're so speculative anyways, but. So if we do that, let's just go ahead and use any mention of the tree of life. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I mean. Okay. Okay. Sounds good. Steven, you ready? Yeah. Sure. Why not? ⁓ Anyways, the decay portion is just going to be like self-reflection of anything that we talked about within our lives, the differences between... Sorry, I have to go back. Michael, you write these scripts so colorfully. I do. Maybe it should be bullet points. It probably should be bullet I'm a little flowerly. Flowerly? Flowerly. Sure. Yeah. Okay. It's funny that you say you're flowery, but there's no flowers in our backgrounds. And I don't think there will be. I think we should. You don't think so? Flowers are pretty. I like flowers. You know what's really funny about that is that one of the logos that my sister did, there's literally flowers. Yeah, the dragon she draws turns into flowers. Out of its skeleton. Who knows? You know what we could do? I think Steven's ready. Well, the only thing is that has as I read everything on this card, what we've talked about has nothing to do with ⁓ no. So I'll even give it to you to take a look at because it has kind of nothing. Well, let's just prove it. I'll read it. ⁓ Prove how flowery it is. Flowerly. ⁓ The second objective in our podcast is to talk about all things that are even slightly a deviation from the fragrance of our Holy Lord. into the decaying perfume of reality to ponder on all that life has to offer. Now, as this will inevitably wander into many different topics, let us start with insert philosophy question or other starting topic. So the topic, as Hugh mentioned earlier, was ⁓ forgiveness and the impact that it has on the discussion around morality. My personal direction that I want to take with it is... ⁓ I actually just... Yeah, expound on it. No, I was just going say the question ⁓ in its fullness, guess, is what are the implications of forgiveness on, we'll just say morality, I guess morality and immorality, if we want to kind of differentiate in their specific implications. So you want to... So this was the second episode we discussed. Yes. and in the discussion, the decay portion, we ended up resulting in, this, but what about forgiveness? So could you give us a recap on ⁓ that discussion? ⁓ Because you don't remember? Yeah. So ⁓ if you do remember, we ⁓ were going back and forth ⁓ providing non-biblical... That's right. ⁓ answers, I guess, to Why does God not exist? That's what it was. Yeah, does God exist? And we had a hard time answering that. We had really hard So we flipped on on set. Yeah. And so, well, we came up with our arguments and then the other person rebutted our argument. Well, the question was, ⁓ does God exist? And for us, because we're Christians and we're trying to argue it from a non-Christian perspective, it was very difficult. So what we did is We answered the opposite question. Like what is an argument that, like what's the best argument that you and I could give to sort of argue that God does not exist? always goes back to morality. Yeah. Yeah. So yours went back to morality. Mine went to morality in the fact that ⁓ the idea of good and evil is just a concept. ⁓ It's a sort of anthropomorphism of Well, God and Satan is an anthropomorphism of good and evil, meaning attributing human-like characteristics to concepts or other non-human things. Right? I'm pretty sure that's the definition. what was the... The lead into... What was the result of that conversation? So we basically ended up on... Okay, so there are these ⁓ socially accepted moral standards, basically. Everybody comes up with their own version or every society, whatever. And then we brought in the conversation of, how does forgiveness affect that? Because I think the way that you put it was, maybe it was me, I can't really remember, but ⁓ when you go and forgive somebody, it's almost like you're saying, okay, yeah, this was evil, but I'm not... I don't care. I don't care that it was evil. Well. Or it's more so like, yes, this was evil, but I'm going to flip it on its head and say, this is, we're going to make this right. Yeah. We're going to, I'm negating what you did, even though it was against me or whatever. And I'm saying that there's something greater than this immorality, than this more immoral act. And so that's kind of... where we were deep in that conversation, we're like, okay, well, what are the implications? Yeah. And it was interesting because we were trying to argue ⁓ against that idea of like good and evil is a concept that came from evolution and groups of people coming up with social contracts ⁓ individually, but also as a whole of society. ⁓ then one of us had the idea of like, but what about forgiveness? Like as soon as you throw that in there. It doesn't disarms things. ⁓ It's the solution for a lot of people. ⁓ But also where would that even come from? ⁓ there was like, and why have it there? Yeah. It serves a function, but if society came from an evolutionary process, ⁓ who started that? like, what was the purpose? like, who was the first, who started it? Like why? Like we're always, ⁓ so it's hard to be the first person. Sure. especially if there's never been a concept of forgiving someone. well, maybe it could come from like, you really need this person. And so you sort of let it slide, but that's not forgiveness, right? Forgiveness is, ⁓ letting someone. That's tolerance, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And forgiveness is. Not that at all. It's, it's, ⁓ someone who can do nothing to, ⁓ pay for what they did to you. ⁓ and yet for no reason of their own, ⁓ you choose to not only ignore, ⁓ not, even necessarily ignore what they did, but not bring charge or punishment or consequence against them. ⁓ and it's even deeper than that. It's, ⁓ choosing to let go in your own heart. Like in your own mind, you're letting go of this and you're not holding it against them anymore. Because that could be the payment too, but that's not forgiveness, right? But there is a cost to forgiveness. Is there not? So where did that idea come from? And what are the moral implications? ⁓ Just because I've been fascinated with the idea of etymology. ⁓ The word forgive comes from Old English. Forgefan, a combination of the prefix for meaning completely and Gifan, to give, essentially meaning to give up, a claim or desire to punish influenced by Latin paradonaire, to give fully. It's a Germanic loan translation creating a parallel to words like German vergebenn. or Dutch vergeven, where for or ver means away, slash completely, and geben, ⁓ give means to give, ultimately signifying letting go of a debt or offense. ⁓ So just to kind of give a little more of a look into the word, ⁓ why, I guess, it comes back to that question of why would we ever use that word to completely give away? And, and, and like, you can think of this conceptually, but also who, who can forgive? Like if I, ⁓ hurt you, ⁓ can Steven forgive me on your behalf? Real question. I don't think so. ⁓ let's put in this, put this in the terms of money, like, cause that was part of the definition. if, if I owe you a thousand bucks, ⁓ and I pay Steven. for that thousand bucks. I don't have that thousand dollars. I need the thousand dollars. I owe you. I have that to you. yeah. But you give it to But I give it to Steven. Yeah. Does that take me out of debt? No. No. Because I still, the debt is to me. ⁓ I think we can think of it in terms of a letter. If you send a letter to somebody and the name is on it, and then it goes to somebody else, that person didn't receive the letter. Yeah. I think both of these things. My analogy breaks down. There's an address to forgiveness. There's a ⁓ recipient and there's the sender, guess. And the recipient is really the offender that you're giving forgiveness to, right? I see. And the sender is the one that is saying... Yeah, I got my analogy mixed up. I owe you a thousand dollars. ⁓ and Steven says, you know what? That debt that you had with Michael, I've forgiven him. You don't have to pay him back anymore. That doesn't make sense to anybody. Cause that's not his debt to forgive. The only person who could forgive that is you or we'll just move this a bit further. The person that you owe a debt to. ⁓ So that person could say, Hey, Michael, ⁓ I'm going to forgive Daniel's debt because you owe me way more than a thousand dollars. Interesting concept. ⁓ on that thread? Yeah, mean, there's a priority, I guess. And I'm going to draw this straight into slavery. Okay. Because it is... I call credit and... Because we're talking about money. I call credit because it is debt. You're asking for debt. And the way that debts were handled back then was... I mean, you could just... pay it obviously, if you have the money. generally if you're... If you have the money. Take a debt, you don't have the money. If you're asking for a favor, you don't have the money. Generally. Generally. And so, you know, the option was pay it back or work for it. Do something else that is going to, you know, pay it back. And with credit, it is a perpetual state of slavery because of interest. Yeah. ⁓ compounds, it keeps going, you you don't really get rid of it, especially if you have, you know, millions or just even thousands of dollars in debt. ⁓ And back then, or even now, if you're trying to pay off a debt by labor, ⁓ and you're laboring to the creditor, ⁓ that blurs the line of how much debt you actually owe them. Yeah. Because the debt is now defined by the person who's owed. Yeah. Right. So you owe me 10,000 hours of work. Yeah. That's, that's easier to say than saying you owe me $10,000. Yeah. I mean, if, if, if you look at it, that's easier to manipulate is what I mean. Sure. Interest does make sense because what ends up happening, especially if you're working to pay back a debt, time goes by and when time, and, and, and time is money because every day that goes by, you know, you still have to like, the person that the debt is owed to still has to live their life. They're losing money. They're losing opportunity. really need it. mean, yeah, they're losing opportunity. And when you lose opportunity, you're losing money. That's just... You're losing value. You're losing value. Yeah. And that's just how it works. That just makes sense because if you don't have money, then you don't have those opportunities. That's how it is. ⁓ you know, when it comes to credit, it's like, okay, well, I have this opportunity at my disposal. But I'm going to give it as a creditor or the credi. Well, no, no, no. Yeah, the credi. It's like, oh, I can just take this while also stealing from the future. Like, you're doing yourself a double disservice by taking from somebody else, making yourself a slave to them, and then make yourself a slave to future opportunities that are never going to come mentally, emotionally. Because you think that this is the pri- this current opportunity is the- priority, but once you make that a priority and you throw out the future opportunities, you look back and you're like, well, what was it? And then you, you're at the back end call really of the credit company. I do want to clarify here because we're talking about, ⁓ something that's analogous to forgiveness. And so it's not a perfect, and the breakdown is, ⁓ cause I don't want people to walk away from this. and think like, ⁓ all debt is bad. It's not. No, no, ⁓ for example, ⁓ businesses take debt and they make tons of money because it allows them to leverage, ⁓ say a million dollars instead of buying, ⁓ in this market, maybe two houses. And it allows them to put, ⁓ 10 down payments on 10 houses. And those 10 houses, they rent them out and they, get, ⁓ 10, well, I guess it would be five times the amount of rent, revenue. than they would have if they just bought these houses cash. ⁓ And in that case, they're putting that money to work and that money ends up creating its own value that can pay the interest. So that in of itself is not analogous to sin or forgiveness. And the distinguishment there is using debt ⁓ in an unwise way, a way that doesn't think about the future. in a way that doesn't account for the reality of the consequences of the action of taking debt. And it's not analogous in the fact that taking debt in and of itself is wrong. Well, like I'm in debt right now and you know, if I, I mean, there are certain things that I have to pay for and I'm going to go in debt. going to essentially make myself a slave because I need to live. ⁓ And the purpose of living, not to get something nice and shiny, but the purpose of living is better than, because it even says if you, in the Bible, if you don't, or if you can not become a slave, then don't. Don't become a slave. But if you are. But if you are a slave, or if you have to become a slave, then, you know, here's some rules for you. But like, ultimately, it's saying you're... probably gonna be a slip at some point your life. And if you have to do it, do it right. Understand what it is. Understand that you are signing up for something that isn't pleasant, that isn't great. You know, I don't like being dead. I don't like credit. ⁓ But, you know, I signed up for it because I need to live, right? So I think ⁓ if we were to draw this into the spiritual or moral, ⁓ it gets messier. Because, know, we're talking about, we're really talking about something a little more material. Yeah. To put it into a more, into a way we can grasp it more. Yeah. But when you look at, we'll call it a wound. You cannot, just the same with money and time and opportunities, you can't add those opportunities and that time back to the person that you owe it to. ⁓ So when you- You're repable. Yeah. So same with if you were to wound somebody or offend somebody or whatever, you can't actually full on take that back. They'll have a scar. Yeah, they'll have a scar. You know, they have that memory, they have trauma, whatever it is that they have. And so it's what forgiveness is, is saying you don't have to pay this back. You don't have to repair this. And maybe even in a sense saying that you can't, but that's okay. Or I'm making it okay. Yeah, I take this upon myself. I will take this upon myself. I will, because I mean, ultimately the person that you hurt, that you offended, whatever, they have to deal with that. They have to choose to Doesn't just magically go away. Yeah. Someone has to pay. Yeah. Like, well, like with trauma. It's like, okay, this person hurt me, or like my parents inflicted this trauma on me, you know, since I was young. And now I have to deal with it. If I don't forgive them, Or if I do forgive them, it doesn't change the fact that I still have to deal with the trauma. I still have to deal with that wound. But if I do forgive them, then what I'm doing is I'm saying you don't have to fix this for me. I've acknowledged that I have to work on it. But I don't want to... In order to truly do that, you have to let them off the hook. Well, in order to truly do that and not create more problems, Because, I mean, even with credit companies and seeing the interest add up and, you know, just seeing that money and being like, wow, I took that out. And like, you're sitting there and you're sitting on anxiety. You're sitting on this, like, you're standing on hot coals and they're slowly warming up and you're like, I have to get out of here. But I'm literally saying that I'm going to sit here. And when you don't forgive, I mean, If you see a person that you haven't forgiven, you're going to be reminded of it. ⁓ You're to be reminded of that pain. And what you're doing is... You'll relive that pain. Yeah. And what you're doing with forgiveness is you're replacing that memory with a really a good thing. ⁓ So how does that work though? Right. Because I mean, I would look at it like the bridge. It's like instead of burning the bridge and creating a greater divide and creating the lack or the closed mindedness for a relationship. You're building another bridge and you're saying this is possible, not with the old bridge, because the old bridge is dead. It's been burned down, but we're building a new bridge where we're recreating that bond, that tie, because it's worth it it is valuable. Rather than looking across the divide and seeing chaos and destruction and pain and whatever. You're no longer focusing on the bridge that is smoldering. Yeah, you're focusing on the new bridge. expecting that person to fix that bridge. Yeah. Like, why don't you fix it? And then to bring it back to Christ, and I'll shut up after this and let you guys speak, but to bring it back to Christ, like the cross, which was used for forgiveness, is a weapon of destruction. It is used to kill. It is used to torture. is used to destroy. At its base. But we look at the cross and yes, we see what was done to our savior, but we also see that it was used It no longer became just this weapon of mass murder or justice or whatever. Of torture of our God. But he made it a symbol of his forgiveness, of his mercy, of his kindness, of his love. And so it's a new, it's a different bridge now. And I mean, I've even seen like pictures, images of it being a bridge and ⁓ from Because it is, it bridges the gap between us and God and says, here's the Holy Spirit, here is my, here's life, here's true life and I'm giving this to you. That's forgiveness is that bridge, bridging that gap. So I did not plan that, but that's really good. Those are the best. I love that. When there's just like something that you got to follow all the way through. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. What I was going to talk about was like, The concept of who can forgive. That's fascinating to me. And the idea of like those who have been forgiven little, forgive little, and those who have been forgiven much, forgive much. And that beckons back to what I said about like, you, if I owe you a thousand dollars and you owe another person $10,000, that other person could say, Hey Michael, Daniel doesn't owe you a thousand dollars. I'm forgiving his debt. And he can do that because you owe him $10,000. And in the same way, since we, like, I could sin against you, but since we are all sinning against God ⁓ in such an infinitely more ⁓ dire way, because He's an infinite God, and I can go into that deeper too, ⁓ we have this infinite debt against God, which was forgiven. ⁓ And then the payment dealt with on the cross. ⁓ Cause there's always a consequence. Whether the person who inflicted the wound or the person who ⁓ was inflicted, someone has to pay the price, the consequences of whatever that sin or that debt was. ⁓ Something has to be done to make it right. You can't just forgive. ⁓ There has to be someone who pays the price. And so that's why the cross had to happen still. Right? That's why Jesus had to die, literally. Not figuratively, Jesus actually died and whatever else, I'm not a theologian, so I can't break it down ⁓ super easily. But ⁓ since he was the greatest creditor ⁓ and we are the greatest debtors, ⁓ even though I might be a greater debtor than you ⁓ and I sin against you, and that makes me even more in debt to both you and to God because of God's position of infinite credit. that you owe him, you should have to forgive me. If God tells you, hey, Michael, I'm forgiving Daniel. So you forgive Daniel. Right? It's the same concept as like, hey, you owe me $10,000, Michael. Doesn't it literally say this in the Lord's Prayer? It's talking about, may we forgive our debtors, he's forgiven us or something like that. The concept is everywhere in the Bible. Yeah. At least in the New Testament. There's probably some references in the Old Testament too, but yeah, it's not a new concept. There's nothing new under the sun, as Solomon says. ⁓ forgive our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. So people that sin against us, we forgive them. ⁓ And then our Heavenly Father forgives our debts. And it's not that way around, it's the other way around. Jesus forgives us and so we forgive others. Right. ⁓ And so... when someone is holding a grudge or not forgiving, withholding forgiveness from someone, ⁓ whether that comes with a bridge afterwards or not, ⁓ it's still wrong because it's that parable that Jesus told of ⁓ the king forgiving this one man's debt. And then that man was like all excited and everything. And then he went to collect the debt from someone else. And the king was like, what the heck did? Well, cause it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily. destroy the weight or the pain that was created on the person that owes. ⁓ It just more, I guess, opens a door and creates a healing in the person that is owed, I guess. Yeah, it allows them the capacity to forgive. Yeah. If that's what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. The difference between us and that parable is the king didn't tell that man, I'm forgiving you this infinite debt. ⁓ It was a massive debt, not infinite, but massive. Like the, like a... a good portion of the GDP of that country. ⁓ And is that the right term, GDP? don't think that's right term. The, the whatever, know what I mean. And he goes and turns around and tries to collect the debt, but that King didn't tell him, every person who owes you a debt, like forgive all of that. ⁓ Our King did say that. There's a difference. And so how much worse would it be for us to not forgive someone when our King told us, who did forgive our debts, also told us, hey, you must forgive others. You must. This is a command. It's not an opportunity. It's not a like, hey, since you've been forgiven, like now you have the power to forgive others. You do, but also you must forgive them. ⁓ And so if we don't, like how much worse are we than that guy that was thrown into debtor's prison by the king? I think it's important also that He does tell us to do this, right? To forgive others. But the way in which he does it isn't necessarily like... This or else all... Yeah, it's not an or else situation. But it's more like there's a consequence if you don't. And it goes back to what you were saying about, like, this is not the best life. To just walk around not forgiving people. God is ultimate good. And if not forgiving people was good, don't you think God would have done that? So why don't we just take a chill pill, step off of our high horse or whatever. And like, if we're made in the image of God and God also forgives, who are we to say, hey, my way is better. I'm going to hold this grudge against them. I'm not going to forgive them because they owe me and they should have to pay for what they did to that bridge. ⁓ That's just not. It's not right to do that. But you're right. It's not, Jesus doesn't give us a command and ultimate him. Like if you don't forgive, then I'm going to just like this parable. I'm going to be like the king and throw you into hell. Like I'm not going to do that. But you still have a chance. It's a, do mean? Well, that's, that's what the forgiveness is, is like, I'm not going to throw you into hell. Really it's. It's because he's still forgiven. You're going to throw yourself. Sure in a sense sure is it's like you're you're choosing to even though I've forgiven you to completely ignore that mmm and then not apply it to others But this is I want to be clear for everybody like this is not for Christians. This is not for people that have been forgiven right now for Yeah, this isn't a sub if it thing it's not something like if you're a non-christian and you choose not to forgive Yeah, you know, you know forgiveness is offered to you, like you're choosing your own demise. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. No, yeah, that's a good point. The concept of forgiveness is something that can only come from a pre-existing being, is my thought. Yes, sir. He's raising a sand for everybody. Did God in Genesis, did he forgive Adam and Eve? That's a good question. Um, at what point? After they sent him? I think so. Did he? Mm-hmm. Did he say that he'd them? Not explicitly, but as you said, like, forgiveness is something that needs to happen in order to heal yourself. And if they didn't forgive him, what would have the action been? They would have died. They would have died immediately. They would have gone to hell. I'm pretty sure, like, all of creation would have burned. Yeah. Like, we're talking about an infinite god. So the fact that the earth didn't poof. and the entire universe go with it. So proves God forgave. But what it doesn't prove in that moment that that debt that was incurred was dealt with, right? That the consequences of sin hadn't been dealt with. And that's why the Bible says that God is long suffering ⁓ and he's ⁓ patient and ⁓ he's put off the consequences of those sins. Held back his wrath. Well, I think he did give punishment though. ⁓ yeah. Well, yeah, he, he, everything has a consequence. He said, I mean, ultimately there was an ultimate consequence, which is death. But there's also, which I think in that context technically has two ⁓ connotations, ⁓ physical death and spiritual death, ⁓ basically inviting both. But ⁓ yeah, I mean, he lays out that there's a consequence and he says, he tells them, don't do this. then they do it. It's like, okay, well, you invited this thing in. Well, there's going to be, there's another consequence because- Right. Adam and Eve still, even though they were forgiven, they still had to face the consequences of the choices that they made. Which was- another side note. Yeah. I think the things in which the curses, if you will, were implemented as a means of, as creating the circumstances in which physical death can- A cur. Does that make sense? That makes sense. Okay. Yeah. We can talk about that some other ⁓ time. I've just thought about that for a while. So the curse of ⁓ labor and ⁓ little from it and the curse of hard child rearing or birth. Yeah. And in labor. Childbirth and labor. Yeah, like toil for no real purpose. Like you'll work forever and you'll die and everybody will forget. Yeah among the other curses saying that all of that ⁓ Creates the circumstances for death to occur. Yeah, interesting. Well, cuz we're talking about life giving life and then maintaining right in those two things mm-hmm with the woman and the man the man has to work in order to provide mm-hmm and the woman has to be healthy and You know, not... And receive of the work. Yeah, and receive of the work and all that stuff. ⁓ I'm interested. Kind of want to... Look for the curses. Yeah. And dying spiritually, I'll touch on that when you look for that. ⁓ We talked about defining the soul and the spirit and all that. ⁓ If that is defined by the relation and the love that God put into creating man, ⁓ then dying spiritually is that relationship, that bridge. burning, ⁓ right? So that's spiritual death. ⁓ That relationship is broken. And these are all phrases, if you're, if you've grown up in the church, like you've heard those phrases, but maybe not tied together like that. ⁓ And so the consequence is they no longer maintain a relationship with God. ⁓ And then the curses, I mean, result in death. Like what you said, I'm not sure how these specific curses would result in death ultimately. ⁓ or technically, right? But there was immediate spiritual death. By answering your question of, God forgive them right away? I'd say probably. I can't say yes for sure, but probably. And then yes for sure when Jesus paid the price. Yeah, right. Because it covered all. Which is, yeah. I mean, and that's from the spiritual side, or the biblical side, like that's easy to... Well, not easy, I'm sorry. wrong word, that conceptually is like, so Jesus died once for all sin. So... it seems too small, is what you're saying. No, no, no. I'm saying from our biblical perspective, it's like, okay. But in terms of the breakdown of morality in the world, I guess, the non-biblical morality, what do you think? I guess the question I'm asking is how does... forgiveness, whether it is technically rooted in the Bible or not, how does that break down their sense of morality? The social contract theory. It's a good question. How does biblical forgiveness break down the theory of ⁓ social contracts? Define the social contract. Well, you know the theory is whatever is done to me that results in And about, and a bad ⁓ outcome for me is wrong, is bad, is sin. Anything that is, ⁓ that occurs ⁓ to me that creates a good outcome for me is good. Right? And so based on that individual experience, ⁓ we can define what is good and evil in our own lives based on how we feel ⁓ about what's happened to us. ⁓ If we didn't catch and eat that day, was an evil day. ⁓ Nature is being evil and withholding from me. Right. If we did catch and eat, it's a good day. Nature gave and it was, it was a wonderful thing and I'll survive another day. ⁓ The idea of surviving alone is like the fact that I have to survive is evil. ⁓ Right. But then also if, if you come along and you take the food that I found, that's evil to me. good to you. And then you start adding more people into society. ⁓ If everybody's stealing from each other and hurting each other, that's bad as a whole for society. ⁓ And so that's where that social contract ⁓ idea comes from is for society to thrive as a whole, we have to stick to this idea of like, let's not steal from each other. Like let's actually help each other out ⁓ so that everybody can eat. And that's the idea of where morality comes from without God. And I'm thinking, I was thinking that forgiveness sort of throws a wrench in that. Since, I mean, Jesus said, I for, well, I guess he was quoting something else. You've heard it said, an eye for an eye. What was the other one? ⁓ same concept. ⁓ because, because eye for an eye, if he slaps you. ⁓ And then like your cloak, something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was his, but I say to you, if a man strikes you on one cheek, give him the other cheek. and if a man steals your, I think it was a tunic, give him your cloak also or whatever. and, ⁓ there's the answer right there is, ⁓ in the word give, right? ⁓ it's when you decide instead of. This person stole from me. I'm going to give them more. ⁓ I'm going to bless them further. Not because they deserve it. Not because what they did was good, but because of God. Because of a good God that I trust is going to get me another tunic and another cloak. It's going to get me another meal. ⁓ If God can take care of the birds of the air, the flowers in the field, like he's going to take care of someone whom he forms of the earth. ⁓ ⁓ in the most romantic possible way. If an earthly father knows how to give good guess, how much more so your heavenly father? Will a earthly father give his son a snake or a rock? No. ⁓ Yeah. Right? I mean, that definitely does kind of answer it. A little bit. Because it's like morality or immorality in the world calls for justice. Pure justice. In the sense that... It needs to be paid back with punishment. It to It needs to be punished. It needs to be at least fair or outsized. Right. It needs to be an eye for an eye. needs to be, you know, if someone steals your cloak, you need to steal it back or you need to steal their cloak or whatever. And that's what Jesus was talking about, right? And so the morality of the world says that. you know, if someone is on the stand, they're being convicted of a crime, they deserve to go to jail. But if you come in, they committed that crime against you and you come in and you say, no, I actually don't want this anymore. I don't want them to go to jail. I cancel all the charges. Like everybody's going to look at you like you're an idiot, absolute freak of nature. Like what the heck did you just say? And also the government is going to be like, ⁓ okay, cool. You forgive them, but like we don't. Yeah. But, well, even ⁓ judges, they'll forgive. ⁓ you know. Give a lighter sentence or something? Yeah. Okay. Well, no, I think there's actually been like full on like, you're not, like all the charges are being passed. That seems like a bad judge though. Well, it depends on the situation, but sometimes it's bad. Sometimes it is like, no, I've heard your plea and... I don't care what the prosecutors have against you. Obviously it's not a reflection of who you are. But that is, it's completely counter-cultural, completely against the world. To forgive. To forgive. It's not safe. It's not safe. ⁓ It's a miscarriage of justice. Yeah, in their minds. Because there's no... In their minds, it isn't moral because the fist has to come down. The gavel has to hit. Otherwise, order... Everything goes into chaos. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody can get away with anything. Yeah. And then the social contract totally disappears. That's it. The social contract disappears as a whole if there is forgiveness. Exactly. This is exactly what I had in mind. I brought this up earlier. Wow. What are the implications? The implications are that morality falls apart. both biblical morality, forgiveness is the focus. Forgiveness is all of it. But also justice. But also justice, right. And that's in the cross. Right. It's justice in the cross, but it's not our justice to enact, it's God's. And that's why He is the one that we owe debt to. And that's why He sets the example of, forgave you, I paid for your debts, and therefore forgive others. Yeah. And so, drawing back to the slavery thing, there is a good form of slavery. Because we, I mean, expound. Paul talks about it, right? He says he is a slave of Christ Jesus, because Christ Jesus paid the penalty of his sin. And so, Paul understood, I have to forgive. He's indebted. He is indebted. He's like, I am, this is my call. Christ said, go out into the world and make disciples. I'm gonna do that because I know that this is the ultimate good and anything less than this isn't the gospel, isn't Christ, isn't who God, isn't what God wants. ⁓ Because from creation, in Genesis 3, God doesn't just kill anybody right off the bat. That's why this doesn't make any sense to the world. Because he says, will surely die. They don't die. They live hundreds of years after. Hundreds of years. They don't die. They get to live out full lives in that time. And they get to see the world expand. And they get to see their children grow up. their children's children's children's children's children's grow And they shouldn't. No, it's a total miscarriage of And so forgiveness... But is it? And so forgiveness isn't a deserved... Right? And that's where grace comes in. That's where mercy comes in. Yeah. You wanted to find those? Grace is undeserved favor. So it's something that is given that was not... Deserved. Well, yeah, not deserved, but not earned. There was nothing done for it. It's a gift. It's a gift. Yeah. And mercy is, you know, there's something done to you or whoever, I mean, to God. instead ⁓ of... striking you down, you undeservedly are saved in a sense. A state of execution. Yeah. Per se. Yeah. And... That's why he doesn't strike people with lightning all that often. Right. Yeah. And it's funny, I've even heard like in those times, it's not that those people, it was a mercy for him to do that. Which is interesting. Like Ananias and Sapphira. their testimony to the gospel or their witness was tainted by their sin. And so instead of furthering their awful testimony, she strikes them down. And I mean, you can see that as a mercy on those that they would have talked to in Let us Stray. You can also see that as mercy on them because they sought, I mean, they're proclaiming, they're trying to proclaim Christ. They're trying to... in a sense, teach because, you know, they're saying that they did this great thing. And they want an elevated position in the church. so, you know, and people that are teachers, you know, are going to be held to a greater standard. ⁓ And that's crazy. And, you know, the deeper you go into this idea of forgiveness, the more you realize that the world, anybody that chooses to forgive that is not saved is a freak. Is an idiot. Is an absolute idiot. Yeah. Because whatever was done needs to be returned in full of the debt. Plus more. Plus more. Because. Interest. Yeah. And that's how our whole world works. That and your ⁓ position and the difference between the person who's owed you a debt and who wronged you and your position. Yeah. Right. So I've heard it said great comfort again. ⁓ If you, uh, if you steal a cookie from, you like, we'll just go stealing in general. If you steal from your brother, what's the consequence? Maybe it punches you in the arm. Maybe it punches you in the mouth, loses a tooth, whatever. not whatever, like, um, what if you steal from, from your parents? You get grounded. Um, little bit more severe. maybe have something taken away. So what if you grow up as an adult and you haven't broken that pattern and you steal from the government? thankfully the IRS isn't that immediate. yeah, you a slave and then you If you continue and you like white collar crime and you like avoid paying taxes and stuff like that, or you literally like steal money from the government, ⁓ they'll put you in prison. Federal prison. ⁓ And then what happens if you steal from God? Good question. Death. Ultimately. Well, full, like, well, yeah. Full on death torture. Not just separation from God. ⁓ It's a common misconception that hell is just the absence of God. And that's just not true. It's, God's going to be there. He's not going to be your friend. And he's going to be your torturer. I'm pretty certain. Pretty certain that's what the Bible says. Yeah. I mean, it's His wrath and His wrath needs to go somewhere. to correcting on that. yeah, it's His wrath, it's His justice that He has to carry out against you because you refused the free gift of mercy and grace ⁓ from Jesus forgiving you and taking that payment. So what is the absence of forgiveness? Justice. No. Why? When the world... rejects forgiveness. What are they doing? Rejecting God's forgiveness? No, not necessarily. Just forgiveness in general. think it would just be punishment at point. But why are they rejecting, is what you're saying? Yeah, why are they rejecting? Because they want to maintain control. Okay. Because they want to be the god of their own creation. Because they want to be God. Yeah. Who gets to forgive? God. God. Who would have the right not to forgive? God. It's interesting, right? So if you wanted to be God, you should either forgive or not forgive. It should not always be not forgiven. So that just shows the ⁓ falsehood of trying to make yourself God. Well, and it shows why the world refuses to forgive because God tells them to forgive. And they want to be their own God. They want to be God. so, and then it turns around, right? And it becomes, okay, well, I'm going to reject... forgiving on your, on God's account, I'm going to turn it and I'm going to make it mine. I deserve to choose who to forgive. I deserve to avenge. Yeah. Who to take revenge. And so it falls into that free will thing. Yeah. It's like, I get to choose because I am the one that has been offended. I'm the one in which all this has been done. So that makes me God. That makes me in control. And so I get to enact that, not God. But it's ultimately God. So forgiveness in a way for us ⁓ is giving up control. It's letting God control the outcome ⁓ and letting Him have the final say. And that's why He says, like, is mine. We don't have to worry about what's going to happen to that person who cut us off in traffic. Or that person who did us... A wrong that we never even share with people because it's so personal. Yeah. Right. Like we don't have to worry about that. We can let that go. No. Because there will not be a miscarriage of justice. Either Jesus will take it, in which case, praise God. Or that person who sent against you is going to take it in hell because they choose to. Yeah. In which case, praise God. Right. Yeah. Either way, it's good for the soul to forgive. Yeah. I... It brings peace, undeniably. In the same vein, it is good to ask for forgiveness. ⁓ absolutely. Because, and I've done this- Like using the word too. Yeah. Well, and- Like saying, I'm sorry, ⁓ no, it's all good. You're right, Like that's not the process. Yeah. It's when you actually say, Hey dude, I screwed up. Can you please forgive me? this, this, and this. Because you're throwing out humility. You're like, I... It feels so wrong to say, can you forgive? Yeah, it feels awful. Feels weird. But then when you say, I'm sorry, that's like half the equation. sure, you should feel sorry. But going as far as like, can you forgive me is acknowledging that I owe you. Yeah, there's a debt. And also almost saying like when they don't forgive you because you're acknowledging the debt, you're... You're in a place of vulnerability. Well, you're in a place of vulnerability. And going back to the credit thing, like you have made yourself a slave. A slave to that person. And to God. And to God. And you know, there is freedom because you've freed yourself from, I guess, guilt in a way. Not fully because you still owe them. And there may be a point in which they call on you and say, okay, well, hey, you owe me now, like, what are you going to do? Right, you still have that consequence to deal with. Yeah. they might be chill, like, hey, yeah, water under the bridge, but also like, you owe me one. Yeah. Right. And that's kind of where, like a clear conscience can only come from Christ because of what he did. Yeah. Right. Well, yeah, and then, then it's... Like we don't have to worry about, okay, is God's wrath gonna come down on me today? Yeah. No, it's never gonna come down on us, ever. Because it already did. Right. And yeah, it's when we truly ask for forgiveness that us as believers can rest in the fact that we have been forgiven. well, especially here on earth for believers, it's like, I've been forgiven. But when we don't forgive others or when we don't ask for forgiveness, it's like we're just piling up suffering here on earth is what it comes down to. ourselves and for other people. Yeah. ⁓ a debt against someone ⁓ and it's causing suffering. And God is saying, why are you doing this? I suffered so that you guys didn't have to. What are you doing? Stop it. And again, it's that sense of control. You're trying to control the fact that you've been hurt. You are in control of this thing. You get to choose, but you don't because God is, because of God's sense. He already made He has control. He died on the cross. He gets to choose. He's the ultimate judge. Yeah. Yeah. Although there's levels, like I said. Sure. Yeah. Right. You and I, we could get into a fist fight over justice. Yeah. Right. You and the government can get into a court case about justice. Yeah. You have to acknowledge the consequences of your actions. And you, I mean, if you're told the rules. And you break them. And you break them. And you act like you don't know the consequences. That doesn't mean the consequences aren't coming. You're gonna get hit and it's gonna suck. And you, I mean, you're asking for it. You really are. mean, yes, there is a sense of like, oh, I didn't know there is ignorance, but how, mean, we blur those lines. The world blurs those lines. I was like, oh, you know, I didn't know. It's like, you know, can you give me a second Ignorance is not. What is the phrase for the law? Ignorance of the law is not an excuse or something. Oh, I don't know. I'm talking about? Have you heard of what talking about? I've heard of it, but I cannot recall it. The phrase. We'll remember it right after. Totally. at three hours. Wow. Check that out. Good job with that 1.30. Hey. It helped us transition. It did. It was, no, it was a good conversation. And actually I was... I'm glad that we hit that. do we have any cliffhangers? For next episode. Um, usually we use the cliffhangers for the cold open, but this time we didn't do that. Actually our cold open was not. Was for the end. True. Should we just like have no cliffhanger? Yeah, I think that's okay. I think, I think the cliffhangers come naturally. Okay. We shouldn't force it. Um, yeah. I'm curious to see what Hugh thinks the cliffhanger should be. Actually. I was supposed to play the second one. The second one. Yeah. Uh, but hold on. ⁓ There was something that we said we were going to talk about. ⁓ the trees. We're going to talk about the trees next week. ⁓ yeah. And that'll be in our perfumed portion. But ⁓ I do want to actually read the curses because ⁓ I think maybe we can talk about... ⁓ yeah. Yeah, we could talk about how did... Is it the fact that like the curses that God put on mankind and the world actually leads to death? Yeah. in a natural, technical way. Yeah. I like it. I'll just read them right now. I'll start in 13. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. Serpent? Serpent? I heard serpent. ⁓ yeah, serpent, sorry. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat, all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you. And to Adam, he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for of it you were taken, and er, for you are dust. And to dust you shall return. ⁓ And further, the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. The Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out. from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man and at the east of the Garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the Tree of Life. And I actually missed something on it to point this out. ⁓ hold on. So this is after they ate the fruit. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden. ⁓ So I think it would be duly noted that nakedness was some sort of curse. Or excuse me, acknowledging nakedness and being ashamed of it, because that's ultimately why they hid themselves. But isn't knowledge a curse on its own? Knowledge of good and evil. Yeah, what you know or what you don't know can't hurt you. That phrase. true, but could apply here. Anyways. Yeah. We'll talk about that next week. very interesting conversation. Yeah. Do you want to do announcements first or do you want to see the other message? Let's do announcements first. Okay. Do we have any announcements? ⁓ Well, we, there's a website, which we kind of set up at the beginning. we're getting there. ⁓ We're streaming. Yeah. Which is cool. I think we've mentioned our second time. Yeah. ⁓ Um, we're, we're getting more serious about this and, uh, this week, I don't think we had any technical difficulties. Yeah. It just, I mean, it still took us a while to get everything set up. we were just chilling. Yeah, that's fair. But anyways, that deserves a high five. tech. Can't reach tables too big. I didn't do anything. Time to unplug something. Give me a high five. didn't do anything either. Give him a high five. I'll just take it. Yeah. I do everything around here. Me and Hugh. Speaking of, is that it? Um. Yeah, I think that's a friendly response. Let's see what here and I personally survived last episode's midnight live stream ritual where Michael and Daniel tried to name the show PD 2.5 and immediately got humbled by the streaming dashboard. The camera battery chose violence. The chat stayed emptier than a deserted mall kiosk and we spent an unreasonable amount of time asking, are we live? Like that was a philosophical question. Then, with zero warning, the conversation rocketed from astronomical units and how close Earth can get to the Sun before the oceans boil straight into fine-tuning moral authority and the kind of existential spiraling you only get after 1 a.m. Today, they're finally answering last episode's cliffhanger. If it's wrong for a random person to forgive on someone else's behalf, who actually has the authority to forgive everything? And what does that imply about morality, justice and whether God exists at all? No more stalling. No more interface trauma. Michael and Daniel, take it away. Wow. You think that one was better? I think so. It was a little more spot on. Yeah, it was. The other one. With the summary of cliffhanger. Yeah. What about Steven? Oh, we weren't, he wasn't there for the second episode. That's right. Okay. was like, why didn't you bring up Steven? Maybe I could, as an announcement, tell everybody the humanity concepts. Yeah. Which we had the concepts. on a podcast, think. Was it the first one? I don't remember. It might've on podcast. Was it on the podcast? Maybe not. I don't know. I think it was off the podcast. think you just broaden it up and you're just like, ⁓ hey, we can use this. So the idea behind humanity is, ⁓ which hilarious in a bit, is that Hue is gonna, it is just a combination of AI tools that we match together. And by we, I mean they. Nobody else does anything on this podcast. Let's be very clear. That's not true. You write scripts and stuff. Steven shows up. And by shows up he means picked up. Yeah, yeah. He also provided the DSLR. So there we go. Which currently isn't working. Right. But it will. That's my fault. Yeah. And you're going to fix that. I will fix So you do everything. But. ⁓ so the, the entire episode, we transcribe it using AI. And then after we transcribe it, we derive a summary from that. ⁓ and we try to keep it short. witty and all that stuff. ⁓ and then after that we run it through 11 labs to, ⁓ put a voice to it, a consistent voice. And the voice behind it is a youth pastor. That was the idea. Like a quippy young youth pastor kind of vibe. Yeah. And you can kind of, you can see it. Yeah. But the entire idea behind Hugh is, ⁓ he's going to give us a recap of last episode, as you guys have heard. And then he's going to summarize the cliffhanger, ⁓ and hand it over to us. And he does, he does it wonderfully. And it took so long to actually get to that point, but the actual idea behind it, ⁓ the reason I built a program to do all of that, like automatically is because we thought it would be funny. to do all of that and not review the end product until we listen to it. Yeah. Live. Live. And I'm going to be tweaking the prompting ⁓ in the app so that it gets more and more out of pocket. It needs to. I think the first one that we did was just like, what the heck are you talking about? And I think the summary is better this week because for those who aren't GPT nerds like I am, or AI nerds. GPT 5.2 was just released. I think it did better. I think it did. Especially with the long context, because two, three hour podcasts could have transcribed that entire thing and make a 120 word summary on that. You freaking kidding? I would give up. think we technically have a portion where we're doing takeaways and I think we're going to throw that out. Like takeaways from each section at the end. ⁓ yeah, I think we just did that naturally and we yeah We kind of do that naturally but also like we talk at length And we go we believe so many different things. It's hard to keep track Yeah, and I mean, thought we were gonna I thought I was gonna take notes and there's just so much going on I took notes on ideas that I had. Yeah, I just didn't want to interrupt it. Yeah, but anyways, this was a great conversation and ⁓ Can't wait for the next one. I'll take us out. This concludes episode three of the Perfumed DK podcast called Morality. thanks for joining us. We hope that this was an edifying and somewhat entertaining episode. We're getting more more serious it seems. I don't know, we're still pretty out there sometimes. We're loose sometimes. But... You know, that's ultimately what we want it to be is edifying and not so terribly serious that it's like, because we're not trying to take ourselves too seriously. We're also speculating a lot. So there's no point in taking us too seriously. Although if you want to write us a strongly worded email or a comment, do so. Yeah, you can. We would prefer that it be constructive. But a criticism nonetheless. Yeah, a criticism nonetheless. If you just want to... chew us out. You can do that too. Honestly, if it is a well written, like I'm not saying like you're dropping all the bombs. I'm saying like if you use like proper language within the English language that isn't just cursing us out, I will read that. some other language. will read that on stream. And I will be very excited about it because, but if there's any bad language in it or vulgarity or whatever, then I'm not going to read it. We can block that. Yeah. Well, there we go. Just beep the whole thing out. That'd be hilarious. We'll hue the whole thing out. There you go. But, yeah, if you guys have any topics or anything that you would like us to talk about, this is technically going to come out in several months. But, you know, we can definitely, once they come out, we can take the topics and use them in later episodes and maybe plan out a little more for the future. But yeah, this has been a really good episode and I'm excited for the next one. Yeah. This has been perfumed decay with Michael, Daniel, and Stephen. Thank you for listening, watching, whatever. And we will see you next time. Peace out. Girl scout? Girl scout. Dang.