Two Trees, One Tension (Genesis 3) | PD4

Lord hear me

pray.

Y 'all ready today?

Lord be my

guide.

So far.

So far.

Oh, we didn't run through decay for you.

My bad.

Should we do that now?

Okay.

Now just let it fly.

Listen to your heart.

Let it fly.

It's not

a...

Don't ever listen to your heart.

It is deceitful above

all things.

But in this scenario,

listen to your heart.

I'm sorry we did the intro.

I think so.

That's good.

Because it

going right into

humanity.

Oh yeah.

I really like the bit that we do.

Yeah.

Go for it.

Okay.

I'll do the intro.

Greetings and salutations,

dear listeners.

Thank you for joining us on the

Perfumed Decay

Podcast.

We are your hosts,

the three of us.

Michael.

That's me.

Daniel.

That's me.

And Steven.

The bros.

Here on the Perfumed Decay,

we venture into the spiritual

through the Bible,

perfuming our experience

with the sweet aroma

of God's Word,

and then partake of all else

known to us in the decay

of this world in the

physical, mental,

and emotional.

And spiritual.

I don't know why I didn't put that in
there.

Yeah.

Why not?

I'm not an emotional

dude.

Okay.

Sure.

I'm not.

Says the one that has a girlfriend.

What does that have to do with

anything?

Oh man.

He has an emotional

person

in his life.

Shut up.

This is episode

four.

We are calling it

fruit.

And before

we

get started,

let's actually.

Let's introduce our

fourth

member.

Very important member of

ours that we love

and hold daily to

our hearts.

Steven, you want to give him a call?

Yeah.

I don't know why we don't call him

first and

then start the podcast.

I don't know.

Yeah, we should do that next time.

I feel like it gets better

when he's

more part of the group

instead of outside of the group.

Yeah, but.

Let's return it.

He's put this transportation

situation like it's hard

for him to get here.

That's true.

That's true.

And we shouldn't burden

him with that.

You're saying we should just

get it done.

Yeah, let's just get it done.

Steven, you want to give him a call?

I gave you his number last time.

Let me look.

Okay.

Oh wait.

I'm sorry.

Ready?

Chuck.

Chuck.

Chuck.

Down's the beer.

No, you did not.

Except that you would have.

I'm not going to do that.

It's okay.

I think I'll call

him.

You will?

Yeah, yeah, Because I do

not have it.

Dude, I'm pretty

sure I gave you his

number last time.

Look, I don't have the

number.

Okay, I'll give it to you next time.

Look, he's not going to answer, is

he?

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay,

Hugh.

That's really interesting.

Thank you, Hugh.

I feel like Hugh didn't do his

homework.

I feel like I

understand

what he's

trying to say.

Okay.

But yeah, he's wrong.

He's wrong.

You hung up before we said that, right?

Sure.

Yeah.

That'd be awkward.

Yeah.

Okay.

So, yeah.

That's good.

Yeah.

No, we answered that question last

time.

Did we not?

We did.

Yeah.

Which was, you want to give us the skinny?

I'm pretty sure you're actually

the one that answered it.

Oh, boy.

Here we go.

And a...

Five -minute explanation.

Here we go, guys.

I am not good at doing

skinnies.

I'll say, like, short story

and then 15 minutes later.

It's funny that you think I am

going to...

We should ask Steven.

Steven, you want to give us the skinny?

You're good at that.

On forgiveness and who can forgive?

We did a podcast last time and that

was it.

Well...

Yeah, but like...

But, oh, this question.

the was What answer?

You weren't nice and skinny.

That was pretty skinny, but it

was not on topic

at all.

Oh, we're still on...

There we go.

I'm pretty sure what we said

was that we,

as

believers, are

called to forgive.

We should forgive

because

we have been

forgiven by God,

who is the ultimate

one

that has been

offended, who we owe a debt

to.

And so all others

that

owe

us a debt,

we should forgive.

Yeah, and it doesn't even matter

if we do.

Yeah,

because ultimately he...

Yeah,

ultimately he is the ultimate

creditor,

as I said.

But it's something that he

calls us to do because

it...

Yeah.

Well, really, because it's a blessing.

Oh, it's a huge blessing.

I mean,

the fact that he

forgives

those

whom he wills,

which is fortunately

us.

Thanks, unfortunately.

I'm like, no, no,

unfortunately.

But also like anybody

who's willing to call upon

the Lord

for salvation,

right?

That's everybody.

The other part

was,

how

does it

disprove

the arguments that we

had, I think two or

three episodes ago,

where we

argued

against

the fact that God

exists?

We took positions

of like,

God does not exist, here's

why.

Right.

And a big one was mine

where I said like,

God

and

Satan is an

anthropomorphism of good and

evil.

And we dug deep into

that.

We dug deep into one of your

arguments.

And really,

it was your

argument.

But

we

sort

of paused at

morality

and

how that

can be constructed with

social contracting.

Then how does

forgiveness fit into that

model?

And ultimately, the answer

to the last

podcast

was it doesn't.

Yeah.

And it destroys it.

It destroys it.

You remember why?

I don't remember how

you put it, but you put it really

well.

I'll do it my best.

Let's see here.

So

I

got my...

This is overheard.

I've explained this like two or

three times since, so I

should remember.

It destroys it

because

their

morality is based

off

of

a specific

way to punish and

to

reward.

And so when

you

throw in forgiveness,

it takes away

that punishment

or it changes the No, reward.

I don't think that's what it was.

Well, no, But

that's

a different way of saying I it.

remember.

I remember.

So at the base,

social contract theory is

if

something bad happens to

me in my experience,

I consider it bad,

then it's

bad.

If something good happens to

me,

it's good.

That's the difference between

good and bad or

good and evil or

God, from God

or of Satan.

So if

that's contract,

if that's social contract theory,

if it goes up in the

level,

we've got a town of people

and

they all

have to work together

to

make a

functioning society.

The only way to do that

is to prohibit

stealing

because

stealing from

you, for me, would be

good,

but for you would be bad.

So as a whole,

a town of

people would

not want

stealers, thieves

or

stealers.

Don't like stealers.

I'm actually not

a football

fan at all.

So whatever your team is, I don't like
them.

That's That's that's

authentic.

not thick except the Z ox

of course cuz no I hate to

see ox.

Okay.

Well, hey, it's a strong word.

I

Disregard their terms

your

Anyways continue

so

If

If that's the social contract

theory

It breaks down with forgiveness

Because if

someone

if a thief

goes and steals

Say I steal

from you.

Mm -hmm And

then you forgive me

That makes a

dangerous society

and if all of

society is forgiving each

other for for

you know

Sins against

each other then it

breaks down the social contract

to its core.

Yeah, which

means I

mean the act of forgiving means that

you

You take the consequences

Right.

Maybe I give it back to you.

Maybe I don't maybe

it's something that I can't get back to

you once it's stolen,

right?

Something like

This is a horrible example, but

I sleep with your wife.

Okay, right.

I can't give that back.

Yeah, that's something that's

one and done Yeah,

right or I kill something

like I kill your pet.

Right, right.

We're talking about sins here.

It's ugly.

No, right Well, even

bad stuff.

Let's break it down even further.

Okay

making more general

like borrowing money,

mmm

the

You took away

forgiveness for

stuff

Like let's say

you

I borrow

like

ten dollars from you

Like you

without forgiveness

could like mark it up

like five hundred percent

if you want it like

you without Yeah,

like without reason

you owe me five thousand

dollars Stephen.

Yeah Even

though I've loaned you

right bucks

and so that's

That's partially what I

mean about

In in

in the

world

Certain actions

require

Certain punishment

or certain I see

whatever yeah

because

And so the presence of

forgiveness is

in in their minds

negating that throwing

out the

the is stupidity of

order

It's stupidity.

Yeah, so if

I'm to steal

and you forgive

me

And it's something that I

stole that I can't get back

That means you take

the consequence.

Yeah socially

It's a bad day for

you.

Yeah, right

But you forgive

me, which means I

don't get the punishment you

do.

Yeah, and

if everybody acts according

to that

Then the social

contracts in that town

breaks down and there's

chaos and I

think I think I just thought of

this

on top of that

it

goes

against

another

idea of the world

in

that

You should be looking

out for number one,

right?

Yeah, and

Not in the room.

Sorry, not these guys.

Yeah

But it's it's the

idea that you need to take care of

yourself first Yeah,

and then take care of others

And the Bible speaks

very clearly comes out.

It's like no you need to care

about everybody You need

to care about God you

need to care about others first

And you will be taken

care of as a result

While necessarily like

I think it's like a fact.

Oh, it's it's the fact doing

the Bible.

It's like yeah Love your neighbor

as yourself.

Yeah Because it's just

the Bible knows God

knows that we

love ourselves Yeah, and

we're gonna just take care of ourselves

no matter what right,

right?

So all this BS of

like, oh take

care of yourself and then take care of

others It's not total BS.

No like on a

plane sure like an

emergency situation

Yes, put your own mask

on patch yourself up

whatever it is Yeah, and then

help your neighbor help your friend

because it's but

that but that's still that's so much

Makes sense.

I need to I need to help

myself in order to help

have to yeah,

and the difference is

that yeah Right

do I want to take care

of myself first?

Yeah, or do I

have to right

and that's really

difficult, right?

If you

can't

do

Like you

can't even handle

your own responsibilities,

too I think it goes back to

the emergency thing you

can't handle your own

responsibilities Are we

can't handle anyone

else?

Yeah as well.

Yeah, and and it's well

and it's a thing of you

know

We need to reckon with

God first Right,

and that's why the first commandment is

love God and then

the second commandment is love

others.

Yeah

because we have to love

God in order to love others

and And

we will love others

if we love God.

And so it's

just

a...

Because He loves us.

Yeah, because He loves us.

And just

also looking at

the things that He

charges with,

they're blessing us.

He blessed us with these things.

So it's when we do these

commandments,

we are blessed and thus,

in a sense, we really are

taking care of ourselves.

We are looking out for

ourselves because

we are

accepting those

blessings the way that

God intended us.

Yeah, but not in

a manipulative,

psychopathic, sociopathic way.

No.

It's like,

it's a result

of the

natural order of things.

Yeah,

yeah.

Yeah.

Like,

that's how

healthy

relationships work.

Right.

Just this,

you can't manipulate a good

relationship.

Yeah, you have to.

It just has to

be a good relationship.

And that means you take care

of other people.

That means those people

take care of you.

That means you put God

first and God

takes care of you, just like

He takes care of the flowers of the

field and the birds of the air.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's

doing

what

He tells us to do.

And it

comes together and He's timing.

Oh, I have a question for

Michael then.

If you,

so going after the

manipulation

thing,

since you said that

you used to do

it,

out of fulfillment,

what do you think

as of right

now, do you think you

are more fulfilled by

manipulating

others for

your, gosh dang, I can't

speak.

Manipulating others

for your

own

gain

or helping

others.

Well,

absolutely

helping others

because

manipulating

others

isolated

me.

Because

not

everybody is

stupid.

Not everybody

can

take

the little bits

of

negative energy, I

guess, that are thrown at them

with manipulation because

when

you're

trying to

manipulate somebody for your own

selfish desires,

you're taking from

them.

It's kind of,

yeah,

you're asking them to sacrifice

for you

in order for you to get what you

want.

So

when

you do that,

people start to

not want to be

around you and like, oh,

well, I'm feeling

like they're kind of

draining me and

I don't want to be around that.

Whereas,

I mean, it sounds obvious,

but when you're helping people, you're

giving to them.

You are, you're not

trying to take from them,

you were trying to give to them.

So you're trying to

heal

them or not heal them,

but you're trying to help them heal.

You're trying to help them

with whatever projects they're working

on.

You're trying to

be there

for them emotionally, whatever.

You're adding onto them

and people are drawn

to what's being added to

them.

And that points back to God.

Yeah.

Originally, God's character was the gift.

It still is,

right?

God created,

God made, God

did this, God made

you in his image.

Your image is to

give.

And so when you

manipulate for

your own good

and for

not necessarily

all the time, but

for

your

own good ultimately,

and so it might hurt the other person,
might

not.

I think it goes against

what God's image

was.

Yeah.

I think a good way to look at

it is

it's

like,

it's like harvesting

a

field, I guess,

or maybe picking

a flower.

I think that's a better idea

or

metaphor or whatever.

It's like an

analogy.

There we go.

Thank you.

It's like picking a flower.

You're picking the flower,

you're killing

it.

You're killing it.

It's like, yes, you're taking

it and you can

put it in a bouquet and

go give it to the

girl that you like or whatever, you

can give it to your mom or

whatever.

And it can seem like a nice

thing,

but you just killed the flower.

You killed the flower

and you took away

from something that is

beautiful.

Whereas instead, it's like, if I

could go get some seeds

and I can just

plant

you

some

flowers in a

planter.

And then I'm

growing something, I'm making

something have life.

So manipulation is like,

hey, I'm

plucking this really out

of you,

I'm plucking this beautiful thing

and I'm killing

it so that I

can

receive some

kind of reward.

Whereas - That temporary beauty.

Yeah,

whereas if I was planting something in
you.

The gesture of giving

is more

like,

kind of like bad

intention

behind

it.

Say that again.

I think you got something.

And I kind

of went over this last time,

but like

when

you brought up

manipulation

the first

time,

and I asked the question

of,

I think

in the context of

what

is

the purpose

behind,

basically the intention

of

giving

something

or,

you

wanna

say like doing

something nice for someone.

Like what is the

motive?

What is the purpose?

What is the intention?

Is it something good or is it

something evil?

And that'll kind

of tell you like,

what

are

you doing wrong?

What are you doing right?

In the aspect of,

I guess God,

in a way of

like

plucking the flower.

Is there

beauty in the intention

of giving it to someone?

Yes,

just because the flower is

beautiful,

it means something.

Like sometimes

the most beautiful things

don't last forever.

They don't.

And that's what makes them so

great.

But sometimes

caring

for something is

even better.

Just the

path that you take

in hardship

and you look back and you're just

like, wow,

that was awesome.

That experience was so

good.

I wouldn't trade it for

anything.

So, yeah.

Well, and for

the analogy, I

guess the person would

have to be the flower.

So if I'm picking the flower,

I'm killing the person.

But if I'm, you know,

doing something good with it, which can

make that person feel good, which

whatever.

But still you're killing the person.

But I'm still I'm killing the person.

But with planting

the flowers, you're

building people.

Building them up, yeah.

I'm building them grow, watering

them.

It's a total net gain.

Yeah.

Well, but

I'm giving of

myself.

So that's interesting.

own Your energy.

Yeah.

So are you a flower planting

flowers?

I'm sorry, I love

breaking analogies.

So,

I mean, where do you

receive the most

beauty

out of it is

receiving

beauty from the planted flowers

or the picked

flower?

Well, and I think that's

interesting because

it's really from

the planter.

Say again?

The planter.

Meaning,

so

you

don't get a near reward

from God

for manipulating

people.

Okay.

You don't get it.

Well, I mean, you don't really even

get a reward from

society

other than

this pride

that

builds you up

and stirs you

to more

manipulation

and killing

people really.

In a way.

In a way.

When

God

has planted a flower

and you go to

maintain it and build it

up,

I mean,

you get to enjoy that

flower,

right?

You get to enjoy an aroma,

you get to enjoy

maybe

more of

these types of flowers.

You get to,

maybe it's not a flower.

Maybe we changed the

analogy a little bit.

Maybe it's a fruit tree.

Maybe it's whatever.

God is ultimately the

person that planted that

flower.

And instead of going and destroying

it, I get to enjoy it,

right?

And I think

that's

an

interesting analogy for

the church

is we're not called

to join the

church and to glean from it

necessarily.

To use people.

Not to use people, but

to.

To build each other.

Well, to serve.

And when we serve

each other, when we serve

the body of Christ,

we are,

you know,

we are

harvesting, but

we're harvesting rightly.

You know, we're harvesting in the

season.

We're harvesting - We're creating the way

that God intended it.

Yeah.

Instead of stealing from each

other.

Yeah.

And so

it's

something

that God intended, right?

Yeah.

And not just,

like, I mean, did God intend for us

to pick flowers

out of the ground and - I think

so.

Give them to pretty girls.

Yeah, because God - I mean, I don't know

necessarily.

No, no, I don't.

That it kills the flower.

Which is - Not right away though.

So God said

to Adam

and to Eve, like, you can

eat up these trees.

And I think that encompasses picking

flowers.

Sure, right?

But - God created beauty for a

reason.

Yeah.

Maybe back then people wouldn't

pick flowers and put them in the vases,

but like we

do nowadays.

No.

I think the

purpose of a flower is to be beautiful.

Yeah.

Well, I more mean like - I mean,

it's one of the purposes.

He created

fruit -bearing

plants and different crops

and whatever for us

to harvest

and then for it to

regrow.

Guess what happens before the fruit

is born.

There's flowers.

It is.

There's so every piece of fruit

comes from the flower.

I mean, this analogy falls apart.

But - No, it certainly does.

Certainly does.

We're talking about the nitty gritty of
the

analogy, which is not the point.

And I think back to your

thing, it was just like

God gave us

dominion over everything.

And he was just

like giving

you dominion, I'm giving you free

will,

go and do as you please,

but do it in my name.

Yeah.

And there's something

magical

about

work.

And let me explain what I mean.

So

you

can take from

people,

or you can, like you

said, you can pick the flower

or you can

plant the flower.

You can build people up or you

can tear them down to

take what they have.

And the

instinct that we all have

because we're sinful is to

do what's easiest.

Do what's better for

me.

No matter the cost to

you.

The magical

thing about work though,

is it

creates good

for

everybody

out of need.

And nowhere,

in a sense.

No, right.

Nothing is harmed

and

people are better

off.

Where does that even come

from?

Yeah,

let's address them.

Right?

It's like,

huh.

You ever thought about that?

No.

I talked to Steven about this

a while ago.

You remember we were at Chipotle.

We were talking about

how

everybody is

sort of,

sort of doing their best to

survive and everything.

And like maybe the

economy is not the best

and like everybody's position is

not the best.

Maybe there's not enough jobs for

everybody.

But,

or like AI might take over

all the jobs.

People are concerned about that and all

this stuff.

So my

argument

when we were talking

was

like,

we shouldn't

have to worry about that.

Like

God

gave us the

innate ability to

work.

No matter

if

we lost our

job or not.

Right?

Just because a

corporation or a

small business says

here's your job.

That does not mean

that's your job.

No, that's not your

purpose.

That's not your meaning.

That's your purpose right now.

That's not who you are.

That's just what you're deciding.

Who you are

is

a

creator

that

has

dominion over

what God gave

you.

And creating is hard

and

creating is not easy.

And

that's

something that we try to

avoid.

So my argument was if everybody

took

AI and

used it

to make

their life

better

and not just sit around

and twiddle their thumbs

and everybody worked a little bit

harder,

no one

would

be without a job.

No one would be lacking.

No one would

be

economically.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure.

That was the argument.

And I still

fully believe that.

I do.

I think these

drug

dealers and these

scammers

that are just stealing

trillions and trillions

of dollars from

people's

retirement accounts and everything, and
everything,

just tricking them into.

giving their funds away.

No good ever

came from that,

ever does come from that.

Easy money is

fast money.

It's, yeah,

it's

literally

destroying

probably

millions of lives.

And I also want to point

out,

I brought this up during

that same conversation,

the

human

interaction part,

like you take away everyone

from like

even going to the grocery

store at the base

level, everything.

If you don't see

other people,

what is there to

look forward to?

Even like, let's

take away,

I know some people have I just this.

imagine there too.

Like take away friends,

family,

everything out of

people,

like podcasts,

like you'd only have one person

on each podcast

and just

looking into a

camera

with

a

random topic

every single

time.

There would be no sense

in doing any

of it at that point, I

would think.

It's just like, why

do this?

And then it becomes the thing of

why live?

Yeah, what is the purpose of life

without other people,

without relationship?

So there's magic there too.

I don't know if you remember me saying

that.

No, I do.

Yeah.

I mean, it's critical.

I mean, work is nothing without

people.

And work is nothing without

multiple

people.

Yeah.

And it's - Because you

don't have like, just let's take

economy.

You don't have an economy unless

you have multiple people.

Yeah.

Well, and you

look at how,

if you were asked

a multi

-million dollar

entrepreneur,

I've heard it said

so many times,

when you go to start a business,

you have to solve a problem.

What problem are you solving?

And then they actually carry

that into

everything.

They're like, when I

go and make a podcast, when I go and

write a book, what problem am I

trying to solve?

And it's to say,

what's my goal?

And

I

mean, if we were to look

at

the

Bible,

what's the problem that it's trying to
solve?

Then death.

Death.

You know?

But there's so many -

There we go.

Not both.

And there's so many other things

wrapped up in that.

And it's like, okay, well, what is the

purpose of the church?

It's to, yes,

it's there

for the sin issue, but it's

also there for the community

issue to

help

us

not be alone,

and

to continue to move

forward

in our

journey -

With Christ.

Away from, yeah, with Christ,

away from our sin.

Because we need people.

We need people, but we need God.

Ultimately, we need God.

Yeah.

And so that's

also why the church exists.

It's not to be a social

club.

It's to be a social club with

God.

Right.

Yeah.

I mean,

I lost my

head.

Go for it.

I mean, I was

going to say,

in

natural perfumed

decay fashion, our

cold open has become

- Very

hot.

Has become boiling.

But the point is,

we've answered this question,

and it goes so much

deeper in so many

different ways.

Yeah, we keep hitting more topics.

What are we, like, 50 ,000 minutes

into this podcast?

We are 33.

Where do you see that number?

In the bottom right -hand corner.

Oh, perfect.

All right.

Shall we?

Yeah.

I was going to say,

you

know, this

isn't much like

the topic

of our

podcast name.

It's something that kind

of is ever

changing and ever

- Well, not changing - The

fruits of our labor.

But it's ever growing,

and it's becoming

something

-

Becoming something.

More to us.

I think there is

almost this

weirdly inherent

point

to the

name,

much like there is an

inherent

point to

forgiveness,

and it goes deeper than we could

ever really

understand.

And I think I

am likening it to

our podcast name, because

I feel like it just, as

we think more on it,

it just gets

deeper and deeper.

Not necessarily for

everybody else,

but I mean,

at least it serves me

in in a weird way.

But I think

that's

a good

opportunity for us to

transition into the next part.

Yeah.

I had like two

great points.

And if I had a pad

and a pencil,

I would have wrote them down.

Your pad is on the floor actually,

like underneath the...

But...

Thank you, sir.

I got the pencil too.

Stephen, do you want to

transition us

into the perfumed

portion?

Sure.

So

off what we were

talking about.

Basically, we're going

to go

into

a

spiritual

and

a

truthful place

about

God's Word

within

this

meaning of...

Get the topic

now.

We're talking about the

two trees

in the Garden of Eden.

Well, excuse me, the two types

of trees.

There's speculation that

it was not

just two

trees, but yes.

Interesting.

I

mean,

the only way I've

heard of it is just there's

one center tree.

Okay, let's talk about

that.

Are you finished with

the intro?

Pretty much.

I want to point out that

we...

Or

yeah,

my

analogy

about the

flowers and the

seed planting and growing

and whatever, and then we're going to talk

about...

Flowers.

Well, fruit.

Yeah, we're going to talk about these two

trees.

Where does the fruit come from?

crazy.

It's What are the

fruit?

Is fruits delicious?

One is fruit.

Is jam fruit?

Is it fruit?

So...

It's like, is it cake?

Is it fruits?

Is it fruits?

Magic is delicious, like the

germs?

Magically delicious, like

Lucky Charms?

Oh yeah,

probably.

Getting into it,

the two trees.

What are the two trees, Daniel?

The tree of life

and the tree

of the knowledge of good

and evil.

We know about

one

of the trees, at least

to some

degree.

It's a fact

because it led to

death.

Yeah.

Well,

that tree of life was

not that.

No.

Stephen?

Yeah, I would just say

what

most people know

as the

tree is

the tree of knowledge

and

death,

basically.

What led up to it.

I know that tree too well.

Knowledge and death?

Yeah.

And knowledge could be a gift

or a curse.

Well, it's not

knowledge itself.

It's knowledge of good and evil.

And it's not even that.

It's the fact that they

disobeyed God.

Yeah, that's ultimately what brought on

the death.

So,

the trees were put

there.

But if I

remember,

I'm actually

going to look at it, but I'm

pretty sure God says,

do not eat of

the tree of the knowledge of good

and evil.

He doesn't say anything

about the tree

of life.

Really.

Which makes it seem as though

we

could

eat of the tree

of life.

And yet,

which was not to,

where are we looking in the Bible here?

So,

we are in chapter

three.

But I'm actually going to

start in chapter two, sorry.

Then the Lord God,

verse 15,

then the Lord God took

the man and put him into the

garden of Eden to cultivate

it and keep it.

The Lord God commanded the

man saying, from any

tree of the garden, you may eat

freely.

But from

the tree of the knowledge of good

and evil, you shall

not eat for in the day that

you eat from it, you will

surely die.

And then if we go to

verse three,

yeah, it's talking about

that

tree of the fruit

of, or

of the knowledge of good and

evil.

Sorry, where are we going?

Technically, this is chapter

three, but it is the

three verse,

starting the very first

verse.

Okay.

It doesn't say which tree

it says, now the serpent was

more crafty than any beast of

the field, which the Lord God had made.

And he said to the woman,

Indeed, God said,

you shall not eat from any

tree of the

garden.

Oh,

did God actually say that?

Indeed.

God said, you shall not eat

from any tree of the

garden.

The woman said

to the

serpent, from the fruit of the

trees of the garden we may

eat, but from the fruit of the tree

which is in the middle of the garden,

God said, you shall not eat.

That's interesting.

So she doesn't even say

what

tree

it is necessarily.

The serpent

says,

in verse 4, the serpent

said to the woman,

you surely will not die,

for God knows that in the

day you eat from it,

your eyes will be open

and you will be like God,

knowing good and evil.

So he's alluding to

that tree.

But yeah, it doesn't say

anything about the tree of life.

Did God say anything about it?

I mean, at

the end of it,

after the end of the

curses,

let's see.

Thank you for the first souls.

Behold, the man,

oh, then the Lord God said,

behold, the man has become

like one of us, knowing

good and evil,

and now he might stretch out

his hand and take also

from the tree of life

and eat and live

forever.

So

it's referenced,

therefore the Lord God

sent him out

from the Garden of Eden to

cultivate the ground

from which he

was driven.

So he drove the man

out, and at the east of the

Garden of Eden, he stationed the

cherubim and the flaming sword,

which turned every direction

to guard the

way to the tree

of life.

There it is.

Okay.

Chapter 2, 17.

But

the tree

of the knowledge of good and evil,

you shall not

eat,

for in the day that you eat

of it, you shall

surely die.

That is God.

So God named the tree the

tree

of

the knowledge of good and evil

and

the tree of life.

So there's our answer there.

What do you mean, and the tree of life?

Well, you just read the end of

the curses,

and he refers to it

as the tree of life.

That the angel

guarded

the entry

to the garden so

that they may not eat from the tree of

life.

No?

Yeah, yeah.

So that they may not also

eat of the tree of life.

Yes.

So there is

confirmed

two trees.

At

least.

At least.

There's other trees that are

harmless.

They're not part of the equation.

And do you think that

these trees are special in any

kind of way besides what God

said about them?

I think

that...

I don't think anything

has power without

God, right?

There?

And without God

allowing it to,

especially.

Especially when we just

finished chapter 1 where

it said,

God said and then,

several times.

Yeah.

And everything that we

know and are came

from what God said.

Yeah.

And with

that, it's like...

He didn't...

How do I put this?

When I go and create

something, or

when I go and use a

pen,

okay?

I am

only...

In my mind,

what I'm doing is I'm just making

this line,

right?

But in

reality, there's

a deep

intricacy

not only to

the ink, but to the pen.

An intricacy that I

can't fathom.

And so when God created

everything,

He didn't just

put ink

on paper.

He created

it to function a

certain way, to react in certain

ways, to

just be

a certain way in

any and every

situation.

Because if you take

one

unit

of any type

of material in the whole world and

you apply it to every other

material in the whole

universe,

you're gonna get a

reaction.

And that is

God's

intent for

that thing.

You're not gonna all of a

sudden...

God's not gonna be surprised

if you write on the sun

and it doesn't burn up.

Yeah, you're

not gonna one

day take a piece of

paper and then there's this

firewall that comes up.

It's like, oh, I'm not able to apply

to this thing because

that information...

battle don't have the You pass.

I can't go this

far because this is the boundary line.

It's like, no,

God made it to where

everything has a

reaction.

That's a really interesting thing.

Yeah.

There's no boundaries.

In video games, we have that

idea of, oh, I

can't apply certain things to

other things.

Because it hasn't been programmed yet.

It hasn't been programmed that way.

We got out of programming everything.

The ultimate video game programmer.

Dude.

Jesus is a gamer.

Jesus is an avatar.

Let's not get into that.

Jesus is an avatar of the deaf.

That is crazy.

Wow.

Tell me you love

heresy with that.

I don't.

Just to be clear.

I think it's just funny to

say things in ways

that we don't think It of.

is funny.

But that is crazy.

I have never thought of it that way.

But

we're

never going to get

to that point.

And so

what

we're reading

is surface

level.

In the creation

account.

We're reading.

We got

creatures,

we got plants, we got...

Well no, no.

I see what you mean by surface level.

But to put it another way,

this is a

million

foot

view.

Yeah.

Of

creation.

It's not getting into the nitty gritty.

Well it's like your

cone

visual.

We're only able to see

so much.

And there's so much outside of our

peripherals.

That we're just not

going to...

Can a character

in the

game...

We're getting into some of this.

Listen to me apparently.

Can

a

piece

of creation understand the

creation as a whole?

Is the question.

The creation?

All of creation as

a whole.

Not God.

It's like the cone theory that you

were talking about.

Sort of.

This is a different take on it

though.

I would say...

But understanding

everything that's within

that.

Yeah.

I would say you'd have to

be able

to...

Let's say that

all of creation

stems from

one type

of molecule.

We'll say all of creation

is...

Sure.

X molecule and everything

in all

of existence...

Stems from that.

Is from that.

But you still have to figure out

how

everything came from

that.

Yeah.

So you have to figure out how everything
came

from that.

And then you have to apply

the different

versions

of that thing.

Or those

creations.

And apply it to the rest

of creation.

And if you can do that, then I

think you can understand creation

fully.

But if you can't do that, which you

can't.

Without an eternity

of time.

No, that's a good argument.

But here's another one that

I thought of.

So if God

created all of the universe

and then gave

us all knowledge

of how the entire

universe was created.

How everything works, how everything

is made, how everything

functions together

in its

entirety.

Which would be ridiculous.

Our brains would be the size of the

solar

system.

Actually, no, it would be the same size
because

God's insane like that.

That's funny.

But if you knew

everything about the universe, the

one thing that you would not

know is how the

heck God was able to do that.

How did

he stuff all that information to

your brain, dude?

And even if you knew,

you don't know for sure.

You don't know like

you weren't

there for it.

Like there's a difference

between knowing and

knowing, you know?

You not mean, you not mean,

dude?

Yeah, basically off that point,

I don't think it is possible.

Just because

alone in this

fact,

there have been many people

that have known

many different

languages,

but they can't understand

all of them.

Fair.

And guess what God did in the

afternoon?

He created

all of those languages.

Yeah,

and again, it...

That's just one subsection

of human

knowledge.

We can think about...

Human knowledge, not

universal,

like the whole universe

of knowledge.

Yeah.

Well,

think about the

firmament, right?

Good point.

We have

the

firmament

that's referenced

in the Bible,

but

that

is a human

articulation

of something

that I...

I don't think

I'm compelled to

believe that we actually know entirely

what it is.

the What firmament is.

Yeah.

Like is it just

the space

between

the

earth and

the

space

outside of

our atmosphere,

or is it

beyond

that?

How would

Moses

have known that?

Yeah.

I think we see John

writing down revelations

and he has no

idea what he's writing down.

The angel just tells him to

write it down.

So do you think Moses was

sort of doing

the same thing?

God's like, here's a scientific word and

Moses is like, sure,

I'll write that down.

I think

he

had

the

language for

it.

I think he

had—because—we're

getting back into my

book—because

the word

determination

is completely terminated.

Okay,

so you have to take

the data that you

have and you have to

come up with a

boundary line.

You have to

do

whatever you possibly

can

to

just

answer whatever

problem you're trying

to

answer or solve

or whatever.

You

have to

take whatever limited time that you

have and you

have to just

come up

with something.

Or whatever makes the most

sense is what you're going to

completely terminate

to.

You're going

to cancel

out everything else that doesn't make
sense

and you're going to be like, this is the
only thing that

makes sense.

And so that's language.

I mean,

at the end of the day, I don't think we've

really understand language, but

because

I think

that Adam

was

created and he

just spoke.

And so language just

was.

And then he named

all the creatures, right?

Yeah, that's proof for my

argument.

He knew how to

speak, but he didn't know how

he knew how to speak.

Yeah, so it's just

these sounds and then

if you think about every

other—or

it sounds that are directed

at specific

things.

Sounds that represent— I make this

sound and you understand

it because I'm

looking at the sound.

Or when you're a child, it's like,

hey, this is, ugh,

and that's

ugh, and then, you know,

and— With the slight inversion.

Yeah,

and that's what ends

up being

language,

right?

And we have to

just

take whatever sounds

that we hear

and give them a name.

And agree upon it.

And agree upon it.

And, you

know, as we have

developed as people, we've

just come up with

whatever makes sense.

Isn't that just another

form of magic?

Doesn't that just boggle your mind?

Yeah, language.

I mean,

do we fully

understand

how the voice box works?

I don't even think we understand

how cells work, to be

honest with you.

Do we fully understand sound?

Just because of

cell neuron

inputs.

Even with sound

and

language,

like the

interpretation between,

like what you're saying, is

sound,

you have to realize,

too, that there

might be different inputs

that from the ear

canal,

that it takes in and sends

to your brain.

Each word is different.

Yeah.

Electrical signals.

So I don't think we— How does it even

do that?

Yeah.

And that's always the question,

right?

It's like, okay, we understand

that gravity works a certain way,

but like— Where did the

gravity come from?

We don't know, dude!

We don't know.

We still don't know.

And we still— Are we looking for a

particle, maybe?

Yeah.

But

then

we're gonna find that

particle, and because it's gonna happen,
we're gonna be

like, so how does this

particle do

this thing?

Like, we know that we can

make sound.

We know that it's two

things that are kind of doing

whatever.

But how?

Why?

What's happening?

There's always a new question.

Yeah.

Always.

What's the point?

I don't know.

But I think we need to

make our way back to the trees.

But so

when it comes to the knowledge

of good and

evil,

right?

Right.

That's where we tend to—

Is the knowledge.

So—

Like, we can know.

There's something interesting

about this topic.

So we're talking about

limited knowledge, right?

We don't understand sound.

We don't understand

gravity

necessarily, like,

fully.

And there's always gonna be more
questions, right?

But

the

knowledge

of

good and evil,

is that

the same?

What do you mean?

Is that the same?

Do

we

come to the same

questions of why?

Like, always having more

questions about—

About evil?

About good and evil.

Why is it good?

Why is it evil?

Yeah.

No.

How do you understand what is

good fire or what is evil?

that's

true that's a good

point

because

why it's something

that has to be taught

in

the fact of

like

I'm gonna

touch the stove

it's hot is it

good or is it bad

but that's like

that's

like

well

you know

that's not a

moral

issue that's more of a

consequence

of the way

the world is created yeah

this

tree

is basically the tree of

morality

and

I would say I

think we all are born

with the concept of what is

moral and what is not

right

and

where does that come from

but my initial

reaction was

no

we don't debate these things if

we really are honest with

ourselves

but

then I thought

about it and we do

debate these things mm

-hmm but why does it

be amongst Christians we debate

these things yeah

but

should we

yes if we were

yes why

because in the

way

God

basically knows what is good

and what is wrong

telling you I don't know

how to speak today

he

knows what is best

and

he knows the right answers

you could ask him

every single question and

it's he's

going to know the answer

no matter what

even

on moral

questions

and I'd say

especially in one question oh

yeah oh yeah well especially

um the

most

funniest

thing I've ever seen

is like

adults

asking toddlers like

what do you think

about this and they

flat -out just

say it they

think as

you said I think

in a way they

do know it what

is morally good

and what is morally wrong

because they don't

really tell lies

as much as

like we would

like they they

don't have a

good

filter

for themselves yet

yeah yeah

because we always filter

what we're saying through

a lens of like is this

gonna be good for me if I say this

hmm

and so

I think we do the

same thing in our minds of like is

this gonna be good for me if I believe

this hmm

and most of the time

it's not because

what is ultimately

good we

don't do

and so

if we are going

to believe that then we have

to believe that we are

miserable

liars

miserable

haters

miserable

murderers

we're just like we

are evil

to our core

and no

one wants to believe that

not

a

single soul wants to believe that they're

evil even Hitler

thought he was

he wanted to believe

that he was doing good for Germany

he was doing good for the world

by exterminating the Jews

and

don't ask me why

I have no idea

but

that's a common thread is

like you look at criminals that

do horrible

atrocities

to other people and

they

justified

it in a way that

to them

it

seems like it was necessary

it seems like it was not

only necessary but it was good

no and they

were somehow the good guy in the

story but is that

is that the same

as

the questions

of

like we have

sound and the deeper we

go into sound the more questions we

have of why

is it

the same question of why

so

I'll throw out a

scenario

because

it

there

is

a

technical gray area

at least in

our society

but

abortion

right

so

there's a there

is a sense of a

gray area

granted

it

is

it

is found

in

the

minority

and it's not

to say that a

minority doesn't

matter

but

in a vast

understanding of data

you don't take

the outlier and be like oh this

defines the data can

you explain what the gray area

is the gray area is

you know if

the mother is going to

die

or

also

if this was a

rape situation

these two things

it's like should I keep

this child

to

live or should I keep this

child so that,

you know, I don't have this

reminder of this rape or

whatever.

And then this

idea of, you know,

I'm,

or excuse me, a woman

is in control of her

body, her body,

her decision, right?

So there's that

those types of

gray areas where

it's like, okay, yeah, rape is

awful and

having a child from

that is awful

in

some way, shape

or form.

And yes, you know, if you

are going to die, like

that sucks.

And that's not like

you dying

or the child dying.

Like, that's

weird.

Like, I don't

know,

excuse me, I do know

what reaction I went

out.

But that's not

an everybody

thing.

Not everybody is going to have the

same reaction, obviously.

And so,

but does that still

come to the point of why?

Why do we have those questions?

Why is this a

morally gray

area for

this?

Or do we know?

What is the right choice?

What is the right choice?

And we're just

suppressing the truth.

I think it's because we don't,

we can't truly understand

it.

I see your point there,

Stephen, because it's like,

we don't know where

this, I mean,

we know where this

morality comes from.

It comes from God.

And it comes from God's character.

And his character is consistent.

And he lays it out

in

good detail.

I wouldn't say perfect detail, but good

detail in the Bible.

The reason I don't say

perfect detail is because you would

need

infinity

to understand God.

And even still, you would be

scratching the surface

barely.

So, in that way, there

is a question

of what

is God's character in the

situation, right?

Even the Bible doesn't

present an answer

to where does a

child go if he dies

before he can

make

even

a thought of

like,

should

I

trust

that

Jesus

died for my sins and

God raised him from the death?

Right?

Does that child go to heaven?

And the Bible doesn't really

speak to that

all too much.

And so I think,

yeah, there is

moral,

quote unquote, moral gray

areas

of

what

is right and wrong.

But I think our initial

reaction of

like,

we do know what's right,

and we choose

to believe what's convenient

is

a huge player

in the field.

Because what the Bible

says about the heart,

the heart is

deceitful above

all things, right?

Don't believe it.

Don't live by

it.

Because you'll be

led astray

in

every single

possible

way.

And I think there's a point that

needs to be

made.

And granted, I feel

I'm often

a

source of

generalizations.

Oversimplification maybe

is a better way of putting

it.

In general.

I think it's

interesting.

I'm gonna

throw this out

here.

And you guys have the reaction

that you want.

But

the

scenario

in which I struggle

with the most is not the rape

one.

But it's

trying to

decide

who

lives.

Is it

the

mom?

Or is it the child?

Not because,

I mean,

in the moment, I know what

decision I would make.

What decision would you make?

It would be the child.

Really?

And it's the child

because—and

I would get so much hate for this.

I wouldn't want to be your wife.

But it's the child

because,

one, that is

my offspring.

That is my

legacy.

That is the

continue—not necessarily my legacy,

but that is

a

person that

can grow and has more life

to live beyond

me,

beyond my family, beyond

my wife,

obviously beyond my wife, if

she is at risk of dying.

And that's not to say

that the child

has more purpose,

but in a sense more

opportunity because it it's has more

life to live now.

And, you know, if

it's my wife,

and she's the one that's

gonna die,

it's not,

you know, I'm not

valuing

her life

based off of

how much time she has.

But,

you know,

it's like we set out to

have a

child that we want to seek

a row.

And now we're gonna go

and

kill

that child.

And, you know, it's not

a one to one.

But if you think about it, like,

as

a

father,

I'm gonna

go and

die.

100%, a million

times out of a million times

for my child,

if there's anything that

comes in the way

between me and my

child, I'm gonna go

and die.

If it is pretty

clear that I'm gonna go and die, if I have
to

go and fight a freakin army,

I'm gonna go and fight that freakin army.

My child is gonna be running.

I'm gonna hold back the army.

I don't care.

And it,

but it's like,

that's my child.

Of course, I'm gonna die

for the child.

Of course, I'm gonna let the child live.

They have more, like,

I'm,

I would think I would want my

wife to value her

child's life above

her own.

And I would,

I would dare

say that I,

I think that

God

would

want us to

value the children's

life above

our own.

I think so.

Because it's a, it's

a, it's a weird form

of, of

service.

But again, I struggle with

this.

Because it's like,

well,

I want to keep the wife,

you know, I want her to

stay around.

I,

you know,

and,

you know,

there's any number of

things in

which could create the

scenario.

But that's,

you know, but at the same time,

it's like, well,

but the child, you know,

we made the child

it's it's

half and half of us.

Yeah.

So I think this actually

answers a question.

Maybe.

Because we can debate like

this moral gray area.

But the fact the moral gray

areas exist.

I feel like answers the

question.

You're, you're crazy,

dude.

What?

Well, you're reading my mind.

Let's just give her an opinion on it

first.

Yeah, I'll give my opinion.

So in my opinion,

I would,

I would

save

if

my wife was out, and

she wasn't part of the decision making

process,

which of course, I would talk to her

before.

Sure.

And

if

this scenario happens,

what do we want to do?

But ultimately, I feel my

calling as the husband is

to lay

down my life

for my wife.

Yeah.

Because the picture of marriage

is of Jesus

and the church.

Yeah.

And a child is

the fruit

of

that

marriage.

Yeah.

It's a blessing from God.

But at the

end

of

the day, marriage makes it really

complex.

And we have to make really

difficult decisions

that crazy

to be that we're on the

same

wavelength.

I'm gonna explain later, but

yes.

And it's it's kind of

has,

I mean, you guys

have probably played this game, like,

would you rather,

you know, and

then someone gives you a scenario that

you'd rather just, you know,

never had that.

Yeah, just right.

Let's not do it.

Yeah,

I want to play this game no more.

I know it's just a game, but like,

come on,

that's a horrible

choice I have

to make.

And I think that's the same scenario

here.

Right.

This is a horrible choice you

have to make no matter what.

Yeah.

To let the child live,

or to let your wife live,

and to be the one who has

to make that decision.

How do you think God feels?

Do I let my

son live?

Or do I

command

him

to

die for his

bride?

Yeah.

So now flip the situation,

Michael, your grandpa now,

we're about to be sure.

And your son is making this decision.

He comes to you says, Hey,

my wife is either gonna die

or

the

our child is gonna

make it.

What do I do?

I would say,

son,

you need to

prioritize

your wife

over

that child.

because

of

what Jesus

did

for us,

and because of how

God commanded

his son to lay down his life

for his bride.

You aren't to lay down your

life for your

child,

you're to lay your life down for the

bride.

And it's

so

sad that

you have to make this decision.

You shouldn't ever

have to make this decision.

This is a result

of the

fall.

This is the curse.

This is sin.

That phrase is a really good

point, but I want to hear

what Stephen has to say

in this

before

we move on.

I think I mainly agree with

Daniel.

Just in the

fact that I'm going to go back to

it,

God is

the head of the church.

The church is

the

body,

and we

are basically the image of

that.

So the father

is

God,

the mother is

the church,

and

the kids

could be Adam

and Eve,

basically a boy and a girl.

And so

you are supposed to

prioritize

your wife

more over

your children,

and

I

do believe that's where it lies.

I've had a clear

understanding of this.

There's a house fire,

I would say.

I may not get

saved.

I may not get

help,

so I must fend for

myself

being Adam.

I am in the wilderness.

I have no

other choice.

If this is the end, this

is the end.

If not,

it's on me.

Totally on me.

So

that's

where I lie.

And let's bring up

this scenario.

Like you guys were saying,

if it was your

life or the

child's life,

and the wife had no say

in it,

I would sacrifice my life

instantly.

Instantly,

without a thought.

If it was

my

wife's life

or the child's

life,

it would be an absolutely

hard debate

in my mind.

But I think my

mind would absolutely

go to,

and

I'm

not saying I wouldn't regret it

for the rest of my life.

It would go to my

wife,

unfortunately.

I

mean,

Daniel brought up a good

point that

it

has

to be a conversation, right?

It can't just be,

oh, I'm just gonna make this decision,

or she's just gonna make the

decision.

No, you are one.

Yeah,

that's what I was gonna say.

You're one.

You're a unit.

You don't separate.

You don't make those decisions

separately,

especially those types of decisions.

And you make them

together, and

you have to

consult her on

her perspective.

I mean, because in that moment,

I think it would definitely be important

to be like, okay, hey, this is

your body.

And granted, it is

also mine,

because I'm your

husband, but

you

have to endure

this.

And this is the other tough

part that

you may have to explain, just

like,

and this is

super

survival

thought.

This is just one

kid.

We can have another.

Yeah.

It's the unfortunate

truth, for

sure.

And I don't even

like to say this,

but

you

can always have another kid.

Yeah,

I

definitely

thought about that, too,

when

he

was talking.

Yeah,

it's…

It is.

And the

unfortunate,

really unfortunate part

about that is that

the child

being born

doesn't

have any practical

uses,

I guess.

They're just taking from

you.

And granted, yes, that

absolutely… I'm not saying

that shouldn't be

important.

I'm not saying that they have no value.

I'm saying that, you know, for

actual

sense.

sense.

But what I was gonna say

actually in regards

to,

I guess more on your guys'

perspective is,

I think—this

is out there,

so bear with

me—but

what you said

about

how

God

basically—I

mean, gave up His Son.

And we see that

with

Abraham as well,

with Isaac,

and how there

is this

sacrificing

of

your

offspring

for

the—I

mean,

greater good, I guess,

which is

in this

sense the church

or

the unity

between God and the church, right?

What did you say?

And correct me if I'm

wrong, I could absolutely

butcher the

names

between this.

Wasn't it Abraham that

God

asked

if he would

sacrifice his Son

on the mountain?

Yeah, yeah, that's what I was alluding

to.

Okay, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sorry, my bad.

No, you're good.

Okay,

so

again,

this is kind of out there.

Maybe that is

a

good

argument

for

the idea that

God

doesn't

send

children

or

the

unborn or

whatever

list of people

to

hell.

Because I think,

granted, Isaac was

older,

but

I

wonder if

God

would have sent Isaac to hell

if Abraham

had

actually killed him.

We don't know

if

Isaac was

saved or not.

Right, and then that's— And

also the function of salvation

back then.

Sure.

But it's this

idea that

God

would

sacrifice

His Son

on the mountain.

I mean, even with God,

it's

a—excuse

the language, but it's a shit choice.

Sure.

God had the

ultimate, would you

rather,

and He chose

us

over

His Son.

Yeah.

But at the

same time,

technically, His Son is

Himself.

So He chose to

sacrifice

Himself,

which to

your point is But still— we're talking

about the Father and God the

Son.

Right.

So we can't just—

But He sacrificed a part

of Himself is really comes it to.

We what can't even say that.

Well, no, no, We're going to get

into heresy here.

Well, no, I'm saying

because Jesus

is God

and so—

He's just like, oh,

I'm going to

endure

what

man endures

and then some

and take on the sin

in which I

have

never—He hasn't

touched.

Someone's got to pay the consequences.

And so He's

sacrificing—He's

not like

losing

anything

because

He's whole and He's

perfect, but He's

taking on

an

extreme

offense

even

greater

than

us just

sinning against Him.

He's like, oh, I'm just going to take

all the sin.

I'm going to experience

all of it, basically,

which is

awful.

Yeah, and I'm not

sure

I—the

way that I explain forgiveness

is totally—

accurate

because

the offended

still pays the

price.

God was the offended.

Jesus paid the price.

So was Jesus dying on the

cross the picture of

God's

state of

offense?

Or was it

God pouring

out on His Son, God

the Father pouring out on His

Son,

His

need

of justice?

Right.

Because that's His

character.

Right.

Was it a picture?

Was it a fulfillment of His justice?

I would say it's more

a fulfillment of

His justice than a

picture.

I will never

understand the function

entirely of the

cross and why it

had to be that way.

But I know it's one

of the most foolish

ways.

You just answered the question.

For it to be done.

Yeah.

You just answered my question.

Okay.

The initial question about

if

morality

or

if this good and

evil comes

to a

why question.

Okay.

And we'll continue to

come to a why question

because what you

just said is

we

don't

understand

the fullness of the

cross in that

we don't really

like, we understand that God

said that

the forgiveness of sins

is through the

blood of the lamb, right?

But we

don't…but why,

right?

Yeah.

And so it… What's

the math?

And then it keeps going, right?

So… Why does

humanity

sin

minus

Jesus equals zero?

I have no clue.

Yeah.

No idea.

It's an interesting math.

Well, and

so…yeah,

that's… I have a vague

concept.

Sure.

But all of that comes from what

God revealed in His Word.

Yeah.

And even still,

I have questions.

And that's sort of where

the

faith

has to come in

and just

believe God

at what

He said,

that it is fulfilled,

that it is totalist, that

it is finished.

So I have a question.

Kind of

deviating away from

what we've been on.

Why the tree

of the knowledge of good and evil?

Why not the tree of life?

What do you mean?

I feel like that's…I feel

like…

I think since God

created life

Himself,

why would there need to be a

tree of life at that

point?

Yeah.

Is that what you meant?

Sorry.

No.

It's more like why

would

He

say, don't eat this

tree and not of the other

tree?

Because I feel

like

trying

to live forever

could

almost be

a

slightly

greater offense.

Because knowledge…because trying

to live forever is basically

like, oh, I'm

going…is another

sense of, oh, I'm going to be

God.

Because now that I can live

forever,

I can

achieve that.

It's like the Tower of

Babel.

It's like, oh, the higher I get,

the more that I can

do, you

know, whatever,

the

more that

I'm capable of…

I mean, I see AI

as kind

of

the Tower of Babel.

The further I can get,

the closer God

I can get.

And so,

I mean,

it's

the even

greater…maybe

we

just see this now, but it's

the hubris of

man thinking,

oh, if I have enough time,

I can achieve

anything, right?

There's a lot of stories about that.

Yeah.

And so,

I'm

just kind of throwing out this question,

but I think

it's interesting that it was not

the tree of life

that

this

issue

arose with,

but it's the tree of the

knowledge of good and evil.

Would the…well,

here's two questions for

you.

Would the tree

of life lead to

any bad

at that point?

I

guess…well,

to

Daniel's point,

do the trees

actually hold any

kind of power, or

is it just the act

that is…or the intent

in which

the

significance… Or

rather what

God's…

No tree of knowledge.

There's just a tree of life.

Like, no tree of knowledge, no tree

of good.

I mean,

evil,

I bet.

Just a tree of life.

Would there be any

wrongs

within that tree?

Within the tree of life itself?

Yes.

So, that was the only tree?

And I would

say no

just because

God said

when He created

everything,

even life,

this is good.

Hmm.

I would I would say no.

there would not be.

That's fine.

Okay.

Do you think us discussing

morality

is

in

effect the results

of the tree

of the knowledge of good and

evil?

Probably.

So at its core, are we

discussing...

Well,

I guess us discussing is not an

eating of the tree, but

eating

of the tree

is

man's

hubris to think

that the creation can

understand the creation.

From the creator's perspective.

Do you

think we'll ever be able to

understand the

moral gray area?

On this life?

I...

So

going

back to that

actually

depends.

Sorry,

I'm going back to when we were

talking about those scenarios.

But the track that

you were

on

had to

do

with...

We've made jokes about it in

the anchor group, but

this is a result of

the fall.

And so

the question

almost

shouldn't be,

is this like,

which is the right answer,

or which one's bad,

which one's wrong, or

whatever.

It's all bad.

All bad.

And

the

reality is that

the fact that

you even get the

chance to think that I'm going to

abort my child

apart from

those scenarios

is

just all bad.

Killing life

is just

not good.

We know that

death...

It's not the initial design.

Yeah.

We know that death is just

awful.

And we don't feel good about death.

No, we know that.

Yeah.

And we know that.

And so

to

go back to

me being...

To overgeneralizing things,

I almost don't want to have

the conversation,

the debate.

Because if we're

talking about which

is bad and which

is good,

the answer is...

Both.

They're both bad.

It's like, that's not the right

question.

What's the right question?

Because it's not about

whether this is good or

bad.

It's that this is awful, that

we have to endure this, like you're

saying.

I'd rather not have

gone through this at all.

Like, can we choose option

C?

Yeah.

Is there an option?

No, thank you.

Yeah.

But it's like, we're in the midst

of this because of the

fall.

And so it's not a question of, is

this good or bad?

It's a question of, which

decision am I going to make?

And can

I

live

with that?

And the answer to both

questions in the

scenario of why for

child is yes,

I can glorify God with

both options.

And it's the

difference between

like, oh, which job do I choose?

Like, do I choose this one?

Oh, I can glorify God over here.

Like, that's fine.

Do I choose this one?

It's like, oh, I can glorify God over
here.

But it's the awful

version of that where it's like, oh,

I can glorify God

with my child or I

can glorify God with my wife.

So you're saying

that's the neutrally

moral and

the

morally

gray is,

in effect, the

same

consequentially.

Yeah.

Well, I wouldn't say consequentially,

morally.

But meaning

you can choose one or

the other and you're not making a bad

choice or you're not making a wrong

choice.

Mm.

Sinful choice.

Sure.

To be specific.

Yeah.

But the morally

gray is

the

result

of sin and

the result of the curse.

And we,

no matter the choice we make

in that situation, it's

all bad.

Yeah.

Well,

a moral neutral

area

would be,

like you said, should I choose job

A or B?

Yeah.

Like either one,

whatever.

You know, like both of them are blessing.

Yeah.

Well, and I would even

say

that,

granted, this is

further

speculation, but like,

we don't live the ways, the

ways, yeah, the ways that we

do

because,

I would say,

because of God's intent.

I think,

honestly,

we'd still be living hundreds of

years

and childbearing

wouldn't

be the way that it

is.

Jobs wouldn't be the way that they

are.

Families wouldn't be the way that they
are.

Well, we wouldn't have

the need

for

selfish

incentive structures.

Yeah.

And it's...

I personally think we'd be

more selfish, to be honest

with you.

What do you mean by that?

Like just think about how

like

when you age, you

become...

Like they say that you become

more self -centered.

Right.

I think even

if you were

to live

longer,

you would just become more

selfish.

But that's...

Prefall.

Yeah.

We're talking about prefall.

So before

the eat of the

fruit of knowledge of good and

evil,

like we would

just be

working

and

having dominion over

the earth.

We wouldn't need to close.

Hold on.

We wouldn't need to build structure.

Hold on.

We wouldn't need to do all these every...

Hold on.

I know you're making a great point.

Sure.

You just said something that

sort of opened my eyes.

The knowledge of good and evil

makes people selfish,

makes people sinful.

Here's how.

Okay.

I'm ready.

By the way, this

all...

I mean, naturally, of course it

would, but it feeds into

the next portion

of the podcast.

And I'm so hyped about it.

Perfect.

Because it

really...

I could have

written it better myself and I should
write

it.

So here's how.

If you don't know

how your

decision is going to

affect your

outcome,

how do you make the wrong

decision?

How do you make the selfish decision?

You said

so many things

in such a small amount of

time.

Please say that.

If you don't know how,

if

you don't know good and evil, the
difference

between the two, how

are

you as

a creation

that God

made to be good,

supposed to choose

wrong,

and know

that the choice you're

making

is

good for yourself

and bad

for others?

Okay.

This is wild.

I love this question.

Okay.

Anything that they do,

is it a moral issue?

There it is.

Then it goes back to the thing that

we were talking about.

Do animals get into heaven?

Well,

we all know my opinion.

Yeah.

I agree.

But I hope

they get into heaven.

I hope.

No, I think so.

Just alone

in the fact

of,

we were the ones that did

something wrong.

They didn't.

All the creation cries out.

Romans 8.

But also,

they get to suffer,

all the creation suffers because of what

we did, like you said.

But also,

since there is no moral

question, like God

didn't say, hey animals,

here's the tree of life, you may

eat of it.

Here's the tree of good and evil.

Don't eat of

this.

I bet you like zebras

or zebras, what do we call it?

We're walking up giraffes, we're walking

up, eating up the knowledge of good

and evil.

And God wasn't like

batting an eye at

it.

It's not a moral issue, like you

said, for them.

And so why would there

be a

giraffe in hell?

Or a giraffe

not existing

anymore?

Why would God not just

bring that giraffe

back?

I think this is something that we want to

talk about more.

Because it's coming up twice

now.

It has, yeah.

I don't necessarily want to touch on that.

No, no.

It's the idea

that

creatures,

and really

how I guess our

world works, which I don't think

necessarily

changed

due

to

the fall.

But sorry,

herbivores,

they go and

they eat plants

to live.

And then

the

herbivore gets killed

and eaten

by a

carnivore.

And maybe that

carnivore...

But before there was no

carnivores,

right?

Before the fall, pre -fall,

there was no carnivores,

right?

How do we know that?

How would the carnivores eat?

They ate plants.

That's a whole different topic.

Let's address that.

Well,

So

even further, how

about, or

different,

when it rains,

rocks deteriorate.

Okay.

Is that sinful in and of itself?

It's not, well,

it's not even, I don't know, it's

even very close to a moral

issue.

It's just how it works.

Right.

So that distinguishes

destruction

from

morality.

Right.

That distinguishes a bad

day from a good

day and

good.

And sin.

Right.

Well, I don't think it just distinguishes

a good day from a bad day.

I think it's just

that it,

creation

is

functioning the way that God

intended, no matter

what,

other than

man, because

of sin in the world.

So if we were

to not

eat

of the knowledge

of the fruit of the

knowledge of good and evil,

like you said, we wouldn't

know

because

whatever

we did would just

be a

result of

how God

intended us to

act.

We would be working,

we'd be naming, we'd be

having domain.

It'd be the same as the animals.

The animals would just, I mean,

whether or not they're eating other

animals,

it's not the point.

It's not the point.

And they are still doing

things in which God

intended

because...

They don't know anything else.

They don't know anything else.

And I think that's a great point.

That's, I've never thought about that.

That's crazy.

Well, here's to bolster that.

What did Adam and Eve do

immediately after eating from the

tree of good and evil?

They cover themselves up

and hid.

cover They themselves up.

Why?

Let's pull it up.

That's interesting.

Well, I mean,

I'm pretty sure it says that they were

ashamed.

Well, why?

Why would they have to feel ashamed?

Let's see here.

All right.

Starting from chapter

three,

where

the serpent is discussing with

Eve.

Let's start in verse four.

But the serpent said to the woman, you
will

not surely die for God

knows that when you eat

of it, your eyes

will be opened and you will

be like God knowing

good and evil.

Your eyes will be

opened.

I

have

the answer, but no, continue.

So when the woman saw

that the tree was good for food

and that it was a delight to the

eyes and that the tree was

to be desired to make one

wise,

she took of its fruits and

ate.

And she also gave some to

her husband who was with

her and he ate.

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 a man and his

wife hid

themselves from the

presence of the Lord

God

among the trees of the

garden.

So let me reread

this.

Hold on.

Go to the end

of

verse

11.

Have you eaten

of the tree

which I commanded you

not to eat?

No, I'm sorry.

I was just reading

until

nine.

Oh, I see what you mean.

Let me start from seven.

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 walking in the garden

in the cool of the day

and the man and his

wife hid themselves from the

presence of the Lord God among the

trees of the garden.

But the Lord God

called to man

to the man

and said to him,

where are you?

And he said, I

heard the sound of you in the garden

and I was afraid because

I was naked

and I hid myself.

God said,

who told you that you

were naked?

Have you

eaten of the tree which I

commanded you

not to eat?

How did.

What?

Okay.

Huge question here.

What is good and evil?

Good day, bad day?

No.

So, okay.

If God is good,

what is evil?

Not God?

Not God.

What

technically

before

creation

was not

of God?

Nothing.

But we have

the presence of the

serpent

in the

garden,

which is.

Which is

not

God,

but

is

a serpent.

Yes,

but Jesus.

No, definitely.

I'm getting

Sunday

School Flapbacks.

No,

we're not.

It would

be evil.

Yeah.

So it's, I mean,

it's speculation that

the serpent is the devil,

right?

So what is good and

evil?

It's the knowledge of the

spiritual

realm.

Here we go.

So it would be

really, really, really,

really weird

for God

to be like, who

told you that you were naked?

Naked, as

if he knew

that

being naked

was

wrong.

Isn't that odd?

Isn't that strange?

Yeah.

So,

but if he...

Because it wasn't before.

It wasn't.

Now it is, for sure.

Now...

go If you walking around naked, you're
gonna get

arrested.

Yeah.

But it's the idea

that

God

understood this

concept of

nakedness and why

it would be

not good or why they would

be feeling the way that they

are, right?

And he asked them,

who told you,

right?

And it was not

God.

It was not an angel.

Well, I mean,

it was a fallen angel,

assumedly, right?

No, no, no.

No, Satan didn't tell

him.

Right, right, right.

But it just knew.

No, no.

I'm saying

it's

the fact that

they are

now subject to the

spiritual world.

So they see it.

So there's the forces of

darkness, right, that are lying

to you.

And then there's the forces of

light, which

are telling you the truth,

right?

So are you saying that it's the fact

that they listened

and obeyed

the...

It's the fact that when you

gain the knowledge of good and

evil,

you can hear both

sides.

Ooh.

And so both sides

has influence.

Yeah.

Why would evil win

over good?

It wouldn't.

Why did it in this situation?

It didn't.

It didn't.

They clothed

themselves with loincloths.

I mean,

it's not that it

won necessarily, it's that they chose

it.

They wanted it.

But we choose it constantly.

Yeah.

Why does it win every time?

I don't know.

Why would God allow it?

Well, I have an answer for that.

Can we circle back to that?

I think we should actually answer that

first.

Why?

I think that'll help.

No, it's a huge tangent.

Oh, okay.

Well,

I mean, it's

the

idea that

we

have the option of choice,

right?

And choosing against God is

a choice,

right?

So obviously they did

that,

but they didn't necessarily

understand

why, right?

They didn't have any

knowledge

of...

Like why it was wrong.

The rest of the world, I would

say.

They didn't have this

knowledge.

All they knew was that they're in a

garden.

God told them what to

do, who to be.

And they

deviated from that.

And now that

deviation has

opened their eyes and their ears

to every other

kind of

thing that could be communicated

to them.

And obviously the first thing they do

is they see with their eyes,

right?

What's going on

was being

communicated and

that

it's...

The good is saying

one thing, but

the darkness is

saying,

or the evil is saying another

thing.

But they were aware

of Satan's

voice before

they...

They could hear Satan's

voice,

but just because you look at

something that's

evil doesn't mean that you

understand it.

Doesn't mean you're going to do

it?

It doesn't really

mean anything.

I would look at it as

like

an old

grandfather clock.

You could hear the

chimes in every

15 minutes.

Are you going to pay attention to them
though?

If you don't know what they are.

It's not necessarily if

you know what they are.

If you hear them

every single day,

you get

used to them.

Are you going to pay attention

anymore?

No, it's just part of your world.

Hmm.

Is Is that your idea?

And this is just

speculation, but,

um,

like, let's say

Adam

and Eve are

in

the garden for a

number of days.

They can hear

the voices

of,

and they've had

conversations with God

before,

and

they can hear

Satan

and

his antics,

um,

um,

like trying to course

them into doing

different stuff,

but finally, as he,

like, let's say

it is

Satan himself

as the serpent and

he becomes physical for

him.

Well, now that's different.

Now the

mind can maybe

pay attention to that more.

Yeah.

That's how I would look at

it.

It's just,

well, I can hear

something, but

after

a while it becomes

nothing

at

that point, but once something

changes, then I

notice it.

I think it's,

it's,

so the knowledge of

good and evil, right?

I think part of it is

definitely that they

acknowledged that what they did

was wrong, right?

And because they - That

knowledge with knowledge.

Yeah.

So the,

because they ate of

the fruit, right?

They gained

the

knowledge that what they did was

evil.

And then

that invited

any other lies,

right?

Cause I, I mean,

it's the idea that,

you know, now -

Well, hold on.

Back to your definition of what is

evil.

It's not God.

It was not

God's plan for them to eat of that

tree.

Yeah.

Because he said, don't eat

of this

tree.

Right.

Okay, go on.

So, and, but

I, I said that

it's, it's

knowledge of the

spiritual,

right?

Because there's a constant

war

going on between

good and

evil.

And so

everything,

whether or not we

see it this way or

whatever,

everything is,

is tied to that.

So,

and again, I'm obviously

speculating, but

it's,

it's the idea that

they just

made a

moral,

a morally wrong

decision

and

they are reaping the

consequences of that.

And the consequences

of it are the

knowledge of getting,

or of ha - of basically having to

experience the rest

of these spiritual

battles going on around

them.

Ooh.

Okay.

Do you see what I'm saying?

Sort of.

So

going

back to your definition again,

a morally wrong

decision

is

one that is taken

in

absence of God,

whether it's

what

God would have said to do

or not.

And proof of that is

what Paul says.

If you know what you've

done is wrong

and you

do it,

it, for you,

it is sin.

It is sin.

Which means

practically

you could do

X

and

be totally fine.

Yeah.

Because for you, that's not

a sin.

Yeah.

But somehow.

Because,

because you didn't know

that it was

a sin.

But because I

knew X was a

sin and I

did it anyways,

it is a

sin.

So it's directly

related to knowing whether

something is God's plan

or not.

So as soon as they ate

from the tree, when God said,

don't eat from this tree,

they chose to do something

that God said

not to do.

Another way of looking at it, they became

a part of the war.

Say it again.

They became a part of the war.

So the spiritual battle that's

going on between good

and evil,

we chose to basically

become a part

of that.

If we hadn't,

we wouldn't know that there was

a war going on.

And what do people do when

they don't know when a war is going

on?

They just live their lives.

Blissful ignorance.

Blissful ignorance.

With a God who can

protect you from everything because he
created

it all.

Yeah.

And your...

Inconsequential blissful ignorance.

You're really just choosing

him because there's nothing

else.

And there's nothing else of worth.

Yeah.

Which means you can literally choose

everything.

And it's all good.

You could choose to be walking around

that

whole garden.

Well, what a snake it.

And it's totally fine.

Well, and if you think about it,

like a lot of As the soon as But sins…
soon as

you...

choose

what is

wrong,

the only thing that God

told you not to do,

now whatever you

think is wrong is.

And if you think about it,

a lot of the

opportunities

of sin have to

really just do with

the things that

man has created.

Let me

say that again.

The things that man

has created, the things that

man has

developed

pride

in, right?

So… Explain, please.

Like destruction?

So think about

the first murder,

right?

Cain and Abel.

Both of

them

worked

to

do the thing

that

God wanted, to

whatever, to

provide a sacrifice.

And one of them

showed immense pride

and thought that they were

worthy.

The other one

just

did

what he did.

I mean, there's not necessarily

any intent provided,

but he did what he did.

And,

you

know, there wasn't any

information

about any

pride,

any

puffed

up nature

or ego going

on in the case of

Abel.

Well, let's lay out the

situation.

What did Cain bring?

Cain brought

plants.

What did Abel bring?

Animal.

No.

So Cain brought

plants,

right?

And he brought the fruits of his

labor.

Then Abel brought the

first of the fruits

of his labor.

Oh, right, right, right.

The first,

not only the first,

the best

of the fruits of his

labor.

Yeah.

So Cain

took

pride

in

the first fruits of his labor.

And so he kept them for

himself, which is

obviously self -fact.

Is a misappropriation

of

who

he is

and

how he came about

that blessing.

Yeah.

So,

yeah,

it's

a

misrecognition

of

who you are

in the grand scheme of things.

Yeah.

Like you are

not the one

who created this wonderful

grain,

this wonderful harvest

that you were blessed

to

have.

You are not the one who

watered the plants.

You are not the ones that

created the plants in the first place.

You are not the ones who created

the dirt

that these plants

thrive in.

You weren't the one who created

the

structure of the plant, the

cells of the plant, the way

that it sucks water out of the

soil, the way that it

turns sunlight

into

sugar

and turns sugar

into

activity

and into

work and into

growth and

into blessings

for the rest

of

animals and

mankind.

It's not

you.

You're not David.

I'm on my mind.

You're not

David.

It's not you, dude.

It's not you.

It's God who

created all that.

It's God who deserves the

recognition.

It's God who gave

all of this to you on loan.

If he

wanted

the first,

he would have the first.

And yet he lets you

decide to bring the first or

not.

Why?

Yeah,

and then that's where

obviously

choice

comes in.

Does God even need it?

Right.

No, he doesn't.

Then why?

Why does God want the first?

That brings up

an interesting point about the fact

that...

Because God is first.

People have said

that...

All right, buddy.

God is first.

So in the beginning,

was the word.

Answer?

That's the answer.

That's the answer.

In the beginning, God was the word.

Yeah, was the word.

The word was God.

In the beginning, God...

Dan.

Yeah.

That's why he wants the first fruits.

It's not he wants it.

He is.

He is the first fruits.

It's not that he deserves

it.

That's wild, dude.

It just is.

Yeah.

There's no other way to explain it.

Yeah.

And to try to

go any other direction

is

straight

up wrong.

I'm gonna get some of this chocolate.

I need this.

Wow.

So

there's this idea

that

God,

if God

wasn't a

benevolent,

awesome,

powerful God,

but an evil deity

that wanted to see us

suffer,

it is seen that

the tree of the knowledge

of evil

is

an

opportunity of knowledge,

right?

And so God,

if he is evil,

doesn't

want us to have knowledge.

Thus… Because?

Because he wants us

to just

not

move forward,

not… Well,

he wants to take advantage of us.

Yeah.

He wants to take advantage of us.

And also,

he doesn't want us to

know what we're capable

of and

how great we are

and… And we could be.

Yada, yada,

We could be.

If we have that knowledge, then we can

do this.

And I think that's a

direct… I think that is

literally the

thing that was spouted

into the mind of

man at the instant that they

ate that fruit.

Yeah.

Because obviously… No, The first

sin is of

pride.

Did the tree have

power?

I don't think so.

I think we just

answered that.

Wow, that was a lot of M &Ms all

at once.

No, no, no.

Keep chewing.

So…

Did the tree have power?

No.

We don't know.

No, it did not.

Here's why.

Well, do you think… Well,

this is back on

the previous

question,

but

do

you think God wants us to

look

at

ourselves

in that we are sinful

then?

No.

Before or now?

Either or.

Well, I mean, He wants us to acknowledge
that

we're sinful, for sure.

Because if we don't acknowledge that we're
sinful,

then we don't acknowledge that we need

Him.

And if we don't acknowledge that we need
Him, then

we believe that

we are…

Unsalvageable.

Unsalvageable, or we believe that we're

God.

Yeah,

and therefore

unsalvageable.

Because it's just

wrong.

Sure.

Just is

wrong.

And there's nothing that you can do

about that,

even if you're

God.

Yeah.

So here's why the tree didn't

have any power.

Satan spouted his

idea that

God

just wants to

obstruct the truth.

He wants to take advantage of you.

He wants to

be God.

And that's his thing.

That's his shtick.

He doesn't want you to be

God.

He's jealous.

He wants

you to be

His creation.

And that's it.

It's Daniel Lane,

right?

And as soon as they ate of the

tree,

that

idea…

And this idea

goes against the first

commandment.

Yeah.

That idea went from

an idea to a

belief.

Yeah.

The act of eating

from the tree

is

saying,

God, I don't believe what

you said.

I believe what the

serpent said.

That this tree

will give me knowledge.

That this tree will make

me

understand

the way that you

do so that I can be

like you and

be your competitor.

So it's… It's a

transformation of

belief.

Because… You brought up the

fact

that

the

world… Our

unbelievers don't

know the truth.

They can maybe… They

can read the Bible.

They can maybe

articulate things better

than any Christian could.

They can

understand the

concepts.

They can

get

it all figured out.

They can have all the knowledge.

And

if it's not

transformative,

it's useless.

And that's why I keep

saying like… like,

knowledge is useless without

application.

And that's not to

say that you

can...

Well, okay.

I'm not gonna say

that.

But it's

to say

that they applied

their

knowledge

of

whatever the serpent

said

and

they're

like, well,

and then they just

straight up ignored

what God said

and

they questioned it.

Yeah.

And...

They said, God, we don't believe you.

Yeah.

We believe this snake.

And so,

I

think I'd agree

with you to some degree.

I think there could be

power in the fruit.

It doesn't necessarily matter.

But the fact that they

took their knowledge and they

applied it

in

it's watered

the

seeds

of

sin,

basically.

I got something.

Okay.

I got something for you guys.

Did they, after eating the fruit,

actually know more than they did

before?

Or did they just

believe they did?

You're talking about

basically the placebo

effect.

Yeah, sort of.

Not exactly that,

but the aspect

of it.

Right.

Was

Satan

right?

Was the serpent right that

they

would become like God,

knowing the difference

between knowledge

of evil

and knowledge of

good?

I

think...

I don't think so.

No.

I mean...

Of course the serpent was

wrong.

Of course.

They didn't know...

I would say that

there's an

aspect

that they would become

like God

because of

knowing the difference between good and

evil.

I disagree.

Ready?

Okay.

Can I get my...

Sure, sure.

Thing first.

I know I'm cutting you off,

but...

I think it's

the

perceived

of,

like we were saying,

thinking

that it's

me

in a

way.

Like I'm just

as good,

even though

probably

in the back of their minds they

knew they would never

be even

close to being

equal.

But it's just the

thought

that

it's kind of like

in

the aspect of like car

salesmen,

you sell the dream,

not the product.

Yeah.

No, I see what you mean.

I'm on the same page.

Do you want to continue or do you want to

lay it out?

Go ahead.

All right.

I'll let you do it.

Crazy.

All right.

So

they

didn't actually know anything

more or less than what

they had before.

The tree of

the knowledge of good and evil did

not just download

a

library into their

brains.

It did not.

Here's the evidence.

God said

that they could walk around

this garden

naked.

And that was good.

Indirectly.

That was fine.

And then all of a sudden

they ate of this tree because

they believed what

the serpent said over what God

said.

And now they're believing

being

naked is

bad when

God indirectly said,

it's fine.

It's good.

Which to us is a super

weird concept.

Side note, but

it's

totally okay.

Otherwise God would have clothed

them.

He did.

He did.

Yeah.

Oh, you mean initially.

Initially he would have clothed them.

Yeah.

All right.

But he didn't.

Said enjoy each other.

You know,

I don't know how it would have turned out

eventually.

Probably have to wear clothes to, you
know,

harvest stuff and walk

around and stuff.

All right.

Clothes are a utility.

But they put clothes on

because of shame,

because of what they believed,

because they believed they

knew,

but what they knew was

wrong.

But it wasn't.

that

they were wrong, it was the fact

that they believed what they

believed was

true,

thereby cutting themselves off

from God,

the ultimate source of truth.

The one who created truth.

What do you do with the phrase,

and their eyes were open?

It's a good question.

Can you read it for

me?

I don't remember that.

Copyright.

It wasn't that long.

It just says it

in verse

7, chapter 3,

then the eyes of both of them

were opened, and they

knew that they were naked,

and then they sewed the fig leaves

together.

Good question.

Where was it

initially?

God says it

in chapter 2 verse

17,

telling them not that they can eat of

any tree,

but from the tree of the knowledge of
getting

evil, you shall not

eat, for in the

day that you eat from it

you will surely die.

Oh.

Now there's something else.

Do you want me to read it

from

my

Bible?

And this is

from

Genesis

1,

chapter 3,

verse 6.

And when

the woman

saw that the

tree was good

for food,

and that it was

pleasant

to

the eyes,

and a tree

to be desired

to make

one wise,

she took

of the fruit,

therefore,

and

did

eat,

and gave

also

unto her

husband, and with

her end,

he did eat,

and

the eyes

of them both

were opened,

and

they knew

that they

were naked.

I

think

it's kind of

referring

onto

kind

of an aspect of

their minds were

opened to the

thought of being

naked,

and that

it

could be

bad,

which you were

saying that

it's not

necessarily something that they

didn't know,

and I don't think that

either.

It's just like

they

knew it, and

they've seen it,

so hold

on.

If we get to your point,

I'm finished.

Are you done?

Yeah.

Okay.

I

was going to say,

Jesus

came

to

testify

about

the truth.

I mean, he

took

all

the lies

around

him and flipped them all

on his head,

on their head.

Everything that

people believed,

and he'd said, no, this is not

the way it's supposed to be.

Here's the way it's supposed to

be.

Right?

So if we look at

it kind of from that

perspective,

and he is the

perfect

Adam, right?

If you look at it from that

perspective,

the

truth

is

that what

you said that

you can

be in the garden and

be naked and

whatever, but the

lie – I

mean,

it's not as though they didn't know

that they were naked, right?

But

it's that they

saw that they were

naked

with

their eyes

newly

opened,

and

then they were ashamed.

That's a figure of speech, though.

Their eyes were open,

literally.

And also,

Adam and Eve knew they

were naked because they had sex

a lot.

Well, we don't know that

up

to this point, but we can assume

this.

Unless it happened in like five minutes.

Who knows?

I bet you they had sex.

Maybe.

Like a lot.

I mean, they were probably the

hottest two people to have

ever existed.

We don't really talk about that.

Why?

Well – Was it weird, like,

talking about your parents having sex?

No.

Didn't lie to the weird.

It's they were the first two people to be
–

created by God in

his image.

Yeah.

Well, and I didn't say that

they were

like the

perfect day at the tone

of beauty.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's fine.

Yeah.

But, um,

what was I gonna say?

He's for back me up.

It's in no, it's, it's

right.

It was the presence is the

presence of a specific word.

They were probably the hottest.

We probably were.

We use an

English language

and in this day and

age, uh, the word

hot to describe

someone as sexually

attractive.

Yeah.

God created sex.

God created Adam and Eve.

So he made, there were the

epitome

of

hotness

and they

could not resist each

other.

Sure.

And they were ready.

Okay.

And by ready, I mean,

no clothes.

So, so, but,

and it just

further,

further is the question,

how were their eyes opened

then?

I mean, cause I agree with you.

I absolutely believe

that

they,

um,

that they

knew

that they were naked, but

they

did not sin.

And I,

sorry.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

Cause I mean, it says at the end

of chapter two,

verse 25, and the man

and his wife were both naked

and were not ashamed.

So that implies

knowledge.

Um,

I still think, or lack of

knowledge.

I still think it's to

the, um,

opening of the mind,

the possibility.

Ooh.

Yes.

Can I dig further?

Sure.

Okay.

Let me dig further.

Michael, before you move on.

Uh, if what's

true before is

now in question,

how do you know what is true

and false anymore?

If you once believed

that the serpents,

uh,

is, is, is right,

what is right and wrong anymore?

So then the fruit of

the knowledge of good and evil

invited

or strengthened,

maybe

doubt,

doubt,

doubt,

doubt.

Yes.

Which, which invited

and it,

they believed

the

doubt.

Mm.

Which invites the

question of what is

true?

What is false?

What is good?

What is evil?

We don't know anymore.

And I can make my

own.

Yeah.

Basically.

Which is why

if I decide

to be ashamed that I'm

naked.

Yeah.

Now I

am ashamed that

I'm naked and

it is

wrong for me to be

naked.

Who told you, who

told you,

do you think God was referring to

the serpent

or

was God referring

to cause

like the serpents an angel

since when did

God really like

care about the

angels?

Like obviously God cares about his

creation.

I've

it's not like

God created the angels

in his image.

They're not his children.

He never refers to them as

his children ever.

He refers to us as his

children,

never the angels.

So who do you think God was

actually saying what he

was referring to?

He's like, who told you?

Like it's not,

I don't think it

may be,

I'm not totally sure,

but I don't think

it definitely

was the serpent.

It could have been

him saying,

how come you decided

you being naked was

wrong?

Who told you that?

Wait.

I think this is an interesting

point of detail.

Okay.

Chapter 3,

verse 22.

Then the Lord God said,

Behold, the man

has become like one

of us,

knowing good and evil,

and now he might stretch out his

hand and take also from the

tree of life and eat

and live forever.

Which I think might

speak against your

point about the

fruit not

having power.

Are you sure?

Possibly.

Do you remember the passage

in Psalms where

God makes fun of the,

I

think

it was kings?

You know what I'm talking about?

An anchor?

I don't, honestly.

Okay.

Well, he makes fun of the kings

and says, we are

gods,

you know?

Hmm.

And he's not saying

that these

these...

kings are actually

gods.

He's like saying

these people think they're gods.

Like what?

Yeah.

You freaking kidding me?

These people think they're gods.

That's hilarious.

Who do they think they are?

Yeah.

Like they barely know how to

like tie their shoes.

They don't know what shoes

are.

So could it be that

God is being sarcastic here?

I think

it's the

idea that

the

man has become

like one of us

in

that they think that they are

God.

Yes.

So whether

or not,

he

is declaring

that they know

now

good and

evil.

Whether that's right or wrong

is not

the case.

Yeah and that's nothing

being said here but it

is the fact that they now

think that they are like

us.

They're like God

and

they know good and evil.

And

so...

No should be like

quoted.

They know good and evil.

Right.

And again

it's...

That's why I think

it's this idea that

they've entered

into

this

seeing

the spiritual realm

for

what's going

on on the earth which

is a battle between

light and

dark.

Yeah.

Also how does the Bible

describe

or

in

question?

How does it...

Adam knew his wife.

Okay.

That's like...

So I thought you were gonna go with that.

Can you explain?

I'm confused by what you

mean by that.

Right.

What do you mean by how it says

no?

Like as

knowledge has no

or just like

no this is bad?

Here's what I mean.

When a man knows his

wife

biblically

that means that they've had sex.

Right.

That means

intercourse.

That means knowing

them to deepest

physical emotional

spiritual

level.

Right.

And

knowing

the

difference between good and evil

in

the same way would be that

they've now experienced

evil

as

well as good.

Interesting.

They've had intercourse with

evil

and

good.

Hmm.

Why is adultery bad?

Because you've had intercourse with

your wife

and

another.

Yeah.

I

think it spells it out

as like

this is evil or

this is wrong.

Because it does...

and like be

totally wrong as

for all everything that I

say.

Same.

For

like

this is wrong to...

adultery

is

wrong in the

aspect of

committing

sin towards your

wife.

Sin is also

the same

thing as

saying

no this

is wrong.

Can you

give me

more

context?

So sin is the same

as...

So sin

is

the

aspect that

God

says that we should not

do.

And we do.

We do.

Absolutely.

Okay.

But is it

still good in his eyes?

No.

Absolutely not.

Okay.

And that's where

him

like...

I don't know if you remember

this basically,

but at like a Bible

group,

we went over like the

list of

wrongs,

rights,

and they were basically laid

out clearly

in

a certain way.

Not necessarily

everything was

in detail.

It's like this, this,

this, this, and they're

all connected into like

one part.

But like

gluttony,

lust,

greed

is basically

on the list

of, this

is not right.

I do as God,

I do not approve

of this.

You should not do

this.

But if you do,

you should

repent.

You should absolutely

repent.

Which means

to

turn

away from your sin and

to,

once again, believe

what God

said is true.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

To believe that God is God,

that He declares what is true and what

is

good.

Yeah.

So, interlinear

says for

the word knowing,

used here is the way

that we would

understand

it, which is to know, to perceive,

to understand, to acknowledge.

I'm interested

in

how the other

knew.

Is that a different

word?

Yeah.

Okay.

I'm glad you're looking that up.

So, Stephen,

I imagine you had

a point

there,

and

I'm forgetting

what

it was.

Could you help me out?

Basically,

the aspect of, like,

I know Jesus.

I

hate

to say it.

I could be wrong.

Every time.

Go for it.

Go for

it.

Jesus

says

multiple times

in the aspect,

God is all knowing.

Yeah.

The Father is

all knowing.

He knows all.

He walks beside you.

He endures

the same thing, same

trials that

you endure.

He

feels

your pain.

He feels your sorrow.

He does not want this for

you, but

he

knows that

this

is what

you must endure

to

be

a better

you.

Same

word?

Same word.

Really?

Okay.

Interesting.

Okay.

Go on.

So,

that just kind

of...

Seals the deal?

...point.

A little bit more, yeah?

Okay.

Go on.

Stephen.

I don't know if I have much more than

that.

That's just how it's

explained to

me.

Just like from my

old friend,

Chuck.

We were talking

after, like,

a Wednesday

young adult group,

and this was from, like,

middle school, and

he was, like, teaching the

class for

confirmation,

and I was, like, asking

him,

what

in

God's

knowledge does,

in the aspect,

does he know

what

I've been through?

And he basically

explained it as,

he just

knows.

That's it.

Everything.

Every

little

pain that you

experience

in life,

even from now

and into the

future,

already,

already understands,

basically,

understands it,

has felt it.

Everything.

Hmm.

Hmm.

And I guess that's,

in

theory,

true,

because

God

created everything

and he understands how everything

interacts

at

its

most

base.

Yeah.

Going back to the

new,

you confirmed that

those two words are the same.

Yeah.

So Adam knew his wife,

meaning he perceived her,

acknowledged her, understood

her,

and vice versa.

Right.

I forget

my point.

What did I say?

You were making the point

that

we

basically...

had

relations with

evil.

Oh, yeah.

So that was the knowledge.

So we knew both.

But I

actually

think that it's

interesting.

If that is the case,

would it not be the

knowledge of evil?

Why

the knowledge of good

and

evil?

Because we had good before.

But

why is it

offering good?

Because if

it's

just good,

then there's

no dissection.

But if we already have good,

then the

presence of evil

in

this fruit

would just

say...

The knowledge of evil.

In our own mind that,

oh,

these two things are different.

Yeah, the knowledge of good and evil.

Before, there was no such thing as good.

It just was.

But that's not true.

Well, God said everything was good.

That's where you're referring to.

Right.

But we still

have the fallen

angels.

So we have evil

in the world.

But we didn't know.

But we didn't know.

Like your point.

Right.

But

the

knowledge

of good and evil.

It's not just

knowledge

of the difference between good and

evil, but the knowledge that

there is good

and that there is

evil.

I think knowledge goes deeper here,

though.

Knowledge here is more like experience.

To knowledge,

to perceive, to

whatever.

To recognize, yeah.

So you don't think that

it's

information,

you think it's just

acknowledging.

Right.

It's experience.

But again,

that

goes more to my

point of that they've

entered the battle,

the spiritual battle.

But

I'm

not saying you're wrong.

Yeah.

I'm just trying to, no, I'm just

trying to like

process.

Well, Daniel,

what would be the

difference

in

knowledge

and experience

in this aspect?

None.

But wouldn't experience

take time

with knowledge?

did.

It did.

Yeah.

So the

tree

of the knowledge of good and evil.

Before there was just

life, there was just

existence.

There was

walking in the

garden, talking with

God, eating the fruits

of the garden,

enjoying the

presence of God and

everything that he

created.

Like he created the entire world.

He created the entire universe.

And then he lovingly created

the garden

for

Adam Neve

out

of pure

love.

Everything else was

good,

but God created

especially the garden

to be

primo.

Like primo de crim.

Right.

Like top

dollar

stuff.

You know what I mean?

So that.

Where he's experienced

them.

Yeah.

I'm not understanding.

No, I'm going full circle here

for everybody.

Sorry.

So now you're good.

So they

just

knew life.

They knew beauty.

They knew

love.

They knew intimacy.

They knew just

joy

and ecstasy.

They knew like

I

said, the crim of the crim.

Right.

The

best of the

best.

And there wasn't even like, how do

you have a concept of best?

If there's

only best.

That's the idea.

Right.

So if everything is

perfect,

how do you know to raise

something one star?

Right.

Everything is just as it

is.

Yeah.

And then as soon as they

believe Satan

and they eat up

the tree,

their beliefs change.

And all of a sudden

it's either

the serpent is

God and declares

what is good.

What is wrong?

What is right?

What is true?

What is false?

Or they believe

for themselves.

Hey, like the servant

had an interesting idea

here, but I'm going to believe

that,

you know,

like.

We're naked

and we should be

ashamed of that.

Either way,

they believed.

something that

was not true

according

to the

only source of truth,

God.

And because of that,

they declared

something

other, doesn't matter

who,

something other than God

to be a source of truth.

And when there's more than one source of

truth,

there's confusion

and

darkness.

And

there's,

and especially

for

what

is

a

real

situation.

Think to our lives, like

an emergency,

we need to know, we need

to have training.

We need to have an

understanding of what is going

to keep us alive

and what is going to kill

us.

And we need that training because

our instincts usually

are going to kill us,

right?

And that

means

that

just because you feel like

you're naked and you should be ashamed of

that, doesn't mean that's right.

Doesn't mean that's true.

So we should not be

basing that

idea

on what we

feel

on our heart, which

is deceitful,

right?

And...

Are you talking about like the

present?

No, well, sort of, I'm

relating to the present now,

like our own

experience so that we can all

understand it.

But what I'm saying, as soon

as they believe

that,

as soon as they believe something

was true that was

not true,

everything came

under question.

Whether it was true or

not,

even if it was originally

true and they

knew it was true,

now everything

is

confusing.

And there's a thing

called,

gosh,

I forget the name,

but it's basically when

you're,

there it is,

cognitive dissonance.

It's basically when you say

something and then you do something

else, and

it just

does not

align and it just

makes you feel horrible

and you want to

align with what you say.

And it's just natural,

like you want to align

with what you say.

And you do everything that

you possibly can to make those

two things align.

So if you do something wrong,

then you change what you say.

And if you say something

is wrong,

you try to align with

what you say.

And since we end up doing

what we don't want

to do,

because we said we don't want

to do that,

we end up changing what we

say.

So the moral law

is shifting

in

our terms.

And

to your point,

to your question rather,

Steven,

as soon as

you

discover that

confusion

of what is right and wrong,

now there's that

question

that never

existed before,

of is this good or

bad?

When before

all you ever

knew was

good,

that would

also be where

experience

would come in, correct?

Yeah.

So the only way you ever

experienced, the only

thing that you ever

experienced was

bueno.

And then as soon as you

experienced anything

else that's not bueno,

now there's

bueno no

bueno.

Before that,

nope.

And also Spanish.

There was no category.

But yeah,

it's still,

the difference between

knowing

and experience

is still time.

Yeah.

I mean, before they

send,

there was time to

experience what is good,

which had no category.

And then as soon as they

send and they knew both,

that send took

time to

happen,

right?

And so they

experienced eating the fruit and

believing what

was alive

was actually true.

And now they've had

time to experience both

good before

and evil

now.

And what is evil again,

Michael?

Not God.

not God.

And in this situation,

what

God

said was a lie.

Does

that

make sense?

Yeah.

Well, basically, the thing

I'm just going after

is,

like, you can think, like

you were saying, everything is

good right now

and

right in this

present

second.

But once, like,

something bad happens, something

like,

in like a day something

bad happens,

a week something

bad happens, a year,

a month,

a year something bad

happens.

Like, that's

experience of, like,

okay,

what can I take from all this?

And now

I know what

the good

is from the bad.

And that's what

experience basically

is,

is it's just

built up time

with understanding

what is good and bad based on your

experience.

Yes.

Yeah.

And that drives back to the core

of

being the one

who defines what is good and bad.

Right?

Yes.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Which goes back to

them,

quote unquote, realizing

that they were naked,

they should be ashamed

knowing.

Yeah.

And knowing it,

which was arrogance.

Because they,

it was

totally fine with God.

Who are they to say being naked

is bad?

Isn't it interesting, though,

that,

like,

let's even not take

the story from the Bible.

Even a story from your own

life,

like, you can get one

aspect,

and then another

aspect.

But the second aspect is

more dramatic.

And you could take that

more as truth,

just because

it's recently

happened, but it's

more

in your

mind.

And it's more exciting,

maybe.

Yeah.

Because it's different.

Yeah.

And then you cling on

to that as like truth.

But the first,

the first

storytelling was

actually the

truth.

Yeah.

And this one could be

absolutely false.

Yeah.

The second story itself.

Yeah.

No, yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah, there's a fascination that we

have with something

that's just novel

and like

goes

against the grain.

Michael, I see you've been taking notes

over there.

No, well, yeah.

I think

the

piece of this that we're

actually missing

has to do

with

choice.

Here we go.

Which is what you were gonna bring up
earlier.

Yes.

But instead of

continuing this conversation,

I think we should talk about that.

Next time.

A whole new thing.

It's a very

delicious enchilada.

It's an intense

enchilada.

It's got a lot of sauce.

I'm going to say

that maybe

we could take

this Twinkie and yet

supersize it.

A Twinkie enchilada.

If anyone knows the

reference of the movie

Ghostbusters,

so you take this Twinkie

and you make it like the

size of

like,

it would be

two,

two blocks

wide.

I haven't watched.

I haven't watched

Ghostbusters.

I hats wild.

I have to.

It's like a cultural

revelation.

I'm gonna say that we should

probably

do research on this.

Oh, 100%.

It's

not like we were the first ones to have
these

thoughts.

We

don't

always do research.

What can we do?

I think the point of this

podcast

is to point out the

fact that we aren't

the smartest people in the

world,

obviously.

We don't know a whole

lot.

We don't.

We pretend like we do, just

like Adam and Eve.

We reckon with

things like all

humans do

and we try

to do it the best of our ability.

Oh, sure.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I got you.

Yeah.

So

the

point of this

is to

prove to you

guys, the listeners,

that you can do

this too.

We are

purposeless.

Okay.

I called Michael earlier this

week and I said, hey, maybe we should

research these things

deeper before we have a podcast.

And he said, no, that's not the point.

The point is to

say, hey,

listener,

you can reason through these things

too.

You can.

It might

take you an an hour and a

half.

It might take you two.

It might take a friend or two

to come

to a

good understanding of what

the Bible says,

but you can.

It's not inaccessible.

You don't have to research it.

You don't have to

be

a genius

to get

to

the

truth if you have the word of

God in front of you.

Yeah.

Well, and I

keep thinking about

the

definition of

determined.

And I kind of

use that as like, I guess the

authority on

the

words that we

use to,

I

guess,

figure out

what everything is.

We determine it, we try to

determine it.

And I think that also comes

from

determinism.

So,

maybe

there's better words,

but

the

kind of my own

articulation of the

definition is to completely

terminate.

And I mean, that's ultimately what

we want to do, is

we want to completely terminate.

And again,

a lot of what we're saying is

speculation,

in fact, Sam,

probably speculation,

or it's a personal belief,

and we truly believe

whatever it is, but

we're not trying to

force

this on anybody necessarily.

We're just saying

this

is our

perspective.

This is how we're kind of viewing things.

This is how we're trying to tackle

it.

And we're trying to completely terminate,

but

we're trying to completely terminate

properly.

Because we don't work.

I mean, like we said, we

can't know all of

creation fully,

because we'd have to

apply all of creation to all of

creation.

And so,

this is our

attempt at applying

some of creation to some of

creation and hoping that

- Hopefully we get

close.

Yeah.

But also acknowledging

the

Bible

as what it is, which

is the truth.

The truth.

And the fact that it doesn't

give us the entire thing.

Yeah.

So, there's areas

where we're never going to know.

Yeah.

And it's interesting

because it's

clear that the Bible

omits

certain

information that

isn't completely

necessary, right?

Like any writer

that we know can't

possibly get down to

the very

deepest molecular

structure of every single

thing that they're going to describe,

just to get one point

across.

It's like, no.

And it's like,

God doesn't need to do that because

his point

that he's trying to

make, he is getting

across.

He's doing things intentionally.

The book is written intentionally

in a way that,

yes, our human

minds can't fully wrap our heads

around, because there are concepts that

we may not ever

understand

until glory.

But like,

you know, the concepts that we

are supposed to understand, he's like,

Hey, this is it.

This is where it's at.

I'm going to rehash this

a lot throughout this book

so that you get,

you know, what I'm trying to

say.

But alright, guys,

focus.

Yeah.

Let me say this

20 ,000 more

times.

You're going to get it.

I know that there's an end to this book,

but guess what?

You read it again.

Because guess what?

You forgot.

Yeah.

So yeah, I hope that

that's

how this comes across.

And I mean, we're very passionate

about it because we

care.

And also, we just

enjoy

talking this way.

I think we should

attempt

to move on.

Move on.

Let's do it.

We can talk about

freedom

of choice next time.

Yeah.

We can talk about why

that that first

question, or one of the first

questions

that I

said, Hey, we should probably

that's a big insula.

Let's move on.

That question was,

why did

the garden

contain the

tree in the first place?

And so we'll cover that next week.

Okay.

I like that.

Let's do that in the cade

portion.

Sure.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because I wrote

the conversation of

choice in the

perfumed

section.

Okay.

But

now,

our

conversation

very

naturally

flows

into this topic.

But the

concept

of

death

and how

there

is

a

practicality to

to...or

how there could be, I should

say,

a practicality to

the curses that were

put

on man

and woman,

and technically

the snake.

All of creation.

All of creation.

And

how

those things

point or

basically create

the

circumstances

for death,

oh,

that did naturally roll

into it.

Wow.

Yeah.

That was buttery smooth.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

So,

initial thoughts.

Oh,

do you have any initial thoughts?

Initial thoughts

onto

death.

Yeah.

How does the

curse that

God...maybe we should start

there, read that, the

curse.

Yeah.

Yeah, And then how does

that functionally,

scientifically

outcome in death?

Yeah, let me...

So it's chapter three.

I love how decay can

be anything and we just choose

for it to be more primal.

Yeah.

Pretty much.

Well, and

it's...

Yeah.

Yeah.

You're right.

Okay.

So,

chapter three.

What has this

done?

Oh, God said to the serpent.

Okay.

These are the curses.

The Lord God said to the serpent,

because you have done this,

cursed are you more

than all cattle

and more

than every beast of the

field.

On your belly, you will

go and dust

you will eat all the days

of your life.

And I will put enmity between

you and the woman

in between your seed

and her seed.

He shall bruise

you on the head

and you shall

bruise him on the heel.

Verse 16, to the woman, he

said,

I will greatly multiply

your pain in childbirth.

In pain, you will bring

forth children.

Yet your desire will

be for your husband

and he will rule

over you.

Then Adam,

then to Adam, he said,

because you have listened to the voice of

your wife and have eaten

from the tree

about which I

commanded you saying

you shall not eat from it,

curse is the ground because of

you.

In toil you will eat of

it all the days of

your life, both

thorns and thistles

it shall grow for you.

And you shall eat the plants

of the field.

By the sweat of your

face you will eat

bread till you

return to the ground

because from it you were

taken for you

are dust and to dust

you shall return.

Uh,

the dreaded weeds

that we all hate

the grow in the yard.

Yeah.

And all because of us.

And I want to

further

add

that

another

part of this curse,

I think,

is that he banned us

from the Garden of Eden.

And

in

doing

so, he also

distanced us

from

living

forever.

Yeah.

Because of the tree of life.

So the tree of life had

power to breathe

life back into

man.

Breathe life back

or

just

extend

it.

Because it just says that he will

live forever.

The last he lived forever.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So God acknowledging like,

if they eat of this

tree, they'll live forever.

So there has to be something there.

So let's just assume that there is.

I took a few notes.

Women

will

have pain,

excessive pain in

childbirth.

Before modern

medicine,

a lot of women would

die in

childbirth.

Yeah.

So there's a direct connection

between that curse

and

millions,

tens of millions of women,

if not more.

Yeah.

Especially just like dying.

Blood transfusions would

save

tons of

lives.

Yeah.

And that's only in the

past like hundred

ish.

No.

Years.

Right.

Out of, let's assume

again,

6 ,000 years.

And I

think my brother's done this calculation

before of how many human

people have,

of course,

humans have lived

in the course of history.

And there's a lot of disagreement about

this.

And if I remember correctly,

since

we're

at 7 billion

right now,

my brother

and and a

lot of sources that he looked at.

into,

which our pastor actually disagreed

with.

So there you go.

A lot of disagreement about this.

He concluded that it was

somewhere around 100 billion

people in history.

So the fact that 7 %

of humankind

exists today

is kind of crazy,

just by itself.

But

that

means

billion people,

again, we're assuming a lot of stuff here,

93 billion people,

usually about 50 % are

female, 50 % are

male.

That means

.5

billion women

have lived

and died.

Out of them,

how many have died from childbirth?

I could look it up.

I'm not going to...

Let's say it's

10%.

It's

definitely higher than

that.

Because we're not talking about the people
that are

alive today with modern

miracle of medicine.

I cannot tell you

why.

I've seen it like

billion

at least,

and closer to 100

billion seems more accurate.

I don't know why.

Of people?

Yeah.

Ever lived?

I agree.

Yeah, it's more like 100 billion, I'd

say.

So that means

billion

divided by two,

which is 41

.5

billion,

10 % of that,

4 .15

billion

women

have

conserved...

Yeah.

Am I wrong?

It'd be like

46.

Sorry.

Okay.

It's even more.

46, point something.

Yeah.

Point five.

That means 4 .65

billion women

in history have died from

childbirth.

There's a direct connection

from the

curse of

more

painful

childbirth

and death

directly.

That accounts for

at

least 4 %

of all mankind

died because of that

curse.

I'll say.

Well, and

it's interesting.

So

the question goes

further because what

causes

the pain in childbirth?

Right?

So many things.

I believe it's...

I want to

say the pelvis

splitting.

Oh yeah, that's one thing.

Just because...

I know in striziology,

female hips

and hip bones are

wider than

males.

Yeah.

And I know they have to split even

further

to

allow the

child's

head...

And even the child

has...

Our skulls aren't

even fully

formed.

They have a split

vertically

in the middle

to even allow the

separation and

molding

for childbirth.

There's a lot of

factors that

allow for this.

Which is

crazy.

But it

just

goes to show that

women

do hold

in

their own physiology

is

vastly impressive

in its own

right.

And

even...

I forget.

The

pain

is

extruded from

the

brain itself.

I remember reading.

It's

blocked

by a chemical,

so it's not remembered.

Insane.

Um,

wow.

I was gonna

say...

So there's

the direct

causes

of

death

in

childbearing.

Um,

and

then I

also want to say that there's

some indirect,

right?

So,

um,

generations

are a very

popular topic in the Bible

in that,

you

know, the blood lines

are important

and, And

especially

um...

Jews, they have a

deep...

Crap, what's the word?

They keep track of things.

Historical records.

Yeah, there you go.

Someone has a brain today.

Even though I can't speak.

Right.

But in

pain

of childbearing,

it almost

makes women not want to

have children.

And I

can't

believe

for a second that it is

only this generation

in which

that has

become more

popular.

I'm sure that women

for years

have

thought

that and tried to avoid

it as much as possible.

Basically toiled with

the thought of it.

Yeah.

And

there's

death of bloodlines there.

There's death of...

Well, would it

be a death of a bloodline

law if the child survives?

No, no, I'm saying

that them not

having children,

them choosing not to have

children.

My bad, okay.

And that's

one indirect effect.

What was the other one?

I mean, death

of

entire

groups of

people.

I mean, if you

can

cause

the

women of

certain

ethnic

groups or whatever to

stop bearing children,

then you've just

killed off whatever.

Even the stress

upon the body

itself.

Right.

And

I

think

just

stress alone.

The fact that

we

strive

to

accomplish whatever

goal and the

stress that it puts on our bodies,

on our minds, on

our relationships,

whatever,

that's sacrifice,

right?

But I

feel like a lot of that

sacrifice was created

with these

curses, right?

And so

that's

where

pride

can come

in, right?

Because if

I'm,

realistically, I'm sitting there

making phone cases,

right?

And it just doesn't feel the

same when I've moved

100 plus

water heaters

into a

warehouse

and then

put away

a ton of other stuff

and moved pipe

and whatever.

There's something gritty

about

those

things and

intense.

And I've sacrificed more

of myself

to do

that.

And so it

creates this sense

of pride because I

did that.

I can look at this

mountain of

whatever and I'm just like,

yeah,

same thing with running,

exercising,

any type of exercise,

any type of

manual

labor

for tilling the

ground if we're farming, if

we're just

creating a

garden.

Like my grandpa loves - Growing up the
flower.

Growing up the flower.

Yeah.

Like my grandpa

loves

working

on his garden

and there's an

inherent

thing

about it, but there's also that

stress.

He's an old man.

And of course he's gonna look at his
garden and have

pride and he's gonna be like that,

I did that.

But at the same time, he has

to

sacrifice all

that and say, no, it wasn't

me.

It's God, it's

his power, it's whatever.

But there's that sense of,

there's

this pride of,

oh,

it's

me.

And so there's this

indirect

thing that's

happening.

Same thing with the woman.

I bore this

child, I am bearing

this child, I am

putting forth this

pain.

And so

we

can look

at pride

and the intensity

of it maybe,

maybe more so because

it

could be,

well,

they say that pride is the original

sin anyway, so.

But the intensity

of it

causes

all sorts of death.

Kingdoms, Cain Cain and

Abel is a clear sign.

that's pride.

And all sorts

of different

things that stem from that,

with the

intensity of stress, with

God

adding to our

struggle and

our toil here on earth.

And I'll just

add this thought

in there.

I

think

as

being

guys from

women,

us

toiling

for

work,

manual labor

and stuff,

that's our punishment,

that is our

burden to bear.

And I think

as

the

provider for the family,

and that

is also our burden to bear,

but childbirth is

for women to

bear, that's their

main burden.

And I think

it's an interesting question.

I've

been

proposed this.

What would you rather have,

long -term pain,

or a

very short pain,

versus

wise?

Would you rather have

a

male's pain

or a female's pain?

It's a toss -up, dude.

Really intense pain

for 12

hours.

I've heard that men

who pass kidney

stones

are brutal, but

it's

not the same at all.

I mean,

every experience is unique,

even among women.

Some women have

a

pretty

easy time in

childbirth.

Now there's

not

so much.

That's where it leads up to

death, basically.

It could, yeah.

And I just wanna amend

my numbers.

I was pretty spot on, but I wanted

to say.

Okay,

let me just say that.

I just wanted to say,

so I looked it up

because it's

a short notice.

I basically said,

what was the rate of

death among women

in childbirth in

the 1500s?

And it said that

for

a woman having

a

child

in that day and age,

it was pretty high.

The chance of death

was one to 2

.5 %

per

birth.

And so that would translate into

about 10 %

total

if you include every

birth for each

woman.

It's not like a woman only

gives birth bonds.

Yeah.

Right, that's the idea.

So about 10%.

So I was kinda spot on

there on accident.

I thought it was gonna be higher,
honestly.

So yeah,

wanted to point that out.

But also

the

thing that I

noted with

man's

curse

was that

yes,

now it's going to

include,

it's gonna be so much

harder.

And even though we till

the ground perfectly,

it's gonna

get

spoiled by weeds

every

single time.

But also

at the end of the

day,

I think what God is saying

is at the end of the day,

your work is gonna be

nothing.

Everything you do

to

make

your family

live and

go on and

be able to eat

every single day.

And maybe you get

beyond that and you build

wealth and you

build generational wealth.

Like at the end of the day, every

single one of,

you're gonna end up in the ground.

You're gonna turn into dust.

All the work that you ever did is

gonna crumble and be grown

over

by

plants

that

are

just doing what they were originally
programmed

to do.

It's not like,

I mean, maybe God is

interacting with them still.

But

everything,

including the

generations that

inherit your wealth,

they're all gonna die.

All the work that they are gonna

do is gonna end up

in dust.

Everything at the

end of the day is

pointless

now.

Congrats, Adam.

You've done good.

You're almost saying it's not

even just

the death

of humankind,

but it's also the death

of

really

fulfillment.

Because you're going

to work,

But it's not

really gonna.

it doesn't matter.

It's survival now.

Yeah,

rather than, oh,

that brings up an interesting

topic.

We can talk about that at a different
time,

but.

Because they have to eat.

Yeah.

Like before

God

said, eat of the trees

of the garden.

Yeah.

It's all good.

It's gravy.

It's so good.

It's gravy.

Yeah.

Now God is saying,

you're gonna toil,

you're gonna sweat.

It's gonna be pointless,

but you have to do it to eat.

That's different.

Before food was free.

Now it's not.

And on top of all that,

you're surviving.

And at the end of the day,

even if you thrive, it's

pointless.

And we still

have the charge,

the initial charge

to have

dominion over the earth.

So we still have that drive,

that desire, but it's just

not gonna happen anymore.

Yeah.

At least not

in the capacity that

we should.

Yeah, but we also have to have that

to survive too.

Yeah.

At this point.

Mm -hmm.

We have to, that's the point.

So

it's

not really a story, more of

an experience of mine.

When I was in business on

my own,

which was not a fun thing to

do,

entrepreneurship is

horrible if

you're not born

for it, right?

Don't do it.

Get a job.

Anyways.

That's not the,

I guess we're in the story

portion.

I'll give my advice.

Do the thing that you

wanna do.

Here, let me switch to my view.

Oh, wait a cotton

pick in second.

Hold on.

What is going on over here?

I'm so confused.

Back to,

back to, there we go.

Hey -oh.

All right.

Whatever your idea is,

whatever your idea is, there we

go,

do it.

I'm not saying don't

try to build your business.

Try to build your business, do it.

It's great, I love it.

I love

that

passion behind

trying to build something new.

Kinda like what we're doing with this
podcast

here.

But don't quit your day

job.

Yeah.

Don't quit going to college.

Don't sideline everything

else.

Cause it's most

likely not gonna work out.

Anyways, off my soapbox.

Just like the

saying, don't put

all your eggs in one basket.

There you go.

Yeah,

yeah.

Where was I going?

Dang it, dude.

That was you.

That fault.

my own was You went on your

own tangent and lost your own

mind.

And I think

it goes also to,

so me and Daniel

basically, he

got me into this.

Is just,

we started up

and

I

love aquarium

fish.

And

he

had his own business.

And

he

was all about entrepreneurship.

And I was so

unsure.

I was just like, I

don't know if you remember this.

I was so

hesitant.

I was just like, this

probably won't

work.

I'd tell you that.

See that's the attitude you should

have.

But,

yeah, that's honestly the right

attitude.

That's like, you're being negative.

No,

you're still

doing it.

But it's probably

not gonna work.

So temporary expectations.

Mm -hmm.

And I

don't know how to

say this, but

we tried it

and it

basically

failed.

Yeah, it did.

Dramatically.

But there was a lot - I of think we

kind of had fun with it.

Things got a little fishy.

For sure.

It tanked.

You're not drowning in money,

you're drowning

in

sadness.

The idea is still there.

I don't know if

it was really a concept

that we had.

I think it was more of an idea

of

it.

Really didn't have

much,

but

it

was definitely an

idea.

And we still have the

idea.

But now it's more of like a

- A dream

and a hobby.

Yeah, it's like a hobby.

Like we like to do that.

Yeah.

It was a shared

experience and it was a good

experience.

Even though there was a lot of bad

involved.

And it didn't turn out the way that we
expected

it.

Or I guess the way I

expected it.

Which honestly, I didn't really

expect it to be profitable all

that all that much.

I thought I thought - maybe we would break

even,

but that was still

too

grand an expectation.

Yeah.

Just keep showing.

Yeah.

Yeah, and we had someone

else pour

and put some

money in,

just like try to invest

it.

He didn't really

have much

of a

say in it, I guess, as

much as we'd

hoped.

We kind of thought that

he would have

gotten on

board with it and

try to involve

himself,

at least in the financial

side of it,

and try to promote

it.

Or strategic.

But that didn't

happen.

To be fair, there was

a lot of hurdles,

like,

regulated hurdles and

everything.

You can't just sell

fish to a store.

I mean, there's local stores

that you can sell to,

but they

usually don't

pay

in

check or cash.

They pay in store credit.

Mm -hmm.

Which

is totally fine if you're

absolutely able

to do

fish food

and

grow

profit

in feeding

your own fish,

which is totally fine.

But that's only a second process.

There's no actual info of cash.

Yeah.

Some of the stores,

they only allowed

animal credit.

It was a trade

for...

We did

dwarf shrimp,

and they were cherry shrimp,

and we

sold them those.

And we only got

credit for fish.

That was it.

You couldn't get fish

food.

That's crazy.

Why even do

this at this point?

It's just like,

well, we're just going

to keep the shrimp for ourselves then

and enjoy them

then.

And yeah,

we had fun with that,

and it was just,

at that

point,

more of a hobby at

that stage.

It was for the fun of it.

It's for the enjoyment

of...

Yeah.

The work itself.

And I think

that's

sort of

Solomon's point too, is

at the end

of the day, everything is pointless.

That's a conclusion in

chapter two.

I don't think it was necessarily

pointless.

In fact...

Well, in the initial point,

it was pointless.

In the grand scheme, yeah.

And at the end of the day, who's going to
care?

Yeah.

Right.

I mean,

I absolutely did.

I do.

Yeah.

It was a good time.

And that's the point,

is to have fun.

And that's what Solomon says, is at

the end of the

day...

It opened me up,

honestly.

It opened

my mind, I

guess,

to the

possibility of, like, this

could happen.

This absolutely

could happen.

It's hard.

And

it

would allow

more, I guess,

people in the hobby

to have a

better quality

of stuff.

And they would get

more enjoyment out of

it than

we would necessarily

get enjoyment out of it.

Because I

was

basically taking care of the fish,

and I already knew

how to take care of them.

And it's just

like, okay, well,

what do I do then?

If I know how to take care of it,

and every

disease,

and

basically,

in part to the Bible,

every evil...

can I manage.

And just like,

okay, what enjoyment am

I getting out of it then?

It's just like, it's the animals.

It's like God's creations.

And the fact that we were

doing it with

friends.

Yeah.

Like Yumi and Chris.

Yeah, absolutely.

And Chris is another

friend that

I had in high

school.

We had it falling

out,

and

I

honestly wish

I would have done

things differently.

I still

blame myself

for some of it,

absolutely.

And Chris, if you ever

watched this,

I'm still

terribly

sorry for

what I said.

I'm not.

I hope you forgive me.

call should You him back, dude.

I'm with you.

Yeah.

be should You over yourself.

That's amazing.

Yeah, I mean,

I've

tried to contact you and

whatnot,

but anyways, moving

on from that.

No one wants to hear that,

Brandt.

This pity party.

No pity here.

But,

yeah, I mean...

I guess the thing is, is

that

trying

new things, it's

always interesting what

you can get out of stuff.

I was super

hesitant, like I said.

Daniel said, was like,

let's go for it.

Let's do it.

Let's do it.

That's the entrepreneur reminds

me.

You know?

And we've

basically said to ourselves,

like,

it'll come back,

but not as strong.

Like not as strong,

but it'll still come back.

And like, we'll do it

more definitely

as truly

a hobby thing.

And just like, like no

other expectation besides

just

enjoyment.

And possibly

not even that, just like

we just want

to do it and see what happens.

Right?

Yeah, absolutely.

And that's no, that's,

that's,

it's

not that we're having no

expectations.

The expectation is that it's going

to happen.

And I'm curious

to see what

results

come

of it, you know?

Right.

Anyways, how do we get off on that topic?

I love the topic.

The fact that

what

we do is not

going to

pay off.

Okay, pay off.

This is sort of pointless at the

end of the day.

Like everything goes

back to dust.

How does that directly tie back to

death for

man?

I mean,

you know, against

indirect

issue

with that is

like

depression.

Yeah.

Not feeling fulfilled.

I mean,

basically,

we're,

a lot of people are going to

feel as though,

so if our

charge, if our initial

charge by God is to have dominion

over the earth,

but now things are harder,

people,

I mean, everybody is just

going to feel as though

it's

just too hard.

And that's, I mean,

you're looking it up right now, like

the,

I mean, what does it

say?

Suicide rates and men.

Yeah.

For a year.

39 ,000

in the United

States.

Can I

necessarily

say this, but

I

think it's an interesting point.

I sell this on YouTube.

I know you should never trust

YouTube all the time.

But it

basically said,

and I know depression,

trust me,

bullied

in

grade

school and

basically

getting talked to down by your

parents.

Text a toll on you.

Trust me, I know.

But if

you want to make

friends with

anyone or

want people to

know

about

your struggles,

I want you to answer

this question in your own

mind.

How do you get people to

understand if you're

not willing to tell

anyone?

Osmosis.

Osmosis.

Obviously.

You should just know how I feel.

Well, and it's

interesting

to

that point.

I found a yellow

M out of all these.

Yeah.

Because there's the crappy ones and then

there's real ones on the

blue one.

And trust me, I

toiled with this

question for

years.

Well, Daniel highlighted

the proportion

of

the suicide rate

in America

is

80%.

Men account for

80 % of all suicide

deaths.

And to your point about

communication,

men are the worst communicators.

And not

that we don't

communicate,

not that we don't say

exactly what we're

thinking.

We're not direct and we don't

know how to communicate

what

we think is important.

But it's the fact that

we

idle to

a place

of

practicality

and not

emotional

depth.

We don't.

That's not like

the

thing.

It's, you know, you know, how can I get
from

point A to point B?

B 90

% of the time?

And,

you know, I

% believe that

men

are 80 % of the

suicide rate.

Because...

Yeah, well, yeah, it's a fact.

But

it...

What you're saying is how

can

you

expect people

to understand or to

hear you or whatever

if you don't tell them?

If you don't say anything.

And men are...

We push things down.

That's our thing.

We work hard,

we do what we need to

do, and we just

hope that we get what we

want or what we

feel that we need.

And

we

push everything else down

because it's just gonna get in the

way of what we're trying to

accomplish.

And that

is...

That's because

we're

purpose driven.

And feelings

sometimes get in the way of

getting the job done.

Yeah.

And that's

why...

That's...

I mean,

on the flip side of the

whole death thing, I think that's

why it's so important

for us to have

women in our lives,

why most men are

not

blessed with

singleness,

blessed with just

perpetual

singleness.

They're never gonna get married.

Most men

desire

to have a woman by their

side because one, they're in touch

with their emotions, they

get you to communicate,

and they

do the other

side of the

things.

And that's how

it's supposed to

function.

And just the

idea of having a

relationship with anybody.

Brings a purpose

that does not die.

That does not

spoil.

That does not go away,

no matter how you view

it.

I guess unless you're an atheist.

But still, even then,

that person lives

on in

your memory

and in other

people's memories.

And

that person in a way still

exists.

Right?

And so it's

not...

That person is now dust.

You still had

experiences with that person.

That person was real.

That person impacted you.

That person changed you.

That person gave

you joy.

That person gave you sadness.

That person gave you

the greatest moments of your

life.

That

person...

You shared everything with

them.

And I'd say that's another source

of indirect

cause of

death is

memory.

You remember because

of death, we have to

remember...

We have to

suffer

with

remembering

those that have died.

Or those that are

dying.

Or that have

lost their memory.

Or whatever.

These are all results

of

the death.

We have to deal with the men that

commit suicide.

We have to deal with the women that commit

suicide.

We have to deal with the children

that die.

I would rephrase that though.

What?

It's not dealing with.

Well, I mean, we have

to deal with the emotions.

I mean, that is burden to us

if someone takes their life.

But they are not a

burden and they should not take their

life.

So actually,

to that point,

everybody's a burden.

And that has

become some kind

of stigma.

And I think that's wrong.

I think...

Yeah, I know what you mean.

And when I say

you're not a

burden,

it means you are no more a

burden than anybody else.

Yeah.

You are a loved burden.

Right.

You're not an unworthy

burden is

really what I think it should

be.

Because at the end of the

day,

if the God of

creation

decided...

This goes hand in hand with the
forgiveness

thing.

If the God of creation

was

willing to

come to this

earth and for one

die

and then

rise again for your sins,

for you, dude,

you're...

Yeah, you're a freaking burden.

You're filled with trauma.

You have

purpose that you are trying

to figure out.

You have all these things that you're

trying to figure out.

You want a relationship.

You want blah, blah, And you don't know
how to

deal with it because you're human

and you're sinful.

And maybe someone

died and you have to deal with that.

It's like, yeah, you have

all these burdens,

but it's not like

that's not worth

it to deal with.

For someone else to come

into your life

and

carry that

burden with you.

I mean, that's why the...

That's literally

how Michael talks

about it, is that

your

brothers

carry your

burden, share the load.

And Jesus,

for Pete's sake,

shares the load.

He didn't share the load, he

took it.

Well, he takes the load.

He's taking the whole load, but,

you know, the emotional

side of that is,

he's there.

Yeah.

Helping.

Yeah.

And that's

huge.

Yeah.

It's wild to me

that

that

relationship

is

the willingness

to...

accept the person

that's in front of you for who

they are.

And despite everything

that they've done,

choose to love them.

Like that is

magic

in and of itself.

It's a

crazy feeling

to find

someone that's

willing to do that.

And

I

find it insane

that

I

take

that for granted

when it comes from Jesus.

That's insanity.

Well, and it's interesting too,

because

the

perversion of

relationship is

that,

oh, things are going to be great.

Which is, which is

backwards a little bit in our

minds.

It's like, oh, well,

isn't that like,

we want things to be great.

We want things to feel good.

We want to be measured.

We want to enjoy this.

We don't want to, we don't want all that

negative stuff.

But that's the perversion.

It's like you,

I mean,

because Jesus embodies

whatever.

He took

literally all

the burden.

He said,

I

love you.

And

I came here

to live

like you and

then to prove to you that,

you know,

I am God.

And then to die for your sins

and say,

Hey, let's,

I'm here with you.

Let's keep going.

And, you know,

he knows better than

anybody that it ain't going to be

fun.

It ain't going to be a, It's going

to involve a few nays.

Walking through the

daisies and having a

great time.

It's, it's the nitty

-gritty.

And then, you know, all the apostles

afterwards, like their

relationship with Christ

wasn't fun.

It let's learn.

11 out of 12

times apostles

died.

Yeah.

And it's like

that,

and that perfectly

shows what

relationship should be.

Because, I mean, our friendships are that

way.

Our families are that

way.

And then like, for some reason,

we look at romantic

relationships

and we're like, Oh, it's going to

be whatever.

They're going to serve me.

They're going to make my life of the same
thing.

They're going to, yeah.

And it's like,

how, how do you come

to that conclusion?

And I mean,

you know, it's because we're

self -centered and

whatever, but

like.

Well, I can tell

you, um,

I've heard this

from

a few

of my

friends,

um,

from like the foundation for blind

children

and just

like,

I don't know why

I

feel the same way in

like

just,

um,

I guess in a

way of being disabled

as a way.

I know.

I know I'm a

bigger burden on other people.

And in some ways I

want to make up for

it,

but like

money

wise,

I would love to make up

for it, but I know I

can't.

Um,

like

I've been told

personality wise,

like

you have a great

personality.

You should

be more

personable to other people.

Like even Daniel's told me this.

It's like, you should be more

open.

No,

you have.

And in what way?

I feel like I

wouldn't say you should.

Like you should be more outgoing.

Um, try to get more friends

with people like during

desert Hills.

Um,

oh yeah.

I denounce

everything

that I ever

said in the past.

How old am I?

28 years of my life.

All right.

Yeah.

I've said some stupid stuff.

Sorry about that.

But I mean,

I mean,

you

have sought out friends

though.

And And it's not a bad thing to

do.

I have.

It's just,

I

don't

want to

be

the person who runs around

pointing at people and saying, you

should, you should do this,

you should do that.

Blah, blah.

You know,

like, even if you do,

it probably won't ever happen.

People are hard to change.

Um, well, it's also

where like,

he started off saying that, you

know, you're a bigger burden.

Um,

like Daniel coming to get

me,

um, for events

and even like

driving all the way in like

30 minutes, 40

minutes.

That's a societal,

um,

weight,

unnecessary weight,

I'll say.

Because it's a matter

of perspective.

I mean,

sort

of, I mean perspective, but

also it's a mathematical

thing.

Sure.

There's a mathematical thing, but

like he,

he might, he might

love having me

around, but

how

much gas

is it costing him?

How much?

I've never done a math.

I can tell you, I don't care.

You never do.

Right.

And, but that's,

that's the thing.

It's like,

sure.

If I have to lift

more for another

person

or

if I have to

do,

I really don't care.

I mean, I've.

Yeah, that's the perspective is I

don't care.

It's, it's a care more about

you than I do the gas money.

Yeah.

That doesn't make you more

about you than I do the

drive time.

Doesn't make you more of a burden.

I mean,

I know

me

personally,

I've been

defined by several

people as being a

major burden

because of how I

am emotionally.

Yeah, you are.

And I, well,

that's

crazy.

But like, no,

don't do that.

But like the fact that I used

to manipulate

people.

Yeah.

That's not.

Not cool, dude.

That's not cool.

And it's not fun.

And that's a burden on people.

I have.

It's a burden on you too.

A crap ton of

trauma.

And I bring that into

every

relationship and

I'm a burden on them.

I tear people to

shred.

And to, and to me this though,

that's a burden on you, right?

Yeah, it's a burden on me.

Conscious,

right?

It's like on your conscience.

Yeah.

Okay.

But it's

not.

And I'll put this into perspective.

Like getting

driven places,

like I'd rather ride my

electric scooter than anything.

No, I get that.

Not just because of the freedom,

just because it

limits the

stress on everyone else.

Yeah, no, I get it.

Well, but

I'll

put it this way.

All burden is equal

because

again,

and I'm

absolutely pointing to the

cross.

He bore

all the weight.

So,

you know, it's the same

thing.

Forgive your brother.

Well,

also,

start from.

So the

weight or the

burden, you know,

is more of like an

identifier.

You need to acknowledge that yeah, you

are a burden, but you also need to

acknowledge

that

the right people

are going

to look at you that way.

They're going to look at you in

light of the fact that

you

aren't that.

And so you

can't

compare yourself to

anything else because

it's gone.

It doesn't matter.

It

is

null and

void because

the God

of all creation is

already carrying everything.

So just shut the...

Break up.

Yeah, Steven.

No, but I'm saying this

about everybody.

And like, I'm saying this to myself.

Like it

just

doesn't matter.

It's useless

information because it does

nothing for anybody but

bear down on

yourself and other

people and create a negative

environment that adds

nothing but

negativity and

you're just...

It's just more and more

and more

death.

Well, it becomes more of a burden.

It becomes more of a burden.

Now it's a burden for not

only the people around you, but

the burden is

still on your shoulders.

That's why the Bible says

to know

what your identity is.

Your identity is not a

burden.

Your identity is not

all

these different things.

Your identity identity in

Christ.

once you've been saved,

is just

His.

And everything, all the blessings

that come with that.

And we...

That's physical,

spiritual,

everything.

Yeah.

And that's...

And that's...

We get to share

in all those things,

which means

that

we have to choose

those things

daily

to accept them,

to accept what the truth

actually is.

Yeah, and God

created

that blind man

for an

express purpose

to glorify

Jesus.

The man that

Jesus

healed,

Jesus told him specifically,

you were blind for this

purpose.

Right?

And so...

Which negates, by the way,

the Gays burden.

Because he had a purpose.

Yes.

You...

There's a reason

God

allowed

you to experience this.

And in a way, that's

a burden on you.

Because you

have to wrestle with

the fact that

in

a way,

you're a burden on

people around you.

It's the same thing as

when

people get older

and

they need people around to

take care of them.

It's humbling.

And that's a burden.

And so...

I think that's why I'll be like my

grandfather, just like

fighting every

inch of the way.

Yeah, to the nail.

Yeah, that's how most of us go.

Probably me too.

But it's...

It's like a workout.

It's a good burden.

You're choosing to carry that

weight every day.

Well, you don't get to

choose to carry that weight every day.

You have to.

But then that means the

people that come around you

to

help

carry

the reality of that burden

instead of the emotional

reality of that burden.

Oh yeah, It's the reality outside of the

emotional reality.

That means

in

a way, you have a blessing to be able

to see

through

all of the BS

of all the people that are

only there to help themselves.

And you can

see, oh,

this person is actually willing

to help with

no

way

for me to ever pay

them back.

And they're glad

to help.

And that's

humbling.

But it's also a huge

blessing

because

we've already

discussed this.

Life is

not about the physical

necessarily,

although God created the physical to be

enjoyed.

But it's also about the

relationships.

And it's about the people that we

experience life with.

And it's about

the

God

whom

we look to and submit

to and believe.

And so saying,

I, Stephen,

am blind and I am

a burden on everybody around

me,

is saying that in a way

that God is

wrong for

doing what he did.

You see that?

No, no, and that's not what

I'm basically saying.

I'm basically

saying is that

I

know I have this burden

and I accept it

fully.

Like,

I understand

what it costs

for everyone else

to

basically

endure this

for me.

And like, you come to

get me,

my parents driving me around.

Basically,

everyone else taking the

time for me to see

and look through stuff

like my

monocular,

my little telescope.

Like some things are

much slower for

me.

Like even at work,

I'm in customer service,

like doing cashier work.

I'm so much slower.

So bad at it.

And

I

honestly

appreciate anyone who

has the

patience to deal with me

in any

way.

Like

the

cashiering,

like I'm terrible.

I have to look through my monocular

every single time

just to see,

like,

well,

credit card and debit card

and either cash or

like, sorry,

it's forced

to have it.

I pressed the wrong thing.

Oh, sorry, I didn't print the receipt.

I I don't don't think we

were even...

necessarily 100 %

trying to talk

to

you.

No, although

I thought to.

We also

are talking to

you.

I mean, just

in relation to what

you're talking about.

And this is...

I'll turn it back generally.

I've done this.

I don't know if

it

was with you, Daniel,

but

it was on a

trip.

And they gave

out

prayer

journals.

And I didn't use it for

like a prayer.

I used it as a

reflection journal.

And

so

one

page I

did

everything

that

everyone else

does for me.

Oh.

Hmm.

And this

is...

this page will

basically

show

you a

side

of yourself that

you will

not

honestly realize,

but

you must

recognize

that

this

is

not the

best side of you and put the worst

side,

the weakest side.

That's hard to face.

It's hard to reckon with.

No.

I bet you and

I could do the same exact thing.

Yeah.

Well, absolutely.

I mean, it'd

look different.

I mean, I think

about that often.

And I think that's a very powerful thing

to think

about.

And, you know,

I really hope that

in this conversation,

because I did not expect that

this would be the direction.

It's gone a wild direction, yeah.

But

we're

men.

And I hope that other men that

listen to this, and I hope that women

also

can look at this

and...

or listen to it,

and look at it, I guess,

and understand

that

we

should do

that.

We should look at the

things that we need

help with,

that we need other people

for.

Not because

of the

burden

perspective,

but because

of the,

oh,

I

get help.

I'm not alone.

Yeah.

I

don't...

I mean, I've said

it multiple

times in the past year.

You can't do anything

alone.

You can't do

a single thing

alone.

You needed...

You couldn't be birthed

alone.

You couldn't be conceived

alone,

for Pete's sake.

You can't exist without God.

You can't...

But, like,

nothing that has happened

has

happened without

somebody else's hand in it.

This table,

the

drinks,

the cars,

everything.

We need help

to have

all those things.

And then it's like, okay,

well,

yeah, there's those people, but the people

that make an impact,

shoot.

I mean, again, you needed

your parents.

And, you know,

whether or not they did a great job or

are doing a great job or whatever,

if

they stuck

around, holy

crap, dude, that's

awesome.

Because there's a lot of parents

that don't do that.

Like going to the past,

the forgiveness episode.

If they aren't doing a good

job, forget them.

Yeah, absolutely.

For your own sake.

Yeah.

And, like,

if

your

friends are picking

you up or if your

friend...

If you run out of

money, you're in

thousands of dollars

of debt.

Whoa.

It's not that serious.

It is

that serious.

You're in thousands of dollars of

debt because

you lost your job and your

friends are willing to frickin' get

you food and spot you money and

whatever.

Like,

that's

not like, oh, I'm a burden.

It's like, oh, hey, there's some people
that

frickin' care about me.

Yeah.

And,

you know, I've been suicidal my

entire life pretty

much.

I've struggled with anxiety and

depression and

loneliness and

whatever.

And the moment that I

realized

these

types of things basically

wrote down my

own list of

things that people do for

me, and I

flipped it around, I'm like, oh,

like like these people care

about me.

And then, you know, there's another

side to that.

What do people do for me

aside

from the things that I can't

do for myself?

Because that list is even

longer.

Like, I mean,

my sister,

what does she do for me?

Like practically,

not a fricking thing.

She doesn't do anything

for me practically.

But she's the joy

of my life.

She's

wonderful.

She's creative.

I mean, I'm blessed

just to have her around.

And she does nothing for me.

I mean, other than, I mean,

Entertaining you,

drawing your logos.

But also like,

but those things should

be valued higher.

It's not that she does nothing

for me.

It's that she's not, emotional It's not
value,

the mental value.

She's,

her relationship to

you is not what she

does for you.

Yeah.

And that's,

yes.

Or doesn't do.

Or doesn't do.

And that's

the

reality.

We aren't defined

by

what we can

and cannot do.

First off, we're defined by

Christ.

We're defined by our relationship

with God.

But through that,

we get to,

well, and I think this is

true for anybody, but

we

just, we get

to

really

just

be

valued

for

who we are.

By other people.

Which means

that

the idea of the

beauties in the eye of the

beholder, people that think that you're

worth it and that treat you

well,

that's not,

you don't get to choose that.

You didn't influence

them.

You didn't coerce

them.

They showed up one day

and they're like, hey,

stupid, get in the back.

Let's go.

We're going places.

And you

don't, you

get

the choice to get

it

and go along for the ride.

And then you get to realize

they're crap.

And in your mind,

you're like, oh yeah, of

course I'm gonna take all their

crap and whatever

and they're gonna apologize.

You're gonna be like, what the frick are
you talking

about?

You asked me to get in,

I got in.

I'm like, let's go.

Of course I'm gonna take everything.

And that's,

in our own minds, we get

stuck in the burden part, but it's

like the burden gets

negated every single time

we're around somebody that actually cares
about

us.

Oh,

certainly.

And this goes back to

the original story

of the

lie that we first believed.

Yeah.

The lie that everything

could

be on our shoulders.

It's just not

true.

It can't be true.

Like the fact

that we

know

the

difference between good and evil.

And we have to

decide in every single waking

moment what is right and

wrong.

Don't know about you, that sounds

so stressful.

That sounds like a burden.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to

just live life and know

every single choice that you're gonna make

is a good one?

We can't, not

anymore.

We

should probably wrap up

here soon.

But

it

says that God

cursed us.

Mm.

In granted,

the curse part is technically

written

above the part going

to the serpent.

Because then it says,

and then God turned to the woman,

said to the woman, whatever.

So,

whatever, it's still, there's still

curses.

But they're also

mercies.

Because, say God

just leaves

us

to

not...

Ever die.

Well, no.

Well, yeah, to not

ever die,

but to

not endure more

stress.

Think about the people that just get

handed everything.

And they have to,

they just, they think

they're the greatest

thing on the planet.

And you just continue to enable

them.

And they never know.

And then the day that they

know,

it destroys them.

And God is saying,

I'm

helping

you realize

that there is a

consequence

for your actions.

Here it is.

You will remember

this.

You will know this your

entire life.

It's going to dawn on you

Every single time you wake

up

As you get older as your

body deteriorates as

ever as your

wife is pregnant for

the tenth time whatever,

you know, it

is going to

hit you

that

there's a

curse that there is

a

lacking

or

Hightening of

stress and

whatever

Indirect things that

lead to Suicide

or whatever

or you just doing

nothing in your life for

not building

relationships or whatever it

is a

death of many different types

of things

You're going to recognize

that

And It's going

to point you towards me

I Mean you

you you

can

Avoid it,

but if he did if

he had just left us

Just the way that we

were not

enduring things at a

higher

level of

intensity of negativity

Why on earth

We

would we feel

as though we

need

that Savior

I mean

we

endure the things that we do

God tests

us

To point us to the fact

that we need to rely on him

And so these

these other

things yes, they they

lead to death

But they also

say

there's only

one way to

life

so now

bring it back to the

the tree of

life

There's only one

way

to that

tree and

it's not through the garden

anymore.

It's the Christ

The

V

Life

Yeah, and

and and even

further he endured

all the curses

and

Then the ultimate

curse.

Yeah

Which is a mercy on

us

So

I mean, I'll

say it over and over again

There's I don't

believe that there is anything

that is only

ever bad because

God turns

it for good for

good.

Yeah

And I

think it's important

That even even

from a

worldly perspective

You

know

Enduring trials

and whatever else

trials and train

horns and try it

it's

it's

I mean, you know, there's there's

the

there's

a Exercising

analogy,

you know, you break down

muscle and build it up

like that's not

a tiny little

thing Think

you don't train to get

weaker you try

and take it stronger

to endure more

Hmm

So, yeah, you have to go

through the pain in order to

get having

more pain like that

That problem that

people have where

they can't feel pain at all

and it's

very dangerous because

they could just bleed out Yeah,

not know it.

Yeah, they could break a bone

not know it

like they could die

Before they know it.

Yeah

Because they don't have any

signal telling them that there's

something wrong.

Yeah, so that is a really good point

Yeah, God's mercy

and the curse of

like this life is

pointless

What am I

doing toiling through

all of this if it's just

gonna end up dust?

Yeah,

and I've seen my grandpa die

my grandma died my mom

died my my dad

died.

My child

died

I Had to

make that the hard decision

in the feeling we get from that

race

Is that something is

wrong?

Yeah, I want to

die

And that's the feeling

right?

I don't want to be here

anymore.

I don't want to deal with this anymore.

Yeah, I

Want to be done?

and for some of us

we do and

For others we don't

because of the good things that

are still left

Here, yeah

Stephen you had something

though

Wasn't it like

the

the people that

don't feel pain.

He was like

The person

that

You might want to look this

up, but but

that

lived the longest without

having

like

nerves

interaction

or

I don't know what

it's called but

like survived to

like 31

like

that's the longest

on average

that

they survived Wow

it was called

congenital

insensitivity

to pain

CIP

I

don't I

didn't look up the

average age

it's

a good question

I

know it's like expectancy

around in the

30s I think

well

excuse me

and I wanted

to bring up something else

around around the

conversation

it

was

okay so it's

some can live past

hmm

I

don't know if that answers our

question

but yeah it's it's

the fact is you

have to have a

signal to know that something

is wrong yeah

you have to

and

that's why

we can go through pain and

be like oh that's good pain

like

why do

people like space spicy

food

it's good

pain why do people like

working out it's good pain

but people like

going on a run it's good pain

why

do people like self

-discipline it's good

pain

I like

working

out I love the

pain of

muscle fatigue

and stuff

like that but

self

-discipline I'm like

soda I

suck

Wow well

and that's the thing

though and I

think that is

interesting because it's like with

with

the conscience and

with and also with the Holy

Spirit we

recognize that

there's something

wrong right

I think we take that

for granted all the time it's like

I

recognize that there's something

wrong

and so I

just brewed and

whatever

but it's like oh

I'm recognizing

there's something wrong

that's a mercy yeah

that's a mercy all day long

yeah you know can

can you guys

pick out like three things

that

you

do intentionally

but you know

what's wrong yeah

in

like today

oh yeah

definitely

I

want

us to lift list

those things like I'll

do art I'll definitely

start sure we

can end it on this okay

soda

first thing

video games

and

procrastination

yep I can second the

procrastination this morning I woke

up and I watched

some YouTube reels instead of

getting ready to go to

church

and

I knew I shouldn't have done that

and I was late

because of

it and

then I

sped

the

speed limit it's another

thing

I

see

what else

I mean

wouldn't it be a sin if you

didn't speed in your car

yeah

well everybody who

doesn't know I have a GR 86

I was

blessed with the GR 86

it is

very fun to drive

and I suck at driving

it

I don't know if you

suck I burned the

clutch out so hard

but

yeah

no it's a good point

like we

are

constantly

falling

short

yeah

and I

don't let you go Michael

but um

I just

do these stuff to

myself do this stuff to

myself just to

honestly put

myself down but

to

reflect

as

an aspect of

like

I

forget

in the

Bible it says

I

forget

which king Solomon

or whoever

asks

his

servant to go

find him a ring

that will

make him happy

or make

and make him

sad at the same

time

it basically

puts him in

equal

basically

and

like

I I do this

stuff to myself whenever

there's

mountains,

like the mountain valley

kind of a thing.

You have mountains

which are highs and valleys

which are lows.

And trust me,

I have

very high

mountains and very low

valleys.

Same.

And when I have mountains,

I reflect on

which

faults I

have and when I

have

valleys,

I try and

reflect on

which are my

good aspects and

what

I'm thankful

for.

And trust me,

I'm not

the most perfect

person.

I can't always do

it.

Sometimes I absolutely

fail and it's just like,

well, this is going

wrong, this is going wrong

and so on and so

forth.

But

it's

just,

I try and keep a middle

ground.

An awareness.

Yeah, just

like

be

aware of

your

goods

and

bads

at all times

and

you'll be...

Shranks and weaknesses.

Yeah, in a way,

basically.

Gratitude and some, yes.

You'll kind of know

yourself more and

be able to

predict yourself

a little bit

better.

Well, to wrap up this

section,

I'd say, so the question

was, what was the

practical

connection

between

the

curses

and the actual

death?

And I would say

there's a

lot of practical

connections.

There's

pain, which

leads to sorrow, which

leads to depression, which

leads to suicide.

And

there's

pain and childbirth,

which directly led

to

like four

to five

billion deaths

in history,

if not more.

And then the

fact

that God said, everybody's gonna

return to dust.

That directly by

itself

is

proving that everybody

is going to

turn back into dust no matter

what they try to

do.

Whether they're saved or

not,

whether Jesus paid the price

or not, they're going

to return to dust.

The only thing that could have

prevented

that was the tree of life.

And to

Michael's point, there

was

pain,

which gave us the signal

that something's wrong, which was

great news because

then we would look for

a solution.

And solution came

in

the form of

man who was fully man,

fully God.

And some of

us, our eyes were open, which

is great, great

news.

And then the tree of

life,

if Adam and Eve

ate of that tree,

they would have been

in a permanent state,

living forever

in a state of

confusion,

not understanding

the difference

between what is

actually true and what is

actually false.

Maybe, I just had

this thought.

I thought I was wrapping up.

Well,

I think this is a great

way to,

going back to the trees.

Okay.

What if the knowledge of good and

evil was the need

for the arm bells?

Huh?

I'm too tired for this here.

The need

for

the

understanding

of

the pain,

of the sorrow,

of whatever.

What if the tree itself

was the need of that?

No, no, the

tree,

the eating of

it

basically made it

necessary

for

us to

have pain.

To be able to tell.

Be able to tell.

Maybe.

I'm not just

talking

about pain,

but like,

evil and the

effect that it made.

We became aware of spiritual

pain.

So there was

mental

pain, there was emotional pain,

there was physical pain,

but before that, there

was no spiritual pain.

Could be.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah, I could see that.

But to answer the question that we

had for this

section,

what is the practical

connection between the curses

and death?

I think we've.

there's a lot.

There's a lot.

feel I like there's more than we actually

know.

I mean, I'd say

like the biggest one for me,

at least, in my opinion, is the

fact that men have to

toil

to

eat now,

where before

Guy

created the perfect socialism.

Everybody could eat for free.

Yeah.

And it was perfect because God

is

without

fail.

Right.

Just using the word

socialism to trigger

everybody.

No, no.

And I am...

Are you triggered?

No,

you're happy.

I'm excited.

Steven's triggered.

I can't wait

for people to actually listen

to this.

For right?

We do have two views.

Yeah, we do.

Check that out.

I think one of them was

Steven in the bathroom

earlier.

Oh, nice, dude.

Thank you.

Thanks for listening.

I had to keep

in...

In the loop?

Yeah.

In everything.

In everything.

Just be honest

with everyone.

Daniel, did you do that?

Maybe.

I don't believe you.

I tried.

It wouldn't work.

That's funny.

Which is funny because it's my account.

Anyways,

do we have announcements or anything?

I don't think so.

No.

I think can just take this

out.

I

do

think I won't

bring this up.

And this doesn't

have to be tonight.

But no, not necessarily a

good finger.

Prayer.

Mm.

Rites.

Duh.

Prayers and...

We should.

We should pray on the podcast.

Just like generally, I guess,

for everyone on the

podcast.

Yeah.

Oh, absolutely.

Just the three of us.

We should not pray about anybody

else.

That's so fair.

And you know what?

I actually think I had this

thought and I'm like,

but praying on a podcast, that's

weird.

It

shouldn't

be.

It should be allowed

to pray on a podcast.

I just had this thought

and

Daniel knows him, but

every time I

meet Vern.

Who?

Vern.

Just kidding.

V -E -R -N.

We always do prayer after,

like before

and

after.

We meet

whenever we're

leaving, just like,

what do you want me to pray about for you?

That's true.

It's just like,

that always hits me so

hard.

I'm just like, why don't we

just do it on a podcast?

I just had bringing

up this time.

That's how we should open the podcast.

With prayer?

Open with prayer

and with prayer.

And then go into the intro.

I think that would

be...

I think that would...

What if we do the music?

And start praying.

Or we could not...

Jesus is not house!

Yeah.

No, I

appreciate that.

I think that's a good point.

I

don't

know.

I've thought about it and I'm

like, I don't know if that would be weird

or what...

It's only weird if you make it weird.

Yeah.

It shouldn't be weird because

we

should be praying and

we

should be

unashamed of

our

faith.

And prayer is a

huge part of our

faith.

That being said,

Stephen, do you want to pray us out?

Let me take...

Let me do the outro really

quick and then...

Zach, do you to want do something?

So that we end with prayer and then

we actually

begin

with prayer.

So this does

conclude

this

episode, episode four.

Fruits is the name of

the episode.

And...

Wait, I got it.

A four hour foray

into the fruits.

Oh,

okay.

That's beautiful.

I like that.

You don't get to name the episodes though.

Ah!

That's my go.

For anybody that does

listen to this, when this does come

out,

which will be several months

from when we've actually recorded

it, I'm sure,

we do thank you.

And we hope that this has been

edifying

as

well as entertaining.

And you know,

topics like today

where

we talk about something

that is

at

least near and dear to my

heart,

I'm sure has

weighed

on you guys in different

ways as well.

It's,

you know, those are the moments where

I'm like,

that's

why we don't

have like a specific

format.

Because it's

not about,

you know,

being right.

And it's not even about

getting

things perfectly.

It's about

embracing the...

imperfect and

recognizing that we

need to do better,

but here's

where we're at.

Here's who we

are.

You know, we're coming as we are.

And I think that

further kind

of bolsters

this idea that if there

are any topics,

you know, for our listeners

in,

you know,

having to do with certain

things, I mean, we

really touch on it all.

We touch on a lot

of different things.

Yeah, we're in...

We're in even any comments.

Yeah.

Too bad.

And, you know,

I don't think anything's really off

the table.

No.

And I don't think it should be,

so...

I mean, this is like a Christmas

podcast and

there

were cuss words.

Yeah,

there were cuss words only from

you.

All right, come on.

I mean, you could put more in.

I held back several times.

Yeah, no, I could tell.

We talked about sex.

We talked about how

God made hot

people.

You know, all these things

were from you.

Whoa, chill guys.

It's chill.

It's interesting.

Just because I'm the coolest one here,

doesn't it?

Whoa.

But, you know, yeah,

I mean,

it's because you have a

GR86, but

not me.

Realistically, what this points

to is the fact that,

you know,

we

as

believers

have

to deal with these things.

And I mean, we're going to get

backlash on certain things.

Oh, on certain jokes, on

things that we talk about.

But I think,

you

know,

yeah, there are certain things that may

be inappropriate, but it's

also like we

need,

we'll address that.

And hopefully, the way we address

it is that we'd actually talk about

it seriously

and

take it seriously and

pray about it

on our own and all that different

stuff.

Because, I mean, Scripture touches

on all these different

things.

And yeah, we're going to make jokes

about it and we're going to be

stupid and

whatever sometimes.

But, you know,

the hope is that we

deal with it as humans

that are seeking

to be more like Christ

while

not hiding

who we actually

are right now.

So I'm here

to pour perfume and

use my hair, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

It's supposed to feel weird.

It is supposed to feel weird.

So leave

us some reviews

letting us know

your constructive

criticisms or

comments.

Or deconstructed.

Yeah.

I don't want to deconstruct.

Well, we could talk about deconstruction.

Why not?

We could talk about deconstruction.

That's what I mean.

Oh, gotcha.

We hope you'll join

us in the

next episode,

episode five.

Which will be called Choice.

When do I get the choice to name these

things?

Never.

You get to work on everything else.

Let me do something.

That's true.

This is the only thing you

have.

This is the only thing that I do.

So who's praying?

Stephen, do you want to pray?

Sure.

Yeah, sure.

Who prayed?

Pincer.

Dear Lord,

thank you for

everything

that we've

gone through so far.

Even

the understanding,

even if it's just

in the very slightest,

that

we

have even tried

to understand

your

immense

knowledge

in

life,

in

everything

that we do,

in all the knowledge that

we even have.

We are

so grateful

with

what knowledge

we even carry within our

own minds.

We bring

onto

this podcast

our

own perspectives,

our own

opinions

is

so

amazing.

I

always

say I'm a lot.

But

I

am

so grateful for

Daniel and Michael

for

in

each way as they

have impacted my

lives and

in

any way

that

they

could

improve

it in any

way or

help

me to improve.

The

podcast

has

been

enlightening

in

so many ways.

I hope everything

that we go over

is

just

as enlightening for everyone

else.

And I hope everyone

takes away,

even if

they've read the Bible in

any way, shape, or

form,

even in any

language,

that

they

take some

part

of it to

heart,

even to

improve their own lives,

and prove

in any

way,

whether it be

spiritually

or physically.

And

I

also

wish that

we can

continue this

every

week

to

continue

Your Word

in

our

Lord's name.

Amen.

Amen.

Thank you.

Good stuff, man.

Thanks for praying us out.

This is Perfume Decay.

This was

Perfume

Decay.

The 4 -Hour Edition.

Yeah.

The 4 -Hour 4A.

Thanks, guys.

That was fun.

Holy cow.