Rhett Responds to Being in a Christian Book - Spiritual Deconstruction Update | Ear Biscuits

Ear Biscuits2024-02-21

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💫 Short Summary

The video features a discussion on spiritual deconstruction, with speakers sharing personal journeys from evangelical Christianity to exploring open spirituality. They reflect on doubts, beliefs, and the influence of societal norms on faith. The importance of critical thinking, therapy, and questioning preconceived notions about God is emphasized. The segment also delves into the story of Moses and the golden calf, highlighting the dangers of idolatry and the need for staying true to core beliefs. Overall, the video encourages open-minded exploration of spirituality beyond established religious structures.

✨ Highlights

📊 Transcript

✦

Discussion on spiritual deconstruction tradition within the church.

02:24

One host shares annual updates on his spiritual journey.

Mention of a book published on spiritual deconstruction by an author within the church.

Host reflects on always having something to say on the subject.

Host uses notes to ensure accurate message delivery, as his words have been included in books before.

✦

Speaker's upbringing in an Evangelical Christian home.

05:10

Emphasis on salvation, repentance, and faith in Jesus Christ.

Belief in the Bible's infallibility and duty to spread the gospel.

Impact of pre-internet era on worldview.

Role of the internet in questioning faith during college.

✦

Transition from Strong Christian Belief to Doubt and Disbelief.

09:06

The speaker experienced a 10-year period of strong Christian belief before being exposed to opposing arguments that led to doubt.

Doubts reached a critical mass in his thirties, causing a shift from belief to doubt and eventually disbelief.

The transition was a long, painful process involving discussions with his wife and deep emotional struggles.

He now views the Bible and Christianity as human-made belief systems, striving for honesty and truthfulness based on available information.

✦

The speaker, an atheist, shares personal reasons for believing in something beyond what is visible.

12:07

The speaker admits that their belief is based on desire rather than evidence.

Philosophical arguments hint at intention in the universe, but the speaker emphasizes the inability to convince others.

The speaker values their spiritual life but acknowledges uncertainty in reaching confident conclusions.

The speaker highlights the subjective nature of beliefs and uses the analogy of a person in a park offering hope to illustrate their perspective on discussing spiritual matters.

✦

The speaker found a new desire for meaning, purpose, truth, and connections after leaving the Christian faith.

16:45

Reading Richard Holloway's books on faith and spirituality aligned with the speaker's thoughts.

Holloway's idea of 'latency,' the hidden sense behind the visible, deeply resonated with the speaker's introspection.

The speaker's journey of self-discovery was influenced by Holloway's concepts and writings.

✦

Reflection on transcendence and faith.

18:34

Minority who fully commit to faith, inspired by Jesus.

Questioning why some neglect their relationship with God, contrasting with speaker's deep desire.

Analogy between belief in God and Bigfoot, emphasizing personal belief.

Highlighting dedication of those who wholeheartedly pursue their faith.

✦

Reflections on deconstruction from American Evangelical Christianity.

23:45

Detailed picture of God within former community influences beliefs.

Difficulty of questioning ingrained beliefs compared to a Bigfoot hunter who knows Bigfoot isn't real.

Importance of language learning emphasized, with promotion for Rosetta Stone's immersive program.

✦

Therapy improves relationships and the speaker promotes Better Help online therapy service.

25:51

Working on oneself is important for enhancing relationships, as seen in the speaker's personal experiences with therapy.

Better Help offers convenience and flexibility for those seeking therapy.

The video transitions to discussing the story of Moses and the golden calf in the Book of Exodus.

The Old Testament contains wild and interesting narratives like the story of Moses and the golden calf.

✦

Moses receives detailed instructions from God on building the tabernacle and specific rituals for entering God's presence.

30:25

God gives Moses two stone tablets, possibly with the 10 Commandments.

The people grow impatient and ask Aaron to make them a god, resulting in the creation of a golden calf.

The people begin worshiping the calf, angering God who threatens to kill them all.

Moses intervenes to prevent this punishment.

✦

The story of the Israelites creating a golden calf as a deity highlights the dangers of idolatry and the influence of societal norms on faith.

35:40

The Israelites' impatience with Moses led them to create a tangible, understandable deity in the form of a golden calf.

This narrative emphasizes how people may accept a distorted version of God due to community influence and leadership.

The story serves as a cautionary tale, prompting reflection on the concept of God and the importance of staying true to core beliefs.

✦

Author's journey from viewing God as a caricature to seeking a deeper understanding.

37:39

Mentions Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello and his book 'Awareness' as impactful.

De Mello's teachings challenge traditional views of God and emphasize knowing God as the unknown.

Highlights the limitations of a fixed God concept and the barrier it poses to true spiritual understanding.

Author shares personal insights gained from de Mello's work and the importance of questioning preconceived notions about God.

✦

Discussion of the book 'Surprise by Doubt: How Disillusionment Can Invite Us Into A Deeper Faith' by Josh Chatraw and Jack Carson.

42:00

The authors take an evangelical Christian perspective and discuss deconstruction and doubts with charity and thoughtfulness.

The authors offer a traditional defense of the Christian faith and stress the significance of honesty and charity in conversations.

The narrator appreciates the approach of the authors, even though he does not agree with their conclusions.

CS Lewis' analogy of Christianity being a house with many rooms is also mentioned in the segment.

✦

Discussion on 'Attic Christianity' and the importance of avoiding isolation in narrow beliefs.

45:40

'Attic Christianity' refers to Christians isolating themselves in narrow beliefs and becoming convinced of their correctness.

Behavior of 'Attic Christianity' seen in various sects, including American evangelicalism.

Encouragement for those in the 'attic' to return to mainstream Christianity, examine foundational truths, and stay connected to the broader community.

Emphasis on the importance of avoiding isolation in narrow beliefs to prevent disillusionment and negative consequences.

✦

Open Spirituality and Alternative Belief Systems

49:20

The speaker represents Open Spirituality and encourages exploration beyond Christianity.

Criticisms of rejecting established religious structures are addressed.

Personal truth is emphasized over universal truth.

Skepticism towards religious structures is expressed, promoting critical thinking and individual beliefs.

✦

Influence of culture on spirituality.

54:04

Beliefs are shaped by DNA and cultural experiences.

Objectivity of religious structures, like Christianity, is questioned as products of their time.

Differences in God's portrayal throughout history attributed to the needs of the people at that time.

Challenge to the traditional view of the Bible as a unified, authoritative text.

✦

The speaker reflects on his journey from evangelical Christianity to questioning his beliefs, ultimately leaving for a broader perspective.

59:13

People create gods based on their beliefs and perspectives, influenced by the spirit of the age.

Despite resistance, the speaker explores cracks in the foundation of his faith.

The decision to leave the 'Christian house' is met with warnings of danger and a lack of meaning.

This highlights the challenges of personal growth and exploration.

✦

Reflection on experience inside and outside a house.

01:02:41

Initially believed the house to be created by God, but later realized it was built by people.

Noticed similarities in other houses and the strong beliefs of those inside.

Leaving the house brought challenges due to less established rules outside.

Departure was viewed as a rejection of shared beliefs, with accusations of selfishness and lack of belonging.

✦

Finding love and faithfulness outside a toxic environment.

01:05:32

Discovering kind and loving people beyond self-absorbed individuals.

Realizing the value of life outside the confines of negativity.

Hearing God's voice in nature and connecting to spirituality on a universal level.

✦

The importance of spiritual experiences and connecting with something beyond.

01:08:40

Emphasis on helping others and making healthy choices in life.

Recommendation of the book 'Awareness' by Anthony de Mello and watching his videos on YouTube.

Encouragement for exploration and open-mindedness, despite not agreeing with all viewpoints.

✦

Discussion of upcoming topics for the next week on the show.

01:12:33

Listeners encouraged to follow along using hashtag Earbiscuits and leave reviews.

Hosts express appreciation for listener feedback and encourage voicemails for discussion topics.

Call to action for listeners to call in and share their thoughts.

Listener from Alabama praises episode on Taylor Swift for fun speculation and diverse perspectives.

00:03Welcome to Ear Biscuits,

00:04the podcast where two lifelong friends

00:06talk about life for a long time.

00:09I'm Rhett.

00:10And I'm Link.

00:11This week at the round table of dim lighting,

00:14we're giving the floor to my co-host, Rhett McLaughlin.

00:17Four years ago was a pivotal moment

00:22in not only the life of this podcast,

00:24but also the public life of my friend Rhett McLaughlin,

00:28because four years ago is when

00:30he first shared publicly about his spiritual journey

00:36along the path of deconstruction.

00:38Is this NPR enough for you?

00:40Well, the interesting thing is,

00:43And now, It doesn't sound

00:44a lot like NPR,

00:45it actually sounds like

00:47maybe more fittingly like a podcast

00:49that might be done by like the 700 club.

00:51Yeah, okay.

00:52You're welcome.

00:53Which I appreciate. And now,

00:55in following with the tradition

00:58of every anniversary of that initial podcast,

01:01he is here to give us another update

01:05on where he is at spiritually.

01:09Thank you, Jim.

01:11I just feel like I couldn't call you

01:12by your actual name.

01:14Okay, I can be Jim. Link.

01:16I can be Jim, the active listener today.

01:18You be Jimmy?

01:20Let's get into it, man. That's my dad's name, Jimmy.

01:21I know you've been pulling together lots of,

01:24I made you read through this outline last night.

01:27I didn't read through it,

01:29because I want to be surprised.

01:31Oh, really?

01:32I skimmed it. Okay.

01:34I applied your speed reading techniques,

01:36which as many have pointed out,

01:39was just skimming.

01:41But let's not get into that.

01:43Oh, let's focus. Okay.

01:44Okay, all right. Let's focus.

01:45Yeah, give me a second to think about that.

01:48Okay, so yes,

01:51every year when this time approaches,

01:53given the fact that this podcast

01:55is not primarily or even

01:58Minority Mostly

02:00about spiritual things,

02:05we have this tradition of talking about these things.

02:07And every year, as the date approaches,

02:11I think to myself: we're gonna do it again?

02:14We're gonna do it again?

02:15Do you have anything to say?

02:18I think you do. I have something

02:19in my mouth,

02:19like a chia seed from a smoothie.

02:22Well, I'm really interested in where you're at,

02:24because this is a good occasion for me to hear it

02:28kinda like all put into one, like one spot.

02:33So, I'm all ears.

02:34Especially given the fact that since last year,

02:37a book, at least one book has been published,

02:41that is about the topic of spiritual deconstruction

02:45from an author that is in the church.

02:50I didn't read the chapter,

02:51but I know that the chapter was devoted

02:54to your story, completely.

02:56Yeah. It's a chapter about you.

02:59Yeah, I'm honored and I'm gonna be talking about that.

03:02Okay.

03:04Yeah, well, when this time comes around,

03:07I always start thinking, do I have anything to say?

03:09And then once I start thinking

03:10and writing down some notes,

03:12I'm like, oh, I have a lot to say.

03:13I always got a lot to say.

03:14I almost hate myself for it,

03:18but I got a lot to say and I'm gonna say it.

03:20Thank you for being here.

03:21I am using notes as I always do

03:22when I talk about these things,

03:23because as has been shown,

03:25sometimes the things I say get put into books.

03:28And so, I like to make sure

03:30that I say the things

03:30in the way that I want to say them.

03:32A book.

03:34Well, no Link.

03:35I think this marks,

03:36this may be the third book about deconstruction that,

03:40Okay. One or both of us

03:40There you go. Is mentioned in,

03:42so we're on a streak.

03:43And I think there's another one

03:44that's actually coming out really soon,

03:45that I haven't read yet,

03:46that I'm hoping we're in.

03:49And we'll maybe talk about that next year.

03:51So, I'm gonna talk about,

03:54I'm gonna recap my story,

03:56a very like Cliff's Notes version

03:58of the deconstruction story.

04:00'Cause I find what I often do,

04:02is I'm talking about it.

04:03I'm like, if you want to hear the whole story,

04:05go to listen to this long podcast from four years ago.

04:09And I don't want you to have to do that,

04:10if you don't wanna do that.

04:11If this is the only thing

04:12that you've ever listened to

04:13of us talking about this,

04:14I'd like this to be able to stand alone

04:16because I wanna respect your time.

04:19I'm also gonna talk about

04:20some people who have been really helpful,

04:22some writers who have been really helpful

04:24in helping me understand

04:26my spiritual journey.

04:28I'm gonna tell my favorite Bible story,

04:30so pull up a chair, get out your felt board.

04:33Oh!

04:35I'm going to tell my favorite Bible story,

04:37and then I will be talking about this.

04:39Do the kids get candy afterward?

04:41You can get some candy.

04:42I'm not the kid.

04:44I wasn't referring to me.

04:45Okay, if you're a kid and you're listening,

04:48which I don't know if I would recommend,

04:49yes, you can.

04:51You're gonna have to get yourself

04:52some candy at the end as a reward,

04:53because I don't have the ability to get it to you.

04:55And then I'll be talking about this book,

04:58and I'll try to tie it all together.

05:00So Cliff's Notes version

05:04of my deconstruction, slash, deconversion story.

05:10Grew up in an Evangelical Christian home,

05:12Evangelical, according to myself.

05:17Meaning that the deserved punishment for my sins,

05:21of which everybody was guilty, was hell.

05:25To receive salvation from that punishment,

05:27you gotta repent

05:28and profess faith in Jesus Christ to forgive you,

05:31at which point you enter a relationship with God

05:33and you're born again.

05:34That's how some people would refer to it, being born again.

05:38Part of that is the Bible is without error,

05:41and it is the authoritative revelation of God.

05:44And it is my duty, every Christian's duty,

05:48to spread the good news; AKA, the gospel.

05:52That's sort of a general description of like, my worldview.

05:57So this was as, Born and raised in that.

06:00As you might remember, pretty important.

06:03Yeah.

06:05The most important aspect of my life, right?

06:10It was the thing that mattered the most.

06:14And, I was born in 1977.

06:17I am 46 years old.

06:20And what that means, is that

06:23I never really questioned that

06:24for the first 20 years of my life, right?

06:30I think it's hard for people who maybe are under 35

06:33to relate to the fact that like,

06:35you know, before the internet,

06:37if you grew up before the internet,

06:41this is what you were taught,

06:42this is what most people in your community believed.

06:45You didn't really know anybody that thought differently.

06:48Maybe they thought slightly differently about things,

06:50but there was really no impetus

06:52to question any of the core ideas of Christianity.

06:56Like, why? Why would you, right?

06:59But of course, the internet,

07:02that damned internet came along when I was,

07:06pretty much when I was in college,

07:07is when I started,

07:08Yeah. Really looking at it.

07:11And at that point,

07:12I started to find lots of people

07:16who disagreed with what I believed,

07:21had a lot of things to say

07:22about the things that I believed, right?

07:26And so for the first time,

07:28I kind of started out on this quest

07:29of trying to confirm that I believed in the right thing.

07:35Because again, this wasn't just some like hobby.

07:40This was everything, right?

07:41This was not just the most important thing,

07:44it was essentially the only thing that ultimately mattered.

07:47Every single other aspect of my life

07:49was organized under this first proposition,

07:53which was all those things that I just stated.

07:56The Bible's authoritative.

07:57I'm in a relationship with Jesus.

08:00And so, I started reading.

08:03There's, I mean, there's a lot of resources

08:04and there's many more resources now,

08:07but there were a lot of resources at the time

08:09if you wanted to confirm what you believed as a Christian.

08:13There were a lot of Christian apologists,

08:15that means a defender of the faith,

08:18who could provide answers

08:19to a lot of the questions that I had.

08:20So, I started into that process in my twenties.

08:25The problem is, is that when I started looking at

08:27a lot of these answers to the questions that I had,

08:31you end up just sort of incidentally

08:33getting exposed to a lot of arguments

08:36against the things that you believe, right?

08:38Because maybe you're reading about it

08:40and you're introduced to a whole new idea,

08:42or your research it a little bit deeper

08:45and you find, oh, there's an answer to the answer,

08:47to the answer to the answer, right?

08:49Oh, there's people debating these things.

08:53So that was about a 10 year period

08:54of still being very, you know, a very strong Christian,

08:57still very, it was still the most important thing,

09:00but I would say by my thirties,

09:04the amount of good arguments

09:06causing me to question what I believed

09:09had reached a bit of a critical mass.

09:12I'd seen a lot of different things causing me to doubt.

09:16And so I went from believing that I was right,

09:18to doubting that I was right,

09:20to believing that I was wrong.

09:22That was a, Long period of time.

09:24Long period of time.

09:25And then once I believed I was wrong,

09:27I stopped calling myself a Christian.

09:29Now, this is a vast oversimplification of the process.

09:31There is a really long podcast

09:33where I talk about all the details, or a lot of them,

09:37but it was a very drawn out process.

09:39It was very painful.

09:40You were there the whole time,

09:41I was talking with you about it.

09:43Definitely.

09:44I was talking to my wife about it,

09:45she was crying on a regular basis.

09:48And, it was very disorienting.

09:50It was not easy.

09:51It was, I would say,

09:52probably the hardest thing that I've ever done, wholesale.

09:55You know, when you take it all into account.

09:58Where did I end up landing?

10:02Well first of all,

10:02I like to think that I'm still landing, right?

10:06This is a long, drawn out landing

10:08that may never fully, I may never fully plant my feet.

10:14But my goal continues to be,

10:15to be in the place that is

10:18the most honest and truthful,

10:20based on the available information that I have.

10:23So right now, I believe that the Bible

10:26and Christianity is a belief system.

10:28That they are a product of people,

10:31rather than a product of God.

10:34I'm not an atheist.

10:36Kind of went through a little bit of like a angry,

10:41you might call it an angry atheist phase,

10:44which is very common for people

10:45who are coming out of the faith,

10:46but I never really got all the way to atheism.

10:49And the reason I don't call myself an atheist

10:53is because I'm personally compelled to believe

10:55that there's something else going on

10:56beyond what I can see and understand.

11:00I don't believe this because I have evidence for it,

11:03I believe it because I want to believe it.

11:05I believe it because I want it to be true.

11:07I kinda want to live in a world

11:09where there's some magic, right?

11:11Okay. Now,

11:12from a philosophical standpoint,

11:13I do think that there are some really interesting

11:17evidences or arguments that compel me

11:21to believe that there's some intention to the universe.

11:25But again, I just don't think I can,

11:27I can't convince you of it.

11:31And I'm not trying to.

11:32But my spiritual life,

11:35very important to me, really vital to me,

11:38but I'm not convinced that I can come

11:40to any confident conclusions about spiritual matters.

11:44At least not in the same way

11:45you can come to confident conclusions about

11:51like, scientific things or whatever, right?

11:53It feels like a different category.

11:55So whatever spiritual truth there may be

11:57is probably not an accumulation of facts.

12:01It really can't be defended.

12:02I can't convince somebody of it,

12:04and I probably shouldn't try to.

12:07So this, to me, is the most honest and truthful position

12:11that I can have at the moment.

12:13Now, I could be wrong.

12:17I am wrong.

12:18100%, I know that I'm wrong,

12:20at least in some places,

12:22I don't know where I'm wrong.

12:23You're 100% certain that you're wrong some percentage.

12:27Exactly.

12:28Okay. I am definitely

12:29wrong about this,

12:32to some degree.

12:33Maybe completely.

12:38And I'm not so sure being right, being wrong,

12:41I don't know if that's what it's about anyway,

12:43I'm just telling you that this is my POV.

12:46Like, if you go visit a national park

12:50and you're walking on a trail and you pass somebody

12:54and they say, oh, they start telling you things like,

12:58maybe you got a question

12:59and they're like, well, about two miles up, blah, blah.

13:02Yeah?

13:03It's just a dude in the park.

13:04Right.

13:06I mean, maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong,

13:08but you're "You're almost there.

13:08Keep going!" Really?

13:10Right, right, but you're like,

13:11what is, What's your almost?

13:12That's a perfect analogy.

13:14Because, what is almost to you?

13:15It's just a dude in a park.

13:18That's what I am, I'm a dude in a park.

13:20Who wants to give you hope

13:21because he liked what he's coming back from.

13:23Well, I'm not even saying that.

13:24Again, I get into this thing where it's just like,

13:27why do we talk about this?

13:28And I talk about it 'cause I think about it a lot.

13:31It's very important to me.

13:32This is our podcast,

13:33we can talk about whatever the hell we want to talk about.

13:36But also, I do find that

13:38there's a lot of people who are like,

13:39thank you for talking about this.

13:41You know, going through something similar,

13:42thinking about similar things.

13:44I like to hear another perspective.

13:45Well, spoiler alert,

13:48next week I'll be sharing my perspective

13:53and I will be giving all of the answers.

13:56Hmm!

13:57With 100% certainty,

13:58so, Okay, good.

14:00If you just want, you know,

14:00if you just wanna wait a week for that,

14:03I'm here for you if you just want answers.

14:06It'll be quick.

14:08Hey, that's a good teaser.

14:10Yeah. I like that.

14:12But for now, yeah,

14:13it's like you're at this place

14:14where these are your beliefs

14:18that you've just described,

14:21and you're still very interested in it,

14:24because an application could be,

14:26this is my conclusion, therefore I'm onto the next thing.

14:31Like, I'm kind of into mammalian

14:37delivery of children. I am also into to that.

14:40Of children? I just thought

14:42Of babies.

14:43Okay.

14:45You like mammal babies.

14:46Anyway! Zoo babies,

14:48one of my favorite things. Yeah.

14:49Read a book about zoo babies.

14:50So you are,

14:52so you still think about this a lot.

14:54This is a All the time.

14:55Hobby?

14:56Yeah. This is a fascination.

14:57My wife, my wonderful, beautiful wife,

15:02her name is Jessie.

15:05She comes downstairs into the garage,

15:07we work out together pretty regularly.

15:10And if I get down there before her,

15:11I'm playing a podcast or a YouTube video,

15:15and I don't play music when I work out.

15:17Such a weirdo.

15:18And like, I'm always listening

15:20to people talk about this stuff,

15:21from every perspective.

15:22I listen to a lot of just pastors

15:24talking about things.

15:26I don't just listen to people

15:28who confirm the things that I think,

15:29I listen to all.

15:31I love people talking about this stuff.

15:33And Creflo?

15:34I know, Creflo Dollar, he's my favorite.

15:36You know, I don't really get into Creflo,

15:38I get into the people who are talking about it

15:40a little bit from a philosophical standpoint.

15:42But she's like, what is wrong with you?

15:46And I'm like, I don't know!

15:48I'm just interested in this.

15:51It is a hobby of mine.

15:52So where are you taking this right now?

15:54Okay. So one of the things that I noticed

15:57after I left the Christian faith,

16:00there was something that remained.

16:02There was this sort of core of who I am that remained,

16:07and at that core was a desire

16:10to live a meaningful life, to have purpose,

16:14to pursue truth, to love my wife,

16:18even though she makes fun of me

16:19for the things that I listen to;

16:21to love my kids, to love my friends.

16:24Yeah.

16:25To be a good boss, you know,

16:27the same kind of stuff

16:29that I wanted to be true about my life

16:31and that I was interested in,

16:33when I called myself a Christian.

16:36And there was something else that remained:

16:38this desire to connect with something beyond me,

16:42beyond myself, beyond my understanding.

16:45Something that you might roughly call spirituality.

16:49I don't know if it was last year or the year before,

16:51but I talked about Richard Holloway,

16:56former bishop of Edinburgh in the Episcopal Church,

17:01who's written a bunch of books.

17:04I love the way he talks about faith.

17:06And I talked about his book, "Stories We Tell Ourselves."

17:11And really connected with me

17:15and the way that I think about spiritual things.

17:18But this year I read his memoir,

17:20"Leaving Alexandria, A Memoir of Faith and Doubt."

17:25And I found a couple of passages

17:28that I think illustrate this idea that I'm talking about,

17:31of what I discovered about myself.

17:35So he says,

17:38and I will not attempt to do this

17:40in a Scottish accent. Don't.

17:43'Cause I would fail.

17:44"I did not know the word at the time

17:46or the idea that lay behind it,

17:48but I was experiencing latency;

17:51the sense of something hidden behind what is seen.

17:54How can you find words for what is beyond sound,

17:57make visible what vanishes when seen?

18:00I was looking for something beyond myself,

18:02something out there that would take me out of in here,

18:06the life that was going on in my head.

18:09I was looking for transcendence.

18:10The beyond that is sometimes

18:13encountered in the midst of things,

18:15usually when we are not looking for it.

18:18This is the stab of awareness

18:19that causes us to turn on our heels,

18:21to catch the shadow that is behind us.

18:24It is the sense of a presence beyond any knowing

18:27that we reach out towards.

18:29We're missing something,

18:30either because it is not there,

18:31or because we have not yet found it."

18:34He goes on to say, "Yet there is also the sense

18:37of something just out of reach,

18:40something unseen that listens

18:42from that invisible listener,

18:45a colossal demand has exerted itself

18:47upon some men and women

18:49who then give themselves utterly away to it.

18:51Jesus called it 'Father'

18:54and offered himself to it without condition.

18:57Since his death on its behalf,

18:58countless others have followed his example.

19:00Always a minority,

19:02they provoke discomfort even among believers,

19:05because most believers acquire

19:06only a mild version of faith

19:09and are made anxious by those who catch it badly."

19:14When I read this, I was like, this!

19:18Yes, I'm one of those!

19:23I caught it badly.

19:26This is why I listen to it when I work out.

19:30Okay?

19:31It does make people uncomfortable,

19:33I've noticed that, you know?

19:38I remember being a kid in a Christian community

19:44and having friends

19:48who called themselves Christians, who went to church,

19:53but it kind of didn't seem like it was that important.

19:57Yeah. And I was always like, what?

20:02How is this not the most important thing to you?

20:04Like, if this is true, if God is real,

20:10if you can have a relationship with God through Jesus,

20:13if you can have the spirit of God inside your heart,

20:17directing you, guiding you;

20:21if what you're doing now is impacting your eternity,

20:28if you could share this message with somebody

20:31and they could also be in eternity, in Heaven versus Hell,

20:36isn't this the, this is the shit!

20:39This is the most important thing.

20:42What is wrong with you, that you don't get this?

20:45I remember thinking that about a lot of people that knew.

20:49Meanwhile, we were starting Christian bands

20:52and getting involved in Campus Crusade,

20:55going on mission trips,

20:56becoming full-time Christian missionaries,

21:00because it was important.

21:02Right.

21:03Why would you not give your life to this?

21:04Why would you not give everything to this?

21:10And one of the things that I've noticed about myself

21:13is that this preoccupation with God,

21:21this deep desire to know God,

21:24this curiosity about God,

21:27is ironically what unraveled my faith in God.

21:31Hmm.

21:34Does that make sense? Yeah.

21:36It's like if you believe in Bigfoot,

21:40and I'm not saying that, Here we go.

21:41And listen, I'm not saying

21:43that believing in God and believing in Bigfoot are on the,

21:46there's a lot of atheists who would say that.

21:47I believe in God.

21:48So, okay, I don't think

21:51that these are all on the same level.

21:52This is an analogy.

21:53You don't believe in Bigfoot.

21:55I do not believe in Bigfoot.

21:56So you should say that too.

22:00If somebody really believes in Bigfoot,

22:03and they believe in Bigfoot

22:04so much so that they become a Bigfoot hunter,

22:07they have a television show, they've written a few books,

22:11they know everything there is to know about Bigfoot,

22:14they're always out there looking for Bigfoot.

22:17They are in the best position

22:20to come to the conclusion

22:21that Bigfoot does not exist.

22:23Right.

22:25Right? Yeah.

22:28And so, I'm not saying that

22:29I don't believe that God exists,

22:30but I'll be talking specifically

22:32about what actually happened to me in my deconstruction.

22:35It is harder to do that

22:37when you have a Bigfoot show, though.

22:39I will point that out.

22:40Exactly. That's the thing.

22:41You know, it's just like if you're a pastor

22:43and you're beginning to doubt,

22:45it's very difficult to,

22:47that's your job, being a pastor.

22:48If you're a Bigfoot hunter

22:49and you know Bigfoot's not real,

22:50but that cheque keeps rolling in

22:51every time TLC calls up,

22:53I don't know what channel it's on anymore.

22:55Multiple, probably. Oh yeah.

22:57It's hard to let go of that.

22:59But if you go out there enough

23:01and you never see Bigfoot,

23:02eventually you might come to some suspicions

23:04about whether or not Bigfoot exists.

23:08I think that I was especially susceptible

23:12to the type of deconstruction and deconversion

23:17that I went through,

23:19because of the particular type of Christianity

23:21that I subscribed to;

23:23because of American Evangelical Christianity.

23:28And I would say, you know,

23:32more specifically non-denominational,

23:36reformed-ish, reformed Baptist-ish Christianity,

23:42we had a very clear picture of God;

23:45a pretty detailed picture of God.

23:46We had books called, "Systematic Theology."

23:49We had books called, "Knowing God."

23:52You know, we had a picture of God,

23:56a detailed picture of God

23:57that we kind of sold to each other.

24:00And now I get to tell my favorite Bible story.

24:03Okay.

24:05You'll probably remember this one,

24:06but you've probably forgotten some of the details.

24:09And it is a wild ride.

24:15Ear Biscuits is supported by Rosetta Stone.

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25:44Ear Biscuits is brought to you by Better Help.

25:46You know, I've been married for 23 years.

25:50Yep, she's done it.

25:51She's done the work.

25:53And I gotta say

25:54that Jesse and I talk a lot

25:57about how we really enjoy our relationship right now.

26:00And I know for a fact

26:02that a big reason for that

26:04is that A, she started going to therapy

26:07and then B, she convinced me to start going to therapy.

26:09And C? It works.

26:12We both go to therapy now.

26:13And I think that working on yourself

26:17has made our relationship,

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26:25I definitely feel that.

26:26I have a mirrored experience with me and Christie.

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27:25I love this story.

27:27It is the story of Moses and the golden calf.

27:32Okay. Okay?

27:34So the Old Testament in general,

27:37I just love it because these stories are so wild, man.

27:43But this takes place in the Book of Exodus, right?

27:45So we're following the story

27:48of the Israelites getting out of Egypt

27:54after there's a series of things

27:58that happened to Pharaoh and the Egyptians

28:00and God's doing all this stuff in Egypt.

28:02Eventually the people get out,

28:04they go through the Red Sea that God parts,

28:07and then God collapses the sea on the Egyptian army.

28:10And anyway, Moses and the Israelites get out into the desert

28:14and they're wandering around the desert,

28:17wandering around the desert 40 years.

28:21And God does some really interesting things

28:23during this period of time.

28:28He starts to talk to Moses directly

28:30and his chief method is

28:35by inhabiting a cloud on top of a mountain,

28:38and then calling Moses into the cloud

28:41and then telling him things.

28:46You know, he'll call him up there,

28:47he gives him basically rules.

28:49The God in the cloud gives him a bunch of rules.

28:52The ones that you've heard of, yes,

28:54like the 10 Commandments, they're in there.

28:55You know, don't kill, don't steal.

28:57But then there's some very specific ones

28:59like if you beat your slave and they die,

29:03you must be punished.

29:05But if you beat 'em and they survive for a day or two,

29:06it's cool because they're your property.

29:09But if you knock out their tooth,

29:12you gotta let 'em go free.

29:15Really? Yeah.

29:18This one's better though.

29:21If a bull gores somebody to death,

29:25the bull must be killed but not eaten.

29:28The owner will not be punished,

29:29unless this bull is known as a troublemaker.

29:32If everybody knew that your bull

29:34was a little bit of a hmm,

29:35up to some bullshit on a regular basis,

29:37Uh-huh?

29:38then we're gonna kill both the bull and you.

29:41Oh wow. If that bull gets out

29:42and does some damage.

29:45That kind of makes sense. It kind of makes sense.

29:48I think I'm for that.

29:50This not Leviticus Law,

29:54this is just, This is Exodus.

29:55This is just, okay.

29:57These are the things that God said.

30:00I mean, there's lots of rules in the Torah,

30:02you know, those first five books.

30:03But, Okay.

30:04This is the stuff that God said during the,

30:07you know, when they were in the wilderness.

30:09Okay, that's just a little setup for how God communicated

30:12and the kinds of things that God said.

30:14But then there was this particular time

30:15where God calls Moses up to the cloud

30:17and he spends 40 days.

30:20And he goes well beyond giving him rules,

30:22he gives him very specific instructions

30:25on exactly how to build the house,

30:29the tabernacle that God wants to be inside.

30:31And if you think that you have heard

30:33very detailed, difficult to understand Ikea instructions,

30:38this is like so many levels deeper than that.

30:40This is 40 days of instructions

30:43on exactly how to make the tabernacle

30:46that God wanted to be in.

30:48Like, the materials that it needed to be in

30:50what the furniture on the inside,

30:51like what the table needed to look like,

30:53the dimensions of everything,

30:54the lamp and the lamp stand,

30:56the ark of the covenant, all this stuff.

30:59And then what to wear when you come into the tabernacle,

31:02who can come in the tabernacle,

31:04what they have to do when they come into my presence,

31:06the sacrifices, but not just what they need to sacrifice,

31:09but how they need to sacrifice

31:10and what they need to do with the organs

31:11and the specific organs.

31:12And you gotta put some blood

31:14on different parts of your body when you come in.

31:15Very, very detailed instructions.

31:20And in the process, he gives him two stone tablets.

31:24You've seen it, Charlton Heston in "The 10 Commandments."

31:26He gives Moses, played by Charlton Heston,

31:30he gives him two stone tablets;

31:31presumably with the 10 commandments on them,

31:33although scholars are not quite in agreement

31:36that that's exactly what was on the.

31:40We've always been told it's the 10 Commandments

31:41and it's like, well,

31:42it's not exactly that clear, but probably.

31:46Meanwhile, at the bottom of the mountain,

31:50Moses has left his brother A-A-Ron in charge

31:55and the people are like,

31:58Hey Aaron, we, They're getting a-antsy.

32:02Yeah, yeah. We're like,

32:03we don't know what happened to this dude Moses.

32:05Like, yeah, he lead us this far,

32:07but we're pretty sure he is not coming back.

32:09It's been quite some time,

32:10so could you like make us a god to worship or something?

32:17And A-A-Ron is like, bring me all your gold.

32:21They bring him their gold jewelry, he melts it down,

32:24he makes a little cow and then he says,

32:27here's your God who brought you out of Egypt.

32:32Now, it's always surprised me,

32:34but this was pretty cool

32:36and convincing to the people.

32:38They were like, yeah, cool,

32:40let's start making sacrifices to this golden calf.

32:44This is our God.

32:45And they started doing rituals and dancing.

32:49Back at the top of the mountain,

32:51God is like, Moses,

32:54your people just made a little golden cow

32:57and they're worshiping it.

32:59I am very pissed off about this

33:02and I am going to kill them all.

33:05And Moses is like, hold up God.

33:08It would be a little bit crazy if you,

33:12like, you took all this time to bring us out of Egypt.

33:15You've done all this stuff for us.

33:17And now if you just kill us all,

33:20what's the story there, bro?

33:22You know, that's not a good story.

33:25Plus, you kind of promised our ancestors

33:31that you would build a great nation

33:32out of their descendants

33:33and that would sort of not be doing that.

33:38And God was like, ah, I see your point.

33:42So he's like, By the way,

33:44I'm getting a little nervous at this point

33:45that you're becoming a pastor.

33:49Like, what is happening here?

33:51I missed my calling, man. Go ahead.

33:52I would've loved to have been one.

33:55All the cool clothes.

33:56Go ahead.

33:57So Moses takes his two tablets,

34:01he goes down the mountain,

34:02and when he gets down to the bottom of the mountain

34:03he sees the people all dancing around the Golden Cow.

34:05He's like, guys, what the hell?

34:07He's so mad,

34:08he throws down the tablets and breaks 'em!

34:11The things that God, I mean,

34:12God gave him the tablets. Yeah.

34:13He's so mad, he breaks 'em.

34:15He breaks the Ikea instructions right there.

34:17Well, it was 10 commandments.

34:21And he's so mad, he takes the golden calf,

34:24he throws it in a fire,

34:26then he grinds it down to powder,

34:28then he scatters it across the drinking water

34:30and he makes them fools drink it.

34:35Okay.

34:35It's like, drink that God.

34:40And then he says, okay,

34:42whoever is on my side, come over here.

34:46And the Levite, this is the priests,

34:49they come over to him and Moses is like, all right,

34:50if you're really on God's side,

34:53then I want you to go into camp.

34:55Here, take these swords, go into camp,

34:57kill your brother and your friend and your neighbor.

35:01Prove it to me.

35:03They go into camp and they kill 3000

35:05of their brothers, friends and neighbors.

35:08Ouch. And God is like, good.

35:12And then God is like, well,

35:13but I'm still gonna unleash a plague on you.

35:16Why the hell not?

35:20Great story.

35:21That's it?

35:22I mean, the book continues

35:24and I mean, it continues to be a wild ride.

35:28But I wanna stop there because really,

35:30the point that I wanted to focus on

35:32was the building of the golden calf,

35:33right? Okay.

35:36So, what is the significance of this story?

35:40Well, this may not be what your pastor tells you,

35:43this may be what Pastor Rhett tells you.

35:45Oh, God.

35:49The people became impatient with Moses, right?

35:55Moses is taking too long.

35:57So what do they do?

35:57They made their own God.

35:59And it was a God that they could see,

36:01that they could understand, that they could relate to.

36:03It was tangible, it was defined;

36:05it was right there, it was a golden calf.

36:08So imagine if you're a kid in this group of people

36:12and you see all these people worshiping this golden calf.

36:15Everyone, every adult in your community is doing it.

36:18The guy in charge, A-A-Ron,

36:19he's telling you that this is your God,

36:20what do you do?

36:22Well, you don't question that, right?

36:26The God that you are presented with

36:29is the God that you accept most often,

36:33regardless of the nature of that God; at least initially.

36:36And the God that I could understand,

36:38that my community could understand,

36:40that my country could understand,

36:42is a certain type of God, right?

36:44It's the God of a,

36:47and not the full whole country,

36:50like, you know, a big swath of the country.

36:52The God of American Evangelical Christianity.

36:55And when I grew up, I took a closer look at that God,

37:00or what I would say the caricature of God

37:02that I had been given,

37:03and I became convinced that it wasn't God.

37:06I became convinced that whatever God is,

37:09it must be bigger than

37:10the God that I'd placed my faith in.

37:14It must be bigger than the golden calf that I was given.

37:18So, You drank it.

37:21I mean, did I drink it?

37:23I don't know.

37:26But somebody who has really helped me

37:27understand some of this stuff

37:29and has articulated some ideas

37:33that have resonated with me,

37:34another author, Anthony de Mello.

37:39This is a Jesuit priest from India.

37:45Oh, I thought he played for the Lakers.

37:50That's Carmelo Anthony, sorry.

37:51You mentioned, you just mixed up,

37:53there was like De Angelo Russell, Anthony,

37:57Don't let me throw you off.

37:58This was just a passing joke.

38:00So he's a Jesuit priest from India,

38:02he's known for his writing and teaching

38:04in the seventies and eighties,

38:06and last year I read his book, "Awareness,"

38:09that I have right here.

38:10I'm gonna read some of this.

38:12Essentially, he outlines his view

38:14of spirituality in this book.

38:15And he,

38:20I highly rec, this will be my rec, is this book.

38:23It's a talk that that he gave at a retreat

38:29and then they just kind of turned it into a book.

38:32So when you read it, it sounds like somebody talking,

38:34so I recommend the Audible

38:37because it's literally the recording

38:38of him actually saying this in a group.

38:43But there's this section

38:44where he's talking about Thomas Aquinas,

38:48St. Thomas in the Catholic church,

38:49who lived in the 13th century,

38:51wrote a lot of stuff about God.

38:55And he's describing some things

38:57that Aquinas said about God.

39:00"In the prologue of his Summa Theologica,

39:04which was a summary of all his theology,

39:07Aquinas says, 'About God, we cannot say what he is,

39:10but rather what he is not.

39:12And so we cannot speak about how he is,

39:14but rather how he is not.'

39:18And then in another commentary,

39:20he talks about the ways of knowing God.

39:23'And the highest form of the knowledge of God

39:25is to know God, ton quam ignotum,

39:28to know God as the unknown.'"

39:33He discusses this a little bit

39:36and then Anthony says,

39:38"The fact is that you're surrounded by God

39:41and you don't see God because you, quote, know God;

39:44or you, quote, know about God.

39:48The final barrier to the vision of God

39:50is your God concept.

39:52You miss God because you think you know.

39:54That's the terrible thing about religion."

39:58Great book, a lot of wisdom in there.

40:04But this really, the way he talks about this God concept

40:08was very helpful to me,

40:09because it helped me understand

40:12the way that I had conceived of God

40:15for so much of my life, right?

40:19He's got a lot of really great analogies in the book.

40:22I love analogies and I'm gonna give one of my own

40:24that has been helpful in this.

40:27Just imagine that there are

40:28multiple people who have telescopes

40:31pointed at the sun, to look at the sun.

40:35And then there's one guy who starts saying, Hey,

40:39I think that the sun is in my telescope.

40:45You know, I think that my telescope is the thing.

40:49Like, it's the right telescope.

40:53You're convinced that the thing

40:55that gives you your concept of God,

40:59in this case your religion of choice,

41:01is the thing that is ultimate;

41:03the thing that matters

41:06versus whatever it's pointing to, right?

41:11And I think that that, for me, was what happened.

41:13I think in many ways,

41:15it was a complete preoccupation

41:19with the telescope itself

41:21and a defense of the telescope itself.

41:24And being convinced that I had found the right telescope,

41:27and I'm learning more and more

41:29that my deconstruction was not necessarily

41:31a deconstruction of God,

41:33it was a deconstruction of my telescope.

41:36Okay, yeah.

41:39And now I'm going to talk a little bit

41:42about the book that I was featured in, Link.

41:45Oh yeah, here we go.

41:47To tease this idea out,

41:50that we're talking about the telescopes.

41:53Because this view that I just described

41:57is actually pretty well described in this book.

42:00So this book is called "Surprise by Doubt:

42:03How Disillusionment Can Invite Us Into A Deeper Faith"

42:07by Josh Chatraw and Jack Carson.

42:12Now, I'll just say right up front,

42:16these guys are Evangelical Christians

42:21who are still evangelical Christians.

42:24So as you can imagine,

42:25I do not agree with the conclusions

42:27that they come to in this book.

42:29And I am included in this book,

42:30not as a beacon of truth,

42:32but as an example of what not to do

42:34and what not to believe.

42:35But I will say,

42:39Josh and I, and you,

42:42have a mutual friend.

42:44And that was how he got in touch with me

42:46to tell me that I was gonna be included in this book,

42:51to send me a copy, a transcript of the book,

42:55and including the chapter that I was in.

42:58And I had a little correspondence with him.

43:00Before it was finalized?

43:01Before it was finalized. Okay.

43:03I haven't compared what he sent me

43:06with what ended up in the book,

43:09I think it's pretty much the same,

43:10but I really appreciate the courtesy of

43:14having talked to me ahead of time.

43:16And I will say that both of these guys,

43:20I don't know Jack,

43:20but he wrote the book with Josh,

43:25they're very charitable, they're thoughtful,

43:28they discuss deconstruction and deconversion

43:30without attacking people's character.

43:32What I think, and the conclusion that I have come to,

43:37are held up as examples of what they don't agree with,

43:40but they don't bash me.

43:42They don't question my character and my motivations,

43:46so I really appreciate that because,

43:48That has happened.

43:49That happens most of the time

43:49Frequently. That people

43:51will talk about this stuff.

43:53And I will say that they both have had

43:55significant struggles with doubt, like real doubt.

44:00And they describe that.

44:01And they're doubts that are similar

44:04to the doubts that I've had,

44:05that many people who have deconstructed, have had.

44:08And they don't shy away from those things.

44:10They come to different conclusions, yes,

44:12they offer a traditional defense of the Christian faith,

44:16and they land in basically an evangelical POV

44:20at the end of the day.

44:22But they are honest about it, they're charitable,

44:24and I appreciate the way

44:25that these guys have gone about this.

44:28Now, they use an analogy,

44:33you know they got me with an analogy.

44:35They use an analogy that CS Lewis

44:37introduced back in the day

44:40in reference to mere Christianity.

44:43And basically, it's this idea

44:45that Christianity is a house with many rooms.

44:48And what CS Lewis saw his role as,

44:53is to invite people into

44:55what he called "Mere Christianity."

44:57I mean, that's a famous book, but it was also a concept.

44:59Basically, it means the baseline ideas,

45:03the foundational truths of Christianity that

45:07Would get you in the front door.

45:08Unite all Christians.

45:09And that was the front door in the hallway.

45:12Okay.

45:12And then along the hallway there are these rooms,

45:14and that would be your different

45:15traditions and denominations.

45:18And CS Lewis was like,

45:20you need to settle into one of these rooms.

45:22Like if you really want to sit down, have tea,

45:24sit next to the fire, have community,

45:26get outta the hallway, get into one of the rooms

45:28and that's where you experience a real home.

45:32But he wasn't trying to convince people of a room,

45:35he was trying to get people into the door.

45:37And so Josh and Jack expand on this analogy

45:40and introduce something called "Attic Christianity."

45:44And this describes groups of Christians

45:46that kind of forget that they're a part of the larger house

45:49and they retreat into the attic, right?

45:52Which is this confined, restricted space

45:55where you can become convinced that you are correct,

46:00that you are the most correct,

46:02maybe the only ones who are correct.

46:04That you have, like,

46:05you're the closest thing to the truth, right?

46:09And this describes quite a few sort of

46:13sects of Chris,

46:15S-E-C-T-S of Christianity.

46:17Yeah. Including,

46:19American evangelicalism or what I described before,

46:22this non-denominational, reformed-ish,

46:24Baptist-ish southern evangelicalism

46:27that we were a part of; that I was a part of.

46:29You were actually a part of the Presbyterian church, Link.

46:32Yeah.

46:34But we tended to think like,

46:37the reason if your mind is like mine,

46:43you kind of convinced yourself

46:45that of all the options that you had in your community,

46:50that this one is the best one.

46:52You go to the church that's the best church,

46:54according to what they believe;

46:56not according to like who's got the best music or whatever.

46:59I mean, a lot of people make that,

47:00but I was like, you believe the right thing, right?

47:05So, and then they talk about this process.

47:08There's people who are in the attic,

47:10and when you're in the attic

47:11and you're in this restricted, confined space,

47:13you're just asking to hit your head on the rafters, right?

47:16You're asking to become disillusioned

47:18with this very narrow view that you have adopted.

47:22And then what you do

47:23is you jump out of the second story attic

47:27and you land on the ground,

47:29and it's bad, bad news, right?

47:33Hmm. And the point of the book

47:34is to encourage people who are in the attic

47:37to come back to the main floor of Christianity,

47:39examine the central claims of Christianity,

47:41the foundation, stay inside the house.

47:43Okay. Don't jump out.

47:45So how did I end up in the book, man?

47:47And I would say that you're kind of in the book.

47:52This is how you got in the book, Link.

47:56Chapter eight called "Open Spirituality,"

47:58it says "Recently, the YouTube personality

48:01and co-host of Good Mythical Morning Rhett McLaughlin

48:03shared his deconversion story online."

48:05So the other host is Link Neal,

48:08that's not mentioned, but it's implied.

48:12I like it this way.

48:16In this setting, maybe exclusively in this setting.

48:20Yeah. This is,

48:21I don't need a shout out. Hey, this is the problem.

48:23Hey, I'm gonna say though,

48:24this is the problem when you blabber on about it

48:27as much as I do, you get in the books.

48:28When you shut up about it,

48:30you don't get in the books.

48:31Yeah. So, I mean,

48:32good, bad, indifferent, I don't know.

48:34Seems that you'd prefer to not be in the book,

48:35which I don't blame you.

48:39So, Yeah, it means

48:40I didn't have to read it.

48:42The idea is when you jump out of the Christian House,

48:49you can sort of inhabit other houses

48:51or other beliefs, right?

48:54And they outline different paths that people can take

48:57and then they choose a representative person

49:02to represent that view.

49:03And I got to be the guy who represents Open Spirituality.

49:08That's what they call it.

49:09Okay?

49:11And they use me to represent this view

49:13based on some of the things that I've said in the past

49:16and then I think I've reinforced it in some ways

49:18by some of the things I've said today, but essentially,

49:20So you represented open spirituality

49:23as a viable option?

49:24No, no, no, no. As the option

49:26where you jumped out of the attic

49:27instead of coming back down?

49:28I think, if I can recall,

49:30you can jump into atheism,

49:32or new atheism they specifically call it, Open Spirituality,

49:38Mythic Christianity, which they use Jordan Peterson

49:41as the representative for that

49:43because he talks about Christianity as a myth,

49:45and I can't remember the other one.

49:49But you can jump into these different,

49:53alternative belief systems that are not Christianity.

49:56Okay.

49:58And Open Spirituality is one of them.

49:59So, I got the honor of being the representative here

50:03because I have talked about

50:06my problem with certainty about spiritual things, check.

50:10My general openness to spirituality, check.

50:13And even my specific openness to,

50:16and adherence to the teachings of Jesus,

50:18despite not really knowing

50:20what I think about Jesus historically, check.

50:25And then after presenting what I believe,

50:27which again, they do say this,

50:31that like they're kind of using me as a representative

50:33and then they're critiquing

50:34this broader idea of open spirituality.

50:37They're not specifically critiquing

50:39anything that I've said.

50:41I'm not gonna spend a lot of time

50:44talking about the critique

50:46and giving an answer to it,

50:47just because I think, well,

50:48first of all I probably already lost you

50:50if you're not interested in this stuff.

50:51But I have something more interesting

50:54that I wanna talk about,

50:55but I also don't wanna seem like I'm dodging;

50:57these guys took the time to put me in the book

50:59and to use my view to represent this

51:01and then to critique it,

51:02so I do wanna respond.

51:07So I've kind of tried to narrow it down

51:09to a couple of points that they made.

51:11So, they say that when you reject

51:17an established religious structure

51:20and then you pick and choose which spiritual ideas

51:23you want to subscribe to,

51:25you are making yourself the ultimate judge of truth

51:29and this is not a reliable basis for a spiritual life.

51:33And I would say: I agree, I agree.

51:38You personally wanting something to be true

51:41or feeling that something is true, doesn't make it true.

51:46I would just go one step further and say,

51:49I don't think any religious structure,

51:52whether it's based on an existing system

51:55or one that you personally piece together, is reliable.

51:59It may be truly useful, it may be truly meaningful,

52:02it may be truly transformative,

52:05but I'm not convinced that it is true

52:10in some defensible, factual sense.

52:16So in other words,

52:16a religion followed by only me

52:18is probably not true.

52:21While a religion that's followed by a lot of people

52:23may feel more true because a lot of people are following it,

52:25but it's probably also not true.

52:27Just because there's a lot of people using the telescope

52:29doesn't mean that it's the best

52:30or the most correct picture of the sun.

52:33So I would say I agree

52:34and I'm just going a step further, if that makes sense.

52:38They also say that open spirituality

52:43is not nearly as fair-minded or unbiased,

52:46or as free as people like me might believe,

52:50because people like me are still very much influenced

52:53by the cultural status quo, right?

52:56We say that we're not adhering to a religion,

52:59but we kind of are.

53:00We kind of are, in a sense,

53:03adhering to another religion

53:05that they would call the Spirit of the Age.

53:08And whatever morality or standards

53:09come from the spirit of the age

53:11are without any reference to an ultimate moral authority,

53:14because they're just rooted in human subjectivity.

53:16They're not rooted in a objective,

53:19moral source; God or the Bible.

53:26And again, I agree.

53:30I actually agree with this point

53:32because I believe that,

53:36I believe what I believe,

53:38because of some combination of my DNA and my experience.

53:44And my experience includes

53:45the time and place that I was born,

53:46the culture that I was born into; my experience.

53:50This mind, interacting with this world that I am in,

53:54has resulted in a perspective that I have.

53:58I 100% agree with that.

54:01But again, I think they stop short

54:04and I would go one step further and say:

54:07religious structures, including Christianity,

54:09aren't independent objective systems.

54:12They are also a product of their time and place.

54:18And I think the more that I have looked

54:20into Christianity and into the Bible,

54:22I have seen that they in and of themselves

54:26are the same type of product of time and place.

54:28Think about that God

54:30that Moses was interacting with at the top of the mountain.

54:34And this God is up there saying,

54:36build this in this very specific way,

54:38using these very specific materials,

54:40sacrifice things in this way

54:42oh, I wanna kill these people.

54:45Do this with your slave.

54:48And then you ask yourself the question,

54:50why is that God,

54:51why does that God seem so different than Jesus?

54:54Now, I know what

54:55the traditional Christian answer to that is.

54:58That it's the same God relating to people,

55:01who are different.

55:02He has the capacity to relate to people in different ways,

55:05and there are different sort of eras

55:07of his relationship and grace and all that.

55:14But I tend to think

55:17a much better explanation is the way that,

55:19the reason that God, for Moses on top of that mountain,

55:23was saying those things,

55:24is because that God was a product

55:27of those people at that time and place.

55:31The reason that God was talking about those things

55:34is because that's the God that they needed at the time.

55:38They needed a God to tell them what to do with their slaves.

55:41They needed a God to tell 'em what to do

55:42when the bull gets out and gores somebody.

55:46They needed a God to tell them

55:47that this is the kind of place that they want,

55:49that this God wants to live, right?

55:53And I believe that this is

55:56an illuminating perspective on the Bible itself.

55:59When you understand that

56:01the people who were writing

56:03are conceptualizing God for themselves,

56:08at the time and the place that they find themselves in.

56:11And that's why, despite the Christian doctrine

56:16of the univocality of the Bible,

56:17the idea that this is God's word,

56:19it's authoritative and is consistent,

56:20and it's of one voice.

56:22Despite being a doctrine of the church,

56:26it doesn't fit well at all with the reality of the Bible,

56:29which feels like a disparate collection of writings

56:32of people who believe different things;

56:34that had different gods

56:37because they are creating these gods for themselves.

56:41And so to me,

56:43when you say to me that as an open spiritualist,

56:50I am a product of my time and place,

56:54I am submitting to the spirit of the age,

56:57I'd say, okay, yes; to a point, I agree.

57:01I have to agree because I have no choice,

57:04because I think that the spirit of the age

57:07is determining what we're all thinking,

57:09depending on what our starting point is.

57:11But I think that the system

57:13that you are holding up as being somehow outside of

57:16and above the spirit of the age,

57:17is just the spirit of another age.

57:21Does that make sense? Yeah.

57:24Now, I could talk about this for a really long time,

57:30as you can imagine.

57:32These are the kinds of things that I listen to,

57:34when I'm working out, Link.

57:36I'm almost tempted to begin

57:37just curling while talking about this.

57:42That's not gonna be a good look.

57:43But, I think it'll connect more with people

57:47who don't think about it

57:48in the way that I think about it,

57:50to expand on the analogy that they use in the book.

57:53'Cause I think that this analogy is useful,

57:55I love analogies,

57:56and I think that to help understand

57:58where I ended up landing

57:59and the way that I see things now,

58:03going a few steps further on their analogy would be helpful.

58:08So I agree with Josh and Jack

58:11that I was in the attic.

58:14I was in attic Christianity, right?

58:17I mean, take for example the fact that

58:21one of, sort of, the big dominoes to fall for me

58:25was beginning to believe in evolution, right?

58:29When the evidence for common ancestry

58:32became indisputable and overwhelming,

58:34I couldn't reconcile it with the view that I had

58:37of the special creation of animals

58:40and especially people.

58:44And that was only a problem

58:45because I was an evangelical Christian.

58:47If I had have been Catholic,

58:49then I would've been like, oh,

58:50the Pope already said that evolution happened.

58:53So, this isn't a problem for me.

58:55This doesn't change anything, right?

58:57But because I was in my very specific attic,

59:01that really screwed up my telescope.

59:04It was a giant ding in my particular telescope.

59:09But I do not believe that I jumped out of the attic.

59:13This is where I take issue, right?

59:15I don't think I jumped out of the attic.

59:18I went back down to the main floor,

59:20I looked around, I inspected the foundation.

59:23That's essentially what a decade of my struggle was.

59:27And I saw some cracks.

59:30I saw a lot of cracks in the foundation of this house.

59:34Some real structural issues,

59:35coming from a former civil engineer.

59:39And when I found these,

59:40I went and I asked some people in the house about 'em,

59:43you know, guys who seem like the experts.

59:47And essentially what they would tell me is that,

59:48listen, the house is in great shape.

59:50There's nothing wrong with the house.

59:50The foundation is solid.

59:52If you're seeing problems,

59:54that's not because there's something wrong with the house,

59:56it's because there's something wrong with you.

01:00:00You, your perspective is messed up.

01:00:02The house is solid.

01:00:03The Christian foundation,

01:00:05the Christian House is solid.

01:00:09But I was telling people, you know,

01:00:11I think I might leave the house,

01:00:15I think I might go outside

01:00:16and they're like, it's dangerous out there.

01:00:18Don't leave the house,

01:00:19it's the last thing you wanna do.

01:00:20You can't have a meaningful life out there.

01:00:22You cannot have a meaningful life outside the house.

01:00:25There's nothing but emptiness

01:00:26and destruction outside of the house.

01:00:29This is where God lives, this is his house.

01:00:32This is the place where you need to be,

01:00:34this is the place where it's safe.

01:00:36But, I kept finding issues.

01:00:40And I would say specifically

01:00:41the thing that I was finding was,

01:00:44I was finding things that maybe made me think

01:00:47that the house wasn't built by God,

01:00:49but that the house was built by people.

01:00:52That was the overwhelming conclusion

01:00:54that I was coming to, right?

01:00:57Continuing to find this evidence

01:01:02that I couldn't have confidence in this

01:01:04as some home of spiritual truth,

01:01:06because people had created it.

01:01:10And when I finally admitted to myself

01:01:12that I couldn't have confidence in the house,

01:01:14I walked out the front door.

01:01:15I didn't jump out of the attic,

01:01:16I walked out the front door.

01:01:18And then when I walked out,

01:01:19I looked back at the house.

01:01:21And from the outside I could see, you know,

01:01:24there's a lot of things about this house

01:01:25that are beautiful, meaningful.

01:01:29There's transformational aspects of this house

01:01:32for the people who are inside.

01:01:35But I saw something else

01:01:36that when I was outside of the house,

01:01:40it seemed even more evident to me

01:01:43that it was a house built by people,

01:01:45not a house that God built.

01:01:47And then the longer I stayed outside,

01:01:49and the longer that I looked at it,

01:01:51the more and more, you know,

01:01:53a new perspective of the house emerged as like,

01:01:57well, definitely this is a house built by people.

01:02:00I see why I didn't see that when I was inside.

01:02:02But now that I'm on the outside,

01:02:04it's very evident to me

01:02:06that this is a construction of people.

01:02:10But I also looked around and saw something else.

01:02:11I saw other houses that people had built,

01:02:15and inside all these houses,

01:02:17there were people saying very similar things.

01:02:20They're like, our house was built by God.

01:02:24This is where God lives.

01:02:26They're passionate.

01:02:27They had their own set of evidence.

01:02:28They had their own reasons

01:02:30for why their house was the place that God lived.

01:02:33Just an interesting note.

01:02:36Oh, there's other people who think like we did

01:02:38when we were inside our house.

01:02:41Now I'm gonna be honest, it wasn't easy.

01:02:47It has not been easy to be on the outside of the house.

01:02:50Inside the house, there's house rules,

01:02:52there's systems, there's rituals, there's answers.

01:02:57Somebody dies, we know what to do.

01:02:58Somebody gets married, we know what to do.

01:03:00Somebody gets sick, we know what to do.

01:03:04On the outside, those rules are not as established

01:03:08and it makes life a little bit more difficult in one sense.

01:03:14You don't have the same house rules.

01:03:18Also found that the people

01:03:20who were still on the inside of the house,

01:03:23thought a lot less of me for being on the outside.

01:03:28They told me all the real reasons that I left the house.

01:03:31Even though while I was in the house,

01:03:33and as I was leaving the house,

01:03:34and after I left the house,

01:03:36I told them why I left the house.

01:03:39And it was because I had problems with the house.

01:03:42No, no, no. We cannot accept that.

01:03:45The problem is you.

01:03:47You never really were a member of this house, by the way.

01:03:50You never really belonged in this house.

01:03:53You never really believed the things that we believe.

01:03:57They told me why I had left the house.

01:04:03They reminded me that the issues

01:04:04that I had with the house were illegitimate,

01:04:07and it was really masking some deeper desire, right?

01:04:11My desire to essentially just be

01:04:13my own selfish self outside of the house,

01:04:15to follow my own selfish desires.

01:04:18I've been deceived.

01:04:19At best, I've been deceived.

01:04:20At worst, I was just being a selfish asshole

01:04:23who wanted to be my own God,

01:04:24and was not willing to live inside of a house.

01:04:28But I also found a lot of other people outside that house.

01:04:31You know, some of 'em had walked out of the house,

01:04:33the same house.

01:04:34Some of them had similar reasons for leaving.

01:04:37They decided there was something wrong with the house

01:04:39and they had left.

01:04:40A lot of people had left for completely different reasons.

01:04:42They had been badly hurt

01:04:43by somebody inside the house, right?

01:04:46There was also a bunch of people

01:04:47who had walked out of a bunch of other houses,

01:04:49and then there was a bunch of people

01:04:50who had never been in a house at all

01:04:52and found it odd that we had all been in those houses

01:04:55and were so serious about it.

01:04:59And I noticed something about these people.

01:05:03Some of them were self-absorbed,

01:05:05some of them were narcissists,

01:05:07some of them were dangerous.

01:05:09Some of them were living lives

01:05:11with only themselves in mind.

01:05:14Just like a lot of people in the house, surprisingly.

01:05:19And some of them were genuine on the outside.

01:05:22Some of them were kind, loving, helpful.

01:05:24There were selfless people

01:05:25living lives with others in mind,

01:05:28just like some people in the house.

01:05:32But I found that most of them were like me.

01:05:36Some combination of those things, messy.

01:05:39Trying their best, screwing up a lot.

01:05:43Just like a lot of people in the house,

01:05:44just like a lot of people outside the house,

01:05:46just like people.

01:05:47And so I started to doubt whether or not

01:05:49someone being good or bad had much at all

01:05:51to do with whether or not

01:05:52they had ever been in the house

01:05:53or they were in the house.

01:05:55It seemed like the main purpose of the house

01:05:57was to be able to say who was in the house

01:05:59and who was outside of the house.

01:06:01It was a way to kind of know where people stood, right?

01:06:07And so it was a great way to divide people

01:06:10into those who belong and those who didn't belong.

01:06:15But like I said, I've been told that there would be no hope.

01:06:18There's no hope outside the house.

01:06:20There's no meaning, there's no purpose out there.

01:06:25That isn't what I found at all.

01:06:27I found that just like when I did,

01:06:30when I was inside the house,

01:06:31I wanted to live a life characterized

01:06:33by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,

01:06:35goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control;

01:06:37IE, the fruits of the spirit or the fruit of the spirit.

01:06:41And I found, not only did I know

01:06:44a lot of people outside of the house

01:06:45that wanted to live like that,

01:06:46I wanted to live like that

01:06:48and I could also continue to live that kind of life

01:06:52and pursue those kinds of things outside of the house.

01:06:55And I actually found

01:06:56many, many things outside of the house

01:06:58that were incredible resources for that kind of life.

01:07:01Things that I would have never seen,

01:07:04heard, touched, been exposed to,

01:07:06if I'd have stayed in the house.

01:07:10And then in terms of God,

01:07:13once I got outside of the house,

01:07:14I didn't stop looking for God.

01:07:17I was just convinced that he wasn't inside

01:07:19or only inside that house.

01:07:26And it wasn't that I stopped hearing God's voice.

01:07:29Sometimes I think I do hear God's voice,

01:07:31but it's not coming from one of the houses.

01:07:33It's coming from over the ridge,

01:07:36or in the river or in the wind, right?

01:07:38And it's not saying very specific things

01:07:40about who God is and what God wants.

01:07:43It's a different kind of voice.

01:07:49And sometimes, I think that maybe God is

01:07:51just all around outside;

01:07:53inside, outside and all around the houses.

01:07:56I don't really know

01:07:57and I don't know if that's the point,

01:07:59but I'm not ever going to stop listening,

01:08:03ever stop pursuing and ever stop trying

01:08:06to hear and follow God's voice.

01:08:11But I'm definitely, I mean, the one thing

01:08:12I am pretty thoroughly convinced of at this point

01:08:17is that though I'm not sure where God is,

01:08:20I'm convinced that they are not limited

01:08:22to one particular structure.

01:08:24They're not in any one of the houses.

01:08:26And I don't know,

01:08:30when it comes to spirituality and spiritual things,

01:08:33I think where I have ultimately landed

01:08:36is that spiritual, I do believe, or certainly hope

01:08:40that spiritual experiences can be attained.

01:08:44But I'm not convinced that they can be

01:08:47contained or explained.

01:08:49I'm not trying to sound like Jesse Jackson here.

01:08:52But I think, ultimately,

01:08:55that is the viewpoint from outside of the house.

01:09:00A hope, a desire, a sense that there is something beyond.

01:09:06And that I'm driven by a desire

01:09:08to connect with whatever that is.

01:09:11But the idea that I have to

01:09:14contain it and explain it.

01:09:17The idea that that thing, whatever it is,

01:09:20is constrained to an idea, to a book,

01:09:24to a religious philosophy, to an ideology,

01:09:28seems pretty preposterous.

01:09:31And the last thing I'll say is,

01:09:32'cause it's a common criticism,

01:09:35whenever I speak in this way,

01:09:36what I am told is that I am just proposing a new philosophy.

01:09:41That I'm making a new truth claim.

01:09:43That I'm doing something that's no different.

01:09:46Another way to say that

01:09:47is you might say that I am building a new house.

01:09:52I do not believe that is what's happening.

01:09:55I am saying I'm not building a new house, on purpose.

01:09:59And to tell me that my not building a house

01:10:01is building a house,

01:10:05that I'm not building a house.

01:10:08That's the thing I'm taking issue with.

01:10:11I'm not making a truth claim

01:10:17that I think applies to you and everyone else.

01:10:23I am saying that, about such things,

01:10:26I don't think we can make truth claims.

01:10:29And if you wanna get into semantics

01:10:31and say that that's a truth claim in and of itself,

01:10:33I think you're missing the point that I'm making.

01:10:35I'm saying I'm not building a house.

01:10:37Don't think we should build houses, at least right now.

01:10:43That's not a house.

01:10:48So, Pastor Rhett, are you gonna close with an invitation?

01:10:50Yeah. I would like everyone to bow their heads.

01:10:53Nope. And close their eyes.

01:10:54And to not come into my house,

01:10:57because I don't have one.

01:11:00Okay.

01:11:01Let's just keep walking around, guys.

01:11:04Let's just keep walking around

01:11:05and be there for each other.

01:11:06See somebody in need, help 'em out.

01:11:11Make healthy choices.

01:11:14Love people.

01:11:16It doesn't seem that complicated.

01:11:22But you are gonna recommend a book.

01:11:23You've already done it.

01:11:24Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:11:25I recommend, I mean,

01:11:28I can't say I recommend "Surprised by Doubt,"

01:11:30even though I'm in it.

01:11:32Listen, if you wanna read it, fine.

01:11:34I've already told you about it,

01:11:34I told you what was in it.

01:11:36The only reason I'm saying I don't recommend it,

01:11:37is 'cause I don't agree with it.

01:11:40But what I do recommend

01:11:41is Anthony de Mello, "Awareness."

01:11:46And I would say, if you don't wanna sit down

01:11:48and listen to something that's like nine hours long,

01:11:51just search Anthony de Mello on YouTube

01:11:53and just click on any one of his short videos.

01:11:56He is a character and a half,

01:11:58Oh yeah? And he's very funny,

01:11:59and I just love the guy

01:12:00and I love the way he talks about things.

01:12:03And I think you might too.

01:12:04Well, I appreciate the update.

01:12:06I think that was, it's very well organized.

01:12:09It wasn't built, though.

01:12:10Nope. Because, I mean,

01:12:11it wasn't a structure.

01:12:13And I think I did pretty good too.

01:12:15You did great.

01:12:16I didn't interrupt you

01:12:17and I wasn't tempted to fall asleep,

01:12:21which is to your credit.

01:12:24So, where's my candy?

01:12:29We'll get you some,

01:12:29we got candy on the front desk.

01:12:31Carly's got some Butter Fingers for you.

01:12:33Next week, we have fielded questions.

01:12:38In addition to me sharing what I wanna share,

01:12:41we've got questions that we're gonna move through

01:12:45at a pretty decent pace.

01:12:48Good questions that we've heard again, and again and again

01:12:51pop up every time you share an update,

01:12:55or I share an update,

01:12:56or we weigh in on spiritual topics.

01:12:58So we're gonna get into that,

01:12:59it'll be a different vibe,

01:13:01but similar topic next week.

01:13:05So, follow along the conversation.

01:13:08Hashtag Earbiscuits.

01:13:10Remember, leave a review wherever you listen.

01:13:15That's always helpful to us.

01:13:16We really appreciate it.

01:13:18And, call us and leave a voicemail.

01:13:20You know, we like hearing your voice,

01:13:22especially if you're asserting something

01:13:24that might elicit a response from us.

01:13:28Hmm. So, let us have it.

01:13:311-888-Earpod1. Earpod1.

01:13:36That's it. You got nothing else to say?

01:13:37That's it. No benediction?

01:13:39Thanks for listening,

01:13:42maybe we'll talk about it again.

01:13:43You'll talk about it next week.

01:13:44You're gonna give us a little update.

01:13:46Yeah. But maybe

01:13:46we'll talk about it next year, maybe we won't.

01:13:48We never know.

01:13:50Hi guys, Janna from Alabama.

01:13:53Listening to the Taylor Swift episode,

01:13:55great episode, hilarious.

01:13:58People are people.

01:13:59It's just fun to speculate about all that stuff

01:14:02and allow them to be people.

01:14:05I enjoyed your take on it and I'm very appreciative.

01:14:08Take care, bye.

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