230324_23-005_LWC_Morning_MugClub.mp3

Speaker1: [00:00:02] Subject for today.

[00:00:09] To see things.

Steven: [00:00:18] Uh oh. You weren't expecting that, were you? We weren't expecting a little bit of the Good Morning Mug Club. A little. A little retro. We haven't done this since the Mug Club Quarantine month. For those of you who don't remember, everyone else hid in their basement on the left and on the right. And they said, we're going to lock down. And we said we will do two a days. So there was a lot of with Grutter and Good Morning Mug Club, and then we kind of hybridized them. And now with the Friday show, we can do whatever we want. It's a blank slate. Yeah, yeah, it's a lot of fun. So first off, Gerald, how are you, sir? I'm doing well. How are you? I'm doing not well. You look more comfortable than I am. Well, I'm more comfortable. And we'll put it to a poll. If you guys want the pajamas to make a comeback for the Friday show, it's a little bit more of a relaxed morning show I made a mistake of. Well, first off, I ate some non moldy dates, which is good. That's an improvement. That's not the mistake, though. No, the mistake was I ate halal guys last night and I did two packs of the red sauce, which I always tell. And then I can't sleep. My stomach wakes me up with noise. Well, you said, like every month.

Gerald: [00:01:15] Or so you kind of forget and you're like, okay, maybe I can do it. And then you do it.

Steven: [00:01:18] And I believe I said every month and a half way to exaggerate. But yes, every 90 days, approximately, I have a lapse in judgment. And I say, you know what, I bet you my stomach has adapted. It doesn't it doesn't adapt at all. Your mouth gets used to it, your stomach.

Speaker4: [00:01:32] In your.

Steven: [00:01:33] Your sphincter. Don't. Yes. Yeah. So it's an uncomfortable morning. So, look, let me tell you something really quickly. This is going to be a figment of your imagination if you're watching on YouTube or you're watching on Rumble. We are not going to be doing this on YouTube, on Rumble. This this Friday show will only live on mug club going forward. And by the way, it is free this month, but you do have to watch it on you know mug club.com/steven Carter amateur club.com/steven Crowder you join it's free right we do encourage you to sign up before the end of the free month so we have an idea as to who else we can hire and content we can produce. Right now it's like it's a free month. Yeah, Yeah. But you don't have to enter anything. I hate it when they're like, you get a free month if you enter in all your credit card info and then they auto charge and you have to be on some phone. That's true. Call with a guy from Bangladesh who's telling you his name is Todd. Yeah. By the way, let me just.

Gerald: [00:02:18] We don't own that URL. It's creator.com slash. What did I say? You said mug club.com/crowder.

Steven: [00:02:25] Hello guys last night Friday I hate hello guys last night and half a date pit.

Gerald: [00:02:32] The date pit was just a minute ago we thought you were choking. Yes. Okay. Yeah.

Steven: [00:02:35] So here's the thing. What? Why is this writing? I'm getting a call from Bryan Callen while I'm on air. Guys, my, my. This whole thing should not. I didn't know this iPad could take calls.

Tim: [00:02:49] That's interesting. I've had can take calls. Oh, my God. I think we got to add Friday to your Do not disturb schedule. All right, hold on a second.

Steven: [00:02:56] Let's not do not disturb and just you know, there's really not this this is this is good old prompter for me. It's like, say, make sure you plug the thing, otherwise I'll forget. So here's the thing. All of this is going to be logged with.com/mug club. And you can watch. Here's why we are streaming right now to YouTube and rumble. Okay. And this is the only time it will happen. It's because today, be forewarned, mug club may crash. Now, let me explain to you what I mean by this. What I mean is that it'll crash. But our plan was always to do the Friday show. Right on. Good morning. Well, sorry. On on mug club. Good morning. Mug club to do it on Fridays and to do it on mug club. Here's the issue okay this week has been immensely successful. We are incredibly grateful to you. You know, 210,000 concurrent viewers in a very slow news week you can follow on social media. We're really happy like it was the number one comedy show of all the late night shows out there. And I get it. It's in the morning, but it's late night in the morning. So here's the thing. Most of you right now, even though so many of you have joined mug club are watching on YouTube or rumble.

Steven: [00:03:59] Okay. So take 210,000 concurrent viewers. If a third of you go and watch on mug club right now. It's not that, you know, Rumble has all their own servers and the same thing like with here's the issue. It's not that we can't host that many concurrent viewers for a a paying platform, an OTT service a little inside baseball. It's that no one in the industry can it's not possible outside of Netflix and Hulu. So here's the thing. We will have this fixed for next week where you will always be able to watch it live on mug club. But but it will cost us many millions of dollars. So and I mean that to upgrade to what we need this kind of commercial grade like we have to have this whole dedicated, I don't know, server bandwidth, whatever you want to call it. So today this is going to be here for about 20 minutes. We're going to do some behind the scenes, behind the scenes footage, as you kids like to call it. And then we're going to have Gerald Apologizes apologetics with Brian Cowan. Are you talking about hell today or.

Gerald: [00:04:55] The talking about hell? And we talked about a number of different topics, but hell is kind of the through line. So it's to.

Steven: [00:04:59] Give you kind of a split so you can see what would be available on Friday. And this this show is determined by you. Now, if a third of you go over today to mug club, okay, it's very likely that it'll crash and then we'll archive it and it'll be up here in an hour every Friday. Moving forward, you can watch this at Mug Club, so please only tune in today when we shut off this stream and go to mug club if you plan on watching on Fridays because then we know how many of you there are. And you know, that's that's a that's a big ticket item. Yes. We'll do it. We'll do it, of course. Yeah.

Gerald: [00:05:30] And it's a great problem to have. Right. But this is big.

Steven: [00:05:33] Yes. Yeah. We didn't know how many of you we don't know how many of you would go from rumble to a to mug club right now. So this is what we are doing today, but we're really happy. It's a good issue to have. It's that no one we call the third party said, Hey, can we host? They said, Well, you mean like like free, like YouTube? No, no, like like mug club members. They said, No, no.

Gerald: [00:05:52] Not not at all. Not like that.

Steven: [00:05:55] So it is one month of free mug club lutterworth comm slash mug club. And we're happy to be here today. Friday, a little more, a little more relaxed. Busy week.

Gerald: [00:06:02] We were looking forward to this to like having a Friday show, like obviously seeing the Good Morning Mug Club come back. People used to love some of the stuff we would do on Fridays in the past and we're like, Yeah, let's bring something back, but let's have something different. Yeah. So sometimes we'll do behind the scenes, we'll do this, we'll do other things as it comes up. So it'll be, it'll be a lot of fun. A little bit more relaxed. Yes, Just kind of casual. Look, if something massive happens, you know, like Donald Trump does a perp walk in five minutes, we'll absolutely break into that and start talking about it so you won't have to go somewhere else to find out that stuff. But for the most part, we'll be doing something else.

Steven: [00:06:31] He's not going to do a. Book. No, I know he's not going to AOC this which he would pull it off much better, though, if he did, don't you think? Yeah. Yeah he he'd he would. He would. He would at least.

Gerald: [00:06:41] Like go with the gag for the whole thing and not go right. And then put his hand back and go like ta da.

Tim: [00:06:48] Broke out ain't me.

Steven: [00:06:53] So and we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming on Monday next week. Again, we've been rotating. I don't know. We have. We have hodgetwins. I think we have I don't know if we have Nick. We have Nick DiPaolo. We have Alex Jones, we have Hodgetwins, we have Cowan. So a lot of different people coming in because a lot of them are going to be obviously involved with the network as we grow and put some shine on them. That's another thing too, by the way, here's here's also a reason this will all live on mug club. We want you to bookmark mug club. There's a lot of the people who were were signing. They don't have huge rumble channels or YouTube channels. And we want you to tune in and watch them. We're really we're putting our stamp of approval on a lot of these people saying, hey, give them a shot and you can watch them there on mug Club. That is the portal, the network through which you can watch them because they don't have like these big live streams and the channel of Steven Crowder and louder with Crowder on rumble is exclusively for the louder with Crowder show so you don't get flooded with a bunch of notifications because some of you don't want to watch this and I don't blame you. So we've been gone for a this is a little bit of inside baseball today. Yeah that's what we'll be doing some behind the scenes footage, some outtakes, and we'll be taking some chats. And then your apologetics show, which a lot of people have asked for.

Gerald: [00:07:55] Well, and normally we go for, you know, like a couple of weeks, right? So we end up doing a last show like the Week of Christmas, something like that. And then we're gone for a couple of weeks. We come back, but this time it was a little bit longer, but it was necessary. Yeah, right. The break was necessary. We had a lot of things that we were trying to get lined up and we were we were for a long time. Gosh, maybe right up until we did the deal, we were deciding, do we go on our own or do we go and kind of partner with somebody and see if we can create something that's greater than the sum of its parts, like something really big and make something work? Well, as a matter.

Steven: [00:08:24] Of fact, even when we were on the Patrick Bet-david show and then the next day we're at the we didn't know.

Gerald: [00:08:30] Yeah, we didn't have everything done. Yeah, we didn't know.

Steven: [00:08:33] There were still some things to button up and we were like, okay, are we going to do this completely on our own? But, you know, honestly, Chris had.

Gerald: [00:08:39] To find all the She-Hulk cards that were ever produced and get them to you. And yeah, he did.

Steven: [00:08:43] It was one of my demands. Yeah, yeah, it was one of my demands. And I made sure they were laminated. Not a sponsor, but I cannot tell you how great those nano cloths were. Those nano towels. Boy, in a in a pinch, That's terrible. But actually, we have the spill makes the captain Planet, Texas oil man look like child's play.

Gerald: [00:09:03] This is terrible. We do have some behind the scenes footage from that. Right? So we were down at their their place. You were in the process of actually, I think you had already you know, they.

Steven: [00:09:11] Say every sperm is sacred. You know, they say that, oh, boy. Yeah. The She-Hulk card collection. I mean, that's like, what's the Vatican?

Tim: [00:09:22] Incredibly sacred.

Gerald: [00:09:23] Yeah. Anyway, back to you. Getting sick. You know, the I think you had red tide at this point. I did.

Steven: [00:09:29] I got red tide in Florida. Yeah, when I was there at Rumble. It's a beautiful place, right? Beautiful place. If you don't know about the red tide, it's there's this other than that sea algae that I guess is a neurotoxin. And I talked about this. There were so many dead pufferfish, and I just thought, I guess the pufferfish aren't doing very well. The economy, you know, spares no one. And then someone told me it was the red tide. I said, Well, what's that? The red tide like? You mean the Sean Connery like? No, that's Crimson Tide.

Tim: [00:09:51] Yeah.

Steven: [00:09:52] And I said, I don't understand the, you know, the British guy that.

Gerald: [00:09:55] Plays a Russian guy used to always play a spy.

Steven: [00:09:57] That spy. And it was that actor. It's not Jack Reacher. It's the guy from, you know, Patriot Games. It's the same character, but he's in Crimson Tide.

Gerald: [00:10:03] Oh, yeah. Okay. Tom Clancy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steven: [00:10:06] No, Tom Clancy is the writer.

Tim: [00:10:07] No Jack Ryan. So I was.

Steven: [00:10:08] Getting there when we were on this break. And by the way, we're not encouraging you to hit like or share because we only want the people who are going to go to mug club to to to go there. So go there right now because this is a test today. So we're not trying to send this out to as many people as possible. All right. Us off. Yes. He's one of the gentlemen from Rumble. And he was like, yes, I am the man who on Monday you referred to as an idiot. I was like, well, hold on a second. To be fair, I said it before I had met you when you thought your servers would be able to handle it. And he's like, I like to be proven wrong, but, you know, still, let's be let's be choosy with our words.

Tim: [00:10:42] He's still mad about Jerusalem.

Gerald: [00:10:44] Oh, come on.

Tim: [00:10:45] So we were down there.

Gerald: [00:10:47] We did this at their headquarters. We had some some signing and we didn't really plan this. This was kind of last minute. I was like, Hey, why don't we just film this real quick so we can have it? And and before.

Steven: [00:10:56] We talk about that, too, we have some behind the scenes of all the sketches that we were filming and commercials that we were filming. I mean, we really built up a back catalog.

Gerald: [00:11:03] Broke your ankle in one of them.

Steven: [00:11:04] I think I did, yeah. The Good Ranchers commercials. Yeah. Yeah. We'll look at that one, which we'll get to. But I guess this is the first behind the scenes, right? This is actually probably one of the probably the biggest moment in our professional history here. Certainly, I would say. Would you say our most relieving moment, She-Hulk, She-Hulk cards notwithstanding as far as going like, oh, okay, yeah, we know that these people understand what we're about. They saw the ride, they bought a ticket anyway.

Gerald: [00:11:29] Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And they're loving the ride.

Tim: [00:11:31] Yes. Careful. Ear to ear. Careful.

Steven: [00:11:34] Come on, now. You're blaming me. So let's take you behind the scenes here. One of the biggest moments in ladder credit history, which is you, by the way, you are the reason this has been the number one, you know, comedy news show every day this week by several by an exponent, by the way, if that's the right terminology. I'm not a mathematician multiple in the demographic because you're a different audience than a lot of other people out there. Let me just say, can I say one thing before we go to this? You may. Okay.

Tim: [00:12:01] You turn around.

Gerald: [00:12:02] Yeah, yeah, just turn around.

Steven: [00:12:03] This is one thing that I've often because a lot of people, you know, we're very grateful for the numbers. And I don't like to tout the numbers, but this is a testament to you. You are the tip of the spear here. A lot of people say, well, how is that happening? Because if you look at, you know, whether it's Fox News, pick a show, it's it's right there in the demo several times. Here's what it is. Okay. And this is something that's aggravated me for a long time. It's sort of this glass ceiling that's been imposed on conservatives by ourselves. True statement. More conservative Americans watch The Voice or American Idol than watch Fox News. True statement. True statement. More conservative Americans watch the finale to Game of Thrones than tune in to the biggest conservative shows that exist. That is absolutely true. You can go to the Super Bowl, You can go back to Johnny Carson. You can go back, what, ten years to American Idol. 30 million people. And by the way, that was in what the left refers to as flyover country. Okay, Let's take a Game of Thrones. Half. Six, 7 million people. Right. Who would be conservative? Lean, right? At least not want nothing but late night hosts who endorse Hillary Clinton. That means that we, meaning the conservative movement, the media have failed you, right? They have failed you because a lot of you are conservative out there and you say, yeah, but I don't really want to watch this. Look, I'll be honest with you.

Steven: [00:13:22] I grew up in Canada. We did not have AM radio. We did not have Fox News. And there are a lot of people. They're great. They're great at what they do. I grew up watching Letterman at one point. I, you know, like the Howard Stern I'd skip through the stripper stuff unless it was a She-Hulk lookalike. But that was where I came from. You could Clockwork Orange. My eyes open and I wouldn't tune in to what is out there just because it wasn't for me. That's you. There are far more of you out there who aren't just looking for what the right has to offer, and they should offer that. But they should also offer other alternatives. If conservatives are tuning in to Netflix and Hulu and HBO and NBC and not not so much now because they've gone so far left. But at one point in time, you had more conservatives who tuned into Letterman that have ever tuned in to conservative programming. Rush Limbaugh maybe notwithstanding kind of the one exception to that rule, That means those people that means you're out there and conservatives saying, no, no, no, that's not the way that G. Gordon Liddy sells gold. So that's something that we're really excited about. And that's the vision that we have, not just what exists, but what can be. Because, you know, you right now are not 74 years old. Some of you are. And we welcome you here. But it's a different group. You won't be.

Tim: [00:14:30] Here as long, right? Yeah.

Steven: [00:14:33] Sorry. I mean, they didn't anticipate you when they created Social Security.

Tim: [00:14:39] You weren't supposed to be here. You were supposed to be alive for two years.

Steven: [00:14:42] You know, they'd find your body in the foundry or a ceramic kiln. I don't know. Is that a trade? Is it a trade school for kilns majoring and majoring in ceramics? Okay, so the point is, this was a huge moment in our history, and Rumble has been incredibly supportive, really with no no restrictions on what we say because they also know we're not going to go out and break the law. Right. It's basic bitch conservatism. I don't run from that. I'm Christian conservatives here. You're about to do an apologetics episode, for crying out loud. So this is actually behind the scenes of us signing this for us, historic for you historic deal. We're incredibly appreciative with Rumble.

Tim: [00:15:16] So Rumble.

Steven: [00:15:20] I guess Rumble is our number one draft pick. Rumble allows us to bet on ourselves while also kind of helping hedge that bet because they do have our backs. They've never asked us to shift our content ever, even before we had a business relationship as we do now.

Speaker6: [00:15:32] As you by now know that Steven Crowder is joining us on Rumble. Steven, welcome. Thank you.

Steven: [00:15:39] I don't think they knew by now. I think they.

Tim: [00:15:40] Know just now.

Steven: [00:15:42] That was the announcement.

Tim: [00:15:42] Yeah, that was the announcement. That was the.

Speaker6: [00:15:44] Announcement. I'd like to announce something very special. Steven Crowder is joining us on Rumble now.

Tim: [00:15:48] You just had a scoop and threw it away. You guys know what we doing? You know, it comes like they're going to be some hints.

Speaker7: [00:15:56] Not everyone's going to be thrilled.

Tim: [00:15:57] That's why Rumble exists.

Gerald: [00:15:59] I mean, think about it. You're talking about the people that are on Rumble right now. Ask yourself why you couldn't say anything. You basically were just choked out if you were anything close to being conservative. Right. And so these guys have come on and said, okay, well, we're going to let everybody come over here.

Tim: [00:16:12] And then we would say, oh, okay, now it's down to 80, but we have 20 on rumble. Now it's down to.

Steven: [00:16:17] And at one point it went down to 40 on YouTube and over 50 on Rumble where it tipped. And keep in mind, I've been on YouTube since 2000, 2006, but doing political content since 2009. And there really was no viable alternative with this.

Speaker7: [00:16:28] Like, you know, YouTube's going to be pissed, you know, Rumble is pronounced.

Tim: [00:16:33] Oh, you know, I should have known.

Steven: [00:16:41] Yeah. I don't have my headphones. What do you mean? Gerald was asking me this behind the scenes. We're dealing with some tech issues here. Like if there's a rumble, if it crashes. And.

Tim: [00:16:47] Yes, I told. I told them, No, no, I know that. I told them it's probably going to crash. Right.

Gerald: [00:16:50] I thought we were going to keep it up on Rumble and let them watch it and then post it later.

Steven: [00:16:54] And not just No, no, we want we want right now. This is sort of your focus group. We want to know how many people we need to accommodate there at at mug Club every Friday and for other shows because it's just it doesn't you are an enigma. All of you out there, people think you don't exist. It's it's remarkable. And we cannot thank you enough and notice we haven't we haven't had to do any sponsorship spots. No. At all. Because right now the sponsorship spot is mug club and we will be bringing back sponsors. We've been cutting some commercials, right. Sponsors that we love to work with. Oh, yeah. Sponsors who are waiting in the wings. I've been getting texted nonstop where you're like, Just shut up. Well, they're.

Gerald: [00:17:29] Just like throwing like. And I love that we partnered with Rumble on this because they're like, Hey, I don't I don't really think you're going to want to sell. No, no, no. Not gold. No.

Tim: [00:17:39] Right.

Steven: [00:17:41] Or, you know, and.

Gerald: [00:17:41] The money that they're offering is is not insignificant. No, no.

Tim: [00:17:45] It's not.

Gerald: [00:17:45] Sponsorships. And they get it. They're like, no, no. Okay, fine. Yeah, I get it.

Steven: [00:17:48] Right. Well, you guys, look, you guys can run some numbers yourselves and look at the numbers of the show and then kind of just ask anybody and figure out what the ad rates would be. So we're foregoing that and we're forgoing the millions of dollars. Obviously, on YouTube, having been demonetized and accepting the cards falling where they may. So please right now, if you're wherever you are watching, even if it's on rumble of.com/mug club, you don't need to enter in credit card info. But we want you watching there. And it may crash today, which means you'll have to wait 45 minutes and it'll be uploaded. That's part of the test today and only today it'll be fine. It'll live stream every single time after today. Just breathe. So with sponsors, let me just kind of clarify something. We do it differently here on this show. Very. We've always we'll never do more than one sponsor per show, right? We've kept that promise. We will always keep that promise because it's just not something that I like. And then some of these shows, you know, you'll watch like a ten minute, 15 minute segment. Yeah. That then is one glorified sponsorship spot. You ever seen that? Yeah. Where it's like, look, this is we want to tell you that, you know, there's a problem with gold and volatility and it's a horrible hedge against inflation.

Tim: [00:18:45] Crashing right now.

Steven: [00:18:46] Things are crashing right now, but our gold is the exception. You're like, oh, 19 minutes.

Tim: [00:18:52] I thought this was an honest segment. I needed my Bill Devane decoder pen. That's called a Native. Yes, yes, Jerk.

Steven: [00:19:00] So what we do is we actually cut these sketches for commercials and we'll add like, a library. And these have to be sponsors that we believe in that we actually, you know, products that we use, products that we believe in, and we'll create these advertising campaigns. So some of them that you may have seen, like, you know, horror movies don't work without a Walther right? And we've done Scream, we've done Psycho, we've done The Shining. I don't know. We've done a bunch of them. Yeah, we did get into trouble once. I think when we shot an actual terrorist in the studio and they're like, Well, you can't do that because you technically shot somebody. And I'm like, okay, we understand.

Tim: [00:19:27] Never again. He volunteered. Yes, good.

Steven: [00:19:30] Rancher, good ranchers. And by the way, I still use them even during the break. Just so you know, I have box boxes delivered every every month, every week. I don't know. You can set it up however you want. They're not sponsoring the show right now. But I use I really like good ranchers. Okay. So we've done good ranchers and bad ranchers, right? That's been a sketch that we've been doing for a while. I think we maybe have ten of them now where we do good rancher and bad rancher. You know, it's knocking over a liquor store or smoking crack or whatever it is with a pig. It's very silly. But we work with sponsors who say we're good with it and we say good, because it's going to be one of the ads you're paying for anyway.

Tim: [00:20:02] Because we already shot it. Right? So we were.

Steven: [00:20:05] Is there anything else that I'm missing explaining the inside baseball for people?

Gerald: [00:20:08] No, no. But so what we did this last time, we didn't actually have access to cows. And beef is a big part of, you know, good ranchers. Yes. So this time we we did we found some some places to go. Some farms.

Steven: [00:20:20] Some farms, some farms, some cows. I didn't know. Shoot. And we'll talk about this afterwards. And some things went horribly wrong. Yakuza, did you know and you guys can comment. We'll take a couple of your chats. I did not know that female cows could have large horns and be aggressive.

Tim: [00:20:35] Did you?

Steven: [00:20:35] I didn't. I didn't. And I felt really dumb. I was like, I thought we said a female cow.

Tim: [00:20:40] Right, Harry? The hairy cows. Scottish. A Scottish hairy cow. It's a Scottish cow. Harry Carey. Like, Hey, I got all this milk just jiggling out.

Steven: [00:20:52] So we went down to a ranch and we filmed some of these good ranchers, bad ranchers commercials. And I was terrified by this 400 something pound pig. I'll explain to you after watching it. But here's some behind the scenes of the sketches and sponsorship spots that we have been filming while we were on break using that term loosely.

Speaker8: [00:21:11] That's my shtick for Rook. Our our splitter beer. Our splitter beer. Then you have to go.

Tim: [00:21:16] We're out here on a farm getting the next episodes of Colton Wade.

Speaker9: [00:21:20] Film for Good Ranchers.

[00:21:28] Ever heard of a cow that doesn't milk?

Speaker8: [00:21:33] You little piglets.

Gerald: [00:21:36] Does that mean old bad rancher out here again?

Speaker10: [00:21:39] Oh, see, I know, I know.

Gerald: [00:21:41] Try to put it out of your mind. Come on back.

[00:21:43] There you go. You guys watch Yellowstone.

Speaker7: [00:22:01] Darius brings it up once a day.

Speaker8: [00:22:04] You did? I did. I didn't burn my hand. All right. I brought home one day with £520. I couldn't walk right for a week.

Steven: [00:22:17] Now, just to be clear, because Riley, who works here, is absolutely lovely. Riley, You know, there was a pig that we worked with also named Riley. Riley. Riley here. Sorry.

Tim: [00:22:25] Wonderful.

Gerald: [00:22:26] It was weird that day because she was there. She was.

Tim: [00:22:28] There.

Gerald: [00:22:29] Obviously, we were like, huh? Yeah. Sorry. Riley. Riley, do this.

Tim: [00:22:32] Speaking of. Of the pig, like, oink for me.

Gerald: [00:22:36] Uh, and then HR was called Riley Filthy. So there was a smaller pig, and that was Riley. That was Riley.

Tim: [00:22:45] So that's the pig.

Steven: [00:22:46] Not the person. Riley, we love you.

Gerald: [00:22:47] By the way. When you pet those things, it's like Bert, not burlap, but it's like wire wire hairs.

Tim: [00:22:51] It's like a.

Steven: [00:22:52] Shark. If you pet them backwards, you cut your fingers.

Gerald: [00:22:54] Exactly right. But there was a giant hog.

Tim: [00:22:57] Yes, very. So. And you had to.

Gerald: [00:22:59] Like I've I've never been on a shoot like this with you, but you kind of have to sell out and put yourself in a little bit of danger, like almost getting stepped on by the. And I slunk out.

Tim: [00:23:06] Yeah, I completely slunk out like just.

Steven: [00:23:09] I get injured all the time during shoots. Will I try and like stay in character and there'll be a lot of velocity. Yeah. And what happened is one of these good ranchers, bad ranchers commercials I think it's I spent Colton wait spends a night hogging and there's a yes. So he wakes up next to a cow with a beer. And that's what you saw for some context, if it didn't make sense. A lot of.

Gerald: [00:23:26] This doesn't doesn't really what happened realize what happened last night. Right.

Steven: [00:23:29] So I had been fooling around with. With Riley. The pig. The pig. Riley. Little Riley. Kind of cute, you know, A little aggressive with the treats. Right. And I didn't realize that they have horrible eyesight, so you have to get really close, and they basically swallow your hand. Right. And I had scratched my hand a couple of times. It wasn't aggressive, but, you know, it was it was uncomfortable. And then I hadn't really paid attention because we were going through kind of okay, the scenes and my marks and they bring in.

Tim: [00:23:54] Was it Wrigley? I think it was Wrigley. Yeah.

Steven: [00:23:56] Wrigley Was it £400? About about £400. Wrigley.

Tim: [00:23:59] This big hog, much.

Gerald: [00:24:01] Much.

Tim: [00:24:02] Larger. And they lay the pig next to me for this commercial.

Steven: [00:24:05] Right? Because the whole idea is I wake up with a beer and a cigarette in my mouth and turn over and offer a cab fare or something.

Tim: [00:24:11] Well, but as a bad rancher, as a bad rancher.

Gerald: [00:24:13] Mean, mean.

Tim: [00:24:14] The animal's not.

Steven: [00:24:15] Always yelling domestically. Abusive, naturally.

Tim: [00:24:18] But you kind of I'm.

Speaker11: [00:24:19] Being told by the doctor it's actually Ripley, not Wrigley.

Tim: [00:24:21] Ripley. Ripley.

Steven: [00:24:22] Ripley. Okay, so remember Ripley's Believe It or Not. Gotcha. And many of you with this, you probably will not. So they lay the cow next to me. The cow. The pig. And it's it's parallel to me. Okay, So I'm looking this way, and then action. And I turn over with a beer and a cigarette in my mouth. Right. Which already irritates. They don't like cigarettes. Oh, no. Yeah, I had Marlboros. Maybe they're a Chesterfield guy. Yes. Okay, so this. So now the pig. Ripley. Ripley. Ripley is not parallel to me, but understands there are treats like I have in my other hand. That's the. That's the trick. I don't know if you know this from the train animals. You have treats and now I turn. And it is that face. Bring it back up. It's that face within two inches of my face sitting. And so now I find myself and I'm supposed to yell at it. Like what?

Tim: [00:25:13] Wait, Your fingers are broken? You can't call a cab with a cigarette in my mouth.

Steven: [00:25:19] And this pig is looking at me and I see its giant yellow teeth. And I. I don't know if we have the take, we might. And I was like.

Tim: [00:25:28] Well, you know, I think maybe you should just, like, get a cab home. And we could, we could be done with with this.

Steven: [00:25:36] I was sure this thing was going to bite my face off.

Tim: [00:25:39] I was hilarious.

Gerald: [00:25:40] Because if it had chosen to, there's.

Tim: [00:25:41] Nothing any of us know. I live by Ripley's mercy. Exactly right. It was so funny because your lines were.

Gerald: [00:25:46] Supposed to be, like, really in your face. Yes. You really. You were supposed to be a ten and you came in at, like, a five, right?

Tim: [00:25:52] Yeah. I mean, we've had ever.

Steven: [00:25:53] Since we had the we had the donkey crap in the green screen room, you know, we have to be careful with animals. And donkeys aren't known for being aggressive, you know, just don't like they won't kick you if you don't walk behind them. But a pig, I mean, you know, they can be aggressive. Oh, and by the way, just so you.

Tim: [00:26:08] Know, when people say, oh, pigs are actually they're they're smarter than.

Steven: [00:26:10] Dogs, that's harsh. It's not even close. These pigs are. We've we've worked with Joe Louis on set. He is fantastic. He is obedient. He's easy. These pigs.

Gerald: [00:26:20] We had to corral them for quite, quite a bit of time. Yeah. It took I mean, and they did a good job. I'm not saying anything against the people. It's just hard.

Tim: [00:26:26] Yeah, the handlers.

Steven: [00:26:27] Did a great job, and we're incredibly grateful to the farm with the pigs. You know what? No love lost.

Gerald: [00:26:31] Yeah. So the cow for me was the funniest because, one, you were a little shocked that this cow had horns. And one of the scenes you were actually supposed to, like, grab the neck of the.

Tim: [00:26:40] I was supposed to be.

Gerald: [00:26:41] There's absolutely no. I'll be impaled immediately.

Steven: [00:26:44] I was like, there's no way. And by the way, there were some there were some Mexican ranch hands there and they could be some other, you know, form of Latin American, But no.

Tim: [00:26:51] So definitely Mexican. If you were to.

Steven: [00:26:54] Listen to Gay William, they were everyone's Puerto Rican. If you watched that segment yesterday, by the way, everyone.

Tim: [00:26:58] And right now, there's still a lot of you on Rumble and there's still a lot of you on YouTube.

Steven: [00:27:01] This is going to end soon. Watch on Mug Club. And if it crashes, that'll let us know and we will spend the many, many millions of dollars to get.

Gerald: [00:27:09] And we'll post the video for you.

Tim: [00:27:10] It'll be posted up here in a little bit.

Steven: [00:27:12] And your whole episode on on apologetics, what was I talking about before that? Because I got distracted.

Tim: [00:27:17] They were going the Mexican ranch hand. Oh, they were speaking Spanish and they were speaking Spanish and laughing at me. Okay, he's okay. Yeah. And you're like, Are you sure it's okay? It's okay. She's not going to do anything, bro. I'm like, All right, okay, so I can go up. I'm like, Yeah, you can like milk or do whatever you want. And then I go like, Well, the cow started running away.

Gerald: [00:27:38] And actually you saw it in the clip. They're like trounced through the little flower pot thing that we were trying to work with for the second. And then they were like, No, no, no, she's fine. And then literally the cow breaks free and is running on the property and.

Steven: [00:27:49] They have two ropes. They're bringing it in like it's the Roman Colosseum.

Tim: [00:27:52] Like he's fine, she's gentle. She wouldn't she's just quiet as a church mouse. It's totally not true.

Steven: [00:27:58] And then one of them texted me afterwards because he was watching these commercials. And it's very weird, right? If you don't know what you're watching. And he goes.

Tim: [00:28:04] Hey, man, because it's cold. Wait, it's a bad rancher. This guy goes, if you have kids, there's a little bit of cussing here. This is what he said. He goes, Hey, man, that's that's pretty funny. I go, Oh, thank you. He goes, Yeah, you're good. You're really good at your job. I go, Yeah. He goes, Because, yeah, you're such a piece of shit. He's like, like, I mean, like when you're acting like I believe it. I'm yelling at cows. I'm fake backhanding horses. And he just met you. He just met me. This guy. Isn't this guy a piece of shit? No, the character. The character is a piece of shit. Like, I don't know why. It sounded like it was so funny.

Gerald: [00:28:37] You looked at me, and so the funniest scene, I think, for me, and we didn't even show it there, was that you were supposed to be cooking breakfast and the cow was coming in and not cooking breakfast like in an apron, right? Yeah. So the only way that we could.

Tim: [00:28:47] Accomplish.

Steven: [00:28:48] The cow was a poor house, man.

Tim: [00:28:49] Right?

Gerald: [00:28:50] And so we we positioned the cow in front of the only exit from a five by five room. Yeah. And then had you yell and then.

Steven: [00:28:58] Pissed it off. Yeah.

Tim: [00:29:00] The cow.

Gerald: [00:29:01] And you're just looking around like if this cow gets angry with us and decides to bolt this direction, it's over. Yeah.

Tim: [00:29:06] There's no way. There's no way. There's no way.

Steven: [00:29:08] The cow with horns again. I didn't know that female cows could have horns. I understand. I've never had to know. Right. I was. I was raised in more of a city. More of an urban area. The cow is now a wall.

Speaker11: [00:29:18] I didn't even think about that. I'm so sorry. Oh, no. Like, locked you in a room. It was like, screw it.

Tim: [00:29:23] It was so sorry. Like, the only way to get the shot action. They open half the pony wall.

Steven: [00:29:29] And just horns come.

Tim: [00:29:30] In. I'm like, oh, boy. Wow. So this is a total death. Yes. All right. We are in this now. It's the good rancher dome.

Steven: [00:29:39] Fun. Yeah. No, it was fun. Fun.

Gerald: [00:29:41] Shoot. Those commercials are going to be hilarious, too.

Steven: [00:29:43] Yeah, well, good Ranchers is okay with it. So that's all that matters. That is true. Yes. They get it. They're like. We're like, look, we don't do live reads. We have to tell us the sponsors. We said we don't do live reads. It's not what we do just because we don't want you to feel like you're watching in all the time. You go, skip, skip, skip, skip, skip. So we want to make it something fun, something memorable. And we also want to do right by the sponsors, right? We kind of want sponsors have an open door where it's like, okay, if you, if you don't like it, then you know, then, then don't, don't continue. We don't want to hold people who don't want to be here. Right. And we've been very fortunate. Yeah.

Gerald: [00:30:09] And there are a lot of fun. They're funny. The characters that we've created, that you've created, that you do, or hilarious people want to see them, you know, like there's this kind of universe, like you said, of characters that we've created, but then we get into like parodies and things that we do, and this is going to embarrass you. So I'm just going to take a second before you can stop me. This was one of your best, like acting jobs that we've ever seen, right? You had done it before with Jaws.

Tim: [00:30:32] A long time ago. A long time.

Steven: [00:30:33] Ago. And we always want like we feel like we could do it better with the technical ability now. Right.

Gerald: [00:30:36] Exactly. So we wanted to redo it. My concern was like, you did it so well the first time. Stop. No, you did. Seriously, your dad and I were talking about this. People out there were talking about it.

Tim: [00:30:44] Well, he's my dad.

Steven: [00:30:45] He's going to say nice things.

Tim: [00:30:45] My whole point to this is.

Gerald: [00:30:47] Well, yeah. No, no, that's actually not true.

Tim: [00:30:49] Your dad's. Yeah, my dad is brutal.

Steven: [00:30:50] My dad is actually. No.

Tim: [00:30:52] He cuts me down.

Gerald: [00:30:53] No, but so my my whole point to that is make sure you go and watch the full parody intro that we did of Jaws.

Tim: [00:30:59] And that's one thing, too.

Steven: [00:31:00] I wish we could. We need to get the office cam back up where you could see everyone here and all the work that they do and everyone. Give me a round of applause to everyone who's not in here all the time. Doing all this work like these don't happen by accident. And that's not to to pat ourselves on the back. That's to, you know, pat everybody there on the back. It really is a team effort.

Tim: [00:31:16] If if this was easy.

Steven: [00:31:18] Everyone would do, you know, a shot for shot recreation of Jaws or Schindler's List or whatever it is that we do like these take a long time to set up. We kind of have to plan our week just, you know, behind the scenes where we do this show and then maybe on a monday it's like, okay, now I've got to be in a shoot for maybe a few hours or a couple hours of makeup, depending on like Edward Mucklow. Hans was, I think, three, four hours of makeup.

Tim: [00:31:37] And then we have to film the lowest payoff in history.

Steven: [00:31:43] You know, maybe we could end this if someone could just get us the Edward Mug Club. Hans clip, just the actual intro to send it into us. We can just play it from YouTube or wherever it is. And before we go to Mug club, which please go and watch because we want to know what kind of server space we need. It was like four seconds.

Tim: [00:31:58] What it was like four hours of makeup.

Steven: [00:32:00] So we do the makeup, we do the shoot, and then we have to plan. Okay, We have to do this show every single day. And then Fridays is where we'll have to be on location. Right? And these will take weeks of lead time. And then also every day, not only do we have to do research, but smaller sketches that you might see that are kind of quick and dirty. So there's kind of three different tiers of content as far as set up, you know, lead time that we need. And it's difficult to manage. And we have people now here who really I mean, you're the CEO, so you help with the business side. And we have.

Tim: [00:32:24] Nancy and.

Steven: [00:32:25] Andy and Molly. And of course, Tim manages the like. There's a lot of management that has to go in. A lot of people, too. You have to be in.

Tim: [00:32:31] Makeup.

Steven: [00:32:32] And they have to be setting up the set. And then sometimes, like we did with the Kanye parody that we never ran. It just doesn't work. Where I was in Mega for three hours and we're like, this just I look like a I look like a guess who character.

Tim: [00:32:42] Yeah. So we'll get that one back.

Steven: [00:32:45] But yeah, I guess what we're watching next is behind the scenes, behind.

Gerald: [00:32:49] The scenes of Jaws.

Steven: [00:32:49] Behind the scenes of the Jaws parody. I don't know what we're about to watch, but it probably is embarrassing.

Speaker12: [00:32:58] Youtube slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief.

Speaker13: [00:33:09] John Kennedy, the.

Speaker7: [00:33:11] Quincy the USS Indianapolis.

Speaker14: [00:33:14] Do you have a bigger boat?

Steven: [00:33:16] No, that's that's just now she's just saying lines from Jaws.

Speaker15: [00:33:20] Mascara over it. And it's gone. That's pretty close. It's not that long.

Tim: [00:33:28] I think now we should say.

Speaker7: [00:33:29] I'm going to change the box and apocalypse, though. It's just one of the DreamWorks guys sex tapes.

Speaker11: [00:33:38] Show me the way to mug club. I'm tired and I'm sick of big tech.

Speaker8: [00:33:44] I had a little stream about an hour ago, and Zuckerberg is a dick. Oh, wherever I may roam my global real home, you'll always hear me singing this song. So show me the way to go on, Show me the way to Muckleneuk. It doesn't matter. I'm tired and I'm sick of big tech. I had a little stream about an hour ago and Zuckerberg is a dick. Oh, I may roam. Bum, bum, bum. Never be at home. You'll always hear me singing a song. So show me the way to my home. That's okay. That's fine. It doesn't. Doesn't all have to rhyme. We heard you had a little Nas. That's right. It doesn't have to be putting blood and sneakers and. Straddling sneakers was talking sneakers.

Speaker11: [00:34:41] Check out this car I have. Check this out.

Speaker7: [00:34:42] So that's this one.

Tim: [00:34:47] We can't show you the rest.

Gerald: [00:34:49] William comes busting through the wall.

Tim: [00:34:53] Is he still here? He'll get here.

Speaker16: [00:34:56] Yeah. That song. You guys wrote it in probably 3 to 5 minutes.

Steven: [00:35:00] Yeah, we just sat down. We're like, Let's see if we use this.

Tim: [00:35:03] I mean, what would.

Steven: [00:35:03] What would we say? Maybe 20% of what we actually that starts with writing makes air. That sound about about. Right. Yeah. And then probably about maybe 60% that goes through production. You know, where if we're going through production, we say this doesn't this doesn't feel like it's going to work or this doesn't feel right. And look, not there can't all be gems, right? But yeah, well, we do a lot of work here and everyone here does that sometimes, you know? Yeah. It's like, well, it doesn't come to fruition because we don't think it works. And that song just didn't work because, you know, Casey is lyric illiterate.

Tim: [00:35:34] I suck. And you were in a band.

Gerald: [00:35:36] I mean, I played guitar allegedly.

Tim: [00:35:38] Oh, yeah, he just played guitar.

Speaker16: [00:35:39] He wrote. I tried to put it on prompter, but you guys just went into it right away. It's like, Oh, you got it. Yeah, that's one thing.

Tim: [00:35:47] You got.

Steven: [00:35:47] It. Whenever we've had fill in hosts, like prompter is it's not prompter like what I have just these are notes. It's like a guideline. And so sometimes we've had people come and fill in holes like, what am I, what am I? And I mean anyone yourself included. I'm like, it's this weird system of just kind of keywords that I go, Oh, I remember, we're going to talk about that, right? And I know that I have references to make sure that I can provide them for you. So everything here is kind of hybrid. We've sort of had to make up rules as we go along. Yeah, because you have some people who just read prompter and then you have some people who just talk for three, four, five hours. But there's, there's no frame of reference. So it's, you know, it's it's something that I would say what I am proud of, if I'm going to say it ever is, if there's that bit of, you know, being able to give yourself a pat on the back is the the work that we put in. Yeah, that's the one thing no one will work harder than, than we do here. Yeah. The results. You're the one who determines the results. But the amount of work put in, especially during this break. Yeah, it was.

Tim: [00:36:37] Was, you know, it was. It was heartwarming.

Steven: [00:36:39] To see everyone kind of know.

Gerald: [00:36:41] It's been a great week. Obviously, we want to continue. We've got some great guests coming in next week. But it's the it's that kind of stuff that we're able to do because you guys subscribe and you join the fight with us. Yeah, but it's so different because we're, you know, it's hard enough to be kind of newsy, right? Be a news show to some degree if you're going to be a news show because you have to be. Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. And so, you know, landing the research, those guys have to go in and make sure and double check every single possible thing and make sure we're not missing something. Then it's hard enough to be a production house where you're just churning out kind of fun, short content. Right? And then it's just it's hard enough to come up with all of the different characters and different ideas that kind of live in this and be kind of a sketch show almost as well. Right? And so you've got all three of those things and they're almost like three different mindsets. So we have to get people that are like incredibly nerdy, like square bear over there who can dive like really deeply into stuff and then really nerdy comedy, right? So, right. So it's just but it's so much fun because as as somebody who's been on the show for a while now, I don't have the perspective of watching it first and then jumping in. Right. But now that I'm married, obviously my wife does. And she's like, Oh, it's just so much fun because there's comedy interspersed with the serious stuff that you guys talk about. And then there's these funny characters and like there's, well, that's.

Steven: [00:37:51] Just who we are to now, you know, It's just, it's who we are. It's what we like. This is what we would like to watch. It sounds like zoom, like for kids by kids like, really? Yeah. Nine year olds are the ones producing this PBS show. Was that an American thing? Do you have Zoom or is that just Canada? Zoom.

Gerald: [00:38:04] Zoom. You mean like the telecom or the communications company?

Tim: [00:38:07] No. Did you guys have it? Come on and zoom. Come on and zoom. Come on and zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom. No, they introduce all the.

Steven: [00:38:14] Kids who are like hosts.

Tim: [00:38:15] The Canadians. I'm Darryl. I'm Derek. And I'm Denise. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Nice. Say it right. I'm sorry. Wow.

Speaker16: [00:38:25] I don't remember that.

Steven: [00:38:26] I got corrected on that. A world star to.

Tim: [00:38:29] Go to.

Steven: [00:38:30] Louder with crowder.com/bookclub again. It might crash because we're going to the apologetics episode with Gerald and then we want to see your comments What would you like to see on Friday? Would you like to see more of those? Would you like to see more behind the scenes? It's we're designing this around what you want to see Friday, which will be different from Monday through Thursday. And sometimes I'll sometimes you'll be doing it, sometimes some, some.

Gerald: [00:38:50] There's a lot of different opportunities. So if you guys have ideas for stuff, just throw them at us. Let's Oh.

Steven: [00:38:55] You guys got the the.

Tim: [00:38:56] Clips, right?

Speaker16: [00:38:57] Yeah, we got the three clips of the pig. Does it.

Tim: [00:38:59] Show my.

Steven: [00:39:00] Absolute.

Tim: [00:39:01] Terror?

Speaker16: [00:39:01] I think so. All right. They let it off with a picture or a video of the pig.

Tim: [00:39:07] That's what was two inches from my face.

Speaker16: [00:39:09] And then I have two clips. Steven's scared and cab fare, so I'll start with the. Okay.

Tim: [00:39:15] All right. Cab fare. Your legs broken. You can't walk. Okay. So that's going like this. Look. You're just like, Yeah, yeah. You notice the body?

Steven: [00:39:26] Like this is where you bring on a body language expert, you know, like they would have on Bill O'Reilly. But this signifies that he's a member of the Illuminati, whatever the hell he said. Yeah.

Tim: [00:39:32] Like this. Clearly like this is clearly not an aggressive body posture. Oh dear God. I bring. I bring in my Chesterfields. Yeah, One more and.

Speaker16: [00:39:41] Then we got one more. One more. I didn't see any of these. So then you.

Speaker8: [00:39:46] One more.

Tim: [00:39:47] One more. That's very gentle compared to what we've done in the past.

Gerald: [00:39:53] You were supposed to go, like, much more.

Steven: [00:39:56] Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, no animals were harmed in the making of any of these. They love.

Tim: [00:40:00] Cigarettes. Yeah.

Speaker11: [00:40:01] Not one drop of alcohol. Yeah.

Tim: [00:40:02] That's true. That was more of an experiment.

Steven: [00:40:04] Yes. And the control was nobody. Everyone was drinking alcohol, including Ripley. Ripley. So this is. I'm trying to. Let's take a couple of chats and then get all of you. Unless there's something that I'm missing here. No, you're good. Get all of you to go over louder with credit.com slash mug club again. I want to be really, really clear here. This is not going to exist on this channel, on YouTube, on Rumble. But every Friday you can tune in live mug club, and that's where you'll also be able to watch all of the other shows. We really encourage you to watch these shows as they are. We just announced Nick DiPaolo is.

Gerald: [00:40:35] Coming in April 10th, 5 p.m. Eastern.

Tim: [00:40:38] 5 p.m. Eastern.

Steven: [00:40:39] And that's four times, four times a week. Four times he does.

Gerald: [00:40:41] Monday through Thursday as well. He does Monday through Thursday. A lot of additional content.

Steven: [00:40:44] So you've got this show in the morning. You've got him at night, and then we'll be adding two, three more shows depending. And by the way, other people you can send your emails at creators at Loudmouth Credit.com. I want to be clear about one thing here. You know, we work. So this is like this is one of those places where Tim has been here for a very long time. Right? People have been here for a very long time. But we all have to put in a lot of work or, you know, your spot goes to someone who does. Yeah. Because sometimes people come in and working on podcast space that we've had behind, you know, behind the scenes, like especially in the production role, they just kind of hit a switch because people are talking and that's fine. But we go, No, no for a second, we need you to help edit these things we need. So same thing with, you know, if you want to do a show, look, we will help you. We will support you. We're still figuring out what to do with certain creators like like guns and gear. A good example. Mike Yeah, he's just salt of the earth where we said, this is a good guy who's been throttled on YouTube. We don't really know exactly what the show will look like. We're going to help him with editing support. We're going to help him with production support and whatever it is that he wants to do. But we didn't know. We just said, Oh, I love this guy and I know that he knows what he's talking about. How can we support him? And we're still finding those fits. So if you're one of those people, we do, we want to support you. And hopefully it's something that you've already started to build. And work ethic is really kind of the one quality. I've come to know that as a I'm not a business guy, but you know, I've we've done pretty well. You're more of a CEO type, right? I had to do that for years.

Gerald: [00:42:04] Well, I mean, it's on my business card now.

Tim: [00:42:05] Yeah. But yes.

Speaker16: [00:42:07] We have cards. We.

Tim: [00:42:09] He has cards. I do. He does.

Steven: [00:42:10] The problem is it's a hybrid of cardone's shitty wine thing.

Speaker16: [00:42:15] So that's on the back. Yeah.

Steven: [00:42:17] He's responsible for the birth of thousands of mug clubbers because people get a case of wine. And he's like, Well, you know, have a good time. You want the story of how mommy and daddy made you. We were watching a live stream, a bottle.

Tim: [00:42:27] Of wine.

Steven: [00:42:28] And yeah, I don't I always knew this. I didn't always know how to manage people who weren't like me. Yeah, some people would say, you know, I'm very much I always I was such a failure at everything. When I was young, I was so bad. I thought I was they thought I was retarded. I thought I was retarded and I was good at nothing. I was like, okay, if I get good at anything, I'm going to be like a dog on a bone. Yeah. And I've always been that way. And there are some people here who are who are like that, some people who've been in the company and people who require just different ways of being motivated, different ways of being led. That's your strong suit. Mine is just like, all right.

Tim: [00:42:58] I'm going to go do all this stuff. All right, Come on, guys. You better come and follow me. And, like, I don't want to go do that. I'm like.

Steven: [00:43:03] Wow. Well, I guess it doesn't. It's nonsensical. Almost. So that's also a weight that's been lifted off my shoulders. We were going to Did we say we had Oh, chat, let's take a couple of chats.

Tim: [00:43:13] And then chats and then we'll go mug club where.

Steven: [00:43:15] You can watch the entire episode regarding hell. And if hell is a thing and if it's heresy to say that there is no hell, that's something you'll be discussing with Brian Callen as he's been having kind of a spiritual awakening of sorts.

Gerald: [00:43:26] Yeah, no, it was a great conversation. I think people are really going to enjoy it. And then we'll do some more of them. Yeah. Unless, of course, they're like, Nah, right. Don't do that to me, guys. I like it.

Steven: [00:43:34] Yeah, exactly. I know. You know, there's different rungs on the ladder and that 1st May be it may just be a router that's missing a ladder. It may be missing a router. I'm hunting. I'm hunting Latinx writers.

Tim: [00:43:45] All right, Chat. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker17: [00:43:47] Hobby, 1994 asks, Out of all the ads you've made, not including the new ones you haven't shown us, what's your favorite one you've made and why?

Tim: [00:43:54] Oh, well, you know what my.

Steven: [00:43:56] Favorite sketch is? That's the Shogunate Ruxpin sketch.

Tim: [00:43:59] Yes, that's good sketch.

Steven: [00:44:00] And then. And I don't know. And and, you know, quarterback Garrett was probably like, coming in every now and then. He pops in and, like, sketches and stuff. He is a guy who just knows how to make me laugh. I mean, quarterback Garrett, he's like the Daniel Day Lewis of silliness. Like when you're in when he did Pallbearer with the Undertaker ads. Yeah, I couldn't. Because I had to be completely straight. Right. And the makeup job, by the way, Francine, and people here who are doing all the work made him look exactly like Paul bearer. Maybe someone can bring this up.

Tim: [00:44:28] The WrestleMania we.

Speaker16: [00:44:29] Have I know we have the bets on Crowder bits. Okay. Maybe the sketch too. But yeah, if we look the sketch, so it's.

Tim: [00:44:36] Technically not an.

Steven: [00:44:36] Ad, but it was an ad for, I think, a live show.

Speaker16: [00:44:39] A promo for the Trump Biden debate, I think. Was it? Yeah. Oh, okay. The under crowd.

Tim: [00:44:44] Yeah.

Steven: [00:44:44] But the thing is, I had to say very little, right? Because Vince McMahon said, you know, monsters don't talk, so we get the right era. Undertaker But Garrett looks just like Paul Bearer when he's doing this the makeup. And he is just he has the money. He's like.

Tim: [00:44:57] And when the Hondo Crowder host the live stream and he's so into it.

Steven: [00:45:02] And then he would like he would do it where they he'd get closer and he'd be brushing or he'd be like wiping.

Tim: [00:45:06] My face where he was trying to. I couldn't keep it straight.

Steven: [00:45:09] And then the other sketch, it's not an ad we did a sketch of Suge Knight, Ruxpin, Teddy Ruxpin, and Garrett is quarterback. Garrett is so brilliant with props and go and support him. You know, he has a YouTube channel where he does more like like nerdy stuff. Yeah, yeah. Nerd Roddick's. No, no, no. That's somebody.

Gerald: [00:45:23] Else. Oh, that's somebody else. I thought he was on that, though.

Tim: [00:45:25] Is he? Yeah, that's.

Speaker16: [00:45:26] Who he's with now. Yeah. Yeah. But he does have his own channel. Yes.

Steven: [00:45:30] Well we'll get it up and when we have him in, he, he came in with this prop and I said look I want to do a sketch of like Teddy Ruxpin only at Suge Knight. And I spent like 3 or 4 hours finding the best Suge Knight quotes. And then he was like, Yeah, let me see what I can do. And he brings in a teddy bear that looks like immediately. You don't even need to know the context of the sketch. You're like, That's Suge Knight Ruxpin It looked exactly like Suge Knight. And for me, I get to take myself out of it when someone else puts something together that I can just sort of, like you said, step back as a fan. And I just I love that sketch because I'm not in it. I think it was the first sketch that I wasn't in, and we had other people who were acting who were contributing. I mean, you had audio, Wade, who was fantastic, and you have quarterback Garrett and and I just watch it get to watch it as a fan and watch this Suge Knight Ruxpin And I just laughed my ass off because I grew up, you know, listening to this. And I remember the famous Death Row records. Oh, you don't want your producers in the videos come to death row. I thought it was like for hearing impaired. I thought it was I thought it was Braille, hip hop row. And so that's probably my favorite sketch. That's what we should do.

Gerald: [00:46:33] You know, that's a that's actually a pretty good idea. So next time we do one of these, maybe what we'll do is grab some of your favorites. Yeah. Historic or maybe some of the crew's favorites. Because I always loved the Colton Wade character. Typekit Josephine.

Speaker9: [00:46:44] I need my mental stimulation. You know, I.

Gerald: [00:46:46] Can't do the voice right?

Tim: [00:46:47] But. And then it turned into good ranchers. I would.

Gerald: [00:46:49] Laugh at that so much because it's.

Tim: [00:46:50] Hilarious. You know what that was?

Steven: [00:46:52] But to give you an idea what that was based on, the Colton Wade character, and there's probably 20 installments depending on how far back you go. And it's this redneck character it was based on. My dad and I were driving across the country and we saw a truck, an old rusty truck, and there was one of those love seats, but like one of those awful, like, floral pattern love seats, it had like cigarette burns in it. And he had his arm out the window and a cigarette in his mouth. And he looked really proud. And my dad and I were like, you know, that guy is bringing that love seat back. He found it and he's bringing it back to his wife. And like, we just made.

Tim: [00:47:22] Up like, Josephine, I brought you a present. It's like you didn't make that. You found it. It's the thought that counts. Josephine And so we were just going through the scenario of this.

Steven: [00:47:31] Redneck who never gets anything right and is a simmering rage beneath the surface. And we wrote like 510 Colton Wade sketches, and then they became 20, which we whittled back down to five and then we turned it into Good Rancher. But I remember where I was whenever we came up with these ideas.

Tim: [00:47:46] And you never know if it's going to work.

Gerald: [00:47:48] Oh, yeah, no, that one worked somewhere.

Steven: [00:47:49] There's someone actually named Colton Wade who was like him, and he was like, I don't know how they got. They didn't ask me for those rights.

Gerald: [00:47:54] I know I might have a legal case.

Speaker16: [00:47:58] Hey, they dropped Suge Knight Ruxpin for us.

Tim: [00:48:00] Oh, okay.

Steven: [00:48:01] This is my favorite sketch. I mean, favorite. It's not an ad, but probably my favorite sketch that always brings a smile to my face. I've told you this before. If you're newer to the show to give you an idea the amount of work that went into this, well, let's watch it first.

Speaker18: [00:48:14] What's wrong with little quarterback?

Speaker19: [00:48:15] He had a rough day at school. He said none of the kids would talk to him.

Speaker18: [00:48:19] I have an idea.

Speaker17: [00:48:21] Oh, boy. Suge Knight. Ruxpin.

Speaker8: [00:48:23] I swear to.

Speaker12: [00:48:24] Y'all, it's like this. I'm going to beat the dogs out of you if I tell you to. The police didn't do it. They're punk ass. Said if I asked me if I knew who killed Tupac, I'm the said hey. Absolutely not. I'm a minute late.

Speaker16: [00:48:45] Good night, Suge Knight. Ruxpin. You'll be my best friend forever.

Speaker12: [00:48:50] Because we're all going to die. Nobody's going to leave here alive. And people die all the time.

Speaker18: [00:48:56] Suge Knight, Ruxpin Batteries and Dr. Dre's Masters sold separately.

Tim: [00:49:02] I just. Great. Maybe it's just me.

Steven: [00:49:04] That's my favorite one because I got to watch it as a fan to give you an idea of what goes into that. We finished the show that day and we're like, okay, we need to come up with. So within I think within 24 hours, by the next show, I said, okay, here, you know what? Tape this portion where you actually tape this and I'm going to find some quotes. Can we get some kind of something that makes this teddy bear look like Suge Knight? And people said, Yeah, I think we can do that. Quarterback did it unbelievably quickly and unbelievably accurately. Maybe someone can do a side by side of the Shug Night Ruxpin and Suge Knight so you can see just how close it is. We'll do that right before we leave. That's the only thing that I request from you guys. I know it's been a long week. And then I said, Okay, so if you do that, I'm going to go find Suge Knight quotes that we're going to use. Because initially we had me in the recording booth saying, You do Suge Knight. I'm like, No, it's funny, if we use actual Suge Knight quotes. So we did that. We laid it over and then I think it might have been you, Tim. Someone said, You know what? I think I might be able to get the mouth animated so we can actually make it move like that.

Speaker16: [00:49:59] Was Garrett.

Tim: [00:50:00] Was it.

Speaker16: [00:50:00] Okay, Garrett or Randy? I think, yeah, I was in post.

Steven: [00:50:03] Yeah. Smooth Manny Who, by the way, we miss you. Smooth Manny. He's. He's a millionaire in Utah now. What? Yeah, I made a ton of money with Nfts. Yeah.

Tim: [00:50:11] Wow. Yeah. Look at you.

Speaker16: [00:50:13] Who'd have thunk it? Yeah.

Steven: [00:50:16] We still talk all the time. We're like, Sends me these pictures. I'm like, what are you. What?

Tim: [00:50:19] You're in Ecuador, You're on the top of whatever he is. He's like, Look where I'm at Machu Picchu. He's like, Yeah, I don't have to work anymore. I made money on Nfts, bro. So I got out when I needed to that we had that. So it's writing it okay.

Steven: [00:50:31] Coming up with the idea, getting the Suge Knight Ruxpin done. Okay, getting the script written so you know what you need to do then in post finding the quotes which we were rushing to find and then marrying that all together and getting the mouth to be animated and doing that within 24 hours. Yeah. And I didn't think we were going to pull it off. And I think that's probably why I also have such fond memories of it because I was like, Wow, you guys really you pulled this together with outside of writing the script, not nearly as much involvement from myself as had always been kind of required before that. And Garrett's just like, Well, you put him in a sketch, he's the sleeper and everything. He's just always good speaking.

Gerald: [00:51:04] As Mr. T.

Steven: [00:51:05] Oh. Mr. T, Yeah, yeah. It's one of those had to be removed because they claimed it was a hate crime when COVID came out and it was Mr. T and he said, Hey, don't be talking about don't be talking that way about the Chinaman.

Tim: [00:51:16] Oh, that's.

Steven: [00:51:17] Right. And I'm like, But and we told the YouTuber, like, here's a clip of Mr. T, He referred to them as Chinaman his whole life.

Tim: [00:51:23] They're like, We don't care. I said, Okay, fine.

Speaker16: [00:51:25] So I have both the Under Crowder outtakes and the promo of him as Paul bearer, if you want.

Gerald: [00:51:32] Can we save that for another one?

Tim: [00:51:33] Because we can. I'd love to.

Gerald: [00:51:34] Be able to spend more time on it and do it. People can go and watch it on YouTube. It's up there now, but that would be a really cool segment for us too.

Steven: [00:51:40] Okay, we'll do the outtakes for the.

Speaker16: [00:51:41] I could just not stop. Yeah, I just keep going. Yeah, we got to find an endpoint, I guess.

Steven: [00:51:46] Yeah, I guess we got to find a endpoint. Give me one more chat. And again, mug club. Go to mug club right Now, the reason we're doing this and this is not even going to be on YouTube, we're going to delete all this because it's just mug club. Go there and if the servers crashed today, it'll be uploaded. And then we know that we have to spend many, many, many millions of dollars. Many.

Speaker17: [00:52:03] All right. Final chat. S Smith 1153 has a question for Steven. What has been the biggest roadblock or hurdle to getting the new mug club up and running?

Tim: [00:52:11] Oh. Man So many.

Gerald: [00:52:15] There's been a lot of I wouldn't say so many hurdles.

Steven: [00:52:18] You could call me.

Tim: [00:52:18] Caitlyn Jenner, Right.

Gerald: [00:52:21] Tell her. I mean, honestly, one of the biggest things was just we'd never this this one just getting in touch with you guys. Yeah, that was probably the biggest hurdle.

Steven: [00:52:30] Being able to reach you, the subscribers.

Tim: [00:52:32] And yeah, it was a.

Gerald: [00:52:33] Timing thing then it was a tech thing because we had to get all that set up and like in almost no time at all to get your emails, to make sure that we could stay in touch with you and then feeling comfortable about what we had and then crashing like it was just crazy to get that done. I think that was probably the most stress that we've been. Yeah, that that last couple of weeks of the show in December.

Steven: [00:52:52] And making sure to, by the way, that we had to sit down with the team and say look we kind of have a fork in the road here. Do we want to just go and kind of, you know, live out the rest of mug club here and collect the checks and pass go and just do this show? Or do we do we want to use what we have to expand and bring in other people? Because we had a lot of people who wanted to come in and we just didn't have a fit. I mean, how many times have we had guest requests? And we're like, it just doesn't really fit with what we do, right? Like, well, could we do a show? We're like, okay, well, we don't really have a network right now. So there really was a decision that had to be made and we had to have, you know, it's not a democracy, but we definitely did have to have a vote in the room, like, Hey, what are we all going into this with eyes wide open, knowing what it will be required of us and expanding. And people said, yeah, that's, you know, it would be a shame to just kind of put this to waste. But yeah, I think finding you knowing where you are, the mug club subscribers and bringing you back was going to be a really difficult thing.

Tim: [00:53:43] And look what you've done.

Gerald: [00:53:44] I know you've come back so quickly.

Tim: [00:53:46] Look what you did. Little jerks.

Speaker16: [00:53:49] Basically built a network in three.

Tim: [00:53:51] Months.

Steven: [00:53:52] You're what YouTube calls lazy, incompetent and no, but rumble. Rumble Handling the back end was the big thing because, you know, you were looking into that. There were other options. Yeah, but it would have been a lot more work and we would have had to spend more time on the tech stuff than bringing in new talent and supporting them. Yeah, and.

Gerald: [00:54:08] The great thing too, is like, what did you see the side by side before us? Is that okay? Yeah.

Speaker7: [00:54:13] We'll worry about to say that.

Gerald: [00:54:14] I was just going to say like the Rumble team and we've talked about them a lot, but they every time we throw something out to them, we had a really cool conversation. You guys in mug club, you're going to love what's coming. We're not going to fully reveal it yet because when it when it gets there, it's going to be very slick, very nice for you to be able to watch the videos. But every time we talk through that, they're like, Yes, we're going to build that. Yes, yes, we're going to make that happen, like every single time.

Steven: [00:54:36] And then yesterday I said, How many people do you think would be watching on Mug Club? If not, then I'm like, ugh. I mean, many tens of thousands, like, Oh, well, it's not that weekend. It's that no one can do that, right? You mean they like to be clear? You mean like mug lovers? Like people who have joined? I'm like, Yes, yes. Paying members. Like, no, no. There's no No one in the world.

Speaker16: [00:54:52] Yeah, we got like, looks like 56,000 now.

Tim: [00:54:55] So. Okay, so.

Steven: [00:54:56] Now once we go off of okay, I guarantee.

Tim: [00:54:59] You it's going to crash. Just stop. Is running around with.

Gerald: [00:55:01] His hair on fire right now.

Tim: [00:55:04] He's like, ha ha, He's right. I'm an idiot. No, no, no, he's not.

Steven: [00:55:09] And by the way, you know this I, Chris and Asaf, these are guys at Rumble and they're sort of behind the scenes, right? They have been incredible. So they won't take any credit for what they've really done. But we know in dealing with the brass, it's very, very different. So different.

Tim: [00:55:23] Man.

Gerald: [00:55:24] Yeah, I trust me, I didn't have a ton of dealings with some of the previous, previous, previous. But every single interaction that we've had with them has been positive. It's always finding a way to make it happen, but not it's not like, Hey, let's make more money or hey, let's. Yeah, how do we make this better for people, right? How do we make the experience better and accomplish? And by the way.

Steven: [00:55:41] There have been great people, just to be clear, in our past, like guy named Cory, who was great, who started was a fantastic guy, incredibly generous and really, you know, authentic. And what ends up happening a lot of the time is you have people who come in and, you know, the naive naivete is kind of kind of wonderful, right? It sort of plays to their advantage because they believe they believe they can make something happen. And we're all and then it's like, okay, so here's a perfect example. Carly Fiorina, Carly Fiorina, and I get it now. Okay, not the biggest fan, but at the time in the primaries, right? I just watched her eviscerate Katie Couric and The View and I was saying, look, this is one to watch. And she was polling, I think, dead last. And we had Carly Fiorina. This would have been 20 the 2016 election. The primaries had her on the show, on the show via Skype 45 minutes before she went out and did that debate, which I think we also live streamed. And that was the night where she just rocketed to the front. Right. And that's because she was I always say this, she was she was fighting like a contender. Right. She was in there. She was scrappy. And then what happened is she became a frontrunner. And all of the political consultant class, you know, what you would call the establishment. And that doesn't just mean people in government, but that means advisors, that mean that means lobbyists. People who worked on like the Romney campaign came in and said, no, no, no, this is how you run a campaign. And then she fell off because now it was about Polish. Now it was about answering questions without answering questions. And she lost what you know, she didn't dance with the one she brought. And that's what happens a lot in all industries. Right? And we wanted to make sure that we kind of keep the scrappy.

Tim: [00:57:10] Youthful.

Steven: [00:57:10] Exuberance even even when we become.

Tim: [00:57:12] I'm no longer useful.

Gerald: [00:57:14] That's true. I'm wearing, you know, robes and being on a show.

Tim: [00:57:17] Well, I'm looking.

Steven: [00:57:17] At one of those. I'm looking at one of those chemical peels.

Tim: [00:57:20] So let's bring up the.

Steven: [00:57:22] Side by side. Suge Knight versus Suge Knight. Ruxpin.

Tim: [00:57:26] Come on. That's great. I don't know if I walked in and show it to me and I.

Steven: [00:57:35] Cocked my head back laughing.

Tim: [00:57:36] Like I could not contain my.

Steven: [00:57:39] How giddy I was. I was like.

Tim: [00:57:40] This is perfect. It's better than it could have been in my wildest dreams.

Steven: [00:57:45] And it's a really hard job working here. There's a lot of work that goes in and people say.

Tim: [00:57:49] 40 hour work week. What?

Steven: [00:57:50] But it is rewarding. I hope it's rewarding for everyone there who sees their work come to fruition. And right now you will see your work come to fruition. Everyone who is watching You Tube rumble k go to louder with crowder.com/mug club because we now have a full show Brian Cowan Gerald discuss apologetics they discuss the idea for the biblical basis of hell and of course it's also funny because it's Cowan Yeah and then you guys let us know in the chat and with your comments what you'd like to see more of on Friday. And then we'll have so we have Monday through Friday. Nick DiPaolo 5 p.m. All right, starting soon, four times a week. And then we have about three or more shows in the wings. So let us know what you'd like to see.

Tim: [00:58:28] Go to mug club. If it crashes.

Steven: [00:58:30] Wait 40 minutes and every week hereafter it will not crash. We just you know, we don't want to throw millions of dollars if like there aren't going to be enough of you watching. Right. So don't go. If you're not going to watch on Friday, please don't fake us out. Don't make yeah don't like don't do the Gordon Bombay triple deke which you know it's not really a signature move. It's something that it is You just do it and it's called stickhandling louder with crowder.com/mug club Go there Now if you're going to be watching Fridays if it crashes, we will see you in 40 minutes.

Gerald: [00:59:20] Gerald apologizes. Apologetics. It doesn't mean that. Hello, Mug Club. Welcome and thank you for joining us today. I get to sit in the big chair and have a good time with you and talk a little bit different subject. A lot of times you guys will send in your questions and we'll try to answer some of them on Chat Thursdays or some of the other shows that we've done where we do life advice with Guru Crowder. I am not a guru just to make sure everybody understands that he is and he alone. But we wanted to do something a little deeper into the theological realm. And so this was a perfect opportunity to do it and to get it to you. And so we'll have different conversations that come up throughout the year that we will post to mug club. And one of the easiest ways to jump into this is to do it with somebody that we welcomed recently to mug club. Brian Cowan, how are you doing, sir?

Speaker8: [01:00:09] I'm happy to be here. Texas.

Gerald: [01:00:11] Very happy to America in Texas. Yes.

Speaker8: [01:00:14] Talking about things that are.

Tim: [01:00:15] Important, land.

Gerald: [01:00:16] Of freedom away from your hellhole that I mean, not to not. It is foreshadowing the hellhole that is California. Yeah, right. Yeah. Okay. Well, good. Well, I'm glad that you're glad to be here. Yes. And honestly, one of the first things I think we should probably do is just talk a little bit about your background as it is related to maybe call it spirituality, faith, the presence of or the lack thereof, whatever that experience is. Just just for a couple of minutes, tell people kind of where you are. And this is personal. Like this is a lot of personal, deep kind of conversational stuff with some jokes thrown in. Brian knows how to throw some pretty mad heat, so he'll definitely do Mad heat. Caged heat.

Speaker8: [01:00:53] I'm caged intellectual and comedic heat.

Tim: [01:00:56] But so it's like.

Gerald: [01:00:57] The serious, funny conversation because God has a sense of humor. Just so you know, God is a pretty good comedian. He gave an entire people hemorrhoids for stealing the Ark of the Covenant. So God is basically thumbing through his Rolodex of punishments. He's like locust, we've done that. Earth swallows you up. Done that. Yeah.

Tim: [01:01:14] Huh.

Gerald: [01:01:15] There on the.

Speaker8: [01:01:16] Hemorrhoids. I didn't. Yeah. Is this true? Because I read. I read the Bible 100% true.

Gerald: [01:01:21] I never saw that. They're called emerods in Scripture in the Old Testament. I can't remember the book, but a group of people stole the Ark of the Covenant. Don't steal the Ark of the Covenant. Right. And so they ended up getting hemorrhoids. Now, the funny part is they had a guy, an artist create a hemorrhoid so that they could actually make one. And so I'm I'm not looking so much at like the process of the creation. I'm looking at like, can you just.

Speaker7: [01:01:45] Hold that. Yeah.

Gerald: [01:01:47] And he's drawing the hemorrhoid, right? Yeah. So there's a guy drawing.

Tim: [01:01:50] That's incredible. Right.

Gerald: [01:01:51] And the emeralds. And so the funny part is, though, it's not that it's the entire town got hemorrhoids, but instead of just giving the arc back, they send it to their buddies next door and they're like, No, no, no. You take the arc. They got hemorrhoids, they.

Speaker8: [01:02:05] See hemorrhoids is a warning. Like, guy is like, send a bunch of snakes to bite you or stun that to starve you or just open the earth and swallow you whole hemorrhoids are a little bit like, Hey, hey, you know, it's a little bit like, hey, hey, hey, You know what I mean? I'm gonna make this uncomfortable. I'm not going to like this. Yeah, no, you don't.

Gerald: [01:02:22] Have the butt donuts that people have nowadays where they can sit on those. No preparation.

Speaker8: [01:02:26] H you're in the desert. You got and your mud whistle is is itchy and swollen, so everybody looks like a baboon in heat. All right. Can you imagine.

Gerald: [01:02:36] That, though? How ineffective of a fighting force must they have been at that point? You can't run.

Speaker8: [01:02:41] You can't run on hemorrhoids.

Speaker7: [01:02:42] Riding.

Speaker16: [01:02:43] A horse.

Tim: [01:02:43] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker9: [01:02:44] So, see, it's it's okay to be funny.

Gerald: [01:02:46] Because God, you know, has God is funny.

Speaker8: [01:02:47] Good sense of humor. Yeah. At least for me. I've always had my. My father went to the seminary, and then I think he was so inundated with religion, Catholicism that I think he turned from it. And so my father and I have these arguments and he has a very hostile view of religion, which is surprising because he has a very deep, deep moral and ethical code that he never strays from Catholicism.

Gerald: [01:03:15] Protestant, non-denominational, Catholic, Catholic. Okay.

Speaker8: [01:03:18] Gotcha. So he he can so he.

Gerald: [01:03:21] Hates the pope as well?

Speaker8: [01:03:22] I think so, yes. But he can he can argue so well for why you have to be morally consistent, why you have to be truthful. Right. And if you try to you know, if you if you're a moral if you're a historical relativist, you know, he will he will take you on. He loves that kind of debate. So what's interesting is that his his his moral framework is a Judeo-Christian framework. It just is. Yeah. And we can get to that in a little bit. But but for me, I always had I never grew up in the church and I never grew up going to church.

Gerald: [01:04:00] When did he have his.

Speaker8: [01:04:01] Kind of probably when he was 20. Really? Okay.

Gerald: [01:04:04] So this was.

Speaker9: [01:04:05] Pretty early on.

Speaker8: [01:04:06] Yes. But listen, the the the notion of good and evil was was grounded. It was it was it was sort of it made its inroads and it never left him. Yeah. You know, he doesn't he's not he doesn't believe in he says never be an intellectual. There's always an answer. Look for it. It's pretty interesting. So he's he really does speak the way, almost like an old Bible thumper does in many ways.

Gerald: [01:04:29] But does he still believe in God.

Speaker8: [01:04:32] Or does not believe in God? He's okay. He will tell you he took the road to Athens, which is the road to reason. So he's, you know, Socrates and Plato, right? But Socrates and Plato are very religious in a lot of ways. So forget all that. My what I always had a sense of nostalgia for religion. So I always had a sense that there was that which you can measure in life. And this came to me very, very early. Yeah, there's that which you can measure, right? So status and power and money. And there are numbers that you can you can use as a metric to gauge success. But I always knew somehow that there was a great value in that which you cannot measure. Yeah. And I think it maybe it's synonymous with what you can imagine. It has something to do with imagination. I had a good imagination as a kid. Yeah. And I also had a strong sense of There's God right there. That's God right there. Yeah, that's God.

Gerald: [01:05:27] Thunder and lightning. Jeez. What do you. What's about to happen?

Speaker8: [01:05:30] Well, I. I bring the rain. I bring the rain. And guys, my, my. This is my first episode. This is the reckoning. Yes, this is the father.

Speaker9: [01:05:39] Be precise.

Gerald: [01:05:39] With the lightning strikes.

Speaker8: [01:05:41] Please. So it's not just going to rain water. You're going to see a whole bunch of frogs everywhere. All right. So that's how it is. So I hope you guys are correct. Is this Sharknado? Because the frogs and here come the hemorrhoids. Oh, boy.

Tim: [01:05:54] No.

Speaker8: [01:05:55] But but no, My, my, my. Sort of. So. So I think that's how it starts. The idea that there's something out there I don't understand. I was always fascinated with the idea that something like the Bible had so much was still relevant. Yeah, you would see so, so, so it's like, okay, you may say God doesn't exist, but belief does. Yeah. And so do the things you do because you believe, Right? Right.

Speaker9: [01:06:25] So your actions are.

Gerald: [01:06:26] Betraying your words essentially in this thing. Yeah. God does not exist, but I kind of live my life in some kind of moral ethic. Yes. That is derived from the Judeo-Christian ethic.

Speaker8: [01:06:35] Well, we all listen. All of us, including atheists. Whenever I hear atheists talking about equality, I get such a chuckle out of that because our entire. Higher legal system is predicated on the notion that we are all of the same moral worth. Yeah, that that idea that we are all of the same moral worth. We're all brothers and sisters. Regardless of your color and your creed and your beliefs and all that and your skill set, that means that we all, we all that that is a direct product of the belief in monotheism, in one God. There's one God looking out over all of us. Okay, now, now you can twist that and you can you can add your philosophy and your reason to that. Nothing wrong with that. But please understand that the scaffolding for your entire legal system, the scaffolding for your argument for why slavery, for example, or racism or homophobia or transphobia is so bad. The scaffolding was laid a long time ago by believers. Yeah, it wasn't philosophers. It just wasn't. I mean, look, the great moral thinkers of our time, the ones that used reason to get closer to truth, like Socrates and Plato had slaves. Men. They had slaves. So, you know, that's. That's kind of, you know, but but getting back to my my journey of faith, I always had a sense that there was something. There was something there. There. There was something out there. Right. And when you're young, you get you get into Buddhism, you get into Zen. Well, I was I wasn't in California. I was okay. But, you know, I was a young guy in the in the East. And, you know, I was in DC and I was, you know, I read books on all that stuff. I was always looking. Yeah.

Gerald: [01:08:23] So you had like, this, you knew something more was there. You just didn't necessarily know what it was.

Speaker8: [01:08:28] Yes, but I have a but but here's where I think it really comes in to play all of us that what I what I'm describing now is a sense of spirituality. It's very easy to come to. Yeah. If you have an imagination and if life is good, if you feel good for most of your life, In other words, you got friends and you're spiritual, you never go hungry. Yeah, you know, I live under representative government. My parents were there. I got lots of presents for Christmas. Et cetera. Right? Of course. Brian Callan is spiritual. Of course you are. A way to go, Brian. That's fantastic job. Where where you find the stories of the Bible and especially Christ relevant. Was. How does one suffer? Well, yeah. How does one suffer in an exemplary way? Where is true character and where are you truly found? Not in good times, but when everything is taken from you. Yeah. And I think that's where you find faith. When everything around you, which is man made by man and is man, is not an answer. Yeah, well. And you find yourself looking up at the sky. And what's really fascinating about that is when you look up at the sky, maybe you're on your knees and you find some answers. That's. Yeah, that's. That's kind of what's going on here, man.

Gerald: [01:09:54] That's that's a moment for a lot of people. And unfortunately, it does take kind of that kind of breaking point rock bottom moment. But just to touch on something you said a minute ago, like I agree, you can look throughout history. You can look throughout modern times, right. And just look around the globe and see where where is faith vibrant, Right. Where is faith strong? And I'm not talking the number of people that have faith or church attendance or giving or anything like that. But where is faith like really, really strong China, right? House churches, churches, the people that are persecuted, that are put in prison for having a Bible or going and congregating and talking about God and proselytizing. Right. Very, very strong in places that experience persecution. Other places, South America, Africa, places that are very poor. Right. That have a lot of poverty, a lot of difficult not all the places in those kind of areas that I just mentioned are poor or the people that have faith. But there's a lot of like really abject poverty in those places, not like our version of poverty where you don't have enough to pay for your iPhone, right? We have poverty here, but not in the same kind of way, like just destitute places that really don't have a lot of opportunity or a lot of hope. And you see this strong, vibrant faith. And the funny thing is that a lot of times as Christians, you know, growing up in the church, we send aid to them and we send people to them. And that's great. And that's a wonderful thing to do and it helps, but you tend to view them as somebody in need of my help and my prayers. And what's really interesting, I did some missions work in Cambodia and Indonesia and in Indonesia. It's we're praying for you because as Christians in America, you guys have so much it's so easy to think that you accomplished it and that everything's fine and you don't need God. Well. So they viewed it with almost the extreme opposite.

Speaker8: [01:11:44] That's an amazing point, Gerald. That's that's such a good point because I also had the benefit of growing up overseas. And by the way, as you're talking about these people in Cambodia and you're talking about these people in China and you're talking about these people in Africa, I can hear the atheist going, Well, they're all ignorant. Well, they they just they're superstitious. I can just hear them saying, well, they got to hold on to something fine. It's a very condescending thing to say to people who are religious. They're the religion isn't just about control. It's also about inspiration. It's also about also about truth. It's also about it's also the the you kind of go, wait, the guide that this is providing, the self restriction it's advocating actually works for my life, the.

Gerald: [01:12:25] Benefits that that provides to society.

Speaker8: [01:12:28] So then then there's a truth to it, isn't there? If the results are positive, if the results really do work, then there has to be an element of truth in the. In the cloak you put on in the in the in the practices that you you adopt. Yeah. But what you just said about the idea that, you know, I grew up in the developing world in the 70 seconds and the 80 seconds. I saw real poverty. Well, let's go through it. I was born in the Philippines. I then lived in India, Calcutta and Bombay, Lebanon, Pakistan, Lebanon. Again, the war broke out, stuck there for six months. Greece, Saudi Arabia. Now what? Within that, by the way, everybody, I traveled to communist China in 1984. Yeah. Where everybody was on a bicycle and wearing a blue suit. The Maoist everybody had the same haircut because there was no category. I saw what real communism was. I went to Russia in 1985 and my buddy spoke fluent Russian and I hung out in Gorky Park with a bunch of Russian kids my age who I would have seen across the way in a foxhole. And they were great guys. And I remember they wanted to know where I got my jeans and my sneakers. They couldn't believe it. I left without any jeans or sneakers. I also hooked up with a beautiful Russian. Oh, come on. I was 18. She was 22. Don't worry. Her name was Svetlana. I still remember her. And then her friend Christina. It's the best sinner.

Gerald: [01:13:51] It's the best for jeans.

Speaker9: [01:13:52] You've ever spent. The best for.

Speaker8: [01:13:54] Jeans I've ever spent. The greatest thing in my mom caught me. It doesn't matter. That's a whole different story.

Gerald: [01:13:58] You're trading cigarettes.

Speaker9: [01:14:00] Over there for favors. Geez.

Speaker8: [01:14:02] Then as a kid, of course I went to Africa twice. When you're in Kenya and Tanzania and you're you're in a in a van and the the you see kids your age see, I saw a lot of children my age, whether it was Pakistan, whether it was in Yemen, where I saw somebody with full blown leprosy and they didn't have a nose. When you're a kid and you see how the world works, when you see what happens when bad ideas like socialism and communism and fascism and military dictatorships and a lack of representative government, etcetera, it's when you see what happens to people on the losing side of history and you see how they actually live, and you're a kid and you see people who are actually truly hungry, dirty and begging like this with their hands at the window of your air conditioned car. Yeah. And you're you're the same age. You never I what you say to yourself is you go, I didn't do anything to be on this side of the window. Right? I did nothing. I just. It's called math. Maybe. Maybe I did something better in my past life. I have no idea. But I did nothing to deserve this. That kind of guilt, that kind of shame. I grew up with a great deal of shame as a result of that. Yeah, and you want to. You want to figure out answers. If you're a thinking human being, if you're a remotely compassionate, that's all you can do is say to yourself, I am. Why am I so lucky, man? Why am I so lucky? To this day I have trouble having my buddy just lectured me about this. You got to start promoting more. You don't. You know you're okay with having this? Yeah. Yeah, that's probably true, man. That's probably true. You can call that trauma. You can call it whatever you want. I don't want to lose that, by the way. I like suffering with a little bit.

Gerald: [01:15:40] Having some of that. Look, we're not meant to be comfortable. Look at what we do in abundant comfort, right? Look around the United States today when we have pretty much everything that we want. We're not really fighting any major wars. Stuff is going on. Right. It kind of popping off here and there and things, obviously Ukraine, but we're not necessarily fighting in that. That's not necessarily our thing. We're just sending all of our money over there. Thanks, Joe Biden. When we are comfortable, we come up with ways to screw up life. We come up with crazy things that are like, well, I need to I mean, having and Steven talked about this one time, he's like, having a gluten allergy is a very first world problem.

Speaker9: [01:16:14] It sure is. So.

Speaker8: [01:16:15] So we're worrying about your pronouns, Right?

Speaker9: [01:16:17] Exactly. So just taking it even further. And so.

Speaker8: [01:16:19] Screen fatigue.

Speaker9: [01:16:20] Yeah, it's like.

Gerald: [01:16:20] Oh no, now I have to come up with something different than pronouns. It's like, Well, I need to be this other unique category of unicorns over here that doesn't really exist, right? So that we definitely come up with that. And I so I own a wine business as well. And in the Bible, there's a number of places it's very often used just to kind of teach a story, right? Where it talks about a vineyard or it talks about a wine press or it talks about wine. Right. And one thing that has been really interesting to me, along the lines of comfort and not being comfortable and being stressed like we're at our best when we have some level of discomfort. Right. Because it drives us to some degree is wine is the same way. If you give wine grapes, the vines, all of the water that they want, they'll basically produce table grapes which are of no value for wine at all.

Speaker8: [01:17:04] You've got to make the vines work for you.

Gerald: [01:17:05] You've got to make them work for it and dig deep roots, right? So they have to have this good foundational process happening where they're forced to dig deeply, kind of into the soil of life, so to speak. Right. I know that's cheesy, but it's absolutely true. So that when tougher times come, meaning it gets to summertime and there's not really a lot of water naturally, and it's a very dry kind of volcanic soil or something like that, they're able to survive When a heat spike comes, you're able to survive. And so there's parables in the Bible that talk about having kind of this deep root system as well, and having the birds of the air come along and kind of pick up the seeds. Right? So. It talks about this. The Bible is telling us over and over and over again that this kind of level of comfort that we're experiencing right now is abnormal. We are being promised as Christians suffering in this world, you will have trouble, but take heed. I have overcome the world, right? This this really powerful statement that Jesus makes, like don't worry about any of the suffering that you have, because I have overcome the world. There's that hope and that promise that there's something more out there than what we're currently experiencing now. What we fail to understand most of the time is that's not talking just about suffering. It's also talking about success. You're successful. Don't worry about being successful.

Gerald: [01:18:23] Jesus has overcome the world in your pocket. Book can never change that, whether it's empty or full. Right? So don't think you can buy your way in to the good graces of God. He made it really incredibly simple. For those of you who don't know, it's a very simple process, right? Jesus died for sinners. That's the that's what separates Christianity, is our belief that Jesus died to pay for sin and reconcile us to a loving father. It's very simple. It didn't make it hard. Well, but he told us, we're going to have these problems because we believe those things, Right. And so in this country, we we have a problem with prosperity. We have a problem with people kind of coming up with kind of these crazy theological kind of concepts. And people are like you said, I thought it was a good way of saying it. Like, of course I'm spiritual and everything's good, right? And if God doesn't exist, there's a lot of people who curse him when things are going bad that say that God doesn't exist. And it's like, Well, that's kind of an irrelevant curse. Like, why would you why would you shake your fist at a god that does not exist? That doesn't make any sense. Right? Right. So on your kind of journey, so to speak. And I don't want to use that word and say like, that's a good word, like discovering himself.

Speaker9: [01:19:28] It's a good word.

Speaker8: [01:19:29] I like that word. Okay.

Gerald: [01:19:31] On your journey, where would you say that you are today? Like, what would best describe where you are now?

Speaker8: [01:19:39] I love I love the idea of deriving meaning from suffering. Okay. And and realizing, first of all, that I'm a flawed human being and that the point is not self perfection. And I think where I where I am in my journey is I'm old enough to have done I've accomplished a lot. I've driven, I've drawn a line through all the things I set out to accomplish. And for the most part, professionally, when I went to L.A. Right, Yeah, my own TV show, you know, headline or all that stuff. Blah blah blah. Two girls in Russia, two girls in Russia, you know, all around athlete, great body, you know. You guys know. You guys know what.

Speaker9: [01:20:21] I'm talking the smolder can you do the smolder for the I can't.

Speaker8: [01:20:23] Guys it's not fair because this is a religious one for for a second.

Speaker9: [01:20:29] Where's my camera? It's up there. Damn.

Speaker8: [01:20:31] Yeah. It's good though, because I got.

Speaker9: [01:20:32] You know what that was? Side smolder. That's all we can handle.

Speaker8: [01:20:35] She is strong enough to actually send some people into convulsions. Oh, really? Yeah. So I give you. I give you a second, but. But I think that that for me. I. Where I am is realizing that when you endeavor in this quest for self perfection. Right. That's a lofty goal. It's a lofty goal, but there's a problem with it. So. So how many people I know are on all different kinds of testosterone and different kinds of longevity drugs and stuff like that? The problem actually with all of that, in my opinion, first of all, we don't admire those people. You don't admire Batman or Superman or any of your heroes when they're taking a longevity drug and eating salad because it might keep cancer away for a little longer. That's not what you admire. The people you admire are the people that put their own biology in second place to a higher principle or ideal. Okay. Okay. And I think that when you're obsessed with self perfection and longevity, it's a form of idolatry. It's a form of idol worship. It's you're worshiping yourself. You're worshipping yourself. Yeah. And I have seen and felt the edges of that corruption. And I think it is a way to corrupt yourself, and it's a subtle way. So, so for me, I'm way more interested in the idea of. Putting myself in second place to something higher. Yeah. A better fight, a better idea or something I can't conceive of. Okay, so. So. So maybe. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe where I'm at in my journey, I'll use this expression. I don't I haven't seen God, but maybe I'm quoting a great philosopher. I forgot, but I can hear him clearing his throat in the other room. I think that's the best way to put it. Yeah.

Gerald: [01:22:36] Okay. So in, in this journey, right. And I think that's a very kind of an honest answer. Like you're, you're kind of based on your background, based on the travels that you've done. Like something is pointing to something greater, right? Yes. And then you and you can't you can't you're not really satisfied with this kind of self-worship that is permeated our culture in a number of different ways. It all permeated the church, all of it. Right. It's it's it's status in the church. And look at me and you know performance preaching all of that stuff prosperity, gospel, everything. But you wouldn't be probably willing to call yourself a Christian right in that in that instance. Not necessarily. Right. So but you would you say that you are looking at Christianity with. Expectation of something being there potentially.

Speaker9: [01:23:23] Or I have.

Speaker8: [01:23:24] Enormous respect. I have enormous respect for the the religion, for Christianity. Enormous respect. I think so. Forgiveness. Oh, my God, that's a miracle. Yeah. And it's a radical idea. It is. It's so is loving your enemy. And if you don't understand what that means because you haven't had to do it. So let me let me dilate on that. Sure. That might be the biggest. The biggest thing I've come to is realizing that the forgiveness and loving your enemy. Oh, my God. Is is the think about how radical that was for a rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth to come up with that idea in Rome when when Caesar was the ruler, when when the ideal was, you know, might makes right and crush your enemies and listen to the lamentation of. Yeah, that's not.

Gerald: [01:24:16] A masculine thing to do. Not at.

Speaker8: [01:24:17] All. Forgive your. Not at all. It's turning the other cheek and loving your enemy. Now, what's the value until you've had to do that? If you don't, people are going to screw you over. Bad people are going to come for you, right? And that's okay. That's part of the flood, brother. That's part of the chaos. Could be cancer, could be a stray bullet, could be jealous. People could be whatever it is. Could be somebody.

Speaker9: [01:24:39] With a pillow who.

Speaker8: [01:24:39] Knows it could. You never know. You never know. You never know. But it's going to happen if you are stuck in resentment and feelings of revenge. If you don't figure out a way not only to forgive, but also to love the people that did you wrong, you will not move on. You will not learn from that. That trial that was supposed to happen. They are not demons. That's an angel. That's an angel. It's how you turn a demon into an angel. It's going to feel like a demon for sure. But it ain't. It ain't a demon struggle. Look, I'm going to quote Tennessee Williams. The wolf at the door is not luxury. It's struggle. Struggle is your friend. And that's how you you should you should keep the ribs on you, man. Keep the ribs on you. I want to see your backbone. And it doesn't have to be physical. I'm talking about spiritual. But. But. All good things come from doing things that don't feel so good in the beginning. You know, you get into a cold bath or an ice bath and it sucks for the first two minutes, but it's probably very good for you. So is exercise or anything that doesn't feel good. So is doing something new. It's like you're not comfortable at first. Yeah, but you ain't growing until you step on that jitsu mat and get your ass kicked for, you know, a year. And I've never gotten my ass kicked because I'm, you know, Crafty.

Speaker9: [01:25:59] Crafty.

Speaker8: [01:26:00] Yeah, exactly. I'm too crafty, guys.

Speaker9: [01:26:02] All right.

Gerald: [01:26:02] So let me let me maybe put and so this this is one of the topics and we're going to have several of these conversations because I think there's a lot of good that people can get from having these kind of honest conversations and speaking topically and just having conversations around these different ideas that are embodied in Christianity and in, you know, kind of the religions, kind of the major religions of the world. It as somebody who wouldn't says, I maybe I've heard God clear his throat in the other room. It's a really interesting way of putting it. Is there any either fear or hope in the idea of heaven and hell being real for you? Is that something that kind of enters your mind at.

Speaker9: [01:26:44] All in this.

Speaker8: [01:26:45] Process? I believe in I believe in heaven and hell. Okay. If you really. So why do you gun to.

Speaker9: [01:26:49] My head in.

Gerald: [01:26:50] Heaven? Well, yeah. Gun to your head. That would be the literal. Like you're about to experience one or the other.

Speaker9: [01:26:54] Do you believe in life?

Speaker8: [01:26:55] I live my life. I heard Jordan Peterson say, I live my life as if God exists. I think I've always done that. But what is that practically? I don't think you get away with with doing bad things.

Speaker9: [01:27:05] No, that's good, right? So it's good. It's kind of.

Gerald: [01:27:07] A starting point. But in Christianity, if the idea of heaven and hell are real to you, right, which one? You know, we were talking about this beforehand and I said, you know, let's let's when we talk about this subject, I want to talk about people's problem with hell, because there's a lot of people that have had a problem with hell. Most notably Rob Bell many years ago wrote a book, I think it was called Love Wins. And he essentially is making the case to some degree that the concept of hell, as we know it, doesn't really exist. Right. And he makes he has a he has a reason for saying that. And we'll get into that here.

Speaker8: [01:27:42] It might grate against redemption. So it might grate against the fact that, you know, so so the problem with the idea of hell is you can look at human beings as we get into this idea of free will. Right. The more we learn about science, maybe there's something about a serial killer's brain and it's a compulsion he can't control. And maybe if you were that way, you'd be the same way. And is there such thing as evil? Because, you know, we can get into these long, drawn out conversations. I would suggest that maybe hell exists on earth in certainly a form of hell can exist on Earth. We know that. And then maybe, maybe you take the worst thing you can imagine happening. And then then then extrapolate that. And that might be the idea of hell. I don't know. Yeah, I don't. Maybe I. Maybe I don't. I might not find it as relevant. I know Christians do. This might be where I get caught up because I don't know that. You know, people would say, well, hell has to exist. You have to think hell exists because that keeps people in line. But I think there's a difference between people who fear God and people who love God, right? I don't like the idea of fearing God because then it doesn't feel very inspired, right?

Speaker9: [01:29:01] If you're like, Hey, just don't smite me. Yeah, that's not driven like by a reaction of loving God.

Speaker8: [01:29:05] That's like the old Israelites, you know, in the Old Testament, they were like, Oh, well.

Gerald: [01:29:08] And fear. Fear is not supposed to.

Speaker9: [01:29:10] Be.

Gerald: [01:29:11] Being afraid of, but having respect and awe and reverence for. It's a much better way of looking at what, you know, approaching the throne of grace with fear and trembling or approaching God with fear and trembling. It's not like God, please.

Speaker9: [01:29:23] Don't, you.

Gerald: [01:29:24] Know, understanding your position as a sinner. And, you know, I believe as a Christian that we are all sinners. Right? We all and just if you need any evidence, just look anywhere in the world and you'll see selfish human beings doing horrible things to one another, left to our own devices. And this is where I would disagree with somebody like Russell Brand, who thinks like, we tend to take care of ourselves. Right. And I don't disagree that that would be good, but we just historically have never done that unless we put like.

Speaker9: [01:29:52] People left to their.

Gerald: [01:29:53] Own devices will generally kind of form community and kind of take care of themselves. And I'm not I'm not taking a steaming.

Speaker9: [01:29:59] Dump on that idea.

Speaker8: [01:30:00] But I have an argument for that. So that's a very good see, see, that's a very important thing to stop. Pause on for a sec. I hear that a lot. Okay. Yes. Yes. They take care of themselves. But you can have a society like ancient Persia or the Babylonians or the Assyrians. Okay, that's great. And what you have then is a caste system. Okay. Of course you have. You have England, you have, you have India, you have these caste systems. Great. You have the Untouchables. Then you have the Brahmins. Right? Cool. You can do that. You can have Plato's Republic too, which was very similar. It's what the Third Reich was, was essentially modeled after. Great. So, yeah, human beings are really good at creating orderly societies right now. Now, this society was predicated on a couple of things. One is let's just take Christianity out of it for a second. That's really hard. It would be it's very hard to do, but I'm going to do it for a second. It's it's don't take what doesn't belong to you. Keep your promises. And if you violate those two, those first two principles make it better. Justice has to be served. Put it put everything back in its place. Okay. Now, why why does that work? Those are moral. Those are moral ways. Those are moral principles. Keep your promises. Don't break a contract. Yeah. And don't take what doesn't belong to you. We can run a society. Those are. Those are. That's that. You can. You can. That's a shotgun sort of umbrella idea of how to live a moral life. Yeah. And then if you, if you screw up because you're a flawed creature. We got you, bro. You had a moment. Make it right. Yeah. Pay restitution in one way or another. Okay. That seems to work. So does all men are created equal? I am not equal to LeBron James. I'm just not. You're better. My joke is that he's taller, but I have a bigger dick. But the thing is this.

Gerald: [01:31:46] There goes the theology theme. If it happened.

Speaker8: [01:31:49] I know I should have said penis. That's the biological term, but the.

Speaker9: [01:31:53] Word ass is.

Gerald: [01:31:54] In the Bible, so I guess we're fine.

Speaker8: [01:31:55] Thank you. But. But the bottom line is that, you know, but but when you when you adhere to and you agree to a principle you can't prove, which is all men are created equal, you can't prove it. You can actually disprove it with math and rational logic. Yeah, your society isn't as strong, Society is not as strong. It's not you're not as creative, you're not as prosperous. So if that's the case, because that's what I give credit, the United States is a great country. And I know we had slavery. I understand that. So when I say all men are created equal, I understand the inconsistencies. But the founding fathers understood that, too. Yeah, it was the peculiar institution and it grated on them. It was a big inconsistency and they didn't live it down. I get it. I get it. I get it. But. But I'm just saying that when that is your ideal, when you're reaching for that, it makes your country better.

Gerald: [01:32:47] Yeah, Well, and Russell's point was.

Speaker9: [01:32:49] But that would be.

Speaker8: [01:32:50] Truth, wouldn't it, Gerald? Like so. So if it makes your country better, if it makes you more creative, more prosperous, it makes you the beacon of the world. Everybody wants to come here. There's got to be some truth to that. There's got to be. That might be the better way to start there.

Speaker9: [01:33:01] If you are.

Gerald: [01:33:02] Starting kind of a search for truth, you would look for evidence of progress, right? You would look for something that is working, right, that is that is able to organize people into some kind of system that is producing a better existence for them, or at least the ability to deal with a very difficult existence. Right. And they're able to do that more. And so I would actually put one more thing on that. Right? So this this country was founded on these Judeo-Christian principles. Now, I know people would say they're deists, but the idea of God somewhere being central. I know, right? But the idea of God being central to who we were as a people was that was paramount like that. That was the stone on which we built our ideas, correct? Right. That had.

Speaker9: [01:33:47] Change the world.

Speaker8: [01:33:48] Where do you think all men are created equal come from? That is that is you know, you have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's a very general term, very general. The individual has sovereignty. You as an individual and value and value you as an individual. The common man knows what's best for him and the your ruler, your ruler who governs the governor, the people. That's a radical idea. And I think that it would not have been arrived at without. You know, generic Christian ethic as the undergirding. Yeah. You know, people.

Speaker9: [01:34:30] Saw some value.

Gerald: [01:34:31] To that, obviously, and they tried to infuse that. And so as Christianity spread throughout the world, a lot of these principles spread, whether it was a Christian nation or not. But let me let me take us back to the heaven and hell kind of question. Right. So you said it doesn't really motivate you necessarily. Like it's it's say it again. Is it is it just something that you're kind of aware of, like the existence of heaven and hell, But it's not something that you necessarily either aspire to or.

Speaker9: [01:34:56] Run.

Speaker8: [01:34:56] Away from. I would say this. I could never have that conversation in erudite, polite Los Angeles company.

Speaker9: [01:35:06] But I. Of course.

Speaker8: [01:35:07] But I can't get it out of my mind. And I live my life as though it does exist. Okay, so. So. So let's start there. Probably the core. My my gun in my head. My core belief is I'm going to hedge my bets. Heaven and hell exists. I'm, you know, Now I'd like to think that that's not enough, Brian.

Speaker9: [01:35:25] Just to know that they exist. It's like gravity exists. Okay? So then you don't.

Gerald: [01:35:29] Jump off a building, right? So the next.

Speaker9: [01:35:32] Kind of step, it's that action.

Gerald: [01:35:33] That you have to take.

Speaker9: [01:35:34] And so if those things.

Gerald: [01:35:36] Exist and let me let me just take you through a few things, because I mentioned Rob Bell and some theologians saying that it doesn't necessarily exist. And it brings up a couple of questions that I thought would be interesting for us to talk about and we'll talk about these for just a little bit more. And then Brian and I are going to continue our conversation on our next episode. So make sure that you check back for that when we release it, because there's just there's so much that we can unpack and go through in these conversations that we can't just fit it all into one. So when you talk about the reality of hell, it brings up questions about a loving God. And I think I've got a quote here from Rob Bell. And he basically kind of tried to put a fine point on this, and I'll find it in just a sec. Okay. I think I'll find it in just a second. But he's basically saying, like the idea that God exists. And that people are eternally separated and punished. And that's where you really kind of goes to the far extreme. They're punished eternally. It offends him.

Speaker9: [01:36:35] Yeah, right. To some.

Speaker8: [01:36:36] Degree. Can I get a loophole?

Speaker9: [01:36:38] I know, right? Exactly. You're looking for a loophole.

Speaker8: [01:36:40] So how about Dante's rings? How about you can work your way up to redemption?

Speaker9: [01:36:43] Well, see, now. That's right.

Speaker8: [01:36:45] I mean, do people have to burn forever? That's a long time, bro. Right.

Speaker9: [01:36:49] So that brings up. So here's here's Portal. Here's Rob's.

Gerald: [01:36:52] Here's Rob's thing. Right? Do you get it? Like, is there a one up life that you get? Like you get to go.

Speaker9: [01:36:56] Back and do this again? Yeah, yeah.

Gerald: [01:36:58] So here's one of the quotes from Rob. Life is difficult enough without believing that the deepest, strongest forces of the universe are against you and are going to torture you forever. And when you put it that way, it sounds really bad. Right? Okay. But this this brings us into a couple of questions about this that people don't typically go to, because, of course, I would go, yes, that sounds really bad. I don't want to be tortured forever. And I don't know that that's just just punishment for anything that I've done. Yeah. But I also am selfish and I don't want to experience punishment like that, even if it is warranted. Punishment. Now, here's here's where I think we have to kind of dive into this. Okay? Where is the line? Right, because God has given us a choice and I would argue all day for for as long as people wanted to, that God values free will over just about everything, because it's the it's the reason for the rest of the story from the very beginning of creation.

Speaker9: [01:38:02] I don't know.

Speaker8: [01:38:02] How you predicate a society without the notion of free.

Speaker9: [01:38:04] Will. I don't either. But just just with God's ability to say.

Gerald: [01:38:07] Okay, you can I can create these robots essentially that all kind of love me, whatever that is, without free will. I don't even think that it's even a possible emotion to have without the ability to choose to do the opposite right, or at least to do something neutral. Right. And just be like, You're not my favorite person. God, sorry about that. Right. And just kind of keep on walking. Right. But if you can't decide, then, of course, this world is not what we see today and it's just a really different existence. But it also means that he has to honor that. He has to honor the fact that he's given you free will, the ability to choose whether you want to be associated with him or not. And so that was the relationship. So right. We have Adam and Eve in this relationship with God. They break that relationship with God and the rest of the story is redemption. Yeah, the entire rest of the Bible is God chasing after us, right? Trying to redeem.

Speaker9: [01:39:01] Us and save.

Speaker8: [01:39:02] Us his back on us until the New Testament.

Speaker9: [01:39:04] Well, but he basically the Jews. Anyway, what he said was.

Gerald: [01:39:08] I'm going to go back to my place until they recognize their offense and then I will return to them. And this is all throughout the Old Testament. There's a number of allusions to that because God is a gentleman, He's not going to force himself on us. He's basically saying, I am your father, I love you. I want what is best for you, what you are doing and who you are right now. That's not what's best for you. And that's not how this system works. Trust me, because I made the system. I created the rules that govern everything in existence. Right. Trust what I'm saying. And he's saying you get to make a choice.

Speaker9: [01:39:39] So that kind of necessitates. Okay.

Speaker8: [01:39:42] Gerald, I think science backs you up, right? So there are laws. There are certain laws to the universe and you can say whatever you want. But if you're if you're like if you're bullshitting in one way or another. If you're if you're. Am I allowed to swear?

Gerald: [01:39:59] Well, you've already done it. Yeah.

Speaker8: [01:40:01] But if you're, if you're. If you're lying to yourself or lying to people around you, you ain't getting away with it. And the consequences will may be very dire. So your life can go from heaven. Bernie Madoff to hell. Where Bernie Madoff, your sons die and you're in jail and you have no money and all that. You know what I'm saying? Right?

Speaker9: [01:40:19] You can create your own hell.

Speaker8: [01:40:20] You can create your own hell. So we know we know that the rules.

Speaker9: [01:40:24] The concept exists.

Speaker8: [01:40:25] But the rules that were laid out for you, the rules that are laid out in the Ten Commandments, let's say, or in if you ever read Mere Christianity. Oh, yeah. Okay. So it's great because if you if you buck against those rules and.

Gerald: [01:40:41] They're and they're cross-cultural rules, they they apply in every place on the.

Speaker9: [01:40:46] Planet, you're.

Speaker8: [01:40:47] Going to pay the price and the price is going to suck. It's going to put it mildly. It ain't going to work. Jordan Peterson I loved he said this. I keep quoting him, but he said he said, I've never seen in 35 years of clinical psychology, I've never seen anyone get away with anything. Even once you can twist the fabric of reality for a while, you can twist the fabric eventually, and then your life falls apart and you go, We can trace that back to this. Right? Right. And that's another part of my kind of awakening here, where it's like, you know, you can say hell doesn't exist, but it certainly does in this realm on this, you know, on.

Speaker9: [01:41:25] This side of eternity, when you.

Speaker8: [01:41:27] Get sentenced to life in prison because you did something horrible or whatever it might be, yeah, that's going to be some.

Speaker9: [01:41:33] Hell like killing.

Gerald: [01:41:34] You with a pillow. That would be.

Speaker8: [01:41:35] Well, and you're talking.

Speaker9: [01:41:37] I'm not going to actually do it, Brian. I'm just saying.

Speaker8: [01:41:39] But I'm trained and I have an answer. That's true. I'll meet you. I'll meet you halfway. You're a T1, you're an T1 ballplayer.

Speaker9: [01:41:45] But.

Gerald: [01:41:45] But that doesn't skill and technique.

Speaker8: [01:41:47] I don't. I'm not on the center line, bro. I catch angles. I catch angles. Catch angles. All right. Don't let me get. Don't let me take your back. That's all I'm trying to say.

Speaker9: [01:41:57] I won't because I am not gay.

Gerald: [01:41:59] As we have talked about many, many times on this program.

Speaker8: [01:42:01] You're not gay yet. No.

Tim: [01:42:05] All right.

Speaker9: [01:42:07] I am not gay.

Speaker8: [01:42:08] I'm finding Christ. And you're finding me.

Speaker9: [01:42:10] No, but no. So let me let me just read you a story.

Speaker8: [01:42:15] So this is an interesting this is an interesting You're putting it you're getting me thinking here.

Speaker9: [01:42:19] Well, it bothers.

Gerald: [01:42:20] People for good reason, right? This this concept of God. And I don't think they understand how much it bothers God. Right. Because Scripture also says that God doesn't want anyone to be lost. Right? He wants everyone to come to this saving faith. And it's like, okay, well, it's an all powerful God that you're describing. If you believe in the God of the Bible, it describes him as all powerful, all knowing, all loving, but just. And this is where people. Lose God in his justice. You and I, we love justice, right? We watch those videos on Twitter of somebody pulling a gun on somebody and shooting them. We want justice. Our heart cries out for justice for that person to be put in prison. Somebody going up and knocking somebody out like I have envisioned myself many times being the target, seeing it coming, bobbing and weaving and then coming around. And I wouldn't do it right because I don't have no technique. But in my mind that's justice. And we desire justice until it's us. When it's us, we desire mercy. We don't want justice to be meted out on us.

Gerald: [01:43:23] And I think this is where the disconnect starts because we don't feel like I don't know God, I don't believe in Christianity. I don't believe in the Bible. I shouldn't be punished forever. Mercy. I want something different than what these people say is deserving of the condition that I find myself in. Just by being born, Right. This condition that Christians will constantly tell you, look, it's not about works. You can't work your way into heaven. You can't Mahatma Gandhi yourself or, you know, go and work in the slums in India and the the you know, in Calcutta. I think you mentioned that as one of your landing spots along the way with abject poverty and just do good for people. And that's enough because what is good, right? And God really defines for us what is good. But the idea that there is a hell kind of hurts. It offends, it scares. And people are like, No, I don't believe in that. A loving God would not do that. Okay. If you take that away from.

Speaker9: [01:44:13] God, well, it violates.

Speaker8: [01:44:14] Their sense of justice. If you don't even know if you're going to tell me that a kid in a well, somebody in the Middle East who does good things for people who happens to be a muslim is going to hell because they believe in the same God, but they didn't accept Christ as their savior. You're not going to this is that's going to be a that's going to be a wall.

Speaker9: [01:44:33] So let's put it this way.

Gerald: [01:44:34] If let's say if if God is a good God, right? He describes himself as a loving father. Not everybody has a loving father. Right? So that's that's unfortunately a plan of attack for Satan is let's destroy the father and hold on.

Speaker9: [01:44:49] But yes, a lot of people do. But meaning they can't. Are you talking about.

Speaker8: [01:44:52] The God of the Old Testament? Because not so in my opinion, no. God of the Old Testament wasn't very loving.

Speaker9: [01:44:56] Same God, very loving.

Speaker8: [01:44:57] Unless you were a Canaanite or you were a people of Moab. Very loving. Well, but. But if you're an Israelite, go kill all of them.

Gerald: [01:45:04] Go kill all of those people.

Speaker8: [01:45:05] Well, that's that is in the Bible. Deuteronomy and I mean for sure.

Speaker9: [01:45:09] Yeah.

Gerald: [01:45:09] Clean out the promised land, kill every last one of them.

Speaker9: [01:45:12] Okay. That's tough.

Speaker8: [01:45:14] Right? That would be genocidal.

Gerald: [01:45:15] I'm going to talk to you about that in another one because that's a really good topic that I want you to to get a little bit deeper understanding of what was going on there doesn't mean that it's easy to take. I'll give you that when I read stuff like that, too. I'm like, Woohoo, every last one. Couldn't you have said most right, here's what you here's what most people don't see in that the Israelites didn't follow God's command to the letter. Sam Yeah, they.

Speaker8: [01:45:38] Took some of the women as slaves.

Gerald: [01:45:40] Yeah, exactly right. They took some of the women.

Speaker9: [01:45:42] As slaves, punished for that.

Gerald: [01:45:43] They were punished for that, but they ended up having problems later on for syphilis.

Speaker9: [01:45:47] And things like that. Yeah, deeper problems than that. Brian Right. So we'll talk.

Gerald: [01:45:52] About that next time, but I'm not going to shy away from that topic because if you see the results of what happened, it gives you a much more clear picture. And here's where I would answer the question on the people in Moab. The people in any place that is listed where the armies of God were supposed to go in there.

Speaker9: [01:46:08] Know we're talking about. Right, Keep going.

Speaker8: [01:46:10] I'll break an Aramaic if I have to.

Speaker9: [01:46:12] I would I would say that God.

Gerald: [01:46:14] Can take care of them just as much as he can take care of the kid growing up in Saudi Arabia who's never heard of him. Right. God is also just is it just and is it fair for God to condemn somebody who's never heard of him? We wouldn't think so. Right now, I'm going to leave a little bit of room for God to be God, because he is. But we wouldn't think so. And so in our minds, we're like, okay, well, we feel like based on Scripture, God gives everybody an opportunity so that when when people get there, they don't have an excuse. I believe that with all of my heart, that doesn't mean that I have to go and be a witness. That's part of it, right? That doesn't mean that God has to show up in a dream to somebody which, gosh, there's been millions and millions of cases of that. People talking about that, especially in Islamic countries that happened a ton in Cambodia and Indonesia, where people had this dream of this figure that they didn't know who he was. Right. An evangelist comes to town and speaks on God. And maybe you can say, oh, they're just trying to connect the dots. I completely understand. But I believe that God is just and it would seem to be an injustice for somebody who's never heard or never had an opportunity to believe in Jesus as their savior, to be condemned to hell. And so I feel like based on Scripture, God says he's going to give everybody a chance right now. The hell that we're talking about the place that you want to avoid. Luke Chapter 16 verses 19 through 31. I just want to read you this story because it kind of describes this state that we're funny.

Speaker9: [01:47:32] If I had.

Speaker8: [01:47:32] It as a tattoo.

Speaker9: [01:47:33] It would, Yeah.

Gerald: [01:47:34] You're like, Bro, I.

Speaker9: [01:47:35] Know this story.

Speaker8: [01:47:36] And you guys didn't even couldn't even read it because I'm too shredded. It's like those letters don't make any sense, man. They're so wobbly. I feel like I'm in a.

Speaker9: [01:47:42] Can you flex for us so we can see it?

Gerald: [01:47:44] And then it becomes clear.

Speaker9: [01:47:45] As a picture he's.

Tim: [01:47:46] Always.

Speaker8: [01:47:47] Flexing. That's the kind of shape I'm in. I just.

Speaker9: [01:47:50] Marble.

Gerald: [01:47:50] So let me let me read this really quickly. And it's just it's a very interesting story about basically hell, but describing this situation prior to Christ dying. So there was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. Sounds like somebody that lives in the United States. Right at his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich man's table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores. So this guy is just describing kind of the poor man. But these are real people. They gave him a name. That's something that you have to keep in mind here. This wasn't just some allegory. This was like there's a guy who's rich and has this there's another guy who's named Lazarus who has this right. These are real.

Speaker9: [01:48:26] Right now, people.

Gerald: [01:48:27] Exactly. So the time came when the beggar died and angels carried him to Abraham's side. The rich man also died and was buried in Hades, where he was in torment. He looked up and saw Abraham far away. So pours. The rich man also died and was buried in Haiti. So he's in a place, right? He's not this. This gets rid of the annihilation kind of idea where you just kind of cease to exist and it's just over.

Speaker8: [01:48:50] Is this Hades, the underworld?

Gerald: [01:48:52] This is. So think of it as Abraham's bosom. Was it encompassed a good and a bad side that were separated prior to Christ dying? Right. And so I'll get into that in just one second. But he looked right or so sorry. He was in torment. Physical pain. He can feel like there's this place of fire, right, that he talks about down here in just a second. But this is real. He can feel he can see because he sees he looked up and saw Abraham far away and Lazarus by his side. So he has consciousness. He has understanding, like all of his faculties are still with him. Right. In some sense. So make sure we understand that fire. It's a different thing. Right. And so So he called to him, Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue because I am in agony in this fire. So there's the fire agony. I need water, right? So all of these things kind of go against our like the modern kind of understanding of, well, no, hell is not really that. It's just this or it's not really a real place. You just kind of go into not being around anymore and you just don't understand what's going on. But it goes on. But Abraham replied, Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things. So it's assuming that this person did some bad things right. It's not just like, okay, well, you lived in the right neighborhood, so now you don't, right? That's not quite God's, not, you know, capricious God. He's not going to do things like that.

Gerald: [01:50:09] Right? So remember that in your lifetime you received your good things while Lazarus received bad things. But now he is comforted here and you are in agony. And besides all this between us and you, a great chasm has been set in place so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us. So it's permanent, right? The permanence of that. You are there and you cannot go anywhere else gets rid of this idea that after death that you can earn your way in or that there is this second chance opportunity for you to be able to get into heaven if you kind of missed the opportunity before. Right. So this really unpacks a lot of these questions that people have about heaven and hell and what's going on. And he answered, Then I beg you, Father, send Lazarus to my family, for I have five brothers. Let him warn them so that they will not also come to this place of torment, Abraham replied. They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them. No, Father Abraham, he said, But if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent. He said to him, If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. Now it's really interesting that God chose to say that because it wasn't. We've talked about Lazarus before and I'm not sure if it's the same Lazarus here or not. We can jump into that another time. Who was raised from the dead? Who?

Speaker9: [01:51:22] Who? Yeah. It's not as relevant. It doesn't matter. Four days Jesus Christ.

Gerald: [01:51:25] Died and rose from the dead. And we can do a segment on whether that really happened or not. And people still don't believe him. That's what it was alluding to here, right? He's not you're not going to believe in somebody even if he rises from the dead. So let him listen to the prophets so it gets rid of this idea that hell is this place where it's just you're it doesn't exist. Right. So it does exist, right? It's a physical, real place. These things are actually going on. And I would argue that the greatest problem with hell is not torment the way you and I think of torment, like pain, suffering, something like that. It's separation from God. That is the greatest, I think, challenge in this, because when you're apart from God, you're apart from anything that is good. Yeah. It's the absence of light. It's complete darkness.

Speaker9: [01:52:14] I think as you're.

Speaker8: [01:52:14] Talking, it's interesting too, because we all know that you see people that just were born in an environment that renders them ignorant, that renders them without the things that the understanding that we have been blessed to have. Right. And they pay a very real price for that. And I'm not talking about just some people. I'm talking about entire communities, countries, people, peoples, for sure. I think about what what kind of apocalypse the Native Americans in this country faced. What was it like to be decimated by those European diseases and by European guns and blah, blah, blah and have all the Atlantic? Well, that was an apocalypse. That was actually something. They truly were wiped out. They never recovered even a little bit from that. I know that there's Cherokee Nation and things like that. But overall, there's more.

Speaker9: [01:53:05] Now in some of those tribes than there.

Speaker8: [01:53:06] Were then. But I'm saying that the the what that must have been like for the for the. Yeah.

Speaker9: [01:53:11] For the entire way of life changed.

Speaker8: [01:53:12] But but we know that that that in that sense that in that sense there seems to be the side that triumphs as a result of we can call it technology but prosperity prosperity and being able to reach your potential as a human being that is fostered by the right set of ideas. And then there are there are there are a bad set of ideas that do the exact opposite. And now you're living in Goma, in the Congo. Right. And having to deal with the Lord's Resistance Army and having your hands chopped off. Right? Yeah. So it's interesting that you're saying this because. Regardless of what you want to say, there does seem to be truth and there is lies. Right. And whether or not you have been privy to that truth or lie doesn't mean in this in this world, whether you've been privy to truth or lies is not relevant. Because even if it wasn't your fault that you were you were sort of a product of lies and bad ideas, you pay the price by losing your hands, Right?

Speaker9: [01:54:18] Right. Exactly. There's an earthly consequence to this.

Speaker8: [01:54:21] You can make a parallel for what happens in the afterlife to this life. So as you were saying that. I was thinking that. I was thinking, huh. Interesting. That's that that creates a that creates a problem, doesn't it?

Speaker9: [01:54:34] It does. It does. And and for a.

Gerald: [01:54:35] Lot of people, it it's funny because as something else that I thought was pretty interesting when I was preparing to have this conversation and to talk a little bit about kind of heaven and hell and the driver and the reason that I started there was not because I wanted to necessarily pick a controversial topic. I don't think that's as controversial in some of the. It's a great.

Speaker9: [01:54:53] Topic, though. Well, but it's.

Gerald: [01:54:55] It's a beginning point for a lot of people to dive into a lot of different subjects. Right. The other way to say it is is God real right. The end result of is God real? Is am I you know, am I destined for heaven or hell? Right. So if he is real, then at the very end, it's these two things, Right? So that's but, you know, there was a recent study done by Pew actually, I don't know if it's all that recent, but Pew does a study every once in a while in this country that says it's 70 some odd percent. Christian doesn't live like it. Percentage of all Americans that believe in the afterlife for heaven, 73% heaven tends to have a better rating because people think that's a pretty good place to be able to go. Hell, 62% of all Americans believe that hell is a real place. Wow. Do you? If hell is a real place. And what I just read to you is a chilling. Explanation of what's going on in this kind of setting where it's not even the end result there, right? So after Jesus dies, things change just a little bit. But that's the experience, the torment, the separation, the awareness, the finality of it, the no escape kind of elements to this. All of those things exist in 62% of people say that they believe in hell, and yet we live our lives in a way that shows that we don't believe in hell. We don't understand the being separated.

Speaker9: [01:56:15] From God.

Speaker8: [01:56:15] Because you can that's because you can run the water in your bathtub and you can get in that bath if you've got the money, you know, if you've got the wherewithal and you can sit and it can be storming outside, I mean, just like it is right now. And you can sit in that bath and pretend and pretend you're fine. Yeah, well.

Speaker9: [01:56:35] We.

Speaker8: [01:56:35] We again, it goes back to you. Can the truth kind of sits back. You can call it God, but I call it the truth with a fedora and a cigar going When you're done, I'll be over here. But you know, the piper must be paid, right? You know, I'm going to.

Speaker9: [01:56:48] Send I'm going.

Gerald: [01:56:49] To send these opportunities, shall we call them. Right. And these opportunities.

Speaker9: [01:56:53] I'm going to send you some hemorrhoids.

Speaker8: [01:56:54] I'm going to give you some warnings. Right. But for real, I'm going to send you some warnings.

Speaker9: [01:56:57] Yes, I'm going to send some.

Gerald: [01:56:58] Warnings because because the goal for God, like guys, you need to understand that God is not he doesn't take any pleasure in the death of the wicked because he knows that the wicked will be separated from him. Remember, Father, children he hates sin can't be in the presence of sin. You guys want to go your own way, You can. I don't want you to. Every parent out there right now understands this with kids. Yeah.

Speaker9: [01:57:19] I don't want you to go your own way because.

Gerald: [01:57:21] That way won't lead to life. It'll lead to.

Speaker9: [01:57:23] Death. See, as you're.

Speaker8: [01:57:24] Talking, Gerald, it's like, interesting because there is examples of heaven and hell. This metaphor exists in this world, for sure. So. So when you're.

Speaker9: [01:57:32] It's a shadow of things to come, right?

Gerald: [01:57:33] It's a shadow of these. These kind of temporal things are kind of pointing to the eternal all the time.

Speaker8: [01:57:38] My buddy who was a, you know, a SEAL Team six guy, top of the tip of the spear, did a lot of, you know, did a lot of, you know, combat. And and, you know, we were talking and he said I was thinking, you know, the Taliban were a lot of times like kids, they were like 17, 18, 19 year old, super ignorant, had only read the Koran. Right. And were fighting, you know, the bad guy. And they got just crushed. So did ISIS. So did any of these guys. They got crushed and they died and they died in a tough way. You know, there was a lot of suffering on that thing. Now, you could you go to those kids, you go, they didn't know. They didn't have an education. They didn't they'd been destroyed by their whole that by you could we can go all the way back to the Soviets if you want or just. Afghanistan has always been a warlike country. Keep going all the.

Speaker9: [01:58:27] Graveyard of empires.

Speaker8: [01:58:28] Either way, it's the graveyard of empires. But it's But either way, it's also the soldiers graveyard. It's either way. You know, the the fact of the matter was they died. They they were in their own hell. They were on the receiving end of SEAL Team six and Delta Force and our Marines and all that. You don't want to be on the receiving end of that. That is that is hellfire. That's hellfire. And and and to in many ways you could say to no fault of their own, they were young soldiers who were trying to their older brother was probably in it and they just wanted to be down for their cause or down for their village or down for their gang.

Speaker9: [01:59:06] Yeah. One way or the other. Well, you read about.

Gerald: [01:59:08] The descriptions in World War One of the battlefield. That's exactly right. And it is. It's got to be the most hell on earth kind of existence that's ever been. Truly. I mean, maybe I'm wrong and maybe there are worse.

Speaker9: [01:59:20] Obviously, like the Holocaust.

Gerald: [01:59:21] Obviously, that that was hell on earth as well. Like there are other examples of it being incredibly bad.

Speaker8: [01:59:26] Trench warfare was the worst.

Speaker9: [01:59:30] It just it just destroyed people's.

Gerald: [01:59:32] Souls, whether you survived it or not. You didn't you didn't come out of there. No, not.

Speaker9: [01:59:37] Not in any way, shape.

Speaker8: [01:59:38] Or form frontlines from five miles away. Yeah.

Gerald: [01:59:41] So just incredible. So if you ever watch anything on that. But any any the other any poll that asks atheists a question I always find very interesting, 3% of them are very positive on the possibility of heaven, which I have no idea how that's even kind of conceivable. But 1% believe in hell. 4% of atheists are so confused about the question of whether there is a God or a heaven or a hell, that they're like, Yeah, I believe in that.

Speaker9: [02:00:10] There's something inside of us. Even if you profess that there is.

Gerald: [02:00:13] No there there that says, Ah.

Speaker9: [02:00:17] Yes, I should probably.

Gerald: [02:00:18] Check this box.

Speaker9: [02:00:19] There's probably a hell or there's.

Gerald: [02:00:20] Probably a heaven. I thought that.

Speaker9: [02:00:22] Was just.

Gerald: [02:00:23] I mean I can I can see agnostics, agnostics are questioning.

Speaker9: [02:00:26] They're like, I don't.

Gerald: [02:00:27] Know, but maybe so 26% of agnostics heaven, 14%. Hell, they believe it.

Speaker8: [02:00:32] My my rebuttal to atheists a lot of times is that atheists are incredibly religious. They're very religious about their atheism.

Speaker9: [02:00:39] Yes, they are. They've created their own religion.

Speaker8: [02:00:40] They're so religious about their atheism. If you extrapolate for a second, is they believe that being an atheist is the way to arrive at the most. Just moral. Oh jeez, ethical, equal society. That is the argument, though. Do you understand what I'm saying? Yeah. It's like if you listen to Sam Harris, God bless her. Richard Dawkins. So arrogant. I can't take it. They they, they will the, the, the religiosity they hold for their atheism, their hostility for anything religious or organized and their ability to kind of reduce it to its literal basic, you know, sort of Lego style building blocks is comical. It's like, no, guys, that's not there's a little more to it. The intellectual tradition of the church is runs deep. The conversation does does evil exist? Is free will a thing. These are deep conversations. Yeah. Talk to the Jesuits for a second or any or just look at the tradition of of of of the Catholic Church or the Christian church. So they are what I so so for me, I always say, you believe in a God. It just happens to be the God of atheism. I mean, you believe that, that, that that's the best way to get people to the Promised Land.

Gerald: [02:02:09] And we're very good at kind of developing our own beliefs.

Speaker9: [02:02:13] Yeah, it's called the suit, Our needs.

Speaker8: [02:02:14] It's called ideology, communism, fascism.

Speaker9: [02:02:16] Exactly.

Gerald: [02:02:17] Like we develop these things and ultimately none of these things point in a good direction, right? The arc of of these kinds of ideologies that men create and and typically in the deaths of millions and millions of people. Right. That's what happens when we worship ourselves. Right.

Speaker9: [02:02:34] So what I think that's also.

Speaker8: [02:02:35] What happens when you try to create heaven on earth. It's the other very important thing to keep in mind. Yeah. So these societies all tried to create utopias. Exactly, didn't.

Speaker9: [02:02:43] They? That was their stated goal.

Gerald: [02:02:44] We're going to make things so good. Everything's going to be wonderful.

Speaker9: [02:02:47] Well, you're going.

Speaker8: [02:02:47] To make the human being. You need total control over the human being, totalitarian societies. Right. And that means I have to have total control of your mind because, you see, you're corrupt. So you need to get into my reeducation camp.

Gerald: [02:02:58] They don't ever look at who's running those camps. It's not exactly.

Speaker9: [02:03:01] The sadist elites. Yeah.

Speaker8: [02:03:03] Like Pol Pot's.

Speaker9: [02:03:04] People. People that will.

Gerald: [02:03:06] Be most likely in the fires of hell. I hope not. Like, I hope people have saving faith. I really do. Even people that are terrible people. Right? People that throughout history we look at like the Pol Pot's of the world. Right? A lot of people skip right over Pol Pot and it's like, no, he's up on the list. If you read about what he did in the killing fields in Cambodia and in Vietnam and Laos, and it just it was crazy. Zedong Yeah, those guys absolutely are on the list.

Speaker9: [02:03:31] I went to a really.

Speaker8: [02:03:32] Famous, famous musicians house. I won't say who Hollywood Party. Lots of famous people. Yeah, Beautiful house, lots of money. All the Who's Who. And he had a giant, beautiful painting of Mao Zedong. Seriously? Huh? Uh huh. I was like, Oh, really? This is where we're at.

Speaker9: [02:03:55] Huh? Well, this is.

Speaker8: [02:03:56] Wow. Where's the picture of Hitler and Stalin? Did you miss those guys or.

Speaker9: [02:04:00] It was part of the series.

Gerald: [02:04:01] I thought you bought one. You got all.

Speaker9: [02:04:02] Three, right? I mean, panel two and panel three.

Speaker8: [02:04:06] Where to quote Mao Zedong. It's just a pile of. It's just a large pile of dead people at the end of the day. Hm.

Speaker9: [02:04:13] Was that the.

Gerald: [02:04:14] Inscription on the painting?

Speaker8: [02:04:15] God may as well been as well.

Speaker9: [02:04:18] Been Well, look.

Gerald: [02:04:19] There is a lot for us to to dive into in our next conversation. We actually went substantially longer this time than we really intended to, but I thought we might. Right. So some of these conversations really do lead to some fun areas to discuss. Hell is not one of those places that I think is fun to discuss, but I think we did.

Speaker9: [02:04:34] I think it's important for people to.

Gerald: [02:04:36] Get a little bit more perspective and look guys in the community for Mug Club, if you have any further questions, one of the great things about being on Rumble is that you can send those questions into the community. You can talk with other people who are subscribers. You can even tag us, the people on the team in the community, and sometimes we might be able to respond, but at the very least we might be able to pull your question. And Brian and I could address that question on one of the future. Installments. We did broach some subjects that we'll have to dive a little further into. Obviously, the genocide question about what happened when Israel took the Promised Land back and when God led them into that and how we can deal with that. And as a Christian, how we reconcile that with the good and loving God that we've described, the God of the Old Testament versus the God of the New Testament. The Case for Christ. There's a whole lot of things that we can dive into if there's something specific that you'd like us to address and kind of talk through. And Brian has some great experience like this, very, I say in a good way, worldly experience. Like you've traveled to a lot of different places, seen a lot of different I mean.

Speaker9: [02:05:33] I'm a globalist. No, it doesn't mean.

Gerald: [02:05:34] You're a globalist, right? You do believe in open borders because it's so hard to get into each one of these countries.

Speaker9: [02:05:38] Guys, seriously, just open.

Gerald: [02:05:40] All of them. But we will discuss all of those and many, many, many more. So thank you so much for watching and hanging out with us today. And we look forward to seeing you next time.

Speaker9: [02:05:53] Gerald apologizes.

Gerald: [02:05:54] Apologetics.

[02:05:56] It doesn't mean that.