Is Meekness An Illusion For Power with Aaron Trembath

Episode Transcript
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Unknown (00:00):
When you were leaving religion, did you ever feel like
your religion was leaving you?
Well, my next guest talks aboutthis. And it's quite profound
what he shares his his insights,and then also along with his
knowledge, of philosophy andsome really beautiful truths
that he has come to learn. Butbefore we dive into this
interview, I want to share thatI have received in a meditation

(00:21):
one morning, I was asking somedeep questions for myself, and I
was shown a really beautifulactivation. And especially when
we step out of religion, andwe're trying to navigate these
places within us of where do Igo? Now? What's my intuition?
How can I trust myself? How do Iaccess or even tap into this new
version of God, I was shown anactivation to tap in and

(00:43):
activate the inner guru. And aguru is someone that turns you
to back to yourself. And this issomething that every single one
of us has access to. And I'mexcited to announce that I am
doing a webinar on October 30,at 10am Mountain Standard Time.
And this is going to be a reallybeautiful call that will walk
through any resistance blocksthat you may be currently having

(01:05):
well clear that will activatethis inner guru will talk, we'll
go through a guided journey thatwhere I will assist you in
activating this and then we willmove through ways in which you
can utilize this and startworking with this on a day to
day basis. And then I have a fewreally beautiful things after
that, that I'll share with youas well. But this will be a
really powerful call to reallyassist you and tapping into that

(01:28):
space inside of you that knowsall the answer that had that
strong intuition that is morestrongly guided to what your
soul is desiring and wanting inthis life. Head over to my
website, Amanda joy loveland.comFord slash activation to get
registered today. Now withoutfurther ado, let's dive into
this really beautifulconversation I got to have with

(01:50):
Aaron trumba. Well, I am soexcited to be sitting down today
with Aaron trumba. Good thing Iknow how to pronounce that now.
I would have totally butcheredit.
That's all right. Yeah, mostpeople do. I do sometimes.
Yeah, you do. Yeah. I'venoticed. So since I lived in
Australia, I heard a lot of trimoff, like old trim off or trim

(02:11):
bar or whatever. And I'm like, Iwas supposed to be sad because
my name is like British. And soI don't know, it's been every
once in a while. I'll fumble it.
Yeah, my own name.
That's funny. Well, you're liketoday, I might feel like I'm a
trim boss or trim bath. Youknow,
sometimes I'm just overly awareof the people I'm talking to.

(02:32):
And I just got to not do that.
So well, I am so happy that yousaid yes to this. You and I got
to spend some time at a recentretreat down in Zions and the
more I got to know you. It'slike, Oh, you are fun. I would
love to have you on my podcast.
Yeah, it was a real treat. Whata beautiful retreat. It was.
Yeah, it was very, very uniquefor sure. And as they always

(02:53):
are. But I what I love is that Iknow a little tiny bit of your
story, but I don't know verymuch of your story. But some of
the little antics that you werecommunicating. I'm like, Oh, you
please come be on the podcast,of course. And here we are.
It's been I'm really excited.
I'm excited. So tell me a littlebit about your background. And

(03:13):
did you were you born and raisedin the Mormon church?
Yes, that's right. So both of myparents were converts to the
church. They joined in theirteen years. I'm pretty sure both
of them.
My father, his parents, mygrandparents joined the church
when they wereyoung parents, I guess so my

(03:33):
dad, that was really one of themain reasons as I understand it,
that they joined the church.
They've gone through some reallydeep like trauma. They lost a
child like really gruesomeaccident as a farming accident,
really, and then a car accidentafterwards.
So they lost a child in thecracks are in
the same. So so as a farmingaccident attractor tipped over

(03:56):
on the kid, okay. He was like,like five, I think. Yeah. And
they were he was, you know, he'sstill alive. And they were
taking him to the hospital. Andthen they had a wreck. Are you
kidding? Could you not Wow, inthat wreck, one of the
neighboring kids like down theroad. 17 year old kids, I like
to kind of prank people bypulling out in front of them on

(04:16):
the dirt roads. And my granddadwas going way too fast. And
because he's trying to save hisson. Yeah. So the guy pulls out
in front of him and he gets Tbone. So I think one of them was
paralyzed. One of the teenagers,holy cow, and then one of them
was killed. And then and then myuncle, six year old at the time
was killed. And so there's thisreally deep family trauma. That
even though it's not reallyresolved, yeah, I

(04:38):
can, I can feel that. I'm gonnapause you for a second. We're
gonna just move it and noise.
Oh, damn, Okay, that's better.
Beautiful. But yeah, I canimagine that. Yeah, I was
really dramatic. And so as aresult of that, like my
grandparents were, I mean,they're my granddad. They've
done a bunch of different work,but they had a homestead in
Wyoming. And my grandpa was justkind of always work is their

(05:02):
identity really? Like constantwork? And if they were they
farmers. Yeah, that makes andthe farming was their goal. It
wasn't like their farmersbecause they had to be. My
granddad worked on the railroadso he could be a farmer. That's
crazy. That is interesting. Sucha different mentality. Yeah.
Well, it's a generation.
It's a generational gap. Right.
So, but for him, this was hisdream. And I, you know, I

(05:25):
appreciate the dream isbeautiful, right. But anyway, so
they they go through this, youknow, serious trauma. My father,
like, literally crushed hisbrother to death in this car
wreck, right, like trying tosave him. Yeah. And everyone
blames themselves and has slightresentment for each other. And
that's just, that's a reallynasty thing. And everybody's
kind of wrestling with it. Andin this moment of like, you

(05:48):
know, loss of the Son, thischild that they love. Sometime
later, they, you know, wereintroduced to the church, the
Mormon church, and join thechurch.
I'm sure the eternal familypiece was big. It was
very big and still is. Yeah. Andso all of them, I'm pretty sure

(06:10):
except one are like, all excepttwo are super active. I have
two, two aunts that have kind ofmade their own choices and
stepped away. Well, not to saythat the ones that have stayed
haven't made their choices.
They've chosen it. Yeah. It'sjust seems like a safer choice.
Right to stay. So anyway, that'skind of my backstory. I, I was
born into the church. My dad wasattending BYU law school when I

(06:34):
was young. I think I was, I wasborn when I was born in Provo.
Oh my gosh, I can't believe thisis my public. I was born. I was
born. out there. I was born inUtah. Oh, I haven't. I'm not a
Utah person. But I was born inUtah. While my dad was attending
BYU. Yeah, it was a civilengineer. That's where I met my

(06:55):
mom. There. They had four kidsin the first batch. And then,
and then divorced when I waslike, 12. But yeah, so that's my
backstory, I was in the churchfrom my entire life. I served a
mission. I was a very goodmissionary, very obedient, but
also very, in free thinking. Andso I think, you know, people are

(07:19):
like, Oh, when did you leave thechurch, when you're, when you're
apostasy, or whatever. And Ithink mine is really, I don't
know that I left the church asmuch as the church left me. And
my understanding of spiritualityin general was that it's
radically personal. Yeah. And Ithink that's the doctrine of the
Church to like, even thoughpeople in the church might not
acknowledge it. There's no onegets into your interior space.

(07:41):
Nobody, nobody can see. Like theheart of you. Yeah. And so
whatever your relationship withthe divine is, is so radically
personal, that you can't put alabel on it, you know, you can't
say, oh, this is you're notspiritual enough, or your
relationship with God isincomplete. Because it's not

(08:02):
yours to talk about, it's mine.
And so I had this really kind ofradical view of religion as it
being like, like a function ofspirituality, and not the other
way around. And so on mymission, you know, I'd speak to
people about what I perceive tobe the truth of the of the
gospel, which is like, you know,be good to people love people.

(08:24):
And then these other things werejust like, all the covenants and
things that you talk about, arejust things you do because of
it. Yeah. And so for me, that'swhat it was. That the love was
the was the essence of it. Andso, I was accused by a lot of
people who had left the churchthat I met with, right, but the
less actives that, that I was,like some kind of new age

(08:46):
Mormon, they're like, Oh, you'rethe next thing. If the Church
has an army of you, it's gonnabe great. Because I wasn't the
rigid, hyper aggressive, eventhough I was raised that way. I
really was. I was raised, like,you are obedient to the letter.
I was obedient. But I wasobedient, because I chose it.
Right. It was like my gift. Andit was something I willingly

(09:07):
gave. So, so yeah, my, I guessmy personal apostasy really
started on my mission. Where Isaw people in the church just
being like, beautiful andloving, and also really
irreverent. Like my first branchPresident greeted me with this
like, he's a huge dude.
President Stewart he's massivelike I'm a big guy, right? So

(09:28):
those of you can't see me. Butsix two and like right now I'm
like 200 poundsI was I was shocked that you
were gonna say I wish you wait.
I'm like, Man, this is sodifferent guys just been like
yeah, I'm this women are like,I'm not telling you.
But I'm if you're watching thisfrom home, I'm a big dude. And

(09:52):
this guy dwarfed me and he hadlike hands it was like shaking
up Christmas ham. So big, and hegreets me He's like, elder
Trembath. How the hell are you?
He says, and I'm like, What ishe? Like you said, Hell, he said
hell and he didn't say it as ifthe geography, I don't
understand, right. And so forme, I saw this giant, this
spiritual giant and physical,but mostly spiritual giant. And

(10:14):
that was a beautiful experience.
And he was so irreverent, youknow? And so it's like, okay, so
that's obviously not the gospelcussing is not important, right?
Because this is a beautifulperson, that cusses like a
sailor, right? So I'm like,that's gotta be a shift. And so

(10:35):
I start going through shifts, Iwent on my mission a little bit
late. I wanted people to give upon me first, if that makes
sense. I want it to be for meand not for them. Yeah. And so
yeah, I went out and served. Andfor me, it was like, it was my
gift to God. Right. So then,when it got really hard, it was

(10:56):
like, okay, yeah, it's hard.
This sucks. But I am, you know,it's my, I viewed it at the time
as my tithing of my life, right.
So a 10th of my life to thatpoint. And I was willingly
giving it. So the obedient partwasn't difficult at all. I was
able to be perfectly obedient.
But the real, the real trickcame in, like, when it started
to be not about love. Right? Ifit wasn't about loving the

(11:20):
people you were serving, butabout teaching more lessons and
attracting more hours andwhatever I was when I started
really struggle with it as like,now that's not the point here.
Like I get it, those arepractices. But the goal should
be love. Yeah. So. So anyway, Istarted to develop Buddhist
tendencieson my mission. Did you know that

(11:42):
they were Buddhist centered?
Yeah.
I think so. So I studied a lotof I studied a lot, period.
So your whole life you've been?
You're quite educated now.
Yeah. Well, thank you. Yes, Iam. Yeah, I'm, I'm quite, I
suppose. educated, but I loveit. I love learning. And so to
me, that's kind of the point. SoI really dug into religion in

(12:06):
general. Like, I wanted to knowthe world religions, like, how
do you wrap your head around?
Shintoism? Right. Like, assomebody raised Christian, that
very notion was just soradically different. But then if
you're speaking to someone fromShintoism, really helps to have
a foundation of like, whatlanguage they like, how do you
communicate? For those thatdon't know what Shintoism
includes? Including me? What isit?

(12:27):
So it's an idea of like, notGod, like, oh, so
it's not agnostic? No, oratheist?
It is a full man, I don't wantto get in trouble here. Why?
Because I'm about I'm not aShinto last, right. All I've
done is like, read a little bitabout it to get like a
foundation, right? So anytimeyou're dealing with Eastern

(12:47):
religions, let's go like Easternreligions writ large. You start
to get away from the idea of aknowable deity, right? God,
right, this notion of God, beingwhite male, single white, like a
white dude with a beard floatingin the sky covered in light made
of light that thing that thatentity is not even a thing. So

(13:11):
like my aunt, my answerpermission in Japan, and she,
she came back talking about thistime during Christmas, because
what is Christmas? If there's noChrist, were in I think it was
supposed or they had a, one ofthe malls had a Christmas
display. And there's a crucifixput up, which is, you know,
whatever. It's the thing aboutChristmas. But there was a Santa

(13:33):
Claus on the cross. Oh,crucified Santa, because they
don't understand like, there'sno foundation. Yeah, what the
difference is interesting. SoEastern religion proper is more
about spirituality. And it'sless about one individual, like,
this is obedience to God. So youhave like, all these different,

(13:55):
it's more like philosophy,really? So how do you talk to
somebody about God when there isno God to them? Right. And so
that was tricky. And I needed tounderstand that a little bit. So
Shintoism Buddhism, a lot of theEastern religions were larger,
like, they wrestle with thenotion of spirituality without,

(14:16):
sometimes even without a senseof the individual. Right? Like
that the individual me, is anillusion. And then anytime I try
to speak about it, I'm onlyreinforcing that illusion. And
so the whole idea behind again,I'm kind of a baby in the world
of Buddhism. I don't know muchabout it. I'm only saying this

(14:37):
for you, Alan, if you'relistening, my buddy is a
Buddhist getting his doctorateright now in comparative
philosophies comparing de luzand Nagarjuna, this ancient
Buddhist philosophy Anyway,well, for most of the
population, we don't know muchabout most religions.
So Mormons that are listening orexpos or whatever you are,

(14:57):
however you identify ChristianChristians in general Buddhism
itself the the notion is thatlike, the purpose of life, if
such as it is, is to get rid ofsuffering, to minimize, reduce,
and then ultimately removesuffering. And there's this like
wheel of like karma, we talkedabout karma, I don't really
understand what it means wetalked about karma, this karmic

(15:19):
wheel, the wheel of samsara iswhere we're all of our endeavor,
like the US, the essence of us,links in and then gets this
false idea of individuality.
Like, for some reason, there's ame all the sudden, right, even
though the thing that is real,isn't me, but it's us, right?
It's this unified sense ofeveryone. That's why like, you

(15:40):
know, Buddhism makes me one withthe universe. That's the point
is that the universe itself, isthe essence of what is real and
true. And whenever we separateourselves from it, the very
notion of ourselves, rightnecessitates the separate pneus.
Right? If I say, not, me and me,all of a sudden, there's a line

(16:03):
drawn? Yeah, right. And the waythat Western thought has
developed, I think pretty muchgoing all the way back to the
ancient Greeks, and even the preSocratics, you get into pre
Socratics. before Socrates, youget into this notion of like,
there is a thing, there's a souland individual. And that

(16:24):
individual, for some reason isimportant. And this is just ego,
right? This is this notion ofthe self, but but the Buddhists
would say, No, that's allillusory. Everything that you're
talking about. All these wordsthat we are using right now, is
just reinforcing this notion ofself that's artificial. And all
of your suffering comes fromthis notion of self, and
attachment to it.

(16:46):
And well, and it's such aninteresting concept, because it
when you when you scale back,and you look at each religion
and the motivation behind thethe religions, right? If you are
practicing Buddhism, and you aregoing under that notion that we
that I don't have the self, thenevery choice that I make is more
for the all instead of the one.
And in that sense, there wouldbe less suffering, there would
be more of a consciousenvironment that we're more

(17:09):
united. And there's a lot ofbeauty in that. And we know that
there's nine grams, that leavesthe body when it dies, and there
is some beauty, this is a totaltangent. But when I do plant
medicine, one of the things thatI really resist is going to the
void. I don't like that feeling.

(17:29):
And if you don't know what theVoid is, the Void is like the
nothingness where everythingexists, and nothing exists. And
so it is like this dismantlingof the soul, where you become
nothing and all things. And itis the most bizarre, and some
people love this feeling. Ipersonally do not write, I like
having my unique nests, that myunique signature of, you know,

(17:52):
I'm here to do some things onthis earth. And nothing I do
matters. Like, there's that partthat I understand that it is for
the self, but it is fascinating.
You know, you think of thatmeditation that has a Buddha
that had done work around theflower, and only one person had
gotten it. And it is when youconnect into the idea that we're
connected to all things, right.

(18:15):
I think you make differentchoices.
So the Buddhist would say, Cool,enjoy it, live your life, you'll
be reincarnated and have anotherlife to do it again. Yeah. And
so the point of the Buddha'slife is ultimately, to alleviate
suffering. And that suffering,the underlying premise is that
suffering comes from attachment,and your attachment to yourself.

(18:38):
That's good, that's gonna causesuffering. Like if I pull away
what you perceive to beyourself, all of a sudden you
resist it, you're like, Oh, thisis in there suffering attached
to it. But if you can becomeunattached to the self, and say,
yeah, there's, my livedexperiences this and it's pretty
dope, and I'm just gonna rollwith it. And then I'll do it
again, then I'll do it again.
Until I don't, right. And that'skind of the point is like you,

(19:00):
you get to the stage where thereis no attachment, even to your
identity. That's the end goal.
And look, the idea behindbehind. While the idea of
Buddhism, the same thing sort ofin Hinduism, is that you just
kind of keep going until you getit. And so your soul, multiple

(19:20):
lives, experiences, multipleiterations, where you get to
focus on breaking theseattachments, and sometimes you
have a life full of suffering.
Like you're, you know, who knowswhat kind of suffering but you
live that so that you canrelease it? Yeah. So that's
that, but that's their, theunderlying premise. So, but
you're exactly right. It's like,why to the religion. And so I

(19:41):
think Christianity has at itsfoundation, the why is some kind
of redemption, right? Thatthere's a broken part of you.
That there's a thing that forsome reason is is not good. The
fall of Adam is intrinsic toalmost all Christian
faith. You are so the naturalMan is a sinner

(20:02):
is a sinner is an enemy to God.
Not just like, God's not coolwith it. It's an enemy enemy.
That's gnarly. Yeah, like,and yet Christ embodies love,
unconditional love, and Godsupposed to be unconditionally
loving. There's so manycontradictions within
Christianity.
Right, right. So Christianityhas got some things to wrestle
with. And so anyway, my personaljourney was, I had been studying

(20:25):
a lot of stuff. And I studied,like, so called New Age
philosophies and religionswhenever. And even as a
missionary, I would attend otherservices. I loved it, right, I'd
walk in, in my Mormon missionarygear. And I'd go to a Jehovah's
Witness it Oh, and to this on14, I went to their Passover,
which was like, amazing. Youknow, where they're figuring out

(20:49):
which of you are the 144,000.
Man, I interviewed somebody thatwas a Jehovah's Witness. I did
not know some of those things.
That was really fascinating.
It was really, reallyfascinating. Yeah. And I, you
know, I'd walk in and hang outwith the hottie Krishna is and I
mean, like it just whatever Ijust see, because I believed in
my soul, and I still do thatthere is truth to be had, from

(21:12):
every perspective. Everyone, Ibelieve that. So I'm taking all
these different perspectives asas many as I can get wherever I
can find them. Yeah, so I'vebeen doing that. And I was
really, like, considered aradical, like, by a lot of
people, which is fine. Like,I'll take it. And then, I don't

(21:34):
know, I came home, I fell intothe same trap that so many
people do. It's like, you've gotto do these things. This is your
purpose. And it's interesting,because there's this. There's
this serious drop that occurswhen you are so important in
your own mind, right? Becauseyou're a missionary, and I was
zone leader. And I was like, anedge traveled in that top people

(21:54):
stuff. Like, I brought inmissionaries, and I was teaching
them communication skills,right. Like, I was teaching them
how to listen. And this was my,my biggest training was like
eliciting training. And theseare young kids who don't know
how to do it, right. So I knowI'm changing their lives. I'm
helping them right. So I feltgreat. It was wonderful to coach
people even back then. Yeah. Andthen all of a sudden, it's done.

(22:16):
And you've got nothing. Yeah.
And you're left to yourself. Somy family had moved to so like,
they moved and they sent aletter to tell me they'd move.
And if you ever send a letter toAustralia, it takes like six
weeks to get there. So I gethome, I flew home to an empty
house. Wow, they were gone. Oh,what? Yeah, my dad was in town,
and business staying in a hotel.

(22:40):
And so he picks me up at theairport. And I'm like, Oh, funny
joke. Everybody's gonna jump outand say surprise, and there was
no surprise, surprise was evergone. Oh, man, which is fine.
Like, that's just kind of, I'mokay with it. But at the time, I
was like, Huh. And it justreally reinforced this. You're
alone now. Yeah. So anyway, Iwas radically alone. And just

(23:05):
empty, right? Because you gofrom having purpose and drive
and you're helping people andyou really feel like, like,
You're doing good. And then andthen you're not you're home.
You're just sitting on yourhands doing nothing is crazy.
Yeah. So all of a sudden, like,you're in this emptiness. And
the pressure is you got to dostuff, you got to go out, you

(23:26):
got to get married, you got tostart a family you got to and
all these pressure, all thepressure was there, and I just
kind of like what else am Igonna do? So went back to
school. Got married reallyyoung. Really quick to like, way
too quick. And yeah, my personaljourney was was one of like,

(23:48):
trying to sort myself out fromthere. Yeah. There was a lot of
growing up, there was a lot oflike, how you call it religious
abuse? Because my stepmother wasreally like hyper Mormon, but

(24:09):
didn't understand any of it. Hadno foundation are knowledge of
it. And didn't want to. To herher ignorance was powerful.
Yeah. Right. And so she leanedinto it. And so she's, she has
no functional knowledge of it,but she would use it as a cudgel
to like control. Myself and mybrothers, and my sister and

(24:30):
everybody like everybody excepther kids. And so it was really
like, it's not that it was abusein the name of religion, but it
was that religion was her toolof abuse, right? Like it was her
method of control. And so Idon't want to make light of any
other types of abuse and othervery serious and I've
experienced some of them. Butreligious abuse is particularly

(24:52):
insidious, because it's yourentire world, not just your now
it's your future salvation, yoursalvation, your eternity. He was
being like, beaten into me everyday. So it's really savage. And,
and built into it, especially inwell, especially in Christian
and Mormon faith is you're,you're broken, you're wrong.

(25:16):
Fundamentally, you are bad. Andso yeah, like that was like,
really hard to deal with. Yeah.
But what are you gonna do so youlean into it?
And then, I don't know, like, Ibecame a Sunday school teacher,
and I don't know I'm pretty. I'mpretty charismatic, and I know

(25:36):
how to educate. And I loveteaching. I was, at the time I
was coaching at Purdue, I wasthere speech and debate coach. I
was teaching argumentation, andreally just having a great time.
But then also, I was, all of asudden, a Sunday school teacher,
which I mean, it's fine. Like,I'm doctrinally sound, even now,
I understand the doctrinesreally well. So teaching real

(25:57):
world application of love. Oh,interesting. And all the sudden
people like, wow, this is such agreat take. And I'm like, it's
gotta take it's the religion.
But anyway, we had, it was fun.
And then I realized that thereligion itself was leaving me
less i Leaving it. But more theother way around. And so I don't

(26:20):
know,tell me more what you mean by
that.
If, if you take a look at whatChrist actually taught, right?
Whether you consider Jesus to bea real person, historically, or
a parable, or whatever, or justlike, there's even debate about
whether Socrates was real,right, or whether Plato just
kind of invented him so that hecould put out his philosophy

(26:43):
from the mouth of another. Itdoesn't matter, right? If Jesus
was or wasn't real, theteachings that came from it,
were fundamentally about love.
Forgiveness, being kind andgentle. And accepting everyone,
yeah, loving the sinner, likewho did Jesus hang out with man?

(27:04):
Like it was. It was like, whatsociety considered to be the
drags. And also, Jesus was like,considered a wine Bibber. And
like people like, oh, man,you're just, you're just as
radical. And it occurred to methat what was happening in the
church was that the very thingin the Bible that most of them

(27:25):
didn't read was happening, butthat they were the Pharisees,
right? Like, all of a sudden,I'm like, Oh, you're a scribe
and a Pharisee? What the hell?
Why are you not embracing thelove of the sinner? Right. And
so it occurred to me more, moreand more frequently, that people

(27:46):
in the church and the churchitself, the shifting in the
doctrines, was away from love,and towards something very
different.
Was toward in my opinion, istoward the construct of the
church itself as a businessmaintenance. Yeah, instead of
what the fundamentals, but I,that could go into a whole other
conversation, I believe, reallystrongly that what was started

(28:08):
is not is drastically differentin the intentions of what was
originally created by JosephSmith, versus what we have now.
I think, I think it's like,almost a guarantee, under
different different under theguise of continued revelation,
you can shift it any direction,like, look what happened. Just

(28:29):
recently, the church is shiftingreally hard. I think it's
scrambling in a lot of ways,which is, you know, it's right,
I suppose.
Well, they have more membersleaving than ever I mean,
religion in general is not justthe Mormon religion,
there's a hemorrhage so. So forme, I realized that there was
this radical shift, and that itwasn't matching my understanding

(28:51):
of the Divine. And myunderstanding of the Divine was
also changing. So I studied, Istudied philosophy and
persuasion, which seemscontradictory perhaps. But
that's kind of why I did it. I'mlike I'm a study in
contradictions. I love it. Youdid Coach and debate. I did.
Yeah. And it's interesting. Myfirst philosophy course. It was

(29:11):
an intro to philosophy class.
Oh, no, it's my second one. Thisis my second one. My first one
was brilliant and changed mylife. The second one was total
dogshit pardon me can I saythat? Yeah, it was rough.
These are people that areleaving religion they think
they're open Yeah. Although Idid do a post on my in my
leaving religion to group andsaid if it's not a hell yes it's

(29:32):
a no and and I had a womancomment. Well, welcome. Welcome.
Welcome to my podcast, bleedingreligion. Amanda, Loveland, and
I am excited to be sharing thislatest interview with you with
Aaron trim back. And he issomeone that I recently met and
the conversations that justensued as we were talking, like,

(29:53):
Dude, you need to be on mypodcast, and you'll soon
understand why through hisknowledge is Christian
philosophy, and just his historywithin the Mormon religion is,
is quite entertaining and reallyinteresting and very useful and
helpful for all of you that areinterfaith transition. Yeah, so

(30:13):
and I have an announcement tomake, I am going to be doing a
webinar that will be aroundactivating the inner guru with
it. And so when we navigate outof religion, and we're doing
that pay transition, we kind offeel a little lost and trying to
how do we tap into that higherself to spirit, the divine, and
even to our intuition. Really,that's all our inner gurus are

(30:36):
asking to be activated. So Iwill be doing a webinar October
23. And that is coming up herepretty quick. In the next 48
hours, I actually 24 hours fromwhen this releases, I will be
offering the $22 to register forthat webinar specifically for
you that are listening. Thenafter that, it will go up to

(30:56):
$33. So get registered head tomy website, Amanda joy
loveland.com forward slashwebinar. And I hope to see you
there. Now without further ado,let's dive in to the latest
interview that I did with Aarontrumba.
So the second class wasIntroduction to Philosophy, like
just like 101, Phil 101 taughtby some grad student that

(31:21):
whatever. She in the firstsession, we started talking
about sophistry, sophistry isthe use of persuasion to win an
argument, okay? They don't careabout the truth. They care about
winning, think like lawyers. Mydad's a lawyer, and he might
take issue if dad if you'relistening to this,

(31:42):
congratulations. And also don'tworry about it. Yeah. And also,
we'll talk. But yeah, so theidea really is sophists don't
care about truth, they careabout winning. And that's a real
dig. If you're a philosopher,and you call someone a sophist,
it's like slapping them in theface. The first 20 minutes of my

(32:03):
class, we get into sophistry,and I just asked a couple of
questions, because I lovelearning, and I'm asking
questions. And this, this tastops the class is like
everyone. This is Aaron. He's asophist. And I'm like, Oh, I
know. That's an insult. I don'tfully understand it yet. But and
so that's like my introductionto bad philosophy. But that's

(32:26):
just because I value persuasionand the understanding of the
other. So anyway, I at Purdue, Istudied philosophy, and I
started persuasion. And I'm notsure why I'm on this riff. But
yeah, so the notion ofphilosophies me is about
discovering truth, like findingit wherever it is, I had my
shiftto Jesus and even played if he
was real or not,right. So and my shifting

(32:49):
understanding of the Divineoccurs as I start to wrestle
with the notions that arepresented, like throughout
history, like what we as aspeople forever have been
struggling with the notion ofreality, the notion of our
permanence, like, what is real,are we real? How do we know
what's the foundation by whichwe judge? How can we develop an
ethic? There's all thesedifferent questions that we've

(33:12):
been wrestling with, and they'reimportant questions. All sudden,
I start wrestling with them in anon religious way, right?
How could you not if you'reembedded in that and having no
Yeah, you? Of course youwould. But up to that point, I
had gotten away with just kindof saying, I will look at it
through the paradigm of myfaith. And that's what most
people do. They have a faiththat is unassailable. It's

(33:33):
unquestionable, because it'sfaith. It's powerful, right? And
he's like, Oh, no, this is thisis the magic faith. You can't
touch it. It's my sacred cow.
And from their magic faith,that's it. Yeah. And from there,
they get all this other stuff.
Good for you, I guess. Butreally, when you start looking
at things from a truth, firstperspective, Faith is going

(33:55):
there. Every philosophy is goingto have what we call a bubble in
the flypaper. Underneath it all,there's something you just have
to like, swallow. But yeah, thisis an assumption that I can't
get around. And but I'll justsay is good enough. And I'm okay
with it. Faith, yes, has a rolein that. But if you're coming

(34:15):
from a position of faith firstor theology first, all of a
sudden, everything fits it, youjust mold it to fit you, rather
than acknowledging it asindependently true or false. So
all of a sudden, I'm likepursuing truth. Like it for its
own sake, right. And it startsto lead me to these conclusions

(34:37):
about the self and abouteternity and about if infinity
exists, then we have tonecessarily believe this and
this and this. So we get allthese conclusions starting to
pour in. And a lot of it jiveswith my faith, right? Because
I'm like, okay, cool. I myunderstanding of the Divine is
that it's radically personal andthis and this and this, and so I
can get to, I can get to likemake it make sense. But then all
of a sudden starts to not, youknow, I start to get to these

(35:02):
points where my. So it's noteven that my faith starts to
shift from the church, but myface starts, my faith starts to
shift in general. Right? Andthen it's almost like your whole
foundation of what do I believeto be true is just shaken to its
core?

(35:24):
Yeah. Which I think is reallyhealthy. Right? Like if you've
never challenging hard, reallyhard, yeah. But also, how many
people have taken, you know,like, maybe even like five days
to say, what do I actuallybelieve what is actually real?
And sometimes you don't evenknow how to ask those questions.

(35:45):
So you have to look at, youknow, some of the other great
thinkers and say, Okay, what didthey say about this? Is there a
thing that endures past death?
Like, that's a big question. Andwhy do I think that that's true?
What conclusion Am I coming to?
And what what's getting methere? And so for a lot of
people, myself included as pointI had done some of the work, but

(36:06):
not all of it. So all of asudden, I start, you know, doing
the hard work on, you know,what's the reality of the
universe? Can we know things?
Like, what is knowledge in thefirst place? They're hard
question. Yeah, they are. Istart wrestling with it. And I
don't know, I'm still jivingwith religion. I'm still like,
I'm still teaching, you know,Sunday school, and I'm giving my

(36:28):
take and things ornot now. Not now. Yes, I just
wanted to thank you guys. Goodclarification. But like, at that
point,your teaching had to shift had
to have shifted,but it became it became more
became less about how do you sayit? The doctrine is still taught

(36:50):
the doctrine? Audit hard, right?
Because the doctrine itself,like, if you actually look at it
as a fun, it's fundamentallypretty, pretty good if you go
with the Jesus stuff, right. Butthen, where it started, like,
become difficult, is when youget out of that. But I focus on

(37:10):
that I focus on love and beinggood to people, and like, you
know, the ethic of, of doing theright thing for the right
reason, and not because God'sgonna punish you for it or
whatever, for reward. And so allof a sudden, people are starting
to have these little microshifts. And I'm like, Okay, this
is way fun. And then, I don'tknow, there, there just came a
time when it wasn't thereanymore. I was done. And I

(37:32):
can't, I don't know that therewas a single moment, or if it
was this gradual, like, gettired of it. But I do know that
there were a couple of big like,oh, yeah, I'm finished now. A
moments and one of them was thatyou probably get this a lot.
Actually, when people talk abouttheir moments.
I feel like everyone's arepretty unique, although yours
and mine are oddly a littlesimilar. Which I have not ran

(37:54):
into. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah.
For me, I knew there was noreconciliation when the church
came out with the position thatchildren Oh, yeah, gay parents
cannot be baptized.
That was my final like,yeah, yeah. And after that,
there were these shifts, but I'mstill like, okay, with stuff. I
was like, Yeah, okay. Like,whatever. My version of

(38:15):
Mormonism. I'm a MormonBuddhist, I tell people. Yeah,
that's interesting. Because, youknow, it's a Buddhist
philosophy, philosophy, I, I'mnot a good Buddhist. I don't
even consider myself properBuddhist. But like, the idea was
that it was informed byBuddhism. So anyway, when that
came out, I was like, What isgoing on? This doesn't make any

(38:35):
sense. Logically, right? Right.
My brain was messed up with it,like no way that this doesn't
work. My heart was out of whackwith it. Like that. A child,
you're gonna tell a child thatthey why, right? And so my heart
and my and my brain, and my verysoul just rejected this notion.
And I should clarify, that'swhen I was already out. But that

(38:57):
is when it was because they feellike you go through this
position, you choose to step outof the religion, and then it's
that whole wrestling of do Ikeep my records? Or do I get my
my records removed? Yeah. Andthat was my when that happened.
It was like, Oh, I am no, we'redone.
It just didn't make sense to me.
At the very least, beconsistent. Right? Right. Like
if you're an organization, youneed to be consistent. You can't

(39:21):
say, you know, this is the casefor somebody and this isn't the
case for somebody else needingthose special exceptions be
consistent. Yeah. And there'sthis children of gay people
can't be married or can't bemarried can be baptized. But
they didn't say the same thingabout even a murderer. Yeah.
Right. Like if your parents areserial killers, you can still

(39:41):
join the church. how messed upis that? That's that's
absolutely messed up.
So they're saying thathomosexuality is worse than well
is uniquelysomething is uniquely bad to
them or whatever, like, and it'snot even that it's not even
homosexuality, because like it'snot the child is an eight year
old child. Right? It's theparents like it just blew my
mind. It made zero sense. Andthat's when I was like, Okay,

(40:05):
well, I'm not even gonna tryanymore. I can't even pretend to
pretend. Yeah. So for me, I'vealways been. I've been really
like, strictly obedient. Andeven up until very recently, I
found myself, like, just kind oflike one of the, even if I don't
buy the church, I've made thispromise. Like I promised God or
the divine or the universe orwhatever, that I wouldn't do

(40:29):
whatever this is. And so thepromise itself was sacred to me.
And it still kind of is like, ifI make a promise, I'll keep it.
But then I look at the promisesthat I've made. I was like, but
did I really understand them?
Was it a promise that I wantedto make? Was it willing? Or was

(40:50):
I culturally pressured intodoing it? Yeah, it was just the
thing that you did. Yeah. Eventhough you technically have a
way to escape where you're goingto go. Didn't have a tribe? So I
think yeah, I think it was thethe pressure and the lack of
other options.
What was that around the sametime as a story that you had

(41:11):
shared when we were inSpringdale stepped into a shared
a lot of stories? No one whereyou stepped you are, you're
like, you were sharing that? Youknow, you're a big tough guy
riding on your motorcycle.
So interesting. Yeah, yeah, thatone? Oh, geez, I'll share that.
So yeah, I'm a big guy. And Iused to be a daily Harley rider

(41:33):
until I got run over. So just Ilove my motorcycle. I love that,
that life. I love the freedom ofit. Sir, I ride in, I've got a
big beard. And I'm, for thosewho can't see me. I have a big
beard. And I'm bald. I've shavedmy head. And I am very
deliberate in my look. Anyway,rolling to church. It's been
it's been some time since I'vegone to church. And I was like,

(41:54):
Yeah, you know, I'll go. I feellike reconnecting might be good.
But I roll in. I had just gotback from my sister's wedding,
where she had married a womanshock. My parents, my mother
would have been if she couldhave, she had something come up.

(42:14):
She went to like the ceremonybefore, but couldn't make it to
the wedding. So she gets a pass.
And my brother Jake also hadattended something else with her
but couldn't make it to theactual wedding. But the rest of
my family intentionally didn'tgo. It's a big family. Right.
And so they were like, No, thisis a boycott. And it was really
rough being the only one thererepresenting half of the

(42:37):
wedding. It was like, not great.
My cousin, to his credit, didshow up. And he lived nearby.
And so he and the family droppedin for a couple minutes. And,
you know, he's active Mormon.
But he has a really goodunderstanding and always was non
traditional. He's really goodunderstanding of like, the
underpinnings of it, Fred, I'mtalking about you. But yeah, so

(42:59):
what happened next was reallyrough. So I roll in.
This is just after the churchhas come out with their thing.
chronologically, I think it wasbefore.
Okay. Just curious. Yeah.
Yeah, at times tricky.
Right now, I know it is.
I gotta like rewind and relivedoesn't matter.

(43:21):
I was just curious.
The question, though. So I rollin, and people look at me. To be
clear, I'm like, I'm wearing youknow, the white shirt and tie.
I'm gonna have a blue shirt. Butanyway, I roll in, and I'm
respectful. But I'm veryobviously not your traditional,
like Mormon guy. And thishappens outside of the church,
too. People look at me, and theythink they know who I am.

(43:43):
Immediately, which is fine.
That's cool. I use that to myadvantage, usually, right? Like,
I'll be like, oh, yeah, youthink I'm this guy? Sure. Let's
talk. Let's talk monster trucks,whatever. I'll riff with you
about diesel engines, I can dothat. So I make it the church
get two elders quorum, which islike, I think the third meeting,
maybe it's the second meeting. Ithink it's the second meeting

(44:06):
and this one. And the instructorasks an awesome question, like,
awesome. I'm really excitedabout it. Okay. He goes, What's
the biggest problem facing thechurch today? And I'm like, Good
gravy. This is awesome. Let'stalk. And I'm like, it's, you
know, maybe hypocrisy amongstthe membership. It's an absence

(44:27):
of appreciation of love and allthese different things. I'm
like, going through my mindlike, yes, these are great
things. We can talk aboutmeaningful discussion. And the
first person to speak while I'mthinking and formulating my
thoughts is this dude in theback and he just kind of spouts
off? Well, it's all them queers.

(44:49):
And I'm like, what, I liked herand I give him this like, slow
look over my right shoulder. Ican still see this dude. In my
mind's eye as he looks at me andgives me do this like smile this
like smug, self affirmed? Smileand gives me this like little
thumbs up. Like yeah, but I'mwith you, we hate gays. And I'm

(45:10):
about to lose my mind. Right?
Listen, I was like, I instructeddebate and argumentation. I was
a competitor, I was named. I hadall I got a full trophy case, a
full trophy case of saying goodjob at talking real good. And
making other people feel dumbsometimes. And I just looked at

(45:32):
this dude. And I was like, Youhave no idea. The RAF? Oh,
that's open on you. So it wasfresh. It was raw for me, like
my sister had just been rejectedby my family for she was. I
don't know, man. So So I turnedand looked at this dude, he
gives me the thumbs up. And Iwas like, oh, man, that's it.
It's over. So I kind of tookover the class. And my

(45:53):
overarching premise was the realproblem facing the church is
this guy. The fact that hethinks he's winning a war of
love with tools of hate? And howon earth can you do that? You
can't, it's impossible. And soat the end of it, you know,
there are people that were likeweeping like men that were

(46:13):
weeping in this class, becausethey never had anybody stand up
against like, the bullying ofthe church before. And not even
the church proper. Like, I know,that's not the Church's position
or whatever. But like, thatexists in the church, and people
just kind of roll with it.
Nobody stands up to it. So Istood up to an address this guy
down for the full session, likethis guy, and the idea of him

(46:33):
became my target. And it wasrough, dude, like, I'm not gonna
love what you originally tellyou this day. You're like, I
wanted to check to see who thisguy was before. You know? Like,
maybe it's some old guygenerational gap.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Let's be clear.
Yeah, he was, uh, he wasprobably younger than me,
actually. It's not a huge town.
But like, you know, he shouldknow better, right? So I put him

(46:58):
in his 30s. Maybe not atraditional regular what you
expect Utah Mormon to be? Butlike, he's, there's one of him
in every word, right at least.
And he didn't, there was norejection of what he said
either. There was no like, oh,Bill, you got to calm it down.
That just like hung in the air.

(47:22):
Right. And that's when I decidedI had to go. Yeah, I had to do I
think it's beautiful that youdid. It was almost a mandate.
I wish I was there. And that Ireally enjoyed that.
It was it. Honestly, I don'tremember most of it. Because you
kind of slip into this flow. Andit just kind of happened. And
then at the end, I was like, andthat's the last you'll see of

(47:44):
me. Goodbye. And never once didanyone even reach out. Hmm. Like
they knew where I was. And mynumber. They were done. They
knew. Yeah. So anyway, I dressedhim down. Oh, and then this
homie had that he had been askedto give the closing prayer. At
the very beginning. Before allthis went down. He's

(48:05):
like, so then he's got to gostand back up on front of
everybody rippedhim apart, and he gets up and
the last word he thinks he'sgonna get in. The last word
before the prayer is, you know,a lot of people think I'm a
bigot, but that's not true. NoneI'm like Berto. So the last word
that I got in was, maybe youshould buy a dictionary. And
then he gave this like, weirdprayer. And I bought I just

(48:29):
pieced out of there, man. It wasrough. But like, that was enough
for me like, that was it. Andthere are people in that in that
room, who'd spent their entirelife maybe struggling with this
deep self hatred, because maybethey are gay. Like maybe they're
wrestling with this thing. Andthey just will never acknowledge

(48:49):
it, they'll they'll push itaway. They'll never be who they
are. Because who they are asbad. And all of a sudden, they
have somebody standing up forthem. And they just, it was
beautiful. That part about itwas see them have a champion and
to fall behind them. It wasreally beautiful. Anyway, so I
do that every day. If I could Igo out there and have a

(49:10):
conversation. Take up the sword.
But yeah, yeah. So anyway, thatwas a couple of moments like
that. For me. Yeah.
They just kind of solidifiedthat. Yeah, the religion left
you. Yeah. But it was more yourawareness around the
fundamentals. Right.
Yeah. Great observation. Yeah.
It's not so much that there wasany radical shift in the

(49:32):
religion even though it haschanged. It's just that I became
more conscious. And that's fine.
I think that's beautiful. Like,I look back at what I consider
to be like, the primary tool ofmy abuse, right, the people that
were abusing me, we're using thereligion to do it. And it is

(49:54):
what it is it's it's not likeI'm I don't resent the church. I
don't resent people in thechurch. And I think I owe that
to having a really gradualdeparture. Yeah. I do recognize
that a lot of my pain is someonein the church teaching me to

(50:17):
hold the religious gun to myhead, myself, my whole life. And
so I became my own abuser,because the church tenant
teaches you, not just thechurch, but like Christianity
proper, assumes badness in you.
It assumes this foundation ofbeing wrong, you're fallen. And
so if that's your base, you'reyou're stuck, man,

(50:44):
you're kind of screwed, you'rescrewed. You really can never
work out of that until after youdie. And hopefully, you've done
enoughgood, you've done enough good.
And then and then there's other,you know, branches of Christian
faith where it's like, yeah, butI've accepted Jesus in my life.
But ultimately, you can't getthere by yourself. There's no,
there's no, there's a gap.

(51:06):
Yeah. Well, and this brings up,you know, one of the things they
think that it's really importantto remember, especially for
those of you listening, that arein the process of leaving and
navigating the waters, and evenI'm 10 years out and some of the
things that we're speaking tonow, I did a podcast a few
episodes ago about the fact thatI believe that we're,
Christianity is on the triangle,we're victims, God's God, Jesus

(51:28):
rescue or, you know, Satan isthe devil, or the devil is the
persecutor. But there's allthese different he even spoke to
it earlier with these promises,that that was really sacred to
you that there's still a part ofyou that holds on to that. Yeah.
There's all these things thatwere fundamentally part of who
we were, and still are. And Ithink it's important to remember

(51:50):
this piece that you're speakingto right here of like, there,
you really can never do anywrite on this planet and hope
and maybe, but maybe, maybe youcan, maybe there's a chance that
if you're repenting enough, ifyou're good enough, if you're
without acknowledging that theseare shadow parts of you that you
actually feel shame and guiltabout these natural parts of
man, that maybe it's possiblethat as you're listening right

(52:14):
now, how much of that are youstill carrying with you? Even
though you stepped out thereligion? Right? Most of us
probably are still carryingparts of that have never got
enough. Yeah. Because it's beenfundamentally a part of for, you
know, I was born and raisedwithin Mormon religion for
several generations. Yeah, a lotof us have been. So then there's
that encoding that also comesthrough. So it's an interesting

(52:36):
awareness to think about howmuch of that religious
upbringing is actually stillhanging out in my coding.
So this is a beautiful point.
Let's slip into a littlephilosophy. Absolutely. So
Nietzsche, Love him or hate him.
Those of you who have studiedNietzsche, I don't care. I think
Nietzsche has got a lot ofreally good to say about what is

(52:59):
real. So his primary criticism,he has a pretty heavy criticism
against Christianity in general.
He's like, one of my favoritebits is he thinks that Jesus,
the character of the person isan Ubermensch, which is like the
goal, the overmanned the thingthat's overcome everything, and
that has used their will, whichis the central part of what it
is to be human is your will, topower. And he consistently is

(53:22):
just gaining more power, gainingmore power, and he has meekness,
his power. He has the capacityto do anything, but he chooses
not to. And so he's like, that'sgreat. But then Christians come
in after him. And they say, Oh,I'm meek. But really, they're
just weak. And so they'reputting on the clothes of
meekness, which is power, justbecause they can't do something.

(53:45):
Like, I have no power. Oh,that's great. How good that I am
weak, is like that. That'sgarbage, you should strive to
improve and get more power withpower being understood as the
ability to act in a situationright. And so his issue with
Christianity is like severalfold, but one of the biggest
ones is like, Jesus got itright. And nobody else after him

(54:08):
really did. If you lived likeJesus did, actually empowered.
You'd get, you'd get there. It'shard. Sure. But like, if you
actually were striving to be todevelop yourself and develop
power, then you'd be great. SoSo Nietzsche gets this big line

(54:29):
about a whole second thing aboutresentment is this principle is
a resentment against somethingyou can't stop. So for him, God
is this, right? There's or thepower that God represents, or
the universe or whatever, or amaster of some kind. So,
Nietzsche says, there is thisresentment that is impotent. You

(54:51):
have no power to do anythingabout it. I can hate God I can
rage that guy. But nothing'sgonna change. So where do I put
that? I put it inside, I put iton myself. And so this anger
towards this external power thatis ultimately unchangeable

(55:12):
forces me that anger is gotta gosomewhere. And so this
resentment is a selfenslavement, and a self self
abuse in the name of the personor the entity that you can't
control. So, it's interesting toyour point about guilt and shame
and all these things that arekind of intrinsic to, I think, a

(55:33):
lot of a lot of Christian faithand the people that have grown
up in it. I think a lot of thatis because of this resentment.
We can't, we can't change thedivine or the universe or
whatever. So we turn that thatsadness, that anger, that
hatred, and that kind of disgustonto ourselves, and and,

(55:55):
frankly, onto other people.
Yeah, that's judgment piece.
Yeah. Do you find, however, thatI would agree with that?
Largely, I think that there's alot of wisdom in that. And I
would think within Christianityor within religion, in general,
it is something that you wouldcarry, until you do shift out of
understanding that God is withinYeah, instead of exactly about

(56:19):
exactly what. And then to thatpoint of what he's saying, with
Jesus and master, it's selfmastery. It's that sovereignty
piece of what am I capable of?
Sovereignty is perfect. Yeah.
Yeah. And I don't mean to saythat Nietzsche was 100%. Right,
right. I just think that it'sinteresting first. And to say,
yeah, maybe that's got someweight to it. Yeah.

(56:41):
Like you said, and I agreewholeheartedly. There's truth in
all things. And all things.
Yeah.
One piece I think is reallyinteresting. If you look at the
Christian societies, right? Anysociety that has Western air
quotes, Western society, isgoing to have its roots in the
same sort of philosophy. Right?
And when you think about the,the vulgar, right, the profane,

(57:04):
what's a swear word? Can youthink of a swear word that is
not either one religious hellDamn. And the variations
thereof, or two about thephysical body? I like the F word
is about, you know, it's acarnal physical function. We

(57:26):
talked about excrement in a verynegative way.
I heard a podcast recently thatactually associated This is
fuck, actually, with highecstasy pleasures connecting
with God, which I hadn't. And Ican't remember what the somebody
had. There's some principal orsomething that associated that.

(57:48):
That was the first time that I'dever heard that connection. I'd
be interested to hear there. Itwas an Aubrey Marcus part
podcast you did with his wife,I'll have to go fine. I'll send
it to you.
But like the even the wordvolger All it means is common.
It just means everybody has it.
Right. But everything. When wewhen somebody is being mean to
us, we call them like an assholeor a dick. Why? Why is there

(58:11):
shame associated? Why is thatbad? Those are just things that
people have,well, even the feminine body
parts that are especially thefeminine body, you know, they
are, then you go and use that asswear words. And those are the
ones that you're sayingI'm even uncomfortable using.
But yeah, totally. And it's theit's the physical that is

(58:31):
shameful. Right. And so, butit's but it's not the case in
non western environments as muchright? It's less so. But it's
the Christian foundation. Ithink that you know, this this
mortality, bad body bad thing,and it's just kind of permeated?

(58:55):
Well, if you look at thefoundation, you're going to know
the history much much betterthan I am but the foundation and
the start of Christianity camefrom different leaders rule
rulers that wanted to have moresay on their people, how do we
control how do we minimize howdo we I mean, really, that is

(59:17):
more when Christianity and thefundamental Christianity was
started and honed.
Yeah, so religion writ largekind of has that. If you look at
like the pure Vedic religions,and even in India before it was
India going way back intoEastern religion even before

(59:38):
Hinduism, you start with fire.
Right? And fire is the sacredthing because it is dangerous.
It's cool. There's a lot of goodstuff. It you know, can clean
things and it can cook your foodand keep you from getting sick,
keep you warm, keep you alive,but it also can burn down the
village. So So it's consideredsacred at that point. So the

(01:00:02):
first priesthood that formed wasto control the sacred fire. And
as an extension of that,suddenly fire becomes more
manageable, right? Like, we'relike, oh, we can control it. Now
we understand the science of ita little bit better. But this
priesthood has had its entireexistence based on the control

(01:00:22):
of fire. So now what do you do?
Here's my whole livelihood, isgoing to be taken away because
somebody can have a fireplace intheir house? Yeah. Well, then
all of a sudden, there's a shifttowards the internal fire. And
all it is, is like selfregulation. So now you go to a
guru or to a yogi, and theyteach you how to regulate your

(01:00:44):
internal fire, you know, yourmuscles burning when you do
yoga. That's if you track itsroots all the way back. That's
like the first iteration of thisexternal fire becoming internal.
And what am I going to do withthat? Well, I need somebody to
teach me. So all sudden, youhave religion as a means of
control again, it's not justcontrolling fire, but now it's

(01:01:06):
controlling your body. Right?
And I'll give you that whatEastern religions tend to be
less controlling. But therestill is some like gatekeeping.
And gatekeeping is not alwaysbad, right? It's just can be
abused. You're exactly right.
Religion, by and large, isdesigned to say, this is how you

(01:01:27):
do the thing. These are thestandards by which you live. So
yeah, I totally get it. Andyeah, religion itself, I don't
think really matters whereyou're from. Which religion? It
is. It all kind of has the samethrust.
Yeah. Yeah, I wouldwholeheartedly agree with that.

(01:01:51):
Well, we're hitting about thehour mark, which is usually when
I like to start wrapping up,although it's quick. I know, it
is quick. And I would, it wouldbe fun to actually have you come
back on and speak a little bitmore to the philosophies because
most people, one of the thingsthat I so enjoy and appreciate
about you is the breadth ofknowledge that you do. Hold.
Thank you. And I mean, goodnesssakes, our conversations then

(01:02:14):
unwinding these parts of youknow, maybe this is all an
illusion, and you start divinginto some of that. That is,
since we've already said thefuck on this podcast, it is a
mindfuck is you know, but it isinteresting things to consider
as as you're navigating out ofreligion and into different
places of what is truth for me.
Because in my opinion, truth isobjective. There are some
fundamental truths like gravity,job, things like that. But for

(01:02:38):
the most part, truth issubjective.
Yeah. So I think that the truewill be generally true. But
also, our lived experience iswhat matters. Right? Right. And
it's the things that we so sookay, you kind of spilled my
coffee a little bit here. Notreally, in saying that, physical

(01:03:00):
objects, the physical objectdiscussion, and if I do come
back, I'd love to get into itand just kind of riff on
reality. Right. And I'll be moreprepared for that. But I had a
really interesting conversationrecently did a dance retreat
last weekend. I didn't dance. Idon't know yet.
You were there creating some ofyour cocktails, which will I'm

(01:03:22):
gonna we're gonna dive into thisin a second. Oh, sure. Sure.
So yeah, I was there creatingcocktails, and just really
helped. Like, I just love thatstuff. So anyway, I'm there
doing that. And I get intoconversation with this woman,
about the nature of reality. AndI say something to the effect of
which I actually believe themost of our life like life in

(01:03:43):
general, it's really difficultto prove to me that it's not a
simulation, right? That it's notsomething that I am, the me that
is actually me is participatingin, but that the stuff around us
isn't real, and the physicalobjects aren't actually real.
I'm never gonna get this tablein front of me, I can't actually
understand it, because I can't,I'll never access it causes the

(01:04:06):
thing in itself, which is likethe actual essence of it, I
can't, I can't get access to Ican't get access to you in your
interior space. I just have kindof what's inside me, which this
interior space is not physicalthing. So I think the physical
objects properly are not real.
Now, having said that, I'm stillgoing to leave this room through
the door, and I'm still going toeat food. And I'm still going
to, you know, pay my bills andall those things. But as I'm

(01:04:30):
speaking this woman, I realizedthe important punchline to this
whole piece. I might be wrong.
Physical objects might be real.
But living as though theyaren't, is the right way to
live. Because if you're livingas though they aren't, the thing
that matters is the experienceof the thing, not the thing

(01:04:52):
itself. It's my interaction withthe thing that's valuable. And
so if I'm living for the expenseanswers of things, and not for
the things themselves, then allof a sudden, I'm living for the
right reasons. I'm not livingfor the car, I'm living for the
drive. That makes sense.
100%. So she helped me it'sabout the being and not the

(01:05:14):
doing, it's about enjoying theexperience, because yes, this
table is 99.99999% space base.
Yes. And we know from sciencethat particles move based off of
our intention, our thought, ourdesire, so then in that sense,
are we creating everything inour reality? And if that's the
case, then yeah, can we justenjoy what we're creating, and

(01:05:34):
understand we are craving it. Socreate something different if
you don't really enjoy it,word. So if you can just realize
that the physical objects aroundme real or not real doesn't
matter. They're not the goal.
The goal is to enjoy them, andto experience them and to share
that with other people, then allof a sudden, your life becomes
much less ugly, right? Likeyou're not worried about the

(01:05:57):
grind, and the mundane and thebecomes, you start focusing on
these sublime moments of, ofshared experience with a kindred
soul.
One, this kind of circles backto where we first started with
talking about Buddhism versusChristianity and, and the
fundamental principles of thatit reminds me of a book that I
read called the afterlife, Billyfingers, which is such an odd

(01:06:19):
title. But it follows hisjourney, he shares his
experience after he dies withhis sister who's still alive.
And she channels his book andwrites it. And it was the first
book that I read. I've neverread such an extensive
transition story as somebody'stransition into the afterlife
and the different levels, so tospeak. But he was a drug dealer,

(01:06:44):
he was in this light in hislife, lived out of his car was
homeless most of his life, butit was all experience. And he
speaks to that, and how in thegrander sense of things that was
exactly perfect for what hissoul wanted to choose. And it
was the first book that I hadread when you read his story,
that I wondered if we're not ina karmic cycle. Yeah. And until

(01:07:05):
we wake up, till we understandthat we are the creators of our
reality, it is all aboutenjoyment and some different
pieces that I you know, we'restill moving into, are we just
continuing to continuallyincarnate over and over again
until we become awake enough torealize that oh, we're more than
this? Yeah.

(01:07:26):
I think there's a lot of a lotof room for that. I really do.
But yeah, I'd love to, I'd loveto riff on philosophy at length,
or even, you know, whatever,whatever, probably has been a
lot of fun.
Well, and one of the things Iwanted to touch on, I mean,
besides the fact you're freakingbrilliant, and you coach, I do a
lot of coaching in differentmodalities, at least you have I

(01:07:46):
have, maybe you are notcurrently, like, I'm happy
to get back into it. My life hasbeen really, I don't know, man,
I, I chase dopamine. And so whensomething's really fun, I
finallythis is the third time dopamine
has come up in the last fewdays. For me this, this is
really interesting for me towitness,
I throw myself absolutely throwmyself into something that I

(01:08:08):
like. And I go all in for aslong as it keeps my interest.
Which means if you arepassionate about something, you
can master it fairly quickly. Ithrow myself in and I master
things pretty quickly becauseit's it consumes me, right? It's
not a job. It's like my passion.
Right? And so a big part of whatI've done has been coaching. I

(01:08:30):
love it. I love teaching I loveworking with people. And and
then you're ready for change.
When you do these amazingclasses that talk about spirits,
liquor,yeah, alcohol. Yeah. So one of
my most recent ventures that Ireally love, I found myself in
Utah, kind of by accident. I wasgetting ready for accidentally

(01:08:55):
on purpose. It was beautiful.
And I'm really glad I'm here.
But I was getting ready for afive year journey through
Southeast Asia, I was going tolive like a fisherman like I was
going to be a fishermanactually, and just kind of
travel through villages and besuper poor. And I was really
excited for it. Because I neededto kind of put a capstone on
that part of my livedexperience. And I was like,
ready to go. And then COVID hitand close Thailand, which was

(01:09:18):
going to be my first stop. SoI'm like, well, now what do I
do? My brothers lived inPleasant Grove, Utah. And
they're like, Hey, come staywith us for a while. Well, this
whole COVID thing blows over.
Like, yeah, six weeks. Sure.
Then all of a sudden, I'm stuckin Pleasant Grove. And I'm like,
What am I doing here? This placeis wonderful, but also very
boring. Your tech County. Yeah.

(01:09:42):
And so it didn't take me long towant to do something else. And
so all of a sudden I foundmyself I've been a bartender my
whole life like my whole adultlife. I found myself opening a
new bar program in PleasantGrove and it was really good and
I was able to do what I wantedto do the craft cocktails and
like really custom stuff.
Beautiful work. I love it. Ilove it so much. And then, man,
I get this guy coming into mybar. And he is very clearly

(01:10:04):
either still a member of theMormon church, or, like, usually
yesterday, left, right? Like, hecomes in and he sits like, so
uncomfortable. He's souncomfortable. And I try my best
to put people at ease. And I'mlike, how's it going, man? What
are you drinking today, and hehas like this fear in him, and

(01:10:24):
it's radiating off of him. Likethe devil himself is gonna drag
him by the ankles, under my barand into hell. And he just says,
he looks at me in the face. Andhe says, I'll have a Roman Coke,
Roman, and I'm like, a Romancoke. And he's like, yeah,
please Roman coke. And I waslike, a Roman coke doesn't
exist. I've been doing this for18 years, but and it doesn't,

(01:10:47):
it's not a thing. And he's like,it's a, it's a coke with rum in
it. And I was like, Oh, my poor,sweet summer child, that is a
rum and coke. Oh, man. And itoccurred to me that this poor
guy had probably made a fool ofthemselves without knowing it.
And if you do something likethat, in front of an important

(01:11:09):
person, at a cocktail party, youknow, you don't get your
promotion. It's just the way itis like relationships, the
decisions about your maid,whether you like it or not,
based on your impression, andall of a sudden, they think
you're a doofus. So I'm like,oh, man, so give him a quick
crash course. And it occurred tome, like there's a lot of people
like him, who have recently leftthe church, and who don't know,

(01:11:30):
at all, how to live as thoughthey're not in the church. And
so I started teaching courses onI call it, I call it my how to
drink for recovering Mormonsclass. And I teach it on
Sundays. It's my church of thenon Holy Spirits. And so I teach
people about the spiritsthemselves, what their

(01:11:53):
identities are, how they'remade, give you kind of the
vocabulary to engage with them.
And then I make the best versionthat I can make of the best
cocktails for each of thespirits. So that you can go into
any bar, and comfortably ordersomething, and first of all, not
look stupid. And second of all,be confident. And get a drink

(01:12:17):
that you gonna like, yeah,right. And so to me, that's been
so fun. And I really, Iunderstand, that's why I'm here.
I'm in this area, specifically,because of the volume of
recovering Mormons who need kindof a metropolitan education on
cocktails.
One of the things that Iappreciate it about because I

(01:12:37):
would have loved to go to aclass like that when I was
stepping out of religion,because it is like this. I don't
know what I like, I don't likethat. I don't like that. And
that it almost becomes a littlebit abused. Right? It does,
instead of having thisappreciation for where this
spirit came from, what's thebackground of it? What's the
actual foundation of it? Whatdoes that just taste like? And

(01:13:00):
you do have a differentappreciation for it in general.
Yeah. And so it becomes more ofa, like, I love food. I'm a food
like a foodie, I will go andappreciate the different things
that are put together, althoughI won't eat certain things,
because I know what I don'tlike, yeah, it's the same thing
with alcohol, like you get to aplace of appreciating it more
for the experience versus the Ijust want to get a buzz or I'm

(01:13:24):
just gonna go get shit faced,or, and so as a big part of my
classes, like helping people notdrink like a college frat boy,
when they leave the church,because that always happens.
They always fall in and they'relike, Well, this is what it is,
is what I'm supposed to do. Andlike Amen. And then you develop
an unhealthy relationship withalcohol. And
then everybody that was in thechurch was right, because that's

(01:13:44):
exactly, you know, exactly.
It's self reinforcing. You'relike, oh, well, I shouldn't ever
drink. It's obviously bad. Butreally, if you're drinking a
cocktail that's carefully made,and is thoughtfully made, I
should say, all of a sudden,you're getting like a flavor
experience. As a craft cocktailgrater, like as a mixologist, I,
I'm trying to evoke experiencesfor people. I still remember how

(01:14:08):
to carpool down to this eventwith this guy. And he's like,
Well, I got a bunch of alcoholin the back. I'm like, Well, I'm
doing a cocktail event for partof this retreat. And he's like,
Oh, so you're mixologist. And hespits the word out like it's
poisoned. It's a mixologist. I'mlike, I mean, yeah. I was like,
I've been doing it for a longtime, but and he's like, Okay,

(01:14:29):
well, everyone calls themselvesa mixologist. I just drink to
get drunk. I'm like, Cool,that's fine. Do it. That's
that's your life. But try mystuff. And so Dan's a pretty
cool guy. He's got a wholelifetime. He's never been in the
church. He's got a wholelifetime of drinking behind him.
And he's a little offendedbecause he's normally the the

(01:14:49):
drink mixer guy. And all of asudden I'm coming in new love.
That was my little edge. Yeah,yeah. So he had a little a
little bite to it. And then andthen I'm making my basil Gimlin.
Right? This is my Mona Lisa.
This is a cocktail that is sosimple and so elegant. I've
worked on it for a long timebefore I finally got it just
where I want it. And it'sspringtime in a glass. I gave

(01:15:13):
him this drink, right? And helike gets tears in his eyes.
Like he starts to weep. And he'sprobably in his 60s Grizzly old
man, like talk about fightingpeople all day long. And he's
weeping because this cocktailtook him to his childhood. It's
like that ratatouille moment,right? He's like, he's a sister
sipping it, he doesn't shoot it,like his shots normally goes

(01:15:37):
down. And he sits there. And itcomes over to me afterwards.
He's like, wiping the tears. Iwas, I suppose Aaron, this took
me to the apple orchard next tomy house, when I grew up. I used
to steal apples as a kid andlike that experiences are, it's
right here. And that, to me, iswhy I do it. Right. Like it's my
a, I'm able to bypass most ofthe channels of communication to

(01:15:58):
get my idea right into yoursoul. So that's what I'm doing.
And I love it. And teachingpeople how to make drinks is
important, but also teaching howto appreciate it, and how to
walk into a bar and not not feelintimidated, right. If you can
sit down at the bar andcompetently order a drink that
you like, and that you canreliably get your relationship
with alcohol will shift you'renot drinking to get drunk,

(01:16:19):
you're drinking for theexperience. And then it's
healthy. No, then it's positive.
It's notshowing the moment like we were
just talking about anexperience.
Exactly. So most of my clients,they'll drink three cocktails
spaced out over the course of anight when at my restaurant, but

(01:16:43):
they won't get drunk drunk.
Because their whole goal is tobe able to experience the thing
that we've made together. And Ilove doing things like that,
where they'll come in and say,I'd like you to make me drink.
And I say, Okay, what experienceyou're going for? Yeah, like, Do
you have a time in your life orlocation or any emotion that we
want to evoke here? I love thatstuff. So somebody to come in.
And I think you actually Ireally liked this last, the

(01:17:06):
retreat that we went to, I had acocktail portion of it. Just I
love that stuff. And the fourladies, the four divas that,
that created the event and heldthe space. I was given this, for
the listeners a Herculean task,it was really hard actually, to
make a drink that representsfour separate people as one.

(01:17:27):
Right? Like the the four womenthat held such radically
different energy and hosted thisspace. And Sarah's like, Hey,
make a drink that represents allof us, like, almost like a throw
away, like, yeah, you can do it.
And I'm like, Oh, shit. No, no,I don't know that I can. Yes,
you did. And thank you. Yeah. SoI was like, What can I do after

(01:17:50):
four very distinct flavors thatall do different things, but
work together. Well, how do I doit? And so that challenge is
just beautiful. I love thatstuff. Yeah. And was it okay, it
turned out, okay.
Oh, my gosh, I still I'm like,can you come back over to my
house and make that drink?
Because that was probably themost. So just to clarify, it was
me, Sarah kami. And Shelby, thislast retreat. And the four of us
are very different. And a lot ofways and so coming together was

(01:18:12):
for sure an interesting task andyou, you knocked it out of the
park. And it is one of thosethings that even with the other
drinks that you had mix, thatwas like the sipping experience.
This one was one that's like,Oh, I just want to I just want
to take my time with it becausethe flavors would continue to
evolve. And it was it wasspectacular. I still want to

(01:18:35):
know who was who because Aaronwent through and like was like,
Okay, I'm adding this becausethis is earthy that I'm adding
this because it has how howevermany herbs in it and like all
these different and then flowersand lime and
I really tried so my goal was Ineeded to have four very
powerful presences. And so ifyou're dealing with a spirit

(01:18:58):
that has a powerful likepresence, first one is going to
come to mind is with Jin Jin isa dominant spirit and if you
ever drink Janet's like essenceof pines all it just tastes like
he's like a pine tree right? Byitself, but if you're just
shooting gin, you you probablyan alcoholic. Let's talk let's
talk yeah, look me up and we'llwe'll work on it. But so gin as

(01:19:21):
a star is brilliant becauseit'll take herbal flavors and
other things and bring it out tothe front. So anyway, yeah, I
did gin. We did elderflower at agreen Chartreuse lime. I love
lime, sweeten it a little bit.
It's just like, it was amazing.
Thank you. Yeah, I was reallypleased with it. I think it
turned out but part of the pointis flavors and understanding

(01:19:44):
your craft. My craft is flavorshave different half lives. So my
goal is to give you a flavorexperience that is balanced but
still changes and evolves. Soyour first taste you're going to
get all of the flavors but themost dominant one is upfront,
but I want that flavor to falloff first. So then you've taste
the subtle underneath. And soyou have different flavors that

(01:20:06):
are gonna last for differentamounts of time on your tongue.
And as they fall off, you getthis different experience. And
so that's, that's really whatI'm leading into. And I love it.
It's my art. And I'm reallypleased. And so
you teach these classes, you'llactually create classes for
people, if they grab grab agroup together. It's right. Yes.
So how do people get a hold ofyou?
Yeah. My best way. So I'm goodat a lot of things. And I'm

(01:20:29):
really bad at several things.
You are not on social media, noton social media, because of my
mental health is so much betterwhen I'm not on social media.
But my business is suffer and Iget it, there's a trade off. So
you can email me directly. IsAaron Aaro n dot Michael mi ch
AE L dot Trump AF terembath@gmail.com and be like,

(01:20:50):
Hey, I heard about your class.
I'd be interested in taking one.
And then I'll put you on theshortlist. I'm working on a
website with my brother. By thetime this podcast airs, it might
even be up. And I'll get youthat information. But they say
podcast website. So we're gonnawebsite. I'll let you know. But
yeah, like that's basically it.

(01:21:11):
If you get 10 people, at leastI'll start a class for you. I
kind of kept them at about 25 or30, they start to get a bit
unwieldy at that point. But, but10 to 20 is really good number.
I'll make sure to put your emaildown below and when the if you
have your website up by the timethis airs, and I'll put that
down below. Sounds great. Thankyou. But oh, my goodness, Aaron.
It's a pleasure.

(01:21:31):
You don't really watch. Thankyou. Thanks for having me.
Well, have I seriously, I wantto have you back on again.
Because I would love to diveinto some of the philosophy
philosophy, because even thefundamentals of religion and
their backgrounds most of us donot know. Yeah, I know. I don't
I know, some I know a littleprobably more than a lot of
people. But yeah, but still eventhat is very, very minimal. I

(01:21:52):
wouldbe happy to, to come back. And I
would love to. If I was preparedto speak specifically on
philosophy I'd be I'd be happyto do it.
That'd be super fun. Realpleasure. Awesome. Well, thank
you. Thank you. Thanks. Allright. One last question. I
always ask all my questions, myguest this, for those for
everything that you've gonethrough navigating the waters
after religion and kind of goingthrough that transition period.

(01:22:13):
For those that are listening,that are in that place of just
struggle, everything's kind offalling away. What what is the
one thing right now in thismoment that you would impart is
like, this is my advice to you?
Yeah, I would advise you toremember that religion is not
spirituality. That they'redifferent. You can be spiritual

(01:22:37):
and not religious. In fact,that's the best way to be. Yeah.
Yeah, and then when everythingstarts to fall away all your
foundations or whatever, thereis something holding you up. And
that something is what youshould lean into. So take a look
at it and figure out what it isand cling to it. And it's not
going to be the structure of thefaith. But it will be something

(01:22:59):
that's deeper than that.
Something that the faith istrying to sell you. And that's
something you already have,which is your intrinsic
relationship to the divine.
Yeah. It's radically personal.
It's just yours. And even thoughreligion has been selling it
back to you for your entirelife. You had it in the first
place.

(01:23:19):
Yeah, beautiful. Thank you.
Wasn't that an awesomeinterview? Thank you for joining
us today. If you are feeling thecall to be a guest, head over to
my website, Amanda Joyloveland.com. And go to the
podcast tab, you'll see halfwaydown the page, a place where you
can submit an application tocome on to my podcast, I would

(01:23:41):
love to have you as a guest. Anddon't forget if you are wanting
to be a part of that amazingwebinar that I'll be hosting on
October 30 at 10am MountainStandard Time, head to my
website, Amanda joy loveland.comforward slash activation and get
registered today. And as alwaysknow that you are not alone. And

(01:24:02):
while you are feeling alone asyou're navigating through this,
there are a lot of people whocan understand and empathize
what with what you're goingthrough. So with that, sending
you so much love

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